Book Review - The Familiar Presence by A.R. Chisholm

 The Familiar Presence: and Other Reminiscences by A.R. Chisholm

Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966

A delightful little book of essays. A.R. Chisholm was for a long time the head of the Department of French at the University of Melbourne. He was also a soldier in the First AIF, and lifelong friend of the poet Christopher Brennan. In fact he is probably best known today as the editor of the volumes of Brennan's verse and prose that were issued in the early 60s.

The Familiar Presence is a collection of shorter pieces to do with his life and travels. He recounts his experiences as a signaller in World War 1: the familiar presence of the title is death. He describes not only how one gets used to being with death every day, but also some of the techniques of interception of enemy messaging, which was his job for a lot of the war. His descriptions of how the French civilians kept on going in the midst of the madness of war are quite moving. Most of the other essays are to do with people he has met over the years. There is a paean to Augustin Lodewyckx, long-time head of German at the University of Melbourne, whom Chisholm regarded as the greatest scholar in the place ("anything is worth investigating", he would say), a jolly reminiscence of sharing a pint of sherry with Hilaire Belloc, descriptions of the other members of the 'Compliques', Brennan's supper and conversation group, a meeting with Charles Maurras, and even Paul Valery. These are some small fruits from a life lived fully and with wonder.

Books like these get forgotten - they don't even turn up in second-hand shops - but they shouldn't be. This one was a pleasant way to spend an hour or two.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The wells of Beersheba by Frank Dalby Davison

The wells of Beersheba : an epic of the Australian Light Horse 1914-1918
by Frank Dalby Davison, illustrated by Will Mahony

Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1947

The charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade at the Battle of Beersheba is widely thought of in Australia as the last succesful cavalry charge to ever have taken place (which can be disputed on a number of levels - the Light Horse were not cavalry, and several charges are recorded in World War 2). The charge was certainly a great feat of arms, and was crucial to the success of the campaign to take Damascus.

The wells of Beersheba was a commissioned work, and self consciously written as a paen to the troops. Styled as a prose-poem, the book is broken into a few sections, describing the origins of the horses the troops rode, the harshness and boredom of travel in the desert, and the shock and terror of the battle itself.

The book is fiction, but based on real events, and the description of the charge is, as far as can be known, quite accurate. There are no main "characters" in the work (the only people named are Chauvel and Allenby); instead Davison creates a character from the Unit itself, where the mass of men becomes one in their united pain and triumph.

This short book has become something of a minor classic in the Australian milieu of military writing, and was the inspiration for the film 40,000 horsemen, which is a minor classic of Australian cinema.

Well worth reading on a sunny afternoon.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - AIF Letters and Diaries Special

Records of an Australian Lieutenant : a story of bravery, devotion and self sacrifice 1915-1916 by John Alexander Raws

Published approximately 1931, private printing.

So far from home : the remarkable diaries of Eric Evans, an Australian soldier during World War I edited by Patrick Wilson

Published in 2002 by Kangaroo Press ISBN 0731810686

As may be gathered by looking at this blog, I have recently been engaged in a little reading of a military nature, for the purposes of some research I'm undertaking at the moment. I'm writing a double review here as these two books are quite fascinating, and worth hunting out if you have an interest in the first Australian Imperial Force (AIF).

Records of an Australian Lieutenant... is a slim volume - it is in many ways a memorial to J.A. Raws, published by his no doubt grieving father in remembrance of his son, one of two to be killed in WWI in the terrible battles along the Somme in 1916. The book is a collection of letters from J.A. to family and friends, and his father states in the foreword that, as they have been printed for "private circulation only, little editing has been done."

What they do provide is a fascinating record of not only the fighting in the lines in 1916, but of the behind the lines life in camps, trains and ships, which took up a lot of any soldier's time. Raws was in civilian life a journalist, so the letters are full of detail and are passably well-written.

The first third of the book, 30 pages or so, are letters describing the journeys and stopovers on the way to France. These letters, while brief, give a good picture of camping in the Egyptian desert, with dilatory efforts at training, and endless guard and piquet duty, quite often it seems guarding prisoners on their way to or from punishment. Raws mentions only having to use his revolver for "minatory purposes" once during these duties, but does not elaborate too much on the difficulties posed by keeping bored men in line.

From May to July 1916 Raws was in France, at the giant British training base at Etaples (being a good soldier, he doesn't disclose his location in his letters, but that is almost certainly where he was). He gives a good account of the boredom and work in a camp, describing doing the same training courses over again, the tedium of dealing with issues in camp when given the duty of Orderly Officer, and the disdain for Colonial forces from the British Officers, who he notes in (more than) passing are much better dressed than their Australian counterparts.

Raws has interesting opinions on his fellow men. He states in one letter, before he has seen the front line, "that there never was, I am sure, a more cynical army in the world than this Australian force. One never sees or hears anything of patriotic fervour. These camps....might very well consist of a force of men on some objectionable but well paid job, sticking to it, but not loving it at all." Of course Raws has had a middle class upbringing, and may not realise how close to the truth he might be in regards to the men who joined up. It certainly was a well paid job at that time, and it seems from this and other sources that it was the officers, generally of a higher socio-economic grouping, who had most of the patriotic fervour that existed in the AIF.

By July, Raws was in the trenches with the 23rd Battalion, where his letters take on a more fatalistic tone, as he is in the thick of the battles for the Somme (his brother Goldy was killed at Mouqeut Farm). There are other interesting statements here - a letter to 'a friend' on July 25 1916 reveals Raws' attitutde to conscription - "I'm glad to read references in the papers which suggest you have again been advocating compulsory service. You know what we feel about it. The old Gallipoli men reckon it's up to them to get a spell". The first conscription referendum, which was held in October 1916, rejected the notion by a slight majority, but the troops in the field voted 72,399 in favour, with 58,894 against, so Raws' impression that all troops were in favour of conscription is not borne out by the facts.

Into August, and the true terror of life in the trenches is revealed, this from a letter to his brother on August 12 1916 - "The Australian casualties have been very heavy - fully 50 per cent. in our brigade, for the ten or eleven days. I lost, in three days, my brother and my two best friends, and in all six out of seven of all my officer friends (perhaps a score in number) who went into the scrap - all killed. Not one was buried, and some died in great agony. It was impossible to help the wounded at all in some sectors...The dead were everywhere. There had been no burying in the sector I was in for a week before we went there." Or this - "My battalion has been at it for eight days....I have one puttee, a dead man's helmet, another dead man's gas protector, a dead man's bayonet. My tunic is rotten with other men's blood, and partly splattered with a comrade's brains."

"But many men fell to pieces...I felt fearful that my nerve was going at the very last morning. I had been going - with far more responsibility than was right for one so inexperienced - for two days and two nights, for hours without another officer even to consult and with my men utterly broken, shelled to pieces." Raws mentions on a few occasions the effect the constant shelling and fear had on his fellow officers and men - in the same letter he goes on to write "Several of my friends are raving mad. I met three officers out in No Man's Land the other night, all rambling and mad. Poor devils!"

Raws final letter was written to his brother on August 19th, 1916, and his rage and despair show through his words - "Before going in to this next affair, at the same dreadful spot, I want to tell you, so that it may be on record, that I honestly believe Goldy (Raws' brother) and many other officers were murdered on the night you know of, through the incompetence, callousness, and personal vanity of those high in authority. I realise the seriousness of what I say, but I am so bitter, and the facts are so palpable, that it must be said."

J.A. Raws was killed by shellfire on 22 August 1916.

So far from home is an extraordinary piece of history. Edited by Patrick Wilson, the book contains the diaries of 847 Sgt. Eric Evans from the 13th Battalion AIF. The diaries run from February 1917 on his re-embarkation to Europe (Evans was wounded at Gallipoli on 26 April 1915, and returned to Australia to recover) to March 1919 and his return to Manly. Evans was writing the diaries for his girlfriend back in Australia, and they are part description of what he was experiencing, and part love letter to his girl.

They are very detailed in places - it seems Evans felt solace in the writing of these diaries, and often did so in the trenches, just before or after battle. However, much of the diaries concern the activities of his fellow sergeants and men out of the line, their almost constant gambling, drinking and whoring earning Evans' disgust and shame, even though he writes how he can understand why men who are pretty much sure they'll be killed would do that in their last days on earth. Evans was not himself above the occasional bout of gambling, and got involved in a couple of fights too.

Evans was desperate to gain a commission, and he often mentions how disappointed he was that he didn't get promoted, or do anything that earned him a decoration. There are only really two instances in the diaries where he directly describes engaging the enemy himself.

Another big portion of the diary concerns Evans' recovery from wounds he received in battle. He was gassed once, and this led to hospitalization for a long period of time. Later in the war he was wounded again, and was convalescent when the armistice was announced.

He doesn't talk too much about patriotism, but this passage is interesting (24 September 1918) "...while waiting to disembark, had the following dished up to us: 'All British wounded this way.' Of course we Australians came forward. 'British' wounded, I said, not Australian.' This from a Tommy officer. 'What are we then?' I asked. 'Oh, you're Australians.' I felt like running amok. Are we not British, then, are we spilling our blood and fighting for a country of which we are not a part? Are we a bastard lot not to deserve the name of British?.....I was wild enough at the time thankfully to think that I was an Australian, not an ill-educated, unchivalrous Tommy such as that officer."

I don't know too much about the provenance of this work, or what sort of editing was involved, but it certainly is well written for someone who was an engineer's clerk.

There are some other odd things about this diary. I haven't been able to find the war records of several of the men he mentions by name in the text. One man he states died in hospital in fact survived and returned to Australia. There are other turns of phrase in the book that seem somewhat modern to my mind. There is also a passage where the impression is that Evans has seen lots of graves in the field before, which seems hard to believe if he only was at Gallipoli for one day - it would be interesting to see the original diaries, and compare them to the edited text.

Still, the book is well worth reading to get a flavour of life for an infantryman in the dark days of the Western Front.

You might want to try your local library for these books - Records of an Australian Lieutenant will be hard to find, but So far from home is actually available from Amazon.

Cheers for now, from
A View over the Bell

Book Review - Bad characters : sex, crime, mutiny, murder and the Australian Imperial Force by Peter Stanley

Bad characters : sex, crime, mutiny, murder and the Australian Imperial Force by Peter Stanley

Published in 2010 by Pier 9                             ISBN 9781741964806

This is an important and valuable book, and in many ways a very good book. Unfortunately in some ways it is also a disappointing book. Some of the things that make it disappointing are not necessarily the fault of the author, but the disappointments take the lustre from a great addition to the literature on the subject of the 1st AIF and Australia in World War I.

As the title suggests, Peter Stanley has investigated the more disreputable side of the AIF. We have certainly had many books written about the undoubted heroism of AIF troops, the horrible sacrifices they made in the Middle East and Europe, and the legends that have been created around ANZAC and the Diggers in general. Part of that legend is woven around the mythology of the larrikin Digger - Stanley's work helps us to flesh out this myth, and expose it - the larrikin tag came after the war, and many of the acts that served to form the legend were suitably "airbrushed" after the fact to reduce their criminality.

Stanley focusses on the "bad" side of the AIF, which can be pretty much divided into two parts - general criminality, or offences that would be criminal in civilian life, such as theft, assault, rape and murder - and military offences, that is, offences against the rules of the army such as insubordination, failure to discharge orders, absent without leave (AWL), mutiny, and so forth.

And here is where the first disappointing aspect of this work kicks in. Stanley has decided to treat his subject chronologically, to avoid "reprising the events of 1914-18 repeatedly and perhaps tediously". Unfortunately for Stanley, his choice has led to his subjects being split apart, so there are interesting chapters about VD in the 1914 section and in the 1918 section of the book. If the book had a comprehensive index this may not have been as much of an issue as it has been for this reviewer, but unfortunately for Stanley (as I'm sure it's not his doing or desire), the index is frankly appalling. As an example, I have a personal research interest in a base camp mutiny/riot that occurred in Etaples in 1917: Etaples is not mentioned in the index at all, but not only did I come across a few references to it in the text, there are even a couple of lines about the incident in which I'm interested. It really devalues the whole work to have such poor apparatus.

A thematic approach would have been a better one for a work like this, as I don't think repetition would be much of an issue, given Stanley is rarely talking about battles or campaign history, and it would be easier for readers to see how an issue, such as VD or AWL developed over the course of the war. Another slight disappointment is the lack of statistical tables, with stats spread about in the text, and again separated depending on where in the war they occurred. The chronological approach also leads to repetitions of it's own -VD in 1914 and again in 1918 - or omissions - did murders only happen in 1917?.

Despite these disappointments, Bad Characters is well worth reading. The AIF was for the time, an unusual force, being made up almost entirely of volunteers. Many of the officers were also militiamen, or civilian soldiers, and the "civilian-ness" of the force comes out time and again through Stanley's narrative. Many of the Diggers saw their service in terms of a workplace, and tried to settle their disputes through "industrial" means, rather than official army channels. Stanley is at his strongest when discussing this facet of the AIF experience and the friction this civilian outlook on soldiering caused with the British High Command, who could never get their head around the propensity for Australians not to salute officers (Stanley quotes a soldier from the 30th Battalion - "Navvies don't salute their gangers, so why should we?"), or for them to "take time off" when not actually at the front.

Stanley also deals well with the death penalty issue. Contrary to the myth that has built up over time, the AIF did have the death penalty on the books. The "problem" was, given the volunteer nature of the force, that approval from the Governor General of Australia was required to confirm any death sentences. By 1917, when AWL was becoming a big issue, the Australian Government was in the middle of a hard fought political campaign to introduce conscription, so the last thing it needed was soldiers being executed. Stanley points out that many Australian officers were actually in favour of the death penalty (as it turned out, three serving Australian soldiers were executed, all for murder, as well as one shot by his own side in the act of deserting to the enemy). At times, the Australian incidences of AWL were higher than in the other sections of the Empire forces by a factor of more than ten, and there is no doubt that part of the reason for this is the knowledge by the troops that they would not face the death penalty. In many ways the Australian commanders were lucky the war ended when it did, for the AWL issue, combined with the lack of new volunteers, would have compromised the AIF's ability to be effective if the war had have continued into 1919.

Bad Characters also marks out the difference between the true bad characters, and those who "crimed" as a result of too much pressure, including some winners of the Victoria Cross who were punished for insubordination and for catching VD.

VD was a scourge of the Entente armies in WWI, and none more so than the AIF. Stanley makes an important contribution to the literature of the AIF on this subject, which understandably has not really been tackled in a meaningful way until now. He shows how the authorities struggled to control infection rates and how they moved from treating infection as an offence to a problem that had to be managed. Again the lack of a decent index is painful - we simply have an entry "Venereal Disease" followed by a list of page numbers - not helpful to the serious student.

Despite these flaws, Peter Stanley has written an important account of "the other side" of the AIF, which will no doubt spawn other works that explore the reality of WWI for Australian Troops - where not everyone was a hero, some cracked under the pressure, and there was a leavening of true scoundrels to make life interesting.

Recommended for anyone interested in the AIF and it's achievements.

Bad Characters is available from Amazon, The Book Depository, or try your local bookshop or Library.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell