First World War Battles of Bullecourt, 1917

Background

In early 1917, the Germans carried out a withdrawal from the Somme, the scene of a major Allied offensive the previous year, to a series of heavily fortified positions to the east, known by the Allies as the Hindenburg Line. The German withdrawal disrupted Allied planning for a 1917 offensive, but in April the British began operations around the town of Arras in support of a French offensive in the Champagne region. The strategy for the Arras offensive included British and Australian infantry breaching the Hindenburg Line to the east and west of Bullecourt and seizing the town.

First Battle of Bullecourt

The attack on Bullecourt was scheduled for 10 April 1917. In a hastily planned operation, and for the first time on the Western Front, the assault was to proceed without a supporting artillery bombardment. Instead tanks, being used for the first time by the British 5th Army, including the 4th Australian Division, would lead the attack. Two of the 4th Division’s brigades, the 4th and 12th, were to advance to the right of Bullecourt, turn left along the Hindenburg trench system and advance until they linked up with men of the British 62nd Division attacking from the other side of the town. Both formations were then to push through to the rear of the German defences. 

When the tanks failed to reach their start line on the morning of 10 April the attack was postponed, leaving the infantry lying in the snow covered no-man’s-land to hurry back to their own lines. Dawn was breaking as they retreated under the eyes of the enemy. One soldier said ’going back through the snow was like telling the Germans what we were going to do tomorrow.’ 

The attack did go ahead the following morning, 11 April. Again some of the tanks failed to arrive. Those that did either broke down or were destroyed, just one reached the enemy’s first trench. Without armoured support, the Australian infantry achieved what was, until then, considered an impossible feat; breaking into the German trenches without a protective artillery barrage. Within hours though, they faced annihilation. Exposed on both flanks, cut off from reinforcements by German artillery fire and at risk of being trapped by Germans working their way to the Australians’ rear, the survivors made a break for their own lines. Less than ten hours after it began, the assault had ended in failure. Some 3,000 Australians had been killed or wounded and more than 1,100 were taken prisoner.

Second Battle of Bullecourt

Despite the failure at Bullecourt, senior British officers were determined to make another attempt, this time on 3 May 1917. Units of the 2nd Australian Division were to attack Bullecourt from the right while the British 62nd Division attacked from the left, this time with the support of an artillery barrage. Expecting a second assault, the Germans had strengthened their already imposing defences. Once again Allied infantry made it into the German line and began bombing their way through the maze of trenches. 

By mid-May, the Australians had repelled dozens of counter attacks and seven major attacks, gaining almost a kilometre of trenches and were slowly closing on Bullecourt where British troops were preparing to launch a final assault against the remaining pockets of Germans. Early on the morning of 17 May, British patrols reported that ‘everything was very quiet’. The following day Australians reported a similar lack of activity on their front. The Germans had withdrawn. 

By then each of the Australian Imperial Force’s (AIF) 1st, 2nd and 5th Divisions had been involved in the battle in which more than 7,400 Australians were killed or wounded. One observer described the Second Battle of Bullecourt as the most intense trench fighting of the war. It continued even as the Arras offensive, in whose support the attacks on Bullecourt were launched, lost momentum and wound down. For a time the Bullecourt fighting assumed an importance out of all proportion to its value as an objective. 

All four AIF divisions then on the Western Front fought in the battles of Bullecourt and each emerged in serious need of rest and recovery. After Bullecourt, plans to continue expanding the AIF were put aside. 

Facts and Figures

• Bullecourt was the scene of two battles in April and May 1917, the AIF’s first major battles since the Somme fighting of 1916
• First Battle was on 11 April 1917
• Second Battle went from 3–17 May 1917
• Some 10,000 Australians were listed as killed, missing or wounded in the fighting at Bullecourt
• More than 1,100 Australians became prisoners of war in the first Battle of Bullecourt, the highest number of any action during the First World War
• Two Australians earned the Victoria Cross at Bullecourt: Corporal George ‘Snowy’ Howell VC MM, and Lieutenant Rupert Vance ‘Mick’ Moon VC.