The Memory of Sir John Monash

I remember precisely my “meeting” with General Sir John Monash, and I didn’t enjoy it. The day I started school, 1928 (or maybe 1929); my mother shepherding me through the east porch of the stately-but-shabby italianate Land Boomer mansion which housed Malvern Grammar, a comparably shabby-but-decent Anglican school of some 200 boys in Glen Iris.

Just inside the door, in a gilt frame, hung a portrait of an officer, in uniform but bare-headed. It was yet another copy (or a print), I learned later, of Sir John Longstaff’s portrayal in oils of General Sir John Monash. It was natural enough for a five-year-old to suppose that this personage might be part of the school’s management, and I was scared. Under the straight line of a close-clipped military moustache, the mouth looked relentlessly stern; I didn’t fancy falling into his hands one little bit.

Dad dissolved my needless panic directly he got home from his office job in town. He had passed the whole of the First World War on active service, as a sergeant or as a lieutenant. He explained that the portrait was hung there as simply a mark of respect, and was highly unlikely to lead to a conversation with the general himself; if that should happen, I ought to count myself the luckiest young school-starter in Melbourne that year: Monash was beyond doubt the “most fair-dinkum” of all the Australian generals.

Now back in civil life, Monash swiftly and unmistakably became Australia’s “Top Citizen”, respected at large, and especially by the substantial number of returned soldiers.

We will never know how many discreet private chats with him, sought by cabinet ministers federal and state, lord mayors, archbishops and suchlike, helped by common sense to smooth the progress of the public business. Today the most conspicuous of these feats of his diplomacy, worldly wisdom and force of character is Victoria’s Shrine of Remembrance.

Clear and uncluttered against the Melbourne sky, the Shrine’s towering white granite Greek pyramidal form, on a perfect alignment with Melbourne Town Hall along Swanston Street and St Kilda Road, houses the Shrine’s vibrantly creative organisation. It is said to be the largest building in the world used exclusively for commemorative purposes.

A passionate civic desire to create a worthy memorial to the sacrifice and service of the war was apparent almost as soon as fighting ceased; funding seemed assured. But years passed in unseemly wrangling: where should it be located? What form should it take? A solemn temple? A symbolic archway or obelisk? A hospital, utilitarian but dedicated? Steady progress followed the advent of Monash as Chairman of the Board of Shrine Trustees. The classical structure which towers over the south side of Melbourne Town was ready for dedication by Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, during his visit in 1934.

Of a different kind, but equally notable, was Monash’s contribution to the general advancement of his home state through leadership of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, the massive Yallourn power generation, and the advanced technology which adapted for efficient use the low-grade brown coal of which Victoria possessed great deposits.

And then one should mention his perennial support for improved education … and one could go on.

To my generation (born in 1923) all this and a great deal more was widely and generally known in a vernacular way. It so largely remained to the generation immediately following (or so I thought in unjustified complacency). Meanwhile, necessarily slower processes were in hand: accumulating in orderly collections and libraries the authentic documents of the war, from the commander’s battle orders for the Somme, to the single anguished postcard to his mother from the young private soldier dying in its mud. The massive Australian War Memorial in Canberra is the prime example of such a repository.

Then can follow the considered volumes, the specialised studies, the scholarly and judicious tomes, the (perhaps!) “definitive” works which will establish the literary structures of an age: which is by no means to say that it will speak with boring unanimity in chorus. God forbid!

Not the smallest incidental good fortune following my “Ben Chifley” returned serviceman’s post-war university course at Melbourne was that it brought me into friendship with Monash’s grandchildren, and then with their mother, Sir John’s daughter, Bertha. She, after the General’s death, lived on with her husband, Colonel Gershon Bennett, in Monash’s four-square brick mansion in St Georges Road, Toorak, called “Iona”.

The sombre brown timber of Iona’s interior resounded often to student merriment, sometimes to formal (well, more or less) dinner, seated at a table; more often to informal student partying in what had been the spacious nursery. Bertha and Gershon were wonderfully easy-going with young people. One night they returned home from the cinema, where they had gone purposely to enjoy a little tranquillity early in the evening. The Colonel popped his head in, and indeed there really was a lively student party humming; moving over close to my ear to make himself heard, in tones of mock despair: “Whoever would believe this nursery was once full of beautiful children?”

Even the Iona tennis court was at student mercy, where they could submit to the hilariously eccentric “Iona local rules” devised by eldest grandson David Bennett. I must admit that my bride “Davey” who usually accompanied me to Iona was a more energetically frequent participant than I, in this droll entertainment.

A regular attender at these “Iona occasions” was the historian Geoffrey Serle, a product, like Monash himself, of Melbourne’s Scotch College. A Rhodes Scholar, he early established for himself a sound reputation as historian of Victoria’s pioneering, and then of its “gold rush” period. He and I shared significant elements of our background—for example, our war service. We had both served in Papua and New Guinea (though not together) in the Australian ground forces, in the ranks, while Japan remained an aggressive threat to Australia’s national existence. Serle survived a ghastly wound in battle.

For our many years of close association, there was but one occasion when we discussed in any detail or depth our experiences of service—not by any means unusual among surviving old soldiers, by the way. And, within Melbourne University, we both supported the non-communist faction within the numerous and powerful Labor Club.

For Serle, with his proven interests and capacities, the attractions of writing a full biography of John Monash were great. A wealth of raw material lay already in the public domain, but crucial matter remained under the private prescription of the Monash family; lacking that, a biography would be insipid, and also open to errors.

Serle’s social visits to Iona acquired occasionally, in part, the nature of an embassy to Bertha: a suit for privileged authorial access to a unique set of papers. The decision was not made overnight, but it was the right answer when it came.

It carried a bonus for me, for I had lately been appointed Director of Melbourne University Press, and I was as keen for MUP to publish it as Geoff was to write it. One night at Iona he and I exchanged reciprocal promises: he would, if granted the access he sought, immediately (and with Bertha’s agreement) inform me privately. I then would at once advise the MUP Board of Management to offer Geoff a formal and legally binding publisher’s contract to publish his book.

And before long so it happened, as a generally accepted satisfying success, winning numerous prizes, critical acclaim, solid sales and world attention, establishing a lifelong monument to the true greatness of John Monash.

Earlier I spoke of “complacency”, meaning a slack assumption that one book, even one so good as Serle’s, might hold the door of memory for ever. Well, it couldn’t: increasingly, as the years passed, to the question randomly asked, “What do you know of John Monash?” the reply would be “Wasn’t he some old bigwig who got his name stuck on that suburban university in Melbourne?”

Now in the bookshops appears a lively paperback: Maestro John Monash: Australia’s Greatest Citizen General. It is a long overdue reminder, which my main purpose now is warmly to welcome and commend, though not in any strict sense to “review”.

The author is Tim Fischer, a distinguished former Australian cabinet minister and holder of diplomatic appointments abroad. A couple of nights reading affords you a full and enlightening conspectus of the astounding Monash achievement, in Fischer’s forthright if not polished style.

A regular theme is how Monash had to work against difficulties created as much by “our side” as by the machine guns of the enemy: the insinuating newspaper man Keith Murdoch; the aloof and suspicious Australian official correspondent,  C.E.W. Bean; and our guttersnipe prime minister, W.M. Hughes, offered Monash neither comfort nor support.

Fischer will tell you of the virtuosity of Monash’s orchestration of the battle of Hamel—hence the “Maestro” of the title. Here the new weapon, tanks, were first used to full intended effect; all arms and services were rehearsed in their own roles, and their “fit” into the general picture. He dealt brilliantly with integrating the newly arriving US troops to their first action.

It remains to me a matter of wonder that Monash’s plan allowed ninety hypothetical minutes for the battle. It took ninety-three.

John Monash has been restored to contemporary being and discussion, as indeed is right. Lord Acton’s famous passage deserves another airing:

We cannot afford wantonly to lose sight of great men and memorable lives, and are bound to store up objects for admiration as far as may be.

Too true! How else does a country maintain its national self-respect?

It will be clear that, within the scope of the limits Tim Fischer sets himself, I warmly approve and commend the book. My only misgiving is a small and uncertain one, a matter of taste, perhaps, rather than ethics.

The author makes a plea, explicit and forceful, for Monash to be given posthumous promotion (perhaps in two stages) to the ultimate rank of Field Marshal. The example of Australia’s only Field Marshal, Sir Thomas Blamey, is expressly given.

It is unarguable that Monash was treated with gross unfairness in his service by not being promoted then to rank commensurate with his duties, let alone with the brilliance and humanity of his performance. But Australia failed him: let Australia go on wearing its well-earned disgrace.

Fischer is outspokenly harsh in his judgment of British generalship, and especially of Field Marshal Haig (“bordering on criminal neglect”) at Passchendaele (“at his murderous worst”). And for General Godley he suggests a sly comparison with Captain Mainwaring, the silly-ass Home Guard officer in the BBC series Dad’s Army.

Fischer gives his book a hint of a prospectus. It even contains a ten-page Appendix: “How to Secure Posthumous Promotion of Sir John Monash”. This has been written by my highly respected local federal MP, Josh Frydenberg, Mr Eager-Beaver himself.

Monash doesn’t need to ask for anything, and no risk should be run that, even vicariously, he is petitioning. The poet set his place, and there he should remain:

Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven;

No pyramids set off his memories

But the eternal substance of his greatness,

To which I leave him.