At Any Price The Anzacs at the Battle of Messines 1917 by C Deayton
The title of the book "At Any Price" relates to orders given to the German defenders on the Messines Ridge - "The enemy must not get Messines Ridge at any price"
For the Australians and indeed the Allies, the importance of a victory at Messines cannot be overstated. The first two years of the war had represented an almost unending catalogue of disaster.
This was both the first real victory for the AIF and the first test in senior command for Major General John Monash, who commanded the newly formed 3rd Division.
Messines was a baptism of fire for the 3rd Division which came into the line alongside the battle-scarred 4th Australian Division, badly mauled at Bullecourt just six weeks earlier.
The fighting at Messines would descend into unimaginable savagery, a lethal and sometimes hand-to-hand affair of bayonets, clubs, bombs and incessant machine-gun fire, described by one Australian as ‘72 hours of Hell’.
After their string of bloody defeats over 1915 and 1916, Messines would prove the ultimate test for the Australians
Australian Battalions Present at Messines;
At Any Price The Anzacs at the Battle of Messines 1917 by C Deayton
