The Project Gutenberg eBook, Letters from France, by C. E. W. Bean

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Title: Letters from France

Author: C. E. W. Bean

Release Date: May 14, 2006 [eBook #18390]

Language: English

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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 nursi