Private Edward Smith

Rod Martin

He was a very small man, even for that time more than 100 years ago. Standing only

157 centimetres tall and weighing a mere fifty-four kilos, twenty-three year-old baker

Edward Smith of 14 Federation Street in Ascot Vale would have been rejected by the

army if he had attempted to enlist on the outbreak of war in 1914. He was ten

centimetres too short and had a chest expansion measurement that was too small. One

year later, however, it was a different story. The losses at Gallipoli in the first two

months after landing, and the promise of the prime minister to supply an extra fifty

thousand troops to the fray, led to a liberalisation of the selection criteria. Edward

was then eligible. When he joined up on 9 July 1915 he became one of the record 36

575 enlistments that month.

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Reproduced with permission from www.realestate.com.au)

Edward was assigned to 11 Reinforcements of 5 Battalion and did his training at

Broadmeadows before embarking for the Middle East on A71 HMAT Nestor at Port

Melbourne on 11 October that same year.

By 27 November, Edward had arrived in Egypt, suffering from influenza. However,

he recovered quickly and was admitted to active service just a few days later. On 22

February, after being involved in training in the desert, he was taken on the strength

of 5 Battalion, located at that time at Serapeum on the Suez Canal. The troops were

there to prevent a Turkish attack on the waterway, now possible because Gallipoli had

been evacuated and the Turks were able to deploy its defenders elsewhere.

5 Battalion men leaving Port Melbourne sometime in 1915. (AWM H02144)

A massive reorganisation of the army was carried out in Egypt during the first couple

of months of 1916. Existing battalions were divided in two, each new battalion

having half of its complement made up of experienced soldiers and the other half

newly arrived reinforcements. The reorganised 5 Battalion was a part of 1 Anzac

Corps, destined to be the first cohort of Australian troops to travel to the Western

Front in France. 5 Battalion would sail from Alexandria on 30 March.

A draft of 5 Battalion troops bound for France. Egypt March 1916. (AWM P00851.006)

When the first Australian troops arrived in Marseilles, they entrained for northern

France shortly after. For most of them, it was their first sight of a European country,

and many of them were amazed by the attractiveness of the French landscape. Their

opinion would not have changed when they reached their destination near the town of

Armentières. This area had been chosen as the location for the new troops because it

was a relatively quiet part of the Western Front, a place that would give the new

arrivals a chance to acclimatise themselves to battle conditions that were more intense

than those of either Gallipoli or Egypt. The men stayed in training in the vicinity of

Fort Rompu until 29 April, when they moved to the front line near the village of

Fleurbaix. The battalion’s first casualties occurred on 6 May, when two men were

wounded during a bombardment of the front line. Worse was to follow in the next

few days. Two men were killed on the eighth, and another two days after that. On

the thirteenth, the battalion went into reserve at Fleurbaix, and remained in working

parties there until 29 May, when it returned to the front line. One man was killed and

eight others wounded two days later. Before they left the forward trenches on 9 June,

another one man was killed and six wounded. It was a costly baptism of fire.

Fleurbaix, looking towards the village of Fromelles, 1915 (AWM H15912M)

The battalion was based at nearby Estaires and Neuve Eglise until 24 June, when the

men moved to the area of La Grandue Monque and became involved in working

parties. At the end of the month, four officers and 110 other ranks participated in a

raid on the German trenches. Edward may have been involved.

11 July 1916 found the men back at Neuve Eglise after a short spell in southern

Belgium. A feint attack was being planned against the German fortifications at

nearby Fromelles, due to occur around the nineteenth of the month. However, the

men of 1 Anzac Corps were not destined to be part of it. Instead, they were

transported south to the Somme Valley, finally arriving at the front line at Pozières,

north of the town of Albert, on 24 July. Perhaps the greatest battle of the war had

begun in the Somme Valley on the first of the month. By the twentieth, allied (mostly

British) losses had been so great (almost 60 000 lost on the first day alone) that

reinforcements were needed. The Anzacs were perfectly placed to fit the bill. The

British command decided to use Edward and his comrades in an attack on the ruined

village at Pozières after two British attacks there had failed to gain any ground. The

site was seen as being important because control of the ridge behind the village may

have provided access to the German fortified positions at Mouquet Farm and

Thiepval. 1 Division, of which 5 Battalion was a part, began its assault on 23 July,

taking a foothold in the ruins of the village. Two days later, having sustained 5 285

casualties, the troops were replaced by 2 Division. On that same day, Edward and the

other members of the battalion went into action as part of 1 Division’s last attack.

They initially gained some ground but a strong counter-attack by the German

defenders, using grenades, forced the men back. Losses were heavy: forty-five killed,

248 wounded and 158 missing.

The battlefield near Pozières village, showing how completely the trenches dug

by Australians on 23 and 24 July had been obliterated by German shellfire.

(AWM E00012)

It seems likely that Edward was among the missing, as he was reported in that way

two days later, after the battalion had been relieved and had time to lick its wounds.

His body may never have been found, but a comrade from Ascot Vale, a wounded

soldier named Sam Gaudie who returned to Australia in 1917, informed Edward’s

parents that he had been killed in action. There were no Red Cross reports about his

death. A court of inquiry in November 1916 had officially declared that he was dead,

and noted that he was buried in the vicinity of Pozières. If that was the case (and

there are no extant reports to verify it), then the grave was later destroyed, as

Edward’s name was inscribed on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial to the missing

after the war.

(Commonwealth War Graves Commission)

In January 1918, Edward’s mother was granted a pension of thirty shillings a

fortnight. She was also the beneficiary of his will.

The battle for Pozières lasted for forty-five days and involved nineteen separate

attacks made by men from 1, 2 and 4 Divisions. There were 24 139 Australian

casualties. The gain? The ruined village and the ridge behind it.

The 1 Division Memorial at Pozières. (AWM A02192)

Sources

Australian War Memorial

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

National Archives of Australia

http://www.realestate.com.au

Travers, Richard: Diggers in France: Australian soldiers on the Western Front,

Sydney, ABC Books, 2008