Letters From the Front/Bringing up the Guns/An Australian Artilleryman in the Great War

Arthur Henson Smith’s letters to home during World War 1 has been a mammoth, but rewarding task and I commend them to you as a wonderful window on the past which I have tried to locate in its historical context: the role of Australian artillery in the great battles of the First World War. The original letters are held in the Mitchell Library in Sydney where they were donated or sold, in 1922. The letters, being to family at home, are somewhat sanitised and self-censored. They show the warmth of family connections with the other side of the world, the nuances of writing to different individuals and a very personal story of love, courage and loss. It’s the story of a young son, asked to do the extraordinary and put up with all sorts of privations and difficulties, while maintaining a thread of love across the world. It’s all true, but at times, it reads somewhat like a novel or a screen-play. The effect of such isolation to families, separated by the war, can scarcely be imagined today. This frustration with lack of news of home, comes through often in these letters. The wonderful hidden gems from the Australian War memorial’s digitised collection have helped to illuminate and contextualise the letters. The Unit Diaries contain a trove of fascinating material, seldom seen since they were created, such as intelligence reports and sketched by Forward Observation Officers at the front. Where possible, I have utilised these.