© ATOM 2014 A STUDY GUIDE BY ROBERT LEWIS
http://www.metromagazine.com.au
ISBN: 978-1-74295-492-9 http://www.theeducationshop.com.au This study guide is in four parts, one for each episode. The introductory activities and sum- mary activities are repeated each time, so if students have already seen any episode of The War That Changed Us they can skip these and concentrate on the questions and activities that are specific for that episode.
conflict, personal and political, on the home front. Along the way we learn how Australians struggled to reconcile what the war meant for them as individuals, communities and as a nation – how it changed us.
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW APPLICABILITY
The War That Changed Us (Electric Pictures 2014) is a 4 x The War That Changed Us is a relevant resource for middle 57 minute dramatized documentary that tells the story of and senior students (Years 9-12) in: Australia’s war effort from 1914-1918 through the focus or filter of six key historical characters: ώώ AUSTRALIAN HISTORY YEAR 9
• General Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott Depth Study: World War 1 • Sergeant Archie Barwick • Nurse Kit McNaughton An overview of the causes of World War I and the reasons • Peace campaigner Vida Goldstein why men enlisted to fight in the war. • War supporter Eva Hughes • Radical socialist Tom Barker The places where Australians fought and the nature of war- fare during World War I, including the Gallipoli campaign. The series follows these six characters through their stories as told in their vivid and evocative personal testimonies The impact of World War I, with a particular emphasis on — revealed in letters, diaries, speeches and newspaper Australia (such as the use of propaganda to influence the articles written in the heat of the moment as the events of civilian population, the changing role of women, the con- the war unfold at home and on the frontline. scription debate).
Driven by human stories, rather than the detail of military The commemoration of World War I, including debates history, the series offers an opportunity to get close to the about the nature and significance of the Anzac legend. actual experience of war, and to learn how it changed the lives of those involved. As a result the political becomes ώώ ENGLISH YEAR 10 personal and the epic everyday. We watch the series pro- tagonists struggle with the opposing influences of imperial- Analyse and evaluate how people, cultures, places, events, ism and independence, militarism and pacifism, Old World objects and concepts are represented in texts, including me- enmities and New World utopian ideals. dia texts, through language, structural and/or visual choices.
The War That Changed Us uses dramatic reconstruction, Biography. location filming, expert analysis and colourised black and white archive to tell a gripping tale spanning three conti- ώώ MEDIA ARTS YEAR 9 AND 10 SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 nents over four brutal years. Evaluate how genre and media conventions and technical It chronicles the rise of the Australian peace and labour and symbolic elements are manipulated to make represen- movements as well as our military role in the Great War: tations and meaning. both were theatres of war. In doing so the series honours the heroism of those who fought and died on the battle- Evaluate how social, institutional and ethical issues influ- front and those who lived through a period of bitter, divisive ence the making and use of media artworks. 2 4 THE SIX CHARACTERS IN THE WAR THAT CHANGED US
He is a remarkable character who becomes Australia’s ARCHIE most famous fighting general. Through his constant stream 1 BARWICK of letters to his wife Katie to whom he tells all, we gain a rare insight into a General’s experience of war and the toll that high-command exacts. Foot soldier ARCHIE BARWICK is a tough fair-haired blue-eyed 24-year old Church of England farmer from TOM Campania, a grape-growing region in the Coal River Valley
of southeast Tasmania. Among the first to join up in August 4 BARKER 1914, he is assigned to the now legendary First Battalion. Archie serves first in Gallipoli and then in the trenches on English born, farm labourer’s son TOM BARKER is a the Western Front. Wounded several times and rising to militant activist and no stranger to trouble. As an organ- the rank of Sergeant, Archie not only survives the War, but iser for the Industrial Workers of the World and editor of leaves us with one of the most detailed, vivid and revealing its newspaper Direct Action, Barker becomes the most written accounts to emerge from it. It’s through his excep- determined and vociferous opponent of what he calls the tional sixteen volume war diary that the series builds an in- ‘capitalist war’. Drawing on his radical speeches delivered timate portrait of the horrors that engulfed young Australian on Sydney’s Domain, his editorials and articles, letters, and soldiers and the awful toll it exacts on their lives. memoirs, Tom Barker’s role in the anti-war movement on the home front and his vehement opposition to conscription KIT comes to life. McNAUGHTON 2 VIDA
Army nurse KIT MCNAUGHTON is a Roman Catholic 5 GOLDSTEIN farmer’s daughter from the small town of Little River in southwest Victoria. Bold, cheeky, eagle-eyed, Kit travels on Stylish, articulate and fearless, VIDA GOLDSTEIN is the a heroic journey from Little River to Lemnos near Gallipoli, poster woman of the revolutionary feminist movement. In then on to France, before returning to Australia. Through the decades before the war, she becomes internationally the pages of Kit’s diary, we meet the men and women famous for trailblazing the fight for Australian women’s right whose fates collide: lovers, friends, patients, servicemen to vote. As war sweeps the world, Vida turns her attention and civilians. She is a young woman with a defiant spirit, to pacifism, working tirelessly as the leader of the Women’s filled with a sense of duty and drawn by the call of adven- Political Association and the founder of the Women’s Peace ture. Kit keeps her precious diaries, three small books, with Army. This important and largely untold history is revealed her for four years. They document a voyage of self-discov- through her own words drawn from her editorials and ery, adventure, romance and burgeoning independence; articles in her newspaper Woman Voter, and in speeches as well as her strong sense of identification with both the delivered in public halls and on Melbourne’s Yarra bank. Empire and the ANZAC corps. In her diaries she details her struggle with the nursing hierarchy, the gruelling workload EVA and the bloody horrors of war. 6 HUGHES HAROLD EVA HUGHES is from the Australian upper-class and is 3 ‘POMPEY’ ELLIOTT married to a pastoralist who has mining and business interests. She absolutely defends Australia’s right and, she For 36-year old Boer war veteran HAROLD ‘POMPEY’ believes, ‘obligation’ to be part of the war. She believes ELLIOTT from Northcote in Melbourne, the decision to in King, she believes in country and she in a wife’s duty enlist is rooted in a sense of duty to defend his country to stand by her man. As the President of the Australian
and his family. The Melbourne solicitor served as a lieuten- Women’s National League, by far the leading women’s SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 ant colonel in the peacetime militia, and is given the same association in Australia, she appeals to a sense of female rank in the Australian Imperial Force commanding the 7th obligation in an extraordinarily powerful and successful Battalion. During the War he rises to the rank of Brigadier pro-war movement. Through her speeches and articles in General. He is charismatic, controversial, volatile, forthright the Australian Women’s National League publication The and extraordinarily brave. His men know he would never Woman, we gain an authentic insight into the mighty forces send any of them anywhere he is not prepared to go him- supporting the war that dominate the home front for most self and he often seen fighting beside them in the frontline. of the War. 3 4 BEFORE WATCHING down what you think. You will be interested to see if your THE FILM ideas have changed after viewing The War That Changed Us. ώώ ACTIVITY 2 – RECORDING ώώ ACTIVITY 1 – RECORDING YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WAR YOUR IMAGE OF THE WAR The first activity was to do with images and ideas. This ac- What is your image of the war, and particularly these tivity is to do with facts. What do you know about Australia aspects: and the war? Again, do not worry if you do not know much, • The Anzacs as soldiers or think that you need to find out the correct answers • Australian Nurses before you write them down Recording Your Knowledge work- • The nature of the war sheet on page 5. Just record what you think you know, then • The Australian home front during the war come back to these answers after watching The War That • The Anzac Tradition/Legend/Spirit — that idea of Changed Us and see if your knowledge has changed and Australian nationalism that emerged from the war and developed. which we commemorate on Anzac Day After you have watched The War That Changed Record your ideas in the Recording Your Image table below. Do Us look at these questions again and see if you not think they have to be detailed, and do not worry if you do would change any of your answers. not have a strong or detailed image in your mind. Just write RECORDING YOUR IMAGE MY IMAGE OF THESE ASPECTS IS
THE ANZACS AS SOLDIERS
AUSTRALIAN NURSES
THE NATURE OF THE WAR
THE AUSTRALIAN HOME FRONT DURING THE WAR SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
THE ANZAC TRADITION/ LEGEND/ SPIRIT
4 4 RECORDING YOUR KNOWLEDGE
1 The First World War started in (month and year) and fin- 14 Where was the ‘Western Front’? ished in (month and year) STARTED: FINSIHED:
2 Name 3 Allied nations: A B C 15 What was ‘Trench warfare’?
3 Name 3 enemy nations: A B C 16 Name 4 main weapons of war. What does AIF stand for? 4 A A B I C F D
5 What does ANZAC stand for? 17 Were Australian soldiers all volunteers? A Circle: Yes No N 18 Did Australia introduce conscription during the war? Z Circle: Yes No A C 19 Were people jailed for protesting against the war? Circle: Yes No 6 How many Australians fought overseas during the war A 300 000 / B 500 000 / C 750 000 20 Was voluntary war effort the main role available to women during the war? Circle: Yes No 7 How many nurses served overseas? A 4000 / B 10 000 / C 15 000 21 Did women replace men in most jobs during the war? Circle: Yes No 8 How many soldiers and nurses died? A 60 000 / B 100 000 / C 200 000 22 Did soldiers spent months at a time in the front line? Circle: Yes No 9 Name 3 main areas (countries) where they fought 23 Were the bodies of Australians who died during the war A brought back to Australia? B Circle: Yes No C 24 What is meant by ‘Anzac Day’?
10 Name 3 main areas where nurses served A B C
11 When did Australian soldiers land at Gallipoli? SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 (date) (month) (year) 25 What is meant by ‘Remembrance Day’?
12 Which nation had the largest number of soldiers at Gallipoli?
13 How many Australians died at Gallipoli? A 4000 / B 10 000 / C 23 000 5 4 EXPLORING IDEAS AND ISSUES IN THE FILM There are four episodes to The War That Changed Us. • How do the filmmakers get these aspects across to For each episode there are 5 key aspects to consider: us? • Is the series a fair and accurate representation of • What do we learn about the six main characters? what happened? • What do we learn about the nature of the fighting during the war and its impacts on people? Work through the questions and activities for this • What do we learn about how Australian society episode below. responded to the war?
EPISODE 4
COMING HOME that instead of being a unifying force war divides Australia.
(1918-19) Pompey Elliott loses his brother Geordie in the battle of Polygon Wood, recovers to lead his men to a memorable This episode looks at the final stages of the war on the victory in the battle of Villers-Bretonneux but is overlooked Western Front, and the defeat of the second conscription for promotion. referendum in Australia. The war ends in 1918, and we see what happened to the six characters after the war. Kit McNaughton suffers psychological wounds from the trauma she’s witnessed. Finding the strain too great ώώ SYNOPSIS she is granted a reprieve from the war in England. Archie Barwick is seriously wounded and recuperates in England As the war builds to climax Australian troops are right in the falling in love again. The Australians play a major part in thick of it while at home millions argue about whether men pushing the Germans back and finally, miraculously, comes SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 should be compelled to fight in it. Enlistments have fallen news the world has longed for when war ends. away to a trickle so for a second time, Prime Minister Billy Hughes tries to introduce conscription. With all of its central Kit, Tom and Archie all return home as Tom Barker is de- leaders including Tom Barker in jail the voice of the IWW ported to Chile but will Australia ever be the same again? is no longer being heard so its conservative crusader Eva We end our journey one hundred years later, on Armistice Hughes and peace activist Vida Goldstein who go toe to Day: the day of peace, and experience a minute’s silence, toe. This time conscription is soundly defeated and it is clear as the light and silence falls and renewal and rebirth begins. 6 4 ώώ THE WAR 12 What is the significance of the 11 November ceremony? 1 How is Kit affected by the war by 1918?
2 How does the move to England help her? ώώ THE CHARACTERS
3 How is she affected by Harold’s death? The focus of the film is on the characters, and what they tell us about the war, and the war’s impacts on them. 4 How is Pompey affected by the events of the last few months of the war – deaths and no promotion? You might focus on one character, or you might choose to look at them all. If you focus on one character you should 5 What was the significance of the battle of team up with a group of others in your class so that be- Villers-Bretonneux? tween you all six characters are analysed in detail.
Look at the Character Summary page and recording what ώώ HOME FRONT you discover about the character/s you are focusing on. There is a page for the Military Characters (page 8), and one for 7 What was the impact of the second conscription referen- the Civilian Characters (page 9). dum on the Home Front? After you have summarized the character/s you can learn 8 What was the effect of war on Pompey’s children, and on more about them by looking at: his wife? Australian Dictionary of Biography online http://adb.anu. edu.au for Elliott, Goldstein, Barker and Hughes. ώώ WAR ENDS You could also look at the books about these characters: SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 9 How had the war changed Australian national identity? Ross McMullin, Pompey Elliott, Scribe, 2008 10 How else had the war changed Australia? Janet Butler, Kitty’s War, UQP, 2013 Archie Barwick, In Great Spirits, HarperCollins, 2013 11 What significant role did each of the six individuals play in the war?
7 4 CHARACTER SUMMARY PAGE: MILITARY
ARCHIE BARWICK KIT MCNAUGHTON POMPEY ELLIOTT
Character at the start of the episode
Their main experiences
How they behave
Their attitudes and values
Their personal qualities
The impacts SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 of the war on them
8 4 CHARACTER SUMMARY PAGE: CIVILIANS
EVA HUGHES VIDA GOLDSTEIN TOM BARKER
Character at the start of the episode
Their main experiences
How they behave
Their attitudes and values
Their personal qualities
The impacts SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 of the war on them
9 4 ώώ THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FILM KEY Key features characterise all episodes of The War That FEATURES Changed Us. Discuss these key features in the table below.
FEATURE YOUR COMMENTS
1 How does the film re-create the feeling and characteristics of the historical period?
2 How does it use both original music (such as the theme song), and historical war songs? How do the filmmakers use visual images to create the impact that they want the songs to have?
3 The historic footage has been colourised from its original black and white. Why might the filmmakers have done this? Do you think it is effective?
4 There is a great deal of dramatic re- enactment in the episode. Do you think it is effective?
5 How does the film transition between historic footage and dramatic reconstructions. Is this effectively done?
6 How does the film balance narrative with voiceovers of the actual words of the characters? Is this effective?
7 The filmmakers have limited numbers of men available for fighting scenes. Look at how they overcome this problem – consider such aspects as how the shots are framed, editing, close-ups, sound, camera angles, special effects, lighting, etc. Do you think the battle scenes are realistic?
8 Identify and discuss other creative elements in the film that you notice — such as editing, lighting, sound, special effects and cinematography.
9 The film uses several historians. What is their role? Do they help persuade you of the
accuracy of the events and characters being SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 represented?
10 Read the information on the making of the film by the series director and writer, Don Featherstone on page 11. Do you think The War That Changed Us has achieved what he wanted it to? Explain your reasons. 10 4 Recognising the stories are real, personal and immediate, we wanted to stay in the moment throughout the entire series. The stories are, in their own way, epic so the drama needed to be just as big. We wanted the series to look like a cross between ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘The Thin Red Line’. This demanded we dramatise their experiences in a power- ful, rich, believable manner.
Incorporating high production values we enter the past – a world of troopships, trenches, billets, barns, hospital wards, meeting halls, offices and print rooms, speaker’s corner at the Domain in Sydney, the Yarra bank in Melbourne, country farms and suburban houses – a huge palette of locations and sets – all absolutely convincing.
We wanted to revisit the actual landscapes where our characters’ stories unfolded on both the battlefront and the home front. We filmed evocative shots in the cities and farms in Australia where our characters lived, as well as in iconic locations in Turkey, Greece and France. The ώώ SERIES DIRECTOR & CO-WRITER shots were carefully constructed to avoid modern features DON FEATHERSTONE and using CGI we removed any modern structures that remained while adding cars, people and features from the There have been many documentaries made about WW1 time. These evocative shots are woven throughout the over the years. For the 100th anniversary, we wanted to drama, helping to create a real sense of ‘being there’. make something quite different with a focus on Australia’s involvement in the war. Most documentaries have focussed To provide insight and context we interviewed a range of on battle details, international politics, the reasons behind expert military and social historians. Having faithfully and the war and other detailed political and military aspects. We convincingly re-created the world of 1914-18, we wanted chose to tell the story though the experiences of six real the historians to inhabit it too. To achieve this we shot their individuals – three on the home front and three on the bat- interviews in period locations including historical houses, tlefront. Their personal accounts take us through their war clubs and government buildings. – Australia’s war. Throughout the series, we reveal how the war changes them and the country they call home. The War That Changed Us is different from most other WWI documentaries in another exciting way - the archive By incorporating excerpts from the diaries, letters, speeches footage is all meticulously colourised. We felt the black and editorials by our key characters, their experience of and white archive momentarily breaks the spell, taking the war provides the backbone to the story. We have chosen audience into a black and white world that never existed. If characters who’s writing is brimming with emotion, keen colour film stock was available, the cameramen who filmed observation and honesty. They were prepared to reveal all WW1 would have used it. WW1 happened in colour; our as they put pen to paper. Our characters don’t just tell us characters experience it in colour, and so we wanted our what they experience; they tell us how they feel about what audience to experience it in the same way. By experienc- they experience - consequently we get to know them, we are ing the archive in colour the audience can believe this war interested in them, we care about them. Our three military actually happened, the people and places are ‘real’, and and nursing characters reveal how they feel about facing because the archive is emotionally connected to our char- death on a battlefield or in a hospital ward and we feel their acters, the audience understands their experiences more loss and their compassion and understand their connection personally. to those waiting for them on a distant shore. Through them, the series is able to paint a full and detailed portrait of the But ultimately, as well as documenting our six characters’ war - a war seen through their eyes. Their words are not dry, experience of war and the way it changed them and our looking back from a great distance; these are words written country, we wanted to celebrate the heroism of all those at the time, in the heat of the moment, often just after a bat- who served. Whatever their views, they had the best inter- tle, in the fog of war, or having just finished work in a blood ests of their country at heart. That is the story we wanted to SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 spattered ward. Our three home front characters words are tell. It has been a great honour and a great responsibility to written in response to political situations they experienced work on it. and the social realities of the time. They witness a country pulling itself together and then falling apart. Their words Don Featherstone connect us to this dramatic period in our history with honesty and insight, reverberating with the passion, despair, joy and Don Featherstone co-wrote the series with historian Dr anguish that their authors’ felt at the time. Clare Wright, based on her original concept. 11 4 August. Compare these with the image in the film — for example, looking at colours, terrain, weapons, etc.
TESTING THE EPISODE’S REPRESENTATION OF WAR
ώώ 2. THE END OF WAR
TESTING THE EPISODE’S 1 How does the film show the end of the war. What REPRESENTATION OF emotions and feelings does it convey? WAR 2 Look at these two comments by nurses at the end of the war: ώώ 1. THE WAR IN 1918 SOURCE 1 The nature of the war changed in 1918, from static trench warfare to a last great German offensive that nearly broke We were all glad to be taking part in the great adventure. the Allies, followed by a massive push by the Alies that They were grim and tragic, but somehow inspiring days. finally broke the German defensive line, shown in the maps on Nellie Pike, in Marianne Baker, Nightingales in the Mud, page 13, showing the Western Front in April 1918, and then Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1989 p.42] November 1918. The turning point was the halting of the German offensive at Villers-Bretonneux in late April 1918 (place number 11 on these maps). SOURCE 2 GERTRUDE MOBERLEY
1 Summarise the episode’s represent the nature of war in Blood! Blood! I am very tired. Oh dear God, how dread- 1918. fully tired, and broken-hearted too. Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches, Oxford University 2 Look at the images from the war in 1918 (see figures 10-11 Press, Melbourne, 1992 p63 on page 14, and figure 12 below), showing aspects of the figting at Villers-Bretonneux, Hamel (July) and the advance in Do you think the film accurately captures these feelings? SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
FIG 12: AWM ART03022 Will Longstaff, 8th August 1918, (1918-1919) Creative Commons 12 4 WESTERN FRONT IN APRIL 1918
FIG 9A www.ww1westernfront.gov.au
WESTERN FRONT IN NOVEMBER 1918 SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
FIG 9B 13 4 FIG 10: AWM ART 03391, James F Scott, Wrecked Tanks, Villers-Bretonneux (1918), (Creative Commons) SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
FIG 11: SLNSW 14 4 TESTING THE DEEPLY LOVED DEEPLY MOURNED YOUNGEST OF EPISODE’S FOUR SOLDIER BROTHERS REPRESENTATION Private W. H. Moore, 39th Battalion, 10.9.1918 (25) (France) OF WAR WITH CHRIST WHICH IS FAR BETTER ώώ 3. AFTER THE WAR Lieutenant H. Q. Ridley, 48th Battalion, 12.10.1917 (34) (Belgium) 1 What does the film suggest is the experience of the soldiers and nurses back in Australian society after the HE HEARD THE DISTANT COOEE war’s end? OF HIS MATES ACROSS THE SEA Private W.C. Durrant, 25th Battalion, 17.7.1918 (40) (France) 2 Look at these epitaphs on Australian soldiers’ head- stones. The epitaphs were created by the families of the MY ONLY CHILD DIES dead. What do they tell us about the lasting effects, and THE EMPIRE LIVES the attitudes and feelings of the families towards the war, A LONELY MOTHER MOURNS and the death of their loved ones? Private W. H. Hicks, 53rd Battalion, 8.12.1916 (?) (France)
ONLY THOSE HE DIED FOR AUSTRALIA WHO HAVE LOVED AND LOST HIS NATIVE LAND CAN UNDERSTAND GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN WAR’S BITTER COST Private E. A. Newton, 26th Battalion, 22.4.1917 (24) (France) Gunner T. Pentney, Field Artillery, 12.9.1918 (39) (France)
BELOVED ONLY SON REST HERE IN PEACE OF P. & S. O’SHANNASSY YOUR PARENTS’ HEARTS OF HASTINGS ARE BROKEN AN ANZAC MUM AND DAD Private Alan O’Shannassy, 58th Battalion, 15.7.1916 (21) Private H. R. Barron, 3rd Battalion, 9.4.1917 (19) (France) (France) LOVING DADDY OF KENNETH, ALSO IN MEMORY OF HIS BROTHER MARJORIE AND JOYCE 6679 PRIVATE G. W. JACOB Lieutenant M.A. McGuire, 11th Battalion, 19.7.1918 (32) 50TH BATTALION 25.9.1917 (France) (DIED AT SEA FROM GALLIPOLI) Private J.G. Jacob, 50th Battalion, 7.7.1918 (22) (France) DURING THE GREAT WAR SHE GAVE HER LIFE I GAVE MY SON FOR SICK AND WOUNDED HE GAVE ALL HIS LIFE AT ROUEN FOR AUSTRALIA AND EMPIRE Louisa Riggall, Australian Red Cross, 31.8.1918 (?) (France) Private I.D. Hart, 60th Battalion, 27.11.1916 (30) (France) GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN GAVE HIS LIFE Sister H. M. Knox, Australian Army Nursing service, TO BRING IN 17.2.1917 (33) (France) WOUNDED COMRADE DEEPLY MOURNED I MUST GO Private L.C. McMurdo, 31st Battalion, 26.9.1917 (17) (France) I AM ASHAMED TO BE SEEN WITHOUT A SOLDIER’S UNIFORM FOR GOD, FOR KING, FOR COUNTRY Private A. K. Mallyon, 48th Battalion, 3.5.1918, (?) (France) Corporal H.G. Rourke, 56th Battalion, 20.7.1916 (33) (France) IT IS MEN HE FOUGHT AND DIED OF MY AGE AND SINGLE SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 FOR HIS WIFE AND LITTLE SON WHO ARE EXPECTED AND TO SAVE HIS COUNTRY TO DO THEIR DUTY Private C.H. Dunstan, 12th Battalion, 17.4.1918 (?) (France) Private W. H. Rickard, 28th Battalion, 4.10.1917 (25) (Belgium) A GOOD SON, A GOOD BROTHER AND GOOD SOLDIER John Laffin, We Will Remember Them, Kangaroo Press, Private J. Tarrant, 30th Battalion, 29.9.1918 (28) (France) Kenthurst, 1995) 15 4 3 Look at this extract from Patsy Adam-Smith’s The Anzacs, in which she remembers her life as a child after the war. What does it tell us about how the war changed Australia?
We children of the nineteen-twenties and thirties . . . were the generation whose fathers, uncles, and sometimes elder brothers were either dead, or ‘returned’ men . . . We grew up in a wrenching dichotomy of deep pride and bewildering discomfort; we lived in a world of proud April days when we wore our fathers’ medals to school, in moments of thrilling, chilling excitement as the Last Post died away, the bugle si- lenced, and we stood with bowed heads beneath our family names on the ugly stone memorial in our little towns. . . .
We lived in a world where men were called ‘Hoppy’, ‘Wingy’, ‘Shifty’, ‘Gunner’, ‘Stumpy’, ‘Deafy’, ‘Hooky’, ac- cording to whether they lost a leg, an arm (or part of one), an eye, their hearing, or had a disfigured face drawn by rough surgery into a leer. . . .
And we listened through the thin walls when our parents for your Uncle Dick who was gassed. came home from visiting a ‘returned’ uncle in hospital: ‘I can’t stand it. I can’t go again.’ It is mother. Your father’s You are small, and you go into a room unexpectedly, at voice comes, strangled, like hers. ‘You’ll be alright.’ ‘No, night, because something has disturbed you when you are but the smell. When he coughs . . . and breathes out . . . visiting Grandmother and she, that fierce little old lady, is it’s . . . oh, I’m going to be sick.’ But she goes back next kneeling on the floor, her face turned up to the family por- Sunday and the next until the day you go to school with a trait taken in 1914, and you know she is praying for Jack, black rosette on your lapel, and the flag is flying half-mast the beautiful boy, and Stephen, the laughing roly-poly, her sons, who were ‘missing’ at Lone Pine, August 1915, although she never mentions it to a living soul. (Except the night World War II was declared and she suddenly says, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if they found the boys wandering round – and they got their memories back!’ And none of us look at her.)
You are sent to take soup to a family down on their luck during the depression. You hate going: once you saw the husband’s leg being ‘aired’ when you entered without their hearing your knock, and you tried to avoid him ever after, and sometimes took the soup home and lied to your mother, ‘thy were not home’, rather than smell that smell again. And the hook instead of a hand, the ‘Stumpy’ in a wheel chair; one man even skating along on a little trolley, his hands taking the place of his absent legs; the man who shook and trembled and the other one who stuttered from ‘shell shock’ and regularly had to be ‘put away’.
They were the flotsam and jetsam of war but no one told you. This is what the world is, was all your child’s mind SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 knew; we had no way of knowing that it was the world only for some of us. . . .
Patsy Adam-Smith, The Anzacs, Nelson, Melbourne, 1978, pages 2-4
16 4 CONCLUSIONS
1 Summarise what you have learned about Australia’s experience of
• the fighting • the home front during the war.
2 Go back to your original discussion of the image you had of the five aspects listed. Have you changed any of your ideas about them?
3 Go back to your quiz answers. Have you changed any of those answers?
4 The title of the film is The War That Changed Us. How do you think the war changed Australia? Explain your ideas. MAKING A JUDGEMENT ABOUT FINDING OUT MORE THE WAR THAT Websites CHANGED US AS A Department of Veterans’ Affairs www.dva.gov.au/com- mems_oawg/commemorations/education/Pages/index. REPRESENTATION OF aspx HISTORY For education kits on Gallipoli, The Western Front, Schools and war, Australian Light Horse, Women in war, Indigenous service, Australian Flying Corps. The War That Changed Us is a representation of Anzac Day Commemoration Committee (Queensland) history — it is a selective version of what happened, www.anzacday.org.au and reflects the writers’ choice of what to include and Australian Government exclude, what to emphasise and what to downplay, www.anzacsite.gov.au and how to present all elements that make up the film. www.ww1westernfront.gov.au www.defence2020.gov.au It wants to present a picture that tells the truth about Australia and the war. Books Joan Beaumont, Broken Nation, Allen&Unwin, 2014 To do this successfully the film must do five things. It Michael McKernan, The Australian People and the Great must: War, Nelson, 1980 Peter Pedersen, The Anzacs, Viking, 2007 1 Be historically accurate: Does it present all the Bill Gammage, The Broken Years, MUP, 2010 important and relevant facts?
2 Clearly establish the historical context: Does it explain the main characteristics of the time and place clearly and fully?
3 Develop historical empathy: Does it give a sense of what it was like at the time for the people involved, and for their society?
4 Present a clear and persuasive analysis: Does it establish its message by addressing fairly all main SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 aspects of all competing points of view?
5 Entertain and engage: Is the film constructed in a way that draws the viewer in?
Has it done this? Justify your view.
17 4 This study guide was produced by ATOM. (© ATOM 2014) ISBN: 978-1-74295-492-9 [email protected] For information on SCREEN EDUCATION magazine, or to download other study guides for assessment, visit
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