tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/ww1-centenary-8487/articlesWW1 Centenary – The Conversation2018-11-08T19:35:34Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064542018-11-08T19:35:34Z2018-11-08T19:35:34ZFriday essay: how Australia’s war art scheme fed national mythologies of WW1<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244492/original/file-20181108-74775-1y5nbki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will Dyson sketching close to the German lines on the Western Front, 29 May 1918.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM E02439</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>War is often seen as a death knell for the arts, but during the first world war the Australian government mobilised some of the country’s most renowned expatriate artists to paint the conflict. Hired essentially as eyewitnesses to war, these men were stationed at the front and tasked with creating art on the battlefield.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Will Dyson, Coming Out on the Somme, 1916, charcoal, pencil, brush and wash on paper, 56 x 47.2 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial ART02276</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The idea of using art to interpret and commemorate the war was first raised by Will Dyson, an Australian expatriate cartoonist working in Britain, who went to the Western Front as Australia’s first official war artist in late 1916. Dyson drew candid studies of Australian soldiers. In images such as Coming Out on the Somme (1916) he deftly captures the glazed detachment and vacant stares of the men who had just returned from, as he described it, “gazing on strange and terrible lands”.</p>
<p>Perhaps sensitive to the public at home, most Australian official artists avoided sketching the graphic violence of the war. But there were some exceptions. Will Longstaff’s sketchbook, for instance, contains an image of a dismembered leg, bone protruding from a mess of flesh and cloth. His composition shows the severed limb in the centre of the sketch with a grassy field of poppies in the background, an arrangement at odds with the human evidence of the impact of war. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244499/original/file-20181108-74763-1as5uud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244499/original/file-20181108-74763-1as5uud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244499/original/file-20181108-74763-1as5uud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244499/original/file-20181108-74763-1as5uud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244499/original/file-20181108-74763-1as5uud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244499/original/file-20181108-74763-1as5uud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244499/original/file-20181108-74763-1as5uud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244499/original/file-20181108-74763-1as5uud.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">Will Longstaff, Study of Dismembered Leg (detail), c. 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM ART19796.021</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>By 11 November 1918, the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/war_artists/ww1">Australian art collection</a> consisted of an eclectic array of images of the battlefield. But it represented a very narrow view of the Australian war experience. Most official artists had been sent to France and Belgium. The eyewitness role of artists – a position they did not challenge – meant they painted only what they observed at the front. As a result, the collection was dominated by paintings of the soldiers and battlefields in Europe. Other theatres of war, such as the Middle East where only George Lambert had been stationed, were represented by much fewer images. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244491/original/file-20181108-74778-ezsf1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244491/original/file-20181108-74778-ezsf1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244491/original/file-20181108-74778-ezsf1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244491/original/file-20181108-74778-ezsf1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244491/original/file-20181108-74778-ezsf1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244491/original/file-20181108-74778-ezsf1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244491/original/file-20181108-74778-ezsf1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244491/original/file-20181108-74778-ezsf1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Official artist James Quinn working among the debris of the war on Mont St Quentin, France, 7 September 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian War Memorial</span></span>
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<p>The focus on the Western Front meant the army was privileged over other services, such as the Navy and Flying Corps. The absence of the Navy was particularly criticised by members of the Australian press at the time, who complained that while Britain and Canada had employed their best artists to paint naval pictures, the Australian Government had done nothing.</p>
<p>The Canadian and British art schemes also made concerted efforts to include the home front in their collections. And they employed women artists, albeit to paint women’s wartime labour, such as workers in factories. Additionally, the Canadian art scheme hired painters from a range of Allied countries, embracing diverse styles and interpretations of the conflict.</p>
<p>The Australian collection was more nationalistic in tone, employing only Australian artists. While some of the nation’s most eminent artists of the day painted for it, lesser known artists, many of whom had served in the Australian Imperial Force, were also commissioned. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244510/original/file-20181108-74760-l3gh4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244510/original/file-20181108-74760-l3gh4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244510/original/file-20181108-74760-l3gh4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244510/original/file-20181108-74760-l3gh4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244510/original/file-20181108-74760-l3gh4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244510/original/file-20181108-74760-l3gh4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244510/original/file-20181108-74760-l3gh4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244510/original/file-20181108-74760-l3gh4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ellis Silas, Roll Call, 1920, oil on canvas, 131.8 x 183.5 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Often images that less skilfully portrayed the war were included because of their eyewitness value, such as works by Ellis Silas, who had served as a signaller on Gallipoli in 1915. </p>
<p>The Australian collection also stood alone in its neglect of the war experience at home and of women artists. Missing from the collection were images of the preparations for conflict, the training camps, the embarkation of troops, women’s wartime efforts and experience, (including their roles as nurses and volunteers in the warzone and as paid or unofficial workers at home), and of the <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/social_conflict_and_control_protest_and_repression_australia">bitter political disputes</a> that divided Australia during the war. </p>
<p>These lacunae in <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/war_artists/artists">the collection</a> were addressed to some extent in the decades after the war. But even then, the focus remained largely on a battlefield narrative – more narrowly defining “war experience” than either the British or Canadian art. </p>
<h2>Artistic liberties</h2>
<p>George Lambert’s iconic painting of the Australians climbing the cliffs on Gallipoli at dawn on 25 April 1915 is a fascinating example of post-war mythologising. Despite travelling to the peninsula in early 1919 to study the battlefields and create as accurate a representation as possible, he took some artistic liberties with this canvas. </p>
<p>Veterans complained that the soldiers should be depicted in the peaked cap of the early uniform they had actually worn in 1915. But Lambert painted all the men wearing the slouch hat, which had become synonymous with the Australian soldier, consolidating the painting’s distinctly Australian character.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244500/original/file-20181108-74757-24ybgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244500/original/file-20181108-74757-24ybgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244500/original/file-20181108-74757-24ybgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244500/original/file-20181108-74757-24ybgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244500/original/file-20181108-74757-24ybgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244500/original/file-20181108-74757-24ybgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244500/original/file-20181108-74757-24ybgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244500/original/file-20181108-74757-24ybgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Lambert, Anzac, the Landing 1915, 1920–22, oil on canvas, 199.8 x 370.2 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM ART02873</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other images also show an emerging national mythology. Dyson’s cartoons and sketches, many of which were a powerful indictment of the conduct of the war, represent ideas about an Australian type. </p>
<p>He portrayed the humour associated with the larrikin soldier in images such as Small Talk (1920). Depicting two soldiers in conversation in a bomb crater, he captures their droll joking: “No Brig., I says send me back to the boys – the transport’s no good to me I never joined the war to be a mule’s batman!”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244508/original/file-20181108-74751-1f86py5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244508/original/file-20181108-74751-1f86py5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244508/original/file-20181108-74751-1f86py5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244508/original/file-20181108-74751-1f86py5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244508/original/file-20181108-74751-1f86py5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244508/original/file-20181108-74751-1f86py5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244508/original/file-20181108-74751-1f86py5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244508/original/file-20181108-74751-1f86py5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Small Talk, 1920, oil on board, 53.4 x 69 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM ART02430</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Arthur Streeton painted the battlefields where Australian soldiers fought. He saw in soldiering life a deeper and more meaningful example of the development of a particularly Australian masculinity: “It[̓s] extremely novel and exciting over here and it’s the only way in which to form any idea of Australian manhood.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244494/original/file-20181108-74783-14pd40x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244494/original/file-20181108-74783-14pd40x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244494/original/file-20181108-74783-14pd40x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244494/original/file-20181108-74783-14pd40x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244494/original/file-20181108-74783-14pd40x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244494/original/file-20181108-74783-14pd40x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244494/original/file-20181108-74783-14pd40x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244494/original/file-20181108-74783-14pd40x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arthur Streeton, The Somme Valley Near Corbie, 1919, oil on canvas, 153 x 245.5 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM ART03497</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many official artists drew on the devastated landscape of the battlefield as an allegory for the destruction wrought by war. Taming the Australian bush, a trope popular with Australian audiences before the war, became survival on the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244507/original/file-20181108-74769-1syf5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244507/original/file-20181108-74769-1syf5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244507/original/file-20181108-74769-1syf5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244507/original/file-20181108-74769-1syf5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244507/original/file-20181108-74769-1syf5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244507/original/file-20181108-74769-1syf5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244507/original/file-20181108-74769-1syf5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244507/original/file-20181108-74769-1syf5sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Septimus Power, First Australian Artillery going into the 3rd Battle of Ypres, 1919, oil on canvas, 121.7 x 245 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM ART03330</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>George Lambert was the only official artist stationed in the Middle East during the war. He interpreted this theatre in terms of his experience painting the Australian landscape. The light and colours of Australia permeated much of his wartime work, framing the experience of the soldiers and their environment in familiar imagery that made the conflict appear more immediate for audiences at home. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244496/original/file-20181108-74787-1qjtb3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244496/original/file-20181108-74787-1qjtb3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244496/original/file-20181108-74787-1qjtb3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244496/original/file-20181108-74787-1qjtb3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244496/original/file-20181108-74787-1qjtb3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244496/original/file-20181108-74787-1qjtb3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244496/original/file-20181108-74787-1qjtb3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244496/original/file-20181108-74787-1qjtb3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Lambert, Magdhaba, March 1918, oil on canvas, 51.2 x 61.8 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM ART09844</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australia did not employ any women as official painters during the war, but female artists created numerous images of their wartime experience, and their images show what the collection might have gained had they been commissioned. Australian born artist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iso_Rae">Iso Rae</a>’s painting of the military camps in France was later acquired for the collection. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244498/original/file-20181108-74769-em6hp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244498/original/file-20181108-74769-em6hp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244498/original/file-20181108-74769-em6hp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244498/original/file-20181108-74769-em6hp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244498/original/file-20181108-74769-em6hp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244498/original/file-20181108-74769-em6hp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244498/original/file-20181108-74769-em6hp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244498/original/file-20181108-74769-em6hp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iso Rae, Cinema Queue, 1916, France, pastel, gouache on grey paper, 47.8 x 60.6 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AWM ART19600</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australia’s first world war art collection has been revised and reshaped across the last century and now represents a broader experience of the conflict from a more diverse range of artists. But the works created during and immediately after the war fed into a national mythology that privileged a narrative of the Australian soldier on the battlefield, coming at the expense of a more nuanced story of Australia in the war.</p>
<p><em>The Australian war art collection is held at <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/war_artists/artists">The Australian War Memorial</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Hutchison 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>Australian authorities sent artists to the WW1 battlefields to interpret and commemorate war. But unlike similar schemes in Britain and Canada, ours neglected the war experience at home and the perspective of women artists.Margaret Hutchison, Lecturer in History, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1033282018-10-09T19:23:49Z2018-10-09T19:23:49ZIn their own words: internees tell of life in our German detainment camps<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240150/original/file-20181010-72110-g6iwnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">German internees at the Holsworthy Internment Camp during the first world war. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of New South Wales</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 15 1914, a German steamship called the Lothringen reached Melbourne from Antwerp after 47 days at sea. Without access to telegraphy during their journey, the sailors had no idea that war had broken out between the German and British Empires. When the Lothringen docked here, a company of naval officers informed the Germans on board of the news. </p>
<p>Friedrich Meier, one of the sailors on board, recorded in his diary on 18 August 1914 that he and his comrades were “arrested, […] unsuspectingly, as prisoners of war.” Meier was removed to Langwarrin Internment Camp in Victoria, one of 11 “German Concentration Camps” around the country in which so-called enemy aliens were held during the war.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Locations of internment camps.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At first, only those born in countries with which Australia was at war were interned. Later, the policy was extended to include Australian-born descendants of enemy nations. Like Meier, those detained were very often civilians, thought to pose a threat purely on the basis of their heritage. </p>
<p>In total, around 7,000 people were interned in Australia during the first world war, including around 4,500 with German ancestry born or resident in Australia at the time war broke out. A new exhibition at the State Library NSW showcases the papers of German internees, one of six sets of holdings at the Library with UNESCO Memory of the World status. </p>
<p>Thanks to a collaborative translation project between the library and faculty and students from the University of Sydney’s Department of Germanic Studies, visitors to the exhibition can read internees’ stories in their own words.</p>
<h2>Camp life</h2>
<p>Though conditions varied between camps, life inside them was generally hard. A strict regime operated: “reveille” at 6.30 a.m., lights out at 10 p.m. Prisoners were required to submit to roll call twice a day, and to assemble for parade three times. In between, they might occupy themselves by reading, playing cards, or working, for instance, doing carpentry, like this internee in Holsworthy Camp.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Internee carpenter at work in Holsworthy Camp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Visits from relatives were permitted, and correspondence was allowed, though letters could only be written in English. It was forbidden to keep a diary or any other written materials in German, or to write about political matters. A strict censorship system operated, with prisoners who spoke German or Croatian used to intercept potentially risky correspondence. Whatever was found, was confiscated, though the letters, diaries, and newspapers that remain demonstrate that much escaped the censors. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&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 Censor’s office at Holsworthy Camp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The remaining records illustrate how internees tried to make the most of their time. A lively parallel society developed in the camps, with cafes and sports clubs, theatre groups and football leagues. One of our students has translated an article in Holsworthy’s <em>Kamp Spiegel</em> newspaper which details one league’s efforts to set up a proper pitch to play on. </p>
<p>The <em>Kamp Spiegel</em> was one of several German-language newspapers that circulated illicitly inside the camps. Advertisements in <em>Die Welt am Montag</em>, the Trial Bay camp weekly, spruik the wares of Andreas Meiers, the proprietor of Café Habsburg, the “first and biggest food stall in the camp”. The Habsburg opened “every Monday and Thursday” and served a “variety of foods” including the speciality “braised beef with potato dumplings”. </p>
<p>Another restaurant, “next to the roller-skating rink”, advertised itself as a “Newly fitted, spacious and comfortable established locale”, where one could play “billiards and snooker”, and eat the “finest pastries” and “excellent lunches and evening suppers”. The Café Artist Klause, meanwhile, was positioned “opposite the German theatre”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Croatian internee employed as a translator in the Censor’s office at Holsworthy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Treading the boards</h2>
<p>The dramatic life of some inmates is revealed in the theatre criticism of the <em>Kamp Spiegel</em>. An anonymous reviewer writes encouragingly of his fellow detainees’ theatrical performances. In 1915 in Holsworthy camp, a theatre troupe, the Deutsche Theater Bühne, staged Hermann Sudermann’s 1905 play <em>Stein unter Steinen</em> (Stone among Stones). It tells the story of Jakob Biegler, a young and talented but hard-up stonemason’s apprentice who is sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for killing his landlord in a heated confrontation. </p>
<p>The camp critic tells us that Mr Diederich’s portrayal of Zarncke, the benevolent master stonemason who gives Jakob work, was “quite superb”. Meanwhile, “Mr. Himmelmann’s natural gift for acting” allowed him to play the role of Lore, Jakob’s common law partner, “deftly and realistically”. </p>
<p>The pride in the improvement of each performer and in the ability of “our little stage” to convey the impression of a stonemason’s workshop is touching when one considers that many of these men were themselves manual workers confined for no other reason than their German heritage.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Program cover of ‘Deutsches Theater Liverpool’ (DTL), the theatre troupe inside Liverpool Camp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>German internees had little choice but to try and make a life in the camps: after all, nobody knew how long the war would last. But life was far from rosy. Conditions were cramped and unsanitary: not cleaning up properly after using the toilet facilities carried a punishment of solitary confinement. </p>
<p>Other punishments included restriction to a meagre diet of watery oats, and restraint using leg chains or a body belt. Guards taunted prisoners about life on the outside, and worries about families and businesses drove some to suicide, or to attempt escape. </p>
<h2>Poetic resistance</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&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 illustrated poem ‘The Three Freedom-Seekers’ from Der Kamerad, June 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the materials our student translators have unearthed is an illustrated poem from <em>Der Kamerad</em> (The Comrade), the handwritten weekly published by prisoners of Torrens Island Camp, South Australia, in June 1915. It recounts a failed escape attempt, though it isn’t clear from the context whether these particular events actually took place or whether the poet is trading on hearsay.</p>
<p>The author tells us that the poem is to be sung to the tune of the German folk song <em>Es zogen drei Burschen wohl über den Rhein</em>. In its original form, the song goes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Three lads went a wandering over the Rhine,
<br>
A landlady welcomed them, gave them some wine. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In its modified form, the unnamed prisoner — who dedicates his poem to “The Three Freedom-Seekers” — writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It rained one evening with force so great,
<br>
The time in the camp was long after eight.
<br>
Three young lads, through the fence they did crawl,
<br>
The guards, they slept – who’d believe it at all?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The author continues by telling us that the “freedom-seekers” were caught and returned to the camp after 13 days, with “long hair and beards, many now turned grey” and concludes that “a moral can be learned” from this story: “Don’t run away from Torrens Island!”</p>
<h2>Returning home?</h2>
<p>After the war ended, these camps were closed. All internees were deported to Germany, regardless of whether they had any family ties there or had set foot on its shores. </p>
<p>In a mass letter of complaint, prisoners of Holsworthy camp “with wives, families or other dependants in Australia” pleaded to be released to their home on parole, or interned on house arrest with their loved ones. Over 1,000 people appealed deportation decisions, but only 306 were allowed to stay.</p>
<p>Like many others, Friedrich Meier was eventually also transported to Holsworthy to await deportation. In his final entry, he writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The majority of our camp is expected to depart on the 25th or 26th of month with the “Kursk” …, which is currently docked in Sydney.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unlike so many other German internees, Meier, at least, was returning home. </p>
<p>A hundred years later, the first world war is still largely commemorated as a conflict in which members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps — ANZACs — fought with the British Empire against the German and Austrian aggressors.</p>
<p>But the full picture is much more complex. While some German Australians fought on the side of the British Empire against their ancestral country, others were interned in camps. Their papers reveal the complex history of Australia’s first world war in more detail than ever before. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The <a href="http://guides.sl.nsw.gov.au/c.php?g=671848&p=4729959">exhibition</a> runs until March 2019. A public event will be held on the evening of 14 November 2018, revealing more findings from the translation project.</em></p>
<p><em>Acknowledgements: library curators Anna Corkhill and Margot Riley; student translators: Holly Anderson, Giulia Ara, Brigitta Bene, Alexander McDonald, Lauren O’Hara, Benjamin Walker, Ruby Watters. Images reproduced with permission of State Library New South Wales.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cat Moir 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>4,500 people with German ancestry were interned in Australia when the first world war broke out. A new translation project sheds light on their experiences.Cat Moir, Lecturer in Germanic Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1041112018-10-03T20:05:47Z2018-10-03T20:05:47ZThe Diggers’ Requiem: playing our finest songs to those lost on the Western Front<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239069/original/file-20181003-705-10k79q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Barker Sorrowing mother c.1916, oil on canvas
70.8 h x 90.2 w cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On October 6th, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/musicshow/the-diggers-requiem/10282458">The Diggers’ Requiem</a>, the combined creative output of seven Australian composers, will have its Australian premiere. The twin to the Gallipoli Symphony (which premiered in Turkey and Queensland in 2015), the requiem tells the story of the major Australian battles on the Western Front.</p>
<p>Co-commissioned by the Australian War Memorial and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the work is designed to become the musical counterpart to the memorial’s enormously impressive visual record of the Great War, created by such painters as George Lambert and Arthur Streeton. The performance will be accompanied by projections of these paintings. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238866/original/file-20181002-85629-ir1qi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238866/original/file-20181002-85629-ir1qi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238866/original/file-20181002-85629-ir1qi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238866/original/file-20181002-85629-ir1qi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238866/original/file-20181002-85629-ir1qi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238866/original/file-20181002-85629-ir1qi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238866/original/file-20181002-85629-ir1qi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238866/original/file-20181002-85629-ir1qi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frederick Septimus Kelly, circa 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australia’s greatest cultural loss of WW1,<a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelly-frederick-septimus-6918"> Frederick Septimus Kelly</a>, who died in the Somme in 1916, will have his final work The Somme Lament performed as the second movement. It was composed in the basement of a bombed-out house 2kms from Pozieres a fortnight before his death. Essentially, Kelly wrote his own mini-Requiem.</p>
<p>The other composers are Nigel Westlake, Elena Kats-Chernin, Andrew Schultz, Richard Mills, Graeme Koehne and Ross Edwards. It is rare for composers of this quality to come together to create a shared work but this collaborative model was developed over a decade during the making of the Gallipoli Symphony, which I created for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs between 2005 and 2015.</p>
<p>For the Diggers Requiem, which I am creating as part of my artist-in-residence position at the Australian War Memorial, I was inspired by this display of artistic camaraderie to bring together many of those composers again. But this time I wished also to include Westlake, who had written a work previously about the Ballarat artist and trumpeter <a href="https://bih.federation.edu.au/index.php/Nelson_Ferguson">Nelson Ferguson</a>, who became a stretcher-bearer in World War I. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239071/original/file-20181003-723-q01xvr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239071/original/file-20181003-723-q01xvr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239071/original/file-20181003-723-q01xvr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239071/original/file-20181003-723-q01xvr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239071/original/file-20181003-723-q01xvr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239071/original/file-20181003-723-q01xvr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239071/original/file-20181003-723-q01xvr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239071/original/file-20181003-723-q01xvr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vivian John Cummings,
A Poppy Field, France, 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Blinded by mustard gas in the battle for Villers-Bretonneux, Ferguson returned to Australia, regained partial vision and founded a factory which made stained glass windows, earning him the moniker “The Glass Soldier”. At the end of his life, Ferguson underwent experimental surgery to replace his damaged corneas enabling him to finally see the windows he and his sons had created. This transformation of trauma into a transcendent art form inspired Westlake’s <a href="https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/work/westlake-nigel-glass-soldier">The Glass Soldier Suite</a>. </p>
<p>I felt that Westlake’s masterwork, (originally commissioned by Don Farrands, Ferguson’s grandson), could form the spine of a great communal piece that would honour the Australians who died on the Western Front. I strongly wanted to show that Australia was culturally mature enough to have its own music that could replace the Benjamin Britten War Requiem – the masterwork that is most commonly performed at events honouring the Australians who died there.</p>
<p>The work of extending the five part Westlake Glass Soldier Suite into 14 movements of The Diggers’ Requiem took three years. It involved travelling to France to perform scale versions of the commissioned works on the battlefields to mark their centenaries, just as we had done with the Gallipoli Symphony.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AO86yQ6k4C0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Diggers’ Requiem’s orchestral premiere in Amiens earlier this year.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The risk with all such projects is that one can end up glorifying war – clearly war is the true enemy which we must defeat through peace. Only by being there, and experiencing first-hand the overwhelming echo of those events could I be sure that we would tell the truth of what happened and create something valid that could represent all those who were killed or damaged.</p>
<p>When I asked Graeme Koehne to write a Pie Jesu for the liberation of <a href="http://www.somme-battlefields.com/event/centenary-liberation-peronne">Peronne</a> on the Somme battlefied he decided to set it to Joan of Arc’s final words in French. “The Diggers’ Requiem is a beautiful idea - a plea for peace and a paying of respect to the dead and yet, at the same time a celebration of the preciousness of life,” he says. “My German Australian family heritage combined with that text seems to underscore the ethos of the work, somehow bringing together Australia, France and Germany a century after the Great War to create a vessel of peace.”</p>
<p>Ross Edwards, whose Lux Aeterna is the climax of the work , has always wanted his music to act as an agent of healing and ritual – its age-old universal function.</p>
<p>“I see my Lux Aeterna as a prayer for peace,” he said. “I was drawn to John Grant’s Lament for the Pipers Lost in the Great War because it seemed to me to be an archetypal lamentation which resonated somehow with my Scottish ancestry. The combination of using it as a <em>cantus firmus</em> for the setting of the Lux Aeterna Latin text (in English - Eternal Light) and the sounding of the 62,000 bells for the 62,000 Australian WW1 dead, which form a halo around the piece, has given the work a mythic power”.</p>
<p>I hope this requiem will enable the release and healing of a long buried trauma.
The least we can do for the dead now, a century later, is to play them our finest songs.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://theflowersofwar.org/">The Diggers’ Requiem</a> will be performed on October 6th at Llewellyn Hall, Canberra, 7.30 pm. All bar one of the composers will be in Canberra for the performance and will give a free joint seminar at the ANU the day before. The full concert will be broadcast on ABC Classic FM at 7.30pm on Saturday. More info www.theflowersofwar.org</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104111/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Latham receives funding as the artist-in-residence at the Australian War Memorial. Between 2005-15, he received funding from the Department of Veteran's Affairs to create The Gallipoli Symphony.</span></em></p>Seven Australian composers feature in an epic communal piece of music honouring the Australians who died on the Western Front. It will have its premiere in Canberra, this Saturday.Christopher Latham, Visiting Fellow, ANU School of Music, and Artistic Director, The Flowers of War, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851712017-11-09T19:21:43Z2017-11-09T19:21:43ZHow the ‘Warwick egg incident’ of 1917 exemplified an Australian nation divided<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193681/original/file-20171108-6753-1eq8mv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Billy Hughes worked hard to quash rebellion over conscription during the first world war.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://primeministers.moadoph.gov.au/">Australian Prime Ministers</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In an era of centenaries associated with the first world war, one that might slip under the radar is the Warwick egg incident.</p>
<p>The Warwick egg incident of November 29, 1917, occurred during the second conscription referendum campaign. Two Australians of Irish descent, Pat and Bart Brosnan, threw eggs at the prime minister, Billy Hughes, whose train had stopped at Warwick in Queensland’s Darling Downs. Hughes was there to speak in support of conscription at a meeting on the railway platform.</p>
<p>One egg hit the prime minister’s hat, starting a fight as Hughes’s supporters laid into the assailants, who were removed from the station. After order was restored, Hughes began his speech. But Pat had returned and started interjecting. Hughes jumped off the platform and into the crowd shouting: “Arrest that man!” </p>
<p>Pat was again removed. Later he would claim he threw the egg because <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205423116/19723399">he did not want to be conscripted</a>.</p>
<p>Although many incidents of political violence occurred during the conscription campaigns – meetings were disrupted and speakers attacked – this event stands out for three reasons. First, it involved an assault on the prime minister of Australia. Second, it led to the establishment of the Commonwealth police force – later the Australian Federal Police. More significantly, it was symptomatic of the deep divisions in Australian society, exacerbated by the hard-fought political campaign over conscription: Irish Australians versus British Australians; Catholics versus Protestants; labour versus capital; empire loyalists versus Australia-first nationalists; the Queensland government versus the federal government.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191261/original/file-20171022-14009-17vooqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191261/original/file-20171022-14009-17vooqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191261/original/file-20171022-14009-17vooqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191261/original/file-20171022-14009-17vooqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191261/original/file-20171022-14009-17vooqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1046&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191261/original/file-20171022-14009-17vooqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1046&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191261/original/file-20171022-14009-17vooqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1046&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cartoon of the Warwick egg incident of 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is difficult to comprehend the depth of those divisions today, particularly those along ethno-religious lines. Sectarianism, in the sense of the conflict between Protestants, then mostly of British descent, and Catholics, then almost exclusively of Irish descent, was a significant factor in social and political discourse in early 20th-century Australia.</p>
<p>When war broke out in August 1914, such differences were put aside, as Protestants and Catholics joined together in support of the war effort. But the uneasy truce was shattered during Easter week 1916, when Irish rebels <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/27/peace-easter-rising-centenary-dublin-gpo-honours-irish-rebels">seized the GPO in Dublin</a>.</p>
<p>At first, Australian Catholics deplored the rising. But when the British military declared martial law and began executing the rebel leaders and interning thousands of Irish men and women, Catholics began to criticise the British government, provoking a Protestant backlash.</p>
<p>The sectarian divide widened following the first conscription referendum in October 1916. Prime Minister Hughes and the mainly Protestant empire loyalists blamed the “disloyal” Irish Catholics for the referendum’s defeat.</p>
<p>Class divisions also emerged over conscription, as living standards declined as a result of wartime austerity. The failure of Labor governments to meet workers’ expectations led to industrial disputes that rose to levels not seen before or since.</p>
<p>Tensions rose during 1917, with the belligerent, Irish-born Melbourne Archbishop <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/the_home_front/stories/daniel_mannix">Daniel Mannix</a> criticising the war as an “ordinary trade war”. He engaged in a public slanging match with the prime minister, arguing that Australia had done enough, and that if Britain ended its occupation of Ireland it would not need Australian conscripts.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/only-the-conscription-referendums-made-australias-great-war-experience-different-49876">Only the conscription referendums made Australia's Great War experience different</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<p>Another outspoken critic of the federal government’s war policy was the Labor premier of Queensland, Thomas Joseph Ryan, an Australian Catholic of Irish descent. Desperate to censor Ryan’s anti-conscription rhetoric, Hughes <a href="http://twistedhistory.net.au/wordpress/2016/11/26/government-printing-office-raided/">raided the Queensland Government Printing Office</a> to seize copies of Hansard containing parliamentary speeches opposed to conscription.</p>
<p>To Hughes, the perceived influence of the Irish in Australia was alarming. In August 1917, <a href="https://jeffkildea.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Paranoia-or-Prejudice.pdf">he told the British prime minister, Lloyd George</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Irish question is at the bottom of all our difficulties in Australia. They — the Irish — have captured the political machinery of the Labor organisations — assisted by syndicalists and I.W.W. [Industrial Workers of the World] people. The Church is secretly against recruiting. Its influence killed conscription.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(The Industrial Workers of the World was a revolutionary left-wing union-based organisation.) </p>
<p>Speaking of the general strike then taking place in NSW, Hughes added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… [T]he I.W.W. and the Irish are mainly responsible for the trouble. In a sense it is political rather than industrial. … [T]hey are now trying to take the reins of Govt out of our hands.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was against this background that Hughes found himself in Warwick, on his way back to Sydney, following the raid on the Queensland Government Printing Office. His worst fears were confirmed when a Queensland police officer, Senior Sergeant Henry Kenny, a Catholic of Irish descent, refused to arrest the egg throwers for breaching Commonwealth law, saying he answered to the Queensland government only.</p>
<p>This led Hughes to draft a regulation establishing the Commonwealth police force. In advising the governor-general on the regulation, <a href="https://jeffkildea.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Paranoia-or-Prejudice.pdf">Hughes wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This will apply to Queensland where present position is one of latent rebellion. Police is honeycombed with Sinn Feiners and I.W.W … [T]here are towns in North Queensland where the Law … is openly ignored and I.W.W. and Sinn Féin run the show.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While in November 2017 we will rightly commemorate the centenary of the end of the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/E104/">Third Battle of Ypres</a> (Passchendaele), in which the Australian Imperial Force suffered more than 38,000 casualties, the centenary of the Warwick egg incident is a timely reminder of the “war” on the home front. It was arguably the most divisive period in the nation’s history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff Kildea 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 little-known incident 100 years ago reminds us that Australia at the time was riven by class, religious and political divisions.Jeff Kildea, Adjunct Professor Irish Studies, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/241422014-04-08T14:12:14Z2014-04-08T14:12:14ZGerman schools are building bridges across Europe as they remember World War I<p>German approaches to the history lessons of World War I are characterised by a sense of distance and an anti-war attitude. But probably the most striking feature of the way Germany teaches its children about World War I in this centenary year is the sideways connection being made across Europe. </p>
<p>Being a German working on British culture in the UK has made the differing war memories of each country quite tangible for me. I tend to insist on a connection between past and present, but one that clearly separates the two. Britain’s unbroken identification with a country at war feels strange, as does the casual use of words such as “enemy” or “home front”. </p>
<p>In Germany, the Holocaust and World War II continue to dominate cultural memory, including the teaching of history. Battlefield tourism is rarely on the agenda, but German pupils travel to concentration camps as a matter of course. </p>
<p>Yet the traumatic legacy of the Third Reich is not the only concern. When Sylvia Löhrmann, president of the standing conference of ministers of education and cultural affairs, declared 2014 an important <a href="http://www.kmk.org/presse-und-aktuelles/meldung/ministerin-sylvia-loehrmann-praesidentin-der-kultusministerkonferenz-2014.html">year of remembrance</a> for German schools, she placed the centenary of World War I alongside the 75th anniversary of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago.</p>
<h2>Absence of material</h2>
<p>Such spread of attention might be the reason why commentators felt Germany had a slow start into the 1914 centenary. But even the most dedicated followers of the centenary face a challenge. They cannot tap into a popular cultural archive. </p>
<p>Wartime and inter-war German literature and films are less known than their anglophone counterparts. Nazi attempts to rewrite the history of World War I, such as in the 1938 feature film <a href="http://www.filmportal.de/en/node/18165"><em>Pour le Mérite</em></a>, are undesirable propaganda. Later productions on World War I are so few and far between that they hardly matter at all.</p>
<p>This accounts for a clear boundary between literary accounts and historical writing in Germany. It is different from Britain, where writers and historians often present World War I side by side. A recent event on “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26546416">how schools should best prepare</a>” for the centenary, organised by the public school Wellington College, serves as an example of this British approach. </p>
<p>In the German context, the historical archive also comes under scrutiny. The exploration of past lives and views is usually one of comparison and critical reflection on one’s own situation and values. This strategy is part and parcel of the citizenship focus of German history teaching. It is a way for learners to interact with the questions of guilt that could be raised by the material they study.</p>
<h2>Euro-centric place in history</h2>
<p>The focus on comparison and relations with neighbours shows how necessary it is to react to a negative historical image. More constructively, it confirms the reinvention of Germany as a European player and facilitator. Remembering war is firmly rooted in this understanding. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.volksbund.de/en/volksbund.html">Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge</a>, the charity looking after German war graves, is dedicated to a European culture of remembrance and runs an international educational programme. The Rhineland calls its World War I project on this contested region <a href="http://www.rheinland1914.lvr.de/media/1914/dokumente/broschueren_usw/Broschuere_1914_englisch.pdf">1914 - In the Middle of Europe</a>. </p>
<p>The centenary has triggered school exchanges between Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The teacher conference <a href="http://www.nglv.de/index.php?pid=2&id=1626">1914-1918: War and Peace</a>, held in Hannover in February 2014, showcases French-German conversations and advocates a transnational teaching of history. The State Library of Berlin coordinates the <a href="http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-collections-1914-1918">Europeana Collections 1914-1918</a>, stressing the importance of World War I for a common European identity. </p>
<p>An event promising an interactive exposure to history is being organised in May 2014 by the <a href="http://www.bpb.de/die-bpb/138852/the-federal-agency-for-civic-education">Federal Agency for Civic Education</a>. Advertised in German and English, <a href="http://www.bpb.de/veranstaltungen/format/festival/175125/europe-1414">Look back, think forward: Be a part of Europe 14|14!</a> promotes Europe as a joint peace project. It also markets Berlin as a youth destination and site of (popular) history, turning Germany’s awkward historical position into an advantage – all under the European banner, of course. </p>
<p>Is Germany’s European take on the centenary useful and inclusive? Or is it self-serving and patronising, simply a feature of what Wolfgang Schivelbusch described as a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/29/history.highereducation1">culture of defeat</a>? I would argue that any strategy comes at a price, and not all outcomes of the centenary years can be foreseen.</p>
<h2>Both approaches have value</h2>
<p>The UK’s emotional recovery of the war years through re-enactment, song and even trench-building is for me more nostalgically marked than for those who engage in it. It is also the basis for considerable cultural productivity at a local level. I have seen how World War I heritage funding has empowered British schools and community groups, local historians and creative practitioners. </p>
<p>Local and family history, at least publicly displayed, has had limited appeal in Germany due to the dread of what one might find. But, as the large turn out at Berlin’s Europeana collection days has shown, many items have survived in German households. They are now shared in a liberating, pan-European “show and tell”, initially inspired by the Oxford-led <a href="http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/">Great War Archive</a>.</p>
<p>The German model of remembrance also has potential. It could expand knowledge about German colonialism and the long history of German-Turkish relations. Whether the Europe 14|14 event will be followed by Turkey 15|15, with an eye on the Dardanelles and the Armenian genocide, remains to be seen. </p>
<p>Much depends on how Turkey constructs its World War I memory. Nevertheless, German and German-Turkish teachers, pupils and citizens might be interested in discovering their World War I heritage together on a local level.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudia Sternberg received funding from the German Research Council (DFG) for research on the representation of World War I in British film and television. She has supported WWI centenary projects, co-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund. She is involved in Legacies of War at University of Leeds, an interdisciplinary project which organises and facilitates WWI research and engagement activities.</span></em></p>German approaches to the history lessons of World War I are characterised by a sense of distance and an anti-war attitude. But probably the most striking feature of the way Germany teaches its children…Claudia Sternberg, Senior Lecturer, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220162014-01-14T13:59:11Z2014-01-14T13:59:11ZYoung Brits think WWI was futile, but don’t blame Blackadder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39041/original/c6tp2dkf-1389697322.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Forget Blackadder, these are the guys Gove should be worrying about</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian West/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Britain starts four years of commemorating the centenary of the First World War, Blackadder Goes Forth, first broadcast on BBC1 in 1989, has, bizarrely, taken centre stage.</p>
<p>To rather less fanfare than <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/04/first-world-war-michael-gove-left-bashing-history">Michael Gove’s claim</a> that Blackadder made Britons think the war was a “misbegotten shambles”, last autumn Defence minister <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm131107/debtext/131107-0003.htm#13110788000001">Andrew Murrison</a> and <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Great_Britain_s_Great_War.html?id=0CH6wTuGjggC&redir_esc=y">Jeremy Paxman</a> said very much the same thing. And before Gove turned the issue into a party spat, Dan Jarvis, Labour’s shadow Justice minister, argued Blackadder promoted an erroneous <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm131107/debtext/131107-0003.htm#13110788000001">“pointless futility” narrative about the war</a>.</p>
<p>Blackadder is not alone in constituting that which Gove described as the “fictional prism” through which we now see the war. The 1963 musical <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/07/michael-gove-oh-what-a-lovely-war">Oh! What a Lovely War</a>, the 1986 BBC drama series <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-monocled-mutineer-is-innocent-466366.html">The Monocled Mutineer</a> and the war poets have all been mentioned in dispatches. But it is the comedy series written by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis upon which the fire has been fixed.</p>
<p>There is a long history of authority figures blaming films, television shows, plays or even pop songs for causing people to think or do things they don’t like. But why is there such concern about how Blackadder has affected perspectives of a war at whose outbreak fewer than 11,000 of today’s population was alive?</p>
<p>Gove appears to be on a personal mission to persuade the British to adopt a view of the conflict which emphasises the “patriotism, honour and courage” of those men who fought in what he describes as a “just” war. But there is more at stake than that, and it is something that unites all members of our political class.</p>
<p>Murrison told fellow MPs that he wants the centenary commemorations to rehabilitate those political leaders that the Blackadder version presents as “willing consigners of other men’s sons to hideous death”. Even Nigel Farage – for the moment at least, no friend of Britain’s current political elite – has defended the generals from their <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/british-incompetence-in-world-war-one-has-been-overestimated-its-politicians-not-the-military-who-deserve-censure-9039985.html">sitcom depiction as incompetent fools</a>. </p>
<p>While Jarvis conceded Blackadder “serves as a powerful testimony to the savagery of World War One” he still argued that it distorted historical reality. Even more tellingly, at the same time Tristram Hunt attacked Gove for playing party politics with the conflict, he highlighted those “patriotic” Labour MPs who were recruiting sergeants for the trenches. If he suggested that more countries than Germany were to blame for the war, Hunt did not question its status as “just”.</p>
<p>It is perhaps no coincidence that authority figures of the present want to rescue the authorities of the past from the comedic contempt of posterity. Nor is it surprising that critics of the Westminster consensus, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/08/first-world-war-imperial-bloodbath-warning-noble-cause?CMP=twt_gu">like Seamus Milne</a>, claim the Blackadder version reflects the truth of what they see as an imperial conflict that sacrificed millions in the deadly pursuit of profit.</p>
<p>But what does everybody else think about the war? Think-tank <a href="http://www.britishfuture.org/publication/do-mention-the-war/">British Future tried to find out last year</a>. They discovered that that while 19% of Britons believe the World War I was “futile”, 33% consider it to have been “just” – between one-third and a half simply did not know what to think. </p>
<p>On that basis Gove et al might stand easy. But a more detailed breakdown of the figures suggests otherwise. The survey revealed that only 16% of 18-24 year olds think the war “just”, while 24% believe it “futile”: it is the only age cohort in which more favour the Blackadder version over the one promoted by Gove and the rest.</p>
<p>The young’s greater scepticism about the “just” character of World War I probably has less to do with Blackadder - first broadcast before most of them were born - than their more general mistrust of contemporary political authority. </p>
<p>But if Westminster wants to worry about the influence of a television show, MPs might be better advised to stop obsessing about a two decades old sitcom and turn to BBC2’s 2013 drama <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM12mcTEI88">Peaky Blinders</a>. </p>
<p>Clearly aimed at a young demographic, it depicts a generation of men who are brutalised by trench warfare and alienated from all forms of authority as a result. Just demobilised, the gang swells to include a corrupt police force and politicians, notably a Winston Churchill who is willing to turn a blind eye to murder. </p>
<p>Depicting a futile war followed by an unjust peace, if Peaky Blinders has any resonance with its audience – and it will be coming back for a second season – Gove, Hunt and even Farage should be very worried indeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Fielding does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Britain starts four years of commemorating the centenary of the First World War, Blackadder Goes Forth, first broadcast on BBC1 in 1989, has, bizarrely, taken centre stage. To rather less fanfare than…Steven Fielding, Professor of Political History, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.