Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) in World War One: the Making of National Identity and Erasure of Women and People of Color
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University of Central Florida STARS Honors Undergraduate Theses UCF Theses and Dissertations 2020 Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) in World War One: The Making of National Identity and Erasure of Women and People of Color Simran Pawar University of Central Florida Part of the Military History Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the UCF Theses and Dissertations at STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Undergraduate Theses by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Recommended Citation Pawar, Simran, "Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) in World War One: The Making of National Identity and Erasure of Women and People of Color" (2020). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 743. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses/743 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND ARMY CORPS (ANZACS) IN WORLD WAR ONE: THE MAKING OF NATIONAL IDENTITY AND ERASURE OF WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR by SIMRAN PAWAR A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors in the Major Program in History in the College of Arts and Humanities and in the Burnett Honors College at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term, 2020 Thesis Chair: Amelia Lyons, PhD ABSTRACT My work seeks to understand the origins of national identity as it pertains to the Anzacs of Australia and New Zealand, their service at the Battle of Gallipoli, and its use in the establishment of a white, male creation myth in both nations following the end of World War One. I furthermore plan to examine how this Anzac myth excluded and even erased the place of marginalized communities in the birth of Australia and New Zealand as modern nations. In other words, my thesis explores both the insiders and the outsiders of the Anzac myth. My cutting- edge research aims to build upon the small but growing scholarship about these "forgotten" Anzacs and their role in the construction of nationhood. Much has been written about white male Anzacs, and by writing this thesis, I hope to contribute to bridging this disparity in the scholarly literature. Not only will I highlight the roles of women and people of color in greater detail, but I will also analyze how the formation of the Anzac myth systematically excluded them in the first place. The work also explores the ramifications and implications of this exclusion in Australia and New Zealand as increasingly multicultural nations. In sum, it brings together three threads of research: the formation of national identity in these nations, the paradox of the public's reverence of the failed military campaign of Gallipoli, and the exclusion of the "forgotten" women Anzacs and people of color. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to gratefully acknowledge the invaluable contributions of my thesis chair, Dr. Amelia Lyons, without whom this project would not have been possible. Her guidance, advice, encouragement, and confidence in me were instrumental in my completion of this project. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Duncan Hardy and Dr. Scot French, for their dedication to my research and flexibility in working with me during the Covid-19 crisis. In addition, I would like to humbly acknowledge the Office of Undergraduate Research, the Burnett Honors College, and the Department of History at the University of Central Florida, all of whom generously funded this research. Finally, to the person who inspired me to write this thesis: thank you. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Historical Context ..................................................................................................................................... 3 Anzac Historiography ............................................................................................................................... 7 Methodology ........................................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER ONE: THE MAKING OF THE ANZAC MYTH .................................................................... 14 White settlement in Australia .................................................................................................................. 15 White settlement in New Zealand ........................................................................................................... 19 The War and the Birth of the Myth ......................................................................................................... 21 The Evolution of Anzac .......................................................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER TWO: OFFICIAL MEMORIALS OF ANZAC IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND .. 28 Australian War Memorial ....................................................................................................................... 29 Shrine of Remembrance .......................................................................................................................... 40 Stone Monuments in Melbourne ............................................................................................................. 42 National Museum of New Zealand ......................................................................................................... 43 CHAPTER THREE: WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR AND THE UNMAKING OF THE ANZAC MYTH ......................................................................................................................................................... 49 Australian nurses ..................................................................................................................................... 50 New Zealander nurses ............................................................................................................................. 54 Indigenous (Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander) soldiers in Australia.................................................. 57 Māori and Pacific Islander soldiers in New Zealand .............................................................................. 61 Post-war erasure in Australia .................................................................................................................. 65 Post-war issues in New Zealand ............................................................................................................. 69 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................... 72 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................................... 74 Primary Sources ...................................................................................................................................... 74 Secondary Sources .................................................................................................................................. 74 iv TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1 - The South Window of the Hall of Memory in the Australian War Memorial. .......................... 31 Figure 2 - "Country and culture will be protected by spears" painting by indigenous elders, 2017. .......... 35 Figure 3 – Sculpture of Private Jack Dunn, on display at Te Papa Tongarewa, 2018. ............................... 45 Figure 4 - Sculpture of Corporal Friday Hawkins, Private Rikihana Carkeek, and Lieutenant Colin Warden, on display at Te Papa Tongarewa, 2018. ...................................................................................... 46 Figure 5 - Sculpture of Lottie Le Gallais, on display at Te Papa Tongarewa, 2018. .................................. 47 Figure 6 - Soldiers sleeping on the bank, August 1915, Lemnos. Taken by Anne Donnell. ...................... 51 v INTRODUCTION While visiting the National Museum of New Zealand in April 2018, I encountered an exhibition on the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) service during the Gallipoli campaign of World War I (WWI). Titled “Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War,” the massive exhibition had attracted over two and a half million visitors by March 2019 and has been extended until 2022. The long run is a testament to the importance of Gallipoli to New Zealanders, colloquially known as “Kiwis.”1 A few months later, I read an article on Australian Anzac soldiers of Chinese origin; I had no idea they existed.2 Although the Gallipoli exhibit contained a section on Māori (indigenous people of New Zealand) soldiers, representations of Anzacs in popular culture are almost exclusively of white males of European ancestry. Upon further reading, I realized the Anzac image is central to the national identity of both Australia and New Zealand. I started to wonder why this image of a World War One soldier is central to these nations’ identity, and is it an accident that women and people of color are not a part of traditional visions of the Anzacs? This then led me to ask how this image reflects or even creates the national identity of both countries. There is, in fact, concrete evidence of women and people of color serving as Anzacs, but the dominant historical narrative has suppressed their stories. I will go on to show this evidence,