Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 - Volume IX Introduction

Volume IX – The Royal Australian Navy, 1914–1918

Introduction by Ross Lamont

The Australian War Memorial would like to acknowledge the kind permission of the author and the assistance of the University of Queensland Press in making this Introduction available on–line.

When C.E.W. Bean first submitted in August 1919 a proposal for an official history of Australia in the war of 1914–1918, he confidently expected that the whole work would be completed within three years, four at most.1 At that point of time the historian of the Royal Australian Navy during the war had not been chosen. Bean was aware, however, that since September 1915, his close friend, Arthur Wilberforce Jose, had been writing such a history for the Commonwealth Naval Board. This had been only part of Jose’s responsibilities: indeed, the expansion of intelligence work and censorship duties had caused the history to be set aside in 1916. Perhaps knowledge of this early start encouraged Bean in his expectation of early completion. In fact Jose’s volume was not to be finished until more than nine years had passed.

From the very beginning circumstances made unlikely an early completion of what became Volume IX. On 2 October 1919, while deciding on Jose as the writer of that volume, the Naval Board proposed a censorship not only of his work but of all the military volumes, “particularly that relating to the occupation of German New Guinea Colony, in all cases where Naval matters or Naval Officers are mentioned.”2 Jose had submitted his resignation the day previous to the board’s decision, but he withdrew it seventeen days later.3 He may well have known the board’s choice of official historian for the R.A.N. at war. Unfortunately the Naval Board’s concern over censorship, the desire of the First Naval Member to avoid interruption to Jose’s intelligence work, and the latter’s refusal to write the history while continuing with intelligence, delayed a definitive appointment.4 Although in December both Bean and Jose were taking his appointment for granted, three months later Jose was still greatly concerned about the extent of the Naval Board’s censorship powers.5 Basically Jose accepted the board’s right to censor some facts, but not opinions. Bean reassured Jose that in agreeing to a special censorship of the Navy volume “there was no idea of any censorship which might cover any past defect in administration or the conduct of operations if such defects existed … It will therefore be perfectly clear that your opinions do not bind the Board.”6 Jose appears to have been satisfied, for on 20 May 1920 he signed the agreement to write “a volume of History entitled ‘The Story of the Royal Australian Navy’”, and set to work.7

This document reflects the initial optimism for an early completion of the histories. It is probable that the wording of the draft agreements with the various authors was settled in late November or early December 1919. Jose gave him until the following July to deliver two–thirds of the manuscript; the remaining third by 15 August 1920. He further undertook to correct all proofs so that the volume would be published by October of the same year, by which date it was thought that five or six volumes would have appeared.8

The improbability of meeting this schedule was recognized at the time by both Jose and the Naval Secretary, who verbally agreed that alteration of the dates in the draft was unnecessary. By September, however, the Navy Office had, as Minister and Acting Secretary, new men who, like the board, knew nothing of the terms of the agreement.9 Understandably they pressed Jose for the completed manuscript, while at the same time indicating unwillingness to pay his travelling expenses.10 Here were the first signs of the new board’s unhappiness with their historian.

Although Bean planned to inaugurate the series in July 1920 with the publication of Volume I, his rejection of the paper manufactured in England for the histories caused that volume’s postponement. Until it had appeared, all others, including Volume IX, would have to wait. Bean smoothed things over for Jose with the Naval Board, but admitted that a delivery date before Christmas was unlikely11

In September 1920 Jose was busily at work editing the Australian Encyclopaedia but Bean, confident of only minor delay to his plans, asked him for a five thousand word draft on the work of the R.A.N. for the Royal Colonial Institute’s history of the Oversea Empire’s war effort12 Jose was now beginning to realize that the completion of his volume would require more time than originally thought, but he saw no difficulty in Bean’s request since “the R.C.I. matter is practically a summary of the fuller work”.13

A much more serious obstacle occurred a month later. By then the Naval Board were proposing new delivery dates, two thirds “by August 1 and the rest by September 15”, dates which had already passed. Jose believed this a device to allow the board to claim default and the abandonment of the history: provided he was paid for the work so far done, Jose accepted the prospect of cancellation with little regret.14 On the other hand Bean acted quickly to avert such a shipwreck of Volume IX. It was agreed that Jose’s travelling expenses would be paid and that half the completed and censored manuscript would be given to the Editor on 1 February 1921, the balance a month later. By 5 November 1920 the preface, introduction and first seven chapters were with the Naval Board to be censored.15

On reading the manuscript, the board were appalled. The work was far from their idea of an official history, “a plain and unvarnished statement of the facts, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions from the material placed before him”.16 Jose had “contrary to what he was told, included his own personal opinions in this history”.17 He was accordingly summoned to Melbourne where on 21 January 1921 he discovered what the Naval Board’s view of their censorship actually meant.

They said flatly that the book was ‘official’, that the Government and the Board must take responsibility, and that nothing must go in that might hurt the feelings of the British Government, the Admiralty, any Australian politician, Admiral Patey, or the U.S. or Japanese Governments.

Recognizing that such an emasculated volume would be quite useless for Australians, Jose saw that all writing would have to stop until the question of the naval censorship was settled. The Naval Board proposed to submit to the Cabinet through its Minister, Mr Laird Smith, a typed copy of the draft chapters so far received with the disputed passages typed in red.18 This they did on 15 February 1921, by which time some Cabinet consideration had been given the matter.19 There appears, however, to have been no immediate result.

Jose drew up his report of the January meeting so that Bean might show it confidentially to the Prime Minister.20 Bean, however, had not acted when three months later the Melbourne Age published a report suggesting that naval censorship of Jose’s volume was concealing some scandal. Perhaps it was a straw in the wind that the Defence, rather than the Naval, Secretary enquired of Bean the meaning of this newspaper report. Jose denied having spoken to the press, but the issue gave Bean the chance to intervene in the stalemate between Jose and the Naval Board. Certain that the public would not accept a censored history, and armed with the recent press interest in the matter, Bean suggested to the board that their conception of a censorship was not what was intended when the original proposal of an official history was made. In his view they had the right to censor technical secrets, secrets of battle tactics or of inventions, all matters which might be “inadvisable to disclose”, but not to try to restrict the author’s reasonable arguments and conclusions: “the nation requires the historians above everything to be free, even, if necessary, to criticise the authorities of their own or any country.”21

To this representation there was no immediate reply: the Naval Board were unrepentant. In early August Senator G.F. Pearce, Minister for Defence, and his department began to take an interest, trying to discover “how it came about that the navy section alone required censorship”.22 As a result of Bean’s explanations, which emphasized the impasse, Senator Pearce pressed upon Laird Smith the wisdom of conciliation and suggested that the matter should be submitted to Cabinet.23 The answer from the Navy Office showed that they were unmoved by this potentially more powerful intervention. Indeed the Minister in replying to Pearce incorporated, without any change, the whole of a hard–line minute of 11 August by the Acting First Naval Member and, further, indicated his own desire for an additional review by a committee of the Cabinet. To this the Defence Minister gave his concurrence before he left for Washington.24

Understandably this letter was a severe setback for Jose. Before he received a copy of it, Bean was promising to take the matter up with the Prime Minister; after, he saw that there was little chance that Mr Hughes would intervene against a decision of two of his ministers.25 At this, Bean wavered; he accepted the Minister’s ruling that the public and not the author should draw conclusions from the facts and urged Jose to recommence writing on this basis “so dealing with the facts that any fair inferences are perfectly clear”. The fight, if there was to be one, should be over a completed manuscript, when, with the passage of the time taken in writing it, the situation would very likely have improved. Bean believed that “our position will be very much stronger after the publication of volume one which should not be long now … The more these histories are read, the stronger will become the public dislike to censorship except within necessary limits”. He encouraged Jose:

If you will complete your work … I will throw all my weight, both with the P.M. and with the other ministers, into obtaining you as far as possible freedom from censorship when the time comes.

Although this was a decision for delay, Bean had in mind only four or so months to the completion of the work, by which time, of course, the Washington Conference on Naval Limitation would have closed.26

Jose, whom Bean feared might throw up the writing and be lost to the Official History, skilfully sidestepped either resignation or capitulation. He exploited the dichotomy between the generalized objections of the Naval Board and the particular sentences and passages in dispute he had discussed with the board in January. At that time Jose had offered to withdraw the whole of the introduction, while the Naval Board undertook to obtain “the Minister’s-–if necessary, the Cabinet’s–-judgement” on the contentious passages. But this had not happened and until the Navy Office obtained judgement, Jose, writing to Bean, insisted that he could not proceed: gently, Bean’s suggested compromise was set on one side.

I suggest, therefore, that the proper procedure to re–start me is for the Navy Office to return my ch.i with the definite criticisms of the Minister on the points specifically submitted to him. That will give me a guide, whether for protest against what I may consider unjustifiable censorship or for continuing my work on the Minister’s lines.27

Seeing in the proposal a chance to recover some of the lost ground, Bean promptly addressed the Defence Secretary. He adopted Jose’s points while adding his own anxiety concerning the Naval Board’s extensive interpretation of their powers of censorship, pointing out that this made progress with the history impossible. For the first time Bean now sought to address the Naval Board, not, as before, directly, but through the Defence Department.28

At precisely this moment the Minister for the Navy blundered. In answering a parliamentary question coincidentally on the very issue of the censorship of Volume IX, he replied to the effect that, only after the complete manuscript had been received, would the question of censorship be considered.29 Bean (and Jose) both pounced upon the obvious fact that Mr Laird Smith’s reply established a vicious cycle, since the Minister showed himself unaware that, as agreed in January, no progress could be made until decisions on disputed passages in already submitted chapters had been received. In writing to the Defence Department Bean did not fail to stress the indefinite delay that this confusion would cause. Now, too, there was another tactical change. A week earlier Bean had been recommending conference between Jose and the Naval Board concerning alterations in a completed version: two days after the Minister’s parliamentary reply this had become conference between Jose and the Minister.30 These new tactics, if not accidental, were remarkably astute, possibly prescient, suggestive of Bean’s great sense of political timing. For in less than seven weeks the Department of the Navy ceased to be and was reabsorbed into the Department of Defence. It would not be Laird Smith with whom Jose would confer.

Meanwhile, the Assistant Minister for Defence, Sir Granville Ryrie, gathered together all of Bean’s points and sent them to Laird Smith. In minuting these, the Acting First Naval Member for the first time began to show more flexibility: he agreed that a further conference with Jose was desirable and likely to be satisfactory. Although the Navy Minister approved such a conference, nothing was done before his portfolio disappeared .31

Things then moved more easily. On 28 January the new First Naval Member interviewed Jose, to the latter’s considerable satisfaction.32 A month later, Bean reported that the new Minister for Defence, Mr Walter Massy Greene, would “read the eight chapters already sent in, decide on the nature of censorship, if any; and, if any serious objection is taken by him to anything in the eight chapters he will see Jose himself”.33 But again nothing appears to have resulted, for at the end of April the Navy Office was still hopeful of being represented at any conference between Jose and the Minister.34

The breaking of the impasse had an unexpected, if related, origin. By the end of May Jose’s finances were under extreme pressure. When he had returned in 1920 to Sydney he had been obliged to buy rather than lease a home there. For this he had taken out a mortgage, confident that as “the history was to be completed within a few months” he would suffer no great financial stress or embarrassment. Two years later, however, as Bean indicated to the Minister of Defence, the failure to obtain an early decision on the censorship question prevented Jose’s completing the history, so denying him his money.35 Bean’s advocacy secured a substantial proportion of the agreed sum, but, more importantly, resulted in a decision - “to refer this question to a Sub–Committee of the Cabinet consisting of the Prime Minister, the Minister for Home and Territories, and the Minister for Defence”.36 Exactly what happened next is not clear, but in the first week of September Bean was making arrangements for sub–editing Jose’s completed manuscript.37

By then it had been decided that Jose would see Senator Pearce in Melbourne. A satisfactory interview took place on 14 September.

Pearce scrapped practically the whole of the Naval Board’s objections, which did not appeal to him. I am sorry to say that what did appeal to him were unimportant phrases which he thought cast a reflection on the Fisher Ministries. This made the task of satisfying him very easy, because not one of the phrases mattered to me or to the History two straws: but I am sorry that his attempt at censorship was guided by such petty personal reasons. However I’ve now got the matter almost exactly as I wrote it and everyone is content.38

The Naval Board view of censorship of the Official History had been defeated, but they were not without some success.

In the first place one may question whether the issue of censoring Volume IX was of the first importance to the Naval Board. It was probably of far greater consequence to them whether any history at all should be published. A naval history had been conceived in 1915, but by a different board. Whether that history was intended for publication may be doubted. Bean’s proposal was that of an outsider to the Navy. Secondly the Admiralty had outlined on 27 June 1918 at the Imperial Conference a policy of Imperial naval defence unacceptable to the Dominion leaders. Nor did it help that the Admiralty were of two minds concerning post–war strategy in the Far East and the Pacific. Thirdly, any Australian government considering naval policy was caught between Lord Jellicoe’s ambitious recommendations on the one hand and a post–war need to cut public spending on the other. Until policy was settled would the appearance of a book criticizing Admiralty policy, as Jose’s did, really help?39

This question requires more careful attention than is possible here, but it is to be noted that Jose himself believed such an explanation of the Naval Board’s obstruction. Thus in January 1921 he maintained “that the officers who are censoring the volume are all R.N. officers, or R.A.N. transferred from the R.N., and that only one of them has any knowledge at all –before, say, 1918 – of Australian affairs or of the events of the Pacific war”.40 They thought “it would be dangerous to publish something tending to lessen Australian confidence in the Admiralty’s omniscience and all–wisdom”.41 Rear–Admiral Sir Percy Grant actually told Jose that “the story of the first few months of naval work, in which the Admiralty muddled things up badly, would … destroy Australian confidence in the Admiralty”.42 Two years later Jose went so far as to claim “we now know that Grant was hostile to any Australian naval history”.43 Whatever the truth of Jose’s contentions, Volume IX, of course, did appear, but not until after the Washington Conference had long ended, by which time Australian naval policy was well and truly determined.

With the censorship issue ostensibly behind him, Jose’s original confidence in early completion returned. He had told Senator Pearce during their crucial September conference that he would try to have the book completed by the end of March 1923 and Bean assumed this in his calculations.44 Yet a further six years were to pass before the volume appeared.

In September 1922 the first eight chapters and chapter xiii were finished and a third of the remainder was in draft. Jose was then under heavy pressure preparing the Australian Encyclopaedia for the printer.45 There was some difficulty and mild farce in locating for his use one of the working censored typed copies held by the government departments, and three months passed before he received his copy. By mid–March 1923 chapters ix, xi, xii and xiv were nearly completed: chapter xv, Jose believed, would not take long. The real difficulty lay with chapter x, the work of the R.A.N. in European waters, for which Jose had practically no sources.46 Bean, concerned at this lack, turned his attention to the problem, although Jose was less anxious. There are several indications that, as originally conceived, Volume IX would not have treated the work of the R.A.N. in waters distant from Australia as fully as it finally did. Jose’s very early efforts to have the Navy Office locate sources were fruitless and he welcomed Bean’s proposal to circularize officers who served abroad on Australian warships. Bean was genuinely alarmed by Jose’s impatient intention to “state in his pages that for the works of the Australia, Melbourne and Sydney in the North Sea the reader must be referred to the forthcoming British History”.47

The valuable co–operation of Commander R.C. Garsia, R.A.N., was enlisted, but a more dramatic development occurred in July 1923 when the Minister for Defence requested a report on the progress of the naval history.48 Bean seized upon this to raise the question of the lack of Admiralty sources, in particular the Letters of Proceedings from British squadrons in which the Australian ships served. It was not, however, until Jose and Garsia intervened two months later that the Navy Office, now more co–operative, took steps to secure access to the records at the Admiralty:

Macandie says unofficially that Bruce has gone home full of enthusiasm for the local squadron, and hopes to get it much improved and securely based for the future. He suggests that March or April next, when Bruce returns, would be a very opportune time for the appearance of vol. ix.49

The Admiralty, also anxious to help, would only allow scrutiny of the documents in the Admiralty itself, and more time elapsed in finding a reliable researcher to make a précis of these records in London.50 Proofs of completed chapters began to be received from the printer before the précis of Admiralty records was received in May. Being merely identification of Australian ships wherever they occurred in the records and lacking a central thread of narrative, these extracts were extremely disappointing: they did not explain what Jose really wanted, “the policy of a Higher Command in the use of squadrons, etc., of which Australian ships were part.”51 Fortunately Jose was now receiving from the War Museum valuable matter in diaries and accounts kept by men who served on the ships.52

In the second half of 1924 Bean went to England for surgery and tried to obtain what Jose needed. Although Garsia, now in England, was also sanguine, the result was disappointing as the Admiralty knew “of no short cut to the answer of this question and that the only way to get at it would be to wade through the correspondence. The policy in the North Sea … was constantly changing.”53 Additional documents, from the Navy Office or the War Museum, surfaced but in the first half of 1925, Jose’s work on “this blessed encyclopaedia, illness and a certain amount of enforced holiday” stopped progress.54

Bean became resigned to the unforeseen delay and new proposed to publish Volume X before Volume IX. But as it happened Jose was also involved in helping along the production of Volume X since its author appeared incapable of completing it. Bean’s extraordinary patience gave out and he requested authorization for Jose to finish the Rabaul volume and refused further communication with its author, S.S. Mackenzie.55 The story of how this crisis was surmounted is irrelevant here, but Bean’s dependence on Jose in this way is a reminder that Jose’s work on other volumes reduced the time he could spend on his own.56 He was consulted by Bean with respect to Volumes I, II, VII, X, XI and XII and additionally paid for work on at least Volumes VII and XII: the revision of Volume X and Heney’s drafts for Volume XI was particularly extensive.57

By the end of 1925 Garsia’s own researches in the Admiralty had been successful, although he was unable to discover anything worthwhile about the operations in the North Sea of that “phantom”, H.M.A.S. Australia.58 Meanwhile Jose submitted, with little enthusiasm for his efforts, portion of chapter xiv, whereupon Bean took an opportunity to influence the character of Volume IX.59 There is no doubt that he was anxious to keep to a minimum of political content of the histories. This was not possible, of course, with Volume XI, nor with Volume IX, where consideration of strategy, and British strategy at that, was inescapable. To offset this difficulty Bean decided that personal experiences of the crews of the Australian mercantile marine should be included. To obtain these he circularized, with Jose’s approval, all the Australian streamship companies involved in war transport asking for particulars.60 This information, contained in Appendix 6, took a further two years to reach completion.

Writing continued and Jose finished the section of the ill–fated chapter x, dealing with the Sydney and the Melbourne. Nevertheless the pressure of work was so great that probably it partly convinced Jose to leave Australia. The result was a tragic and traumatic break with his long standing friend, Mr George Robertson, the bookseller and publisher. Bean did not condemn Jose:

Jose has been worked almost beyond the limits of even his capacity during the last year. Mr. George Robertson, his employer, keeping him under constant pressure in order to secure completion of the very big work which he had undertaken in the Australian Encyclopaedia. I have kept constantly in touch with him but have realized for some time past that it was impossible for him to do more work that he is doing; indeed I have been afraid of a breakdown.61

On 28 April 1926 Jose sailed with his family to France hoping to find at sea the leisure for completing the outstanding two and a half chapters. Even after Jose’s departure Bean anticipated publication in August.62 It was not to be. The voyage was almost a sleepless one for Jose who thus wrote very little.63

Once ashore in country retreat, where the cost of living was less, work resumed. On Armistice Day 1926 he despatched “the last fragment of the volume, typed, as you will notice, with the last surviving fragment of my type writer ribbon”.64 In Australia Bean was taking an even larger role in the making of the volume, attending to Jose’s requests to check doubtful points and filling in minor omissions in its later chapters, such as the supply and service of the R.A.N. College cadets, new ship construction, the work of the Port War Signal Stations and of the Examination Service. In many of these instances Bean was looking for naval examples of detailed personal experiences corresponding to those he used in his own military volumes. In the first half of 1927 a minor avalanche of personal reminiscences and records was being despatched to Bean from the War Museum even as proofs arrived from the printer. Nevertheless, he was able to send the remaining chapters to Senator Pearce a fortnight before the latter left for Geneva on 21 June 1927. After Pearce had approved these, Bean advised, the volume would be printed immediately.65

Perhaps because Senator Pearce had one or two objections and had meanwhile left Australia, the corrected manuscript had also to pass the Minister for Defence. Before it did so, Bean received a copy of the first volume of the cruiser war section of the German Official Naval History and saw the necessity of incorporating much new material in the early chapters of Jose’s volume, those dealing with von Spee’s squadron. This was ominous indeed for it meant that Jose’s completed and approved sections were becoming out of date even before publication.66 Bean now hurried matters forward, apparently coping with all the additional hares he had started, and was looking to publish by Christmas 1927. But before that date, came the final delay, from an unexpected quarter.

Even as Bean was asking for corrected proofs from the printer he received information that a batch of “exceedingly interesting” records from the Admiralty was being sent out.67 In fact, there were two consignments, and it was the arrival of the second, in May 1928, which led to major alteration.

… another delay has occurred … due to the fact that I have for the first time received from the Admiralty papers, which I have been striving for many years to obtain, throwing light on the history of our ships not only in the North Sea and Mediterranean, but in the West Indies and the Pacific.68

With this material Bean was able to undertake a major reconstruction of chapter x. Alterations and additions were completed by the end of May.69 Jose, now in London, was beginning to wonder whether the volume would ever come out, and if it did, whether he would be able to recognize it. But when the completed work, published in late September 1928, reached him, he generously acknowledged Bean’s many improvements.70

The writing of Volume IX was an immensely complex process in which there interacted many elements, some of which have been traced here. The book was undoubtedly a product of the relationship between two important Australian historians and the controlled tension which arose from their different approaches to the writing of history. Jose sought the nation in its major decisions, political or strategic; Bean found it in the detailed experience of its fighting men. Further, the naval history was written within the constraints of practical life:

The delay in this volume has never been entirely Jose’s fault, but was partly due to the previous Naval Board, which, in spite of Macandie’s efforts, held up the material until Jose had engaged in the Encyclopaedia; and as that was his bread and butter, and a very big job, it naturally had to come first.71

In the end, however, the impression remains that Volume IX of the Official History was a casualty, although not a fatal one, of certain aspects of the Anglo–Australian relationship. In the making of Jose’s book, enthusiasm confronted calculation, and gained the victory; but only when it no longer mattered.

Ross Lamont
University of New England
September 1984

Notes

  1. C.E.W. Bean, memorandum, “Histories of the War”, 14 August 1919 (copy), MP525/1, file 5/6/48, Australian Archives, Melbourne (hereafter cited as AAM). Stephens Ellis’s useful article, “The Censorship of the Official Naval History of Australia in the Great War”, Historical Studies, Vol. 20 (April 1983), pp. 367–382, in surveying some of the ground covered here, considers the question of censorship of Volume IX more from Bean’s point of view.
  2. G. L. Macandie (Naval Secretary), Minute of Meeting of Naval Board, 2 October 1919, MP525/1, file 5/6/48, AAM. Bean to Defence Secretary, 2 October 1919 (copy), Bean Papers, 3DRL 7953 Item 10, Australian War Memorial (hereafter cited as AWM).
  3. A.W. Jose to Naval Secretary, 1 October 1919, MP525/1, file 5 / 6 / 48, AAM. Jose to Naval Secretary, 18 October 1919 (copy), Jose Papers AWM39 (formerly Bean MSS 115), AWM.
  4. Jose to Bean, 28 November 1919, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  5. Bean to Jose, 8 December 1919 (copy); Jose to Bean, 10 December 1919; Jose to Bean, 8 March 1920, ibid.
  6. Bean to Jose, 14 March 1920 (copy), ibid.
  7. Agreement made the 20th May 1920 between A.W. Jose … and the Commonwealth of Australia … , MP 525/1, File 5/ 6/48, AAM.
  8. Ibid., and Jose to Bean, 9 September 1920. Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  9. W.H. Laird Smith was Minister for the Navy, 28 July 1920 to 21 December 1921.
    R. Hyslop, Australian Naval Administration 1900–1939, (Melbourne: Hawthorn, 1973), pp. 51–53, 144, 167.
  10. Jose to Bean, 28 August, 9 September 1920, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  11. Bean to Jose, 11 September 1920 (copy), ibid. Bean to S.S. Mackenzie, 3 October 1920 (copy), Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 13, AWM.
  12. Jose to Bean, 9 September 1920. Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM. Bean to Jose, 12 September 1920, Jose Papers AWM 39 (formerly Bean MSS 392), AWM.
  13. Jose to Bean, 17 September 1920, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM. The appeared in 1924 as chapter xiii of Section II of Volume III of Lucas, C.P. (ed), The Empire at War, London: (Oxford University Press, 1924).
  14. Jose to Bean, 20 October 1920, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item AWM.
  15. Bean to Jose, private, 3 November 1920 (copy); Official Historian to Jose, 3 November 1920 (copy); Jose to Bean, 5 November 1920, ibid.
  16. Captain C. Hardy, R.N. (Second Naval Member) to First Naval Member, undated (but December 1920 or early 1921), MP472/1 file 8/19/8628, AAM.
  17. Rear–Admiral Sir Percy Grant, R.N. (First Naval Member), minute, 14 December 1920, ibid. A more detailed analysis of the board’s criticisms of the draft chapters is to be found on pp. 373, 374 of Ellis, “ Censorship” .
  18. Jose to Bean, 25 January 1920 (two letters), Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  19. Laird Smith to Mr. W. M. Hughes, 15 February 1921, CP 103/22 Item 7, Australian Archives, Canberra.
  20. See n. 18.
  21. T. Trumble (Defence Secretary) to Bean, 28 May 1921; Bean to Trumble, 30 May 1921 (copy); Jose to Bean, 1 June 1920, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM. Bean to Jose, 30 May, 11 June 1921 (two letters), Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM. Bean to Captain A.M. Treacy, (Acting Naval Secretary), 13 June 1921, MP 472/1, file 2 /21/9045, AAM.
  22. Bean to Jose, 8 August 1921, Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM. W.A. Newman (Defence, Chief Clerk) to Bean, undated (but first week of August 1921), Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  23. Bean to Newman, 15 August 1921 (copy); G.F. Pearce to Laird Smith, 5 September 1921, MP 472/1, file 2/21/15183, AAM.
  24. Hardy (Acting First Naval Member) to Minister, 11 August 1921; Laird Smith to Pearce, 17 September 1921 (draft), MP472/1, file 2/21/9045 and 2/21/15183 (respectively), AAM. Bean to Jose, 25 October 1921, Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM.
  25. Bean to Jose, 15 October, 1 November 1921, Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM.
  26. Ibid. and Bean to Jose, 25 October, 26 October 1921 (two letters), ibid.
  27. Jose to Bean, 1 November 1921, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  28. Bean to Defence Secretary, 2 November 1921 (copy), ibid. For Bean’s earlier tactics, see Ellis, “Censorship”, p. 375.
  29. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 97 p. 12396.
  30. Jose to Bean, 4 November 1921, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM. Bean to Defence Secretary, 5 November 1921 (copy), Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM.
  31. Sir Granville Ryrie to Laird Smith, 9 November 1921; Hardy, minute, 17 November 1921 (on Jose to Laird Smith, 5 November 1921), MP 472 / 1, file 2 / 21 / 15183, AAM. The new First Naval Member took up duty on 23 November 1921.
  32. Jose to Bean, 20 February 1922, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  33. Bean minute, 27 February 1922 (on Jose to Bean, 20 February 1922), ibid.
  34. Macandie to Trumble, 27 April 1922, MP 472 / 1, file 2 / 21 / 15183, AAM.
  35. Jose to Bean, 30 May 1922 (copy); Bean to Jose, 1 June 1922; Jose to Bean, 6 June 1922 (copy), Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM. Bean to Trumble, 7 June 1922 (copies of two letters), Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  36. Trumble to Bean, 21 June 1922, ibid.
  37. Bean to F.M. Cutlack, 6 September 1922 (copy), ibid.
  38. Bean to Jose 7 September 1922, Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM. Jose to Bean, 15 September 1922, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  39. Roskill, S., Naval Policy Between the Wars. 1: The Period of Anglo–American Antagonism, 1919–1929, (London: Collins, 1968), chapter 7, especially pp. 271–83. It was highly improbable that Royal Navy officers serving on the Naval Board would help to pour Australian oil on the flames ignited by the debate over the conduct of the naval war on the North Sea.
  40. Jose to Bean, 25 January 1921, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  41. Jose to Bean, 1 June 1921, ibid.
  42. Jose to Bean, 13 October 1921, ibid.
  43. Jose to Bean, 3 December 1923, ibid.
  44. Jose to Bean, 15 September 1922; Bean to Jose, 18 September 1922 (copy); Jose to Bean, 2 January 1923, ibid.
  45. Jose to Bean, 23 January, 5 April 1923, ibid.
  46. Jose to Macandie, 14 March 1923 (copy), Jose Papers AWM 39 (115), AWM. Chapters xi and xii became the present chapter xi, xiii became xii, and so on.
  47. Bean to Jose, 22 April 1923, Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM. Jose to Bean, 26 April 1923; Bean to Defence Secretary, 28 April 1923 (copy), Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  48. Bean to Jose, 24 July 1923, Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM.
  49. Bean to Jose, 9 August 1923, ibid. Jose to Bean, 25 September 1923, Bean Paper 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM. The Prime Minister, Mr S.M. Bruce, was in London for the 1923 Imperial Conference. Jose subsequently reported that it was Macandie, not Bruce, “who wanted the naval volume out in March”, Jose to Bean, 20 December 1923, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 13, AWM. This may be so, but in correspondence with the Defence Department Bean took it for granted that it was Bruce; and was not disabused of his assumption, Bean to Newman, 8 November 1923 (copy) Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM.
  50. Jose to Bean, 5 November 1923; telegram, Newman to Bean, 9 February 1924, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  51. Bean to Jose, 20 May 1924, Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM. Jose to Garsia, 20 January 1925 (copy), Jose Papers AWM 39 (115), AWM.
  52. Jose to Bean, 21 May 1924, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  53. T.B. Heyes (Australian War Museum, Clerk) to Bean, 23 December 1924 (copy), Jose Papers AWM 39 (392), AWM.
  54. Jose to Garsia, 20 January 1925 (copy), Jose Papers AWM 39 (115), AWM.
  55. Bean to Mackenzie; Bean to Newman, 28 October 1925 (copies), Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 13, AWM.
  56. Cf. Nelson, H. and M. Piggott, Introduction to S.S. Mackenzie, The Australians at Rabaul, Volume X, (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press. 1987.
  57. Piggott, M., A Guide to the Personal Family and Official Papers of C.E.W Bean, (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1983), pp. 46–50. There is some evidence of Jose working on Volume VIII. See also Hill, A .J., Introduction to H.S. Gullett, The A. I. F. in Sinai and Palestine, Volume VII, (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press 1984), pp. xxix, xxx.
  58. Garsia to Jose, November 1925, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  59. Jose to Bean, 8 November 1925, ibid.
  60. Bean to Jose, 16, 18 November 1925; Bean to Newman, 23 November 1925 (copies), ibid.
  61. Bean to Newman, 30 April 1926 (copy), ibid. For Robertson’s side of the quarrel, see Barker, A.W., Dear Robertson, (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1982), p. 139. Robertson’s failure to pay Jose a promised bonus for his work on the encyclopaedia was a severe blow. Jose to Bean, 12 July, 14 October 1926, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 11, AWM.
  62. Bean to Newman, 28, 30 April 1926 (copies), Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.
  63. Jose to Bean, 30 May 1926, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 11, AWM.
  64. Jose to Bean, 11 November 1926 ibid.
  65. Radiogram, Bean to Defence, 8 June 1927 (copy), Bean to Pearce, 8 June 1927 (copy), Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 11, AWM.
  66. Bean to Jose, 28 July 1927 (copy), Bean to Macandie, 22 August 1927 (copy), ibid.
  67. Bean to J.J. Green (Government Printer), 24 November 1927 (copy), Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 12, AWM.
  68. Bean to M.L. Shepherd (Defence Secretary), 16 May 1928 (copy), ibid.
  69. Bean to Macandie, 23 May 1928 (copy), ibid.
  70. Jose to Bean, 26 July 1928, 22 November 1928, ibid.
  71. Bean to Newman, 30 April 1926, Bean Papers 3DRL 7953 Item 10, AWM.

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