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While there is a range of Australian war poetry, much of the poetry associated with Anzac Day is not Australian. Laurence Binyon, from whose poem, For the fallen, the Ode is taken, was English; John McCrae, author of In Flanders fields, was Canadian; William Butler Yeats, author of An Irish airman foresees his death, was Irish. Other great British war poets who served include Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke (who died en route to Gallipoli) and Wilfred Owen. 

 

Select Australian war poetry

Examples of Australian war poetry include The grief and glory of Gallipoli: Anzac poetry, an article by A. G. Stephens that quotes extracts of contemporary poetry published in the Brisbane Courier, 27 April 1929. Stephens was editor of a collection of poetry, Anzac memorial, first published in 1916. 

Australian poet Kenneth Slessor was a war correspondent during the Second World War and spent time with Australian troops in England, Greece, the Middle East and New Guinea. His famous war poem Beach burial depicts the burial of anonymous sailors lost at sea during the Gulf of Aden operations in the Second World War.

In the 2002 Sydney Morning Herald article, ‘They also served – and wrote’, author Jill Hamilton discusses her research on Anzac poetry, commenting particularly about Banjo Paterson’s service as a war correspondent in the Boer War and then as an officer in a Remount Unit looking after the horses of the Light Horse in the First World War. Paterson wrote several poems with a war theme, including We’re all Australians now. 

Other examples of Australian war poetry include:

 Different perspectives 

The Anzac girls: the extraordinary story of our World War I nurses, Peter Rees (Allen & Unwin, 2016). By the end of the Great War, 45 Australian and New Zealand nurses had died on overseas service and over 200 had been decorated.

Not for glory: a century of service by medical women to the Australian Army and its allies, Susan Neuhaus and Sharon Mascall-Dare (Boolarong Press, 2014). From the trenches of the Western Front to the ricefields and jungles of Southeast Asia, Australian women have served as doctors and medical specialists from the First World War until the present day.

Our mob served: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories of war and defending Australia, Alison Cadzow and Mary Anne Jebb (eds) (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2019). This edited volume presents the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wartime and defence service, told through the oral histories and family images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It shares stories of war, defence service and the impact on individuals, families and communities, sometimes for the first time. 

For love of country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service personnel from South Australia since Federation, Ian Smith (Provost Research & Writing Services, 2022). This book seeks to record the names and brief biographical details of every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander man and woman with strong connections to South Australia who has served the nation in peace and war. 

Pride in defence: the Australian military and LGBTI service since 1945, Noah Riseman and Shirleen Robinson (Melbourne University Press, 2020). Pride in defence features accounts of secret romances, police surveillance and discharges from service by LGBTI members who served their country in the face of systemic prejudice. 

The forgotten: the Chinese Labour Corps and the Chinese Anzacs in the Great War, Will Davies (Wilkinson Publishing, 2020). This book tells the stories of the Chinese settlers who volunteered to fight for Australia and worked under the British and French on the Western Front during the First World War in the Chinese Labour Corps. See also, Chinese Anzacs by Jo Clyne, Richard Smith and Ian Hodges (Department of Veterans’ Affairs, 2015) and Chinese Anzacs : Australians of Chinese descent in the defence forces 1885–1919 by Alastair Kennedy (2013).

Bravo zulu: honours and awards to Australian naval people, volume 1: 1900–1974, Ian Pfenningwerth (Echo Books, 2016). This book tells the story of the Colonial Naval Forces, the Commonwealth Naval Forces and the Royal Australian Navy, including the honours and awards received by Australian naval personnel from the Australian Government and Allied governments.

‘Symposium: commemoration in Australia: a memory orgy?’, Joan Beaumont, Australian Journal of Political Science 50, no. 3 (September 2015): 536–544. This article questions whether Australians of culturally diverse backgrounds engaged with the centenary commemorations of the landing at Gallipoli, and how strongly they identify with the Anzac legend as the dominant narrative of Australian nationalism.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_

Library/Research/Quick_Guides/2024-25/ANZAC_Traditions_and_rituals_2025

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

sad victories.....

 

Douglas Newton

Anzac voices – voices of warning

 

A shade over 110 years since the Gallipoli landings, Anzac Day is a day of mourning for many. Respect is due. And more. If we listen to the original Anzac voices, we may recognise voices of warning – relevant today.

The Anzac story warns us of what may happen to a small country that offers unfaltering loyalty to a great power. That loyalty can degrade to servility. Those in uniform pay the price.

The voices at the top remind us: war can incite recklessness. Our leaders may debase themselves before our allies and spend carelessly our young people’s blood.

A handful of examples must suffice. In November 1914, the defeated federal Liberal leader Joseph Cook told a crowd in Mosman that Australia must send not 20,000 men, but rather 100,000 men, because “we are engaged in a war of extinction”.

In December 1915, after Gallipoli, prime minister Billy Hughes circulated an extraordinary “Call to Arms”. He claimed that “had the number of our forces been doubled… the Australian armies would long ago have been camping in Constantinople, and the world war would have been practically over”.

In April 1916, Hughes spoke in London’s Guildhall: “The British race has found its soul. The war has saved us from moral and physical degeneration and decay. We were in danger of losing our greatness and of becoming flabby… The war has enabled us to find ourselves.”

His booster, Keith Murdoch, lamented that Australian troops only narrowly voted for conscription in December 1917. Race to the rescue: Murdoch told General Birdwood it was because they were fighting “against an enemy who is not to them nearly as great an object of enmity and dread as the Japanese”. Hughes was enraged that Australians had twice voted down conscription. He howled to Murdoch: “And war weariness … war weariness in a people who have escaped all the consequences of this awful war!”

We may praise Australian military endeavour. But we should not forget that our generals urged the government to change the law, so they could execute at the front. General Sir John Monash himself told his wife in July 1917 he had argued for firing parties “in some clear case of cowardly desertion” in order to “stop the rot”.

How very different are the actual Anzac voices! Through recorded interviews, held principally at the Australian War Memorial, these men speak to us. We can hear the fervent egalitarianism, the fierce democratic instinct, and the radical mutuality.

Some remind us bluntly: it’s mostly low-paid men who fight. Private Jesse Palmer told his interviewer why he enlisted: “Well … there’s so much unemployment… It was a case of having three meals a day, two changes of raiment, and five bob.”

The big-noting of Anzac repelled some. Private Frank Molony of the 1st Field Ambulance was revolted by the guff in the Anzac Bulletin. He had “terrible nightmares” after reading of “a successful, Christ, successful”! – a successful, God the word shivers horror, bombing of enemy hutments and billets.” He treated men with self-inflicted wounds. He hid them. “They shoot for cowardice, and award for heroism, and everyone has come to know the vague invisible dividing line.”

Scores described shell-shock. Private Eric Abraham remembered one officer who “got a direct hit… His hands were shaking violently … He was a pitiful sight, completely broken. With every shell blast he ducked and eventually tucked himself in the corner cringing…”

Some denounced the war-at-any-price politicians prolonging the war. In October 1916, Private Ted Ryan from Broken Hill, a shell-shock victim, wrote to Ramsay MacDonald MP, praising his stand for peace-by-negotiation: “Why shouldn’t we know what terms of peace we are fighting for, why shouldn’t we discuss what terms we are supposed to accept?” Facing a death sentence at his court martial in 1917, Ryan explained his dissent. He had enlisted to defend “the ideals of humanity and civilisation”. But Britain was insisting on crushing Germany, so “it was no longer a war of resistance”. Ryan was one of a great throng. The total number of courts-martial in the Australian Institute of Fitness is estimated at 23,000 for the 331,000 enrolled.

The men’s sympathies ran deep. Sergeant Eric Evans recorded in June 1918 an attempted suicide in his unit. “A chap cut his throat yesterday in the wood at the bottom of the camp.” He had been “very depressed and threatened to do it”. He was found “lying naked, covered in blood” – and was saved. Evans refused to condemn him.

Many extended their solidarity with suffering to the enemy. In October 1918, Private Charlie Mance escorted German prisoners to a dressing station. “One bloke showed me his wife’s photos… Well, when you look at it, when we got down there … and you see a lot of Germans, wounded, and blokes was reading the last rites on them, they’re just the same as you. Young blokes! I could see a couple of our blokes laying there. No different!”

Stan Nixon of the 16th Battalion remembered the Germans in retreat in late 1918. He was sickened by what he saw, “day after day. It is just this murder”. He resolved “to fire at their legs”. Why? “They got a woman and kids at home, just the same.”

Some dodged the killing altogether. Private Ernest Morton, a Gallipoli veteran, encountered a “mortally wounded” German officer in July 1918, “a young chap, be in his late teens”. He spoke English. “He prayed to me to kill him. Put him out of his misery.” Morton could not. From that moment he refused to fire his machine gun. “I’m not going to have anything at all to do with this.”

Many refused the consolations of victory. An interviewer asked Sergeant Jack Lockett: “What do you think the war achieved?” “Bloody well nothing,” he replied. “I couldn’t see much out of it. Some of these bloody heads [bigwigs] ought to be put in it.”

Some resolved never to fight overseas again. After four years service, Archie Barwick reflected: “Never no more for me, the only time I would fight again is in defence of my own country, I would never go out of ‘Aussie’ again seeking stoush, I have had my fill of it.”

Original Anzac voices – for Anzac Day. We should listen, and be wary of those who seek to hijack Anzac, sacralising the “Anzac spirit”, while promoting hyper-individualism, neoliberalism, widening inequality, privilege, and tax rorts. The Anzacs practised their radical collectivism – in war and peace.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/04/anzac-voices-voices-of-warning/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.