Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From François Berthout

Pte 2151 Arthur Charles Marshall Gerard
25th Australian Infantry Battalion,
7th Brigade, 2nd Australian Division.
 
Over a hundred years ago, in the mud and hell of the trenches of the Somme, side by side, proudly served a whole generation of young men and in 1916, the young and strong Australian nation joined the battlefields of Pozieres, Mouquet Farm, Amiens and Villers-Bretonneux and fought with exceptional bravery alongside their French brothers in arms who said of the young Diggers that they were the bravest men they had ever seen and known and that they were proud and honored to fight with them, a deep respect that French Prime Minister George Clemenceau expressed through these words in 1918:
"When the Australians came to France, the French people expected a great deal of you.We knew that you would fight a real fight, but we did not know that from the very beginning you would astonish the whole continent. I shall go back tomorrow and say to my countrymen, I have seen the Australians, I have looked in their faces, I know that these men will fight alongside of us again until the cause for which we are all fighting is safe for us and for our children."

More than a hundred years have passed, we are in 2022 and the admiration, love, gratitude and respect that we have in our hearts for the young Australians who fought and who fell on the battlefields of the Somme is every day present in our hearts and it is with this love that I will always watch over them so that their names and their stories live forever in our hearts. Their memory, like the poppies of the Somme, will never fade.

Today, it is with the utmost respect and gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, one of my boys of the Somme who gave his today for our tomorrow. I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 2151 Arthur Charles Marshall Gerard who fought in the 25th Australian Infantry Battalion, 7th Brigade, 2nd Australian Division, and who was killed in action 106 years ago, on March 4, 1917 at the age of 18 on the Somme front.

Arthur Charles Marshall Gerard was born on April 20, 1898 in Ashfield, Inner West Council, New South Wales, Australia, and was the son of William Henry Gerard (1861-1947) and Elizabeth Dora Gerard (née Marshall, 1875-1964), of Glenmore, Ambrose, Queensland. He had six sisters, Nellie Jane (1893-1973), Mary Francis "Molly" (1900-1988), Doris Elizabeth "Dot" (1902-1972), Bessie Alice Winifred (1909-1996), Gladys Mavis "May" ( 1911-1994), Florence Mildred Lillian "Flo" (1914-1993) and two brothers, William Marshall (1895-1985) and Richard Marshall (1906-1907). Arthur was educated at State School, Gladfield, Queensland, and after graduation, worked as a farmer in Mount Larcombe, Queensland, where he lived.

Arthur enlisted on August 18, 1915 at Gin Gin, Queensland, in the 25th Australian Infantry Battalion, 4th Reinforcement, which was raised at Ennoggera, Brisbane, in early 1915 under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Paton and whose motto was "Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum" (Tracking No Back) and was nicknamed "The Darling Downs Regiment". After only a month of training, Arthur embarked with his unit from Brisbane, on board HMAT A26 Armadale on September 18, 1915 and sailed for the Gallipoli peninsula.

On December 8, 1915, Arthur was disembarked and taken on strength at Gallipoli where the 25th Battalion reinforced the depleted New Zealand and Australian Division. However, the battalion had a relatively short and quiet time because the last major Allied offensive had been launched, and turned back, in the previous months.

On December 18, 1915, Arthur and the 25th Australian Infantry Battalion were evacuated from the Gallipoli peninsula on board "Hotorata" for Egypt and were disembarked in Alexandria on February 9, 1916 then the following month, on March 14, they proceeded to join the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) and proceeded overseas for France.

After a very short journey on the Mediterranean Sea, Arthur arrived in France and was disembarked in Marseilles on March 19, 1916. The 25th Australian Infantry Battalion was the first battalion of the AIF (Australian Imperial Force) which arrived in France.

On March 25, 1916, Arthur and the 25th Battalion were sent to Morbecque, northern France, and entered the trenches for the first time in the sector of Erquinghem on April 4 where they remained until May 2 and were sent to Armentieres on May 4, a sector which was called "the nursery", a rather calm sector of the front line where they fought until May 27 and then marched to join their billets for La Chapelle-D'armentieres on May 28.

Less than a month later, Arthur and the 25th Battalion were sent to Belgium and arrived in Messines on June 17, 1916 where they essentially played a support role until July 8, then were relieved by the 8th Australian Infantry Battalion and marched for the Somme front where they arrived on July 13 in Amiens.

After arriving in Amiens, the 25th Battalion marched through Herrissart, Rubempre, Warloy-Baillon, Albert, and on July 28, 1916, Arthur entered the trenches of Pozières, on the right flank of the British front and which was the first major engagement of the battalion and the AIF in the Somme.

The 1st Division had cleared the pulverised remnants of the village all the while under relentless shelling. Casualties mounted at a horrifying rate. The 2nd Division’s job was to extend the line beyond the ruins of a windmill on a hill to the west of the town. "The Windmill", or rather what was left of it was captured by the 2nd Division on August 4 and consolidated by the 4th Division, the direction of the Australian assault switched to Mouquet Farm, with the 1st Division leading once again. The aim was to outflank Thiepval, the main impediment and key objective of the British advance. Charles Bean's quote, now inscribed on a plinth near the ruins of the Windmill, state:
"The ruin of Pozières Windmill which lies here was the centre of the struggle in this part of the Somme battlefield in July and August 1916. It was captured on August 4 by Australian troops who fell more thickly on this ridge than on any other battlefield of the war."

On August 8, 1916, Arthur and the 25th Battalion, who lost 785 men, left Pozieres and moved back, exhausted and almost annihilated for Warloy-Baillon, La Vicogne and Montrelet then for Bonneville on August 14. A week later, on August 21, the battalion marched through Herrissart, Harponville, bivouacked at "Brickfields", Albert on August 22 and on August 26, dug new trenches at Pozieres Ridge and two months later, on October 6, were sent to Ypres.

The 25th Battalion remained less than a month in the trenches at Ypres and on October 28, 1916, Arthur returned to the Somme where his unit arrived at Dernancourt and faced a terrible winter.

On November 2 they marched to Mametz Camp and then joined the front line at Flers where the 7th Brigade committed a series of attacks on a trench system called "The Maze". A repeat was ordered on the 17th November but as had happened on the 4th November, the ground won was lost to subsequent German counter-attacks.

After terrible fighting, the 25th Battalion was relieved at Flers by the 20th Australian Infantry Battalion on November 28, 1916 and marched to Fricourt Camp then marched through Buire, Meaulte and arrived at Vignacourt on November 30 where they remained until December 17. On December 18 they marched for Buire, reached Fricourt on December 23, Montauban on December 24 and were billeted at Adelaide Camp until January 8.

On January 9, 1917, the 25th Battalion and Arthur left Montauban and moved to Bernafay and Delville Wood on January 10 and arrived at Gueudecourt on January 12 where they occupied the "Needle Trench", "Switch Trench" and the "Rose Trench" then were relieved on January 16 by the 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion and marched for B and C Camp at Mericourt the following day.

A month later, on February 6, 1917, the 25th Battalion returned to the Flers trenches from where they were relieved by the 19th Australian Infantry Battalion on February 9 and marched to Shelter Wood Camp near Contalmaison and then to Sussex Camp, near Bazentin-Le-Petit on February 17, then joined the front line near Warlencourt on February 21, in a position known as "Scots Redoubt". Unfortunately, a few weeks later, on March 4, 1917, while he was in Warlencourt, in the "Malt Trench", Arthur met his fate and was killed in action by a shell, he was 18 years old.

Today, Arthur Charles Marshall Gerard rests in peace with his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at Adanac Military Cemetery, Miraumont, Somme.
Arthur had an uncle, a brother and a brother in law who fought during the great war.

Arthur's uncle was Company Sergeant Major number 1177 Arthur Ernest Marshall who fought in the 35th Australian Infantry Battalion, D Company.

Unfortunately he was killed in action in Belgium on October 12, 1917 at the age of 25. Sadly, his body was never found and his name is remembered and honored at the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres.
Arthur's brother was Private Number 7090 William Marshall Gerard who fought in the 15th Australian Infantry Battalion and survived the war then returned to Australia in 1919 and now rests in peace at North Rockhampton Crematorium, Queensland.

Arthur's brother in law was Private number 2562 George William Armstrong who fought in the 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion and survived the war. He returned to Australia on March 28, 1919 but suffered from gassing and died on September 23, 1941 at age 48 in Gracemere, Queensland.

Arthur, it was in the prime of your life, with the greatest determination and with exceptional courage that you answered the call of duty alongside your friends under the colors of Australia to do your duty alongside your brothers in arms on the battlefields of the great war, to fight for noble causes, first on the beaches and the sands of Gallipoli which turned red with the blood of thousands of young boys who died in the hills and the dust by charging resolutely in the face of the machine guns and who did their duty until their last breath and on these sacred soils of Turkey, Australians and New Zealanders showed the courage of two great and brave nations who fought side by side and between which was born the spirit of ANZAC, a spirit of courage, sacrifice, gallantry, determination and brotherhood which kept united and strong an entire generation of young men through the fires of hell which lived through the darkest hours in history in the trenches of Suvla Bay and which were mowed down during the battle of the Nek, of Lone Pine, of Chunuk Bair. Brave among the bravest, these young men who thought they would live the greatest adventure of their lives, found death and the brutality of a world at war which sank into madness and after a baptism of fire of the most brutal, exhausted, they left Gallipoli and left behind their friends who did not have the chance to survive this nightmare but unfortunately the war did not stop after Gallipoli and the young Australian soldiers very quickly discovered another hell, the hell of the battlefields of the Somme and in July 1916, under the shells of the German artillery, under the shrapnel and the bullets, they were thrown into the putrid trenches of Pozieres where in a few weeks of fury, 23,000 of them paid the supreme sacrifice but they did not back down and charged towards the battlefields of Mouquet Farm where so much blood and tears were shed and the cost was horrifying, 11,000 Australian soldiers fell on these sacred fields.Admired by their French brothers in arms, the young Diggers showed in France, once again, the strength and courage of the entire Australian nation which lost so many of its sons who served shoulder to shoulder with pride in the mud and the cold, in the blood and the pain of battles which were among the deadliest for the Australian Imperial Force which fought meter by meter to save our country and which found in the Somme,the love and support of the French people who admired and deeply loved these young men who came from so far for us and who, in Flers, Bazentin, Gueudecourt, Warlencourt, Amiens and Villers-Bretonneux gave their lives for us.More than a hundred years have passed and the old battlefields of the Somme have become silent and peaceful under the poppies which remind us of the courage and the sacrifices of these heroes to whom I will be eternally grateful and over whom I will always watch with the utmost respect to honor their memory.We did not know them all but we owe them all the peace and freedom in which we live and for which they gave their lives and I would give my today, my life to bring back to life each of these men who rest in peace under the Australian and French flags, two countries forever friends and united in remembrance. I am French but my heart will always belong to Australia whose colors I will always wear with honor and pride through the battlefields and cemeteries of the Somme so that the names of the Australian soldiers and so that the spirit of the ANZAC live forever.Thank you so much Arthur, for everything. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember him, we will remember them.