Pompey Elliott at War: in his own words

By Ross McMullin

Hundreds of Australian first-person narratives of World War I have been published, but none more riveting than this one.

The wartime letters and diaries of Pompey Elliott, Australia’s most famous fighting general, are exceptionally forthright. They are also remarkably illuminating about his volatile emotions. Pompey not only wrote frankly about what happened to him and the men he was commanding; he was also frank about what he felt about both. Having arranged a no-secrets pact with his wife for their correspondence before he left Australia in 1914, he adhered to that agreement throughout the conflict.

Moreover, Pompey expressed himself with vivid candour in his diaries and other correspondence. He wrote rapidly and fluently, with fertile imagery, a flair for simile, and an engaging turn of phrase. His extraordinary letters to his young children turned even the Western Front into a bedtime story.

Pompey was prominent in iconic battles and numerous controversies. He was wounded at the Gallipoli landing, and four of his men were awarded the Victoria Cross for conspicuous bravery at Lone Pine. No one was more instrumental than Pompey in turning looming defeat into stunning victory at both Polygon Wood and Villers–Bretonneux. No Australian general was more revered by those he led or more famous outside his own command.

Ross McMullin, the author of the award-winning and best-selling biography Pompey Elliott, has collected Pompey’s words from a variety of sources and shaped them into a compelling narrative. This book will transform our awareness of Pompey's importance in the dramatic final year of World War I.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribe Publications
• Release date: Oct 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781925548617

Ross McMullin

Ross McMullin is an award-winning historian, biographer, and storyteller. His books include two multi-biographies: Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation, which won national awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History, and its sequel, Life So Full of Promise, which won The Age Book of the Year Award. His biographies include Pompey Elliott, which also won multiple awards, and Will Dyson: Australia’s radical genius. He assembled Elliott’s extraordinary letters in Pompey Elliott at War: in his own words, and his political histories comprise The Light on the Hill and So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the world’s first national labour government.

Book preview

POMPEY ELLIOTT AT WAR

ROSS McMULLIN is a historian and biographer who has written extensively about Australia’s involvement in World War I. Dr McMullin’s biographies include the award-winning Pompey Elliott and Will Dyson: Australia’s radical genius. He also wrote the commissioned ALP centenary history, The Light on the Hill, and another political history, So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the world’s first national labour government. His most recent book, Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation, was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History.

www.rossmcmullin.com.au

This statue of Pompey Elliott by Louis Laumen was unveiled in Ballarat’s main thoroughfare in 2011

Scribe Publications

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First published by Scribe 2017

Copyright © Ross McMullin 2017

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

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9781947534209 (US edition)

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A CiP entry for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

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CONTENTS

Maps

Charts of formations and commanders

Formations in the military hierarchy

Conversions

List of abbreviations

Family tree

A note on sources

Pompey idioms

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE 1878–1914

1 PREPARING THE BATTALION ‘Finest lot of fellows you could raise anywhere’ August 1914–March 1915

2 ASHORE AT GALLIPOLI ‘Won’t be many of the poor old Seventh left’ April–May 1915

3 TORMENT AT STEELE’S POST ‘May I never see another war’ June–July 1915 57

4 CARNAGE AT LONE PINE ‘It was all like a horrible nightmare’ August 1915

5 DELAYED RECUPERATION ‘I love you dearest Katie, my own wee angel wife’ September–December 1915

6 PROMOTION AND CONTROVERSY ‘Do you desire an efficient brigade or will any old thing do?’ January–March 1916

7 NOTORIOUS DESERT MARCH ‘On the verge of a serious mutiny’ March–June 1916

8 DISASTER AT FROMELLES ‘Hopelessly and helplessly massacred’ June–July 1916

9 HAUNTED BY LOSSES ‘The good ones go one after another’ August–October 1916

10 WINTER AT THE SOMME ‘My poor boys had a terrible time’ October–December 1916

11 FROST, SNOW, AND ICE ‘The whole world is a wedding cake today’ January–March 1917

12 PURSUIT FROM BAPAUME ‘My boys have been making a name for themselves’ March–April 1917

13 BOMBARDMENTS AT BULLECOURT ‘The worst I’ve ever been under’ May–July 1917

14 TO THE YPRES OFFENSIVE ‘Bloodstained fingers beckoning us once again to the slaughter’ August–September 1917

15 POLYGON WOOD ‘My boys saved the whole British army’ September 1917

16 FLAGRANT SUPPRESSION ‘It does not pay to tell the truth, as I know to my cost’ October–November 1917

17 DREADING THE LOOMING ASSAULT ‘Terribly depressed and pessimistic’ December 1917–February 1918

18 RESISTING THE ONSLAUGHT ‘It is glorious indeed to be with them’ March–April 1918

19 VILLERS-BRETONNEUX ‘The absolute best thing done yet in the war’ April 1918

20 REJECTED AND AGGRIEVED ‘Take lessons in deportment, learn to bow and scrape!’ May 1918

21 DIVERSION NEAR HAMEL ‘I love even the worst of them’ June–July 1918

22 MOMENTOUS ADVANCE ‘I never saw the war look so promising’ August 1918

23 PÉRONNE ‘No better general’ August–September 1918

24 THE HINDENBURG LINE ‘How splendidly the boys did, but the poor old brigade is cut to pieces’ September–November 1918

25 AFTER THE ARMISTICE ‘Very homesick and miserable and depressed’ November 1918–March 1919

EPILOGUE 1919–

Notes

Acknowledgements

Maps

Gallipoli landings, 25 April 1915

Anzac positions

The Western Front

The battle of Fromelles

The battle of Polygon Wood

The battle of Villers-Bretonneux

Charts of formations and commanders

For three major Western Front battles of particular significance to Elliott there is, alongside the map, a chart showing the inter-relationship of the various formations and commanders engaged in that battle. The formations under Elliott’s command are marked in bold.

The battle of Fromelles

The battle of Polygon Wood

The battle of Villers-Bretonneux

Formations in the military hierarchy

Formations in descending order are as follows:

army

corps

division

brigade

battalion

company

platoon

section

Conversions

1 mile 1.6 kilometres

1 yard (=3 feet) 0.91 metres

1 inch 2.54 centimetres

1 acre 0.4 hectares

100° Fahrenheit 37.8° Celsius

List of Abbreviations

15BD 15th Brigade Diary

AAMC Australian Army Medical Corps

AGH Australian General Hospital

AIF Australian Imperial Force

AIR Australian Infantry Regiment

APM Assistant Provost Marshal

AWM Australian War Memorial

battn (or bn) battalion

bde (or bgde) brigade

BIO Brigade Intelligence Officer

BM Brigade Major

Brig Brigadier

CB Companion of the Order of the Bath

CMG Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George

CO Commanding Officer

Col Colonel

coy company

CPD Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates

CRE Commanding Royal Engineers

DCM Distinguished Conduct Medal

div (or divn) division

DSO Distinguished Service Order

Genl (or Gen) General

GHQ General Headquarters

GOC General Officer Commanding

HQ (or HQs) Headquarters

inf information from

IO Intelligence Officer

MC Military Cross

MM Military Medal

NCO (or non-com) non-commissioned officer

n.d. no date

NSW New South Wales

OC Officer Commanding

OP Observation Post

QM Quartermaster

RSM Regimental Sergeant Major

VC Victoria Cross

VFL Victorian Football League

Family Tree

A NOTE ON SOURCES

Sources for all Pompey Elliott’s words in this book can be found in the endnotes.

The most frequently used sources in this book are Pompey Elliott’s letters to his family and his personal diary. All these sources are held in the H.E. Elliott papers, collection 2DRL 513 at the Australian War Memorial (AWM). [1] The AWM also holds typed versions of some of these sources, but they are not true copies of the originals — they were edited after the war by Elliott, and after his death by others, before being typed. A very small number of his original letters to his family did not end up in the Elliott papers at the AWM; his daughter evidently removed from the collection some of his letters to her and to her brother after typed versions had been created.

[1. Since I began research on Pompey Elliott’s papers at the AWM in 1979 they have been reclassified twice, and they are all now assembled at 2DRL 513.]

His personal correspondents included his wife, Kate; his sister-in-law Belle Campbell; his English cousin Emily Edwards; his solicitor partner’s wife, Katie Roberts; his lawyer friends J.G. Latham and J.A. Richardson; the former Essendon mayor J.F. Henderson; and various relatives of soldiers who served under him, including George McCrae, George Henderson, and Rose Taylor. His military correspondents included Captain J.L. Treloar and Generals J.J.T. Hobbs, J.W. McCay, and C.B.B. White. He also corresponded with the editor of the British–Australasian, C.H. Chomley, in 1918.

Letters from the AIF could take around six weeks to reach Australia, and if you wanted to transmit a message more quickly you could send a cable. Some of Elliott’s cables home have been reproduced in these pages.

The official diaries of the formations Elliott commanded, the 7th Battalion at Gallipoli and the 15th Brigade at the Western Front, contain material in Pompey’s own words such as messages, orders, correspondence, speeches, battle reports, and administrative memoranda. When an excerpt from one of these official diaries appears in these pages, it is referred to as ‘7th Battalion Diary’ or ‘15th Brigade Diary’; when an excerpt from his own personal diary appears, it is referred to as ‘Diary’ with the relevant date.

Elliott wrote speedily and fluently, often in locations and weather hardly ideal for writing, and his hasty, vigorous scrawl is sometimes hard to decipher. He mostly used pen and ink, but at times had to write in pencil. Pompey used capital letters with a frequency that was unusual then and incongruous now; retaining them all would have resulted in a quirky distracting effect, so I have removed some of them. I have also made punctuation adjustments to avoid rare situations where Elliott’s intended meaning might have been elusive at first reading. Occasional insertions in square brackets, to summarise background or improve clarity, have been minimised. Apart from these trifling tweaks, the words in the extracts are as he wrote them.

This book contains 1,105 excerpts of Elliott’s wartime words. He also generated prolific first-person content about the war after it ended in his articles, radio reminiscences, speeches in parliament, and correspondence for the Official History. I’ve included a very small number of excerpts — just a dozen — in those few instances when he referred to significant aspects of his war experience much more quotably after the war than he did at the time. But these are rare exceptions, only 12 out of 1,105, as my aim has been to focus on his words between 1914 and 1919.

POMPEY IDIOMS

Pompey Elliott occasionally used idiosyncratic phraseology in his correspondence to his family. The main examples, with their meanings, are as follows:

Dida (or Dida Don): Dad (a reference to himself)

sort (as a verb): reprimand

scandalous: pronounced or to a considerable degree

So ‘sorted them something scandalous’ means ‘reprimanded them severely’.

Other instances appear rarely:

scotty: angry

tish: kiss

skite (as a noun): something that could be interpreted as conducive to boastfulness; for example, he referred to his various military awards as ‘a heap of skite’

sperrick: unworthy person

drefful: dreadful

strafe: criticise

’cept: except

specs/spect: expect

’portant: important

Elliott’s youngest sister, Violet, is mentioned in this book a few times. His daughter was also named Violet, and she is in these pages a great deal, but any confusion between the two Violets is avoided because he referred to his daughter as Dhusach. His son Neil he consistently referred to as laddie. Pompey often wrote to his sister-in-law Belle Campbell during the war, and he referred to her mostly as ‘Baaby’ or ‘Dear’.

INTRODUCTION

I can clearly remember being stunned when I first read Pompey Elliott’s remarkable letters and diaries almost 40 years ago. They were so candid and vivid that they bowled me over. The aim of this book is to enable others to have a similar experience.

Pompey Elliott was Australia’s most famous fighting general in World War I. A charismatic, controversial, and highly successful commander, he was exceptional in intellect, genuineness, and resolve. An accomplished tactician and astonishingly brave, he was renowned for never sending anyone anywhere he was not prepared to go himself. A fierce disciplinarian with an explosive temper, he was exuberant, wholehearted, and utterly dedicated. Pompey identified himself with the formations he commanded and the men he led. He formed a strong bond with them, and cared deeply about what happened to them.

Elliott went right through the war, and his leadership was compelling from the outset. He commanded the 7th Battalion at Gallipoli, where he was wounded at the landing, and under his vigorous front-line leadership four of his men were awarded the Victoria Cross for conspicuous courage at Lone Pine. He led the 15th Brigade at the Western Front, where he was prominent in notable battles such as Fromelles, Polygon Wood, and Villers-Bretonneux together with numerous other engagements, incidents, and controversies. No Australian general was more revered by those he led or more famous outside his own command.

It was not just his achievements, awards, and accolades that made Elliott special, though there were plenty of each. His fame had more to do with his character and personality — with the style of his leadership — than with its results. Pompey’s tempestuousness generated a host of anecdotes that amused his men and disconcerted his superiors. He was frank and forthright in speech and correspondence, not one for pretence or artifice (and he was no good at concealing his feelings anyway). This was not merely a characteristic, but a personal code of honour that was crucial to his self-respect.

Elliott’s emotions are starkly evident in his wartime letters. He not only wrote frankly about what happened to him and the men he was commanding; he was also frank about what he felt about what happened to him and the men he was commanding. Pompey was adamant that the war had to be fought and had to be won, and he realised that casualties were inevitable, but again and again he became extremely upset when they eventuated. That these terrible losses had devastating consequences for Australia is frequently evident in his letters. He and his wife, Kate, arranged a mutual no-secrets pact for their correspondence before he left with the AIF in 1914, and he certainly adhered to that agreement (as she also did, although her correspondence has not survived).

Elliott wrote rapidly and fluently with fertile imagery, a flair for simile, and an engaging turn of phrase. ‘These trench mortar boys are there night and day like a cat watching a mouse hole’, he reported. ‘The Turks’ corpses were lying thick as dead leaves in autumn’, he noted. When he proclaimed an order that the next officer caught looting would be summarily and publicly hanged, and looting ceased as a result, he concluded that none ‘seemed inclined to make of themselves a test case’. After his machine-gunners broke up a German attack, ‘the survivors of the column concluded that they had urgent business elsewhere’. When his men were victorious in another engagement, he noted that enemy infantry were heading ‘for the skyline at a pace that suggested they were making straight for Berlin to tell the Kaiser about it’. Unimpressed by German tactics in 1918, he observed that ‘the whole military ability of the Teutonic race has advanced no plan beyond … the instinct of an infant grasshopper’. He sent an officer to a vital Lone Pine position with a memorable farewell: ‘Goodbye Symons, I don’t expect to see you again, but we must not lose that post!’ Pompey would roar at incompetent officers: ‘Call yourself a soldier, … you’re not even a wart on a soldier’s arse!’ And he would reassure Kate that he had stopped swearing: ‘I would pass for a Sunday School teacher anywhere at present’.

His letters and diaries are lively and absorbing not only because of his turn of phrase, but also because he was so outspoken — especially in controversy, and Pompey was often in controversy. He declared after a stunningly successful counterattack that he ‘had to fight everybody to get permission to do it, and when it was done they were all breaking their necks to get or share the credit’. When he was accused of unduly vigorous conduct and he made a pointed counter-allegation, the initial accusation was ‘dropped like a hot spud’. Unwise British dispositions in a vital sector ‘forbade us to hope that any intelligent military action could reasonably be expected from any of them from the corps commander down’. Newly promoted to command a brigade, he was appalled by the calibre of his allotted battalion commanders: ‘do you desire an efficient brigade or will any old thing do?’ Moreover, he nailed General Birdwood as being ‘full of a pretended affability that he imagines deceives us’; when this mask disappeared during an argument, Elliott described how Birdwood ‘commenced to chatter and jibber … like a demented monkey’ and then flounced out with a retinue of commanders ‘like a cock wren and his harem’.

‘The whole world is a wedding cake today with crisp frozen icing about six inches thick’, Pompey reported in mid-winter. He was a fine descriptive writer with a keen interest in plants and birdlife — his mother thought he could have become a naturalist — and he felt motivated to make his prolific correspondence to Kate as illuminating as possible about his experiences and emotions. This was important to them both: he wanted to tell Kate what he was going through, and she wanted to share his vicissitudes with him. Their no-secrets pact resulted from and reinforced this mutual priority.

Elliott yearned to stay connected to his wife and children. Maintaining a loving relationship with a spouse you don’t see for five years is no easy matter, especially when you spend much of that time distracted by danger and the acute awareness that you’re responsible for the lives of thousands. Elliott certainly tried his utmost. ‘Nearly half of our wedded life we will have been separated soon, dear’, he wrote in January 1918. ‘It is very sad what we have missed of each other’. And they were not to be reunited for another 18 months.

Pompey’s correspondence to his young children was extraordinary. Surely no general in any combatant nation in this war managed to turn the conflict into a kind of bedtime story in the way that he regularly did in his letters to his children. He did his best to encourage them from afar to help Kate at home, to do well at school, and to get on better with each other.

Elliott was not the only AIF correspondent or diarist or memoirist to write with candour and descriptive flair. But what distinguished him from them was his rank. They tended, naturally, to write from the necessarily limited outlook of the average soldier; what they saw or experienced was inevitably a small part of a much bigger picture. Elliott, on the other hand, was a colonel at Gallipoli and a general at the Western Front; he was also a leader who ensured by frequent front-line visits — more than most (if not all) equivalent commanders — that he familiarised himself with what his men were enduring. Though not a top-level commander, he was a general, in charge of thousands of soldiers, and this endowed his frank observations with a broader and more informed perspective than the writings of AIF privates and corporals.

Unlike my 2002 biography, Pompey Elliott, a life-and-times story covering his whole life, this book is not a biography, it’s not life and times, and not about his whole life. The focus is on this celebrated Australian’s experience of World War I, in his own words — not only his wartime letters and diaries, but also his orders, messages, battle reports, and recommendations for awards. Moreover, this book includes not only what he wrote, but also what he said on various occasions when his remarks and speeches were documented.

Pompey Elliott was not only Australia’s most famous fighting general. He was also notable as a recorder and interpreter of the AIF’s history. His extensive writings and speeches about the AIF (including after the war, when he often reminisced in parliament about the conflict, and frequently corresponded with Charles Bean, the official historian) are, in aggregate, more historically significant — that is, to the history of the AIF — than the writings of any of his contemporaries except Bean. And his own words during the war constitute an important part of this distinctive material. Hundreds of personal narratives of World War I by Australians have been published — more than 500 in the four decades from 1970 — but none of them is comparable to the accumulated first-person content that Pompey Elliott created during the war.

Did his outspoken correspondence contravene the censorship rules? Elliott was a lawyer and, as a commander, a severe disciplinarian; he was not inclined to flout explicit rules routinely, and he treated the censorship regulations seriously. Many a time his letters confirmed compliance: ‘We are safely anchored off a beautiful little island whose name I must not mention’, he told Kate on 11 April 1915 in a typical example. ‘We had to march to this place whose name I must not tell you’, he affirmed a year later. Furthermore, on 7 June 1915 he even crossed out part of what he had written to her: ‘I have just looked through and censored my own letter as I find I had transgressed some of the rules.’ He understood, accepted, and obeyed the prohibition on divulging information about formations’ locations and future operations; this was the fundamental and clearly justifiable purpose of the censorship. But where the scope of the rules extended to other spheres — the bans on criticism of previous military operations, in particular, and on references to recent casualties or comments prejudicial to harmony with allies — Elliott’s compliance was less likely. Even so, other commanders, including Generals Monash and Birdwood, treated the censorship rules more cavalierly when writing home; Monash sent the plan for a notable AIF battle before it occurred to a brother-in-law who was then under surveillance by the authorities because of his German origins.

Pompey speculated in 1917 that his children and grandchildren might wish to read his wartime diaries some day. A decade after returning home, now Major-General Elliott and a senator in the Australian parliament, he had in mind creating a narrative based on a combination of his wartime letters and diaries. But he died less than two years later, and the idea never came to fruition. In these pages, a century after the events they describe, it has.

PROLOGUE

1878–1914

Harold Edward Elliott, who was to become famous in Australia as ‘Pompey’ Elliott, was born at West Charlton in rural Victoria on 19 June 1878. He was the fifth of eight children of English-born immigrants, Thomas and Helen Elliott. Thomas, a persistent but unsuccessful goldseeker, had become a reluctant and impoverished small farmer.

The family’s fortunes were transformed when Thomas became involved in a spectacular gold discovery near Coolgardie in Western Australia. Suddenly affluent, Thomas transferred his family to a grand residence at Ballarat. Harold’s previously limited horizons dramatically expanded. After only the most basic primary education at West Charlton, he was almost 17 when he began attending Ballarat College in 1895, but he was determined to make the most of this unexpected opportunity to reshape his future. He became dux of the school in 1897, and started a law course at the University of Melbourne the following year, residing at Ormond College.

Harold liked sport and loved the natural world of plants and animals, but he was passionately interested in soldiering. His preferred recreational reading was military history. When the war between the British and the Boers began in South Africa, he interrupted his studies to enlist in a Victorian contingent. He left Australia in 1900 as a humble trooper with the Victorian Imperial Bushmen, and ended his involvement in the conflict as Lieutenant Elliott DCM with a distinguished record and a burgeoning reputation in military circles.

Harold resumed his law course with his customary dedication unaffected by his three-year break, and completed his degree by sharing the coveted Supreme Court Prize for the top student in final year. Having decided to pursue a career as a solicitor, he completed his articles with the establishment city firm of Moule, Hamilton and Kiddle. He then worked briefly as a solicitor at the Victorian country town of Stawell before returning to Melbourne and entering into partnership with Glen Roberts, a 44-year-old solicitor. The firm of Roberts and Elliott was initially located in Collins Street near Elizabeth Street.

Elliott, now 31, married Kate Campbell on 27 December 1909. They were a contrasting couple:

He was tall and thickset; she was petite and slender. His rushed, vigorous scrawl was hard to decipher; hers was neat and clear. He tended to bolt his food, keen to complete his meal and get on with whatever else he had to do; she would urge him to slow down. She was not overly decisive; he had more than enough decisiveness for both of them. Tidiness was a priority for her, but never an attribute of his; she maintained a spotless house, and spruced him up for the office and parade ground. For Harold, home represented a haven from the pressures of a competitive outside world; for Kate, it was the very essence of her existence. His volatile temperament prevented him from reacting placidly to disappointment or controversy; she tried to keep smiling and stay cheerful at all times.

Harold and Kate settled at a house he had acquired in the suburb of Northcote. They had two children: Violet was born in 1911, and Neil arrived a year later. When Kate’s mother, Mary Campbell (an immigrant from Scotland known to Harold as Nana), saw Violet for the first time, she exclaimed ‘Oh, the little Dhusach Vech!’ Harold asked her what ‘that funny name’ meant, and she replied ‘my little black fairy’; this delighted Harold, who thereafter frequently referred to Violet as Dhusach. A devoted and affectionate father, he often referred to Neil as ‘laddie’. Kate’s unmarried younger sister, Belle Campbell, helped Kate with the children and household chores; Violet called Belle ‘Baaby’, and Harold sometimes did too.

He also played a senior role within his wider family. His eldest brother, never the same after a falling tree fractured his skull, had been jailed and admitted to a lunatic asylum, and his eldest sister had committed suicide. Their father, Thomas the goldseeker, died in 1911. Harold ended up more like a responsible older brother to his surviving siblings than might have been expected of the fifth in a family of eight. His brother Rod was a farmer at Tocumwal. Another brother, George (Harold often called him Geordie), a medical student who captained University in the VFL, was engaged to Lyn Walker; Harold knew the Walkers well. Harold’s youngest sibling, Violet, had met her future husband, John Avery, after Harold and George befriended him at Ormond College. Another sister, Flory, was notoriously cranky and did not marry.

Harold combined his roles as an involved husband, father, brother, and solicitor with his continuing participation in soldiering. Having joined the peacetime militia, he progressed purposefully from second lieutenant to lieutenant in 1905, captain in 1909, major in 1911, and lieutenant-colonel commanding the Essendon Rifles in 1913. For almost a decade after graduating from university, Elliott later claimed, he ‘never had a holiday that was not spent in some military encampment or school of instruction’. He continued to read voraciously about all aspects of soldiering past and present (while also enjoying Rudyard Kipling, Jane Austen, and Jeannie Gunn, author of We of the Never Never). As a commander, though, he felt that his ‘greatest asset’ was his 10 months in the ranks in South Africa: ‘One learns exactly what the men have to put up with and can learn to do things and the need for doing things for their welfare as one can learn in no other way.’ Forthright and volatile, knowledgeable and passionately serious, Elliott was making a name for himself:

Tallish and heavily built with the powerful chest and shoulders of a noted shot-putter, he was clean-shaven with a big reddish face, brown eyes and dark hair … He was regarded in militia circles as a commander of impressive intellect and strong opinions, a hefty fire-eater ever-ready to be fiercely critical of anyone not doing what he thought they ought to be doing. Though quietly spoken normally, Elliott when steamed up had a roar that could be heard a long way away. And it was not just the rank and file at the receiving end — if his officers did not meet his exacting standards he did not spare them either.

Nevertheless, despite his tempestuousness, he was widely respected as a commander. Many of his men admired his genuineness as well as his conspicuous dedication and ability. He was utterly and artlessly sincere; what he thought was what he said. Military preparedness was essential, he insisted in a fervent lecture at an officers’ training school in 1913, and neglecting their training could have harrowing consequences in a real engagement:

Will you be thinking of this good man and that good man lying dead, wounded or missing, and thinking: Did I do right or not in taking this or that action? Will I have to account for these men’s lives, or not? If you have well and truly and zealously applied yourselves to the task of mastering the science and art of war, your conscience at least will be easy, however heavy your heart; but if you have neglected your opportunities and looked upon your connection with the battalion as merely a sort of amusement, or as a means of attaining some sort of social distinction (poor as it is), then you will be as Judas was, for like him you will have betrayed a sacred trust.

That so many of the men of the Essendon Rifles — his ‘Essendon boys’ — volunteered to serve under him in August 1914 underlined the widespread appreciation of his leadership. When the war erupted in Europe, and Australia announced its willingness to provide a contingent, Harold was certainly ready to serve:

Elliott had just turned 36 and was in robust health. Since his university years his girth had spread markedly, but despite this increased weight he was still the very embodiment of a vibrant man of action. If anything, his strapping physique made him an even more imposing figure in uniform. His attributes as a commander included a capable and adaptable intellect; considerable experience; absolute dedication; formidable willpower; self-confidence and decisiveness; proven courage under fire; administrative competence; strength of character; a certain charisma; and familiarity with Australians of diverse backgrounds — rural and urban, poor and comfortable, working-class and professional. The looming war was going to be the biggest challenge of his life. He was itching to embrace it.

CHAPTER 1

PREPARING THE BATTALION

‘Finest lot of fellows you could raise anywhere’

August 1914–March 1915

An expeditionary contingent — the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) — was rapidly organised. Elliott was notified on 14 August that he had been appointed to command the 7th AIF Battalion, and immediately began selecting officers.

7th Battalion Diary, 14.8.1914

Wired [militia] commanders for lists of their officers and NCOs who had volunteered, and asking for their recommendations in order of merit.

The 7th Battalion’s allotted recruiting areas included suburbs where he had commanded militia units.

7th Battalion Diary, 16.8.1914

Interviewed officers whose names had been submitted for selection. Owing to my previous connection with the 58th and 60th Infantry Battalions, I knew the officers of these battalions thoroughly and had made a tentative selection of them before my own appointment.

His new battalion’s rural zones included his birthplace.

Telegram to J.C. Tonkin, 19.8.1914

I command No. 7 Battalion infantry, drawn inter alia from Charlton and all surrounding districts. Would be glad if you would let this be known. If any recruits offer will send officer to examine.

Elliott joined his unit at the AIF’s Victorian camp, where the earliest enlisters had already begun their training.

7th Battalion Diary, 21.8.1914

Proceeded to Broadmeadows with battalion HQ. The existing organisation of territorial battalions in my opinion immensely facilitated the assembly and selection of recruits and furnished a wide field of selection for officers.

He delivered an early pep-talk at Broadmeadows.

Address to original officers and NCOs, August 1914

[The raw material of the 7th Battalion is] identical in character with that from which Oliver Cromwell formed his famous Ironsides, whose proud boast it was after fifteen years of service that, during that period, no enemy had ever seen their backs. [It is our task] to make from that material an army equal to that of Cromwell.

[It has] been said ‘Australians would never submit to discipline’. [On] the contrary, provided the reason for discipline was given and understood, they would cheerfully and eagerly submit to it.

A private, who was to become one of the battalion’s best-known personalities, had an inauspicious encounter with his colonel.

Exchange with Jim Bowtell-Harris, August 1914

‘What is your name?’

‘Bowtell-Harris, sir.’

‘Hyphened name, eh? No hyphens in this battalion — your name is Harris.’

Arduous training continued for weeks.

Letter to Belle, [1] 12.10.1917

[1. Belle Campbell, Kate’s sister, was Elliott’s sister-in-law.]

Wasn’t it just a blessing that I and a few others did see the war coming and try to fit ourselves for it — though I never dreamed to fight [in Europe]. I thought Japan would be sure to join Germany and we should have had to fight hard for Australia.

The initial enlisters were farewelled at numerous functions, and Elliott attended a stirring dinner at Essendon. Relatives of his ‘Essendon boys’ often recalled his speech during the worrying months ahead. What he said was reported in the Essendon Gazette (in the third person, with Elliott as ‘he’).

Speeches at Essendon Town Hall, 8.9.1914

The entire British nation hung on the present struggle. As a result of the South African war 15 years ago, the place was laid bare of houses, trees, fences, etc, and that was the thing to expect if Australia met with an invasion of the Germans, about whose cruelty they heard so much … He selected his officers and men with the greatest care, and he was proud of the Essendon Rifles and of the whole battalion … He and three others had been selected as [Victorian] battalion commanders of the Expeditionary Force, and he considered it a great honour. He hoped he would prove worthy of it. (Applause.) … He had a wife and family and would be pleased if the war were over tomorrow. He had 1023 boys under him, and their parents said they were glad the soldiers were under his care. He hoped when they came back their parents would still say the same thing. The call to arms had come to him, and he was bound to put his name down, and could not stand out … Those going with him to the front knew how strict he was, and this was because he realised the seriousness of the war.

The men of the 7th Battalion were told on Friday 16 October that they would be departing in two days time. The intervening Saturday was Caulfield Cup day. For some rural enlisters who had never seen the big race, this was an irresistible opportunity for a final spree, and they were absent without leave at roll-call. After their return the absentees had to parade before their commander to learn the consequences of their truancy.

Address to wrongdoers, 19.9.1914

Never before have I seen such an array of horse-lovers. My interest in the animal has always been limited to using it for carrying me over distances I would otherwise have to walk. I have never been attracted to horse races, and much less to the duties a stable entails. I am glad to have discovered your attachment at so opportune a time, as it solves any difficulty associated with the care of the horses we are taking over with us. You can all expect to be called upon to act as horse batmen for the duration of the voyage.

The 7th Battalion left Port Melbourne in the Hororata, and a temporary halt near Williamstown enabled final messages to be sent ashore by boat.

Letter to Kate, 18.10.1914

Goodbye now my darling. Give a big heap kiss to each of my darling bairnies. Don’t forget to write often and often even when you don’t hear from me because Daddy will be lonely for news of his loved ones.

Having arrived at the Albany rendezvous, where the troopships were to form a convoy, he learned that a rumour had spread around Melbourne that the Hororata had been sunk with no survivors.

Cable to Kate, 4.11.1914

All well don’t believe any rumours Elliott.

The convoy of ships was a striking spectacle.

Letter to Kate, 11.11.1914

In Albany Harbour we lost one man, Colour Sergeant O’Meara, who disappeared one night. We can only think that he fell overboard during the night. The matter is so very mysterious and I don’t suppose it will ever be cleared up. We stayed in Albany Harbour just a week, and on the Sunday again we put off for Colombo in glorious weather. It was a fine sight to see all those ships going out in one long line. Outside they formed up in three lines, one of nine and the other two having 10 ships. Then behind them are the 10 New Zealand ships.

Harold Elliott was not alone in feeling sentimental as the Australian coast disappeared over the horizon.

Letter to Kate, 11.11.1914

The first day out of Albany I was very lonely for you and my dear bairnies, so I got out your photo and fixed it in my cabin. It is a great comfort to me … Every day I think of you and of our dear little pets … If you should never see your old man any more dearie you will at least be able to remember this, that during all our wedded life your old man was happier and more content than ever before in his life and he never found a single fault in you nor regretted for a single atom of a minute that he loved you and wedded you, and I should like my laddie and my Dhusach to know that.

Intriguing news emerged that Turkey had become an enemy.

Diary, 2.11.1914

Passed [Cape] Leeuwin during the night. Felt very lonely and a little homesick for my wife and babies today. Wireless came through that England had declared war on Turkey. Various speculations were made as to what effect this would have on our destination.

There was a momentous turn of events a week later.

Diary, 9.11.1914

Considerable commotion observed this morning amongst our escort. The Japanese boat on our right flank [2] made a circuit at top speed and got away out on our left flank until we could barely see her. During the afternoon about 3pm we received a wireless message [indicating] that a naval engagement had taken place off the Cocos Islands which we passed last night about 50 miles to our left, ie west, and that a German cruiser had been sunk by our boat, the Sydney. Probably the cruiser Emden, the only one about. The men were much interested in the news.

[2. The Japanese cruiser Ibuki was one of the naval watchdogs protecting the convoy from German raiders.]

A stirring message confirmed that ‘Emden beached and done for’.

Diary, 10.11.1914

Today we received definite news of the engagement … We were much interested in this as the first naval engagement of the Australian fleet … The Captain proposed the health of the youngest navy, ‘The Australian Fleet’, at mess, which was most enthusiastically honoured. Very hot day.

They were warned to be vigilant as they neared the Suez Canal.

Letter to Kate, 24.11.1914

It is very warm these days as you may guess and not too pleasant, but we are very lucky in that we have not had a single day’s really rough weather and only one or two that it was not actually calm. We have only lost one horse so far, a fine big waggon horse that got pneumonia and died after a very hard fight. Lieutenant Tubb [3] looks after them as if they were children …

[3. Fred Tubb, an extrovert farmer from Longwood who was interested in current affairs, turned 33 four days after Elliott’s letter praised him. Short of stature (less than 5 feet 6 inches), Tubb was hard-working, popular and a fine leader.]

We have just sighted the coast of Arabia in the Gulf of Aden. It looks high, rocky and mountainous but we are too far away to see any vegetation. It is pretty jolly hot here. The air is just dead calm and the sea like a mirror. We will be in Aden in the morning and this will be away to you. I hope it will cheer up my dear old girlie a bit, ’cause I ’specks she’ll be getting sad and lonely for her old man now. Dear sweet old love, God bless and keep you. Your picture and that of my pet bairnies are a great comfort to me always. I give it a tish sometimes — I am so pleased with it. It cheers me up good. Don’t forget to tell me you love me millions and millions and all about the wee bairnie pets … I suppose it will be getting near our wedding day at Christmas when you get this. I must thank you again for the five sweetest happiest years anyone could have, my perfect little wife.

We have received instructions to be prepared for attack by the Turks from the bank of the Canal while going through, and to reply to any fire directed on us. It seems strange to me to think that we may be under fire in a few hours or so, but I don’t think there is much danger. There may be a few snipers about the banks, but if there were any large force we would land a party and hunt them off before allowing the ships to go through.

Their destination was not going to be England after all.

Letter to Kate, 1.12.1914

On the 28th we got word to disembark at Cairo. There were all sorts of speculations as to what it meant. The general conclusion come to was that the weather would be too cold for our men in England just now and we were to put the finishing touches on our training in Egypt and we would be in a central position from which we could be employed anywhere. It will seem strange to be amongst scenes where Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra and Nelson and all the old people fought and died …

Now Kit old girlie that’s just about all the news so what about a bit of lovemaking. Dear old girl will you please cuddle up nice and close … with your dear old loving arms about me and tell me how much you love me — ’cause you do love me you know something scandalous. Your dear old sweet face is smiling down on me as I write and the wee sweet bairnies too. It will be just about Xmas or New Year when you get this and I do with all my heart wish you a very merry Xmas and a bright and happy New Year … God bless you for all your sweetness and love to me. All my association with you has helped me to be a better and truer man, and I hope I shall deserve to have had you for a wife and to have had the happiness of being your husband. My little sweetheart, you are a wonderful little woman and you don’t know it the least little bit. There is no one that ever I met that has your sweet unselfishness and grace.

Letters from home were a tonic.

Diary, 3.12.1914

Great excitement this morning when we received our first letters since leaving Australia. I got one from Katie and a postcard from Lyn Walker. Katie’s dated on Cup Day, 3rd Nov, exactly 30 days ago, and Lyn’s a day earlier. Some of Katie’s letters must have missed me.

Lyn was soon to marry Elliott’s brother George, and her brother Ken was in the 7th Battalion.

Letter to Kate, 3.12.1914

I received your letter this morning as we were lying just off the jetty at Port Said … It was the letter you started on the 1st Nov on the Sunday just as we would be on our way out of Albany and you finished it on Cup Day, and I was most awful lonely for my wee sweet wife on those days. Katie dear it is I suppose very selfish of me but I am glad you miss your old man a big heap. I’ve always wanted someone to love me a big heap million — and you do that, don’t you Katie. Little girlie I will remember that when I come back to you and I will just about squeeze you and cuddle you to death … For me there could be no one in all the world to take the place you have won for yourself in my heart. For me you are the one perfect woman in all the world. Perhaps I am a foolish old person to think that of you — but if so I hope I shall always be foolish for it makes me very, very happy, and I don’t think I am foolish a bit. It is only that I know you for what you are in all your goodness sweetness and loving tenderness — my own wee darling wife — the onliest true love that ever I had in all my life. All my heart is going out to you in your loneliness my [dearest] one. I hope you will feel my love go out to you and wrap itself all round your true little heart and comfort you and cheer you till I return to take you in my arms again, to look into your dear bright eyes and sunshine face and kiss your dear lips and cheek and chin.

Elliott and his men had ‘such a long interesting day going through the Canal’, he enthused. They then disembarked at Alexandria and were transported by train to Cairo.

Cable to Kate, 8.12.1914

Arrived splendid health Ken also expect here some time Elliott.

His perceptions of Egypt were shaped by racial attitudes widely held in his lifetime.

Letter to Kate, 10.12.1914

The villages near Alexandria are wretched mud hovels. The people live in villages and not on their own farms but go out to work on them. The villages seem to have been on the same site for hundreds of years, and as the donkeys and camels and fowls etc all live together in many cases in the houses they seem built on huge dung heaps and you can smell them a mile away. Even in Cairo itself off the main streets where the policemen enforce cleanliness the niggers just do their business up against the walls everywhere. The same in all the old ruined temples about which the visitors rave. You have to hold your nose when you go near the place.

On arrival at Cairo we were sent on out here [to Mena camp] by electric tram cars. We are camped on the west of a ridge upon which the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx are built. It is about 10 miles from Cairo station. Every morning the shadow of the Pyramids is cast right across our camp, which is situated on the edge of the Sahara in desert sand feet deep, but as there has been practically no wind since we arrived we have not been inconvenienced with the dust so far. What it would be like with a strong wind the Lord only knows. I believe they have regular sand storms here just like Broken Hill. I have climbed up on the Great Pyramid and seen the view from it. At first sight it is disappointing, as is the case also with the Sphinx after all we have heard of it, but after you have climbed up it you begin to have more respect for it. The climate, at present, is simply delightful except that the nights are rather too cold.

Elliott was unimpressed with many of the Egyptians the AIF encountered.

Letter to Kate, 13.12.1914

Take them all in all they are about the biggest thieves and cheats unhung. They always ask a price about 4 times as much as a thing is worth, and if you accept at once they are sorry they did not ask more and try to raise the price again. One of the Ballarat officers bought