'Diamonds of the Dustheap'

‘Diamonds of the Dustheap’ DIARIES FROM THE FIRST WORLD WAR » PETER COCHRANE If I stopped and took thought it would never be written at all; and the advantage of the method is that it sweeps up accidentally several stray matters which I should exclude if I hesitated but which are the diamonds of the dustheap. { Virginia Woolf, 20 January 19191 } The comparison may be unlikely, but Virginia form means that the rendering of some events Woolf’s insight into her diary keeping is a will be spasmodic and episodic but, as Robert pointer to what defines almost all the soldiers’ Latham has pointed out, ‘this is the way in which diaries that I have examined in the remarkable many events — even processes — happen’.3 collection held by the Mitchell Library in the The soldier’s diary is a narrative unfolding in a State Library of New South Wales.2 They are not tremulous present, a still fluid context with all carefully planned, they are raw and unpolished, its uncertainties, whether in Egypt, Gallipoli, they are a more-or-less spontaneous record or Palestine or on the Western Front. narrative of the day or the week, and they are We do not know how many Australian rich with ‘diamonds’. Their pre-eminent quality is soldiers took a diary to the Great War, nor an unpretentious authenticity and immediacy, a how many took to keeping a diary once there. realism matched by no other literary form in the Certainly not a majority, for most of the records of wartime experience. 330,000 soldiers who went abroad preferred Being authentic in this way, the diaries have to write letters or postcards, if they wrote at no panoramic grasp or God’s-eye view, nor are all. The thousands of diaries that were kept, they marked by the modifying reassessments however, are not introspective or confessional; of hindsight. They provide a uniquely inside rather, they are spectator diaries: records of perspective, plain and unvarnished, caught in travel and war, of tourism and duty done, the swirl of daily life, regardless of whether the something to be sent home to be read by family diarist is travelling, training or fighting; happy in and friends, or perhaps, to be consulted later, to (above) a billet behind the lines, or miserable in a mud- settle an argument or fuel a reminiscence. First World War Diaries, Mitchell soaked dugout in the midst of an artillery barrage The psychological importance of a serial Library. on the Somme. conversation with home can hardly be COURTESY JOY LAI, These diaries are intensely ‘in the moment’, overstated. The diaries are, therefore, much DIGITISATION & IMAGING SERVICES, STATE LIBRARY perhaps all the more so when written in the more than records of war, or reminiscences OF NEW SOUTH WALES trenches where death is near. Their diurnal to be filed under ‘military’. They are, first and 22 Humanities Australia foremost, ‘literary’ — they are part of the history might not have been in a position to obtain of writing and, in this case, they are a distinct information of any value to historians from branch of the genre we call travel writing. They strategic or tactical points of view, yet the are also ‘cultural’ in the sense of being about daily and intimate records of individual travel, family, love, big-noting (in some cases), men, their hopes and fears and feelings devotion, despair, homesickness and consolation generally, their expressions of opinions in trying times. concerning their officers, their mention of other men by name — especially those THE VISION coming from particular districts who refer to the doings of men of their own As the First World War drew to a close, the districts; all these things must be taken into then Public Library of New South Wales began consideration in estimating value.4 collecting the personal records of the men and By 1919 the collection was already a large and women who enlisted in order to document the valuable one. By 1921 the total number of war war as they had experienced it. diarists in the collection had reached 247, Planning began as events at Gallipoli seized complemented by collections of letters and, in the nation’s imagination. In response, the some cases, photo albums. The current collection principal librarian, William Ifould, hastily stands at 550 diarists and over 1100 volumes.5 formulated an acquisition policy. Ifould was The diaries take many forms. Some were determined to collect firsthand accounts of battle written on odd sheets of paper or in notebooks written by both the frontline men of the rank or signal message books. Others were cloth or and file and the officer class. In entrepreneurial leather bound. Occasionally the narrative begins mode and conscious that the Commonwealth in a hefty gilt-edged volume but, inevitably, would move into this sphere, he was keen to act continues in any kind of notebook that comes to pre-emptively. With the approval of his Trustees, hand. Most diaries were pocket sized and fit for Ifould placed advertisements in newspapers purpose. The variety of bindings complements around Australia, offering to buy diaries and the range of writing styles. Some are terse and letters in original form. The Library’s Letter random: ‘Getting warmer. Glassy sea but strong Books for 1918–1922 reveal that many diaries under currents … Dance tonight for Officers subsequently offered to Ifould were rejected and Nurses only! Have commenced growing a as insubstantial or in some way rewritten or ‘OH GOD WHAT A FIGHT, THE SKY IS A BLAZE OF FIRE & THE EARTH TREMORS, AS IF IN AGONY.’ overwritten later. Substance and authenticity moustache today.’6 Some are prolix and strain were at a premium, and the library was prepared for literary effect: ‘The sun as it arose threw to pay for it, as Ifould indicated in a letter to the a golden glory over the distant horizon and Library’s agent in London in 1919: finally appeared in a great white disc in all its glittering heat.’7 Some don’t strain at all, having By original diaries we mean diaries actually an economy (or lyricism) that is effortless and a written up from day to day and not the delight to read: ‘Oh God what a fight, the sky is a copies of those diaries. The value of such blaze of fire & the earth tremors, as if in agony.’8 diaries must be judged from the extent of A small number of diaries were acquired the period covered, the opportunities of the from the families of men who were killed diarist to procure and record information, abroad, but the vast majority in this collection the fullness of the entries, the value of the were purchased from men who made it home, entries to future historians … The record survivors, many of whom were diarists over two, from a psychological view is of some three or four years. These are, for the most part, importance as is also the record from a substantial memoirs. sentimental point of view … whilst a diarist Humanities Australia 23 folk at home. They were meant to be read by others. Some diarists gave their diaries titles, as if imagining the work as a publication in the tradition of the empire’s ‘Boy’s Own’ literature: ‘My Experiences & Adventures During my Sojourn in France’.9 References to an ‘Adventure’ or ‘Great Adventure’ are not uncommon. For the prolific practitioners, their diary work might complement letters, postcards and, in some instances, photographs. The psychological importance of a serial conversation with home can hardly be overstated. Diaries thickened the conversation. As one soldier–diarist declared at the head of his first volume: This diary, begun on the day of my departure for the front from Sydney, is being written chiefly for the benefit of my loved ones at home as it will be nearly impossible to tell all in letters and this will be sent home from time to time as opportunity offers and my efforts will be concentrated in keeping it up to date.10 Diarists talked to their imagined readers: ‘I am simply longing to see you all,’ wrote one. ‘I suppose you wonder where I am,’ wrote WHY? another, ‘I’m in a good safe place but it may be 11 (above) otherwise next week’. A day entry for The men who took to keeping a diary did so, The leisurely sea voyage from Australia — 11 July 1916 by the in the first instance, because they could. Many a month or more on the ocean — allowed the prodigious diarist Captain Aubrey soldiers had only the most elementary education. would-be diarists to ease into the unlikely Wiltshire. MLMSS Their grammar and spelling was mostly poor business of writing about travel and war. 3058/Box 1/6. to average, but they were uninhibited about Going to war offered a rare chance to ‘see the COURTESY STATE LIBRARY writing, about putting their story down. Most world’, to see England, to visit the relations at OF NEW SOUTH WALES white Australians in 1914 were sufficiently Home, to tour exotic places (such as Egypt), to numerate to know when they had been short earn a quid, or to test their manhood in more changed over the counter and sufficiently ways than one. The term ‘six-bob-a-day tourists’ schooled to pen a letter to a pal or a loved one. was coined for the well-paid Australians and they More than that, they were immersed in a print adopted it, often without irony. Patriotic motives culture, typified by the Bulletin, which reached did not get in the way of touristic ambitions.

Load more