Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/38B/1 - Notebook - Part 5

Intro

chance for the abolition of the huge armaments under

which the Germans military [[cast?]], had done 

more than any othe factor, had forced upon

the world. xxxx It is the actual truth that from

the hour when xxxxxxxxxx Germany invaded Belgium not one

in a thousand of the British people or Australian

people regretted that the British Empire was

in it xx Once the war had been begun, the

British people in every part of the world was

resolved not to end it until the Germans military

caste was as far as possible broken 7

XX put is a position to do no further. There

was a great feeling xxxx against the German

people which only had to bear the

responsibility for never having had the

enterprise to xxx itself of the military caste

let itself be xxxxxxxxx & educated into

a condition quite different allowed a small

military caste to dragoon x road it into

becoming a were military machine for

making was doing whatever its military

Chiefs ordained & not having had the

enterprise, such as a like other nations,

to overthrow the military class that

rode over it rough shod. In Australia, even

amongst those ^the small number who are ordinarily not over

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Intro

friendly to Britain, then were and amongst

those who were bitterly opposed to war, there

were no two opinions about this war. It

was a war of which Australians hastily

approved; & they were ready to support the

mother country in it, as xx ^ a member of the commonwealth

Labour Govt put it, even to them if it

meant their own extinction.

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The A.I.F.

and one of those principles was that, not

whatever may seem the ethics of it in peace,

one of the necessary ways of defence in war is

to attack. & that the  It was obviuos within

six weeks of the outbreak of war that, if

Britain had not sent her expeditionary force

abroad, the Germans would have taken

Paris Nothing could have save Paris & 

possibly a large portion of the French army - which

& this in itself would have been a long

step towards losing the war. A month before &

that time millions of English people &

Australian also would have questioned

the wisdom of sending that force abroad, &

probably ^ where the situation has passed from memory  they will do so again. With the facts actually before this eyes, nobody dreamed of questioning it wisdom or its necessity. They saw

too clearly xx that, xx once xx in the war, the one

way to bring it to a successful issue was to

send more & more men. They Britain began by

sending 16,000. In the end the sent 2,000,000.

Within a few days of the beginning of

the war it began other than to be realise

in Australia that the one two ways in which

Australia could be most useful to the

mother country was by xxx sending men &

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supplies, Australia had xxxx provided her feet. It had been placed

unconditionally the war ay in the hands of the Admiralty & it was

already clear it was invaluable in the Pacific. xxx As it could

supplies. The Canadians, Australian & New New Zealand

not be added to delivery the war a xxx contingent of land forces

government each offered to send a force [[?]] The British

just [[?]] was the most obvious form of assistance. The Canadians

Government accepted Govt on August... offers

30,000 men. The British govt accepted. The x 

New Zealand Govt ofered 8,000. The Australian

Govt offered 20,000.
The New Zealand Govt was the only one

which had any or sanisation for an oversea

expeditionary force already provided.

xxxxx 

The first object in making these offers was to

prove to the world that the dominions intended

to standby the mother country with all the resources

in their power. x The Germans had expected the

opposite & until long after the beginning of the war

occasional appeals were made to Australia in the

German papers ^to desert Great Britain Australian in Germany were given
different treatment from Englishmen in order to

induce encourage a supposed tendency in

Australia to desert the mother country ^ under whose protection she had grown strong & to make terms with Germany. The first desire in all the

dominions was to put xx their good faith & solidity

with the rest of their race beyond any

possible doubt. And their offers of help had this

effect. They were known immediately all

over the world. Each successive offer was printed

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day after day in the Belgian newspapers. And

with the offers of help from Ireland & India they

proved at once to the world that whatever trouble

internal xx divisions there are The British

Empire which seemed to hang loosely together in

time of peace was a solid as black steel ingot in

time of war. It was only at a later date

that the great military value of this oversea

help began to be ^ generally realised , either in Britain or

oversea, although the seretary of state for war

Lord Kitchener, who knew the value of overseas

troops from experience was probably always

aware of its importance.

Owing to the xxxx New Zealand had not

adopted a purely compulsory

New Zealand had not gone so far in

adhering to compulsory service as Australia

had. She retained x volunteer territorials 

amongst her trainees- whereas Australia had

got rid of xxxx completely ^ abolished xxx the old

voluntary System, she New Zealand

retained a mixed system. The consequence

was that xxx her xxx units 

army contained a large proportion of seasoned

men & the expeditionary force could be although specially

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enlisted or organised was able to be

recruited largely from it. It was arranged

that each ^ infantry battalion or mounted rifle regt in the 

New Zealand Forces shd supply a xxx company or a

Squadron in the Expeditionary force - an

exceedingly valuable provision. For example

it was The 12th Nelson company of the Canterbury Battalion

 Regt of the Expeditionary Force - representing the 12th Infantry Regt in the New Zealand army - which faced x

part of the brunt of the Turkish attack xxxxx on the

Suez Canal. The 12th infantry regt of the

New Zealand Army will always bear that

distinction on its colours.

In the Australian Imperial Force

it was by no means so easy impossible except very roughly 

to identify the units of the Force with the

units of the Australian Army. The first 
20,000 force sent away were all over 19 & this

Australian army consisted mainly of the first

boys of 19 & 18 two years of boys entered

under the new system, lads of 18 & 19 -

& the x Imperial Force could not be

recruited from material so young as this;

in fact boys x under 19 were refused

from the xx the first 20,00 altogether

in recruiting the first 20,000 boys

under 19 were refused altogether. A large

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proportion of trainees joined - there were

2574 in the first 20,161; xxx and many

more on the later units & drafts. But with

an army so young it was xxxx almost

impossible to base the organisation of

the Australian Imperial force upon it.

The next best thing was to recruit the

force by states xxx towns & districts

so that x every unit represented some

particulars. force territorially so that

each state & sometimes each district or

xxxx sent its own battalions or batteries.

& something each town or district its

own company As a rule the men

in any xxx company of any infantry

battalion came from the same town or

district. One company of the Tasmanian

For example the whole 1st Infantry Brigade came

from New South Wales, the whole of this

second infantry Brigade from Victoria,

& the third Brigade from the four less

populous states -queensland, South Australia,

Western Australia, & Tasmania. In

the xx 12th Infantry battalion which

came xxxx partly from Tasmania the

included the Tasmanian, the miners from

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Zeehan would be all together in One

particular company. Any spectator

who was present during field exercises

would in Egypt would hear the platoon

commander giving in directing the xxx

giving the objects in the field of fire

in front of him old familiar names chosen

from xxx the district which they all knew, in

order to help him in directing their fire. There

xxxx One A flat in front would be

"Zeehan Plain" ; a hill would be "Queenstown

Ridge". In second (Victorian) Brigade,

the whole of which came from Victoria,

the 5th & 6th Battalions came from the capital,

Melbourne ; the &th from Bx the Victorian country

? districts including the xx town of Bendigo; the 8th from

country districts in cluding the big town

of Ballarat. the xxx field companies  of

engineers he companies of the army service corps,

the field ambulance each state provided

When it was decided what force was to be

sent the units required would be allotted to

the various states - xx a field company of engineers

would come from here xxx; a company of the

army service corps from xxxx there; x

field ambulances, Stationary hospitals; light

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horse requirements were allotted over

Australia. As far as possible, during after

the force had moved to the front, the drafts which

were sent to these units, were picked in the

district which the unit represented - so that

each state or town had a particular pride in

its company or battalion, as did each battalion

battalion in its town. When asked a passing unit was 

asked "what are you?" the reply would often come

back "First Battalion - Sydney" or

"Second Engineers, Melbourne," or "Eighth

Battery - Western Australia."

In some cases there was no difficulty 

in identifying units in the Imperial Force

with those in the Australian Army. For

example when the 37th Battery of

field artillery was from in Western Australia

was asked for volunteers the whole

battery stepped forward. The youngest

batch of trainees was afterwards rejected

from it & their places filled with a

certain number of xxx men from the

bush, & others who had been trained before.

But otherwise the 37th battery went as it

stood, became the 8th Battery of the

R.J.C. Australian Imperial Force. The

 

Give identification of

units in appendix

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xxx Tasmanian battery In the same way

 the 9^th battery A.I.F. represented a 

Tasmanian battery. The first 1st Battery A.I.F.

xxx an Aust was a regular battery

from New South Wales  - 1st (Permanent) Battery R.A.F.A.

the same was to some extent true throughout the

whole of the original units of the force.

Of the first [contingent of 20,161 officers & men

of the first 20,000 men very complete statistics were kept. They

show that of the men just over one third nearly 7000,

came from no unit of any sort - were

new blood who had never served before

in any corps & were trained specially

for this force. A small stiffening - about

1400 ^ were of soldiers who

had served in the British army, & about

xxxxx 550 in the had served in various Australian

regular corps.