page_title: Raymond Leane
section_title: First Dernancourt
hierarchical_section_title: Raymond Leane / World War I / Western Front / German Spring Offensive / First Dernancourt
caption_attribution_description: English: Studio portrait of Brigadier General Sir John Gellibrand DSO, QSA (later KCB) (1972-1945). Gellibrand joined the 1st Australian Division staff in 1914, was wounded at Gallipoli and commanded successively the 12th Battalion, the 6th Brigade, the 12th Brigade and the 3rd Division. After the First World war he established Remembrance Clubs in Tasmania and helped launch the Legacy movement in Melbourne.
context_page_description: Brigadier General Sir Raymond Lionel Leane, CB, CMG, DSO & Bar, MC, VD, JP was an Australian Army officer who rose to command the 48th Battalion then 12th Brigade during World War I. For his performance during the war, Leane was described by the Australian Official War Historian Charles Bean as "the foremost fighting leader" in the Australian Imperial Force, and "the head of the most famous family of soldiers in Australian history", among other accolades. After the war, he served as Commissioner of the South Australia Police from 1920 to 1944, for which he was knighted.
  A businessman and part-time Citizen Forces officer before the war, Leane was commissioned into the AIF and led a company of the 11th Infantry Battalion at the landing at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, on 25 April 1915. He rose to temporarily command his battalion, and was made a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order, awarded the Military Cross, twice mentioned in despatches and wounded three times during the Gallipoli campaign.
context_section_description: The 12th Brigade was initially placed under the command of the 9th (Scottish) Division, responsible for holding the front line west of Albert, which had fallen into German hands. At this point, a breathless British staff officer appeared, stating that Dernancourt had fallen, and the Germans held the railway line in front of Albert. His orders were to guide the battalion into support positions on high ground behind the remnants of the 9th Division. Under Leane's stern gaze and questioning, he was unable to give the name of the commander of the 12th Brigade, Brigadier General John Gellibrand, who had apparently issued the orders, and due to rumours that alarms and false orders were being spread by Germans dressed as British staff officers, Leane detained him as a suspected spy. Leane went to find Gellibrand himself, found that the orders were correct, and the staff officer was released. After this delay in deployment, Leane directed his battalion east along the line of the Albert–Amiens road to the heights behind the 9th Division, which it reached in the early afternoon of 27 March.
  Gellibrand then ordered the 48th Battalion, and the 47th Battalion on its right, to immediately take up positions on the forward slope of the high ground and push posts forward to the railway embankment below. The forward slope was in full view of the approaching Germans. The 47th moved forward immediately, came under heavy German shelling, and suffered casualties in moving as far as an old half-completed trench some 350 metres (380 yd) short of the railway line by 17:00. Leane took the view that Gellibrand did not know the full situation on the ground, and that he had the discretion to follow a course of action that would achieve the objective without unnecessary casualties. He decided not to move his troops forward until dark. Bean remarks on Leane again disobeying orders, but notes that the dangers of such action are mitigated when such subordinates, like Leane, have "outstanding qualities of courage and judgement". He concludes, "[b]ut Leane was Leane, and Gellibrand had the sense to know it". Deayton criticises Leane's decision, describing his failure to advise the 47th Battalion of his intentions as "inexcusable", and stating that the serious risk created by Leane's decision could have resulted in a disaster had there been a German attack that afternoon. Deayton also reflects that this was only the latest in a series of clashes between Leane and Gellibrand since the latter had taken over the brigade in November of the previous year.
  After dark, the 48th Battalion took over the line from the remainder of the 9th Division. The 47th Battalion was still on its right, and on the left was the British V Corps. The 48th Battalion occupied a small salient between Albert and Dernancourt. During the night, desultory artillery and machine gun fire was directed at the battalion's positions. In the early morning light of 28 March, the forward two companies could make out German infantry advancing through the fog. They approached without the coverage of a barrage, and in quite close formation, some had their rifles slung. The men of the 48th Battalion quickly brought their weapons to bear and the Germans stopped advancing. A minor break through on the right-flanking 47th Battalion was quickly dealt with and thirty prisoners taken. During the day, the Germans advanced another eight times, each time more cautiously and with a little more fire support. But each time the Australians beat them back. By evening the Germans appeared to have withdrawn, and the 48th Battalion had suffered the loss of 62 men. That night and the next two days passed relatively quietly, with Leane rotating his companies through the front line posts, with characteristic care not to create congestion in the forward areas. The battalion was relieved on the night of 30 March.
caption: At Dernancourt, Leane disobeyed orders given by Brigadier General John Gellibrand (pictured)
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