Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/117/1 - September - December 1918 - Part 5

[*57*] 
12.
/10/18.  
special decision before each Government, would be laid before
it by its section of the staff, in good time; so that it
would have an opportunity of objecting if it designed to do so.

The British pressmen tell us that Bliss was of opinion
that the American troops should be re-brigaded with the French
and English troops as their administrative staff was so
defective.  Everyone - Millet, Jerome (I think), Wall and
[*VOL. IX.   CHAP. XIII   TWENTY-FOUR
the principal docking centre in Australiasia and the
only yard for the construction of warships.  Here
during the war three destroyers (the Huon, Torrens,
and Swan) and a light cruiser (the Brisbane) were
completed; that term includes the local manufacture
of the ∧boilers and main machinery and boilers [*√*] (except the
Brisbane's turbines) and of part of the electrical
fittings.  Another light cruiser, the Adelaide, was laid
down on November, 1917, an launched in July, 1918.⁴⁵
The island dock was used by eleven Australian war-
ships, two British auxiliary cruisers, and three
japanese cruisers.  Fifty transports and three hospital
ships were fitted out, forty-eight of them at lease once,
and many four or five times ; the Wiltshire had eight
refits before being dismantled in November, 1918.
Garden Island, formerly the Admiralty's naval yard
in Australia, but taken over by the Commonwealth
Government before the war.  It comprised repair shops
for refitting ships, a naval store depot, [symbol above e and o in depot] a sub-depot [symbol above e and o in depot] for
torpedo-gear and gun-mountings, and a depot-ship [symbol above e and o in depot]
(H.M.A.S. Penguin) for naval officers and men.  Here
forty-two transports and the hospital ship Grantala*
were fitted out, and sixty-seven refits were carried 
through.  Garden Island, having no dock, could undertake 
no new construction, but repairs were evenly
apportioned between this yard and Cockatoo ; the
pressure of work being considerable, both were kept
fully employed, and the friction which occurred after
the war was entirely absent.  At Garden Island all
the smaller warships were refitted and repaired when
necessary (the Parramatta) was overhauled five times,
and the Encounter six) ; the captured Komet was
converted into H.M.A.S. Una, and several depot [symbol above e and o in depot] and
patrol ships were fitted out, besides six mine-sweepers 
and three small vessels for the military administration
at Rabaul.  The main responsibility for the supply of
naval stores and fittings in Australasian waters rested
_________________________________________________________
⁴⁵ Particulars of ships built or building for Australian Navy during the war
are given in Appendix No. 4.*]

[writing obscured by insert above] were anxious
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[writing obscured by insert above] ought back was
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[writing obscured by insert above] ed Wilson standing
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[writing obscured by insert above] tmen are having
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[writing obscured by insert above] last
[writing obscured by insert above] half the night
[writing obscured by insert above] len to let the
[writing obscured by insert above] lan for repatriation
[writing obscured by insert above] h means up to the
[writing obscured by insert above] course Millen's
[writing obscured by insert above] of what to do with
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[writing obscured by insert above] e A.I.F. from
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[writing obscured by insert above] ll settle Millen
[writing obscured by insert above] the [writing obscured by insert above] n a way out.  It
points amongst other things [writing obscured by insert above] strong political
support to the A.I.F. in England - and if Hughes takes
advantage of this they are surely certain to appoint him.

Hughes today had huis lunch with M. Pichon.  No speeches 
there, I believe.  But the French War Cabinet all received
him - in a body - and he was allowed to make his speech to
them.  He made a straighter, stronger speech even than he
had written, so he told Murdoch - and I have got the Mss. of
his amendments, too, for the Museum.  They received his

[*57*]
12.

/10/18.
special decision before each Government, would be laid before
it by its section of the staff, in good time; so that it
would have an opportunity of objecting if it desired to do so.

The British pressmen tell us that Bliss was of opinion
that the American troops should be re-brigaded with the French
and English troops as their administrative staff was so
defective.  Everyone - Millet, Jerome (I think), Wall and
others who have seen anything of the Americans, agree about
that point - that the men are good but the administrative
side of the staff very bad.  Their defects have shown up in
the fighting near Verdun also, Millet says.

Jerome told me that the French soldiers were anxious
not to give up the fight until they were able in Germany to
give the Germans a taste of the treatment which the Germans
have given to France.  Jerome had been up to the front - but
it seemed to me that the opinion which he brought back was
likely to be that of the officers not of the men - and possibly
of the staff officers at that.

Millet had a curiously reassuring piece of news of Wilson
which he told to Box and myself in our bedroom this morning.
He said that the French government had recently discussed
the terms on which an armistice could be granted and had
instructed their embassy at Washington to mention the subject
to the President.  When it came up, he said surprised:
"Armistice!  There's not going to be any armistice!"  So he
may be firmer than many think.

When Hughes got to Versailles from Beauvais he was
standing in the hotel or the hall of some place where they
xxxx foregathered.  Hankey was there (the former secretary
of the Committee of Imperial Defence) and Sir Hentry Wilson,
C.G.S.  Hughes coming in tired from his journey said to
Hankey that he would like to get some tea.  Hankey (also an
Australian - by birth) said stupidly that he did not think it
could be done.  His manner was rather frosty.  Hughes
straightened up at once.  "Oh, if you can't get it I'll see
about getting it myself" he said.  After all, Hughes is a 
member of the War Cabinet, and Hankey climbed down many pegs
at once.  "I'll see if anything can be done - s I'll try and
get some ...." he said.  Then they noticed Wilson standing
shaking with laughter at the far end of the room.  "Of course
you can get it, Hankey", he said.  "Your batmen are having
tea out there now, anyway.  I'd advise you to ask them."

Hughes left Paris tonight.  I was up half xxx ∧last night
writing a cable which I hope will force Millen to let the
A.I.F. be responsible for the making of a plan for repatriation
so far as a demobilisation involves it - which means up to the
time when the men arrive in Australia.  Of course Millen's
civil department must decide the main plan of what to do with
the men once they get back - the provision of employment,
the makin gof openings.  But as present Millen's jealousy
has gone so far as to prevent Pearce and the A.I.F. from
drawing up a proper plan of demobilisation because they cannot
decide how to classify men and send them back to Australia
without trenching on questions of repatriation, and Millen
will not allow that.  I hope this cable will settle Millen
(if the censor passes it) and yet allow him a way out.  It
points amongst other things the need for a strong political
support to the A.I.F. in England - and if Huges takes
advantage of this they are surely certain to appoint him.

Hughes today had huis lunch with M. Pichon.  No speeches
there, I believe.  But the French War Cabinet all received
him - in a body - and he was allowed to make his speech to
them.  He made a straighter, stronger speech even than he
had written, so he told Murdoch - and I have got the Mss. of
his amendments, too, for the Museum.  They received his

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13.
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speech very well.  And at the end of it I think it was M.
Clemenceau who thanked him for wghat Australia had done.
Antything that Australia asked of them in the future, they said,
they were bound to give her - and they thanked Hughes too,
personally, for what he had done - for his strong leadership
in this struggle.

He had a talk with Pichon about New Caledonia and the
Pacific, but I didn't hear what they decided.

Old Poincare said to him, when he first saw him on
Saturday and presented him with the Grand Cross of the Legion
of Honour - "We must not have Peace!"  He meant of course
we must not have an armistice on what appeared to be Wilson's 
terms in his first Note.

The Germans have, I believe, done away with the political
section of their General Staff; and they have done away with
most of their censorship regulations - they had to do this
when they took some of their Social Democrats into the Cabinet.
The result is pretty interesting - ungheard of criticism of the
Kaiser, for example.

I stayed near the Gare de Lyons.  Last night they had
the English review "Zig-zag" with Daphne Pollard, at the
Folies Bergeres.

October 15.
Tuesday.
Came south by the early train.  The French lawyer and
his wife and son (an artillery officer) who shared my
compartment, we all insistent that they must get into
Germany and beat the Germans there, and let them see what
France has suffered.  Towards the evening I saw a paper
giving President Wilson's reply to the German note.  Nothing
could have been better - Foch to settle the armistice so as
to give no tittle of military advantage; Germany is reminded
that in the speeches [*?to*] in which she expressed her agreement with
was a clear statement that we could make no agreement with the
German Govt. so long as it was in the power of any arbitrary
authority in Germany to settle questions of peace or war and
disturb the peace of the world without consulting the people;
and the Germans were reminded that at that very time of their
peace demands their army was burning towns, and the submarines
sinking the Irish passenger boat "Leinster" and the (?)
Hitachi Maru, and firing on the boats which were saving the
passengers.

A first-rate Note - Wilson has risen well to the trust
which was placed in him.  The German Govt. wants to save its
face but it is just exactly what we cannot allow them to do.

Two American officers in the train.  One a doctor who had
been treating some of their wounded from the Montbrehain -
Hindenburg line sector.  He said that they spoke very highly
of the Australians and liked to have them beside them.  The
Americans were apt to advance very fast and they complained
that the French on their flanks generally got left behind - 
but the Australians were always dependable. The details were
not clear - I don't know what ground there was for the
statement, or where; but that was the opinion anyway.

An English engineer also told me that when the Australians
came to Daours he was wondering when he would have to blow up
the bridge.  The Australians told him - Never.  You won't 
have to do it at all.  After three weeks they told him that
the line there was safe against the whole German army, if it
attacked.  He seemed to appreciate the spirit.

He did not appreciate (I guessed) the Australian method
of housecleaning at the Daours Railway station - which
consisted of taking all the interior of the house out into
the yard and burning it.  (Probably it was in a very filthy

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14.
15/10/18. state)z
Changed at Tarascon.  Could hardly get a room at Nimes
at all.

October 15.
Wednesday.
Saw around the Amphitheatre, Temple of Venus, Tour Magne.
The old lady at the Tour Magne was just going away as I got
up to it - late in the afternoon.  She was put out - said it
was too late - it was too foggy - no view - made me promise
not to stay too long up there.  Poor lold think - she was
very short of breath and feeble.  I stayed a very short time
and gave her a franc - and she was completely mollified.  She
went for me straight about the Germans:  Mustn't make peace
with them!  Barbarians!  It's all right to make an armistice
with the Bulgars on the condition they give up their arms, but not
with the Germans!  "They are barbarians.  You must just
strike!" she said fiercely looking at me.  The spirit of the
French - one never ceases wondering at it.

The "Frankfurther Zeitung" has an article for the Germans
to read and take to heart, coming from one of themselves.  It
says - "Germans must recognise that at this critical point in
their history, there is wanting in to their traditional policy
(that the national aims are to be enforced not by force of
right but by force of arms) that strong military weapon on
which this traditional policy depended."  I quote it from
memory.  But it is the straightest admission of Germany's
present position that I have ever seen.

The British 2nd Army, the Belgian army of 12 Divisions,
and the French army of 5 divisions up in Flanders, all under
the King of Belgians, have advanced and are clearing the
way north of Lille.

October 17.
Thursday.
To Marseilles.  Tonight in the theatre was announced by
the leading lady:  "Messieurs et Madames - J'ai l'honneur de
vous annoncer que les Anglais onto pris Ostende."  The band
struck up the Marsellaise, and people stood up and sang it.

October 18.
Friday.
To Cannes.  A tremendously long train - very full.  The
evening paper announces that Lille was entered this morning by
French and English troops (Birdwood's old army).. (Later. -
An aviator found that the Germans had left Lille in the early
morning.  The English invited a regiment of the 1st French
Corps d'Armee to enter the town first.  This was done about
10 a.m.  The town was flagged - seamstresses had been sewing 
all night.  This was the first occasion on which on has
heard of any marked demonstration.)

October 19.
Saturday.
Raining in Cannes - not what one came for - but I slept
a good part of the day and read the rest.

The British have passed Turcoing and Roubaix and the
Belgians are in Eruges.  The French have crossed the Aisne
at Vouziers.  Now through the Hundung Stellung North of Laoni
The Americans (there are now two armies of them) are fighting
very hard in the Argonne - I fancy that battle of Grandpre
must really be the heaviest now because xx if the Germans are
broken there it seems to imperil the whole retreat.  The 

2d American Army Corps is also constantly fighting at Bohain
near where it replaced us.  They called themselves storm
divisions - and that is how they are used right enough.  I
notice signs that they seem to consider that they have the same
difficulty in getting the British communique to mention them
that we had.  (Indeed General Lewis told me so).  Anyway, the
American communique now deals with them through they are on the
British front.

October 20.
Sunday.
The British have apparently been stirred into a special
communique mentioning the Americans.  Zeebrugge, Heyst, Thielt,
Eruges, taken.  Charles of Austria has promised his peoples
local autonomy - Hungary to be joined only by the Crown to

[*60*]
15.
20/10/18.  
Austria.  Wilson has told him that the Czecho-Slovaks, now
our allies, will have to be the judges of what is sufficient 
there.  Karolyi and Tisza are the centre of wild scenes in the
Hungarian parliament.

xxxxxx
October 21
MONDAY
Today begins the fifth year of the war since we left
Melbourne in the Orvieto, and certainly the last of the war.

The German answer to President Wilson has not yet been
given.  They say in the papers that it will be delivered today.
There have been two quite clear signs - one anyway - of what
it will be.  The Germans are not going to reject, or make a 
stiff reply to, Wilson's terms.

First - there has been picked up (as was of course
intended) by a Dutch wireless station on Order from Hindenburg
to the German troops calling their attention"to the Order, 
many times repeated, that no damage except such as is necessary
for military purposes, should be done to towns and houses
when they are evacuated".  This Order was clearly given in
order to comply with President Wilson's demand, and sent by
wireless in order that he might have knowledge of it.

Secondly, though not on such good authority, it is stated
that all German submarines have been recalled.  That probably
is some step meant to meet President Wilson's other demand,
that, before an armistice is spoken of, submarine outrages
must cease.

If they have taken these steps then they are certainly
going to accept Wilson's Note in conciliatory spirit.

Indeed, with the Americans hammering north of Verdun
what can they do?  The Americans can go on hammering for ever.
they have new troops all the time.  The German reserves
must soon be used up.  I wonder if the winter can save them -
it alone can and they know it.  By next year we shall have
lost the value of our tanks - that is, the Germans will have
good tanks too, presumably.  But we shall have an overwhelming
force of Americans.

I went to the Lerins Is. today with a party of Americans.
The old Abbot or Prior there was delighted to see them.  He
shook hands and said to them: "Messieurs, we regard you,
America, as our saviours".  He had an immense veneration for
the flying man.  "Me - I should never have dared to fly" he 
said.

October 22.
Tuesday.
The German reply is published - exactly on the lines as
outlined by the newspapers.  I may be slow: but at first
sight I don't see why it should not be accepted, so far as it
goes.  It seems to be a considerable surrender of what we
want, if only this is guaranteed.

October 23.
Wednesday.
This place is not so blue and sunny as I hoped - rain all
to-day and most of yesterday.  I booked a sleeping berth for
the trip back, yesterday, for Oct. 29, at 92fr.60!  I had
booked and taken it when told the price and had not the
strength of mind to undo it.  But it was more than one's 
conscience would permit.  I went in within half an hour and
cried off on the score that I had to be in Paris on Oct. 29 -
and got a couchette at 33 fr. instead.  It cost six francs
in tips, but it is a load off one's mind.  Think what you
could do for 92 fr. - the presents you could buy, theatres,
teas - a whole week's wage to many people!

The papers are all against the acceptance of the German 
reply.  The argument which appeals to me is that of the
"Daily Chronicle".  That is true.  This is a case in which we cannot
make concessions - not after this sacrifice.  It is about the
only business we have ever undertaken in which we cannot.  But
after four years of this - 60,000 dead of Britain; and 
1,000,000 of France.

[*61*]
16.
October 24.
Thursday.
Yesterday I made a real start on the little book which I
want to publish before the troops go back to Australia - a 
suggestion, just to shoot in the idea of how the children of
the country can take up work of the A.I.F. for Australia -
make their country and not xxxxxxx themselves their
life's work.

Balfour has made a speech in which he says that we must
keep the Germans colonies - that we cannot (as an Empire - in 
the true sense - of United States) risk having an enemy on our
line of communications with our various States.  We cannot
afford the risk of German submarine bases just outside the
shores of our various States.

I cannot help thinking this is an argument put out as a
manoeuvre.  To my mind Max of Baden's speech in to-day's
papers shows that the Germans are not really changing their
state in the way in which we must see it changed:  they are
trying to save the face of the old regime for all they are
worth - or rather the old regime is trying to save its face
for itself.  We are not beaten, say the Kaiser and his Govt. - 
and the class of newspaper editors and party leaders who really
support them - We are going to change just as little as we are
forced to.  We are going to put up this camouflage of a change
and remain here behind it.  In the last resort in any conflict
between the military and the local Govt. the higheer command will decide.

It is more than that we allies have fought four years for
It is real change - revolution; not the old thing camouflaged
by half-measures.

October 25.
Friday.
President Wilson's answer today - straight to the point.
He consents to pass on to his allies the request for the
armistice, but says:

(1)  The terms on which it can be granted by the military
advisers of the allies would be that Germany should be put in a 
position in which she would not again be able to take up arms;

(2)  That before the armistice is granted it must be made
clear that the allies do not trust thew word of the present
rulers of Germany - who are the rulers who made the warl.
Either (a) those rulers must go and we must negotiate with the
representatives of the German people; or (b) if we have to
deal with the present rulers, an unconditional surrender is
the only term which we can accept.

The French papers tonight approve - but one feels that
they are not really hearty about this reply.  The French,
after what they have suffered, want to get at Germany and make
her feel what she has done to them before the war ends.

The French have been for some days on the Danube in
Bulgaria.  Austria-Hungary has split its joint Parliament;
the Croats in xxxxxx Bohemia have set up their independence,
and the Poles may do the same.  ****

October 26.
Saturday.
A rumour in the French papers that the Kaiser has
xxxxxxxxx abdicated.  The Americans - Cannes has far more of
them on leave that of ENglish - all realise that their
fighting at Verdun (Grandpre and on the Meuse) is the hardest
now going on because it cuts straight at the German retreat
by Sedan and the iron district of Briey.

**** (The ferment in Hungary is the result of our people and the
French (and later the Italians and Americans) recognising the
(25th.) Czecho-Slovaks.  Austria cannot bring force against rebellion
now, and the U.S.A. has any amount of force to support it -
**** so Austria is simply disintegrating).

There are really three centres of fighting - the
Americans at Verdun; the French on their flank; and the
British and French on their right (and possibly the French on
their left), pushing in beyond Cambrai.  The American push

[*62*]
17.
26/10/18.
is in the hardest country.  The Americans think (and are
probably right) that their men are making heavy going of it
and heavy losses, by pushing straight on in the face of
machineguns.  Probably they xxx are.  The Germans have to
keep them back at all costs in order not to lose Sedan which
would cost them the Briey iron district but, more than that,
would imperil their whole front in France and Belgium by
forcing it to squeeze ghrough one narrow line of retreat in
Belguim.  On the other hand the British attacks beyond
Cambrai form a secondary menace of the same sort but only
threaten half the line.  And the process is there by pushing
up behind the Lys to tear the Germans from the Lys and send
them beyond the Scheldt.  From the Meuse I do not think we
can tear them in this way - not by this process - though the
Americans cross it at Verdun.  The Country is too difficult.
When they get to the Meuse we may (one would think) push in
Alsace.

October 27.
To show how the Germans work - how unbelievable thorough
they are - the French papers publish today a reproduction of a 
German picture postcard.  The Germans for the last few days, 
for the first time in their history, have been trying to make
out that there has been a great change in Germany, and that
the military govt. has been subordinated to the civil. fgovt.
Immediately, in the same instant, their propaganda department
has started supply neutral countries with postcards showing
the Kaiser not in his uniform of the Guards of Hussars, which
has always before been used for these postcards of him, but in
civilian dress and "top hat"!

I went to church to-day.  The English church was filled
with the same queer old dried maiden ladies and staid men who
make the congregation in all these sunny health resorts.  The
English prays for King George and the Queen ad the Prince of
Walses and the Bishops and Lords strike one as far more
incongruous than they used to do.  H.G. Wells's "Joan and Peter"
is very true; and yet there is a rottenness in it which is not
true of Egglish English life - a fickleness of choice between
vice and chastity in his characters, which is probably
autobiographical.  Wells's novels always seem to me to be 
intensely true to life except just where you suspect they are
an apology )(to himself) for some yellow streak which is in him.

Ludenorff has resigned.  The German comment on the Kaiser
is becoming bitter.

October 28.
Monday.
I left Cannes (after two glorious sunny days).  The wagons
lits and couchettes are taken off this line - possibly every
bit of available time and space is needed for the sending of
coat to Italy; or I suppose it is really from a wish to 
economise coal.

The American inghabitants of Cannes were most hospitable to
me all through.  Had me lunch and tea at their villas with 
Crum.  Crum is a fine straight manly young chaplain.  The
German note in reply to Wilson is out.  It is stiffer.
Roumania is in the war again.  The German note simply asks
us to state our armistice terms.

October 29.
Tuesday.
Came up in the night train in a carriage with some
Americans and a most beautiful delightful French girl - a young
widow whose brother (a fine-looking cavalry officer) had
evidently taken her down to the Riviera to get over the blow.
Their relations were charming - ore like those of the best and
most modest type of English.

Just before turning in to sleep I found a young French girl
sitting on her suitcase in the cold corridor of the train with
her face in a pillow - she could not get a place and was
proposing to travel all night in this way to Dijon (arriving at

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18.
29/10/18.
5 am.).  I changed places with her and camped in the passage -
and was pleased to find that after the hardening of these
campaigns it was not great hardship - I got quite a fair
amount of sleep.  I believe one could sleep anywhere now.

A delightful day in Paris, walking quietly round the 
streets and writing the new book.  I felt rather tired and
like a glass of wine, but one is not taking it during the war.
Coffee and chocolate did quite well.

These French are remarkably determined upon making peace
in Germany.  another one - an old man of 70 this time - 
leaned over to me in front of a cafe in the Boulevard des
Italians and impressed on me for all he was worth that a
revolution in Germany was not enough.  We must make peace in
Germany, he insisted.

The waiter at the restaurant was an Italian from Milan,
immensely proud of their opera theatre.  He rattled off the
names of them - La Traviata, Madame Butterfly, Rigoletto......
and of the artists, and even warbled me bits of them.

Grand news - Austria has asked for a separate armistice
and peace, and makes it quite clear that the request is
separate from anything Germany may do.  This is the sin
finding the sinner out, with a vengeance.  Within three
months - three short months - the German is absolutely
isolated; in the same position, without any scheming on our
part, in which he used every lying intriguing device to put
us.  No one, I think, dreamed three months ago that it was
possible.

And it was very largely that dashing offensive on Aug. 8
that changed the whole course of affairs!

It looks as though Germany were stiffening - as though
the clique behind the Kaiser, the whole of those interested 
in the caste system, editors, professors, officials, were
going to have another fling; sticking to their half-reforms
as the most that is compatible with what they believe to be
the soul of Germany.  But, if so, there is a discontent 
behind them which will blow them to the winds as the moderates
in Russia were blown.  The "Vorwaerts" and the "Frankfurter 
Gazette" and others are freely asking the Kaiser to resign,
and some hint at a republic.  I think a republic would bring
them a "negotiated" peace.  I doubt if a Hohenzollern will
be allowed to do so by the Allies.

October 30.
Wednesday.
In train for Amiens.  I have wired to Eu to Cutlack to
send Boddy thither to pick me up.  Two beautiful sunny
autumn days, today an yesterday - probably battles, as usual,
on the front.

The Italian offensive, which began so disappointingly
on October 23 and 24th that we heard nothing of it, expanded
on October 27 into a fine success.  The Italian papers at
first said that the Austrian army was the only thing in
Austria that remained solid and strong.  But it seems to be
giving at last.

The Bohemian state has been definitely proclaimed and
started on its independence in Prague; the Poles are uniting.
They say that Karolyi has refused to form a cabinet in
Hungary because the Austrian Imperial advisers insist on
Hungary having the same King as Austria and he wanted complete
independence.  The Germans in Vienna have met and decided (so
the "Matin" says) to appoint a foreign minister of their own
in place of Andrassy (who asked Wilson for the separate
peace).  And the German newspapers are all taking a sort of 
secondary encouragement from the idea:  Now we are free from
all bonds joining us to Austria and all treaty obligations;
now we can incorporate the German part of Austria in Germany
itself.  The Germans in Aussig, in Bohemia, have also
resolved to detach themselves and join on to Germany.

[*64*]
19.
30/10/18.
(In those mixed frontier races there is ∧always bound to be trouble -
thank Goodness it is getting home to the Germans at last).

Every day the situation enormously changes - A Germany
simply uniting the German peoples is on the tapis today -
Vienna going on with the war.  The Italians will almost
certainly get Trieste, and the Austro-Germans are probably
too much done up to want to fight on longer.

Do the Allies want this combination?  Is it the right
and just thing to allow this nationality to unit it go on
swelling and puffing and bursting itself with militaristic
ambition and endangering the peace of the world.  Ought we
not to fight on and puncture it until all that wind and
arrogance and stuffing has hissed out of it?  Those are
today's questions.  I dare say tomorrow will be bring another
lot.  But the newspapers can scarcely keep up this sort of
pressure for long

[*65*]
1.
October 31.
Thursday.
At Eu-three miles from Treport - I found poor old Cutlack
only just back from his broken arm, was down with the 'flu,
and in No. 3 (British) General Hospital at Treport.  (34 men
died of pneumonia, following influenza, in one day, at
Abbeville in our No. 3 Australian General Hospital - including
ward orderlies.  It is ranging amongst the German prisoners
there).

The news arrived that Turkey is out of the war - an 
armistice at noon to-day.  Exactly four years (is it not?)
since she entered it.

The Corps is going back to the front - probably into the
line, as one expected.  Monash told me today that, in the
question of the employment of the Corps, Hughes stood alone
on one side and all the authorities on the other - Wilson,
Lloyd George and all of them.  They urged that for Australia
herself it was important that the Australian Divisions should
be put in again.  There is to be a big push on a wide front
of 80 (?) miles on November 4th, and they are to be put in
immediately after- 1st and 4th first, then the others one at
a time.

November 1.
Friday.
To 1st Bde H.Q. to get the story of Sept. 18 and Aug. 23
before they go into the fight again.  Their B.M. (Hutchins)
is just moving to A.I.F. H.Q., Agnew of 3rd Bn taking his
place.

The news camein while I was at 1st M.G. Coy. that Austria
is out of the war.  An armistice with Italy was arranged to
begin at noon to-day.  The Italians (with British 14th Corps
and French) had taken 50,000 prisoners yesterday.

McKay told me the story of the meeting of 1st Bn.  The
Bn. of the 2nd Bde - its advanced parties - were already in the
line, he said, when 1st Bn was told to make its attack.  Mackay
was with Glasgow up the line when Glasgow had word from Corps
that the attack was to be made.  This was on the afternoon of
Sept. 20.  Glasgow gave him the word - the detailed order
would follow.  The men were tried for "joining in a mutiny".
Most of them got from three to ten years.  I don't know to 
what number - about 12 I fancy (or else 12 got off).

November 2.
Saturday.
The troops are all discussing the chances of going into
the line again before Christmas.  Every pair one passes on the
road is talking of it, dispassionately - arguing one side or the
other.  They have a sort of idea that three months' rest had
been promised to them - not definitely - by  Hughes.  The
officers are beginnning to realise that there will be a move in
a few days - and are taking it very well - with a joke or a 
laugh.  They know that the allied terms are being discussed
and settled - the last two days; the idea (coming from
Rawlinson) is that the Germans would accept the land terms but
not the British naval terms.

I visited 3rd and 2nd.Bns.

November 3.
Sunday.
Austria has sent in her white flag for an armistice, but
no definite published news yet of her accepting the terms.
Bitterly cold grey day to-day.  I watched 1st Bde football and
visited 4th and 1st Bns.

November 4th.
Monday.
Austria has accepted our terms - Italy's terms perhaps.
Italians are in Trieste and Trent.  The armistice started at
3 p.m. today.  The move of our 2nd Bde into the line has been
postponed 24 hours.  One wonders if this is because of a
chance of Germany accepting her terms also or because of some
connection with the offensive which I believe was to have
started today.  A beautiful clear sunny day.

Our 2nd Bde. (with which I am now staying) was to leave
tomorrow night.