by Peter Brune
Second, Charles Bean was a major advocate for the establishment of the Australian War Memorial, which is both a memorial to the First AIF and a research centre of the highest standard. Michael McKernan has provided us with a moving insight into Bean’s motivation to create it:
[His] . . . thoughts often turned to the image of a young Australian soldier dying alone and unattended in some crater on the Pozières battlefield. Knowing that he was soon to die, the soldier began to think of home; ‘at least in Australia’, he consoled himself, ‘they will remember me.’ This image provided the motivation for Bean for all the years of toil on the history and on the memorial.31
Charles Bean died in Sydney on 30 August 1968 aged 88. He has left us with a fitting tribute to the soldiers of the First AIF:
What these men did nothing can alter now. The good and the bad, the greatness and smallness of their story will stand. Whatever of glory it contains nothing now can lessen. It rises, as it will always rise, above the mists of ages, a monument to great-hearted men; and, for their nation, a possession for ever.32
In 1918 the ‘great-hearted men’, under their own command and together as a Corps, were at the very pinnacle of their fighting prowess. The tools had been well and truly sharpened. And while the nation has proclaimed, and continues to proclaim, that Gallipoli was the birth of a nation, Hamel, Amiens, Mont St Quentin, Péronne and the Hindenburg Line must surely mark the military coming of age of the First AIF. It was indeed their finest hour.
Photo Section
Field Marshal Haig, C-in-C BEF. (Australian War Memorial [AWM] A03713)
General Rawlinson, Commander, 4th Army. (AWM H12220)
General Birdwood, GOC AIF. (AWM ART03338)
General Currie, Commander Canadian Corps. (AWM H06979)
Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash, Commander Australian Corps. (AWM A02697)
Major-General White, 5th Army. (AWM 001110)
Brigadier-General Blamey, Australian Corps. (AWM E05006)
Major-General Glasgow, GOC 1st Division AIF. (AWM ART00107)
Major-General Rosenthal, GOC 2nd Division AIF. (AWM H19207)
Major-General Gellibrand, GOC 3rd Division AIF. (AWM H15790)
Major-General Sinclair-Maclagan, GOC 4th Division AIF. (AWM ART00102)
Major-General Hobbs, GOC 5th Division AIF. (AWM E05007)
Brigadier-General Elliott, Commander, 15th Brigade AIF. (AWM H15596)
Prime Minister W M Hughes. (AWM H16071)
Charles Bean, Official Historian. (AWM P04340.004)
Keith Murdoch, journalist. (AWM A05396)
Will Dyson, Official War Artist. (AWM E02437)
One of three Mark V Tanks knocked out at Hamel. (AWM E03843)
Australian 4.5-inch Howitzers in action, 8 August 1918. (AWM E02927)
Amiens: The artillery follows up the infantry advance. (AWM E02791)
The view of Mont St Quentin as seen by the attacking 6th Brigade AIF (AWM E03147)
The assault approaching the Mont St Quentin village wall. (AWM E03104)
A 54th Battalion Lewis machine gun post in Péronne. (AWM E03183)
An advance on the Hindenburg Outpost Line, (AWM E03367)
The 45th Battalion sniping at retreating Germans on the Outpost Line. (AWM E03260)
The body of a German machine gunner who fought to the last, Amiens. (AWM E03351)
AIF Engineers work to repair a corduroy track for an ambulance wagon, Amiens. (AWM E03631)
Captain G D Mitchell
Lieutenant S R Traill
Corporal C M Geddes
Private P R Johanesen
Private W R McLennan
Lieutenant-Corporal L S Clarkson
Acknowledgements
Throughout the time spent in the research and writing of this work I have been blessed by the help of a number of people.
Over some fifteen years, Colin Williams of Adelaide Booksellers has been able to secure for me literally any book from anywhere. I thank him sincerely. But it was his suggestion in the early stage of the research that I contact Colonel David Brook, Royal Australian Artillery (Retd), that proved a most fruitful recommendation. Apart from his professional training and career as a Gunner, Colonel Brook’s extensive research and knowledge of World War I artillery of the BEF and the Great War in general have made his advice invaluable. I am further indebted to him for his enthusiasm for the project, which has manifested itself in his painstaking proofread of the manuscript. I also thank his wife, Jan, for similar rigour with proofreading. David and Jan Brook and their hard work and friendship are deeply appreciated. Similar scrutiny in proofreading was provided by Anthea Taylor. I thank her sincerely.
Throughout the research for a number of my books I have relied on Joyce Bradley’s expert knowledge of the Research Centre collection at the Australian War Memorial. Her guidance, advice and efficient organisation of my time in Canberra have maximised my research at the AWM, and further facilitated an enormous amount of material to find its way to me in Adelaide. I thank her sincerely.
I wish to thank the staff of the Australian War Memorial. I am indebted to Stuart Bennington, Curator of Official Records at the AWM, for his kind permission to quote from the Official Histories and his liaison on my behalf with the Bean family; I thank Shane Casey, Senior Curator, Military Heraldry and Technology, for allowing me to examine the Memorial’s Mark IV Tank; and, as always, I thank the staff of the AWM Research Centre for their tireless guidance and patience during my research.
I thank Dr Peter Pedersen for his kind permission to quote from his Monash as Military Commander, which remains the authoritative work on General Monash. I am likewise indebted to Professor Robin Prior for permission to quote from his and Trevor Wilson’s excellent Command on the Western Front: The Military Career of Sir Henry Rawlinson 1914–1918.
Extracts from the war diaries, letters and other works of the late Dr CEW Bean are reproduced with the kind permission of his grandchildren, Edward Bean Le Couteur and Anne Marie Carroll. For permission to quote from letters and other works of General Sir John Monash I am indebted to his great-grandson, Michael Bennett. I thank Tim Gellel, Head of the Australian Army History Unit, for his kind permission to quote from the Corps, Division, Brigade and Battalion Unit Diaries of the First AIF.
I wish to sincerely thank Jonathan Holt, the archivist at the Bovington Tank Museum, Dorset, UK, for the selection of and the copying of a wealth of material, which I was able to purchase, regarding the illustrious support given by the 5th Tank Brigade to the Australian Corps during the second half of 1918.
With respect to personal diaries quoted in the work, my appreciation goes to the State Library of NSW for permission to quote from the diary of Clifford Geddes; to the State Library of South Australia for permission to quote from the diary of Len Clarkson; and to Christian Johanesen for permission to quote from his father Paul’s diary.
My warm thanks go to Carto Graphics of Unley, South Australia, and to their cartographer Stewart Adrain, for the expert and painstaking construction of the maps for the work. Stuart’s former career as an Army Survey cartographer is reflected strongly in his final preparation and presentation of all maps. I thank him sincerely.
The great majority of my books have been edited by Neil Thomas. He is painstaking, demanding, has a great command of structure, and is an absolute pleasure to work with. My professional and personal thanks are extended to him.
To my publisher Helen Littleton, to the in-house editor Madeleine James, and all at HarperCollins, I hope and trust that the following pages will do justice to the confidence and effort that you have shown in this project. My sincere thanks for your professionalism and goodwill.
It should be appreciated that despite all of the assistance and encouragement of others, the conclusions reached in this work are not necessarily those of other persons. I gladly stand by what I have written.
Last, I hope and trust that this work will achieve further recognition of the First AIF during the seco
nd half of 1918. Their campaigning constitutes a professional, stirring and victorious chapter in the Australian Story.
Peter Brune
Adelaide
September 2018
Bibliography
AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL, CANBERRA
Official Records
AWM 4: Australian Imperial Force unit war diaries, 1914–18 War
AWM 25: Written records, 1914–18 War
AWM 26: Operations files, 1914–18 War
AWM 38: Official History, 1914–18 War: Records of C E W Bean, Official Historian
Private Records
2DRL/0711, Lieutenant Sydney Robert Traill
2DRL/0928, Captain George Deane Mitchell
3DRL/0749, Private William Rae McLennan
3DRL/2316, Papers of General Sir John Monash
3DRL/3376, Papers of Field Marshal Lord William Riddell Birdwood
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