Biography
Charles Bean
ROSS COULTHART
Harper Collins, $45
Bearing Witness
PETER REES
Allen & Unwin, $32.99
Charles Edwin Woodrow, aka "C.E.W." Bean. The name of Australia's most famous war correspondent, war historian and driving force of the establishment of the Australian War Memorial conjures respect. It's an initialled name almost as frequently referred to by the press and public as his work is by writers such as myself writing World War I books.
In the often conflicting accounts from the fog of the Great War, coming to us from a century ago, as to what happened in the heat of Gallipoli battles, or on the Somme – at Fromelles, Pozieres and all the rest – when the desire is to know precisely who shot who, how many casualties were suffered, and what the significance of the battle was against the overall tableau of the war, Bean is the turn-to man.
Though not quite the be-all and end-all, his press accounts at the time and more particularly the six volumes of official history that he penned over two decades are at least the starting point. Bean is the writer who is sure to be right, until such times as someone can definitively prove him wrong, and even then ...
Bean was such a demon for accuracy above all else, that the famed English correspondent, Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, would say of him, "I think Bean actually counts the bullets".
Habitually, the British-born Bathurst man was in the thick of it, notebook in hand, including being there on the day of the landing at Gallipoli, and so close to the action in subsequent actions that he left those shores with a bullet in his leg.
His account of that first dawn is one of the foundation stones of the legend: "[Those] who saw the Third Brigade go up those heights and over successive summits like a whirligig with wild cheers, and with bayonets flashing, speak of it with tears of enthusiasm in their eyes ... Australian infantry, and especially the Third Brigade, have made a name which will never die."
In other battles, such as Fromelles, though happenstance meant that he got there just after the battle was over, he was able to interview many of the soldiers, and corresponded with many others once the war was over. Typically, Bean also relied on German historical accounts when trying to piece together exactly what happened.
As one currently writing a book on that battle, I know more than most that if not for Bean's insistence that the deaths of 1900 Australian soldiers in 14 hours be chronicled, much of the story would have been buried with them.
But who was this man actually, what was his background, what drove him, how did he achieve such an extraordinary output and how, a century later, does his work stack up?
Such is the subject of two excellent books on this outstanding journalist, written by two outstanding journalists in their own right, the long-time ABC and Channel Seven television correspondent, Ross Coulthart, who has covered many wars, and Peter Rees, the veteran federal political correspondent of 40 years standing for the likes of the Sun News Pictorial in Melbourne and Sydney's Sunday Telegraph who more recently has turned his hand to non-fiction books.
Both accounts have done Bean justice, but in different ways. It is a measure of the width and depth of Bean's experience and output that two writers can look at his life and work at the same time, and come up with such totally different books.
Coulthart's book, which makes for a compelling read, is something very close to a forensic analysis of what Bean wrote for the papers, and in his subsequent historical accounts, judged against what he wrote in his diary at the time of what happened – hence the book's subtitle – "One man's struggle to report the Great War tell the truth".
The essence of Bean's struggle was how to tell that truth to Australia's newspaper readers while getting around the strict censorship laws, and staying loyal to dear friends who were key figures in the Australian Imperial Force and were also valuable sources.
More fascinating, for me, is Coulthart's theme that through Bean's writings, both private and public, you can actually see the growth of "Australianness" in him – which inevitably transfers to his reading public. For while Bean left our shores as a loyal son of the British Empire, believing in the inherent superiority of all things British, what he witnessed of the valour of the Australians in battles, and British stuff-ups along the way, saw him come to a view much closer to that of his friend and colleague Keith Murdoch, who had "made a religion" of this new nationalism.
"He is wholly Australian," Bean had noted admiringly in his diary, "and nothing except Australian. I never realised the qualities of this type before but there's a great deal more in it than I was wont to give Murdoch credit for. These young Australians aren't afraid of any other creed and they'll go a long way ... They think the world would be better for being Australian and they tell it so whenever they can."
What Bean sees in Rupert Murdoch's father, Coulthart sees emerge in Bean himself, and Rees' book is equally compelling, while being a far more comprehensive account of the whole of his life. From Bean's beginnings, we see the nurturing home he came from, the Oxford student finding his way, the eager young journalist and happy family man, devoted to his wife and finally the intrepid war correspondent we know so much better for the early chapters.
Knowing just how British Bean feels early in his life, we can so much better feel his pain when dealing with British generals at Gallipoli, and more particularly in France, slowly realising that they are not all they are stacked up to be.
So often in book blurbs, the words bear little relation to the reality, but in this case the claim on the cover of Rees' book that "it is a powerful and detailed exploration of Bean's life, accomplishments and the marriage that sustained and enriched him" really does neatly encapsulate it.
As to the title, Bear Witness, it is appropriate because, as Rees documents, it was our own Charles Bean who surely saw more of the Great War at first hand - the bullets, the balls-ups, the shells, the shenanigans - than anyone else. He was dedicated to witnessing it all himself.
Most interesting, for me, however, was the rich treasure trove of Bean, the man, away from war, and most particularly before it. Through Bean, Rees provides a wonderful snapshot of history, as he gives us the young Oxford student's 1901 account of being at Queen Victoria's funeral, as he sharpens the observation skills that would propel him to fame. He sees the King, of course, walking behind the gun carriage on which her coffin lies, but he sees something else ...
"I then looked at the men each side of him. I couldn't tell who they were as they had passed, but the nearer was Wilhelm, the Kaiser ..."
Ah, if only he'd known. But we do, of course, and the book is all the richer for such vignettes.
Both authors have given ample reasons why Charles Bean remains the most outstanding figure, on the Mount Rushmore of Australian journalism. Bravo.
Ross Coulthart will be a guest at Sydney Writers' Festival, May 18-24. Peter FitzSimons' Gallipoli is published by Random House. His book on Fromelles/Pozieres will be published in October. He is a council member of the Australian War Memorial.
