For the final meeting of the League of Ancients for the year, and the
last to be held at the German Club Tivoli (before the move to the
Caulfield RSL), Mark ran one of his large multi-player games. This time
it was in the closing months of First World War on the Eastern Front.
Historical Background
Starting in July 1918 with the
Battle of Hamel,
John Monash’s Australian Corps commenced to roll back the German
advance from the (by then petered out) offensive of the Kaiserschlacht.
This set the stage for the ultimate counter strike of 8th August, 1918.
The Australian Corps and the Canadian Corps spearheaded the attack on
the German Second Army south of the Somme in the
Battle of Amiens, which was the opening phase of the Allied offensive (later known as the Hundred Days Offensive) that ultimately led to the end of the First World War.
By 11:00 the
Australians and the Canadians had advanced three miles along a front of
almost 15 miles wide. The speed of their advance was such that a party of German officers and some divisional staff were captured while eating breakfast.
By the end of the day over 13,000 Germans had
surrendered with some 3 or 4 thousand other casualties against
Anglo-Australian-Canadian casualties of about 8,000. But this was only
the beginning of an offensive which would eventually break through the
Hindenburg Line and force Germany to seek an armistice. Erich Ludendorff
himself described the day as the "
Schwarzer Tag des deutschen Heeres".
German Briefing
Germans
from a battered Stellungsbataillon (trench battalion) await the
inevitable Australian counter attack after a successful incursion by
Stosstruppen in this area a few days earlier. Suddenly all hell breaks
loose as a bombardment rocks the front line. Through the exploding crash
of the artillery shells an ominous mechanical clanking can be heard
approaching from the west together with some bizarre cries which sound a
lot like ‘Cooo-eee!’, but what can this mean? Someone had best get those
verdammte Stosstruppen on the field telephone and order them to send up
reinforcements quickly!
Kompanie Einz and one machinegun section are manning the forward line of trenches. Kompanie
Zwei and one machinegun section are manning the second line of trenches.
Kompanie Drei is in reserve. A reinforced platoon of Stosstruppen are
hidden in concealed deep dug-outs somewhere in our lines. Our mission
is simple, hold the line or inflict enough casualties on the enemy
assault troops to stop them breaking through.
Kompanie
Drei may not be brought into play until at least the start of the third
German move if the Oberst passes a command roll, and it then moves onto
the table from one of the trench entry points.
Report from the Left Flank
I took command of Kompanie
Zwei and a machinegun section on the left flank, seen deployed at the bottom right of the photo below.
They started the game dug in along the second line of trenches:
As the creeping barrage was rolling towards our line (yes, that's a Mark IV male tank in the background):
But it looked like it was so far back I decided to jump out of the second line trenches and occupy the first line trench to deny them to the Australians that were running towards our lines. Unfortunately I missed the part that the smoke markers above were the
back of the 12" wide creeping barrage (in my defence I was getting a beer), and as I was stuck in the open I had to roll to see if I took any S4 hits. I was lucky and took only two casualties before running back to my starting position.
As the barrage passed our lines we were able to open up with our machine guns and start inflicting some casualties of our own, but not enough (even with special ammunition our 7.7cm field gun was unsuccessful in knocking out the Mark IV).
Our reinforcements arrived, plugging the gaps in our lines (mainly the right flank).
But it was too late, with the right flank having taken a severe beating we were stretched too thin and the trench lines were conceded to the Australians as they flanked us within the second line trench.
A hard fought win for Bruce and Martin M. While Django, Martin O and myself were left wondering where we had gone wrong (the successful pinning of the Mark IV by the field gun, instead targetting the infantry in the open meant we didn't have to deal with its weapons).
Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year.
