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.
There is no weapon more visceral than the bayonet. It encourages an intimate form of killing, and during WW1, Australia troops plunged, parried and stabbed with great vigour.
Turkish soldiers in a trench at Gallipoli. The way Turkish youth commemorate the battle tells us much about the country’s politics.
Ausstralian Dept of Veterans Affairs
Brad West, University of South Australia and Ayhan Aktar, Istanbul Bilgi University
At Gallipoli this Anzac Day, thousands of Turkish youth will re-enact a march that stopped the Anzac advance in 1915. The march has taken on new significance in Turkey since an attempted coup in 2016.
In 1960, historian Ken Inglis wondered if Anzac functioned as a secular religion in Australian society. In 2017, we can confidently answer: yes, it does.
The Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, is marked by Chinese people by going to the cemetery to clean up tombs, bring flowers, and make offerings to their ancestors.
Jerome Favre/AAP
Might the rise of heritage tourism and the increasing ease of international travel lead to more of Australia’s military experiences overseas being better understood?
Henry Moseley, one of the outstanding young scientists of his generation, was shot and killed in the trenches of Gallipoli. But his death helped change the way that scientists are used in wartime.
The Lost Battalion, 2015. Acrylic, soil, charcoal and shellac on paper. Lev Vykopal.
Fremantle Arts Centre
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.
Australian newspaper photographers have always been forbidden to show military failure or fragility.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
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.
‘Let me try and put sacked SBS sports journalist Scott McIntyre’s tweets in historical perspective.’
EPA/Sedat Suna
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.
A French field kitchen in use by the French troops within half a mile of the Turkish lines on the southern section of Gallipoli Peninsula, 1915.
Ernest Brooks/Flickr
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.
Livestock wagon with Armenians in the Summer or Autumn 1915.
Historisches Institut der Deutschen Bank, Frankfurt.
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.
The Australian flag is flown at Anzac Day parades but it’s not the flag that soldiers at Gallipoli fought under.
AAP Image/ Dan Himbrechts
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?
Senior Lecturer, Classics and Ancient History and Director of Teaching and Learning (ugrad), School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University