Speaker 1: His philosophy was that this is a story too great
Speaker 1: for people who hadn't been involved in it to understand,
Speaker 1: and he just said, we will never the people at
Speaker 1: home will never understand what it meant to charge the
Speaker 1: trenches at Lone Pine or to fight across that desolate
Speaker 1: plane at Crithia.
Speaker 2: I'm Jen Kelly from The Herald Son and Missus in
Speaker 2: Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's forgotten characters.
Speaker 2: Today we'll hear the life story of a remarkable man
Speaker 2: whose name has popped up frequently in our episodes over
Speaker 2: the past five years. His name was Charles Bean, and
Speaker 2: he's best known as the official historian of World War One.
Speaker 2: He documented the war in six extraordinary volumes and then
Speaker 2: went on to establish the Australian War Memorial. But today
Speaker 2: we're going to hear about another fascinating side to the
Speaker 2: life of a man best known as a journalist and historian.
Speaker 2: As the official correspondent at Gallipoli, Been willingly put his
Speaker 2: life in danger time after time to join the ANZAC
Speaker 2: troops advancing on the front line in order to report
Speaker 2: the action through their eyes. At the deadly Battle of Crithia,
Speaker 2: where the Australians suffered enormous losses. Bean risked his life
Speaker 2: to place himself at the heart of the action. Despite
Speaker 2: being a civilian armed only with a notebook and writing implements,
Speaker 2: Bean was an active participant. He dragged a wounded man
Speaker 2: to safety, for which he was recommended for a Bravery Award,
Speaker 2: and he was nearly killed several times. To share the tale,
Speaker 2: we're talking again to military historian Matt McLaughlin, who tells
Speaker 2: the amazing story and many others in an upcoming book
Speaker 2: called Crithia about the long forgotten Anzac Battle. Matt is
Speaker 2: best known as the founder of Matt McLachlin Battlefield Tours
Speaker 2: and he's the host of the Living History podcast. Now
Speaker 2: Matt is here with the story of times been Welcome
Speaker 2: back to the podcast, Matt.
Speaker 3: Great to be back.
Speaker 2: Jen, No, it is always great chatting to you, but
Speaker 2: this week it's particularly exciting because you're about to release
Speaker 2: a new book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: It's the end of a two year project, so I
Speaker 1: think anyone who's written a book out there will understand
Speaker 1: just the trials and tribulations and what a commitment it is.
Speaker 1: And I'm very excited that we've reached the end of
Speaker 1: that process and the new book's coming out.
Speaker 2: Congratulations. Now we're talking today about Charles Bean. Was Charles
Speaker 2: been always destined to be a writer?
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a great question. He's an interesting bloke.
Speaker 1: Charles been a bit of an enigma. He's someone that
Speaker 1: I've admired for a long time. I think we'd say
Speaker 1: he's an unusual guy by our modern standards. He's not
Speaker 1: a typical ossie that we would meet today. He's very
Speaker 1: much from an earlier time and he was very much
Speaker 1: a man of his time. And so I think it's
Speaker 1: a rather long witted answer, you Ques, but I think yes,
Speaker 1: he always was destined to be a writer. He always
Speaker 1: loved writing, He always loved telling stories. So I think
Speaker 1: he always was going to write, but it was an
Speaker 1: interesting journey to get there.
Speaker 2: Whereabouts did he grow up?
Speaker 1: He was born in Bathurst and grew up in New
Speaker 1: South Wales, but his father suffered from ill health and
Speaker 1: moved them to England, and ancestrally he'd been His family
Speaker 1: was from England, and so I think that's a key
Speaker 1: part of his character. He was always very British. He
Speaker 1: was a proud Australian and he definitely saw the strengths
Speaker 1: and the weaknesses of the Australian character, but he saw
Speaker 1: himself as very British as well at the same time,
Speaker 1: and I think what he saw in Australia was the
Speaker 1: best of Britain. So I think that's really essential to
Speaker 1: establish at the outset is he saw Australia as an
Speaker 1: important component of Britain in many ways, and he saw
Speaker 1: good Australians as good British subjects, and he saw himself
Speaker 1: as at least partly.
Speaker 3: British as well.
Speaker 2: And where was he educated.
Speaker 1: He was educated at Clifton College, which I think is
Speaker 1: interesting because a number of other prominent, prominent people who
Speaker 1: would serve in the war were old boys of that school.
Speaker 1: Sir Douglas Haigue is probably the most prominent, the commander
Speaker 1: of the entire British forces, but also William Birdwood, who
Speaker 1: would command the ANZACs at Gallipoli, was also an old
Speaker 1: boy of Clifton College. And Bean went on to study
Speaker 1: at Oxford as well, But Clifton always had a big
Speaker 1: impact on him and a lot of the values that
Speaker 1: he learned as a boy studying at Clifton College in
Speaker 1: the UK stuck with him and he played a lot
Speaker 1: of cricket there he learned about what he thought it
Speaker 1: was to be a man and a good citizen of
Speaker 1: the world. But in addition, an interesting little footnote that
Speaker 1: I've discovered about him is that later in life, when
Speaker 1: he lived in Sydney, well after the war and in
Speaker 1: the late stages of his life, he lived in a
Speaker 1: house in Lynnfield which he called Clifton after his school.
Speaker 1: And then he moved to Coleroy, actually very near to
Speaker 1: where I lived for a long period of time. And
Speaker 1: one day I went for a drive around just trying
Speaker 1: to see if I could find the house that being
Speaker 1: lived in in his later years, And as I was
Speaker 1: driving down a street which I knew was the street
Speaker 1: he lived in, I saw a house at the end
Speaker 1: of the street with the word Clifton written on the
Speaker 1: front of the house.
Speaker 3: So even at the end of.
Speaker 1: His life, when he was a man in his eighties,
Speaker 1: he was still living in a house named after his
Speaker 1: school in England.
Speaker 2: So at some point did the whole family move back
Speaker 2: from the UK to Australia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they came back eventually, or Bean came back after
Speaker 1: his studies, after he studied at Oxford.
Speaker 3: He came back to Australia.
Speaker 1: And part of the experience he'd had while he was
Speaker 1: in Europe was his family had spent a bit of
Speaker 1: time in Belgium, and as part of that experience, Bean
Speaker 1: had spent quite a bit of time on the battlefield
Speaker 1: of Waterloo, which is very close to Brussels. And while
Speaker 1: there he'd walked the fields and picked up relics from
Speaker 1: the fighting which had taken place less than a century
Speaker 1: before he'd been there, and I think that imbued in
Speaker 1: him a sense of the importance of walking the ground,
Speaker 1: the importance of touching and feeling tangibles from the battle,
Speaker 1: because he visited the museum at Waterloo and saw all
Speaker 1: the relics and found some relics himself on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: And he always said that that was a really important
Speaker 1: contribution to his understanding of warfare and to the story
Speaker 1: of what would come on later in his life after
Speaker 1: the First World War.
Speaker 2: So, before we talk about the important events of World
Speaker 2: War One, are there any more key points from his
Speaker 2: background before the war that we should know about.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Basically, he studied as he studied law and took the bar,
Speaker 1: so it was working as a lawyer, but it really
Speaker 1: wasn't for him. And he knew Banjo Patterson quite well
Speaker 1: and they both worked together in Sydney on various newspapers,
Speaker 1: and Banjo Patterson had served as a war correspondent during
Speaker 1: the Boer War, so I think this was a source
Speaker 1: of inspiration to be leading into the First World War.
Speaker 1: But in the first sort of fifteen years of the
Speaker 1: new century, being traveled around Australia a lot, he wrote
Speaker 1: a lot of articles about the bushmen of Australia. He
Speaker 1: developed this love for the idea of the country and
Speaker 1: the man from snowy River and men riding their horses
Speaker 1: around and the hardy bush people. He really developed this
Speaker 1: love for it in the first ten or fifteen years
Speaker 1: of the century and that influenced what would happen during
Speaker 1: the First World War. Sage and been a very well
Speaker 1: educated man, tall and skinny, red hair glasses, not a
Speaker 1: typical soldier or a typical even journalist, you'd imagine, very
Speaker 1: good with a pen, very observant. He was quite a
Speaker 1: dry writer during his time, and he once said quite
Speaker 1: condescendingly that he wanted to write prose, that a housewife
Speaker 1: of middling intelligence would understand, not a very acceptable statement
Speaker 1: these days, but it illustrates that he had this desire
Speaker 1: to write plainly and simply and without flowery prose, which
Speaker 1: was the sort of the style of the day, and
Speaker 1: so that would have a big influence on what he
Speaker 1: would write during the First World War and in later years.
Speaker 2: Will take us forward to the war and how did
Speaker 2: it come to be known as the father of the
Speaker 2: Anzac legend.
Speaker 1: Well, there was a number of prominent journalists who were
Speaker 1: sort of lobbying to become the correspondent for the Australians
Speaker 1: during the First World War. It was known that the
Speaker 1: Australian government would appoint an official correspondent, just one journalist
Speaker 1: whose job it would be to travel with the Australians
Speaker 1: as they went off to fight in the First World
Speaker 1: War and to write their story. There would be a
Speaker 1: number of war correspondents who would be selected throughout the
Speaker 1: course of the war, but it was always known that
Speaker 1: there would be one official, dominant war correspondent, and so
Speaker 1: a number of journalists lobbied for that. But it was
Speaker 1: Bean that was selected rather I think unexpectedly. I don't
Speaker 1: think too many people thought he would get the gig
Speaker 1: but Bean was then selected to be the official war
Speaker 1: correspondent for Australia and left with the first contingent of
Speaker 1: troops at the end of nineteen fourteen to head overseas,
Speaker 1: first to Egypt and then obviously to Gallipoli. They didn't
Speaker 1: know it at the time when they left Australia that
Speaker 1: Gallipoli would be their destination, but being traveled with them
Speaker 1: from the earliest days, so he saw the Australians in training,
Speaker 1: he saw British troops during training, and he started to
Speaker 1: establish this feeling that the Australians were more manly, that
Speaker 1: they were stronger. He came up with this idea that
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a particularly accurate idea, but being
Speaker 1: loved at the idea that British troops had been drawn
Speaker 1: from the cities of Ing, from the industrial cities and
Speaker 1: the slums of London, and so they were smaller and
Speaker 1: less fit and less healthy, whereas the Australian men had
Speaker 1: all come from the bush and played sport and spent
Speaker 1: their whole time in the sunshine. So therefore they was taller, stronger,
Speaker 1: fitter than their English counterparts. And I don't think it's
Speaker 1: actually true. I don't think the evidence suggests that is
Speaker 1: the case, but it was something that stuck with being
Speaker 1: for a long time and illustrates this idea that he
Speaker 1: just basically was in love with this concept of Australian manhood.
Speaker 1: I mean, he just was absolutely enamored with this idea
Speaker 1: of the strong, tough Australian bushmen.
Speaker 2: Ah. And so were people able to read what he
Speaker 2: was writing, you know, weeks and months later or you know,
Speaker 2: was this history compiled and not read until long after
Speaker 2: these events?
Speaker 1: No, it was read, not quite live. It took a while.
Speaker 1: It took several weeks for the Bean's first correspondences to
Speaker 1: be published in Australian newspapers. So he was writing articles,
Speaker 1: the most famous of which was the description of the
Speaker 1: landing at Anzac and being to share very early on
Speaker 1: the morning of the landing at Gallipoli on the twenty
Speaker 1: fifth of April nineteen fifteen. But it wasn't until May,
Speaker 1: I think about mid May that his dispatches were published
Speaker 1: in Australian newspapers. So it wasn't quite live reporting, but
Speaker 1: it was certainly timely reporting. There was a delay of
Speaker 1: a few weeks between the events themselves and Bean's reporting
Speaker 1: of them appearing in Australian newspapers and.
Speaker 2: Tell us about some of his descriptions. What was he
Speaker 2: sort of best known for? Was what sort of writing
Speaker 2: was he best known for.
Speaker 3: It's a good question.
Speaker 1: As a writer myself, I'm always interested in Bean's style
Speaker 1: and the descriptions that he wrote.
Speaker 3: He was a very dry writer.
Speaker 1: He did not, as he said, he did not sort
Speaker 1: of fall into that technique of colorful prose. He was
Speaker 1: probably a bit too dry. I think he was very descriptive.
Speaker 1: He'd get very bogged down on detail. He actually copped
Speaker 1: criticism during the war for being too dry with his dispatches.
Speaker 1: Where the British correspondents were writing about daring charges and
Speaker 1: our brave heroes, Bean was reporting quite quite a bit
Speaker 1: more succinctly, and he was accused of being a bit
Speaker 1: of a dry writer. And I think that's a fair
Speaker 1: accusation when you read his writings. Now there's a lot
Speaker 1: of Bean's work that you can now read, and most
Speaker 1: scholars of the First World War being just about every day,
Speaker 1: it is pretty dry. And in some of his later works,
Speaker 1: the Official Histories, for example, he gets very bogged down
Speaker 1: in detail. But that's a great resource for us now,
Speaker 1: if you can get through the dry writing style, it's
Speaker 1: a great resource because.
Speaker 3: He talked about just about everything.
Speaker 1: He talked about training, he talked about food, he talked
Speaker 1: about what the men were wearing, and he was a
Speaker 1: great observer of what the men were doing in a
Speaker 1: fairly detached manner, in a fairly sort of observing from
Speaker 1: above kind of way. He would talk about what the
Speaker 1: men were doing. But there's absolutely no doubt that he
Speaker 1: had a great admiration for Anzac soldiers and that comes
Speaker 1: through in just about everything that he wrote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so all these reports that he was writing day
Speaker 2: to day and that were being published not live but
Speaker 2: almost live during the war, where they then compile after
Speaker 2: the war to become the sort of official history of
Speaker 2: our war.
Speaker 1: Okay, well that's an interesting question. The answer, the simple
Speaker 1: answer is no, it didn't quite work like that. But
Speaker 1: so he was writing dispatches for newspapers. Basically he was
Speaker 1: keeping people updated with what was happening on the battlefield
Speaker 1: and what would then happen is he then after the war,
Speaker 1: he was then appointed to write the official history. So
Speaker 1: that was a brand new project that started from scratch
Speaker 1: and no doubt he referred a lot to his diaries.
Speaker 1: For example, he kept very detailed diaries during his time
Speaker 1: at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, and so he
Speaker 1: referred to those. But the dispatches that he wrote during
Speaker 1: the war are quite a separate resource from the incredible
Speaker 1: amount of research and work that he did after the
Speaker 1: war in compiling official histories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Now, obviously you've been most interested in his
Speaker 2: experiences at Crispia during the battle. Can you tell us
Speaker 2: about that and the profound effect that it had on him?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So a little bit more broadly, I've always been
Speaker 1: fast by Charles Bean, and from my earliest days as
Speaker 1: a teenager, when I was first studying the First World War,
Speaker 1: I was reading Bean's Official History. So I've always had
Speaker 1: a soft spot for Bean, and it depending on what
Speaker 1: I'm currently working on, depends on which part of Bean's
Speaker 1: histories that I'm delving into. So he did a lot
Speaker 1: of great work on the Western Front as well as
Speaker 1: he's reporting on Gallipoli. But I really think his first
Speaker 1: two volumes of the Official History, where he broke down
Speaker 1: the Anzac campaign at Gallipoli in huge detail, I think
Speaker 1: these are absolutely some of his best work, and I've
Speaker 1: been digging into those a lot lately because of the
Speaker 1: new book that's coming out about the Battle of Crithia
Speaker 1: at Gallipoli. And I know we talked about Crithia several
Speaker 1: episodes ago gen when we talked about General James McKay,
Speaker 1: we talked all about the Battle of Critia. But it
Speaker 1: was a battle that Charles Bean was very heavily involved
Speaker 1: in and reported from right from the front line. And
Speaker 1: the quick summary of that battle is Australian troops and
Speaker 1: New Zealand troops were sent from the Anzac sector down
Speaker 1: to the British sector at Cape Hellez only a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks after the landing at Gallipoli, and on the
Speaker 1: eighth of May nineteen fifteen, fought this huge battle at
Speaker 1: Crithia where they lost about fifty percent of their men,
Speaker 1: so a couple of thousand men were killed or wounded
Speaker 1: in that action. So a huge action for the ANZACs,
Speaker 1: but one that's really slipped through the cracks as far
Speaker 1: as Australians and New Zealanders are concerned, and we don't
Speaker 1: really remember.
Speaker 3: It as part of the Gallipoli story.
Speaker 1: So I've really enjoyed delving into Bean's accounts of Crithia
Speaker 1: to write my new book about that battle, and it's
Speaker 1: really fascinating. Bean was there with the troops. He was
Speaker 1: in the front line. He didn't have to be in
Speaker 1: the front line. He could have easily just been in
Speaker 1: the general area and then interviewed people after the attack,
Speaker 1: but he wanted to see it from the front line,
Speaker 1: and so he actually put himself in a lot of danger.
Speaker 1: There were several occasions where Bean was in danger of
Speaker 1: being killed. He was advancing with the front line troops
Speaker 1: as they went forward in one of the deadliest battles
Speaker 1: Australians would fight in at Gallipoli. And it's not just
Speaker 1: his own accounts. We have accounts from soldiers describing how
Speaker 1: they saw Bean on the battlefield and how in or
Speaker 1: they were of him and his reckless bravery during that advance.
Speaker 1: So Bean later said that the battlefield at Cristia was
Speaker 1: the battlefield he knew amongst the best of the war
Speaker 1: because he just spent so much time there. And in fact,
Speaker 1: during this terrible fighting, when Australians were being killed or wounded,
Speaker 1: Bean was not only reporting on it, but he was
Speaker 1: active in the whole thing. He dragged a wounded man
Speaker 1: to safety, for which he was recommended for Bravery Award.
Speaker 1: He didn't get the Bravery award because he was actually
Speaker 1: a civilian who was an honorary captain in the army,
Speaker 1: so he wasn't eligible for a bravery award. But he
Speaker 1: was very nearly killed several times. A soldier described watching
Speaker 1: Bean advancing and watching him suddenly turn his head as
Speaker 1: a bullet flew past his ear. He helped Colonel MacKaye
Speaker 1: that we mentioned in the previous episode. In the former episode,
Speaker 1: James mckaye, he assisted Mackay in the front line when
Speaker 1: MacKaye was wounded. He ran messages backwards and forwards, and
Speaker 1: of course we should remember Jen throughout this he was
Speaker 1: completely unarmed because he was a correspondent. The only thing
Speaker 1: he had with him was a notebook and a pencil.
Speaker 1: So it was really extraordinary how actively he participated in
Speaker 1: this battle at Cristia, simply because he felt it was
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. And as soon as the
Speaker 1: battle was over a week or two later, he actually
Speaker 1: went back to the battlefield while it was still under
Speaker 1: fire from the Turks. They were getting long rage fire
Speaker 1: and he and another officer walked to the ground to
Speaker 1: try and make a little bit more sense of what
Speaker 1: had been going on. So he certainly can't be faulted
Speaker 1: for his bravery. He was in the thick of the
Speaker 1: action and it's stuck with him. I can tell from
Speaker 1: reading about his experiences at Crithia that it was an
Speaker 1: experience that stuck with him for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: We'll be back soon to find out what happened after
Speaker 2: the battle, so stay with us and are there any
Speaker 2: other sort of standout points for you from his time
Speaker 2: at Gallipoli?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think there was a couple of
Speaker 1: very notable points at the start of the August offensive.
Speaker 1: I think on about the sixth of August, he got
Speaker 1: shot in the leg while he was at Gylipoly, which
Speaker 1: was no doubt a notable experience for him. So he
Speaker 1: was just working near his dugout and a bullet that
Speaker 1: had been fired from the front line came flying over
Speaker 1: the ridge and struck him in the leg, which is
Speaker 1: a pretty That was actually a pretty common injury at Gallipoli,
Speaker 1: that not being directly shot but hit by fire that
Speaker 1: had come from the front line. Because it was just
Speaker 1: such a small area they were fighting in at Gallipoli,
Speaker 1: and Bean was very badly wounded for several weeks and
Speaker 1: eventually hobbled back to the front line.
Speaker 3: He refused to be evacuated.
Speaker 1: He was just treated in his dugout at Gallipoli, so
Speaker 1: he stayed close to the action, and then a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks later he was able to with a help
Speaker 1: a walking stick, sort of hobble back to the front
Speaker 1: line and report on what was going on. But incidentally,
Speaker 1: that bullet that hit him at Gallipoli was still in
Speaker 1: his leg when he died. So yeah, so quite an
Speaker 1: amazing story. And so he Yeah, so, as I said,
Speaker 1: he was certainly in the thick of the action for
Speaker 1: that whole time, and he gained an interesting perspective on
Speaker 1: the ANZACs, which I think I think is really important
Speaker 1: in our collective remembrance today, because how can I put this,
Speaker 1: It seems fairly natural to us that we would look
Speaker 1: back on the original ANZACs and Gallipoli and the First
Speaker 1: World War with these feelings of admiration and huge respect.
Speaker 1: And we remember Anzac Day and we commemorate the bravery
Speaker 1: of these men. But that wasn't a given that we
Speaker 1: would look at them that way. I mean, we certainly
Speaker 1: don't do that for the Battle of Waterloo, we don't
Speaker 1: do it for some other actions that Australians have been
Speaker 1: involved in. And I think a huge reason for the
Speaker 1: fact that we do that for the First World War
Speaker 1: was Charles Bean. Was he really developed this idea at
Speaker 1: Gallipoli of the just the bravery and the courage and
Speaker 1: the esteem we should hold these soldiers in. And I
Speaker 1: think that's why we call him the father of the
Speaker 1: Anzac legend, because he developed these ideas at Gallipoli and
Speaker 1: promoted them when he got back to Australia. So I
Speaker 1: think that's why Gallipoli was so important in the story
Speaker 1: of Charles being and important for all of us in
Speaker 1: our remembrance of Anzak.
Speaker 2: Know what about Charles Ben's time on the Western Front
Speaker 2: and his standout moments.
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, I mean he did great work on the
Speaker 1: Western Front. The Western Front was a much bigger war
Speaker 1: than Gallipoli, obviously, you know the scale, the number of
Speaker 1: battles the Australians fought in, and Charles Bean did great
Speaker 1: reporting on the fighting on the Western Front. I think
Speaker 1: he always had a soft spot for Gallipoli. I think
Speaker 1: after the war, and looking at his writings and the
Speaker 1: official history, it was Gallipoli that really captured his imagination.
Speaker 1: But that's not to say he didn't do brilliant work
Speaker 1: on the Western Front as well. So he was there
Speaker 1: just about every important battle. He wrote a lot about
Speaker 1: the Battle of Possier in the Somme, Australia's most deadly
Speaker 1: conflict in our military history actually the Battle of Posier,
Speaker 1: so he spent a lot of time reporting on that.
Speaker 1: He reported on all the great actions into nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: the disaster at Passiondale when so many Australians were killed,
Speaker 1: and then on into the great Australian victories of nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: and so he was always there. He was always considered
Speaker 1: a very Haughton part of the Australian system, the Australian
Speaker 1: Imperial Force, he was always an essential component of that.
Speaker 1: He lobbied unsuccessfully against General John Monash when Monash was
Speaker 1: going to be was suggested to be the commander of
Speaker 1: the Australian Forces in nineteen eighteen. Bean didn't feel that
Speaker 1: Monash was the right man for the job, so a
Speaker 1: bit of controversy there where he lobbied quite hard against
Speaker 1: him and he wanted General brudnal White to be the
Speaker 1: commander of the Australian forces, but I think because we
Speaker 1: all know, Monash was absolutely the right choice. So a
Speaker 1: little bit of a cloud over him there that he
Speaker 1: was on the wrong side of history in lobbying against
Speaker 1: John Monash, But overall he did a great job reporting
Speaker 1: on the Western Front. Probably the most interesting thing that
Speaker 1: he missed out on was the Battle of Fromel, the
Speaker 1: first big battle the Australians were involved in, and listeners
Speaker 1: probably know it quite well, this huge disaster where Australia
Speaker 1: lost five and a half thousand men killed or wounded
Speaker 1: in one day's fighting. Bean wasn't at that battle because
Speaker 1: he didn't realize what a significant event it would be,
Speaker 1: so he was in another part of the front at
Speaker 1: the time time. And so interestingly, on the eleventh of
Speaker 1: November nineteen eighteen, the day the war ended and the
Speaker 1: first day that Bean could move freely around the battlefields
Speaker 1: without risking being killed, he went to Fremel, the one
Speaker 1: battlefield that he hadn't been to, even though the Battle
Speaker 1: of Fremel had taken place in nineteen sixteen, so more
Speaker 1: than two years earlier. That was the one place that
Speaker 1: Bean felt he had to be at. So on the
Speaker 1: eleventh of November nineteen eighteen, when all the other Australians
Speaker 1: were drinking beer and celebrating end of the war, Charles
Speaker 1: Bean was at Fremmel, walking that battlefield and eventually and
Speaker 1: working on the notes and the stories that he would
Speaker 1: eventually tell very well in the official history. So, you know,
Speaker 1: a fascinating guy, a very dedicated, hard working man.
Speaker 2: And what did he get up to after the war?
Speaker 1: Well, this is a really an interesting chapter of what
Speaker 1: he got up to immediately after the war. Because again,
Speaker 1: as soon as the war ended, Bean had a choice.
Speaker 1: Now he was the official historian, he was official correspondent.
Speaker 1: He could choose where he wanted to go and what
Speaker 1: he wanted to do. But there was only one place
Speaker 1: he wanted to go, and that was back to Gallipoli.
Speaker 1: And he went to the powers that be and he said,
Speaker 1: we still don't know a lot of things about Gallipoli.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of mysteries about Gyllipoli because we left
Speaker 1: in such a hurry, you know, and I don't feel
Speaker 1: our story of Gallipoli is complete. So with your permission,
Speaker 1: he said, I would like to assemble a group of
Speaker 1: people which he called the Australian Historical Mission, and they
Speaker 1: traveled to Gallipoli in early nineteen nineteen. So they braved
Speaker 1: the freezing conditions at Gallipoli. The war was very freshly over,
Speaker 1: the fighting had only ended at the end of nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: and these are in the opening months of nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: and he led a historical mission back to Gallipoli to
Speaker 1: answer these mysteries about where the Australians had heard, how
Speaker 1: far they'd reached inland on the day of the landing,
Speaker 1: what the Turks could see from their positions, the locations
Speaker 1: of Turkish guns, and also he walked again the battlefield
Speaker 1: of Cristia in some detail, where he'd been effectively four
Speaker 1: years earlier, and walked the battlefield and found the battlefield
Speaker 1: still littered with Australian bodies from that attack four years earlier.
Speaker 1: And as part of this revisit to Gallipoli, he also
Speaker 1: collected a lot of relics. He saw a lot of
Speaker 1: things which again inspired him and this idea that the
Speaker 1: Australian story should be told, and he found relics of
Speaker 1: Australian soldiers. He found a huge Australian gun he found.
Speaker 1: He collected pine logs from Lone Pine. He collected a
Speaker 1: huge number of relics, and you could already see even
Speaker 1: in early nineteen nineteen, this idea was forming in his
Speaker 1: mind that the Australian story had to be told back
Speaker 1: in Australia, that it was so heroic and so important
Speaker 1: that they had to find a way of telling this story.
Speaker 1: And I think as he walked around in the snowy
Speaker 1: whether at Gallipoli in nineteen nineteen, that was where the
Speaker 1: seed of the idea for the Australian War Memorial really
Speaker 1: really blossomed as he did that. And incidentally, if you
Speaker 1: want to read one of the greatest Gallipoli accounts you
Speaker 1: ever will read, read Charles Bean's book about his time
Speaker 1: walking the ground at Glipoli after the war, which he
Speaker 1: published a book called Gallipoli Mission, and that's an absolutely
Speaker 1: fascinating account of the Glippoli Campaign. So I'd strongly recommend
Speaker 1: that to anyone.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, with Charles been heavily involved in founding the.
Speaker 3: War Memorial almost completely. It was his idea.
Speaker 1: He wanted a museum at first, and his philosophy was
Speaker 1: that this is a story too great for people who
Speaker 1: hadn't been involved in it to understand, and he just said,
Speaker 1: we will never the people at home will never understand
Speaker 1: what it meant to charge the trenches at Lone Pine,
Speaker 1: or to fight across that desolate plane at Crithia, or
Speaker 1: to live through the mud of Passiondale, or the hell
Speaker 1: of the bombardment at Posier, or indeed the great victories
Speaker 1: that Australia spearheaded in nineteen eighteen. And he just felt
Speaker 1: it was a story to too grand and too large
Speaker 1: for people who hadn't lived through it to understand. So
Speaker 1: he said, we need a museum and we can put
Speaker 1: these relics in there. We can tell the story of
Speaker 1: the Australians. And when he came home, well, firstly, he
Speaker 1: was also working as the official historian, so he was
Speaker 1: working on writing and editing the Great Australian Official History
Speaker 1: of the War, the twelve volumes that would tell the
Speaker 1: story of the war. But he was also developing this
Speaker 1: idea of the bringing together of relics, the tell of stories,
Speaker 1: and he envisaged a great institution where all of this
Speaker 1: would come together, And of course it wasn't until nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one we saw that vision come through to fruition,
Speaker 1: but that was the Australian War Morale in Canberra. So
Speaker 1: Bean was the founder of the War Moral and the
Speaker 1: architect of a lot of these concepts of remembrance that
Speaker 1: we now see in the war oril today.
Speaker 2: It's incredible. Now, what do we know about the rest
Speaker 2: of his life.
Speaker 1: Well, his great achievement was the Official History. I think
Speaker 1: that's what we should most remember him for. His correspondences
Speaker 1: during the war were very important, but I think that
Speaker 1: his legacy is the Official History, and I think if
Speaker 1: he was here now he would agree with that as well.
Speaker 1: That he wrote the first two volumes about Anzac. Those
Speaker 1: are the first two things he did. So he set
Speaker 1: himself up in Tangradong Homestead just outside Canberra and for
Speaker 1: five years or so worked on the official histories there.
Speaker 1: He had a few health problems and it was a
Speaker 1: bit too cool in Canberra for him, so he moved
Speaker 1: to Sydney then and finished his work there. But he wrote,
Speaker 1: he wrote the volumes dealt with Australia in Gallipoli and
Speaker 1: the Western Front, So those six volumes of the Official History,
Speaker 1: and then he edited the other six volumes that make
Speaker 1: up the official history, so he was instrumental in that,
Speaker 1: by far the best account if you want to understand
Speaker 1: exactly what Australia did on the Western Front and in Gallipoli.
Speaker 1: The six volumes of Charles Bean's Official History are the
Speaker 1: absolute go to. A little bit dry in the writing.
Speaker 1: The books are big and cumbersome and quite expensive to
Speaker 1: buy these days, but there's online versions. The Australian War
Speaker 1: Oril has them online. It's the essential resource. When I
Speaker 1: was writing my recent Gallipoli book, that was the number
Speaker 1: one resource I would go to as my starting point
Speaker 1: for any information. So that's his great legacy, but also,
Speaker 1: of course the Australian Warmril.
Speaker 3: These are the things he should be remembered for. The
Speaker 3: Australian War morals evolving.
Speaker 1: It's a different place from the one that being envisaged
Speaker 1: when it opened in nineteen forty one, but it's his
Speaker 1: vision and his legacy that we have the War Memorial.
Speaker 1: And after that he worked in a number of committees.
Speaker 1: He was a very good public serve and he wrote
Speaker 1: many more books. He turned down the opportunity of a
Speaker 1: knighthood on several occasions when it was offered to him.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, absolutely, so very humble man.
Speaker 1: Well he was a very humble man, he said again
Speaker 1: a little bit condescendingly, but he said, I don't want
Speaker 1: missus Bean to have to go down to the butcher
Speaker 1: and be referred to as lady being. So you know,
Speaker 1: he was a very humble man. And yeah, and he
Speaker 1: lived out his years in, as I said, a house
Speaker 1: in Lynnfield named Clifton, after his school in England, and
Speaker 1: then one up on Colleri Plado which is still there,
Speaker 1: the house that he lived in. And then later in
Speaker 1: his life, when he was in his eighties, he suffered
Speaker 1: from ill health and dementia and died in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight in Concord Repatriation Hospital, no doubt, surrounded by so
Speaker 1: many of the ANZACs that he'd written so much about. So,
Speaker 1: you know, an interesting man, as I said, a man
Speaker 1: of his time. I think he wouldn't fit in well
Speaker 1: in modern Australian society, but a really important man, the
Speaker 1: father of the Anzac legend, the founder of the warm boil,
Speaker 1: and really a great Australian who told a great Australian story.
Speaker 2: Episode really follows on from the earlier chat that we
Speaker 2: had about Crithia so if anyone wants to go back
Speaker 2: and listen to that episode, it was on May seventh.
Speaker 2: So your book is called Critia. Where and when can
Speaker 2: people get hold of a copy Matt.
Speaker 1: It's out at the end of July and available where
Speaker 1: you get books Australia wide.
Speaker 2: Brilliant. Now it's a while since we've had a chat
Speaker 2: about your tours, Matt. So, Matt McLaughlin battlefield tours. Can
Speaker 2: do you talk about Crithia on any of the tours?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's interesting, Jen, Thank you for bringing it up,
Speaker 1: because I'm doing I mean, we do battlefield tours all
Speaker 1: over Gallipoli in the Western Front and Vietnam and everywhere
Speaker 1: you want to go. But I personally only lead one
Speaker 1: tour a year, and that's coming up in May twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, which is to Gallipoli for the first time.
Speaker 1: So it's called the Matt McLaughlin Signature Tour, and so
Speaker 1: for the first time I will be leading that tour
Speaker 1: to Gallipoli. Normally we go to France and tell the
Speaker 1: story of the Western Front, but this time I'm going
Speaker 1: to Gallipoli and we're going to spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time walking the battlefields. Also in the company of Peter Hart,
Speaker 1: a historian that many people will know, an expertlipopoly historian.
Speaker 1: He's going to come with me and a key part
Speaker 1: of that will be telling the story of the Battle
Speaker 1: of Crithia, because working on this book has just revealed
Speaker 1: how little people know about such an important action. So
Speaker 1: I can't wait in May twenty twenty five to get
Speaker 1: over there with a group of people that want to
Speaker 1: come with me, and we're going to walk the ground
Speaker 1: at Callipoli and spend a week exploring the whole story.
Speaker 3: But Crithia will be a key part of that time
Speaker 3: on the battlefield.
Speaker 2: Amazing, great timing. Well, thanks for sharing the story with
Speaker 2: us today. Matt really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: It's always great to talk to you. Jen.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks for listening. This has been in Black
Speaker 2: and White, a podcast about some of Australia's forgotten characters,
Speaker 2: written and hosted by me Jen Kelly, edited by Phoebe Zukowski,
Speaker 2: and produced by John ty Burton. You can find all
Speaker 2: the stories and photos associated with our episodes at Heroldsun
Speaker 2: dot com dot au slash. I'd be aw if you've
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