World War I diaries

A small number of diaries were acquired from the families of men killed abroad but the majority in this collection were purchased from men who made it home, survivors, many of them diarists over two, three or four years. Their chronicles bear the hallmarks of the true diary. They are not carefully planned, they are raw and unpolished and rich with the ‘diamonds’ of more or less spontaneous jotting. Their pre-eminent quality is an unpretentious authenticity and immediacy, a realism that is rarely matched by other records of wartime experience. They are intensely ‘in the moment’, all the more so in the trenches where death was everywhere.

Why did they write them? Firstly, they did so because they could. Australia was an unusually literate society for the time and many were schooled enough to tell their story. And what a story! The soldier-diarists, and the airmen, sailors and nurses who kept a diary, knew they had a big story to tell. They often used the word ‘adventure’. One even gave his diary a title. He called it ‘the great adventure’. But the innocence or the optimism suggested by this phrase was short-lived. The ‘great adventure’ was mugged by war and soon enough we see a change – the language becoming darker as the romance disintegrates.

For some their cryptic notes were probably no more than an aide-memoir. For others, the diary was a way to connect with home. They were writing for an imagined audience, for the family and friends they had left behind. The importance of a ‘conversation’ with home can hardly be overstated. Along with letters and postcards and sometimes photographs, the diaries were the Facebook of their day — impressions and experiences for the kitchen table or the mantelpiece.

Last but not least, these wartime chroniclers wanted a record of duty done. They wrote of hard training and hard times, of battle and death and ruin everywhere. There are lines, hastily scrawled upon the eve of battle, by soldiers who knew this entry might be their last. There are passages where men puzzle as to how they could still be alive.

These are voices full of life and fun and fear, and resolute purpose. They are voices from the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century, a tragedy that engulfed an age.

The diaries vary in style and language; from the harrowing, to the mundane, with many instances of the wry sense of humour of the servicemen and women, the stretcher-bearers, POW’s, artists, journalists and entertainers, amongst many others.

Sister Anne Donnell 

Sister Anne Donnell also offered her diaries and letters for sale in 1919. Despite Library staff concern that she didn’t concentrate enough on medical or war matters, she was offered £5.

Serving as a nurse with the 3rd Australian General Hospital on the Greek island of Lemnos, and later in France and England, Anne had seen some terrible sights. She was a great storyteller, who wrote frequent letters home to friends in Adelaide as well as keeping a diary.

Her stories began on board the Mooltan with medical colleagues. They had discovered a 12-year-old stowaway on board, ‘a little chappie called Reggie’ whose mother had died and whose father and brother were away at the war. Several nurses and Red Cross staff wanted to adopt him, but the Captain informed them he would be sending him back when they reached Sri Lanka.

Anne devoured each new experience, describing her adventures in Colombo, London, Alexandria and Cairo: ‘Everything was so interesting’. Like many of the visiting Australians, Cairo provided cultural fascination and excellent shopping:

… the centre of the bazaar quarter … this place seems to be devoted to everything that is oriental in the way of Alleys full of copper ware, brass-ware, gold & silver, precious & ornamental stones, Turkish slippers etc. It’s most fascinating & I take a delight in beating them down for the goods …

The hospital at Lemnos, where Anne arrived in mid-October 1915, comprised ‘rows of Marquees (as wards) & bell tents. We have beds for 1040 patients — though at present we have 1200 patients.
So some still are on Mattresses on the ground, they don’t mind though & seem perfectly contented.’ Patients arrived from Gallipoli, across the Aegean Sea, before the December evacuation. They were wounded or suffered illnesses such as dysentery, jaundice and frostbite.

By January 1916, Anne reported, 7400 patients had been treated and ‘the death rate percentage was only 2½ which was considered excellent’. ‘Not one of the staff have died,’ she added, ‘though many have been seriously ill & we are quite proud of that — by the way Colonel’s pet horse died also his kookaburra & our grey bonnets that we disliked so much, died a natural death there. Grey felt hats are on the way out from England for us — also more stylish grey coats.’
Two years on, Anne was still in the midst of war, this time serving on the Western Front at the 48th Casualty Clearing Station near Ypres. As 1917 turned into 1918, Anne was homesick and war weary. She had a cough and would be hospitalised in a few weeks’ time with the flu:

Time lags. The beginning of a New Year. Twas heralded in for us by the sound of shells from the enemy and the sounds of our guns retaliating. All the Sisters stayed up but me … I was a bit homesick and got out some old letters and re-read them. I was tired too. Then the shelling kept waking me — And my cough was troublesome, and I didn’t take Mrs Wiggs advice — Sit on the bed & smile but got sorry for myself & cried a bit — So the beginning of 1918 is not a promising omen for Anne.

Anne Donnell returned to Australia in early 1919. Heading home on the troopship, she wrote about seeing the Southern Cross in the sky.  Prior to disembarking in Perth she remarked on the ‘uncommon scent but we fancy it savours of trees — so we just call it the smell of Australia’.

Elise Edmonds & Peter Cochrane

References:

Diamonds in the dustheap: Diaries from the First World War by Peter Cochrane, Humanities Australia, No. 6, 2015.

Collections:

Donnell papers, 1915-1919 / Anne Donnell

Series 01: Anne Donnell circular letters, 25 May 1915 - 8 July 1918, MLMSS 1022/Item 1

Series 02: Anne Donnell diary, 29 December 1917 - 31 January 1919, MLMSS 1022/Item 2

Hutton war diaries, 1915-1918 / John Thomas Hutton, MLMSS 1138