As Australians commemorate the Anzacs who died at Gallipoli, spare a thought for the 10,000 French soldiers who also died on the Dardanelles in the first world war.
In 1915 and 1916, the Ottoman Armenians were destroyed as an organised community and more than one million of their number were killed – just as the Allies’ failed invasion of Gallipoli took place.
Protests on Anzac Day, rather than being ‘utterly alien to Australians’, have a long tradition and embody the democratic right to dissent for which the troops fought.
We are used to thinking of Gaza as a war-torn stretch of ground. A place where life goes grimly on in the face of an intractable conflict. A graveyard not only for civilians caught in the crossfire, but…
When Australian soldiers fought at Gallipoli, they did so under the Union Jack. Our flag has changed since then and debates about national identity have shifted. Is it now time for a new flag?
The democratic freedoms Australians hold dear today – freedom of the press, assembly and speech – were won on home soil by courageous women and men who sacrificed much, but rarely recognised for it.
Anzac Day is the one day of the year it’s legal to play two-up. If we want to retain the thrill that was so important to the diggers, we’d keep it illegal rather than sanitising the practice.
Why did it take three-quarters of a century beyond the first world war for Australians to build our own tomb of the unknown soldier, remembering the 23,000 Australians who died with no known grave?
The appalling conditions at Gallipoli indicate the wholly inadequate planning and response of the British and Allied military authorities to basic human needs.
It was not the excitement but the seriousness of the first world war that captured the imaginations of Australians. The experience of 1915 had a marked effect on local commitment to winning the war.
War history used to be brought to TV audiences by donnish lecturers but historical reconstructions now hold sway. Two recent docos about Gallipoli are hybrid examples of the form that help us better understand the past.
The Australian War Memorial promises to tell ‘our story’ about the nation’s war experience – but it silences many stories about Australia’s nationhood and glosses over Indigenous experience.
In late January 1945, Hungarian teenager Bart Stern hid in a pile of bodies to avoid being killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz. He survived, but not one of his friends escaped. Soon afterwards, the Red Army…
The ANZAC centenary will be full of symbols. After all, commemoration is cheaper than defence. ANZAC symbols, in particular, have an uncanny way of dismissing any doubts about defence policy and spending…