by Peter Rees
The shock of the new, and the stark differences between Australian and Egyptian cultures, were soon apparent as Orvieto prepared to berth at the Egyptian port city of Alexandria on 3 December 1914. From the deck Bean saw an Arab hawker on the quay. Selling newspapers or drinks, he had pushed his way past the sentries, ignoring a policeman’s order to get back. Suddenly, Bean saw the officer go for the trader ‘like a tiger’ with a horsewhip, hitting and kicking him. ‘The men in the Orvieto, who were all watching like a crowded gallery, couldn’t understand this sort of thing at all. They called out to the policeman to stop, and really their temper began to be worked up to a pretty high pitch,’ he wrote. From the window of the train taking the troops to Cairo, Bean was struck by the strangeness; there was a constant stream of people that he thought could have stepped out of the Bible.
This was the Australians’ introduction to a culture utterly alien to them. They reached Cairo that night, the streets alive with ‘dazzling electric lights, big white shop fronts, gardens of palms, clang of trams, and clatter of cabs along the asphalt.’ Bean was reminded of a big French or Italian city. He went into camp with the 1st Australian Division at Mena, under the Pyramids, about 15 kilometres from central Cairo.
Bean saw that the Australians ‘were cheek by jowl with the natives when they landed—as any good democratic Australian would be. I was inclined to be so myself.’ Within a few weeks, though, his tolerance was waning. He was at first unsettled by an officer referring to the locals as ‘vile spawn spewed out of the ground.’ That he thought too strong for any Australian talking about his fellow man. Having wrestled with this in his own mind, however, he concluded that:
These same hawkers and pests in the streets have taken them down so consistently and pestered them so much that they don’t look at things quite the same way . . . It seems almost the only way of dealing with the rabble here. They have no restraint and no morality of any sort; and although they have considerable virtues of their own you are apt to get disaster when people with their morality meet with people of our morality unless the two are kept apart by a hard and fast division.
To help the troops better understand their new environment—there were three times as many Australians as any other foreign group in Cairo—Bean was asked to write a booklet, What to Know in Egypt. Published in early 1915 with the approval of Bridges and senior British military leaders, it pulled no punches, warning, for example, that street traders washed strawberries by putting them into their mouths and licking them. Larger fruits were washed by ‘a far filthier method.’ He saved his strongest language for the locally produced alcohol and the sex trade. Alcoholic drinks sold as cognac, absinthe and the like were liable to be ‘native imitations’ made from doubtful raw spirit and coloured. ‘They may contain any percentage of alcohol and be practically pure poison; and in some cases the colour is obtained in ways too disgusting to be described. Some inhabitants have no conscience whatever in this matter—their only object is to sell.’
The sex trade in Cairo alarmed Bean. There was good reason to worry, for in the crowded lanes and the tangle of alleys of the brothel quarter behind the Esbekiah Gardens in the areas known as the Sharia Wagh al Burka and the Derb el Wasa—known to the Australians as the Wassir or Wozzer—were more than 30,000 unlicensed, and about 3000 licensed, prostitutes. Bean warned that men should be careful to avoid ‘attempts at familiarity with native women.’ If the women were respectable, fraternisation would get them into trouble; if not, venereal disease was a likely outcome. Syphilis had been rampant in Egypt since Roman times, and modern Cairo, with its mix of women from a variety of countries and cultures, had long been a hotbed of it. Bean counselled that ‘If a man will not steer altogether clear of the risk by exercising a little restraint, his only sane course is to provide himself with certain prophylactics beforehand to lessen the chance of disastrous result.’
The booklet revealed as much about Bean as it did about Egypt and would have done little to endear the country to the Australian troops or soften their prejudices towards the ‘Gyppos’. Neither a womaniser nor an immoderate drinker himself, Bean saw in Cairo many affronts to his moral code. But in Cairo on the eve of war his cautionary advice was hardly likely to be taken. Soldiers were out for a good time in an exciting and strange city. ‘About Christmas time,’ Bean wrote, ‘our men certainly began to play up a bit. We were inexperienced and had not yet realised the system necessary to stop it; and I think the police system has been a bit inefficient from the first. The same old wasters would break camp every night and as they were therefore the men Cairo saw most of we began to get a bad name in Cairo.’
The rowdiness caught the eye of the British military hierarchy at their headquarters at the plush Shepheard’s Hotel, not least General William Birdwood, who had recently arrived to take command of the Australians and New Zealanders. Small, pugnacious and practical, he was aptly known as ‘Birdie’. While prone to a degree of self-promotion, he was also likeable. He was yet to understand the Australians and now wrote to Bridges complaining about the rowdiness. Bridges showed the letter to Bean, who had no doubt about why he was being extended this confidence. ‘From what he said I take it that he would not take it amiss if I sent a letter and a wire to give people in Australia some idea of how things are; we shall be probably getting rid of a few of these old hard heads—sending them back to Australia. And it is just as well Australians should have an idea of why some of them are returning or else they will probably treat them all (on their own representation) as heroes.’
With Christmas over, and having taught Arthur Bazley how to develop films, Bean sat down four days later and wrote an article that The Sydney Morning Herald and other Australian newspapers would publish three weeks later. The Herald headlined Bean’s story:
AUSTRALIA’S FAIR FAME WASTERS IN THE FORCE. SOME NOT FIT TO BE SOLDIERS.
It would be a deceit upon the people of Australia if it were reported to them that Christmas and the approaching New Year have found the Australian Imperial Force without a cloud in the sky.
. . . The last week has been one of some anxiety to those who have the good name of Australia at heart. Cairo is one of the great pleasure resorts of the world, and a place where the soldiers in any neighbouring camp can always have a reasonably enjoyable time during their hours of leave, provided they exercise the same amount of restraint as the ordinary tourist; but certain scenes have occurred and have become more common during the past few days which go a good way beyond that, and which are already affecting the reputation of Australia in the outside world . . . The truth is that there are a certain number of men among those who were accepted for service abroad who are not fit to be sent abroad to represent Australia . . . in recruiting an army, just as in picking a cricket or football team to represent Australia, the inclusion of a man who has not got the necessary moral qualities, however splendid his physical qualifications may be, is apt to do more harm than good.
Bean’s focus was on the ‘one or two per cent’ who he believed were responsible for what Cairo was beginning to talk about:
There is in the Australian ranks a proportion of men who are uncontrolled, slovenly, and in some cases what few Australians can be accused of being—dirty . . . they are really doing a very much more serious thing than losing other soldiers their leave—they are losing Australia her good name in the outside world, and those Australians who happen to be living in Cairo or in touch with the world outside the camps have the mortification of looking on while day by day the reputation of Australia slowly vanishes before the actions of a handful of rowdies who do not really represent the country.
Two days later, on New Year’s Day, Bean noted in his diary that between 200 and 300 Australians were absent without leave in Cairo, their whereabouts unknown. During this period he clearly saw enough to convince himself that the article was correct. ‘There was a great deal of drunkenness and I could not help noticing that what people in Cairo said was true—the Australians were responsible for
most of it.’
In commenting on the level of venereal disease among the Australians, he was at pains to point out that this was brought on by their indulgences in Cairo. Some of the cases were ‘simply tragic; young soldiers, really fine clean simple boys who have been drinking and have found themselves with a disease which may ruin them for life.’ He heard that all leave was to be stopped. As a result, ‘any man found in Cairo will be a man breaking camp.’ Some men had been AWOL for days or even weeks, such was the lack of discipline. This was predictable enough in a fledgling army, yet to see a front line, where the officers had failed to impose sufficient discipline in an environment full of temptation.
Bean ventured into dangerous territory on the issue of using firing squads to set an example. ‘We have been so comparatively lenient (rightly I suppose) up to the present that it would be impossible to shoot these chaps—in fact it wouldn’t be just, except in cases of most serious crime (of which I don’t personally and definitely know of any). But they recently shot 3 Indians for trying to get away from the Canal on a pilgrimage to Mecca. This was to stop a ‘‘rot’’ from setting in, as we say in cricket.’ Bean kept these thoughts to his diary rather than putting them in print. He would have known that ever since the execution of Lieutenants Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant and Peter Hancock by the British during the Boer War emotions had run strong on the matter among Australians. Never again would the Australian Government place troops under total foreign command, so executions of Australians by the British military could not happen in this war.
A few weeks later, though, Bean returned to the subject again when a ‘respectable decent’ moneychanger was beaten and robbed of £130 by four masked men armed with knuckledusters. The victim claimed they were Australians and had escaped through the stables at Mena House, the AIF Divisional Headquarters. However, the evidence was slender. When he heard of the incident, Bean noted there were many men ‘of the larrikin class’ still in the camp, and no doubt some of these were professional criminals. ‘They ought to be shot if they are found but it will be desperately hard to find them,’ he wrote. ‘Those are the sort of blackguards that bring discredit on the whole of our force.’
In Sydney, The Sunday Times—which was not taking Bean’s articles—picked up on the rowdiness story after it was published in the morning newspapers. Its version was published under the heading: THE GOOD NAME OF AUSTRALIA. CAPTAIN BEAN SAYS IT IS ENDANGERED BY A FEW NE’ER-DO-WELLS. The story said that Bean’s allegations were ‘serious and weighty’ and could not be lightly passed over:
Bean definitely states that some of the men have been drinking and disgracing themselves in Cairo. Indeed, he goes even further, and says ‘there are in the ranks a proportion of men who are uncontrolled, slovenly, and in some cases dirty.’
This is severe comment upon the efficiency of the officers. He reports that ‘one of the most distinguished men in the British army’ said to him, ‘They are as fine a body of men physically as I have ever seen, but do all Australians drink so much?’
The story continued that notwithstanding the crimes said to have been committed by the rowdy Australians, Bean’s account did not record any punishments beyond the mention that some of the worst offenders would be sent home—‘like boys expelled from school.’ To The Sunday Times, it was the AIF’s officers who were at fault for the fiasco. When Bean had written that ‘a proportion of the men are uncontrolled,’ those words could only mean ‘that the officers are not enforcing discipline and controlling them.’
A very different reaction came from Australians who had served in the Boer War. The South African Soldiers’ Association said Bean’s ‘pernicious and unwarranted’ allegations were emphatically resented and denied. News of the article quickly found its way back to Egypt. A gunner in the AIF’s 2nd Field Artillery Brigade, Sergeant Frank Westbrook, took aim at Bean with savage wit in a poem, ‘To Our Critic’, calling on him to ‘cease yer wowseristic whining’:
Ain’t yer got no blanky savvy,
Have yer got no better use,
Than to fling back home yer inky
Products of yer pen’s abuse?
Do yer think we’ve all gone dippy,
Since we landed over here?
Is a soldier less a soldier
’Cause he sucks a pint of beer?
Have yer got no loving mother
Waiting for yer over ’ome?
Do yer own no smiling sister
Over there across the foam?
Do yer thinks they likes yer better
For yer tales of drink and shame?
Do yer think they’ll praise yer action
In defamin’ our fair name?
One swallow makes no summer,
Three shickers not a force;
Where a few makes it a welter,
You condemns the lot, of course.
Do yer think yer Gawd Almighty.
’Cos yer wears a captain’s stars?
Thinks us blokes is dirt beneath yer,
Men of low degrees and bars?
Bean soon realised that the article was causing resentment among the troops, but he couldn’t understand the fuss, as he believed there was nothing in it that anyone could object to. Certainly there were no objections among the officer class that Bean checked with. They agreed with him—as they would, given that he was not criticising them but rather the men. However, he realised that among the men it was different. The great majority were ‘inclined to be quite bitter about it and I am clearly in for a rocky time.’ He concluded that wives and families in Australia had misunderstood the article, possibly as a result of The Sunday Times article.
He sent a cable to the morning papers claiming his original story had been so twisted and misquoted by a certain newspaper or newspapers as to appear to be an attack on the Australian troops in Egypt. This had been the exact opposite of his intention, he said, adding: ‘The newspaper article alluded to also contains sweeping criticisms on the whole of the officers, who were never mentioned in my article, and the criticisms are quite unjustified.’ Nonetheless, if the officers had been doing their duty the rowdy behaviour would not have got out of hand.
Bean became aware of the Westbrook poem, which he acknowledged was ‘rather a good one’ that had sold 2000 copies. Years later, a copy of the poem would be handed to the Mitchell Library in Sydney, the owner having written on the back: ‘In answer to Capt Bean’s attack on the Australian troops now in Egypt. I believe Capt Bean has written articles in the Sydney papers detrimental to our character.’
Bean conceded that the article was exceedingly unpopular. ‘Today I got things shouted at me sometimes when I went through the camp,’ he wrote, clearly unsettled at claims he had labelled them ‘a set of bally wasters.’ He also had to justify what he wrote to Lieutenant-Colonel Les Maygar, who had been awarded a VC in the Boer War and was commander of the 8th Light Horse Regiment. He began to have doubts about the wisdom of writing the article. ‘I don’t know that I’d have written it if I had thought any Australian people would have twisted it into scares about their absent soldiers and that wives and relations would so hopelessly misunderstand what was so clearly written.’ But he reassured himself that his job was to tell Australians the truth:
My job is to see that at any rate the blame is put on the right people and that the innocent don’t get a bad name for what they didn’t do. When things go right I have to try and see that the Australian people know the right people to get the credit. If they want someone to feed them on soft pap, only to tell them good and pleasant things whatever happens, then I am not the man for the job. I am not going to shift any part of the responsibility for this article on to other shoulders.
He considered quitting the 1st Division and becoming attached to the New Zealand and Australian Division. But he quickly dismissed this as running away. Maygar invited Bean to speak to the South African veterans now in the Light Horse at a social, guaranteeing that they would give him a fair hearing. Bean agreed, believing it w
as a method that ‘never fails with Australians, to go and face them.’ The meeting was set for the night of 10 March, but when Bridges heard about it alarm bells rang. As a result, Maygar advised Bean not to attend. Bean was relieved. He was lucky, for he heard later that artillerymen planned to waylay him on his way to the meeting ‘and lay me out.’ They believed it was ‘up to us to see that bloke doesn’t get there.’ He also had warnings not to walk too close to the Nile.
Bean told no one except his brother Jack, the 3rd Battalion’s medical officer, that Bridges had asked him to write the article. ‘The General asked me to write something to prepare the people of Australia for the return of the men who had been disgracing their country in Cairo and bring a bad name on the whole force. They are mostly old soldiers, many of them not born in Australia at all,’ he wrote. Yet Bean had agreed that something needed to be written and that it had done some good. He took responsibility for the article, for it was better that he should be unpopular rather than Bridges.
Bean had learned an important and chastening lesson: however much he esteemed Bridges and Brudenell White and other officers, it was equally important to keep the men they commanded on side. In this he had failed—temporarily at least.
Bean probably felt some vindication when, on 3 February 1915, 132 men were sent back to Australia on board the troopship Kyarra. Accompanying these drunkards and shirkers, as Bean called them, were 169 invalids, among them the worst of the gonorrhoea cases. Reluctantly, he concluded that the AIF contained ‘more bad hats than the others’ and had come to the view that ‘the average Australian lived hard.’
I think the Australian will have to rely on the good things he does to wipe out the bad ones; and I think the sum will come out on the right side when it is all totted up. That is my great comfort when I wonder how I shall ever manage to write up an honest history of this campaign. I fully expect the men of this force will do things when the real day comes which will make the true history of this war possible to be written.