CHARLES BEAN’S GREAT WAR.
ONE LINE SYNOPSIS
Charles Bean. War correspondent. Obsessive historian. Anzac myth maker.
ONE PARAGRAPH SYNOPSIS
In this dramatised documentary, Charles Bean, war correspondent, obsessive historian and
reluctant myth maker; tells us all about his remarkable life. From the playing fields of England
via the Australian outback, to the maelstrom of the Great War, Charles Bean wrote about life
and truth, yet everyone thought he created a myth. He loved Australia the way most people
love another person, and as so often happens in love, Australia let him down.
WRITER & DIRECTOR – WAIN FIMERI
Accomplished writer and director Wain Fimeri returns with
another quality dramatized documentary. Wain’s consuming
interest in people, history and stories allows him to find the
perfect balance of information and entertainment. Charles
Bean’s Great War follows in the footsteps of the award
winning Captain Cook - Obsession and Discovery, Love Letters
from a War, Pozieres and Revealing Gallipoli.
PRODUCERS – JOHN MOORE & LISA HORLER
John Moore has been producing award winning
documentaries for nearly twenty years, screening both
internationally and locally to great acclaim. He has had
numerous awards including an AFI Award and the NSW
Premier’s History Award for Thompson of Arnhem Land.
Lisa Horler is a writer, director and producer of
documentaries which have screened on both SBS and the
ABC, including Alone in a Crowded Room. Web and
software projects are also a forte, having
recently produced content for the ABC
for their Penguin Island project.
Lisa and John have been working together for the past four years,
collaborating on Menzies and Churchill at War, Monash – the
Forgotten Anzac, The Trial and now on Charles Bean’s
Great War.
SYNOPSIS
Charles Bean reported on the Great War not from some General’s chateau but from the
frontline. He witnessed the horror and the heroism up close and he made it his life work to
record the Australian perspective. He desperately wanted it to be the war to end all wars and
the lessons learnt applied to making the world a better place.
Born in 1879 in the colony of New South Wales, he began his journey as a priggish public
schoolboy, and who then attended Oxford University. He believed in the British Empire and
the superiority of the British Race but he seriously questioned the idea of inherited privilege.
He returned to work with the Sydney Morning Herald as a leading feature
writer before being selected by his peers – at the Australian Journalists’
Association – as official war correspondent in 1914.
Charles Bean was there, alongside the troops, for the entire war. He
never carried a weapon but earned a reputation for bravery under
fire, putting himself in danger to ensure the story was told.
Initially considered to be a boring writer, Bean soon became
renowned for his obsessive attention to detail and absolute
adherence to the facts. Alongside his articles, he accumulated
vast amounts of information in his diaries, notebooks and journals.
He was so inspired by the dignity and performance of Australian
troops, he made it his life’s work to tell their story to the Australian
public. The result was a monumental twelve volume history that is
still recognised as one of the best histories of the Great War ever
written.
Immediately after the war Bean wrote a publication called In Your
Hands Australians. He called on all Australians to honour
the sacrifice of our soldiers by applying the lessons learnt in the war
to the peace. He passionately believed that planning, education
and community participation could make Australia great.
Bean’s commitment led to him being instrumental in the
establishment of the Australian War Memorial and
leaving us perhaps the greatest legacy that any country
could have – a sense of what it is to be Australian.
ABOUT THE CAST
Nick Farnell – Charles Bean
Nick Farnell's work on stage and screen spans over a decade. He has a Diploma of Music and
trained in the Meisner technique at the Actor's Playhouse and under Michael Saccente.
Feature Film credits include Where the Wild Things Are, directed by Spike Jonze for Warner
Brothers; Blessed (Dir: Ana Kokkinos); Balibo (Dir: Robert
Connelly); Ned Kelly (Dir: Gregor Jordan); Boytown (Dir: Kevin
Carlin) and the forthcoming Matching Jack (Dir: Nadia Tass); Big
Mama's Boys (Dir: Franco di Chiera) and Summer Coda (Dir:
Richard Gray).
Nick's most notable TV credits to date include: Underbelly;
Rush; Blue Heelers; City Homicide; Marshall Law; Satisfaction;
Neighbours; Dirt Game; The King; The Murray Whelan Series:
Brush Off; Stingers; Tripping Over; Hawke and the Steven
Spielberg/Tom Hanks produced The
Pacific for HBO and has just wrapped
on Fremantle Media's crime series Killing Time, in which he played
the key role of Det. Alan Daniels. The series will air on TV1 later this
year.
Margot Knight – Effie Bean
An actor for over 30 years, Margot’s
most recent television appearance
was playing Dame Pattie Menzies in the docudrama Menzies
and Churchill At War on the ABC. In contrast, her first television
appearance was as the young drug pusher, Sharon Gilmour, on
Prisoner, a role which she is still remembered for, followed by
the character of Jean Richards on Neighbours. Other televison
includes: Halifax, Good Guys/Bad Guys, Skirts, Fast Lane, Lano
And Woodley, Backberner, Blue Heelers, State Coroner,
Scooter Secret Agent.
Her most recent film roles were in the award winning short film
Vitalogy and the feature film - Til Human Voices Wake Us. In
the theatre, she has worked for the Melbourne Theatre Company, The Ensemble Theatre
Company Sydney, the Victorian Arts Council, the Pram Factory, Playbox and La Mama
In 2010 Margot appeared in the world premiere of The Peppercorn Tree by Alison Campbell
Rate which is set to tour in 2011. Most recently Margot took on one of the biggest challenges
of her career playing Lady Bracknell in the Melbourne French Theatre's production of The
Importance of Being Ernest (in French).
ABOUT THE NARRATOR
Nadine Garner – Narrator
One of Australia's most respected actors, Nadine
Garner's career has spanned over film, television and
theatre for more than 20 years.
In 1988, Nadine won the AFI Award for Best Actress
for her role in the feature film Mull, and in 1995 she
was nominated for an AFI Award for Best Actress for
her role in Metal Skin, for which she won the
Australian Film Critics Circle Award for Best
Supporting Actor. She was once again nominated for
an AFI Award for her performance in the television
drama, RAW FM.
For her critically acclaimed performance as 'Fraulein
Kost' in Sam Mendes' production of Cabaret, Nadine
won a Green Room Award and a Helpmann Award, and received nominations for an
Australian Dance Award and a MO Award.
Her other film credits include The Book of Revelation and Razzle Dazzle, and she will soon be
seen in Amanda Jane's The wedding Party, which opened the Melbourne International Film
Festival in 2010.
Nadine is most recently known for her leading role in the hugely successful Seven Network
drama City Homicide. Her other television credits include Henderson Kids (Penguin Award),
G.P., The Flying Doctors, Raw FM (AFI nomination), Water Rats, The Secret Life of Us and Blue
Water High.
ABOUT THE WRITER/DIRECTOR
Wain Fimeri
Wain has a consuming interest in people, history and stories. His work roams from dramatic
screenwriting to factual documentary, and quite often, a bit of both. He’s a writer and
director of pioneering dramatized documentary, work that has resulted in prestigious acclaim
from all over the world.
His most recent project was the series,
Captain Cook, Obsession and Discovery.
It was a Logie and AFI nominee, won the
NSW Premier’s History Award, the
Manning Clark House National Cultural
Group Award for making an outstanding
contribution to the quality of Australian
cultural life, and won a Canadian Academy
Award.
Wain wrote and directed the international
co-production Revealing Gallipoli. The
Australian newspaper said, ‘Fimeri works
with a poetic restraint. A complex,
appropriately brooding meditation about
nationhood, morality, loss and politics.’
Wain’s television feature Love Letters from a War was described by the Sydney Morning
Herald as ‘stunning, illuminating and devastating..’ It won the World Silver Medal for
docudrama at the New York Festival.
The Melbourne Sun said, said of his ground breaking documentary, Pozieres, ‘It is a
masterpiece’.
Wain has a number of feature films in development together with numerous documentary
projects.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT – WAIN FIMERI
I have always found Charles Bean interesting, but the more I found out about him, the more I
found him oddly attractive.
He was a nerdy man, a classical scholar, beaky, with wire rimmed spectacles. He was gangly
and thin and obsessive. A pelican of a man, all elbows and knees. He had a ferocious work
ethic. He was brave; physically where it was necessary, and mentally where it mattered.
He was born a year before Ned Kelly was hanged,
and he died during the Apollo space program. In
his later years, he had the wisdom, anger and
disappointment of man who had passed from the
Victorian, to the Modern world.
At a time when we find such sentiments
questionable, Charles Bean stood clearly as a
nationalist and a patriot. But above all, he was a
humanist. He believed in these things without
wrapping himself in the flag or holding extreme
political views. He believed we should be citizens
not consumers, and he thought far into the
future about the potential of the world to be a
better place.
The film was shot mainly on a farm called Warrambeen. It’s a working sheep farm amidst
windy grassland about an hour west from Geelong. We constructed Charles Beans dugout at
Anzac Cove here, and dug the trenches for Gallipoli and France. The farm has a magnificent
bluestone shearing shed and this doubled for an Australian shed in the year 1910, and served
for a French barn in 1918. The veranda of the homestead became a Cairo bar. Warrambeen
was a one stop shop for most of our locations, a big advantage when you’re working fast, and
the film crew moved into shearer’s quarters for a week. It was like being on a school camp,
only the food was better and there was more booze at night.
It was July. The days were short. We started work in the freezing dark and finished work in
the, well, freezing dark, a routine only enlivened by the novelty of being rained on. But I
remember it as fun.
The beach at Gallipoli was filmed at Point Addis, a small bay west of Melbourne. If you avoid
the tea tree and the pounding surf, there being neither at Gallipoli, it looks strikingly like
Gallipoli. The same beige clay cliffs and tangled undergrowth rising quickly from the beach.
The film was shot in eight days. This is called having limited resources. It also means you have
to plan thoroughly. I storyboard all shots and try to have a timing for all scenes. It generally
works but in filming, like war, as the rather apt analogy goes, plans rarely survive the first
shot.
Having limited resources compels you make a virtue out of what you don’t have.
We didn’t have hundreds of extras; indeed we shot battle scenes with no more than six
people. It meant a filming style that was tight and close. You get your camera into the action
rather than stand outside and watch. But our film was never about spectacle. It’s an intimate
portrait of a man’s life.
I hope you agree, a rather interesting, oddly attractive man.
-
Wain Fimeri
ABOUT THE PRODUCERS
John Moore
John has been producing award winning documentaries for nearly twenty years. His programs
have sold to ABC TV, SBS, Channel 4, ARTE, The History Channel and TV Ontario. His programs
have won numerous awards in Australia and have been screened at several international
festivals.
In 2001 John produced and directed Thomson of Arnhem Land
for Film Australia and the ABC. Thomson won the $15,000 NSW
Premiers History Award, an AFI Award for Editing and was
nominated for awards at Banff and Shanghai TV Festivals.
His 2005 documentary about Bertram Wainer Abortion,
Corruption & Cops was nominated at the 2005 Australian Film
Institute (AFI) Awards and the 2006 Sydney Film Festival. Johns
most recent programs, the docu-dramas Menzies & Churchill at
War and Monash - the Forgotten Anzac screened on the ABC to
critical acclaim in October and November 2008.
Lisa Horler
Lisa Horler is a writer, director and producer of documentary and new media.
Through her own company, Licketty Split, she has produced
and directed documentaries for Australian broadcast –
Levantes (1998) SBS, From Here to Ithaca (2002) SBS, and
Made in Heaven (2005) ABC. She also co-produced Alone in A
Crowded Room (2009), a documentary about adults with
autism that screened recently on the ABC.
Lisa has also managed website and software projects including
Kahootz 2.0 and the Somazone website, recently producing
content for the Penguin Island website on the ABC.
Lisa has worked as a Line Producer/Production Manager for
360 Degree Films for the past three years, working on Menzies and Churchill at War, Monash
and the Anzac Legend and The Trial.
PRODUCER’S STATEMENT – JOHN MOORE
At a time when the reporting of wars is tightly controlled by governments and deeply distrusted by the
public the work of Australian war correspondent Charles Bean offers an extraordinary example of how
well it can be done. But Bean’s significance extends a long way beyond his work as a war
correspondent and it took me quite a while to understand just how far.
The reason I wanted to make this film in the
first place was because good history films are
easier to make when there is a rich source of
material and Bean’s legacy was extraordinary.
A twelve-volume history of the first world war,
271 note books and diaries, 4000 photographs
and the list goes on. I imagined his work
would provide a great vehicle for reaching a
deeper understanding of what happened in
the war but what I didn’t realize was that the
film would take a very different turn.
I also knew that Bean was considered the father of the ANZAC legend and to many people that
suggests he might be a right wing nationalist. In fact a few of my historian friends had a bit of a go at
me for doing another war film. But when I looked closer I realised that Bean was much more
interesting than I initially thought.
He made it his life work to try and work out what was special about being an Australian and he did it
through his writing and his close observation of people. These ideas took shape well before the war
when he wrote the books On The Wool Track and Dreadnought of the Darling. Employed by the
Sydney Morning Herald as a feature writer Bean was sent to outback New South Wales to write
articles about the wool industry. In the process he began the process of describing what was unique
about the Australian character. Egalitarian, resourceful and fiercely independent. It was these ideas
he took into and developed in his observations and writings about the Australians experience of the
Great War.
It gave me a cold shiver when I realised he was exactly like us as film-makers. His life work was
recording who we are as Australians, telling the Australian story and trying to find those bits that are
an inspiration to future generations.
But as our research progressed I discovered something much more important about Bean. He was not
only concerned about describing who we are as Australians but he had a vision for what Australia
could become. And that vision grew out of his experience of the war and his strong feeling that in
order to justify the sacrifice of the sixty thousand dead Australian soldiers we had an obligation to take
the lessons learnt from the war and apply them to the peace.
In late 1918 Bean took time off from the last days of the war to write a pamphlet called In Your Hands
Australians. In this booklet he analysed what could be learnt from the war and why the Australian
Army had done so well. One reason was because we paid a lot of attention to planning. To win the
war you had to have a plan and you had to stick to it. We also did well because we had a very good
education system. Whenever the soldiers had a break from the front they would be off to school to
learn the latest techniques. Everyone had to know their job
and know it well because success depended on the whole
team working as one. The other thing he thought the
Australians were good at was being involved. There
wasn’t any class system or sense of privilege. The AIF
was a team where everyone’s contribution was
respected and people were promoted on
merit not class. And so Bean said that if
we apply these principles to the peace then
anything is possible,
Planning, education and community participation
are the bedrock on which a great Australia could
be built. He said a lot of other things as well
about egalitarian values, about working for the
community about being a citizen instead of a
consumer. But of course things didn’t turn out as
Bean hoped. The consequences of the war, the
Great Depression and the growth of fascism in
Europe put paid to Bean’s hopes for a better world.
But Bean never gave up. In 1944 he wrote about
how we may have failed last time but after this war
we would have another opportunity to make the world
a better place. Charles Bean was much more than the
creator of the Anzac legend. He was a man with a vision
for a fairer more progressive Australia that could be an
example to the rest of world.
-
John Moore
ANNE CARROLL – The Grand Daughter of Charles Bean
I recall my grandfather, C.E.W. Bean as a person who was
kind and gentle in manner and word, whose leadership of
the family was quiet, thoughtful, caring, unselfish and
practical.
Through my grandfather and his daughter, my mother,
Joyce Le Couteur, I am most privileged to have learnt his
values and what he stood for.
Truth and honesty were of paramount importance.
Standing up for one’s convictions and being able to “cut
one’s cloth” if the situation required, were expected of
us; so too, was caring for others and treating others as
we would have them treat us.
On graduating as a physiotherapist in 1964 I worked in Sydney and London. In 1970 I changed
direction when I was selected as one of a group of young Australians to
promote Australia at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan. In 1973 I
married Ian Carroll a Sydney lawyer.
As our daughter and son grew up I became involved with and
participated in various community organisations. Like my
grandfather, I became interested in town planning issues.
In 1994, with others, I formed a community group whose
focus is the promotion and protection of the character
and cultural and natural heritage of the local government
area of Ku-ring-gai, which is where my brother, Edward,
and I grew up and where, for many years, my
grand parents, Charles and Effie, lived.
In 2002 I was awarded an OAM and, in 2003, a
Centenary Medal for service to the community.
HISTORIAN’S BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Michael McKernan is a historian working in the field of
Australian social and military history. He has worked as an
academic, museum administrator and battlefield tour guide but
he always returns to writing history. It seem to be a
compulsion. A recent book, The Strength of a Nation, attempted
a comprehensive coverage of Australia in the second world war,
as seen through the lives of ordinary Australian men and
women. In his next book (October 2010) Gallipoli: A Short
History Charles Bean is a principal character.
Dr Peter Stanley is one of Australia's most active military
historians. He has written extensively on the Great War
through books such as Quinn's Post, Men of Mont St Quentin
and Bad Characters, in all of which Charles Bean has been an
important figure. Peter heads the Centre for Historical
Research at the National Museum of Australia.
Anne-Marie Condé, is a historian and in 2008 she took up a position as
a curator at the National Museum of Australia. For 15 years before that
she was an historian at the Australian War Memorial, and worked on
several of its major exhibition redevelopments. She publishes in the
area of the history of Australian archives and museums.
Prof. Jeffrey Grey is professor of
history in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University College, Australian Defence Force Academy in
Canberra. He is the author or editor of twenty-six books in
the fields of Australian and comparative and international
military history, and has published numerous articles,
chapters and reviews in these fields, and sits on the advisory
boards of a number of journals in these fields. He is the
series editor of the Australian Army Centenary History of the
Great War, to be published in 2014-15.
PRODUCTION STORY
The life of Charles Bean encompassed many different parts of the world which were all
important to tell his story and so, initially, the greatest challenge for the production was
finding the locations to recreate France, Gallipoli, Egypt, outback NSW and the home and
hospital of Charles’ later life – all in some sort of proximity to each other.
At one stage it looked like the production was
going to stretch from one end of Victoria to the
other. This was neatly solved by using a beautiful
property past Geelong called Warrambeen.
Warrambeen is a working sheep station which
offered solutions for many of our locations all
within a short distance from the beautiful
bluestone shearer’s quarters, where we stayed.
There was a rolling green paddock which served as French battlefields, a magnificent
bluestone woolshed which covered French farm buildings and a NSW woolshed, a manor
house that doubled as Egypt and a dormant volcanic crater in which we recreated Gallipoli.
The property was also close enough to the beach to allow us to recreate the Gallipoli landing
at Point Addis, where we found very similar terrain to that of Turkey.
The later Bean footage was all filmed in and around Williamstown, Melbourne.
Another quandary that presented itself was the need to cover a number of ages of the
characters. Casting relieved most of these problems but it was decided that Nick Farnell
would have to go through an aging process over the duration of the film in order to maintain
the believability of the Charles Bean character. Make up specialist José Perez was able to
weave some magic and we were able to take Nick from a youthful 25 to an elderly man with a
minimum of fuss.
The realism was maintained by also paying special attention to the production design, where
Neil Angwin and Tim Burgin got stuck into the dirt at Warrambeen. The experienced Ian
Sparke was on hand with his amazing costume design and kept us on track as our historical
consultant.
Overall the cast and crew were fantastic in what were difficult (and cold) conditions.
Everyone’s experience at Warrambeen was an enjoyable one and as a location the property –
and Ian, Trish and Geordie who run the farm – cannot be recommended highly enough.
-
Anthony Woodcock
Production Manager
SELECTED STILLS
SELECTED ARCHIVE STILLS
KEY CREDITS
KEY CAST
Charles Bean
Effie Bean
Narrator
Nick Farnell
Margot Knight
Nadine Garner
INTERVIEWEES
Historian
Historian
Historian
Historian
Charles Bean’s Granddaughter
Dr. Michael McKernan
Dr. Peter Stanley
Anne Marie Condé
Prof. Jeffrey Grey
Anne Carroll OAM
PRODUCTION TEAM
Producers
Writer & Director
Director of Photography
Editor
Composer
Titles & CGI
On-Line Editor
Colourist
Post Producer
Sound Mixer
Sound Editor
Sound facility Liaison
Costume Designer & Military Consultant
Costume Supervisor
Costumer
Production Designers
Production Manager
1st Assistant Director
Location Manager
Gaffer
Camera Assistant
Sound Recordist
Boom Operator
Make Up Department Head
Assistant Editor/Data Wrangler
Unit Manager
Archive Researcher
Accountant
Development Producer
Legals
John Moore & Lisa Horler
Wain Fimeri
Jaems Grant ACS
Steve Robinson AES
Dale Cornelius
Laurence Dodd
John Handby
Diedre McClelland
Haley Gillies
Doron Kipen
Mark Street
Cassie Barlee
Ian Sparke
Luke Sparke
Alex Becconsall
Neil Angwin & Tim Burgin
Anthony Woodcock
Shannon Owen
Simon Ford
Andrew Lock
Dale Cochrane
Mark Tarpey
Ben Carew
José Perez
Olivia Appleby
Pip Kelly
Shelley Dresden
Noga Mizrahi
Josephine Wright
Shaun Miller
CHARLES BEAN – BIOGRAPHY
Charles Bean is perhaps best remembered for the official histories of Australia in the First
World War, of which he wrote six volumes and edited the remaining six. He was also the
driving force behind the establishment of the Australian War Memorial and was Australia’s
official correspondent to the First World War.
Bean was born November 18 1879 at Bathurst, New South
Wales and his family moved to England when he was ten. He
completed his education there, studying classics and law at
Oxford. He returned to Australia in 1904 and was admitted to
the New South Wales Bar.
Having dabbled in journalism, Bean joined the Sydney Morning
Herald as a junior reporter in January 1908. He published
several books before being posted to London in 1910. In 1913
he returned to Sydney as the Herald’s leading writer and was
chosen by an Australian Journalists Association ballot to
become official correspondent to the AIF.
Accompanying the first Australian convoy to Egypt, he landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 and
began to make his name as a thorough and brave correspondent. He was wounded in August
but remained on Gallipoli until just a few days before the last troops. He then reported on the
Australians on the Western Front where his admiration of the AIF inspired him to memorialise
their sacrifice and achievements. Bean filled hundreds of diaries and notebooks, all with a
view to writing a history of the AIF when the war ended.
In early 1919 he led a historical mission to Gallipoli before returning to Australia and
beginning work on the official history series that would consume his next twenty years.
Along with his written work, Bean worked tirelessly on creating the Australian War Memorial
in Canberra. He was present when the building opened on 11 November 1941 and became
Chairman of the Memorial’s board in 1952. He maintained a close association with the
institution for the rest of his life.
During the Second World War, Bean liaised between the Chiefs of Staff and the press for the
Department of Information. He became Chairman of the Commonwealth Archives Committee
and was instrumental in creating the Commonwealth Archives. Between 1947 and 1958 he
was Chairman of the Promotion Appeals Board of the Australian Broadcasting Commission
and continued to write, earning a number of honorary degrees and declining a knighthood.
Bean died in Concord Repatriation Hospital in 1968.
CHARLES BEAN PORTRAIT
AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL
One of Bean’s obsessions was telling the Australian story. He learnt at Gallipoli that British
reporting of the war would often fail to mention the Australian contribution. Likewise records
and artefacts collected on the Western Front would all be taken back to British museums and
British archives.
In the aftermath of the battle of Poziéres in 1916, the Australian official war historian Charles
Bean began to develop plans for a national memorial to commemorate the sacrifices made by
his fellow Australians. He felt it was important for such a memorial to include an extensive
military collection, in order to help Australians at home understand the wartime experience:
“It had always been in the mind of many Australian soldiers that records
and relics of their fighting would be preserved in some institutions in
Australia, and to several of us it had seemed that a museum housing
these would form the most natural, interesting, and inspiring memorial to
those who fell.” (C.E.W. Bean, Gallipoli mission, 1948, p. 5)
In keeping with the sombre commemorative tone of the Memorial, Bean drew up a list of
exhibition principles, suggesting among other things that the galleries should "avoid
glorification of war and boasting of victory" and also "avoid perpetuating enmity … for both
moral and national reasons and because those who have fought in wars are generally
strongest in their desire to prevent war". In general, the former enemies of the Australian
Forces should be treated as generously as were the Australians.
Bean was instrumental in initiating the collection of war relics from
the First World War and now the institution holds a comprehensive
list of pieces of interest from all Australian conflicts.
Today, the Memorial continues to commemorate the sacrifices of
Australians who have died in conflict. Each subsequent war has
had its casualties and the Roll of Honour is updated with each life lost to help Australians
remember and understand the import of their sacrifice. The Memorial continues to host a
number of national commemorative ceremonies and presentations to honour the valour of
Australian soldiers both past and present.
The Australian War Memorial looks after an extensive collection of publications,
photographs, art and military relics across all conflicts in which Australia has
participated. The Memorial ensures that
they are accessible in order to facilitate the
continued honour and memory of Australia’s
military history.
Many of the archive stills that are
seen in CHARLES BEAN’S GREAT WAR
have been provided with
the kind permission of the
Australian War Memorial.
THE CHARLES BEAN COLLECTIONS
Charles Bean’s papers form probably the single most significant collection of personal records
held by the Australian War Memorial. Fundamental to the collection are the 286 volumes of
diaries, notebooks, and folders kept by Bean during and after the war.
Bean was very conscious of the
documentary importance of the diaries,
particularly for the Gallipoli campaign,
when no official Australian organisation
existed to gather unit records. Roaming
freely, he noted down conversations with
men of all ranks, from privates to senior
commanders and politicians.
He later made alterations and additions to
these records, which did more than just
assist him in his work as official
correspondent. Because he knew he would
also probably write a history of Australia’s part in the war, he compiled the diaries and
notebooks in the expectation that they would become important source material. This they
did.
The diaries and notebooks can be sourced at
http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/war_diaries/cew_bean/
Bean was not blind to the limitations of the diaries and of eyewitness accounts in general and
he left a warning for all future users.
“These writings represent only what at the moment of making them I
believed to be true. These records should be used with great caution, as
relating only what their author, at the time of writing, believed.”
ART AND WAR
As Charles Bean’s reputation for accuracy and integrity
grew, he found that he could exert influence in spheres
where he believed he could help.
He was integral in starting up the War Records Office,
collecting relics, documentation and correspondence in
order to preserve it for the future. Importantly Bean was instrumental in convincing the
powers that be of the need to record the arenas of war and the people therein, stressing the
need for painters, photographers and sketch artists to capture what, much of the time,
cannot be captured in written histories.
Not just any artists would do. Bean wanted – and got – the very best Australia had to offer.
Acclaimed artists such as Arthur Streeton, Will Dyson, George Lambert and Frank Hurley
travelled to the front and recorded the war from their own point of view resulting in some
iconic Australian images.
Many of these artworks are preserved in the Australian
War Memorial Archives and provide an invaluable
insight into the conditions under which our troops
served and the classic stoic attitude and sense of
humour with which they handled their hardship.
On the back of this initiative by Bean, all of our
conflicts since have been well documented by
such artists. In addition the Australian War
Memorial now has the Official War Art Scheme.
Under this career artists and photographers
are embedded with troops in zones of conflict
and, more recently, with peace keeping forces.
For more information on artists and war visit
http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/war_artists/artists.asp
http://www.filmaust.com.au/programs/default.asp?content=program_display&sn=8696
REFERENCES
In Your Hands Australia
C.E.W. Bean
Cassell and Company Limited, 1918
Gallipoli to the Somme: the story of C.E.W. Bean
Dudley McCarthy
John Ferguson Pty Ltd, 1983
GALLIPOLI REVISITED: In the footsteps of Charles Bean and the Australian Historical Mission
Janda Gooding
Hardie Grant Books, 2009
Bean’s Gallipoli: The diaries of Australia’s Official War Correspondent
Edited by Kevin Fewster
Allen & Unwin, 1983
ANZAC: An Illustrated History 1914 – 1918
Edited by Richard Pelvin
Hardie Grant Books, 2004.
GALLIPOLI
Les Carlyon
Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australian, 2001
A ‘duty clear before us’
Richard Reid with the assistance of Courtney Page and Robert Pounds
Commonwealth Department of Veteran’s Affairs, 2000
THE ANZACS: Gallipoli to the Western Front
Peter Pedersen
Penguin Group, 2007
CHARLES BEAN’S GREAT WAR ART WORK