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[Page 6]
Posieres. 'Cadmus'
by No 3077 L/Capt D Horton, 1st Bat. A.I.F
In writing this narrative I have been forced to deal with the story as it appealed to the average soldier. Tactics and statistics which do not come within his ken have therefore been ignored whilst minor happenings unimportant from the Historian's point of view have been included. The Official Reporters with the A.I.F. and the English papers have spoken of the broader outlook of the Somme offensive. They have described and re-described broadly the various battles that occurred from July 1916 to May 1917 but, as all their descriptions have been necessarily general, I have determined to make this as near
personal as is consistent with desire not to appear egotistical.
The general knowledge I have of the campaign of 1916 has been gained from the papers and from reading " The Battle of the Somme" by Thomas. This source of knowledge is open to all but the individual happenings in any one of these attacks, the thoughts and sensations of the man participating in the attack itself can only be gained first hand, and it is to give these that I have set myself the task of telling the story of Pozieres
(The Immediate Sphere of Action)
The actual area under observation by a soldier during a charge is very circumscribed. It is bounded on each side by a few yards; more especially is this so when the attack takes place at night, as this one did. The participator in the charge, then, has first hand knowledge only of very little that occurred in the attack, for the rest he hears stories from his comrades. These he pieces together till the story of the whole lies within his clasp. This is so in my case.- My knowledge is mostly bounded by what my Company was doing and it is mostly from this standpoint that I will be speaking.
In my mind when I think over the events of July and August 1916 I always involuntarily break it up into periods. These are as follows:- (a) Preparation.- The time from the reorganisation of the battalions in France till we marched to Warloy, but more especially the times we occupied the line at Laventy and Fleur Baix. (b) The march from Warloy to supports and the actual preparations for the attack. (c) The second term in the line in August.
When the Australians arrived at Tel-el-Kebir the old divisions were broken up and new ones formed. New reinforcements went to make up the strength of the depleted old Divisions and the newly formed units. This meant that the majority of the men in all battalions had never seen action and so were really an unknown quantity from the fighting soldier's point of view. But they had the traditions of the Peninsula behind them, they had the same material as the Anzacs on which to build and it therefore depended on training what the future should bring forth. Training was hard but we had inculcated within us a feeling of esprit du corps. We learned to take pride in the names of our battalion, to vow within our hearts that the new name in France would be such that it would rival the old Gallipoli. Then we came to France still untried soldiers but filled with a sure knowledge that we would make good. We were sent to trenches at Laventy and then Fleur-Baix. These were quiet spots and we were gradually broken into life under fire, but still we were untried men. We were inured to a slight amount of danger but actual attack had not seen and we were still an unknown quantity.