Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/86/1 - August 1917 - Part 7

8
67
saved them; the fourth in 
the yard o / gendarmerie
- but everyone being in /
cellars they hurt no one.
The burst is very low:, not
(diagram)
as in
the 
old bombs & shells:
(diagram)
Aug. 19. Gullett went to 3rd
Bde & began 2nd Bde.
Another plane, several
of them, over tonight.
The Germans are taking
up our methods of
aeroplane fighting & 
I suppose we must
expect this sort of thing
to / end o / war.
 

8
68
The last three nights have 
bn clear but without
any moon - the newest
of new moon at any rate.
I have moved from my
bakery into the new HQrs
camp just outside / town. 

There is some talk of moving
our HQrs to Ba La Motte.
But La the 1st Anzac Staff
laughed at 2nd Anzac for
moving from Bailleul &
that is a reason, I am sure,
why Birdie doesn’t like
to shift, so’ it is hard on
the clerks who are right up
by / station.
Birdie really rather values
any opportunity of living under
fire like his men - he is
more actually impervious to any
 

69
Ring up about historical [shorthand]

What Haig sd ab [[Deer?]]p

[shorthand]

Campbell Co & bomb. Haig —- from Caruthers.
28 [shorthand] 29 [shorthand] Murd.
27 [shorthand]
28 Murdoch on 
Liaison
W.O. & Aust.
Gl. B asked Haig abt
4U. H sd if P [shorthand]

P. sd [shorthand]

B [shorthand]

[shorthand]
Rob. [shorthand]

Aeropl.
21  Our Squ in Fr.
Crisp. - MacGregor.
22 Aeropl. In Searchlight Brit Inv.
Copse
flicks
Stay in place
[*Ital
& Fr. Offensive
in papers
- Salonica*]

Butler back.
Aeropl. warfare
40 to 50 w in [shorthand]

What the Germans used to
do on Somme. Cellar life.
23. Up w Hurley & Wilkins
to Hill 60. The [shorthand] Rain [shorthand]
[*Aust. on
Summit*]
Ambce. No aeroplanes
24.  The R.F.C.- Gullet on my history
[shorthand] exaltation.  King.
25. Arthur on Arnold. Murray.
& [shorthand] 
[*Turk [shorthand]

Campbell
re CO*]

White & the Inquiry - 2 corps front - gossip.
Turk [shorthand]

[* B.S. 
Game
[shorthnd]*]

Austr Rain. Took [shorthand]

More Rain. [shorthand] All day
drawing up scheme for trench. Got
it thro w old Griffiths [shorthand]

8
70
fear of shells than ^almost any
officer I know. Other ^staff offers
have taken a good deal to 
walks lately. I don’t like Hazebrouck
any more than any o / rest.

Aug 20 Am lunching at [[Fruges?]]
after spending half the morning
with Charteris at Advanced G.H.Q.
You cannot help liking Charteris
altho he will bluff bluff bluff
you to the end. Not quite to the end.
You think tt he is in earnest,
tt he cannot really see the point,
that he is stupid, dim or has 
some very weighty reason
behind, wh you do not know;
& then just when you are
reconciling yourself to it as the
invincible woodenheadedness o /

British Army, he unexpectedly …
gives halfway - if not / whole way.

8
71
and finishes kindly, & more
than half converted to the
point you have been arguing.
I tackled him first on
photographs. I told h asked him
if the question of my taking them
cd not be reopened. I told him
tt since I had seen him we
had bn thro’ Pozieres, Bapaume,
Bullecourt & Messiness, & tt /
amount we had missed & they  
had missed, the sights & scenes &
places tt had gone for ever unrecorded
wh might so simply have bn
recorded, made me implore him
to let this rule be widened.
He started quite half angrily
”You say we have no record but
you don’t know / record we
have”, he sd. “As a military
student with 25 years study of 

8
72
military history I tell you
tt we have all tt we want 
to have; we have / photographed
panorama taken from our
front line - & as a military
student I tell you tt it is
all I desire to have; tt helps
me far more than any photograph 
tt you cd take.”
I pointed out tt these
photos only covered a very
little of what / historian
wants - he wants / famous
trenches in wh fighting had
taken place - views of Mouquet
Farm from this point & of this 
point from Mouquet Farm & so forth;
all the xxx famous places mentioned;
taken just as they were before
they altered.
He changed his ground 
at once.  “These photos” - he sd
 

8
73
pointing to one  of his
panoramas, “help us to win /
war, & tt is all I want to do - 
Nothing matters except that. “
“Of course if you really take
that point of view, there is nothing
I know tt I can usefully say.” I
answered … But  xx he went on
to argue that his photos were
enough. “You know, no history
tt you can write can be of any
importance except purely locally”,
he said. “That cannot  be written

from here - the real history will
be written by somebody right
away from / war, such as ^ where Fortescue
is. Your history cannot have /
same value as the sort of history
he will write.”
I told him tt, on / contrary,
as far as Australia ws concerned
my history wd be all important.
 

8
74
”It can only be a record of
a number of incidents & events,”
he said. I replied tt altho I
realised / difficulty I intended
to try & so study / events  as
to correlate them just as much
as any historian would. I quite
realised tt it ws difficult to write
a war from / middle of it. And
if I quite realised tt I might
never finish this war. But
I hoped I would; & if I did,
I intended felt I ws in a positn
in which scarcely any historian or
a war had ever been - tt of a 
man who will write about a
war which he has seen all
through, ^ in which he has bn in every 
important trench, & seen about
every important event. The
illustrations & incidents  wd
be true in detail - & it ws  

8
75
for my country not myself
tt I wanted  these photographs.
Could not their definition of
the person authorised to take
photos be extended to ^the Official
Historian.

He sd no. Because, if so, the
Official historian & / Medical Services
wd want to take photos, & / 
Official historian o / other branches.
That was his final refusal, B
White sd immediately when

I told him: “And what harm
if they did?”
However Charteris sd he
wd support me in getting
authority for a second official
photographer, to do record
work; to follow me about on
my journeys, with the camera
always there. “At any rate,
See if you cannot manage
 

8
76
it that way,” he sd 
finally - with the unexpected
breakdown in wh all 
arguments w him always
seem to end.
He also immediately gave
me leave to mention all
units up to Bullecourt.
I couldn’t help wondering if
the Letter to Lloyd George might
not have done something; or
perhaps it is / arrival o / 
Americans, & their freedom.
I went on & saw Holland
^at Rollancourt as to the system of record
photos. They [[Farnthorpe?]] & he have put up to 
Charteris a scheme for keeping 
record photos for the British, based
on my letter to them. So that
ws probly what annoyed him at
first - Afterwds to GHQ

- Then Hotel de France, Boulogne.
 

77
8
Aug 21. Went down to meet the
first boat - or rather the two boats.
(hand drawn diagram)
[shorthand]

The procession from England.


[shorthand] 8 [shorthand] collision
Our Shells
6/8/17. 300 [shorthand] NE Ypres  [shorthand]

8/8/   200 [shorthand]

200    “      “     “
9    2000  [shorthand]

3000  [shorthand]

10  300  [shorthand]

3000  [shorthand]

11  20 to 2000  [shorthand] Lt. Wells trench
3000 [shorthand]
crashed

[*See book 87/52*]
13.  2500  [shorthand]

14  3000 [shorthand] Rich [[?]]

4000   3 [shorthand]

15. 3000 [shorthand]

16. 500 - 3000 [shorthand]

3000  [shorthand]

[* ? 

Speciality*]
 

78

Fm
8  Documents of
“C” Form   Army Form C. 2123
I(In books of 100.)

MESSAGES AND SIGNALS.   No. Of Message …..
Prefix [[Smy?]]  Code [[Stys?]]. Words  53

Charges to collect. £   s.  d.  
Received  from Buk
By C [[Brayout?]]

Sent, or sent out
At ………..m
To …………..
By …………..
AUO21NOV 17.-TELEGRAPHS

Service Instructions. EaR. 126/29
Handed in at ……… Office. 8.27 pm. Received 8.54pm
To 1st Anzac Corps
*Sender’s number G709  
Day of month 21
In reply to Number /  
A A A

Aug. 1917.
I want to tell you
of the excellent work done
by the Australian Artillery with
the fifth Army in the 
recent fighting aaa They have
had a most strenuous time
and have earned the admiration
and praise of all aaa
Please thank them for me
FROM Fifth Army   DUPLICATE

PLACE & TIME

*This line should be erased if not required.
(B 8188) Wt. w. 7496 - M857  250,000 pads.. 1/17 H&S (E489.)  Forms/C2123/3

[[XXX?]]

[[XXX?]] white Bk  27th
A.I.G
173 T. Coy RE
S.S. Medal
Artillery
[shorthand] to own [shorthand]

[[Holmers?]]

7 Cummins
Anzac Coves
Pierrot in Dion
Trois Arbres