IT WAS the worst day in Australian military history, an action described by one commander as a “tactical abortion” which succeeded in killing and wounding thousands of soldiers for no gain whatsoever.

From the evening of July 19, 1916 — a century ago today — Australian troops attacked German lines, held a small section overnight and were expelled with casualties of 5533, including 1917 dead and 470 prisoners.

In this one inconsequential 14-hour action, Australia lost almost a quarter of what was lost in eight-months at Gallipoli. So ended the Battle of Fromelles, the first major action involving Australian troops on the Western Front of France in World War I.

The name comes from a village behind German lines, which wasn’t the objective and which Australian troops never came near. Surviving diggers called this the “Fleurbaix stunt”.

Many stayed, their remains hastily interred after the battle. In 2008, mass graves containing 250 mostly Australian soldiers were found at Pheasant Wood, just behind what was once the German front line. So far 150 Australians have been identified through their DNA.

So what actually happened?

Following bloody battles of 1914 and 1915, the western front settled into a line of trenches from Switzerland to the North Sea. German forces couldn’t advance but neither could British and French forces expel them.

Australian troops played no part in these early battles in France and Belgium as they were in Gallipoli.

After withdrawing from Gallipoli in December 1915, they headed for Egypt for rest, training and re-equipment. The 1st and 2nd Australian Divisions arrived in France in April 1916, moving to the quiet Armentieres area and then to the Fleurbaix sector where the Battle of Fromelles would be fought.

They conducted small-scale raids on German lines and were in turn raided.

The 5th Division, only formed in February, joined them on July 12 and as fate would have it, a week later this least experienced unit would be the first to see major action.

This was all far from the real action, occurring 80km south of where British forces had launched the Somme offensive on July 1. Some 20,000 died on the first day alone.

To resist ongoing British attacks, Germany was transferring troops from quieter areas to the Somme. So British high command figured that an attack towards Fromelles would tie down some German forces.

In other words, Fromelles was never intended to seize and hold ground. It was a feint, which the Germans speedily realised. The plan was for three 5th Division brigades — about 12,000 men — plus three brigades of the British 61st Division to seize about 3km of German trenches.

In places the Germans were less than 100m distant, in other places much further.

Australian War Memorial head of military history Ashley Ekins said planning for Fromelles was horrendously confused and changed constantly.

Historian Charles Bean’s description approaches slapstick — Fromelles was initially proposed as a feint, expanded, rejected, proposed again just involving artillery, amended to include some infantry, almost cancelled because of the weather then reinstated in its final form.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Germans had a good idea an attack was coming and by who, thanks to Australian prisoners captured in raids who often talked freely.

If the Germans had doubts of this attack’s limited ambitions, they speedily learned otherwise from captured orders unwisely carried into battle by one British and two Australian officers.

“It was an attack that went wrong in just about every way you can imagine. It was a disaster,” Ekins said.

Historian Joan Beaumont says what occurred was simply a repeat of disastrous British assaults over the same ground in December 1914 and May 1915.

Following the May attack, the German commander presciently reported that if Britain chose to employ the same tactics again, they would achieve local successes but would be ejected, which was precisely what happened.

Australian 1st Division commander General Harold Walker refused to allow his troops to participate. But 5th Division commander General James M’Cay agreed, reassured that two days of artillery fire would shatter German defences. It didn’t.

15th Brigade commander Major General Pompey Elliott, whose men needed to cross more than 300m of open ground, concluded there was no earthly chance of success.

The artillery reached a crescendo and at 6pm on July 19 the troops advanced. With the shortest distance to cover, the 8th and 14th Brigades quickly seized German trenches on the left, advancing some 200m in search of a second line which didn’t actually exist. What they did find were sodden ditches from which they fought off German counter-attacks.

In danger of being cut off, they finally withdrew, the last returning the following morning. More died as they ran from shell hole to shell hole back across no-man’s land.

In the centre and right, artillery failed to destroy German defences, especially on a feature known as the Sugar Loaf from which intense machine gun fire cut down Australian and British troops, many just steps from their own trenches.

German artillery fell on packed trenches, adding to the carnage. Fromelles virtually destroyed the 5th Division — not until year’s end could it stage even limited operations. Haunted by his experiences, Elliott took his own life in 1931.

The British high command won no Digger friends, dismissing this debacle as “some important raids” in their official communiqué. British General Richard Haking — Fromelles was his idea — blamed failure on untrained Australian troops and insufficient offensive spirit in British troops. He said this searing experience had actually done both divisions a great deal of good.

Historian John Laffin brands Haking one of those British “butchers and bunglers” of WWI whose inept leadership produced so many dead for so little gain.

There are numerous reasons why Fromelles failed so dismally. The plan was rubbish. Australian and British troops were certainly inexperienced. Artillery failed to suppress German defences. One factor overlooked in many accounts is that German defenders, soldiers from the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division, were actually very good.

British historian Peter Barton said they had created formidable defences, and troops — one a junior runner named Adolf Hitler — were disciplined and experienced.

“The Germans were too well organised. It was a brilliant piece of long-term tactical planning,” Barton said.

As an example of Germanic thoroughness, they mandated speedy burial of enemy dead for hygiene reasons. For this battle they dug eight pits, filling five, each with 50 dead.

Just how these were missed after the war isn’t clear. Their presence was confirmed long afterwards in documents found in German archives in Munich.

- with AAP