Informal outdoors group portrait of the soldiers and officers from the 6th Brigade.

19th July 1916.

The battle has been raging for hours now. Significant Allied casualties have been inflicted across the multiple waves of infantry. The last light of the day has faded to night at 8pm.

After the Allies’ progressive advance beyond the German’s second line was abruptly halted into a complete retreat due to enemy and Allied artillery fire impacting the surviving infantry.

General Sir Richard Haking at the 11th Corps headquarters, ordered a new assault to support the Allies’ rapidly failing progress in battle within the hour. Targeting the Sugarloaf salient.

Which Haking’s misapprehension being the salient had inflicted significant damage already from the previous infantry waves, however, this isn’t the case.

After Allied aerial reconnaissance relayed information back to Haking reporting that the enemy’s stronghold remains intact, his newly planned assault is swiftly cancelled.

With the continuing high casualties being reported in, Haking orders the remaining British brigades to wait until morning to resume their attack.

For the Australians, the order to hold the new assault never reaches Brigadier General Harold “Pompey” Elliott, who continues to prepare his reserves for the assault upon the Sugarloaf.

On the German’s side, their Bavarian 6th Regiment are simultaneously planning a well-assessed and equipped counterattack.

It’s 9pm, when Brigadier General Elliott’s 15th Brigade reinforcements launch their assault into no man’s land being led by Major Arthur Hutchinson, he’s only 21 years of age. With the 58th Battalion and the survivors from the 59th, they head towards the Sugarloaf to attack the eastern face.

On approach 200-metres out, they’re slaughtered by enemy machine gunners as they rise from cover. Hutchinson is killed while leading the charge, Brigadier General Elliott recommended the 21-year-old for the Victoria Cross, Australia’s highest military honour.

As this is happening, the enemy counterattack gathers in force at the Delangre Farm, south of the German’s lines, readying for battle.

Reports received by the 8th Australian Brigade headquarters detailed the 32nd Battalion’s situation:

“(The) front line cannot be held unless reinforcements are sent. Enemy machine gunners are creeping up... The artillery is not giving support. Sandbags required in thousands. Men bringing sandbags are being wounded in the back. Water urgently required.”

Thursday 20th July 1916 arrives. It’s just past midnight when the word is given to Lieutenant General Sir James McCay from Brigadier General Elliott informing the assault on the Sugarloaf salient has failed disastrously.

Lieutenant General McCay sends the order out to abandon the attack entirely, and for the surviving men to withdraw back to their old positions, begin forming a defensive line and brace themselves for the enemy’s expected counterattack.

Many of the men from the Australian 8th Brigade who still occupied the German’s frontline, come under increasing attack from enemy infantry and shelling from artillery units.

As the battle continues under a blanket of darkness, at 4am, the retreat order finally reaches the 8th Brigade. Several units refuse to leave their captured positions in the German’s trenches. As they continue to defend off the encroaching enemy forces, they’re pushed into brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Through the confusion, many of the retreating units are evermore cut down by machine gun fire and picked off by enemy snipers as they try to reach the safety of their own frontlines.

For what’s left of the 53rd Battalion, they encounter further heavy assault from the enemy. A retreat is led by Caption Charles Arblaster who is subsequently shot through both arms and falls wounded.

The rest of the surviving 53rd go back to their captured position in the German’s line where they’re forced to surrender and become prisoners of war as the enemy overwhelms them.

Post-battle wounded Australian prisoners of war surrounded by their German captors.

It’s 8am when the Germans launch another attack. As Sergeant Archibald Winter of the 55th Battalion recalls:

“God knows which way he came – we don't. He appeared to come from every direction. We were unsupported, consequently Fritz could come in on our own flanks. They had snipers everywhere and our own men were falling fast. Then we got into close quarters with the bombs, but we were only a handful and Fritz was there in his thousands.”

The Australian 14th Brigade is the last to learn of the retreat orders as they continued to fend off the enemy.

Brigadier Walter Edmund Hutchinson Cass, commander of the 14th Brigade, begins sending his men back one by one. They’re assisted by the make-shift ditches and tunnels, known as Saps, that were dug by Allied soldiers throughout the night.

Many men stay behind to cover the retreat with the intention to hold their positions until the end. Captain Norman Gibbins and his men coordinate several counterattacks with grenades and two Lewis machine guns covering the withdraw.

As Captain Gibbins’s counterattacks help their remaining men back to the safety of their own lines, the order is given to retire the fight. Gibbins finds himself trapped in the trenches, where the dead and wounded blocking him in on either exit. To retreat, Gibbins is forced to climb over the parapet where his demise is met.

One of Gibbins’s machine gunners, Sergeant White describes the moment when he witnesses the Captain’s death:

“At that time Captain Gibbins was but a few yards from me and most of the infantry had retired. I was suddenly brought back to my senses by hearing Captain Gibbins call out ‘come on, all you gunners’. I immediately picked up my spare parts and followed him...I saw him reach the top of our trenches where he turned his head around sharply and was immediately struck in the head by a bullet and killed instantly.”

The original grave and cross of Captain Norman Gibbins.

From the Allied frontline, Corporal Williams details his observations of the battle in its final moments as the last of the troops fallback from no man’s land:

“We were powerless to assist them, and had to watch them being shot down at point blank range... It seemed an eternity of time until the lucky ones reached our parapets, to be pulled in by willing hands. No sooner was our field of fire clear than we blazed into the Germans who had lined their parapets to punish the retiring troops.”

Many Australians and British troops were continuing to be captured by the enemy as the retreat comes to an end.

It’s 9:20am, when the German’s Bavarian 6th Division Command claim victory of the battle.

Regimental Medical Officer of the Australian 60th Battalion, Captain Frederick Collier documented the post-battle carnage:

“We worked all that afternoon, that night and all next day without ceasing. We could not show a light and when we came to a wounded man, we would ask him where he was hit and feel for his wound with hands covered with dried blood and mud. There was no time and no water to wash hands.”

During the post-battle inspection, Lieutenant J.D. Schroder accompanied Brigade General Elliott and reports the following:

“Ordinary sandbagged trenches were now heaps of debris, and it was impossible to walk far without falling over dead men, [but] Pompey went from battalion to company headquarters and so on right along the line. A word for a wounded man here, a pat of approbation to a bleary-eyed digger there, he missed nobody. He never spoke a word all the way back to advanced brigade [headquarters] but went straight inside, put his head in his hands, and sobbed his heart out. Other survivors were struck by the intensity of his anguish. At one stage Elliott called out to Captain Bill Trainor, ‘Good God Bill, what's happened to my brigade?’”

The aftermath resulted in the 5th Australian Division suffering 5,533 casualties and the 61st British Division suffering 1,547 while the Germans inflicted with more than 1,000 casualties. More than 500 surviving Australian and British troops became prisoners of war.

The British-Australian attack was a complete failure as the Germans realised hours into battle, it was merely a feint. The battle never had an impact upon the progress of the Somme offensive.

Lest We Forget.

Captured Australians arriving at the German collecting station on the morning of 20th July 1916.

Wounded Australian officers being interrogated by their German captors on 20th July 1916.

Battle at Fromelles Part 5: Darkness, Despair and Defect