Spirit of Anzac looms large, 109 years on

OTTAWA–One of the most sobering decisions a national leader must make is whether to send their country’s youngest adults to war. In the devastating aftermath of the First World War, memorials sprung up in cities and towns across the world like poppies from the abandoned battlefields of the Western Front. Alongside the modest cenotaphs in small towns were the more grandiose memorials set up in larger cities; places of national and local mourning and remembrance. In Ottawa, as in so many other capital cities, the National War Memorial is both a place of reflection and a reminder to those who work up the street: these are the heavy consequences of the decisions you make. In Canada, the heavy toll of those decisions is most often contemplated in November when red poppies are pinned to the lapels of heavy coats as the looming winter makes its presence known. But last week Ottawa played host to a smaller ceremony at the Canadian War Museum, this time to commemorate the most solemn event on Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand’s calendar. In my homeland, and for our neighbours across the Tasman, Remembrance Day takes second place in the national consciousness to Anzac Day on April 25. It means the southern winter is bookended by two periods of solemnity: in our autumn, we stop on the anniversary of the day that both countries’ illusions of war as an adventure were shattered under heavy gunfire; in our spring, we pause on the anniversary of those guns falling silent. Like Canada, Australia’s First World War experience has been recast as a coming-of-age tale for a young nation: a baptism of fire forging together a newly federated people. If it were a person, Australia would need to have lied about its age if it had wished to enlist: while Canada approached its half-century of Confederation when hostilities broke out, the Commonwealth of Australia was just 13 years old. The Dominion of New Zealand was only seven. Central to the mythos is the Gallipoli campaign, a disastrous attempt to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war by capturing the Gallipoli peninsula in present-day Turkey. From the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landing on April 25, 1915, to its evacuation from the peninsula on Dec. 20 that same year, little was gained, and plenty was lost. The idealistic vision of adventure and fighting “for King and Country” meeting the horrific reality of modern warfare has inspired the imagination of both countries’ populations ever since: though the Ottomans, British, and French suffered greater casualties, both Australia and New Zealand saw the sacrifice as baptisms of fire. By the end of the First World War, more than 60,000 Australians were dead, 155,000 were wounded, and more were psychologically scarred in ways that those back home would never understand. For a nation of just 4.9 million people at the time it was a national trauma, and one that dwelt on that first significant scar at Gallipoli. What does it say about a country that its most sacred day commemorates a defeat rather than choosing from any number of victories on the battlefield? Though it has in recent years taken on more nationalistic and jingoistic overtones, one thing that struck me growing up in Australia was the emphasis on the cost of war to the individual, to those left behind, and to a lesser extent to a country. In high school, our history classes on the First World War spent more time covering Gallipoli than the Western Front, where approximately five times more Australians were killed. Even then, there’s a good chance most schoolchildren could name only one Australian involved in the campaign: John Simpson Kirkpatrick, who carried wounded men from the front lines with the aid of a donkey. The lessons weren’t about military maneuvers, but rather conditions in the trenches—the lice, the psychological impact of constant shelling, the letters home, the tins of bully beef and Anzac biscuits—a staple to this day—sent in care packages. In researching this column, I looked up the war record of my great-grandfather, Lincoln “Joe” Sjoberg. He was wounded at Gallipoli in May 1915, and returned to the peninsula after a period of convalescence later that year. He survived the war, both in Gallipoli and in France, and returned to become one of his Sydney suburb’s “most popular figures,” according to a death notice in a 1954 newspaper. But it is part of a poem, posted by his family to the “In Memoriam” section of a newspaper two years later, that is more poignant: No-one knows how he suffered,Because he never told. To this day, Anzac Day begins with a dawn service, symbolically representing the first amphibious landings on that morning 109 years ago. There are marches later in the day, but it’s the dawn service that holds the greatest significance—as the personal memory of those lost has slipped away, attending the services cannot help but make you imagine yourself in those rowboats in the pre-dawn chill, and the horrors about to unfold. Canberra, Australia, as seen from Mount Ainslie. There is a direct line of sight from Parliament House (the white building with a massive flagpole, centre) to the Australian War Memorial (the domed building at bottom centre). Photograph by Stephen Jeffery Perhaps the most pointed memorial to the fallen is in Australia’s capital of Canberra. Nestled at the base of Mount Ainslie, this secular temple to the fallen has a direct line of sight to Parliament House three kilometres away. It means that any politician who decides to commit their country to war—and there have been plenty in the intervening century—cannot help but set eyes on the gravity of their choices. If they want that point driven further home, they can attend a ceremony at the Australian War Memorial every afternoon at 4:30 p.m. when the story of one of approximately 103,000 armed forces personnel who have died in (post-colonial) conflict is told. Provided no more names are added to the list, it will take the memorial nearly 300 years to read every single story. It’s not intended as a shrine to pacifism, nor to militarism. But—effective or not—the memorial’s unavoidable position in a city deliberately designed from scratch, constructed in the aftermath of a devastating war, is a message from modern leaders’ predecessors: this is the human toll of the decisions you make. Do not make them lightly. In an increasingly unstable world, it’s a call more leaders would do well to heed. Lest we forget. Stephen Jeffery is a deputy editor of The Hill Times. The Hill Times

Spirit of Anzac looms large, 109 years on

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Spirit of Anzac looms large, 109 years on

In Canada, the heavy toll of Parliament’s decisions is most often contemplated in November, when red poppies are pinned to lapels. But last week Ottawa hosted a smaller ceremony to commemorate the most solemn event on Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand’s calendar: Anzac Day.

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