tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/commemorating-wwi-11722/articles
Commemorating WWI – The Conversation
2023-11-09T11:36:00Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216789
2023-11-09T11:36:00Z
2023-11-09T11:36:00Z
Remembrance Day: five beautiful novels about war commemoration
<p>Every autumn, the UK participates in an astonishing commemorative practice: the annual charity drive of the Poppy Appeal. From its origins <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/poppy">during the first world war</a> to the <a href="https://www.thewarhorsememorial.org/animal-purple-poppy-fund">purple poppy commemorating animals</a> in wartime, the artificial poppy has become a fragile but enduring symbol of remembrance. </p>
<p>Writers of fiction have frequently turned to ephemeral objects like the poppy (that is, fragile and disposable ones) as a vehicle to explore violent conflicts and their aftermath. Perhaps their fragility is precisely what is so appealing about items like postcards, sketches and keepsakes. Their lack of officialness opens up untold everyday experiences. </p>
<p>In our research on the links between literature and ephemera <a href="https://research.northumbria.ac.uk/warephemera/about/">related to war</a> <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/projects/dr-alexandra-peat/">and displacement</a>, we question the limitations of official narratives about conflict and investigate how literature can push back at these by harnessing the power of everyday objects. We use the term “<a href="https://research.northumbria.ac.uk/warephemera/ephemera/">ephemera</a>” to refer to any small, portable items linked to war, its commemoration and migration as a result of war or economic hardship.</p>
<p>Here are our recommendations for five novels that can give readers fresh insights into conflict and commemoration.</p>
<h2>1. In Memoriam, by Alice Winn (2023)</h2>
<p>In her breakout success, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/12/in-memoriam-by-alice-winn-review-a-vivid-rendering-of-love-and-frontline-brutality-in-the-first-world-war">In Memoriam</a>, Alice Winn uses a type of ephemera – public school magazines – to bring to life the experiences of schoolboy volunteers in a way that is engaging and thought-provoking. </p>
<p>Although it returns to one of the best represented perspectives in first world war writing – that of soldier poets like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Siegfried-Sassoon">Siegfried Sassoon</a> and <a href="https://poets.org/poet/robert-graves">Robert Graves</a>, on whom Winn modelled her protagonists – it conveys a sense of immediacy and pathos through its use of mocked-up magazine pages.</p>
<h2>2. A God in Every Stone, by Kamila Shamsie (2014)</h2>
<p>Published in time for the first world war centenary in 2014 and shortlisted for the <a href="https://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/features/book/god-every-stone">2015 Women’s Prize for Fiction</a>, Shamsie’s novel broke new ground. </p>
<p>It shows the war we think we know from several fresh points of view. This includes a woman who refuses the self-sacrifice of nursing soldiers and pursues her archaeological dreams instead, the plight of the Armenian minority in the Ottoman Empire and Indian soldiers who return to Punjab with a burning sense of injustice that feeds the growing push for independence. </p>
<p>The novel culminates in a little-known display of colonial violence that was perpetrated against the peaceful <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25765949.2021.1992584">Khudai Khidmatgar movement</a>. </p>
<p>Shamsie uses the contrast between stone artefacts and ephemera (especially letters and notebooks) for a wide-ranging reflection on the ways history is written by those in power – and how those struggling to be heard can push back in their own small way.</p>
<h2>3. Afterlives, by Abdulrazak Gurnah (2020)</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2021/gurnah/facts/">Nobel prize-winner Gurnah</a> depicts a version of the first world war hardly ever taught or discussed in western Europe. </p>
<p>The novel traces the experience of a small cast of characters in what was then German East Africa (now Tanzania) leading up to, during and after the war. Gurnah’s signature stripped-back prose explores the violence of war visited on the multi-ethnic communities of east Africa. The depiction of the violence is forensic and harrowing, and linked to the fates of his protagonists. </p>
<p>At the heart of the novel is the story of Hamza, a young man broken by his time fighting for the German colonial army — the so-called <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/schutztruppe_east_africa_southwest_africa_cameroon">Schutztruppe</a> — and his return to life after the end of the war. </p>
<p>The novel highlights poignantly the limits of European narratives of war and especially the limitations of colonial archives for documenting and reclaiming the stories of Africans in the first world war.</p>
<h2>4. Summer, by Ali Smith (2020)</h2>
<p>The four novels that make up Smith’s <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/series/SQ/seasonal-quartet">Seasonal Quartet</a> are each concerned with Britain’s recent history, charting the shock waves of the Brexit referendum, anxieties about migration, climate change and the COVID pandemic. </p>
<p>While Smith’s books have been rightly <a href="https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/ali-smith-now/">celebrated for their nowness</a> – with each book being written and published within a few short months – they are also deeply rooted in history and memory, as she traces links between current events and past legacies.</p>
<p>Summer, the final book in the cycle, won the 2021 <a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/political-fiction/summer/">Orwell Prize</a> for political fiction. Here, the story of life in Britain during lockdown is juxtaposed with that of Daniel Gluck, a 100-year old man who, as a young German-British Jew was detained in an <a href="https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/collar-lot-britains-policy-internment-second-world-war/">Isle of Man internment camp</a> during the second world war. </p>
<p>Weaving together letters (both lost and sent), postcards and pieces of art, Smith shines light on a neglected aspect of British history. She connects it to the current treatment of refugees from conflict and deprivation in British detention centres. Smith’s novel offers a powerful meditation on the possibilities of hospitality.</p>
<h2>5. Small Island, by Andrea Levy (2004)</h2>
<p>This multi-award winning novel is a modern classic. It follows four protagonists, two British and two Jamaican, through the vicissitudes of the second world war and the post-war Windrush moment. </p>
<p>The novel charts fraught cultural encounters as it moves between the experiences of women on the home front, a Jamaican soldier visiting Britain for the first time as a volunteer in the army and a British soldier serving in south Asia. </p>
<p>As well as showcasing different voices and points of view, Levy emphasises the significance of travelling objects. A lost wallet, a family photograph and a trunk full of belongings from home all play pivotal roles in the plot. </p>
<p>The novel uses everyday objects to highlight questions of community and belonging in the aftermath of conflict. As the <a href="https://www.bcaexhibits.org/exhibits/over-a-barrel">Windrush</a> moment is itself being <a href="https://www.windrush75.org/">commemorated</a>, Levy expands our understanding of the intricate links between war and migration.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann-Marie Einhaus receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for her work on ephemera and war writing in Britain, 1914 to the present.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra Peat receives funding from the British Academy for her work on ephemera, migration and modern literature.</span></em></p>
These novels can expand your encounters with war and commemoration.
Ann-Marie Einhaus, Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Alexandra Peat, Research Fellow, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87004
2017-11-09T19:20:52Z
2017-11-09T19:20:52Z
Why children need to be taught to think critically about Remembrance Day
<p>A few years ago, my then four-year-old daughter came home from preschool wanting to know who the soldiers were and why they died.</p>
<p>As a history teacher for nearly two decades, I thought I had it covered. This was my moment to shine as a parent and educator. Unfortunately, I had grossly overestimated my capabilities. I found myself stumbling over explanations and unable to find the words. Anyone who has tried knows it’s nearly impossible to describe to a four-year-old the machinations of war in a non-terrifying way. How would I unpack the complex cultural participation in commemorations? I resorted to telling her: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ll explain it when you’re older. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I know, I know, shame on me. </p>
<p>But it got me thinking about how we position our students to engage meaningfully with wartime narratives and commemorations. I think we’re missing valuable opportunities to teach students how to critically evaluate memorialisation as a historical artefact. This deserves our attention because artefacts embody the ideological value systems of the community that create it and the society that, 100 years later, continues to use and observe it. In critiquing Remembrance Day, students will likely learn a great deal about the social and political customs of their own community. </p>
<h2>How do schools now participate in commemoration?</h2>
<p>What happens now is fairly straightforward. Schools will consult a website such as the <a href="http://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/">Australian Government Department of Veterans’ Affairs</a> to find a <a href="http://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/conduct-event">runsheet</a>. Students will be organised to speak, taking heed of the advice for the commemorative address to “<a href="http://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/conduct-event">highlight the service and sacrifice of men and women in all conflicts</a>”. A wreath may be purchased, a minute’s silence will be observed, and a recording of <a href="https://www.army.gov.au/our-history/traditions/the-last-post">The Last Post</a> and <a href="https://www.army.gov.au/our-history/traditions/the-rouse-and-the-reveille">The Rouse and the Reveille</a> will be played. </p>
<p>The concern is that uncritical engagement in the social act of commemoration is creating generations of historical tourists. These “tourists” are not enabled to understand that memorials and commemorative services are interpretations of the past, or that such services are a representation of how present-day society believes it should interact with that past. They simply pass through without understanding the full context. Asking pupils to organise and participate in a commemorative event, or providing red paper to make poppies, will not help students develop capacity to recognise that memorial sites and the framing of historical narratives are responses to the context of the time they were created. </p>
<h2>Why is this important?</h2>
<p>Memorials and commemorative services use rhetoric that speaks to national identities. Political leaders are adept at using these monuments, ceremonies and rhetoric to respond to current social anxieties in a way that often creates further divisions.</p>
<p>As historical tourists attending commemorative services, students (and the adults they grow into) are at risk of accepting without question nationalistic and political agendas that may not be in their best interests. I want my students and pre-service teachers to recognise the political, social, and economic factors that influence how a society conducts and participates in memorialisation of the past. Recognising and understanding this influence leads to active and proactive citizenship.</p>
<h2>Preparing our students</h2>
<p>How can teachers best prepare primary and secondary school students to think critically about memorialisation? Here is some sound advice from around the globe.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11125-010-9140-z">Monique Eckmann</a> from the <a href="https://www.hes-so.ch/en/homepage-hes-so-1679.html">University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland</a> says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the history of memory has to be studied; it is important to understand the context and the history of the decision to create a memorial or a commemoration day. Which advocacy groups took the initiative to propose a memorial place or a commemorative date, when, and for whom? What groups were involved in memorialisation politics? What victims are named, who is mentioned in the official memory, and who is not included in it?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/TSSS.98.3.105-110">Alan S. Marcus</a>, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at the <a href="https://education.uconn.edu/">Neag School of Education</a> at the University of Connecticut suggests: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>providing students with or asking them to research the public and private purposes and missions of the memorial, and asking students to discuss how they may influence what is displayed,</p></li>
<li><p>asking students to interview other visitors at the memorial to learn about their experiences and how those visitors understand the monument and the commemorative services conducted there.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/43259416">Barnaby Nemko</a>, Head of History at <a href="http://www.sthelens.london/">St Helen’s School</a> in Northwood, London, set his students the task of producing their own photographic memorial of the first world war, which would serve as a record for future generations. The aim was for pupils to construct their own First World War photo memorial based on what they experienced on their day trip to the site of <a href="http://www.greatwar.co.uk/ypres-salient/battles-ypres-salient.htm">Ypres</a>. Subsequently, the pupils would have to justify their choice of “exhibits”. </p>
<p>As a history teacher, I see great value in all these strategies. So I was surprised by the results of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/43259416">Nemko’s</a> study. The work his students produced displayed a complete lack of understanding that the photographic memorial they created was indeed an interpretation of the past. He found that the historical monuments elicited such a strong emotional reaction from the students that it impaired their analytical skills, which were otherwise well developed in relation to other kinds of historical accounts.</p>
<h2>What about the place of commemoration in pre-school?</h2>
<p>My second child attends a different preschool. Fortunately, there are no commemorative activities offered at this centre. I am more than a little relieved. I avoid stumbling again through the murky waters of attempting to explain war and remembrance to a child under the age of five. More importantly, I just don’t think she’s ready to engage in the horrors of war and the complexities of how societies construct narratives to memorialise such events.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Teaching students to recognise and understanding the political, social, and economic factors that influence how we celebrate Remembrance Day would make them more active citizens.
Kim Wilson, Lecturer in History Education, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/72679
2017-03-07T13:12:13Z
2017-03-07T13:12:13Z
The Imperial War Museum originally opened as a museum to end all wars – that didn’t last long
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158908/original/image-20170301-5525-1y6v571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pawel Pajor / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/">IWM</a>, or the Imperial War Museum as it was known <a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/press-release/New_Brand_Press_Release.pdf">until 2011</a>, is Britain’s national museum on war. It presents a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/540123/56470_HC_434_Web.pdf">history of the whole country during wartime</a> since 1914, alongside its former empire and dominions. In 2017, IWM is celebrating its centenary. </p>
<p>During World War I, a process to found an official institution to document the ongoing conflict began. At the opening of the museum on June 9 1920, King George V <a href="https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/32003/supplement/8072/data.pdf">spoke of</a> the hopes which had fuelled the foundation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We cannot say with what eyes posterity will regard this museum, nor what ideas it will arouse in their minds. We hope and pray that as the result of what we have done and suffered they may be able to look back upon war, its instruments and its organisation as belonging to a dead past.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, these hopes were totally dashed by September 1939. While World War I may have created the institution, it was World War II which transformed it into the museum that exists today.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158384/original/image-20170225-22983-1bcizut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158384/original/image-20170225-22983-1bcizut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158384/original/image-20170225-22983-1bcizut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158384/original/image-20170225-22983-1bcizut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158384/original/image-20170225-22983-1bcizut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158384/original/image-20170225-22983-1bcizut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158384/original/image-20170225-22983-1bcizut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158384/original/image-20170225-22983-1bcizut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A view of the Army Gallery inside the Crystal Palace. © IWM (Q 17030)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Founding: 1917-1920</h2>
<p>The idea of the museum came about at a bleak time for Britain. In 1917 the country’s strategic situation abroad was precarious while at home society reeled from the effort of waging total war. Morale had sunk very low. Past research suggests that the war museum was founded in reaction to this dire situation: both to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Museums_and_the_First_World_War.html?id=v76LEm-Tc2wC">counter war weariness</a> within the population and to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vczxxPKNr8oC">commemorate the sacrifices</a> made by all people for the country.</p>
<p>Both needs would undoubtedly have featured in the final decision to go ahead with the project. But the argument that the operational requirement of countering war weariness was its driving force feels most convincing. When Sir Alfred Mond MP proposed the idea to the War Cabinet, the British government had just undergone a political coup, with the new prime minister, David Lloyd George, asserting himself by reorganising Britain’s institutions and rejuvenating its war effort. </p>
<p>Further evidence that the initiative was operationally driven lies in its initial budget – just £3,000 – and that during 1916 all national museums were closed to save money. State orchestrated commemoration would certainly not have been a top priority at this time.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158385/original/image-20170225-22978-x0ary4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158385/original/image-20170225-22978-x0ary4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158385/original/image-20170225-22978-x0ary4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158385/original/image-20170225-22978-x0ary4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158385/original/image-20170225-22978-x0ary4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158385/original/image-20170225-22978-x0ary4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158385/original/image-20170225-22978-x0ary4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158385/original/image-20170225-22978-x0ary4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A view of one of the art galleries inside Crystal Palace. © IWM (Q 17028)</span>
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</figure>
<p>Following the cabinet’s approval, an organising committee was created. Its main concern was to amass the institution’s collections. Collection subcommittees were formed, each with a specific focus, the range of which highlights the organisers’ aspirations to found a museum that was representative of the national effort. </p>
<p>It has <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Social_History_in_Museums.html?id=LrPZAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">been argued</a> (in the early 90s) that this work was the most all-encompassing documentation programme ever undertaken by a cultural heritage institution. The material collected encompassed objects that would previously have been considered by many curators as valueless: trophies, for example, or photographs, personal effects and artwork produced by everyday people. The collection essentially became ethnographic, a snapshot of a nation locked in war.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.britishpathe.com/video/victory-exhibition/query/Victory+Exhibition">The museum opened in June 1920</a>, initially at the Crystal Palace, in Sydenham, south London. Of course, by this stage, the original aim of countering war weariness had been annulled with the end of the war. An attempt to define the museum as a national war memorial had also flopped. </p>
<p>And so the organisers redrafted the project’s purpose. Now, the idea was to create a museum that covered the whole British Empire and its dominions, so raising the instiution’s profile. Accordingly the name of the museum changed from the National War Museum to the Imperial War Museum – the word “imperial” signifying its broader international remit, rather than subject matter.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158382/original/image-20170225-23000-4v9enl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158382/original/image-20170225-23000-4v9enl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158382/original/image-20170225-23000-4v9enl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158382/original/image-20170225-23000-4v9enl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158382/original/image-20170225-23000-4v9enl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158382/original/image-20170225-23000-4v9enl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158382/original/image-20170225-23000-4v9enl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The principle site of IWM, housed in the former Bethlem Royal Hospital building since 1936.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Philip W. Deans 2016</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reinvention: 1939-1946</h2>
<p>Over the interwar years IWM changed little, apart from several relocations. In line with the king’s opening speech, it focused on the “war to end all wars” (as World War I was then known), commemorating its sacrifices and championing the message that war is folly. But World War II quashed the concept of the war to end all wars, and threatened IWM with cultural irrelevancy. Reinvention became essential for its long-term continuance.</p>
<p>When World War II broke, IWM closed to the public. But the museum did not stop working. Leslie Bradley, IWM’s director general at the time, pushed to convince its trustees and the government of the need to document the new conflict. Eventually, the museum received the permission needed and, in December 1939, started collecting.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158386/original/image-20170225-22992-1p19c50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158386/original/image-20170225-22992-1p19c50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158386/original/image-20170225-22992-1p19c50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158386/original/image-20170225-22992-1p19c50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158386/original/image-20170225-22992-1p19c50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158386/original/image-20170225-22992-1p19c50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158386/original/image-20170225-22992-1p19c50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158386/original/image-20170225-22992-1p19c50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A view of an aircraft engine, Supermarine Spitfire and rocket projector and rockets in the first exhibition held by IWM following its reopening during 1946. © IWM (D 29424)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With limited resources, IWM focused initially on collecting ephemera such as posters, information pamphlets and other documentation. At the same time it tried to enrol the services and government departments into earmarking and saving artefacts for exhibition after the war. This was not an easy task – these bodies were concerned with more pressing matters. But by the war’s conclusion, sufficient cooperation had facilitated a range of impressive material. <a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030005003">One such accession</a>, made early in the process, was the “<a href="http://www.britishpathe.com/video/chamberlain-sudeten-crisis-1938/query/Chamberlain+Sudeten+Crisis+1938">piece of paper</a>” signed by both Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler not long before hostilities began. </p>
<p>IWM reopened in 1946. In galleries once reserved for the “Great War”, artefacts of a newer, more terrible conflict shared the space. The museum of the “war to end all wars” was no more, and a museum which would eventually cover all Anglo-Commonwealth conflict since 1914 was born. Since then, new museums have opened in Duxford and Manchester. HMS Belfast and the Churchill War Rooms are also part of the IWM family.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158387/original/image-20170225-22983-685i2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158387/original/image-20170225-22983-685i2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158387/original/image-20170225-22983-685i2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158387/original/image-20170225-22983-685i2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158387/original/image-20170225-22983-685i2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158387/original/image-20170225-22983-685i2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158387/original/image-20170225-22983-685i2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158387/original/image-20170225-22983-685i2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A view of what is described as ‘enemy relics’, also in the first exhibition held by IWM following its reopening. © IWM (D 29423)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conceived partly as a propaganda tool, IWM must have defied some initial expectations in reaching the age of a hundred. Through doing so, it has become one of the most important institutions on war perpetrated by Britain, the Commonwealth and other countries during the 20th and 21st centuries. Beyond its propensity to adapt, perhaps the dark underbelly of IWM’s success is people’s innate interest in conflict. As Dian Lees, the current director general <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jul/10/imperial-war-museum-reopens-first-world-war">has said</a>: “War … is always going to be fascinating to a certain section of the audience, and our job is to broaden that audience.” </p>
<p>Where IWM will be in another hundred years remains to be seen. But in an increasingly uncertain world, one can conjecture that the interest in it across the UK and further afield will not subside anytime soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip W. Deans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Imperial War Museum was founded to do a very different task to that of today.
Philip W. Deans, PhD Candidate, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/66483
2016-11-01T00:17:11Z
2016-11-01T00:17:11Z
Is it time to repeal Australia’s century-old laws on the use of the word ‘Anzac’?
<p>It is 100 years to the day since Australia broadened the laws restricting the use of one of the nation’s most sacred words: Anzac.</p>
<p>On November 1, 1916, it became illegal for Australians to name a private residence, boat or vehicle “Anzac” – the acronym of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and a word synonymous with endurance, courage, mateship and sacrifice.</p>
<p>So why were these restrictions introduced? And, 100 years after their creation, are they still needed?</p>
<p>Within a few months of Australian and New Zealand soldiers <a href="http://www.gallipoli.gov.au/battle-of-the-landing/">landing at Gallipoli</a> in April 1915, traders in both countries began adopting the word Anzac. Some businesses were renamed Anzac; others sold goods featuring the term – from clothing to playing cards, tobacco, and even weaponry. This was <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130038063">met with criticism</a> on the Australian home front. Many objected to this special word being used in what they believed was a commercial and debasing manner.</p>
<p>As a result, in May 1916 the Federal government passed a regulation under the controversial <a href="http://tols.peo.gov.au/parliament-and-the-war/war-precautions-act-1914">War Precautions Act 1914</a> prohibiting the use of “Anzac” in business without permission from the Governor General. The fine for breaking this law was large – up to £100 or six months imprisonment, or both. </p>
<p>These restrictions are still in place today, albeit with different penalties. Many readers may remember how the Department of Veterans’ Affairs <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-15/rsl-responds-to-woolworths-fresh-in-our-memories-campaign/6393498">cracked down on Woolworths</a> for its use of the word Anzac in its “Fresh in Our Memories” campaign in the lead up to Anzac Day in 2015.</p>
<h2>“Anzac” homes</h2>
<p>In November 1916, the Australian government <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1916L00255">introduced additional regulations</a> restricting the use of the word Anzac as the name of a private residence, boat or vehicle, or by any charitable institution. </p>
<p>At the time, Australians were given little indication why a restriction on the adoption of Anzac as the name of a home had been introduced – despite this being the first time the government had stepped in to regulate the private use of a word in the community.</p>
<p>In retrospect, it appears there were two primary reasons behind the creation of this restriction: ensuring that the term was not <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/141901870">overused in the community</a>, and
stemming <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/appropriating-the-legend-of-anzac/6845622#transcript">increasing German adoption</a> of this sacred word. Many German-Australians were calling their homes “Anzac” to show patriotism at a time when both naturalised and Australian-born men and women of German heritage were being interned in local <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-experience-in-australia-during-ww1-damaged-road-to-multiculturalism-38594">“concentration camps”</a>.</p>
<p>Following the introduction of the new regulations, family members of soldiers contacted the government seeking permission to name their homes “Anzac”. These applications, held today by <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/">the National Archives of Australia</a>, reveal the devastating effect of this restriction. </p>
<p>Almost all the letters, penned by fathers, mothers and wives state that the reason they wished to name their home “Anzac” was to commemorate their own fallen, injured or serving Anzac soldier.</p>
<p>Commonwealth Solicitor General <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/garran-sir-robert-randolph-410">Robert Garran</a> was responsible for responding to these applications. Between 1916 and 1928, just over 70 applications to name a home “Anzac” were received by the government. All applications were denied. Garran often used the same standard letter in response, stating “that permission to use the word Anzac as the name of your residence cannot be granted”.</p>
<h2>Personal use of “Anzac” - then and now</h2>
<p>The government did not interfere in all areas of the personal use of the word Anzac. People were still allowed to adopt the word as the name of a child, or the <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155718471">name of a pet</a>. Garran received a number of applications from returned soldiers seeking to name their baby boys “Anzac” – to which he drily responded that “there is no legal objection to the use of the word "Anzac” in the naming of children". </p>
<p>Today, <a href="http://www.dva.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/commems-memorials/anzacday/Guidelines-Use-of-the-Word-Anzac.pdf">guidelines</a> issued by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs indicate it is still permissible to name a child, or pet, “Anzac”. The legal restrictions on the use of “Anzac” as the name of a home, vehicle or boat, or in trade, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2004C00015">remain in place</a>, though contained in a different set of regulations than those created in 1916.</p>
<p>Although there may have been (limited) reasons for introducing this restriction in 1916, it isn’t clear why this prohibition on the use of “Anzac” in certain personal circumstances should continue in 2016. Few could argue that naming a house “Anzac” is any more controversial than giving that same name to a child or dog. While it was feared that permitting loved ones to name homes “Anzac” would lead to overuse in 1916, that justification does not exist today. </p>
<p>What a fitting tribute it would be to allow members of the Australian Defence Force and their families to call their homes “Anzac” if they wished, as a way of connecting with their service and the Anzac legend.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Dr Catherine Bond’s first book, <a href="http://scholarly.info/home/">Anzac: The Landing, The Legend, The Law</a>, will be published by Australian Scholarly Publishing in late 2016. All archival documents cited here are from the collection of the National Archives of Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66483/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Bond receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DP140100172)</span></em></p>
You can name your child ‘Anzac’ - but not your house. Are Australia’s laws restricting the use of the word Anzac still relevant?
Catherine Bond, Senior Lecturer in Law, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/62689
2016-07-24T20:04:22Z
2016-07-24T20:04:22Z
We can’t see the war for the memorials: balancing education and commemoration
<p>One of the key vehicles for communicating the history of the first world war has been the classroom. But in this, the WWI centenary period, have the lines between education and commemoration been distorted?</p>
<p>In Australia the national fervour surrounding the Anzac centenary has made it easy to get lost in the “celebratory” nature of our remembering and this has frequently been at the cost of critical analysis. This was one of the major concerns raised at <a href="https://www.newcastle.edu.au/events/faculty-of-education-and-arts/public-symposium-difficult-histories-and-modern-conflict">a public symposium</a> held earlier this year by the University of Newcastle where academics from the UK, Australia and New Zealand debated the issue. </p>
<p>Educators are fighting an uphill battle on two fronts. History, especially Australian history, is widely perceived by high school, and some tertiary, students as “<a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/39304/">boring</a>”. This is not helped by the fact that the total annual allocation for history education in NSW is approximately 50 hours. In some states and territories that figure may be much lower. And if, to borrow the phrase, young people are being drawn into commemoration as “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/oct/11/david-cameron-fund-world-war-one-commemorations">vessels of memory</a>”, is this a problematic ideal? </p>
<p>In the 21st century, as the living memory of the war fades, new questions arise as to how to teach these cataclysmic events. Yet the dominant popular narratives that crowd the commemorative landscape leave little room to engage with the complex and challenging histories of war.</p>
<p>Images of war weary veterans and heroic stories trade in emotion and empathy, yet this commemoration shuts out cognition and critical remembrance. Now widely perceived to be the stuff of myth, the story of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/behind-the-anzac-myth-of-john-simpson-kirkpatrick-and-his-donkey-at-gallipoli-20150505-ggu8rz.html">Simpson and his donkey</a> is the common entry point for primary school children learning about WWI. But if empathising with personal stories of war is what draws students in, shouldn’t this then emphasise an obligation to teach “honest histories”, especially at high school level?</p>
<p>Commemoration is in tension with the educational enterprise when it closes down alternative interpretations and perspectives of war and society. Until recently the most significant exclusion in the monolithic white Anzac legend was the role of Indigenous servicemen. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A veteran from Papua New Guinea wears a traditional head dress as he marches in the ANZAC Day march through Sydney, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Gray</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The success of the theatrical production <a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-soldiers-remembered-the-research-behind-black-diggers-21056">Black Diggers</a> is a welcome example that slowly draws their story into the mainstream, despite forced exclusion of Indigenous service personnel by the authorities in the initial phases of both the First and Second World Wars. </p>
<p>History is one of the most politically divisive fields both in and out of the classroom and the issue of how much weight should be given to war in the teaching of Australian history continues to be <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/whats-wrong-with-anzac/">hotly contested</a>. </p>
<p>In the official haste to commemorate WWI, are we doing a disservice to those whose memory we are at pains to remember? The recent publication of Bruce Scates’ <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27249186-world-war-one">World War One: A History in 100 Stories</a> (2015) was a bold attempt to redress the popular narrative, this time by highlighting the lives of those irreparably damaged by the events of the conflict. </p>
<p>Many of those individual stories were declined for inclusion in the wider national commemorative programme because they sat outside the traditional framework of heroism and mateship. Yet many who returned from the war were physically or psychologically shattered, and reflected what historian Joan Beaumont considered a “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18595772-broken-nation">broken nation</a>”. </p>
<p>Critical and reflective ABC documentaries like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4338662/">Lest We Forget What?</a> (2015) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4882750/">Why Anzac with Sam Neil</a> (2015) have also challenged contemporary mainstream perceptions. </p>
<p>Half a century ago historian Geoffrey Serle coined the phrase “Anzackery” to describe the sentimentality surrounding the popular reception of Anzac. Spurred on by a centenary commemoration budget now <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview201516/Anzac">in excess of half a billion dollars</a>, the heroic narrative has become an unshakeable article of faith in the national psyche. </p>
<p>Herein lies the root of the conflict between the business of commemorating and education about war and society; an important distinction explored at the University of Newcastle’s public symposium. To quote a popular aphorism, the truth is always the first casualty in war. It requires determination and courage to tell the truth in the face of resolute forgetting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The centenary of the first world war is being memorialised around the world. But as it fades from living memory, our children’s education sits uneasily with the uncritical demands of commemoration.
Leah Riches, PhD Candidate, Research Assistant and Sessional Academic, Monash University
James Bennett, Senior Lecturer in History in the School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/30016
2014-08-08T02:41:11Z
2014-08-08T02:41:11Z
UK WWI commemorations should embrace Commonwealth experience
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55826/original/365s9pcn-1407290732.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The First World War has different resonance and meaning across the Commonwealth nations, which should be reflected in the UK and Scottish government's commemoration plans.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Andy Rain</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scottish first minister Alex Salmond’s <a href="http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/FM-journey-of-commemoration-starts-today-f60.aspx">speech</a> at the recent UK and Commonwealth First World War centenary commemoration subtly emphasised its politicised nature. At no point did he use the term “British” state or empire in framing the cause that Scots fought for. Instead, he located remembrance and its transnational connections within distinctly Scottish contexts. </p>
<p>And by emphasising the futility of the conflict, Salmond aimed to distinguish commemorations in Scotland from what one independence supporter <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/joan-mcalpine-slaughter-great-war-2677005">has argued</a> is the UK government’s “jingoistic celebrations” of the “Great Slaughter” of Scotland’s young who died because of “misplaced loyalty”.</p>
<p>The politics of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/scotland-decides-14">Scottish independence referendum</a> confirm that while the First World War centenary acknowledges both the conflict’s transnational and globalised nature, war commemoration typically focuses on nation-states. The promotion of homogenous British national identity has typically referenced important conflicts that are widely understood to establish symbolic continuity between the national past, present and future. </p>
<p>However, the centenary raises complex questions about whether British war commemoration should be principally realised at a national, multinational or transnational level.
Remembrance of past conflicts reveals war commemorations are always contested and contentious. They are also prone to generational reinterpretations that reflect changing political and historical analyses.</p>
<p>Adopting an inclusive narrative that informs centenary commemorations of the First World War has proven acutely problematic for the UK government. This is because the public primarily remembers the conflict for the huge loss of life, often barbaric fighting conditions and, ultimately, its failure as <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/58637/hew-strachan/the-war-to-end-all-wars-lessons-of-world-war-i-revisited">“the war to end war”</a>.</p>
<p>The challenge for the UK government has been to encourage a more objective public understanding of the war. Critical to such considerations is the extent to which revisionist interpretations of the conflict that emerged during the 1960s, such as the “lions led by donkeys” thesis first posited by Alan Clark and which continue to resonate strongly in the public imagination, should be challenged. </p>
<p>The centenary also raises questions about whether to <a href="http://noglory.org/">commemorate the loss of life</a> or <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10552336/Germany-started-the-Great-War-but-the-Left-cant-bear-to-say-so.html">more enthusiastically celebrate</a> the defeat of aggressive German imperialism.</p>
<p>Such discussions have revealed ideological tensions in how the war is remembered. Conservative politicians, including former <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2532930/MICHAEL-GOVE-Why-does-Left-insist-belittling-true-British-heroes.html">UK education secretary Michael Gove</a>, have accused “left-wing Marxist” historians and television programmes such as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/blackaddergoesforth/">Blackadder Goes Forth</a> of distorting analysis of the Great War’s causes, conduct and legacies for political purposes. The response of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/04/first-world-war-michael-gove-left-bashing-history">politicians</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/08/first-world-war-imperial-bloodbath-warning-noble-cause">other</a> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/06/richard-evans-michael-gove-history-education">commentators</a> criticising Gove have revealed the extent to which the “history wars” are shaping politicised responses to the centenary.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4O3U2w52msQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A clip from Blackadder’s Goes Forth.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/BRF_Declaration-of-war-report_P2_Web-1.pdf">Concerns</a> about the depth (or lack) of public knowledge about the conflict, particularly among young people, has raised further questions about the purpose of the centenary. While British prime minister David Cameron has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-at-imperial-war-museum-on-first-world-war-centenary-plans">suggested</a> it is important that the “sacrifice and service of a hundred years ago is still remembered in a hundred years’ time”, there is less certainty as to what the motivations of those who fought and died was. And how relevant are they for future generations? </p>
<p>Government representatives have often <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532923/Michael-Gove-blasts-Blackadder-myths-First-World-War-spread-television-sit-coms-left-wing-academics.html">tried to argue</a> that British forces were motivated by a desire to defend Britain’s “special tradition of liberty” and “the western liberal order”. </p>
<p>Others <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/12/armistice-day-first-world-war">suggest</a> that British combatants were defending the patriotic values of a deeply hierarchical and “strongly religious society”. Their “collective loyalties” were shaped by monarchy, empire and nation. But these concepts have little relevance to young people in 21st-century Britain.</p>
<p>The contribution of the empire ensured British forms of war commemoration extended beyond the boundaries of the state to include former colonies. However, this has raised wider questions about colonialism’s legacies. Cameron has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-at-imperial-war-museum-on-first-world-war-centenary-plans">sought to acknowledge</a> enduring Commonwealth ties and recognise the “extraordinary sacrifice” and “catastrophic” death toll of “our friends in the Commonwealth”. </p>
<p>Although shared transnational modes of war commemoration have endured, the sacrifices of the First World War are now largely understood in terms of progression towards post-British national self-determination.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55838/original/5n8ht95w-1407301879.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55838/original/5n8ht95w-1407301879.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55838/original/5n8ht95w-1407301879.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55838/original/5n8ht95w-1407301879.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55838/original/5n8ht95w-1407301879.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55838/original/5n8ht95w-1407301879.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55838/original/5n8ht95w-1407301879.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55838/original/5n8ht95w-1407301879.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British prime minister David Cameron has acknowledged the service of Commonwealth soldiers in WWI.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Stephanie Lecoq</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The centenary across the Commonwealth also reveals other divisions over interpretations that compromise the potential for shared commemorations. In countries such as India where British rule was explicitly colonial, the war is peripheral in the national consciousness. In March, Indian vice-president Hamid Ansari <a href="http://www.centenarynews.com/article?id=1542">acknowledged</a> that the war is seen to motivate a shift towards independence. It highlighted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… that the British were not going to live up to the promises of representative self-rule. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The failure to appreciate that debates about the war’s legacies are deeply entangled with those of British colonialism is replicated in the UK. This has particular resonance for post-war migrants from across the Commonwealth. For example, (now former) British government minister Sayeeda Warsi has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/baroness-warsi-speech-honouring-overseas-heroes-from-the-first-world-war">argued</a> that subjects from across the Empire fought to defend British domestic liberties. This is highly questionable when considering the exploitative and racialised nature of British colonial rule.</p>
<p>How the First World War centenary will be commemorated could be further revised if the UK is radically reformed in September by a vote for Scottish independence. That aside, both the UK and Scottish governments’ current approaches appear to overlook the transnational dynamics of First World War commemoration. This is what gives the conflict different resonance and meaning across the Commonwealth.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is the final piece in The Conversation’s Commemorating WWI series. Catch up on the rest of the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/commemorating-wwi">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Mycock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Scottish first minister Alex Salmond’s speech at the recent UK and Commonwealth First World War centenary commemoration subtly emphasised its politicised nature. At no point did he use the term “British…
Andrew Mycock, Reader in Politics, University of Huddersfield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/29577
2014-08-07T04:35:40Z
2014-08-07T04:35:40Z
New Zealand: the other half of the Anzac legend
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55602/original/btr4bv36-1407118499.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Where New Zealand’s embrace of Anzac differs from Australia is the place of the legend in national mythology.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archives New Zealand/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the centenary of the Gallipoli landings approaches Australians need to consider the other half of the ANZAC acronym. The <a href="http://www.bps.sa.edu.au/__files/f/2886/Andrew%20Tran%20Essay.pdf">rise of Anzac Day</a> as Australia’s national day has been paralleled by the increasing importance of Anzac Day in New Zealand.</p>
<p>For both Australians and New Zealanders, a visit to Anzac Cove is today seen as a rite of passage. The Anzacs, many Australians and New Zealanders believe, went to war to defend their countries’ values and lifestyle. Politicians compete to pay homage to their fallen heroes. </p>
<p>Where New Zealand’s embrace of Anzac differs from Australia is the place of the legend in national mythology. Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark <a href="http://historycouncilnsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2012-AHL-McKenna.pdf">described</a> the experience at Gallipoli as “a defining stage in the evolution of New Zealand” but only one important piece:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… in the mosaic that makes up … New Zealand. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clark’s qualified embrace of Anzac contrasted sharply with Australia under former prime minister John Howard. By the late 1990s, Anzac had become Australia’s key national myth. It comes as little surprise, then, that it was Clark who <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1305342.htm">warned the Australian government</a> about the inappropriateness of John Farnham’s planned performance at Anzac Cove in 2005.</p>
<p>The slickly produced programs at Anzac Cove are perhaps another reminder that New Zealand commemorates Anzac Day, while Australia tends to celebrate it.</p>
<p>One reason that New Zealand can more easily see the Anzac legend as merely one part of the “mosaic” of its national identity is that Waitangi Day (February 6), the anniversary of the signing of New Zealand’s founding document (the Waitangi Treaty), provides an alternative founding moment. </p>
<p>While Australia has Australia Day to mark the arrival of the First Fleet (January 26), it arguably has no comparable example of such a “founding document” or historical event to Waitangi Day. There is also no any immediate likelihood that an alternate narrative such as the declaration of a republic is about to emerge to rival Anzac Day.</p>
<p>However, many New Zealanders continue to see Anzac Day as a less problematic national day. In January 2005, New Zealand’s then-deputy prime minister, Michael Cullen, argued that Anzac Day was perceived as <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10009758">“less contentious”</a> than Waitangi Day, which has previously been <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10555435">associated with protests</a> by New Zealand’s indigenous peoples.</p>
<p>In New Zealand, Anzac Day allows both Maori and Pakeha (Maori word for a New Zealander of European descent) to unite for a common cause, rather than fighting one another as they did in the Maori Wars. The Anzac unity avoids the stains of colonialism and frontier violence in its celebration of foundational history. Both Australia and New Zealand are conveniently imagined as being “made” as nations elsewhere.</p>
<p>Anzac Day does not raise issues of sovereignty and dispossession – unless you are Turkish. Unlike the haunted history of colonisation, it hails the spirit of thousands of men who died “honourable” deaths in the hills of the Gallipoli Peninsula and the mudfields of the Western Front.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55639/original/82f834yw-1407126393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55639/original/82f834yw-1407126393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55639/original/82f834yw-1407126393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55639/original/82f834yw-1407126393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55639/original/82f834yw-1407126393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55639/original/82f834yw-1407126393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55639/original/82f834yw-1407126393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55639/original/82f834yw-1407126393.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Zealand remembers its fallen in a Queenstown Anzac service.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As recently as Anzac Day 2009, New Zealand prime minister John Key went so far as to suggest that the Anzacs had fought to maintain the country’s economic advantage, miraculously securing New Zealand’s wealth for a century to come. Key <a href="https://www.national.org.nz/news/news/media-releases/detail/2009/04/25/anzac-address-at-national-wreath-laying-ceremony">said</a> the Anzacs:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… were everyday people who rose to heights of sacrifice and, in doing so, preserved the living standards of all of us, for generations to come.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some differences exist between Australia and New Zealand. The burying of “the unknown soldier” at the national war memorial took place in Australia in 1993, and in New Zealand in 2004.</p>
<p>One of the most notable parallels is the role of government funding in driving enthusiasm for Anzac heritage. Both countries have seen a steep increase in <a href="http://makinghistoryatmacquarie.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/trends-of-popularity-of-anzac-day-and-the-anzac-legend-throughout-the-twentieth-century/">media coverage</a> of Anzac Day and <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/media/releases/australians-flock-anzac-day-2014-dawn-service/">much greater numbers</a> attending services at home and abroad. </p>
<p>School-based competitions for the best Anzac essay promote Anzac rituals across the education system, forming the basis of civic cohesion. Substantial government funding fuels domestic and international “military heritage” projects such as the overseas war memorials. Military anniversaries and site-specific building projects on the Gallipoli Peninsula are increasingly popular. </p>
<p>The New Zealand government funded a Gallipoli walking track dedicated for the 90th anniversary of Anzac in 2005. Both countries have provided greater support for military heritage research projects, and increased the funding and prominence of national war memorials.</p>
<p>As the 2015 Anzac centenary approaches it appears that it has managed to provide a nearly immutable history, sacred and free of political division. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Read the other articles in The Conversation’s Commemorating WWI series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/commemorating-wwi">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29577/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark McKenna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As the centenary of the Gallipoli landings approaches Australians need to consider the other half of the ANZAC acronym. The rise of Anzac Day as Australia’s national day has been paralleled by the increasing…
Mark McKenna, Associate Professor of History, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/29496
2014-08-06T04:39:28Z
2014-08-06T04:39:28Z
The WWI centenary in France and the diplomacy of shared memory
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55565/original/7qxyh7x5-1407066688.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Memorial diplomacy', on display in June's D-Day commemorations, is a mode of symbolic soft power politics which uses sites of memory and commemorative events to boost relations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When French president François Hollande rose to deliver the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27741554">keynote address</a> for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings earlier this year, he set in motion an unprecedented five-year cycle of commemoration that will conclude on June 28, 2019, with the centenary of the Treaty of Versailles. </p>
<p>Hollande’s speech to mark the beginning of the liberation of France and Europe made no mention of the First World War. However, in the forward planning of the governments represented there, it has long been accepted that the Great War centenary will encompass the commemoration of other major conflicts of the 20th century. </p>
<p>Notably, it will include the 70th anniversaries of key events in the Second World War, the Korean War’s 60th anniversary and the Vietnam War’s 50th anniversary.</p>
<p>The D-Day commemoration built on the precedent of decennial anniversaries since the globally mediatised <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/06/flashback-reagans-riveting-words-at-d-days-40th-anniversary-still-require-tissues-these-are-the-men-who-took-the-cliffs/">40th anniversary</a> in 1984. It has become the epitome of what French historian <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OCwETYPI-A">Olivier Wieviorka</a> calls the “internationalisation of commemoration”. It provides a foretaste of the keynote events that the French can expect of the Great War centenary. </p>
<p>Above all, it is a model of “memorial diplomacy”. The French and international press were quick to seize upon this. June 6, 2014, was “a D-Day under the flag of diplomacy” (Les Echos), “a diplomatic beach” (Libération) and a day of “silent diplomacy” (Deutsche Welle).</p>
<p>These headlines alluded to Hollande and German chancellor Angela Merkel’s diplomatic coup in initiating a <a href="http://rt.com/news/164236-putin-poroshenko-ukraine-bloodshed/">meeting</a> between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis and the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/24/g8-summit-canceled_n_5023219.html">re-scheduling of the G8 summit</a> from Sochi to Brussels to the exclusion of Russia.</p>
<p>In the image of the events on June 6, “memorial diplomacy” is a mode of symbolic <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/29/what_china_and_russia_don_t_get_about_soft_power">soft power</a> politics. Sites of memory and commemorative events are used as a vehicle for inter-state and infra-state relations. This involves carefully choreographed public ceremonies at selected sites of memory on anniversaries of events of national and international significance. </p>
<p>These events, typically on the eve of international summits, provide a venue not just for informal discussions. They also enable a brand of “message politics”, which appeals both to domestic and international public opinion by mobilising shared histories. </p>
<p>The aims range from:</p>
<ul>
<li>renewing alliances;</li>
<li>reconciling with adversaries or estranged allies;</li>
<li>launching joint policy initiatives (including veterans’ pensions and victims’ compensation);</li>
<li>signing treaties or defence agreements;</li>
<li>boosting trade and cultural exchanges;</li>
<li>promoting war tourism; and</li>
<li>projecting national identities and “special relationships”.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Great War centenary is the fruit of more than a decade of French-led multilateral co-operation at the sites of memory of the First and Second World Wars, including the Western Front and Normandy. Under president Jacques Chirac, the French Ministry of Defence began to develop a <a href="http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Speech-by-M-Chirac-at-the-official">“shared memory”</a> policy from 2002 onwards:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… to encourage, organise and improve bilateral relations between the nations and peoples which have shared a military history with France, in the course of modern conflicts since 1870, whether allies or adversaries. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The French government signed a series of memoranda of understanding with Commonwealth countries, former allies and colonies between 2002 and 2008, which have since been upgraded to reinforce co-operation. These included the <a href="http://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/france/joint_statement.html">French-Australian Declaration of Strategic Partnership</a> in 2011 and the <a href="http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2013/03/14/canada-france-declaration-cooperation-shared-memory-20th-century-conflicts">Canada-France Memorandum of Understanding for Shared Memory</a> in 2013. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55587/original/jjrzwzbs-1407111960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55587/original/jjrzwzbs-1407111960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55587/original/jjrzwzbs-1407111960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55587/original/jjrzwzbs-1407111960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55587/original/jjrzwzbs-1407111960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55587/original/jjrzwzbs-1407111960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55587/original/jjrzwzbs-1407111960.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Great War centenary is the fruit of more than a decade of French-led multilateral co-operation and preparation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Fabrice Gentile</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>France also initiated a number of multilateral summits. These began with the First International Symposium on Shared Memory at UNESCO Paris in 2006 and culminated in a meeting of ministers from 30 countries in Paris in October 2013 to co-ordinate commemorative programs for the centenary. </p>
<p>The national program unveiled by Hollande in November 2013 is posited on France being the Great War’s principal theatre of conflict. In the words of Centenary Mission adviser Bernard Maris:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In 2014, France will be the world’s stage. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The choice of launch date (Bastille Day) consecrates the Great War as the second key event in the establishment of the modern French Republic (the third being the Resistance and Liberation). The program rearticulates the values of French universalism, peace and international fraternity, around a message of reconciliation – with Germany, France’s former colonies and the national community – in the service of European and national unity.</p>
<p>Whether unity is so easily obtained or shared memory of the war is more than a figment of the diplomatic imagination is questionable. Historians like Annette Becker <a href="http://www.thesundaily.my/news/969181">argue</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… there is absolutely no shared memory between the warring nations, and sometimes not even within the countries themselves. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, in the absence of a “birth of the nation” narrative rooted in war memory as compelling as the Anzac myth, France has used the idea of shared memory to project its unique memorial heritage into a network of special relationships with former allies and adversaries in the pursuit of national interests, thereby placing itself centre stage geopolitically to 2018 and beyond.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Read the other articles in The Conversation’s Commemorating WWI series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/commemorating-wwi">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Graves is also an Associate of Australian Prime Ministers Centre at the Museum of Australian Democracy.</span></em></p>
When French president François Hollande rose to deliver the keynote address for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings earlier this year, he set in motion an unprecedented five-year cycle of commemoration…
Matthew Graves, Associate Professor, British and Commonwealth Studies, Aix-Marseille Université (AMU)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/29497
2014-08-05T03:02:10Z
2014-08-05T03:02:10Z
Why the Great War centenary will be a non-issue in Germany
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55247/original/w62twsbp-1406692160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Germans today have little appetite for constructing new national myths about the Great War, or reclaiming old ones, because of painful associations with the more recent past.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert Scarth/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is not much of a question of who controls the national myth of the Great War in Germany today. Nobody in particular seems to want to claim it. More interesting, however, is considering who has sought to own it in the past. Only then can we understand why the First World War has in many respects become a non-issue for Germans and their perceptions of national identity in the lead-up to the centenary commemorations.</p>
<p>In Britain the sense of horror at so many deaths in the trenches still seems to push people into a search for deeper national meaning in the Great War. In Germany such feelings are overshadowed by intervening layers of even worse horror or trauma – the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the communist period in East Germany. </p>
<h2>After the Second World War</h2>
<p>The most sustained and influential attempt to construct a lasting German national myth of the Great War came in the first two decades after the Second World War. In West Germany, a group of conservative professors led by prominent historian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Ritter">Gerhard Ritter</a> sought to rescue the idea of patriotism from its manifest perversion under the Third Reich. </p>
<p>In a letter to his British colleague George Peabody Gooch in 1947, Ritter defended what he saw as the “true front spirit” of the Great War, namely “willingness to serve without cliché, without self-glorification and without imperialist claims to world domination”. He contrasted this with the “arrogant, theatrical, false” militarism practised by the Nazis. </p>
<p>In short, German soldiers had fought an honourable, defensive war in the First World War; in the Second World War they had been (mis)led by a demagogic “madman”.</p>
<p>Ritter created what can be described as the only really successful and widely supported national myth of the Great War in post-1945 Germany. His message was one that many West Germans in the 1950s wanted to hear: that the Third Reich had been an “accident” and ordinary German people were not to blame for the Nazis’ crimes. </p>
<p>Many Germans felt the Treaty of Versailles had unjustifiably saddled the German Empire with sole responsibility for the outbreak of the Great War. As West Germany prepared to become a NATO member in 1955, Ritter’s argument made it possible for the nation to feel proud of its military traditions. </p>
<p>Like many other representatives of the “front generation of German historians”, Ritter himself was a veteran of the Great War. He had fought on both the eastern and western fronts from 1915 to 1918. His patriotic credentials were further strengthened by his involvement in conservative resistance circles against Hitler - he spent the last few months of the Third Reich in Gestapo custody. </p>
<p>The Nazis’ myths of the Great War had been overtly militaristic and aggressively anti-western. Ritter now offered a myth that fostered national feeling but also fitted in with Germany’s desire to be a part of Europe and the west.</p>
<h2>50th anniversary</h2>
<p>The First World War’s 50th anniversary, however, was less comfortable. In 1961, Fritz Fischer, previously a relatively obscure West German historian, published a book that claimed – in contrast to Ritter’s arguments – that there were strong continuities between German aims during the Great War and those pursued 25 years later by Hitler. </p>
<p>The ensuing controversy dominated headlines in West Germany during the 50th anniversary commemorations of the First World War in 1964. In the long run, it communicated – positively – that there would be no more uncontested patriotic myths or “illusions” about this particular period in Germany’s past. </p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, the hostile treatment that Fischer received at the hands of fellow historians – and the support he won from younger generations of students and journalists such as Rudolf Augstein, editor of <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/">Der Spiegel</a> – ensured that an elite group of academic professors, whether as veterans or revered scholars, could no longer claim dominance over the “national” interpretation of the Great War.</p>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>Moving forward to the 75th anniversary in 1989 and the centenary year in 2014, the Second World War has almost fully replaced WW1 as a focus for critical public engagement with the past and reference point for debates about the place of the 20th century in German national memory. </p>
<p>This explains the surprised response in the German media to news of Britain’s extensive, well-planned and relatively well-funded programme of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/first-world-war-centenary">commemorative events</a>. The [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/100-jahre-erster-weltkrieg/britischer-gedenken-ein-endsieg-im-ersten-weltkrieg-12868958.html](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/100-jahre-erster-weltkrieg/britischer-gedenken-ein-endsieg-im-ersten-weltkrieg-12868958.html) newspaper, for instance, referred in March 2014 to a “Britischer Gedenk-Marathon” or “British commemoration marathon”. </p>
<p>Australian historian Christopher Clark’s recent <a href="http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141027821,00.html">book</a> arguing that the European powers “sleep-walked” into war in 1914 has also been well-received. </p>
<p>Germans today have little appetite for constructing new national myths about the Great War, or reclaiming old ones, precisely because of painful associations with the more recent past.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Read the other articles in The Conversation’s Commemorating WWI series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/commemorating-wwi">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Stibbe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
There is not much of a question of who controls the national myth of the Great War in Germany today. Nobody in particular seems to want to claim it. More interesting, however, is considering who has sought…
Matthew Stibbe, Professor of Modern European History, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/29813
2014-08-01T01:52:54Z
2014-08-01T01:52:54Z
WWI commemorations in Belgium give a glimpse of a divided nation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55295/original/cy8mrtsp-1406703004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Flanders Fields was once the frontline of war – it now is a place of remembrance. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Wainwright/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Belgium as in Australia, there are no longer any surviving veterans of the Great War to witness the commemorations of its centenary. However, just as in Australia, there remains an immense interest in remembering the war. </p>
<p>In Belgium’s two largest regions, Flanders and Wallonia, people are buying centenary newspaper supplements and watching television documentaries. In attics or cellars, newly discovered letters, helmets and photos are creating concrete links with a painful past. It is a past that is no doubt distant to some, but one that continues to fascinate nonetheless.</p>
<p>Belgium is divided, linguistically and administratively, into Flemish-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia (alongside Brussels). And the revival of personal and local memory surrounding war contrasts markedly between the two main regions, with noticeable differences in the preparations for the centenary. </p>
<p>In this context of contemporary division and a Flemish <a href="https://theconversation.com/belgium-wont-split-after-sundays-elections-but-it-could-take-a-step-in-that-direction-26938">push for independence</a>, why the past is being politicised becomes clear. </p>
<p>In 2009, Flemish tourism minister Geert Bourgeois excluded historians from planning the Great War commemorations. He sought to use the centenary to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303754404579310242012980848">put the Flemish “state”</a> on the world stage. All references to Belgium in the planned activities were removed. </p>
<p>However, the idea of the Flemish people having died for a cause in the First World War that was not their own – a strong theme in Flemish memorial culture – was no longer present. Nevertheless, the aim was to draw as much international attention to the distinct and separate Flemish “state” as possible via the proactive politics of commemorative diplomacy.</p>
<p>However, these moves created controversy and forced the Belgian (federal) government to intervene in planning for the commemoration proceedings. For example, the <a href="http://www.krispeeters.be/sites/krispeeters/files/ffdeclaration_nov_en.pdf">In Flanders’ Fields Declaration</a> was initially drafted in 2010 and presented to 50 foreign governments, but not to the Belgian government nor the governments of Wallonia or Brussels. </p>
<p>This provoked strong reactions within Belgium and internationally, especially from the Australian government, because the declaration’s pacifist and ahistorical tone condemned all military engagement of any sort and made no reference to Belgium at all.</p>
<p>Following a struggle with the Flemish government over this issue, the Belgian federal government took over the running of three major international events related to the Great War centerary: commemorations at Liège and Mons in August 2014, at Ypres and Nieuport in October 2014 and at Brussels in November 2018.</p>
<p>The Walloon government took the opposite approach. In 2011, its minister-president Rudi Demotte gave academics key places on the commemoration’s organising committee. The Walloon centenary plans emphasised democratic values: respect for international law, human rights and the goals of liberty, and solidarity in a context of penury and resistance to oppression. </p>
<p>Importantly, Belgium featured prominently in memories of the Great War. The Walloon authorities essentially directed their efforts towards local memory, albeit in an international context.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55297/original/5nqv3js7-1406703338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55297/original/5nqv3js7-1406703338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55297/original/5nqv3js7-1406703338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55297/original/5nqv3js7-1406703338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55297/original/5nqv3js7-1406703338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55297/original/5nqv3js7-1406703338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55297/original/5nqv3js7-1406703338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55297/original/5nqv3js7-1406703338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The flags of Belgium, Flanders and the EU fly together.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">historic.brussels/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All of this has created a lively debate about the public role of historians. When the Flemish government made preparations for a major historical anniversary that excluded academic historians, there was outrage from the press while academics decried the government’s politicisation of the past.</p>
<p>But when the Walloon government entrusted the preparations to a steering committee comprised equally of academics, politicians and representatives of civil society, it was the turn of the academics to be criticised, usually by their peers, for engaging in politics.</p>
<p>The question of whether historians should have a public role has divided the historical community in Belgium. There were those who felt that historians should remain at arm’s length from the commemorations and conduct independent research. The historians’ role should therefore be to analyse the commemorations, the political choices made and the way such policies are implemented. </p>
<p>In this sense, historians must interrogate the key actors’ motivations, the power plays, how funding is allocated, the stated goals and the activities’ impact on the different groups that the commemorations address.</p>
<p>Others believe that historians must engage actively, so that we do not have history for history’s sake but rather so memory can be transmitted and interpreted in a way that is comprehensible to current and popular understandings of the past. </p>
<p>This carries the risk that historians may become compromised by the politics of commemorative design and implementation, because ultimately it is the politicians who make the decisions and control the purse strings. By 2018, Belgians will be able to see if the risks of such engagement have become reality or not.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was translated by Ben Wellings, Monash University.</em></p>
<p><em>Read the other articles in The Conversation’s Commemorating WWI series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/commemorating-wwi">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29813/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurence Van Ypersele does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In Belgium as in Australia, there are no longer any surviving veterans of the Great War to witness the commemorations of its centenary. However, just as in Australia, there remains an immense interest…
Laurence Van Ypersele, Professor of History, Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/29539
2014-07-30T20:06:34Z
2014-07-30T20:06:34Z
Reconciliation or récupération? Indigenous soldiers in WWI
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55207/original/fnz4gr9f-1406682250.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In recent years, the service of troops from France's then-colonies in both world wars has been the object of sustained presidential attention. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Philippe Wojazer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In vogue among the political left during the events in Paris in May 1968, the French term <em>récupération</em> refers to the danger of “the Establishment”, be it the government or a political party, seizing on an issue and opportunistically turning it to its own ends and advantage. An illustration can be found in the recent “recuperation” of the service of troops from France’s colonies who fought in the two world wars.</p>
<p>In Australia too, the “great silence” concerning black diggers has undergone a dramatic reversal.</p>
<h2>Soldiers from France’s colonies</h2>
<p>For a long time, soldiers from its colonies were <a href="http://crid1418.org/doc/textes/aldrich.pdf">relatively sparsely commemorated</a> in France, although many monuments were raised in the colonies themselves. In recent years, however, their service has been the object of sustained presidential attention. </p>
<p>In 2006, then-president Jacques Chirac <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jun/26/france.mainsection">unveiled a memorial</a> to the Muslim soldiers who died at the battle of Verdun at Douaumont. In 2012, Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, <a href="http://religion.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/03/14/sarkozy-lami-des-musulmans-a-la-mosquee-de-paris/">inaugurated</a> a temporary plaque at the Great Mosque in Paris dedicated to the memory of Muslim soldiers who were killed in the Great War. In February 2014, current president François Hollande <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2014/02/18/Hollande-pays-tribute-to-Muslim-soldiers-at-Paris-mosque-.html">dedicated</a> two permanent memorials to those who died in both world wars.</p>
<p>These commemorative gestures have drawn both considerable comment and criticism. Critics have asked if it is in accordance with the principles of the French Republic, which relegates confessional allegiance to the private sphere, to identify soldiers in this way – that is, through their religion.</p>
<p>Critics have also been quick to point out the timing of these gestures, coinciding with the run-up to elections or at a time of unpopularity due to measures that seem to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28106900">stigmatise Muslims</a>.</p>
<p>The presidents’ speeches make clear that they hope this recognition of the “sacrifice of all the Muslim soldiers who died for France” (in Sarkozy’s words) will contribute to the reconciliation of the second and third generations of Maghrebian immigrants (the “Beurs”) and their integration in French society. This is an illustration of the well-established trope in the social sciences that commemoration is far more about the present than the past.</p>
<h2>Indigenous Australian soldiders</h2>
<p>The conditions in which the French colonial troops served and those of the Aboriginal soldiers in Australia were different in many ways. Australia’s Aboriginals were formally excluded from military service, but nevertheless enlisted in the regular army in their hundreds for the First World War and in their thousands for the Second World War. </p>
<p>In France, however, hundreds of thousands of troops from the colonies were raised and organised into separate fighting units.</p>
<p>But in the racially and socially discriminatory context of the post-war eras, both groups found that their rights as veterans were ignored and their service forgotten – until recently. </p>
<p>In the last 15 years or so, the official institutions that for so long overlooked Indigenous service have begun to promote their memory. The <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/">Australian War Memorial</a> has developed an education program for schoolchildren, held several major exhibitions including <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/toodark/">Too Dark for the Light Horse</a>, which toured in 2000-01, and has many projects to commemorate black diggers over the Anzac Centenary period. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55244/original/f7qpq5xt-1406691732.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55244/original/f7qpq5xt-1406691732.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55244/original/f7qpq5xt-1406691732.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55244/original/f7qpq5xt-1406691732.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55244/original/f7qpq5xt-1406691732.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55244/original/f7qpq5xt-1406691732.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55244/original/f7qpq5xt-1406691732.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55244/original/f7qpq5xt-1406691732.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monuments dedicated to Indigenous Australian soldiers have become increasingly prominent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Margaret Scheikowski</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The monuments dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander soldiers have become increasingly ambitious and prominent. The latest, dedicated <a href="http://adelaidecityexplorer.com.au/items/show/93">in Adelaide</a> in November 2013, lays claim to being the first national memorial. Another is <a href="http://www.sydneymedia.com.au/calling-artists-for-indigenous-war-memorial/">to be built</a> in central Sydney’s Hyde Park for 2015. </p>
<p>The Returned and Services League (RSL) has partnered with city authorities and the Department of Veterans Affairs (its <a href="http://veterans.nsw.gov.au/centenary/wartime-legends-community-guide/">“Wartime Legends” initiative</a>) since 2007 to hold annual commemorations during Reconciliation Week.</p>
<h2>The dangers of recuperation</h2>
<p>So who could object to such recognition after decades of neglect? And yet what are the dangers of recuperation of the service of black diggers in the interests of a kind of “soft reconciliation” that downplays the reality of Indigenous experience before during and after the war, for the vast majority of the Aboriginal population? </p>
<p>South Australian Liberal senator David Fawcett <a href="http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?id=2013-11-12.39.1">asserted</a> in his Remembrance Day speech last year:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The fact that so many [Aboriginal] people served when so many barriers were put in their way is, I think, a testament to their love of country – they actually wanted to serve their people and their nation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here, Fawcett used Aboriginal war service to promote a pacified vision of European-Indigenous relations.</p>
<p>The commemoration of black diggers contributes to the adaptation and modernisation of the Anzac myth for contemporary Australia. Multicultural Australia requires a multicultural Anzac commemoration that incorporates groups who were formerly excluded, not only Aborigines but also Chinese diggers, for example. Witness the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/24/1019441262394.html">memorial</a> to Chinese-Australian diggers in Sydney’s Chinatown and the renewed interest in <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/education/schools/resources/billy-sing/">“The Assassin”</a>, Billy Sing – a renowned sniper at Gallipoli. </p>
<p>Such recognition allows the Chinese and Aboriginal communities to share in the narrative of nation-building based on war service. But it also leaves that narrative relatively untouched. As Celeste Liddle <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/we-must-remember-indigenous-warriors-who-fought-war-itself">wrote</a> recently, the Indigenous perspective on war should also be about challenging the mythology of war.</p>
<p>Rather than recuperating the black diggers and soldiers from minority communities into the “militarisation” of Australian history, let’s use their stories to cast a different perspective on war - to complicate the assumptions about why men enlisted, for example. Their stories can help complete the picture of the post-war neglect of veterans, both black and white, and inform discussion about war’s terrible impact on individuals and communities.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Read the other articles in The Conversation’s Commemorating WWI series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/commemorating-wwi">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29539/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Rechniewski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In vogue among the political left during the events in Paris in May 1968, the French term récupération refers to the danger of “the Establishment”, be it the government or a political party, seizing on…
Elizabeth Rechniewski, Honorary Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/29348
2014-07-30T04:20:29Z
2014-07-30T04:20:29Z
Who owns the myths and legends of the Great War centenary?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55142/original/g3gvyhmr-1406611354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many parties have a vested interest in shaping the way we remember the Great War ahead of its centenary, but some are more equal than others.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Thomas Bregardis</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When prime minister Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-07/abbott-tours-western-front-ahead-of-meeting-with-hollande/5507638">declared</a> at Villers-Bretonneux that “no place on earth has been more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than these fields in France”, Australian attention focused again on the battlefields of Europe as a source of national inspiration.</p>
<p>Abbott pledged that Villers-Bretonneux would host an interactive museum, the centrepiece of the <a href="http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/australian-remembrance-trail/news.php">Australian Remembrance Trail</a> stretching from Ypres in Belgium to Peronne in France, by 2018 as part of an <a href="http://www.anzaccentenary.gov.au/anzac_centenary/faq.htm">estimated A$140 million</a> in government funding allocated to the Anzac centenary.</p>
<p>This investment shows the importance the Australian government attaches to making the Great War accessible and comprehensible, linking Australians to people and places on the other side of the world.</p>
<p>So, as we approach the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, who or what is shaping the way we remember it?</p>
<p>The wave of events, reports, films, exhibits, books, television programs, research projects and many other contemporary forms of First World War commemoration is well underway. Significant anniversaries proliferate at this time of year, such as June 28, the date that <a href="https://theconversation.com/franz-ferdinand-assasination-how-a-hit-on-one-man-plunged-the-world-into-war-28530">Franz Ferdinand was assassinated</a>, and August 4, when German troops invaded Belgium, and Britain (and therefore the Empire) declared war.</p>
<p>These dates are not just important for historians. As the surge in commemorative activity shows, the First World War is very much a contemporary phenomenon – one that pulls in dozens of countries.</p>
<p>In a recently released <a href="http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=72209&concordeid=430937">book</a> we co-edited, contributors discussed the politics shaping First World War commemorations in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France, Germany and Belgium in order to better understand Australia’s commemorations in a comparative framework.</p>
<p>The first point to note is that these commemorations are global in nature. Similar pressures to create new narratives linking globalised states and national citizens generated demands for commemorative activity across the developed world in the past 30 years. Australia is no exception. The Great War commemorations take place at what might be the zenith of the current <a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300110685">“memory boom”</a>.</p>
<p>A second finding is that despite common global themes (and maybe because of them), national and local circumstances loom large in the form and content of Great War commemorations.</p>
<p>Such activities are not organised in a political vacuum. They are performed with the crucial support – or at least the inevitable intrusion of – the state. Official organisation of commemorative ceremonies, government funding for memorials and education programs and the language our political leaders use all shape our remembrance of the Great War. </p>
<p>This means that the themes and tones of commemorations must resonate at a personal as well as national level, and be politically useful in order to continue to enjoy official support.</p>
<p>A related point is that the use of “memorial diplomacy” is increasing as part of this trend and as a deliberate activity of government. <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/tony-abbott-joins-australian-veterans-at-dday-memorial-meets-queen-elizabeth-ii-and-world-leaders/story-fndir2ev-1226946250801">Abbott’s attendance</a> at D-Day remembrance ceremonies in June, along with leaders from the UK, France, Britain and Germany (among others), is a recent example. Such co-operative, multinational activity affects the tenor of domestic commemoration, but will also be an important stage for bilateral and multilateral relationships up to 2018.</p>
<p>As we know, remembering and forgetting are two sides of the same coin. But something else has become apparent in the run-up to the centenary: it has become extremely difficult – if not impossible – to remember the First World War without remembering the Second World War. This has been particularly the case in Germany but is no less true in Belgium. It is also difficult to imagine the Great War in Ireland, north and south, without memories of “The Troubles” intruding.</p>
<p>This blending of histories has its origins in specific national memories. In Germany, it occurs because the crimes of the Holocaust have <a href="http://jch.sagepub.com/content/48/2/315.abstract">permanently coloured</a> German views of the entire 20th century. It exists in Belgium because accusations of Flemish collaboration with the Nazis are used to <a href="http://www.puf.com/Auteur:Laurence_Van_Ypersele">delegitimise Flemish nationalism</a>. In Northern Ireland, there are <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-11313364">direct organisational links</a> between the nationalist and loyalist paramilitaries operative until the peace of 2007 and the civil wars fought in Ireland from 1916.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55150/original/qbshvr7v-1406611782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55150/original/qbshvr7v-1406611782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55150/original/qbshvr7v-1406611782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55150/original/qbshvr7v-1406611782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55150/original/qbshvr7v-1406611782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55150/original/qbshvr7v-1406611782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55150/original/qbshvr7v-1406611782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tony Abbott wants to make Villers–Bretonneux the centre of Australia’s Great War remembrance psyche.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Christopher James</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, despite recent historical <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-regional-history/cambridge-history-first-world-war-volume-3">research</a> stressing the transnational nature of the First World War, contemporary commemorative politics remain national despite, and also because of, its global scope. This is a very basic point but one that needs stating. The politics of nationalism has a profound impact on the shape of Great War commemoration. </p>
<p>In some places, nationalist politics may prevent a deep connection with state narratives, as happens in Flanders in relation to the rest of Belgium. In other multinational states, such as the United Kingdom, the politics of nationalism and multiculturalism produce state narratives that seek to include an almost impossibly wide national and international group of communities. </p>
<p>In France and Australia, where more unitary national narratives exist, commemoration provides an opportunity for governments to endorse values they hold dear.</p>
<p>Although widely blamed for the outbreak of war and for playing a large part in sustaining the conflict once hostilities began, nationalism still plays an important part in the way that the First World War is remembered today. No matter how great the toll, it is clear that the “nation” was not on the casualty list.</p>
<p>So, who owns the national myth as it relates to the Great War? The answer in Australia and Europe is that there are many players with vested interests – from individuals to organisations to governments. But some are more equal than others in shaping the way we remember the First World War, and even in a global era the self-weakened state still plays a dominant role in how and what we commemorate. </p>
<p>The example of the Australian Remembrance Trail reminds us that even when governments seek to do less and ask citizens to do more “lifting”, a compelling national narrative is not something they can do without.</p>
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<p><em>This is the first piece in The Conversation’s Commemorating WWI series. Stay tuned for others in the days to come.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29348/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
When prime minister Tony Abbott declared at Villers-Bretonneux that “no place on earth has been more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than these fields in France”, Australian attention focused again…
Ben Wellings, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Monash University
Shanti Sumartojo, Research Fellow, School of Architecture and Design, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.