Provides an overview of the ways in which music was used in medical settings during the war. It will outline how the British Red Cross, which was tasked by the War Office to coordinate the organisation and supply of British hospitals, ensured that provision was made for live and recorded music in the majority of their facilities. This chapter will also consider how the medical profession came to recognise that music was an aid to servicemen’s recovery and convalescence. The experiences of civilian entertainers in military medical settings will also be examined.

Moves with the military bands, pipes, drums and buglers to the fighting fronts. It will show the practical uses of music in the field and on board ships as an important marker for servicemen’s daily schedules. This section will also outline musicians’ roles in battle. It will show that while Bandsmen in regular infantry units often acted as stretcher bearers, those who enlisted from August 1914 and served in Territorial battalions did a great many other jobs. It will also show that the formation of bands was driven largely by the men themselves.

Under oath at the Dardanelles Commission, convened in 1917 to investigate the Gallipoli campaign, Surgeon General Sir Neville Howse, Director of Medical Services (DMS) for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), stated that ‘as far as the Australian troops were concerned’ medical arrangements for the Gallipoli campaign ‘were so inadequate that they amounted to criminal negligence’.1 He squarely laid the blame for this ‘negligence’ on the shoulders of the British General Staff and informed the commissioners that he intended to share his concerns with Australia’s leaders. A palpably frustrated Howse stated: ‘I personally will recommend my Government when this war is over, that under no conceivable conditions ought they ever to trust to the medical arrangements that may be made by Imperial authorities for the care of their sick and wounded.’2 His scathing critique not only called into question the British General Staff’s ability to plan and execute a comprehensive strategy but also revealed his doubt regarding the benefits of Australian deference to Britain in medical–military matters.

In 1915, four months after the first convoy of Australian soldiers disembarked in Egypt, venereal disease (VD) infected roughly 10 per cent of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF).1 In the Official History, Butler described it as ‘a startling outburst’ that resulted in 3 per cent of the force being ‘constantly sick’.2 Given that a significant number of soldiers were not only incapacitated but also occupying hospital beds that would be needed once combat casualties started to arrive, VD had serious implications for the efficiency of the AIF and its medical services.

‘In the very elaborate medical arrangements for “Messines” every possible factor in the problem of collecting, clearing, treating and evacuating casualties, was foreseen and exactly provided for,’ wrote Butler in the official history. He continued: ‘As it turned out, “events” were in so close accord with “arrangements” that, as an exposition of military medical technique, an account of the medical features of the battle may be based on either.’1 This glowing description of the medical provisions at Messines stands in stark contrast to the medical care provided to wounded and sick soldiers at Gallipoli.

At the end of 1918, the Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC) was a different organisation from the one that had existed when war was declared in 1914. Commencing the war with a regular staff of four officers, the AAMC rapidly expanded and developed. Almost entirely dependent on assistance from Britain and the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, the AAMC, during the remaining years of the war, became more independent, developed its own practices and procedures, and asserted its expertise in order to have Australian medical control of Australian casualties.

In November 1914, an Australian couple living in Middlesex, England, offered their house for use as a convalescent home for sick and wounded Australian soldiers recovering from injury. The AAMC accepted Mr and Mrs Charles Billyard-Leake’s offer, and their house and its grounds, Harefield Park, became a convalescent hospital before eventually becoming 1st Australian Auxiliary Hospital (1AAH) Harefield. The AAMC originally intended it to house fifty to a hundred patients plus staff but, eight months after opening, the accommodation had been increased to provide a thousand beds for convalescing soldiers. While at least one soldier mused that its purpose was to house those who were not ‘fit to die in their own homes’, its main function was to rehabilitate sick and wounded soldiers for a return to duty.1 The hospital eventually included surgical, medical, X-ray, massage and electric therapy as well as recreation and study departments. Along with the other auxiliary hospitals in the Australian network – 2nd Australian Auxiliary Hospital (2AAH), Southall, and 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital (3AAH), Dartford – it formed an integral part of the medical services provided to Australian soldiers wounded in the First World War.