After a period of fighting a tired division retired from the battle front and a fresh one took the place. Thus, following the custom of the circulation of troops by the armies of both sides, whether at Verdun or on the Somme, the day arrived when along the road toward the front came the Australian battalions, hardened and disciplined by trench warfare, keen-edged in spirit, and ready for the bold task which awaited them at Pozieres. This time the New Zealanders were not along. XVI THE AUSTRALIANS AND A WINDMILL The windmill upon the hill--Pozieres--Its topography--Warlike intensity of the Australians--A "stiff job"--An Australian chronicler--Incentives to Australian efficiency--German complaint that the Australians came too fast--Clockwork efficiency--Man-to-man business--Sunburned, gaunt battalions from the vortex--The fighting on the Ridge--Mouquet Farm--A contest of individuality against discipline--"Advance, Australia!"--New Zealanders--South Africans. When I think of the Australians in France I always think of a windmill. This is not implying that they were in any sense Quixotic or that they tilted at a windmill, there being nothing left of the windmill to tilt at when their capture of its ruins became the crowning labor of their first tour on the Somme front. In their progress up that sector of the Ridge the windmill came after Pozieres, as the ascent of the bare mountain peak comes after the reaches below the timber line. Pozieres was beyond La Boisselle and Ovillers-la-Boisselle, from which the battle movement swung forward at the hinge of the point where the old first-line German fortifications had been broken on July 1st. To think of Pozieres will be to think of the Australians as long as the history of the Somme battle endures. I read an interview in a New York paper with the Chief of Staff of the German Army opposite the British in which he must have been correctly quoted, as his remarks passed the censorship. He said that the loss of Pozieres was a blunder. I liked his frankness in laying the blame on a subordinate who, if he also had spoken, might have mentioned the presence of the Australians as an excuse, which, personally, I think is an excellent one.