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Son of James George Lewis Archer, a Queensland Station Owner of Scottish descent, and his wife Louisa Stewart, daughter of Sir Robert MacKenzie.

The Cedric Archer Park at Ian Besch Drive, Gracemere Qld. is named after him https://www.rockhamptonregion.qld.gov.au/FacilitiesRecreation/Parks-Gardens-and-Recreation/Cedric-Archer-Park (www.rockhamptonregion.qld.gov.au)

 
ARCHER, Cedric   # 2557A  9th Battalion
 
The name Archer is synonymous with the locality of Gracemere. It is therefore not surprising that the WW1 enlistments from the district include three men with that surname.
 
Cedric Archer was born in Larvik Norway to James George Lewis Archer and Louise Stewart Archer. Cedric’s mother, when completing the Roll of Honour Circular for the Australian War Memorial reported that Cedric had completed high school in Norway and then emigrated to Australia at the age of 20, probably accompanied by his elder brother Alister. There had always been a strong connection between the branches of the family in Norway and Gracemere.
 
Both boys were employed as stockmen in the Archer family pastoral business, which was managed by their uncle, Robert Stubbs Archer. Cedric it would seem was working at “Tarsdale” near Banana, one of a number of properties in the family’s beef enterprise.
 
Cedric attended the AIF recruiting depot in Rockhampton on 23rd July 1915. He was accompanied by his brother Alister who also enlisted on that day. Cedric stated his age as 22 years and 9 months, occupation stockman and his religion as Church of England. Alister was 25 years old but stated no religion. Both brothers were allocated as part of the 6th reinforcements for the 25th Battalion which had departed Brisbane just a month previously.
 
Cedric had completed a will, probably on the advice of his uncle Robert, which was lodged with the well-known legal firm of Rees R and Sydney Jones of Quay Street, Rockhampton. His brother Alister probably did the same. Since both the brothers were destined for the same unit, they probably journeyed to Enoggera together where they were placed in a depot battalion. Soon after their arrival, Alister was appointed Acting Sergeant but his time in the 25th was to be short lived. While Cedric remained in training, Alister was sent to a school of instruction and ultimately applied for and was granted a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th Light Horse. They would not see each other again.
 
Three months after enlistment, Cedric embarked on the “Seang Bee” in Brisbane. The embarkation roll shows he had allotted 3 shillings of his daily pay of 5 shillings to his mother.
The reinforcements arrived in Egypt at the end of February 1916. By this time Gallipoli had been evacuated and the AIF was going through a period of expansion from 2 divisions to 4 in Egypt with another division being raised in England. Existing battalions were split to form the core of two new battalions and the numbers were then made up from the large number of reinforcements in Egypt. Thus, it was that Cedric was reallocated to the 9th Battalion; the first Queensland battalion raised at the outbreak of the war and one which held the honour of being first ashore at ANZAC in April 1915.
 
The 9th Battalion left Egypt on 27th March 1916 and arrived in Marseilles 4 days later where they boarded a train which took them from the south of France to the northern sector of the Western Front near Armentieres. This part of the front was considered to be relatively quiet as the ground was so boggy that frontal assaults on a large scale were impossible. The 9th, part of the 3rd brigade of the 1st Division AIF, settled into the routine of trench warfare. For those veterans of Gallipoli in the battalion, this period of the war was seen as almost a holiday. Battalions routinely rotated in and out of the line with comfortable billets in the rear areas. Hot food from the battalion cook wagons was delivered to the frontline daily and there was even fresh water delivered via a system of pipes. There was time for recreation when not in the line with sports and games organised as well as the ability to frequent the numerous cafes in the villages where “Vin Rouge” (Red wine) eggs and chips could be had for a few francs. At the front, contact with the enemy was limited to trench raids and artillery barrages. The situation would not last.
 
On 1st July 1916, General Haig, supreme British commander of the Western Front, launched what he hoped would be the grand offensive to end the war. He chose as his battleground the area which separated the British and French armies, the valley of the River Somme. Haig was trusting in the sheer weight of numbers of his army. (The British government had introduced conscription in late 1915 and the increased force was often referred to as Kitchener’s New Army) History records that the British suffered 60,000 casualties on the first day. It was apparent that barbed wire and machine guns were more than a match for straight lines of soldiers marching with bayonets fixed towards heavily defended positions.
In spite of the enormous cost in manpower, Haig had no choice but to push on.
 
By the middle of the month, little ground had been taken. As a show of solidarity with the French who were “being bled white” at Verdun, the 5th Division were ordered to attack the German lines at Fromelles. This poorly planned stunt led to the division suffering enormous casualties. Brigadier Harold “Pompey” Elliot was so distraught at the senseless loss of life that he wept openly as the survivors returned to the starting trenches. Fromelles would haunt Elliot for the rest of his life and he committed suicide in the 1930’s.
 
Five days after Fromelles, it was the turn of the 1st Division. The target was the village of Pozieres, which occupied the highest point on the Somme along the Albert – Bapaume Road. On the night of the 24th/25th July the 1st Division, including the 9th Battalion attacked and took the village. The battle of Pozieres, the Windmill above the village and the nearby Mouquet Farm would rage for the next six weeks. Brigades from the 1st, 2nd and 4th Divisions AIF were rotated in and out of the line throughout this period. Pozieres would claim 23,000 Australian casualties.
 
Cedric was fortunate to survive the hell of Pozieres. He was promoted to Lance corporal at the beginning of August and Corporal at the end of the month. The 9th Battalion remained on the Somme during the bitter winter of 1916/17 and was again in the action at Bapaume in the Spring of 1917.
 
During the winter of 1916/17, the Germans had constructed a line of fortifications well to the east of the positions. In the spring of 1917, the Germans began an orderly retreat to this new line, which was known as the Hindenburg Line. The British forces followed across the ground that they had fought so hard for unsuccessfully in the previous summer. Eventually the British Armies came to the Hindenburg Line and it was planned that an attempt to breach the line would be made in front of the village of Bullecourt.
 
The British commander in the sector, General Gough, planned a hasty and risky attack against the defences at Bullecourt using elements of the 1st and 4th Divisions AIF. On 17th April 1917, Gough planned to use a new super weapon in this attack, the tank. So sure was he of the tank’s effectiveness that he dispensed with the usual artillery barrage as a prelude to sending the troops over the top.
 
Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The troops were sent out to lie on the open ground during the night and wait for the tanks to come up from behind. It began to snow. None of the tanks made it to the start line by the appointed time because they either broke down or got lost. The attack was delayed for 24 hours with the infantry still exposed on the now snow-covered ground. When the whistles blew for the infantry to rise up and advance on the second night, they were mown down in their hundreds. Again, the tanks failed and the advancing soldiers walking across the white fields made easy targets for the well dug in German defenders. Bullecourt was a disaster.
 
Cedric had survived some of the worst battles on the Western Front and had come through physically unscathed. As corporal he had obviously shown outstanding qualities and in May 1917 he was posted to the 3rd Training Battalion at Codford in England. Codford was the receiving point for reinforcements from Australia and no doubt Cedric used the experience he had gained in France to train the new men in preparation for their deployment overseas.
 
While Cedric was at Codford, the British had launched a new offensive; not in France but in Belgian Flanders. It began on the 7th June 1917 with the blowing of 19 huge mines under the German lines along the ridge line that ran from Ypres in the north to Messines in the south. This was the start of the 3rd Battle of Ypres which is usually referred to as Passchendaele.
Cedric was posted back to his battalion to join them in the Battles of Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde; all taking place during the latter half of 1917.
 
On 22nd November, Cedric was posted to the Brigade Intelligence School and a month later he was posted to the school for German language. Brigade intelligence was chiefly concerned with identifying units of the German army who opposed the Australians at any one time. The main source of this information was from captured enemy soldiers who had surrendered or had been captured in trench raids. Estimations of enemy morale which could be obtained from interviewing prisoners was of vital importance. Cedric’s Norwegian background may have indicated to the authorities that he could either speak German or had the capacity to acquire it.
 
Cedric was posted back to his battalion in March 1918 which coincided with the launch of the German Spring Offensives both on the Somme and in Flanders. All of the Australian divisions had wintered to the west of Ypres in Belgium and were still there when the spring offensives began on the Somme and in Flanders. The British regiments holding the line on the Somme retreated under the onslaught of storm troopers and the real threat emerged of the capture of Amiens, the splitting of the British and French forces and Britain and France losing the war. To stem the advance, which had retaken all the ground the British had gained in 1916 and early 1917, Haig ordered the bulk of the Australian Corps into the breech. Villers Brettoneux was retaken by the Australians on ANZAC Day 1918 and on 4thJuly, Monash had a resounding victory at Hamel.
The Australian 1st Division was not involved in the early victories on the Somme. They had remained in the Ypres sector to thwart a German advance there. After Hamel, it was clear that the Spring Offensives had failed. A bold British counter offensive was planned, predominantly by Monash, for the 8th August. Monash had by this time been appointed as the Australian Corps Commander and wanted all five Australian divisions to be involved in the action. Cedric, who had been recently promoted to sergeant, and the 9th Battalion, along with the rest of the 1st Division, travelled by train and bus from the billets in Hazebrouk near Ypres to make it to the start line of what would become known as the Battle of Amiens.
 
Monash’s plan called for four Australian Divisions to be at the centre of the attack across the rolling plains on the south bank of the Somme from Villers Bretonneux to Harbonnieres.
The 1st Division did not arrive until after the battle had begun and were held in reserve. The attack was a monumental success with thousands of prisoners taken, mountains of weapons and supplies captured and an astonishing seven-mile advance into open country where cavalry and armoured cars created havoc amongst the German supply lines. One of the largest trophies captured was a 12 inch naval gun which had been mounted on railway trucks and had been, up until being taken, shelling Amiens. The barrel of the “Amiens Gun” weighed forty tons and it is now mounted at the entrance of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
 
At Monash’s headquarters the day after the battle, the French President, Field Marshalls Foch (France) and Haig(Britain) and a host of other senior army and corps commanders all visited to congratulate Monash. The following day, 10th August, King George V came and invested Monash with his knighthood; arise Lieutenant General Sir John Monash! Monash was the first person to be knighted in the field since George II did so in 1734.
 
While all this grandstanding was going on behind the lines, the 1st Division was finally given orders to move up to the newly established frontline for an attack towards the village of Lihons. Compared with the planning of the 8th August, the preparation for the 10th August was lacking. Monash had had a whole month to plan for the 8th August. For the 10th, there was barely 24 hours available with much of that time taken up with the important visitors mentioned above. Nevertheless, Monash wanted to keep the momentum going; his aim was to advance as far as the bend in the river Somme where it turns south at the fortress town of Peronne. As well, over half the tanks available on the 8th had been knocked out and the heavy artillery could not be repositioned in time for the sort of barrage that was needed. Additionally, the Germans had regrouped and were ready.
 
The War diary of the 9th Battalion records that as the battalion moved forward towards Lihons they encountered fierce resistance from enfilading machine gun fire. This was more reminiscent of the battles of 1916. The battalion took heavy casualties, among them was Sgt Cedric Archer.
 
Cedric’s father was informed in a short letter from the Officer Commanding the 9th Battalion that his son had received three machine gun bullets to the head and had died instantly. Cedric was initially buried close to Lihons at Rosierres. The Australian War memorial has a photograph(E0833) of a memorial erected by members of the 9th Battalion to mark the burial site of 1 officer, three sergeants, and 15 privates killed nearby on the 10th August 1918. Cedric’s mother received a small parcel of her son’s personal effects, containing a wallet, letters and photographs. At the conclusion of the war, scattered burials across the battlefields were consolidated into large military cemeteries. Cedric’s remains, as well as those of the 17 other 9th Battalion men who fell that day, were reinterred at the Heath War Cemetery at Harbonnieres. Three photographs of his grave were sent to his father in Norway as well as the 1914/15 Star, the victory medal and the empire medal. There was also a scroll signed by the King and a bronze memorial plaque.
 
Cedric’s older brother, Alister, would survive the war. He rose through the officer ranks in the 5th Light Horse taking part in the campaigns in Sinai, Palestine and Jordan. Alister returned to Australia in 1919.
 
The third Archer on the Gracemere Memorial is David Archer, son of Robert Stubbs Archer and cousin to Cedric and Alister. David was a student studying animal husbandry at an agricultural college in NSW. He enlisted in Sydney and was posted to the Veterinary Corps and then the Field Artillery. At war’s end, he studied shorthorn cattle breeding in Scotland before returning to Australia in late 1919.
 
The name of Cedric Archer is today is widely known in the Rockhampton area and it is most likely that the more recent Cedric Archer was named by the family to honour the memory of an earlier forebear who died in war to end all wars.