The echoes of war

[ The University of Melbourne Voice Vol. 3, No. 1  14 April - 12 May 2008 ]

Gallipoli – remembering and learning

Ever-new generations of Australians are commemorating the ANZACs and the sacrifices they made at Gallipoli almost a century ago. University of Melbourne Laureate Professor Stuart Macintyre, and Head of the University’s School of Historical Studies Professor Joy Damousi discuss the evolving role of the ANZACs in defining Australian identity in this interview with Shane Cahill for The University of Melbourne Voice.


Q Under the Howard Government, ANZAC and Gallipoli were pushed to the forefront of Australian identity. The architect of that policy has departed – what will become of his policy?

SM The revival of interest in Gallipoli began before the Howard government and it will continue after it. It appeals to younger Australians especially, since it provides memories of youthful heroism that are free of hatred or guilt because the details of the conflict are no longer relevant and the bellicose emotions are replaced with fellow-feeling.

The Howard government sometimes tried to reattach the story of the ANZACs at Gallipoli to a more martial tradition of forward defence, but I don’t think that had particular success.

JD It will be interesting indeed to see how the events of Gallipoli and the ANZACs are reconfigured under the Rudd government. War and its commemoration assumed a particular patriotic and nationalistic hue under Howard; he unashamedly used Gallipoli and the ANZAC to celebrate past military alliances and to glorify them. Any understanding of national identity was seen through war; the message the former government sent to school children was that Simpson and his Donkey was the symbol of ‘Australianness’.

I do believe that without Howard, notions of Australian identity will broaden beyond this image and embrace a more complex, diverse and inclusive understanding – and perhaps one that does not exclusively rely on militarism and heroism in war.

The regular pilgrimages to Gallipoli by all Australians will continue and interest in the history of the region and the wars that were fought there will provide a source of fascination, interest and personal connection for those who travel there. Whether travelling to these sites provides a shift from the sentimentality and often apolitical responses to something more critical of Australia’s involvement in war, remains to be seen.

Q The Rudd Government is approaching its first ANZAC Day since assuming office. How will it deal with an event that has in recent years assumed such a strong imprint of the previous government?

SM I’m not sure it has. But I would hope that Rudd will allow the Governor-General to represent the country in the ceremony, and not usurp the place of the head of state.

JD As I mentioned, it is hard to tell, but it may be to glorify and sentimentalise it less than Howard. It might take the opportunity to explore what led Australia to war and perhaps reflect on why and how Australia became involved in defending the Empire in the first place. The wider impact of war – on families, wives and children – might also be a focus away from a concentration exclusively on the ultimate sacrifice.

Q For many young Australians, ANZAC plays a significant place in their sense of identity as evidenced by the popularity of the pilgrimage to Gallipoli and attendance at Dawn Services in Australia. Do you believe this is a long-term development or a regular part of the changing and evolving way in which Gallipoli has been recognised in Australia?

SM The pilgrimage is a relatively recent phenomenon. When the historian Ken Inglis went back to the Dardanelles with a group of Diggers for the 50th anniversary of the landing, there was very little traffic at all.

The dawn service in Turkey has built up among young Australians and New Zealanders as an occasion to gather and declare a connection with the ANZACs. It is not the only such form of pilgrimage to places of military significance: there are visits to the Western Front and re-walking the Kokoda Track is increasingly important. It is part of the increased mobility of Australians and their desire to affirm links with the past.

JD I agree a variety of factors have meant that Australians can now travel more readily and have access to these sites more regularly than preceding generations. I do think these pilgrimages will continue as a type of cultural tourism. How these events of war are interpreted may however change in focus and interpretation, as each generation seeks to view these events in particular ways.

Q The centenary of Gallipoli is less than a decade away. How should it be marked and what can be learned from the Centenary of Federation in 2001 and 1988 BiCentenary?

SM I’m not sure what we should learn from the Centenary of Federation. It stimulated some important historical projects and publications, but its re-enactments of key events in Sydney and Melbourne were not a conspicuous success – it was hard to strike a balance between having a party and appreciating the past. Nor do I think the Council for the Centenary of Federation’s approach to public education (‘What kind of a country doesn’t know the name of its first prime minister?’) should be adopted – we should not chastise others for ignorance.

Rather, I think it would be helpful to pause and remember both the heroism and the sacrifice. Thousands of Australians died on the peninsula, 60 000 died in the Great War, and they left families in shock and trauma. Many more returned with debilitating injuries, and even more with painful memories. We honour those who served and fell, but we should not glorify war.

The Bicentenary was a far more ambitious commemoration, with a very long lead-time and the Bicentennial Authority was beset by criticism and argument. In particular, it was difficult to strike a theme that would satisfy all participants. ‘Celebration of a nation’ turned out to be a bland slogan, and many Indigenous Australians could not accept it.

These major commemorations work when they provide an opportunity both to remember and to reflect, to recognise the past and learn from it.

JD It is important not to glamourise or glorify the war, and yet we need to respect and honour the sacrifices of the dead. I would want to stress those who carried the scars of war with them – not only the soldiers and returned men, but also their wives, fathers, mothers, sisters and children. The shadow of war was cast very long, and long after the end of the war, its impact was being felt. It is not only the dead we honour in giving their ultimate sacrifice, but also the sacrifices made by the living.

As for learning from Federation, some genuine historical understanding would be worthwhile. If some of the sentimentality can be removed from the commemorative celebrations, it would be useful to explore why Australia entered the war; how it was affected in terms of loyalty to Britain and its emergent national identity; and how society changed because of it.

In terms of the 1988 Bicentennial, I think the same applies – a wider understanding of Australia’s past is needed. The lesson of this case was that the uncritical representation of Australian Indigenous history was unacceptable and the lack of recognition of white Australia’s appalling record of human rights needs to be recognised. In other words, the war on the frontier needs to be fully acknowledged and recognised when discussing Australians and War.

And please, no re-enactments!

Q Recognition of the pivotal domestic issues of the Great War in Australia – the 1916 and 1917 Conscription Referenda, the 1917 Great Strike and the IWW trials – remain largely unknown to the public by comparison with the military events. Can the actions and subsequent representations of those who were loyal be understood today without consideration of those they deemed disloyal?

SM Yes, the story of how Australia rejected conscription has faded. It used to be a very important element of popular memory and the tradition of the labour movement. And so it should be. Apart from the United States, which came in very late, Australia was the only combatant that rejected the use of compulsion in fighting the Great War.

The insistence on voluntarism had important consequences – it was one reason why Australia’s citizen soldiers were not subject to the ultimate penalty of British martial law – execution.

We cannot commemorate Gallipoli unless we include the domestic story. This includes the initial enthusiasm, the sudden appreciation of realities of war after the landing, the attempts to increase recruitment and the reasons for resisting it, the attempts to impose conscription and the desperate battle against the odds that defeated it.

JD It is indeed this side of the war story that is lost and devalued when the focus remains exclusively on one aspect of the history of the war – the military dimension. This is indeed one effect of Howard’s focus on the battlefield – that the rich, complex and very interesting story of the homefront is seen as somehow diminished in the fact of the adventures and glamour of warfare.

But the homefront was the site of a very dynamic response to the war. The conscription debates that took place in 1916–1917, for example, are among the most extraordinary events in 20th century Australian history. There was so much at stake in the referenda and such a lively engagement with the issues that it produced dramatic scenes and intense debates between pro- and anti-conscriptionists. These events routinely attracted 60,000 people – as many as football crowds today – which in the early 20th century was a staggering number at a political event.

These and other events such as those which involved disloyal elements are somewhat lost today in the memories of war which are concentrated on military successes, but they need to be understood in terms of the profound impact war inflicted on society at home.

Q Anna Clark has found that school students, while enthusiastic about Gallipoli, don’t want to be taught either a patriotic story or anything that has “that sense of apologist history.” How do we teach coming generations of Australians about ANZAC and Gallipoli without giving them messages when subjects of their study have had so many attached to them?

SM Anna Clark’s important work reminds us that students don’t like to be preached at. They resent being told how they should feel, they dislike didactic moralism. As in other aspects of school history, we should give them the opportunity to make their own discoveries and respond accordingly.

JD The history of Gallipoli or any other history should not be taught in a heavy-handed approach but in ways that allow students to engage with a range of interpretations and views on past events. This would mean exposing them to looking at the past in terms of how and why events happened and broadening their understanding beyond easy moral judgements. From this basis, students will form their own meanings and interpretations.