To be the sort of man who would give way when his mates were trusting to his firmness; to be the sort of man who would fail when the line, the whole force, and the allied cause required his endurance; to have made it necessary for another unit to do his own unit’s work; to live the rest of his life haunted by the knowledge that he had set his hand to a soldier’s task and had lacked the grit to carry it through – that was a prospect which these men could not face. Life was very dear, but life was not worth living unless they could be true to their idea of Australian manhood.Charles Bean, The story of ANZAC, The official history of Australia in the war of 1914–18, vol. 1