Counter-attack
About noon the 1st Bn of the Sherwood Foresters had attempted a counter-attack. The British 25th Brigade was considered for an attack but this was cancelled. A single female tank with troops from the 2nd Royal Berkshire made a spontaneous attack from the north pushing the German line back about 150 yards.
General Henry Rawlinson had responded even before he received orders from Marshal Foch to recapture the town. At 9:30 he ordered an immediate counterattack by two Australian units – the 13th Brigade under General Thomas William Glasgow and the 15th under General H.E. "Pompey" Elliott, both previously kept in reserve, though the 13th had suffered in heavy fighting at nearby Dernancourt. Rawlinson's plan was to use a pincer manoeuvre, the 15th Brigade attacking north of the town, the 13th south. British troops would support and the 2nd Bn Northamptonshire and the 22nd Durham Light Infantry would follow through in the gap between the Australians and "mop up" the town once it was isolated. Artillery support was available, but since German positions were unknown and to avoid giving away benefit of surprise, there was no preparatory barrage to soften up the German positions. Instead the artillery would bombard the town for the hour once the attack was underway and then move its line of fire back beyond the line held by the British before the German attack.
The attack took place on the night of 24/25 April 1918. The original time for the operation to start had been 8 pm, but General Glasgow argued that it would still be light at this time, with terrible consequences for his men. Glasgow stubbornly insisted for the operation to start at 10.30 pm, eventually settling on 10 pm. The operation began, with German machine gun nests taking some toll on the Australians. A number of charges against machine gun posts helped the Australian advance; in particular, Lieutenant Clifford Sadlier was awarded the Victoria Cross after attacking with grenades. The two brigades swept around Villers Bretonneux, and the Germans retreated, for a while escaping the pocket through a railway cutting. The Australians eventually successfully captured the German positions and pushed the German line back, leaving the German troops in Villers-Bretonneux surrounded and cut off. The British units moving in the direct, and therefore expected, route to the town had suffered at the German defences. By the 25 of April, the town had been recaptured and handed back to the villagers.
The Battle was a great success for the Australian troops, who had recaptured the town from forces that vastly outnumbered them, and stalled a major effort by the Germans to yet once again threaten Amiens. The village, which had switched hands between both sides, remained in allied hands to the end of the war. The cost to Australia was some 2,500 men killed or wounded.
A British observer, Brigadier General George Grogan VC, described it as ‘perhaps the greatest individual feat of the war’ up to that time.
Read more about this topic: Second Battle Of Villers-Bretonneux