To Win the Battle: The 1st Australian Division in the Great War 1914-1

[Crunchy]

To Win the Battle: The 1st Australian Division in the Great War, 1914-1918.

Cambridge University Press (The Australian Army History Series)

Cambridge. 2013

This is another fine addition to the Australian Army History Series, which is providing readers with well researched, balanced and in-depth studies of various facets of Australian military history largely based on PhD studies. This series is in contrast to the shallow and parochial views of some of the “popular” versions that have so distorted Australian’s views of their military contribution since the Boer War.

Dr Robert Stevenson is a former Australian Army infantry officer and his military experience shines through in this thorough, analytical study of the 1st Australian Division during the Great War. Using its wartime experiences and battles as background Stevenson addresses all aspects of the 1st Division’s development, and stripping away the mythology, he gets to the heart of how this hastily raised force of largely untrained men eventually became one of the finest fighting divisions on the Western Front. It was not because the Australian soldier was a natural born soldier who starred from the beginning during the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign, but because of deeper reasons, including, ironically, its British regular army commander from July 1915 to June 1918, supported by several fine Australian and British staff officers.

The first four chapters address what most histories don’t, an analysis of the origins and mobilisation of the division, its evolving structure and component parts as it adapted to the changing nature of war, the all important logistics and administration that made battle possible, and the essential training that turned good men into fine soldiers. The last four trace the division’s journey, performance and development through the cauldron of war, with each devoted to a year’s campaigning. Gallipoli proved a tough baptism of fire for this inadequately trained and inexperienced division and its performance, although acceptable, was far from perfect, not because of the British but through its own internal weaknesses. My own analysis for The Landing at Anzac, 1915 arrived at much the same conclusion, and while Stevenson and I differ on a few issues, it is only by degree, rather than substance. Moving to the Western Front the division steadily improved largely through battle experience, hard training, the leadership of Major General “Hooky” Walker, better staff work, and the evolution of firepower, structural organisation and tactics that emerged throughout the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). As Stevenson writes the division “was not born great, it became great”, taking three hard years of campaigning before hitting its peak.

To Win the Battle provides a wealth of information that will interest researchers and general readers alike. Of interest to many will be the actual number of days the division spent in the line and attacks, compared with those in administration and training each year, the way in which the Lewis gun percolated down from battalion to platoon level as more became available, the development of division and battalion structures and all arms battle tactics as the war progressed and changed in nature, and the accompanying improvement in logistic support. Above all Stevenson gives us an insight into the men who made all this work within the division, commanders and staff officers alike

Refreshingly, Stevenson avoids parochial nationalism and places the 1st Division’s development and performance in the broader context of the war, noting the Canadians, New Zealanders and several British divisions acquired the same high standards. He also pays tribute to the contribution British regular officers made, highlights that several notable Australians in the division were British born, and the innovations in tactics and weaponry that helped make the division a potent fighting force in 1917 and 1918 were largely British led.

This is not a book for those who want lashings of first hand accounts and personal experiences, but it will definitely appeal to those who wish to know how the Australian soldier developed from Gallipoli to the Armistice, how he fought at different times during the war and what were the reasons that eventually made this division such a war winning organisation. To Win the Battle is a valuable contribution to Australian military historiography that separates myth from reality.

[bodie31]

Sounds like a good contribution. I have a rather unrelated question that I was hoping you could answer. Were Australian divisions composed largely of British-born troops like Canadian divisions were? I don't know the exact figure, but I think that close to half of the CEF was British-born. Is this similar to the Australian forces?

[spof]

Sounds like another very interesting book frm the History Unit to add to the list of "wants".

Bodie

Roughly 60,000 of the 370,000 men mobilised were born in the British ISles. Have a look at Mapping Our ANZACS.

[Crunchy]

Bodie,

I went through the embarkation rolls of the twelve Battalions of the 1st Division in 1914, and found that, depending on the battalion, from 24-28% of the men listed their NOK as living in the United Kingdom. To this we need to add those who were born in the UK and emigrated to Australia with their parents, such as Braund and Bridges, but I don't know the figures. I would think over 30% of the original 1st Division were British born, and it may be a lot higher.

Cheers

Chris

[Guest]

To Win the Battle: The 1st Australian Division in the Great War, 1914-1918.

Cambridge University Press (The Australian Army History Series)

Cambridge. 2013

.......Refreshingly, Stevenson avoids parochial nationalism and places the 1st Division’s development and performance in the broader context of the war, noting the Canadians, New Zealanders and several British divisions acquired the same high standards

Crunchy, many thanks for flagging this book. A very interesting review.

The mention of "high standards" of Divisions is interesting. Does the author provide any qualifiers, definitions or reference points for these high standards? How does one even begin to measure this? I ask because more than a few published (British) Divisional histories from the immediate post-war period make similar claims....the authors often emphasised the successful parts and suppressed the less successful episodes, often confusing large numbers of casualties with 'good' performance in the field as just one example. Some read like long eulogies rather than objective analyses. I think one could write a book just dissecting British Divisional histories...

I am interested if the author has made any objective measure of these 'high standards' or whether these are subjective claims. The book is on order but I wondered if you might know. Given your comments on the level of detailed analysis I assume he has gone to lengths to quantify this aspect.

Regards

MG

[Chris Henschke]

Crunchy,

Lloyd Robson, from Hobart University, arrived at a figure of 18 percent British born. That was based on examination of 0.5 percent of 417,000 attestation papers for his 1970 book on AIF recruitment. This apparently reflected the percentage of British born in the Australian population at the time.

Peter Stanley in Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny, Murder and the Australian Imperial Force puts the figure at about 20 percent.

I have ordered To Win the Battle today.

[Crunchy]

Martin,

The "high standards" are my words. He mentions the studies made of the performance of British divisions, and like you he concludes the variables are such that any views on which divisions were the best is purely subjective depending on the criteria the various studies use. The point he makes is that just as the Australian Divisions were considered very good fighting divisions by late 1917, so were the Canadians, New Zealanders and several British divisions. He doesn't say which ones or how many, rather he makes the point that a number of British divisions were as good as the Dominion divisions. He also mentions that the British divisions suffered from being switched from corps to corps, whereas the Dominion divisions had the advantage of remaining with the same corps for most of the war.

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did. His PhD was awarded the Bean prize which says a lot about its scholarship.

Cheers

Chris

[Crunchy]

Hi Chris,

Yes I discussed these percentages with Peter Stanley earlier this week. My comments only relate to the 1st Australian Division in 1914. What the percentages were over the whole war is, I think, an area for further study. 0.5 percent of 417,000 is only a sample of 2085 men. I am not a statistician but I would think that is hardly a sufficient sample.

Cheers

Chris

Edit: See post #11 below. The sample would be sufficient.

[Jack Sheldon]

I know that I have posted this OHL [supreme Army Command] assessment of the quality of the opposing divisions as at 1 January 1918 before, but it is worth repeating that the highest category was, 'Especially Good Assault Division'.

Into this bracket were placed:

1st and 2nd Australian Divisions

All four Canadian Divisions

Guards Division, 7th Division, 9th Division, 29th Division, 33rd Division, 51st (Highland) Division, 56th Division, 63rd (Royal Naval) Division.

So it was quite an exclusive club and Australia was proportionately well represented. Interesting, too, to note that it was not only the Australians who learned on the job and improved as time went by, the same applied to the British formations. 51st (Highland), for example, must have improved considerably from summer 1915. Haig described it after Festubert that spring as 'practically untrained and very green in all field duties'.

Jack

[Crunchy]

Thanks for that Jack. It proves the point Stevenson was making, and which has been discussed on the forum elsewhere.

One of the things I like about his book, and Bou's on the light horse http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=192198 is the lack of parochial nationalism and, hence, the readiness to place our contribution in context and refute the distorted popular view in this country. Unfortunately, we have one cricket writer who has turned his hand to pumping out military history, and his work is quite awful - and the tragedy is more people will read his work rather than Bou's and Stevenson's.

Cheers

Chris

[Ian Riley]

Hi Chris,

Yes I discussed these percentages with Peter Stanley earlier this week. My comments only relate to the 1st Australian Division in 1914. What the percentages were over the whole war is, I think, an area for further study. 0.5 percent of 417,000 is only a sample of 2085 men. I am not a statistician but I would think that is hardly a sufficient sample.

Cheers

Chris

I am not a statistician either (actually a physicist by first degree) but I have occasionally been forced to teach 'starter' stats for A level in the distant past.. I think that the big national opinion polls for General Elections in the UK run on samples only 1500 to 2000 of the entire UK franchised population. I am sure that is likely to be a quite closely stratified sample rather than random. I understand they work on confidence intervals of about 1% or 2% of their results ie there is a 95% probability that 45% plus or minus 2% of those intending to vote will support the Monster Raving Great War Party. Please don't shout, good maths people, if 'confidence interval' is not quite the right term; my clout is in Further Pure and Further Mechanics! To get twice the accuracy probably means increasing the sample by a factor of four .... but it's cold, gloomy, miserable and I am depressed by the contributions to the discussion on Gough in the Great War Centenary bit on Facebook so I am not going into the loft to look at my notes!

I would think that it would not be a bad sample at all but probably in need of stratification to show that all arms, perhaps even to battalion level given local recruiting, are proportionately represented.

Ian

Edited 23 March , 2013 by Ian Riley

[Ian Riley]

Crunchy,

Thanks for your excellent and clearly balanced review. I had the pleasure of attending an excellent study day at the Univerity of Birmingham (UK) three weeks ago when the theme was 'The Empire at War' when Ian Passingham spoke on Australian Command and Control on the Western Front. There was obviously a great deal to be learnt (by me) about the Australian experience and much that could be extrapolated into the BEF as a whole. I am glad that you have underlined the training and and organizational aspects. In fact, it's something of a godsend for me as I have an acadmic proposal on training that needs a bit more beef in the historiography.

The book is ordered (through the GWF). There was one left on Amazon's miles of shelving before I clicked. Looks like they might have sold a few today. I look forward to reading it sooner rather than later.

Ian

Really one of the better recent threads

[Crunchy]

Hi Ian,

Thank you for your kind words on the review, and the information about the statistics. I was obviously an infantryman rather than a statistician. Maths wasn't my strong point - I take back what I wrote in post #8.

I hope you enjoy the book. Stevenson primarily addresses the time spent in training and its relation to the the division's performance on the battlefield, rather than detailing what training was undertaken, although some of it is mentioned.

Cheers

Chris

[Blackblue]

I'd also like to back up Chris' comments. A superb read and a refreshingly balanced account. I got it for Xmas and couldn't put it down...barely made it past Boxing Day. As well as training I think he also highlights the Division's lengthy warfighting experience as a significant success factor. I had the please to meet Bob and his wife just before it came out. I hope there is another coming.

Rgds

Tim D

[Charles Fair]

I think that the big national opinion polls for General Elections in the UK run on samples only 1500 to 2000 of the entire UK franchised population. I am sure that is likely to be a quite closely stratified sample rather than random. I understand they work on confidence intervals of about 1% or 2% of their results ie there is a 95% probability that 45% plus or minus 2% of those intending to vote will support the Monster Raving Great War Party. Please don't shout, good maths people, if 'confidence interval' is not quite the right term; my clout is in Further Pure and Further Mechanics! To get twice the accuracy probably means increasing the sample by a factor of four ....

I would think that it would not be a bad sample at all but probably in need of stratification to show that all arms, perhaps even to battalion level given local recruiting, are proportionately represented.

Crunchy - Ian has this about right, a sample of 2,085 from a population of 417,000 would give a sample error of 2.1% with a 95% confidence interval. You can do it for yourself here at http://www.dssresearch.com/KnowledgeCenter/toolkitcalculators/sampleerrorcalculators.aspx. So its a pretty good sample, provided, as Ian says, that it has been stratified. I'm not a statistician either, though have done a couple of stats courses as part of my degrees and do sample selection all the time in my day job which is market research. I am looking forward to this book which is on my wish list. Charles

[Crunchy]

Thank you Charles,

Ian and you are right and I have corrected my rather unmathematical comment. It would seem the 1st Australian Division that went to Gallipoli had a higher percentage of British born than the AIF overall.

Best wishes

Chris

[David B]

I think that early recruitments would have very well shown a high percentage of UK born men wishing to help their land of birth and having no other way to do this except by joining the Australian

military forces. In later years this pool of men would have been cleaned out thus increasing the percentage of locals in the forces.

[Crunchy]

David,

I think you are absolutely correct on this - it puts the "Anzac legend" on Gallipoli into a new perspective.

Best wishes

Chris

[Charles Fair]

... it puts the "Anzac legend" on Gallipoli into a new perspective.

Another scholarly book which did this for me was 'Dinkum Diggers' by Dale Blair which is a detailed look at the 1st Battalion AIF.

[Black]

Hi Crunchy,

Many thanks for that review of Robert Stevenson's book on the 1st Division. I look forward to getting hold of both that one and yours on Gallipoli soonest. Bob and I were both on the staff of the 2nd Division in Sydney some years ago, but he always leaned towards doing a history of the 1st Division before tackling anything else. There is a potted history of the 2nd Div around, (can't remember details), but the 3rd, 4th and 5th Australian Divs have never been touched in such a comprehensive manner, I believe.

With regard to percentages of UK-born enlistees in the First AIF, my own studies led me to a figure of between 20 - 25% in general terms, but I certainly would not like to become bogged down in statistical analysis arguments. What is important, though, is that many of these men had served in the UK regular or territorial forces before coming to Australia and they brought with them a level of experience and expertise that was greatly needed in our force of enthusiastic amateurs. Many of them were Imperial Reservists I understand, who signed up in Australia and New Zealand rather than make the long sea journey home to rejoin their home regiments. Perhaps one of the other GWF members with more knowledge on this could expand on the service obligations of Imperial Reservists and perhaps provide some figures?

Your comment in Post #10 about poor scholarship being served up by sports writers is quite valid also. There is another sports journalist here who immediately springs to mind! He serves up similar rubbish as opposed to thoughful analysis. He has latched on to every Australian myth, legend and story in our history and turned them into a flood of cheap knock-outs (clue: look for the stupid, stupid red bandana on the head). During the pre-Christmas sales in 2011, for instance, I remember there were no less than five of his stocking-fillers on offer at the same time, all churned out by his 'team' in the finest Wilbur Smith formulaic style. His latest pot-boiler on the battle of the Eureka Stockade (1853) was comprehensively ripped apart in a recent review by Australia's leading Eureka Scholar, Dr Anne Beggs Sunter of the University of Ballarat - poor scholarship, lame research, errors of fact, regurgitation of myths & fictions etc etc. Yet these books will be touted endlessly by the big book stores (and himself), all eager to turn a quick buck while studies of thoughtful and often provocative analysis languish on the shelves for lack of appropriate acclamation. Now, with 2014-18 events approaching rapidly, guess what our man and the team are working on at this very moment... yes, you guessed it... another pot-boiler on the myth of the Aussie Digger! I could have wept when I heard this. He should stick to sports commentary - there's plenty of scope for that at the moment and he may well be good at doing that rather than attempting to re-write populist history. I hope someone such as yourself, Crunchy, with the appropriate street cred and expertise takes a flame-thrower to this particualr volume when it appears.

Sorry to get slightly off topic, but I could not help but try to make the point that scholarly works on military history are often overlooked when other forces are there to promote cheaper, ill-researched and poorly-presented products.

Keep up the good work, men. I look forward to more incisive reviews here on the Forum.

Regards,

Black

[Andrew P]

Thanks for the review Chris, I haven't actually seen this book for sale and we have some decent bookshops around here too. Might have to order it on-line.

Black, I wrote a piece on the Imperial Reservists for the Military Historical Society of Australia's journal 'Sabertache' which was published in 2011. Happy to forward it on if you want to PM me your email address.

I knew of a chap who was writing the 4th Div history for the AHU but haven't seen him for over a year to get an update so am not sure where that history is up to.

[gilly100]

Hi All

The 4th Div AIF history is being written by Jeff Hatwell in Perth and he mentioned recently he was up to Messines in 1917. Knowing Jeff, he will prevail and finish. Andrew P, you should be contacted by Fremantle Arts Centre Press soon on some book they want someone to write via the RSL - Right up your alley I thought given your knowledge of AIF enlistees from Fremantle and beyond. PM or email me if you like and I will forward the emails.

Re - The amount of British born in AIF has been known by many people to have been quite high for many years (especially early on war outbreak) and duly acknowledged by some. Suzanne Welborn in her 1982 book - Lords of Death, a people, a place, a legend - had a number of statistics tables in the back of this excellent little book. One of these series of stats was for place of birth for 3 West Aussie units, being the 10th Light Horse, 11th Infantry Bn and the later raised 28th Infantry Bn. Her samples were taken from 500 per unit, so almost ALL the original enlistees of the light horse and about half the originals of the infantry battalions. Her breakdown includes England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Europe, America and of course ALL the states of Australia. Interesting figures there. For West Aussies, the sheer number of men from Victoria alone is a moot point, let alone the Brits!

I guess that, with a good smattering of these British men, some of whom had previous military service, providing another level of experience into these units, would have heartened the 'new' soldiers when they landed at Gallipoli. I know 11Bn had a few!

No comment on the sports writer, not necessary. Try self publishing and selling the books! That's a hoot.

Cheers

Ian