John Monash
Regarded by Bernard Montgomery as “the best general on the Western Front”, John Monash wasn’t your conventional military man. The Australian was, by trade, a civil engineer, covering a brief stint as a militia officer before the war’s outbreak. At Gallipoli, he led the 4th Brigade from 1915-1916. Then in June 1916, he was then transferred to the Western Front where he was appointed Commander of the Australian 3rd Division. Upon his arrival, he would write, in one of his many letters home, that: “War in France is simply child’s play compared to what it was in Gallipoli.” He’d revise this view the following month, however, as the Australians were called up for duty in the Somme Offensive.
The disaster at the Somme—in which ANZAC lost more men in two months than they did during the entire Gallipoli campaign—was sobering for Monash, as were the battles that followed at Fromelles and Pozières (at which he won a victory, albeit a pyrrhic one). Monash took General William Birdwood’s place as commander of the Australian Corps in May 1918. And, following his own motto of “feed your troops with victory” won a series of victories that led to the breaching of the Hindenburg Line and the signing of the armistice.
Monash is often overlooked, owing to his subordination to the British Command (Australia being one of the many dominions making up the British Commonwealth). And this is an injustice; as Australia’s former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer has commented, it was at Monash’s rather than Haig’s headquarters where “the seeds for victory on the Western Front were devised and implemented.” Monash was meticulous in his planning of the battle of Hamel and Amiens in 1918, sometimes writing out orders detailing strategies down to the levels of individual platoons.
He also showed compassion and respect for human life conspicuously lacking among others in Allied Command. Always aiming to minimize needless casualties, he would pore over aerial photos and intelligence on enemy movements and set sensible, achievable targets. He would often say that in this new era of warfare, the commander of a battle was like the conductor of an orchestra. In grasping the modern complexities of war, Monash certainly commanded the respect of his band of men.
In spite of his achievements, John Monash is still something of a stranger to history. Granted, in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Amiens he had his moment: receiving a knighthood from George V on August 12, 1918. Since then, however, his name has come to be overshadowed by the big beasts of the Franco-British-German armies. In 1958 Monash had a university—currently ranking in the world’s top 100—named after him, and rather less prestigiously his name is also attached to one of Victoria’s busiest freeways. But his reputation is now undergoing a renaissance, particularly in his native Australia, and the modest man from Melbourne is starting to get some of the recognition he deserves.