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PREFACE from the 1916
volume
Colonial historians have
been taxed with a tendency to garnish their works with more detail than
writers in older countries. If that observation is true—and probably it
is— of this volume and its predecessors, the reasons are definite and
easily furnished.
First, the limited nature of the field—enabling these books to be
written mainly by eyewitnesses of the events and within the lifetimes
and recent memories of most of the actors—has made it possible to
reconstruct the fighting from the point of view of the front line, and
to record with more than usual certainty the play of strains and
stresses at the actual point where battles are won or lost. The chief
value of national war histories such as these is to'show how a people
responds to the heaviest of all tests : what strain it will resist; when
it will bend or break; how it compares in these respects with others;
and what are the elements and signs of its strength and weakness. It
also seems desirable to provide the evidence which may perhaps some day
help other students to probe for “ the causes. In war men will exhibit
in the sight of all, often a dozen times in a day, feelings and
tendencies which might not be visible to their fellows once in an
ordinary lifetime. Their allies beside them, and the enemy whom they
face, are subjected to similar stress, and from the millions of
resulting incidents there may be gleaned data for a comparative test of
extraordinary interest and value. The sources from which war histories
have sometimes been written—despatches of generals (which often afford
only second-hand, or even third-hand, evidence of what actually happened
to their troops), second-hand reports composed long after the events,
and stories already half-crystallised as legend—may indicate what the
leaders thought and intended, but have little authority for the
occurrences on the actual battle-front. For the present history the
essential data were obtained from those actually engaged, and within a
few weeks of most of the events. Thus authentic materials for detailed
reconstruction of the actual fighting do in a large measure exist. In
the present volume the writer has endeavoured truthfully to exhibit the
Australian character as evinced under a strain which, at first gentle,
suddenly increased at Pozieres to terrible intensity, then eased, and in
the early winter again suddenly racked the men almost to breaking point.
So cruel, indeed, was the test that the human material was suspected by
those who best knew it—though not by other onlookers— of having suffered
permanent damage. When the volume ends, the stress shows signs of
abating; and—though the fears of breakdown are not yet wholly
dispelled—there are tokens that nerves and spirits may regain all their
former resiliency.
Second, a comparison of the higher reports and despatches on the one
hand with the mass of first-hand data concerning the front on the other
confirms what the writer’s personal observation had already
suggested—that despatches written after a fight are rarely accurate in
detail; that movements which a leader believes—and states—to have been
the result of his orders have very often been made before those orders
arrived, their true cause having been accident, the pressure of the
enemy, the initiative of some junior officer, or even the tactical sense
of the troops themselves. Probably the colonial writer regards more
sceptically than those of older countries the despatches both of
statesmen and of generals. He is also, perhaps, less likely to be
influenced by the assumption—necessary in military operations, but in no
degree binding on their historian—that for a commander’s decisions the
commander alone is responsible. The colonial historian, convinced that
the true credit for famous achievements in war, as in politics, lies
often with unknown subordinates, endeavours to sift the details until he
can lay a just share of praise at the feet of those to whom it is due.
In the compilation of the present volume this purpose has been
deliberately kept in view. Only by this method have there, for example,
been brought to light the desperate fighting on the beleaguered right
flank of Fromelles and the critical situation (solved by the boldness of
one young leader) in the final attack on Pozieres Ridge—events about
which the official operation reports were silent, simply because the
higher leaders had never heard of them. No blame whatever is to be
imputed for this omission ; the higher authorities had duties far more
pressing than that of delving into history. But a history of those
battles based merely—or mainly—on the official reports would have been a
travesty of the truth.
To this twofold desire—to give a true picture of the test of battle, and
to distribute the credit as widely as possible among those who deserve
it—the particularity of these narratives has been due. The author has,
however, endeavoured to prevent mere multiplicity of detail from
obscuring its own bearing either on the development of the A.I.F. or on
the course of the greater struggle. If the achievement of this aim has
been possible, it has only been so because the field was comparatively
small. If the writer had had to deal with fifty divisions instead of
five, a different method must have been adopted. Indeed, in the next
volume of this series—describing the retreat of the enemy to the
Hindenburg Line, and the Battles of Bullecourt, Messines, and Ypres
(1917)—the method of the present one will be impossible. The story of
each of these events, if written on the same scale as that of Pozieres,
would itself fill more than half the book. The narrative must therefore
necessarily be much more general, and a vast amount of incident
exhibiting the reaction of Australians to those famous tests must go
unrecorded—at least in these pages.
The author’s gratitude for constant assistance is especially due to the
Director, Acting-Directors, and staff of the Australian War Memorial; to
Brigadier-General Sir James Edmonds and the staff of the Historical
Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence in London; and to Mr. T. H.
E. Ileyes, who, as the representative of the Australian War Memorial for
three years, carried out his researches among the British war records.
Suggestions made by Sir Tames Edmonds have in many places added much to
the value of the text. The writer is also deeply indebted to the
officials of the Historical Section, French Ministry of War, and to Mr.
C. H. Voss, the Australian Trade Representative in Paris, as well as to
the Director of the Imperial German Archives at Potsdam, to Captain J.
J. W. Herbertson, and to Herr A. Stenger for their unfailing courtesy
and constant personal effort towards furnishing material for the French
and German sides of the narrative; to the High Commissioner for
Australia in London and his staff; to the officers of the Mitchell
Library in Sydney; to Brigadier-General T. H. Dodds, Messrs. W. A.
Newman, J. E. Murphy, A. J. Withers, and many others in the Department
of Defence. The marginal sketches and maps are by Mr. W. S. Perry.
The author also acknowledges his debt to a great number of eyewitnesses
of the events recorded, and to those others who have made available,
either directly or through the Australian War Memorial, letters and
diaries containing many frank and invaluable narratives.
C. E. W. B.
Sydney,
8th August, 1928.
Download
The Australian Imperial Force in France
1916 here (pdf)
Download The Australian Imperial Force in France
1917 here (pdf)
Download The Australian Imperial Force in France
1918a here (pdf)
Download The Australian Imperial Force in France
1918b here (pdf)
Download Letters from France here (pdf) |
