Letters from France

BY

C. E. W. BEAN

War Correspondent for the Commonwealth of Australia

WITH A MAP AND EIGHT PLATES

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD

London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

1917

To those other Australians who fell in the Sharpest Action their Force has known, on July 19, 1916, before Fromelles, these Memories of a Greater, but not a Braver, Battle are herewith Dedicated

PREFACE

These letters are in no sense a history—except that they contain the truth. They were written at the time and within close range of the events they describe. Half of the fighting, including the brave attack before Fromelles, is left untouched on, for these pages do not attempt to narrate the full story of the Australian Imperial Force in France. They were written to depict the surroundings in which, and the spirit with which, that history has been made; first in the quiet green Flemish lowlands, then with a swift, sudden plunge into the grim, reeking, naked desolation of the Somme. The record of the A.I.F., and its now historical units in their full action, will be painted upon that background some day. If these letters convey some reflection of the spirit which fought at Pozières, their object is well fulfilled. The author's profits are devoted to the fund for nursing back to useful citizenship Australians blinded or maimed in the war.

C. E. W. Bean.

CONTENTS