tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/anzac-centenary-15373/articlesAnzac Centenary – The Conversation2016-07-24T20:04:22Ztag: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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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131533/original/image-20160722-20996-122ofyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<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/420422015-05-19T05:27:46Z2015-05-19T05:27:46ZScott McIntyre vs SBS will test employees’ right to be opinionated<p>When Scott McIntyre <a href="https://theconversation.com/anzacs-behaving-badly-scott-mcintyre-and-contested-history-40955">tweeted his own opinions</a> about the horrors of war on Anzac Day, he probably didn’t expect to be sacked from his job at SBS. </p>
<p>After all, we have plenty of examples in this country of journalists and commentators – Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt and Kyle Sandilands, to name just three – who make a living from expressing controversial views that often offend at least some section of our community.</p>
<p>McIntyre is now <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-18/scott-mcintyre-sues-sbs-over-sacking-for-anzac-day-tweets/6478816">appealing his dismissal</a>, on the grounds that his employer has breached the “general protections” for workplace rights in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth).</p>
<p>The particular provision McIntyre is relying upon is <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/s351.html">section 351</a>, which provides that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An employer must not take adverse action against a person who is an employee, or prospective employee, of the employer because of the person’s race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, family or carer’s responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Adverse action includes dismissal, as well as other forms of workplace discipline (such as demotion), and the Fair Work Act places the onus on the employer to prove that they were not motivated by an impermissible reason (covered under <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/s361.html">section 361</a>).</p>
<p>So it will be for SBS to demonstrate that it sacked McIntyre for a legitimate reason, not including his political opinions.</p>
<h2>Proving discrimination isn’t easy</h2>
<p>On its face, the Fair Work Act protections against discriminatory treatment at work seem clear – but it has not always been easy to establish a successful claim.</p>
<p>Two notorious High Court cases stand in McIntyre’s path. One is the 2012 <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2012/32.html">Board of Bendigo Regional Institute of Technical and Further Education v Barclay</a> case. The other is the more recent 2014 decision on <a href="http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/judgment-summaries/2014/hca-41-2014-10-16.rtf">CFMEU v BHP Australia</a>.</p>
<p>In both these cases, employees were seeking to use related “adverse action” provisions protecting employees’ rights to exercise their internationally recognised right to freedom of association by engaging in union activities (under <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/s347.html">section 347</a> of the Fair Work Act).</p>
<p>In both cases, the employees were punished for some activity related to their union membership. </p>
<p>CFMEU v BHP was the <a href="http://www.corrs.com.au/publications/corrs-in-brief/high-court-majority-applies-barclay-decision-to-find-scab-sign-dismissal-was-lawful/">infamous “scab” case</a>, where employees were dismissed for holding up placards naming others as “scabs” during industrial action.</p>
<p>In both the Barclay and BHP cases, the employers were successful in demonstrating that they had other, legitimate reasons for taking action against the employees.</p>
<p>In the BHP case, the court accepted the employer’s assertion that the disciplinary action was taken for the sole reason of enforcing a workplace civility policy.</p>
<h2>McIntyre’s challenge</h2>
<p>So for McIntyre to succeed in his section 351 case against SBS, his counsel will have to demolish any assertion by SBS that it was motivated by a legitimate reason (such as enforcing a workplace civility, or a “don’t offend the viewers” policy).</p>
<p>This case will be an interesting test of whether the general protections in the Fair Work Act do offer any safe haven for employees to maintain a personal and political identity, unrestrained by any obligation to defer to their employer’s interests.</p>
<p>Once upon a time, long, long ago, and before social media all but obliterated any boundary between public and private lives, a judge in Australia said (in Australian Tramways’ Employees Association v Brisbane Tramways Co Ltd (1912) 6 CAR 35) that a person may wear, worship or believe whatever one chooses, in matters not affecting work.</p>
<p>Finding the balance between the employee’s rights and the employer’s interests is an old problem. It will be interesting to see how McIntyre’s case is resolved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joellen Riley Munton 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>Scott McIntyre’s legal challenge against being sacked by SBS will be an interesting test of whether the Fair Work Act offers any safe haven for employees to maintain a personal and political identity.Joellen Riley Munton, Dean and Professor of Labour Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/408422015-05-11T00:40:57Z2015-05-11T00:40:57ZLev Vykopal’s Gallipoli balances history against the legends<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79541/original/image-20150428-18138-1wrwcoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Lost Battalion, 2015. Acrylic, soil, charcoal and shellac on paper. Lev Vykopal.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fremantle Arts Centre</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tackling Gallipoli is an onerous challenge. Embedded in the Australian psyche as a place of myth and a repository for much that we claim as quintessential to our sense of being Australian, it carries baggage that must be accommodated or unpacked with extreme care. </p>
<p>This is a risky business whenever it might be undertaken but at this time, when we are commemorating its centenary, it has an added degree of difficulty, with pike. Not only is it a crowded field but our sensitivities are heightened.</p>
<p>Western Australian artist Lev Vykopal’s two exhibitions, the second in partnership with Paul Uhlmann and both currently <a href="https://fac.org.au/events/664/gallipoli-the-beautiful-city-lev-vykopal?pid=58">on show</a> at the Fremantle Arts Centre, offer a mix of reverence, analysis, critique and poetry. </p>
<p>His Czech surname means “to dig” and Vykopal adopts the techniques of an archaeologist to reveal the layers of history that invest this site with its genius loci. Digging for history is not an uncomplicated process, and the artist openly acknowledges that all evidence will be morphed and transformed through interpretation. </p>
<p>As Jean Cocteau remarked: “History is facts which become lies in the end; legends are lies which become history in the end”. Finding a balance is at the core of this project.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79546/original/image-20150428-18164-1y0q26j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79546/original/image-20150428-18164-1y0q26j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79546/original/image-20150428-18164-1y0q26j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79546/original/image-20150428-18164-1y0q26j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79546/original/image-20150428-18164-1y0q26j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79546/original/image-20150428-18164-1y0q26j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79546/original/image-20150428-18164-1y0q26j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79546/original/image-20150428-18164-1y0q26j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lev Vykopal, Australian front line, The Nek. Acrylic shellac and soil on paper.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fremantle Arts Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Firstly, Vykopal discovered the place on a field trip in July 2013. Kalli-polis, or “beautiful city”, is a site of cultural exchange and conflict that, although picturesque, has been infected with suffering and loss for centuries. </p>
<p>In response to that history Vykopal mined the site for pigment and set about recording the landscape with his samples; the red from brick dust, the ochres from the soil. The precipitous cliffs rising up from the narrow beach, the deep ravines and gullies, the rusted hulks still resting on the shore and the remains of other wrecks standing sentinel to the disaster that occurred there are described with accuracy and finesse using these resources. </p>
<p>At Lone Pine, he recorded the remains of trenches, dappled light transforming the site of so much suffering into a bucolic landscape. Only in the dark shadows are we able to inject our memory of the horror that befell those consigned to its protection. The Nek is similarly transcribed as a Romantic landscape, a golden light glowing through the forest of pines.</p>
<p>If Vykopal’s project had ended here it would have failed, for though technically proficient the overlay of history is applied through the historical and cultural baggage we bring to the works rather than from anything documented in the paintings themselves. </p>
<p>This lack of specificity and also of humanity led him to explore the lives of those that remained on these sites and the families of the men who returned to Australia. His portraits of the descendants in Turkey and back home are wrought with the same earth pigments, and that terrain is reflected in their craggy faces. To accompany these portraits, Vykopal adopts the techniques of a historian to provide oral history interviews that link their memories to the empty landscapes we see on the walls.</p>
<p>At Suvla, in Turkey, history emerged, quite literally, from the ground and the works Vykopal produced there were some of the strongest in the exhibition. The Searching for the Sandringhams series documents the lost regiment of gardeners and workers from the King’s estate. </p>
<p>There were men who went missing during the battle and were only discovered in temporary graves years later. In the meantime the ground on which they had fought was transformed into a field of sunflowers, a vast memorial to their courage and their skills in cultivation. While the artist borrows heavily on his art school fascination with the works of Anselm Kiefer in this series, they have an intensity that fuses the landscape with the histories of those that have been before.</p>
<p>The land and the sky above were the reality and the hope for soldiers that fought on these few kilometres of ground from pre-history to the recent battles of the first world war. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79548/original/image-20150428-18136-8ty33j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79548/original/image-20150428-18136-8ty33j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79548/original/image-20150428-18136-8ty33j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79548/original/image-20150428-18136-8ty33j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79548/original/image-20150428-18136-8ty33j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79548/original/image-20150428-18136-8ty33j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79548/original/image-20150428-18136-8ty33j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79548/original/image-20150428-18136-8ty33j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Uhlmann, Gallipoli Midnight Southern Sky. Oil on linen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fremantle Arts Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In partnership with Paul Ulhmann, Vykopal documents that space through a series of three-dimensional reconstructions built from multiple photographs and also from paintings that depict the night sky as it appeared on the evenings of the great battles of the campaign; April 25 1925, May 8 1915 and December 20 1915. </p>
<p>The specificity of these works – Vykopal’s exact map coordinates and Uhlmann’s precise times and dates – reinforces the historical fact but their rendering as dislocated bronze casts and evocative paintings of luminous star systems adds a palpable poetic dimension to their enterprise.</p>
<p>It is the combination of all the elements encapsulated in these two exhibitions that account for the success of Vykopal’s investigation of Gallipoli as site and myth. He conjures up its spirit of place, invests that space with personal narrative and cultural memory, and with Paul Uhlmann offers us a glimmer of hope by revealing the beauty inscribed in its name, “Gallipoli”.</p>
<p><br>
<em>Gallipoli: The Beautiful City – Lev Vykopal is on display at the Fremantle Arts Centre until May 24. Details <a href="https://fac.org.au/events/664/gallipoli-the-beautiful-city-lev-vykopal?pid=58">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Gallipoli: Earth and Sky – Lev Vykopal and Paul Uhlmann is on display at the Fremantle Arts Centre until May 24. Details <a href="https://fac.org.au/events/665/gallipoli-earth-sky-?pid=58">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell 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>Tackling Gallipoli is an onerous challenge: it carries baggage that must be accommodated or unpacked with extreme care. Western Australian artist Lev Vykopal’s two exhibitions offer a mix of reverence, analysis, critique and poetry.Ted Snell, Winthrop Professor, Director Cultural Precinct, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/408162015-05-03T19:37:19Z2015-05-03T19:37:19ZWe censor war photography in Australia – more’s the pity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79380/original/image-20150427-23939-pahf85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australian newspaper photographers have always been forbidden to show military failure or fragility.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Dave Hunt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You may have noticed we recently marked the centenary of Anzac. One hundred years after Gallipoli, we are seeing photographs of telegenic young men in their pristine uniforms illustrating media and marketing opportunities. Or in the case of Zoo Magazine, <a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/04/24/zoo-magazine-anzac-edition/">a young woman</a> in a white bikini holding a poppy. </p>
<p>What we don’t see is the reality of war. It has never been shown to us in Australia because photographers have never been allowed to present a true account. The searing, brutal images of “our boys” have rarely been published. </p>
<p>Australian newspaper photographers have always been forbidden to show military failure or fragility. During the first and second world wars the authorities censored all photographs from the frontline, and since the 1960s, despite the myth of the “uncensored war”, photographers have rarely been afforded unlimited access to Australian soldiers.</p>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/war_casualties/">more than 100,000 Australians</a> have lost their lives as a result of war service, photographs of our dead have never been published in newspapers. And images of the wounded are only shown when it accords with dignifying iconography. </p>
<p>The appropriation of war photography is not new. But what is striking is the imagery used to commemorate the first world war and the way it has been subsequently used to justify contemporary military commitments.</p>
<p>The pictorial selectivity has its antecedents in 1915. First world war photographers fell into two main categories: amateur and official. Reflecting the astonishing naivety about the war and presumably its anticipated brevity, Australian soldiers were each given a <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2012/06/29/10320/">Vest Pocket Kodak</a> on the voyage to Egypt to document their exploits. The cameras were quickly confiscated when the adventure spiralled into a bloodbath. </p>
<p>Australia accredited only three official war photographers: <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/publications/contact/herbert-baldwin.asp">Herbert Baldwin</a> in 1916, a British photographer, who lasted barely six months before being discharged due to ill health (a <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-shell-shock-to-ptsd-proof-of-wars-traumatic-history-37858">common euphemism</a> for “shell shock”) and Australian photographers, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hurley-james-francis-frank-6774">Frank Hurley</a> and <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676761/">Hubert Wilkins</a>. </p>
<p>Though both Hurley and Wilkins produced an outstanding body of work, photos of Australians in combat never appeared in newspapers during the war. Published photographs were restricted to staged images of soldiers on training exercises, soldiers as tourists in Egypt, departing for, or arriving at various destinations, or portraits of the young men who died accompanied by captions including mandatory references to heroes, sacrifice, the fallen, the defence of freedom and Empire. </p>
<p>In contrast, it was the unpublished photographs, which provide a vivid tableau of unseen military life. Some captured the enormity of the battle, the nightmarish conditions, the bleak and ravaged landscape, and the Australian dead, dying, maimed and emotionally fragile. Other photos document some of the 1,300 Indigenous Australians who fought in the war. </p>
<p>But the sepia brochure “celebrating 100 years of ANZAC spirit” issued by some Federal Ministers, and Woolworth’s much derided “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-14/woolworths-under-fire-for-anzac-promotion/6392848">Fresh in our memories</a>” campaign featured the same photograph of a young soldier. Known unofficially by the War Memorial as the “<a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/04/15/06/2794D12F00000578-3039212-image-a-10_1429077471255.jpg">handsome man</a>”, we don’t know his name or for that matter his fate. </p>
<p>It does not matter: he was selected because he serves an important purpose; the representation of conventional and comforting ideas of Anzac valour and sacrifice. </p>
<p>One of the few images of a wounded Australian that has been used in the commemorative media coverage was taken by Ernest Brookes, a British official photographer.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79900/original/image-20150430-6230-1vhz5p7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79900/original/image-20150430-6230-1vhz5p7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79900/original/image-20150430-6230-1vhz5p7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79900/original/image-20150430-6230-1vhz5p7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79900/original/image-20150430-6230-1vhz5p7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79900/original/image-20150430-6230-1vhz5p7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79900/original/image-20150430-6230-1vhz5p7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79900/original/image-20150430-6230-1vhz5p7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&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 Australian bringing in a wounded comrade to hospital. Notwithstanding the unhappy situation, they joked as they made their way down from the front. In the distance can be seen North Beach, running towards Suvla.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial/Brooks, Ernest (Photographer), 1915.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is captioned: “An Australian bringing in a wounded comrade to hospital. Notwithstanding the unhappy situation, they joked as they made their way down from the front.” </p>
<p>The photograph is acceptable because the soldier is smiling but the media, including well regarded newspapers who use this image, ignore or have removed its dubious provenance. Some have sourced it from Getty images who do not always fully caption photographs. The Official Australian War Correspondent, Charles Bean, noted that Brookes’ photograph had been “re-enacted”. </p>
<p>The “handsome man” is no more powerful than the haunting photograph here:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79901/original/image-20150430-6238-wj4h2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79901/original/image-20150430-6238-wj4h2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79901/original/image-20150430-6238-wj4h2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79901/original/image-20150430-6238-wj4h2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79901/original/image-20150430-6238-wj4h2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79901/original/image-20150430-6238-wj4h2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79901/original/image-20150430-6238-wj4h2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79901/original/image-20150430-6238-wj4h2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Belgium: Western Front (Belgium), Ypres Area, Ypres, September 19-20, 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial/ Unknown Australian Official Photographer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Taken by an Australian official photographer, it shows wounded and exhausted soldiers being treated at an advanced dressing station near Ypres. Not all the soldiers are identified; we do not know what happened to the damaged young man featured in the centre of the image, his condition sometimes attributed to shellshock. </p>
<p>There are also photographs of the dead. One showed dead and wounded Australians and Germans during the battle of Passchendaele, in October 1917 . </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79902/original/image-20150430-6245-mr45m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79902/original/image-20150430-6245-mr45m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79902/original/image-20150430-6245-mr45m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79902/original/image-20150430-6245-mr45m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79902/original/image-20150430-6245-mr45m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79902/original/image-20150430-6245-mr45m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79902/original/image-20150430-6245-mr45m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79902/original/image-20150430-6245-mr45m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dead and wounded Australians and Germans in the railway cutting on Broodseinde Ridge, in the Ypres sector, in Belgium, during the battle of Passchendaele, on October 12, 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial/ Unknown Australian Official Photographer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You won’t see images like these in the current memorialisation of Anzac. </p>
<p>I’m not advocating the use of gratuitously violent photos but we should consider ones that enrich our understanding of the diverse experiences of war. It is time that we widened our visual ideas of courage rather than censored suffering. </p>
<p>Sanitised imagery obscures our understanding of war and trauma. As historian Marina Larsson <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Shattered_Anzacs.html?id=JyMqAQAAIAAJ">reminds us</a>, there are no reliable statistics to indicate how many returned soldiers suffered from mental disorders. </p>
<p>Of the 416,809 Australians who enlisted in the first world war, more than 60,000 were killed and about 156,000 were physically or psychologically wounded, in addition to 700 <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Shattered_Anzacs.html?id=JyMqAQAAIAAJ">reported cases</a> of self-inflicted wounds. Nervous breakdowns accounted for 10% to 40% of the disabled.</p>
<p>Michael Tyquin rightly observes that “those who succumbed to mental illness did not have a place in the celebration of nationhood and masculinity”. They were effectively, as Larsson argues, “failed Anzacs”. </p>
<p>The pictorial invisibility continues today with photographers’ access to Australian soldiers now completely managed by the Australian Defence Force and restricted to embedding opportunities. Some of the photographers I have interviewed condemn the control but pragmatically adapt to it because they have little choice. </p>
<p>With the diminution of newspapers and advertising revenue, embedding with the Defence Force is an expensive enterprise. </p>
<p>Instead, many editors source photographs from the Department of Defence’s <a href="http://images.defence.gov.au/fotoweb/Grid.fwx">expansive image gallery</a> of soldiers and photo opportunities for politicians. </p>
<p>Other photographers prefer to work unilaterally but this means they are unable to photograph Australian troops. That is a pity. We have exceptional professional photographers who are prevented from recording unregulated military service. </p>
<p>There are great claims made about the role of war photography in developing our understanding of Australia as a nation and experience of conflict. This is predicated on an assumption that nuanced photographs are seen. We have another three years of commemoration. </p>
<p>It might be a vain hope but perhaps we should consider photographs that expound on war and heroism rather than limiting it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fay Anderson receives funding from an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant in partnership with the National Library of Australia and the Walkley Foundation.</span></em></p>Although more than 100,000 Australians have lost their lives as a result of war service, photographs of our dead have never been published in newspapers.Perhaps we should reconsider this.Fay Anderson, Associate Professor of Journalism Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/409552015-04-29T01:55:09Z2015-04-29T01:55:09ZAnzacs behaving badly: Scott McIntyre and contested history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79677/original/image-20150429-7111-1tql7hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Let me try and put sacked SBS sports journalist Scott McIntyre’s tweets in historical perspective.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Sedat Suna</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sacked for tweeting remarks about Anzacs that are considered “inappropriate” and “disrespectful”? Let me try and put SBS sports journalist Scott McIntyre’s tweets in historical perspective. Over the Anzac Day weekend, McIntyre <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/26/sbs-sports-reporter-scott-mcintyre-sacked-over-direspectful-anzac-tweets">was fired</a> from SBS for a series of tweets about the grimmer aspects of Australian military history.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79691/original/image-20150429-7079-1mqdc04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79691/original/image-20150429-7079-1mqdc04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79691/original/image-20150429-7079-1mqdc04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79691/original/image-20150429-7079-1mqdc04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79691/original/image-20150429-7079-1mqdc04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79691/original/image-20150429-7079-1mqdc04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79691/original/image-20150429-7079-1mqdc04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79691/original/image-20150429-7079-1mqdc04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We know the Anzacs could get up to mischief. That was part of their image even during the first world war. Take my grandfather, for example. <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/rolls/R1865203/">Frederick George Fazey</a> joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in 1918, but it was only when I looked up his records in the National Archives in Canberra that I discovered he was “apprehended” in London, and fined four days pay before being sent to the Western Front. </p>
<p>That was a story he never told the family, but his transgression is excusable, and seemingly innocent. He was a boy after all, only 16 or 17, and no doubt wanted to experience a bit of life before being sent to a place where there was a good chance of being killed or maimed. </p>
<p>Less excusable and far less innocent, even with the knowledge of hindsight, is the behaviour of the Anzacs stationed in Egypt before being shipped to Gallipoli. There the men treated the locals in an overtly racist manner. </p>
<p>One soldier, <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/rolls/R1904952/">Victor Ault</a>, wrote about how “we thrash the black fellows with whips … Every nigger who is impudent to a soldier gets a hiding … I can’t say how many I’ve belted and knocked out.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79676/original/image-20150429-7073-sipqc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79676/original/image-20150429-7073-sipqc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79676/original/image-20150429-7073-sipqc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79676/original/image-20150429-7073-sipqc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79676/original/image-20150429-7073-sipqc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79676/original/image-20150429-7073-sipqc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79676/original/image-20150429-7073-sipqc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79676/original/image-20150429-7073-sipqc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Diego Azubel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Good Friday 1915, things got out of hand. Around 2,500 Anzacs rioted in the Wazza district of Cairo, sacking and setting fire to brothels, terrifying the locals, and clashing with military police who tried to intervene. These were no angels. Between 12% and 15% of the AIF had contracted venereal disease. </p>
<p>The battle of the Wazza, as it was dubbed, was not the only riot that took place. Others followed. Drinking and whoring, leaving bills unpaid, threatening, bullying and beating locals because they were “niggers”, and generally behaving in ways that we now condemn our sportsmen for behaving was standard fair for these boys who had money, were far away from home, and had no one to control them. </p>
<p>All this is well known to historians, but clearly less well known to the public. There is an obvious disconnect between what historians know and what the popular perception of our past is. It is this disconnect that has jarred with some in the public and led to McIntyre’s sacking. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79690/original/image-20150429-7086-11f9jln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79690/original/image-20150429-7086-11f9jln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79690/original/image-20150429-7086-11f9jln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79690/original/image-20150429-7086-11f9jln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79690/original/image-20150429-7086-11f9jln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79690/original/image-20150429-7086-11f9jln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79690/original/image-20150429-7086-11f9jln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79690/original/image-20150429-7086-11f9jln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is difficult if not impossible for historians to overturn popular myths. Myths are popular because they represent stories we want to hear; they feed into the collective psyche. Anzacs behaving badly is not something we want to acknowledge. </p>
<p>The “summary executions” tweet (below) made by McIntyre is a case in point. Most people are familiar with the Japanese treatment of Allied POWs, but Australian soldiers killed Japanese prisoners in Papua, including on at least one occasion wounded Japanese soldiers in hospital. </p>
<p>Take the 1943 diary entry of Eddie Stanton, an Australian posted to Goodenough Island off Papua New Guinea. “Japanese are still being shot all over the place,” he wrote. “The necessity for capturing them has ceased to worry anyone. From now on, Nippo survivors are just so much machine-gun practice. Too many of our soldiers are tied up guarding them.” </p>
<p>This was tit-for-tat killing. Anzac and American troops systematically shot Japanese prisoners in the Pacific, in part because it was expedient to do so, in part out of revenge after being witness to what the Japanese were capable of, and in part because there was so much racial hatred. The Pacific theatre was a racialised war in which atrocities were committed on both sides. </p>
<p>It is naïve to expect men to kill and die for their country, to live through the horrors of a particularly barbaric war, and to come out the other end unscathed. Hence McIntyre’s tweet that Anzacs raped – among others – Japanese women. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79687/original/image-20150429-7069-17x1cj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79687/original/image-20150429-7069-17x1cj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79687/original/image-20150429-7069-17x1cj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79687/original/image-20150429-7069-17x1cj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79687/original/image-20150429-7069-17x1cj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79687/original/image-20150429-7069-17x1cj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79687/original/image-20150429-7069-17x1cj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Listen to the testimony from an Australian officer, Allan Clifton, who acted as interpreter in Japan in 1946:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I stood beside a bed in hospital. On it lay a girl, unconscious, her long, black hair in wild tumult on the pillow. A doctor and two nurses were working to revive her. An hour before she had been raped by 20 soldiers. We found her where they had left her, on a piece of waste land. The hospital was in Hiroshima. The girl was Japanese. The soldiers were Australians. </p>
<p>The moaning and wailing had ceased and she was quiet now. The tortured tension on her face had slipped away, and the soft brown skin was smooth and unwrinkled, stained with tears like the face of a child that has cried herself to sleep. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Every invading army, regardless of the side they are on, regardless of the war, rapes. The Allies raped in France and the Philippines, in Italy and Japan. According to American historian Bob Lilly’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Taken-Force-American-Europe-during/dp/023050647X">estimate</a>, between 14,000 and 17,000 women were raped by American military personnel in Europe between 1942 and 1945. </p>
<p>And that is not counting the Pacific. Australians may not have behaved as badly as the Russians in Germany, but thousands of Japanese women were raped in the years after the war, some of them by Australian and New Zealand soldiers who made up the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79689/original/image-20150429-7095-1b9mmhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79689/original/image-20150429-7095-1b9mmhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79689/original/image-20150429-7095-1b9mmhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79689/original/image-20150429-7095-1b9mmhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79689/original/image-20150429-7095-1b9mmhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79689/original/image-20150429-7095-1b9mmhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79689/original/image-20150429-7095-1b9mmhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79689/original/image-20150429-7095-1b9mmhq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As for Hiroshima, as well as Nagasaki, we think that a combined total of the number of civilian deaths was a little under 100,000. This was comparable to the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945 and of Tokyo in March 1945, which led to the deaths of, roughly, around 25,000 and 97,000 civilians respectively. </p>
<p>Was the Allied bombing of civilians a war crime? Some respected historians, among them <a href="http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/history-classics-archaeology/about-us/staff-profiles?cw_xml=profile_tab1_academic.php?uun=dbloxham">Donald Bloxham</a>, professor of modern history at the University of Edinburgh, would argue that it was. </p>
<p>Historically speaking then, McIntyre is not all that far off the mark, but he has been sacrificed on the altar of populist outrage. I try to teach my students to see the world differently, to think differently, to always question accepted opinion and then, when necessary, to speak out. </p>
<p>The decision made by the managing director of SBS is disappointing. Are journalists, academics and public figures only ever to tell people what they want to hear? </p>
<p>The response to McIntyre’s tweets is a demonstration that the popular perception of Anzac is completely out of step with the historical reality – but his remarks are also timely. We should not forget that war is never a one-sided affair in which our boys are squeaky-clean heroes and their boys murdering, raping villains.</p>
<p>War brings out the worst (as well as the best) in people. Some Anzacs were neither heroes nor particularly likeable characters – and some behaved little better than thugs and hooligans. I certainly would not have wanted to meet some of them in the back alleys of Cairo in 1915 after they had been on the piss all night. </p>
<p>But in the atmosphere of nationalistic chest-beating that surrounds the Anzac commemorations, there are not likely to be too many dissenting voices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Dwyer 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>It is naïve to expect men to kill and die for their country, to live through the horrors of a particularly barbaric war, and to come out the other end unscathed – despite our popular myths.Philip Dwyer, Professor, Director of the Centre for the History of Violence, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385962015-04-24T20:26:45Z2015-04-24T20:26:45ZThe past is not sacred: the ‘history wars’ over Anzac<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76186/original/image-20150326-8725-uwrbvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Drape 'Anzac' over an argument and, like a magic cloak, the argument is sacrosanct – even though it shouldn't be.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alexander Turnbull Library</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>, has published 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>The term <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2009/november/1270703045/robert-manne/comment">“history wars”</a> is best known in Australia for summing up the fierce debate over the nature and extent of frontier conflict, with profound implications for the legitimacy of the British settlement and thus for national legitimacy today.</p>
<p>That debate, though hardly resolved, is now taking something of a back seat to a public controversy focused on Australia’s wars of the 20th century and particularly on the war of 1914–18, called the Great War until the Second World War redefined it as the First.</p>
<p>If “history war” is a public controversy about past events that raise disturbing contemporary questions about national legitimacy and identity, then this Great War controversy also qualifies as such. The polemic unfolded in a familiar fashion. “History warriors” from the political right have publicly insisted that historians and left-wing commentators were distorting the past and violating cherished understandings about the First World War. </p>
<p>In various forums, they stated and restated their now-familiar case: Australia’s vital interests were at stake in the Great War and it took part to protect these interests. The warriors insist there is a left-wing “orthodoxy” arguing that Australia’s national interests were not served by participating in the war and that Australians were duped by the British into fighting. </p>
<p>The recent past and the present loom large in the warriors’ anxiety. They insist that Australia is not in the habit of sending troops overseas to fight “other people’s wars”, as critics suggest, and that participation in overseas wars throughout the 20th century (and since) has been overwhelmingly in Australia’s interests. They have loudly condemned, and continue to condemn, historians and journalists who see this differently.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76185/original/image-20150326-8716-tnb9w5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76185/original/image-20150326-8716-tnb9w5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76185/original/image-20150326-8716-tnb9w5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76185/original/image-20150326-8716-tnb9w5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76185/original/image-20150326-8716-tnb9w5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76185/original/image-20150326-8716-tnb9w5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1178&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76185/original/image-20150326-8716-tnb9w5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1178&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76185/original/image-20150326-8716-tnb9w5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1178&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gerard Henderson argued that the Great War was right for Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Himbrechts</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Broadsides along these lines have been heard for a generation. I’m not certain where it started, but an <a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=433411153670742;res=IELLCC">early shot</a> fired in Quadrant in July 1982 by columnist Gerard Henderson merits closer inspection. Henderson was unhappy with the then-emerging field of social history and its emphasis on “waste” and suffering, because – in his view – it undermined the rightness of the cause. </p>
<p>Henderson targeted the distinguished social historian Bill Gammage, whose celebrated “emotional history” of the war, <a href="http://www.army.gov.au/Our-future/Publications/Australian-Army-Journal/Past-editions/%7E/media/Files/Our%20future/LWSC%20Publications/AAJ/2010Summer/15-TheBrokenYearsAustralia.pdf">The Broken Years</a>, was based on soldiers’ diaries. Gammage was guilty, Henderson claimed, of distinguishing “between the Anzacs as individuals and the cause for which they fought” – of feting the soldiers but condemning the war. Gammage was a consultant on the Peter Weir film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082432/">Gallipoli</a> wherein the same distinctions were evident, and equally odious, to Henderson.</p>
<p>Henderson stated his belief that the war was right for Britain and Australia. He took issue with the notion of the war as tragedy:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Great War was “futile” and a “waste” in one sense only – in that the Western Allies in the 1920s and 1930s surrendered much of what had been won in 1914–1918 due to their all-embracing guilt.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So the tragedy “in one sense only” is to be found in foreign policy errors made after the war. Had these errors not been made, nothing about the Great War would be tragic, “futile” or a “waste”. This, presumably, is the hard-nut indifference to suffering (even on a massive scale) that is required by the men of high politics.</p>
<p>But I find this interesting for another reason.</p>
<p>At the time, Gammage was researching and writing social history, or “history from below”. He was determined to show how this war was experienced by ordinary people and to document their terrible ordeals on the field of battle and, yes, the horrendous waste of human beings, talent and potential.</p>
<p>Australian history probably followed literature here, for it was a novelist who put the human legacy of war on the national agenda. George Johnston’s bestselling novel <a href="http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/may/1398866400/nadia-wheatley/50th-anniversary-my-brother-jack">My Brother Jack</a> was published to great acclaim in 1964. The novel explored the disastrous impact of war for a single family on the home front. It opened up a national conversation about the true legacy of war. Gammage picked up the baton and ran.</p>
<p>In this capacity, Gammage was a part of – or more accurately ahead of – a cultural shift in the history business, with a newfound concern for the traumatic impact of war experience right across the wars of the 20th century, and thereafter.</p>
<p>Historian Christina Twomey wrote about this shift in the December 2013 edition of History Australia. Twomey <a href="http://journals.publishing.monash.edu/ojs/index.php/ha/article/view/988/1520">argued</a> that social history’s focus on suffering in war is but one part of a fascination with the traumatic in contemporary society. She called this change “the rise to cultural prominence of the traumatised individual” and argued that this rise is not peculiar to Australia, or even to the military sphere, but is evident throughout the Western world.</p>
<p>In this vein, though years earlier, Gammage explicitly rejected the label “military history” for The Broken Years. He wrote “to show the horrors of war”. The book has never been out of print and trauma is now a field of study in Australian history, with titles such as Joy Damousi’s <a href="http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-December-2001/knox.html">Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in Post-War Australia</a>, Stephen Garton’s <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Cost_of_War.html?id=E5TfAAAAMAAJ">The Cost of War: Australians Return</a> and Peter Stanley’s <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/lost-boys-of-anzac/">Lost Boys of Anzac</a>, among others. But this new focus is perhaps best summed up by Marina Larsson’s <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Shattered_Anzacs.html?id=JyMqAQAAIAAJ">Shattered Anzacs: Living with the Scars of War</a>.</p>
<p>In her article, Twomey concludes that the “trauma” perspective – this understanding of what war does to people – has been the principal reason for the resurgence of enthusiasm for the Anzac tradition. No doubt there’s some truth in this idea of a congruence between the personal and the political, empathy working to bind people together in solemn tribute to our nation’s military endeavour over a century and more. But it’s a shaky foundation. </p>
<p>A military heritage understood as trauma and suffering will always threaten to undermine narratives constructed around strategic necessity. Tragedy can too easily extend to critical evaluation of the political necessity for war, both then and now. To emphasise the human side of the war might even break the airlock that shields high politics and belligerent journalism from such considerations.</p>
<p>Perhaps this tension is behind one of the oddities of the current “history war”: never has the Anzac tradition been more popular and yet never have its defenders been more chauvinistic, bellicose and intolerant of other viewpoints. One only has to read the Murdoch press editorials, features or op-eds on Anzac Day (or thereabouts), or the polemics in Quadrant, to know this. </p>
<p>Every year the hard heads kick in – “we got it right”, they say – and serve up the summary analysis, column after column, never failing to fire a shot or two at the doubters, the usually unnamed “orthodox” school that peddles the fiction of “other people’s wars” or “futility”.</p>
<h2>New inclusiveness but a greater intolerance</h2>
<p>ANU historian Frank Bongiorno has argued that it is precisely the renewed cultural authority of Anzac – the popular enthusiasm for remembrance – that has had unanticipated and, for some of us, unwanted consequences, notably a declining toleration of any critique of Australian military endeavour. </p>
<p>In an <a href="http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=72209">edited collection</a>, Bongiorno charts how Anzac commemoration has changed in recent times. Ethnic groups and Aboriginal people claimed a part or a familial connection in one or another of Australia’s wars across the 20th century – somewhat like Australians finding a link to a convict ancestry and with it a newfound pride in their national identity. </p>
<p>There is now a small wing of Australian publishing that is busy with books about German Anzacs and Irish Anzacs, Black Diggers, Ngarrindjeri Anzacs, Chinese Anzacs, Russian Anzacs and so on.</p>
<p>The new inclusiveness is one of a number of causal factors underpinning the resurgence of enthusiasm for the Anzac tradition. There is, also, the metaphysical pull of the occasion – the obstinate or perhaps eternal need for the sacred in a secular society. There is the rise of genealogy, linking families to forebears who fought and suffered and died for us. There is the progressive broadening of criteria for participation in the marches. </p>
<p>And there is the all-important role of governments (Labor and Liberal) in the lavish promotion of a war-centred nationalism going back at least to the Hawke government. </p>
<p>It has been noted, for instance, that Anzac Day works better as a national day because it avoids the contentious matters that Australia Day brings to the fore – Aboriginal dispossession and colonisation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76198/original/image-20150327-4777-2jtndf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76198/original/image-20150327-4777-2jtndf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76198/original/image-20150327-4777-2jtndf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76198/original/image-20150327-4777-2jtndf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76198/original/image-20150327-4777-2jtndf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76198/original/image-20150327-4777-2jtndf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76198/original/image-20150327-4777-2jtndf.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 play Black Diggers is one example of the new inclusiveness in the Anzac tradition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, Anzac’s popularity is on a high and, buoyed by this popularity, the ideological guardians of the tradition seek to press home their advantage. As Bongiorno points out:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a long history of contention over the significance and meaning of the Anzac legend. But once a tradition is defined in more inclusive terms, those who refuse to participate can readily be represented as beyond the pale. To question, to criticise – to doubt – can become un-Australian.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The vitriol has been warming for some time. An editorial on April 26, 2013, in The Australian is instructive. It had suggestions for the bureaucrats responsible for organising commemorative events in the centenary years to come:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The best advice we can offer is that they ignore the tortured arguments of the intellectuals and listen to the people, the true custodians of this occasion. They must recognise that the current intellectual zeitgeist is at odds with the spirit of Anzac. It recognises neither the significance of a war that had to be fought nor the importance of patriotism. Honour, duty and mateship are foreign to their thinking. They may be experts on many things, but on the subject of Anzac, they have little useful to say.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Two days later, Andrew Bolt <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/anzac-day-attacks-have-a-dangerous-audience/story-e6frfhqf-1226631088757">chimed in</a> on cue in the Herald Sun. Intent on vilifying academic critics of the Anzac legend, he suggested they were lining up with Islamic extremists. He named two respected scholars – Marilyn Lake and Clare Wright – and suggested that their expertise had abandoned them on matters Anzac. Doubt and debate in Bolt’s worldview is not only unpatriotic, it is the mark of fanaticism and treachery.</p>
<p>Now the Great War centenary has arrived and the history warriors have chosen their weapons. Paul Kelly set the tone in August 2014, when he <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/a-conscious-decision-to-march-into-the-war-to-end-all-wars/story-e6frg74x-1227010661982">railed</a> in The Australian that Australians had been mugged by an anti-war mythology. The film Gallipoli got another blast, as did:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the legacy of poets and “anti-war cultural practitioners” who, since the 1960s, have peddled the lie, the “delusion”, that the Great War was a terrible blunder … that saw millions sacrificed in vain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Quadrant, the busiest critic of late has been Mervyn Bendle, an untiring polemicist. His concerns run entirely contrary to the historical project – he wants the Anzac past to be fixed and sacred. He thinks the issue here is “respect for Australian society”, and describes critical interventions in military history as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… an elitist project explicitly dedicated to destroying the popular view of these traditions. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The agents of this conspiracy are at <a href="http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2010/04/anzac-in-ashes/">one time</a> “little more than a pampered coterie” and <a href="https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2014/04/military-historians-war-anzac-legend/">elsewhere</a> a more considerable force (one assumes), since they are:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… led by a cadre of academics, media apparatchiks and some disaffected ex-army officers. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bendle seems entirely uncomfortable with the vigorous, contested nature of the discipline. He caricatures these rival interpretations as “an iconoclastic holy war against the Anzac tradition”, and in one instance as “a jihad”. Quadrant has published Bendle’s denunciations regularly since 2009.</p>
<p>Bongiorno’s take on such intemperate reaction is well put:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Anzac’s inclusiveness has been achieved at the price of a dangerous chauvinism that increasingly equates national history with military history, and national belonging with a willingness to accept the Anzac legend as Australian patriotism’s very essence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But if the new inclusiveness of Anzac commemoration provides backing for this kind of intolerance, it is also true that the centenary (now with us) has heightened anxieties about the legitimacy of the so-called Great War, as has the widespread questioning of recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The context for intolerance has, in this sense, been overdetermined.</p>
<h2>The debate is not closed elsewhere</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76200/original/image-20150327-4780-1334d9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76200/original/image-20150327-4780-1334d9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76200/original/image-20150327-4780-1334d9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76200/original/image-20150327-4780-1334d9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76200/original/image-20150327-4780-1334d9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76200/original/image-20150327-4780-1334d9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76200/original/image-20150327-4780-1334d9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76200/original/image-20150327-4780-1334d9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former UK education secretary Michael Gove attacked those peddling ‘myths’ about the war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Richard Goldschmidt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the past two decades, as the centenary has crept up, the scholarly contest around the origins and the meaning of the Great War has intensified. The anniversary has lifted the game to a new intensity – nowhere more evident than in Britain, where historians and politicians have eagerly put their case. Some of the most intemperate interventions seem designed to caricature critical reflection and shut down debate. </p>
<p>Michael Gove, then British education secretary, set the tone in January 2014 when he <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532923/Michael-Gove-blasts-Blackadder-myths-First-World-War-spread-television-sit-coms-left-wing-academics.html">tore into</a> “left-wing academics” for peddling unpatriotic “myths”. He cited satire such as Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder as grist to the left-wing mill that encouraged these myths and denigrated the “patriotism, honour and courage” of those who served and died.</p>
<p>The bizarre edge to Gove’s intervention suggests a fear that the contest may not be going his way. As Oxford professor Margaret MacMillan <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/04/labour-gove-first-world-war-comments">put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He is mistaking myths for rival interpretations of history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gove had tried to enlist MacMillan to his cause, referring favourably to her important (if oddly titled) book, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/book/105817/the-war-that-ended-peace-by-margaret-macmillan">The War That Ended Peace</a>. But MacMillan said he got it wrong: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wish we could see understanding the First World War as a European issue, or even a global one, and not a nationalistic one. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Good advice.</p>
<p>The history business is more richly resourced, sophisticated and nuanced, more exhaustive and rigorous and more openly scrutinised by a fascinated general public than ever before. A vigorous contest about the origins and meaning of the war continues unabated. </p>
<p>Broadly, two schools of thought have been contesting the ground at least since A.J.P. Taylor’s <a href="http://endeavourpress.com/war-by-timetable-how-the-first-world-war-began-by-a-j-p-taylor/">War By Timetable</a>. One insists Germany was hell-bent on world domination and had to be stopped. The other (including Taylor) sees the great powers as collectively responsible in varying ways and to varying degrees. </p>
<p>And inextricably tied into these two schools are views set on a spectrum between “high and noble purpose” and ghastly “futility”.</p>
<p>The complexity of this debate should not be understated. My grasp of it suggests the “collective responsibility” school of thought is far more soundly based in history than the nationalistic “evil Germany” version. Perhaps the best example of this headway is Christopher Clark’s celebrated volume <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/books/review/the-sleepwalkers-and-july-1914.html?_r=0">The Sleepwalkers</a>. </p>
<p>Clark is an Australian, and now a professor of modern history at Cambridge. His delightfully readable account of the polarisation process that led to war teases out this collective responsibility against a background of ethnic and nationalistic ferment in Europe at the time. He writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The outbreak of war is not an Agatha Christie drama at the end of which we will discover the culprit standing over a corpse in the conservatory with a smoking pistol. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clark sees smoking pistols in many hands. He sees a Europe in which all the great powers were pursuing their own interests, willfully indifferent to the interests of others and, to that end, ready to risk a major conflict, having no idea of the horrors they were about to unleash.</p>
<p>The point is this: the debate in Britain is not closed. It is perhaps more wide-open than ever and well able to resist the forces that would shut it down and render history into a hammer in the sectarian tool box.</p>
<h2>An elite ‘hell-bent’ on war</h2>
<p>In Australia, the scholarly scene is similarly robust and, one trusts, similarly resistant to bullying and coercion. Here, too, the coming of the centenary has heightened critical scrutiny and a reactive anxiety that insists the past is sacred.</p>
<p>While social historians continue to track the personal cost of our wars among soldiers and their families, and the cultural industry produces countless books, movies, TV series and tours of battlefields, a more political line of inquiry has in recent times tracked the “militarisation of Australian history” since the 1980s. </p>
<p>The evidence of this obsession is found in patterns of government funding, in the media, publishing and education, in documentaries and electronic media programs devoted to the history of Australians at war – to the detriment of our many other pasts. The imbalance here has dire consequences for the breadth and depth of understanding of the past, as Henry Reynolds has <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/militarisation-marches-on">pointed out</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The implications fly off in all directions – nations are made in war not in peace, on battlefields not in parliaments; soldiers not statesmen are the nation’s founders; men of blood are more worthy of note than negotiators and conciliators; the bayonet is mightier than the pen; a few fatal days on the shore of the Ottoman Empire outweighed the decades of civil and political pioneering by hundreds of colonial Australians.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The centenary has galvanised this concern with numerous authors, several key titles and website <a href="http://honesthistory.net.au/">Honest History</a> raising the critical standard. In <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/whats-wrong-with-anzac/">What’s Wrong with Anzac?</a>, edited by Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, the contributing scholars sought to explain how this obsession with military history has been manufactured and to highlight how it eclipses a rich and diverse history of nation-making, civil and political traditions of democratic equality and social justice.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76202/original/image-20150327-4768-15fy9i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76202/original/image-20150327-4768-15fy9i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76202/original/image-20150327-4768-15fy9i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76202/original/image-20150327-4768-15fy9i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76202/original/image-20150327-4768-15fy9i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76202/original/image-20150327-4768-15fy9i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76202/original/image-20150327-4768-15fy9i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76202/original/image-20150327-4768-15fy9i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds’ What’s Wrong With Anzac?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NewSouth</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It must be said that the book has sparked fierce criticism from within the history community. Distinguished scholars <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/04/19/its-war-anzac-day-dissenters-create-bitter-split-between-historians/">Inga Clendinnen</a> and Ken Inglis contested the “top down” explanation of the resurgence of Anzac and others pointing to misapprehensions about “propaganda” being fed into schools and about both teachers and students as passive recipients. But there is much in the book that merits attention. It set out to provoke discussion and debate. In that, it has been entirely successful.</p>
<p>Other scholars have indirectly shaped the critique of the obsession with Anzac by contributing to a broadly conceived cultural history that places Asia (and thus our racial anxieties) at – or near – the centre of our national story. <a href="http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/ncas/australias-asia-from-yellow-peril-to-asian-century-edited-by-david-walker-and-agnieszka-sobocinska/">Australia’s Asia</a>, edited by David Walker and Agnieszka Sobocinska, is a key text in this regard. Within this framework it has become possible to rethink Australia’s entry into the Great War, notwithstanding the voices that insist there’s nothing more to know.</p>
<p>A number of authors have taken up this challenge, notably John Mordike and recently <a href="https://griffithreview.com/articles/race-fear-dangerous-denial/">Greg Lockhart</a>, who charted the secret commitments that shaped Australia’s entry into the war and the racial fears that motivated Australian politicians to make these commitments. <a href="http://airpower.airforce.gov.au/Publications/Details/222/We-should-do-this-thing-quietly---Japan-and-the-great-deception-in-Australian-defence-policy-1911-1914.aspx">Mordike</a>, Lockhart and Walker, and predecessors such as historian Neville Meaney, have reshaped the way we think about the racial frameworks that governed political thought and the fears that underpinned Australian defence policy leading up to the First World War – notably the obsession with Japan. </p>
<p>The great irony here is that Japan was a reliable British ally throughout those years of war – yet it was fear of Japan that drove White Australia’s commitment to an expeditionary war long before war broke out.</p>
<p>Another constructive contribution is Douglas Newton’s <a href="http://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/title/hell-bent/">Hell-Bent</a>. The title suggests the author’s revisionist perspective. Newton’s aim is to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… interleave the story of Australia’s leap into the Great War and the story of the choice of war in Britain. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Newton’s interpretation sets Hell-Bent firmly in the collective responsibility camp, with Australian government intent – if not impact – as culpable as Britain and the rest. Newton’s book surveys the obsession with racial fitness, the post-Federation longing for blooding in battle, the searching for confirmation of racial virility and the almost universal belief that the one true test of national vigour was war.</p>
<p>Newton quotes Australian prime minister Joseph Cook’s diary of Monday, August 3, 1914 – the same day that he promised the Royal Australian Navy and 20,000 troops to Britain: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The good to come, [the] moral tonic. Luxury, frivolity and class selfishness will be less. A memory for our children, bitter and bracing for many. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cook’s earnestness was at least preferable to Churchill’s effervescing glee at the prospect of war in July 1914, and his enjoyment of war thereafter. He could still call it “delicious” in January 1915.</p>
<p>War as socially uplifting and purifying was a common theme among Australia’s political elites in 1914. War was an antidote to “effeminate thinking”, ‘sentimentalism" and the way that too long a peace “can rot all manly thought and action out of our race”, as Melbourne academic Archibald Strong put it. War was a curative. War was a way to rescue the British race from the brink of destruction. </p>
<p>Such were the attitudes that underpinned a political elite “hell-bent” on war. The celebrants today would have us forget this. They would have us forget both the racial framework and the obsessive paranoia that inspired the push to war in Australia.</p>
<p>They would have us forget the lessons, too. In <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2013/04/15/gallipoli-ridge-too-far/">Gallipoli: a ridge too far</a>, edited by Ashley Ekins, historian Robert O’Neill describes how “blindness and miscomprehension” about Turkey’s ability to defend itself was repeated in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How strange it is that Winston Churchill, a voracious student of military history, thought that a force of some 60,000 men, backed by the Royal Navy, would rapidly induce a Turkish collapse leading to the seizure and occupation of Constantinople. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>O’Neill goes on to note how the decision-making process was dominated by Churchill, and to record Charles Bean’s observation in The Story of Anzac – how through the:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… fatal power of a young enthusiasm to convince older and slower brains, the tragedy of Gallipoli was born.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bean was the great official historian of the Australians in the First World War. He will be quoted liberally in the course of the centenary, but his blunt summary of the Gallipoli venture as a reckless fantasy may not get the attention it deserves.</p>
<p>No chance of that with James Brown’s <a href="http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/anzacs-long-shadow">Anzac’s Long Shadow</a>, an unusual intervention that has stirred debate and critical reflection, and fury in the Quadrant ranks. Brown, a former officer who commanded troops in Iraq and served with Special Forces in Afghanistan, was the military fellow at the Lowy Institute when the book was published. He writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This year an Anzac festival begins a commemorative program so extravagant it would make a sultan swoon. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Brown argues that Australia is spending too much time, money and emotion on the Anzac legend at the expense of current serving men and women. He rejects the sophistry that suggests any criticism of the Anzac myth is anti-military. He also provides a sharp critique of the clubs and corporations that exploit the Anzac theme for commercial gain. </p>
<p>Brown does not dwell on the particulars of Australian involvement in the Great War but he does stress the importance of informed memory, of knowing Gallipoli for what it was: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A century ago we got it wrong. We sent thousands of young Australians on a military operation that was barely more than a disaster. It’s right that a hundred years later we should feel strongly about that.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>In history, nothing is sacred</h2>
<p>Politicians and a retinue of warrior commentators want us to be proud of our martial history, lest the nation fall apart. Historians worth their salt want us to know that history critically, lest the nation be deceived, or simply dumbed-down. </p>
<p>This is a great divide. History is a cautious, ever-questioning discipline, well aware that all historical truth is contextual and contingent and thus open to revision or to new ways of seeing the past. Politics is a profession played out with dogmatic certainties that are wielded like baseball bats. Where historians must be ever critical, ever ready to go deeper, politics – and national history as set down by politicians – must be unimpeachable. </p>
<p>Drape “Anzac” over an argument and, like a magic cloak, the argument is sacrosanct. History will not stand for that. In history nothing is sacred. History is open inquiry; politics is slogans.</p>
<p>Australia’s finest historian, Inga Clendinnen, <a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/agamemnon-s-kiss">explained</a> the great divide between politics and history in the following way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The discipline of history demands rigorous self-criticism, a patient, even attentiveness, and a practiced tolerance for uncertainty. It also requires that pleasure be taken in the epistemological problems which attend the attempt to recover the density of a past actuality from its residual traces. These are not warrior virtues.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Political agendas require a national story that is simple, fixed and inviolable. Thus the Anzac centenary is committed to locking in a glorious military past but, like the 1988 Bicentennial, it is raising more questions than the celebrants want. Centennials can backfire. That is the heart of the problem for the history warriors on the conservative side of politics. </p>
<p>That, more than any other factor, explains their bellicose insistence on the rightness of what happened.</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/38596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Cochrane 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>Never has the Anzac tradition been more popular and yet never have its defenders been more chauvinistic, bellicose and intolerant of other viewpoints.Peter Cochrane, Honorary Associate, Department of History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400142015-04-24T02:02:59Z2015-04-24T02:02:59ZWhy we don’t hear about the 10,000 French deaths at Gallipoli<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78164/original/image-20150416-23383-a59scb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A French field kitchen in use by the French troops within half a mile of the Turkish lines on the southern section of Gallipoli Peninsula, 1915.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ernest Brooks/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With almost the same number of soldiers as the Anzacs – 79,000 – and similar death rates – close on 10,000 – French participation in the Gallipoli campaign could not occupy a more different place in national memory. What became a foundation myth in Australia as it also did in the Turkish Republic after 1923 was eventually forgotten in France. </p>
<p>Some of the reasons are obvious. </p>
<p>France was fighting for its very existence and many, including Joseph Joffre, the commander-in-chief on the western front, thought Gallipoli a side-show at best and a wasted effort at worst. It was a British conceived and led campaign, although the French were a fully-fledged expeditionary force with their own staff and command structure. </p>
<p>It was also a failure, and while that never prevented anyone spinning redemptive narratives about heroism and national virtue, the French had plenty more relevant episodes to use for such purposes during the Great War, from the Marne in 1914 and Verdun in 1916 to final victory in 1918. </p>
<p>Even regarding the “front of the Orient”, as they called it, the French saw Gallipoli merely as a curtain-raiser to the subsequent campaign in Macedonia, to which most French units from Gallipoli transferred, and which finally defeated Bulgaria in 1918, contributing to the victory over the Central Powers. Gallipoli failed to achieve any of its goals.</p>
<h2>What was in it for the French?</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78133/original/image-20150416-31670-rkva9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78133/original/image-20150416-31670-rkva9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78133/original/image-20150416-31670-rkva9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78133/original/image-20150416-31670-rkva9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78133/original/image-20150416-31670-rkva9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78133/original/image-20150416-31670-rkva9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78133/original/image-20150416-31670-rkva9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A French battleship firing at Turkish shore positions in the preliminary bombardment, Dardanelles 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Cuirasse_francais_bombardant_les_Turcs_pour_soutenir_le_debarquement_de_1915.jpg">Unknown/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other reasons for the neglect of the campaign are less obvious – and more revealing – about its actual nature. </p>
<p>The French conceived of the Dardanelles in part at least as a colonial campaign. This was not true of its ostensible goals – since the idea of defeating the Ottoman Empire and linking up with Russia was clearly part of a continental conflict between the major European powers. </p>
<p>But one consequence of success would be (as it eventually was) the partitioning of the Ottoman Middle East. The French could not afford not to take part in case the British won. </p>
<p>Even more tellingly, the campaign was conceived in a colonial mode. </p>
<p>As the “sick man of Europe” it was assumed that the Ottoman Empire would collapse at the mere demonstration of Allied naval and military might. The land campaign would be just like the expeditions that had subordinated “native” peoples to French and European authority pre-war – in Indo-China, China and Morocco. </p>
<p>Even after the naval fiasco of March 18, when British and French ships failed to force the Dardanelles, the French imagined that the land campaign would be an easy march along the shores of the Sea of Marmara to Constantinople. </p>
<p>Finally, two thirds of the French Expeditionary Force were composed of colonial soldiers, though two thirds were also white. While two regiments were specially raised for the campaign from metropolitan France, many of the other soldiers came from elite European colonial regiments or white settlers from Algeria and Tunisia.</p>
<p>Despite initial plans, it proved impossible to use native North African soldiers (though they later went to Macedonia) because they would be fighting against fellow Muslims and possibly occupying the holy sites of the Middle East.</p>
<p>But a quarter to a third of the French soldiers were <em>Tirailleurs Sénégalais</em>, or Senegalese Infantry, though in reality they were recruited from all over French West Africa and included some creoles from the West Indies and islands of the Indian Ocean. While it is not true that there was no memory of the Dardanelles campaign in inter-war France, it was largely colonial, being especially strong among the settler community in North Africa. </p>
<p>Needless to say, the Senegalese had their own oral traditions but they were never in any active sense part of the official “memory” of the campaign. When the Empire vanished after the second world war, and French Algeria with it, the most obvious sources of a commemorative culture of Gallipoli disappeared.</p>
<h2>Not exactly a colonial campaign</h2>
<p>The paradox, as rapidly became evident to the French soldiers, is that Gallipoli as an experience had little of the colonial campaign about it. The Turkish soldiers who opposed the landings were men fighting to defend their homeland and religion, and they did so as tenaciously as any of the other European armies of the Great War. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78132/original/image-20150416-19648-19cfdhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78132/original/image-20150416-19648-19cfdhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78132/original/image-20150416-19648-19cfdhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78132/original/image-20150416-19648-19cfdhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78132/original/image-20150416-19648-19cfdhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78132/original/image-20150416-19648-19cfdhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78132/original/image-20150416-19648-19cfdhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group of unidentified French gunners posed with a howitzer in the Dardanelles, 1915. Among them are a couple of Australians.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Groupe_de_soldats_français_et_australiens_posant_près_d%27une_piece_d%27artillerie_aux_Dardanelles_en_1915.JPG">Athelstan Markham Martyn/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They were also instructed and party commanded by a significant number of German officers, who had initiated them into the rudiments of trench warfare in ways that still remain fully to be established. </p>
<p>Even more fundamentally, Gallipoli was as much a military part of the war in Europe as it was by virtue of its political logic. The great surprise of the first world war was that a conflict that almost everyone had imagined as a war of movement in the same broad mould as warfare since Napoleon, where the outcome would turn on the massed infantry offensive, became in reality a drawn-out conflict in which the defensive predominated. </p>
<p>The application of industrialised firepower only made the stalemate all the more destructive and prolonged. In effect, the “front” was invented as the battlefield of this mutual siege warfare, and Gallipoli was simply the most distant of the fronts that locked down Europe in 1915.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly – though at the time it surprised everyone – the conflict that raged for eight months on this most distant peninsula of the continent reproduced the trench warfare of the western and other fronts. </p>
<p>As one French soldier, Arnaud Pomiro, lamented on May 15: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>So it’s siege warfare, or if one prefers, trench warfare, exactly as on the French front. I see no end to it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nor did he. The French, like the British, never got further than seven kilometres from their landing place on April 25 at the tip of the peninsula. As Pomiro’s comment shows, they were referring to Gallipoli as a “front” within three weeks of arriving. Yet they clung grimly on. </p>
<p>While Paris began transferring troops to the Macedonian front from September, French soldiers remained with the British until the final disembarkation on January 8-9 1916.</p>
<p>As a front, confined to a tiny area but extended by naval logistics on both sides to the Greek islands and to Constantinople respectively, Gallipoli offers a perfect laboratory for historians wishing to study the nature of warfare in the Great War. </p>
<p>Instead of being a colonial exception, it was a microcosm of the European war at large. What the French discovered to their painful surprise becomes an exciting challenge to the historian a century on. </p>
<p>But the price of meeting that challenge is to end the tendency to separate out simplistic national accounts from a more complex episode that only makes real sense when viewed as a comparative and transnational whole.</p>
<p><br>
<em>John Horne will be speaking at the Australasian Association for European History (AAEH) XXIV Biennial Conference, War, Violence, Aftermaths: Europe and the Wider World, to be held in Newcastle, from July 14-17 2015. Details <a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/events/faculty-of-education-and-arts/aaeh-conference">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><br>
<em>The Conversation is currently running a series looking at <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/history-of-violence">the history and nature of violence</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40014/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Horne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Australians commemorate the Anzacs who died at Gallipoli, spare a thought for the 10,000 French soldiers who also died on the Dardanelles in the first world war.John Horne, Professor of Modern European History, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400672015-04-23T20:23:11Z2015-04-23T20:23:11ZJoin the dots between Gallipoli and the Armenian genocide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77707/original/image-20150413-4084-vn5sen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C12%2C1288%2C948&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Livestock wagon with Armenians in the Summer or Autumn 1915. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Historisches Institut der Deutschen Bank, Frankfurt.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week marks the centenary not only of the Gallipoli campaign, but – today – of the Armenian genocide. The destruction of the Armenians coincided with the planned Allied attack against the Ottoman capital, Istanbul. </p>
<p>For the Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) at the reins of the Ottoman Empire, Spring 1915 was a watershed moment. Together with its defence of the Dardanelles, this conspiratorial group of right-wing revolutionaries made its war “total” in a way that Europe did not know before the second world war.</p>
<p>In 1915 and 1916, the Ottoman Armenians were destroyed as an organised community, while more than half of them, around one million people, were killed. After the Allies had failed in its naval breakthrough through the Isthmus on March 18 1915, they launched a landing on the Gallipoli peninsula, east of the Dardanelles, on April 25. </p>
<p>This occurred just a few hours after the Ottoman minister of the interior, Mehmed Talat, the CUP’s strong man, issued orders to destroy his fellow Ottoman Armenians. Even if the Ottoman Empire eventually lost the war, which it had considerably prolonged by joining it, the CUP achieved its minimal war goal: exclusive Muslim power in Asia Minor by destroying the Armenians.</p>
<p>Its Kemalist successors, most of them former CUP members, built the Republic of Turkey in a “cleansed” Asia Minor. Like Mehmed Talat, Kemalists exalted Gallipoli as a victory of Muslim Anatolia against imperialist invasion. For them, it paved the way to a successful nation-state. </p>
<p>For the pioneer of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, <a href="http://www.genocidepreventionnow.org/Home/tabid/39/ctl/DisplayArticle/mid/742/aid/339/Default.aspx?skinsrc=%5BG%5D/Skins/GPN/printskin">Raphael Lemkin</a>, the suffering:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>of the Armenian men, women, and children thrown into the Euphrates River or massacred on the way to Der-el-Zor […] prepared the way for the adoption for the Genocide Convention by the United Nations. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lemkin based his work on what Armenians and Jews experienced during the two world wars.</p>
<h2>Why genocide?</h2>
<p>Genocide was a means of total war. For the CUP, the war served both to secure a sovereign and safe home for Muslims in Asia Minor (its minimal, “existential” goal), and to restore and expand the Empire (its maximal war goal). </p>
<p>Many leading members of the CUP hailed from the Balkans, once part of the Ottoman Empire, but which had been lost during the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913. In 1913, triggered by the loss of Macedonia, the CUP established a dictatorial regime and redefined what it understood as a nation.</p>
<p>The CUP was already unwilling to share power equally with Ottoman non-Turks and non-Muslims before the constitutional revolution of 1908, but after the loss of Macedonia (divided among Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria), leading members of the CUP embarked on defining the Empire as a Turkish nation in which only Muslims could be successfully assimilated. Asia Minor was to become the Turk’s Homeland (Türk Yurdu). </p>
<p>In this new and more exclusive vision of the Empire, Ottoman Christians were seen as aliens and acting as a fifth column. In June 1914, for example, the CUP expelled about 150,000 Greek Orthodox Christians from the Aegean coast and settled Muslim refugees from the Balkans in their houses.</p>
<p>The CUP, looking through Social Darwinist “Macedonian glasses”, then turned to another topical conflict of the late Ottoman world – the ‘Armenian question’ in the eastern provinces. </p>
<p>The European powers had instituted article 61 of the Berlin Treaty (1878) in an effort to safeguard a secure future for Armenians with their Muslim neighbours through reform. The Ottoman government belatedly signed the Reform Agreement on 8 February 1914. By that time, however, the Agreement was at odds with the CUP’s exclusive outlook on its core land and its co-optation with anti-constitutional forces in the region. </p>
<p>In a time of peace, the Reform Agreement might have worked. </p>
<h2>Europe in crisis and the Armenians</h2>
<p>What changed the situation was the crisis of European diplomacy in July 1914 and the German Kaiser’s order to accept a CUP request for a war alliance. </p>
<p>Germany’s paramount goal was military victory. When the CUP consequently annulled the Reform Agreement, Germany did not protest. The highly influential German military mission in Istanbul contributed to a comprehensive mobilisation of Ottoman forces and pressed for Ottoman military action according to the terms of the alliance signed on August 2 1914.</p>
<p>Once the overstretched Ottoman forces went on the offensive, however, they began to lose. The failure of the Allied naval assault on March 18 1915 in the Dardanelles saved the CUP and instilled in it the audacity to achieve its minimal war goal in a radical way: by doing away with the Armenians.</p>
<p>Talat Pasha felt confident in both a successful Ottoman-German defence of the capital and a window of opportunity in the shadow of this effort directed at the Armenians. </p>
<p>On April 24 1915, he ordered the arrest and deportation of Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople – and then began to target the Armenians as a whole after he had implemented regional anti-Armenian measures and disarmed Armenians serving in the army.</p>
<p>Evidently, Ottoman Armenians could not share the CUP’s notion of a Turk Homeland (Türk Yurdu). </p>
<p>From the Autumn of 1914, Armenians became deeply worried by Islamist and Turkish war propaganda and the CUP’s obstruction of the Reform Agreement. Several thousand young men had joined the Russian army, but for others the future looked bleak. One can sense the exasperation and frustration of Armenian voices during those early months of the war, but still hoped on German help.</p>
<p>Hopes set on Germany were misplaced. The Armenians were alone, except the asylum offered by Alevi and Yezidi Kurdish neighbourhoods, a number of Muslim families and some support given by American and Swiss missionaries on the spot. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78151/original/image-20150416-31694-12ppszr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armenian refugees from Musa Dagh on the deck of one of the French ships, September 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARefugies_arm%C3%A9niens_du_Musa_Dagh_sur_un_croiseur_francais_en_1915.jpg">Unknown/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a few places, Armenians organised resistance. The most prominent was the resistance on Musa Dagh, a mountain in the Turkish province of Hatay, that later gave birth to a novel by Franz Werfel, a contemporary Austrian writer. His book was translated into Yiddish and avidly read in Jewish ghettos during the second world war. </p>
<h2>An organised destruction</h2>
<p>The destruction of the Armenians ordered by Talat Pasha took place in several phases. </p>
<p>He first ordered the arrest, torture and murder of Armenian leaders, beginning on the night of April 24. </p>
<p>In a second step, he organised the removal of the Armenian people to Syria. He began in the eastern provinces where elderly men, boys and other men not serving in the army were massacred before removal. </p>
<p>At several places en route, mass killing included women and children. Rape was systematic. Removal from Western Asia Minor as well as Thrace started in July 1915, and included the displacement of men that partly took place by train.</p>
<p>The second phase of genocide concerned the survivors of deportation who starved to death in camps in the Syrian desert. </p>
<p>About 150,000 Armenians were formally Islamised, resettled in the south and were thus saved by Jemal Pasha, the military governor of Syria. Apart from that, any attempts at resettlement were frustrated. In August 1916, more than 100,000 survivors of starvation and renewed forced marches to the southeast, including children, and were killed east of the Euphrates next to Dair az-Zor. These were scenes of indescribable horror.</p>
<p>In guise of a conclusion, a question that’s<a href="http://theconversation.com/100-years-on-australias-still-out-of-step-on-the-armenian-genocide-39792"> being asked elsewhere today</a>: Can the Allies’ failed invasion of Gallipoli be honestly commemorated without remembering the Armenian genocide? </p>
<p><br>
<em>Hans-Lukas Kieser will be speaking at the Australasian Association for European History (AAEH) XXIV Biennial Conference, War, Violence, Aftermaths: Europe and the Wider World, to be held in Newcastle, from July 14-17 2015. Details <a href="http://www.newcastle.edu.au/events/faculty-of-education-and-arts/aaeh-conference">here</a></em>.</p>
<p><br>
<em>The Conversation is currently running a series looking at <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/history-of-violence">the history and nature of violence</a>.</em></p>
<p><br>
<strong>See also:</strong><br>
<em><a href="http://theconversation.com/100-years-on-australias-still-out-of-step-on-the-armenian-genocide-39792">100 years on Australia’s still out of step on the Armenian genocide</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hans-Lukas Kieser receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>In 1915 and 1916, the Ottoman Armenians were destroyed as an organised community and more than one million of their number were killed – just as the Allies’ failed invasion of Gallipoli took place.Hans-Lukas Kieser, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/405702015-04-23T04:46:21Z2015-04-23T04:46:21ZLaying wreaths for Australians who once served in silence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78890/original/image-20150422-1867-1n9i3bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australian Navy, Army and Air Force personnel marched in record numbers at the 2015 Mardi Gras, led by senior Defence officers -- a stark contrast to the way gay veterans were treated in the past.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.defglis.com.au/index.php/news/181-mardi-gras-2015-defence-capability-and-community">Department of Defence</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Anzac Day 1982, a group of five men went to Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance to lay a wreath. As they climbed the steps, Victorian RSL President Bruce Ruxton reportedly called out “Stop those men!” and, together with the Shrine guard and the Shrine commissionaire, blocked the group from laying their wreath. </p>
<p>After a short confrontation, the police shepherded the men away. Even though this was the time of day when the public was allowed to lay wreaths, these men – ex-servicemen at that – were turned away because they were gay. </p>
<p>They were the Gay Ex-Services Association (GESA). The group was apolitical and the card accompanying their wreath simply read: “For all our brothers and sisters who died during the wars. Gay-Ex Services Association.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79039/original/image-20150423-3125-hn9cgg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79039/original/image-20150423-3125-hn9cgg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79039/original/image-20150423-3125-hn9cgg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79039/original/image-20150423-3125-hn9cgg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79039/original/image-20150423-3125-hn9cgg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79039/original/image-20150423-3125-hn9cgg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79039/original/image-20150423-3125-hn9cgg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79039/original/image-20150423-3125-hn9cgg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&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 stand-off between the five GESA members and officials at the 1982 Anzac Day commemoration in Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The City Rhythm, via the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other members of GESA again tried to lay wreaths on Anzac Day in 1983 and 1984; though Shrine officials and Ruxton did try to obstruct them again, they were able to lay their wreaths. But GESA disbanded shortly thereafter and, as far as we know, there were no further attempts on Anzac Day to lay wreaths to commemorate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI) military service.</p>
<p>That is all about to change. </p>
<h2>Joining in this year’s commemorations</h2>
<p>This Anzac Day, representatives of the Defence Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Information Service (<a href="http://www.defglis.com.au/">DEFGLIS</a>) will be laying a wreath at the Shrine in Melbourne with a former GESA member, at last righting a wrong after more than 30 years. DEFGLIS members will also lay wreaths at Martin Place in Sydney, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and in Townsville.</p>
<p>DEFGLIS is a non-political organisation that both supports and represents lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex personnel and their families. Whereas in 1982 GESA was a small group of fewer than 10 based only in Melbourne, DEFGLIS is a national organisation with more than 400 members, including current and former members of the Navy, Army and Air Force, as well as civilian Defence employees, family members and other allies. Its mere existence is a testament to the vast changes to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in the past 30 years.</p>
<p>Back when GESA was around, homosexual acts were still illegal in most states and being gay or lesbian contradicted ADF regulations. But of course lesbians and gay men were serving in the ADF, as they had throughout the 20th century.</p>
<p>Historians have found evidence of gay men serving in the <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Bad_Characters.html?id=rp_1QkM9HOQC">first world war</a>, with records of soldiers being convicted for “buggery” or tabloids reporting gay soldiers roaming the city streets. In <a href="http://www.army.gov.au/Our-future/LWSC/Our-publications/%7E/media/Files/Our%20future/LWSC%20Publications/AAJ/2013Winter/AustralianArmyJournal_V10N3Winter_History-AHomosexualInstitution.pdf">the second world war</a>, there were reports from Papua New Guinea of soldiers forming relationships that were sometimes even tolerated by their commanding officers.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79038/original/image-20150423-3133-13srujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79038/original/image-20150423-3133-13srujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79038/original/image-20150423-3133-13srujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1304&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79038/original/image-20150423-3133-13srujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1304&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79038/original/image-20150423-3133-13srujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1304&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79038/original/image-20150423-3133-13srujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1639&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79038/original/image-20150423-3133-13srujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79038/original/image-20150423-3133-13srujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1639&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">December 26, 1981: The Truth newspaper in Melbourne reports on men sacked from the army for ‘homosexual activities’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Truth, via the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the second world war onwards there were lesbians in the women’s services, notwithstanding training that explicitly warned servicewomen against such behaviour. </p>
<p>When gay or lesbian service members were found out – sometimes as the result of witch-hunts – they faced the choice of ceremoniously being stripped of their rank and badges or of quietly resigning from the ADF. Most requested the latter.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, there were occasional debates in the Commonwealth Parliament over permitting gays and lesbians to serve in the ADF. Then, in late 1990, a dismissed lesbian from the Navy challenged the policy in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, putting the issue on the political agenda. </p>
<p>Throughout 1992, the Keating Labor government deliberated the ban on gay and lesbian service. The government was divided, but in November 1992, the cabinet overturned the ban on lesbians and gays serving in the ADF. This was 19 years before the United States would permit gays and lesbians to serve openly after repealing its infamous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.</p>
<h2>Beyond tolerance</h2>
<p>Since repealing the ban in 1992, both the Commonwealth government and the ADF have gradually shifted from tolerating to embracing LGBTI military service. In 2005, family benefits were extended to same-sex partners of Defence members. In 2010, Defence repealed the ban on transgender personnel. Defence now targets LGBTI recruitment as part of its diversity and inclusion strategy. </p>
<p>In 2013, the Australian Army issued rainbow lapel pins and cufflinks that soldiers may wear during the week of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Defence members have marched in Mardi Gras on and off since 1996, and since 2013 the ADF has authorised them to march in uniform. </p>
<p>At this year’s Mardi Gras, the three most senior enlisted members of the ADF <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOAJYp1Gjf0">volunteered</a> to lead the Defence contingent – yet another sign of the ADF embracing diversity amongst its members. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FOAJYp1Gjf0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Of course there are still problems of homophobia and transphobia within the ADF, but the progress over the last 33 years has been remarkable, and it can only get better.</p>
<p>On this Anzac Day, Australians will all pause to honour a century of military service since the landing at Gallipoli. That century of service includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex personnel who put their lives on the line for this country, often not being able to enjoy the very freedoms they were fighting for. </p>
<p>At last, their hidden contributions and sacrifices are able to be remembered, alongside all others who were <a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-soldiers-remembered-the-research-behind-black-diggers-21056">once shamefully left out</a> of our national commemorations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Noah Riseman is a member of DEFGLIS. All views expressed in this article are his own.</span></em></p>On Anzac Day 1982, five gay veterans tried to lay a wreath at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance, but were turned away by the Shrine Guard and the state RSL president. This year, that won’t happen.Noah Riseman, Senior Lecturer in History, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/405652015-04-23T02:58:50Z2015-04-23T02:58:50ZAnzac Day is also about the right to democratic dissent and those who fought for it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78789/original/image-20150421-9032-h51rw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C20%2C600%2C386&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activists trying to bring attention to the issue of rape in war were arrested for protesting at Anzac Day services in the 1980s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ACT Heritage Library</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In response to foiled plans for a terrorist attack at an Anzac Day commemoration service, Prime Minister Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/20/uk-police-arrest-14-year-old-boy-over-links-to-alleged-anzac-day-attack-plan">said</a> that interfering with such an event is “utterly alien to Australians”.</p>
<p>But Abbott is wrong. While any attack resulting in deaths would be reprehensible, and quite different to interruptions to services in the past, interfering with an Anzac Day service has been a very Australian way of drawing public attention to an issue. </p>
<h2>Protests against abuses in war</h2>
<p>In the 1960s and 1970s, anti-Vietnam War protests were <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=dGJkUQxieygC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=anzac+day+protest+australia+vietnam&source=bl&ots=nFAeFhytFE&sig=9HqOz7xW26P3uuPTY648n9uQZlc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Whc2VdDuKMiy7QbDoICwDQ&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=anzac%20day%20protest%20australia%20vietnam&f=false">common</a> at Anzac Day events.</p>
<p>On <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=mVHA9YVC6GQC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=anzac+day+protest+rape+1982+australia+vietnam&source=bl&ots=9An9k4bsL9&sig=8TB1LLPmJjEhxFgAkVMlXjmhsRw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4RE3VfvWGcPWmAXylIAo&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=anzac%20day%20protest%20rape%201982%20australia%20vietnam&f=false">Anzac Day 1982</a>, 750 women stood on the hill overlooking the War Memorial in Canberra during the official wreath laying. They held a large banner, which read:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In memory of all women of all countries raped in all wars. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This important action drew attention to the gender-specific effects of war long before the UN Security Council adopted <a href="http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/wps/">Resolution 1325</a> on Women, Peace and Security.</p>
<p>The then minister for the capital territory, Michael Hodgman, had tried to prevent the raising of this kind of issue on Anzac Day for the two previous years. On Anzac Day 1981, 65 women were <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=ZWaDjVPUjXoC&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=1980+anzac+day+canberra+arrest&source=bl&ots=rBEcown8Yz&sig=0ysCchmGPmFIdqiNDCpkLwBEZIY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-Rk2VZr8Aeq17gbVhoDYCA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=1980%20anzac%20day%20canberra%20arrest&f=false">arrested</a> for trying to join the march to recognise women raped in war.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78784/original/image-20150421-9012-167zv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78784/original/image-20150421-9012-167zv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78784/original/image-20150421-9012-167zv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78784/original/image-20150421-9012-167zv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78784/original/image-20150421-9012-167zv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78784/original/image-20150421-9012-167zv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1196&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78784/original/image-20150421-9012-167zv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1196&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78784/original/image-20150421-9012-167zv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1196&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Hodgman tried to prevent protests from taking place at Anzac Day services.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Two days prior, Hodgman had <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F1981-04-28%2F0093%22">gazetted</a> an ordinance making it an offence to engage in conduct “likely to give offence or cause insult to” persons taking part in an Anzac Day parade. He <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19810512&id=ETRVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=w5QDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1788,5789334&hl=en">claimed</a> to have information that representatives of Marxist and lesbian groups would attempt to sabotage the Anzac ceremony. </p>
<p>In 1982, Hodgman produced a <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/act/num_ord/pao1982225.pdf">further ordinance</a> intended to stop the women.</p>
<p>These repressive ordinances helped galvanise a much larger number of organisations concerned with civil liberties and freedom of assembly, including the Labor opposition. They ensured nationwide media coverage for the women’s actions. </p>
<p>There was widespread controversy over whether dissenting voices had the right to participate in a national ceremony or whether such ceremonies should be limited to honouring the fallen.</p>
<p>As the centenary of the Gallipoli landing approaches, memories of such dissenting actions seems to have disappeared from public consciousness. This is despite the <a href="http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/349358/news/nation/australia-calls-on-asean-to-play-greater-role-in-resolving-wps-disputes">priority</a> that Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has been giving to the issue of sexual violence during armed conflict.</p>
<h2>Protests against conscription</h2>
<p>Yet if Gallipoli was about <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-great-war-shaped-the-foundations-of-australias-future-38860">defining</a> the nation, shouldn’t Australians be celebrating the value of democratic dissent? A team of social scientists has been preparing to mark the centenary next year of the <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs161.aspx">first conscription referendum</a>, a truly distinctive democratic event. </p>
<p>Australia was not only a nation that voted itself into existence in the referendums of the 1890s. It was also the only country in the first world war to provide the opportunity to vote on the issue of conscription.</p>
<p>Despite the censorship and restrictions under the <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C1914A00010">War Precautions Act</a>, the 1916 conscription referendum was a sufficiently democratic exercise for the result to be an unexpected win for the “no” vote. The “no” vote was even stronger in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_plebiscite,_1917">1917 referendum</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78782/original/image-20150421-9021-w022yv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78782/original/image-20150421-9021-w022yv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78782/original/image-20150421-9021-w022yv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78782/original/image-20150421-9021-w022yv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78782/original/image-20150421-9021-w022yv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78782/original/image-20150421-9021-w022yv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78782/original/image-20150421-9021-w022yv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78782/original/image-20150421-9021-w022yv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James O'Loghlin, the only senator to see active service in WWI, opposed conscription.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NLA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the arguments against conscription was that it represented the kind of militarism that the Allies were fighting against. As a result, it was the antithesis of the “British liberties” central to Australian democracy. This argument was reinforced by the increasingly authoritarian behaviour of the prime minister, Billy Hughes, arrests under the War Precautions Act and the breaking up of public meetings by uniformed soldiers.</p>
<p>Anti-conscriptionists were able to pre-empt accusations of disloyalty to Britain by arguing they were defending British liberties against “Prussianism”. James O’Loghlin was the <a href="http://biography.senate.gov.au/index.php/james-vincent-ologhlin/">only senator to be on active service</a> overseas during the first world war. On his return to the Senate in 1917 he was expected to support conscription. Instead, he <a href="http://labouraustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/ologhlin-james-vincent-7905">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am opposed to Kaiserism, whether that Kaiserism comes from Billy Hughes or William Hohenzollern.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The conscription referendums are often remembered for leaving a legacy of political bitterness and division. But perhaps we should also remember them, like the dissent events around Anzac Day, as embodying the value of democratic conflict – perhaps the central democratic value.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40565/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marian Sawer 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>Protests on Anzac Day, rather than being ‘utterly alien to Australians’, have a long tradition and embody the democratic right to dissent for which the troops fought.Marian Sawer, Emeritus Professor, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385932015-04-23T00:31:20Z2015-04-23T00:31:20ZMarked men: anxiety, alienation and the aftermath of war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76052/original/image-20150326-12284-xanr9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What is obscured in our understanding of returned servicemen's problems is the private pain of families who bear the brunt of these psychological strains.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Himbrechts</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>Germaine Greer’s father never hugged her. Born just before the Second World War, Greer’s childhood was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/specials/greer-daddy.html">overshadowed</a> by a father who had served in military intelligence and survived the protracted horrors of the German siege of Malta. He returned suffering the effects of anxiety disorders and near-starvation. Greer found him cold, reserved and distant, unwilling or unable to respond to her desire for familial intimacy. </p>
<p>Greer’s story of a father altered as a returned serviceman – alienated and aloof, seemingly out of place in the feminised space of home and family – is one echoed in the stories of Australians from many walks of life. War service may have been mythologised and enshrined in the national narrative, but the private experience of return is all too often suffused with personal ache and anguish, marking out a profound generational and intergenerational legacy of psychological loss.</p>
<p>Twenty years ago, when I first began to research the experiences of returned Australian servicemen from the major wars of the 20th century, evidence of the costs of war – material and emotional – surfaced in abundance. Official archives contained numerous reports of the pressures on widows and children struggling to survive when breadwinners had fallen in combat, or the burdens on wives and mothers caring for severely injured and ill veterans. </p>
<p>However, these dusty files more commonly held disquieting accounts about the strain of living with those demobilised soldiers who were seemingly fit and healthy, but had returned moody and withdrawn – by turns sullen and violent, prone to fits of rage, unable to hold down jobs and salving their private torments in drink or drugs.</p>
<p>Australia’s pre-eminent Great War historian, Charles Bean, asserted that the returning Anzacs “merged quickly and quietly into the general population”. The records of repatriation authorities, returned services charities, support groups and comfort funds tell a different story.</p>
<p>Australia has continually faced a returned soldier crisis. This is something that marked men returning from all the wars of modern memory – from the Great War to Afghanistan and Iraq. There have now been <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s3989386.htm">three times</a> as many suicides of Australian veterans of Afghanistan as combat deaths. </p>
<p>In the 1930s, the RSL graphically encapsulated the problem in its successful campaign for a special pension for the “burnt-out soldier”. After the Vietnam War, a more specialised language took hold. Post-traumatic stress disorder is now enshrined in the ways we think and talk about returning men.</p>
<p>What this term obscures is the private pain of families who bear the brunt of these psychological strains.</p>
<h2>Stretching across generations</h2>
<p>This was the archival account. Yet equally striking was how my research prompted stories and reminiscences of returned soldiers from friends and strangers alike. These were invariably stories of loss or distant, disturbed and damaged men, enshrined in family narratives and transmitted across the generations as a talisman of connection to the horrors of war. Is it possible to capture and do justice to these enduring legacies?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76060/original/image-20150326-12314-aa4tju.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76060/original/image-20150326-12314-aa4tju.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76060/original/image-20150326-12314-aa4tju.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76060/original/image-20150326-12314-aa4tju.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76060/original/image-20150326-12314-aa4tju.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76060/original/image-20150326-12314-aa4tju.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76060/original/image-20150326-12314-aa4tju.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76060/original/image-20150326-12314-aa4tju.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&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 tendrils of war can stretch across generations, well beyond the life of the combatants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A pallid echo of private anguish is evident in the statistics of public support for veterans and their families. More than one-quarter of a million Australians – veterans, widows and children – are currently in receipt of war pensions. This is a figure roughly equivalent to the numbers supported in the 1920s and 1930s when repatriation constituted one-fifth of all Commonwealth government expenditures, although the Australian population has quadrupled since then. </p>
<p>More revealing is that during the interwar years, pensions for psychological disability rose while for all other categories they fell – owing to death or recovery. The scars of war sometimes took years to emerge, something that puzzled Australians in the 1930s but seems unsurprising to those raised in an era where discourses of psychological trauma abound.</p>
<p>The financial burden of war pensions on governments can be surprisingly enduring. A century after Australia mobilised for the Great War, there are still 100 Australians receiving Commonwealth war pensions as a result of the conflict. They are war widows, the wives of any veteran already receiving a pension or a veteran whose death was war-related, even if death occurred decades afterwards: the last Australian Great War veteran passed away in 2009. </p>
<p>The tendrils of war can stretch across generations, well beyond the life of the combatants. If the American experience is any guide, Australia might see many years before the last Great War pension file is closed. The last widow supported by an American War of Independence pension died in 1913, and the last receiving an American Civil War pension in 2004.</p>
<h2>Towards an understanding of war’s personal impacts</h2>
<p>The material and social impact of war might be tangible and, in some oblique way, quantifiable. Less easy to grasp are the emotional, psychological and familial residues of war service – on the people left behind by men who died in service, and on surviving veterans and those who shared their lives. </p>
<p>We can find the traces of these deeper personal currents in family memoirs and reminiscences. Many of them are classics in the genre, such as Greer’s Daddy, We Hardly Knew You; Donald Horne’s The Education of Young Donald; Ric Throssell’s My Father’s Son; and Clive James’ Unreliable Memoirs.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76055/original/image-20150326-12270-d5iarb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76055/original/image-20150326-12270-d5iarb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76055/original/image-20150326-12270-d5iarb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76055/original/image-20150326-12270-d5iarb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76055/original/image-20150326-12270-d5iarb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76055/original/image-20150326-12270-d5iarb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76055/original/image-20150326-12270-d5iarb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76055/original/image-20150326-12270-d5iarb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">My Brother Jack is a fictional account of war’s impacts on servicemen and those around them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ramifications of war on servicemen and their families and friends also abound in fictional accounts, most famously George Johnston’s My Brother Jack. Other notable contributions include the final volume of Martin Boyd’s Langton series, David Malouf’s The Great World, Leonard Mann’s Flesh in Armour, William Nagle’s The Odd Angry Shot and Alan Seymour’s play The One Day of the Year.</p>
<p>Less well known perhaps are Vietnam novels, such as Rhys Pollard’s The Cream Machine and David Alexander’s When the Buffalo Fight.</p>
<p>In many of these works, a profound alienation between men at war and those at home plays out, echoing the oral accounts and archival files of many veterans. The horror of war, the death of mates and the insidious growth of the belief that men at the frontline were abandoned to their fate by those at home – unsympathetic politicians, profiteers, shirkers, Vietnam war protesters and the “girls who wouldn’t wait” – were common themes in the private reminiscences, and frequently in the public utterances, of returned men.</p>
<p>However, for some, return was not a welcome release from horror. Rather, it was the loss of comradely friendships forged at the frontline – a leaving behind of the intense bonds of the trench, the jungle and the desert to be thrust back into a mundane, hostile and unmanly environment of family and work.</p>
<p>Historians have traditionally shied away from personal and private emotions, except in historical biography. However, the rise of social and cultural history in the late 20th century increasingly focused attention on a broader range of collective and personal experiences, although not always in the most elegant of conceptual frameworks, as indicated by the short-lived fashion for “emotionology”. </p>
<p>Australian historians interested in the history of private emotions found fertile ground in war and return. The pioneering work of <a href="http://shaps.unimelb.edu.au/about/staff/professor-joy-damousi">Joy Damousi</a> and the subsequent work of many others such as <a href="http://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2009/podcasts/shattered-anzacs-with-marina-larrson/transcript">Marina Larsson</a>, <a href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/jalland-p">Pat Jalland</a> and <a href="https://www.deakin.edu.au/alfred-deakin-research-institute/people.php?contact_id=658&style=7">Bart Ziino</a> has focused on death, grief, mourning, memorialisation and the burdens of caring for ill and injured returned servicemen. This has greatly enriched understanding of the personal consequences of war and their impact on the shape of Australian life and politics long afterwards.</p>
<p>It is perhaps not surprising that Australian historians have turned to the consequences of war with such enthusiasm. It seemed a natural fit for the social and cultural turn in the discipline. </p>
<p>More importantly, Anzac looms so large in the national consciousness that studies of grief and mourning offer an oblique entry for social and cultural historians into the national debate, without having to be ‘for’ or ‘against’ Anzac.</p>
<h2>Links to the Anzac legend</h2>
<p>The irony of these new personal and familial approaches to the history of the Anzac legend is that the deeper historians go into the private dimensions of war, the less distinctive the Australian experience seems to be. </p>
<p>The history of damaged and ill veterans is hardly unique to Australia. The significance of post-traumatic stress in the lives of returned servicemen and their families, and the impact on rehabilitation and repatriation systems, is common ground for historians of North America, Britain, Europe and other parts the world.</p>
<p>From there, it is a short step to questioning the distinctiveness of the Anzac legend itself. The more we place the Australian experience of war in a transnational context, the more obvious our shared experiences and responses become. The historiography on the experience of modern warfare – from Germans in the Great War to Americans in Vietnam – stresses the importance of group bonds among soldiers. </p>
<p>In other words, what Australians have called mateship was exactly how soldiers on all sides of the major wars of the 20th century survived. And if they didn’t develop such bonds, they did not survive for long. Servicemen from all modern wars commonly felt that generals were sacrificing them for worthless purposes, people at home were ignoring their plight and profiting from their absence, and wives and girlfriends were betraying them.</p>
<p>What is distinctive about the Australian experience of modern warfare is not the experience itself, but our refashioning of it into a national secular religion. For most countries, occasions such as Remembrance Day are solemn occasions for commemoration of the dead. In Australia, Anzac Day mixes solemnity with celebration of national becoming.</p>
<p>The ink spilt trying to explain this has been extensive and at times illuminating. But is there more to the Anzac legend than just the flowering of emergent nationalism? I’ve never been well disposed to psychohistory, generally finding it vague and speculative. Yet the more I look at the history of Anzac and how it has waxed and waned in national consciousness, the more I think collective psychology might have something to tell us.</p>
<p>The Anzac legend emerged in the aftermath of Gallipoli, but only came to national prominence in 1916 and beyond – just as the conscription referenda convulsed the nation. In the end, Australia was one of the few combatant nations that did not institute conscription, a fact sometimes used by veterans and their representatives to suggest that Australia had failed its men and owed them a special debt. </p>
<p>By the 1970s, the power of the Anzac legend seemed to be on the wane, only to reawaken in the 1980s when discourses about the betrayal of Vietnam veterans – a lack of sympathy for their war service – encouraged many to support the “Welcome Home March” movement. Since then, Anzac commemoration has undergone a remarkable revival, particularly among younger generations.</p>
<p>In this light, could it be said that Anzac has been fuelled in part by collective guilt? Have discourses of betrayal fostered compensatory discourses of national embrace? Are these anxieties amplified by the fact that unlike many nations Australia’s modern wars have been fought overseas, with civilians a long way from theatres of combat (except perhaps in Darwin)? </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76053/original/image-20150326-12293-1q0wzb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76053/original/image-20150326-12293-1q0wzb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76053/original/image-20150326-12293-1q0wzb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76053/original/image-20150326-12293-1q0wzb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76053/original/image-20150326-12293-1q0wzb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76053/original/image-20150326-12293-1q0wzb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76053/original/image-20150326-12293-1q0wzb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76053/original/image-20150326-12293-1q0wzb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Germaine Greer had a distant relationship with her father, a returned serviceman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Gerry Noon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Answers are elusive. There is clear conjunction, but causation is harder to prove. Australian opposition to war, from the divisive votes of 1916 and 1917 onwards, has often failed to disentangle legitimate criticism of the war effort from criticism of those Australians who accepted the call to arms.</p>
<p>In this failure, ordinary soldiers have felt themselves at the brunt of public opprobrium, even when the critics were clearly a minority of Australians. Can we find ways to criticise wars, while at the same time hold the valour and sacrifice of the soldiers themselves in high esteem (except when military atrocities have been proven)? </p>
<p>If cultures fail to perpetuate warrior myths, do they make their veterans’ alienation worse? Does the inevitable gap between discourses of debt and the reality of its repayment create the conditions for disenchantment?</p>
<p>However, Greer’s story of familial disharmony refuses the easy discussion of Anzac alienation, instead exploring more discomforting theories about paternal disaffection. Greer’s brilliance lies in moving beyond the obvious narrative lynchpin to deeper undercurrents of masculinity, class and status. Similarly, recent research on suicidal veterans questions whether high rates are peculiar to war service or reflect an emerging masculinity crisis in young men.</p>
<p>In this light, are our collective discourses on Anzac – even on the alienation of Anzacs from all our modern wars – ways of deflecting more troubling interrogations of the evidence, something that both reveals and disguises? </p>
<p>What is inescapable is that the legacies of Anzac story-making, whether praising Australian virtues or highlighting loss and sacrifice, are in many respects efforts to render meaningful the unfathomable pain and anguish experienced by generations of Australians as a consequence of war.</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/38593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Garton has received ARC funding for various research projects over the years. He is an ambassador on the NSW Centenary of Anzac Council.</span></em></p>Australia has continually faced a returned soldier crisis. This is something that marked men returning from all the wars of modern memory – from the Great War to Afghanistan and Iraq.Stephen Garton, Professor of History, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/406612015-04-22T20:46:34Z2015-04-22T20:46:34ZDiggers of the Gaza graveyard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78920/original/image-20150422-1833-sqokof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Commonwealth War Graves Commission</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are used to thinking of Gaza as a war-torn stretch of ground. A place where life goes grimly on in the face of an intractable conflict. A graveyard not only for civilians caught in the crossfire, but also as a necropolis for peace.</p>
<p>Lying among the ravages of this modern conflict are more than 250 Australians. In a well-maintained Commonwealth cemetery on the northern side of the Gaza Strip are the graves of Australian servicemen from our entanglements in both world wars. Largely forgotten in the focus on Gallipoli, these men also served and sacrificed, but it is doubtful they will get many visitors or poppies this week.</p>
<p>It’s an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-anzacs-honoured-guests-of-the-sultan-25884">obscure campaign</a>. But two years after the Anzac landings, and while their fellow diggers were battling the Germans in the mud of the Hindenburg Line, other Australians were fighting the Ottomans in the dust of Gaza. As part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, Australian mounted units were <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-road-to-damascus-aussie-troops-have-walked-it-before-9712">part of the effort</a> to dislodge the Ottomans from Palestine and start rolling them back to their Anatolian heartland.</p>
<p>And just like the Gallipoli campaign, these thrusts were a fiasco.</p>
<h2>The ‘Eastern Question’ revisited</h2>
<p>After initial fears of the Ottomans taking the Suez Canal had receded by the end of 1916, the pressure was on to carry the fight up to “Johnny Turk” (whatever his <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-were-we-fighting-at-gallipoli-13701">exact ethnicity</a>) and divest him of his possessions in the Arab world. </p>
<p>Defeat at Gallipoli hadn’t blunted the British ambition of bolstering their control of the east. With the throes of the Russian Revolution beginning in March 1917, it was felt that a rapid advance was needed to shatter the Ottoman forces both in the Middle East and the Balkans and secure Allied dominance in the eastern Mediterranean.</p>
<p>The scale of the stalemate in Europe meant that this was to be done on the cheap, and Britain’s commander in the Middle East, General Archibald Murray, had already needed to give up some of his infantry divisions to the meat grinder of Flanders. He still had plenty of mounted formations though, as well as that old hunt club dream of glorious cavalry charges putting the enemy to flight.</p>
<p>Starting from the Sinai, the first step was to eject the Ottoman forces (stiffened with German officers) from the urban areas of Gaza. As well as containing key infrastructure such as port facilities, Gaza was a strongpoint that needed to be eliminated before further progress towards Jerusalem was to be considered.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78926/original/image-20150422-1858-rs5ump.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78926/original/image-20150422-1858-rs5ump.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78926/original/image-20150422-1858-rs5ump.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78926/original/image-20150422-1858-rs5ump.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78926/original/image-20150422-1858-rs5ump.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78926/original/image-20150422-1858-rs5ump.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78926/original/image-20150422-1858-rs5ump.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>If at first you don’t succeed…</h2>
<p>The first Battle for Gaza took place at the end of March 1917. It involved some of the most famous Australian units, as well as some of the most obscure. Under the talented General <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676556/#biography">Harry Chauvel</a>, the Anzac Mounted Division contained the legendary Light Horse formations of Aussie bushmen and their doughty Waler nags. But elsewhere in the attack were men of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Camel_Corps">Imperial Camel Corps</a>, which was built from Australian, Kiwi and British cameleers.</p>
<p>The attack went in well, but right from the outside time started to slip. A flanking move by Chauvel and his horsemen was successful and the town of Gaza was steadily being taken. But as dusk began to fall, General Murray became concerned that his forces were not in firm enough control of the area. </p>
<p>Fearful of Ottoman troops being reinforced in the night and launching an attack from their slightly higher positions to the east, plans for withdrawal started to gather pace. The seemingly typical scenario of muddled and asynchronous information ensued and, to the Australian general’s amazement, the gains of the day were abandoned in a confusing retreat.</p>
<p>Casualties were relatively light by first world war standards. But the troops would have to do it all again. And this time the Ottomans knew what was coming.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78927/original/image-20150422-1863-1wgs3if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78927/original/image-20150422-1863-1wgs3if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78927/original/image-20150422-1863-1wgs3if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78927/original/image-20150422-1863-1wgs3if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78927/original/image-20150422-1863-1wgs3if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78927/original/image-20150422-1863-1wgs3if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78927/original/image-20150422-1863-1wgs3if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>… try, try again</h2>
<p>The second Battle of Gaza took place from April 17-19 and was a much bloodier defeat. Worried that a wide encircling move to the east would be difficult to support due to lack of water, Murray opted for the standard Great War plan of a direct frontal attack on the enemy line. </p>
<p>Supported by aircraft, tanks, artillery and gas, Murray felt he had the means to crush the Ottoman defences.</p>
<p>The same Anzac horse and camel formations were involved in this battle. While the British infantry ground in from the south, the mounted units were waiting out east to block reinforcements and to exploit any breakthroughs. However, heavy artillery fire and attacks by Ottoman cavalry (including Bedouins) meant that the Anzacs suffered steady losses without making any major impact on the course of the battle.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78928/original/image-20150422-1837-1whf25u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78928/original/image-20150422-1837-1whf25u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78928/original/image-20150422-1837-1whf25u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78928/original/image-20150422-1837-1whf25u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78928/original/image-20150422-1837-1whf25u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78928/original/image-20150422-1837-1whf25u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78928/original/image-20150422-1837-1whf25u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the next three days some progress was made. Several Ottoman strongpoints were taken. But these were often unable to be held in the face of determined counter attacks. After three days of mounting casualties and dwindling supplies, Murray called it quits. Little territory had been gained and some of that had to be quickly abandoned because it was too exposed to enemy shelling.</p>
<p>This second battle for Gaza had cost more than 6000 casualties and 500 lives for the Allied forces and, more importantly, put paid to any short-term plans for further offensives. More than 100 of the Anzac Mounted division were killed and the Camel Corps had three times that. </p>
<p>Of those men, around 50 Australians are buried in the <a href="http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/71701/GAZA%20WAR%20CEMETERY">main Gaza cemetery</a>. Another 50 or so are buried at <a href="cemetery/cemetery/71200/DEIR%20EL%20BELAH%20WAR%20CEMETERY">Deir el Balahh</a> cemetery, also within today’s Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>The failure was a huge boost for Ottoman morale and a consequent blow for the Allies’ expectations. It was the end of General Murray’s field service. He was recalled to the mother country and given a training depot to look after. His replacement was the more successful (and flexible) Edmund Allenby. But it was to be another six months before Gaza was in British hands.</p>
<h2>The next wars</h2>
<p>During the second world war Australian forces went through an uncanny repeat of their Great War role in Palestine, albeit facing the Vichy French rather than the now-defunct Ottoman Empire. The connection between Gaza and Australians continued – the theatre headquarters of the 2nd AIF were based there. Several hospital units were stationed in Gaza, which contributed greatly to the number of Australian men buried there.</p>
<p>In 2006 and 2009, the cemetery was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/feb/22/gaza-first-world-war">badly damaged</a> by Israeli fire in their offensives on Gaza. On the earlier occasion Israel paid in compensation for the destruction, a poignant irony for the living residents of Gaza rendered homeless.</p>
<p>These days, the little oasis of green and calm is sometimes used as a peaceful mediation or picnic spot for local families.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78934/original/image-20150422-1848-2efb12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78934/original/image-20150422-1848-2efb12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78934/original/image-20150422-1848-2efb12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78934/original/image-20150422-1848-2efb12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78934/original/image-20150422-1848-2efb12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78934/original/image-20150422-1848-2efb12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78934/original/image-20150422-1848-2efb12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Avishai Teicher</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As we move past the 98th anniversary of the Second Battle of Gaza and into the mass commemoration of Gallipoli, it is appropriate to consider these forgotten Anzacs of a forgotten corner of the first world war. There is a direct historical connection between the capture of this territory by the British and the manner in which the Middle East was divided afterwards. The ensuing decades of Israeli-Palestinian hostilities knock on from there.</p>
<p>But for the Australian horsemen and cameleers there was never a right of return. Gaza will forever be their home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
We are used to thinking of Gaza as a war-torn stretch of ground. A place where life goes grimly on in the face of an intractable conflict. A graveyard not only for civilians caught in the crossfire, but…Mat Hardy, Lecturer in Middle East Studies , Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/403672015-04-22T19:46:17Z2015-04-22T19:46:17ZLest we forget lest: Anzac and the language of remembrance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78678/original/image-20150421-25694-vrbn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lest we forget is an expression with dignified origins, a rich history and a budding linguistic fossil.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">E-Maxx</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wars, soldiers and remembrance, not surprisingly, have a large impact on language. </p>
<p>Soldiers returning from overseas posts bring with them the foreign languages of these posts and in-group slang from everyday life. First world war Anzacs ate <em>munga</em> “food, meal” (from a Cairo version of the French <em>manger</em>) and on demand had to <em>alley at the toot</em> “go immediately” (a playful take on the French <em>allez tout de suite</em>).</p>
<p>Stories of these words can be confused or perhaps contrived. <em>Plonk</em> as a word for alcohol is popularly attributed to first world war Anzacs, reputedly a shortened version of the French <em>vin blanc</em>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78681/original/image-20150421-25711-1jzu0p6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78681/original/image-20150421-25711-1jzu0p6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78681/original/image-20150421-25711-1jzu0p6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78681/original/image-20150421-25711-1jzu0p6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78681/original/image-20150421-25711-1jzu0p6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78681/original/image-20150421-25711-1jzu0p6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78681/original/image-20150421-25711-1jzu0p6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78681/original/image-20150421-25711-1jzu0p6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Lambert</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But lexicographer Bruce Moore points out <em>plonk</em> doesn’t appear as a reference to “alcohol” in Australian English until the 1930s. <em>Plonk</em> in this sense is conspicuously absent in WH Downing’s thorough and well-cited 1919 account of <a href="http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/diggers-dialects-collection-of-slang-phrases-australian-soldiers1">Digger Dialects</a>. </p>
<p>For the Anzacs, <em>plonk</em> served as a reference to artillery or the sound artillery made when it fell.</p>
<p>Some words of war and remembrance fade with time. Still others come to serve as the foundations for national identity. Why a word takes one path or the other can be linked to a word’s origin, its use across history, and our preferences about what constitutes language of remembrance. </p>
<h2>Lest we forget lest</h2>
<p>To these ends, “lest we forget” is an expression of remembrance par excellence. It has dignified origins, a rich history and a budding linguistic fossil: lest. </p>
<p>A linguistic fossil is an archaic or obsolete word that persists in a language due to its use in idioms. For instance, we still <em>bandy about</em> figuratively where <em>bandy</em>’s more literal use in tennis had faded away by the 17th century. </p>
<p>“Lest” is a tenacious form in that it has seemingly been fossil-bound since Early Modern English times, but has survived to a certain degree outside the idiom. From the 17th century, lest’s use has largely been restricted to very formal, often written contexts. </p>
<p>The Oxford English Dictionary defines lest as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a negative particle of intention or purpose, introducing a clause expressive of something to be prevented or guarded against. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It dates to Old English (circa 1000), where it appeared as part of the construction <em>þý lǽs þe</em> “whereby less that”.</p>
<p>In the Middle English period, the <em>þý</em> was dropped (as part of a wider simplification of English grammatical marking), and the remaining <em>lǽs þe</em> “less the” subsequently became contracted to “lest”. </p>
<p>It is well-documented that the pervasive and idiomatic Anzac Day use of “lest we forget” can be linked to an 1897 Rudyard Kipling poem <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176152">Recessional</a>, written for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee (Queen Elizabeth got Rolf Harris). </p>
<p>Kipling, for his part, was reputedly inspired to use “lest we forget” by its appearance in Deuteronomy 6:12: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Language, solemness and kin</h2>
<p>Kipling’s Biblical inspiration, and our subsequent poetic inspiration are no accident. We humans are often drawn to religious, poetic and anachronistic language in the forging of shared culture and experience. </p>
<p>English language scholar Geoffrey Hughes <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/A_History_of_English_Words.html?id=K2yZTxAVSskC&redir_esc=y">notes</a> that two prevailing themes of Anglo-Saxon poetry were the celebration of battle and <em>cynn</em>. The latter were a tightly knit group whose verbal bond was sacred. In Modern English, we know this group as “kin”, which we more closely think of in familial rather than verbal ways. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78680/original/image-20150421-25692-1jinhg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78680/original/image-20150421-25692-1jinhg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78680/original/image-20150421-25692-1jinhg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78680/original/image-20150421-25692-1jinhg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78680/original/image-20150421-25692-1jinhg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78680/original/image-20150421-25692-1jinhg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78680/original/image-20150421-25692-1jinhg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78680/original/image-20150421-25692-1jinhg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Joy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sacred bonds are often formed through sacred texts, which are more often than not written in older forms of a language. The Qur'an and sacred Islamic texts are written in the Arabic of the 7th century. Some Muslims view the mere existence of spoken varieties of Arabic (e.g. Syrian Arabic, Egyptian Arabic) as proof of shared human weakness.</p>
<p>For our part, modern English speakers have long been drawn to the 17th-century King James Bible, in spite, or more likely because, of its use of Early Modern English. Its use of the wider, case-marked pronominal system (<em>thou/thee</em> and <em>ye/you</em>) and the verbal suffix <em>-th</em> (<em>it blesseth</em>; <em>it giveth</em>) added a certain aura of authority and godliness to the text.</p>
<p>Notably, as with “lest”, the use of these pronouns and this suffix were already conservative and becoming restricted to literature and formal contexts around the same time the Bible was published. At this time, focusing on verbal suffixing, Shakespeare notably varied between the <em>-s</em> and the <em>-th</em> even within the same sentence as this text from The Merchant of Venice shows: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The King James Bible, on the other hand, exclusively uses the <em>-th</em> suffix.</p>
<h2>Words of remembrance</h2>
<p>Of course, words needn’t be linked to ancient texts or be anachronistic forms to be sacred. The many ways in which we refer to soldiers illustrates this point. </p>
<p>Anzac, as an acronym, is sacrosanct, its use regulated by the government as illustrated by recent “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-14/woolworths-under-fire-for-anzac-promotion/6392848">misuses</a>” by business. The occasional negative or less than sacrosanct meanings of Anzac tend to fade away. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78679/original/image-20150421-25708-1r9c516.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78679/original/image-20150421-25708-1r9c516.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78679/original/image-20150421-25708-1r9c516.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78679/original/image-20150421-25708-1r9c516.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78679/original/image-20150421-25708-1r9c516.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78679/original/image-20150421-25708-1r9c516.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78679/original/image-20150421-25708-1r9c516.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78679/original/image-20150421-25708-1r9c516.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Community History SA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For instance, in addition to Anzac’s neutral or positive connotations, Downing’s account of Digger Dialects lists Anzac as a sarcastic reference for military police. </p>
<p>The American initials “GI”, in contrast, have a less illustrious beginning, and it remains a rather neutral term. GI, in popular accounts, gets linked to the printing of GI (for General or Government Issue) on soldiers’ government-issued belongings.</p>
<p>Yet, the “general issue” meaning of GI did not emerge until the second world war and, like Anzac, the origins of GI can be traced to the first world war. GI first appeared on the US Government garbage cans of the time, which had been made of “galvanised iron”. </p>
<p>Galvanised iron, of course, brought Aussies another first world war word in the form of J. Furphy and Sons’ water-cart, where rumours and gossip were exchanged. And, dear <em>Aussies</em> (yet another word linked to the first world war), that’s no furphy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40367/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Howard Manns 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>This Anzac Day the words “lest we forget” will often be spoken. It’s a usage that we don’t otherwise hear. Why do linguistic fossils such as “lest we forget” linger – and how do they help us remember the fallen?Howard Manns, Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385922015-04-21T00:42:43Z2015-04-21T00:42:43ZA legend with class: labour and Anzac<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75799/original/image-20150324-17688-lfsug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Labor has long had leaders, such as former prime minister Paul Keating, capable of speaking the language of Anzac.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</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>For the Australian labour movement, Anzac has been more like a first cousin than a close sibling. There is no missing the family connection: the first Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was an overwhelmingly working-class army, with an ethos instantly recognisable as such. </p>
<p>The AIF’s members valued social egalitarianism while accepting the substance of inequality – just like most of the Australian working class in civilian life, who well understood the difference between a boss and a worker. It nurtured a powerful sense of entitlement – reflecting the idea of a living wage, which had begun to make its mark by the time war broke out, as Justice Higgins’ <a href="http://worksite.actu.org.au/the-harvester-judgement-and-australias-minimum-wage/">Harvester Judgement</a> in 1907 found wider acceptance. </p>
<p>And, just as in civilian life, AIF members were sometimes prepared to withdraw their labour when they believed their rights were being disregarded, or their dignity insulted.</p>
<p>Like the working class of Australia’s cities and towns, the AIF contained its fair share of crooks, crims and ne’er-do-wells. But alongside them were the steady and the respectable – men who saw the demands that war made on them as a test of their <a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=760444117947883;res=IELBUS">moral character</a>.</p>
<p>As late as 1916, there was little reason to expect that the history of the relationship between the labour movement and Anzac would be other than a comfortable coupling. Labour was certainly active in early Anzac commemoration. The first Anzac Day occurred not on April 25, 1916, as one might reasonably assume, but on October 13, 1915, in Adelaide. It was a rebadging of Labour Day, and was designed to raise funds for wounded soldiers. The Adelaide Advertiser <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5483778">explained</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The workers readily yielded up the identity of their day, and while celebrating the attainment of brightened conditions of labour took their places in a bigger scheme of things.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The South Australian labour newspaper, the Daily Herald, was no less enthusiastic in celebrating:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a grand united community carnival of practical patriotism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But such unity would not long endure. Even in 1915, Anzac Day was marred by the street violence of drunken soldiers. And not everyone in the labour movement appreciated the merging of the traditional festival of labour with the nascent culture of war commemoration. Some trade unionists refused to participate because they objected to the hijacking of their day.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a few imperial patriots, already giving thought to how the anniversary of the Gallipoli landing should be marked, were concerned about the light-hearted spirit of Adelaide’s October Anzac Day, as well as of a number of other fundraising events of the period such as <a href="http://www.ach.familyhistorysa.info/ww1violetday.html">Violet Day</a> and Australia Day.</p>
<p>They wanted a solemn and sacred occasion that would honour the dead, sanctify the cause for which they had given their lives and encourage in others a willingness to serve the Empire. Anzac Day should not be an occasion for fundraising or hedonistic pursuits but, as Brisbane’s Anglican Canon David Garland put it, should become “Australia’s All Souls Day”. </p>
<p>The Queensland Labor premier, TJ Ryan, gave enthusiastic support to the efforts of Garland and his colleagues on Brisbane’s Anzac Day Commemoration Committee to establish Anzac Day as a solemn occasion. He predicted that, to Australians, Gallipoli:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… would always be holy ground … It was the scene of undying deeds of young Australia’s sons and the last resting place of her noble dead. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But by the end of 1916, Ryan was the sole anti-conscriptionist in the country still leading an Australian government. He was rivalled only by his co-religionist, Archbishop Daniel Mannix, in the imperial patriots’ rogues’ gallery.</p>
<h2>Labor’s early moves</h2>
<p>Labor’s stance on defence up to this time was impressive. Its pre-war refusal to contribute a dreadnought – the great battleship of the day – to the Royal Navy arose from nationalism, not pacifism. Labor wanted Australia to have its own navy. It also wanted a citizen army for home defence.</p>
<p>By 1911, it had agreed with London – although quietly – that in the event of a European war, it would raise an expeditionary force for service overseas, even if men could not be compelled under Australia’s Defence Act to fight in it.</p>
<p>As a party that strongly championed White Australia, Labor was also seen as least likely to be complacent about a threat from Asia. It would be able to balance national assertion with imperial obligation – and the 1914 election, which coincided with the European crisis of July–August, was inevitably a referendum on which party could best be trusted to lead Australia in the dangerous times ahead. </p>
<p>Under its leader Andrew Fisher, and with Billy Hughes already recognised as its most dynamic and defence-minded figure, Labor won the election easily.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75791/original/image-20150324-17688-11uzfjd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75791/original/image-20150324-17688-11uzfjd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75791/original/image-20150324-17688-11uzfjd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75791/original/image-20150324-17688-11uzfjd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75791/original/image-20150324-17688-11uzfjd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75791/original/image-20150324-17688-11uzfjd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1294&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75791/original/image-20150324-17688-11uzfjd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1294&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75791/original/image-20150324-17688-11uzfjd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1294&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Billy Hughes (with walking stick) initiated a Labor Party split over conscription.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In October 1916, Hughes initiated the <a href="http://billyhughes.moadoph.gov.au/conscription">conscription crisis</a>, which split the Labor Party and destroyed the government. From then on, Labor would rarely appear comfortable with either defence policy or the Anzac legend. </p>
<p>During the Depression, the Scullin Labor government abolished compulsory military service and drastically cut defence expenditure – for reasons of economy, but the decision was consistent with the party’s ethos.</p>
<p>A majority of the Labor Party had opposed conscription for overseas service during the Great War, but its hostility now extended to compulsion more generally. This spilled over into a suspicion of defence spending and a general discomfort with military affairs.</p>
<p>The shock of the Japanese southward thrust a decade later disturbed this state of affairs. Suddenly, in the face of an unprecedented threat to the Australian continent itself, Labor was well placed to exploit its reputation as the party of white nationalism and brawny manhood, and to revive its reputation as a party capable of giving due weight to defence.</p>
<p>Even before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Labor showed that it had a leader capable of speaking the language of Anzac when the previously anti-conscriptionist John Curtin spoke at the opening of the Australian War Memorial on November 11, 1941. Curtin said the building:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… gives continuity to the Anzac tradition … It is a tribute which a grateful country pays to those who have served it so steadfastly.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Taking a conservative turn</h2>
<p>The labour movement’s apparent alienation from Anzac in the years between 1916 and 1941 has been a salient theme for 20th-century historians. Russel Ward puzzled over it, somewhat indirectly, in his most famous book, <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/the-legend-turns-fifty">The Australian Legend</a>. </p>
<p>In it, Ward identified the pastoral worker in colonial Australia as the main bearer of the values that many liked to think of as Australian – egalitarian, anti-authoritarian, talented at improvisation, loyal to mates. Towards the end of the book, drawing on the writings of Charles Bean, he recognised in the figure of the Anzac a continuation of the values of the noble bushman.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75792/original/image-20150324-17675-9fxpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75792/original/image-20150324-17675-9fxpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75792/original/image-20150324-17675-9fxpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75792/original/image-20150324-17675-9fxpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75792/original/image-20150324-17675-9fxpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75792/original/image-20150324-17675-9fxpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75792/original/image-20150324-17675-9fxpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75792/original/image-20150324-17675-9fxpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russel Ward’s seminal work, The Australian Legend.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">OUP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was only in a later work, A Nation for a Continent, that Ward fully acknowledged the Anzac image had been appropriated by the conservatives. Other historians of the nationalist left, such as <a href="http://john.curtin.edu.au/events/speeches/serlebio.html">Geoffrey Serle</a> and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/historian-author-and-activist/2007/02/13/1171128970103.html">Noel McLachlan</a>, also grappled in the 1960s and 1970s with how and why a radical legend had taken such a conservative turn after 1916.</p>
<p>The answer to the question of why the bush legend had, via Anzac, taken a conservative turn seemed to hold a key – possibly even the key – to understanding what, from their radical-nationalist perspective, had gone wrong in Australia between the world wars. Ward’s noble bushman seemed to be radical – to the extent that he had a political leaning – his bush mateship providing fertile soil for the pioneers of the new unionism in the 1880s, his nationalism laying the groundwork for the literature of the Bulletin writers in the 1890s.</p>
<p>In short, the collectivism of Ward’s bush proletariat was understood as a progenitor of the wider culture of nationalism, democracy and egalitarianism, of what Albert Metin called Australia’s “socialism without doctrines”. But the Anzac and the digger seemed a pesky conservative Empire loyalist who had somehow pushed Australia off its natural course. </p>
<p>In this reading, the returned men’s collectivism had found an inferior expression in the bonds between members of an exclusive cast defined by their common experience as soldiers of the king – not as men owing a primary allegiance to a working class more disposed to national than to imperial patriotism.</p>
<p>The radical-nationalist reading of the politics of Anzac had merit. In some contexts, returned men were a force for imperial conservatism. But the association of political conservatism with the Great War digger or Anzac should not be taken for granted. There was no particular reason to imagine that a working-class army immersed in the horrors of the Western Front would lean right rather than left when it returned to Australia.</p>
<h2>Returned servicemen and the unions</h2>
<p>In fact, many leaned left. Returned men were involved in public violence from 1915 and especially in 1919, when so many of them returned to a divided country that was torn by industrial strife and in the grip of a deadly outbreak of Spanish influenza. </p>
<p>At Fremantle in May 1919, conflict on the waterfront led to a bloody clash between strike-breakers, accompanied by the conservative premier Hal Colebatch, and unionists and their supporters – in some instances returned soldiers. Several people were injured and a unionist was killed. Historian Robert Bollard has <a href="http://www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au/volumes/20/bollard">recently uncovered</a> a rich history of industrial action and radical agitation by returned soldiers in the tense period immediately following the First World War.</p>
<p>The Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) – later the Returned and Services League (RSL) – has sometimes been given the credit or blame for directing the politics of Australia’s returned soldiers away from class struggle of this kind and into more conservative channels. </p>
<p>In 1919, returned soldiers, probably organised by RSSILA officers, were prominent among rioters in Brisbane who responded to a leftist <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/03/28/remembering-brisbanes-anti-russian-red-flag-riots">“red flag” rally</a> by attacking members of the local Russian community. And in Victoria in the same year, members of the Essendon RSSILA travelled to the Western District to tar and feather former Labor politician JK McDougall after an anti-war poem he had originally written in opposition to the Boer War was republished, implying that he was referring to the AIF.</p>
<p>Recent research on the RSSILA’s early history suggests that its political impact should not be reduced to a survey of these kinds of incidents. The league’s first president, William Bolton, was an unquestionably partisan figure who had been elected to the federal parliament as a Nationalist senator in 1917. </p>
<p>Bolton aroused fury among his colleagues in the RSSILA after issuing a statement in May 1919, in the midst of widespread industrial action, that “in order to protect our league from the obvious intrigue of disloyal extremists under cover of industrial strife”, it was necessary:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… for all members to strongly abstain from active participation in any industrial dispute.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There was widespread dismay within the organisation over this statement, issued without consultation and, equally seriously, without any apparent understanding of “the awkward position of returned soldiers in time of industrial trouble”. Accused of being unable to devote sufficient time to the organisation he had been involved in founding, it was not long before Bolton was replaced by a very different figure.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75795/original/image-20150324-17699-12vsul1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75795/original/image-20150324-17699-12vsul1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75795/original/image-20150324-17699-12vsul1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75795/original/image-20150324-17699-12vsul1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75795/original/image-20150324-17699-12vsul1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75795/original/image-20150324-17699-12vsul1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1854&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75795/original/image-20150324-17699-12vsul1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75795/original/image-20150324-17699-12vsul1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1854&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gilbert Dyett led the RSSILA for 27 years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gilbert Dyett had been badly wounded at Gallipoli and returned to Australia as an advocate of voluntary recruitment, but an opponent of conscription. He was a Catholic, secretary to the Victorian Trotting and Racing Association, and a close associate of the controversial entrepreneur, John Wren. </p>
<p>Dyett was also an astute negotiator. Historian Martin Crotty suggests that his success in gaining concessions for returned soldiers from then-prime minister Billy Hughes in 1919 probably helped to keep the RSSILA in one piece.</p>
<p>Eschewing the kind of “law and order” campaign in which his predecessor had tried to entangle the organisation, Dyett emphasised the RSSILA’s role as lobbyist. He valued his access to government, for which he thought his own critics among returned soldiers gave him too little credit.</p>
<p>None of this should be taken as indicating that the RSSILA was therefore politically irrelevant beyond its particular concern with returned soldiers’ interests. Plenty of scope remained within state branches and local sub-branches for conservative politicking. But the divisions within the RSSILA about the issue of political neutrality should guard against hasty conclusions concerning its role in shaping the broader political allegiances of returned soldiers.</p>
<p>During the 1920s, the organisation struggled to gain members. In 1919, it probably had between 100,000 and 120,000 members, a figure that declined rapidly and markedly thereafter, dipping to 25,000 members in 1923, before beginning a slow climb that saw numbers reach around 80,000 by the late 1930s.</p>
<h2>From the Depression to the Hawke era</h2>
<p>There is a complicated story involving the Anzac legend and the left between the 1920s and the 1960s which historians have barely begun to untangle. During the Depression, there appears to have been a reinvigorated effort on the part of the mainstream labour movement to engage with the Great War’s legacy, to articulate a progressive Labor nationalism in which Anzac had a part to play. </p>
<p>It seemed natural enough to identify the suffering of the working class during the Depression with the earlier battles abroad, especially as many of those suffering in the 1930s were returned men. The fight for a more just economic system in the face of a crumbling capitalist system was an extension of the sacrifices made by the Anzacs for the sake of a better world. </p>
<p>But further to the left, activists, speakers and publications associated with the Communist Party (and even, on occasion, with more moderate elements in the labour movement) criticised the “imperial boasting and military boosting” of April 25.</p>
<p>Such criticisms – the preserve of a small minority from the 1920s to the 1950s – became part of mainstream public discourse during the 1960s, especially among the young. The Vietnam War is usually associated with the eclipse of Anzac in the 1960s. Its resurgence in the 1980s is seen as dependent, to some extent, on the bitterness and division engendered by that war giving way to a growing sympathy for the young Australian men whose lives were blighted by their participation in it. </p>
<p>Certainly, the 1980s and early 1990s have recently been recognised as a crucial period in the resurgence of Anzac. It was an era that might be seen as beginning in 1981 with the Peter Weir film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082432/">Gallipoli</a> and ending with Paul Keating’s 1993 <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/keating.asp">eulogy</a> for the “unknown soldier” at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9LBpsMqNEV0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Peter Weir’s 1981 film Gallipoli.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is ironic that this reinvention and revival occurred during a period of Labor Party dominance. But both Bob Hawke and Keating – Labor’s two prime ministers of the period – would each, in different ways, seek to align the Anzac legend with his sense of national identity. </p>
<p>Hawke came to office in 1983 evoking Curtin’s wartime legend. He was fond of comparing the economic challenges Australia faced to the problems Curtin encountered in 1942. He engaged with Gallipoli and the First World War more gradually, drawn by circumstance and a highly developed political instinct. </p>
<p>In 1984, Hawke responded to a proposal from the Gallipoli Legion of Anzacs by announcing that his government would ask its Turkish counterpart to rename the beach on which the Australians landed on April 25, 1915, as Anzac Cove – a change which occurred in 1985.</p>
<p>But it was the 1990 pilgrimage to Gallipoli that truly gave Hawke an opportunity to put his mark on the legend. In his memoirs, Hawke places his account of the pilgrimage out of chronological sequence, at the end of a chapter on the Gulf War of 1990–91, as if one were comprehensible in light of the other:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As I looked back nearly a year later, Gallipoli and the Gulf merged in a swell of pride for my country and its people. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hawke was more successful than any other Labor leader, except Curtin, in identifying the Labor Party with “pride for my country”. But the juxtaposition of the two events – the Gallipoli commemoration and the Gulf War – anticipates the ways Anzac would later be used to legitimise the Howard government’s highly contested commitment to the Iraq War.</p>
<p>Fifty-two men, aged between 93 and 104, accompanied Hawke and opposition leader John Hewson on the 1990 trip. Intriguingly, Labor speechwriter Graham Freudenberg, who wrote Hawke’s addresses for the commemoration, thought Hawke’s bicentennial speeches of a couple of years before “had failed to resonate”. Freudenberg saw Gallipoli as an opportunity for Hawke to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… break the conservative monopoly on the interpretation of Australian military history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This background, recently <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/great-war-and-australia-provisional-title/">explored</a> by Carolyn Holbrook, might lend some support to historian Mark McKenna’s theory that a reinvented Anzac Day emerged in the 1990s out of the failure of the 1988 Bicentenary as an exercise in enacting national unity as a result of Aboriginal dissent. Anzac Day, McKenna argues, emerged “as a less complicated and less divisive alternative” to Australia Day.</p>
<p>Hawke’s two key addresses at Gallipoli on April 25, 1990 – at the Dawn Service and later in the morning at <a href="http://ura.unisa.edu.au/view/action/singleViewer.do?dvs=1427089962620%7E449&locale=en_US&VIEWER_URL=/view/action/singleViewer.do?&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=10&adjacency=N&application=DIGITOOL-3&frameId=1&usePid1=true&usePid2=true">Lone Pine</a> – were well-received. The speech at the Dawn Service borrowed – to put it politely – from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. An agnostic prime minister declared the beach:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>.. sacred because of the bravery and the bloodshed of the Anzacs. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later in the morning, Hawke declared that Anzac’s “meaning can endure only as long as each new generation of Australians finds the will to reinterpret it”. But what he saw in the story of Anzac was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… recognition of the special meaning of Australian mateship.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>More recent times</h2>
<p>As prime minister, Keating elevated war commemoration to at least equal heights as Hawke. But, as is well known, he sought to shift the focus from Gallipoli to Kokoda – from a war fought far from home in defence of an empire to one fought on the doorstep in defence of a nation. </p>
<p>However, Keating’s eulogy to the unknown soldier required reflection on the First World War’s meaning. With historian Don Watson as his speechwriter, Keating delivered a widely admired speech in which he declared the man being reinterred was “all of them” and “one of us”.</p>
<p>The message was egalitarian, democratic, nationalist and, in the context of Keating’s broader concerns and rhetorical armoury of the early 1990s, subtly republican. But, above all, the speech elevated ordinary men and women to war heroes – delivering:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the lesson … that they were not ordinary.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tGh0HdG9ViA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Keating’s ‘unknown solider’ eulogy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These two streams of rhetoric have arguably been critical in shaping the language of modern Anzac commemoration. There was Hawke’s story of sacrifice and mateship, and Keating’s of the heroic and history-making status of the common man and woman. In each case, the personal was seen to transcend the cause for which the war was fought.</p>
<p>John Howard has been given great credit for his skill in crafting a persuasive political language. Yet, with respect to the Anzac legend, he did not depart significantly from the scripts set down by the two Labor prime ministers who preceded him. </p>
<p>This shared rhetoric of war commemoration should alert us to one of Anzac’s most significant and neglected aspects: that it has functioned since 1916 as a site of social consensus and shared values more than of contestation or disagreement.</p>
<p>However, Anzac is never just about mateship and democracy. It is also always about war and nationhood. </p>
<p>As the political and diplomatic contexts of the First World War became increasingly lost to public memory, the new post-1990 Anzac “consensus” has been forged around amorphous civic values so widely shared that anyone inclined to question them runs close to disqualifying themselves from Australian public culture – or, if you belong to a suspect ethnic or religious group, from the national community entirely. </p>
<p>The defence of Anzac Day commemoration – as common in the 1920s as today – turns on some fairly familiar arguments. It does not glorify war; it does not cultivate hatred; it is about honouring and remembering, not celebrating. Yet a sense of sacred nationhood created through the blood sacrifice of young men remains at its core today, as in 1916.</p>
<p>Is this not to glorify war?</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/38592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Bongiorno receives funding from the ARC. He is an ALP member.</span></em></p>There is a complicated story involving the Anzac legend and the left between the 1920s and the 1960s which historians have barely begun to untangle.Frank Bongiorno, Associate Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/401492015-04-20T01:38:29Z2015-04-20T01:38:29ZAnzacs flew the Union Jack but now we need to wave our own flag<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77872/original/image-20150414-24658-1u5jxxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Australian flag is flown at Anzac Day parades but it's not the flag that soldiers at Gallipoli fought under.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/ Dan Himbrechts</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prince Harry’s current secondment with the Australian Army, and the coverage it has received, reminds us of the imperial ties of old – and so does the forthcoming Gallipoli centenary.</p>
<p>As Anzac Day approaches we have been “bombarded” with memories, recollections, and re-imaginings of the Anzac experience at Gallipoli. Despite the recent burnishing of ties with Britain and the royal family, much of that is about defining us as distinctly Australian. </p>
<h2>Gather round the flag</h2>
<p>In reality, 100 years ago Australians and New Zealanders responded to the clarion call of the British Empire. There was no question as to where the loyalty of the overwhelming majority of Australians lay. They rallied around the British flag – Australia’s national flag until the Flag Act 1954 made the now ubiquitous blue ensign the Australian national flag. </p>
<p>Prior to that point Australians were more familiar with the red ensign, emblazoned with the southern cross and federation star, symbolising Australia as a subordinate part of empire. The blue ensign, while in circulation, was reserved largely for use by federal government and military institutions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77855/original/image-20150414-14530-trdug.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77855/original/image-20150414-14530-trdug.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77855/original/image-20150414-14530-trdug.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77855/original/image-20150414-14530-trdug.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77855/original/image-20150414-14530-trdug.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77855/original/image-20150414-14530-trdug.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77855/original/image-20150414-14530-trdug.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77855/original/image-20150414-14530-trdug.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=709&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 Australian soldier under the Union Jack.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Back then Australian citizens were unquestionably British subjects. Britain dominated Australia’s trade and dictated its foreign policy. Even its defence policy was shaped by decisions made in London. </p>
<p>It was totally understandable that Australians would identify with Britain’s flag, the Union Jack, as their own. Such feelings would linger beyond the war, despite the profound damaging and divisive effect of the war on Australian society. </p>
<p>As Britain’s star waned, the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/641050/Statute-of-Westminster">Statute of Westminster</a> of 1931 divested Britain of responsibility for foreign policy of dominions including Australia. But it was not until 1942 that Federal Parliament adopted its provisions, marking a fuller sense of Australian independence. </p>
<h2>The Southern Cross era</h2>
<p>The Flag Act 1954 finally made the Southern Cross-emblazoned blue ensign, not the Union Jack, the Australian national flag – although many military ensigns and “colours” remained based on the Union Jack for decades afterwards. Duntroon’s “colours”, for instance, only changed in 1973 to be modelled on the current Australian flag.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the <a href="http://foundingdocs.gov.au/item-did-26-aid-2-pid-21.html">Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948</a> made Australians not just British subjects but Australian citizens as well. Later on the Citizenship Act 1969 made it easier for non-British migrants to become citizens. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78543/original/image-20150420-3241-tvjwvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78543/original/image-20150420-3241-tvjwvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78543/original/image-20150420-3241-tvjwvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78543/original/image-20150420-3241-tvjwvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78543/original/image-20150420-3241-tvjwvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78543/original/image-20150420-3241-tvjwvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78543/original/image-20150420-3241-tvjwvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78543/original/image-20150420-3241-tvjwvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dave Sutherland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Britain’s accession to the European Community, the precursor to the European Union, in 1973 virtually ended the pretence of Australians still being British subjects. </p>
<p>Arguably, however, it was not until appeals to the British Privy Council ceased by virtue of the <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2004A00255">Privy Council (Appeals from the High Court) Act 1975</a> that Australia’s legal subordination to Britain ended. </p>
<p>In the meantime, Anzac Day waned in popularity as the Vietnam War ebbed. The “one day of the year” was an event that looked destined to die with the last veterans of Gallipoli. </p>
<p>Sometime later, Peter Weir’s 1981 movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082432/">Gallipoli</a> added much impetus to the reinvention of Anzac as being about defining Australians not so much with Britain as against the Brits. The famous climactic and deathly charge was ordered by a man with a strong British accent, yet in real life the order was given by an Australian officer. </p>
<p>One hundred years on from the landings at Gallipoli, Britain’s Empire has long since passed, but Anzac Day is more popular than ever. In the absence of a climactic event such as a storming of the Bastille or a War of Independence Anzac Day has come to be a defining national event. </p>
<h2>A flag for the next Anzac centenary?</h2>
<p>Australian foreign and defence policy is now made in Canberra, not London. While many still claim British ancestry and ties with Britain remain strong, Australia is now a much more diverse community. </p>
<p>Additionally, the place of the first Australians has come to be recognised more fully. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flag flies alongside the blue ensign at federal government institutions around the nation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78540/original/image-20150420-3224-mdxzbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78540/original/image-20150420-3224-mdxzbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78540/original/image-20150420-3224-mdxzbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78540/original/image-20150420-3224-mdxzbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78540/original/image-20150420-3224-mdxzbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78540/original/image-20150420-3224-mdxzbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78540/original/image-20150420-3224-mdxzbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78540/original/image-20150420-3224-mdxzbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&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 Australian Aboriginal flag.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78542/original/image-20150420-3224-1dq5jlo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78542/original/image-20150420-3224-1dq5jlo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78542/original/image-20150420-3224-1dq5jlo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78542/original/image-20150420-3224-1dq5jlo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78542/original/image-20150420-3224-1dq5jlo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78542/original/image-20150420-3224-1dq5jlo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78542/original/image-20150420-3224-1dq5jlo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78542/original/image-20150420-3224-1dq5jlo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flag of the Torres Strait Islanders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But strangely enough the key national symbol, the Australian flag, lags behind.</p>
<p>American comedian Jerry Seinfeld once described the Australian flag as the British one on a starry night. For decades now Australians have been talking about finding a new flag that speaks to modern Australians. Dozens of designs have emerged but none have yet captured the public imagination.</p>
<p>Last year on The Conversation <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-proposal-for-a-new-mature-australian-flag-24714">I suggested a design</a> intended to foster reconciliation and inclusiveness while capturing the symbolic connections with Australia’s British colonial and Aboriginal heritage and its present multicultural diversity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77857/original/image-20150414-14555-1m0jamo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77857/original/image-20150414-14555-1m0jamo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77857/original/image-20150414-14555-1m0jamo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77857/original/image-20150414-14555-1m0jamo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77857/original/image-20150414-14555-1m0jamo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77857/original/image-20150414-14555-1m0jamo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77857/original/image-20150414-14555-1m0jamo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77857/original/image-20150414-14555-1m0jamo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&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 author’s proposal for a new Australian flag.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Blaxland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With feedback, the above, modified version has emerged. It incorporates the familiar Southern Cross, with its seven pointed stars and echoes of the Union Jack, with the red boomerang abutted by a band of white next to the dark blue (also reminiscent of Australia being “girt” by sea and beaches). </p>
<p>Together, the red, white and blue also echo the colours and stripes of the Union Jack. </p>
<p>The new design retains the federation star, but in yellow, and elevates it into the prominent top left corner. The yellow star overlaps the red and dark blue, echoing Aboriginal symbolism. </p>
<p>In the federation star, 250 black dots represent the 150 or so Aboriginal languages spoken today and the many languages spoken by migrants to Australia since 1788 – all inside the symbolic seven-pointed star of federation.</p>
<p>Not everyone may like this design. But as we reflect on the meaning of the centenary of Anzac it is appropriate to discuss our flag and consider alternatives. It seems an apt time to do so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Blaxland 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>When Australian soldiers fought at Gallipoli, they did so under the Union Jack. Our flag has changed since then and debates about national identity have shifted. Is it now time for a new flag?John Blaxland, Senior Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/384282015-04-19T20:08:25Z2015-04-19T20:08:25ZLest we forget our other heroes of war, fighting for freedom at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78174/original/image-20150416-23326-1ntdymn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters attend a huge anti-conscription rally at Yarra Bank in Melbourne, 1916.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/the_home_front/stories/tom_walsh">National Library of Australia, n6487142</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A man stands on a beach in a distant land. Waves lap his ankles. He wades through the gentle dawn light, arms outstretched, his head held high. He is fully dressed; not a tourist but a freedom fighter. </p>
<p>A photograph of this man, beamed around the world, becomes a universal symbol of the struggle against tyranny and the sweet triumph of liberty. It is 2015. The man is <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/11386896/Peter-Greste-says-it-feels-sweet-to-be-free-after-going-online-for-first-time-in-400-days.html">Peter Greste</a>.</p>
<p>If you thought the man might have been an Anzac on the shores of Gallipoli, such is the power of persuasion. It’s easy to lead a horse to water when, in the centenary year of the Gallipoli campaign, our nation is at saturation point with battlefield remembrance.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78344/original/image-20150417-20743-1hoid4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78344/original/image-20150417-20743-1hoid4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78344/original/image-20150417-20743-1hoid4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78344/original/image-20150417-20743-1hoid4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78344/original/image-20150417-20743-1hoid4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78344/original/image-20150417-20743-1hoid4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78344/original/image-20150417-20743-1hoid4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78344/original/image-20150417-20743-1hoid4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&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 Blood Vote, the poem credited with influencing many votes in the conscription referendum. Reproduced from a pamphlet, How to Defeat Conscription: a Story of the 1916 and 1917 Campaigns in Victoria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.solidarityforeverbook.com/cgi-bin/showchapter.pl?c=8">Bertha Walker, Solidarity Forever!</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sum total of television programming, beer advertising, political grandstanding and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-15/rsl-responds-to-woolworths-fresh-in-our-memories-campaign/6393498">opportunistic marketing</a> suggests that the historical legacy of Australia’s involvement in the first world war boils down to a simple equation: young (white) man plus distant beach equals sacrifice.</p>
<p>There is nothing intrinsically wrong with military commemoration that honours the dead. Last weekend I planted Gallipoli rosemary in my backyard; part of the proceeds go to the Avenues of Honour, a national project to preserve and restore <a href="http://www.avenuesofhonour.org/">Australia’s living memorials</a>.</p>
<p>More objectionable is the fact that war remembrance is played like it is a zero sum game. To widen the scope of historical tribute, and also recall the words and deeds of the Australian men and women who fought against the prescribed route of militaristic sentiment, is to risk being branded disrespectful and <a href="http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_dare_you_celebrate_what_unites/">divisive</a>.</p>
<p>But the unassailable fact is that the first world war ripped Australia asunder. Even at the time, the Great War itself was divisive, a historical reality belied by today’s bland, blanket coverage of “the Anzac spirit”.</p>
<p>Australia’s participation in the war was contested from the outset. On August 11, 1914, veteran political campaigner Vida Goldstein wrote in her Woman Voter newspaper:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is a fearful reflection on 2000 years of Christianity that men have rushed into war before using every combined effort to prevent this appalling conflict.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As she had done 20 years earlier in mobilising forces around the issue of female suffrage, Goldstein rallied her own army of foot soldiers with fighting words.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The time has come for women to show that they, as givers of life, refuse to give their sons as material for slaughter.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78186/original/image-20150416-5657-ygrumb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78186/original/image-20150416-5657-ygrumb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78186/original/image-20150416-5657-ygrumb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78186/original/image-20150416-5657-ygrumb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78186/original/image-20150416-5657-ygrumb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78186/original/image-20150416-5657-ygrumb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78186/original/image-20150416-5657-ygrumb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78186/original/image-20150416-5657-ygrumb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vida Goldstein fought often unpopular battles for women’s rights and against conscription.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australian and New Zealand women women had a unique advantage in shaping public debate: the vote. “The enfranchised women of Australia are political units in the British Empire,” Goldstein argued, “and they ought to lead the world in sane methods of dealing with these conflicts.”</p>
<p>Goldstein’s early entreaties failed to bite with the general populace. Under the newly legislated <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C1914A00010">War Precautions Act</a>, the Woman Voter suffered censorship, leading Goldstein and her Women’s Peace Army to fight on multiple fronts: “we are fighting for Civil Liberty and against Military Despotism”. Around the nation, trade unionists opposed to “the capitalist war” joined the movement.</p>
<p>Australia had the only entirely voluntary military service among the Allied forces; less than 40% of eligible men signed up to fight “for King and Country”. As the carnage at Gallipoli brought home the realities of war, recruitments fell and peace activism became more widespread. General strikes halted industry, as workers reacted to the food shortages, unemployment and rising poverty that threatened the social accord of “the Working Man’s Paradise”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78181/original/image-20150416-23402-1exgqwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78181/original/image-20150416-23402-1exgqwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78181/original/image-20150416-23402-1exgqwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78181/original/image-20150416-23402-1exgqwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78181/original/image-20150416-23402-1exgqwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78181/original/image-20150416-23402-1exgqwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78181/original/image-20150416-23402-1exgqwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78181/original/image-20150416-23402-1exgqwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even 100 years ago Australian politicians weren’t popular: this poster attacked Billy Hughes’ change of heart on conscription.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/search-discover/explore-our-digital-image-pool?page=1&keyword=conscription">State Library of Victoria digital image pool</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With enlistments <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/enlistment/ww1/">falling away in 1916</a>, Prime Minister Billy Hughes pushed for conscription and pushed through the Unlawful Associations Act.</p>
<p>Groups that voiced opposition to the war, like the International Workers of the World, were banned and dissidents were jailed for publishing material “likely to cause disaffection or alarm”. When waterfront workers and coal miners went on strike, the War Precautions Act was invoked to send them back to work.</p>
<p>In September 1916, the Sydney Twelve were arrested and tried for treason. “Fifteen years for 15 words” was how one of the prisoners described his crime and punishment.</p>
<p>The conscription referendums of October 28, 1916, and December 20, 1917, became a massive rallying point for people who opposed the war — or the federal government’s domestic policies. There were diverse reasons for that opposition, including the anti-British sentiments of Irish Catholic Australians. </p>
<p>In Melbourne, the meeting place for such public debate was Yarra Bank, a pocket of land nestled between what today is Birrarung Marr and the Rod Laver Arena. Anti-conscription demonstrations saw <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/printArticleJpg/130163295/3?print=n">up to 100,000 people</a> gather on the dusty banks of dirty brown Yarra River. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78179/original/image-20150416-23326-1pz2r88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78179/original/image-20150416-23326-1pz2r88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78179/original/image-20150416-23326-1pz2r88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78179/original/image-20150416-23326-1pz2r88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78179/original/image-20150416-23326-1pz2r88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78179/original/image-20150416-23326-1pz2r88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78179/original/image-20150416-23326-1pz2r88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78179/original/image-20150416-23326-1pz2r88.jpg?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">An anti-conscription poster, appealing to women voters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/search-discover/explore-our-digital-image-pool?page=1&keyword=conscription">State Library of Victoria digital image pool</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most protest meetings were peaceful, but one became infamously violent. “Riotous scenes at Yarra Bank”, headlines around the nation proclaimed, when a demonstration organised by the Women’s Peace Army in the week before the 1916 referendum turned nasty and returned servicemen began to attack female speakers. Both conscription referendums ultimately failed.</p>
<p>The Australian Dictionary of Biography contains profiles of <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biographies/occupation/?occupation=anti-conscriptionist&rpp=200">174 anti-conscriptionists</a>, many of whom went to jail, including Vida Goldstein’s compatriots Adela Pankhurst and Jennie Baines. Baines was imprisoned for refusing to pay the fine she was issued for flying a red flag at Yarra Bank in 1918. She is reputedly the first Australian prisoner to go on a hunger strike.</p>
<p>Other protesters were deported. As historian <a href="http://theconversation.com/friendship-in-war-was-not-just-confined-to-bonds-between-men-38391">Janet Butler</a> reminds us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It does take a special kind of bravery to stand against the tide.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=c503fea747c01dd4782a5ceaa&id=6b9d1de9d1&e=6b91daed1d">enduring legacies</a> of the first world war emanate beyond the battlefields of Gallipoli, manifested not only in the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/remembering-the-forgotten-heroes-of-war/6393506">“shattered Anzacs”</a> whose families bore the burden of care, but also in the class and sectarian divisions that shaped Australia’s social and political relations in the 20th century.</p>
<p>Lest we also forget that the democratic freedoms we hold dear today – freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech — were won in battles fought on home soil by courageous women and men who sacrificed much, but are still accorded little recognition.</p>
<p>Perhaps, by the 125th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign, when we again celebrate our national liberation narratives, we will come to associate riverbanks, as well as beaches, with the potent ebb and flow of freedom.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Clare Wright will host a <a href="http://www.thatsmelbourne.com.au/Whatson/LearnandSee/LecturesandForums/Pages/977a734e-e64c-42fd-9e4f-1b6af3e105d0.aspx">free event</a> on the Future of Anzac Day at Federation Square in Melbourne on Monday, April 20, 6–7.30pm. She has also written an essay on the nature of historical memory in the Griffith Review’s latest edition on the <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/enduring-legacies/">enduring legacies of war</a>. And you can listen to her speak about the anti-conscription movement during the Great War 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/198349505&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/38428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Wright receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The democratic freedoms Australians hold dear today – freedom of the press, assembly and speech – were won on home soil by courageous women and men who sacrificed much, but rarely recognised for it.Clare Wright, Associate Professor in History, La Trobe UniversityLicensed 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/403002015-04-16T05:44:27Z2015-04-16T05:44:27ZWhy the Anzac legend has always been about branding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78170/original/image-20150416-23347-1t1krr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Men like Australian official correspondent, and later official war historian, Charles Bean (pictured on the island of Imbros, in 1915) understood the myth-making power of images. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: Australian War Memorial</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While many Australians have been outraged at Woolworths’ clumsy attempt to superimpose its brand over the Anzac Centenary, what most of the reaction has missed is that the Anzac legend has always been partly about branding.</p>
<p>In demanding the ill-fated “fresh in our memories” Anzac website campaign be taken down, Minister for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Michael Ronaldson said he was “responsible for ensuring that any use of the word ‘Anzac’ does not provide commercial benefit to an organisation”.</p>
<p>The site, which combined an iconic image of a Digger with a Woolworths logo has been condemned as crass commercialisation.</p>
<p>But the government’s actions also reflect the fact that Veterans Affairs are keenly aware of the importance of branding and the need to protect it.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78152/original/image-20150416-31670-18tza0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78152/original/image-20150416-31670-18tza0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78152/original/image-20150416-31670-18tza0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78152/original/image-20150416-31670-18tza0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78152/original/image-20150416-31670-18tza0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78152/original/image-20150416-31670-18tza0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78152/original/image-20150416-31670-18tza0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Woolworths advertisment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Buzzfeed</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Veterans Affairs have in fact a highly sophisticated understanding of commercial branding and because of this they realise it needs to be defended - or the brand will be cheapened.</p>
<p>The very term ‘branding’ seems inimical to the sacred aura that surrounds the Anzac legend today. How can something be sacred and yet also a brand? Yet the Anzac legend has been highly dependent upon propaganda techniques that have helped to support a mythology that is now incontrovertibly fundamental to modern Australian national identity.</p>
<p>Even during the Great War, the term and concepts behind Anzac were being formulated in books such as war correspondent CEW Bean’s <em>The Anzac Book</em> and Will Dyson’s <em>Australia at War: drawings at the front</em>. These men were image makers who understood the power of pictures and words not just to memorialise, but also to recruit men to the cause. </p>
<p>These were powerful books, depicting not just larrikinism and good cheer, but also the incredibly grim conditions that Australian soldiers faced. Dyson and Bean showed that Anzacs were resilient and courageous and from that point, the term ‘Anzac’ came to be associated with these attributes. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78169/original/image-20150416-23347-zniq60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78169/original/image-20150416-23347-zniq60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78169/original/image-20150416-23347-zniq60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78169/original/image-20150416-23347-zniq60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78169/original/image-20150416-23347-zniq60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78169/original/image-20150416-23347-zniq60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78169/original/image-20150416-23347-zniq60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.gallipoli.gov.au/">Source: State Library of NSW</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thus a brand was born before the war had even ended.</p>
<p>Even as early as 1916, parliamentarians were concerned that the word would be exploited inappropriately and by 1921, legislation required that anyone – even boat owners – apply to the government for permission to use the word. </p>
<p>Today, the Anzac brand has reached its apotheosis with the Centenary, and a special logo in gold has been designed for the use of approved manufacturers and entrepreneurs. According to the government website, the logo has:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…has been designed to encapsulate the unique qualities that forged the spirit of Anzac and gave birth to our national identity: courage, mateship, sacrifice, generosity, freedom, and a fair go for all.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The word “Anzac” therefore is associated with a host of positive moral attributes which the logo bestows upon the product that sports it. In other words, “mateship” and “sacrifice” have been appropriated as a part of a unique brand by Veterans Affairs and the Australian government in general.</p>
<p>However, while the government successfully defended the brand against Woolworths, the brand integrity has already been lost - and this at the hands of the very group meant to maintain it. </p>
<p>“Camp Gallipoli”, which has been endorsed by the Anzac centenary committee and has a sponsorship deal with Target is selling two dollar wristbands with the slogan “Anzac Spirit” emblazoned on them. Mugs are also available for purchase by Target customers while they wait in line to pay. </p>
<p>In addition, cunning manufacturers have dodged the Anzac restriction by substituting the term “Gallipoli”. This home-brand version of Anzac has taken over, and is spruiking everything from rosemary in nurseries to “Gallipoli” cruises. </p>
<p>The flood of kitsch items and events is leaving many Australians wondering what Anzac stands for. </p>
<p>Satirical website Akitifmag published a series of <a href="http://www.aktifmag.com/anzac-propaganda-posters-if-they-really-knew-what-they-were-fighting-for/">First World War posters</a> altered through photoshop to criticise the exploitation of Anzac Day by corporations. One poster read: “Just think: in 100 years VB can sell more piss. Enlist now”. </p>
<p>The Shovel too, published an article in which it announced Woolworths had become sponsors of the ADF in Iraq, quoting an imaginary spokesman as saying “it was part of a new strategic push to profit from the memory of dead Australian soldiers”. </p>
<p>The confusion, derision and outrage surrounding the commercialisation of the Anzac legend is not a situation the government would wish for less than two weeks away from the 100th anniversary of the landing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Robertson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Anzac legend is under siege by marketers trying to cash in: but the government also has a branding stake.Emily Robertson, PhD Candidate, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/396802015-04-15T00:46:26Z2015-04-15T00:46:26ZLet’s honour the Anzacs by making two-up illegal again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77985/original/image-20150414-24650-9ov9jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Would the Anzac Day game of two-up be a more meaningful commemoration if it were still illegal?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Murray/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If I was prime minister for a day, in that primary-school hypothetical, I would make two-up illegal again. We lost a true act of remembrance when, state by state, we smoothed over the edges and normalised the whole affair to just another form of gambling at the pub. </p>
<p>In the lead up to the centenary of Gallipoli we have instead been forced to search for less authentic ways to commemorate. There are endless new tele-dramas; Centennial Park in Sydney is being reborn as <a href="https://www.campgallipoli.com.au/">Camp Gallipoli</a> (camp under the stars to recreate the Anzac spirit of mateship!); and a number of new monuments are being laid. Woolworths is currently <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/woolworths-debacle-minister-for-veterans-affairs-attacks-anzac-ad-campaign-20150414-1ml8fk.html">in hot water</a> over its Fresh Memories advertising campaign.</p>
<p>What all these new and inventive forms of remembrance show is that our memory for Gallipoli needs supplementing by more information (more historians, docos etc), more events and more sites of remembrance. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77984/original/image-20150414-24658-rt21wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77984/original/image-20150414-24658-rt21wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77984/original/image-20150414-24658-rt21wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77984/original/image-20150414-24658-rt21wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77984/original/image-20150414-24658-rt21wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77984/original/image-20150414-24658-rt21wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77984/original/image-20150414-24658-rt21wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77984/original/image-20150414-24658-rt21wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First world war diggers playing two-up.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of South Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This anxiety or hysteria around memory reminds me of the work of French historian <a href="http://www.dandavidprize.org/laureates/2014/174-past-history-memory/622-mr-pierre-nora">Pierre Nora</a> on national memory. Nora writes: “Memory is constantly on our lips because it no longer exists.” </p>
<p>What he suggests is that we need <em>lieux de memoire</em> (sites of memory) because we no longer have <em>milieu de memoire</em> (real environments of memory) that are truly embedded deeply in the society. For Nora what you get then is a proliferation of artificial and secon- order memory making (collecting, archiving, exhibiting) without the real social rituals of remembrance. </p>
<h2>Memory in Canberra</h2>
<p>This came home strongly to me last time I visited the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. As we soberly came through the door to walk towards the the Hall of Memory past the Roll of Honour we were stopped by a guard’s arm directing us towards the museum entrance and further exhibition rooms. </p>
<p>New rooms of collection and exhibition have supplemented the sacred nature of the memorial constantly since it was built. And I do not think those additions have been made without loss to the original nature of the beautiful memorial. </p>
<p>This has happened too in Sydney at the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park with the new extension to the museum. I am not sure whether the museums and collections would be better housed on another site altogether. If they must be on site, then keep them secondary. </p>
<h2>The symbolic power of illegal two-up</h2>
<p>I feel that this is an architectural version of what happened to our beloved two-up, a pastime that gained its reputation in the trenches of the first world war. </p>
<p>The move over the last few decades to legalise the coin-flipping game was ill advised. Most of the States in one way or other have regulated for the legal acceptance of two-up on Anzac Day and in some cases other holidays. Queensland <a href="http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Documents/TableOffice/TabledPapers/2011/5311T6099.pdf">went last</a> in 2012, but Victoria and NSW legalised two-up in the 1990s. </p>
<p>What most of us remember though, especially Queenslanders, is the way it used to be done; the powers that be, the police, the pub manager, would turn a blind eye to the game. If you set up a “cockatoo” (two-up slang for a look out) it was only in jest because everyone knew that nothing was going to happen. </p>
<p>It might seem perverse but the illegal nature of the game was absolutely crucial to the symbolic power of the game. </p>
<p>Two-up on Anzac Day used to be a perfect example of a rite beyond everyday legal constraints. It had a carnivalesque logic, where the illegal became for that day legal. In legal theory we would characterise the carnival (Mardi Gras and Saturnalia, and other tricky and topsy turvy inversions of law) as an anomic festival, that is outside the law. These festivals though are part of the cultural language of society. </p>
<p>Historically the carnival is an extraordinary event to more clearly delineate the legal and everyday. It is based on the logic that we “don’t want a repeat of last night”. You understand the law better by seeing what it is not. Perhaps Mad Monday every football season suggests this sort of release in the more focused world of elite football training. </p>
<p>The position of two-up was more particular. It marked Anzac Day as a special day, a sacred day when “mateship” and memory overrode the everyday constraints of “insignificant” laws. By destroying the anomic quality of the game we have domesticated the ritual act until it is about as <em>bona fide</em> as Halloween in Australia. </p>
<p>The transgression of it also conjures up a wonderful image of the larrikin bronzed warrior/ spinner. I imagine that the “tradition” of turning a blind eye was part of many of the original games and that illegality was a link across time. </p>
<h2>The thrill of transgression</h2>
<p>The law was changed to “avoid confusion”. There is something about people “breaking the law” that makes people nervous. But it is exactly this scenario that actually made two-up function. What brought the society together, on this important national day, was the shared but secret (and unofficial) knowledge that you could gamble with impunity in this particular way. </p>
<p>If you were a stranger in the land it would not make sense but to the local there was no real confusion at all, on the contrary there was a deep understanding. </p>
<p>More provocatively perhaps it was the way that we enjoyed the transgression that was also central. In 2012 Queenslanders <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/thrill-lost-as-two-up-finally-goes-legal/story-e6frg6nf-1226338315790">said</a> of two-up becoming legal that some of the “thrill” had gone. </p>
<p>This “thrill” is worth looking at closely. We are held together by certain ties, such as family and society, but we are equally held together as friends and “gangs” through transgression and fun. Drinking, mosh pits and illicit drug taking can all be linked to Nation – just think of the crowds at the Big Day Out on Australia Day. </p>
<p>Drinking, beer cup snakes and “illegal” Mexican waves bring us together as a crowd of Australians at the cricket. </p>
<p>Sharing the “thrill” of doing something a little naughty is one of the best ways to produce “mateship” and togetherness in a group (just don’t mention it officially as Warney did recently at the post match interview at the World Cup). </p>
<p>By bureaucratically dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s we lost this quite unique custom. When it became legal the pubs knew then they were allowed to advertise, loud and proud, and they have. Using hip Edwardian fonts two-up is proclaimed everywhere. </p>
<p>There is still the power of the game to speak to the past as an artifact of the past but the very special functioning of the illegal two-up game on Anzac Day was given up without a fight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oliver Watts 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>Anzac Day is the one day of the year it’s legal to play two-up. If we want to retain the thrill that was so important to the diggers, we’d keep it illegal rather than sanitising the practice.Oliver Watts, Lecturer, Sydney College of Arts, University of 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>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<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/396852015-04-13T01:25:47Z2015-04-13T01:25:47ZAustralia’s unknown soldier: a powerful symbol of loss and faith<p>The tomb of the unknown soldier in the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial might seem to the casual visitor the timeless and natural symbolic centre of the memorial. But it was not always so: it was only in 1993 that the body of an unknown Australian soldier was repatriated and entombed here. That fact was highlighted by a <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/known-unto-god-to-remain-at-tomb-of-unknown-soldier-at-war-memorial-20131028-2wcnj.html">2013 controversy</a> over inscribing Paul Keating’s striking eulogy in this sacred space.</p>
<p>So why did it take three-quarters of a century beyond the war for Australians to build a local replica of the powerful memorials inaugurated in London and Paris in November 1920? Those memorials at Westminster Abbey and the Arc de Triomphe spoke to a terrible reality of the first world war: so many of those who had been killed could not be identified, or even found. </p>
<p>These were the “missing”: in Australia’s case alone, of almost 60,000 deaths on the battlefields, 23,000 have no known grave. In the case of the British Empire, those bodies that were identified remained in more than 1000 cemeteries across the former battlefields.</p>
<p>The tomb of the unknown warrior, in Westminster Abbey, and the nearby cenotaph (literally <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/remembrance/how/cenotaph.shtml">“empty tomb”</a> in Greek) in Whitehall offered mourners a place to acknowledge their loss and to perform the rituals of bereavement. The cenotaph was widely copied in Australia and across the British Empire; why not the tomb of the unknown?</p>
<p>In an era of expensive and time-consuming travel, Australians and New Zealanders in particular could hardly dream of visiting battlefield graves on the other side of the world. Throughout the inter-war period, relatives and returned soldiers consistently called for the return of a representative body to symbolise the absent dead. They called for the interment of an unknown Australian soldier.</p>
<p>Even as the coffin was being lowered into the grave in London, such calls had begun in Australia. In 1922 the matter came to a head. Some federal ministers hoped that a body might be interred on Canberra’s Capital Hill, while returned soldier groups variously favoured sites in Sydney and Melbourne.</p>
<p>Opposition to the proposal reflected Australians’ powerful affections for the British Empire. Opponents pointed to the lessened significance of the Unknown Warrior if the Australian plan went ahead. The “representative Warrior … in the centre of Empire”, one claimed, was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a unique testimonial that would not be improved by repetition in other countries. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others worried that such a memorial would tend to re-awaken grief that had begun to settle.</p>
<p>Though the urge to inter an unknown soldier in Australia was defeated by such criticism at the time, the idea persisted, suggesting that war’s wounds had not entirely closed. In 1935, one Melbourne woman claimed that if an unknown soldier were returned it “may be my own son who is laid there”.</p>
<p>In the wake of the second world war, advocates were just as insistent that Australians deserved their own symbolic tomb, arguing it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… would hold for us the same meaning as those in Westminster Abbey and the Arc de Triomphe. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77427/original/image-20150409-15250-k01vkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77427/original/image-20150409-15250-k01vkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77427/original/image-20150409-15250-k01vkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77427/original/image-20150409-15250-k01vkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77427/original/image-20150409-15250-k01vkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77427/original/image-20150409-15250-k01vkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77427/original/image-20150409-15250-k01vkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77427/original/image-20150409-15250-k01vkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia’s tomb of the unknown soldier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/teejaybee/5850804252/in/photolist-bJM3u4-7riZDe-c7dXLo-c7dXYY-kqgDNU-bJiDGn-oLtZjN-7JhTHq-7yhTmf-c7aJjS-7otBqA-hbiTpr-kutMsn-kutP2p-kutNci-kutPB2-2Npbe-9V1Ugo-5URLyX-8eRqe6-7J1vpj-7HWyXi-7J1vG1-7HWzfP-7HWxTx-7HWyH8-7yF7q3-bPDU1n-7WFUiZ-bPDTNZ-bAwFYQ-bPrk7H-bPJcji-qPNJQJ-qPNJTE-bPDTKt-r559hq-bAKeW1-LFcbT-LFc8r-LF2N7-6iELaf-ebZUiv-54LUSJ-3cwzw-3cwB5-7WK8uC-3cwCF-s1Pwu-ec169c">teejaybee/Flicker</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet strong attachment to the Empire continued to complicate the venture. As late as 1970, a proposal from within the Returned Services League of Australia (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Returned_and_Services_League_of_Australia">RSL</a>) stalled. </p>
<p>Finally, in 1991, the Australian War Memorial initiated a successful campaign to repatriate the remains of an unknown Australian soldier of the Great War. Referring to previous failures, deputy director Michael McKernan suggested that unlike before, the memorial itself was now “very much in touch with Australia’s own history”. </p>
<p>The body was exhumed from a cemetery near Villers-Bretonneux, in France, and on November 11 1993 was interred at the Australian War Memorial.</p>
<p>Then-prime minister Paul Keating <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/keating.asp">declared</a> that the unknown soldier not only represented more than 100,000 “men and women who laid down their lives for Australia” in the wars of the 20th century, but that he embodied:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a story of bravery and sacrifice and, with it, a deeper faith in ourselves and our democracy, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be Australian.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GtL5LMvzED8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Paul Keating’s 1993 speech.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1993, entombing an unknown soldier from the battlefields of the Great War clearly meant something different to what the practice might have meant in the 1920s or 1930s. The survivors of the war were themselves almost all gone, as were those who mourned the dead of 1914-18. </p>
<p>Observer Ken Inglis described the funeral ceremony as “a kind of communal farewell to the Anzacs”. That farewell also marked a new beginning, as part of the reinvigoration and recasting of how Australians remember the Great War.</p>
<p>Certainly one element in the creation of the tomb was to assert a more independent national sentiment as Australia moved slowly beyond empire, a theme also reflected in the creation of tombs in Canada (2000) and New Zealand (2004). </p>
<p>Such tombs remain timeless because of their anonymity. Their meanings change as attitudes change and events in our own time affect our understanding of the past. Like the phrase “lest we forget”, the tomb of the unknown soldier defies precise definition. This is the point. </p>
<p>For grieving loved ones, a tomb could stand for the absent dead and attend to their need for a place of mourning. It also had the capacity to reflect whatever meanings one might ascribe to the war: crusade, triumph, futility or folly.</p>
<p>To the visitor, the unknown identity of the soldier might act as a homage or as a warning; perhaps both.</p>
<p>The urge to inscribe more precise meanings on the tomb is understandable, though it works against the potent symbolism of the nameless body. Here, as in our other ceremonies to mark the experience of war, silence speaks more powerfully than words cut in stone.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can listen to Bart Ziino speak about the tomb of the unknown soldier 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/198827488&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/39685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bart Ziino has received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Why did it take three-quarters of a century beyond the first world war for Australians to build our own tomb of the unknown soldier, remembering the 23,000 Australians who died with no known grave?Bart Ziino, Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/393212015-04-10T05:07:12Z2015-04-10T05:07:12ZFlies, filth and bully beef: life at Gallipoli in 1915<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76891/original/image-20150402-32448-1lh0b0w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anzac soldiers line up for water parade, Gallipoli 1915.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Of all the bastards of places this is the greatest bastard in the world. – Ion Idriess, 1932, <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2007/03/16/ion-idriess-and-the-legend-of-the-light-horse/">The Desert Column</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>It has often been repeated that the lived existence of soldiers at Gallipoli in the 1915 campaign was extremely arduous. The soldiers’ accounts and recent archaeological surveys of this best-preserved First World War battlefield illustrate just how inhumane and gruelling the conditions were for both Allied and Turkish soldiers.</p>
<h2>Conditions</h2>
<p>Many factors contributed to making the Gallipoli battlefield an almost unendurable place for all soldiers. The constant noise, cramped unsanitary conditions, disease, stenches, daily death of comrades, terrible food, lack of rest and thirst all contributed to the most gruelling conditions.</p>
<p>The Anzacs were literally clinging onto the edge of a cliff with the sea at their backs and the Turks occupying the higher ground. They were forced to dig extensive trench and tunnels systems and to endure a <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ART90798/">semi-subterranean existence</a> of cramped and filthy living and working conditions under constant shellfire.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76883/original/image-20150402-32451-rqvwqw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76883/original/image-20150402-32451-rqvwqw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76883/original/image-20150402-32451-rqvwqw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76883/original/image-20150402-32451-rqvwqw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76883/original/image-20150402-32451-rqvwqw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76883/original/image-20150402-32451-rqvwqw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76883/original/image-20150402-32451-rqvwqw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76883/original/image-20150402-32451-rqvwqw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anzac soldiers in a trench at Lone Pine, August 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Incessant noise from shelling, bombing, artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire caused psychological and physiological problems for the soldiers. These included shell shock, stress from unceasing exposure to loud mechanical noises, hearing impairment and lack of sleep. </p>
<p>The cramped conditions and steep terrain left few safe places for men to rest in the front line on Second Ridge above Anzac Cove. Severe exhaustion from lack of sleep caused by the constant noise in front-line positions such as Silt Spur, Quinn’s Post and Tasmania Post meant that many men fell asleep at their posts. </p>
<h2>Food</h2>
<p>Food was a major concern to Anzac soldiers. Much has been written about the food rations provided for the Anzacs at Gallipoli, including the dark, humorous odes to bully beef and impenetrably hard <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL/00919.001/">army biscuits</a> in <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/shop/item/9781742231341/">The Anzac Book</a>. </p>
<p>There is no denying that the rations issued to the Anzacs provided very poor nutrition due to the unvarying diet of processed foods: canned meat (corned “bully” beef, bacon or Maconochie’s beef stew), hard tack biscuits and watery jam. The diet was varied sometimes by sugar, condensed milk, rice and cocoa, but there was a distinct lack of fresh fruit or vegetables for the Anzacs. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76889/original/image-20150402-32416-1k1f7xz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76889/original/image-20150402-32416-1k1f7xz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76889/original/image-20150402-32416-1k1f7xz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76889/original/image-20150402-32416-1k1f7xz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76889/original/image-20150402-32416-1k1f7xz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76889/original/image-20150402-32416-1k1f7xz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76889/original/image-20150402-32416-1k1f7xz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76889/original/image-20150402-32416-1k1f7xz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anzac soldiers making biscuit ‘porridge’ in a trench at Gallipoli, 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These rations were intended to be lived on for only short periods of time by British army divisions, not for extended months as was the case at Gallipoli. Living on these rations caused major health problems for the soldiers. So prevalent on the Anzac battlefields were the food cans in which these rations were issued that their remains can still be found around the sites of Anzac trenches and dugouts.</p>
<p>The Turkish forces were provided with a wider variety of food. This was centrally prepared by cooks and consisted of fresh local foods, although it was often lacking in meat. French and Indian divisions had much better rations than Anzacs, with more vegetables and bread. </p>
<h2>Disease</h2>
<p>The poor nutritional content of the British rations contributed to the physical decline of the Anzac and British troops at Gallipoli. The unappetising and unvaried diet affected the soldiers’ morale and psychological well-being. It also increased their susceptibility to disease, which spread rapidly during the summer months of the campaign. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76887/original/image-20150402-32431-61w4oy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76887/original/image-20150402-32431-61w4oy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76887/original/image-20150402-32431-61w4oy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76887/original/image-20150402-32431-61w4oy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76887/original/image-20150402-32431-61w4oy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76887/original/image-20150402-32431-61w4oy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76887/original/image-20150402-32431-61w4oy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76887/original/image-20150402-32431-61w4oy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sick soldiers waiting to be evacuated from Anzac Cove, August 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Disease swept through both Anzac and Turkish forces at Gallipoli. Dysentery, tetanus and septic wounds plagued the soldiers and necessitated the evacuation of thousands of men from the battlefield. The latrines were open and rudimentary. </p>
<p>There were no bathing facilities and few opportunities to wash bodies or clothes. The lack of sanitation in the Anzac areas caused the rapid spread of dysentery, known as the “Gallipoli Gallop”.</p>
<p>The unburied corpses in and around the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/A04029/">front-line areas</a> were the perfect breeding ground for flies. These were almost unbearable in the summer months. The flies were so thick that soldiers could not eat without their biscuits and jam being blackened with flies. </p>
<p>Flies spread diseases rapidly through the troops living in cramped, over-crowded trenches and dugouts and unable even to wash their hands. Lice were also a major problem for soldiers during the summer months.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76885/original/image-20150402-32437-1lalcvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76885/original/image-20150402-32437-1lalcvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76885/original/image-20150402-32437-1lalcvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76885/original/image-20150402-32437-1lalcvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76885/original/image-20150402-32437-1lalcvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76885/original/image-20150402-32437-1lalcvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1111&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76885/original/image-20150402-32437-1lalcvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1111&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76885/original/image-20150402-32437-1lalcvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1111&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 Anzac soldier washes from his small mess tin, Quinn’s Post, Gallipoli, 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Other factors</h2>
<p>The local water supply was very limited in the British- and Anzac-held areas of the peninsula. At Anzac Cove in particular, the water supply was a serious problem that contributed to the soldiers’ ill-health and exacerbated the wretched sanitary conditions. </p>
<p>Soldiers in front-line positions were issued only small amounts of water per day and the water quality was poor. Thirst and dehydration were common amongst the men. Often their only drink was extremely strong <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/G00588/">black tea</a>.</p>
<p>Other factors that characterised the life of soldiers during the 1915 conflict were psychological. These included homesickness, fear and anxiety, the constant threat of death, killing and grief at the loss of mates, brothers and comrades on a daily basis.</p>
<p>Overall, these were appalling conditions, which indicate the wholly inadequate planning and response of the British and Allied military authorities to basic human needs and a failure in their duty of care to their soldiers. The Anzac soldiers earned the respect of others largely because of the projected image of their laconic good humour in the face of the most terrible circumstances.</p>
<p>However, some soldiers could not handle these conditions at all and understandably succumbed to mental, physical and emotional injuries, which continue to be marginalised or completely unacknowledged in the Anzac legend. The conditions took their toll on even the most stoic and fortunate of survivors, who felt the effects of their time at Gallipoli decades after the conflict.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can listen to Michelle Negus Cleary speak about life on the battlefield 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/201034224&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/39321/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Negus Cleary does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The appalling conditions at Gallipoli indicate the wholly inadequate planning and response of the British and Allied military authorities to basic human needs.Michelle Negus Cleary, Research Associate, Mediterranean Studies, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/382032015-04-09T05:49:53Z2015-04-09T05:49:53ZBean’s Anzac Book shaped how Australians think about Gallipoli<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75902/original/image-20150325-4197-1m62ek0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C176%2C396%2C388&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The idea of the Anzac soldier, as crafted by Australia's official historian at Gallipoli, Charles Bean, has dominated historical memory.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One man is central to Australia’s understanding of its protracted defeat at Gallipoli a century ago: C.E.W. (Charles) Bean, Australian War Correspondent, Official Historian and unofficial curator of the Anzac legend. </p>
<p>Bean’s overwhelming influence over how Australians remember Gallipoli, Anzacs and the Great War is undeniable and nowhere more evident than in his first Anzac publication – <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ART19665/">The Anzac Book</a>. This was an anthology of stories, poems, cartoons and colour illustrations written and drawn by the Anzac soldiers while they were in the Gallipoli trenches.</p>
<p>For Bean, the archetypal Anzac was strong, resilient, inventive, good-humoured, laconic and duty-bound. This is not too far removed from the archetypal Australian bushman of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A quick look at Bean’s pre-war writing, such as his book <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8510250">On the Wool Track</a>, provides a clear indication that he already had a strong idea of the Australian character even before he landed with the troops at Gallipoli in April 1915. </p>
<p>After the Gallipoli landing, the bushman’s character easily transformed into that of the Anzac soldier. Bean’s Anzac drew on the bushman’s colonial roots and continued to demonstrate strength in the face of harsh and dangerous conditions, all with good humour. However, this was just an ideal, conceived and promoted by a man with the means to do so and a personal investment in the commemoration of Anzac deeds. </p>
<h2>How the book came about</h2>
<p>Bean’s first opportunity to promote a comprehensive image of the generalised Anzac character presented itself in November 1915. A special committee was formed to produce an Anzac trench publication; contributions were solicited in a notice circulated to the population of Anzac Cove on November 14. </p>
<p>To encourage contributors, prizes were offered for the best submission in each category. All profits were to be used to benefit the Army Corps. In the end, 150 submissions were received – although not all of these were included in the final publication.</p>
<p>While it was originally conceived as an annual magazine, it became clear very quickly that the Allied forces would not remain on the Gallipoli peninsula much longer. In light of this, the publication was reconsidered as a souvenir of the campaign for a military and civilian audience. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles Bean’s dugout at Gallipoli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the Gallipoli peninsula was evacuated in December 1915, Bean and his assistant Arthur Bazley worked on the manuscript from a cowshed in Imbros, which they named the “Villa Pericles”. What resulted was The Anzac Book. </p>
<p>Bean selected submissions that promoted the everyday challenges faced by the Anzac soldier. For Bean, the simple act of completing ordinary day-to-day duties in the face of adversity was an act of heroism worth recording. Poems such as “To My Bath” and “Army Biscuits” related the ongoing filth and drudgery with good humour and light-heartedness. It was the dignity of facing the horror of war with an easy-going nature that Bean was keen to present as heroic. </p>
<h2>What was left out</h2>
<p>However, the submissions that Bean excluded were just as important to the construction of The Anzac Book as the submissions he included. Bean was a meticulous editor. The nature of the final publication owes much to his alteration and rejection of the works submitted. </p>
<p>Bean had a tendency to omit anything that had exaggerated sentiment, or anything that dealt with the harsh realities of war without humour. He specifically rejected items that included anything grotesque, discussed the crippling fear of war, deserting soldiers, or included descriptions of extended tedium. </p>
<p>Bean also rejected a number of poems that presented Anzac soldiers in more traditionally heroic ways, and/or the history-making nature of the campaign. He preferred to highlight the witty and more down-to-earth accounts of the Gallipoli landing and occupation. </p>
<p>Although The Anzac Book presented a specially crafted image of the Anzac soldier, Bean did not want the historical record altered because of selective editing. In February 1917, he wrote to the War Records Office with a suggestion that important documents – such as The Anzac Book manuscript – be preserved so that they could one day be deposited in a museum. </p>
<p>This request was granted. The rejected submissions can be viewed in the Australian War Memorial archives today. </p>
<h2>The book’s significance</h2>
<p>Bean was sure that The Anzac Book would hold a place of significance in the Australian historical record. In anticipation of its importance, he reserved several hundred copies of the book for Australian libraries and museums. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75890/original/image-20150325-4171-1pufvrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75890/original/image-20150325-4171-1pufvrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75890/original/image-20150325-4171-1pufvrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75890/original/image-20150325-4171-1pufvrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75890/original/image-20150325-4171-1pufvrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75890/original/image-20150325-4171-1pufvrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75890/original/image-20150325-4171-1pufvrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75890/original/image-20150325-4171-1pufvrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The third edition of Bean’s The Anzac Boook was published in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After publication, Bean spent the next three years tirelessly distributing copies to soldiers, officers, civilians and anyone else who could be convinced to buy a copy. Almost half of the copies ordered by the AIF’s First Division were sent home to Australia. This trend continued as more copies were ordered on the front lines in France and Belgium. </p>
<p>In September 1916, the publisher recorded 104,432 book sales, of which 53,000 were to the AIF. Before the end of the war, almost every Australian household would have had access to a copy of The Anzac Book. The <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/shop/item/9781742231341/">third edition</a> of The Anzac Book was published in 2010 and is still being purchased in 2015. </p>
<p>Bean’s vision of the Anzac soldier has dominated historical memory for nearly 100 years. For that reason, The Anzac Book is crucial to understanding how Australians conceptualise their ideal national character. </p>
<p>As we pause to reflect on the Gallipoli landings, we might think about Bean’s omissions and the reasons behind his editorial decisions to eliminate the bloody realities of war in favour of a specially crafted and idealised construction of the Anzacs and the Gallipoli campaign. </p>
<p>Whether Bean’s edits were made to build morale or even to construct a legacy, that he made an effort to preserve what was excluded in 1915 for the historical record is significant and worth revisiting.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can listen to Sarah Midford speak about Charles Bean and The Anzac Book 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/198348922&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/38203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Midford was a team member on the Joint Historical and Archaeological Survey (JHAS) of the Gallipoli Peninsula, which received financial support from the Australian Government Department of Veterans' Affairs.</span></em></p>Charles Bean made editorial decisions to eliminate the bloody realities of war in favour of a specially crafted and idealised construction of the Anzacs and the Gallipoli campaign.Sarah Midford, Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Foundation Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/386582015-04-08T07:11:39Z2015-04-08T07:11:39ZTurkish view remains neglected in our understanding of Gallipoli<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75925/original/image-20150325-4197-6h6nhw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Had hundreds of thousands of young Turkish men not joined the army and headed to Gallipoli, it’s without doubt modern Turkey would not have been formed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There was a moment in Russell Crowe’s latest film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3007512/">The Water Diviner</a>, that struck a chord with me as a Turkish-Australian. Australian Lieutenant Colonel Cecil Hilton (Jai Courtney) asks Turkish Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) for help in locating the bodies of the dead Anzacs.</p>
<p>“We lost 10,000 Anzacs here at Gallipoli,” Hilton says. “We still don’t know where half of them are.”</p>
<p>“We lost 70,000 men here at Çanakkale,” replies the Turkish officer.
“For me, this place is one big grave.”</p>
<p>This simple conversation between the two characters was one of the stronger points the movie made: the battle resulted in the loss of an entire generation of Turks.</p>
<h2>Background to Çanakkale</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.anzac.com/battle_of_gallipoli.html">Battle of Çanakkale</a> began on November 3, 1914, and lasted until January 9, 1916. For 18 months, Turks were forced to defend their land against invasion. A simple examination of the dates indicates the Anzac battle is but a small part of the larger war.</p>
<p>The first victory came on March 18, 1915. This is a date still celebrated in Turkey as the day of victory in the Battle of Çanakkale.</p>
<p>On that morning, 18 British and French battleships, guarded by other warships, attacked the Dardanelles fort – the narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The Allied forces were keen to capture the strait. Conquering it would mean direct sea access to Constantinople, now Istanbul, which would subsequently topple the already-shrinking Ottoman Empire.</p>
<p>The British and French would then be linked with the Russians and the stalemate on the Western Front would be brought to an end. It would also be a decisive blow to the Germans, whose side in the war the Ottomans had reluctantly joined.</p>
<p>The sea attack of March 18 was to almost certainly guarantee the passage. As one British officer observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No human power could withstand such an array of might and power.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But it wasn’t to be. More than 700 sailors were killed when pre-placed Turkish mines in the Dardanelles sank three battleships. The Brits had suffered a heavy defeat.</p>
<p>They subsequently planned invading the peninsula on foot. British troops would take the tip of the peninsula and the task of cutting through the narrow middle would fall to the Anzacs.</p>
<p>And so, on the morning of April 25, 1915, tens of thousands of young, eager men from Australia and New Zealand arrived at Gallipoli. Their boats mistakenly reached a small cove at Ariburnu, later to be renamed Anzac Cove. What eventuated is a story that has long been told.</p>
<h2>Towards a more rounded commemoration</h2>
<p>However, what is rare in Australia is an adequate explanation and understanding of the Turkish perspective of the battle.</p>
<p>The rhetoric surrounding Anzac Day is often one of sacrifice. We’ve been told for decades Australian soldiers “sacrificed” their lives for the freedoms we hold today. The question arising from this is a clear one: which part of the freedoms we enjoy today would have not been possible had the British Empire (which we were fighting for) successfully conquered its Ottoman counterpart?</p>
<p>If anything, the notion of “sacrificing for freedoms” is truer for the Turks. Had the hundreds of thousands of young men not joined the army and headed to Gallipoli, had the bravery displayed on the frontlines not happened, it’s without doubt modern Turkey would not have been formed.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75922/original/image-20150325-4213-17srbkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75922/original/image-20150325-4213-17srbkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75922/original/image-20150325-4213-17srbkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75922/original/image-20150325-4213-17srbkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75922/original/image-20150325-4213-17srbkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75922/original/image-20150325-4213-17srbkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1228&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75922/original/image-20150325-4213-17srbkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75922/original/image-20150325-4213-17srbkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1228&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For Turks, every piece of soil at Gallipoli is sacred.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Tolga Bozoglu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the time the Turkish republic had formed in 1923, the British, French, Italians, Greeks, Australian and New Zealanders had invaded Turkey: all of which had a direct or indirect interest in the acquisition of land for political gain. And with each invasion, the body count in Turkey went up.</p>
<p>It’s the epitome of martyrdom. Without this sacrifice, there would be no freedoms for the Turks to enjoy today.</p>
<p>For the Australians, the battle was one fought for the imperialistic purposes of a self-serving empire, which had control over young Australia’s foreign policy.</p>
<p>For the Turks, it was about defending the nation from enemy invasion.</p>
<p>One of the touching stories of the post-Anzac era is the 1934 <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/ataturk/">address</a> by the mastermind of the Turkish victory and founder of the modern Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives… You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours… You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These words are familiar to Australians, as they’re read at the dawn service in Gallipoli every Anzac Day. They highlight the humility and respect shown by a nation to the fallen – on both sides.</p>
<p>It’s hard to imagine other countries in the modern era doing the same. Vietnam, anyone? Afghanistan? Iraq?</p>
<p>A century on, 10,150 members of the Australian and New Zealand public will <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/thousands-who-miss-out-on-gallipoli-ballot-offered-alternative-anzac-ceremony-at-lone-pine-20140324-35dnl.html">gather</a> at Anzac Cove to honour the dead. Many – if not all – will whizz through Gallipoli briefly, visiting the Anzac gravesites. But for the Turks, every inch, every corner, every piece of soil is sacred.</p>
<p>The Water Diviner marks a small yet significant effort in attempting to tell the Turkish side of the battle. One hundred years on from the event, it’s vital we make a collective effort to understand it better.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can listen to Erdem Koc speak about the Turkish experience of Gallipoli 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/198348926&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/38658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erdem Koç is affiliated with Gallipoli Games 2015, conducted under the patronage of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey. </span></em></p>What is rare in Australia is an adequate explanation and understanding of the Turkish perspective of the Gallipoli campaign.Erdem Koç, Lecturer in Journalism, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.