tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/anzac-9123/articles
Anzac – La Conversation
2024-02-13T03:13:44Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223425
2024-02-13T03:13:44Z
2024-02-13T03:13:44Z
New Zealand is reviving the ANZAC alliance – joining AUKUS is a logical next step
<p>The National-led coalition government is off to a fast start internationally. In envisioning a more central role for the ANZAC alliance with Australia, and possible involvement in the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/aukus-explained-how-will-trilateral-pact-shape-indo-pacific-security">AUKUS</a> security pact, it is recalibrating New Zealand’s independent foreign policy.</p>
<p>At the inaugural Australia-New Zealand Foreign and Defence Ministerial (<a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018924310/australia-and-new-zealand-foreign-and-defence-ministers-in-inaugural-meeting">ANZMIN</a>) meeting in Melbourne earlier this year, the focus was on future-proofing the trans-Tasman alliance. </p>
<p>Detailed discussions took place on the defence and security aspects of the relationship. This included global strategic issues, the Indo-Pacific region, and the relevance of the partnership in the Pacific. </p>
<p>But the stage for this shift in New Zealand’s independent foreign policy had already been set by the Labour government in 2023. </p>
<p>In his foreword to the country’s first <a href="https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2023-11/national-security-strategy-aug2023.pdf">National Security Strategy</a> last year, then prime minister Chris Hipkins wrote that New Zealand “faces a fundamentally more challenging security outlook”. The strategy document called for a “national conversation on foreign policy”.</p>
<p>Christopher Luxon’s administration is taking the logical next step by increasing cooperation with Canberra. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1755662258246742327"}"></div></p>
<h2>In or out of AUKUS?</h2>
<p>New Zealand’s independent foreign policy emerged in the mid-1980s from the debris of the ANZUS alliance. It flourished in a historically rare era of muted great power rivalry and unprecedented economic globalisation. </p>
<p>It is abundantly clear that our holiday from history is over. </p>
<p>New Zealand’s independent foreign policy has to be redefined in response to present strategic circumstances rather than past interpretations, however well they may have served us. These historic positions, <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/helen-clark-and-don-brash-aukus-nz-must-not-abandon-our-independent-foreign-policy/LLYEOE4WH5AY5DTV3D323OXRUU/">recently put forward</a> by former National leader Don Brash and former prime minister Helen Clark, have run their course. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-defence-dilemma-facing-nzs-next-government-stay-independent-or-join-pillar-2-of-aukus-212090">The defence dilemma facing NZ's next government: stay independent or join 'pillar 2' of AUKUS?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>At the sharp end of this recalibration is AUKUS, the technology partnership involving Australia, the UK and the US. New Zealand has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealands-luxon-talk-defence-economy-australia-2023-12-19/">expressed an interest</a> in participating in “pillar two” of the agreement, involving non-nuclear technology sharing.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/joint-statement-australia-new-zealand-ministerial-consultations-anzmin-2024">joint statement</a> released after the ANZMIN consultations stated that AUKUS was discussed as “a positive contribution toward maintaining peace, security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific”. </p>
<p>The Chinese embassy in Wellington has <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/508280/chinese-embassy-deplores-opposes-australia-nz-joint-statement">expressed “serious concerns”</a>. It called AUKUS:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a stark manifestation of Cold War mentality [which] will undermine peace and stability, sow division and confrontation in the region, and thus runs against the common interests of regional countries pursuing peace, stability, and common security.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Few neutral observers will be persuaded by Beijing’s characterisation.</p>
<h2>Labour on the fence</h2>
<p>AUKUS emerged in 2021, initiated in Canberra as a response to economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed on Australia by China in 2020. </p>
<p>New Zealand’s participation will invariably strengthen the ANZAC alliance. It is hard to see how non-involvement will not weaken that alliance. </p>
<p>This is something the Labour opposition will need to consider carefully. Having asked for a national foreign policy conversation while in government, it is now signalling disquiet over AUKUS membership.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-aukus-pact-born-in-secrecy-will-have-huge-implications-for-australia-and-the-region-168065">The AUKUS pact, born in secrecy, will have huge implications for Australia and the region</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Labour’s Foreign Affairs Spokesperson <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/508926/aukus-a-military-pact-designed-to-contain-china-says-labour">David Parker said recently</a> that “we’re questioning [AUKUS’] utility and whether it is wise”. His associate spokesperson Phil Twyford told parliament AUKUS is an “offensive war-fighting alliance against China”.</p>
<p>It is unclear how this position is consistent with Labour’s progressively stronger support for the ANZAC alliance and AUKUS since 2021, and its earlier willingness to explore participating in pillar two.</p>
<h2>The future of independent foreign policy</h2>
<p>Truth be told, the Luxon administration’s interest in AUKUS is a consequence of China serving as the architect of its own strategic problems. </p>
<p>Before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, China enjoyed a generally positive relationship with a range of countries across Asia and the Pacific.</p>
<p>Since then, China’s relations with numerous regional states have deteriorated, in no small part due to actions initiated by Beijing in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/29/risk-of-miscalculation-rises-in-south-china-sea-as-beijing-ramps-up-aggressive-tactics">South China Sea</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/japan-china-islands-dispute-islands-coast-guard-f75404c5a877abd823fd5fe1711f78b1">East China Sea</a>, its <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53062484">contested border with India</a>, and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/09/australia-china-decoupling-trade-sanctions-coronavirus-geopolitics/">sanctions on Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2023/02/14/commentary/world-commentary/south-korea-missile-defense/">South Korea</a> for disagreements over Chinese foreign policy decisions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-australia-signs-up-for-nuclear-subs-nz-faces-hard-decisions-over-the-aukus-alliance-201946">As Australia signs up for nuclear subs, NZ faces hard decisions over the AUKUS alliance</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>New Zealand is committed to advancing its interests in a way that contributes to regional stability in what the ANZMIN joint statement described as “the most challenging strategic environment in decades”.</p>
<p>If New Zealand’s elected government determines that AUKUS is in the national interest, then it must seek the broadest consensus possible domestically. It also needs to unapologetically pursue that path internationally.</p>
<p>That is the essence of foreign minister Winston Peters’ response when asked whether Wellington’s interest in AUKUS would negatively affect relations with China:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>China is a country that practises something I have got a lot of time for – they practise their national interest […] and that’s what we’re doing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We are entering a new era for New Zealand’s independent foreign policy, one that includes a rebooted ANZAC alliance, with a possible AUKUS dimension.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223425/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Khoo has received research funding from the Australian National University, Columbia University, and the Asia New Zealand Foundation in Wellington. He is a Non-Resident Principal Research Fellow with the Institute of Indo-Pacific Affairs in Christchurch. </span></em></p>
Global political unrest has highlighted the importance of a credible foreign policy. It may be time for the New Zealand government to consider the revitalisation of ANZAC and participation with AUKUS.
Nicholas Khoo, Associate Professor of International Politics, University of Otago
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219109
2024-01-15T04:23:10Z
2024-01-15T04:23:10Z
Why First Nations ‘ununiformed warriors’ qualify for the Australian War Memorial
<p>Last year, chair of the Australian War Memorial Kim Beazley <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8145149/give-aboriginal-guerillas-the-dignity-of-resistance-at-awm-beazley">called</a> for First Nations “guerilla campaigns” of the Frontier Wars to be included in the Australian War Memorial. His bid was criticised by the RSL Australia’s president Major General Greg Melick. </p>
<p>Melick <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8216147/more-appropriate-places-awm-council-member-opposes-frontier-wars-rethink/">argued</a> Indigenous casualties of the Frontier Wars could not be honoured at the War Memorial because they did not fight “in uniform”. But the Australian War Memorial already honours “ununiformed” First Nations soldiers – namely <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/a-matter-of-trust">Dayak people</a> who assisted in Borneo during World War 2.</p>
<p>Major General Melick’s criticism highlighted a misconception that First Nations’ warriors are not comparable to ANZAC soldiers. Many Australians do not believe First Nations people had military-style practices. Rather, they are <a href="https://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/featured/new-evidence-reveals-aboriginal-massacres-committed-on-extensive-scale">regarded</a> as victims of genocide.</p>
<p>Co-author Ray Kerkhove’s book <a href="https://boolarongpress.com.au/product/how-they-fought-indigenous-tactics-and-weaponry-of-australias-frontier-wars/">How They Fought</a> places First Nations’ practices within the framework of military history. This debunks the idea First Nations people lacked the structures and disciplines necessary to organise meaningful responses to the invasion.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-australian-wars-rachel-perkins-dispenses-with-the-myth-aboriginal-people-didnt-fight-back-190967">In The Australian Wars, Rachel Perkins dispenses with the myth Aboriginal people didn't fight back</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why recognition of First Nations’ fighting strategies matters</h2>
<p>Australia is increasingly aware of the genocidal nature of its Frontier Wars. But as Historian Grace Karskens <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/People-of-the-River-Grace-Karskens-9781760292232">notes</a>, this is often perceived as “no battles, no resistance and no survivors”.</p>
<p>Acknowledging massacres helps emphasise the inequalities in these conflicts. But categorising all skirmishes this way without acknowledging how First Nations people fought back, or were sometimes victorious, can indirectly imply First Nations peoples were always passive victims. </p>
<p>The broader implications of this narrative have impacted public education. Historians Matthew Bailey and Sean Brawley <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443058.2017.1414071">found</a> both teachers and the wider community had difficulty accepting Australia’s frontier conflicts as “war”, because they had been presented to them as one-sided slaughter.</p>
<p>Thankfully, Arrernte and Kalkadoon director Rachel Perkins’ <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/search?q=frontier+wars">documentary</a> series recently reinstated Aboriginal peoples’ resistance as historical reality. Even so, Australia’s collective understanding of how Aboriginal peoples fought back remains limited. </p>
<p>We still know quite little of the “guerrilla campaigns” Kim Beazley wants to honour. For instance, the complex inter-group negotiations across mobs.</p>
<p>Many other questions remain unanswered: how were warriors organised for attacks? How effective were their actions? What strategies were employed?</p>
<p>A small start was made in 2017 through a <a href="https://harrygentle.griffith.edu.au/projects/mapping-frontier-conflict-in-south-east-queensland/">visiting fellowship</a> with the Harry Gentle Resource Centre (Griffith University). This project mapped the role of Birn, Bugurnuba and other inter-tribal alliances in pushing back against the invasion of south-east Queensland. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-key-moments-in-indigenous-political-history-victorian-school-students-didnt-learn-about-213756">3 key moments in Indigenous political history Victorian school students didn't learn about</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>First Nations’ perspectives of frontier wars</h2>
<p>Another breakthrough came through reconstructing First Nations’ historical perspectives of these wars. Two examples are Ambēyaŋ historian Callum Clayton-Dixon’s work in 2019: <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/awards/nsw-community-and-regional-history-prize/2020-winner-surviving-new-england">Surviving New England</a> and (the same year) co-author Ray Kerkhove and historian Frank Uhr’s <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/frontier-thinking/">The Battle of One Tree Hill</a>.</p>
<p>To amplify the work of his colleague Clayton-Dixon, Gamilaraay/ Kooma co-author Boe Skuthorpe-Spearim began presenting his own research on this topic in a podcast series called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/07/aboriginal-people-sacrificed-their-lives-in-the-frontier-wars-for-us-to-be-here-i-wanted-to-honour-them">Frontier Wars</a>. Boe’s research methods included yarns with Elders and historians. </p>
<p>As a Knowledge sharer, Boe’s podcasts affirmed growing evidence the Frontier Wars were more than massacres. This was a truth historians Nicholas Clements and Henry Reynolds were also <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-tongerlongeter-the-tasmanian-resistance-fighter-we-should-remember-as-a-war-hero-165308">unveiling</a> in Tasmania, as was historian <a href="https://aph.org.au/2022/06/qa-with-stephen-gapps-author-of-gudyarra-the-first-wiradyuri-war-of-resistance-the-bathurst-war-1822-1824/">Stephen Gapps</a> in collaboration with Wiradyuri people in central NSW.</p>
<p>It’s becoming more and more apparent that First Nations resistance was organised and efficient. Co-author Ray Kerkhove’s How They Fought identified specific structures and tactics First Nations peoples’ employed during the Frontier Wars. Kerkhove analysed over 200 written reminiscences and hundreds of settler and First Nations accounts of skirmishes across Australia.</p>
<p>Kerkhove’s How They Fought suggests resistance was mostly a “slow drip” of constant harassment against the colonisers - but effective in halting settlement for many years in some regions. It identifies the complex tactics First Nations groups developed for raids, sieges, pitched battles and even their attempts to take over the pastoral industry of particular regions within the Northern Territory and South Australia. </p>
<p>Kerkhove’s research proposes First Nations’ forces had military-style training, ranking, “policing” patrols, defensive ‘bastions’, and intelligence networks. The research highlights the frequency and scale of inter-tribal meetings and partnerships during the Frontier Wars - for instance, in Tasmania, southern Queensland and western NSW. It finds traditional weapons were effective in causing many settler fatalities. The research also finds many new weapons, fire, steel, glass, guns and horses were adopted to halt the tide of settlement.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australian-war-memorial-must-deal-properly-with-the-frontier-wars-203851">The Australian War Memorial must deal properly with the frontier wars</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The sophistication of First Nations warfare needs to be acknowledged</h2>
<p>Australia needs to understand the Frontier Wars were more than a sequence of massacres. Mob fought back. They had victories. First Nations peoples quickly recognised they were dealing with an existential threat, and created widespread resistance. This history is finally being written. </p>
<p>Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples emphasise the deep pain they feel when ANZAC rolls around each year, <a href="https://overland.org.au/2018/05/enduring-silence-anzac-day-and-the-frontier-wars/">knowing</a> Australia still does not formally recognise or acknowledge the blood, battles, lives and land that were lost.</p>
<p>Often this lack of recognition stems from limited knowledge of the sophistication of First Nations’ resistance. These “ununiformed” warriors had their own insignia and protocols. They acted with great valour and genius, against incredible odds. First Nations warriors should receive the same dignity we accord our ANZAC fallen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219109/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Boe Skulthorpe-Spearim is affiliated with Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR), and Treaty Before Voice. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Kerkhove 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 Australian War memorial recently announced it will extend its exhibition to recognise the Frontier Wars, where Aboriginal resistance fighters fought in retaliation to massacres and other attacks.
Ray Kerkhove, Associate Professor (Adjunct), School of Education., University of Southern Queensland
Boe Skuthorpe-Spearim, Podcaster and cultural knowledge facilitator, Indigenous Knowledge
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/203851
2023-04-23T20:04:45Z
2023-04-23T20:04:45Z
The Australian War Memorial must deal properly with the frontier wars
<p>The recent media rounds of the new chair of the Australian War Memorial Council, Kim Beazley, appear to presage a major shift in the institution’s attitude to the frontier wars. Beazley explained it is “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpv5fTWdCcU">enormously important</a>” that the current $550 million renovation of the war memorial provides significant coverage of violent conflict between settler and Indigenous Australians. He <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/beazley-wants-frontier-wars-better-commemorated-by-war-memorial/10193428">elaborated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We must give the Aboriginal population the dignity of resistance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Beazley’s attitude, which complements that of Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh, signals that the Australian War Memorial is not impervious to the changed political landscape. Yet there remains <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/17/the-australian-war-memorials-intransigence-on-depicting-the-frontier-wars-speaks-louder-than-words">resistance</a> to Beazley’s vision on a war memorial council composed of Coalition government appointees and ex officio military officers, and among <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/peta-credlin-frontier-wars-memorial-will-only-further-divide-australians/news-story/be5a5a8c69c69e90fc2e2c456dd43663">conservatives</a> more generally. </p>
<h2>A constantly evolving memorial</h2>
<p>Some of those who are resistant to coverage of the frontier wars <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/budget-for-frontier-wars-gallery-at-australian-war-memorial-revealed/iqjofi15e">assert</a> the war memorial is hamstrung by its legislation, which restricts its remit to overseas wars or those fought by uniformed personnel. In truth, the Australian War Memorial Act 1980 contains a <a href="http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb/au/legis/cth/consol_act/awma1980244/">very broad definition</a> of the institution’s role as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a national memorial to Australians who have died as a result of any war and warlike operations. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In any case, over its history, the memorial has adapted to shifting political imperatives and social mores.</p>
<p>Charles Bean conceived the Australian War Memorial during the first world war. After serving as Australia’s official correspondent, he dedicated his life to sanctifying the Anzacs. Through his editorship of the 12-volume Official History of Australians in the War of 1914-1918, and his advocacy for a shrine that would also serve as a museum and archive, he did more than anyone to promote the belief that the Anzacs had made the nation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522013/original/file-20230420-2640-cdi7lt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522013/original/file-20230420-2640-cdi7lt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522013/original/file-20230420-2640-cdi7lt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522013/original/file-20230420-2640-cdi7lt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522013/original/file-20230420-2640-cdi7lt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522013/original/file-20230420-2640-cdi7lt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522013/original/file-20230420-2640-cdi7lt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles Bean working on the Official History of Australians in the War of 1914–1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When the war memorial opened in 1941, it was already apparent that a new world war would need to be recognised. In 1952, during the Korean War, the memorial’s charter was altered so it could cover all wars in which Australia had been, or would be, involved. </p>
<p>The war memorial has changed so much since Bean first conceived it, that former director Brendan Nelson included a space for “emotional release” in the blueprint for the current expansion. Bean might have been puzzled by Nelson’s claim that the memorial should provide “<a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6075838/memorial-a-home-for-the-stories-that-heal/">a therapeutic milieu</a>” for veterans.</p>
<h2>A wealth of historical research to draw from</h2>
<p>Aside from claiming that frontier violence sits outside the memorial’s governing legislation, opponents routinely <a href="https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/aborigines/2022/10/an-open-letter-to-the-awms-brendan-nelson/">deride</a> the issue as a “woke” preoccupation. </p>
<p>They might be surprised to learn it was the conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey who <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/battle-over-a-war/">suggested</a> more than 40 years ago that what he termed “irregular warfare” between Indigenous and settler Australians be depicted in the memorial.</p>
<p>While the Australian War Memorial dissembled, historical research consolidated the claim that there had indeed been a violent and sustained conflict on the frontier that should be understood as warfare. </p>
<p>Jeffrey Grey’s <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/a-military-history-of-australia-jeffrey-grey/book/9780521875233.html?gclid=CjwKCAjw__ihBhADEiwAXEazJq-6f1aAcL-TCD_Z6SV-tYjQfqJQyKR03BzhbNwgz_qO3mNw4vPzRRoCHQcQAvD_BwE">A Military History of Australia</a>, first published in 1990, left readers in no doubt on this score. A chapter titled “The Military and the Frontier, 1788-1901” explored such things as doctrine, technology, tactics and morale in seeking to understand how the war was “fought and why the outcome was so decisive”.</p>
<p>Grey’s argument received powerful confirmation in the more detailed research of historians <a href="https://unsw.press/books/australian-frontier-wars-1788-1838/">John Connor</a> and <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/gudyarra-118494/">Stephen Gapps</a> for the period before 1838. </p>
<p>A large body of writing on frontier violence across Australia, including Ray Kerkhove’s recently published <a href="https://boolarongpress.com.au/product/how-they-fought-indigenous-tactics-and-weaponry-of-australias-frontier-wars/">How they Fought</a>, has disclosed the use of military-style forces and tactics to suppress Indigenous resistance. </p>
<p>Significant research such as the University of Newcastle’s massacre mapping project, <a href="https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php">Colonial Frontier Massacres, Australia, 1788 to 1930</a>, and the recent television series <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/the-australian-wars">The Australian Wars</a>, likely contributed to an environment in which the war memorial felt it needed to gesture towards the demand for recognition.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5hmPmjUzPTA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for the three-part documentary series, The Australian Wars.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-australian-wars-rachel-perkins-dispenses-with-the-myth-aboriginal-people-didnt-fight-back-190967">In The Australian Wars, Rachel Perkins dispenses with the myth Aboriginal people didn't fight back</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How to properly capture the gravity of the tragedy?</h2>
<p>The war memorial’s plans at present seem rather modest. As David Stephens, Peter Stanley and Noel Turnbull of the <a href="https://honesthistory.net.au/wp/stephens-david-peter-stanley-noel-turnbull-voice-treaty-truth-an-action-plan-for-australian-frontier-wars-recognition-and-commemoration/">Honest History group</a> have pointed out, the current plan is for the addition of a small amount of space to the Colonial Conflicts (Soldiers of the Queen) gallery, from 385 to 408 square metres. They rightly argue that such an approach is unsatisfactory given the importance of the frontier wars in Australia’s history. </p>
<p>According to the director, this will be renamed the Pre-1914 Galleries – a choice that ignores the killing of First Nations people in northern Australia well into the 1920s. The war memorial is still apparently committed to the idea that the frontier wars, if they are to be acknowledged as wars at all, were some kind of distant and unrelated prehistory to Anzac.</p>
<p>There is a need for serious research, reflection and discussion on how to create a gallery worthy of the gravity and tragedy of the frontier wars. </p>
<p>How, for instance, will <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698018766385">native mounted police</a> – Indigenous men recruited to use violence to overcome resistance by other Indigenous people – be represented? </p>
<p>How will settler deaths be framed? How will the war memorial deal with those old settler family names that figure in the context of frontier warfare – names that will sometimes also appear in the present Roll of Honour?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-its-time-for-a-new-museum-dedicated-to-the-fighters-of-the-frontier-wars-155299">Friday essay: it's time for a new museum dedicated to the fighters of the frontier wars</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Australian War Memorial is a morally charged national space that promotes a powerful national origin story. National character finds its purest expression in Anzac, we are told.</p>
<p>The story of frontier warfare is another powerful – and arguably alternative – foundation story. It tells us Australia was built on invasion, dispossession and violence, and that the nation can only ever approach authenticity and wholeness once it gives a proper recognition to this reality.</p>
<p>As we prepare to head to a referendum later this year to vote on the proposal for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, it is worth remembering that the Voice is the proposed first stage in a three-step process: <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/voice-treaty-truth-explainers-134797">Voice, Treaty, Truth</a>. </p>
<p>For the Australian War Memorial to include meaningful exhibits about the wars that were fought on this land would be a powerful act of truth-telling in service of the nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Holbrook receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Australian Historical Association.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Bongiorno is President of the Australian Historical Association and is a Past President of Honest History </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Arrow is the Vice-President of the Australian Historical Association. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
The memorial promotes a powerful national origin story. The story of frontier warfare is also a powerful foundation story that deserves to be told.
Carolyn Holbrook, Senior Lecturer in History, Deakin University
Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
Michelle Arrow, Professor of History, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199516
2023-04-21T02:08:06Z
2023-04-21T02:08:06Z
Challenging the Anzac ideal: the tragic stories of two Australian deserters in WWI
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510809/original/file-20230217-24-docyl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C34%2C1257%2C917&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Australian Imperial Force memorial card for Nicholas Permakoff, a Russian-born Australian private who deserted the AIF during WWI.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anzac Day continues to feature on the Australian calendar as a day for celebrating and commemorating the deeds of our military personnel. </p>
<p>Traditionally focused on the first world war, the mythology of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-anzac-day-came-to-occupy-a-sacred-place-in-australians-hearts-76323">Anzacs</a> – bronzed bushmen storming the cliffs of Gallipoli or walking fearlessly through artillery bombardments on the western front – has long clouded the reality of the experience of fighting in what was then an unprecedented conflict.</p>
<p>Many Australian soldiers did not fit this Anzac myth. Some were taken prisoner of war and some broke down with shellshock. Others were just “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anzac-legend-has-blinded-australia-to-its-war-atrocities-its-time-for-a-reckoning-151022">bad characters</a>”, whose trouble-making, both within and outside their units, caused endless headaches for military and civilian authorities. </p>
<p>Australian soldiers stationed in Egypt, England and France were charged with various transgressions, including insubordination, repeated malingering and theft. Some were accused of committing heinous acts, such as murder and rape. </p>
<p>In our research on these soldiers, we found that, in total, 115 Australians were court-martialled during WWI and sentenced to death for serious military crimes – primarily desertion.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-australia-is-still-grappling-with-the-legacy-of-the-first-world-war-126517">Why Australia is still grappling with the legacy of the first world war</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Researching desertion</h2>
<p>Desertion needs to be distinguished from being absent without, or overstaying, authorised leave from one’s unit. Under the military law that governed members of the Australian Imperial Force during WWI, desertion was defined as leaving or refusing to enter the front lines or being absent from areas behind the front lines for more than four weeks. </p>
<p>Desertion was considered such a serious offence because the soldier had refused to do the duty for which he had enlisted, wasted resources, weakened military strength and endangered comrades.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the sanction was severe. More than 3,000 members of the British empire’s forces were sentenced to death for desertion and similar offences during WWI, of whom 361 were <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/military_justice">executed by firing squad</a>. (Among those were 25 Canadians and five New Zealanders.) The remaining deserters had their sentences commuted to something lesser – usually a substantial prison term. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522023/original/file-20230420-24-qmh94d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522023/original/file-20230420-24-qmh94d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522023/original/file-20230420-24-qmh94d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522023/original/file-20230420-24-qmh94d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522023/original/file-20230420-24-qmh94d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522023/original/file-20230420-24-qmh94d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522023/original/file-20230420-24-qmh94d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Shot at Dawn memorial in the UK, commemorating the British and Commonwealth soldiers executed for desertion and other offences during WWI.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Australian law – specifically the Defence Act first passed in 1903 – effectively precluded the Australian Imperial Force from carrying out the death penalty. Soldiers could be sentenced to death, but none were executed.</p>
<p>In our research, we combed through amateur histories, theses and historical archives to unearth the 115 Australian soldiers who were sentenced to death in WWI (fewer than the <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/civilian_and_military_power_australia#1917__Australians_and_the_Death_Penalty">usually cited number</a> of 121, which we consider exaggerated). We then examined their service records, court-martial files and repatriation records. </p>
<p>Who were these men? We found them to be not just bad soldiers, but men for whom military service was just one unfortunate aspect of their lives. </p>
<p>As historians peering into their lives, we see them wrestle with their obligations in the armed forces and confront the military justice system. We witness their back-and-forth with the government repatriation authorities as they plead for financial and other assistance, and we all too often see their early or otherwise unfortunate deaths.</p>
<p>Two cases stick out for us: those of privates James McCormick and Nicholas Permakoff. Both had colourful service records prior to their sentences, including hospitalisation with venereal disease, insubordination and absences from their units. And both had sad and lonely, although very different, ends.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anzac-legend-has-blinded-australia-to-its-war-atrocities-its-time-for-a-reckoning-151022">The Anzac legend has blinded Australia to its war atrocities. It's time for a reckoning</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The chronic absentee</h2>
<p>McCormick enlisted in Western Australia in June 1915 at the age of 36. He hardly saw any action on the battlefield; he spent more time in hospital suffering from venereal disease, episodes of epilepsy and stomach issues (he was identified as an alcoholic by military authorities), or in military prison. </p>
<p>He absconded almost as soon as he arrived in France in June 1916 and was sentenced to one year of hard labour. Reflecting the manpower issues faced by the Australian Imperial Force, his sentence was suspended in early 1917 so he could rejoin his battalion.</p>
<p>Two months later, McCormick again disappeared. This time, he was charged with desertion and sentenced to death. This was later commuted to ten years of penal servitude and eventually suspended again. And in May 1918 he transferred back to his battalion. He was almost immediately hospitalised for chronic stomach issues and was sent to England, where he stayed until almost the end of the war.</p>
<p>McCormick was finally discharged from the force as “medically unfit” in December 1918. His less-than-glorious service record made him ineligible for <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/medals">war medals</a> or the war gratuity. He travelled around Australia picking up odd jobs, but continued to struggle from stomach complaints and alcoholism. He died in 1950. </p>
<p>McCormick’s body was found in a school shed in Albury, New South Wales, an empty wine bottle next to him and his feet in an old onion bag. The coroner attributed his death to chronic alcoholism and exposure. No next of kin was found, so the local police organised his funeral in Albury cemetery.</p>
<h2>The deserter shot by his own side</h2>
<p>An even more curious case – and just as sad – is that of Nicholas Permakoff. Born in Russia, he served for two years in the Russian Army before migrating to Australia where, at the time of his enlistment in 1916, he was a miner in NSW. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521231/original/file-20230417-23-xqm0nn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521231/original/file-20230417-23-xqm0nn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521231/original/file-20230417-23-xqm0nn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521231/original/file-20230417-23-xqm0nn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521231/original/file-20230417-23-xqm0nn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1220&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521231/original/file-20230417-23-xqm0nn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1220&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521231/original/file-20230417-23-xqm0nn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1220&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The headstone for Nicholas Permakoff in the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He later claimed he joined the Australian Imperial Force on the bizarre promise that he could transfer to the Russian Army once he was back in Europe. By the time he got there, however, the Russian Revolution was underway and Permakoff had decided he didn’t want any part of the war.</p>
<p>In November 1917, he told his superior officer “yes, fuck you” – or words to that effect – when ordered to put on his pack and march towards the front, earning himself a six-month prison term. </p>
<p>After his release, he was essentially forced to the front line, despite telling his officers he would not shoot. That night, according to Australian sentries, he was spotted without his weapon walking towards the Germans. Permakoff was fatally shot by his own side – an action later endorsed by a Court of Inquiry.</p>
<p>He left very sketchy next-of-kin details: “Mrs Permakoff, Archangel, c/- Imperial Russian Consul, Sydney”. Efforts to contact his mother in Archangel, a city in Russia, were unsuccessful, and the NSW public trustee could not find anyone to claim his few assets. </p>
<p>Permakoff is one of only five Australians who died in WWI to be excluded from the Australian War Memorial’s Roll of Honour. He lies in a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in <a href="https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/2600/esquelbecq-military-cemetery/">Esquelbecq, France</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521229/original/file-20230417-16-4sr02z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521229/original/file-20230417-16-4sr02z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521229/original/file-20230417-16-4sr02z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521229/original/file-20230417-16-4sr02z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521229/original/file-20230417-16-4sr02z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521229/original/file-20230417-16-4sr02z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521229/original/file-20230417-16-4sr02z.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The letter sent to Permakoff’s mother in Russia, returned to sender.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Revealing the complexity of military service</h2>
<p>There were long public campaigns in the 1990s and 2000s in Britain, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_Act_2006#Pardon">posthumously pardon</a> those executed during the war. </p>
<p>But Australian deserters sentenced to death have remained largely overlooked. This is perhaps because they were not ultimately executed (with Permakoff’s odd exception), so they have not aroused an indignant sense of injustice. </p>
<p>Moreover, they present an uncomfortable counter-narrative to the idealised Anzac character and feats.</p>
<p>Our research seeks to rescue these men, their experiences and their voices from the historical void. Doing so enhances our understanding of the complexity and diversity of Australian military experiences and highlights the impossibility – for most – of the Anzac ideal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199516/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Crotty receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Part of this research was funded by an Australian Army History Unit grant.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Ariotti receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
We combed through historical records to shed light on the lives of these two soldiers to enhance our understanding of the complexity of the Australian military experience.
Martin Crotty, Associate Professor in Australian History, The University of Queensland
Kate Ariotti, ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/169154
2021-10-21T19:15:46Z
2021-10-21T19:15:46Z
Mateship might sound blokey, but our research shows women value it more highly than men
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427682/original/file-20211021-27-d5e4uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=579%2C19%2C5604%2C4211&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mateship is an intrinsic part of Australian society, routinely discussed as an important national value. In 1999, Prime Minister John Howard even attempted to <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp9900/2000RP16">include mateship in the constitutional preamble</a>. </p>
<p>But despite its ubiquity in Australian culture, what does mateship mean to people and how do they really feel about the term? Our new <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443058.2021.1982750">Australian Mateship Survey</a> attempted to find out. </p>
<p>In a survey of over 500 respondents, we found that while support for the concept of mateship is high among Australians, many find it problematic.</p>
<p>And surprisingly, women supported the idea of mateship being a key feature of Australian national values more strongly than men (70% and 60%, respectively). This finding stands out since mateship has historic masculine connotations – a perception that was supported by many of our respondents. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1220931440591826945"}"></div></p>
<h2>Short history of mateship in Australia</h2>
<p>Mateship is a common word in many countries, but it has come to have a special meaning in Australian English. The Australian National Dictionary <a href="https://australiannationaldictionary.com.au/oupnewindex1.php">defines</a> it as “the bond between equal partners or close friends; comradeship; comradeship as an ideal”.</p>
<p>While that definition is gender-neutral, mateship has historically been seen as a male domain. One of our respondents succinctly described it as “friendship, but bloke-ier”. </p>
<p>There is a long mythology of mateship in Australia. Canonical bush writers such as Henry Lawson drew on the concept of <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/953357">mateship</a>, enshrining it as part of the Australian bush tradition of the late 19th century. </p>
<p>In the first half of the 20th century, mateship came to be closely associated with the ANZAC legend – and this remains the case today. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"989229740346064897"}"></div></p>
<p>In the 1970s, historian Miriam Dixon, among others, challenged the cultural dominance of mateship and <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2198157">argued</a> it was an exclusionary concept. For Dixon, mateship was “deeply antipathetic to women”. </p>
<p>By the 1990s, Howard claimed the term had outgrown its masculine origins and could be regarded as an inclusive national ideal. Nevertheless, his plan to include the term in the constitutional preamble was roundly criticised and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s43018.htm">ultimately abandoned</a>. </p>
<p>The purpose of our research was to test attitudes towards mateship two decades after this public debate to see how people view it today.</p>
<h2>Positive feelings on mateship – except when used by politicians</h2>
<p>Our survey posed a series of questions that sought to determine if and how respondents used the term “mate”, whether they believed mateship was important in Australia, and how people defined it. </p>
<p>A strong majority of respondents (82%) said they use the word “mate” in conversation and nearly 65% responded yes when asked, “Is mateship a key feature of Australian national identity?”. Many respondents also had positive things to say about mateship in their comments. </p>
<p>Our survey also showed women overall had a slightly more positive view of mateship compared to men and non-binary or gender-fluid respondents, despite the fact many women found the term to be too “blokey”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/get-yer-hand-off-it-mate-australian-slang-is-not-dying-90022">Get yer hand off it, mate, Australian slang is not dying</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While mateship is seen as a positive Australian value by most, we found there is suspicion when politicians try to gain political mileage from it. </p>
<p>When asked if politicians should invoke mateship in national rituals such as speeches on Australia Day and ANZAC Day, only 45% of our respondents said yes. </p>
<p>Without mentioning the phrase’s origin with the Howard government’s proposed addition to the constitutional preamble in 1999, respondents were asked if they supported the line, “<a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp9900/2000RP16">We value excellence as well as fairness, independence as dearly as mateship</a>”. Only 39% said yes. </p>
<h2>Mateship and exclusion</h2>
<p>While most of our respondents (60%) said they believed mateship includes “all Australians”, a sizeable minority said the term is exclusive on gender and racial lines. </p>
<p>Many of the comments associated mateship not only with men, but specifically with white men. One respondent described it as “a dog whistle for white nationalism and misogyny”. Others suggested mateship was “too white male-centric” and “mateship feels like a boy’s club, specifically for white men”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/paul-hogan-and-the-myth-of-the-white-aussie-bloke-124281">Paul Hogan and the myth of the white Aussie bloke</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This perhaps reflects a sense of distrust people feel when mateship is used in political discourse. Australia’s political leaders are predominantly white and male, and regularly use the language of mateship to speak of solidarity and political community. </p>
<p>Like Howard, recent leaders have attempted to harness its cultural power. In fact, then-Treasurer Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/b15942d6-e86a-4a01-8094-d46337096349/&sid=0040">said in parliament</a> in late 2015 that “mateship is the Australian word for love”.</p>
<p>Our survey shows there are many Australians concerned with attempts to force mateship as a civic ideal, as political rhetoric often does.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1174809990323851264"}"></div></p>
<h2>The future of mateship</h2>
<p>Although mateship is largely seen as a positive feature of Australian life, defining it is difficult and attempts to politicise it are generally frowned upon. </p>
<p>Our survey also found that, for a significant minority, the exclusionary connotations of mateship are too strong for it to be a unifying civic ideal. For many of our respondents – as with critics of Howard’s constitutional preamble – the term has not outgrown its sexist and exclusionary baggage.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-mateship-a-very-australian-history-35858">history of mateship</a>, Nick Dyrenfurth notes it has always been contested. The diverse range of responses to our survey support this. </p>
<p>As a result, we believe that political attempts to take ownership of mateship and enshrine a particular definition as a civic ideal are more likely to divide than unite.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169154/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>
Although mateship is largely seen as a positive feature of Australian life, defining it is difficult and attempts to politicise it are generally frowned upon.
Naama Carlin, Lecturer, UNSW Sydney
Amanda Laugesen, Director, Australian National Dictionary Centre, Australian National University
Benjamin T. Jones, Senior Lecturer in History, CQUniversity Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/158958
2021-07-26T02:37:47Z
2021-07-26T02:37:47Z
The forgotten Australian veterans who opposed National Service and the Vietnam War
<p>On July 26 1971, a top secret cabinet meeting <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/learn/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/war/vietnam-war/cabinet-decision-withdraw-australian-forces-vietnam-1971">ended</a> what was then Australia’s longest conflict. The public would hear about it for the first time in August, when Prime Minister William McMahon announced the withdrawal of Australian forces from Vietnam.</p>
<p>Eighteen months — and a change of government later — Australia’s Vietnam War was over. Alongside untold Vietnamese, some 521 Australians had died in conflict, including 202 national servicemen.</p>
<p>The end of Australia’s war also saw the wrapping up of a novel and now largely forgotten organisation. The Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia was founded in October 1966 by former servicemen and women who “oppose militarism” and “believe that National Service […] should not involve conscription for foreign wars”. </p>
<p>The final issue of the group’s newsletter, Conscience, in February 1972 paid special tribute to Martin Leslie (Les) Waddington, a World War II veteran and leather goods manufacturer, and the group’s “spiritual leader, and greatest workhorse”. </p>
<p>Fifty years since Australia officially began withdrawing from Vietnam, my <a href="https://www.academia.edu/47365366/The_Ex_Services_Human_Rights_Association_of_Australia_The_Ex_Services_Human_Rights_Association_of_Australia_the_Vietnam_War_and_the_remaking_of_the_Anzac_Tradition">forthcoming article</a> reflects on how Waddington exemplified an undercurrent of anti-war citizen soldiery in Australia. </p>
<h2>Australia’s anti-militarist tradition</h2>
<p>The Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia emerged out of a long Australian tradition of opposition to compulsory national service, perhaps best exemplified in the famous struggle against conscription during the first world war.</p>
<p>Pre-war national service schemes had proven unpopular: 27,000 court cases were filed against non-compliers between 1912 and 1914. </p>
<p>During the war, <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/conscription-referendums">two plebecistes</a> defeated Prime Minister Billy Hughes’ attempts to conscript Australians for overseas service. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-australias-conscientious-objectors-of-ww1-were-remembered-too-106169">It's time Australia's conscientious objectors of WW1 were remembered, too</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This subversive legacy continued. Ex-serviceman and communist Len Fox used a 1936 pamphlet, <a href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_ROSETTAIE2707834">The Truth About Anzac</a>, to suggest:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[the] heroism of the Conscientious Objector, the Militant Anti-War Fighter, and the Anti-Conscriptionist, [be] give[n] its place besides the heroism of the Anzacs. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the Menzies government’s National Service scheme of 1964 was initially <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01624.x">widely supported</a> as citizen building, the return of “Nashos” in body bags saw the tide of public opinion slowly turn.</p>
<h2>From Sydney to a national movement</h2>
<p>The Returned and Services League was established in 1916, and by the 1960s the “<a href="https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/115080/2/b14246442.pdf">political pressure group</a>” used its authority to support anti-communism, national service and the Vietnam war. </p>
<p>Waddington was still an active member of his local Cronulla RSL sub-branch when he spearheaded the Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia’s founding meeting in 1966. </p>
<p>Attended by both current and former RSL members, and including doctors, academics and “leading lay churchmen”, the Australia reported the 60 attendees were “well-tailored, well-fed and, to all appearances, essentially middle class”.</p>
<p>The Sydney-based group began actively participating in the city’s anti-war movement, including the December 1966 protests against visiting US President Lyndon B Johnson. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sign reads 'wanted: President Johnson for crimes against humanity'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413016/original/file-20210726-21-310vdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-Vietnam War demonstration outside United States Consulate-General, Sydney, New South Wales, February 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy SEARCH Foundation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Waddington believed the Anzac tradition should venerate war resisters as much as battlefield sacrifice. These beliefs saw him expelled by the RSL’s State Executive in late May 1967 for “conduct subversive to the objects and policy of the League”. </p>
<p>The resulting controversy meant “there must be hardly anyone left in this country who has not now heard of our Association”, Waddington happily reported in Conscience. Membership exploded to over 500, with branches across the country. </p>
<p>Fellow RSL members came forward to defend Waddington. One resigned his membership, writing the league displayed “a hardening, intolerant attitude”, while another accused it of “deprivi[ing] members of the right to […] express political opinions”.</p>
<p>An editorial in the Canberra Times stated if the Vietnam war was “the be-all and end-all” of RSL policies, then “there would be great gaps in the ranks”. </p>
<h2>Anzac and the heroic resister</h2>
<p>Amid the outcry, Waddington was reinstated — but changing the RSL was not the Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia’s main priority. Its primary interest was supporting conscientious objectors. </p>
<p>The number of young Australians who refused to serve in Vietnam, while always small, rose quickly after the widely publicised case of Sydney school teacher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_White_(conscientious_objector)">Bill White</a> in late 1966. The association took on his case, as it did other non-compliers like <a href="https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/a-diverse-state/against-the-odds-the-victory-over-conscription-in-world-war-one/a-legacy-of-peace-activism-in-brunswick-and-coburg/photograph-free-john-zarb/">John Zarb</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man wears a placard reading 'No Aussie troops for Vietnam'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409051/original/file-20210630-25-11p5k3q.jpg?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">Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators protest outside Central Police Court, Liverpool Street, Sydney, 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy SEARCH Foundation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What the association had — and the wider anti-war movement lacked — was their status as ex-servicepeople. Members wore service medals conspicuously at demonstrations to undermine the image of protesters as “long haired radicals”. </p>
<p>To refuse service was not an act of cowardice, the association claimed, but rather the highest form of bravery. As Waddington, protesting the ongoing imprisonment of objectors, remarked in a 1971 letter: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Two years in jail is the price for national heroes to pay to avoid murdering on a foreign field.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Waddington and his fellow anti-war veterans were convinced it was as brave to face prison for your beliefs as it was to face death on the battlefield.</p>
<p>This example highlights how, contrary to popular opinion, the ex-service community has always been far from monolithic in its politics. Equally, it shows Anzac is not an uncontestable mantra, but a pliable tradition that could, rhetorically at least, include proud soldiers and brave resisters. </p>
<p>Today, Australia reflects on the withdrawal from Vietnam as we face the aftershocks of another overseas war. Perhaps we should also reflect on those war resisters and their allies who believed, as the Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia put it, “war is a crime against humanity”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anzac-day-is-also-about-the-right-to-democratic-dissent-and-those-who-fought-for-it-40565">Anzac Day is also about the right to democratic dissent and those who fought for it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Piccini 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>
A short history of the Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia: a group of brave returned servicemen and women who protested the Vietnam War.
Jon Piccini, Lecturer, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155140
2021-04-23T01:44:23Z
2021-04-23T01:44:23Z
Endless itching: how Anzacs treated lice in the trenches with poetry and their own brand of medicine
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396455/original/file-20210422-13-ndzwj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C4%2C990%2C740&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.135565">Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ (Tiaki reference number 1/4-009458-G)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We think we know a lot about Australian and New Zealand soldiers’ health in the first world war. Many books, novels and television programs speak of wounds and war doctors, documenting the work of both Anzac nations’ medical corps. </p>
<p>Often these histories begin with front-line doctors — known as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5229383/">regimental medical officers</a> — who first reached wounded men in the field. The same histories often end in the hospital or at home.</p>
<p>Yet, much of first world war medicine began and ended with the soldiers themselves. Australian and New Zealand soldiers (alongside their British and Canadian counterparts) cared for their own health in the trenches of the <a href="http://anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au/westernfront/history/index.html">Western Front</a> and along the cliffs of <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/gallipoli">Gallipoli</a>. </p>
<p>This “vernacular” medicine spread from solider to soldier by word of mouth, which they then recorded in diaries and letters home. It spread through written texts, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-comfort-of-reading-in-wwi-the-bibliotherapy-of-trench-and-hospital-magazines-158880">trench newspapers and magazines</a>, and through constant experimentation. </p>
<p>Soldiers presented a unique understanding of their experiences of illness, developed their own health practices, and formed their own medical networks. This formed a unique type of medical system.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/flies-filth-and-bully-beef-life-at-gallipoli-in-1915-39321">Flies, filth and bully beef: life at Gallipoli in 1915</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What was this type of medicine like?</h2>
<p>Soldiers’ vernacular medicine becomes clear when looking at one significant example of war diseases — infestation with body lice — which caused <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(16)30003-2/fulltext">trench fever</a> and <a href="https://www.who.int/ith/diseases/typhusfever/en/">typhus</a>. </p>
<p>The men’s understandings of the effect of lice on the body often contrasted to that of medical professionals. </p>
<p>Soldiers described lice as a daily nuisance rather than vectors of disease. The men sitting in the trenches were preoccupied with addressing the immediate and constant discomfort caused by lice, whereas medical researchers and doctors were more concerned with losing manpower from lice-borne disease.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/life-on-us-a-close-up-look-at-the-bugs-that-call-us-home-25754">Life on Us: a close-up look at the bugs that call us home</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Many men focused on the endless itching, which some said drove them almost mad. </p>
<p>Corporal George Bollinger, a New Zealand bank clerk from Hastings, <a href="https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE16663681&dps_custom_att_1=emu">said</a>: “the frightful pest ‘lice’ is our chief worry now”.</p>
<p>Australian Private Arthur Giles shuddered when he wrote home about the lice, <a href="https://transcripts.sl.nsw.gov.au/page/giles-papers-9-may-1914-13-may-1919-arthur-clyde-giles-page-84">noting it</a>: “makes me scratch to think of them”.</p>
<h2>Soldiers experimented</h2>
<p>Soldiers’ reactions to lice, as a shared community, inspired them to experiment and share practical ideas of how to manage their itchy burdens. This included developing their own method of bathing.</p>
<p>When New Zealand Corporal Charles Saunders descended the cliffs to the beaches around Anzac Cove, <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030011851">he would</a> “dive down and nudge a handful of sand from the bottom and rub it over [his] skin”, letting “the saltwater dry on one in the sun”. He also rubbed the sand across his uniform hoping to kill some of the lice eggs in the seams of his shirt and pants. </p>
<p>In some locations, fresh water was scarce and reserved for drinking. Without access to water, soldiers’ extermination methods became more offbeat, creative and original. </p>
<p>Men sourced <a href="https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artwork/4522/keatings-powder-poster">lice-exterminating powders</a>, such as Keating’s and Harrison’s, from patent providers — retail pharmaceutical sellers in the UK or back home in Australia and New Zealand — and rubbed various oils over their bodies. </p>
<p>Yet, one of the most popular extermination methods was “chatting” — popping the louse between the thumbnails.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Soldiers delousing clothing outside tents" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396453/original/file-20210422-17-l1c12p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C1097%2C659&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396453/original/file-20210422-17-l1c12p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396453/original/file-20210422-17-l1c12p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396453/original/file-20210422-17-l1c12p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396453/original/file-20210422-17-l1c12p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396453/original/file-20210422-17-l1c12p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396453/original/file-20210422-17-l1c12p.JPG?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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Five soldiers delousing (‘chatting’) their infested clothing outside their tents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1000712">Australian War Memorial (photograph C00748)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An Australian bootmaker, Lieutenant Allan McMaster, <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C92857">told his family</a> in Newcastle it was “amusing indeed to see all the boys at the first minute they have to spare, to strip off altogether and have what we call a chating [sic] parade”. </p>
<p>Corporal Bert Jackson, an orchardist from Upper Hawthorn in Melbourne, <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C92683">took his</a> “shirt off and had a hunt, and then put it on inside out”. He said that if he “missed any, the beggars will have a job to get to the skin again”. </p>
<h2>Soldiers shared their knowledge</h2>
<p>These soldiers shared their practices via their own medical networks, such as trench newspapers.</p>
<p>For instance, soldiers wrote humorous poems that also educated their fellow men. Australian Lance Corporal TA Saxon <a href="http://digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?embedded=true&toolbar=false&dps_pid=IE3673775">joked about</a> lice-exterminating powders in his poem A Dug-Out Lament:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] They’re in our tunics, and in our shirts,</p>
<p>They take a power of beating,</p>
<p>So for goodness sake, if you’re sending us cake, Send also a tin of Keating. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396451/original/file-20210422-23-j8lt9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chatting by the Wayside" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396451/original/file-20210422-23-j8lt9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396451/original/file-20210422-23-j8lt9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396451/original/file-20210422-23-j8lt9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396451/original/file-20210422-23-j8lt9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396451/original/file-20210422-23-j8lt9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396451/original/file-20210422-23-j8lt9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396451/original/file-20210422-23-j8lt9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soldiers shared cartoons and jokes about delousing via magazines and newspapers, such as this one in March 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (Q91/244, FL3509202)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One image from the trench newspaper “Aussie: the Australian soldiers’ magazine” came with <a href="http://digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?embedded=true&toolbar=false&dps_pid=IE3508591">the caption</a> “Chatting by the Wayside” that drew on the well-trod joke about the double meaning of the word chatting.</p>
<h2>What can we learn?</h2>
<p>Reflecting on these often-overlooked aspects of the past helps us rethink medicine today.</p>
<p>For marginal groups in particular, access to professional health care can, and has often been, an expensive, alienating, or culturally foreign and abrasive task. So even in today’s globalised world, networks of non-professional medicine are as active as ever.</p>
<p>With many people isolated and at the mercy of much conflicting information, informal medical networks (often found on social media) present an opportunity to allay fears and swap information in a similar manner to how Anzac soldiers communicated via trench newspapers. </p>
<p>Perhaps some forms of vernacular medicine are occurring right under our noses.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-comfort-of-reading-in-wwi-the-bibliotherapy-of-trench-and-hospital-magazines-158880">The comfort of reading in WWI: the bibliotherapy of trench and hospital magazines</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georgia McWhinney received funding from the Federal Government of Australia. </span></em></p>
Anzac soldiers wrote poetry about body lice, shared treatment tips and experimented with new ways of bathing.
Georgia McWhinney, Honorary Postdoctoral Associate, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/158880
2021-04-22T20:13:20Z
2021-04-22T20:13:20Z
The comfort of reading in WWI: the bibliotherapy of trench and hospital magazines
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396186/original/file-20210421-19-obxasp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C1493%2C750&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Modern warfare produces both trauma and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Boredom-is-the-Enemy-The-Intellectual-and-Imaginative-Lives-of-Australian/Laugesen/p/book/9781138110953">boredom</a> in equal measure. During the first world war, one way troops found solace was by writing and reading magazines created by soldiers, for soldiers.</p>
<p>Throughout the war, these magazines were produced in trenches, on troopships, in camps and in hospitals. Some were written by hand; others produced on makeshift printing presses soldiers came upon in war-torn towns of France and Belgium. </p>
<p>They could be simple pencilled sheets reproduced with carbon paper or made using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hectograph">jelly or spirit duplicators</a>. Others were more sophisticated multi-page publications, often featuring illustrations.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396174/original/file-20210420-23-198el8e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men work on a makeshift duplicator." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396174/original/file-20210420-23-198el8e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396174/original/file-20210420-23-198el8e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1243&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396174/original/file-20210420-23-198el8e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1243&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396174/original/file-20210420-23-198el8e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1243&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396174/original/file-20210420-23-198el8e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396174/original/file-20210420-23-198el8e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396174/original/file-20210420-23-198el8e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some magazines were reproduced using jelly or spirit duplicators.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BNF/Gallica</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Australian War Memorial holds 170 troopship journals and over 70 trench magazines. Many other trench publications have disappeared; some can’t be read anymore because their ink has faded. </p>
<p>Our research focuses on how these magazines cared for soldiers, considering their significant psychological and emotional benefits. </p>
<h2>Bran Mash and Aussie</h2>
<p>One of the first Australian magazines was the Bran Mash, created by the 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment on Gallipoli. </p>
<p>Written in pencil on two leaves of official typing paper, and duplicated with carbon paper, there was only a single issue. It included a selection of the rumours, or “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/furphies-and-whizz-bangs-anzac-slang-from-the-great-war-9780195597356?cc=au&lang=en&">furphies</a>”, circulating on Gallipoli.</p>
<p>Many trench journals published a single or limited number of issues. They were often forced to stop production because of troop movements, the loss of an editor or printing press, or lack of paper. </p>
<p>Phillip L. Harris, editor of trench magazine <a href="https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/405613">Aussie: the Australian Soldiers’ Magazine</a>, once wrote he had made “a fortunate discovery in the cellar of a printery at Armentiéres”. </p>
<p>There, he found ten tons of paper, with which he printed 100,000 copies of the third issue of Aussie. With Harris at the helm, 13 issues of Aussie were produced in the Western Front trenches through 1918 and 1919.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396198/original/file-20210421-17-kssb0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A purple sketch" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396198/original/file-20210421-17-kssb0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396198/original/file-20210421-17-kssb0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396198/original/file-20210421-17-kssb0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396198/original/file-20210421-17-kssb0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396198/original/file-20210421-17-kssb0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396198/original/file-20210421-17-kssb0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396198/original/file-20210421-17-kssb0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evening in the basement, from the French trench magazine <em>L’Argonnaute</em> 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BNF/Gallica</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These magazines all reflected the humour, sentiment and preoccupations of soldiers and soldier-patients. The handwritten <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/the-dinkum-oil">The Dinkum Oil</a>, produced at Gallipoli over eight editions in 1915 was a place to express national identity — not least through the use of Australian slang. </p>
<p>These magazines offered therapeutic value through their reading, and writing. Stories, verse and jokes were all welcome, alongside items airing complaints: a much-needed release valve for the disgruntlements of military life.</p>
<p>Humour runs through them. A cartoon in Aussie, captioned “Polling Day in France”, showed two officers talking. “In what State did you enlist?” asks the senior officer. Private Jones replies: “In a state of drunkenness, sir”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396199/original/file-20210421-21-c5az22.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cartoon, as rendered in body text." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396199/original/file-20210421-21-c5az22.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396199/original/file-20210421-21-c5az22.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396199/original/file-20210421-21-c5az22.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396199/original/file-20210421-21-c5az22.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396199/original/file-20210421-21-c5az22.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396199/original/file-20210421-21-c5az22.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396199/original/file-20210421-21-c5az22.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This cartoon was published in the first edition of Aussie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cambridge University Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other anecdotes captured misunderstandings between the Australian soldiers and French civilians, with “<em>bon soir</em>” misheard as “bonza war!”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/peter-weirs-gallipoli-40-years-on-deftly-directed-and-still-devastating-158614">Peter Weir's Gallipoli 40 years on: deftly directed and still devastating</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Bright and light</h2>
<p>The editors called for “bright, short contributions”, as The Rising Sun, an Australian magazine produced from December 1916 to March 1917, put it. </p>
<p>French trench magazine <em>Le Poilu</em> (“The Hairy One”, a slang term for an infantryman) stated its ambition as being “simply to entertain you for a moment, between two heavy mortar shells, or even between two fatigue-duties.”</p>
<p>The Harefield Park Boomerang, published at the No. 1 Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Harefield House in Middlesex, England, committed to having a “cheery tone”, despite the sometimes grim content of their publication.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-do-the-french-care-about-anzac-110880">Friday essay: do ‘the French’ care about Anzac?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Alongside news of activities in the hospital and updates on sports news, it included mentions of men who died (“our fallen comrades”) and their funeral details, as well as updates on donations to the “headstone fund appeal”. </p>
<p>Alongside the grim realities, black humour is very apparent. A poem in Mountain Mist, a magazine produced by soldier-patients at the Bodington sanitorium in the Blue Mountains for returned soldiers suffering tuberculosis, played on the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/535692">popular soldier song</a> <em>Parlez Vous</em> with words changed to reflect the experience of the tubercular soldier: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Digger had a little cough</p>
<p>It wasn’t much you know</p>
<p>Yet everywhere that Digger went</p>
<p>His cough it had to go.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sentiment also figured strongly. Poems praising mothers and sisters were common, and there were many invocations of home. </p>
<p>In 1917, J.J. Collins wrote a poem “To my mother”, published in the Harefield Park Boomerang, comforting her he was not defeated by his wounds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ll bring home marks of a German shell.</p>
<p>But what does it matter, mother dear?</p>
<p>Dry from your eye that glistening tear.</p>
<p>Let your heart rejoice at the pain I’ve borne.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These magazines were also sent home, giving loved ones a glimpse of war life. </p>
<p>Hospital magazines could provide some reassurance to loved ones, but the picture they painted was incomplete. Soldier-patients were typically presented as stoic, cheerful and able to cope with whatever was thrown at them – as the poem by Collins shows.</p>
<p>But the <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/shattered-anzacs-marina-larsson/book/9781921410550.html">reality</a> for many returned soldiers who had been wounded would be a legacy of ill-health and early death. </p>
<p>For soldiers wounded in ways that would forever change them, this was perhaps how they preferred to be seen — still men, still warriors. These magazines reworked the traumas of war to try and make the experience palatable for the men, and for their loved ones.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/telling-the-forgotten-stories-of-indigenous-servicemen-in-the-first-world-war-114277">Telling the forgotten stories of Indigenous servicemen in the first world war</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Ongoing bibliotherapy</h2>
<p>These early trench and hospital magazines played an essential psychological function. In providing entertainment and in keeping soldiers’ minds occupied, they were a much-needed form of therapy and mental comfort in difficult times. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396201/original/file-20210421-13-8yrglj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396201/original/file-20210421-13-8yrglj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396201/original/file-20210421-13-8yrglj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396201/original/file-20210421-13-8yrglj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396201/original/file-20210421-13-8yrglj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396201/original/file-20210421-13-8yrglj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396201/original/file-20210421-13-8yrglj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396201/original/file-20210421-13-8yrglj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=994&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 magazines – by and for the soldiers – were often lovingly self-deprecating, as seen here in Aussie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cambridge University Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The place these magazines held in soldiers’ hearts was perhaps illustrated in the reprinting of all the wartime editions of Aussie magazine in 1920. </p>
<p>Phillip Harris subsequently revived the paper, now to be a general newspaper that would transfer the “splendid spirit of comradeship, enthusiasm and patriotism” of the Australian soldiers to the Australian population at large. It lasted until 1931.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158880/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>
Amid the trauma and boredom of war, soldiers turned to reading — often magazines they wrote themselves.
Véronique Duché, A.R. Chisholm Professor of French, The University of Melbourne
Amanda Laugesen, Director, Australian National Dictionary Centre, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/158614
2021-04-18T20:07:56Z
2021-04-18T20:07:56Z
Peter Weir’s Gallipoli 40 years on: deftly directed and still devastating
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395388/original/file-20210416-14-1065qpz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C5%2C988%2C678&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gallipoli (1981)</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMzY1NDc4MzQtYWUyOS00Yjc4LTk2ODEtZDRkMWQ5M2Y2ZmM2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg">IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the release of the first-world-war film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082432/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Gallipoli</a> in 1981, director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001837/?ref_=tt_ov_dr">Peter Weir</a> could finally shrug off the nickname he had laboured under since making his first films: “Peter Weird”. </p>
<p>Idiosyncratic work like Homesdale (1971), The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), and the deeply atmospheric, metaphysical dramas Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and The Last Wave (1977) had <a href="https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/38838/65996_00000471_02_peter_weir.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1">earned Weir a reputation</a> for making quirky, mysterious, genre-bending films. His gift for creating mood and atmosphere at times overwhelmed his concern with linear narrative. </p>
<p>This tendency seemed to change quite consciously with Gallipoli. Weir has said the inspiration for the story came from a <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=94RSDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=peter+weir+on+walking+in+the+trenches+turkey+1976&source=bl&ots=HR4DDHhujT&sig=ACfU3U25ni1O41XNk7W8G950gYz1kMhOew&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_p7fhu4HwAhXq63MBHTQ1B2MQ6AEwD3oECBIQAw#v=onepage&q=peter%20weir%20on%20walking%20in%20the%20trenches%20turkey%201976&f=false">trip to Anzac Cove in 1976</a>. Flying back to Australia from London, he took a detour to Turkey. At the Gallipoli Peninsula, walking in still-extant trenches, Weir found not just shrapnel and bullet-casings, but also the personal effects of young soldiers. These tiny mementos poking out of the earth were probably the final objects held by some young men before they died.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-their-own-words-letters-from-anzacs-during-the-gallipoli-evacuation-52076">In their own words: letters from ANZACs during the Gallipoli evacuation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The experience was profound. From this emotional rite of passage came the seeds of a work Weir has described as his “<a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2501782">graduation film</a>”. </p>
<p>The sensitivity and respect with which he approached the material in Gallipoli was striking. Playwright David Williamson was brought on to craft a screenplay from a story Weir had penned himself. For the two central characters, Weir chose <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0497826/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Mark Lee</a> as Archie, and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000154/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Mel Gibson</a> — fresh from the success of Mad Max — as Frank.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395387/original/file-20210416-13-1k177fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="black and white photo of men on war film set" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395387/original/file-20210416-13-1k177fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395387/original/file-20210416-13-1k177fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395387/original/file-20210416-13-1k177fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395387/original/file-20210416-13-1k177fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395387/original/file-20210416-13-1k177fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395387/original/file-20210416-13-1k177fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395387/original/file-20210416-13-1k177fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Director Peter Weir with Mel Gibson on set.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYTVkYzhkNDctOWQ4Yy00YzljLTk2NGEtMGUxMWZlNTEyZjQyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Blood red, burnished orange</h2>
<p>Originally envisioned as a detailed, epic narrative of war, Gallipoli was gradually narrowed in scope to focus on the experiences of the two friends, competitive runners who enlist in the army for slightly different reasons. Archie is the idealist — joining to do his duty. Frank is more cautious and self-centred, eventually talked into enlisting by his mates.</p>
<p>Archie and Frank bond quickly and suddenly find themselves transported to Egypt, on their way to Turkey and their respective appointments with destiny.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395195/original/file-20210415-19-1sh3ymr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two young men" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395195/original/file-20210415-19-1sh3ymr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395195/original/file-20210415-19-1sh3ymr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395195/original/file-20210415-19-1sh3ymr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395195/original/file-20210415-19-1sh3ymr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395195/original/file-20210415-19-1sh3ymr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395195/original/file-20210415-19-1sh3ymr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395195/original/file-20210415-19-1sh3ymr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frank and Archie bond quickly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gallipoli (1981)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/dawn/spirit">ANZAC experiences in the first world war</a> arguably cemented post-colonial Australian ideals of mateship, bravery and love for country. Yet while many of the character attributes and events the film celebrates are still very much part of the Australian consciousness, in Weir’s film, these attributes are genuinely — one might even say lovingly — treated in mythic fashion.</p>
<p>From Gallipoli’s opening frames, where blood-red credits play out on a black background as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Adagio-in-G-Minor">Tomaso Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor</a> plays, we immediately see a sober and attentive approach to the storytelling.</p>
<p>The opening scene finds Archie training to run on the farm. Courtesy of cinematographer <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006570/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Russell Boyd</a>, the outback location is all burnished oranges, browns and reds. </p>
<p>There is an immaculate attentiveness to costume, set dressing and editing. </p>
<p>Both Mark Lee and elder statesman <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0449652/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Bill Kerr</a> (as his Uncle Jack) deliver beautiful — and beautifully directed — performances, perfectly establishing the central themes of love, family and belonging. It is clear from the opening minutes this is a story being told with a deft hand.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qV1l_ww89k0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘How fast are you gonna run?’ ‘As fast as a leopard.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-australian-government-funding-hollywood-films-at-the-expense-of-our-stories-79898">Why is the Australian government funding Hollywood films at the expense of our stories?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A war film about loss</h2>
<p>Gallipoli retains its focus on the emotional and psychological effects of war throughout the film; from the families left behind to the deep friendships torn asunder by death and violence, every character and situation in the film helps construct Weir’s portrait of innocence lost. (Gallipoli has far more in common with Terrence Malick’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120863/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Thin Red Line</a> than with Steven Spielberg’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120815/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Saving Private Ryan</a>.)</p>
<p>Watching Gallipoli <a href="https://www.if.com.au/australian-international-screen-forum-to-celebrate-40th-anniversary-of-gallipoli/">40 years after its release</a> is a fascinating experience. The film has lost none of its power, and the elegance of its construction has become even more pronounced after multiple viewings.</p>
<p>Having studied Williamson’s screenplay for the film (based on a story outline by Weir and <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-337956683/findingaid#nla-obj-337964356">marked as a third draft, dated 1979</a>), I was struck by enormous differences — in both plot and overall tone — between the 1979 draft and the final cut of the film.<br>
Williamson’s draft spends much time establishing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-great-war-wwi-100462">geopolitical context</a> for the conflict, much of the exposition of which is absent from the film. </p>
<p>Another significant excision from the screenplay is a romantic subplot between Archie and a young woman he plans to marry when he returns from the war. Weir would ultimately choose to make the central relationship the one between Archie and Frank, thus reinforcing the crucial themes of mateship and innocence destroyed by war.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395197/original/file-20210415-23-1mo54jp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two soldiers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395197/original/file-20210415-23-1mo54jp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395197/original/file-20210415-23-1mo54jp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395197/original/file-20210415-23-1mo54jp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395197/original/file-20210415-23-1mo54jp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395197/original/file-20210415-23-1mo54jp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395197/original/file-20210415-23-1mo54jp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395197/original/file-20210415-23-1mo54jp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Friendship in war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gallipoli (1981)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-great-war-wwi-100462">World politics explainer: The Great War (WWI)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Coming of age</h2>
<p>An enormously important addition to the film is absent from the screenplay: the motif of running, and Archie’s extraordinary gift for running “as fast as a leopard”. </p>
<p>Weir begins and ends the story with scenes of Archie running in response to a whistle-blow. The context changes tragically: from practising for a race on the farm in the idyllic opening scene to running desperately across no-man’s land in the closing one. </p>
<p>Here, Weir’s myth-making hits us between the eyes with stark, tragic inevitability. Archie’s gift for running, which fills him with joy, has ultimately led him to a battlefield across which he has to run for his life, alone and unprotected, a hero embracing his fate.</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">From a place you’ve never heard of, comes a story you’ll never forget … Gallipoli.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After Gallipoli, <a href="https://www.if.com.au/australian-international-screen-forum-to-celebrate-40th-anniversary-of-gallipoli/">which won</a> eight Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards and was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 1982 Golden Globe Awards, Weir would leave behind much of the overt quirk and mystery of his early work, and move to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001837/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">political dramas, thrillers and historical pieces</a> — The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Witness (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989), The Truman Show (1998), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). </p>
<p>While retaining a love of beautifully-rendered atmosphere, Weir would go on to demonstrate a maturity of storytelling that has made him one of our greatest filmmakers. Perhaps Gallipoli represents its director’s coming-of-age as powerfully as it does its characters’.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Prescott 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>
Beautifully directed, powerfully acted, Peter Weir’s Gallipoli still captures the devastating emotional toll of war, 40 years after it first premiered.
Nick Prescott, Lecturer, School of Humanities and Creative Arts, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154367
2021-02-01T18:58:53Z
2021-02-01T18:58:53Z
‘The stories a nation tells itself matter’: how will the COVID generation remember 2020?
<p><em>This is a longer read. Enjoy</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The speed with which the COVID-19 virus infected the world and the dramatic nature of its fallout is without parallel. Individually and collectively we have struggled to understand and process it. Early on in the pandemic, journalists looked to historians to help make sense of what was happening and to read from the past the possible impacts of this moment on the future. Experts on past pandemics tried to shed light on how we might recover, and on the prospective local and global consequences of this COVID-19 catastrophe. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381623/original/file-20210201-23-z719mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381623/original/file-20210201-23-z719mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381623/original/file-20210201-23-z719mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381623/original/file-20210201-23-z719mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381623/original/file-20210201-23-z719mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381623/original/file-20210201-23-z719mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381623/original/file-20210201-23-z719mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381623/original/file-20210201-23-z719mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&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"><a class="source" href="https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/generation-covid/">Griffith Review</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Historians find remnants of the past in libraries and archives, in objects, monuments and buildings, in fields and forests, in music and art and images, in memories and stories. This is where we find the <a href="https://www.paulkrameronline.com/history-in-a-time-of-crisis/">roads not taken</a>, the possibilities foreclosed, the thinking that shapes a culture, the choices made that, sometimes through the slow accretion of time and action and sometimes suddenly and dramatically, change outcomes and “make history”. </p>
<p>The sense that a generation carries a distinct identity is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1031461X.2015.1120335">forged by sharing</a> the “experience of profound and destabilising events”. Those events have their greatest impact if people experience them young, typically in their late teens and early 20s.</p>
<p>Generational consciousness is shaped by the sharing of those dramatic events, their subsequent remembering and the recognition, often by older generations, of the distinctiveness of a generational experience or mode of self-representation.</p>
<p>What might the past offer us at this moment, and how will future generations reflect on this year? How will this present become the future’s past?</p>
<h2>The COVID generation</h2>
<p>The generation currently in their late teens and early 20s — the COVID generation — already had cause to be worried about their future. </p>
<p>In 2018 and 2019, hundreds of thousands of them had filled city streets to call for action on climate change and for an end to our dependence on fossil fuels. </p>
<p>In 2020, those young people found themselves stuck at home with remote learning, their rites of passage cancelled, their plans upended, their casual labour no longer required, their collective protests in city streets ruled illegal, their sense of agency curtailed by a microscopic virus with its origins in the ecological breakdown they fear. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-festivals-no-schoolies-young-people-are-missing-out-on-vital-rites-of-passage-during-covid-145097">No festivals, no schoolies: young people are missing out on vital rites of passage during COVID</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Many joined the long unemployment queues snaking outside Centrelink offices. </p>
<p>While they are in the age bracket least likely to suffer serious health effects from the coronavirus, they are the generation most likely to struggle to find employment in the post-pandemic world, and the ones who, along with their younger siblings, will be carrying the debt burden of the government’s relief measures for the longest.</p>
<p>The fragility of their future is suddenly even more immediately apparent. Not since their great-grandparents were young has an Australian generation lived with such uncertainty, such a profound sense that the future is out of its control.</p>
<h2>Collective memory</h2>
<p>“Collective memory” is a term historians use to refer to the ways the public “remembers” an event or a period of time. It is the version that gets publicly told, endorsed and reworked through films and history books, commemorative activities, monuments and school curricula. </p>
<p>The further back in time an event occurred, the more abstracted the collective memory of it becomes.</p>
<p>Think Anzac, now one of our most carefully curated memories. In the immediate post-World War I period, understandings of what the war had meant for the nation were <a href="https://publishing.monash.edu/product/anzac-memories/">highly contested</a>. Defeat at Gallipoli, 60,000 lives lost (the highest death rate among the Allied forces), a divided and grieving home-front community and an economy in shreds were not obvious raw materials from which to build a narrative about heroic manhood and the founding of the nation. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-anzac-day-came-to-occupy-a-sacred-place-in-australians-hearts-76323">How Anzac Day came to occupy a sacred place in Australians' hearts</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Historians played a key role in creating that narrative. C.E.W. Bean <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10314618908595824">crafted it carefully</a>, selecting the stories that would best illustrate the history he wanted to tell, and then campaigning for a monument and museum that would house and celebrate that story — the Australian War Memorial. </p>
<p>Anzac provided a healing narrative that gave solace to grieving families and the nation alike. It helped make sense of unimaginable loss. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381564/original/file-20210201-21-16h1mif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Australian War Memorial." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381564/original/file-20210201-21-16h1mif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381564/original/file-20210201-21-16h1mif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381564/original/file-20210201-21-16h1mif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381564/original/file-20210201-21-16h1mif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381564/original/file-20210201-21-16h1mif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381564/original/file-20210201-21-16h1mif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381564/original/file-20210201-21-16h1mif.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">The Australian War Memorial housed the collective ANZAC narrative. It helped make sense of unimaginable loss.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/canberra-australia-december-12-2014-australian-239719210">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the COVID generation, the return of overwhelming uncertainty cuts deeply in a cohort for whom anxiety and depression were already being described as a pandemic and in a context where mental health was a growing source of national disquiet. They might remember that feeling in their future — or it might not be mere memory. </p>
<p>In 50 years’ time, living with anxiety and uncertainty may be a normal part of the human experience, a consequence of the disruption and havoc of environmental degradation.</p>
<p>Which stories will the COVID generation remember from 2020 — 20, 30, 50 years from now? </p>
<h2>An X-ray of inequality</h2>
<p>They might remember their mothers. One of the fault lines of the pandemic has been gender. More jobs have been lost in <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/pandemic-has-impacted-women-most-significantly-20200604-p54ziu.html">female-dominated sectors</a> than in male-dominated ones. Gender inequality is being further entrentched. While men’s participation in childcare has increased slightly with working-from-home arrangements, women have continued to carry the major load, as well as the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-20/coronavirus-covid19-domestic-work-housework-gender-gap-women-men/12369708">bulk of the housework</a>. The juggle of working while home-schooling their children has taken its toll on women. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/low-paid-young-women-the-grim-truth-about-who-this-recession-is-hitting-hardest-141892">Low-paid, young women: the grim truth about who this recession is hitting hardest</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The COVID generation might also remember living in families where precarity and uncertainty were daily realities. The pandemic has functioned as an X-ray of inequality, revealing the cracks in our social fabric. </p>
<p>Will the image of Melbourne’s public housing towers — in which, as the Victorian premier admitted, some of the state’s most vulnerable communities lived — locked down and encircled by police, or the anxious face of a young child gazing from an upper-floor window, become part of the city’s collective memory? </p>
<p>Let them remember, too, alongside all the failures of our systems that have been exposed by the pandemic, the many examples of community strength and collective endeavour. For more than eight months, five million Victorians sacrificed personal freedoms to protect those most vulnerable to the virus. </p>
<p>Many thousands also acted with generosity and selflessness to support and care for those in need. Australians around the country made similar sacrifices. </p>
<h2>The stories we tell ourselves matter</h2>
<p>Historians know the stories a nation tells itself matter; collective memory can suppress competing versions of the past, while individual and family stories might hold conflicting memories. Our work has been crucial in shaping and dismantling, telling and retelling the narratives through which we have come to think of ourselves as a nation. </p>
<p>We have colluded in the silences of colonial dispossession, the erasure of women’s voices and the celebration of environmental-wreckage-as-progress, as much as we have, “in alliances with communities of action”, found voices that have challenged the racist and sexist hierarchies on which such histories were founded. </p>
<p>It’s important to note, however, that many of those stories have not been framed as “national”, but rather as histories of specific groups of people. Their essence has not been abstracted to a national stage and inflected with the power to carry us forward as Australians in periods of existential crisis. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/white-male-and-straight-how-30-years-of-australia-day-speeches-leave-most-australians-out-130279">White, male and straight – how 30 years of Australia Day speeches leave most Australians out</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It is time to bring these marginalised group stories into the national story so we all learn from them as a nation: understand their morals and enact their lessons. </p>
<p>Such an embrace would provide the opportunity for a more honest reckoning with our past — including Indigenous histories — a more authentic reflection of our collective present and richer traditions from which to draw as we face an uncertain future.</p>
<p>The survivors from generations who lived through the Great Depression or World War II, many of them subsequently Australia’s postwar migrants, are among the COVID casualties from our aged-care facilities. They are the generation that helped create our contemporary world. </p>
<p>Daily obituaries in The Age told their stories, their experiences of mass unemployment, war, widespread rationing, poverty and few social services, and presented illuminating stories of hardship, endurance and the importance of community.</p>
<p>But beyond the COVID-19 case count, the exposure of an economic system contingent on precarity and inequality, and the incriminating tally of aged-care deaths, what memories might linger and take shape in the generations who live to look back on this watershed year?</p>
<h2>An obituary to neoliberalism</h2>
<p>It is far too early to predict where this particular historical tide will settle and how this moment of crisis will be recalled. We are still living this story, still captured by the drama of its unfolding, navigating our way along a shoreline none of us has walked before.</p>
<p>If 2020 does prove to be a rupture in our previous trajectory, that contingency will entirely depend on what happens next, be that further pandemics and climate catastrophes or a radical rewind of our carbon emissions and a restructuring of our economy. </p>
<p>Either way, the memories we take forward from this time will be a mix of stories. They will be drawn from individuals and families and gradually coalesce into a broader cultural narrative, one in turn shaped by more powerful forces seeking to draw national significance and meaning from the disaster. </p>
<p>The COVID generation will bring their own distinct memories to shape the national story.</p>
<p>The national stories we tell at this time are crucial. We need stories of adaptation and survival, of resilience and sacrifice, of rebuilding lives shattered by world events, of campaigning for justice, of hope and possibilities.</p>
<p>Too many obituaries have already been written as a result of this pandemic. But I hope for one more. I hope for an obituary to neoliberalism. When the COVID generation remember 2020 and the time that came just after, may they remember the power of community action, collective responsibility and the strength of our diverse body politic. </p>
<p>May they remember the way the passion for change that they carried onto the streets in 2018 and 2019 gradually infected us all, countering the poison of complacency and the power of the fossil-fuel industry alike. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-covid-in-ten-photos-145318">Friday essay: COVID in ten photos</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>May they recall a government that, as in the postwar period, invested heavily in employment schemes, in the welfare state, in social housing and higher education; a government willing to make the connections between the droughts, fires and floods that have ravaged our land in the past three years and the pandemic that has ruptured our world, and to act in response — belatedly but definitively — to protect the future. </p>
<p>And may they celebrate and commemorate a community whose vision, sharpened by these unprecedented times, determined that the history they made and bequeathed would be infused with the values of care, stewardship and justice.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited version of an essay published in <a href="https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/generation-covid/">Griffith Review 71: Remaking the Balance</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154367/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Holmes receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
What might the past offer us at this moment, and how will future generations reflect on this year? How will this present become the future’s past?
Katie Holmes, Professor of History, La Trobe University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151022
2020-12-06T18:58:31Z
2020-12-06T18:58:31Z
The Anzac legend has blinded Australia to its war atrocities. It’s time for a reckoning
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372979/original/file-20201204-17-thrzl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australian soldiers in the trenches at Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey in 1915.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Victoria/Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For years, Australians have faced a <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-australias-sas-to-stop-its-culture-of-cover-up-and-take-accountability-for-possible-war-crimes-142808">steady stream of investigative media reports</a> about atrocities allegedly committed by the country’s most elite soldiers in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Yet, nothing could have prepared the nation for the breathtaking contents of the <a href="https://afghanistaninquiry.defence.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-11/IGADF-Afghanistan-Inquiry-Public-Release-Version.pdf">landmark report by Major General Paul Brereton</a> into the actions of special forces, released last month after a four-year investigation. The reaction across Australia was one of horror and disbelief. </p>
<p>The inquiry found <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-19/afghan-war-crimes-report-released-what-you-need-to-know/12899880">credible evidence</a> to support allegations that 39 Afghan civilians were illegally killed by Australian soldiers, some having weapons planted on them to make them appear to have been combatants. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/allegations-of-murder-and-blooding-in-brereton-report-now-face-many-obstacles-to-prosecution-145703">Allegations of murder and 'blooding' in Brereton report now face many obstacles to prosecution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Prisoners were shot for reasons as obtuse as saving the need for a second helicopter trip. Others were allegedly killed in a practice known as “blooding”, in which new soldiers were encouraged to achieve their first “kill”. In one particularly appalling incident, special forces allegedly <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/special-forces-accused-of-brutal-murders-20201119-p56g46">slit the throats of two 14-year-old boys</a> and dumped their bodies in a river.</p>
<p>For most Australians, this is more than just rogue soldiers being found out for despicable behaviour. The depth of revulsion felt by many reflects the special place the country reserves for its armed forces, who have come to personify all that is best about Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372984/original/file-20201204-21-wca2d1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372984/original/file-20201204-21-wca2d1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372984/original/file-20201204-21-wca2d1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372984/original/file-20201204-21-wca2d1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372984/original/file-20201204-21-wca2d1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372984/original/file-20201204-21-wca2d1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372984/original/file-20201204-21-wca2d1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chief of Defence Force Angus Campbell has been under pressure from some politicians to resign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Where the Anzac legend originated</h2>
<p>Military history sits at the heart of the Australian national identity — most visibly through the Anzac legend. </p>
<p>The word “Anzac” is an acronym for “<a href="https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/ww1/military-organisation/australian-imperial-force/australian-and-new-zealand-army-corps">Australian and New Zealand Army Corps</a>”. It was coined during the early phases of the first world war, when Australians and New Zealanders were part of an allied force that <a href="https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/ww1/where-australians-served/gallipoli">landed at Gallipoli</a> in modern-day Turkey in April 1915. </p>
<p>The invasion, devised by Britain’s first lord of the admiralty, <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/churchills-first-world-war">Winston Churchill</a>, was unsuccessful in its goal of reaching Constantinople and knocking the Ottoman Empire out of the war.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372983/original/file-20201204-13-1c3xmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372983/original/file-20201204-13-1c3xmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372983/original/file-20201204-13-1c3xmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372983/original/file-20201204-13-1c3xmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372983/original/file-20201204-13-1c3xmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372983/original/file-20201204-13-1c3xmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372983/original/file-20201204-13-1c3xmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British, Australian and New Zealander soldiers constructing bombs at Gallipoli in 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archives New Zealand/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the young Australian nation, federated in 1901, took from the failed campaign a mythology of national birth. </p>
<p>Australia had been created during an age of elevated propaganda about empire, monarchy and the glory of battle. War was held to be the truest test of the character of men and nations. </p>
<p>In this era of “new imperialism”, the peaceful union of Australia’s six British colonies carried a taint of illegitimacy because no blood had been spilled (the frontier wars with Aboriginal peoples did not count). The British journalist Alfred Buchanan <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1573940">wrote in 1907</a> that he </p>
<blockquote>
<p>pitied the little Australian […] looking to nourish the flame of patriotic sentiment, [for …] the altar has not been stained with crimson as every rallying centre of a nation should be.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, by the first world war, it was believed that a good showing in battle would expunge the convict stain and prove Australians worthy members of the British empire.</p>
<p>This is why the date of the Gallipoli invasion, April 25, quickly became Australia’s most sacred national day. The young nation was drenched by a tide of khaki nationalism that has ebbed and flowed ever since. </p>
<p>War memorials and monuments were raised in towns and cities around the country, where citizens still gather each Anzac Day to engage in the rituals of what the late historian Ken Inglis called Australia’s “<a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/sacred-places-paperback-softback">civil religion</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372982/original/file-20201204-17-15zdfhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372982/original/file-20201204-17-15zdfhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372982/original/file-20201204-17-15zdfhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372982/original/file-20201204-17-15zdfhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372982/original/file-20201204-17-15zdfhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372982/original/file-20201204-17-15zdfhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372982/original/file-20201204-17-15zdfhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first Anzac Day parade in Sydney on April 25, 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Century of Pictures, Penguin Books/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the Anzacs continue to be revered</h2>
<p>Beginning in the 1990s, Australian politicians have also consciously and cleverly linked this nostalgia-tinted history to the work of the modern and highly professionalised Australian Defence Force. </p>
<p>When the honour of Australia’s revered soldiers is questioned, so too is the national self-image.</p>
<p>For example, a <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/pathwaytochange/_Master/docs/Review-of-Personal-Conduct-of-ADF-Personnel_full-report.pdf">2011 report</a> into the culture and personal conduct of members of the Defence Force, prompted by accusations of sexual harassment and other indiscretions, noted the Anzac legend provided an exemplar for the current military. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-australian-commanders-need-to-be-held-responsible-for-alleged-war-crimes-in-afghanistan-151030">Why Australian commanders need to be held responsible for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Similarly, in his 2015 <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22media/pressrel/3798640%22">dawn service speech</a> on the centenary of the Gallipoli landings, then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott lauded the Anzacs for their qualities of compassion, perseverance and mateship. </p>
<p>In reverential tones, Abbott called them the “founding heroes of modern Australia”, said they set an example for modern day Australians to follow: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Yes, they are us; and when we strive enough for the right things, we can be more like them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Poignantly, Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated contemporary soldier and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-01/ben-roberts-smith-defamation-trial-hears-war-crime-allegations/12617280">among the men accused of war atrocities</a> in Afghanistan, has also drawn inspiration from the Anzac legend. </p>
<p>Roberts-Smith <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443058.2020.1836501?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=rjau20">has said</a> that Gallipoli is “a big part of who we are as Aussies”, and reflected on his boyhood fascination with the Anzacs: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>While other boys had posters of sporting heroes, I had posters of soldiers.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A history of misconduct in war</h2>
<p>But the idealisation of this Anzac history has always required Australians turn a blind eye to uncomfortable truths. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/bad-characters-peter-stanley/ebook/9781742662169.html">Australian soldiers in the first world war</a> killed prisoners, deserted in record numbers, caught venereal disease at phenomenal rates and outperformed all other Western Front forces in causing trouble. </p>
<p>In the second world war, Australians were often reluctant to take Japanese prisoners, choosing to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/05/australia-has-never-been-good-at-acknowledging-its-troops-have-been-guilty-of-acts-of-inhumanity">illegally bayonet or shoot them instead</a>. And Australian soldiers are known to have committed atrocities alongside their American counterparts in <a href="https://aph.org.au/2020/11/echoes-of-vietnam-counterinsurgency-warrior-hero-culture-and-war-crimes-in-afghanistan/">Vietnam</a>, including “bloodings” and “throwdowns” (planting weapons on civilians after they were killed).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-anzac-day-came-to-occupy-a-sacred-place-in-australians-hearts-76323">How Anzac Day came to occupy a sacred place in Australians' hearts</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In recent years, we have become increasingly reluctant to see our Anzacs as killers, even when such killing is legitimate on military grounds. </p>
<p>As represented most famously in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_(1981_film)">Peter Weir’s 1981 film, Gallipoli</a>, the Anzac legend has become less about the combat ability of Australian soldiers and more about their suffering. It is war commemoration stripped down and refitted for the age of post-traumatic stress disorder.</p>
<p>The Anzacs that our nation so often lauds are fictional creations, shorn of the malevolence and downright murderous behaviour <a href="https://aph.org.au/2020/11/australian-soldiers-blair/">they frequently exhibited</a>. </p>
<p>The alleged SAS atrocities do not fit this kinder, gentler version of the legend. They upend the way Australians like to imagine their armed forces, and by implication, themselves.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UclsBepOfm4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The final scene in the 1981 film Gallipoli, starring Mel Gibson.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tethering war to national self-image</h2>
<p>We see two possibilities for how the current crisis will play out. The first is the alleged war crimes will slowly be forgotten, just as previous atrocities have been. </p>
<p>There are already signs this is happening. Prime Minister Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6212546051001">last week</a> said he remained “incredibly proud” of the ADF and emphasised that the alleged crimes were committed by “a small number in a very big defence force”. He maintained the reputation of the broader defence force would be unaffected.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372985/original/file-20201204-15-1fecb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372985/original/file-20201204-15-1fecb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372985/original/file-20201204-15-1fecb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372985/original/file-20201204-15-1fecb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372985/original/file-20201204-15-1fecb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372985/original/file-20201204-15-1fecb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372985/original/file-20201204-15-1fecb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soldiers march during the Anzac Day parade in Brisbane in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Glenn Hunt/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The other possibility is Australia will adopt a more realistic attitude towards its soldiers and the conflicts they fight in. </p>
<p>These conflicts are complex, and rarely conducted without some descent into the moral abyss. Some of our soldiers are not good people, and those that are good are capable of lapses. War is an ugly business, and we pay a price for tethering it so tightly to our national self-image.</p>
<p>As historians of Australia’s war experiences, we hope and wish for a national reckoning about our record of war atrocities. But as historians of Anzac, we anticipate that the great mythological behemoth will barely sway from its course in the face of these allegations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151022/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Crotty receives funding from the Army History Unit and the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Holbrook receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>
When the honour of Australia’s revered soldiers is questioned, so, too, is the national self-image. But war is an ugly business, and we pay a price for tethering it so tightly to our identity.
Martin Crotty, Associate Professor in Australian History, The University of Queensland
Carolyn Holbrook, ARC DECRA Fellow at Deakin University, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/114277
2019-04-24T05:57:37Z
2019-04-24T05:57:37Z
Telling the forgotten stories of Indigenous servicemen in the first world war
<p><em>Warning: This story contains images of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people who are deceased.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who served with Australian forces in the first world war is estimated to be in the range of 1,000-1,200. But the precise figure will never be known, because <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/indigenous-service/report-executive-summary">a number</a> of those who served changed their names and birthplaces when they enrolled to get around racist enlistment practices.</p>
<p>Despite fighting and dying for Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders still <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/serving-our-country/">weren’t considered citizens</a> upon their return from the war. Many of these veterans were also denied repatriation benefits, and excluded from returned services clubs.</p>
<p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have long sought to gain recognition for the service and sacrifices of their men and women. Some do this by telling stories in their families and local communities about the military careers of their forebears. </p>
<p>These stories often take the form of oral histories. Oral history projects by groups of Aboriginal people have proven valuable for redressing the unrecognised service and racist treatment of their ancestors who served in the Australian Light Horse during the Sinai-Palestine Campaign of 1916-18.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/on-anzac-day-we-remember-the-great-war-but-forget-our-first-war-23246">On Anzac Day, we remember the Great War but forget our first war</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Commemorating the Battle of Beersheba</h2>
<p>Although most Australians know little or nothing about the Battle of Beersheba, the Australian government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2018/apr/09/a-500m-expansion-of-the-war-memorial-is-a-reckless-waste-of-money">funded its centennial commemoration</a> at Beersheba (now in southern Israel) in October 2017.</p>
<p>One hundred Australian and a few New Zealand military history reenactors <a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811300257">attended the joint service</a> as part of a commercial tour, during which they rode in period military outfits along the route of their ancestors.</p>
<p>A group of Aboriginal men and women, who were descended from some of the estimated 100 Aboriginal members of the Australian Light Horse, also participated in the tour. Several had ancestors who were in the “Queensland Black Watch”, a <a href="http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/ww1/2014/05/30/researching-indigenous-involvement-in-ww1/">predominantly Aboriginal reinforcement unit</a>.</p>
<p>The group’s participation was enabled by a transnational network of organisations, but the key driver was Rona Tranby Trust, which funds projects to record and preserve Aboriginal oral histories. In 2017, it a group of Aboriginal men and women to complete <a href="http://ronatranby.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ALHP-Exhibition-Booklet-FINAL-copy-min.pdf">11 histories of their ancestors</a> who fought and died in the Sinai-Palestine Campaign. </p>
<p>Like the other reenactors, Aboriginal participants were honouring their ancestors’ courage and sacrifice. But they also wanted to document the neglected stories of their service, and the racial discrimination their forebears experienced.</p>
<p>Here we share, with permission, some of the stories that came from the trip, and from the family history projects the group members continue to work on.</p>
<h2>Ricky Morris</h2>
<p>Gunditjmara man and retired Army Sergeant Ricky Morris was officially invited to lay a wreath on behalf of all Indigenous veterans at the service in <a href="https://tranby.edu.au/in-their-footsteps/">Beersheba</a>. Morris is the 19th of an astonishing 21 men and women Anzacs in his family. He served in a progeny of the Light Horse unit of his grandfather, <a href="https://w.www.vic.gov.au/aboriginalvictoria/community-engagement/leadership-programs/aboriginal-honour-roll/2013-victorian-aboriginal-honour-roll/the-lovett-brothers.html">Frederick Amos Lovett</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269928/original/file-20190418-28094-10yzj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269928/original/file-20190418-28094-10yzj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269928/original/file-20190418-28094-10yzj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269928/original/file-20190418-28094-10yzj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269928/original/file-20190418-28094-10yzj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269928/original/file-20190418-28094-10yzj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269928/original/file-20190418-28094-10yzj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frederick Amos Lovett of the 4th Light Horse Regimen and his grandson Ricky Morris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://ronatranby.org.au/">Rona Tranby Trust</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At a time when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were neither citizens nor counted in the census, Frederick and his four brothers left the Lake Condah Aboriginal Mission, 300 km west of Melbourne, to sign up. </p>
<p>But their service counted for nothing. Gunditjmara people were subjected to a “<a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p332783/html/article09.xhtml">second dispossession</a>” when they were forced off Lake Condah under the Soldier Settlement Scheme. The scheme granted land to returning soldiers, but like almost all Aboriginal applicants, the brothers were <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/serving-our-country/">denied soldier settlement blocks</a>.</p>
<p>Morris is a member of the Victorian Indigenous Veterans Association Remembrance Committee and gives talks at schools about Aboriginal culture and his family. He interviewed two elderly aunts for his family history project, which he described as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…a unique opportunity to follow in the footsteps of those who fought and died for Australia, and the diversity of Australians who put their hands up to answer the call.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-remembering-anzac-day-what-do-we-forget-57629">In remembering Anzac Day, what do we forget?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Mischa Fisher and Elsie Amamoo</h2>
<p>Mischa Fisher and her daughter, Elsie Amamoo, undertook the tour to obtain information for a website about Mischa’s grandfather, Frank Fisher. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270357/original/file-20190423-15230-1smcf28.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270357/original/file-20190423-15230-1smcf28.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270357/original/file-20190423-15230-1smcf28.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270357/original/file-20190423-15230-1smcf28.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270357/original/file-20190423-15230-1smcf28.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270357/original/file-20190423-15230-1smcf28.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270357/original/file-20190423-15230-1smcf28.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270357/original/file-20190423-15230-1smcf28.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trooper Frank Fisher was an Aboriginal serviceman who enlisted in Brisbane on 16 August 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1068788">Australian War Memorial</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Frank was born into the Wangan and Jagalingou community in the goldmining town of Clermont, 1,000 km north of Brisbane. He was one of 47 men from Barambah Aboriginal Settlement who <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-21/indigenous-town-of-cherbourg-honours-its-anzac-diggers/6409902">enlisted in the first world war</a>. While Frank was away, his wife Esme was prevented from accessing his salary. After Frank was discharged, he was again placed under the control of the superintendent at <a href="http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/print/?ID=19493">Barambah</a>. </p>
<p>Mischa and Elsie have interviewed Frank’s descendants, and accessed archival footage from the <a href="http://rationshed.com.au/boys-from-barambah-our-black-diggers-from-ww1/">Ration Shed Museum</a> – an Aboriginal heritage, educational and cultural centre. Elsie only recently learned that Frank, who is also the great-grandfather of Olympic 400m champion Cathy Freeman, was a member of the “Black Watch”. </p>
<p>While training for a reenactment of the Light Horse charge at Beersheba, she tearfully <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/remembering-the-indigenous-soldiers-at-battle-of/9101344">told a reporter</a> what the project meant to her: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>To me, it feels like I have got a missing piece of the puzzle of who I am […] That’s what it basically means to me: just being able to have that ability to close the gap in terms of my identity and knowing who I am and where I fit in the Australian history, but also within my family as well.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Michelle and Peta Flynn</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269939/original/file-20190418-28090-1sdenoy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269939/original/file-20190418-28090-1sdenoy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269939/original/file-20190418-28090-1sdenoy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269939/original/file-20190418-28090-1sdenoy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269939/original/file-20190418-28090-1sdenoy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269939/original/file-20190418-28090-1sdenoy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269939/original/file-20190418-28090-1sdenoy.png?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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peta Flynn, great niece of Charles Fitzroy Stafford.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://ronatranby.org.au">Rona Tranby Trust</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sisters Michelle and Peta Flynn are descendants of “Black Kitty”, a Cannemegal/Warmuli girl, who, in 1814, was among the first group of Aboriginal children placed in the Parramatta Native Institution at the age of five. </p>
<p>The sisters have been researching their family history for over 20 years. Their ancestors include the three Stafford brothers, who were in the <a href="http://aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/stafford-brothers">Light Horse</a>. </p>
<p>At Beersheba, Peta <a href="https://www.jewishnews.net.au/documents/AJN-beersheba-100th-supplement.pdf">explained</a> her motivation for writing a book about her great uncle, Charles Stafford: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My daughter, niece and nephews will be able to take [the book] into their schools and communities and actually be proud of who we are and where we come from – and ensure our family’s history will not be lost to future generations. </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-soldiers-remembered-the-research-behind-black-diggers-21056">Indigenous soldiers remembered: the research behind Black Diggers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Lessons and legacies</h2>
<p>The experiences of Ricky Morris, Mischa Fisher, Elsie Amamoo, and Michelle and Peta Flynn show how exploring family histories can generate feelings of solidarity, honour and closure. </p>
<p>Although group members were on a reenactment tour, their emotions were typical of the inward pilgrimages often experienced by <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0047287509332308">genealogical tourists</a>. Past and present family connections were heightened by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160738313000042">being there</a>; feelings of sadness, solidarity and pride arose.</p>
<p>At the same time, these stories show the benefits of combining academic, public and vernacular accounts to study <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-great-australian-silence-50-years-on-100737">silences</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-on-listening-to-new-national-storytellers-61291">absences</a> in the histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.</p>
<p>The official commemoration at Beersheba will only ever be studied by a handful of specialist scholars, but the family histories of this group will have enduring value for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jim McKay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, Anzac stories are often coloured by racism and ongoing injustices that negate the myth of Anzac ‘mateship’.
Jim McKay, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/114742
2019-04-23T20:15:13Z
2019-04-23T20:15:13Z
Before the Anzac biscuit, soldiers ate a tile so hard you could write on it
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270323/original/file-20190423-15218-1386xfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christmas hard tack biscuit: Boer War. Australian War Memorial. Accession Number: REL/10747.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C116141">Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before Anzac biscuits found the sticky sweet form we bake and eat today, Anzac soldiers ate durable but bland “Anzac tiles”, a new name for an ancient ration. </p>
<p>Anzac tiles are also known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/beans-anzac-book-shaped-how-australians-think-about-gallipoli-38203">army biscuits</a>, ship’s biscuits, or hard tack. A variety of homemade sweet <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=473">biscuits sent to soldiers</a> during the first world war may have been referred to as “Anzac biscuits” to distinguish them from “Anzac tiles” on the battlefield. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/feeding-the-troops-the-emotional-meaning-of-food-in-wartime-46937">Feeding the troops: the emotional meaning of food in wartime</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Rations and care package treats alike can be found in museum collections, often classified as “heraldry” alongside medals and uniforms. They sometimes served novel purposes: Sergeant Cecil Robert Christmas wrote <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C114420?image=2">a Christmas card from Gallipoli</a> on a hard tack biscuit in 1915.</p>
<p>The back of the biscuit reads “M[erry] Christ[mas] [Illegible] / Prosperous New Y[ear] / from Old friends / Anzac / Gallipoli 1915 / [P]te C.R. Christmas MM / 3903 / [illegible] / AIF AAMC”. More than a Christmas card, biscuits like these gave family at home a taste of foods soldiers carried and ate in battle. Archives around the world hold dozens of similar edible letters home. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270385/original/file-20190423-175510-1jdu8ho.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270385/original/file-20190423-175510-1jdu8ho.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270385/original/file-20190423-175510-1jdu8ho.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270385/original/file-20190423-175510-1jdu8ho.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270385/original/file-20190423-175510-1jdu8ho.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270385/original/file-20190423-175510-1jdu8ho.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270385/original/file-20190423-175510-1jdu8ho.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270385/original/file-20190423-175510-1jdu8ho.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Damaged army hard tack biscuit used as a Christmas card. Accession number REL/00918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Biscuit as stationery</h2>
<p>This <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C114894">Anzac tile</a> was made in Melbourne. In pencil, an anonymous soldier has documented his location directly on the biscuit’s surface: “Engineers Camp, Seymour. April 2nd to 25th 1917.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267018/original/file-20190402-177163-1nc7cx8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267018/original/file-20190402-177163-1nc7cx8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267018/original/file-20190402-177163-1nc7cx8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267018/original/file-20190402-177163-1nc7cx8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267018/original/file-20190402-177163-1nc7cx8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267018/original/file-20190402-177163-1nc7cx8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267018/original/file-20190402-177163-1nc7cx8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267018/original/file-20190402-177163-1nc7cx8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Army Hard-tack Biscuit. Australian War Memorial. Accession Number: REL/03116.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C114894">Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1435">In her history of the Anzac biscuit</a>, culinary historian Allison Reynolds observes that “soldiers creatively made use of hardtack biscuits as a way of solving the shortage of stationery”. </p>
<h2>Hardtack art</h2>
<p>Army biscuits also became art materials on the battlefield. <a href="https://www.agsa.sa.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/sappers-shrapnel-contemporary-art-and-art-trenches/">This Boer War era</a> “Christmas hardtack biscuit”, artist unknown, serves as an elaborate picture frame.</p>
<p>Incorporating embroidery that uses the biscuit’s perforations as a guide, it also includes bullets, which form a metallic border for the photograph mounted on the biscuit. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267019/original/file-20190402-177193-6qu7zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267019/original/file-20190402-177193-6qu7zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267019/original/file-20190402-177193-6qu7zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267019/original/file-20190402-177193-6qu7zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267019/original/file-20190402-177193-6qu7zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267019/original/file-20190402-177193-6qu7zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267019/original/file-20190402-177193-6qu7zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267019/original/file-20190402-177193-6qu7zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christmas hard tack biscuit: Boer War. Australian War Memorial. Accession Number: REL/10747.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C116141">Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A tin sealed with sadness</h2>
<p>During WWI, any care package biscuit that was sweetly superior to an Anzac tile <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/anzac-biscuit-bakeoff">might have been called “Anzac biscuit”</a>. Eventually, the name “Anzac biscuit” was given to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/triplej-breakfast/anzac-biscuit-chat/9691258">a specific recipe</a> containing golden syrup, desiccated coconut, oats, but never eggs. </p>
<p>Anzac biscuits held in our archives evoke everyday experiences of baking and eating. In one case, the biscuits also tell a story of loss. Lance Corporal Terry Hendle was killed in action just hours after his mother’s homemade biscuits arrived in Vietnam. <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2143015">The tin</a> was returned to his mother, Adelaide, who kept it sealed and passed it down to his sister, Desley. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/terrys-biscuits">Australian War Memorial curator Dianne Rutherford explains</a> that the museum will never open the sealed tin, because “this tin became a family Memorial to Terry and is significant for that reason. After Terry’s death, Adelaide and Desley never baked Anzac biscuits again”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267017/original/file-20190402-177196-1cf9die.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267017/original/file-20190402-177196-1cf9die.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267017/original/file-20190402-177196-1cf9die.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267017/original/file-20190402-177196-1cf9die.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267017/original/file-20190402-177196-1cf9die.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267017/original/file-20190402-177196-1cf9die.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267017/original/file-20190402-177196-1cf9die.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267017/original/file-20190402-177196-1cf9die.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sealed biscuit tin with Anzac biscuits: Lance Corporal Terence ‘Terry’ Edward Hendle, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. Australian War Memorial. Accession Number: AWM2016.460.1.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2143015">Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, biscuit manufacturers must apply for Department of Veterans’ Affairs permission to use the word “Anzac”, which will only be granted if “<a href="http://www.dva.gov.au/commemorations-memorials-and-war-graves/protecting-word-anzac">the product generally conforms to the traditional recipe and shape</a>”. Variations on the name are also <a href="https://www.goodfood.com.au/eat-out/news/potential-fines-for-chocolate-chips-in-anzac-biscuits-says-veterans-affairs-20190419-h1dnqp">not permitted</a> - in a recent example, ice cream chain Gelato Messina was asked to change the name of a gelato from “Anzac Bikkie” to “Anzac Biscuit”. </p>
<p>The Anzac tile, on the other hand, rarely rates a mention in our commemorations of Anzacs at war – although <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/learn/schools/resources/hard-tack">school children </a>and <a href="https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/anzac-centenary/hard-tacks-and-bully-beef-a-critics-harsh-review-of-what-the-anzacs-really-ate/news-story/3e2f5760be22b4087018b90493d49b78">food critics</a> alike undertake taste tests today in an effort to understand the <a href="https://theconversation.com/bread-like-chaff-and-putrid-rations-how-ww1-troops-obsessed-over-food-55312">culinary “trials” of the Anzac experience</a>.</p>
<p>Scholar Sian Supski argues that Anzac biscuits have become a “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443050609388050">culinary memorial</a>”. What if the biscuits you bake this Anzac day ended up in a museum? What stories do your biscuits tell?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Lindsay will be launching a three year project about biscuits called “Tasting History” during the <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/everyday-militarisms-public-symposium-tickets-59566640425">Everyday Militarisms Symposium</a> at the University of Sydney on April 26.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindsay Kelley receives funding from an Australia Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award.</span></em></p>
Army ration biscuits known as ‘Anzac tiles’ were durable but bland - as Australian war archives show, they served as stationery, Christmas cards and as the basis of art.
Lindsay Kelley, Lecturer, Art & Design, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/110880
2019-04-11T20:11:26Z
2019-04-11T20:11:26Z
Friday essay: do ‘the French’ care about Anzac?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267260/original/file-20190403-177167-5e35he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This large 'Do Not Forget Australia' sign in a yard at the Victoria school in Villers-Bretonneux, is the heir of smaller signs once placed in classrooms by Australian authorities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the first world war came to an end on the Western Front in <a href="https://theconversation.com/100-years-since-the-ww1-armistice-remembrance-day-remains-a-powerful-reminder-of-the-cost-of-war-103232">November 1918</a>, it was time for Australian soldiers to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14490854.2018.1558078">return home</a>. As in Gallipoli, they left behind their fellow Australians who had died. But the Australian public felt less anxiety about the war graves on the Western Front than those in Gallipoli. France was a mostly Christian country, and an Allied nation. Surely, the French would deeply care about the Anzacs?</p>
<p>Soon after the war, the Australian government tried to impose the view that Australians had saved the city of Amiens. Canadians, British, French and others were claiming the same, as the Third Battle of Picardy had been an Allied operation. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266212/original/file-20190327-139368-1yee9ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266212/original/file-20190327-139368-1yee9ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266212/original/file-20190327-139368-1yee9ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266212/original/file-20190327-139368-1yee9ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266212/original/file-20190327-139368-1yee9ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266212/original/file-20190327-139368-1yee9ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1222&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266212/original/file-20190327-139368-1yee9ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1222&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266212/original/file-20190327-139368-1yee9ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1222&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian commemorative plaque, Cathedral of Amiens.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">author</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Realising that the good people of Amiens would certainly never believe that the Australians had done it all, Australian authorities turned their interest to much smaller villages to have their glorious – and often historically inaccurate – narrative displayed, and therefore ensure the commemoration of the Anzacs.</p>
<p>This worked well enough for them. Back in 1919, some French people were genuinely keen to contribute to the Australian state-sponsored glorification of the Anzacs in the Somme area. They were mostly motivated by the prospect of Australian pounds.</p>
<p>A few mayors clearly indicated that, for money, they would honour the Australian war dead, and chose to celebrate the Australian narrative of the war. </p>
<p>The French Mayor of Steenwerk, for instance, could not have been more explicit when he reached out to the Australian Governor-General in 1920, writing: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In return [for Australian financial assistance] we make this offer […] The old men of the Hospital will take care of [the remains of your gallant soldiers] and will consider it an honour to tend the graves and ornament them with flowers. On the front of the new edifice, we shall put the inscription: ‘In Memory of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers gloriously buried under our soil during the war of 1914–1918.’ Thus [your people] will have the satisfaction of thinking and knowing from the antipodes, [that] the memorial to their dead, associated to a charitable idea, will be perpetuated from generation to generation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He wasn’t the only one. The Mayor of Villers-Bretonneux, Dr Jules Vendeville, was even more cunning in securing Australian financial assistance. He had <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/RELAWM00770">a plaque</a> made celebrating Australian heroes so that the Australian government would finally commit to building the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villers%E2%80%93Bretonneux_Australian_National_Memorial">Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux</a>. The money started pouring in.</p>
<h2>Instilling Anzac</h2>
<p>Better yet, when the <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/171240567?searchTerm=victoria%20villers-bretonneux%20fund%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20&searchLimits=">Victoria Villers-Bretonneux Fund</a> based in Melbourne approached Dr Vendeville in 1922 to discuss how the money raised by Victorians could be used to help Villers-Bretonneux’s reconstruction and commemorate the sacrifice of Australian war dead, the mayor proposed public baths .. and an abattoir! You can imagine how this went down. </p>
<p>As a result, Australians, through Victoria’s then director of Education Frank Tate, raised the idea of a commemorative school, but the Mayor of Villers-Bretonneux did not want this. </p>
<p>Instead, the French mayor simply crafted a deceptive financial system, which would lead Australians to believe that all of their money went to rebuild what is today <a href="https://www.museeaustralien.com/en-au/ecole-victoria">Victoria School</a> at Villers-Bretonneux, while actually using parts of the funds for different purposes. </p>
<p>In the interwar period, the school kids of Villers-Bretonneux were entrusted with keeping the memory of the Anzacs alive. Tate was the one who had the “Do not Forget Australia” signs put in each classroom of this small primary school in rural France. It was, essentially, propaganda.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266219/original/file-20190327-139374-et1tbt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266219/original/file-20190327-139374-et1tbt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266219/original/file-20190327-139374-et1tbt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266219/original/file-20190327-139374-et1tbt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266219/original/file-20190327-139374-et1tbt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266219/original/file-20190327-139374-et1tbt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266219/original/file-20190327-139374-et1tbt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266219/original/file-20190327-139374-et1tbt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=402&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 National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, France. The memorial commemorates nearly 11,000 Australians with no known grave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And so it was that in the 1920s, on the Western Front, the memory of Australian soldiers was in fact promoted and paid for by Australian authorities, rather than the French. The French had other priorities – and who could blame them? </p>
<p>Australians and the British had it comparatively easy during the war. France lost nearly 1.4 million soldiers (and 7.2% of its population overall), and a fifth of its territory was utterly and completely destroyed. That level of devastation, to this day, is barely comprehensible for those who have not visited the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/news/red-zone/">Red Zone</a> around Verdun. </p>
<p>Still, the remembrance of Australian soldiers was not always financially motivated. Some locals remembered the diggers fondly, as they also remembered soldiers of the 30 or so Allied nations who had come to fight in France. </p>
<p>In fact, had it not been for a handful of French people who founded in 1955 the Welcome Committee, which then became <a href="https://www.museeaustralien.com/en-au/asso-franco-australienne">the French-Australian Association of Villers-Bretonneux</a>, the French memory of Australian soldiers in the Somme would have all but disappeared in the 1960s and 1970s. As a thank you, some of the members of this association were bestowed with the <a href="http://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-11692">Order of Australia</a>, once the Anzac legend became a commodity in high demand for Australian politicians in the 1990s. </p>
<h2>Putting tiny towns on the map</h2>
<p>As time progressed, other villages in Northern France saw how Villers-Bretonneux was benefitting from tourism and the visits of Australian politicians. They too wished to reap the rewards of this memory boom. The towns of Bullecourt and Vignacourt both renamed one of their streets Rue des Australiens in the late 1980s. Soon after, Australian-funded memorials were built and visitors came. </p>
<p>But what’s in it for these French villages? While observing Anzac Day ceremonies at Bullecourt in 2011, an official from the Australian Embassy in Paris told me it “puts them on the map”. The French had known this for a while. The local newspaper La Voix du Nord reported in the early 1990s: “Paradoxically, Bullecourt (a small village south of Arras) is better known in Sidney [sic] or in any other town in Australia, than in France.”</p>
<p>In its article, the newspaper felt obliged to locate Bullecourt in relation to nearby Arras because even French readers would not necessarily know of its existence. For most French, these Australian “battlefields” were entirely unknown and of too small a scale to be remembered.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266216/original/file-20190327-139361-1sb479b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266216/original/file-20190327-139361-1sb479b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266216/original/file-20190327-139361-1sb479b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266216/original/file-20190327-139361-1sb479b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266216/original/file-20190327-139361-1sb479b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266216/original/file-20190327-139361-1sb479b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266216/original/file-20190327-139361-1sb479b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266216/original/file-20190327-139361-1sb479b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anzac Day ceremony, Bullecourt, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the 2000s, with cheaper airfares and what historians have coined the “return of Anzac”, more and more Australians have visited the former Western Front in France and Belgium. This interest was fostered by former prime minister John Howard, who preferred the Western Front’s association with victory to the defeat at Gallipoli. </p>
<p>Tens of millions of Australian dollars were spent developing new commemorative sites for Australians to<a href="https://www.visit-somme.com/great-war/diggers-footsteps"> visit</a>, at times helped along by some <a href="https://www.dva.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/about%20dva/media-centre/media-backgrounder/P02287_Bullecourt_Museum_media_background.pdf">French euros</a> to boost local tourism. </p>
<p>Australians funded and created <a href="https://www.dva.gov.au/commemorations-memorials-and-war-graves/office-australian-war-graves/current-projects/australian-0">more commemorative sites</a> in France between 1998 and 2018 than between 1918 and 1938. Anzac is indeed a <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/consuming-anzac/">big industry</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266217/original/file-20190327-139341-1wp1er9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266217/original/file-20190327-139341-1wp1er9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266217/original/file-20190327-139341-1wp1er9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266217/original/file-20190327-139341-1wp1er9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266217/original/file-20190327-139341-1wp1er9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266217/original/file-20190327-139341-1wp1er9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266217/original/file-20190327-139341-1wp1er9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266217/original/file-20190327-139341-1wp1er9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anglo commemorative tourism has boomed on the former Western Front in the last 20 years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before the Australian government <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326010561_'A_piece_of_Australia_in_France'_Australian_authorities_and_the_commemoration_of_Anzac_Day_at_Villers-Bretonneux_in_the_last_decade">took over the organisation of Anzac Day</a> commemorations at Villers-Bretonneux and turned them into a big TV show, they were a small affair where French locals and visiting Australians would gather after the service for a luncheon. In 2001, however, the Australian Embassy stopped funding lunch, as too many locals were coming for the free food without attending the ceremony.</p>
<h2>Australia a minor player</h2>
<p>Beyond these small villages, most French people are unaware that Australians fought in the first world war. The second world war and its stories of resistance and collaboration have dominated <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10361146.2015.1079940">France’s official memory landscape </a>instead. Until the centenary of the WWI, fewer French people were interested in that conflict, compared to the huge network of associations and museums dedicated to WWII. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the <a href="http://eduscol.education.fr/histoire-geographie/se-former/actualiser-et-approfondir-ses-connaissances/par-theme-en-histoire/la-premiere-guerre-mondiale.html">French national curriculum</a> in history does not discuss Australia’s engagement in the first world war. It mentions the involvement of the colonies but France had its own empire back then. </p>
<p>Additionally, the French didactic approach is more cultural than military, and the emphasis is put on Franco-German reconciliation. National school textbooks insist on the story of <a href="https://www.ac-paris.fr/portail/jcms/p1_814037/la-premiere-guerre-mondiale-dans-les-programmes-scolaires">European integration</a>. So the causes, the consequences, the mass violence, the horror and the uselessness of the war, as well as the idea of total war, are what is studied rather than which troops fought in what village. </p>
<p>And although proportionally the number of Australian volunteers was <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/journal/j38/vebs">relatively </a>high with regard to the total Australian population, they represented less than 0.6% of <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-great-war-wwi-100462">the total number of soldiers</a> involved in the first world war. </p>
<p>Put simply, unless a French person has done more reading than usual about this war, extensively visited the former front, or happens to live in one of the few villages where Australian troops were involved, then they are very unlikely to be aware of the engagement of Australian soldiers in it.</p>
<h2>Commemorative diplomacy</h2>
<p>While the vast majority of French are unaware of the Anzacs, their government has recently rediscovered this shared page of history. Throughout the negotiations for the huge $50 billion sale of <a href="https://www.lecourrieraustralien.com/australia-and-france-sign-future-submarine-inter-governmental-agreement/?lang=en">French submarines to Australia</a>, French authorities lavishly praised the Anzacs. </p>
<p>The French State started sending <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfGrZqhO8ak">senior representatives</a> to Villers-Bretonneux for Anzac Day instead of local officials, the Champs-Elysées was bedecked with French and Australian flags for subsequent state visits, and Australia (with New Zealand) was chosen as guest of honour for the 2016 Bastille Day parade. No effort was spared to seal the deal.</p>
<p>In 2015, the French government welcomed the idea of the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/100m-monash-centre-on-track-to-miss-visitor-target-by-many-thousands-20181204-p50k2z.html">Sir John Monash Centre</a>, which has since been built on the grounds of the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery in northern France. No French historians were involved in the project, though. The centre tells the Australian version of the war, tinged with nationalism, and showcases a very <a href="http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/fathi-romain-look-at-me-look-at-me-the-sir-john-monash-centre-at-villers-bretonneux-a-frenchmans-reflection-on-his-visit/">self-centred and biased narrative</a> of the conflict.</p>
<p>Again, the French don’t mind too much: not only was this $100m project funded by the Australian taxpayer, it will generate more tourism to a now essentially rural region, devastated by the economic crisis of the 1980s, which does not attract tourists as Paris, Provence or Brittany do.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266221/original/file-20190327-139364-1t2so3l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266221/original/file-20190327-139364-1t2so3l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266221/original/file-20190327-139364-1t2so3l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266221/original/file-20190327-139364-1t2so3l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266221/original/file-20190327-139364-1t2so3l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266221/original/file-20190327-139364-1t2so3l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266221/original/file-20190327-139364-1t2so3l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266221/original/file-20190327-139364-1t2so3l.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">Front exterior of the John Monash Centre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux was unveiled in 1938 – and only then because <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/H17493/?image=1">King George VI</a> was performing that ceremony – no French Prime Minister had set a foot at the memorial until 25 April 2018 when the Monash Centre was unveiled.</p>
<p>There, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe paid tribute to Australian soldiers. But don’t be fooled, homage paid to the glorious Australian heroes is paid elsewhere to the Canadians, the Irish, the Indians, the Americans, the South Africans etc etc. Commemorative diplomacy cares little about history, but does much to facilitate the countries’ political and commercial agendas of the day.</p>
<h2>What about the Moroccan division?</h2>
<p>So why do we care about the French remembering the Anzacs? Why does the press, every year, feature articles about the French commemorating Australian service? Is this a remnant of a lingering colonial insecurity, whereby we can only exist as a nation if others acknowledge that we are one? </p>
<p>This craving to be <a href="http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/is-australia-spending-too-much-on-the-anzac-centenary-a-comparison-with-france/">bigger than Ben Hur</a> when it comes to first world war extraterritorial commemorations is also a convenient vehicle with which to locate Australianness outside of Australia, and therefore shift the national narrative away from the story of dispossession. </p>
<p>Perhaps we shouldn’t care too much whether the French or anyone else remember the Anzacs. National self-worth can’t come from overseas. As Malcolm Fraser put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The constant need to be aggressive about one’s national identity, to vociferously reaffirm it, usually indicates a sense of inferiority towards other nations. Being able to regard oneself as an Australian, being able to contribute to Australia, does not depend on outward symbols.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266224/original/file-20190327-139361-9cdyy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266224/original/file-20190327-139361-9cdyy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266224/original/file-20190327-139361-9cdyy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266224/original/file-20190327-139361-9cdyy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266224/original/file-20190327-139361-9cdyy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266224/original/file-20190327-139361-9cdyy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266224/original/file-20190327-139361-9cdyy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266224/original/file-20190327-139361-9cdyy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">French, British, Canadian, Australian war graves alongside those of the soldiers of the Moroccan Division, testifying to the allied nature of the Second Villers-Bretonneux operation. Crucifix Corner Cemetery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead of desperately wishing others to remember us, perhaps Australians should change their perspective. At the new Monash Centre, Australians don’t remember or discuss <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326009047_'They_Attack_Villers-Bretonneux_and_block_the_road_to_Amiens'_A_French_perspective_on_Second_Villers-Bretonneux">the French Army’s Moroccan Division</a>, which relieved the AIF’s 52nd Battalion during Second Villers-Bretonneux in late April 1918. </p>
<p>This was a joint operation, so why make it Australian? We can’t expect others to remember us if we don’t remember them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110880/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Romain Fathi 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>
Since the end of the first world war, the Australian media has often reported that ‘the French’ care about, remember and even venerate the Anzacs. But is this true? And which French people?
Romain Fathi, Lecturer, History, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/104855
2018-12-24T18:37:49Z
2018-12-24T18:37:49Z
The Army has a public perception problem. Here’s how it can regain trust with society
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247637/original/file-20181128-32208-jxunaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In recent years, the purpose of the Army has diverged from the priorities of broader Australian society.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Peled/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Do something for yourself, join the Army Reserve.”</p>
<p>This was one of the Army’s most iconic campaigns, broadcast on Australian television throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVOdAPWxvz4">advertisements</a> were set to Tchaikovsky’s rousing battle hymn, the 1812 Overture, and portrayed an Army that was as comfortable displaying its militarism as it was exhorting the perks of enlistment. </p>
<p>But as every child of that era knows, the ads were particularly memorable because of the irreverent lyrics they inspired. In households across Australia, a chorus of children’s voices entered the refrain “join the Army get your head blown off” into the annals of Australian history.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iVOdAPWxvz4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Do something for yourself’ Army campaign.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For a long time, the identity of the Army was inextricably connected to the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/anzac-voices/landing">landing at Gallipoli</a> in 1915 and the sacred legends of the first world war. The institution stood for such <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/RCDIG1069871/">ANZAC values</a> as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>reckless valo[u]r in a good cause … enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship, and endurance that will never own defeat </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This lore nourished the public’s broad-based support for the institution. </p>
<h2>What Australians think of the Army today</h2>
<p>But as the spectre of war has faded in recent years, the purpose of the Army has diverged from the priorities of broader Australian society. A tension between the two has become more apparent: civil society now has the expectation of peace, whereas the military is still preparing for possible war.</p>
<p>In truth, the process of dislocation was well underway when the “Do something for yourself” campaign was launched. Overall support for the armed forces was in decline, and a review conducted prior to the release of the 1987 Defence White Paper indicated the Army “<a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p68061/mobile/ch01s02.html">was having difficulties adjusting to the post-Vietnam War era</a>”. </p>
<p>As Australia’s strategic circumstances became more stable in the 1990s, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592319108423002">the public shifted its focus</a> to domestic priorities. National defence and security matters became detached from public discourse.</p>
<p>Today, the public’s connection with the Army is largely exercised through abstract or ceremonial means. ANZAC Day continues to capture the public’s imagination, as is demonstrated by the growing attendance at <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/media/press-releases/anzac-day-2018">dawn services</a>. This, however, has not translated into greater appreciation for the tasks and objectives of the institution. Australian society lacks an anchor by which to make sense of its own modern Army.</p>
<p>Under these circumstances, <a href="https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/import/ASPI_attitude_matters.pdf?mXbJerEKbfYVaQW8Mqw8N5sNFKAgOCKV">public attitudes</a> towards the Army are influenced by ideology and politics, individual experience and contemporary values. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247639/original/file-20181128-32185-1rzug9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247639/original/file-20181128-32185-1rzug9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247639/original/file-20181128-32185-1rzug9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247639/original/file-20181128-32185-1rzug9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247639/original/file-20181128-32185-1rzug9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247639/original/file-20181128-32185-1rzug9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247639/original/file-20181128-32185-1rzug9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Army is struggling to rebrand itself and attract new recruits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Francois Nascimbeni/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To be sure, the Army is still praised for its courage and integrity, its aptitude to “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=rRKqAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=anzacs+dirty+dozen&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2kMOxmYreAhWEA4gKHb3DCZMQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=anzacs%20dirty%20dozen&f=false">punch above its weight,</a>” and its readiness to fight hostile nations and protect vulnerable people in the region.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-naval-upgrade-may-not-be-enough-to-keep-pace-in-a-fast-changing-region-105044">Australia's naval upgrade may not be enough to keep pace in a fast-changing region</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Extensive public consultations with everyday Australians prior to the release of the 2016 Defence White Paper showed that people viewed the armed services with a <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/Whitepaper/docs/GuardingUncertainty.pdf">high degree of respect</a> and took “pride in the professionalism, operational record and achievements” of military personnel.</p>
<p>Yet, the Army is also criticised for its adherence to outmoded traditions. As the <a href="https://www.news.com.au/news/australian-defence-force-scandals/news-story/2f963221eee6f430f23f5043469cc562">media has exposed</a> numerous scandals involving sexual harassment, bullying, hazing and allegations of rape in recent years, the Army has been chastised for allowing a toxic internal culture to develop. </p>
<p>In addition, the Army has increasingly been accused of involvement in “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=rRKqAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=anzacs+dirty+dozen&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2kMOxmYreAhWEA4gKHb3DCZMQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=anzacs%20dirty%20dozen&f=false">other people’s wars</a>”, a reproach frequently heard during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to some <a href="http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/reynolds-henry-unnecessary-wars/">historians</a>, Australia’s participation in “unnecessary wars” is a distinguishing feature of the nation’s history.</p>
<h2>Why this divide is problematic</h2>
<p>Such conflicted characterisations are, in part, a product of the public’s <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/Whitepaper/docs/GuardingUncertainty.pdf">segregation from military life</a>. Unless one lives in Canberra or Townsville, where the Army is an ordinary and established part of daily existence, the military is seen as someone else’s remit. </p>
<p>This separation has been exacerbated by the Army itself. While the military shares the same core democratic values as civilians, it largely accepts the traditional <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Soldier_and_the_State.html?id=1PqFe0rsfdcC&redir_esc=y">ideological divide</a> between its conservative leadership and liberal, individualistic civil society. </p>
<p>The Army remains <a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=247064382518339;res=IELAPA">a closed, insular system,</a> committed first and foremost to producing first-class soldiers. The belief is the Army <em>should</em> operate in a separate domain so it can remain effective and apolitical. But as the inner workings of our liberal democracy become more convoluted, the disconnect is proving obstructive. For both sectors. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-australia-goes-to-war-public-trust-depends-on-better-oversight-62163">When Australia goes to war, public trust depends on better oversight</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The public sees an institution inclined to living in its own myth, and more concerned with integrating with the wider Australian defence force and other allied armies than interacting with Australian society. </p>
<p>The Army sees a society that does not understand what it does, or what it needs. It believes there is general support for its role in counter-terrorism actions, border protection, peacekeeping and restoring order after natural disasters, but limited appreciation of its operational realities, resourcing and equipment challenges, or other activities that are absent from the public discourse.</p>
<h2>Solutions for re-engaging with society</h2>
<p>So, how might this disconnect between the Army and society be ameliorated?</p>
<p>In an effort to keep pace with societal expectations, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-military-embraces-diversity-in-new-ad-campaign">modern recruitment campaigns</a> highlight a military that reflects the community it seeks to protect and the importance of a diverse and multicultural workforce with a broad skill base. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8PktiMLyiN0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Navy recruitment add emphasising the service’s multicultural make-up.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Likewise, the military leadership’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U&feature=youtu.be">strong condemnation</a> of misconduct among some personnel suggests that the institution is committed to improving its image and being more in line with the nation’s norms and standards.</p>
<p>An approach embraced by other liberal democracies, including the UK, US and Canada is to work within the myth-making paradigm to construct a <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/03/how-to-build-a-strategic-narrative">strategic narrative</a> that emphasises the Army’s value to society. Although such a narrative is only likely to resonate with those who already have a vested interest in the Army, it may well produce greater general awareness of its roles and missions.</p>
<p>These methods ignore the key strength of the Army, however. The service is in the business of direct engagement. Even as scandal, exclusivity and a sense of disconnection have undermined its reputation in recent years, the public continues to admire the institution’s readiness to put boots on the ground. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-china-us-tensions-on-the-rise-does-australia-need-a-new-defence-strategy-106515">With China-US tensions on the rise, does Australia need a new defence strategy?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Perhaps the answer, then, lies in an intensification of direct associations with society. A more visible presence in communities, an expansion of the reserves and more engagement in activities that foster shared experience could ease the degree of separation between the sectors, and rekindle mutual trust.</p>
<p>That <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/ADC/Publications/Shedden/2012/AGNEW%20CM%20Relations%202.pdf">trust needs to be present</a>. The Army is reliant on society for its very existence. Indeed, if the Army becomes segregated from its future ranks, and from the society it is entrusted to protect, it has lost its <em>raison d'être</em>. </p>
<p>The bond between the Army and society should be carefully nurtured and protected as a vital element of national security.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104855/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marigold Black is a Research Fellow with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University who is assigned to work on contract with the Australian Army Research Centre.</span></em></p>
There is a troubling disconnect between a once-iconic institution and broader society.
Marigold Black, AARC Research Fellow, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/107003
2018-11-21T00:38:02Z
2018-11-21T00:38:02Z
An urgent rethink is needed on the idealised image of the ANZAC digger
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246372/original/file-20181120-161641-oqdjg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Crowds assemble at Melbourne's shrine of remembrance on Anzac Day, April 25, 2018,</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Castro/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 100th anniversary of the truce that ended the first world war has been marked. More than $1 billion is being spent on remembering the dead. Now is the time to become more honest – respectfully – about the way our military engagements, past and present, are depicted in memorials and on important days. </p>
<p>Lives depend on telling it how it really is, both on the battlefield and at home. Present and past military personnel of all genders feel they have to live up to the image of the rugged, male digger who shrugs off traumatic events.
This <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/archetype">archetype</a> is unattainable - and the mental health consequences can be tragic.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246572/original/file-20181120-161644-14pekf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246572/original/file-20181120-161644-14pekf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246572/original/file-20181120-161644-14pekf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246572/original/file-20181120-161644-14pekf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246572/original/file-20181120-161644-14pekf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246572/original/file-20181120-161644-14pekf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246572/original/file-20181120-161644-14pekf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Are military personnel past and present at risk of the tragic consequences of mental health issues being forgotten as the war dead are remembered?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Suicide and self-harm among Australian soldiers and veterans have become endemic in recent decades. Between <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/veterans/incidence-of-suicide-in-adf-personnel-2001-2015/contents/table-of-contents">2001 and 2015</a>, 325 currently serving and discharged military personnel took their own lives, with another 84 in 2017 alone. The <a href="https://www.dva.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/publications/health/Final_Report.pdf">National Mental Health Commission</a> has found that one of the most common barriers to seeking help among soldiers and veterans with mental health issues is societal stigma, which can lead to self-harm and suicide. </p>
<p>One US study found that deployment to the Afghanistan and Iraq theatres of conflict did not result in a significantly higher rate of suicide than for soldiers who did not deploy, or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/us/study-finds-no-link-between-military-suicide-rate-and-deployments.html">remained at home</a>. But the suicide rate for all those military personnel was markedly higher than for the civilian population.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/reliving-the-pain-of-war-military-deployment-and-ptsd-11065">Reliving the pain of war: military deployment and PTSD</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is taking bold steps towards addressing service-related mental illness and suicide, most recently through the <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/Health/_master/HealthUpdates/docs/Defence_Mental_Health_Wellbeing_Strategy_2018-2023.PDF">Defence Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2018-2023</a>, that aims to ensure all military personnel are “Fit to Fight, Fit to Work, Fit for Life”.</p>
<p>However, their attempts to combat alarming suicide rates - as <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/leaving-defence-force-before-age-24-doubles-suicide-risk/8667484">male veterans</a> are up to twice as likely to take their own lives as civilian men and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/05/29/614011243/battling-depression-and-suicide-among-female-veterans">female veterans</a> 2.5 times - lack potency when faced with Australian war commemoration that continues to emphasise outdated views of both gender and psychiatry. Reliance on early 20th century ideals to define the Australian soldier perpetuates the stigmatisation of mental illness. And this in turn contributes to high suicide rates among military personnel.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246362/original/file-20181120-161644-1q2ra71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246362/original/file-20181120-161644-1q2ra71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246362/original/file-20181120-161644-1q2ra71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246362/original/file-20181120-161644-1q2ra71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246362/original/file-20181120-161644-1q2ra71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246362/original/file-20181120-161644-1q2ra71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246362/original/file-20181120-161644-1q2ra71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former prime minister Paul Keating flanked by the current PM Scott Morrison and opposition leader Bill Shorten at the Australian War Memorial on Nov 11, marking 100 years since the truce that ended world war one.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australia has largely defined itself through its military involvement since the first world war, particularly in the last 20 years. During the conflict’s centenary, Australia spent <a href="https://arts.monash.edu/news/consuming-anzac-some-thoughts-on-the-anzac-centenary/">$552 million</a> on commemoration efforts, five times that spent by the United Kingdom, and an alarming 92 times that of Germany. This included $100 million spent on the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/100m-monash-centre-to-form-entry-point-to-france-s-western-front-20180413-p4z9cg.html">John Monash Centre</a> in Villers-Brettoneux, France, to commemorate the men killed in the war.</p>
<p>In early November, the federal government announced that the Australian War Memorial would receive <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-07/underground-war-memorial-expansion-tipped-to-top-500-million/9627910">$498 million</a> to fund renovations, including a significant increase in commemoration space. The continued federal spending on remembering the dead over sustaining living military personnel has prompted veterans’ groups to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/01/rsl-urges-coalition-to-match-war-memorial-upgrade-with-spending-on-veterans-services">call for funding</a> that prioritises struggling ex-servicemen and women.</p>
<p>The Australian nation was in its teens when the first world war broke out, and political authorities were eager to cement its reputation. In the absence of the long military traditions of European nations – and in an environment where black history was rendered largely invisible – Australian political authorities identified the conflict and the men who fought it as the epitome of national virility and masculinity. This was combined with late 19th century rural “bush” manhood to create the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443059809387363">legend of the Australian soldier</a>.</p>
<p>Since the first world war, this partly mythic figure has served as a cultural model for soldiers to emulate. Its importance is reiterated during national commemorations such as Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246370/original/file-20181120-161624-2stzhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246370/original/file-20181120-161624-2stzhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246370/original/file-20181120-161624-2stzhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246370/original/file-20181120-161624-2stzhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246370/original/file-20181120-161624-2stzhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246370/original/file-20181120-161624-2stzhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246370/original/file-20181120-161624-2stzhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dr Brendan Nelson, a medical doctor, and director of Canberra’s Australian War Memorial, with Prince Charles, pictured on November 11, 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, this mono-cultural and mono-gendered ideal does not represent 21st century Australia, nor its military. From 1992, the ADF began to move towards inclusion by allowing <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/serving-silence/">female and lesbian, gay and bisexual military personnel</a> into the regular armed forces. In 2005, transgender members were also permitted to join.</p>
<p>Despite these significant changes, outdated social and political representations continue to compel military personnel of all genders to embody the white, male soldier of the first world war.</p>
<p>The vast numbers who were <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-shock-of-war-55376701/">diagnosed with shellshock </a>or other psychiatric conditions during the war are also marginalised by this ideal. Mental illness was traditionally <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719087240/">feminised</a> in the British Empire, meaning that the essentially masculine Anzac soldier could not conceivably suffer from a psychiatric condition.</p>
<p>Today’s representations of first world war soldiers continue to perpetuate these beliefs, including Peter Jackson’s recent film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/">They Shall Not Grow Old</a> . Despite aiming to represent the British soldier experience, the film failed to mention the shellshock that affected 80,000 British men during the war. Within Australia, <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/LIB100023707">shellshocked</a> ex-servicemen struggled to live up to the Anzac legend.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PcgceA64aAI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Peter Jackson’s film “They shall not grow old” failed to mention the horrors of shellshock.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The continued emphasis on the cultural figure of the first world war Anzac today <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/anzacs-long-shadow">places pressure on soldiers and veterans</a> to continue fulfilling these unrealistic expectations, which can prevent them from seeking help for psychological wounds, or worse.</p>
<p>ADF policies that stress inclusion and appropriate mental health treatment aim to address the impact of societal changes. Although the first world war laid the foundations for continuing perceptions of the Australian soldier, it does not represent today’s diversity within the armed forces.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mindfulness-therapy-alleviates-soldiers-ptsd-but-only-in-the-short-term-45494">Mindfulness therapy alleviates soldiers' PTSD, but only in the short term</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The soldier archetype must be politically redefined. Mental illness within the armed forces should be publicly acknowledged as “normal” - as it has occurred as long as combat has existed, among soldiers of all ages, ranks and genders.</p>
<p>With the first world war centenary over, Australia must now move into a more progressive era of war commemoration that can effectively support its military personnel.</p>
<hr>
<ul>
<li>If this article raises any concerns for you, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or BeyondBlue on 1300 22 4636.</li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Effie Karageorgos 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>
Australia is spending cast amounts of money commemorating the war dead, but it’s time we took better care of ex-servicepeople who are still living.
Effie Karageorgos, Academic Tutor, History and Academic Skills, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/92580
2018-04-24T22:29:44Z
2018-04-24T22:29:44Z
Women have been neglected by the Anzac tradition, and it’s time that changed
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215314/original/file-20180418-163986-bo28v1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australian nurses and patients at the Auxiliary Hospital Unit in Antwerp during the first world war. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Anzac legend remains firmly centred on the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign of 1915, and the sacrifice of “sons and fathers” in frontline combat. The place of women in this foundational story is also made clear – that of onlookers and supporters.</p>
<p>In concluding her 2017 <a href="https://www.juliebishop.com.au/dawn-service-speech-anzac-day-address-gallipoli/">dawn service address</a> at Gallipoli, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told a story about Len Hall, one of the original “diggers” who fought at Gallipoli. He is said to have noticed a girl in the crowd who had gathered to farewell departing soldiers, and given her an emu feather that he plucked from his slouch hat. When he returned to Australia at the close of the war, this girl — who later became his wife — was waiting in the crowd to return the feather. </p>
<p>This is a story of hope, and of an ongoing fascination with and idealisation of the “digger”. It is also a story about the passive role of women as waiting mothers, wives and sisters. But women’s contributions are more complicated, varied and controversial than these stories allow. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-china-will-be-watching-how-we-commemorate-anzac-day-75856">Why China will be watching how we commemorate Anzac Day</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Undervalued women’s work</h2>
<p>Women were entirely absent from the Gallipoli landings; the only women in the vicinity were nurses serving on hospital ships and in the field hospital in Lemnos. These crucial and dangerous roles as nurses and ambulance drivers were <a href="http://anzac.unimelb.edu.au/anzac-day-is-it-just-for-the-boys/">publicly acknowledged in the early Anzac commemorations</a>.</p>
<p>However, as Anzac Day rituals evolved into the current dawn service, veterans’ march, and afternoon celebrations and sporting events, public recognition of this service declined. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214916/original/file-20180416-566-10s6159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214916/original/file-20180416-566-10s6159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214916/original/file-20180416-566-10s6159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214916/original/file-20180416-566-10s6159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214916/original/file-20180416-566-10s6159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214916/original/file-20180416-566-10s6159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214916/original/file-20180416-566-10s6159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ex-service women are often involved in the Anzac Day March.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For many years, ex-service women attended Anzac Day marches as spectators or walked in marches without service identification and without mention in the official program. While some were satisfied with this, others were not. </p>
<p>In a 1963 newspaper article the President of the Australian Women’s Army Service shared the group’s experience of “being ignored”. She pointed out they had until then received “less recognition than the boy scouts” (who were officially included in the march).</p>
<p>The Australian Women’s Army Service was actually formed <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/people/620601?c=people">in 1941</a> to free up men for combat roles. Women performed a wide range of (largely uncelebrated) <a href="https://www.army.gov.au/our-history/history-in-focus/womens-historical-contribution-recognised-on-anzac-day">work</a>, ranging from intelligence analysis to operating fixed gun emplacements in Australia, to working as canteen staff. </p>
<p>In 2002, Annie Leach headed the Perth Anzac Day march on the 100th anniversary of the army’s nursing corps, noting that WA nurses returning from the second world war were largely “a forgotten race”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-beard-and-the-long-tradition-of-women-being-told-to-shut-up-94285">Mary Beard and the long tradition of women being told to shut up</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Challenging core Anzac beliefs</h2>
<p>Women have not only had to fight to be recognised for their noncombatant war service, but are also credited with presenting the most serious of all challenges to Anzac core beliefs and rituals. This took the form of <a href="http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/mcs/article/view/4222/4498">non-violent Anzac Day protests</a> seeking to draw public attention to the issue of rape in war, and to oppose the system supporting wars and rape. </p>
<p>In the 1970s and 80s, groups such as the Women Against Rape in War collective bravely staged several such protests around Australia. These protests included the attempted laying of “rape wreaths” during dawn services as a way to mourn women raped in war. This stands in stark contrast to the comforting notion of wartime women waiting safely at home. </p>
<p>Such activity was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/lest-we-forget--the-women-who-marched-against-war-rape-20150430-1mxaxu.html">vilified</a> and indeed punished. In Sydney, 160 women protesters were charged with participating in the Anzac Day march without permission, which they had sought and been refused. As sociologist Catriona Elder has documented in her 2007 book Being Australian: Narratives of National Identity three women were jailed for one month for failing to keep a minimum distance of 400 metres from the end of the Anzac Day parade.</p>
<h2>Keepers of the tradition</h2>
<p>ABC coverage of the 2017 Gallipoli dawn service reported many people were moved to tears, as evidenced by inclusion of a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-25/gallipoli-dawn-service-tributes-led-by-julie-bishop/8470462">photograph</a> of a young woman wearing an “Anzac Day” beanie wiping her tears away. <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/35155009/anzac-day-julie-bishop-at-gallipoli-shares-touching-len-hall-love-story-during-dawn-service/">Other coverage</a> of Anzac Day 2017 features an image of a woman “watching as people sleep overnight”. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://espace.curtin.edu.au/bitstream/handle/20.500.11937/36786/226303.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y">examination of media coverage of Anzac Day in Perth since the 1980s</a> shows a growing expectation around women’s emotional engagement with, and support for, Anzac Day rituals. It also shows the emergence of an explicit contemporary role for women as guardians of the ongoing relevance and importance of the Day. This includes making sure that the family attends Anzac Day marches. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/flies-filth-and-bully-beef-life-at-gallipoli-in-1915-39321">Flies, filth and bully beef: life at Gallipoli in 1915</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The ‘modern’ digger</h2>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-06/andrew-hastie-says-women-should-not-serve-in-combat-roles/9402752">contentious move</a>, since the first of January 2013 women currently serving in the ADF have been <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/women/">entitled to take up front line and combat roles </a> while direct entry to these roles has been permitted from January 2016. In 2015, women constituted close to 15% of the deployed force. In 2017 the official definition of “veteran” was revised so that many older service-women will for the first time be officially recognised on Anzac Day 2018 as veterans. </p>
<p><a href="https://startsat60.com/news/women-to-lead-march-in-anzac-day-shake-up">Word is</a> that in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne this year the march will be led by service women. </p>
<p>Even though it is mooted as a “one-off” occurrence, is this a turning point after which women will be more equally recognised for their military service to the nation? Will women veterans be accorded the revered title of “digger”?</p>
<p>The role of women in the Anzac tradition is not just about the “one day” and fair recognition of women’s sacrifice and service; it’s also about how we understand quintessential “Australian” characteristics and the formation of the nation as the preserve of not just men but also women, and not just those who support but also those who challenge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92580/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn Mayes 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>
Among all things Anzac, the contribution of women is becoming more complicated and controversial.
Robyn Mayes, Senior Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/76326
2017-04-24T21:57:00Z
2017-04-24T21:57:00Z
Stitching lives back together: men’s rehabilitation embroidery in WWI
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166243/original/file-20170421-12655-xswy8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Part of a black cotton cushion cover depicting the Australian coat of arms embroidered by Lance Corporal Alfred Briggs (Albert Biggs), 20 Battalion, AIF.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Australian War Memorial</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Albert Biggs, a labourer from Sydney who enlisted in the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/dawn/empire/aif/">Australian Imperial Force</a> under the name Alfred Briggs, was 23 when he arrived in Gallipoli on 22 August 1915. </p>
<p>Biggs, as part of the second reinforcements for the 20th battalion, fought to defend the Anzac trenches on the ridge known as Russell’s Top, from where the ill-fated 3rd Light Horse Brigade had launched their attack for the Battle of the Nek. His battalion was evacuated to Egypt in December 1915 and sent to the Western Front the following April. </p>
<p>Biggs was awarded the Military Medal for “great initiative and bravery” at Lagnicourt on <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL45131/">15 April 1917</a>, but he was severely wounded at the second battle of Bullecourt on 5 May. Shrapnel flew into his left knee, leaving it permanently fused, and his right humerus was shattered. This damaged the nerves in his arm so badly that he could scarcely use his <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2014/07/30/stitches-time-rehabilitation-embroidery-awm-collection/">right hand</a>. </p>
<p>Biggs spent nearly 12 months in hospital in Rouen, France, before being moved to the Tooting Military Hospital in London, where he was first encouraged to take up embroidery. He returned to Sydney in September 1918 and spent almost two years at the 4th Australian General Hospital at Randwick (where the Prince of Wales Hospital stands today), and convalescent homes. He was discharged from the army in 1920.</p>
<p>Biggs was one of more than <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/ww1/">156,000 Australian men</a> who were wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner during the first world war. Like many of his comrades, however, it is also likely that he suffered from some form of <a href="http://theconversation.com/from-shell-shock-to-ptsd-a-century-of-invisible-war-trauma-74911">shell shock</a>. </p>
<p>Many of the hospitals tending the wounded during and after the War provided bright, clean, quiet environments where the men could perform meditative, transformative work that was essential to their rehabilitation from their physical and mental wounds. </p>
<p>One such activity was embroidery, also known as “fancy work”. Embroidery was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jdh/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jdh/epw043/2333849/The-work-of-masculine-fingers-the-Disabled?redirectedFrom=fulltext">widely</a> used as a form of therapy for British, Australian, and New Zealand soldiers wounded in the War - challenging the gendered construct of it as “women’s work” that was <a href="http://journalofmoderncraft.com/category/table-of-contents/page/4">ubiquitous</a> throughout the 19th century. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166207/original/file-20170421-21495-jnke30.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166207/original/file-20170421-21495-jnke30.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166207/original/file-20170421-21495-jnke30.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166207/original/file-20170421-21495-jnke30.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166207/original/file-20170421-21495-jnke30.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166207/original/file-20170421-21495-jnke30.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166207/original/file-20170421-21495-jnke30.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166207/original/file-20170421-21495-jnke30.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Embroidery depicting a French farmhouse, stitched by 2626 Private William George Hilton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hospitals in England, France, Australia, and New Zealand all offered embroidery therapy and important examples of the soldiers’ work can be found in places such as the <a href="http://allthatremains.net.nz/2014/09/recuperation-new-trades-and-crafts-aid-recovery/">TePapa Museum</a> in Wellington, New Zealand, the Australian War Memorial Museum and St Paul’s Cathedral in London, where the beautiful embroidered <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/stpaulslondon/sets/72157645431808070/">Altar Frontal</a> was created by <a href="https://www.stpauls.co.uk/history-collections/history/ww1/the-men-of-the-altar-frontal">wounded</a> soldiers from the UK, Australia, Canada, and South Africa.</p>
<p>Themes of the soldiers’ embroidery ranged from military heraldry to scenes from the French countryside to pieces for their sweethearts.</p>
<p>The 4 AGH in Randwick had vast recreation facilities to help with soldiers’ rehabilitation and occupational therapy. Staff encouraged Biggs to resume embroidery to pass the time and develop the fine motor skills in his left hand.</p>
<p>Individual embroidery was an excellent past-time for the wounded soldiers; it is a small, flat, quiet, intimate activity that can be conducted seated, either in a group or alone. The classes at 4 AGH were taught by volunteers and, as Lieutenant Colonel CLS Mackintosh noted, helped the patients, <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-5244279/view?partId=nla.obj-5249236#page/n49/mode/1up/search/craft">“to forget that they have any great disability.” </a> </p>
<p>The Australian War Memorial holds at least four examples of Biggs’ embroidery. One, which he completed while at the hospital in Randwick, shows a cushion with the 1912 Australian coat of arms sewn in stem, long, and satin stitch onto a black background.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166244/original/file-20170421-12640-vyfpeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166244/original/file-20170421-12640-vyfpeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166244/original/file-20170421-12640-vyfpeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166244/original/file-20170421-12640-vyfpeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166244/original/file-20170421-12640-vyfpeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166244/original/file-20170421-12640-vyfpeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166244/original/file-20170421-12640-vyfpeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166244/original/file-20170421-12640-vyfpeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=802&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 full cushion bearing the Australian coat of arms sewn by Albert Biggs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From what we know about Biggs’ service, we can surmise that this choice of embroidery pattern was bound to a constancy in his identity throughout his army experiences. Once a labourer, the war had made him a soldier, a war hero, and an invalid but he remained, above all, Australian.</p>
<p>Biggs’s niece transformed several pieces of his embroidery into cushion covers. The back of the coat of arms cushion features six colourful, embroidered butterflies. The butterfly is a Christian symbol of hope and of the resurrection, because of its three stages of life. The butterfly is also associated with Psalm 119:50, “This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166242/original/file-20170421-12662-1h6q92m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166242/original/file-20170421-12662-1h6q92m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166242/original/file-20170421-12662-1h6q92m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166242/original/file-20170421-12662-1h6q92m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166242/original/file-20170421-12662-1h6q92m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166242/original/file-20170421-12662-1h6q92m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166242/original/file-20170421-12662-1h6q92m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Six multi-coloured butterflies embroidered on the back of the cushion cover decorated with the Australian coat of arms by Lance Corporal Alfred Briggs (Albert Biggs), 20 Battalion, AIF.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Biggs also created a piece with <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL45129/">six gold daisies and four sprays of red berries</a> and a <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL45132/">piece</a> with a King’s crown with crossed Union flag and Australian ensign, all within a laurel wreath. A scroll bearing the words, “For England home and beauty” sits above the piece; and a scroll reading “Australia will be there” below, but the rest of the pattern is <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL45132/">unfinished</a>.</p>
<p>Creating these delicate works was a great achievement for Biggs as the skill would have taken him years to master; it is not unlike a right-handed person learning to write again neatly with their left hand. </p>
<p>The soldiers’ work also created economic opportunities. Their embroidery and other ornaments were sold at the Red Cross Hospital Handicrafts Shop in Sydney where visitors were <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-38800899/view?partId=nla.obj-38810582#page/n34/mode/1up/search/fancy+work">encouraged to</a> “purchase the work of returned soldiers to help them help themselves”. The Red Cross also supplied printed templates for embroidery, many of which bore patriotic messages, such as the piece that Biggs left uncompleted. </p>
<p>One hundred years later, the story of Biggs’ bravery in Gallipoli and France has been stitched into the broader <a href="http://creativeapproachestoresearch.net/wp-content/uploads/CAR6_2_FULL1.pdf">“mythscape” </a>that surrounds Anzac Day. His embroidery, however, speaks to us of the quiet courage and dignity of Australia’s soldiers as they tried to mend their shattered lives following World War I.</p>
<p>And interestingly, two recent studies have helped articulate the rationale for rehabilatation embroidery. <a href="https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/everyday-creative-activity-as-a-path-to-flourishing">One</a> has demonstrated that undertaking everyday craft activities is associated with emotional flourishing, revealing the importance of handcrafts to their makers. <a href="http://journalofmoderncraft.com/category/table-of-contents/page/4">Another study</a> has shown that embroidery and sewing can allow individuals to work through mental trauma associated with war. </p>
<p>Highlighting the practice of rehabilitation embroidery gives us new ways to remember Biggs and the 416,809 Australian men who served in WWI. The stories they stitched into their embroidery allow us to remember them as we grow old.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Brayshaw 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>
Embroidery - often seen as women’s work - was a common form of therapy for troops wounded in the first world war. One soldier, Albert Biggs, learned to sew with his left hand after his right arm was badly injured.
Emily Brayshaw, Lecturer, Fashion and Design History, Theory, and Thinking, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/65560
2016-11-10T01:36:23Z
2016-11-10T01:36:23Z
This Remembrance Day, digital commemoration makes it impossible to forget
<p>On November 11, 1919 the British Empire stopped to stand in silence on Remembrance Day for the first time. </p>
<p>Two men usually share the credit for proposing the two minute’s silence: South African author and politician Sir Percy FitzPatrick and Australian soldier and journalist Edward Honey. In May 1919 Honey wrote a letter to the London Evening News pleading for “Five silent minutes, of national remembrance, in the home, in the street, anywhere indeed where men and women chance to be”. </p>
<p>FitzPatrick and Honey undoubtedly hoped this tradition would still be observed nearly a century later. It’s unlikely they could have anticipated that today it could be commemorated in clicks, likes, shares and tweets which connect “the home, the street, anywhere” in utterly new ways.</p>
<p>New industrial technologies from tanks to poison gas radically changed the scale, speed and global impact of warfare between 1914 and 1918. Afterwards, what psychologist <a href="http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/management/people/steve-brown">Steven D. Brown</a> calls “social technologies” emerged to cope with the trauma. The seemingly timeless commemorative practices of silence, poppies and poetic odes were invented and globally accepted between 1919 and 1922.</p>
<p>These social technologies have all proved easily adaptable to social media in an era of planetary-scale computation. Two Minutes of Silence can be <a href="http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/how-we-remember/two-minute-silence/">downloaded to a mobile phone or experienced on YouTube</a>. </p>
<p>On Remembrance Day the hashtag #LestWeForget will be shared millions of times in tweets and Facebook comments. Fields of pixelated poppies will <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FlandersFields1418/?sk=app_169161616616325">bloom</a> <a href="http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/how-we-remember/the-story-of-the-poppy/">across social media</a>. A millenial’s <a href="http://anzacdayselfies.tumblr.com/">selfie</a> will display her participation in collective remembrance, and ultimately become a prompt for shareable “On This Day” memories in her own personal timeline.</p>
<h2>We’re engaging more than ever before</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://www.publishing.monash.edu/books/bg-9781925495102.html">Uncanny Valleys and Anzac Avatars: Scaling a Postdigital Gallipoli</a>, I examine our new era of hyperconnected commemoration. Researchers have noted the increasing numbers of people at events like Anzac Day and Remembrance Day in the last decade. We are also seeing an enormous growth in engagement with war remembrance online. </p>
<p>Historian <a href="http://history.yale.edu/people/jay-winter">Jay Winter</a> argues that there were two “memory booms” in the 20th century. The first immediately followed the Great War. Remembrance focused around rituals like the two minutes’ silence represented a collective effort of national unification in the face of a generation lost. The second emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, and saw a drive to remember the Second World War, through media like film and television that recorded or retold the stories of witnesses to the heroism, horror and futility of war. </p>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/socialsciences/ourstaff/andrewhoskins/">commentators</a> are now beginning to suggest that we are in the midst of a third boom. Post 9/11, in a world of perpetual horizonless wars and participatory social media, we live in an age of constant and immediate remembering. As the last century’s memory booms fade and the wars they commemorate recede from living memory, more and more data about the past is uploaded and recorded, and remembrance accelerates. The stone memorials built after the First World War to record the names of the “glorious dead” are increasingly transformed into columns of the <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/stack">Stack</a>, computerised and streamed in megabits per second to eager family historians and school children. </p>
<p>Social media mourning has extended beyond war into a new form of viral performance, with a reach beyond what Honey and FitzPatrick could ever have imagined. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/26077337/The_net_work_of_mourning_Emotional_contagion_viral_performativity_and_the_death_of_David_Bowie">More than four million tweets in 24 hours</a> connected people to the death of David Bowie, and to each other. The flow peaked at 20,000 per minute. Their <a href="https://vimeo.com/189576743">visualisation</a> resembles culture growing in a petri dish.</p>
<p>Perversely, as commemoration and memorialisation blossoms online, we worry about digital <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together?language=en">disconnection</a>, fear <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2016/oct/16/why-australia-day-and-anzac-day-helped-create-a-national-cult-of-forgetfulness">forgetting</a> and panic that social media platforms <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-facebook-idUSKCN11I1VU">“censor”</a> history. But, as social scientist <a href="http://www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/socialsciences/ourstaff/andrewhoskins/">Andrew Hoskins</a> argues, memory in the present era is paradoxical. Given the breadth and permanence of the digital archive it is now almost impossible to forget. Online versions of our former selves haunt our <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303480557_Archive_Me_Media_Memory_Uncertainty">“networked egos”</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, who needs to remember phone numbers, birthdays or anniversaries anymore? With a few toggles, I can be reminded what I was doing last year, share a memory, or create a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/help/359377930889891">“Say Thanks”</a> video. Compulsive, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/risk-and-hyperconnectivity-9780199375509?cc=au&lang=en&">instant memorialisation</a> of everything is everywhere, just as human memory is outsourced to distant servers and, ultimately, into future forms of artificial intelligence. </p>
<p>While the rituals of Remembrance Day seem unchanging, in truth, they are being transformed in our contemporary connected culture. On the first Remembrance Day, people who had experienced World War I firsthand stood together in a single silence filled with private, personal memories of pain and loss. They knew the person next to them was doing the same, but not what was in their thoughts. </p>
<p>Today, the internet offers a chance to personalise our commemoration by choosing when, where and how we take part. We can listen to a recorded two minutes’ silence anytime. A <a href="http://anzacdayselfies.tumblr.com/">selfie</a> taken in a yoga studio and tagged #RemembranceDay is our modern day equivalent of standing still in the factory or the parlour. We are keen to be seen joining in, and can watch and respond in real time to how others are marking the occasion. Online chatter, and frequently debate about the meaning of war, breaks through the silence.</p>
<h2>Past, present and future are blurring</h2>
<p>Increasingly the past, present and future blur together. Contemporary conflicts are commemorated as soon as they occur, using words and imagery from the past. The faces of soldiers and nurses from 1915 appear on our screens alongside those from 1945, 1965, 2005 and 2015. As proof of our ongoing participation accumulates in our feeds and timelines, we are just as likely to be prompted to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjCEVPCT9jE">commemorate commemoration</a> at the same time as we are called to <a href="https://livesofthefirstworldwar.org/">remember the fallen</a>. </p>
<p>In 1919 Edward Honey begged for a few minutes of “Communion with the Glorious Dead who won us peace, and from the communion new strength, hope and faith in the morrow”. Honey feared that in the “hours of peace rejoicing” the dead might be forgotten. Nearly a century later, the casualties of World War I are far from forgotten. Their digital presences are researched, recalled and in some cases <a href="http://about.abc.net.au/press-releases/launch-of-abcnews1915/">reanimated</a> <a href="http://www.anzaclive.com.au/">in ways that make them seem alive</a>. But rituals of commemoration like Remembrance Day, accelerated and altered by our engagement with digital technology, are increasingly as much about framing future memories are they are about connecting with those of the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Sear 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 internet and social media are changing how we commemorate war. The hashtag #LestWeForget will be shared millions of times on Remembrance Day in tweets and Facebook comments.
Tom Sear, PhD candidate in history, memory, media and cyber, Australian Defence Force Academy, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/66483
2016-11-01T00:17:11Z
2016-11-01T00:17:11Z
Is it time to repeal Australia’s century-old laws on the use of the word ‘Anzac’?
<p>It is 100 years to the day since Australia broadened the laws restricting the use of one of the nation’s most sacred words: Anzac.</p>
<p>On November 1, 1916, it became illegal for Australians to name a private residence, boat or vehicle “Anzac” – the acronym of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and a word synonymous with endurance, courage, mateship and sacrifice.</p>
<p>So why were these restrictions introduced? And, 100 years after their creation, are they still needed?</p>
<p>Within a few months of Australian and New Zealand soldiers <a href="http://www.gallipoli.gov.au/battle-of-the-landing/">landing at Gallipoli</a> in April 1915, traders in both countries began adopting the word Anzac. Some businesses were renamed Anzac; others sold goods featuring the term – from clothing to playing cards, tobacco, and even weaponry. This was <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130038063">met with criticism</a> on the Australian home front. Many objected to this special word being used in what they believed was a commercial and debasing manner.</p>
<p>As a result, in May 1916 the Federal government passed a regulation under the controversial <a href="http://tols.peo.gov.au/parliament-and-the-war/war-precautions-act-1914">War Precautions Act 1914</a> prohibiting the use of “Anzac” in business without permission from the Governor General. The fine for breaking this law was large – up to £100 or six months imprisonment, or both. </p>
<p>These restrictions are still in place today, albeit with different penalties. Many readers may remember how the Department of Veterans’ Affairs <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-15/rsl-responds-to-woolworths-fresh-in-our-memories-campaign/6393498">cracked down on Woolworths</a> for its use of the word Anzac in its “Fresh in Our Memories” campaign in the lead up to Anzac Day in 2015.</p>
<h2>“Anzac” homes</h2>
<p>In November 1916, the Australian government <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1916L00255">introduced additional regulations</a> restricting the use of the word Anzac as the name of a private residence, boat or vehicle, or by any charitable institution. </p>
<p>At the time, Australians were given little indication why a restriction on the adoption of Anzac as the name of a home had been introduced – despite this being the first time the government had stepped in to regulate the private use of a word in the community.</p>
<p>In retrospect, it appears there were two primary reasons behind the creation of this restriction: ensuring that the term was not <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/141901870">overused in the community</a>, and
stemming <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/appropriating-the-legend-of-anzac/6845622#transcript">increasing German adoption</a> of this sacred word. Many German-Australians were calling their homes “Anzac” to show patriotism at a time when both naturalised and Australian-born men and women of German heritage were being interned in local <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-experience-in-australia-during-ww1-damaged-road-to-multiculturalism-38594">“concentration camps”</a>.</p>
<p>Following the introduction of the new regulations, family members of soldiers contacted the government seeking permission to name their homes “Anzac”. These applications, held today by <a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/">the National Archives of Australia</a>, reveal the devastating effect of this restriction. </p>
<p>Almost all the letters, penned by fathers, mothers and wives state that the reason they wished to name their home “Anzac” was to commemorate their own fallen, injured or serving Anzac soldier.</p>
<p>Commonwealth Solicitor General <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/garran-sir-robert-randolph-410">Robert Garran</a> was responsible for responding to these applications. Between 1916 and 1928, just over 70 applications to name a home “Anzac” were received by the government. All applications were denied. Garran often used the same standard letter in response, stating “that permission to use the word Anzac as the name of your residence cannot be granted”.</p>
<h2>Personal use of “Anzac” - then and now</h2>
<p>The government did not interfere in all areas of the personal use of the word Anzac. People were still allowed to adopt the word as the name of a child, or the <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155718471">name of a pet</a>. Garran received a number of applications from returned soldiers seeking to name their baby boys “Anzac” – to which he drily responded that “there is no legal objection to the use of the word "Anzac” in the naming of children". </p>
<p>Today, <a href="http://www.dva.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/commems-memorials/anzacday/Guidelines-Use-of-the-Word-Anzac.pdf">guidelines</a> issued by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs indicate it is still permissible to name a child, or pet, “Anzac”. The legal restrictions on the use of “Anzac” as the name of a home, vehicle or boat, or in trade, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2004C00015">remain in place</a>, though contained in a different set of regulations than those created in 1916.</p>
<p>Although there may have been (limited) reasons for introducing this restriction in 1916, it isn’t clear why this prohibition on the use of “Anzac” in certain personal circumstances should continue in 2016. Few could argue that naming a house “Anzac” is any more controversial than giving that same name to a child or dog. While it was feared that permitting loved ones to name homes “Anzac” would lead to overuse in 1916, that justification does not exist today. </p>
<p>What a fitting tribute it would be to allow members of the Australian Defence Force and their families to call their homes “Anzac” if they wished, as a way of connecting with their service and the Anzac legend.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Dr Catherine Bond’s first book, <a href="http://scholarly.info/home/">Anzac: The Landing, The Legend, The Law</a>, will be published by Australian Scholarly Publishing in late 2016. All archival documents cited here are from the collection of the National Archives of Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66483/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Bond receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DP140100172)</span></em></p>
You can name your child ‘Anzac’ - but not your house. Are Australia’s laws restricting the use of the word Anzac still relevant?
Catherine Bond, Senior Lecturer in Law, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/55312
2016-04-21T04:55:30Z
2016-04-21T04:55:30Z
Bread like chaff and putrid rations: how WW1 troops obsessed over food
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119585/original/image-20160421-8017-8klmu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Food was a powerful, and ever-present theme of the first world war.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ward 43, Frank Ward, 1943. © IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 6600)</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Sing me to sleep, the bullets fall <br>
Let me forget the war & all <br>
Damp is my dugout, cold is my feet <br>
Nothing but biscuits & bully to eat. <br>
<br>
Popular soldier’s song, circa 1918, recorded in the diary of <a href="http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/_transcript/2014/D04284/a2561.html">Archie A. Barwick</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119578/original/image-20160421-8023-15c5c3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119578/original/image-20160421-8023-15c5c3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119578/original/image-20160421-8023-15c5c3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119578/original/image-20160421-8023-15c5c3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119578/original/image-20160421-8023-15c5c3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119578/original/image-20160421-8023-15c5c3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119578/original/image-20160421-8023-15c5c3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119578/original/image-20160421-8023-15c5c3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘A tinned ration consisting of sliced vegetables, chiefly turnips and carrots, and a deal of thin soup or gravy. Warmed in the tin, 'Maconochie’ was edible; cold, it was a man-killer. By some soldiers it was regarded as a welcome change from bully-beef.‘ (Imperial War Museum.)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© IWM (EPH 4379)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of us will be making Anzac biscuits this Anzac Day, paying homage to an apocryphal story of soldiers in the first world war and the comfort afforded by these gifts sent from home. While the provenance of this most iconic of war food is debatable, we can learn a lot about what soldiers really ate by reading their letters and diaries. These sources reveal that food was a vital part of daily life, with emotional, cultural and practical facets. </p>
<p>Bully beef (brined and boiled beef in a can) and biscuits were the notoriously dull cornerstones of rations for both Australian and British soldiers in the first world war. </p>
<p>While the rations commonly included other items such as tea, jam, sugar, bacon, peas, beans or cheese, “B.B.B.” were symbolic of the inadequacy of the soldier’s diet. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Am living quite a terrible life! No rations or. than B.B.B. How cheerful. <br>
<a href="http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/_transcript/2013/D14588/a3266.html">Leonard V. Bartlett</a>, Alexandria, December 1915. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The shortcomings of the rations weren’t just a lack of vitamin C and other essential nutrients. Lack of variety and taste in food took an emotional toll on the servicemen, and in the soldiers’ <a href="http://ww1.sl.nsw.gov.au/">letters and diaries</a> we can see a veritable obsession with food.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119576/original/image-20160421-8030-8cidvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119576/original/image-20160421-8030-8cidvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119576/original/image-20160421-8030-8cidvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119576/original/image-20160421-8030-8cidvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119576/original/image-20160421-8030-8cidvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119576/original/image-20160421-8030-8cidvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119576/original/image-20160421-8030-8cidvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119576/original/image-20160421-8030-8cidvi.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ration parties, like this one from the 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, had to bring rations from horse-drawn limbers at night to avoid enemy fire. Supply lines were often targeted by both sides.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Essigny, 7 February 1918. © © IWM (Q 10685)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/_transcript/2013/D14588/a3266.html">The diary of Lieut. Bartlett</a>, a signaller who served in Egypt and Gallipoli, pithily conveys how his emotions fluctuated depending on the food available. Thus on 9 July, 1915 he rejoices: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Salmon for Brekker, what joy, my luck is really in today. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nine days later, while suffering from one of his regular bouts of dysentery, he declares: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Feelg. rotten all day & existed on dried biscuits & tea.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Bartlett and others serving in the Middle East, the harsh conditions made mealtimes a trial; he declared the rations “putrid”. One history describes mealtimes in the Jordan Valley in May 1918 as unbearably hot, humid and plagued by “venomous creatures” of various kinds, these miseries <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/AWMOHWW1/?conflict=1">exacerbated by the food</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Rations reached the lines […] in a condition which would have revolted any men but soldiers on active service. The bread was dry and unpalatable as chaff; the beef, heated and reheated in its tins, came out like so much string and oil.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119577/original/image-20160421-8007-1mk6xh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119577/original/image-20160421-8007-1mk6xh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119577/original/image-20160421-8007-1mk6xh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119577/original/image-20160421-8007-1mk6xh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119577/original/image-20160421-8007-1mk6xh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119577/original/image-20160421-8007-1mk6xh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1286&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119577/original/image-20160421-8007-1mk6xh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119577/original/image-20160421-8007-1mk6xh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1286&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 Indian cavalryman who has found two starving Christian girls in the desert leans down from his horse to give one of them half his rations. At the time the men themselves were on short rations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© IWM (Q 24724)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Supplements to the army ration were therefore intensely welcome. One letter to <a href="http://transcripts.sl.nsw.gov.au/page/366865/view">Mrs Hugh Venables Vernon</a> thanking her for her contribution to the Australian Comforts Funds describes the soldiers in receipt of her gifts as “like kiddies at a picnic”. </p>
<p>Comfort packages – while probably not containing actual Anzac biscuits – did distribute items redolent of home and civilian life. The “Christmas billies” for the Australian Light Horse in Sinai and Palestine in 1916 included “Christmas puddings, tins of milk, packets of chocolates and similar dainties”. </p>
<p>Soldiers also took advantage of opportunities to scrounge, buy or commandeer supplementary foodstuffs from local populations, including “eggs and camel whey” from a Bedouin encampment in Palestine.</p>
<p>Its’s worth noting that conditions behind the lines in France were very different to the Middle East. Sapper Vasco, a caricature artist and draftsman, wrote letters to his wife from “Somewhere in France” as though on a grand tour, and food <a href="http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/_transcript/2014/D25814/a9724.html">featured prominently in his rhapsodic prose</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Precious One […] Ever since I landed in France life has been perfect. […] This is our country. If I’ve ever made up my mind about anything it’s to get you over here ‘Apres la guerre’. […] More violent contrasts, more delicious food, wine, exquisite country, music, more café life and true ‘bohemianism’ on a Sunday or any week day than England ever dreamt of in a lifetime. […] Sunshine as mellow as Brisbane’s shines day after day on La Belle France. […] The pastry cook shops make our pastry cakes taste like piffle. You couldn’t believe there was a war on here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>During the war giving or exchanging food – often across cultural divides – was a potent act of caring, and relationships between soldiers were cemented over food. Bartlett <a href="http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/_transcript/2013/D14588/a3266.html">writes</a> of having “a pleasant little feed” with his friend Monty, and of a visit from a fellow soldier called Merrivale, who shared cake with him.</p>
<p>Bartlett was involved in a lively network of exchange and barter among soldiers, and regularly visited the “Indian Camp” for “chapadies” or curry. Meanwhile in Cairo, General Rosenthal <a href="http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/_transcript/2014/D27827/c00585.html">enjoyed</a> “a sumptuous dinner of about 15 courses, all exquisitely cooked. The table was set out in faultless British style, but the foods were prepared in Egyptian style.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119589/original/image-20160421-8030-g5di5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119589/original/image-20160421-8030-g5di5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119589/original/image-20160421-8030-g5di5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119589/original/image-20160421-8030-g5di5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119589/original/image-20160421-8030-g5di5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119589/original/image-20160421-8030-g5di5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119589/original/image-20160421-8030-g5di5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119589/original/image-20160421-8030-g5di5p.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indian Army soldiers eating chapadies at a camp in New Forest, October 1914.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© IWM (Q 53367)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even across enemy lines, intercultural culinary encounters occurred, such as during the famous 1914 “Christmas truce” when German and British soldiers entered into no-man’s land to exchange gifts of rations, cigarettes and chocolate.</p>
<p>Australian prisoners of war experienced particularly poignant acts of generosity from civilians as they were marched by German soldiers through occupied France. Corporal Claude Corderoy Benson describes French women attempting to smuggle bread, biscuits and sweets to the POWs, often at <a href="http://transcripts.sl.nsw.gov.au/page/296639/view">great personal cost</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I felt I would rather have died from starvation than see these women so ill treated, and wished the poor creatures would not try and help us. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bensen describes the deprivation of the prisoners, which makes for <a href="http://transcripts.sl.nsw.gov.au/page/296639/view">harrowing reading</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…very often the German guard would offer us half a loaf of bread for a watch, and I have seen gold watches and rings go for less than a loaf of bread, anything to satisfy our hunger.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the long and arduous campaigns of WWI, food – and the lack of it – was paramount. Major battles were fought to control supply lines, and hunger was a brutalising and dehumanising tool of war. In looking at food and its exchange, we see how the conflict produced both the best and the worst of human behaviour.</p>
<p><br> </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The soldier’s diaries and letters quoted in this article are publically available through the <a href="http://ww1.sl.nsw.gov.au/">World War One collection</a> of the State Library of NSW.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Merle Benbow 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>
From crossing cultural barriers with a cake, to starvation used as a brutal tool of war, Australian soldiers’ letters and diaries reveal an urgently important relationship with what they ate.
Heather Merle Benbow, Senior lecturer in German and European Studies, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/52076
2015-12-20T19:51:49Z
2015-12-20T19:51:49Z
In their own words: letters from ANZACs during the Gallipoli evacuation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106241/original/image-20151216-25621-rw89v4.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">Jason Reed/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s 100 years since the successful evacuation from Gallipoli of Allied troops. Just five days before Christmas, in the early hours of Monday December 20, 1915, the last Anzac troops left Gallipoli in what Australian historian Joan Beaumont <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18595772-broken-nation">called</a> an “elaborate game of deception”. </p>
<p>Self-firing guns were rigged to take pot-shots and camp fires lit to give the impression of there being more soldiers than there were. The Australians and New Zealanders even played a game of cricket to show the Ottomans they were there for the duration. Yet by around 4.30am all had gone. </p>
<p>Not one life was lost, an Allied triumph of sorts. Yet most Australians celebrate Gallipoli as a purely Australian achievement, usually without acknowledging that Australians were a minority of Allied troops fighting there. </p>
<p>Gallipoli was mostly a site of significant Allied loss. There were more than 141,000 causalities, of which more than 44,000 men died – including 8,709 Australians, with similar losses amongst the Ottomans. In our Australian obsession with Gallipoli as a national legend, we often lose sight of its universal meaning as a failure, a defeat for the Allies that came at great cost in human lives. </p>
<p>For those who were there one hundred years ago, Gallipoli was not the stuff of legend that it later became, but a site of regret and despair, something shrouded in defeat rather than retrospective triumph. </p>
<p>The diaries and letters of soldiers reveal how these complicated sentiments were not easily reconciled to the meticulous and orderly removal of 41,724 Anzac troops. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105888/original/image-20151214-9497-1tbhbhm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105888/original/image-20151214-9497-1tbhbhm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105888/original/image-20151214-9497-1tbhbhm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105888/original/image-20151214-9497-1tbhbhm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105888/original/image-20151214-9497-1tbhbhm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105888/original/image-20151214-9497-1tbhbhm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105888/original/image-20151214-9497-1tbhbhm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105888/original/image-20151214-9497-1tbhbhm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evacuation from Gallipoli December 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They provide insight into war and the soldiers who served, revealing the stresses and strains of collective failure before <a href="http://example.com/http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-broken-years-thousands-of-shellshocked-diggers-left-to-suffer-in-silence-20150817-gj0i72.html">the silence descended</a> and the legend emerged. Such unreconciled sentiments later contributed to feelings of <a href="https://theconversation.com/marked-men-anxiety-alienation-and-the-aftermath-of-war-38593">profound alienation</a>. </p>
<p>After eight months of fighting and making do in stinking trenches, shivering with the onset of a fierce winter, watching their wounded compatriots screaming with pain or being blown to bits, and having to bury many in mass graves, finally the word spread of their evacuation. </p>
<p>Captain <a href="http://beyond1914.sydney.edu.au/profile/2655/francis-coen">Francis Coen</a>, who later died in action at <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/military-event/E72/">Pozieres</a>, initially saw the sense in leaving Gallipoli. He understood the rationale of moving strength to where chances for success were higher. In a <a href="http://www.acmssearch.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/itemLargeCopyright.cgi?itemID=1227852&size=full&album=1&collection=1063967&parent=1043433">diary entry</a> on December 16, written as a letter to his mother, he lamented the loss as he looked to the future:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I understand I shall be one of the last to withdraw. I do, honestly speaking, sincerely hope so, as I wish to see the last of the affair. Let us hope we shall be successful. Many brave lives have already been sacrificed in this blunder. </p>
<p>It is bitter to leave so many of our dead heroes in their lonely graves in this foreign soil. But necessity is imperative. We can do no good by staying here. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then <a href="http://www.acmssearch.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/itemLargeCopyright.cgi?itemID=1227853&size=full&album=1&collection=1063967&parent=1043433">two days later</a> this stoicism gave way to raw sentiment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A feeling of great disappointment and depression has seized me because of this evacuation. It is one of the “downs” of the war and we must accept it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The 26 year old Captain Eric Mortley Fisher, who had served as a medical officer in a dugout at Gallipoli since August 1915, <a href="http://beyond1914.sydney.edu.au/profile/2935/eric-mortley-fisher">expressed similar emotions</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, one day we heard definitely that the place was to be evacuated & all became sore, blue & depressed. Personally for a couple of days I walked about or sat & played patience & couldn’t be bothered taking cover, hoping I would get shot. </p>
<p>It sounds foolish now, but at the time my mental condition was not quite normal I’m afraid. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The uncertainty was great and in preparation for the worst, they made their farewells. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the suspense and strain on the last few days was terrible. Every minute you expected the Turk to drop to it that we were evacuating (& not landing more troops as he evidently thought) and plaster the beaches with shells & the more you discussed it the worst it looked. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>They packed up the ammunition, mules, carts, stores including the rum, wine and brandy, and destroyed whatever could not be taken including mounds of socks, blankets and equipment. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then one night we got orders to leave. It was a simple process & consisted of turning out the lamp & walking out with a few things in a pack & my blanket & leaving everything else. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>They muffled their boots with socks and wrapped them in blankets and sandbags, then as silently as they could:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>marched to the wharf with the shells screaming over us all the time & got there safely. After a short wait we embarked on a barge, but for some reason waited an hour & a half at the wharf getting stone cold & watching the shells burst over the water just where we had to go. This sort of thing was not exactly soothing to the nerves … </p>
<p>At last we got word to move and strange to say the shells stopped and we heard no more bullets while going out to the ship & got safely on board. I found an empty seat and went to sleep at once.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In some ways, sleeping upright, exhausted, was a fitting end to the Gallipoli campaign, a lingering metaphor of a semi-bewildered and war-wearied soldier being shipped off to another theatre of war. </p>
<p>It reminds us that Gallipoli was a symbol of war; not in the ways usually celebrated in Australia on April 25, but of the human vulnerabilities and frailties of soldiers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Horne is co-director of beyond1914.sydney.edu.au, a website on The University of Sydney and the Great War. </span></em></p>
For those who were there one hundred years ago, Gallipoli was not the stuff of legend that it later became, but a site of regret and despair.
Julia Horne, University Historian and Principal Research Fellow, History, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/40842
2015-05-11T00:40:57Z
2015-05-11T00:40:57Z
Lev 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>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<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>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<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 Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/40816
2015-05-03T19:37:19Z
2015-05-03T19:37:19Z
We 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 University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/40955
2015-04-29T01:55:09Z
2015-04-29T01:55:09Z
Anzacs 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 Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.