DEFENCE OF AMIENS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3366, 19 December 1919, Page 5

DEFENCE OF AMIENS

AUSTRALIANS’ SHARE ARRIVAL IN NICK OF TIME. LONDON, Nov. 23. The Sunda_v Tllue.s. publishes the first chapters 9of Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash’s war book. It is a brisk, lucid, and unadorned record, dealing mainly with the great days following the- enemy's offensive in M-arch’ 1918. , . The author describes it as chiefly an individual memoir. Time did not perlllitlhilll fully to use the voluminous documentary evidence which was available. ‘ A After briefly sketching‘ the circumstances which deprived. the Australians of the great advantages of the consolidation until August, 1918. Lieu-tenant-General Monash plunges into a swift narrative of the Third Division’s cri'tical_ task of finding and aiding Lieutenant-General Sir Walter Congreves’ retreating Seventh Corps_ ' On March 27 a staff oflicer brought orders that a junction should he effected at Corbie. The oflieerfs arrival was delayed, permitting of a tele-phonic"counter-nianding order, intimating that the corps would be compelled to proceed to Montigny. The receipt of the latter order saved the/most Valuable time. “Had I failed to find Lieutenant—General Cengreve that night,” says the general, “it is almost certain that my division would have arrived too late to prevent the capture of 'A.miens.” - ' After defending the position chosen. an hour of intense suspense was passed awaiting the arrival of the Australians. “They came in the nick of time, and faced the enemy, who were swarming on the skyline all the afternoon, and ended their advance by steady rifle-fire;.”

The author later pays a tribute to» the wonderful work of the» Fourth Australian division at Dernancourt. “Their fighting there,{’ he says, “will live long in the annals of military history as an example of dogged and successful defence.” The Australian night attack at Villers—Bretonneux, resulting in the recapture of that town, was an enthralling feat, and was the termination of the German attempt to split the Allied armies.