Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/253/1 - 1918 - 1939 - Part 9

6.
flying & band playing & were received by the
Flemish and Walloon citizens in an enthusiastic
manner. How well these people treated us!
I was billetted with M. Robilliard - the
accountant of a large iron works - & became
one of the family at once. The kindness of
Monsieur & Madame was overwhelming

In the infantry all ranks below, say, a
brigade commander are simply automatons
Battalion commanders have perhaps a little
latitude when stunts are on, but the
rest are simply puppets who dance when
the strings are pulled. Speaking generally
the individual is completely isolated
within his battalion. He hardly knows
what the next battalion is doing, but
plods through existence in a self-contained
community of about a thousand men.
Off duty he seldom fraternizes with men of
other units, though ready at all times to
meet them in sporting contests. Of course,
all this builds up esprit de corps. & the
doctrine of "my battalion, right or wrong."
This spirit of devotion to the unit is really a

7.
marvellous thing, & permeates all ranks.
Few men who have been on active service
with a battalion fail to develop an
intense regard for the unit. The honour
of the battalion becomes a personal matter,
& the sentiment persists until the old
soldier "digs in" for the last time.
Service in the ranks is practically
a period of arrested mental development.
The occasions when a man is allowed to
think for himself are few and far between.
He is governed by rule & regulation every
moment of his existence. This is
probably quite necessary to ensure
that the war machine will work, but
it puts iron into the soul many a
time and oft.

CAPTAIN LONGMORE'S MESSAGES TO 44TH BATTALION
8 August 1918.
6 a.m. The advance is continuing but in disconnected parties who have
lost touch owing to the fog and smoke. All units are well
mixed. I have at present party of about 100 advancing in Q18c.
Some parties are ahead of me and some on left flank. No touch
on right. No shellfire and no opposition. Nothing to stop
4th Div. coming through except possibility of losing themselves.
The fog and smoke are awful.
7 a.m. Have reached my objective, Kate and Thin ? Wood, with a mixed
crowd. Am reorganising and digging in. One of our guns firing
between Kate and Thin Woods, firing very short (4 or 5 inch gun).
Fritz plane flew over very low two minutes ago. In touch with
35th on right, and C & D on left. I will send xxx full
particulars of line as soon as possible. Everything O.K. for
4th Div. to hop through.
8.20 a.m. 4th Div. and tanks passed through me at Green Line at
8.20 a.m. Everything now O.K. Casualties 1 killed 1 wounded
7 missing.

Reveille
Aug 1935

AUGUST 8 BATTLE
Impressions of a 14th Bn Soldier
Newspaper article. See original

673.
decay and mutilation, and I would, after, struggling free from
the earth, pick up a body by me to lift him out with me, and
find him a decayed corpse. I pulled a head off, was covered
with blood. The horror was indescribable. In the dim misty

light of dawn I collected about 50 men and sent them off, mad
with terror, on the right track for home. Then two brave
fellows stayed behind and helped me with the only uburied
wounded man we could find. The journey down with him was
awful. He was delirious - I tied one of his legs to his pack
with one of my puttees. On the way down I found another man
and made him stay and help us. It was so terribly slow.
[* Start -
8 - point
1¾ - *] We got down to the first dressing station. There I met
another of our men who was certain that his cobber was lying
wounded in that barrage of fire. I would have given my
immortal soul to get out of it but I simply had to go back
with him and a stretcher-bearer. We spent two hours in that
devastated village searching for wounded - but all were dead.
The sights I saw during that search, and the smell, can, I
know, never be exceeded by anything else the war may show me.
I went up again the next night and stayed up there. We
were shelled to hell ceaselessly. X went mad and disappeared..
The experiences to which the infantry indeed were at this stage were subjected to such
experiences as ripped away in a few moments all those protective
conventions behind which civilised men shelter their true souls
even from the milder breezes of life, and left them facing the
storm supported only by the naked framework of their character.
The strain eventually became so great that what is rightly
known as courage - the will to persist - would not suffice,
since, however keen his will, the machinery of a man's
self-control might become deranged. The same officer wrote:
I have had luck and kept my nerve so far. The awful
difficulty is to keep it. The bravest of all often lose it -
courage does not count here. It is all nerve - once that goes
one becomes a gibbering maniac. The noise of our own guns, the 
enemy's shells, and the getting lost in the darkness . . .  .
Only the men you would have trusted and believed in before
proved equal to it. One or two of my friends stood splendidly,
like granite rocks round which the seas stormed in vain. They
were all junior officers; but many other fine men broke to
pieces. Every one called it shell shock, but shell shock is
very rare. What 90 per cent get is justifiable funk, due to
the collapse of the helm - of self-control.
The shelling at Pozières did not merely probe character and 
nerve; it laid them stark naked as no other experience of the
A.I.F. ever did. In a single tour of this battle, divisions
were subjected to greater stress than in the whole Gallipoli
campaign. The shell-fire was infinitely worse than that subsequently
experienced in the Third Battle of Ypres, but with one
mitigating circumstance: it was only the infantry and their
associated front-line units who suffered severely. The bombard-

[* Corrections
Noted Vol 3
& [[HN]]
Vol VI *]
Point Lonsdale
Victoria
5^th June 1929
Dear Mr Bazley
I am in receipt of your letter
of the 25^th ultimo in reference to Dean
Dodemaide & Harvey & I am obliged for
your information.
In reference to Dodemaide
my ∧ casualty list from the department set out his
death on I think 8^th August 16. As I knew
he had been recommended for a decoration
for his services about that ∧ time I knew it was
a mistake which I got rectified by
inquiries. He died in September 1916 as
a result of the Mouquet farm operations.
Harvey died P.W. (captured at Bullecourt)
but I don't know his next of kin.