Mystery of Celtic Wood

The Mystery of Celtic Wood refers to the disappearance without trace of 71 men of the 10th Battalion of the 1st Australian Division during a diversionary attack on German positions in Celtic Wood during the First World War Battle of Poelcappelle. Official Army reports of the action state that investigations have failed to account for the fate of the 10th Battalion.

Official German records contain no mention of the attack, which led to speculation that the men were massacred and buried in a mass grave. Visitors to the site today are still given this explanation by guides. Rumours still persist that the men had simply walked into a mist and disappeared.

Celtic Wood has been described as Australia’s wartime equivalent of Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Background

Battle of Poelcappelle, 1917, showing Allied forces, their starting line, and their objectives.

The 10th Battalion of the 1st Australian Division were known as the "terrible 10th", a name given for the fighting spirit displayed in the trenches of France and Belgium where two of its members earned Victoria Crosses and during the Gallipoli Campaign, where they led the Australian forces in the initial landing and later defense of ANZAC Cove.

Following the success of the Battle of Broodseinde on 4 October 1917, Field Marshal Douglas Haig believed that the opposing German forces were close to collapse. He decided on an offensive to capture part of the Passchendaele Ridge (the Battle of Poelcappelle) with a subsequent attack to capture the rest of the Passchendaele Ridge, which would become known as the "First Battle of Passchendaele".

The 10th Battalion of the 1st Australian Division was tasked with making a diversionary attack on Celtic Wood. The plan was for the 10th to charge the woods, blow up German dugouts and pull back on a flare signal. On the 10th's northern flank, the 2nd Division would mount a large attack to protect the flanks of the main British advance on its own northern flank. To make the Germans think the attack was part of the main advance, instead of the normal night attack the troops attacked at dawn while the normal "box barrage" used to protect infantry raids was replaced with the "rolling barrage" used for full-scale advances. At 5:20am on 9 October, the barrage began and seven officers and 78 men of the 10th under the command of 22 year old Lieutenant Frank Scott charged the woods.

Aftermath

British war correspondents and Australian newspapers reported the attack on Celtic Wood as a victory. Although the attack had in actuality failed, the Germans pulled back a week later and the woods became a no man's land.

10th Battalion commander Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice Wilder-Neligan wrote in his report of the action: "...a desperate hand encounter followed, in which heavy casualties were inflicted upon the enemy...I am only able to account for 14 unwounded members of the party." One survivor said only seven made it back to the Australian lines while another said the number was 14. Official army records list 37 of the 85 involved in the attack as being missing without trace:

"On this day LT Scott of 10 Bn led 84 men on a raid into enemy lines near Broodseinde. The main party was seen to enter Celtic Wood and were never seen again. Extensive investigations since that time have failed to fully account for the fate of LT Scott's party. A total of 37 soldiers are still not accounted for. This is the greatest mystery for the AIF in WW 1." —Australian Defense Department History Unit listing of Celtic Wood action.

The official war correspondent Charles Bean wrote:

the "operation ended disastrously. The missing were never heard of again. Their names were not in any list of prisoners received during the war. The Graves Commission found no trace of their bodies after it."

German military records contained no mention of the attack leading to some historians speculating that they were massacred by German troops and buried in a secret mass grave. At least six books have been published that have attempted to explain the mystery. Many professional historians misread Wilder-Neligan's report (and those of survivors) to mean that only 14 soldiers of the 85 were accounted for and the fate of the 71 missing men was widely debated. In fact, the number of "missing" included bodies not recovered but whose deaths were reported by survivors. It is unknown how many returned wounded but the ambiguous official records did imply a total of 48 for unwounded, wounded and known KIA leaving only 37 actually unaccounted for. As well as the speculation regarding the fate of the 37 missing, it was still considered a mystery as to why no remains of those known to have died could be found.

The incident is known as the greatest mystery of Australia's Great War. Perhaps due to the name of the woods and the mystery surrounding the missing men, there has been talk of a supernatural event being responsible and the action has been referred to as the nation's wartime equivalent of Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Mystery explained

In 2008, researchers Chris Henschke and Robert Kearney undertook steps to solve the mystery. By analysing after action reports, wartime diaries and eyewitness statements that were able to be verified, they say they are able to account for the fate of all the missing men beyond a reasonable level of doubt and attributed the mystery to the fog of war, clerical errors and misreporting.

The attack

Rather than the "rolling curtain of death" expected to shield the attack, the barrage was light and scattered when the 10th charged across the 180 mtrs separating Celtic Wood from the Australian trenches. The terrain to be crossed consisted of tree stumps, bomb craters metres wide and, due to heavy rain over the preceding days, mud that in some places was knee deep. Compounding this, the 10th had made two raids on Celtic Wood the previous week leading the Germans to reinforce and install extra machine gun nests. Lt Scott ordered a frontal attack on the German trench while he led a group around to flank it from the rear. Despite being outnumbered, Scott was successful and the German troops began a retreat as soon as they were fired on from the rear.

German reinforcements quickly arrived and engaged the Australians in hand to hand combat, pushing them back while at the same time German artillery opened up, laying a curtain between the Australian and German trenches making a retreat impossible. Within a short time all the officers were dead or wounded and Sergeant William Cole tried to fire the flare signalling the withdrawal. However, Cole was killed as he was firing the flare. The remaining men were left to find their own way to safety.

From cross-referencing all the available records, researchers believe that a massacre was unlikely as the British had begun an artillery barrage on the position preventing German troops from pursuing the retreating Australians. At the same time the German artillery barrage continued, preventing the Australians from effectively retreating. Caught in the barrages, the 37 missing soldiers were likely killed in the heavy shelling and, along with the bodies of those previously killed in the attack, left no recognisable remains to be recovered.

Historian Chris Henschke stated: "the raid wasn't a great mystery, but it was simply a raid with a very high proportion of casualties... It is a story of a typical small unit action that went wrong."

References

• Bean, Charles (1941). The Australian Imperial Force in France, 1917. Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918. IV (11th ed.). http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/first_world_war/volume.asp?levelID=67890. 
• Lumb, A. (1919). History of the 10th Battalion, A.I.F. Cassell
• Spagnoly, Tony; Smith, Ted. (1998). The Anatomy of a Raid: Australia at Celtic Wood 9th October 1917. Leo Cooper. ISBN 9780850526493