STORIES FROM THE FRONT
DURING the Great War, Australia’s only connection to its soldiers was war correspondents. Charles Bean and Keith Murdoch were among the most revered.
Bean, the editor of the 12volume Official History of Australia from 1914- 1918, was selected in September 1914 by the Australian Journalists’ Association, narrowly beating Murdoch for the position.
While Bean was technically a civilian, he did hold the honorary rank of captain.
He struggled to win the affection of soldiers after reporting on men sent home for ill- discipline in Egypt, but things changed in Gallipoli after he was nominated ( but ineligible) for the Military Cross for dragging a wounded soldier back from battle.
Even after suffering a shot to the leg, Bean stayed in Gallipoli until two days before the final evacuation. By the time he returned, Bean had amassed 226 notebooks of first- hand information from the war.
“Charles Bean did as good a job as he could,” said World War I expert Prof Robin Prior.
“He couldn’t send everything because of censorship but he helped to the best of his ability.”
Murdoch’s role was slightly different in that he was an unofficial war correspondent.
After missing out on the official position to Bean, Murdoch was transferred to London in 1915 as managing editor of the United Cable Service, eventually gaining permission to travel to Gallipoli.
Murdoch agreed that he would not try to correspond by means other than those officially sanctioned and that all military information learnt would be kept confidential.
British correspondent Ellis Ashmead- Bartlett wrote a letter to British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith outlining the truth about Gallipoli.
Murdoch was given the letter to smuggle back to Britain but he was arrested in Marseilles and the letter was confiscated. Murdoch wrote his own 8000 word piece and the revelations led to the dismissal of Commander of the Dardanelles Campaign, Sir Ian Hamilton.