Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/96/1 - January 1918 - Part 1

AWM38
Official History,
1914-18 War: Records of C E W Bean,
Official Historian.

Diaries and Notebooks

Item number: 3DRL606/96/1

Title: Diary, january 1918
Includes references to Flers attack and Bean's
visit to AIF camps in Britain.
 

AWM38-3DRL606/96/1
 

Original    DIARY No.96
AWM38   3DRL   606    ITEM [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
 

Holland Park  . 1.45 2.15.
                 Stn.
Capt. Nisbet.
for Hammersmith 20.

E4
DIARY
Jan 19
96
Jan 12. Took a morning train
down to Belford via Salisbury. The
platforms at Waterloo are now at
all times more or less full of
soldiers & sailors - and
certain trains for Salisbury
& the big camps around it
are always fairly well filled
with Australians & N. Zealanders.
I dont know if it was
my fancy. But the fields
on the way down seemed to
be very empty of any sort
of stock. One saw a few cattle
twice (during the times when I
was looking out o / window). But
nearly all these little pocket
handkerchief fields were empty.
Only grass grew there; there ws
 

2
no sown crop; & the beasts were
gone.
Salisbury Plain is quite
like / front with aeroplanes always
up, 2 sausage balloons, ^occasional muddy waggon
tracks across waste ground, &
the periodical thump - thump
of some bomb school.
Jock tells me he has been
forbidden ^by / Colonel to go into the prison
(which he used to visit in order
to talk to / men) as the officer
there thinks it unsettles them. He
says that as a matter of fact
he used to put to / men / case of authority
quite as much as listen to
them - he used to stop a recital
of grievances if he could - & he
thinks even from / point of view
of authority he did more to help
than hinder.
 

3
Jan 13th. I find that old
Jack, true to his quixotic
self, xx is voluntarily dieting himself on
what is called the "lower
scale of rations - for persons
having a sedentary occupation."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx He is also
a vegetarian, & so he is
unable to eat that part of
the lower scale which consists
of meat. He could get
a substitute for this in cheese
- that is allowable; but, as
he explained, "it's a little
difficult, you know, in a
mess - you see if I took an
 

4
extra portion of cheese
it wd probably mean that
the others had to go short,"
so he does without it.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This,
I can see, barely gives 
him enough to keep up
his activities - his life
with football & other games
(in which he , alone, of all
xxxx the officers, joined
with the men - playing
hard & playing regularly)
was anything but sedentary.
So, in order to be really
sedentary, he ^has given the football
up except the Saturday
matches.
 

5
I can see that these
men simply love him - "I've
long ago given up minding
whether I seem to make a
fool of myself," he sd to
me once. The officers like him
but they think him a bit
xxxxx eccentric, I think. He
lives wholly for the men - writing
xx letters to get this one &
that one looked after, when
they leave; organising games,
debates, concerts, ^library - anything
to give them their self respect.
An ex - hussar officer, by
name Purves, who is down
there for the Church Army,
is his chief backer - he simply
 

6
gives his life up to / men
also. Some of them are
splendid men - both Jack &
Purves say; & I fancy that
Jack & Purves have a good deal
to do with the preserving
of these - the place wd
degenerate into a mean
form of prison otherwise.
xxx Jack is not xxxx credited
by Howse with administrative
ability - indeed Howse is
utterly opposed to his ideas
& methods. Howse is for
distrusting men & taking the
most cynical view of them.
The result is tt Jack is
passed over in promotion.
The old chap said to me as we
 

7
walked up / rly line in /
snow, wh had fallen deep -
"I sometimes xxx think a bit that when
one sees the youngsters xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, who
entered quite late xxxx long
after I did, being promoted
to colonels - I sometimes
wonder why it is - But
after all, that's a very very
small matter," he sd shaking
his head & xxxx bracing up - "that's
nothing - the only thing is if
you are being used in the
way in which they can use
you best. And I am sure
xxxxx this is my best
use."
Jack intends to devote
 

8
himself to the alleviation
or the prevention of these
diseases in Australia -
by methods, if possible, which
will prevent their being
incurred ^or spread - not by any
medical or xxx other preventitive
but by giving the youth of the
country such an xxx capacity of
self restraint and such an idea
of duty & xxx a reverence 
of women that they will
not incur them, or will
take care to get themselves decently
cured if they do. That
is J's lifes work. He is a
thoroughgoing theosophist, &
it is no use - & wd not
be right, either - to try &
dissuade him. He believes