DEFENCE OF AMIENS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1919, Page 6

DEFENCE OF AMIENS.

AUSTRALIANS' SHARE. j ARRIVAL IN NICK OF TIME. London, November 23. The Sunday Times publishes the first chapters of Lieutonaut-Gcncral Sir John Monash's war book. It is a brisk, luci.l, and unadorned record, dealing mainly with the great days following the enemy's offensive in March, 1918, The author describes it as chiefly an individual memoir. Time did not permit him fully to use the voluminous documentary evidence which was available. After briefly sketching the, circumstances which deprived the Australians of the great advantages of the consolidation until August, 191S, Lieutenant-Gen-eral Monash plunges into a swift narrative of the Third Division's critical task of finding and aiding Lieutenant-General Sir Walter Congreve's retreating Seventh Corps. On March 27 a staff officer brought orders that a junction should be effected at Corbie. The officer's arrival was delajjed, permitting of a telephonic countermanding 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 Congreve that night," says the general, ''it is almost certain that my division would have arrived too late to prevent the capture of Amiens." After defending the position chosen, an hour of intense suspense was paßsed 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 Vil-lers-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.