The 57th Battalion was raised in Egypt on 18 February 1916 as part of the "doubling" of the AIF. Half of its recruits were Gallipoli veterans from the 5th Battalion, and the other half, fresh reinforcements from Australia. Reflecting the composition of the 5th, the 57th was predominantly composed of men from the suburbs of Melbourne. The battalion became part of the 15th Brigade of the 5th Australian Division.

Having only arrived in France in late June, the 57th became embroiled in its first major battle on the Western Front on 19 July, without the benefit of an introduction to the trenches in a "quiet" sector. The battle of Fromelles was a disaster. Fortunately for the 57th it was allocated a supporting role and suffered relatively light casualties compared to its sister battalions. This, however, meant that 57th carried the burden of holding the line in ensuing days for the battalion. Despite its grievous losses, the 5th Division continued to man the front in the Fromelles sector for a further two months.

Source: Australian War Memorial

The Battle of Fromelles

The battle plan had the 15th Brigade located just to the left of the British Army. The 59th and 60th Battalions were to be the leads for this area of the attack, with the 58th and 57th as the “third and fourth” battalions, in reserve.

The “Sugar Loaf” salient, a heavily manned position with many machine guns, was directly across from them. Fire from here could enfilade any troops advancing towards the front lines, giving the Germans a significant advantage.

The next three days were quiet, but on 15 July, there was significant step up in activity:

“0630 – Enemy commences shelling our position. This was continued until 1230. The shelling was mostly high explosive and did considerable damage to our parapets.

2030 – The Battalion on our right made a gas attack which started the enemy shelling. About

2115 - The fire shifted on to our “B” & “C” Coys and we suffered severe shelling till about 2330. Our communication trenches and firing line were damaged.”

[[Source: AWM4 23/74/6, 57th Battalion War Diaries, July 1916, page 2-3]]

The Australian’s attack was planned for the 17th, but it was delayed due to bad weather.

The 57th was relieved by the 59th by 9.00 PM on the 18th. They moved to billets in Sailly, but were back into the trenches in readiness by 5.35 PM the next day.

The 59th and 60th went over the parapet at 5.45 PM on the 19th with immediate and intense fire from rifles and the Sugar Loaf machine guns, just a short distance away. As documented in the messages sent back to HQ just after the attacks began:

“cannot get on the trenches as they are full of the enemy”

“every man who rises is shot down”

[[Source: AWM4 23/15/5, 15th Brigade War Diaries July 1916 page 78]]

The 15th Brigade notes on the battle captures the intensity of the early part of the attack – “they were enfiladed by machine guns in the Sugar Loaf and melted away.” [[Source: AWM4 23/15/5 15th Brigade War Diaries July 1916 page 56]]

With this disastrous result, the 57th were not called into the direct fighting which ended on the morning of the 20th. Even with this, 48 soldiers were killed or died from wounds, three of which are unidentified.

After dusk, with no cease fire in effect, parties from the 57th went out into No-Man’s-Land to recover the wounded, “the number for this Battalion being estimated at three or four hundred.” [[Source: AWM4 23/74/6, 57th Battalion War Diaries, July 1916, page 3]]

After the battle the 57th then remained in the area to hold the line.