WEBVTT - Charles Bean: From correspondent to combat 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.560 His philosophy was that this is a story too great 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:10.600 for people who hadn't been involved in it to understand, 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.200 and he just said, we will never the people at 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.680 home will never understand what it meant to charge the 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:18.640 trenches at Lone Pine or to fight across that desolate 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:19.520 plane at Crithia. 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.439 I'm Jen Kelly from The Herald Son and Missus in 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:26.280 Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's forgotten characters. 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.680 Today we'll hear the life story of a remarkable man 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.639 whose name has popped up frequently in our episodes over 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.000 the past five years. His name was Charles Bean, and 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.880 he's best known as the official historian of World War One. 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.639 He documented the war in six extraordinary volumes and then 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.480 went on to establish the Australian War Memorial. But today 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.360 we're going to hear about another fascinating side to the 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.200 life of a man best known as a journalist and historian. 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:59.400 As the official correspondent at Gallipoli, Been willingly put his 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:04.000 life in danger time after time to join the ANZAC 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:08.080 troops advancing on the front line in order to report 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:12.840 the action through their eyes. At the deadly Battle of Crithia, 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.880 where the Australians suffered enormous losses. Bean risked his life 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.720 to place himself at the heart of the action. Despite 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:26.000 being a civilian armed only with a notebook and writing implements, 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.240 Bean was an active participant. He dragged a wounded man 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.600 to safety, for which he was recommended for a Bravery Award, 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.759 and he was nearly killed several times. To share the tale, 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.840 we're talking again to military historian Matt McLaughlin, who tells 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.119 the amazing story and many others in an upcoming book 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:50.320 called Crithia about the long forgotten Anzac Battle. Matt is 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.480 best known as the founder of Matt McLachlin Battlefield Tours 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.160 and he's the host of the Living History podcast. Now 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:05.400 Matt is here with the story of times been Welcome 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:06.520 back to the podcast, Matt. 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:07.960 Great to be back. 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.000 Jen, No, it is always great chatting to you, but 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:13.960 this week it's particularly exciting because you're about to release 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:14.640 a new book. 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:16.320 Yeah, I'm very excited. 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.239 It's the end of a two year project, so I 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.320 think anyone who's written a book out there will understand 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.560 just the trials and tribulations and what a commitment it is. 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.120 And I'm very excited that we've reached the end of 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:28.640 that process and the new book's coming out. 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:34.880 Congratulations. Now we're talking today about Charles Bean. Was Charles 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:36.880 been always destined to be a writer? 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.600 Do you think it's a great question. He's an interesting bloke. 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:42.880 Charles been a bit of an enigma. He's someone that 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.040 I've admired for a long time. I think we'd say 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:51.120 he's an unusual guy by our modern standards. He's not 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.240 a typical ossie that we would meet today. He's very 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:56.000 much from an earlier time and he was very much 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.840 a man of his time. And so I think it's 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:00.720 a rather long witted answer, you Ques, but I think yes, 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:02.560 he always was destined to be a writer. He always 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.919 loved writing, He always loved telling stories. So I think 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:07.440 he always was going to write, but it was an 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:08.639 interesting journey to get there. 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:10.799 Whereabouts did he grow up? 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:13.520 He was born in Bathurst and grew up in New 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.400 South Wales, but his father suffered from ill health and 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:20.440 moved them to England, and ancestrally he'd been His family 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.000 was from England, and so I think that's a key 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.920 part of his character. He was always very British. He 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.640 was a proud Australian and he definitely saw the strengths 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.440 and the weaknesses of the Australian character, but he saw 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.800 himself as very British as well at the same time, 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.520 and I think what he saw in Australia was the 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.280 best of Britain. So I think that's really essential to 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.680 establish at the outset is he saw Australia as an 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.440 important component of Britain in many ways, and he saw 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.840 good Australians as good British subjects, and he saw himself 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:52.960 as at least partly. 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:53.360 British as well. 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:55.440 And where was he educated. 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.560 He was educated at Clifton College, which I think is 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.000 interesting because a number of other prominent, prominent people who 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.240 would serve in the war were old boys of that school. 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.000 Sir Douglas Haigue is probably the most prominent, the commander 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.200 of the entire British forces, but also William Birdwood, who 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:13.440 would command the ANZACs at Gallipoli, was also an old 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.400 boy of Clifton College. And Bean went on to study 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.080 at Oxford as well, But Clifton always had a big 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.120 impact on him and a lot of the values that 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.400 he learned as a boy studying at Clifton College in 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.920 the UK stuck with him and he played a lot 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.120 of cricket there he learned about what he thought it 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:30.400 was to be a man and a good citizen of 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.760 the world. But in addition, an interesting little footnote that 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.080 I've discovered about him is that later in life, when 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.120 he lived in Sydney, well after the war and in 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.039 the late stages of his life, he lived in a 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.520 house in Lynnfield which he called Clifton after his school. 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.919 And then he moved to Coleroy, actually very near to 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:50.840 where I lived for a long period of time. And 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:53.080 one day I went for a drive around just trying 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:54.560 to see if I could find the house that being 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:56.400 lived in in his later years, And as I was 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:58.320 driving down a street which I knew was the street 0:04:58.360 --> 0:04:59.680 he lived in, I saw a house at the end 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:01.680 of the street with the word Clifton written on the 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:02.320 front of the house. 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:04.159 So even at the end of. 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:05.760 His life, when he was a man in his eighties, 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:07.960 he was still living in a house named after his 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:09.039 school in England. 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.440 So at some point did the whole family move back 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:15.160 from the UK to Australia. 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:17.760 Yeah, they came back eventually, or Bean came back after 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:19.520 his studies, after he studied at Oxford. 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:21.240 He came back to Australia. 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:22.760 And part of the experience he'd had while he was 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:24.599 in Europe was his family had spent a bit of 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.680 time in Belgium, and as part of that experience, Bean 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:29.919 had spent quite a bit of time on the battlefield 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.920 of Waterloo, which is very close to Brussels. And while 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.280 there he'd walked the fields and picked up relics from 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.520 the fighting which had taken place less than a century 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.719 before he'd been there, and I think that imbued in 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.640 him a sense of the importance of walking the ground, 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:49.159 the importance of touching and feeling tangibles from the battle, 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.040 because he visited the museum at Waterloo and saw all 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.800 the relics and found some relics himself on the battlefield. 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:56.880 And he always said that that was a really important 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.960 contribution to his understanding of warfare and to the story 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:02.760 of what would come on later in his life after 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:03.440 the First World War. 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.520 So, before we talk about the important events of World 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.279 War One, are there any more key points from his 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.480 background before the war that we should know about. 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:13.039 Yeah. 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.760 Basically, he studied as he studied law and took the bar, 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:18.480 so it was working as a lawyer, but it really 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:23.000 wasn't for him. And he knew Banjo Patterson quite well 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.480 and they both worked together in Sydney on various newspapers, 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.080 and Banjo Patterson had served as a war correspondent during 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.000 the Boer War, so I think this was a source 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.080 of inspiration to be leading into the First World War. 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.919 But in the first sort of fifteen years of the 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.599 new century, being traveled around Australia a lot, he wrote 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.440 a lot of articles about the bushmen of Australia. He 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.720 developed this love for the idea of the country and 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.400 the man from snowy River and men riding their horses 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.320 around and the hardy bush people. He really developed this 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.800 love for it in the first ten or fifteen years 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.280 of the century and that influenced what would happen during 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.200 the First World War. Sage and been a very well 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.960 educated man, tall and skinny, red hair glasses, not a 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.320 typical soldier or a typical even journalist, you'd imagine, very 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.840 good with a pen, very observant. He was quite a 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.880 dry writer during his time, and he once said quite 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.760 condescendingly that he wanted to write prose, that a housewife 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.920 of middling intelligence would understand, not a very acceptable statement 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.000 these days, but it illustrates that he had this desire 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.000 to write plainly and simply and without flowery prose, which 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.360 was the sort of the style of the day, and 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:33.960 so that would have a big influence on what he 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.720 would write during the First World War and in later years. 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:40.160 Will take us forward to the war and how did 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.080 it come to be known as the father of the 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:43.080 Anzac legend. 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.840 Well, there was a number of prominent journalists who were 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.960 sort of lobbying to become the correspondent for the Australians 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:53.720 during the First World War. It was known that the 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.800 Australian government would appoint an official correspondent, just one journalist 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.800 whose job it would be to travel with the Australians 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:02.520 as they went off to fight in the First World 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.680 War and to write their story. There would be a 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.680 number of war correspondents who would be selected throughout the 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.120 course of the war, but it was always known that 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.600 there would be one official, dominant war correspondent, and so 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:15.320 a number of journalists lobbied for that. But it was 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.880 Bean that was selected rather I think unexpectedly. I don't 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:20.720 think too many people thought he would get the gig 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.960 but Bean was then selected to be the official war 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.840 correspondent for Australia and left with the first contingent of 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.680 troops at the end of nineteen fourteen to head overseas, 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.440 first to Egypt and then obviously to Gallipoli. They didn't 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:35.120 know it at the time when they left Australia that 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.880 Gallipoli would be their destination, but being traveled with them 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.360 from the earliest days, so he saw the Australians in training, 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.280 he saw British troops during training, and he started to 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.880 establish this feeling that the Australians were more manly, that 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.240 they were stronger. He came up with this idea that 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:55.440 I don't think it's a particularly accurate idea, but being 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.600 loved at the idea that British troops had been drawn 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.760 from the cities of Ing, from the industrial cities and 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.200 the slums of London, and so they were smaller and 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.760 less fit and less healthy, whereas the Australian men had 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.200 all come from the bush and played sport and spent 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.080 their whole time in the sunshine. So therefore they was taller, stronger, 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.240 fitter than their English counterparts. And I don't think it's 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.480 actually true. I don't think the evidence suggests that is 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:20.400 the case, but it was something that stuck with being 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.440 for a long time and illustrates this idea that he 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.280 just basically was in love with this concept of Australian manhood. 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.400 I mean, he just was absolutely enamored with this idea 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.560 of the strong, tough Australian bushmen. 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.440 Ah. And so were people able to read what he 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.040 was writing, you know, weeks and months later or you know, 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.520 was this history compiled and not read until long after 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:45.200 these events? 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.720 No, it was read, not quite live. It took a while. 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.120 It took several weeks for the Bean's first correspondences to 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.040 be published in Australian newspapers. So he was writing articles, 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.120 the most famous of which was the description of the 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.760 landing at Anzac and being to share very early on 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:03.760 the morning of the landing at Gallipoli on the twenty 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.680 fifth of April nineteen fifteen. But it wasn't until May, 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.600 I think about mid May that his dispatches were published 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.080 in Australian newspapers. So it wasn't quite live reporting, but 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:15.199 it was certainly timely reporting. There was a delay of 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:19.360 a few weeks between the events themselves and Bean's reporting 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.480 of them appearing in Australian newspapers and. 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:24.640 Tell us about some of his descriptions. What was he 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.400 sort of best known for? Was what sort of writing 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:28.400 was he best known for. 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:30.640 It's a good question. 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:35.280 As a writer myself, I'm always interested in Bean's style 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.000 and the descriptions that he wrote. 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:39.800 He was a very dry writer. 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.400 He did not, as he said, he did not sort 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.319 of fall into that technique of colorful prose. He was 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.000 probably a bit too dry. I think he was very descriptive. 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:50.800 He'd get very bogged down on detail. He actually copped 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.280 criticism during the war for being too dry with his dispatches. 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.800 Where the British correspondents were writing about daring charges and 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:02.040 our brave heroes, Bean was reporting quite quite a bit 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.280 more succinctly, and he was accused of being a bit 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.160 of a dry writer. And I think that's a fair 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:08.839 accusation when you read his writings. Now there's a lot 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.720 of Bean's work that you can now read, and most 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.320 scholars of the First World War being just about every day, 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.720 it is pretty dry. And in some of his later works, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.559 the Official Histories, for example, he gets very bogged down 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.640 in detail. But that's a great resource for us now, 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.640 if you can get through the dry writing style, it's 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:27.880 a great resource because. 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:29.160 He talked about just about everything. 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.480 He talked about training, he talked about food, he talked 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:33.520 about what the men were wearing, and he was a 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.120 great observer of what the men were doing in a 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:40.080 fairly detached manner, in a fairly sort of observing from 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.520 above kind of way. He would talk about what the 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:44.760 men were doing. But there's absolutely no doubt that he 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.880 had a great admiration for Anzac soldiers and that comes 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:50.480 through in just about everything that he wrote. 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.120 Yeah, so all these reports that he was writing day 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.559 to day and that were being published not live but 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.800 almost live during the war, where they then compile after 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.400 the war to become the sort of official history of 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:03.880 our war. 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.480 Okay, well that's an interesting question. The answer, the simple 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.640 answer is no, it didn't quite work like that. But 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.679 so he was writing dispatches for newspapers. Basically he was 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:17.080 keeping people updated with what was happening on the battlefield 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.640 and what would then happen is he then after the war, 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.560 he was then appointed to write the official history. So 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:26.760 that was a brand new project that started from scratch 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.640 and no doubt he referred a lot to his diaries. 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.880 For example, he kept very detailed diaries during his time 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:34.640 at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, and so he 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.960 referred to those. But the dispatches that he wrote during 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.000 the war are quite a separate resource from the incredible 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:43.360 amount of research and work that he did after the 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.240 war in compiling official histories. 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.280 Yeah, okay, Now, obviously you've been most interested in his 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.880 experiences at Crispia during the battle. Can you tell us 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.760 about that and the profound effect that it had on him? 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:56.240 Yeah? 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.720 Absolutely, So a little bit more broadly, I've always been 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.920 fast by Charles Bean, and from my earliest days as 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.319 a teenager, when I was first studying the First World War, 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.280 I was reading Bean's Official History. So I've always had 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:10.800 a soft spot for Bean, and it depending on what 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.600 I'm currently working on, depends on which part of Bean's 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.360 histories that I'm delving into. So he did a lot 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.120 of great work on the Western Front as well as 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.480 he's reporting on Gallipoli. But I really think his first 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.720 two volumes of the Official History, where he broke down 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.760 the Anzac campaign at Gallipoli in huge detail, I think 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.640 these are absolutely some of his best work, and I've 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.800 been digging into those a lot lately because of the 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.000 new book that's coming out about the Battle of Crithia 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.160 at Gallipoli. And I know we talked about Crithia several 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.240 episodes ago gen when we talked about General James McKay, 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.720 we talked all about the Battle of Critia. But it 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.680 was a battle that Charles Bean was very heavily involved 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.560 in and reported from right from the front line. And 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.040 the quick summary of that battle is Australian troops and 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.760 New Zealand troops were sent from the Anzac sector down 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.440 to the British sector at Cape Hellez only a couple 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:02.480 of weeks after the landing at Gallipoli, and on the 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.360 eighth of May nineteen fifteen, fought this huge battle at 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.600 Crithia where they lost about fifty percent of their men, 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:10.600 so a couple of thousand men were killed or wounded 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.240 in that action. So a huge action for the ANZACs, 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.560 but one that's really slipped through the cracks as far 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.120 as Australians and New Zealanders are concerned, and we don't 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:19.000 really remember. 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:20.200 It as part of the Gallipoli story. 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:25.359 So I've really enjoyed delving into Bean's accounts of Crithia 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.880 to write my new book about that battle, and it's 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.360 really fascinating. Bean was there with the troops. He was 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:34.240 in the front line. He didn't have to be in 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:35.920 the front line. He could have easily just been in 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.440 the general area and then interviewed people after the attack, 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.200 but he wanted to see it from the front line, 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.200 and so he actually put himself in a lot of danger. 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.080 There were several occasions where Bean was in danger of 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.760 being killed. He was advancing with the front line troops 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.360 as they went forward in one of the deadliest battles 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.520 Australians would fight in at Gallipoli. And it's not just 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.480 his own accounts. We have accounts from soldiers describing how 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:00.240 they saw Bean on the battlefield and how in or 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:05.600 they were of him and his reckless bravery during that advance. 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.920 So Bean later said that the battlefield at Cristia was 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.000 the battlefield he knew amongst the best of the war 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.880 because he just spent so much time there. And in fact, 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.240 during this terrible fighting, when Australians were being killed or wounded, 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.160 Bean was not only reporting on it, but he was 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.600 active in the whole thing. He dragged a wounded man 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.600 to safety, for which he was recommended for Bravery Award. 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:29.320 He didn't get the Bravery award because he was actually 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.120 a civilian who was an honorary captain in the army, 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.600 so he wasn't eligible for a bravery award. But he 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.440 was very nearly killed several times. A soldier described watching 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.840 Bean advancing and watching him suddenly turn his head as 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.680 a bullet flew past his ear. He helped Colonel MacKaye 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.240 that we mentioned in the previous episode. In the former episode, 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:51.720 James mckaye, he assisted Mackay in the front line when 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.960 MacKaye was wounded. He ran messages backwards and forwards, and 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:56.760 of course we should remember Jen throughout this he was 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.840 completely unarmed because he was a correspondent. The only thing 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:01.480 he had with him was a notebook and a pencil. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:06.120 So it was really extraordinary how actively he participated in 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:09.160 this battle at Cristia, simply because he felt it was 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:10.760 the right thing to do. And as soon as the 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.040 battle was over a week or two later, he actually 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.160 went back to the battlefield while it was still under 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.840 fire from the Turks. They were getting long rage fire 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.440 and he and another officer walked to the ground to 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:21.840 try and make a little bit more sense of what 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.480 had been going on. So he certainly can't be faulted 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:26.760 for his bravery. He was in the thick of the 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.160 action and it's stuck with him. I can tell from 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:34.680 reading about his experiences at Crithia that it was an 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.080 experience that stuck with him for the rest of his life. 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:39.720 We'll be back soon to find out what happened after 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:52.240 the battle, so stay with us and are there any 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.680 other sort of standout points for you from his time 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:55.320 at Gallipoli? 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.320 Yeah, I think I think there was a couple of 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:01.840 very notable points at the start of the August offensive. 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:03.560 I think on about the sixth of August, he got 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:05.880 shot in the leg while he was at Gylipoly, which 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.639 was no doubt a notable experience for him. So he 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:10.960 was just working near his dugout and a bullet that 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:13.960 had been fired from the front line came flying over 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:15.800 the ridge and struck him in the leg, which is 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.920 a pretty That was actually a pretty common injury at Gallipoli, 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.800 that not being directly shot but hit by fire that 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:23.399 had come from the front line. Because it was just 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:25.440 such a small area they were fighting in at Gallipoli, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.439 and Bean was very badly wounded for several weeks and 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:30.960 eventually hobbled back to the front line. 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:32.160 He refused to be evacuated. 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:34.280 He was just treated in his dugout at Gallipoli, so 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.320 he stayed close to the action, and then a couple 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:38.080 of weeks later he was able to with a help 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:40.119 a walking stick, sort of hobble back to the front 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.639 line and report on what was going on. But incidentally, 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.040 that bullet that hit him at Gallipoli was still in 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.840 his leg when he died. So yeah, so quite an 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:56.160 amazing story. And so he Yeah, so, as I said, 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:57.639 he was certainly in the thick of the action for 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:02.240 that whole time, and he gained an interesting perspective on 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.440 the ANZACs, which I think I think is really important 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.359 in our collective remembrance today, because how can I put this, 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:11.920 It seems fairly natural to us that we would look 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.680 back on the original ANZACs and Gallipoli and the First 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.200 World War with these feelings of admiration and huge respect. 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.359 And we remember Anzac Day and we commemorate the bravery 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:23.440 of these men. But that wasn't a given that we 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.080 would look at them that way. I mean, we certainly 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:26.880 don't do that for the Battle of Waterloo, we don't 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.280 do it for some other actions that Australians have been 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.080 involved in. And I think a huge reason for the 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:33.760 fact that we do that for the First World War 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.320 was Charles Bean. Was he really developed this idea at 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.840 Gallipoli of the just the bravery and the courage and 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.280 the esteem we should hold these soldiers in. And I 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:45.879 think that's why we call him the father of the 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.399 Anzac legend, because he developed these ideas at Gallipoli and 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.639 promoted them when he got back to Australia. So I 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.480 think that's why Gallipoli was so important in the story 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.159 of Charles being and important for all of us in 0:18:58.200 --> 0:18:59.440 our remembrance of Anzak. 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.120 Know what about Charles Ben's time on the Western Front 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:04.840 and his standout moments. 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:06.800 There, Yeah, I mean he did great work on the 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.600