Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/18/1 - October 1915 - Part 4

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They tried him w writing & found he cd
write but he wdnt say anything.
However he ws at last put in w
2 friendly prisoners, & he must
have bn touched by kindness.
for he told them he ws
94^th Rgt, 32 Divn, 10A.C.
The 10th A.C. ws / one cut to bits
by / Russians at Sarykamisch,
& this chap came from tt directn
tho' he ws not in tt fight.
Apptly / Divn has bn reconstituted
& is here. We have on a
demo Nicholson thinks there are more
Ts in front of us than since Aug 6.
The news has come tt
/ Russians have landed in
force at Varna. It reached
here this Evg. Wagstaffe thinks
/ Turks, who have only 8000
poor troops of poor type at
Adrianople have already sent
some men away from here.
Tonight we have a demonstration
(planned 3 or 4 days ago at
least) to find out how many
Ts there are in front of / whole
 

27
line.
On Destroyer Hill in front
of our trench we have 2 posts
& patrols sent out at night &
withdrawn by day - at daylight.
The other day when / patrols
^of 3^rd LH Regt came in a Turk folld them unnoticed,
& got right into our line, &
kicked a sleeping cook & asked to
be taken prisoner. He It turned
out the doctor of his regt had
given him a bottle of medicine
& a kick behind, & he thought
over / grievance & decided to
come in. He must have known
all abt our patrols because
he came in at exactly right
place & time. We send patrols
down / frightfully steep fore slope
of Rhodendron Spur & they lie
up & listen for T. patrols - it
is sort of neutral ground. They
found 2 rifles belonging to the Wilts
(?) & also found dead of all sorts
 

 28
& 2 dead Gurkhas.
There are lots of T. dead
still on / S. side of destroyer hill
- some still in their dug outs
& one sitting holding a razor. This
shows how complete /
surprise ws.
Sir Victor Horsley (Col -
Consultg surgeon w right to
inspect) has bn here for a day.
Adrian Knox ws here
on 11-12^th for the Red X.

Browns Dip
Harris R. Chalhance
Holly Ridge
Allah Gully
Silt Spur
Cooee Gully
Valley of Despair
Snipers Ridge
Poppy Valley
Surprise Gully
Weir Ridge
Wanliss Gully
Pine Ridge

[[Left?]]
Wine glass
 

29

Oct. 16^th Saturday.
The demonstratn woke me
up at abt 4.10 a.m. - our guns on
hill ^at back destroyers & larger warships firing
intensely. There ws a fairly thin crackle
of T. rifles going all / time, & evidently
a few [[touchy?]] gentlemen whom they
couldn't stop - but no m.gs &
the ruse seemed to fail to draw. -
I went up to the 3rd. Bde &
2nd LH Bde to see some Bert Lowing
& ask after some soldiers whose parents
had written to me. One of them Corpl.
Rooke of 12^th Bn his companions
believe to have bn take prisoner on
the 1st day. & still to be in Constantinople
— Snow, who ws w him, escaped from
/ Turks. [We can't get prisoners
names out o / T.s.  I dont know
why. They gave a few naval ones but
v. few others.] The Foreign office knows
there are others, prob. 200 or so British].
At 2nd L H Bde HQ I
found Foster, Bde maj, who
I thought was away wounded.
 

30
He had been hit - cut all over /
face by a ^shattered periscope; bullet thro' his
tunic & I think something in / arm -
but stayed at work. He has bn hit in
12 places altogether, & drilled into in
3 places.
On Sept 29 he ws standing
outside 2nd L.H.B. H.Q. w old
Ryrie, during an afternoon's straf
when Ryrie sd - "You know we'll
get it one o' these days, Foster,
- we'll get it here" - "Bound to Sir"
sd Foster & just as he sd it old
R. tumbled back as a shrapnel
pellet scored along his throat within
almost scratching distance of /
jugular. "Got it where / chicken
got / axe, Foster", ws all he
sd - He's a very popular
old chap - goes thro and
yarns w his men as if he were
a station owner & they his stockmen
& they Swear by him. But
it is Foster who has pulled
tt Bde together & done wonders
 

Stealing of Canteen Stuff.
L.H. & Mundros 1800, 380.
2001 [[?]]
Canteen now.
want timber
Flies
Trasport arrangement,
Aspinalls plan
Austrln Divn lines
as
Diffy of getting men back
who go away for 3wks
MacCom in wrong place.
Howse has winter Q.
ready by end of
Oct for 1500
3000 at pinch
for 10 days
Sweeping of lines etc.
Young superintendents
shd be used & AMC
men - offrs too old

[* Typhoids wh go away stop for
Gee.  of infection.
Baz. held up by MLO.*]
 

31
w them. [The 7th L.H. ws in Lone Pine].
They have dug simply tremendously &
are always having to show the tri-weekly
tourists round their lines. Col. Cox
is now in command - "Fghting  Charlie."
I watched a bomb catapult - very
like a cross bow - firing bombs
at l Ts.- into l trench every time.
We have an anti aircraft gun
ready for mounting now.

A. Knox says Red X funds
were used for subsidising hospital
& l Ezbekieh Gdns Cafe. & for
taking Luna Pk. for cafe. The
hosp. subsidies were well expended
(see article) -

Sunday October 17th
Back in Imbros last night.
We had a staggerer in the correspondent's
Camp today. About 10 this morning a
telegram arrived from Maxwell at
G.H.Q across l Bay. Sir Ian Hamilton
is going across to K Beach to say
goodbye to some o l officers there this
 

32
morning. He would like to say
goodbye to l correspondents too -
Don't know what time he is coming."
We That ws I first we had
heard of it – [Bartlett had bet Lawrence
£10 tt Hamilton wd leave before l end
of September, & he ws to have a
weeks grace - So tt Lawrence only
won his bet by a week.] It came
as a bolt from l blue.
About a quarter to one, when
Old Thoms of N.Z. ^A Division ws
here lunching an orderly arrived
out to say tt the C. in C. ws on his
way to our camp & Major Churchill
wanted us to come out & meet
him. We jumped up & went out
& found him just turning l corner
from l transport camp riding up
thro' l scrub with abt 7 of his
staff w him. He rode ahead to us
(the others held back a bit) & sd:
"I wanted to come & say good bye to
you - Is tt your new cottage? quit
 

33 

Architectural pretensions hasn't it" -
We said something about it &
told him how really sorry we were
to part w him. He gave as a copy
of a wire he had received from
Anzac & of his reply. His successor
was a god man, he sd, &
He sd something abt his
successor. "We haven't heard who he
is Sir," we sd.
"Genl Munro," he replied
"He comes from France - you maynt
"have heard much of him but he's
"a damned good man."
"I want you to send tt abt l
Anzac men", he sd "I'm not afraid of the men
He gxxx They're splendid fellows -
they'll hold out agst anything that
can be brought agst them in l way
of men. I have seen eno' & heard
enough to know tt l Turk tho'
he's a heroic ^in defence is not going
to succeed in attack. We one the
I'm afraid of is if l Germans.
 

34

difficult

The poor old chap looked to
me very haggard - almost broken
up. So were some o l staff. They
told us privately tt l message
had only come l day before in a
cipher telegram - tt ws l first
they had heard of it & I believe l
first Hamilton himself knew of it.
Fancy having to get tt cipher translated by some clerk.
I am honestly very sorry to see
Hamilton go. He is a gentleman &
has always bn courteous & considerate
to us. The ^British Army has never believed
in him, but he is a good friend to
civilians & has some breadth of
 

35
mind wh I army does not in general
possess.
It is rather fault of character than
of intellect tt has caused him to
fail. He has not l strength to
command his staff - they command
him; especially Braithwaite, his
Chief of Staff, ^w whom he is on l worst
of terms, I believe - has commanded
this expeditn. Braithwaite is a snob
only a snob cd support this lazy G.H.Q. -
Snob & So far as I know he has
only bn to Anzac once. He is
certainly utterly disloyal to his
chief. If Hamilton had had a
loyal agreeable capable C. of Staff
his success might have be v. different
But he is not capable of standing up
to any of them.
Hamilton has not l strength
to give those w whom he is surrounded
a straight out blow from l shoulder
however much l situation demands
it. To change mix l metaphor - he
has an unlucky ability for gilding l
pill. He cant administer a pill unless