A top class female footballer and tragic young soldier who was shot for ‘desertion’ despite fighting in some of WW1’s bloodiest battle fields are two hidden stories of The Great War.
Poppies at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
katatrix/shuttershock.com
The wildflowers that WWI soldiers encountered in Europe become symbols of remembrance and the fragility of life. The red poppy in particular is a powerful motif in Australian war art and photography.
The Navy converted to oil from coal a few years before the U.S. entered World War I, helping to solidify petroleum’s strategic status.
Naval History and Heritage Command
Before World War I, petroleum had few practical uses, but it emerged from the war as a strategic global asset necessary for national stability and security.
Some soldiers’ wounds in WWI were more mental than physical.
George Metcalf Archival Collection
Mental health trauma has always been a part of war. Treatments have come a long way over the last century, but we still don’t understand why the responses change for different people and times.
Modern high school students are learning two very different approaches to World War I.
Africa Studio / Shutterstock.com
High school students in America learn two very different perspectives on World War I in their U.S. and world history classes. But which of these competing viewpoints should take center stage?
The Yininmadyemi sculpture in Hyde Park celebrates Indigenous and Torres Strait Island service men and women. On Anzac Day, who are we honouring?
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Anzac Day is a big part of our national story. But the politics of memory mean the parts of this story that don’t fit neatly into the Anzac narrative are too often forgotten.
Scrapbook, G. Roberts (John Garibaldi), Book 7 Vol. 7a.
Museum Victoria, courtesy of State Library of Victoria
The Melbourne Museum’s World War I: Love & Sorrow exhibition, which opens this weekend, explores the various experiences of Victorians in the Great War, and the war’s effects on them. Museums have…
Bundling socks, ‘War Chest’ Sock Appeal, Sydney, May 1917, photographer G. A. Hills.
State Library of NSW
During the first world war in Australia there was a restriction of styles of clothing available to both men and women because of shortages in fabrics. Everyday dress became more sombre due to a lack of…
Where New Zealand’s embrace of Anzac differs from Australia is the place of the legend in national mythology.
Archives New Zealand/Flickr
As the centenary of the Gallipoli landings approaches Australians need to consider the other half of the ANZAC acronym. The rise of Anzac Day as Australia’s national day has been paralleled by the increasing…
On July 24 1914 the British cabinet met to discuss the diplomatic situation in Europe, which had deteriorated rapidly since the assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand, a month before…