tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/wwi-centenary-8496/articlesWWI Centenary – The Conversation2018-12-19T23:52:01Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1089872018-12-19T23:52:01Z2018-12-19T23:52:01ZWhat Australian soldiers ate for Christmas in WWI<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251456/original/file-20181219-27761-h57tyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cover of the menu for the AIF Christmas Dinner, Hotel Cecil, London, in 1916. Illustration by Fred Leist. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museums Victoria collection, donated by Jean Bourke</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We have just concluded four years of commemoration of the centenary of the first world war and, although the guns fell silent in November 1918, by Christmas many Australians were still separated from their loved ones. </p>
<p>For Australians serving overseas in WWI, celebrations such as Christmas were particularly difficult, a reminder that the war had laid waste to their routines and taken them away from their families.</p>
<p>We can see from historical documents that every effort was made to reproduce the form and content of a traditional Christmas meal, whether that be on board a ship, in the mess or even in the trenches</p>
<h2>On active service</h2>
<p>Maintaining the traditions of Christmas could be logistically difficult. It was often simply a slightly larger amount of food than the normal rations, with additional treats, such as the half pound of Christmas pudding that Major-General John Monash procured for every man in his Third Division in 1917. Alcohol was a welcome addition. </p>
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<span class="caption">Women distribute Christmas billies to men in Cairo, Egypt, December 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/anzac-christmas-hampers">Christmas hampers</a> and billies sent from home provided particular joy to those lucky enough to receive them.
Some, however, experienced Christmas dinners like that of <a href="https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/391264">Private John Chugg</a> of 1st Light Horse Field Ambulance, who complained “it was a miserable Xmas” in Egypt in 1914: “boiled beef unpeeled potatoes and tea without milk… [and] no mail or anything to cheer us”. </p>
<p>Sapper Alfred Galbraith described Christmas day in Ismailia Camp, Egypt, in December 1915 in a letter to his family. Each man chipped in to <a href="https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/380308">purchase a turkey</a> and</p>
<blockquote>
<p>chickens more like humming birds, soft drinks and a few biscuits. The chickens were dealt out 1 between 5 men and some of them would not feed one let alone 5 men, the one we got we tossed up to see who would get it & I won but I half it with my pal & then the two of us went & bought some […] biscuits & some tin fruit.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Alf is depicted in <a href="https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/803316">a photo of the dinner</a>, sitting awkwardly on canvas at the end of a row of soldiers, mess tins in front of each and an occasional bottle, likely of beer. Alf’s Christmas letter concludes nostalgically “Dear Australia the land of my Birth which we will all be glad to see again … it will be a glorious day if I live to see it out … ” It was to be his last Christmas.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AIF troops celebrating Christmas at Ismailia Camp, Egypt, in December 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museums Victoria</span></span>
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<p>A special meal could have the effect of making the war recede, if briefly, for the soldiers who partook of it. This is the impression gleaned from the menu for the 1917 Christmas dinner at the “A” Mess of the 3rd Australian Divisional Headquarters in France, led by Monash. </p>
<p>The hand-drawn menu features bucolic sketches of rural French life, and a list of dishes in a mix of French and English, signalling the prestige of the officers’ dinner. </p>
<p>The 10 courses included <em>hors d’oeuvres</em> (olives and “<em>Tomato au Lobster</em>”), <em>potage _(“_Crème de Giblet</em>”), <em>poisson</em>, <em>entrée</em> (chicken), <em>viands</em> (pork and ham), legumes, sweets (three choices) and a cheese tart, ending with wine and coffee. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The menu served at an AIF Christmas Dinner in 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museums Victoria collection, donated by Jean Bourke</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The “B” Mess dinner at the Headquarters was almost as sumptuous, but with fewer courses. Its more simple menu included a humorous script, poetry and parodies. When the food concluded a toast was made to “Absent Ones”, drunk “while softly murmuring the words ‘Not lost but gone to CORPS’”. Notably, the term “Lest We Forget” was used to remind diners of good etiquette!</p>
<h2>Christmas in transit</h2>
<p>The voyage to active overseas service was a mixture of excitement, trepidation and monotony. Food service broke the boredom of long days at sea. On board the SS Suffolk on Christmas day 1915 diners were treated to a multi-course dinner, opening with olives, mock turtle soup and salmon cutlets in anchovy sauce. The next course featured iced asparagus, beef fillets with mushrooms and prawns in aspic, before the food became even more serious, with four types of meat, baked and boiled potatoes, and beans. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the 4th Australian Field Ambulance at Christmas in Lemnos in 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Four deserts followed, including plum pudding with both hard and brandy sauces. Like many special occasion menus of the war, diners signed their names on the back.</p>
<h2>Aprés la guerre</h2>
<p>The desire to be “home by Christmas” had been widely expressed from the very first year of the Great War, yet when the armistice finally came in 1918, Australians on active service still had a long journey ahead of them and faced another Christmas away from home. </p>
<p>In 1918, the 2nd Australian pioneers officers’ Christmas dinner took place “somewhere in France”, featuring a menu entirely in French save for the words “plum pudding” and “God Save the King”. Two half pages of the menu were dedicated to “Autographs”. </p>
<p><a href="https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/381846">The souvenir menu card</a> from the 13th Australian Field Ambulance 2nd anniversary dinner, held on Christmas Day 1918 in the Palace of Justice, Dinant-Sur-Meuse, Belgium likewise has a page for autographs. The festive menu features an extensive list of desserts.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The menu served to the 13th Australian Field Ambulance on Christmas Day 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museums Victoria collection, donated by John Lord</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Christmas dinner in 1919 saw Australians who had served in Europe returning home on the SS Königin Luise, a German ship allocated to Britain as part of war reparations. <a href="https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/396763">A menu</a> saved by Sergeant Tom Robinson Lydster bears no references to the war. </p>
<p>A wreath of holly frames an eclectic menu including “<em>Fillet of Sole au Vin Blanc, Asperges au Beurre Fondu</em>” but also “Lamb cutlets, Tomato sauce, Roast Sirlion of Beef”. The Christmas element is provided by “Plum Pudding, Brandy Sauce, Mince Pies”. More than a year after the end of the war, some surviving Australians were yet to celebrate Christmas on home soil.</p>
<p>Christmas traditions for Australian soldiers, nurses and medics helped maintain cultural normalcy during overseas service. Yet Christmas on active service could be a time of significant stress, a reminder of loved ones far away and of fallen friends. Unfortunately, for those who returned to Australia, forever changed by their experiences, Christmas was not always what they remembered or had imagined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Merle Benbow receives funding from The McCoy Seed Fund. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deborah Tout-Smith works for Museums Victoria, which has received external funding, including government-funded, foundation and research council grants. The research in this article was supported by the McCoy grant. Deborah is the Vice-Chair of the board of ICOM (International Council of Museums) Australia, sits on the ICOM-ITC Program Committee, and is a former board member of the History Council of Victoria. She has also held offices in the American Alliance of Museums and Museums Australia.</span></em></p>For Australians serving overseas in WWI, Christmas was particularly difficult. Menus reveal how soldiers tried to maintain the traditions of home.Heather Merle Benbow, Senior lecturer in German and European Studies, The University of MelbourneDeborah Tout-Smith, Senior Curator, Society & Technology Department, Museums Victoria Research InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/626892016-07-24T20:04:22Z2016-07-24T20:04:22ZWe 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>
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<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>
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</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 UniversityJames Bennett, Senior Lecturer in History in the School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385892015-04-17T02:27:56Z2015-04-17T02:27:56ZA hundred in a million: our obsession with the Victoria Cross<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74993/original/image-20150316-9184-ij5lhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The recent concentration on Victoria Cross heroes as major 'carriers' of the Anzac legend has skewed Australian military history.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mark Graham</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Gallipoli centenary provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the many wartime legacies – human, political, economic, military – that forged independent nations from former colonies and dominions. The Conversation, in partnership with <a href="https://griffithreview.com/">Griffith Review</a>, is publishing a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/griffith-review-enduring-legacies">series of essays</a> exploring the <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/enduring-legacies/">enduring legacies of 20th-century wars</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676600/">Martin O'Meara</a>, a Tipperary man who had enlisted in Perth, was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC) for carrying both wounded comrades and ammunition under shellfire at Pozières in August 1916. In 1919, he returned to Perth with three wounds and sergeant’s stripes. The 1963 book <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8424787?selectedversion=NBD3841314">They Dared Mightily</a> coyly notes that soon after the war:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>His health broke down completely. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What it did not reveal was that O’Meara also returned with “delusional insanity, with hallucinations … extremely homicidal and suicidal”. Committed to the insane ward at Claremont repatriation hospital, where he was usually held “in restraint”, he died in 1935, his sanity destroyed by the war. </p>
<p>By then, another Western Australian VC, <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10675770/">Hugo Throssell</a>, had taken his own life in 1933. “My old war head is going phut,” he confided to friends. </p>
<p>Curiously, neither O’Meara’s nor Throssell’s trauma seems to attract much attention in the slew of books extolling VC heroes that have appeared in increasing numbers in recent years.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74997/original/image-20150316-9190-hzd7qe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74997/original/image-20150316-9190-hzd7qe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74997/original/image-20150316-9190-hzd7qe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74997/original/image-20150316-9190-hzd7qe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74997/original/image-20150316-9190-hzd7qe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74997/original/image-20150316-9190-hzd7qe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74997/original/image-20150316-9190-hzd7qe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74997/original/image-20150316-9190-hzd7qe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hugo Throssell was awarded a VC for his actions at Gallipoli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the Crimean War (1854–56), Queen Victoria expressed a desire to recognise exceptional deeds in some tangible form. Previously, bravery had been recognised, if at all, inconsistently – by promotion, monetary reward or mere praise. Instituting a reward “For Valour” – as the medal was inscribed – standardised the record of heroism. It was a classic Victorian device combining high notions of heroism with bureaucratic documentation.</p>
<p>The VC has always attracted attention. When it was first introduced, it soon became a standard benchmark of valour – the attainment of which conferred useful advantages on a man’s career. During the Indian mutiny-cum-rebellion in 1857–58, young British officers all wanted to gain a VC. An astonishing 24 were awarded for actions performed in one day – November 16, 1857. </p>
<p>The awards, though open to all ranks (all European ranks, anyway), mostly went to lieutenants in their 20s in massively disproportionate terms. Gaining a VC became a career-defining distinction. Those who care about them tend to deprecate the idea that VCs are “won”. They murmur “it’s not a raffle, you know”. </p>
<p>Through the second half of the 19th century, the VC became the apogee of the Victorian soldier’s dreams of glory. Awarded after clashes with mutineers, Afridis, Sudanese fuzzy-wuzzies, Asantes, Zulus and Pathans, by the end of the reign of its namesake it had become firmly fixed as the ultimate military decoration.</p>
<p>About 1357 VCs have been awarded – 100 of them to Australians in five wars. Six were awarded in the South African war, 66 in the Great War, 20 in the Second World War, four in Vietnam and four in Afghanistan. To put that in perspective, that is 100 men among the million or so Australians who have seen action in wartime since 1900. Statistically, we are looking at a group that is exceptional in every sense.</p>
<h2>A highly visible commemoration</h2>
<p>The VC is not just a relic of Australia’s colonial standing. It was re-invented as the Victoria Cross for Australia in 1991. During the intervention in Afghanistan, four members of the Australian Army received VCs. </p>
<p>While proponents of the Anzac legend stress its continuities, there seems to be a world of difference between the volunteer citizen soldier VCs of the Somme and the regular soldiers of the Australian Defence Force in Uruzgan province. What connects them is acts of bravery performed at great cost.</p>
<p>With the enormous veneration that the VC attracts, it is important to make clear at the outset that every single one of those awarded the VC has performed a deed worthy of the highest regard. It’s always a “deed”. Archaic language comes easily when talking about the VC.</p>
<p>There is no question that these men all did things that were heroic, in some cases displaying extraordinary “valour” – more archaic language. The point is not that they did not individually deserve recognition, or even that others arguably deserved recognition for comparable deeds and did not receive it. The point is that Australians now seem so fascinated by the VC that such attention has begun to get in the way of a balanced perspective on its place in military history.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74998/original/image-20150316-9198-19fqjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74998/original/image-20150316-9198-19fqjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74998/original/image-20150316-9198-19fqjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74998/original/image-20150316-9198-19fqjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74998/original/image-20150316-9198-19fqjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74998/original/image-20150316-9198-19fqjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1255&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74998/original/image-20150316-9198-19fqjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74998/original/image-20150316-9198-19fqjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1255&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harry Murray was the Great War’s most decorated Australian.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The commemoration of VCs is highly visible. In Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries, their headstones are marked not by the badge of their regiment (for British soldiers) or of their national force (for dominion troops) but by a representation of the VC itself. Cemeteries in which VCs lie are always identified, by signs and explanatory panels or in guidebooks and websites. </p>
<p>The hometowns of many VCs commemorate their own VCs, with statues and memorials, such as to <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676877/">John Bernard (Jack) Mackey</a> in the main street of Portland, NSW; <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676831/">Edgar Towner</a> in Blackall, Queensland; <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/fiftyaustralians/35.asp">Harry Murray</a> in Evandale, Tasmania; and no fewer than three VCs in Euroa, Victoria. </p>
<p>And VCs are becoming the focus of local remembrance. The local council in Tumut (NSW) is proposing to change the name of a local park to Ryan Park, after <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676782/">John Ryan</a>, a Tumut man awarded the VC in the attacks on the Hindenburg Line in 1918, who is already commemorated in the park. </p>
<p>Tumut’s example exemplifies exactly how adulation of the VC is skewing the traditional Australian egalitarian emphasis on service and sacrifice.</p>
<h2>The Victoria Cross and the Australian War Memorial</h2>
<p>VCs increasingly populate Australian military history, which has enjoyed an unending boom since the early 1980s. There is a minor cottage industry in writing about VCs, with books ranging from expert and scholarly studies to illustrated compilations recycling summaries of VC deeds and privately published works by enthusiasts. </p>
<p>More books on individual VCs have appeared in the past decade than at any period: ten between 1930 and 2000, but 17 since then. There have been several general books: <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/shop/item/1740662881/">Victoria Cross: Australia’s Finest and the Battles They Fought</a> by Australia’s premier VC expert, Anthony Staunton; <a href="http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781742375847">Bravest: Australia’s Greatest War Heroes and How They Won Their Medals</a> by Robert Macklin; and, for children, <a href="http://aussiereviews.com/2013/04/for-valour-australias-victoria-cross-heroes-by-nicolas-brasch/">Australia’s Victoria Cross Heroes</a> by Nicholas Brasch. </p>
<p>VCs also figure inevitably in campaign studies, though their deeds are rarely of any significance to the broader story. For example, the six VCs awarded at Lone Pine figure prominently in every account of the action, even though they were all awarded to men of battalions sent into the fight later – and whose officers therefore survived to submit the “recommendations” with which the process begins. The VCs do not reflect the nature of the fight, but are unavoidably associated with accounts of it.</p>
<p>Australia venerates the VC arguably more than before the “war on terror” brought us perpetual conflict. Since the 1980s, the Australian War Memorial (AWM) has strongly promoted the VC, which has done much to enhance the medal’s stature. It can be argued this promotion has the effect of inclining the museum’s visitors – both in person and online – to take an unduly positive view not only towards these few heroes, but also to the uncritical view that the AWM promotes towards Australia’s military history.</p>
<p>The AWM’s VC collection went from being negligible 50-odd years ago to occupying the large gallery now at its heart. Significantly, VCs had no strong presence in the AWM as conceived by the Australian official correspondent and later historian Charles Bean, but its collection, and the space devoted to it, grew after his death. It was first displayed in a telephone-box-sized showcase holding a few medals, quaintly called “VC Corner”. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/hall-of-valour/">“Hall of Valour”</a> opened in 1981 and has been enlarged twice, most recently in 2011. It now displays 67 Australian VCs (and three British VCs with Australian associations) and comparable decorations such as the George Cross. While the AWM does not buy VCs on the open market, it accepts medals donated by supporters – notably businessman <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/kerry-stokes-is-the-tycoon-with-a-heart-who-collects-diggers-medals-only-to-give-them-away/story-fni0fiyv-1227094253814">Kerry Stokes</a>, who has purchased at least seven VCs for it. This reflects the more elevated stature accorded the medal in recent years.</p>
<p>The AWM promotes VC recipients as the highest exponents of the “Anzac spirit”. It publishes books about them and articles in its magazine, Wartime, invites VC recipients to participate in ceremonies and public programs, and VCs are prominent in its new café, <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/prime-minister-tony-abbott-opens-new-cafe-at-australian-war-memorial-20140724-zwc6m.html">opened</a> by Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2014. </p>
<p>The AWM has adopted <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10022612/">Ben Roberts-Smith</a>, VC, in particular as its mascot – if a powerful man more than two metres tall and correspondingly broad can be so described. He has officiated at exhibition openings and book launches, led the Anzac Day march and spoken at and for the AWM – in person, in print and on film, most recently writing a foreword to the AWM’s book, Anzac Treasures. </p>
<p>Far from fostering a neutral or critical attitude to war and Australia, the AWM arguably promotes rather than merely documents, at the expense of the awareness of the experience of the anonymous majority of soldiers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74999/original/image-20150316-9184-72z1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74999/original/image-20150316-9184-72z1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74999/original/image-20150316-9184-72z1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74999/original/image-20150316-9184-72z1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74999/original/image-20150316-9184-72z1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74999/original/image-20150316-9184-72z1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74999/original/image-20150316-9184-72z1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Australian War Memorial has adopted VC recipient Ben Roberts-Smith as its ‘mascot’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bolstering a faltering commitment to war</h2>
<p>There is a curious naivety to accounts of what are often described as “VC Battles”. A man performs a “deed”; his “valour” is recognised by the award of a VC; the accompanying “citation” describes what he did, usually in creaky, passive prose. But the effect is miraculous. The citations are couched as truthful statements without authors, but also without ambiguity, and accepted seemingly without question. </p>
<p>The mystical process is validated by the award being made not just in the name but often by the hand of the sovereign. Adulation of VC heroes is now at odds with a more open, critical understanding of Australia’s attitude to conflict. </p>
<p>It is now possible to show that Australians deserted or caught venereal diseases; to argue that respected commanders were actually fools or knaves; that the Anzac legend was tarnished as well as burnished. But the greater regard for VCs acts to neutralise critical attention. It will undoubtedly be regarded as poor taste to criticise what is perhaps Australian military history’s last remaining sacred cow.</p>
<p>And yet, as the scrutiny of the awards made in the Great War to Australians suggests, this was not a process untouched by suggestions of pragmatism and political opportunism. The timing of awards, recommendations rejected, the language of the citations, the circumstances of their award, subjectivity and serendipity all suggest that the process was very much a human and indeed a political process. Gaining one decoration attracted others. </p>
<p>“I always got first go at the bucket,” Harry Murray admitted cheerfully to explain later decorations. </p>
<p>As Victoria D’Alton’s <a href="http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/fapi/datastream/unsworks:10841/SOURCE01?view=true">research</a> shows, VCs were not simply awarded because a few soldiers performed brave deeds. Rather, they were very much the product of an imperial system under stress. For example, it is surely significant that half of the VCs awarded to men of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on the Western Front were awarded in 1918, the year when the Australian Corps was under the most severe strain, losses were proportionally greater than even 1916 and volunteers in Australia had almost entirely dried up.</p>
<p>Like the timing of John Monash’s knighthood and Nellie Melba’s damehood, it can be suggested that awards were intended to bolster Australia’s faltering commitment to the war. Arguments within the chain of command over the nature of “deeds” to be rewarded – aggressive actions became preferred over rescuing wounded comrades – show the process to be all too political.</p>
<h2>What did war do to men?</h2>
<p>Whether the attention VCs now attract would impress Great War VCs is problematic. Many played down their awards, as VCs tend to do. <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676726/">Joe Maxwell</a>, the second most highly decorated Australian soldier of the Great War (a boilermaker superbly suited to leadership in war but with little aptitude for peace), reflected modestly that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I was the bravest man that day, then God help the man who was most afraid. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Harry Murray, accepted as the Great War’s most decorated Australian, rarely wore his medals, attended just two Anzac Day services after 1919 and declined to take part in formal occasions, such as the dedication in 1941 of the Australian War Memorial. He refused the chance to return to France in 1956 for fear of “raking up very sad memories”. He found, as did many VCs, that receiving the award changes everything. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75003/original/image-20150316-9190-1nogh2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75003/original/image-20150316-9190-1nogh2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75003/original/image-20150316-9190-1nogh2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75003/original/image-20150316-9190-1nogh2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75003/original/image-20150316-9190-1nogh2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75003/original/image-20150316-9190-1nogh2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75003/original/image-20150316-9190-1nogh2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75003/original/image-20150316-9190-1nogh2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mark Donaldson received a VC for his actions in Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/David Crosling</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Try not to let it go to your head,” <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676520/">Ted Kenna</a> (a 1945 VC) counselled <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10015140/">Mark Donaldson</a> in 2009. Donaldson’s reflective autobiography, <a href="http://www.panmacmillan.com.au/display_title.asp?ISBN=9781742612287&Author=Donaldson,%20Mark">The Crossroad</a>, suggests that he possesses an unusual, and useful, degree of common sense and modesty.</p>
<p>As it becomes more valorised, the VC arouses extremes of passion, with individuals advocating the claims of those arguably “denied” recognition, who have been known to lobby for years to gain redress. In 2013, an Inquiry into Unresolved Recognition for Past Acts of Naval and Military Gallantry and Valour <a href="https://defence-honours-tribunal.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/AF13050787.pdf">reported</a>, after an extensive two-year inquiry involving dozens of written submissions and public hearings, into the claims of 13 individuals supposedly denied recognition. </p>
<p>These individuals included <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10675912/">John Simpson Kirkpatrick</a> (arguably the Great War’s most famous Australian soldier), <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676787/">Edward Sheean</a> (who died heroically on HMAS Armidale in 1942) and ten other sailors. No Royal Australian Navy member has been awarded the VC. </p>
<p>The very existence of the inquiry – the product of determined pressure over many years – aroused further claims. It examined another 140 cases. In a detailed and well-justified report, the tribunal made the “courageous” recommendation that no “retrospective” VCs should be awarded. Interestingly, while professional historians generally argued against retrospective awards, some popular writers urged that they were justified.</p>
<p>The number of books on VCs now available means that they are overwhelmingly the best documented and most celebrated members of Australia’s military forces. Some of these books reflect their authors’ expertise (notably Anthony Staunton or Andrew Faulkner). </p>
<p>Writing about VCs is entirely legitimate and some are works of quality. However, such books invariably celebrate heroic “deeds”, but are rarely portraits of what war does to men as well as what men do in war. </p>
<p>Still, it is incontrovertible that these men did perform acts of individual bravery meriting recognition. Even if other men performed brave deeds that were not recognised, or resulted in anomalies of recognition, surely there is no harm done?</p>
<p>Actually, there is.</p>
<h2>Skewing Australia’s military history</h2>
<p>Much has been made in recent years of the “militarisation” of Australian history. The argument, first advanced by Marilyn Lake and her co-authors in <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/whats-wrong-with-anzac/">What’s Wrong with Anzac?</a>, has been largely dismissed by those who value military history as a field of study and endeavour. It has also been derided by those who venerate VCs, such as Mervyn Bendle, whose articles in Quadrant denigrate all those who present the Anzac legend as anything other than the premier article of faith and shibboleth of belief in Australia. </p>
<p>While some of the arguments of Lake and others have been well-founded, such as in their identification of the elevation of Anzac into a founding myth and the undue promotion of military history through the deployment of government funding, they have been advanced by scholars who generally do not identify as military historians and who do not actually know the field from within.</p>
<p>Writing as a historian familiar with the history of the Australian Defence Force and its precursors and the operational history of Australian forces in several wars, generally before 1945, I would argue that the recent concentration on Victoria Cross heroes as major “carriers” of the Anzac legend has had the effect of skewing the presentation and perception of Australian military history.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75007/original/image-20150316-9190-5d1gzg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75007/original/image-20150316-9190-5d1gzg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75007/original/image-20150316-9190-5d1gzg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75007/original/image-20150316-9190-5d1gzg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75007/original/image-20150316-9190-5d1gzg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75007/original/image-20150316-9190-5d1gzg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75007/original/image-20150316-9190-5d1gzg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75007/original/image-20150316-9190-5d1gzg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&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 awarding of a VC to Arthur Blackburn helps to soften the story of the battle of the Somme.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Focusing on and invariably celebrating the heroism and success so often a part of the VCs’ stories has the effect of distracting attention from the horror and futility that is also part of the broader story. The Australian VCs awarded on the Western Front – just more than half of the total – celebrate individual valour in ways that counter the mass, industrial-scale, indiscriminate slaughter of that war. Perhaps that partly explains their popularity. </p>
<p>For example, the story of <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676227/">Arthur Blackburn</a>, South Australia’s celebrated VC at Pozières, helps to soften the anonymous, violent, degrading death that was for 6000-odd Australians the essence of the Somme. The recent intensification of interest in the VC suggest that war is about heroic individual endeavour, not assaults by infantry killed en masse or the deployment of high-technology weapons.</p>
<p>Veneration of VCs challenges Australia’s tradition of democratic commemoration. Robert Macklin, in his book Bravest, which deals with a selected few VCs, claims that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The VC has a particular appeal to the egalitarian streak in the Australian character. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But even Macklin concedes that as the VC became ever more prized, its story became “ever more gloriously arrayed with myth and legend”. I would argue that the VC story actually denies the egalitarian streak in Australian military history because it valorises the few rather than empathising with the many.</p>
<p>Writing on the Somme in 1916, Bean reflected on the AIF’s part in the great offensive. He praised its men but emphasised that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They are not heroes. They are just ordinary Australians doing their particular work as their country would wish them to do. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While Bean’s official history duly notes each Australian VC, he surely knew that those decorated were not the only heroes. It is significant that the Roll of Honour in the memorial he founded records the names but not the decorations of the dead. </p>
<p>A century on, Bean’s admiration for the egalitarian, volunteer citizen force he documented, celebrated and mourned seems less accepted than once it was. The emphasis on “Anzac VC heroes” ensures that Australia sees glory in its war history rather than the horrific reality.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read a longer version of this article and others from the Griffith Review’s latest edition on the enduring legacies of war <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/enduring-legacies/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38589/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Stanley 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>Australians now seem so fascinated by the Victoria Cross that such attention has begun to get in the way of a balanced perspective on its place in military history.Peter Stanley, Research Professor in the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/388602015-04-15T00:31:19Z2015-04-15T00:31:19ZHow the Great War shaped the foundations of Australia’s future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75055/original/image-20150317-11980-lmm13k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Gallipoli campaign is frequently celebrated as the 'birth' of Australia as a nation, but were we already well on our way?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Gallipoli centenary provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the many wartime legacies – human, political, economic, military – that forged independent nations from former colonies and dominions. Over the next fortnight, The Conversation, in partnership with <a href="https://griffithreview.com/">Griffith Review</a>, is publishing a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/griffith-review-enduring-legacies">series of essays</a> exploring the <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/enduring-legacies/">enduring legacies of 20th-century wars</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>CORRECTED ON APRIL 22, 2015: See the editor’s note at the end of the article.</em></p>
<p>It seems poignantly appropriate that the web address <a href="http://www.gallipoli.net.au/">gallipoli.net.au</a>, which features the logo, “Gallipoli: The Making of a Nation”, is owned by Michael Erdeljac of the Splitters Creek Historical Group. Splitters Creek is now a suburb on the western edge of Albury, better known for its active Landcare group, and as the home to the endangered squirrel glider. </p>
<p>In the competitive market for Great War memorabilia, Erdeljac deserves to be congratulated. He has owned the URL for 14 years, well before commemoration became a national preoccupation. He is motivated by his own conviction that “we must remember”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78130/original/image-20150416-31678-1kptcuw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78130/original/image-20150416-31678-1kptcuw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78130/original/image-20150416-31678-1kptcuw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78130/original/image-20150416-31678-1kptcuw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78130/original/image-20150416-31678-1kptcuw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78130/original/image-20150416-31678-1kptcuw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78130/original/image-20150416-31678-1kptcuw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78130/original/image-20150416-31678-1kptcuw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ben Quilty’s oil painting of Troy Park, after Afghanistan 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Image courtesy of Ben Quilty and Jan Murphy Galley, published in the latest Griffith Review</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The history recalled on the site is serviceable; the list of names of those killed at the Gallipoli landing, Lone Pine and Nek battles heartbreaking; the opportunity to “own a piece of history” well-priced: A$1200 for a framed print of a photo from the front. The photo was donated by the late daughter of Corporal Herbert Bensch, one of the many Australians of German heritage who fought for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in the Great War. </p>
<p>It was in a camera belonging to his mate, who was one of the nearly 9,000 Australian soldiers, 3,000 New Zealanders, 35,000 Brits, 27,000 French and 86,000 Turks who died on the peninsula a century ago. Years after returning, Bensch processed the photo and it became a family heirloom.</p>
<p>It is poignant because it was settlements like Splitters Creek in the Riverina that were home to many of the almost 60,000 Australians who died during that war. As has been graphically captured on the screen, and is now easily accessible in the digital records of those who fought, many of the young men who volunteered to travel across hemispheres were country lads woefully ill-prepared for the slaughter they would face.</p>
<p>Not all, like Bensch, traced their forebears back to England. For many of those who fought it was a chance to be involved in a great adventure, albeit often with tragic consequences.</p>
<h2>Did the Great War really create Australia?</h2>
<p>The notion that this blooding and the other epic battles of the Great War made the nation has become a truism. But it is one that needs to be examined.</p>
<p>Australia was already a (teenage) nation in 1914. It was a nation crafted from the time, eager to assert its independence (in most things) from the motherland, infected by a racism made (almost) scientific by Darwinism, egalitarian, protectionist, and, in important democratic domains, marked by a progressive spirit. </p>
<p>In many ways, Australia was a world leader – forging both a civic and an ethnic idea of nation.</p>
<p>In Europe, by contrast, at the beginning of the war, as David Reynolds <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/13/long-shadow-great-war-david-reynolds-review">details</a>, there were only three republics – France, Switzerland and Portugal – but five major empires: the Ottoman and British, and those headed by the Romanovs, Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns. Five years later, all but one of these empires had imploded. There were 13 new republics and nine nations that had not even existed before the war.</p>
<p>In Europe, the 16 million lives lost and 20 million injured literally created nations. The carnage emboldened a democratic, nationalist and in some places revolutionary, spirit. It led to major political changes in Great Britain, the beginning of the end of the old aristocracy, and eventually the devolution of Ireland. In Australia, by contrast, it slowed and divided the progressive movement, tingeing the country with grief.</p>
<p>Although the trauma and loss was profound in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, there were no battles on home soil in either the motherland or the dominions. In Britain, the outcomes were less concrete. They were more tied, as Reynolds argues, to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… abstract ideals such as civilised values and even the eradication of war.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Australia, as John Hirst has <a href="http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/looking-australia">written</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Gallipoli freed Australia from the self-doubt about whether it had the mettle to be a proper nation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, in Australia, the experience of war became shorthand for nationhood. In New Zealand, it marked the beginning of a long journey to even fuller independence.</p>
<p>It is an ancient notion that equates battle and blood with independence and freedom; that there is life in death. The very idea that war “was the truest test of nationhood and that Australia’s official status would not be ratified psychologically until her men had been blooded in war” is, as historian Carolyn Holbrook persuasively <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/great-war-and-australia-provisional-title/">argues</a>, evidence of:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… muscular nationalism [that] was given legitimacy by Social Darwinism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Great War did not make Australia – that had been relatively cerebral activity, notwithstanding the conflict of settlement, which reached its conclusion on January 1, 1901, when the colonies federated into a nation. The nation began as penal colonies, prosecuted battles of settlement, welcomed people from many lands and crafted a constitution. But like many adolescents it was conflicted, as Holbrook argues:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the very nation that it sought to distinguish itself from was the nation whose approval it craved.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Great War was not even the first foreign war that Australians fought in alongside Britain – that was in South Africa. But as the legend of <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676773/">Breaker Morant</a> has captured, there were important differences in attitude between Australia and Britain that came to the fore in foreign battles. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75056/original/image-20150317-11985-19hrmnx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75056/original/image-20150317-11985-19hrmnx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75056/original/image-20150317-11985-19hrmnx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75056/original/image-20150317-11985-19hrmnx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75056/original/image-20150317-11985-19hrmnx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75056/original/image-20150317-11985-19hrmnx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75056/original/image-20150317-11985-19hrmnx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75056/original/image-20150317-11985-19hrmnx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An anti-conscription leaflet from the 1916-17 referenda era.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many historians have argued that the lingering feeling of illegitimacy, of having a chip on the shoulder that needed to be avenged, helped fuel the idea that participation in the Great War was a coming of age. This was proof, as Hirst <a href="http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/australian-history-seven-questions">noted</a>, that Australia really had the “mettle to be a nation”.</p>
<p>Eagerness to participate was not universally shared. This is illustrated most powerfully in the failure of <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs161.aspx">two referenda</a> to introduce conscription. This was another important mark of an independent nation, of a place where people had the right to make their own decisions rather than being the property of the state. So those of Irish heritage expressed anti-British sentiment, those of German descent were regarded suspiciously, and Indigenous Australians joined the fight. It was complicated. </p>
<p>Afterwards, the tragedy of loss and grief was palpable. Australia’s progressive spirit was divided and lost momentum.</p>
<p>And then, in little more than a generation, another war began which layered trauma on catastrophe, left the air full of human smoke, changed global geopolitics and renamed the Great War, World War One. </p>
<p>In an enduring sense, it was the Second World War that really changed the world. It consolidated the American Century, defined in part by conflict with the Soviet Republic and its empire; triggered the end of colonialism and its multi-faceted implications; created space for the assertion of international law; and provided the framework for the remarkable transformations of the past seven decades.</p>
<h2>How Australia changed</h2>
<p>Undoubtedly, the wars of the 20th century shaped – arguably even made – modern Australia. But this was not because of an ancient blood sacrifice in distant lands or even the closer strategic battles that followed. It was a product of the responses, realignments and decisions that followed. </p>
<p>Every country has its most symbolic year from each of the world wars, and can trace the consequences of the bloodletting that accompanied the global realignment of the last century.</p>
<p>In Australia this can be measured in many ways, but three major legacies stand out: increasing independence from Britain, deeper engagement with the rest of the world and more multiculturalism at home. It was in the aftermath of these wars that Australia found its voice in international forums – at Versailles and in the formation of both the League of Nations and United Nations. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75054/original/image-20150317-11970-zh0ghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75054/original/image-20150317-11970-zh0ghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75054/original/image-20150317-11970-zh0ghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75054/original/image-20150317-11970-zh0ghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75054/original/image-20150317-11970-zh0ghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75054/original/image-20150317-11970-zh0ghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75054/original/image-20150317-11970-zh0ghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75054/original/image-20150317-11970-zh0ghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&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 Second World War was a formative experience for future PM Gough Whitlam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After excluding the Chinese, deporting German residents and treating the first Australians as subhuman a century ago, Australia slowly let down the gangplank and after the Second World War began again to welcome large numbers of people from all around the world. While the legal separation from Britain took much longer to achieve – and is still a work in progress – the reaction to the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-30996110">knighting</a> of Prince Philip on Australia Day, 2015, suggests this is a project nearing completion.</p>
<p>At a more prosaic level, one of the greatest media empires the world has ever known can trace its antecedents to the wartime reporting (and political dealmaking) of <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P272/">Sir Keith Murdoch</a>. And it was the wartime experiences of <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/fiftyaustralians/49.asp">Gough Whitlam</a> that shaped his political agenda that was implemented three decades later, and still upholds the foundations of contemporary Australia.</p>
<h2>Not just an intellectual exercise</h2>
<p>It is striking that 2015 is the centenary of the Gallipoli offensive, the 70th anniversary of end of the Second World War in the Pacific, and the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. This is a good time to reflect not only on the actions of those wars, but on their consequences and their enduring legacies. </p>
<p>The battles are important, but the lessons to be learnt in their aftermath need to be interrogated to explain how we got where we are.</p>
<p>This is essentially an intellectual exercise. Australians generally shy away from such activity, preferring celebration, commemoration and consumption. This year is replete with travel agents offering guided journeys to far-away battle sites (because, apart from Darwin, none of these modern wars occurred on mainland Australian soil), books, films, television series, exhibitions and coins.</p>
<p>The ballot for places to attend the Gallipoli commemoration was massively <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/defence/august-option-for-anzac-visitors/story-e6frg8yo-1226863661346">oversubscribed</a>. The Perth Mint’s 99.9% gold Baptism of Fire $5050 coin <a href="http://www.perthmint.com.au/catalogue/the-anzac-spirit-100th-anniversary-coin-series-baptism-of-fire-two-ounce-gold-proof-coin.aspx">sold out</a> quickly, but there are still plenty of the 99.9% silver Making of a Nation coins for just $99 and others from the Anzac series. The first episode of Channel Nine’s Gallipoli miniseries <a href="http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2015/02/1-66m-as-my-kitchen-rules-tops-gallipolis-1-1m.html">attracted</a> more than one million viewers before <a href="http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2015/03/gallipoli-concludes-disappointing-run.html">sinking</a> into ratings netherland. </p>
<p>And the Splitters Creek Historical Group still has copies of Corporal Herbert Bensch’s colleague’s battlefront photo, and the list of many of those who died at Gallipoli 100 years ago.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Corrections: This article previously stated that nearly 39,000 Australian soldiers died on the peninsula a century ago. The correct figure is nearly 9,000, as the <a href="https://griffithreview.com/articles/making-nations/">Griffith Review article</a> originally stated. That error was inadvertently introduced by The Conversation during the editing process. There was also a reference to “important democratic domains (compulsory voting)”. Although Australia had universal franchise (excluding Indigenous people in some states) before the first world war, compulsory voting was only introduced federally in 1924, an error made by the author. Thank you to our readers – especially Ned Johnson and Alfred Venison – for pointing out those errors, and we apologise for not seeing and responding to them sooner.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read a longer version of this article and others from the Griffith Review’s latest edition on the enduring legacies of war <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/enduring-legacies/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38860/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julianne Schultz is on The Conversation's editorial board. Griffith Review receives funding support from the Australia Council.</span></em></p>Every country has its most symbolic year from each of the world wars, and can trace the consequences of the bloodletting that accompanied the global realignment of the last century.Julianne Schultz, Founding Editor of Griffith REVIEW; Professor, Centre for Public Culture and Ideas, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/378582015-04-14T05:48:35Z2015-04-14T05:48:35ZFrom shell shock to PTSD: proof of war’s traumatic history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74889/original/image-20150316-7058-cl2uif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C75%2C599%2C387&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Medical opinion soon came to regard symptoms of 'shell shock', as exhibited by the solider at bottom left, as psychological in origin.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UK Government</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>2015 marks several important First World War anniversaries: the centenary of the first use of poison gas in January; the centenary of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/gallipoli">Gallipoli landings</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkey-the-armenian-genocide-and-the-politics-of-memory-20747">Armenian genocide</a> in April. It is also 100 years since The Lancet published Charles S. Myers’ <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067360052916X">article</a>, A Contribution to the Study of Shell Shock.</p>
<h2>The study of shell shock</h2>
<p>Myers’ article is generally regarded as the first use of the term “shell shock” in medical literature. It was used as a descriptor for “three cases of loss of memory, vision, smell and taste” in British soldiers admitted to a military hospital in France.</p>
<p>While Myers presented these cases as evidence of the spectacular concussive effects of artillery on the Western Front, British medical opinion soon came to regard these symptoms as psychological in origin. The men presenting to medical officers with tics, tremors and palpitations, as well as more serious symptoms of “functional” blindness, paralysis and loss of speech, were not concussed – but nor were they necessarily cowards or malingerers. </p>
<p>Instead, these were men simply worn down by the unprecedented stresses of trench warfare – in particular, the effort required to push out of one’s mind the prospect of joining the ranks of the maimed or the corpses lying in no man’s land. Myers <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-european-history/shell-shock-france-19141918-based-war-diary">later wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even those who start with the strongest “nerves” are not immune from “shell shock”, if exposed to sufficiently often repeated, or to incessant, strain, or if subjected to severe enough shock.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For contemporaries and later for historians, shell shock came to encapsulate all the horror of this new form of industrialised warfare. As historian Jay Winter <a href="http://jch.sagepub.com/content/35/1/7.short">suggests</a>, it moved “from a diagnosis into a metaphor”. </p>
<p>The effects of shell shock could linger. In his celebrated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good-Bye_to_All_That">Good-Bye to All That</a>, poet Robert Graves recounted returning to England trembling at strong smells (from fear of gas attacks) and loud noises. He judged that it took:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… some ten years for my blood to recover.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Developing a diagnosis</h2>
<p>It is tempting to view shell shock as the unambiguous turning point in psychiatry’s history, popularising the idea that unconscious processes might produce symptoms that operate separately from moral qualities such as endurance and courage. However, scholarship over the last 15 years suggests that this position was far from widely accepted.</p>
<p>Shell-shocked soldiers were as likely to be subject to harsh “disciplinary” treatments, such as <a href="http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/02/04/brain.aws331">“faradism”</a> – the application of alternating electric currents to stimulate paralysed limbs or target other physical symptoms – as they were to receive psychotherapy. The notion that many patients had some “predisposing” weakness – independent of their combat experiences – persisted throughout the interwar period and into the Second World War. </p>
<p>It wasn’t until the Vietnam War that this formulation was reversed, which in turn bridged the gap between combatant syndromes and the civilian sphere.</p>
<p>This development is only comprehensible as part of a broader political context. The notion that the Vietnam War exacted a form of psychic damage on American soldiers was championed by the anti-war activists of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) and psychiatrists Chaim Shatan and Robert Jay Lifton. “Post-Vietnam syndrome”, Shatan <a href="http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/119554811/B7142503A5E04854PQ/2?accountid=36155">wrote</a>, was caused by the “unconsummated grief” of a brutal and brutalising war. </p>
<p>The VVAW’s advocacy was instrumental in securing official recognition for this condition. It was included in 1980 in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) as <a href="http://www.psychiatry.org/practice/dsm/dsm-history-of-the-manual">“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”</a>. </p>
<p>PTSD’s inclusion in DMS-III legitimated the suffering of Vietnam veterans and held out the possibility of subsidised medical care and compensation. But the DSM-III definition of PTSD was significant in two additional ways.</p>
<p>First, it identified the disorder as a condition that could afflict soldiers and civilians alike – not a diagnosis exclusive to combat, like shell shock. </p>
<p>Second, it focused attention on the continuing effects of a traumatic experience, rather than on the personality and constitution of the patient. </p>
<p>The ramifications of these changes have been immense. PTSD and a broader field of “traumatology” are now entrenched in psychiatric and popular discourse. In Australia, we now assume that warfare is objectively traumatising, and that governments ought to provide medical and financial support for affected service personnel, even if a recent <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/03/09/4191681.htm">Four Corners</a> program confirmed that this is not always the case.</p>
<h2>How is PTSD viewed today?</h2>
<p>Though PTSD has its origins in opposition to the Vietnam War, the politics of the condition are now largely ambivalent, with its significance shifting according to circumstance. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74891/original/image-20150316-7048-sp6op6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74891/original/image-20150316-7048-sp6op6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74891/original/image-20150316-7048-sp6op6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74891/original/image-20150316-7048-sp6op6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74891/original/image-20150316-7048-sp6op6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74891/original/image-20150316-7048-sp6op6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74891/original/image-20150316-7048-sp6op6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74891/original/image-20150316-7048-sp6op6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1032&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 titular character in American Sniper is shown to be suffering from some after-effects of combat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warner Bros Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This point is well illustrated by the film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136/">American Sniper</a>, which demonstrates the possibility of two contrary positions. After his return to civilian life, SEAL sniper Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) is shown to be suffering from some characteristic after-effects of combat. He is startled at loud noises, sees scenes of combat on a blank TV and becomes enraged at a barking dog during a family barbecue. This leads his wife to call in assistance from a Veterans Administration psychiatrist. </p>
<p>On the one hand, we could view this evidence of psychological damage as an implicit critique of the Iraq war, serving the same function as the damaged Vietnam veteran in Hollywood cinema of the late 1970s and 1980s. But there is also a converse reaction that values this pain as a worthy sacrifice in the fight against the “savages” Kyle sees through his rifle scope. This reaction discounts entirely the damage done to civilian populations by years of occupation and mutually destructive fighting. </p>
<p>The potential for this second reading is perhaps greater in this particular film, which for the most part portrays Iraqis as marginal and malign figures.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the film also depicts Kyle as ambivalent in the face of his symptoms, with Kyle objecting to the psychiatrist’s suggestion that he may be suffering from the repercussions of multiple tours of duty. Yet he is depicted as a sympathetic support figure for other veterans suffering from physical and psychological injuries. </p>
<p>The real Chris Kyle was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/us/american-sniper-jury-hears-of-struggles-of-chris-kyle-and-eddie-ray-routh.html?_r_=0">shot dead</a> by one of these men, Eddie Ray Routh, in 2013. At trial, the accused’s lawyers pursued a defense of insanity, compounded by the inadequate care provided by veterans’ mental health services. Routh was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-25/chris-kyle-american-sniper-killer-eddie-ray-routh-jailed-life/6261668">found guilty</a> of Kyle’s murder late last month.</p>
<p>In the 100 years since Myers’ article on shell shock, the psychological consequences of war remain as relevant as ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen 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>For contemporaries and later for historians, shell shock came to encapsulate all the horror of a new form of industrialised warfare.Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen, Lecturer in History, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/384342015-04-05T22:50:05Z2015-04-05T22:50:05ZGallipoli’s rich history of conflict started well before 1915<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75172/original/image-20150318-12115-1chds9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Anzac landings at Gallipoli in April 1915 marked the beginning of another instance of conflict in the war-rich region's history.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/archivesnz/14836799921">archivesnz/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are few geographical areas that have seen as much military action as the Gallipoli region, the site of the Anzac landings in 1915. The conflicts in the region include some of the most renowned wars from Greek antiquity.</p>
<p>Some Australian historians of Gallipoli see the study of the broader cultural history of the region as a bit of an irritation. They feel that it detracts from the focus on the Anzacs and the remembrance of what they did. But, it is just the opposite – it enhances the story of the campaign and situates it in a notably rich cultural context.</p>
<h2>A history of Gallipoli</h2>
<p>The site of <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/849">Troy</a> on the Asian side, which looks across at Cape Helles, tends to dominate the cultural history of the region. Likewise, Homer, the poet of the <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.html">Iliad</a>, dominates Western literature like no other single individual. </p>
<p>The presence of Troy just across the waterway did not go unnoticed by those soldiers who had a scholarly engagement with the Classics in the pre-war years, such as Patrick Shaw-Stewart, Compton Mackenzie, John Masefield and Sir Ian Hamilton. Many British soldiers, like Robert Graves, from the great private schools and universities took Classical texts with them to the Western Front. But those destined for Gallipoli understandably felt that they had a special connection with antiquity. </p>
<p>Poet Rupert Brooke could scarcely conceal his delight that he was going to Gallipoli – to the battlefields of Troy – rather than to France or Belgium. As it turned out, he never made it because he <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/rupert-brooke">died</a> at Scyros, Achilles’ island, just before the first landings at Helles.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75150/original/image-20150318-2172-1ovndpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75150/original/image-20150318-2172-1ovndpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75150/original/image-20150318-2172-1ovndpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75150/original/image-20150318-2172-1ovndpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75150/original/image-20150318-2172-1ovndpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75150/original/image-20150318-2172-1ovndpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75150/original/image-20150318-2172-1ovndpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75150/original/image-20150318-2172-1ovndpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rupert Brooke, an English poet, died before arriving at Gallipoli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelrogers/2647218862/in/photolist-pnD444-pJAvNH-52VFWw">michaelrogers</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There were many other renowned struggles in the immediate area too, including the Greek war with the Persians of 480-479 BC. This war must surely be one of the most significant struggles in European history, given that the very existence of the Greek cities depended on their victory over the enemy.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/263507/Herodotus">Herodotus</a> is our main historical source for this struggle. He ends his whole work on the Gallipoli peninsula at the unassuming little town of Eceabat, a short drive from the Anzac battlefield.</p>
<p>Later in the same century, the Athenians and Spartans, along with their allies, fought some monumental sea-battles in the Dardanelles straits. These were part of the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/449362/Peloponnesian-War">Peloponnesian war</a> fought between the two Greek superpowers from 431 to 404 BC. The <a href="http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_cynossema.html">battle of Cynossema</a> (411 BC, off modern Kilitbahir, near Eceabat) involved about 160 ships. It was fought only a little way up the channel from where the French and British navies came to grief on March 18, 1915. </p>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_aegospotami.html">battle of Aigospotami</a> (405 BC, near modern Gelibolu) saw an even more monumental struggle of about 350 ships. It might be said that this last struggle was the final and decisive conflict of the Peloponnesian war, and produced the imminent defeat of Athens.</p>
<p>In the fourth century, Alexander the Great – probably the peninsula’s most famous visitor – came to the peninsula and sent his army across the narrows from Sestos to Abydos. He went down to tip of the Gallipoli at Helles and crossed from there to Homer’s Troy.</p>
<h2>The role of Charles Bean</h2>
<p>So, ancient Greek heroes in the region were in no short supply for the writers at Gallipoli in 1915, should they have chosen to show an interest. But did this concern ever go beyond a poetic and socioeconomic elite? </p>
<p>It did, in the figure of <a href="http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/1landing/beanbio.html">Charles Bean</a>, the Australian correspondent and official historian of the First World War. He ensured that the Greek context would have a part to play in the way that the Australian sojourn at Gallipoli would be remembered. Bean had studied Classics as a child in Australia and Britain, and then went to Oxford where he studied Greats (that is, Classics).</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75165/original/image-20150318-12105-zxmz7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75165/original/image-20150318-12105-zxmz7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75165/original/image-20150318-12105-zxmz7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75165/original/image-20150318-12105-zxmz7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75165/original/image-20150318-12105-zxmz7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75165/original/image-20150318-12105-zxmz7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75165/original/image-20150318-12105-zxmz7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75165/original/image-20150318-12105-zxmz7l.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles Bean acknowledged the Greek context in documenting Australia’s campaign at Gallipoli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/archivesact/4921603935">ArchivesACT/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No-one among the Australians was more conscious of the ancient Greek context of Gallipoli than Bean. No-one was able to use it to such good effect. He is the master of memorialising soldiers in the Greek way, but without explicit reference to classical borrowings. </p>
<p>For instance, Bean ends his book <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/histories/first_world_war/AWMOHWW1/Supplementary/GallipoliMission/">Gallipoli Mission</a> with reference to an inscription of ancient Athenian warriors who fell in the Dardanelles in 440BCE. But there is no explicit comparison of Athenians and Anzacs – nor does there need to be.</p>
<p>There will be many references to heroism and heroic conduct amid the commemoration of the Anzac centenary. The broader cultural context of ancient Greece will not play any part in this, nor should it really. Australia and New Zealand – and Turkey – have their own stories to tell and commemorate.</p>
<p>But one might also be mindful of the earlier layers of occupation of the region, and the background part that they play in the commemoration of Anzac.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can listen to Chris Mackie speak about the history of Gallipoli before 1915 below, in a podcast produced by La Trobe University.</em></p>
<iframe width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/198348938&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Mackie has received funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs for research work on the Gallipoli Peninsula (Joint Historical and Archaeological Survey, 2010-2014).</span></em></p>The history of the Gallipoli region enhances the story of the Anzac campaign and situates it in a notably rich cultural context.Chris Mackie, Professor of Greek Studies , La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/303622014-08-26T20:47:22Z2014-08-26T20:47:22ZTen kilos of first world war grief at the Melbourne Museum<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56232/original/y2jmmvjh-1407813217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scrapbook, G. Roberts (John Garibaldi), Book 7 Vol. 7a.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum Victoria, courtesy of State Library of Victoria </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Melbourne Museum’s <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whatson/wwi-love-and-sorrow/">World War I: Love & Sorrow</a> exhibition, which opens this weekend, explores the various experiences of Victorians in the Great War, and the war’s effects on them.</p>
<p>Museums have a hard job conveying often fleeting human interactions and experiences using their stock-in-trade – the artefact. How can you convey friendship or hatred through objects? What can you use to show fear, hatred, comradeship or idealism? How can a museum convey in an artefact what grief felt like?</p>
<p>WWI: Love & Sorrow tells the story of, among many others, the Roberts family, of Hawthorn and South Sassafras (now Kallista, in the Dandenongs). Their story embodies what this exhibition is about, and how museums can best tell human stories.</p>
<h2>The Roberts family scrapbooks</h2>
<p>The experience of the Roberts family was both unique and representative – and seemingly made for a museum. Indeed, in planning how the Melbourne Museum would reveal and explore how Victorians lived through the Great War – or not – their story became one of the “must haves”.</p>
<p>In 2009 I published <a href="http://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/title/men-of-mont-st-quentin/">Men of Mont St Quentin</a>, a book that tried to show how one 12-man platoon (number 9, of the Victorian 21st Battalion) experienced the final attack on the German-held Mont St Quentin, the way it affected those who survived as well as the families of those who died in the attack.</p>
<p>In telling this story the papers of Garry and Roberta Roberts, preserved in the State Library of Victoria, were crucial. In fact, without them the experience of that platoon would have been indistinguishable from the other 60-odd platoons involved in it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56234/original/73djmg3q-1407813959.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56234/original/73djmg3q-1407813959.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56234/original/73djmg3q-1407813959.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56234/original/73djmg3q-1407813959.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56234/original/73djmg3q-1407813959.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56234/original/73djmg3q-1407813959.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56234/original/73djmg3q-1407813959.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56234/original/73djmg3q-1407813959.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">John G. Roberts Scrapbook 7, vol. 7, p. 3.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Victoria, J.G. Roberts Scrapbooks </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But among 9 Platoon that afternoon was a bank-clerk-turned-orchardist, Frank Roberts, Garry and Roberta’s eldest son. He died in the assault. The grief his father, especially, endured, and his manner of commemorating his son’s life has made him one of the best known bereaved fathers in Australia’s experience of the Great War.</p>
<p>The Roberts family was an unusual one. Solidly middle-class (they had a house in Hawthorn and a “weekender” in the hills), Garry was an accountant for the Melbourne Tramways Trust. They used their modest wealth to support the arts – C.J. Dennis wrote Songs of a Sentimental Bloke in the backyard at South Sassafras. Frank volunteered to go to war in 1916, soon after marrying his fiancée Ruby. By the time he left Melbourne Ruby was pregnant, and their daughter, Nancy, was born just as Frank reached the front, late in 1917.</p>
<p>The Roberts family never doubted that Frank had done the right thing, but their commitment to the war was tested by the news that arrived on 13 September 1918 that Frank had been killed. </p>
<p>Garry described this in his diary as “the most awful day of my life”. He had obsessively documented his children’s lives (and much besides) by creating massive scrapbooks. He dedicated two of these huge volumes to Frank’s military service and his death. </p>
<p>He collected newspaper clippings and photographs, and persuaded most of the survivors of Frank’s platoon to write an account of the day of his death. That’s what helped me write my book: the survivors’ accounts are the single most detailed description of one day in Australian military history.</p>
<h2>A record of grief</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56237/original/g3ykgqj2-1407814305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56237/original/g3ykgqj2-1407814305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56237/original/g3ykgqj2-1407814305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56237/original/g3ykgqj2-1407814305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56237/original/g3ykgqj2-1407814305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56237/original/g3ykgqj2-1407814305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56237/original/g3ykgqj2-1407814305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56237/original/g3ykgqj2-1407814305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John G. Roberts Scrapbook 7, vol 7, p.4.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Victoria, J.G. Roberts Scrapbooks </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The grief of the Roberts family is indescribable. We can imagine Garry sitting into the night, reading and annotating the scrapbook he had made. But we cannot literally share his grief.</p>
<p>What we can do is visualise it by seeing the sheer size of one volume of Garry’s scrapbooks. They are nearly a metre tall; up to ten kilograms in weight; with every one of up to 500 pages bearing letters and illustrations, pages cut from books and – over-and-over again – copies of the “In memoriam” card Garry had printed bearing Frank’s likeness. PIC?</p>
<p>Ruby, Frank’s widow, was of course distraught. Her grief can be seen in a pair of baby shoes – Nancy’s. She sent one tiny shoe to Frank, writing that they would be reunited when he came home. The bootees were reunited; but Frank and Ruby and Nancy were not. A pair of pink baby shoes represents, more powerfully than all the medals and medallions and sympathy cards, what the victory of Mont St Quentin cost this one Melbourne family.</p>
<p>And here’s the point: 19,000 Victorians died in the Great War, most, like Frank, in the great battles on the Western Front. The Roberts family was unusual in the lengths Garry went to record and express his grief; but he was hardly alone in feeling it.</p>
<p>Looking at the bulky scrapbook that Garry created as a paper memorial to his son, we can get a sense of the weight of grief that he and all bereaved parents carried. And looking at Nancy’s tiny bootees we can glimpse the war’s effects on that little girl and her mother.</p>
<p>This is what museums can do with a caption and a few well-chosen artefacts. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whatson/wwi-love-and-sorrow/">World War I: Love & Sorrow</a> opens at the Melbourne Museum on August 30.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Stanley wrote Men of Mont St Quentin (Scribe, Melbourne, 2009) and was an academic advisor to the team that created WWI: Love & Sorrow at the Melbourne Museum.</span></em></p>The Melbourne Museum’s World War I: Love & Sorrow exhibition, which opens this weekend, explores the various experiences of Victorians in the Great War, and the war’s effects on them. Museums have…Peter Stanley, Research Professor in the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/301492014-08-11T02:33:41Z2014-08-11T02:33:41ZOne million pairs of socks: knitting for victory in the first world war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55907/original/skq4x4yf-1407374647.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bundling socks, 'War Chest' Sock Appeal, Sydney, May 1917, photographer G. A. Hills.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/">State Library of NSW</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the first world war in Australia there was a restriction of styles of clothing available to both men and women because of shortages in fabrics. Everyday dress became more sombre due to a lack of good quality dyes – and in any case bright colours were seen to be too gay and frivolous. </p>
<p>In the country that rode on the sheep’s back, however, wool was the solution for those serving on the front line. The manufacture of ready-made clothing might have decreased during wartime, but there was an explosion in hand knitting for soldiers.</p>
<h2>Socks for the boys</h2>
<p>Coordinated though organisations such as the <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/563480?c=people">Australian Comforts Fund</a>, groups formed at community centres such as the Melbourne Town Hall where every day up to 40 women would knit socks, vests, balaclavas and kneepads to parcel up and send to the home front.</p>
<p>Thousands of women and schoolchildren knitted throughout the war. Over 1.3 million pairs of socks were sent overseas – often with a small personal note inside the sock informing the digger who had knitted the garment along with a brief message. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55903/original/g7yczr5y-1407374207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55903/original/g7yczr5y-1407374207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55903/original/g7yczr5y-1407374207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55903/original/g7yczr5y-1407374207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55903/original/g7yczr5y-1407374207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55903/original/g7yczr5y-1407374207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55903/original/g7yczr5y-1407374207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55903/original/g7yczr5y-1407374207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cudgewa, Victoria, October 25 1916, photographer unknown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/">State Library of NSW</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Victoria, when demand exceeded supply, bicycle spokes were turned into knitting needles and sold to other states. Knitting provided comfort not only to the men who received the garments but also for the women who knitted. It was a meditative way to pass the time and feel they were contributing to the war effort.</p>
<p>So ingrained was the daily activity of knitting while sitting by the radio waiting to hear news from overseas, that some women, in the years after the war had ended, found themselves reaching instinctively for their needles as soon as the radio was turned on.</p>
<h2>The perfect sock</h2>
<p>To stop the “rogue knitting” of socks that might be ill-fitting or not well-made the <a href="http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/themes/1848/australian-comforts-fund-world-war-i">Soldiers’ Sock Fund</a> in Sydney provided instructional talks to help knitters produce the perfect sock. They also published <a href="http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/mob/collection/database/?irn=10108&search=patriotism&images=&wloc=&c=1&s=0">The Grey Sock</a> book in 1915. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55906/original/p5vv4sx4-1407374465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55906/original/p5vv4sx4-1407374465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55906/original/p5vv4sx4-1407374465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55906/original/p5vv4sx4-1407374465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55906/original/p5vv4sx4-1407374465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55906/original/p5vv4sx4-1407374465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55906/original/p5vv4sx4-1407374465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55906/original/p5vv4sx4-1407374465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women volunteer workers doing up clothing parcels at the Australian Comforts Fund rooms, Sydney, 1944, photographer Sam Hood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/">State Library of NSW</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After Australia joined the second world war, government departments introduced knitting patterns and clear guidelines about what garments could be knitted, and what styles were suited for the harsh conditions in the field. Knitting book companies such as Patons and Baldwins of Melbourne followed government guidelines and produced booklets such as the <a href="http://www.awm.gov.au/firstopac/bin/cgi-jsp.exe/shelf1.jsp?recno=100000021&userId=cat&catTable=">Patons Service Woolies: On Duty with the Services, Specialty Knitting Book No 153</a>, which advised knitters to “buy wisely” when purchasing the amount of wool, and to always use the recommended tension so the correct amount of wool would be used. </p>
<p>Along with standard patterns for socks, vest, jumpers and headwear, the pattern book included “Hospital Comforts”: a convalescent jacket with a cutaway back to make lying in bed more comfortable.</p>
<h2>A warming commodity</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55910/original/28kh2rcj-1407375205.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55910/original/28kh2rcj-1407375205.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55910/original/28kh2rcj-1407375205.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55910/original/28kh2rcj-1407375205.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55910/original/28kh2rcj-1407375205.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55910/original/28kh2rcj-1407375205.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55910/original/28kh2rcj-1407375205.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55910/original/28kh2rcj-1407375205.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=953&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 wintry scene on the Western Front.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlscotland/">National Library of Scotland</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The demand for wool during wartime made it a strategic commodity, and during the world wars Britain purchased the entire Australian wool clip. Despite the export of the wool clip during the first world war, plans were put in place for the sheepskin hides to provide <a href="http://www.mortels.com.au/shop/home.php?cat=37">a vest for every Australian soldier</a> abroad. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/15541415">Tanned Sheepskin Clothing Committee</a> was set up in 1914 with a plan to produce a million units for the diggers by the end of the war. By 1916 150,000 vests had been made.</p>
<p>Once again the vests were part of a community effort across the country. The Red Cross delivering the tanned sheepskins for volunteers to stitch together, using three sheepskins per vest. </p>
<p>The Korean War in the 1950s was the last war where Australian wool was seen as a strategic commodity. </p>
<p>Wool was still being used to make socks but this time instead of “trench foot” caused by fungal diseases in the trenches soldiers suffered “rice paddy feet”. This was caused by feet being immersed in snow or water for long periods. During this war soldiers would wear two pairs of socks, and sometimes two pairs of trousers, to help combat the freezing cold conditions. </p>
<p>The wool that was sent to Korea was often of poor quality. When made into uniforms the rough and scratchy “prickle effect” left a lasting impression. The reputation of wool suffered – and the industry took years to recover. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prudence Black receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>During the first world war in Australia there was a restriction of styles of clothing available to both men and women because of shortages in fabrics. Everyday dress became more sombre due to a lack of…Prudence Black, ARC DECRA Fellow in Gender and Cultural Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/298222014-08-05T20:37:24Z2014-08-05T20:37:24ZShell shock treatments reveal the conflict in psychiatry’s heart<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55756/original/d6dfhhdz-1407214020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A French deserter or spy faces the firing squad in this photograph from 1914/15.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1917_-_Execution_%C3%A0_Verdun_lors_des_mutineries.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the most iconic images of the first world war, the outbreak of which is being commemorated all over the world, is the deserter – heartlessly tried for cowardice, blindfolded and bound to a post, facing the firing squad.</p>
<p>In all, 306 soldiers from British and Imperial forces were executed for cowardice or desertion. But since the war’s end, there’s been a lingering feeling that this was an injustice. Not least because many of these men may have been suffering from shell shock. </p>
<p>A campaign to clear their names was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1526437/Pardoned-the-306-soldiers-shot-at-dawn-for-cowardice.html">finally successful in late 2006</a>, when the British government granted pardons to all 306. Des Browne, who was the UK defense secretary at the time, said “the circumstances were terrible” and that they were “victims of the war”. </p>
<h2>The horror of shell shock</h2>
<p>Shell shock was a creation of the war, a seemingly new phenomenon produced by a new industrialised warfare. Never before had so much explosive power been available to the antagonists. Never before had troops been subjected to so much stress for so much time.</p>
<p>Indeed, the “Great War” was a turning point in understanding the nature of trauma and its effects on those that fought in battle. Arguably, yesterday’s shell shock became today’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-11135">post-traumatic stress disorder</a>, and the lessons learnt by the various armies had a direct impact on treating the mentally battle-scarred in future conflicts.</p>
<p>Shell shock, or war neurosis as it was first called, was identified by all combatant countries early in the conflict. But it received its name from the psychologist Charles Myers writing to <a href="http://jmvh.org/article/contribution-to-the-study-of-shell-shock/">The Lancet in 1915</a>.</p>
<p>Conservative estimates put the number of soldiers in the British and Imperial armies treated for shell shock at over 80,000 but many, many more suffered than were treated.</p>
<p>The symptoms of shell shock were almost identical to those identified by neurologists and psychologists in <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/hysterical-men-the-hidden-history-of-male-nervous-illness/404681.article">male hysterics</a> before the war – loss of speech; wild-staring eyes; facial tics and exaggerated limb movements, including the inability to walk properly; the utterance of a single word, like “bomb”, or a loud sound, triggering full paralysis; and even fugue states, where the sufferer unconsciously wandered off, with no knowledge of who they were, where they were or what they were doing.</p>
<h2>Disagreements over cause</h2>
<p>But there were conflicts over both the causes and treatment of shell shock. The mind sciences have always struggled to work out whether mental disorders are caused by biological or psychosocial factors. And, over history, the pendulum has swung one way and then the other. </p>
<p>It was no different in the case of case of shell shock.</p>
<p>Initially, some argued the condition was the direct result of the percussive effects of the newly-developed and considerably more powerful high explosives, which had functionally damaged the nervous system of the sufferer. </p>
<p>Coming from an eugenics perspective, others argued it was a form of hysteria resulting from hereditary weakness, and that sufferers came from biologically unfit stock so possessed a “degenerate” nervous system. </p>
<p>Still others, such as the psychologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Samuel_Myers">Charles Myers</a>
and the psychiatrist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._R._Rivers#Family_background">W.H.R. Rivers</a>, would claim it was the result of mental trauma or prolonged stress. </p>
<p>Each of these positions had a direct impact on the way troops were treated. And just as there were multiple explanations for the cause of shell shock, there were divergent methods of treating it.</p>
<h2>Torture as treatment</h2>
<p>The Canadian psychiatrist Lewis Yealland is emblematic of the biological psychiatrists – physicians who saw degeneracy as the root cause of shell shock and physical methods as the route to a cure.</p>
<p>In Yealland’s 1918 book, <a href="https://archive.org/details/hystericaldisord00yealuoft">Hysterical Disorders of Warfare</a>, we see him treating a private soldier suffering from mutism. Yealland’s aim was to recondition the patient’s behaviour through physical means – violent electric shocks and even, occasionally, cigarette burns.</p>
<p>The following account is in Yealland’s words:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Placing the pad electrode on the lumbar spines and attaching the long pharyngeal electrode, I said to him, ‘You will not leave this room until you are talking as well as you ever did; no, not before’. The mouth was kept open by means of a tongue depressor; a strong faradic current was applied to the posterior wall of the pharynx, and with this stimulus he jumped backwards, detaching the wires from the battery. ‘Remember, you must behave as becomes the hero I expect you to be,’ I said. ‘A man who has gone through so many battles should have better control of himself.’ Then I placed him in a position from which he could not release himself, and repeated, ‘You must talk before you leave me.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And talk he did. Eventually. Yealland repeatedly shocked the patient, each time with an increasing current, until he succeeded and could pronounce a cure. </p>
<p>Lest you think that this is exceptional, it should be noted that this form of treatment was common among all the nations that fought in the war.</p>
<h2>A better way</h2>
<p>If the fate of the helpless private appears familiar it is because Pat Barker incorporated elements of Yealland’s account into her celebrated historical novel, [Regeneration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_(novel).</p>
<p>The book is a fictionalised retelling of the treatment of the all-too-real war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen by W.H.R. Rivers.</p>
<p>In Barker’s description, she has Rivers witnessing the scene, although there is no evidence that such an event ever occurred. But it allows the author to demonstrate how diametrically opposed Rivers’s methods were to those of Yealland.</p>
<p>Rivers had been influenced by the model of mental trauma developed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Janet">Pierre Janet</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud">Sigmund Freud</a>. He believed psychotherapy was the best method of treating shell shock. </p>
<p>And so, in the old Craiglockhart Hydro, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, he and other colleagues treated officers, like the poet Owen, accordingly. </p>
<p>Unlike Yealland’s physical methods, not only did they get troops back to the front line, those they treated were far less likely to break down again under fire.</p>
<h2>The triumph of humane treatment</h2>
<p>By the end of the war, a new model for treating shell shock had emerged: a combination of psychotherapy and occupational therapy. </p>
<p>Shell-shock victims sent home to the military hospital Netley would be treated through talking, and as they recuperated, be put to work on the hospital’s farm, or take part in other activities, like basket weaving. You can <a href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1667864%7ES8">watch a film</a> from the time about these treatments <a href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1667864%7ES8">here</a>.</p>
<p>After the war, a committee appointed <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=O5_XdP-VSZsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:1901623661&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PIPgU-XBJIXo8AWk24G4CA&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">to look into shell shock</a> rebutted the physical treatment meted out by the likes of Yealland. Instead, it recommended that psychotherapy be the principal method for dealing with mentally-scarred soldiers. </p>
<p>And while the recommendations were too late for those executed, or for the surviving victims of psychiatrists like Yealland, in future there were would be a growing acknowledgement that the trauma of war had nothing to do with biological weakness and everything to do with the intolerable stresses of frontline combat.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Bradley 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>One of the most iconic images of the first world war, the outbreak of which is being commemorated all over the world, is the deserter – heartlessly tried for cowardice, blindfolded and bound to a post…James Bradley, Lecturer in History of Medicine/Life Science, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/298492014-08-05T04:45:10Z2014-08-05T04:45:10ZWorld War One’s role in the worst ever flu pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55661/original/tqz59cc3-1407135581.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The pandemic flu virus spread around the world in several waves, causing illness in 20% to 50% of infected people and death in 1% to 5%. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishredcross/3525486602">British Red Cross/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.flupandemic.gov.au/internet/panflu/publishing.nsf/Content/history-1">great influenza pandemic of 1918-19</a>, often called the Spanish flu, caused about 50 million deaths worldwide; far more than the deaths from combat casualties in the World War One (1914-18). In fact, it may have killed between 3% and 6% of the global population.</p>
<p>At the time, pandemic influenza was new to the world and only people exposed to milder forms of influenza in earlier flu seasons (usually winter) had partial protection against this more virulent form of the virus. And since it happened in the pre-antibiotic era, heavily infected patients were likely to die from viral pneumonia and complicating bacterial infections. </p>
<p>The pandemic started in January 1918, overlapping with the war for nine months and persisting in its aftermath as people travelled back to their homes. Indeed, the war played a major role in its spread and severity.</p>
<h2>A shrinking world</h2>
<p>World War One marked a turning point in travel. Prior to 1914, few people traversed long distances, limiting the spread of infectious diseases, such as influenza, from one place to another, and country to country. Indeed, some rural people could live for years without exposure to many of the infections that were frequent in cities. </p>
<p>The war saw the mobilisation and movement of large numbers of troops and related personnel, both within and between continents; it also uprooted the lives of millions of non-combatants, especially in Europe. People from places far apart became more directly connected – and more liable than ever before to be exposed to any new form of the flu.</p>
<p>Those from previously isolated populations, such as Alaska or the Pacific Islands, were doubly vulnerable when first exposed to pandemic influenza. The outbreak in Western Samoa, for instance, killed 22% of the population, probably because it lacked protective immunity conferred by exposure to earlier forms of (seasonal) flu.</p>
<p>Army recruits in World War One were brought together from a wide range of backgrounds to live in close proximity in army camps, barracks, troop-ships and trench dugouts. When exposed to pandemic influenza, those from rural backgrounds were more likely to die than urban recruits (for the same reason as Pacific Islanders and Alaskans).</p>
<p>Regardless of background, mortality was lower for those who had been in the army for longer periods of time. This suggests that in the months and years after recruitment but before the arrival of the pandemic strain of the flu, soldiers became progressively immunised by exposures to seasonal flu. Or, to one or other of the bacterial infections that could cause fatal pneumonia as a complication of the flu.</p>
<h2>New and deadly</h2>
<p>But how do we account for the arrival of the influenza pandemic in the 1918? Where did it come from, why was it so deadly? </p>
<p>We now know the <a href="http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/pdfs/05-0979.pdf">molecular nature of the pandemic virus</a>, having pieced it together with nucleic acid analysis of viral fragments from pathology specimens and from bodies dug out of the Alaskan permafrost, where entire villages had been wiped out by the Spanish flu.</p>
<p>The pandemic virus proved to have some gene segments like those from pig and bird influenza, which explains why it was new to humans in 1918. But such a new virus, with animal features, would have needed to evolve further to easily spread within the human population. </p>
<p>Wartime conditions helped it along. As people living in close proximity became infected, and the number of infected people and viruses transmitted grew, the overall size of the viral population grew rapidly. </p>
<p>With many more viruses being made, there was greater scope for the emergence of new mutations that could grow and spread more readily in humans. Such rapidly-spreading variants would have quickly out-competed the slower growing forms of virus. </p>
<p>And they posed an even greater threat of the viral load overwhelming the immune system of those infected, and leading to severe illness or death. </p>
<h2>A safer time</h2>
<p>From August 1918, the virus was spreading around the world in several waves, infecting almost everyone. It caused illness in 20% to 50% of infected people and death in 1% to 5%. </p>
<p>Although the pandemic influenza virus lived on in the years after 1918-19, it tended to cause less severe disease in later years. This was partly because people whose first exposure was to a small dose of the virus would have had a mild attack, and their immune response after that would have provided protection against any subsequent attack. </p>
<p>Further, the practice of isolating people with severe influenza, which became standard once the pandemic was in full swing, would have limited the spread of the most aggressive viruses, and favoured the spread of variants causing milder illness.</p>
<p>Conditions have changed in the century since the World War One, making it unlikely the pandemic influenza disaster of 1918-19 will ever be repeated. With the increase in travel and improvements in health care, there are few enclaves where people are not at least partly protected by regular exposure to seasonal influenza or by vaccination. </p>
<p>Even if a nasty new flu virus were to emerge again, there will be fewer susceptible people to facilitate its spread and its evolution into an aggressive pandemic virus. What’s more, we now have medicines to help prevent its spread and to better treat the complications of severe infections. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29849/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Mathews received funding for work on pandemic influenza from the National Health and Medical Research Council.</span></em></p>The great influenza pandemic of 1918-19, often called the Spanish flu, caused about 50 million deaths worldwide; far more than the deaths from combat casualties in the World War One (1914-18). In fact…John Mathews, Honorary Professorial Fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/300532014-08-04T05:23:23Z2014-08-04T05:23:23ZMore than spectators? Britain’s Liberal government and the decision to go to war in 1914<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55512/original/brvfrvw7-1406888304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Observers no more.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/31363949@N02/6773856062/">Leonard Bentley</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On July 24 1914 the British cabinet met to discuss the diplomatic situation in Europe, which had deteriorated rapidly since the assassination of the Austrian archduke, <a href="https://theconversation.com/franz-ferdinand-assasination-how-a-hit-on-one-man-plunged-the-world-into-war-28530">Franz Ferdinand</a>, a month before. An Austrian invasion of Serbia now appeared imminent, threatening to spark a regional military crisis that might easily escalate into a general war between the Great Powers.</p>
<p>The sense of foreboding in London was captured in a letter sent by the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, to his confidante Venetia Stanley. The situation was “about as bad as it can possibly be”, he wrote, and Europe now stood on the brink of “a real Armageddon”. Nevertheless, Asquith felt able to reassure Stanley. “Happily there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators.” </p>
<p>Eleven days later, on August 4, Britain declared war on Germany. </p>
<p>In retrospect, Asquith’s words seem strangely complacent. At the time, however, his assumption that Britain might stand aside from the looming European conflagration reflected the hopes and beliefs of a majority of his political colleagues and supporters. This, after all, was a Liberal government which had won a landslide general election victory in 1906 under the slogan of: “Peace, Retrenchment and Reform”. How, then, did such a government come to plunge Britain into a war of unprecedented destruction?</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55502/original/28w4y86k-1406881925.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55502/original/28w4y86k-1406881925.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55502/original/28w4y86k-1406881925.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55502/original/28w4y86k-1406881925.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55502/original/28w4y86k-1406881925.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55502/original/28w4y86k-1406881925.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55502/original/28w4y86k-1406881925.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55502/original/28w4y86k-1406881925.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Britain turns its back on Germany with the Entente Cordiale.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some opponents of military intervention harboured suspicions that the secretive and aristocratic British Foreign Office – without the knowledge or approval of parliament – had pledged the nation to support France and Russia in a war against Germany. A new diplomatic understanding, the Entente Cordiale, had been concluded with France in 1904, followed by a similar diplomatic convention with Russia in 1907. Although originally intended to resolve a series of outstanding territorial disputes between colonial rivals, these arrangements had been supplemented, following an international crisis over Morocco, by a series of secret Anglo-French military staff talks, concerning the possibility of collaboration in a future war against Germany. The level of commitment implied by these talks, however, remained unclear. </p>
<p>As the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, insisted in the House of Commons on August 2, the Entente was not a military alliance, and Britain remained under no formal obligation to support France or Russia with armed force in 1914.</p>
<p>In fact, the <a href="http://www2.uncp.edu/home/rwb/July_Crisis_1914_Chronology.htm">July Crisis</a> initially caught the British authorities off-balance. At the start of the summer, the government was preoccupied with the looming threat of civil war in Ireland, where Nationalists and Unionists, divided over the prospect of Irish home rule, were assembling rival paramilitary forces. Even as darker war clouds gathered over the European continent, a majority in the cabinet, the wider Liberal Party, and the Liberal press, remained opposed to any British involvement in a confrontation between the Great Powers. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55513/original/rc2x6zcm-1406888640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55513/original/rc2x6zcm-1406888640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55513/original/rc2x6zcm-1406888640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55513/original/rc2x6zcm-1406888640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55513/original/rc2x6zcm-1406888640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1258&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55513/original/rc2x6zcm-1406888640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55513/original/rc2x6zcm-1406888640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1258&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Asquith makes his case.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Asquith#mediaviewer/File:Herbert_Henry_Asquith_Vanity_Fair_17_March_1910.jpg">Vanity Fair.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand provoked no small amount of sympathy for Austria-Hungary as the victim of a Serbian terrorist “plot”, and British opinion – especially Liberal opinion – showed little enthusiasm for a war in support of Serbia and her autocratic ally, Tsarist Russia, against Austria-Hungary and Germany. As late as August 8 – four days after the declaration of war – the patriotic journal “John Bull” was running with the headline “To Hell with Servia”, and demanding: “Why should Britain shed her blood to save a nation of assassins?”</p>
<p>By the beginning of August, however, it was already becoming clear to the government that the coming conflict would not be simply another Balkan quarrel but a war which threatened the destruction of France, and the establishment of a German continental hegemony. To Asquith, Grey, and Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, this represented an unacceptable threat to British strategic interests. But many of their colleagues still balked at the prospect of war, and several threatened resignation in the event of any British military intervention on the continent.</p>
<p>At this point, domestic political considerations came into play. On August 2 the cabinet received a letter from the leaders of the Conservative and Unionist Party, promising patriotic support from the Opposition in the crisis. This allowed Asquith to warn his colleagues that the break-up of the government would only serve to open the way for a pro-war Tory or coalition administration. The anti-war faction in the cabinet began to waver. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55509/original/wgg7vkfj-1406886237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55509/original/wgg7vkfj-1406886237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55509/original/wgg7vkfj-1406886237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55509/original/wgg7vkfj-1406886237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55509/original/wgg7vkfj-1406886237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55509/original/wgg7vkfj-1406886237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55509/original/wgg7vkfj-1406886237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55509/original/wgg7vkfj-1406886237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&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 very important scrap of paper.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then, on August 4, German armies crossed the Belgian frontier. This clarified the situation at a stroke. German actions represented not only an affront to the rights of a sovereign European state, but a breach of international law – violating, as they did, the 1839 <a href="http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Treaties_and_Documents_Relative_to_the_Neutrality_of_the_Netherlands_and_Belgium">Treaty of London</a>, which guaranteed Belgian neutrality. A government which just days earlier had seemed committed to preserving British neutrality now accepted the case for war as unanswerable, with only two cabinet ministers resigning in protest – John Morley, the 75 year-old secretary of state for India, and John Burns, the first working-class man to achieve cabinet rank.</p>
<p>The collapse of the “peace party” in the cabinet was remarkable. Yet the Liberal statesmen who committed Britain to military action in Europe did not do so lightly. Despite the familiar narrative of cheering crowds in 1914, the decision for war was not based on crude jingoism, let alone any anticipation of a quick and easy victory. It was a decision based on considered calculations about Britain’s national interests, and on genuine grounds of principle: the need to curb and punish military aggression, to preserve the international rule of law, and, ultimately, to seek a lasting peace for the continent. Britain would pursue these aims for four and a half years of total war before, at last, achieving victory. But it would be a victory bought at a terrible price.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Johnson 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>On July 24 1914 the British cabinet met to discuss the diplomatic situation in Europe, which had deteriorated rapidly since the assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand, a month before…Matthew Johnson, Lecturer in the Department of History, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/241422014-04-08T14:12:14Z2014-04-08T14:12:14ZGerman schools are building bridges across Europe as they remember World War I<p>German approaches to the history lessons of World War I are characterised by a sense of distance and an anti-war attitude. But probably the most striking feature of the way Germany teaches its children about World War I in this centenary year is the sideways connection being made across Europe. </p>
<p>Being a German working on British culture in the UK has made the differing war memories of each country quite tangible for me. I tend to insist on a connection between past and present, but one that clearly separates the two. Britain’s unbroken identification with a country at war feels strange, as does the casual use of words such as “enemy” or “home front”. </p>
<p>In Germany, the Holocaust and World War II continue to dominate cultural memory, including the teaching of history. Battlefield tourism is rarely on the agenda, but German pupils travel to concentration camps as a matter of course. </p>
<p>Yet the traumatic legacy of the Third Reich is not the only concern. When Sylvia Löhrmann, president of the standing conference of ministers of education and cultural affairs, declared 2014 an important <a href="http://www.kmk.org/presse-und-aktuelles/meldung/ministerin-sylvia-loehrmann-praesidentin-der-kultusministerkonferenz-2014.html">year of remembrance</a> for German schools, she placed the centenary of World War I alongside the 75th anniversary of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago.</p>
<h2>Absence of material</h2>
<p>Such spread of attention might be the reason why commentators felt Germany had a slow start into the 1914 centenary. But even the most dedicated followers of the centenary face a challenge. They cannot tap into a popular cultural archive. </p>
<p>Wartime and inter-war German literature and films are less known than their anglophone counterparts. Nazi attempts to rewrite the history of World War I, such as in the 1938 feature film <a href="http://www.filmportal.de/en/node/18165"><em>Pour le Mérite</em></a>, are undesirable propaganda. Later productions on World War I are so few and far between that they hardly matter at all.</p>
<p>This accounts for a clear boundary between literary accounts and historical writing in Germany. It is different from Britain, where writers and historians often present World War I side by side. A recent event on “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26546416">how schools should best prepare</a>” for the centenary, organised by the public school Wellington College, serves as an example of this British approach. </p>
<p>In the German context, the historical archive also comes under scrutiny. The exploration of past lives and views is usually one of comparison and critical reflection on one’s own situation and values. This strategy is part and parcel of the citizenship focus of German history teaching. It is a way for learners to interact with the questions of guilt that could be raised by the material they study.</p>
<h2>Euro-centric place in history</h2>
<p>The focus on comparison and relations with neighbours shows how necessary it is to react to a negative historical image. More constructively, it confirms the reinvention of Germany as a European player and facilitator. Remembering war is firmly rooted in this understanding. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.volksbund.de/en/volksbund.html">Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge</a>, the charity looking after German war graves, is dedicated to a European culture of remembrance and runs an international educational programme. The Rhineland calls its World War I project on this contested region <a href="http://www.rheinland1914.lvr.de/media/1914/dokumente/broschueren_usw/Broschuere_1914_englisch.pdf">1914 - In the Middle of Europe</a>. </p>
<p>The centenary has triggered school exchanges between Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The teacher conference <a href="http://www.nglv.de/index.php?pid=2&id=1626">1914-1918: War and Peace</a>, held in Hannover in February 2014, showcases French-German conversations and advocates a transnational teaching of history. The State Library of Berlin coordinates the <a href="http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-collections-1914-1918">Europeana Collections 1914-1918</a>, stressing the importance of World War I for a common European identity. </p>
<p>An event promising an interactive exposure to history is being organised in May 2014 by the <a href="http://www.bpb.de/die-bpb/138852/the-federal-agency-for-civic-education">Federal Agency for Civic Education</a>. Advertised in German and English, <a href="http://www.bpb.de/veranstaltungen/format/festival/175125/europe-1414">Look back, think forward: Be a part of Europe 14|14!</a> promotes Europe as a joint peace project. It also markets Berlin as a youth destination and site of (popular) history, turning Germany’s awkward historical position into an advantage – all under the European banner, of course. </p>
<p>Is Germany’s European take on the centenary useful and inclusive? Or is it self-serving and patronising, simply a feature of what Wolfgang Schivelbusch described as a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/29/history.highereducation1">culture of defeat</a>? I would argue that any strategy comes at a price, and not all outcomes of the centenary years can be foreseen.</p>
<h2>Both approaches have value</h2>
<p>The UK’s emotional recovery of the war years through re-enactment, song and even trench-building is for me more nostalgically marked than for those who engage in it. It is also the basis for considerable cultural productivity at a local level. I have seen how World War I heritage funding has empowered British schools and community groups, local historians and creative practitioners. </p>
<p>Local and family history, at least publicly displayed, has had limited appeal in Germany due to the dread of what one might find. But, as the large turn out at Berlin’s Europeana collection days has shown, many items have survived in German households. They are now shared in a liberating, pan-European “show and tell”, initially inspired by the Oxford-led <a href="http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/">Great War Archive</a>.</p>
<p>The German model of remembrance also has potential. It could expand knowledge about German colonialism and the long history of German-Turkish relations. Whether the Europe 14|14 event will be followed by Turkey 15|15, with an eye on the Dardanelles and the Armenian genocide, remains to be seen. </p>
<p>Much depends on how Turkey constructs its World War I memory. Nevertheless, German and German-Turkish teachers, pupils and citizens might be interested in discovering their World War I heritage together on a local level.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudia Sternberg received funding from the German Research Council (DFG) for research on the representation of World War I in British film and television. She has supported WWI centenary projects, co-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund. She is involved in Legacies of War at University of Leeds, an interdisciplinary project which organises and facilitates WWI research and engagement activities.</span></em></p>German approaches to the history lessons of World War I are characterised by a sense of distance and an anti-war attitude. But probably the most striking feature of the way Germany teaches its children…Claudia Sternberg, Senior Lecturer, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218262014-01-08T09:42:31Z2014-01-08T09:42:31ZGerman historians have little time for Gove’s Blackadder jibes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38600/original/nqfh9w6n-1389118578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who you think you're kidding, Mr Gove?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA / Martin Keene</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Michael Gove must be off his head. In Germany any politician who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25612369">tried giving professionals a history lecture</a> would be considered a lunatic.</p>
<p>German historians love to argue among themselves, and there is a strong divide between the left and the right – even more so than in Britain. But in a few areas there is common ground.</p>
<p>The burden of our guilt in the World War II has absorbed all our scholarly and emotional energy. Hitler’s war is the war we are still coming to terms with. As a consequence, World War I has drifted into the background, a distant prelude to the second. </p>
<p>And we are not interested in military history. Except for some on the outer fringe, there is no German <a href="http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/people.php?personid=67">Hew Strachan</a> or <a href="http://www.maxhastings.com/">Max Hastings</a>: no one describes in detail the heroism of combat in the expectation of being read. We had such books in the 1930s and, as we all know, they did not do our children any good. </p>
<p>Military history is simply no longer fashionable in Germany. This is not just affecting the job prospects of my colleagues, who are (often very good) military historians. It mirrors German society. Unlike the British, who have experienced so many wars in recent decades, German society is not used to military conflicts anymore. </p>
<p>German parents are regularly horrified when they visit the Imperial War Museum and encounter combat outfits for toddlers in the gift shop. They also refuse to buy the tickets for the World War I experience in the trenches. Such Disneyfication of war is something that never happened in Germany. We are painfully serious and think war should not be experienced for kicks. We also do not have popular war societies, such as the <a href="http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/">Western Front Association</a>, for fear of idealising war with dangerous consequences.</p>
<p>Curiously enough, this is a reason why many of us love watching a comedy programme like Blackadder. Though we would never produce something frivolous like this ourselves, we understand very well that it was a reaction against the jingoism British school children were subjected to until the 1960s. </p>
<p>We understand this because generations of our school children had to go through the same glorification of World War I. Their reaction was not Blackadder but the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/208409/Fritz-Fischer">Fritz Fischer</a> debate in the 1960s. This resulted in children in my generation being brought up on Fischer’s thesis that Germany was responsible for the outbreak of the First World War. </p>
<p>Christopher Clark’s new book <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n23/thomas-laqueur/some-damn-foolish-thing">Sleepwalkers</a> questions this thesis and has shot to Number 1 in the German bestseller list. This does not mean that Germans want to be innocent. It just means that many people of my age resented their history teachers. In short, we are reacting again, but in a more sophisticated way.</p>
<p>Of course we are surprised about the great amount of money the British government is investing in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-scheme-to-commemorate-ww1">World War I commemorations</a>. We can’t bring ourselves to organise any such festivities. This is not just because it would mean commemorating defeat (we are used to that) but because we are scared of looking nationalistic or being accused of revelling in our suffering. We have learnt one thing – obsessing over heroism simply does no good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21826/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karina Urbach 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>Michael Gove must be off his head. In Germany any politician who tried giving professionals a history lecture would be considered a lunatic. German historians love to argue among themselves, and there…Karina Urbach, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.