THE ENDURING IMPACT OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR A collection of perspectives Edited by Gail Romano and Kingsley Baird Bulletin of the Auckland Museum Volume 21 | 2020 The enduring impact of the First World War: A collection of perspectives Edited by Gail Romano and Kingsley Baird Auckland, New Zealand, 2020. BULLETIN OF THE AUCKLAND MUSEUM ISSN 1176-3213 (print) ISSN 2744-3590 (online) ISBN 978-0-473-55296-1 Editors GAIL ROMANO and KINGSLEY BAIRD Production LOUISE FUREY To cite an article in this Bulletin, the suggested format is: Gough, P. 2020. ‘That Huge, Haunted Solitude’: 1917–1927 A Spectral Decade. Bulletin of the Auckland Museum 21: 5–10. Individual papers are available as downloadable PDF files at: https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/discover/research/publications/bulletin/vol21 The Auckland War Memorial Museum has a statutory role to advance and promote cultural and scientific scholarship and research that is met in part by publication of the Bulletin of the Auckland Museum. Issues are produced occasionally in the series. The Bulletin contains the results of original research dealing with material in the collections of Auckland Museum, and research carried out by Museum staff members and research associates in their particular subjects. All papers are refereed. The Bulletin is distributed, largely by exchange, to libraries at about 250 academic institutions throughout the world. Proposals for exchange agreements should be addressed to the Auckland Museum Library Manager. © 2020, Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira. Private Bag 92018, Auckland, New Zealand www.aucklandmuseum.com Cover image: Captain W. J. (Bill ) Knox M.C. ( 13th Field Artillery, A.I.F.) on his last leave with his daughter, Diana, on Bognor Regis beach, England, June 1917. Courtesy Kate Baillieu. Bulletin of the Auckland Museum Volume 21 | 2020 Table of Contents Foreword v Acknowledgements v Articles Introduction Gail Romano and Kingsley Baird 1 ‘That huge, haunted solitude’: 1917–1927 a spectral decade Paul Gough 5 The Alterity of the Readymade: Fountain and Displaced Artists in Wartime Marcus Moore 11 ‘The past we harvest that was yours’: The rhetoric of national identity and the legacy of the unknown warrior in New Zealand memory Kingsley Baird 19 Singing from the same song sheet: Patriotism in the 1917 classroom Paul D. Turner 27 ‘He died for us’: The challenge of applying critical thinking at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park, 2015–17 Steve Watters 33 Mud, blood and not so much poppycock: ‘Myth’ formation and the British Army in late 1917 Alex Mayhew 39 1917 and the long reach of war: Three stories from the salient Bruce Scates and Rebecca Wheatley 45 The politics of heroism: Propaganda and military celebrity in First World War Australia Bryce Abraham 53 Having a good war during a bad year: Herbert Hart in 1917 John Crawford 61 ‘Fittingly displayed’: The acquisition and the exhibition of photographs of New Zealand’s Great War medal Recipients at the Dominion Museum Kirstie Ross 71 The disabled soldiers’ embroidery industry casket in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Joseph McBrinn 81 Competing visions of world order: Woodrow Wilson and The Hague in 1917 Thomas Munro 87 1917 in Latin America: Between pan-Americanism and anti-imperialism María Inés Tato 93 Wool, paper, dye: 1917 and the roots of the synthetic fibre revolution Madelyn Shaw and Trish FitzSimons 99 1917: Germany at the crossroads Michael Epkenhans 109 The spirit of 1776/1917: Town and gown go to war Laura A. Macaluso 115 ‘Won’t you meet us half-way?’: The New Zealand military service boards and conscientious objectors David Littlewood 123 The ‘rules of engagement’: The Great War’s legacy on law and order Darise Bennington 131 Foreword Auckland Museum has long been in the business of initiating, supporting and disseminating original research on a range of contemporary and historical topics. Facilitating the deep interrogation of an issue from multiple perspectives and providing a platform for discussion are core functions for the museum to deliver. It is our hope that greater understanding and inspiration will come from well-informed debate and illuminating little-known facts. The museum’s collections serve as evidence for this research activity and, along with knowledge and expertise that surrounds them, they are an increasingly global resource. The collection of articles in The Enduring Impact of the First World War: A Collection of Perspectives is a rich gathering of insights reflecting on a pivotal year in world history a century later and were all drawn fromThe Myriad Faces of War symposium held in 2017. This successful international symposium was conceived and led by the War, History, Heritage, Art and Memory Research Network (WHAM), in partnership with Massey University, Auckland War Memorial Museum, The University of Auckland and Manatū Taonga, Ministry for Culture and Heritage. The examination of conflict and its impact, the subject of the symposium and this Bulletin, is central to the Museum’s identity as a war memorial and is facilitated through its war galleries, online Cenotaph database of New Zealanders who have served historically, and through its programming. David Reeves Director, Collections & Research Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira 22 February 2020 Acknowledgements The Enduring Impact of the First World War: A Collection of Perspectives comprises eighteen peer-reviewed articles developed from selected papers presented in the international symposium, The Myriad Faces of War: 1917 and its Legacy, held at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in 2017. The editors thank Maartje Abbenhuis, Neill Atkinson, Louise Furey, Glyn Harper, Rebecca Johns, Ian Proctor, David Reeves, and Euan Robertson for their contributions to the collection and the peer review or editing processes. Bulletin of the Auckland Museum 21 v 2020 Introduction Gail Romano Auckland War Memorial Museum Kingsley Baird Massey University ‘The European nations had dug themselves into a war techniques of plastic surgery, operating mostly on trap’, wrote David Stevenson, ‘and on one level the story soldiers with facial injuries. of 1917 is of their efforts to escape it’.1 Over a century The narrative of 1917 and its legacy is characterised after the war’s end, it is not only the nations of Europe by a multitude of perspectives, practices, cultures, who are coming to terms with the impact of events of histories, locations, and expressions. It is the richness 1917. That year the conflict’s global reach expanded as and diversity associated with this year that inspired a the United States, in no small part due to Germany’s significant international symposium in 2017 during the campaign of ‘unrestricted’ submarine warfare, and centenary of the First World War, The Myriad Faces of others—including China and Brazil—joined the Allied War: 1917 and its Legacy.2 While 1917 has been the side. On the battlefield combatants experienced victory subject of a number of events, publications, and even a and loss from Passchendaele to Cambrai on the Western recent feature film directed by Sam Mendes and simply Front, at Caporetto on the Austro-Italian Front, and titled 1917, their focus has tended to be on major events Beersheba and Ramadi in the Middle East. directly related to the First World War. The focus of the Post-war political and social changes were signalled symposium, on the other hand, was three-fold. Firstly, to with the imminent collapse of the Austro-Hungarian concentrate on what happened in that year irrespective and Ottoman empires, and Russia—in the midst of of whether or not it was directly related to the war. revolution—withdrew from the war. The Balfour Secondly, to explore not only the events of 1917 but also Declaration pledged Britain’s support for a national their legacies, some of which continue to be felt today home for the Jewish people in Palestine; India was in political, economic, social, cultural, scientific, and offered ‘responsible government’ by Britain; suffragettes technological spheres. Thirdly, to draw together many in Washington were arrested as they picketed the White of these diverse facets into a shared conceptual space to House; and conscientious objectors from New Zealand gain something of a holistic impression of the year 1917. were shipped to the Western Front in an attempt to In this way, The Myriad Faces of War: 1917 and its force them to join the war effort. The United States Legacy symposium examined this single year, 1917, and and Japan signed the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, which expanded outwards to reflect on the significant impact acknowledged that the latter had ‘special interests’ of the Great War and associated events, and the way in China. Within the British Empire, the Imperial in which particular actions contributed to a reordering (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission was of global structures that have reverberated through the established to build cemeteries and memorials for intervening century to the present. the commemoration of the war dead, and an imperial Ensuing from the symposium was a publication, war museum was founded to record both military and The Myriad Legacies of 1917: A Year of War and civilian experiences and to honour the sacrifices of war. Revolution in which thirteen scholars reflected on the In cultural life, Marcel Duchamp redefined art with the myriad legacies of the year 1917.3 As one book could not Fountain urinal; De Stijl was formed in the Netherlands; fully represent the richness and diversity of the research the art and literature review Dada was published in presented at the Myriad Faces symposium, it was always Zurich; and soldier poet, Wilfred Owen wrote Anthem the intention of the organisers to seek an opportunity for Doomed Youth. In medicine, Queen’s Hospital to publish more material presented at the event. This (later to become Queen Mary’s Hospital) opened, and Bulletin of the Auckland Museum fulfils that objective.