and the British 184th Brigade had taken heavy casualties while attempting to cross no man's land, as the supporting artillery had failed to suppress the German machine guns. The 8th and 14th Brigades were forced to withdraw, through German enfilade fire, the following morning. The failure was compounded when the British 61st Division asked the Australian 15th Brigade to join in a renewed attempt at 9 pm, but cancelled without informing the Australians with enough time to allow them to cancel their own attack. Consequently, half of the Australian 58th Battalion made another futile, solo effort to capture the salient, which resulted in further casualties. The battle resulted in the greatest loss of Australian lives in a single 24-hour period. The 5,533 Australian casualties, including 400 prisoners, were equivalent to the total Australian losses in the Boer, Korean and Vietnam Wars combined. The 5th Division was effectively incapacitated for many months afterwards. Two battalions, the 60th and the 32nd, each suffered more than 700 casualties, or more than 90 per cent of their fighting strength and had to be rebuilt: out of 887 personnel from the 60th Battalion, only one officer and 106 other ranks survived; the 32nd Battalion sustained 718 casualties. The attack had completely failed as a diversion when its limited nature became obvious to the German defenders, while McCay's orders for the troops to push forward from the captured German trenches unnecessarily exposed them to German counter-attacks. The perceived failure of the British 61st Division later impacted relations between the AIF divisions and the British. Despite the heavy casualties, in its communiqués, the British GHQ described the Battle of Fromelles as "some important raids". Following the battle, the division remained in the line around Armentieres for several months. As a result of its losses the 5th Division's effectiveness was greatly reduced and it was not considered "fit for offensive action for many months". Despite this, according to historian Jeffrey Grey, Haking is reputed to have felt that "the attack did the division a great deal of good". Hindenburg Line, 1917 After reinforcements had arrived, the division began trench raids again in the summer of 1916. In October, it deployed to the front again around Flers, leading the rest of the Australian divisions to that sector. The division remained on the Somme during the winter. In December 1916, Major General Talbot Hobbs assumed command of the 5th Division,