Charles Bean’s Great War

War Documentary, Biography

SBS Australia, Madman

R4 DVD

In this well-deserved documentary we see the history of one of Australia’s great men, Charles Bean. At the opening of World War 1 the Australian military appointed him to report on the actions of Australian troops in the overseas theatres of war. He was given the honorary rank of Captain. The British had their own war correspondents but their flowery jingoistic style contained propaganda messages of patriotism and heroism but little of fact. The Australians back home wanted to know what was really happening to their sons.

Bean reported the facts as he saw them. In one dispatch he commented on the drunken loutish behaviour of the Australians in Cairo. This did not make him many friends, but it was at the Gallipoli landing that he came into his own. He went ashore with the troops in the first few hours of the landing and was able to report accurately on the shambles of the early battle. He rescued an injured soldier, and managed to get himself shot by a Turk while doing so. He carried the bullet in his leg to his death. He was recommended for an award for this action but because he was only an honorary soldier he was not eligible.

Bean managed to make friends among the troops and got their impressions first hand. He developed his own style of reporting – an overview of the battle, details of individual skirmishes, and often the experiences of a small group of the men involved. He was able to do this effectively because the Australian contingent was comparatively small. He became a familiar figure to the troops as he wandered around with notebook and camera in hand. By contrast the British correspondent stayed on board the ships at Gallipoli and provided the standard heroic descriptions based on what he could see through a telescope.

Bean reported accurately and without fear or favour. This got him into trouble with the higher-ups, both for highlighting the errors of the military staff and because his style was too dry and factual, not the florid jingoistic style of the British correspondents. In fact many of his dispatches were regarded by the newspapers as downright boring, no matter how detailed, and they used the British reports instead. His notes, photos and dispatches are of great historical value, though, because they present an accurate on-the-spot report of the battles.

When Gallipoli was abandoned in 1916 and the troops moved to the Western Front and its dreadful trench warfare Bean went with the Australians. Somewhere about this time, after the costly Battle of Pozieres, he conceived an idea that was to truly commemorate the soldiers lost in battle – an Australian War Memorial. He got a sympathetic reception to the idea and began collecting relics of the battles that formed the nucleus of the War Memorial collection in years to come. The idea became so popular that the military appointed John Treloar, later to become the Memorial’s Director, as head of the new Australian War Records Section. His job was to amass the records, unit notebooks and diaries of the units, and historical relics for the proposed Memorial. With help from the soldiers themselves the Section amassed a collection of over 25,000 relics and contributed to improving the quality of the unit diaries so they could be used as a historical resource. Note the word “relics” – Bean did not believe in the British system of collecting trophies of victories and ignoring the losses. He felt a true historical record would include details of all actions, won or lost, as accurately as possible. The relics were there to support this

Bean also photographed and painted the war extensively with the help of a number of specialist artists and photographers. He wanted the records, like the despatches, to truly reflect what was happening at the time. In this he differed with the British official historian who commented that "The general tone of Bean's narrative is deplorable from the Imperial standpoint". This apparently meant that he was not following the official British line as to how the history of the war was to be presented and was not afraid to detail the shortcomings of the Imperial General Staff. He said of the general Staff “The British nation has not the brains to make war. It’s much better at manufacturing socks.”.

After the War the government appointed him to edit the 12-volume Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, much of which was written by him. It took years to get access to the British records. Some people had long memories and knew the British would not be treated well in parts of the colonial history.

The War Memorial project ran straight into the Depression and funds were limited, but to the credit of successive governments they got enough money from somewhere and work commenced. As well as the valuable archives the Memorial contains a shrine and a museum. Although originally intended as a memorial to the fallen of World War 1, with the outbreak of World War 2 it became obvious that other wars were going to have to be included. It is now a central archive and museum for every conflict in which Australians fought up to the wars in south east Asia.

The names of every fallen Australian soldier are engraved on the walls of the cloisters around the Pool of Remembrance and at the head of the Pool is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As Bean said, “Many a man lying out there at Pozières or in the low scrub at Gallipoli, with his poor tired senses barely working through the fever of his brain, has thought in his last moments: "Well – well – it's over; but in Australia they will be proud of this."

Although Bean’s uncooperative approach to the British historians may have cost him a decoration from King George V, he was offered a Knighthood by his grateful government. Bean turned it down – three times. As much as any man he led Australia towards independence from Britain and helped unite the colonies into a single country. The Australian War Memorial centralised the war history and was one of the first tangible signs that Australia was no longer a collection of colonies.

The Memorial is a great monument to the fallen soldiers but is also a monument to Bean’s vision and patriotism. The documentary re-enacts many of the scenes from his life, based on his photos and notes. It is a comprehensive tribute to a good Australian.

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