E-text prepared by Elaine Walker, Paul Ereaut, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 18390-h.htm or 18390-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/3/9/18390/18390-h/18390-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/3/9/18390/18390-h.zip) LETTERS FROM FRANCE by C. E. W. BEAN War Correspondent for the Commonwealth of Australia With a Map and Eight Plates [Illustration: AUSTRALIANS WATCHING THE BOMBARDMENT OF POZIERES Their mates were beneath that bombardment at the time] 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 Pozieres, 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 CHAPTER Preface 1. A Padre who said the Right Thing 2. To the Front 3. The First Impression--A Country with Eyes 4. The Road to Lille 5. The Differences 6. The Germans 7. The Planes 8. The Coming Struggle: Our Task 9. In a Forest of France 10. Identified 11. The Great Battle Begins 12. The British--Fricourt and La Boiselle 13. The Dug-outs of Fricourt 14. The Raid 15. Pozieres 16. An Abysm of Desolation 17. Pozieres Ridge 18. The Green Country 19. Trommelfeuer 20. The New Fighting 21. Angels' Work 22. Our Neighbour 23. Mouquet Farm 24. How the Australians were Relieved 25. On Leave to a New England 26. The New Entry 27. A Hard Time 28. The Winter of 1916 29. As in the World's Dawn 30. The Grass Bank 31. In the Mud of Le Barque 32. The New Draft 33. Why He is not "The Anzac" LIST OF PLATES Australians Watching the Bombardment of Pozieres Sketch Map "Talking with the Kiddies in the Street" "An Occasional Broken Tree-Trunk" No Man's Land Along the Road to Lille