The Battle of Amiens

First Epilogue to 'Diary of a Stosstrupp Leader'

(US National Archives)

This post forms part of an epilogue to the diary of Alwyn Lydding, a German soldier who served during the last three years of the First World War.

Diary of a Stosstrupp Leader

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I doubt that, in the hours prior to his wounding or the many days of delirium that followed, Alwyn Lyding would have been able to attend to his diary. Thus, I find it reasonable to assume that, at the earliest, he wrote the account of his last engagement of the Great War, several weeks after the events of that fateful day. Nonetheless, the diary contains no mention of the larger struggle taking place that day (8 August 1918) on either side of that fight, a great clash of arms now remembered as the first day of the Battle of Amiens and, in the German literature on the subject, ‘the Black Day of the German Army’ (Der Schwartzer Tag des Deutschen Heeres).

Instead of setting his experience in the context of a great event, Lieutenant Lyding took pains to identify the nationality of the infantrymen advancing against him. In particular, he made of point of distinguishing between British, Australian, and American foot soldiers. (Like many other Germans of his time, Lyding placed all soldiers from the British Isles into the category of Engländer.)

The presence of men from three different armies in a space as small as the neighborhood of Lyding’s bunker struck me as odd. I therefore reviewed the British, Australian, American, and, for good measure, Canadian orders of battle on 8 August 1918. (As an American blessed with many Canadian relatives, I know well the ease with which people confuse the two kinds of Anglophone North Americans.)

This exercise convinced me that all of the dismounted foes that Lyding encountered during his last few hours of active service came from formations formed by the Land Down Under and that, for reasons I have yet to fathom, he mistook some of his Australian antagonists for soldiers of other English-speaking, khaki-clad, Brodie-bearing expeditionary forces. (To be more specific, I learned that, while the valley where Lyding’s bunker was located fell well within the zone of action of the Australian Corps, the Somme River stood between Lyding and the closest British and American battalions.)

Lyding takes the same approach to the account of his convalescence. In particular, while he mentions the celebration of his twenty-first birthday on 10 November 1918, he declines to mention the armistice that went into effect on the following day.

Sources

The video forms the first half of a movie made for the French Army in 1918. You can find both parts of the film and a listing of its component scenes on the website of the US National Archives.

An account of the Australian advance through the valley west of Morcourt where Lydding’s last fight took place can be found in John Monash The Australian Victories in France in 1918 (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1920) Chapter VII (Internet Archive).