by Peter Rees
After many hours, trickle him, half dead with dragging his feet at every step out of the putty-like mud, into a shallow, straggling, open ditch . . . nothing but brown, slippery mud on floor and trench sides and over the country in all directions as far as eye can see. At the end of it all, put him to live there, with what baggage he carried on his back and nothing more; put him in various depths of mud, to stay there all day in rain, wind, fog, hail, snowstorm . . . and to watch there during the endless winter nights, when the longed-for dawn only means another day and another night out there in the mud ditch, without a shred of cover. And this is what our men have had to go through.
Bean spent Christmas Eve finishing off a new publication for the troops, The Rising Sun, with the hope of building up morale. Bean, Bazley and Baldwin were in his ‘office’ above the stables at headquarters. It was a big room with a tiled floor, the plaster ceiling hanging in tatters, and an asthmatic stove. This was where Bean and Bazley slept—Bean on a camp bed in one corner and Bazley on overcoats and newspapers in the other corner. Outside, there were sounds of men drinking. As the clock ticked over into Christmas Day, the sound of guns, which had been noticeable all day, became louder.
It is the way we, or the Germans, are welcoming in Christmas on the front. I must say I hate and detest the sheer sacrilege of this. I am not a religious man—I don’t know that I bear any allegiance to the Christian faith. But this day represents the birth of a very precious ideal into the world; and the observance of it is a sign of the attachment of a good part of the human race to the highest idea[l]s yet imported on the earth. We are supposed to be fighting for just those ideals against other idea[l]s which we hold vile.
And yet our shallow brained chiefs have always set themselves to refuse to allow any observance of these amenities. It is wrong, it is not what we profess; it is not right in itself, and therefore good will not come of it.
Bean strongly believed that the men needed a rest that Christmas Day, and that some were so utterly sick of the war that they did not want to fight again. ‘It is as bad as that,’ he wrote. However, the ‘shallow foreheaded British’ had ordered a late-morning strafe against the Germans—just as the generals at GHQ were having their ‘comfortable Xmas festivities.’ Even Birdwood, to Bean’s disgust, supported this and made ‘nice speeches to troops in the rear’ while the Germans were ‘retaliating on our poor chaps up in the front trenches and support trenches on the one day on which they might have hoped for some peace.’ Bean wondered what was ‘the petty mean advantage that the killing of a few Germans on Xmas Day will mean compared to the loss of a chance of refreshing our men, and the certainty of further (and deservedly) embittering them.’ His conclusion showed his state of mind: ‘Very depressed tonight by all these horrors of Xmas.’
As Bean sat in his freezing office that night, he was clearly dejected about the state of the war and its mind-numbing and morale-sapping effect on the Australians. While he had no particular religious affiliation, he was by no means an atheist. If Christianity was the ‘highest ideal’ on earth, and it was for that ideal that the Allies were fighting, then waging war on Christmas Day was, as he said, ‘sheer sacrilege.’
Exactly twelve months earlier, Bean had written his sacramental verse in The Anzac Book, ‘Non Nobis, Domine’, when leaving Gallipoli. It is difficult to read that poem as the work of an unbeliever. Indeed, it is hard to believe, despite the horrific scenes he had witnessed, that Bean would have changed his religious position in just a year.
Bean’s pessimistic mood stayed with him during that Christmas Day when he went up along the duckboards just after the German line had been strafed. It was a cheerless day, with low hurrying clouds and a cold wind. As he went among the men, he couldn’t bring himself to wish them a Merry Christmas. ‘I couldn’t—a “Good Day” as we passed was all that I could get up my throat. The other was too much of a mockery.’
But his spirits began to lift when he heard that despite everything, the men did have a good Christmas, thanks largely to the Australian Comforts Fund delivering presents on Christmas Eve. ‘Each man got something,’ Bean wrote. ‘The light that came over the men’s faces, and the warmth and pleasure that suddenly lit them up, when they got their parcels, made the occasion a treat.’ However momentarily, spirits lifted.
29
Self doubt
Leave was long overdue. He might have spent two weeks enjoying London, but Bean’s sense of duty prevailed. Instead, he gave himself a tight schedule of tracking down photographic stills and film of Pozières. In his diary for January 1917, he outlined a rough draft for a film about a battle that had shocked Australians.
Bean wanted an official film to show Australian audiences, and perhaps the British hierarchy, the extent of the sacrifice. As Australia did not yet have its own cameramen, he arranged to borrow British cinematographers, whose work he supervised. He then devoted most of his leave in London that month to editing the film and writing titles for the scenes, with the help of his colleague Captain Henry Smart. One of his goals was to get ‘the cinema photos of the Australians put together in a record and obtain some specimen scenes from the shelling of Pozières by the Germans.’ He wanted the negatives of the British official photos of Pozières and other Australian scenes transferred to Australia, as ‘our copies cannot be permanent unless we make them ourselves.’
The process involved working with the London production company headed by William Jury, a prominent figure in the British Government’s growing film propaganda apparatus. Bean examined the available British film and put together a film about Pozières. ‘It was our right to have this done and the War Office recognised that right—because they had refused to let us have our own cinematographer,’ Bean wrote. After several days’ continuous work, with Smart’s assistance, the work was completed. Bean left for France with Jury’s assurance that the film would be finished with the titles he had written before being sent to Australia. But it didn’t happen. ‘Jury let us down hopelessly,’ Bean wrote. ‘They slung together odd scraps of film—tags cut off other film and not wanted; put their own senseless titles on them; and sent this preposterous product to Australia!’ Bean saw this as ‘indifference to our needs and claims.’ He was mortified when he saw what had been sent to Australia ‘as our film!’
Bean ran into more problems when he searched for particular still photographs that he had told Ernest Brooks to take at Pozières. One of the images taken was on 28 August 1916 of Australian stretcher bearers bringing in the wounded under a white flag with a German barrage behind them. The photo had immortalised the work of the Australian stretcher bearers. There were two copies, which Bean had not seen since they had been developed and printed. As the photo was not in England Bean inquired at the censor’s office when he returned to France. The response from the staff officer, Captain Lee, riled him. ‘I think it was torn up and the plate broken,’ he told Bean. ‘We haven’t much time here for white flags—to tell the truth.’ Trying to be civil, Bean told him that the photo was a record of what Australian stretcher-bearers did under the enemy’s barrage. But Lee shot back: ‘Yes—and under the white flag!’ Bean was livid that Lee would ‘throw that sneer at Australian stretcher bearers!’ His outrage underlined the degree to which Bean had come to identify with front-line soldiers, his anger stirred by the thought of Lee ‘sitting on his bottom 25 miles away from the nearest shell splinter and eating four damn hearty meals.’
These stupid overfed fat red-tabs, enjoying their cigars in front of the fire until they drowse and their heads drop over their newspapers—they have no use for the system which enables the poor wretch groaning in a shell hole 100 yards out in No man’s land, with the ants eating his lips and eyes and the flies stinging him and the knowledge of death from thirst staring him straight in the face, to be brought in and tended. Of course they haven’t—but I’d willingly sign a warrant to make them change place with the poor wretch out there and get some atom of imagination driven into the dull matter of their
heavy brains.
Bean’s position was simple: If the photo had been destroyed, then ‘Lee has done the Australian people a real injury.’ Bean was in luck—some days later he asked another staff member and was relieved to find that he had kept the photo for him. He was not alone in believing that the Australian troops needed a good rest before going back into battle, but getting the British to understand this was not easy. White, just back from London, told him of a conversation he had had with Keith Murdoch on the issue. He had confirmed to Murdoch that the Australians badly needed rest, and had told a British general that four of the five Australian divisions should indeed be rested, but the officer had fobbed him off. White told Bean: ‘They don’t recognise that our being a nation or having a national feeling counts for anything.’ Bean had no doubt that if the British wanted to make the most of the Australian effort they must treat them as Australians. ‘It is for Australia they make this great effort. They are intensely fervently patriotic . . . They must understand the best in the Australian, if he is a bit rough. I don’t know whether these things will be understood but it is enormously important for the British that they should be understood.’
Bean wrote an article, the aim of which was ‘to make the British treat us as a nation,’ and ‘to make the Australian units a little fairer to the British.’ Noting that White approved of the article, Bean wanted his views to be read not only in Australia but also in Britain. To try to ensure this, he sent the article with an accompanying note to Lord Northcliffe, asking him to help to get it published in The Times.
Bean witnessed the emergence of internal tensions within the AIF leadership that led to changes in command. Headquarters had become a hornets’ nest of petty jealousies, rivalries, clashing egos, intrigue and competing alliances. He thought Birdwood’s handling of the tensions weak, even though he remained fundamentally in Birdwood’s camp—to such an extent that he offered to put a positive spin on what was happening: ‘I told White that at any time, if he or Birdwood liked, I would write and tell Australia straight out that the changes in generals were made for efficiency.’ Such an admission underlines Bean’s closeness to White and Birdwood, and points to his willingness to write from their perspective.
At the same time, Bean was having doubts about just how much notice was being taken of his articles in Australia. With an Imperial War Conference scheduled between 21 March and 27 April 1917, Bean wrote what he regarded as a strong cable encouraging Prime Minister Billy Hughes to attend. But in the aftermath of the bitter conscription debate, Hughes faced an election on 5 May. Bean was disappointed that he would not attend the conference—perhaps more so at his failure to persuade Hughes that he should do so. ‘I suppose I overrate the value of these little cables. I notice that others clearly don’t seem to think they have as much effect as I do. It was the strongest I ever wrote, and put a point of view which I thought would be quite decisive with the Australian people.’
Not long after, a judge who knew Bean from his days in Sydney’s legal world wrote to him complaining about a lack of news in Australia about the AIF. Bean was miffed, and thought it was a ‘very exaggerated statement. I don’t think he means it to hit at me, but it does. I fancy he is right in saying that the Australian papers very often do not print my letters; why I don’t know, except that they now get them for nothing.’
There were, however, exceptions. At Korong Vale in north-western Victoria, fifteen-year-old George Lowery was among Bean’s readers. Just three months out of school and now working at the town’s post office, young George wrote to Bean asking if he would mind sending him ‘a few foreign stamps’ for his collection. He also had some thoughts on the war: ‘I am always wishing that I was 18, so that I could go to the war. Still, if this war is ended soon, there might be another that I could go to when I’m 18. These South American republics are always having a go so I might have a try there. When you come back to Australia, and if you are travelling through Victoria, will you try to come to Korong Vale, so that I can have a yarn with you.’ George was ‘pretty sure that they wouldn’t cry out for volunteers if schoolboys were allowed to go. I reckon we’d make ourselves felt if we did get there, too.’ Trusting that he might hear from the war correspondent, George included with his letter ‘a bit of wattle and a bit of scrub, which might interest you.’ Bean was touched and kept the letter with his diary.
There was another letter which Bean also kept with his diary—one from the mother of a soldier killed at Fromelles, Private Walter Garry, an infantryman from Outtrim, south-east of Melbourne. He was shot in the stomach and died in No Man’s Land. With information scarce in the official notification of his death, his mother wrote to Bean desperately seeking information, and he replied in December 1916. She again wrote to Bean assuring him that his kindness was appreciated:
I’m sure you must have gone to a deal of trouble for me, to find out so much as you did, but when I wrote I knew you would, as the Bulletin always had a good word for you. That is the reason I wrote to you. I knew you would find time to answer a heartbroken mother’s letter. My poor boy! He was so loved by all. We did think he would be lucky in the big game, as he was so lucky all through life, but as he said poor lad on the eve of his departure, ‘if I fall, dear mother, I hope it will be as a man.’
Touched by the letter, Bean made his own inquiries about how twenty-four-year-old Walter died. His mother’s grief brought the war back to a more personal level for Bean, probably reaffirming his responsibility to ordinary Australians. What others were writing, though, was a different matter. Stories based on lies angered him. After reading one such article in Beaverbrook’s Daily Express, about the capture of Bapaume, Bean noted, ‘I wonder why the censor lets it through! He knows it is not true.’
However, for Bean, the censor’s office maintained its obstructionism. Although Herbert Baldwin was Australia’s official photographer, the chief censor, Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Hutton Wilson, objected when he learned that Baldwin was under Bean’s orders. He told White that he ‘trusted this was not the case,’ and that he was under the director of intelligence at GHQ. White immediately replied, and, according to Bean, telling Hutton Wilson ‘just exactly what he thought, without stopping to be discreet.’
Working with Baldwin and Will Dyson was now occupying much of Bean’s time. With a spring offensive planned, all four Australian divisions of I Anzac Corps were now in line as the winter thaw began. The battlefield was still a scene of mud and fog when, on 24 February, news came that German front trenches at the northern end of the old battlefield had been found abandoned—evidently they were retiring towards Cambrai and to the prepared fortifications of the Hindenburg Line, which ran west of the town. Patrols sent into the fog found that the Germans were also retiring on most of 1 Corps’ front. However, they were leaving a thin screen of small posts and patrols. Opposite the corps’ southern flank, and farther south, they held their positions for the time being unchanged. Bean noted that the move would entirely dislocate the impending spring offensive of the Fifth Army, but not of the Third Army, farther north at Arras. ‘But the news had magic effect,’ he wrote. ‘The German Army was withdrawing!’
Sensing a chance to gain the initiative, the troops followed the withdrawal, patrols pushing back the German screen towards Bapaume, where stronger German posts held up the advance. Nonetheless, on the night of 26 February the AIF 3rd Brigade soon gained ground and set up posts just below Bapaume.
Bean, Baldwin and Dyson were on hand for the fighting. Leaving Baldwin to take photos of a barrage, and Dyson to do his sketches, Bean went in search of one of the key trenches, Gird Trench, from which to watch the attack on Le Barque. He was shocked to see the carnage from fighting weeks earlier:
The way over was simply strewn with dead soldiers—Scotsmen, Tommies, and, I believe, Australians—right across Gird Trench and nearly up to the wire of Gird Support [Trench]. I never saw the dead lying so thickly anywhere, even I think at Helles. A signal wire gave me the way to follow, and a hal
f-trodden track in the mud—it was of course one great puddle of shell holes, men lying on the ridges between them, men lying face downwards and head downwards into them, men on their backs, men on their sides, men half buried, many quite in the open.
When he reached the German wire and Gird Support Trench he found its duckboards sunk under the mud. But at least he found a good dugout, from where he was able to watch the barrage on the German forces, just 500 metres away. There was little response from the Germans—they were withdrawing.
Three weeks later, Bean drove through the still smouldering town of Bapaume and pushed on to the village of Beugnâtre, 3 kilometres away. Beugnâtre had just been captured, and Bean was aghast at what he saw:
It was the first time I realised how complete the German demolition had been. He was blowing down every single house as he left the villages. The side walls were blown out of them and the roofs lay flat on the ground. Beugnâtre had been utterly destroyed. He is doing it in order to refuse us billets; and in order, perhaps, to make the French people tired of the war. It is a sight which makes you monstrously angry—this fat-headed, wrong-headed race with its fixed idea that the smallest military need justifies even the greatest civil destruction. If I’m not wrong, though, he’s very mistaken in the French people.