THE. Simpson PRIZE A COMPETITION FOR YEAR 9 AND 10 STUDENTS Winner Australian Capital Territory. Lachlan Bryant. Marist College Canberra

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1 4 THE Simpson PRIZE A COMPETITION FOR YEAR 9 AND 10 STUDENTS 2014 Winner Australian Capital Territory Lachlan Bryant Marist College Canberra

2 The legend of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) is a legend of Australian men who showed ideals, characteristics and traits thought to be quintessentially Australian. Mateship, tenacity, endurance, resourcefulness, disrespect for authority and courage are the characteristics that are thought to be Australian and demonstrated by the Anzac soldiers. This is shown in the words of C. E. W. Bean: (The Anzac legend) stood, and still stands, for reckless valour in good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship and endurance that will never own defeat (Adam-Smith Patsy, p361, 1983). These men, as the legend portrays it, were extraordinary. But were they? The problem with a legend is that, written in collective terms, it generalises and distorts the experiences of the individuals within it and, in the case of the Anzac legend, it distorts the realities of the war. The Anzac legend has been thought to have a variety of origins, but the Bushman Legend and C. E. W. Bean have been credited as its main sources. The Bushman Legend describes the bushmen and women who possessed qualities of hardiness, democratic spirit, mateship and resourcefulness (Australian War Memorial, 2013). The Bushman legend is relevant to the Anzac legend because the Anzac soldiers were thought to be men from rural areas who possessed these qualities, as said by Private James Bluegum Young Australians stripped for the fray, sun-tanned bushmen, they were for the most part, lean and wiry (Dwyer Bryan, 1997). The main quality that the Anzac legend has that the Bushman Legend does not is courage. Much of the origin of the Anzac Legend can be attributed to C.E.W. Bean, Australia s Official War Correspondent for the war in Gallipoli and later the Western Front. Bean was the largest advocate of the Anzac legend and the instigator of the War Memorial. As said by Bean: It lay in the mettle of the men themselves. To be the sort of man who would give way when his mates were trusting to his firmness; to be the sort of man who would fail when the line required his endurance; to have made it necessary for another unit to do his own unit s work; to live the rest of his life haunted by the knowledge that he had set his hand to a soldiers task and had lacked the grit to carry it through that was the prospect these men could not face. Life was very dear, but life was not worth living unless they could be true to their idea of Australian manhood. (Bean Charles, p57, 1993) This is an excellent example of the way Bean wrote about the essence of Anzacs, but also about the Anzacs themselves. Bean contributed to the legend directly by emphasising in his writings the courage, endurance and tenacity of the soldiers which resulted in the conception that the Anzac soldiers were extraordinary people.

3 The Anzac legend is regarded as a true representation of the soldiers in many respects. The qualities of mateship, resourcefulness and disrespect for authority shown in the Anzac legend are accurate to the reality of many of the soldiers. The concept of mateship in the Anzac legend is the same as the reality of the soldiers in Gallipoli. So far as he held a prevailing creed, it was a romantic one inherited from the gold-miner and the bushman, of which the chief article was that a man should at all times and at any cost stand by his mate. (Newbury Paul, 2011) The ideal of mateship was a reality and most men stood by each other no matter what. The Anzacs were resourceful and innovative, able to make do this is part of the Bushman Legend again but on the field it was seen that the Anzacs were indeed innovative. One example was the drip rifle invented by the soldiers at Gallipoli to cover their withdrawal. It was created by ANZAC Troopers William Scurry and Buntie Lawrence who took a break and instead built what they called Ottoman Bafflers. Using bits of string and old ration tins using drips of water falling between two cans, or taught strings being burnt through candles. (Pilgrim Tony, 2011) These Australians created weaponry which potentially saved the lives of the comrades. Legends (like Anzac) can also conceal or distort the truth. This happens in the Anzac legend through the stereotype of the Bronzed Aussie who was from the country and displayed all of the qualities thought to be Australian. But the truth is that most of the soldiers were not like this. For example a soldier in Gallipoli named Walker wrote: God has been very good to me, I have been in all the fights my hat, tunic and haversack have a number of bullet-holes through. We have taken a lot of country but at what cost war is terrible. We have just heard that we are to help the 5 th Brigade to take two trenches tonight, so God save us all We are all just about knocked out we don t get any rest digging trenches, sapping one is dead weary that he wouldn t care if a bullet came his way. (Private Walker, 1915) This man (like many others) did not conform to the stereotype of the tough Aussie soldier who didn t complain and was never afraid. The Anzac legend promotes the idea that the Anzac s teamwork showed bravery, but that eventually the odds were too much. The reality was that the Anzacs made errors, there were acts of cowardice, insufficient co-operation and poor team work. Prime Minister Keating said at the famous Unknown Soldier speech in 1993: The Great War was a mad, brutal, awful struggle, distinguished more often than not by military and political incompetence (Keating Paul, 1993). The Anzac legend blurs the human errors and failures into a story of strength and courage; this is not wrong but it gives the impression that the Anzacs were extraordinary men and that was far from the truth. The legend in glorifying the people and what they achieved, also inadvertently hides the realities of these individuals. The legend strengthens the weak and covers the human frailties that must have been present. The Anzac legend tells of strong Australians going to fight for their country and it tells of their bravery in battle but it leaves out the realities of war. For example There has been no finer feat in this war than this sudden landing in the dark and the storming of the heights, and above all, the holding on

4 whilst reinforcements were landing. These raw colonial troops in these desperate hours proved worthy to fight side by side with the heroes of Mons, the Alsne, Ypres, and Neuve Chapelle (Ashmead-Bartett Ellis, 1915). What can be seen in the words of Ashmead Bartlett is the soldiers depicted as amazing men. But the realities for the individuals were a horrible existence, We are lousy, stinking, ragged, unshaven and sleepless. Even when we re back a bit we can t sleep for our own guns. I have one puttee, a dead man s helmet, another dead man s gas protector, a dead man s bayonet. My tunic is rotten with other men s blood and partly splattered with a dead man s brains. (Letter to Norman Bayles) As this quote suggests, the realities for the soldiers were horrible, dead men all around them, the smell of rotten bodies and faeces all around them, with sniper fire and shrapnel killing soldiers, and never having a moment of silence. For many, the reality of the Anzac soldier was one of suffering, not one of glory. The Anzac Legend is a collective picture of sorts and in many respects (such as mateship, resourcefulness, disrespect of authority and endurance) tells the story of Australian soldiers well. But it glorifies the Anzacs and as a result people lose sight of the realities of war and what the individual soldier went through in World War One. The Anzac legend tells of extraordinary men in extraordinary circumstances, but the reality is that they were ordinary men who rose to the challenges of extraordinary circumstances.

5 Bibliography: Adam-Smith Patsy, 1983, The Anzacs, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne Australian War Memorial, Dawn of the Legend, 2013, Accessed October , < Bartlott Ashmead, MR. ASHMEAD BARTLETT s STORY., 1915, The Sydney morning Herald (NSW: ), 8 May, p. 13, viewed 16 October, 2013, < Bean Charles, 1993, From Anzac to Amiens, Penguin Books, Sydney. Carlyon Les, 2006, The Great War, Pan Macmillan, Sydney Dwyer Brian, Place and Masculinity in the Anzac Legend, 1997, Accessed October , < Filova M, 2013, Controversies of the Anzac Legend, 1997, Accessed October , < Keating Paul, Remembrance Day Speech, November , Accessed October , < Newbury Paul, Paul Newbury reflects on the nature of Australian mateship, January , Accessed October , < Paterson James, World War 1: A Letter From The Trenches WW1, August , Accessed October , < Pilgram Tony, Improvised Weapons of WW1, May , Accessed October , < Sondergaard C, May , National Identity in Australia: an analysis of the Anzac Legend, Retrieved September , from < Letters to Mr Norman Bayles, < Walker Ben, letter to Ms Smith, 1915, <

Chapter 2: Australia and World War I

Chapter 2: Australia and World War I 1 Describe Australia s relationship with Britain in 1914. 2 Explain the reasons for Australia s involvement in World War I. 3 Match these places with the numbers shown