Harvey Dunn On the Wire, image
Harvey Dunn On the Wire, image

It started with a newspaper article...

15 minute read

In 2021, while researching Wagga Wagga during the First World War for an exhibition, we came across a newspaper article from November 1918 about a local soldier who had been killed on the Western Front. He had lived on a farm just out of town, aspired to be a writer, and had the memorable name of Merlin Kinneir Tarte. All of this sparked interest. Who was this man who had been unfortunate enough to die in the closing days of the war? Why had we not come across his story before? How could we find out more about him?

And so, we went looking for Merlin. We scoured the virtual globe and the records and digitisation efforts of other museums and archives. Slowly, document by document, piece by piece, we pulled together a story unexpectedly rich in detail and heartbreakingly sad.

This exhibition recreates Merlin's personal experience of the war using an interplay of his writings, local newspaper reports, and his official Army records and sets them against the broader history of national and international events.

What follows is a story from a tragic war. It is also a Wagga Wagga story. But at its heart, this is Merlin’s story.

The article that started the search…

From the Daily Advertiser, 5 November 1918

The subject of literature reminds me of the just reported death of Mr. Merlin K. Tarte, only son of Mr. and Mrs. Kinneir Tarte, of Sandy Creek, Wagga.

This spirited young Anglo-Australian had already made something of a name for himself in literature — and would have made a still greater name had he lived to give his powers a chance of maturing. He had written verse, short stories, some plays, and at least one full-fledged novel.

In everything he did there was merit. He was an extraordinarily well-read man for one so young and was saturated with the literature of France and some other countries. Most of his short stories were published in Melbourne journals. His long story (which was very highly thought of by competent critics) was only completed just before he enlisted. It has so far not been published. Mr. Tarte possessed the rare gift of originality, which was strengthened by his broad-based literary education. At a time when so many older and physically fitter men are enlisting apparently in the belief that the war is now over and that they may have a sort of “picnic jaunt” at the expense of the country without having to do any fighting, it is worthwhile remembering that Mr. Tarte enlisted twice.

His spirit was greater than his bodily strength. When he enlisted early in the war he suffered from serious illness in camp and had to be discharged. For a long while afterwards his health was extremely unsatisfactory. But the moment that he regained a little of his badly impaired strength he again sought an opportunity to serve his country with the colours. The embittering thought is that men of this fine type would probably not have been sacrificed if only the tens of thousands of able bodied shirkers who so shamelessly evade their duty had been compelled to make some sort of effort to vindicate their alleged manhood instead of being permitted by a craven Government to pass on the obligations of decent citizenship to others who, in many cases, were much less equal to the task of bearing them.

Who was

Merlin Kinneir Tarte?

Merlin's parents Frederick Kinneir-Tarte and Emily Fursdon married in 1886. Frederick was a prominent architect and local conservative politician in St Albans, England. In August 1889, their first son was stillborn. Their second son Merlin was born in 1891.

Merlin was a much longed for child.

Merlin as a child, England. Museum of the Riverina

Merlin as a child, England. Museum of the Riverina

In 1907, when Merlin was almost 17, the family migrated to Australia. They purchased Tallawallan farm, on the Albury Road, just outside of Wagga Wagga. Merlin attended the Wagga Agricultural College and worked on the farm with his father.

Along with being an avid reader, Merlin was an aspiring writer.

In June 1914, his short story 'Vive L'emprereur: A Story of Waterloo' was published in Melbourne newspaper, The Leader. The story is about a hardened soldier who, on the battlefield of Waterloo, makes a promise to a comrade that if the young man dies, he will find the woman the young man loves and look after her. The story ends many years after the battle, with the hardened soldier thinking back on his life – the young woman is now his wife, they have two children, and their son serves in the same regiment he did. The old soldier muses that perhaps, one day, his son might need to lay down his life for his country. He thinks:

If so, so let it be, for the world knows no nobler death that a man may die.

1914

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand sets the world ablaze...

For decades, tensions had been building across Europe. Anger over past losses of territory in old wars and demands for political independence from smaller states had created a complicated tangle of alliances, treaties, military plans and fear. Europe was a tinderbox.

The assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Serbia on 28 June, 1914 set off a chain reaction of events that saw troops mobilised across frontiers and stationed along borders across Europe.

As a pre-emptive defence against the threat of a Russian invasion, Germany triggered the Schlieffen Plan. With the goal of avoiding a war on two fronts, Germany sent forces west, aiming to reach Paris in six weeks. Victory in the west would mean that Germany could then move its forces to the Russian front in the east. The Schlieffen Plan relied on force and speed, and to avoid becoming slowed down by the mountains along the French border, Germany invaded neutral Belgium. This prompted Britain to enter the war and send troops to help.

The French and British armies faced Germany along the border. Each side fought to close gaps in their own lines whilst trying to outflank and surround the enemy. To secure their positions, both sides dug trenches, fortified them with barbed wire and manned them with soldiers.

By the end of 1914, the battlefront consisted of a network of trenches that ran from the Swiss Alps, through France, Belgium, and to the Belgian coast. Opposing frontline trenches were separated by a stretch of contested ground ranging from as wide as 1.6 kilometers to as close as 10 metres.

Aerial Photograph of the front trenches, IWM (Q 105743), Imperial War Museum

Aerial Photograph of the front trenches, IWM (Q 105743), Imperial War Museum

This gap was called No Man’s Land.

Australia responded to Britain’s declaration of war with an offer of total support. On 10 August, 1914 recruitment offices opened in Australia. Within days, thousands of men were in training camps.

The first group of local volunteers from Wagga Wagga departed by train on 20 August.

Amid the flurry of patriotism, Wagga Wagga newspaper the Daily Advertiser published a poem written by Merlin. Titled 'To President Woodrow Wilson,' the poem criticises the US President for his calls for peace, labelling them as patronising when the nations involved are fighting for their existence.

Another poem by Merlin, called 'Private Tommy Atkins' was published in January 1915. This poem celebrates empire, recalls victories from the Boer War and praises ‘British fighting might’.

Merlin’s poems capture the sentiment of a nation. The empire was what he and everyone knew. A threat to it was a threat to everything they believed in.

Private Tommy Atkins, Daily Advertiser, 18 January 1915

Private Tommy Atkins, Daily Advertiser, 18 January 1915

The Australians who enlisted when war broke out would have imagined themselves heading to the Western Front to fight alongside the British Army. Instead, Australian forces were sent to Egypt for training and to defend the Suez Canal.

In early 1915, Britain looked for new theatres of war, hoping that additional fronts would weaken Germany and help to break the stalemate on the Western Front. With the goal of weakening supply lines, British command planned an attack on Germany’s ally Turkey.

On 25 April 1915, a joint force of Australian, New Zealand, Indian and British troops went ashore at Gallipoli.

Photograph of troops of 11th Battalion and 1st field Company on HMS London, 24 April 1915, A02468, Australian War Memorial

Photograph of troops of 11th Battalion and 1st field Company on HMS London, 24 April 1915, A02468, Australian War Memorial

Now seen as one of the great military failures of the war, the Gallipoli landings were reported as not only a success, but as the 'birth' of the Australian nation. These early reports triggered a second wave of volunteer recruitments.

During this second rush, Merlin enlisted for service. He travelled to Sydney, but in camp, he became ill. After 10 days he was discharged as medically unfit. He returned to Wagga Wagga to recover from an infection.

By the end of 1915, it was obvious that the Gallipoli campaign had failed. In January 1916, allied forces evacuated the peninsula. Australian troops were sent to England for additional training.

A and B Company lines, No. 7 Camp, at the 12th Training Battalion. D00244, Australian War Memorial

A and B Company lines, No. 7 Camp, at the 12th Training Battalion. D00244, Australian War Memorial

In July, they joined the main fighting forces in France. They entered the Western Front on 19 July, 1916, at the Battle of Fromelles, followed by Pozieres on 23 July.

It was a bloody initiation into the horrors of trench warfare. In the first 12 days, Australians suffered almost 7,000 casualties, and within 4 months, Australian casualties on the Western Front were equal to those sustained in the 9 months on Gallipoli.

In July 1916, Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes toured England and the Western Front. He returned home convinced that Australia needed to do more to ensure an Allied victory. The solution, he said, was to introduce conscription, or compulsory military service.

England, 1916. The visit of Mr. W. M. Hughes to AIF camps in England, 1916, H16101, Australian War Memorial

England, 1916. The visit of Mr. W. M. Hughes to AIF camps in England, 1916, H16101, Australian War Memorial

The Defence Act (1903) only allowed the government to conscript forces to fight within Australia and its territories. Service beyond its borders had to be voluntary. If the government wanted to introduce conscription, the law had to be changed, but when Hughes proposed this, it divided the Federal Government.

To prove he had public support, Hughes called for a plebiscite. The people would vote Yes or No for conscription. This would provide the government with a popular mandate to change the Defence Act.

The question of conscription sparked furious debate across Australia.

One often overlooked aspect of this time is the Exemption Trials.

While the government could not force its citizens to fight overseas, they could be conscripted to serve within Australia, for ‘home defence.’ In late September 1916, all single men and widowers without dependents, aged between 21 and 35, were called up for home defence. They were medically examined and those who passed went into training camps.

Hughes’s intention was obvious to all. Once the law was changed to allow conscription, thousands of men would be ready to be sent overseas.

Only sons, men working in occupations ‘of national importance’, and men not of ‘substantial’ European descent could apply for a conscription exemption. Men from families with multiple eligible sons could also apply if half of them were already serving (although ‘half’ had shifting definitions).

Applications were heard in special exemption courts overseen by a magistrate and an officer from the Defense Department. Exemptions could be absolute, conditional, or temporary.

Wagga Wagga Court House, c.1903, Museum of the Riverina

Wagga Wagga Court House, c.1903, Museum of the Riverina

The exemption trials took on the same bitter and divisive tone as the conscription debate. Men who applied for exemptions were interrogated by the court. They were not allowed legal representation. In some cases, their masculinity was mocked, and their patriotism questioned.

The courts did not see farm work as being of ‘national importance,' and many farmers had their applications rejected. For rural communities already struggling with labour shortages, the hearings provided a stark window into what life would be like if conscription was introduced.

 With a ‘no’ to conscription announced on November 4, the exemption courts became immediately irrelevant.

The Referendum, Daily Advertiser, November 4, 1916

The Referendum, Daily Advertiser, November 4, 1916

But the damage had been done. The animosity and distrust caused by the conscription debates were never forgotten.

Merlin was one of the men who was called up for home defence. He applied for an exemption as an only son, which he was granted. Even though conscription was not passed, he kept his certificate.

Certificate of Exemption from Military Service, 1916, Museum of the Riverina

Certificate of Exemption from Military Service, 1916, Museum of the Riverina

When he later enlisted, he carried it all the way to France, and when he went into the lines, it was tucked into his pocket.

In France, the war raged on, and the death toll rose. The Western Front remained locked in a stalemate. Years of artillery bombardment and battles had turned No Man’s Land into a wasteland. The spring rains came, and men and horses drowned in the mud.

View of the swamps of Zonnebeke on the day of the First Battle of Passchendaele, 1917, E01200, Australian War Memorial

View of the swamps of Zonnebeke on the day of the First Battle of Passchendaele, 1917, E01200, Australian War Memorial

The fighting became more brutal.

The propaganda machine went into overdrive.

In Australia, the pressure on young men to enlist intensified. The divisions between many aspects of society—rich and poor, soldier and objector, Irish and English, Catholic and Protestant—widened.

In July 1917, Merlin enlisted in the Army for a second time. We don’t know why he chose to re-join at this time, and not earlier. Perhaps he wanted to finish his novel and send it to a potential publisher, which he had done in early 1917.

Private Merlin Kinneir Tarte, image courtesy of Elizabeth Kinneir Tarte.

Private Merlin Kinneir Tarte, image courtesy of Elizabeth Kinneir Tarte.

Before he left Wagga Wagga, he became engaged to his friend and neighbour, Evel Greta Goode.

Merlin's Journey to the Front

In July 1917, Merlin went into camp at Liverpool.

He set sail on A28 Miltiades on 2 August.

On 2 October, he arrived in Glasgow. From here, he travelled south by train to Hurdcott training camp.

Merlin was in camp at Hurdcott when his romantic short story, ‘The Better Man’, was published in Melbourne newspaper,

The Weekly Times.

On 23 January 1918, Merlin arrived on the Western Front as part of reinforcements for the 53rd Battalion.

On the night of 30 January, the 53rd Battalion moved into the support lines at Wytschaete in Belgium, which had been captured by the Allies during the Battle of Messines. On 20 February, the 53rd moved into the front-line.

.

Trench warfare was more than battles. It was mostly about defence. Maintaining trenches required constant work. To keep the lines secure from enemy raids, soldiers repaired gaps in the barbed wire, lay duckboards over mud, salvaged scrap metal for recycling, patched trench walls and erected ammunition shelters, all while under the threat of artillery fire or snipers.

They also ran reconnaissance patrols and raided German trenches, mostly at night.

On 1 March, Merlin took part in a night raid. During a barrage, he was shot in the shoulder. He was taken to a hospital tent, then evacuated to England. After recovering at army hospital Warden House located at Deal in Kent, he had one weeks leave.

Merlin in hospital with an unknown patient, Museum of the Riverina

Merlin in hospital with an unknown patient, Museum of the Riverina

On his return, he was transferred to the Machine Gun Corp and went into training at Grantham Camp.

A Shifting War...

While Merlin was in England, the stalemate on the Western Front broke. The Lundendorff, or German Spring Offensive, was a last-ditch push by Germany to try and break the allied lines before American reinforcements reached the front. While initially effective, the advance moved too fast and supply chains became stretched. German morale broke when soldiers saw that the living conditions of the Allies were better than their own. Soldiers left the lines to loot farms.

The German advance stalled in July. The initiative rested with the Allies.

On 8 August, an Allied offensive of the British 4th Army comprised of British, Australian and Canadian troops, working with the French First Army, attacked at Amiens. The battle was planned in utmost secrecy and caught the Germans completely off guard.

The Hundred Days Offensive August-November 1918, Q 11263, Imperial War Museum

The Hundred Days Offensive August-November 1918, Q 11263, Imperial War Museum

Within a few hours, the German front line trenches had been overrun, thousands had surrendered and over 450 guns had been captured.

Described by German commander Erich Ludendorff as ‘the black day of the German Army,’ Amiens was the first of a series of coordinated attacks planned to retake ground lost during the Spring Offensive, break the Hindenburg Line, and bring a decisive end to the war.

The One Hundred Days had begun.

The victory at Amiens was followed by further successes that moved the Allied front closer to the German front. Another push was planned, with the goal of finally breaking through the Hindenburg Line.

On 30 August, Merlin returned to France as part of reinforcements for the newly formed 2nd Australian Machine Gun Battalion, which formed part of the 2nd Australian Division.

The division was ordered west as part of the next push. Merlin recorded his march to the front in his diary.

The battle of St Quintin’s Canal began on 29 September. The fighting was brutal, but by 2 October the Germans were retreating.

Merlin's unit, the 2nd Australian Machine Gun Battalion, joined the battle on 2 October, as part of a push to secure the last defensive German line known as the Beaurevoir Line. From 3 October, they were engaged in a hard fought and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to secure higher ground.

During this fighting on 3 October, Merlin was shot in the chest. He was collected by stretcher bearers who carried him back through the lines to the 50th Casualty Clearing Station. Here, in a canvas tent, surrounded by other wounded men, he died of his wounds at 1pm on 4 October. He was buried at Tincourt Cemetery.

The battle of St. Quintin’s Canal opened a 17-kilometre stretch of the Hindenburg Line, breaking Germany's front line defense. On 5 October, like all Australian forces, the 2nd Division was withdrawn from the field to rest and would not fight again.

The armistice came into effect on 11 November, 1918.

"I regret to inform you…"

After a soldier died, when possible, his personal possessions were collected from his kit and his body. His name and service number were written on a calico bag, and these few items were placed inside. Bags were sent from the front to England, where they were sorted, before being posted to each soldier’s next of kin.

The calico bag of Merlin’s effects retrieved from the field was sent to the Army Records Unit in Melbourne, and then to Merlin’s parents at Tallawallan Farm, on the Albury Road, just out of Wagga Wagga.

The package reached them in July 1919.

While Merlin’s father Frederick sent a note to the Army Records Unit to acknowledge that he had received the parcel, he and Merlin’s mother did not open it. We don’t know why they didn’t. The little parcel remained wrapped, tied with string, for more than a century.

Until Merlin’s half-sister Elizabeth unwrapped it in 2020.

An Unexpected Find

After researching archival and military records, unit battalion diaries and newspapers to piece together Merlin’s story, we stumbled upon a small item of interest.

The St Alban’s Hertfordshire Historical Society in England had published a book on local architects that included Merlin's father, Frederick Kinneir-Tarte. As part of their research, they had put together a collection about Frederick, which included archival items about his son. We contacted them, and we learnt something extraordinary—Merlin had a half-sister named Elizabeth, who was still alive and living in Tasmania. We were able to contact her, and she told us one last piece of Merlin’s story.

Following the death of Merlin's mother in 1922, Merlin’s father Frederick married Evel Greta Goode—the neighbour Merlin had been engaged to when he set off for war. Elizabeth believes that Frederick and Greta's shared grief and common memories brought them together. There was almost a 40-year age difference between Frederick and Greta, but they remained happily married until Frederick died in 1943, when Elizabeth was 2 years old.

In 2023, Elizabeth donated Merlin’s effects from the field to the Museum of the Riverina, saying that they belonged in Wagga Wagga, where he had lived and was most happy.

TO VIEW THE GALLERY OF MERLIN'S EFFECTS RETRIEVED FROM THE FIELD CLICK HERE

Acknowledgements:

Looking for Merlin is an exhibition project of Museum of the Riverina, Wagga Wagga. museumriverina.com.au

The Looking for Merlin interpretation project was made possible with a grant from the Department of Veteran's Affairs.

We thank Elizabeth Kinneir Tarte for her generosity in answering questions and providing photographs to help us care for and interpret Merlin's collection and his story.

A display of Merlin's Effects Recovered from the Field can be viewed at the Museum of the Riverina's Botanic Garden's Site.

Image credits (in order)

Harvey Thomas Dunn, On the Wire, 1918, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Merlin as a child, England, c.1900, Museum of the Riverina

Copertina della Domenica del Corriere Anno XVI, Achille Beltrame, 1914, Wikimedia Commons

Aerial Photograph of the front trenches, IWM (Q 105743), Imperial War Museum

Private Tommy Atkins, Daily Advertiser, 18 January 1915

Photograph of troops of 11th Battalion and 1st field Company on HMS London, 24 April 1915, A02468, Australian War Memorial

A and B company lines, 12th Training Battallion, 1918, D00244, Australian War Memorial

Shattered back gardens of the village of Pozieres, 1916, EZ0097, Australian War Memorial

England, 1916. The visit of Mr. W. M. Hughes to AIF camps in England, 1916, H16101, Australian War Memorial

Propaganda cartoon by Norman Lindsay, c. 1918, Wikimedia Commons

The crime of those who vote "No!", George Dancey, 1916, National Library of Australia

SINGLE MEN. CONSCRIPTION [GUN]. WHO NEXT?, 1916, RC00339, Australian War Memorial

Wagga Wagga Court House, c.1903, Museum of the Riverina

The Referendum, Daily Advertiser, 4 November 1916

Certificate of Exemption from military service, 1916, Museum of the Riverina

View of the swamps of Zonnebeke on the day of the First Battle of Passchendaele, 1917, E01200, Australian War Memorial

Liverpool AIF training camp, 1915, P11277.001, Australian War Memorial

HMAT Miltiades A28 in Albany Harbour, PS0053, Australian War Memorial

Glasgow Docks, c.1914, Judges Postcards, Dalmadan Collection

Hurdcott, Wiltshire, England, c. 1917, P01258.001, Australian War Memorial

British raiding party, Cambrai, January 1917, Q6420, Imperial War Museum

The Hundred Days Offensive August-November 1918, Q 11263, Imperial War Museum

The Western front from the Sea to Riems, March 1918, North Carolina Digital Collections

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