Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/49/1 - July 1916 - Part 1

AWM38

Official History,

1914-18 War: Record of C E W Bean,

Official Historian.

 

Diaries and Notebooks

 

Item number: 3DRL606/49/1

 

Title: Diary 1916

Describes German trenches and the fighting of

early July, discusses Bean's military status and 

mentions Vignacourt and Sir Brudenell White's

predictions.

 

AWM38-3DRL606/49/1

 

 

AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL

RCDIG1066812 

 

 

July 2 - 18

didn't know

 

49

D10

Original. DIARY No. 49

AWM38     3 DRL  606  ITEM  49  [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 those 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 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 Sept., 1946 

C.  E.  W.  Bean

AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL
ACCESS STATUS

OPEN
 

 

11. 1

July 2 - 18

 

(to be made) … The German didn’t know 

where to shoot yesterday - but today 

he does & he will, more & more as 

we go on. He knows exactly where we 

are attacking & he is putting up a 

frightful barrage there -“

As minutes I thought our men surely 

could not get through it. Of course the 

attack must have been beaten 

back - the head of it hammered 

it in. The German artillery was pouring 

all its stuff all down tt narrow valley. 

Shrapnel - 4.2 I shd say, for 

it seemed bigger & angrier than 

ours, with its black cloud in 

place of our white - was beating 

up the chalky dust  o t valley or 

the powdered brick coloured tawny 

dust o t surface earth - & there 

seemed to be field guns in it too -

 

11.  2

left page - see original document for sketch

 

The dust thrown up streamed slowly 

back up t valley ( beyond t nearer 

shoulder but in front of Boiselles) 

until Boiselle ws hidden from us by a 

black mist thicker as dense as a 
London fog.

Then - from ^somewhere behind that fog - I heard 

a ^German machine gun barking. So our infantry must 

be coming - somewhere.

So The Germans had ^evidently survived our 

bombardment - somewhere, in some 

cellar or deep dugout in tt place, they 

must have lived through all tt volcanic 

eruption of brick dust & chalk; & when it 

moved on lengthened they must have come out
noticed this (they wd be waiting for it) & 

clambered out of their dugout & got their 

gun on t parapet - where it was, 

barking away still. By Jove, it’s a fine 

Corps, that^x.

Clearly One knew tt our infantry must be

(Note on left of page)
[x i.e. the German m-g. corps.)

11. 3

coming, because tt m.g. ws clearly 

firing at them.

And presently they came. In the 

nearer shoulder of the hill in front 

of Boiselle there was a dip as if 

some road passed over it, or perhaps 

an ^old trench now powdered by shells.

(sketch - see original document) 

It seemed to 
disappear again 

behind a chalkey 

bank (all the 

trench parapets are pure chalk 

here. Presently, up over t shoulder 

of the hill at this point appeared 

/ heads of men men running 

up into t face o t German shell 

fire - first their heads, then their bodies 

- heads tucked down as if running into 

a hailstorm, as I saw our men go into 

their charge at Helles. Where The bank 

gave them some slight shelter - more 

apparent than real. They rested for 

a minute or two at R (in sketch); & then

11
ran on again. There were 

perhaps 12 or 15 in the first batch. 

[[?xxxx?]] They parted over 

the hills edge & flung themselves down 

or knelt. They would have made 

a fine target for a big shell & every 

minute I was expecting to see a 

5.9 burst fair in amongst them, (as 

the destroyers shell did fair in amongst 

our Light Horse at Anzac on June 28). 

for shells were bursting on t further side o t 

bank, quite close to them. Heavy rolling 

black clouds wd rise shoot into existence -

then some burst in t white chalk still 

nearer ( I saw a man or two running 

up outlined agst those dirty whitish 

bursts) - shrapnel & fragments 

tore tore up smaller close spurts 

from t earth in front of this black 

background - but no shell actually

11
pitched on these men, nor behind 

them. Fortunately t German is very 

accurate - & if he is not shooting at 

you ^you but at some point a very slight distance away he generally doesn’t hit you.

After abt two minutes the 

first batch most of them had jumped up 

& run on. But they never all went. 

There were always some left lying on t 

white bank. It ws hard to say how 

many of these had been killed or wounded - 

some certainly had, three or four. I saw 

one man ^in a batch get up to run and hide lie down 

again after a few steps. Possibly he was 

hit, I don’t know. There were about

9 or 12 of them still lying down there next 

day when I looked at t same place.

For about 3 quarters of an 

hour fresh batches were coming up.

The German barrage still continued, 

not perhaps quite so fiercely; the our

11
people seemed to be building up 

a firing line at the back of another 

bank a little further up t hill -

it ws We saw no sign of them in La 

Boiselle. I thought at one time I 

saw ^one or two men moving across the green 

grass between this second bank & the 

Boiselle ruins. It may have been 

- or they may have bn Germans - or 
imagination.

We had to go leave in order to be 

back to Amiens in decent time.  

I should have liked to stay longer - but 

Cadge was good to have let us stay 

so long. As we moved off our 

infa artillery was repeating on 

Boiselle the same bombardment I 

had seen earlier : first heavy 

explosions in the ruins - I fancied 

they were from our friend the 12 in

8

See original diagram in document
Inf. had been here
rest of infantry had
apparently some [[??}}

 

11. 9

gun on railway mounting ; then 

lashings of shrapnel. As we 

walek walked back along the 

same white parapet, Ross & Cadge 

got far ahead because I was always  

turning to see the white bank & the 

men lying there & those higher up t 

hill. Just before we got out of 

view of Boiselles I put my glass 

on for a last look : the upper 

bank appeared empty; & what 

seemed to be the last man in the 

attack was clambering over 

it & down into the space between 

it & Boiselle.

Clearly it was an attack by 

stages. The first stage began at abt

3:45; the second about 5. o’c.

Ross and I had decided to

sta When we got back to tea the

11. 10

others were exceedingly interested - 

& envious- to hear where we 

had been & what we had seen. It 

was all due to Cadge really - 

taking us up there. But we 

were the only ones who had 

seen t infantry actually 

advancing in t open, & I fancy 

we still are. That was just 

a bit of luck.

Gibbs & Thomas had

I wrote affairs up all 

tt evening - the worst of this work 

is one never gets quite enough 

sleep altho’ not ^going so very short. Old Ross 

was tapping away on his typewriter across 

the passage at a very late hour, too.

July 3rd.

We were to have gone 

back this day as H. Wilson could 

not provide an officer to take us