WW1 centennials. Some thoughts.

Saturday (our tomorrow) is 25 April 2015. Officially 100years since the famous/infamous battles at Gallipoli when so many were maimed and killed, and history changed so radically, regardless of the flag under which you fought.

As always happens, families seek answers to myths and half-heard conversations about events, and military historians argue over what really happened while politicians seek to whip patriotic endorsements of their Voter Messages. Increasingly, events, images and slogans are branded and commercialised - we've already seen a furious backlash over the cynical hijacking of 'fresh memories' and the 'home style/traditional Aussie' family dinner by a supermarket, despite it being exactly the same as their Christmas, Easter, Australia Day campaigns.

Lost in all of this is the horror of our continuing to ship increasing numbers of young people off to so-called hotspots where they will be targets of bitter hate and resentment, violence, and placed in mortal danger. Our government has declined the military's case for a modest increase, and has cut back on support services for returned servicemen. 

There was a time not very long ago when we'd learnt some extraordinary lessons about nationhood, social capital, a citizen's voice, a mate's value and ability, and our place in history as a result the events at Gallipoli. Now that those living voices are no longer with us, calling leaders to account, I fear the lessons are  lost or worse, twisted into mere jingoism. 


An unknown number of soldiers from Newfoundland were among the injured and the dead. All the Empire had rushed to Britain's side, to help form the Imperial forces.

http://www.greatwar.nl/frames/default-gallipoli.html

While not involved in this battle, the American field hospital unit was a vital service

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/ambulanceservice.htm


Great podcast! Mephisto.

The only German WW1 tank left in the world, and it's no longer in working order, is in Queensland Australia.  It landed in a ditch in April 1918, was 'salvaged' by Aussie troops in July 1918 and pretty much landed up in Brisbane, forgotten, for decades.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/04/24/3991407.htm


Its unfortunate that WWI didn't live up to it's billing as the war to end all wars.  Dan Carlin  is doing a Hardcore History podcast series on WWI.  It is really awesome.  I plan to play this for my kids if they ever get any ideas about joining the military.


http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/



Looks like an interesting series, similar to many that are being broadcast here.

There's a really good three-part series here that focuses on one family's inter-generational experience, as a microcosm of 'ordinary Aussie' at the time. This is in part because of the size of the family, and also that in our time there are some prominent journalists and writers (so it's easy to focus on them). Worth tracking down if you can... marksierra will know more, if this won't work.

http://www.beyond.com.au/production/watch/the-years-that-made-us

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/a-young-nation-framed-by-war/story-fni0cx12-1226668106450 article by Chris Masters


D's great-grandfather on his Dad's side was a stretcher-bearer at Gallipoli, for the Brits. He was terrified. I didn't know him, from all I hear he was a very quiet man who kept to himself.  He was a tobacconist, and used to say (even when dying of emphysema) that smoking had saved his life:  there had been a wry joke in it, but no-one really got it until after he died and they found his wartime cigarette case with his war diary and his medals.  Of course his cigarette case had been in his breast pocket...and had a big dent or hole where a bullet had hit it, instead of going through his chest.


Just read this review of two biographies on Charles Bean, the journo who accompanied the Imperial Forces and reported fearlessly what he saw.

http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/3035915/charles-bean-the-man-who-told-the-truth-about-world-war-i/?cs=3222


ANZAC Day (for me) wouldn't be complete without at least listening to this song.

It's an earworm, and it tears me up every time.

I'm quite taken with this version of the Eric Bogle classic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsJ9Clhp5Js


Bogle wrote it, and I've loved and cried to it ever since I first heard in the early 70s. Sunbury? Our MOL friends know The Pogues' version best, and I think they think Bogle covered the song, instead of the other way around. I think they think the song refers more to The Troubles than today, and the god-awful stuffups that led to the prolonged mess that established the Digger Myth we now seem to want corporatise. 

Isn't it curious how this day of National Mourning has now morphed into a day of Military Pride and Jingoism, of ultra-hyped Patriotism that our elders would have found distasteful? Isn't it curious how it's more about the modern sabre rattling, when it was about wearing the medals for those who had fallen, so their names would not be forgotten and their communities could rebuild lost links?

When we go back to our own history, it's clear that Australians wanted ANZAC Day to be about mourning and recovery, and the years after about rebuilding and growth; WW2 was the wake-up when we realised Great Britain didn't see us as part of the close family any more and hadn't for a very very long time. The model of patriotic shows we've had imposed on us over the past couple of decades for ANZAC Day and Australia Day aren't really us, and are so easily satirised. Problem now is, most Aussies are so disillusioned by our current xenophobic politicians that they just shut up, and the fake jangle just gets louder.



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