Acknowledgements are written last, when one is weary from toiling over the preceding 800-odd pages and inclined to overlook things. So my first concern, and it mortifies me, is that I will forget to acknowledge someone. It has been a long journey and so many people have helped along the way: digging out family documents and photographs, advising on technical matters, steering me around the battlefields of France and Belgium. My second concern is to say at once that, despite the size and generosity of the supporting cast, should this book contain any errors of fact or judgement, I alone am responsible.
This book, I suppose, grew out of Gallipoli. Ashley Ekins, a senior historian at the Australian War Memorial, helped me enormously with that book and he has done the same with this one, pointing me towards promising material, giving generously of his time (even though he was caught up with writing the official history of the Vietnam War) and, best of all, his wisdom. I owe him a great deal. Peter Burness, another historian at the AWM, has an expert knowledge of the western front battlefields, and he was kind enough to point me towards the right places and people in France. Also at the AWM, I should thank Mal Booth, David Joliffe and Lee-Anne McConchie at the Research Centre, and Ian Kelly.
In France, Paul Reed, who has written several fine books on the western front, took me around many of the Somme killing grounds; Paul’s friend Jacky Platteeuw helped me navigate the Ypres salient. Paul and Jacky not only gave me good advice but also the pleasure of their company. Martial Delebarre took me around Fromelles, which is a hard battlefield to understand. Claude and Colette Durand showed me around Bullecourt, put on a barbeque and couldn’t do enough to assist. Also at Bullecourt, Jean Letaille led me through his museum, which is a thing of wonder. Pierre Jubault was kind enough to guide me around the beautiful village of Bussy-les-Daours, where Clemenceau in 1918 came to see the Australians. Jean-Pierre Thierry pointed me in the right directions at Villers-Bretonneux. Dr Ross Bastiaan gave me advice on places to visit. My son, Patrick, drove me for thousands of kilometres up and down the battlefields and developed a taste that he cannot afford for French cuisine and Belgian beer.
Back home I received help, advice and encouragement from old friends from newspaper days, notably John Hamilton, Garry Linnell, Patrick Walters, Cameron Forbes, Neil Mitchell, Peter Cole-Adams, Creighton Burns, Mark Baker, Colin Bennett (who also happens to be John Monash’s grandson), Michael Leunig and Andrew Rule. Rod Cameron again helped me find books, as did Coleman and Sylvia Johnson. Ian Clarke, who assisted with Gallipoli, again provided lots of books and documents. Lieutenant-General John Coates and Major-General Des Mueller helped me with technical matters. I am also grateful to Professor Robin Prior for allowing me to test a few ideas on him. Lambis Englezos of The Friends of the 15th Brigade went to extraordinary lengths to find letters and documents for me. Ross McMullin and Robin Corfield were gracious with their time and knowledge. The library staff at the Bulletin, Sydney, was exceptionally helpful with material on the home front between 1916 and 1918.
It is impossible to write a book such as this without relying on the work of earlier authors. Some books are more important than others. Charles Bean’s official histories are in a category of their own for detail and accuracy. John Coates’ An Atlas of Australia’s Wars is just about the finest single volume ever produced on Australia’s military history. The books by Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson on the Somme and Passchendaele are remarkable for their clarity, economy and hardheaded analysis. Robin Corfield’s Don’t forget me, cobber is the definitive work on Fromelles. Martin Middlebrook’s The First Day of the Somme and The Kaiser’s Battle are brilliant reconstructions. One cannot write about Australia’s Victoria Cross winners without reading Anthony Staunton’s Victoria Cross. Geoffrey Serle’s John Monash is an outstanding biography, as is John Grigg’s four-volume series on David Lloyd George. Correlli Barnett’s The Swordbearers is not only good history but also a lovely piece of writing.
For permission to quote from collections, my thanks to the Australian War Memorial, the Imperial War Museum, the National Archives of Australia; to Colin Bennett and the late Betty Durre, for permission to quote from the Monash Papers, and Earl Haig and the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland, for permission to quote from the Earl Sir Douglas Haig Papers.
I am grateful to the following people and organisations who gave so willingly of their time to provide information for this book: Alan Bennett; Lesle Berry (ed Ancestor ); Ian Black (Hamilton History Centre Inc); Bendigo Regional Genealogical Society; Butch Calderwood; Dr John Carre-Riddell; Brigid Cole-Adams and Harold Love; Pearl Collins (Echuca–Moama Family History Group); Helen Cole; Diana Cousens; Val Craig and Billy Wines; Dr Selwin Crick; Roslyn Devine, Joyce Wallach and Meg Doyle; William, John, David and the late James Downing; Jean Dugan and Zandra Thomas; James Fellows; Tony Ford; Dr Bruce Gaunson and Ily Benedek; Colin, Neville and Nancy Handcock; Robert Hannah; J. Murray Hamilton; Norma Harrison; Brett Hart; Jeff Hatwell; Prof. John Hayman; Mr Justice Peter Heerey; Dr Margaret Heese; Michael Hiscock; John and Janette Howard; Rod Johnson; Robyn Johnson; Greg Kirk; Lurline Knee (Tatura and District Historical Society); Michael Leunig; Jarvis McBean and Dorothy Seers; Pauline McIntyre; Jim Mactier; John Mahony, Cec O’Brien, Michael Dwyer and Val Gleeson; Douglas, Andrew, Barrie and Marj Margetts; Jim Martin; Bruce Mellor; P. McGrigor; Jack Mensforth; Betty and Neil Morrison; Sir Laurence Muir; Russell and Ann O’Sullivan; Jan Parker; Mabel and Doug Parry; Patrick Regan; Cecilia Thornton; Fred Tubb; Unley Genealogical Society; William Van der Kloot; Arthur West; Max Whinfield; Peter Wilkinson; Ross Watts; and Ron Yeates.
Extracts from the following books have been produced with permission: from Robert Asprey, The German High Command at War, Warner Books, 1994, with permission of the William Morris Agency; from Pat Barker, Regeneration, Viking, 1991, with permission of the Penguin Group, UK; from Correlli Barnett, The Swordbearers: Studies in Supreme Command in the First World War, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1963, with permission of Correlli Barnett; from Charles Bean, Two Men I Knew, Angus and Robertson, 1957, and Frank Legg, The Gordon Bennett Story, Angus and Robertson, 1965, with permission of Harper Collins Publishers Ltd; from Joan Beaumont (ed.), Australia’s War 1914–1918, 1995, with permission of Allen & Unwin; from Edmund Blunden, Undertones of War, Penguin, 1937, with permission of Harper Collins Publishers Ltd; from Winston Churchill, The World Crisis 1911–1918, Odhams, 1938, and Great Contemporaries, W. W. Horton and Company, 1990, with permission of Curtis Brown on behalf of the Estate of Sir Winston Churchill; from Robin Corfield, Don’t forget me, cobber, Corfield and Company, 2000, with permission of Robin Corfield; from Walter Downing, To the Last Ridge, Duffy and Snellgrove, 1998, with permission of William, John, David and the late James Downing; from Martin Gilbert, The Treaty of Versailles in History of World War I (ed A.J.P. Taylor), Macdonald and Co, 1988, with permission of Martin Gilbert and A.P. Watt; from Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill. Vol IV, Companion Part I, Heinemann, 1977, with permission of the Random House Group; from John Grigg, Lloyd George: From Peace to War 1912–1916, Harper Collins, 1977, and Lloyd George: War Leader 1916–1918, Allen Lane, 2002, with permission of the Penguin Group, UK; from Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That, Folio Society, 1981, with permission of Carcanet Press Ltd; from Donald Horne, Billy Hughes, Black Inc, 2000, with permission of Myfanwy Horne; from Jeff Hatwell, No Ordinary Determination: Percy Black and Harry Murray of the First A.I.F., Fremantle Arts Centre, 2005, with permission of Jeff Hatwell; from John Keegan and Andrew Wheatcroft, Who’s Who in Military History, Routledge, 2002, with permission of the Thomson Publishing Service; from Cyril Lawrence, Sergeant Lawrence Goes to France (ed Peter Yule), MUP, 1987, with permission of Dr Margaret Heese; from Ross McMullin, Pompey Elliott, Scribe Publications, 2002, with permission of Ross McMullin; from Martin Middlebrook, The Kaiser’s Battle, Penguin, 2000, with permission of Martin Middlebrook; from Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, Passchendaele: The Untold Story, Yale University Press, 1996, and Command on the Western Front: The Military Career of Sir Henry Rawlinson 1914–1918, Pen & Sword, 2004, with permission of Robin Prior; from William Triplet, A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir 1917–1918 (ed Robert Ferrell), with permission of the University of Missouri Press, copyright 2000 by Curators of the University of Missouri; from Robert Rhodes James, A Spirit Undaunted: The Political Role of George VI, Little, Brown and Co, 1998, with permission of Little, Brown Book Group; from Frances Stevenson, Lloyd George: A Diary, Hutchinson, 1971, with permission of David Higham Associates; from John Terraine, Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier, Leo Cooper, 1990, with permission of the Orion Publishing Group; from Tim Travers, The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front and the Emergence of Modern War, 2003, with permission of Pen & Sword.
I owe an enormous debt to Deborah Callaghan, my literary agent, who has looked after me so well for so long, and whose judgement is unerringly good. Tom Gilliatt, the director of non-fiction publishing at Pan Macmillan, nursed The Great War through every stage, as he did with Gallipoli. I am also grateful to Jon Gibbs, Chris Mattey, Jane Novak and many others at Macmillan.
I owe much to my grandchildren – Belinda, Matthew and James – who managed to keep me sane, more or less, as I wrote this book, and who, by their presence, reminded me of what was truly important.
As with Gallipoli, my biggest debt is to my wife, Denise. This is her book as much as mine, simply because it could not have been written without her.