CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

‘The Injustice … Has Actually Colored All My Post War Life’:

Disintegration

1929–MARCH 1931

WHILE ELLIOTT STRONGLY supported Bruce’s bombshell, not all his Nationalist colleagues did. Hughes, sensing an opportunity to pursue revenge for his removal from the prime ministership six years earlier, moved in parliament that such a drastic turnaround in government policy should not be implemented without prior endorsement from the people. Bruce responded that if this unpalatable motion was carried he would regard it as a vote of no-confidence in his government. With the stakes unambiguously high, Hughes harvested discontented Nationalists. Other issues besides the arbitration somersault were preoccupying these Nationalist dissidents. Bruce and Latham had withdrawn the prosecution launched against John Brown for initiating a lockout; this decision prompted predictable and damaging accusations that under this government there was one law for the rich and another for the poor. The imposition of an entertainment tax was also contentious; Elliott, like all federal MPs, was inundated with ‘propaganda’ (as he called it) from activists hostile to this new tax. Hughes’s skilful manoeuvring paid handsome dividends. His motion was narrowly carried on 10 September, parliament was dissolved, and another election followed a month later.

Elliott agreed to speak at Caulfield Town Hall on 30 September in support of the Nationalist MHR for Balaclava, T.W. White. This was the same Tom White who had been Elliott’s fierce antagonist in that cringingly petty affair, the smoke-night saga of 1913. Since then White had distinguished himself during the war as a gallant pilot and a daring escaper from the Turks, and had written a vivid account of his experiences, Guests of the Unspeakable. He and Elliott had long ago resolved their pre-war differences, and Pompey was happy to support his campaign.

But their association was once again scarred by a bizarre episode. At the end of Elliott’s speech questions were invited from the audience, and an old man at the back of the hall responded. Varying versions of his query were reported, but it was something like this: ‘If you lose the election, are you going to take off your coat and do a hard day’s work for once instead of wasting money?’ The question touched a raw nerve. Elliott leapt from the stage, strode down the aisle towards the questioner and, amid a mounting chorus of boos, remonstrated with him, evidently trying to eject him, before being dissuaded. When order was restored, Pompey admitted that he had taken the question as a personal and unwarranted barb, having toiled for long hours from an early age on his family’s struggling farm at Charlton.

White managed to retain Balaclava in spite of Elliott’s assistance, but many coalition colleagues lost their seats. It was a Labor landslide. Even Prime Minister Bruce lost his seat, defeated by the union leader his government had prosecuted, E.J. Holloway. For the first time in his decade-long political career, Elliott had to adjust to being in opposition.

Another development of immense significance to Elliott in 1929 was the publication of Volume III of the Australian Official History. Bean’s comprehensive research and readable style was again evident as he covered the AIF in 1916 in just under 1,000 pages of impressively detailed narrative that featured the post-Gallipoli expansion of the AIF, its involvement in the Somme offensive, and the dreadful winter that followed. There was no more enthusiastic or appreciative reader of Bean’s work and no more penetrating critic of it than Pompey Elliott, and he lost no time in giving the historian a frank preliminary assessment:

I have just read through a first time your third Volume. It is a story of unrelieved tragedy throughout but I think you have got most of the main facts relating to the fighting correct. On the whole, however, it does appear to me that you have strained your conscience in the endeavour to let the Higher Commands down as lightly as possible.

The 1916 episode of overriding importance to Elliott was, of course, the disaster of Fromelles. Having read and reflected a great deal about that battle, he was already convinced that Haking was the main culprit. The revelation in Volume III that Haking had been implicated in a similar fiasco — the Boar’s Head operation — a few weeks earlier was stunning confirmation to Elliott of both Haking’s culpability and Bean’s exceptional diligence and skill in distilling the essential facts after sifting through a vast array of information. However, Elliott felt that Bean was less convincing in the deductions he drew from those facts. On Fromelles, for example, he felt that Bean should have been more critical of Haking, and he challenged the historian’s conclusion that the result of the battle was more attributable to the failure of the supporting bombardment than the width of no-man’s-land.

Pompey also disputed Bean’s suggestion that Brudenell White had disapproved of the unjustifiable attacks attempted towards the end of the Somme offensive. He asserted that when he (Elliott) had made a vigorous protest about a proposed advance in impossible conditions at Flers, White had dismissed his misgivings ‘as due to failure of nerves’. In fact, concluded Elliott, White ‘was in no way opposed to the policy of these attacks at the time’. And it was odd, Elliott continued, that such a long and detailed volume did not feature that protest of his, which had ‘surely’ been a significant development. Elliott had briefed Bean about it in 1927. (The historian sometimes aired his irritation when AIF officers declined to assist his research by divulging their firsthand knowledge of a particular engagement, yet later had the effrontery to criticise alleged inaccuracies in the Official History account of that very engagement. This was not something Bean could ever say about Pompey, who inundated him with material throughout the 1920s.)

Bean’s reply to Elliott contained more than a hint of weary resignation about the impossibility of satisfying everyone:

I have to thank you for your letter. Like everything else that you write, it will have full consideration when the several matters to which it relates are being studied. I have an enormous mass of material, and all I can do is to endeavour to arrive at a fair judgment and leave it at that, for criticism or otherwise, as readers think fit.

The only specific query from Pompey that Bean responded to was the History’s non-reference to the 15th Brigade’s stint at Flers:

the sole reason why the tour was not mentioned was that no active fighting occurred in it, and the conditions of the line had already been described … It was a difficult job to compress the winter fighting into two chapters.

The historian’s brief reply prompted Pompey to elaborate on his initial response to Volume III. Having now read the whole volume a second time, he was at pains to reiterate his admiration for Bean’s capacity to unearth the key facts and to tell the story so well, despite the difficulties imposed by the need for compression and the magnitude of the task. ‘Many thanks for your letter’, he began:

I certainly realize your difficulties and appreciate your patience and industry in dealing with such an enormous mass of material. That will be your monument — this accurate condensation of the mass of evidence. I accept your assurance that the 15th Brigade tour of duty in the line was omitted because of lack of space — I feared indeed that its records had been sunk ‘like the Lusitania’ without leaving a trace.

He enclosed extracts from his diary to emphasise the significance of what had happened at Flers before stating his main reservation about the Official History: ‘Where you cease to deal with the facts and proceed to inferences from facts it does appear that you are inviting severe criticism’. Pompey’s ensuing review of numerous incidents and engagements, four times longer even than his initial nine-page letter about Volume III, was fervent and candid:

Hobbs, a gunner, had mighty little idea of infantry tactics. Birdwood had none that I could ever discern; White knew the theory … but because the enemy had one flank in the sea and the other in Switzerland and thus presented no chance for cavalry to ride round his outer flanks he fell back on frontal attacks as the only thing left, and the same idea seemed to be common to the whole British staff.

It was, as Elliott realised, Bean’s veneration of White that skewed his conclusions and had much to do with the Official History’s analytical shortcomings. (White was ‘a man I worshipped’, Bean was to admit after learning of his hero’s death in 1940. ‘I could never believe he was wrong in anything, and indeed I never found him so’.) Pompey’s respect and regard for the historian was considerable, but he characteristically did not shy away from frank and direct criticism, accusing Bean of writing about White more like an ‘advocate’ than ‘the impartial judge’ he should be:

You have I think allowed yourself to succumb entirely to White’s exceptionally charming manner which is undeniable, and proceeded to paint him entirely as he would wish to be presented to the Jury of his countrymen … You have also I think consciously or unconsciously permitted yourself to absorb without full examination his point of view upon [a range of subjects].

But Elliott’s genuine appreciation of the virtues of Bean’s history was evident in the conclusion to his lengthy letter:

You are doing such wonderful work … that I admire so much that I hate even to seem to cavil at any part of it. Go right ahead elicit the whole truth and set it down fearlessly as you are doing. No one is bound to accept your deductions if they prove wrong. It is the facts after all that we really want. All else will come out in the wash.

A feature of Bean’s third volume that did please Elliott was its treatment of McCay, his immediate superior in 1916. McCay’s widespread unpopularity stemmed from his aloof, abrasive personality and his association with three notorious AIF episodes — the Krithia charge, the desert march, and the Fromelles disaster. Having long felt that McCay had been unfairly blamed for these fiascos, Elliott was ‘delighted’ by Bean’s exoneration of McCay in Volume III. The historian was unequivocal:

The case of McCay may indeed stand as a classic example in Australia of the gross injustice of such popular verdicts, he having been loaded with the blame for three costly undertakings … for none of which was he, in fact, any more responsible than the humblest private in his force.

This issue was a feature of two appraisals in the Bulletin on 8 May 1929 that were among the earliest published responses to Bean’s new volume. A review headed ‘A Year of Horror’ praised Bean’s ‘admirably clear and simple style’, but suggested that his exoneration of McCay was unjustified; Bean’s ‘natural amiability’ was a ‘weakness’ in a historian because it deprived him of ‘the capacity for indignation’. The same Bulletin issue also included a separate article entitled ‘Was General McCay to Blame?’ by a contributor calling himself ‘Miltiades’, who likewise felt that Bean had not substantiated his exoneration of McCay.

These Bulletin articles constituted ‘the first sign’ that Elliott had noticed of ‘operations under Birdwood’ being seen ‘in their true perspective’, and he felt impelled to respond. He sent two articles to the Bulletin under a pseudonym of his own, ‘Xenophon’. ‘I desire to remain strictly anonymous’, he emphasised in a covering letter, ‘because having already suffered sufficiently from my habit of free criticism, I do not wish to again come into conflict with military authority’, especially now ‘General Chauvel has been able on White’s departure from Army Headquarters to lift the ban against my further employment’.

On 22 May 1929 the Bulletin published a response to Miltiades from Xenophon. Confronting the question ‘Was General McCay to Blame?’ directly, Xenophon answered with an emphatic no — not for Krithia, not for the desert march, and not for Fromelles either. In the Official History’s account of Krithia, Xenophon asserted, ‘McCay is rightly absolved from all blame’. Such blame properly rested with ‘General Weston Hunter’ (the double-barrelled surname was back-to-front in the article Elliott submitted, and the error was uncorrected in the published version in the Bulletin), although Hamilton ‘cannot escape responsibility altogether’. Concerning Fromelles,

Bean has disclosed sufficient evidence to finally establish that McCay was not to blame for the order to attack. He might have made some protest, it is true. But … if, as Bean states, [Birdwood and White] were throughout opposed to the attack, they cannot escape from the damning circumstances that they allowed this hopeless thing to proceed without protest … [H]eavy responsibility lies on Haking, who afterwards attempted to throw the blame upon the infantry … Haig’s action in the matter was weak. He appears to have been far too easily satisfied by Haking, particularly as the latter was already known as more or less of a failure.

As for the desert march, Xenophon pronounced, ‘there is no longer any doubt that … General McCay was not to blame for ordering it’. Having protested against the direction to march his brigade across the desert, ‘McCay had done all that was possible to an officer of his rank’ (though whether ‘his protest against it was vigorous enough is another matter’). In all this the identity of Xenophon was obscure, but Pompey could not resist a revealing insertion about himself. While analysing the desert march controversy Xenophon included a compelling account of the vigorous action taken by ‘Elliott’ to obtain the water his men desperately needed. ‘Elliott from that day never received any further promotion in the AIF’, Xenophon continued, ‘although senior to others who superseded him in France’.

Elliott’s other contribution as Xenophon, a response to the Bulletin review of Bean’s Volume III, appeared in the following issue of the famous weekly. There had been an inappropriate focus on McCay’s role in the lead-up to Fromelles, Xenophon contended, when the neglect of Birdwood and White to intervene was much more reprehensible. As for the Bulletin reviewer’s charge that Bean was insufficiently indignant about

that year of horror — his job surely is to elicit and record the truth and leave the indignation to be registered by his readers and the Government. That duty he has tried hard to discharge, but circumstances have been too strong for him. [During the war, as official correspondent, he] represented Birdwood as the Soul of Anzac and White as the divinely-gifted staff officer whose lynx-eyed vigilance foresaw every difficulty, anticipated every obstacle … Later Bean was made official historian … How can he pull aside the curtain and display the clay feet of these colossi that he has so painfully built up? … It would seem like treachery to his friends to reveal all. So he has attempted to steer a middle course — to put down the facts, but to camouflage the awkward ones discreetly or pass them gently by.

His estimates of some officers are particularly suspect. They are colored far too deeply by his associations. Legge is an able man, but something was lacking; Monash has a brilliant brain, but is no fighting man; Leane the bravest of the brave, but disobeyed orders on the battlefield; Elliott valiant but rash, and with a childlike faith in obsolete rules of tactics. When all is said, there will remain, apparently, but one flawless constellation in Bean’s universe — the glorious Birdwood-White Combine.

The only notable Australian commanders to be treated differently by Bean, according to Xenophon, were Gellibrand and Glasgow, whose ‘virtues are carefully extolled’ in the Official History. Both pre-war comrades of White, they were ‘the only prominent commanders who have so far escaped sneer or censure’. Xenophon also directly accused Birdwood and White of ordering ‘as is well known … on more than one occasion … the destruction of original reports, messages and orders’, which made it harder for Bean to ascertain ‘the full truth’. This controversial allegation was, however, toned down in the published version in the Bulletin, which included the allegation that destruction of records had occurred, but deleted the forthright assertion that it was Birdwood and White who had ordered it. A concluding flourish from Xenophon, however, appeared in the Bulletin essentially intact:

Bean’s succeeding volumes will undoubtedly form most interesting reading and will be eagerly awaited. Whether they can be the last word on the subject is another question.

Debate in the Bulletin continued. ‘T.T.T.’ claimed that ‘Fromelles was not the impossibility it is now alleged to have been’, and the ‘idea that a soldier can protest against an order from a superior is something new’; while a few AIF commanders may have had a crack at it, ‘never under any circumstances did they extend the right to their subordinates’. Again Pompey sent a rejoinder to the Bulletin, this time styling himself ‘X.X.X.’. He dismissed the suggestion that Fromelles was anything but ‘impregnable’, and maintained that a commander’s right to protest was ‘by no means new’. Protesting in the AIF was ‘difficult’, however, because ‘Birdwood expected to be treated by every subordinate as the captain of the football XV of an English public school expects to be treated by his fag’. Allowing an occasional right to protest encouraged ‘originality, enterprise and initiative’, and was not, as alleged by T.T.T., ‘hostile to discipline’. Moreover, each ‘time a commander protests he puts his reputation at stake’; he would soon lose it if his concerns proved repeatedly unwarranted.

But the resolute protest of a brave and capable subordinate … against what he honestly considers an impossible attack, especially when it is known that he has personally reconnoitred the position and bases his opinion on the knowledge thus gained against his superior who has not had that opportunity, may cause the latter to think deeply before he will overrule his subordinate. Undoubtedly the superior has the right to the final say and the subordinate must in the last resort obey. In view, however, of the fact that the recorded protest may arise to damn him in the future, such an action may act as a powerful deterrent against a hasty and ill-considered determination to attack.

T.T.T. had another go, again disputing the right to protest and the impregnability of Fromelles. In a further reply, published in the Bulletin on 7 August, Elliott (writing once more as X.X.X.) accused T.T.T. of not reading Bean’s Volume III and being ignorant about Fromelles; he also cited a British corps commander’s ‘most emphatic protest’ against the continuation of the Somme offensive in November 1916. Another contributor, ‘927’, contended (in a further substantiation of McCay’s blamelessness) that incompetent organisation below divisional level contributed substantially to the Fromelles disaster; operational details were bandied about within earshot of ‘half the civilian population’, and bombs were sent forward without detonators. Pompey rebutted 927 firmly, too, this time using the pseudonym ‘303’, and reiterated that chief culpability was not attributable to anyone in the AIF: the ‘slaughter of the 15th Brigade occurred almost wholly in No Man’s Land long before they could use a bomb’. The entire Bulletin debate lasted three months.

Pompey was hardly a detached commentator, of course, but his criticisms of Bean’s work were compelling. Haking was indeed chiefly responsible for Fromelles, and Bean could well have criticised him more vigorously in Volume III. Moreover, it was, to say the least, peculiar that the official history of the AIF prominently quoted the ‘strong protest’ of a British general commanding a separate corps undertaking a separate operation, while referring to the forceful protest of a famous AIF general in a similar context in a way that was, in comparison, understated and not couched as a protest. Might Bean’s wording, Pompey wondered, be not entirely unrelated to the reflection on the historian’s hero implicit in his protest?

Elliott had a good case concerning his initial colonels, too. During Bean’s dedicated roving throughout the AIF as official correspondent he had repeatedly observed the clear connection between a unit’s performance and the calibre of its leadership; time and again he had noticed it and noted it in his diary. That perception would presumably have predisposed Bean to write approvingly in Volume III about Elliott’s endeavours to replace three of the four battalion commanders Birdwood and White had given him upon the formation of the 15th Brigade. However, Pompey felt that Bean had let White off lightly once again in his coverage of this issue. The historian had stressed Elliott’s ‘precipitancy’ and ‘headstrong’ pursuit of his unwanted commanders’ removal, and had also drawn the soft conclusion that it was merely ‘at least arguable’ that the AIF’s overall efficiency would have been enhanced if appointments by Birdwood and White that Bean clearly regarded as unsuitable — including the three commanders Pompey objected to — had never been made. Later in 1929, when Bean tried to reassure an aggrieved widow that the portrayal of her husband (a 52nd Battalion captain) in Volume III as someone whose outspokenness had retarded his promotion was ‘intended’ as ‘a noble tribute’, he went on to assert that ‘no one can peruse these volumes without realising that the writer’s sympathy is on the side of the outspoken man every time’. The treatment of Pompey Elliott in the Official History does not substantiate Bean’s claim.

While Volume III confirmed for Elliott the limitations of Bean’s history as far as his personal interests were concerned, he recognised that Australia was fortunate to have an official chronicler of the utmost dedication and decency who was writing innovative military history of a higher quality than had ever been produced anywhere. Elliott and Bean remained on good terms and in close contact: later in 1929 they corresponded extensively about the advanced-guard operations commanded by Elliott in March 1917 to be featured in Bean’s next volume. Pompey kept hankering for ultimate vindication from Bean. ‘Now that you have elicited the truth in regard to General McCay, I am looking forward to your clearing me from the stigma placed upon me by being superseded in the field’, he reiterated. He even revived the query he had raised in 1922 about Bean’s portrayal of him in Volume I:

I am waiting until you are at the end of your History to hear your evidence as to my being ‘rash and headstrong’. I am hopeful that as you go along you will discover that, so far from these traits characterising me, I was often compelled to imperil my own career in order to prevent rash or ill-considered action in others senior to me.

A perfect example, he contended, was the controversy concerning the three unsuitable colonels initially allotted to him in March 1916. However, while Elliott kept hoping against hope for an ultimately favourable verdict from Bean, he reluctantly accepted after reading Volume III that the vindication he desired was unlikely to materialise in the Official History. This unfulfilled yearning was increasingly gnawing at him, undermining his peace of mind. He decided to pursue other avenues of redress.

On 13 June 1929 Elliott wrote to Hobbs. His wartime supersession was still rankling, he declared frankly, and he wanted to clarify why Birdwood and White had overlooked him in 1918:

I would be greatly obliged if you could … set out as far as it was officially or unofficially revealed to you just wherein my supposed offences lay. I propose to file your reply together with a copy of this letter with Major Treloar the Director of the War Museum so that it may be available upon research to any historian of the future who may be interested in the matter. I am of opinion that Captain Bean from his long association with Corps Headquarters has become so saturated with their particular point of view that I cannot hope for an impartial Verdict from that source.

For Hobbs in faraway Western Australia this was an unexpected and difficult request. His main response was predictable: he did not know precisely why Birdwood had rejected Elliott in 1918. While Hobbs did not deny that ‘your impulsiveness and want of tact on more than one occasion caused me serious concern and trouble’, his letter was full of praise for Elliott’s ‘courage and capacity’ as a ‘gallant able’ leader whose ‘untiring energy initiative and determination’ and devotion to the welfare of his men had won him their ‘respect and affection’ to a remarkable degree. Hobbs assured Elliott that ‘few men I know have more cause for pride and satisfaction’ about their war service, and ‘you have no cause to worry about your record and reputation as a soldier’.

But Pompey would not be deterred, and pressed Hobbs again:

The injustice of the position as I conceive it has actually colored all my post war life … Such an obsession I recognise is not good medicine and I desire to have the thing set at rest. Possibly I may be quite mistaken in my ideas on the subject, nevertheless I repeat I am determined to have it stated in black and white just in what my disqualification lay.

Hobbs, truly perplexed now, did his utmost to soothe Elliott’s great hurt. ‘Please remember that I have never been a bar to your promotion and if you make enquiries you will find that few of your friends have been more loyal to you or have spoken better of you than I have’. Moreover, ‘I really am deeply concerned that you should worry yourself unnecessarily in connection with the past’.

In September 1929 Elliott turned to McCay. Expressing his satisfaction with the sweeping exoneration of McCay in the Official History after the ‘unjust blame’ he had endured — ‘I doubt if anyone else would have borne it so philosophically and … I have often urged Bean to be sure to do what he has now done’ — Pompey went on to ask for a formal appraisal of his war service from McCay as his immediate superior. McCay obliged:

Throughout all his service under me, even in such trying circumstances as the Battle of Fromelles, I found him loyal, capable and efficient and the exhibitor of great personal courage. Both in training and in action he fulfilled all my expectations of him.

Elliott even wrote to London in search of a testimonial from Plumer, the 72-year-old former army commander, asking him to confirm the glowing praise he had lavished on the 15th Brigade in 1917 for its contribution at Polygon Wood.

Elliott also approached Monash. ‘I have never been able to ascertain just what General Birdwood found fault with in me’, he wrote, asking Monash to ‘let me know whether General Birdwood ever imparted to you this secret offence of mine’. Once again he stated his intention of placing ‘these letters in the War Museum so that my family may have an answer to any charge of incompetence brought after my death’. Monash, like Hobbs, was concerned about Elliott’s frame of mind, and compiled a sensitive and carefully worded reply:

Your letter … perturbed me, because I felt sorry to think that you were still worrying about real or fancied wrongs of the war days, and that you were concerned about your personal reputation. Many of us felt similar grievances at one time or another, but most of us have forgotten about them. I know that I have … What actuated General Birdwood in making the selections I cannot possibly say, for I do not know. That he actually did withhold promotion from you because of some ‘secret offence’ I regard as out of the question. I never heard then, or at any time since, any whisper reflecting upon your capacity or fitness for the command of a Division; and I could scarcely have failed to hear of it.

I have myself felt that the affection and confidence of the men of the AIF was worth a great deal more to me than any empty honors. This same affection and confidence you have enjoyed in rich measure, and no one can question that it was well deserved. After all, you commanded a celebrated Brigade during the period of its greatest successes. There were only four men on the Western Front (the Commanders of your Division, Corps and Army and the C.-in-C. himself) who were competent to give you any order. Is it not a great thing to have lived to play such a role in the greatest war in History? Then why worry as to the verdict of posterity upon so brilliant and soldierly a career?

However, not even such a considerate, generous, and supportive letter from the AIF general Elliott admired above all others could assuage his supersession fixation.

Also profoundly unsettling for Elliott was Australia’s calamitous economic depression. A heavy budget deficit and a balance of payments crisis had left Australia acutely vulnerable to external economic forces. In 1929 access to British loan finance underpinning Australia’s development was tightened, and the New York Stock Exchange dramatically collapsed. Unemployment in Australia increased sharply, leading to widespread misery, insecurity, and anxiety. To Elliott, it was not just that the Great Depression was a phenomenon of catastrophic magnitude with appalling consequences for most Australians, struggling returned soldiers in particular. The primary responsibility for orchestrating Australia’s response to this crisis rested with an inexperienced Labor government imbued with ideas and values that were repugnant to him.

The new government’s capacity to deal with the economic crisis was hampered by the opposition’s overwhelming supremacy in the Senate. The landslide that brought Labor to office under Jim Scullin had occurred at an election for the House of Representatives only. There had since been intermittent speculation that Labor might capitalise on its electoral momentum by forcing a double dissolution in order to boost its representation in the Senate. Within two months of the election Elliott felt moved to ‘protest’ against threats and intimidation about the fate of the Senate if it proved obdurate: ‘I have always maintained that it is my privilege to oppose any legislation with which I do not agree’, he declared, citing as examples his hostility to the 1921 Defence Bill and aspects of Canberra administration. Influential opposition senators, Pearce in particular, were keen to avoid an early confrontation with the government while Labor retained the popularity that had brought it to office, but Elliott expressed himself very differently. The Senate electoral process was ‘equally as democratic’ as the lower house’s, he insisted, and opposition senators were ‘entitled to influence legislation to the full extent of our authority’. The Scullin government had ‘attained power’ by pulling off ‘the most colossal confidence trick in history’, which ‘combined the skill of the go-getter with the craft of the pick-pocket’.

Elliott quickly established himself as one of the government’s most implacable opponents. Not long after the election he made an issue of a colourful ALP senator’s acquisition of the nickname ‘Digger’. Pompey ridiculed this step, reciting in the Senate the Registrar-General’s document that formalised J.P. Dunn’s decision to ‘hereby … absolutely adopt and assume the additional Christian name of “Digger”’, and suggesting that Dunn ‘could not have been too sure of his right to share in the glory attached to that name, so he took out patent rights for it’. Dunn retorted that he had served under Elliott’s command, was as entitled to ‘Digger’ as Elliott was to ‘Pompey’, and proceeded to describe his former brigadier as ‘bombastic’ and ‘stupid’. In April 1930, when Smith’s Weekly published allegations of impropriety involving senior ministers and a John Wren mining venture in New Guinea, Elliott took it upon himself to raise the imputations in the Senate in order to publicise them further; Dunn and Attorney-General J.J. Daly accused Elliott of blatant muckraking.

Another strident Pompey tirade was described by Daly as ‘a vile outburst’ that ‘accused’ the government of ‘almost every conceivable political crime’. Pompey’s old foe McGrath asked retaliatory questions in the House of Representatives on successive days about Elliott’s property interests in Canberra, pointedly suggesting that the government should be terminating its leases with his company as soon as possible. Elliott evidently expressed his resentment to McGrath, who responded with a stinging letter:

You have no regard for the feelings of other men — yet you never miss an opportunity to assail others; but you are very sensitive to any disparaging reference to yourself. With reference to your Canberra property, you omit to mention that if it had not been for the action of the late Government, whom you no doubt mourn, in leasing your tenantless premises, they would still be tenantless, and your lamentations would no doubt be louder.

Pompey tore the letter up furiously.

One of the Scullin government’s most controversial early decisions was the replacement of the longstanding compulsory military training scheme by a voluntary system. Elliott denounced this decision vehemently and repeatedly. Not only had the Scullin government ‘filched from us our defence system’; it was undermining the sustained efforts of officers like himself who were battling uphill to make the new scheme work. It was exasperating and disheartening, he told Jamieson:

The prospect of getting an efficient force seems so impossible under present conditions that I am seriously thinking of resigning from the Forces and if I were not in Parliament I would do so, but as many people would regard it merely as a political move on my part, I would not accomplish much.

He decided instead to publicise his concern about Australia’s inadequate defence preparedness in the Melbourne Herald, deploring the skewed priorities of Australians who ‘seem to regard defence as entirely a matter to be left to Providence’ while finding ‘the latest Test match scores of absorbing interest’ (Don Bradman’s record-breaking feats during the 1930 tour of England had commenced).

Scullin’s Defence minister, ‘Texas’ Green, fed up with Elliott’s persistent criticism, hit back. Since Major-General Elliott was being ‘paid £250 a year for his services to the Defence Department’, Green retorted, he was guilty of ‘either a lamentable ignorance in regard to the responsibilities of his position’ or a deliberate intention to sabotage the voluntary training scheme. While the new system overall was ‘proving a success’, the minister claimed, Elliott’s ‘propaganda’ had contributed to the unsatisfactory enlistments under the new system in Victoria, and ‘I would be justified … in declining to recommend his reappointment’ as a divisional commander.

Pompey predictably counter-attacked. He had been assiduous in striving to make a success of the new scheme, he maintained, and the Victorian figures in fact proved it. The ‘total percentage of enlistments for the divisional area under my charge is the highest in the State’, he contended, despite the handicap of three safe Labor seats where recruiting was minimal. ‘Although urgent and repeated requests’ had been made to senior government ministers who represented these electorates

to address meetings in their constituencies in support of recruiting, they and supporters of the Government have invariably refused to do so. In this matter, of course, they are absolutely consistent; they do not want a defence system. [T]he failure of voluntary enlistment, so far as it has failed in Victoria, is due largely to the misfortune that great and populous constituencies are represented by gentlemen who make it their boast that under no circumstances would they take up arms.

When Attorney-General Daly retorted that in view of Elliott’s repeated assertions that Labor’s defence scheme was ‘dishonest … hypocritical and a farce’ he could not honourably retain a position in it worth £250 a year, the result was another Pompey outburst. In a lengthy and intensely personal response Elliott analysed comparative recruitment statistics, cited repeatedly rejected requests to Scullin government ministers for assistance with recruiting activities, listed numerous trophies won by Third Division units (to confirm his efficiency as a commander), and detailed his out-of-pocket expenditure to emphasise that the £250 was not really income but reimbursement of accumulated diverse expenses associated with his command. There were also aspersions from Pompey on McGrath’s war service, and yet another airing of the supersession grievance:

I have endeavoured by all the means in my power to have that matter investigated, but so far I have failed. I have, not, however, given up hope. History is being written and it is revealing a great deal.

A good example of recently revealed history, he told the Senate, was his own attempt to prevent the disaster of Fromelles. He followed up with a vivid account of his protest at Flers:

Precisely the same position then arose as has now arisen. On that occasion I perceived that an impossible task was being attempted. I opposed the course suggested with all my power, and today I am opposing a policy that I believe to be equally disastrous. Narrow-minded bitterness has been aroused against me, as it was then. I was regarded as an obstructionist as I am now. I was then as unperturbed by the consequences as I now am. I shall not resign … and shall continue to do my duty to the public of this country as I see it, again regardless of the consequences.

As the economic crisis became increasingly grave and the Scullin government became increasingly divided over how to go about alleviating it, Elliott remained steadfastly committed to traditional measures. He believed that

the people should be given as much liberty and freedom as possible to adjust themselves to the difficult state of affairs today, and … every possible economy both public and private should be practised in order to provide the necessary capital to carry on and restore or increase the production of commodities.

In other words, it was essential to ‘reduce the cost of production’ in order ‘to increase our exports’. He had no time for radical or unorthodox measures. Proposals to assist the desperate plight of Australian wheat growers with such measures as compulsory wheat pools and a guaranteed price appealed to some Nationalist senators, but cut no ice with him:

Many honourable senators … appear to have forgotten the anti-socialist principles for which they stand. They seem to think that the Commonwealth Bank has a vast store of gold and notes which can be looted for the purpose of providing a guaranteed price for wheat.

When the Senate voted to disallow the Wheat Marketing Bill, there was uproar in the bush. Growers had responded to official encouragement to produce more wheat in Australia’s hour of need; they felt that those senators who voted down the bill had flagrantly welshed on a clear commitment. Resentment was intense. One branch of the Victorian Wheatgrowers’ Association condemned Elliott in no uncertain terms:

We have unanimously decided that you are hopelessly out of touch with the real interests of Australian wheatgrowers, and furthermore we desire to express our definite intention of supporting … new candidates for the Senate. You shall not represent us again.

Not even Pompey’s popularity in Charlton prevented a gathering of local wheat growers from unanimously endorsing a motion that ‘this meeting … strongly condemns the action’ of Senator Elliott. During his political career Elliott was usually responsive on issues affecting the interests of returned soldiers or his home state; he tended, in fact, to be suspicious of government expenditure unrelated to these principal constituencies. In this instance he perhaps underestimated the strength of feeling among Victorian wheat growers.

On 8 March 1930 there was a ceremony at the Chum Creek property Elliott had donated to the Scotch College scouts in appreciation of the fine contribution that scouting had made to Neil’s development. It was the formal opening of Elliott Lodge, the newly constructed hut named after him; Pompey was among the speakers. Neil was progressing well at Scotch. He distinguished himself as a rower, narrowly missing selection in the senior crew, and in 1930, his final year at school, he was Senior Probationer. His sister had already left her school days behind. Violet had crowned her Fintona years — and delighted her father — by returning as head prefect in 1929; in September he arranged for Violet and three of her school friends to make their début at the grand Third Division ball. The following year Violet began a diploma at Emily McPherson College.

Pompey was still tremendously busy. He continued to be in extraordinary demand as a speaker at functions involving returned soldiers. ‘There is only one “Pompey” Elliott’, the RSSILA felt obliged to remind members in its magazine. He did the honours at memorial unveilings at Numurkah, Gre Gre, Tongala, and Ararat; he was ‘Australia’s foremost unveiler’, Jamieson claimed in Despatches. To ease his workload Elliott restructured his legal practice, joining forces with a new partner, W.H. ‘Jimmy’ Downing, the former 15th Brigade NCO whose vivid war memoir To the Last Ridge he had supported a decade earlier by providing an influential foreword.

Elliott’s focus on the way AIF history and his own place in it were being recorded remained as keen as ever. He was progressively consigning his own war records to Treloar for deposit in the Australian War Memorial. Pompey often sent Bean historical snippets he came across which he thought might interest the historian. When it was reported that the Scullin government had leaned on Bean to expedite completion of the AIF history as an economy measure, Elliott aired his strong disapproval in parliament.

He further contributed to the chronicling of the AIF’s history by writing articles himself for the magazine Reveille. In 1930 he contributed profiles of Bill Scurry and John Turnour, who had both served under him at Gallipoli before becoming officers in the 15th Brigade; a rebuttal of the allegation in Robert Graves’s memoir Goodbye to All That that Australians had murdered German prisoners when capturing Morlancourt (Pompey insisted that the AIF had never taken Morlancourt); and an article reproducing and endorsing the scathing report by Jacka VC on the tanks’ performance at Bullecourt which had resulted, according to Pompey, in Jacka being ‘systematically ignored both in regard to decorations and promotions’ even though his ‘report bears all the marks of genius’.

Elliott was also very involved in the compilation of a history of the 7th Battalion. Eventually published in 1933, its chapters on Gallipoli relied heavily on his contribution. He also lectured on AIF history. Addressing the Constitutional Club in 1929, he described the Gallipoli campaign as a ‘mess’ that had no real chance of success, and condemned Winston Churchill as an ‘amateur adviser’ whose ill-informed advocacy of the proposal to invade Turkey had overridden the contrary and more considered pre-war appraisals of professional defence experts.

Pompey’s most famous lecture was the penetrating exposé of Fromelles that he delivered to the Canberra RSSILA in July 1930. It owed a great deal to Bean’s work, as Pompey acknowledged both in the lecture itself and in an appreciative letter to the historian. In style, however, it was very different from the Official History. Full of forthright assertions and compelling conclusions, it was the kind of account that Elliott felt Bean should have written after ascertaining the essential facts so capably. ‘I propose to outline the course of events … and endeavour to show what errors were made and who was responsible for them’, he began. The disaster stemmed directly from ‘shocking generalship’. The operation was ‘a wretched, hybrid scheme, which might well be termed a “tactical abortion”’; ‘the methods actually chosen seem to have been the worst possible’.

Amid this appalling ineptitude, Pompey pinpointed ten basic errors and proceeded to catalogue them pungently. For example, he cited his post-Armistice discovery of a nearby church with visibility so splendid that a single German observer

with a telescope could, with perfect safety to himself, count every sentry in our lines. He had also an extensive view across our back areas, and could at once detect any preparation for attack. A more unsuitable site from which to launch a well-advertised attack could hardly have been found on the western front.

Haking, Pompey concluded, ‘wished to risk all for a spectacular success that would put himself into the limelight’, and had to ‘take the chief blame for the debacle’, although ‘the weakness displayed’ by his superiors, including Haig, had also contributed.

The whole operation was so incredibly blundered from beginning to end that it is almost incomprehensible how the British Staff, who were responsible for it, could have consisted of trained professional soldiers of considerable reputation and experience, and why, in view of the outcome of this extraordinary adventure, any of them were retained in active command.

No more incisive analysis of Fromelles had been seen or heard anywhere. The lecture, not surprisingly, made headlines, and not only in Australia. ‘Bungled Battle: General Critic of Generals’ proclaimed the London News-Chronicle above its account of Elliott’s ‘remarkable attack’. Underneath was Haking’s blustering denial of these ‘charges’, which he dismissed as ‘preposterous’. The Age described the lecture as an ‘amazing outburst’, sparking a spirited rejoinder from the lecturer:

The address in question consisted, as I announced at its outset, almost entirely of literal extracts from vol III of the official history by C.E.W. Bean, with assurances from me as a participant as to their truth … Surely … one ought to be able to quote to a gathering of returned soldiers … facts such as have been revealed by history, without one’s remarks being made to appear as a general and reckless personal attack made without foundation [and] characterised as an “amazing outburst”.

The substantial interest in his lecture resulted in a repeat performance, which he delivered to the United Service Institute in Melbourne. It was also printed as a booklet; copies were sent to London (unbeknown to Elliott) for evaluation by the War Office and Liddell Hart. Pompey’s accumulated writings about the AIF (both published and unpublished) remain more significant to the recording of its history than those of any of his contemporaries except Bean.

Elliott’s prominence as a forceful and authoritative analyst of AIF history reinforced his remarkable reputation. To thousands of the men he commanded — and their families — Pompey was an inspiring figure. Successful in a range of pursuits, publicly prominent, famous for jaw-jutting fearlessness and charismatic leadership, unswerving determination and incorruptible integrity, he nevertheless remained down-to-earth and approachable. There was nothing aloof or pretentious about him. Many of his men revered him, and revelled in the reflected glory of being one of Pompey’s boys.

When the name of Pompey Elliott is mentioned, the most war weary soldier straightens his back and clutches an invisible rifle, the dull eyes gleam, and in the glamour of the ‘greatest Brigadier ever’ there is not a man left of the Fifteenth Brigade who does not feel a thrill of honest pride. And [if] he calls to war again … for the veterans who yet remain, there is not one who walks who will not run to follow him.

But not even this exceptional veneration could prevent Elliott’s fixation about the supersession from continuing to eat away at him. Much of the material he was depositing in the Australian War Memorial related to it. In mid-1930 he even raised the issue directly with White. Perhaps he was encouraged by their ‘reconciliation’ of sorts at Monash’s commemorative dinner in August 1927, but it was an astonishing move to resort to after relentlessly denigrating White in relation to this issue ever since 1918. It was also revealingly symptomatic of the torment and desperation plaguing him. The approach amazed White. ‘Extraordinary letter from Genl Elliott’, he noted in his diary. In a brief reply White avoided the issue:

I do not think that any good purpose can be served now by a discussion as to the basis upon which General Birdwood made his selections for promotion, even if such a discussion were proper, and I refrain therefore from any comment.

Pompey tried again: ‘I enclose herewith pro forma schedules upon which you could I think probably base your reply without in the least degree contravening any canon or convention of conduct military or otherwise’. Once again White was startled — ‘Another strange letter from Genl Elliott’ — and once again he refused to be drawn: ‘In all kindness may I say in reply that I have nothing to add to what I previously wrote you’.

Shortly afterwards Bean and White corresponded about Elliott. Pompey had just sent Bean a copy of Jacka’s report on the tanks at Bullecourt, claiming once again that Jacka’s promotion had been blocked because of the robust criticism in the report. ‘The very idea is perfectly absurd’, White replied after Bean sent him Elliott’s letter and Jacka’s report (although Jacka’s Pompey-like outspokenness had indeed impeded his promotion). White in turn sent Bean his own recent correspondence with Pompey, contended that Elliott’s ‘mental balance’ had ‘been disturbed’, and in effect lobbied Bean to disregard anything Elliott told him:

no doubt you will conclude, as I have concluded, that he has become obsessed with the promotion idea which to some extent has affected his reason. I am inclined to think that his methods will very soon discount the value of anything that he says or writes, and it is better perhaps to let him bring about his own ruin than to enter [into controversy] with him.

The following month White excused himself from Monash’s annual 8 August dinner, pleading a non-existent prior engagement, even though he had been (like Elliott) a regular attender and enjoyed the gatherings immensely. The unavoidable conclusion is that he wanted to avoid Elliott.

It was only six days after White dismissed ‘the value of anything that he says or writes’ that Elliott delivered his illuminatingly trenchant lecture on Fromelles. Even so, White’s assessment of Elliott’s frame of mind was correct. Pompey was really struggling. His preoccupation with the supersession issue, which Monash and Hobbs described as deeply concerning and Bean likened to a ‘mania’, had become, as both White and Elliott himself recognised, an ‘obsession’. Elliott acknowledged that ‘the injustice … has actually colored all my post war life’. It was clear to Labor senators that he had an obsessive personality, especially when he became embarrassingly hypersensitive about the slightest slight affecting his reputation, whether it occurred in parliament, in the press, or on the hustings at Caulfield Town Hall.

But it was not just the supersession. Australia was shaken to the core by the Great Depression. Unemployment soared. At its peak probably half the workforce had to make do without full-time work. Bankruptcies climbed, snaring even the well-to-do and the notable (including Rosenthal, the distinguished architect–soldier who had been given one of the AIF divisional commands Elliott thought he should have secured in 1918). Solicitors suicided. Misery was rife, together with a harrowing fear of upheaval; it seemed to many Australians that the whole system was about to crumble. ‘There lay over Melbourne, as over all Australia, a mass hopelessness that touched everyone, even those who felt secure’, recalled writer Alan Marshall. ‘It was impossible to escape being affected’. That the Scullin government, flailing around in desperate but unsuccessful efforts to alleviate the widespread misery, was flirting with measures that were not just unorthodox but profoundly disturbing to someone of Elliott’s conservative outlook further aggravated his unease. Amid this palpable insecurity, fears of left-wing unrest and even violent revolution gained momentum, prompting the formation or activation of secret armies to resist such eventualities. While plenty of like-minded ex-AIF officers involved themselves in these shadowy activities, there seems no definite evidence that Elliott did.

The Depression, of course, was the last thing returned soldiers needed. Coping with the aftermath of the war was difficult enough for most of them; the impact of another havoc-wreaking phenomenon was devastating. With unemployment soaring to calamitous levels, distress widespread, and rumours circulating that war pensions would be reduced as an economy measure, Elliott was inundated with pleas for assistance. ‘I am at my wits end at the present time in finding an opening for the man who gets out of a job’, Elliott admitted to Jamieson. It was as if the Depression was undermining all his dedicated efforts on behalf of his ‘poor boys’, and he was powerless to prevent it. Many of them were suffering from the legacy that was to become known as post-traumatic stress syndrome.

This affliction was causing Elliott health problems of his own. He, too, was plagued by nightmares and ghastly flashbacks, when he not only relived front-line horrors he had repeatedly witnessed as the AIF’s most famous fighting general; even more distressing was the memory of all those times he had been obliged to order subordinates to undertake perilous assignments. Elliott felt increasingly tormented by the deaths of the many fine men who had lost their lives in such enterprises, although he was convinced that no alternative was open to him at the time. ‘No other aspect of his war service affected him so deeply’, observed his friend Rowan Macneil, the Scotch College chaplain.

Other ailments were troubling Elliott as well. His blood pressure was disturbingly high, he now had diabetes and, on top of everything else, he sustained a severe head injury while horse-riding. Some who knew about this accident wondered whether it had resulted in permanent impairment.

In the end it all became overwhelming, too much to bear. Elliott was no stranger to severe depression. This was especially so during the war, when he had much to be depressed about. Indeed, it was perhaps a family tendency (his sister had suicided and his niece later did). This time, though, he plumbed the depths as never before.

There was perhaps an early sign that Elliott was far from well in August 1930 when he unveiled the main Ararat memorial, and broke down and wept during his speech. But it was not until early 1931 that his ill-health became publicly known. The Senate did not break for its summer recess until a week before Christmas, and Elliott was an active participant in parliament right up until this adjournment; staff at his law firm had ‘no inkling at all that he was disturbed or upset’, a typist recalled long afterwards. On 16 February 1931, however, the Melbourne Sun announced that General Elliott had been admitted to the Alfred Hospital after ‘a sudden collapse’ and ‘a severe breakdown’. Similar reports soon followed in the other Melbourne dailies.

What these reports were alluding to was attempted suicide. Arriving home from his city office on 5 February, he handed Belle the children’s insurance policies together with some share certificates, and said she might ‘need the money’. Belle did not go to bed that night until after midnight, and then lay awake, concerned about her brother-in-law’s frame of mind (the fact that he had altered his will the day before would have made her even more worried if she had known). She heard him get up, walk into the kitchen, and close the door. Silence followed. Thoroughly alarmed now, Belle woke Violet and Neil, and together they went into the kitchen. Confronting them was a shocking spectacle. The general was sitting in front of the oven, which was turned on and open but not lit; the gas was reeking, and he was semi-conscious. They had arrived just in time. Violet turned off the gas, and they helped him out of the kitchen. When he had properly revived they all went back to bed.

In the morning Harold headed off to work as normal, and the rest of the family tried to come to terms with the incident. It was extremely difficult. They were so accustomed to his strength, vigour, and determination that it was hard to accept that such an incongruous, nightmarish incident had really happened. It was so out of character. Working out how to respond was not easy, especially in view of the stigma associated with suicide in that era and Elliott’s paramount concern about his reputation. They decided to get in touch with Rod Elliott, who agreed to come down from Tocumwal straightaway. He stayed at Prospect Hill Road with the family, and helped keep an eye on his troubled brother. Nothing untoward happened while Rod was there, but he had a farm to run and naturally could not stay indefinitely; after a week he returned home. Harold, Belle thought, seemed relieved when Rod left. Shortly afterwards he disappeared into the toilet with a pyjama cord in hand; when Neil followed him in, he hurried out immediately. Belle summoned a doctor, and requested hospitalisation in order to prevent suicide. An ambulance was called, and Elliott was conveyed to the Alfred Hospital.

He remained there almost a month. Initially there were daily bulletins in the press about his progress. Whereas at first ‘his condition caused anxiety’, he was soon ‘making good progress’ and ‘able to receive visitors’. Among them was the 7th Battalion’s Gallipoli chaplain, who found Elliott ‘very depressed and unhappy’. The manager of the Alfred, Peter Eller, knew Pompey well; an original 6th Battalion officer, Eller had sailed away to war in the same troopship. He ensured that Pompey had a prolonged stay at the Alfred with the best possible treatment.

With Eller satisfied his famous patient was much better, Elliott was allowed home in March. But he was still deeply troubled. His supersession obsession, post-traumatic stress, diabetes, and high blood pressure were all still unabatedly potent; so, too, was the sad plight of too many of his ‘poor boys’. And the palpable atmosphere of national crisis was more intense than ever. Many Australians with views and values similar to Elliott’s feared that the whole fabric of society was teetering on the brink of collapse. On 6 March a wild rumour of communist-inspired insurrection swept across rural Victoria, prompting vigilant mobilisation in numerous districts by doughty secret army stalwarts. Five days earlier another prominent Melbourne solicitor had suicided.

At this profoundly unsettling time Elliott was being tormented by delusions relating to his integrity. He became terribly concerned about investment advice he had given to clients, even though he had always been impeccably prudent in such matters. Moreover, he was dreadfully worried about his own financial position, even though there was no cause for concern that anyone else could discern. It was appalling, he kept saying, to have to face this disastrous financial crisis after what he had been through during the war; the damage to his reputation if he went broke would be unbearable. Elliott’s own great depression was intensified by the economic Great Depression. Belle heard him say he was ‘done’ and did not want to live. He told his 81-year-old mother he felt so awful he wished he had never been born. His friend and former political colleague W.A. Watt tackled Elliott’s worries directly, asking his permission to go through all his financial records. Watt examined them comprehensively at Elliott’s city office, confirmed there was nothing to worry about, and hurried back to Camberwell to reassure him. But Elliott was too unhinged for this news to provide more than fleeting comfort.

By now a psychiatrist had been contacted. Dr J.F. Williams, a leading specialist (and son-in-law of a Nationalist Party powerbroker), saw Elliott at Prospect Hill Road. They discussed Elliott’s physical symptoms, his worries, and the oven incident. Williams diagnosed a ‘definite form of nervous disorder’, reinforced Watt’s assurances about the finances, and recommended hospitalisation for observation and treatment. ‘I did not consider’, he said later, ‘that he was sufficiently disordered mentally to require certification as insane’.

Williams organised immediate admission to a private hospital in Malvern. Upon his arrival the senior nurse’s curiosity about this 52-year-old Harold Elliott she was admitting was irresistible. ‘Are you Pompey Elliott?’ she asked; he laughed his assent. When Williams called later that day, at 7.00pm on 22 March, Elliott was in bed, ‘apparently cheerful and reconciled to his stay’, although he doubted whether he would be able to pay for it. Williams reiterated that there was no need for concern on that score. He told the hospital staff to keep Elliott in bed (no toilet or bathroom trips), and to be alert for suicide attempts. After Williams left, when the sedative he prescribed was being administered, Pompey’s anguish overflowed: ‘Oh, nurse, why can’t you give me something so I’ll sleep for ever?’ The staff did keep him in bed, and checked him periodically during the night. But he outwitted them with resourcefulness born of desperation, having realised the potential of something they had overlooked — his shaving gear. He was checked at two o’clock and three o’clock, but when a nurse looked in at him at 4.25am she found blood everywhere. A razor blade was embedded in a deep gash near his left elbow; the peace and release he craved had come swiftly. All Pompey Elliott’s battles and worries were over.