The Diggers' War: Australia in the Great War
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Some of the boys were coming on parade in all sorts of headgear: helmets, caps, etc. The CO would ask them where their hat was. "I lost it, Sir," and so on. "Well," said the Colonel, "you will have to get a hat. I'm not going to tell you how to get one, but get one.” That night the Colonel's hat was stolen and has never been found since. - Pvt T. Gardner, age 33
Of all the bastards of places, this is the greatest bastard in the world. - Trp I. I. Idriess, age
27
I talked to the Turks. One of them pointed to the graves and said: "That's politics." Then he pointed to the dead bodies. "That's diplomacy," he said. God pity all of us poor soldiers. - Capt A. Herbert, age 34
The last patient I brought in was shot through the lungs and I fear had but little time to live. But on the way down he said several times: "By God that Turk could shoot well. He got me a beauty, didn't he. I thought I had him well enough but he beat me easily. I feel pretty bad and I expect I'm done for. But strike me dead, that Turk could shoot all right." - Lt T. J. Richards, age
33
Where are the rest of my thirteen mates? Myself, I consider lucky getting away from the acres of dead men. And now I go back there. God only knows what is in store for me. - Pvt L. R. Donkin, age 23
What a gigantic conflict this has turned into. The loss of life is appalling. Rivers of blood, the trenches red with the lifeblood of my comrades. Sometimes I weary so of it all and long for peace. It is only the fact that the safety of our loved ones, the integrity of the Empire is at stake that lifts our spirits up again to face the grim horrors of the battlefield. - Lt C. H. Ruddle, age 30
Dad was killed today. I worry a good deal about Mum and ‘Rene and I hope that they will take this awful news in a good spirit. Anyhow, Dad died a glorious death and for a worthy cause and I know he didn’t begrudge his life. God bless dear old Dad. - Cpl J. J. Medley, age 20
Tomorrow I will be in the midst of it all. There is something humorous in the situation when I actually come to it. John Alexander Raws, who can not tread on a worm, who has never struck another human being except in fun, who cannot read of the bravery of others at the Front without tears welling to the eyes, who cannot think of blood and mangled bodies without bodily sickness; this man, I, go forth tomorrow to kill and maim, murder and ravage. It is funny. - 2nd Lt J. A. Raws, age
33
Pozieres has been a terrible sight all day ... One knew that the Brigades which went in last night were there today in that insatiable factory of ghastly wounds. The men were simply turned in there as into some ghastly giant mincing machine. They have to stay there while shell after huge shell descends with a shriek close beside them - each one an acute mental torture - each shrieking, tearing crash bringing a promise to each man, instantaneous: I will tear you into ghastly wounds, I will rend your flesh and pulp an arm or a leg, fling you half a gaping quivering man (like these that you see smashed around you one by one) to lie there rotting and blackening like all the things you saw by the awful roadside, or in that sickening dusty crater. Ten or twenty times a minute every man in the trench has that instant fear thrust tight upon his shoulders - I don't care how brave he is - with a crash that is a physical pain and a strain to withstand. - C. E. W. Bean
All is buried and churned up again and buried again. The sad part is that no-one can see an end to this. If we live tonight we have to go through tomorrow night, and next week, and next month. Poor wounded devils you meet on the stretchers are laughing with glee. One cannot blame them - they are getting out of this. We are lousy, stinking, ragged, unshaven, sleepless. I have 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 spattered with a comrade’s brains. - 2nd Lt J. A. Raws, age
33
Many a man lying out there at Pozieres or in the low scrub at Gallipoli, with his poor tired senses barely working through the fever of his brain, has thought in his last moments: 'Well - well - it's over; but in Australia they will be proud of this.' - C. E. W. Bean We just go into the line again and again until we get knocked. We’ll never get out of this. Just in and out and someone gets donkered every time. Australia has forgotten us – and so has God. - Pvt W. H. Downing, age 24 Tomorrow many men must go to their God. If I die, I die. We all must die. The best we can do is die with good grace. - Cpl G. D. Mitchell, age 23 I am restless. I hate the kitchen table at which I am writing. I lost patience over a book. I should like to push the landscape aside as if it irritated me. I must get to the Front. I must again hear the shells roaring up into the sky and the desolate valley echoing the sound. I must get back to my Company … live once again in the realm of death. - German soldier on leave, 1916 The times when there is nothing doing, I think of all things and I feel tired all through. I feel as though I have lived far beyond my span and I need a great rest. It’s better not to have too much thinking time … I feel as though I have lost touch with any life but the one of war. It’s hard to recall Australia and, apart from my own people, nothing stands out vividly. I feel an outsider, all lost in the magnitude of our task. - Cpl G. D. Mitchell, age 23 Steadfast until death - just the men that Australians at home know them to be. Into the place with a joke; a dry, cynical Australian joke as often as not, holding fast through anything that man can imagine. They’re not heroes. They do not intend to be thought or spoken of as heroes. They’re just ordinary Australians, doing their particular work as their country would wish them to do it. And pray God, Australians in days to come will be worthy of them. - C. E. W. Bean
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The Diggers' War: Australia in the Great War
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