Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/113/1 - May - June 1918 - Part 1

AWM38

Official History,

1914-18 War: Records of C E W Bean,

Official Historian.
 

Diaries and Notebooks
 

Item Number: 3DRL606/113/1
 

Title: Diary, May - June 1918

Includes references to the 17th, 18th and 35th 
Battalions, Sir Brudenell White, Sir Keith 
Murdoch, Lord Birdwood and the command of 
the AIF.

AWM38-3DRL606/113/1

Catalogue of Photos              Carotine : 78 cases

1.  Meeting of artists              Boulogne: 83    "
2. Harley                                        Ailly:         14 cases
3. When does DAG move?                          13     "
4. Wheeler                                       Urgent.  15 to go

Original     Diary No 113

AWM38         3DRL 606  Item 113 [1]

DIARIES AND NOTES OF C.E.W. BEAN
CONCERNING THE WAR OF 1914 - 1918

THE use of these diaries and notes is subject to conditions laid down in the terms
of gift to the Australian War Memorial. But apart from these terms, I wish the
following circumstances and considerations to be brought to the notice of every
reader and writer who may use them.
These writings represent only what at the moment of making them I believed to be
true. The diaries were jotted down almost daily with the object of recording what
was then in the writer's mind. Often he wrote them when very tired and half-asleep;
also, not infrequently what he believed to be true was not so - but it does not
follow that he always discovered this, or remembered to correct the mistakes when
discovered. Indeed, he could not always remember that he had written them.

These records should therefore, be used with great caution, as relating only what
their author, at the time of writing believed. Further, he cannot, of course vouch
for the accuracy of statements made to him by others and here recorded. But he
did try to ensure such accuracy by consulting, as far as possible, those who had
seen or otherwise taken part in the events. The constant falsity of second-hand
evidence (on which a large proportion of war stories are founded) was impressed
upon him by the second or third day of the Gallipoli campaign, notwithstanding that
those who passed on such stories usually themselves believed them to be true. All
second-hand evidence herein should be read with this in mind.
16 Sep., 1946.                   C.E.W. BEAN

AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL
ACCESS STATUS
OPEN

1 Box

Box car for Gullett - When?

47 Battalion collection - can it be put together.

{ Opening of cases - don't clean 
{ everything

Is Gallagher still in the Section}

Parachute of German Flare 

104

113     
1

May 30 Thursday.  General Birdwood ws to have left 
/ Corp today.  I wrote out a message for Australian 
papers yesterday giving an estimate o / chief value of his 
work in / AIF.  It seemed to me to lie in his 
uprightness & the high ideal wh he always set before 
himself & / men of the Corps - Birdie, if he was 
convinced tt a thing ws right, did it - nothing wd
bend him from it.  And it is an incalculable
advantage to have had as a G.O.C.  A.I.F a man 
whose administration ws absolutely fair -

104     2

no one ever, in the greatest fit of exaggeration, 
accused Birdwood of crookedness or unfairness. 
However, White has been so illuminating in 
his estimates of various peoples characters -
Bridges, Gellibrand, Smythe, Legge, Gibbs and others -
that I passed Bertangles, on my way to / censor,
& finding him just going out (with an Australian 
hat under his arm, for / first time) - he generally
wears a sort of Homburg of a shape all his
own whenever who do on / rare occasions when he wears anything
except a cap, I asked him if he wd give me his

104     3

estimate of Gen. Birdwood - what were the 
leading qualities wh had given him his great 
value for Australia.

He made me sit down - sat down at his
table opposite - thought for about ten seconds &
then said : I wonder if they are the same things
that you have thought of -

I said I would tell him afterwds.

"Well, his most remarkable valuable quality I owe as I 
wh made him so successful as a leader of  see it," 

104     4

sd White, "was his wonderful compatibility
w / democratic idea.  General Birdie is a
very human man, & from / very first he
treated the Australians as human men.  He - 
a British Staff Officer - from / he first never allow
was bound by any of the rigid rules of discipline -
from / first he went among  / men as a man. 
He seemed to have a natural grasp of their
form of discipline - & that is a very 
remarkable thing in a British army

104     5

officer.  Some o / very best British officers 
have not been able to do it - indeed the 
very best were incapable of it."  I think

I sd I often wondered if Gen. Birdwood had
been given the tip by any one when first he
came. . . 

"Not so far as I know," sd White.  "I think
it ws his human quality..."

"Then of course there was his courage.  He
is a man of ^undoubtedly great personal bravery, & tt

104    6

won him / admiration of our men...

"Especially when they saw a lot of him on
/ Peninsula,"  I sd.

"Well, then Gen. Birdwood has a remakably 
at times a remarkable sound judgment," sd 
White.

"Has he?" I asked.  "I thought tt it ws 
not a strong point of his.  His sense of proportion 
seemed to me often very defective."

"I should not perhaps have sd judgment,"

104
7

sd White - "I meant instinct more what you might call 
instinct.  I mean tt when I have been puzzling
over some very difficult and baffling problem &
have been ^searching a long time without finding the right
answer to it - & go to him at last w / alternatives,
also he often says, when I read him / conclusion
to which I also have come - "Do that White",
Thats the course I will adopt He seems to hit 
upon it instinctively, without giving any
many detailed thought to it as Bridges wd have

104    8

done.  Bridges wd have gone labor w / utmost
care and thought into / whole question - Birdie doesn't
do tt, but he seems to come right curiously often by
some instinct.  It is not sense of proportion - no -
his sense of proportion is not good - indeed -
I am talking very confidentially to you, Bean -
it is ^often very bad - I remember at Anzac during
 / last days of the evacuation Gen. Birdwood
came ashore, & spoke to me of the one thing he