1st Infantry Brigade, 23/1/12, AWM.
Statistics from Butler, Special Problems and Services, p. 72, 101.
Harris, 1DRL/0337, AWM.
Butler, Special Problems and Services, pp. 105–06.
Harris, 1DRL/0338, AWM.
Butler, Special Problems and Services, p. 65.
Chapman, Iven G. Mackay, p. 75.
Freeman, Hurcombe’s Hungry Half Hundred, p. 71.
The Torch-Bearer, October 1917, p. 40. Harris’s letter is dated 8 May 1917.
Correspondence between medical officers and Harris’s commanding officers about his two breakdowns is archived in Series B2455, John Harris, NAA.
Figure in Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 586, 593.
Quoted in Oates, With the Big Guns, p. 139.
Bean, Letters from France, p. 109.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 582.
Quoted in Horner, The Gunners, p. 130.
Ammunition columns discussed in Breed, ‘From France with Love 1916–1918’, pp. 63–64. Statistics in Horner, The Gunners, p. 134.
Quoted in Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 209. Subsequent quotation ibid.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/44/1, AWM.
Bean, Letters from France, p. 108.
Bean, The AIF in France 1916, p. 589.
ibid., p. 589.
Situation recounted in Bean, The AIF in France 1916, pp. 580, 590–91.
ibid., p. 590.
Quoted in Chapman, Iven G. Mackay, p. 76.
Quoted in Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 591.
The situation at Sinclair-MacLagan’s headquarters described in Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 590.
ibid., p. 581.
Chapter 8: The Price of Glory
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/53/1 and General Staff, 2nd Division, 1/44/12, Part 1, both AWM.
Joynt, Breaking the Road for the Rest, p. 88.
Breed, ‘From France with Love 1916–1918’, p. 62.
Sinclair-MacLagan’s experiences in Bean, 38-3DRL/606/126/1, AWM, pp. 57–60. The 3rd Brigade diary suggested that Sinclair-MacLagan’s headquarters was relieved by the 5th Brigade on 26 July.
Austin, The Fighting Fourth, p. 112.
General Staff, 2nd Australian Division, 1/44/12, AWM.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/53/1, AWM.
Taylor and Cusack, Nulli Secundus, p. 191 and Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 661.
de Vine, 1DRL/0240, AWM.
Horton, 1DRL/0359, AWM.
Taylor and Cusack, Nulli Secondus, p. 192; Callaway, PR87/237, AWM; and Foxcroft, MS 9613, SLV.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 593.
Butler, Special Problems and Services, p. 72 and Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 593.
Cohen, 1DRL/0204, AWM.
Quoted in Chapman, Iven G. Mackay, p. 76.
Moorhead, 3DRL/7253, AWM.
Keown, Forward with the Fifth, p. 169.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 639–40.
Quoted in Derham, The Silent Ruse, p. 105.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 July 1916, p. 9.
Rule, Jacka’s Mob, p. 61.
Bean, Anzac to Amiens, p. 249 and The AIF in France, 1916, p. 599.
Quoted in Hetherington, Blamey, p. 39.
General Staff, 1st Australian Division, 1/42/18, AWM.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/40/1, AWM.
Belford, Legs-eleven, pp. 294, 295–96. The history claimed that of the 20 officers who led the battalion into action, only three came out unwounded.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 442, 593.
ibid., p. 869.
Drake-Brockman, The Turning Wheel, p. 108.
Manning, The Middle Parts of Fortune, p. 94. Subsequent quotation ibid.
Hocking, PR88/161, AWM.
Graham, MS 9640, SLV. Many soldiers, including Graham, wrote French words phonetically.
Mackenzie, The Story of the Seventeenth Battalion AIF in the Great War 1914–1918, p. 114.
Clayton, MS 10434, SLV.
Quoted in Breed, ‘From France with Love 1916–1918’, p. 62.
Raws, ‘Records of an Australian Lieutenant’, p. 12.
23rd Infantry Battalion, 23/40/10, AWM.
Information about Alec and Goldy Raws, including quotations, drawn from Young and Gammage, Hail and Farewell, pp. 103, 162–66, appendices and Raws, ‘Records of an Australian Lieutenant’, p. 12.
Legge was born and initially educated in England, yet considered himself Australian.
General Staff, 2nd Australian Division, 1/44/12, Part 2, AWM.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 607 and Coulthard-Clark, No Australian Need Apply, p. 206.
Birdie recorded his key meetings with Gough and Legge in Birdwood, 3DRL/3376, AWM.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 604, 610–13.
Coulthard-Clark, ‘Legge, James Gordon (1863–1947)’, pp. 63–65 and Barrett, Falling In, p. 42. Coulthard-Clark suggests that Legge’s intellectual arrogance threatened fellow officers. See No Australian Need Apply, pp. 74–79.
Coulthard-Clark, ‘Legge, James Gordon (1863–1947)’, p. 98 and Perry, ‘Lieutenant-General James Gordon Legge’, p. 206.
Coulthard-Clark suggests that Birdwood censured Legge for bypassing British authorities, instead communicating directly to Australian authorities the poor state of training facilities in Cairo in June 1915. See No Australian Need Apply, p. 106.
Perry, ‘Lieutenant-General James Gordon Legge’, p. 206.
Coulthard-Clark, No Australian Need Apply, p. 87.
Bean thought Legge was inclined to ‘cry out Australia for the Australians’ with very small provocation. See Bean, 38-3DRL/606/40/1, AWM, pp. 46–47.
Coulthard-Clark, No Australian Need Apply, p. 138.
ibid., p. 131.
Quoted in Breed, ‘From France with Love 1916–1918’, p. 64.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 618.
Quoted in Breed, ‘From France with Love 1916–1918’, p. 64.
Difficulties preparing described in Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 619–21 and Anzac to Amiens, p. 251.
Fewster, Gallipoli Diaries, p. 122.
Bean referred to Legge as having elements of genius in Bean, Two Men I Knew, p. xiii.
Gellibrand’s views in Sadler, The Paladin, p. 93; Bean’s views as recorded in his diary, where he wrote that the 7th Brigade never had the discipline or spirit of the other brigades.
ibid., p. 94.
Bean recorded Birdwood’s reservations about Gellibrand’s outspokenness and unconventional dress in his diary. Quoted in ibid., p. 78.
ibid., p. 77.
ibid., p. 63.
Sadler wrote that Gellibrand’s appointment to brigade command was an ‘adventurous’ gamble. See ibid., p. 77.
Chapter 9: Legge’s Reckoning
The prevailing mood among the 2nd Division staff was described in Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 619.
Urban, ‘Somme Anzac Digger’, p. 44.
Quoted in Browning, The Blue & White Diamond, p. 148.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, p. 6.
Sadler, The Paladin, p. 95.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, p. 6.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 624.
Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front, ch. 8.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 624–25.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/244/1, AWM.
Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 210.
Quoted in Austin, Forward Undeterred, p. 78.
Hocking, PR88/161, AWM.
Quoted in Browning, The Blue & White Diamond, p. 149. Quotation from Mauger ibid., p. 150.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 640.
Bean described events in dugout in Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, pp. 13–16.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 629.
Urban, ‘Somme Anzac Digger’, p. 45.
5th Infantry Brigade, 23/5/14, AWM.
20th Infantry Battalion, 23/37/12, AWM.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 630.
See Bean’s notes on conversations with German officers who were in action on 28 and 29 July in Bean, 38-3DRL/606/244/1, AWM.
Quoted in Browning, The Blue & White Diamond, p. 154. Bean’s notebook records conversations with German officers who spotted the Australian advance.
The Australian entanglement in German trenches described in Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 627, 631–32, and 38-3DRL/606/54/1 and 38-3DRL/606/244/1, both AWM. Symthe’s story in Browning, The Blue & White Diamond, p. 166.
Series B2455, John Arthur Charles Stuart, NAA.
Quoted in Browning, The Blue & White Diamond, p. 157. Subsequent quotation from Mauger ibid., p. 158.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 628.
Quoted in Matthews, Australian Soldiers in the Great War 1914–18, pp. 60–61.
Hocking, PR88/161, AWM.
Goldy Raws’s actions are reconstructed from the evidence Private John McGuire provided to the court of enquiry, held on 12 August 1916. See Bean, 38-3DRL/606/244/1, AWM.
Hocking, PR88/161, AWM.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM.
See ‘Messages and Signals’ for description of events, appendixed in 7th Infantry Brigade, 23/7/11, AWM.
Lewis Winchester Marshall, 1DRL/0428, AWM.
Carne, In Good Company, p. 84.
Urban, ‘Somme Anzac Digger’, p. 45.
The activity in Gellibrand’s dugout that night is described in Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, p. 16 and The AIF in France, 1916, p. 626.
Quoted in Duffy, Through German Eyes, p. 189.
Quoted in Browning, The Blue & White Diamond, p. 169. Also see Sinclair, 1DRL/0428, AWM.
Marshall, 1DRL/0428, AWM.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 640.
Quoted in Sheldon, The German Army on the Somme 1914–1916, p. 230.
Sainsbury, 1DRL/0428, AWM.
Hocking, PR88/161, AWM.
Browning, The Blue & White Diamond, p. 169.
Lieutenant Robert Goldthorpe Raws, 1DRL/0428, AWM.
Young and Gammage, Hail and Farewell, p. 141.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 643.
Quoted in Browning, The Blue & White Diamond, p. 169.
Chapter 10: Promised Land
General Staff, 2nd Division, 1/44/12, AWM.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, p. 22.
The Official History suggests that the information supplied to Haig about Legge’s failure on 29 July was ‘wholly inaccurate’. This picture was likely to have been provided by senior general staff officer Major-General Neill Malcolm, of Gough’s Reserve Army. See Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 211 and Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 619.
Gellibrand is quoted as referring to Legge’s chief-of-staff, Colonel Arthur Bridges, as ‘a swine’. He often agitated for his removal. See Sadler, The Paladin, ch. 13.
Legge wrote to Bean in 1934 that any haste for attacks should have been ascribed to the daily pressures of the Reserve Army commander. Quoted in Coulthard-Clark, No Australian Need Apply, p. 206.
Farrar-Hockley, Goughie, p. 138.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 619.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, p. 118.
Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, pp. 210–11.
ibid., p. 497.
Charteris, Field Marshal Earl Haig, p. 196.
Bean’s handwritten notes on the meeting in ibid.
Account of meeting based on the following sources: White’s letter to Bean, May 1928, in Bean, 38-3DRL/606/244/1, AWM; Bean’s handwritten notes in Bean, 38-3DRL/606/244/1, AWM and The AIF in France, 1916, p. 644 and Two Men I Knew, p. 137; Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 211; and Charteris, Field Marshal Earl Haig, p. 209.
Quotations from Derham, The Silent Ruse, pp. 51–53.
Charteris, At GHQ, p. 159.
General Staff, 2nd Australian Division, 1/44/12, AWM.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 649.
ibid., pp. 650, 651, 654–65. Bean indicated the morale of the 7th Brigade plummeted after the first attack on the OG lines in Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM. Holmes’s preference for a daylight attack in 5th Infantry Brigade, 23/5/14.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 658–59 and Young and Gammage, Hail and Farewell, pp. 146–47.
Quoted in Willmington, ‘Diaries of an Unsung Hero’, pp. 133–34.
Bean, Letters from France, p. 113.
ibid., p. 114.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, pp. 48–49.
McCarthy, Gallipoli to the Somme, p. 237.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, p. 47.
Bean, Letters from France, p. 114.
Bean painted a romantic picture of the men rushing to enlist in the 1st Division in 1914 and how their bush skills prepared them for war. See Bean, The Story of Anzac, p. 46.
Williams contends that, even though Bean was appalled by the loss of life on the Somme, he continued to write despatches that glorified the Anzacs’ eagerness for battle. See Williams, Anzacs, the Media and the Great War, p. 148.
Bean alluded to the wide powers of the censors, who were responsible for enforcing the War Precautions Act, in 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, p. 36.
In December 1917 Bean advised his assistant of the official correspondent’s duty. See ‘Position of the Assistant Correspondent AIF and Duties of the Australian War Correspondent’, 12 December 1917, Bean Papers, folder 268, AWM.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 529 and Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 213. Churchill’s critique in World Crisis, pp. 187–92.
Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, pp. 213, 214. Subsequent quotation ibid., p. 214.
Todman, The Great War, ch. 5; Philpott, Bloody Victory, p. 189; and Hitchens, ‘The Pity of War’.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 663–65.
ibid., pp. 664, 665 and Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, pp. 118–19.
Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 215.
Breed, ‘From France with Love 1916–1918’, p. 68.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 659, 674.
Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 214.
Quoted in Terraine, Douglas Haig, p. xii.
Lloyd George, War Memoirs, pp. 2038–42.
French’s fluctuating moods in the first months of the war are described in Tuchman, The Guns of August.
Seely, Adventure, pp. 150–51.
Charteris, At GHQ, pp. 208–09.
Corrigan summarises the British Expeditionary Force’s rapid expansion throughout the war and the pressures it placed upon commanders. See Corrigan, Mud, Blood and Poppycock, pp. 192–98.
Lloyd George, War Memoirs, p. 2042.
Charteris commented on 29 July 1916 that many divisional and corps commanders on the Somme were presently ‘inexperienced in their new commands’. See Charteris, At GHQ, p. 159.
Gough, The Fifth Army, p. 135.
Brown, British Logistics on the Western Front, 1914–1919, p. 126.
Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 248.
Charteris, Field Marshal Earl Haig, p. 199.
Quoted in Terraine, Douglas Haig, 1963, p. 173.
Mackenzie, The Story of the Seventeenth Battalion, AIF, in the Great War 1914–1918, p. 126.
Lord Northcliffe noted that Birdie always gave this advice in The Herald, 7 August 1916, p. 1. Subsequent quotation ibid.
Devine, The Story of a Battalion, p. 51 and Mackenzie, The Story of the Seventeenth Battalion, AIF, in the Great War 1914–1918, p. 126.
These critical corps-planning responsibilities are defined in Prior and Wilson, Command on the Western Front, p. 20.
Corrigan notes that in the tiny pre-war British army, few commanders had any experience handling anything larger than a brigade in the field. See Corrigan, Mud, Blood and Poppycock, p. 190.
Prior and Wilson, Command on the Western Front, p. 20.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/113/1, AWM, p. 11.
Quotation in Birdwood, Khaki and Gown, p. 271 and comment about Pozières trenches in The Herald, 7 August 1916, p. 1.
Birdwood in a letter to Lord Derby, 15 Aug 1916. Quoted in Miller, John, ‘A Study in the Limitations of Command: General Sir William Birdwood and the AIF, 1914–1918’, Manuscript 1459, 1993, AWM, p. 145.
Birdwood Papers, Imperial War Museum, quoted in ibid.
Quoted in Breed, ‘From France with Love 1916–1918’, p. 69.
Intelligence, I Anzac Corps, 1/30/7, Part 1, AWM.
Although Haig’s formal attack, to which von Gallwitz was alluding, would not occur until September, the Germans would have no doubt been anticipating it. See Sheldon, The German Army on the Somme 1914–1916, p. 222.
Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, p. 688. Subsequent quotation ibid., p. 682.
6th Infantry Brigade, 23/6/12, AWM.
Author Eric Partridge participated in the attack. Although his book, like other classics such as Robert Graves’s Goodbye to All That (1960) and Siegfried Sassoon’s Memories of an Infantry Officer (2000), featured fictional characters, the description of events was based on personal experience. See Partridge, Frank Honywood, Private, p. 89.
Quoted in Urban, ‘Somme Anzac Digger’, p. 47. Subsequent quotation ibid., p. 48.
Treloar, An ANZAC Diary, p. 271.
Bean, 38-3DRL/606/54/1, AWM, p. 84.
Urban, ‘Somme Anzac Digger’, p. 48.
Quoted in Browning, The Blue & White Diamond, p. 177.
Description of Australian attack in Bean, The AIF in France, 1916, pp. 673, 680, 689–90 and General Staff, I Anzac Corps, 1/29/7, Part 1, both AWM.
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