Making 'The One Day of the Year': a Genealogy of Anzac Day to 1918
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Making ‘the One Day of the Year’: a Genealogy of Anzac Day to 1918 Mark Hamilton Cryle BA (Honours I) A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2015 School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry Abstract This thesis examines the early years of Anzac Day, providing an account of its troubled history from 1915 to the 1918 commemorations. It examines Anzac Day in the context of an ongoing desire for a ‘national day’, the commemorative patterns that were extant at the time, the rhetoric that was in circulation, and the diverse needs and desires of the ruling elites, the bereaved, and an increasingly war-weary and divided populace. Anzac’s emergence can be traced to a commemorative lacuna which had been articulated in Australia since Federation. By April 1916 a discursive and performative script for the commemoration was in place, derived from wartime public patriotic events and organised by loyalist elites who sought to prosecute the war with the utmost vigour. Their endeavours were inspired as much by the desire to promote recruiting and to mobilise the home front around the war effort as they were to memorialise the casualties from Gallipoli. The intent was to focus national energies on the war and to contain and manage the public grief that followed the campaign so that it did not compromise Australians’ commitment to the struggle. The evidence shows that, in its formative years, the occasion was freighted with the rhetoric of national birth and married with national swagger and self-congratulation around the military achievements of the Anzacs. As such, it struggled to mix a diverse and febrile set of cultural, political, religious and psychological ingredients into an appropriate formula to render a unifying, meaningful and enduring public commemoration. The emphases of organisers in their planning did not allow for the degree of trauma and loss that Australians were experiencing. During this period of major political, ideological and social division in Australia, Anzac Day failed to justify its putative claim to be a national unifier. Many were alienated from the patriotic clamour and obsequious deference to empire which marked the occasion. They were alienated too by the recriminations and bickerings about conscription and enlistment which were persistent themes in its rhetoric. The thesis establishes that Anzac Day lost impetus as a genuinely national civic commemoration through 1917 and 1918 as it struggled to meet the demands placed upon it by the mounting stresses of war. Thus it refutes the idea that Anzac Day’s claim to be the national day was relatively unproblematic in the years immediately after Gallipoli. i Declaration by author This thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis. I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial advice, and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis. The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of my research higher degree candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution. I have clearly stated which parts of my thesis, if any, have been submitted to qualify for another award. I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library and, subject to the policy and procedures of The University of Queensland, the thesis be made available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968 unless a period of embargo has been approved by the Dean of the Graduate School. I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis. ii Publications during candidature Cryle, Mark. “‘Natural Enemies’? Anzac and the Left to 1919”, Labour History, 67, June 2014, 143-162. Cryle, Mark “The Urge to War in Federation Era Australia”, Social Alternatives, Vol.34, no.1, 2015, 11-14. Publications included in this thesis No publications included. iii Contributions by others to the thesis No contributions by others. Statement of parts of the thesis submitted to qualify for the award of another degree None. iv Acknowledgements I wish to thank my supervisor, Associate Professor Martin Crotty, for his diligence, critical insights and his expertise in guiding this project to fruition. My associate supervisor, Dr Geoff Ginn, also provided valuable assistance in reading and commenting on drafts. The parameters for the thesis were inspired by a conversation with Humphrey McQueen who also read and commented on early chapter drafts, as did Associate Professor Frank Bongiorno. Dr Raymond Evans provided valuable support and generously brought to the project his insights and knowledge. This work benefitted greatly from two discussions groups. The first, the ‘War Reading Group’, was convened by my supervisor, Martin Crotty. Kate Ariotti, Romain Fathi, Susan Kellett, Cyrena Mazlin, Fiona McLeod, Don Smith, Jane Williamson, John Grimes and Martin himself read drafts of chapters and engaged in free-flowing and stimulating discussions around Anzac Day and related topics. I thank them all for their generosity and valuable input. The second discussion group, less formally convened, consisted of my siblings Erica McWilliam, Peter Cryle and Denis Cryle. Over regular coffee gatherings and through phone conversations each gave me invaluable assistance and inspiration to move the work forward. Through their collective academic experience, wisdom and gift for language they were able to direct me to sources, ideas and expressions which fell beyond the range of my own experience. Their insights engaged me and their ongoing love and support continued to energise me for the work. The staff at the State Library of Queensland, in particular Robyn Hamilton and Simon Farley, were extremely helpful in providing access to relevant material in that collection, as were the staff at the University of Queensland Library. The project also benefitted from dialogues with friends who showed great interest in the project – in particular John Graham, Bill Beach, Pip Kelly, Ian Jobling and Simon Farley. My good friends Rebecca Wright and Michelle Hill performed valuable proofreading work and assisted with layout, word processing and the technicalities of submission. As always I thank my immediate family for their love and support. My wife Paula and my children Joseph, Hannah and Gabe and my daughter-in-law Daisy listened patiently to my musings on Anzac Day and then gently (and sometimes not so gently) suggested the conversation move on to another topic. This work is funded in part by an ARC research grant for research on the history of Anzac Day. v This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Hazel, whose passion for learning and for the written word has left such a rich legacy. vi Keywords Anzac Day, First World War, Australian history, war and society, commemorations Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC) ANZSRC code: 210303, Australian History (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History), 80% ANZSRC code: 210399, Historical Studies not elsewhere classified, 20% Fields of Research (FoR) Classification FoR Code: 2103, Historical Studies 100% vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ................................................................................................................................ i Declaration by author ........................................................................................................ ii Publications during candidature ..................................................................................... iii Publications included in this thesis ................................................................................ iii Contributions by others to the thesis ............................................................................. iv Statement of parts of the thesis submitted to qualify for the award of another degree ................................................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... v Keywords .......................................................................................................................... vii Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC) ............. vii Fields of Research (FoR) Classification ........................................................................ vii List of Abbreviations used in the thesis .......................................................................... 2 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3 Chapter One A “Solemn National Festival”: Marking a Place in the Commemorative Calendar .... 22 Chapter Two Anzac Day Prefigured .....................................................................................................