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[To be read on the occasion of Presentation of Peace Souvenir Medals.]
Fix this textTHE GREAT WAR, 1914-19.
Fix this textBy Mr. C. E. W. BEAN
Fix this textOfficial War Correspondent with the Australian Imperial Force.
Fix this text(Written at the request of the Commonwealth Peace Celebrations Committee.)
Fix this textIT is over. The enormous effort of the men- —yes, and women and children—of every decent nation
Fix this textis finished. • The last gun has sounded. The last troop-train winds homewards. The last big
Fix this texttransports, turned homeward, are punching white foam out of the southern rollers. The vast
Fix this textammunition factories will presently settle down to enrich the world with peaceful goods. The trains
Fix this textwill carry busy passengers and commerce ; the big steamers will move about the world with teeming
Fix this textholds; the little trawlers will unship their guns and go forth to their fishing ; the earth will become
Fix this textitself again and Australia will settle down to carve out her new and splendid future. For the
Fix this textsubmarines which scattered murder across the seas are now safely chained in a British port. And
Fix this textthe Army which almost forced a wicked religion upon the world is beaten and harmless through the
Fix this textheroism of the world’s good men. We are free to be happy again. Sixty thousand Australians bought
Fix this textus this happiness with their lives.
Fix this textSome of you may remember how, five years ago, when war fell upon the world,* there
Fix this textmarched past our windows men in every sort of civilian dress, with their white shirt sleeves rolled up
Fix this textand carrying wooden rifles. They drilled, they practised, they exercised. Some people even laughed
Fix this textat them. Nobody laughs at them to-day.
Fix this textFor they were Australians who rushed forward to prevent a dreadful thing from happening in
Fix this textthe world. The rulers of Germany determined that, because Germany was a mighty power, therefore
Fix this textshe should have her way whether right or wrong. A small sister nation had offended her and she
Fix this textdetermined to try upon the world her wicked rule that whoever stood in the way of a strong nation,
Fix this textright or wrong, should be crushed. She knew that she was strong—and that was all she cared for.
Fix this textShe had practised soldiering with all her people and had prepared huge cannon and immense factories
Fix this textof ammunition. In that fateful week in August, 1914, when France and Russia were deeply occupied
Fix this textwith other things, she fell on them swiftly at full strength. She had small chance with the French
Fix this textforts and mountain barriers. But because the little Belgian nation, which lay near by, possessed a
Fix this textflat country to march through, and was too weak to keep their great armies out of it, the Germans
Fix this textsuddenly marched into its land which they had promised to protect, and struck at France a vile blow
Fix this textin the back. And when the Belgian nation, small though it was, struck back a*t them, they burned
Fix this textthe villages and killed the people in order to cow them into quietness.
Fix this textBritain hated war and was hesitating to fight. But, on the moment when they heard of what
Fix this texthappened in Belgium, the British people flung themselves straight in beside the French across the
Fix this textpath of the Germans. In Australia and in New Zealand, 12,000 miles away, men said : “So long as
Fix this textwe are alive in the world we shall give all we have so that this sort of thing shall not happen in it.”
Fix this textThey left their offices, their tools and farms, and hurried to offer themselves to cross the sea. They
Fix this textdrilled in their shirt sleeves. In two months they were formed into regiments and the first splendid
Fix this textforce of them sailed from the West.
Fix this textSo it was that this small army from the barely known lands of the South ranged itself by the
Fix this textside of every good and great nation of the world. Beside the splendid army of France the slender
Fix this textBritish line, barely one man deep in its early water-filled trenches, amongst the sodden ditches and
Fix this texthedgerows, with scarcely ammunition even for its few guns, was holding the Germans who looked down
Fix this textC. 10536.
Fix this textIt's easy and takes two shakes of a lamb's tail!
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http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-37870383
Bean, C. E. W & Commonwealth Peace Celebrations Committee (Australia). (1919). The Great War, 1914-19 Retrieved April 23, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-37870383
Bean, C. E. W and Commonwealth Peace Celebrations Committee (Australia). The Great War, 1914-19 Melbourne: Govt. Printer, 1919. Web. 23 April 2025 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-37870383>
Bean, C. E. W & Commonwealth Peace Celebrations Committee (Australia). 1919, The Great War, 1914-19 Govt. Printer, Melbourne viewed 23 April 2025 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-37870383
{{Citation
| author1=Bean, C. E. W.
| author2=Commonwealth Peace Celebrations Committee (Australia).
| title=The Great War, 1914-19
| year=1919
| section=2 leaves ; 35 cm.
| location=Melbourne
| publisher=Govt. Printer
| url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-37870383
| id=nla.obj-37870383
| access-date=23 April 2025
| via=Trove
}}
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