Free Our Darkest Day by Patrick Lindsay Page A

campaign against the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians on the Eastern Front, a logistic nightmare that ran from the Urals to the Alps.
    At the outbreak of war, the Allies had known that the Russians would take much longer than Britain or France to mobilise their massive forces. Things started off well as the Russians initially invaded Germany and forced the German Army back 160 kilometres. But the Germans rallied and halted the Russian advance at the Battle of Tannenberg where about 150,000 German troops completely demolished the Russian Second Army of about 190,000 men. The Germans killed or wounded around 30,000 and captured almost 100,000. The Russian commander, General Alexander Samsonov, shot himself rather than report the disaster to the Tsar.

    Diggers preparing to move up into the line on the southern side of Lone Pine, Gallipoli, in August 1915. In four days of uncompromising conflict more than 4000 Turks and 2200 Anzacs died. The battle saw seven Australians win the Victoria Cross. ( AWM PHOTO A00847 )
    Despite the massive setback at Tannenberg, the Russian numbers began to take a toll on the Austro-Hungarian troops facing them, forcing the Germans to step in. By winter of 1915, the Germans had moved eight divisions from the Western Front to the East. Their plan was to attack Russia with the aim of forcing the Russians to make a separate peace with them, thus neutralising the Eastern Front and leaving them free to concentrate on the Western Front. The German offensive began well and the Russians fell back in disarray as the Germans claimed Poland, Lithuania, and parts of Belarus and Ukraine – the most successful German territorial gains of the whole war.
    On the sidelines, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania waited, weighing up which side they would support. As the conflict drew on, Romania, Italy and Greece joined the Allies while Bulgaria chose the Central Powers after being promised a share of a defeated Serbia’s territory following Germany’s attack on Serbia in the winter of 1915.
    The Serbian Army and many of its people retreated on foot, heading for the Mediterranean and hoping to sail to safety. Someone called it the ‘funeral procession of the Serbian State’. By the time they reached sanctuary on the island of Corfu, more than half of the Serbian Army – 200,000 troops – had died on the march.
    By this time, Australian and New Zealand troops had travelled halfway around the world and had landed on Turkish soil on the Gallipoli Peninsula on 25 April 1915. Against the odds, and despite the ultimate failure of the campaign, the Anzacs acquitted themselves with great distinction against the Turks and looked forward to making a contribution to the main theatre on the Western Front.
    After their brilliantly executed evacuation from Gallipoli on 20 December the Australians were in high spirits as they sailed, first to Lemnos for a few days, and then to Alexandria. They made their camp at Tel-el-Kebir, near Cairo, where they were reshuffled into new units by integrating the Gallipoli veterans with the influx of new reinforcements who joined them from Australia. This was part of an overarching plan to reorganise the AIF in preparation for its service in Europe on the Western Front, giving it something of a self-contained Australian command structure.
    The force was split into two army Corps. General William Riddell Birdwood commanded I Anzac Corps, comprising the 1st and 2nd Australian Divisions together with the New Zealand Division, and General Alexander Godley, another British officer, was in command of II Anzac Corps, made up of the newly raised 4th and 5th Australian Divisions.

    Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood, who had led the Anzacs at Gallipoli, was the commander of the 1 Anzac Corps, 1st, 2nd and 4th Australian Divisions. ( AWM PHOTO P03717.009 )
    The AIF’s wonderful achievements in the Gallipoli campaign, combined with the realisation that the war in Europe was going poorly, prompted a