An excellently piece of writing - thank you so much. I'm at the age where I start crying as the first notes of the bugle sound out. And those poems - yes, they aren't ours, but the hundreds of students I've shared them with over 45 years really respond to them - even though I usually point out some of the dodgy implications [jingoism, sentimentality]. Visiting Gallipoli for the 3rd time last year still had me in a state of awe. And the words of Ataturk... Great to have you here as part of our whanau [apologies no macron on my old Chromebook!] Nga mihi
Hi Radne! Great point about the poems. I didn't really think here about how the poems get taught & passed around. I like to be clever and name their origins, but it's so true that once repeated through the years they do become your own. *Our* own, even? The welcome means a lot! Glad to be part of the whānau!
I’ve been to Gallipoli, but never to an Anzac Day service. They were sent to the wrong beach, and died needlessly, while “superior” officers refused to admit their mistakes. Makes me so cross.
Hi Lucy! That's so interesting--you've seen the real thing, but not the local echo. The error is awful indeed, and of course usually left out of the ceremony. Sacrifice is sacrifice, the story goes. It's tremendously sad either way.
Bloody as it was, Gallipoli took far fewer Kiwi lives than the western front. But it was the moment when the slaughter started. At the end of WW1, New Zealand had suffered the highest casualty rate of any combatant nation, because this colony of 1 million people had contributed its young men in disproportionate numbers.
The real kicker is when you travel through remote country towns and bucolic farming districts, and come across community halls with the requisite obelisk in front - and on that obelisk will be the names of 15 or 20 young men from that district who went overseas as citizen soldiers, and never came back.
Hi Philip! Yes, I went digging in the numbers for this post and was surprised that Gallipoli, which so dominates the narrative, was such a small portion of the total loss. Not surprised about the per capita numbers--Kiwis do get out there in the world. I wonder why there isn't as much naming of the Western Front battles.
Those small-town monuments are heartbreaking in their distance, no? We've got plenty here in the Wairarapa. In Martinborough there's even one for Boer War dead. I guess the privilege here--if that's the word--is that they got to fight to the war on someone else's land, rather than having to die defending your own ground. (A privilege Americans very much share, at least since the Civil War.)
I remember a small-town monument in Siberia to the local boys who'd fought for Russin on the Eastern Front in WW2. Same nation, but thousands and thousands of miles away. I can't imagine what that might feel like.
An excellent piece Dan. In a way it's always everyone's war.
That bugle is so mournful as are the words of reconciliation to the mothers of fallen at Wellington's Ataturk Memorial on the hill above the harbour. Even if those words are now 'shrouded in doubt' they are a reminder that the maths of war is more than just the arithmetic of the horrifically disproportionate injuries and deaths of those frontline ANZAC soldiers 'in service to the Commonwealth'
Here, and elsewhere, it's possible that the real cost was paid by future generations. The growth of a culture that outwardly celebrated service but condoned a silence that ignored the alcoholism, mental health issues, and family violence. The misery that carried that silence and embedded it in our culture through the wars to come - because, you know real men didn't, and some still don't, talk about it.
Hi Susan! Thanks for this--so true, all of it. We can appreciate Atutürk's words not only as a benediction but as a complication, one that reminds us how many bodies were piled up on that beach and elsewhere, as in the Armenians genocide. The math is terrible anyway, and anywhere, you look at it.
I hadn't really thought about the shadow on future NZ generations, and how that would play down through the culture. Of course the misery was there, and of course buttoned-down NZ wouldn't air it out! Plenty of the same in any country after a war, to be fair. In my American head WW1 is basically in the Old Testament, so how could its miseries affect us now? For us WW2 is the story is pure triumph, with no downside. Funny, then, how my grandparents NEVER talked about it. War is hell. We must remember because we will always forget.
Hi Cass! Thanks for this! Johnny's pieces were great, and a necessary complication here. The Turkish side in particular is a whole complex story I know nothing about outside a few scenes in Lawrence of Arabia. No innocents in war, truly. And war always cooks up myths. Nations, too. I've subscribed to his newsletter, looking forward to more!
The manner in which Kiwis, and to a degree Aussies, mark ANZAC day is indicative of the national psyche, if I am allowed to generalize. We Yankees love to celebrate the victories, don't we? (Though nobody ever mentions the disasters in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan). Here in NZ/OZ we revere those who served and especially those who lost their lives defending the Crown. I like that about my adopted homeland.
Totally! We do wins and wins only (unless you're celebrating Confederate History Month, which I'd like to say ain't my 'we' but my Texas grandmother would roll over in her grave.) I like the relative modestly of Anzac Day, and the sense that shared sacrifice is something to celebrate all on its own. It's the sacrifice *for the Crown* that sticks in my American craw. You live in NZ, and you died in Turkey fighting for England? That's a lot of sacrifice frequent flyer miles! But not having grown up in the Commonwealth I won't ever understand it, I think. That's OK. A lovely day, and a lovely shared & reverent pause. We all need those, in any form.
I find ANZAC services incredibly hard to attend. My father served in WWII; his father in WWI - both in NZ Expeditionary Forces - a family legacy of horror and damaged lives.
My grandfather earned the Military Medal for bravery at Ypres, Messines and Passchendaele - a far more devastating and lethal theatre of WWI than Gallipoli - from where he returned, mustard-gassed and broken.
Along with Binyon's Lines, you may have encountered Kemal Atatürk's salutation to those who fell at Gallipoli, inscribed at ANZAC Cove and upon the Atatürk Memorial on a windswept peak on Wellington's south coast, overlooking Cook Strait:
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ...
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours ... You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
Thanks for sharing! It's important to talk of the damaged lives, too. I get a little wary of all the glory heaped on the dead. Dead men are easier than broken men to turn into poetry. See a comment above--Philip was just saying that the Western Front took many more lives, and I'm glad to have some battle names here. (We Americans are hopeless about WW1. We worship the sequel.)
Atatürk's lines are beautiful indeed. It's a good feeling when the war passes and we go back to just being humans. But it's a bit easier to be so generous when you won the battle, no?
When you travel through AoNZ you'll see roads named Soliders Settlement Road - and variations - where WWI servicemen were given land, often no stock or equipment, and expected to get on with breaking unbreakable land and making a living. One near you is Te Whiti Settlement Road on the right as you travel south on Te Whiti Road, just before you reach the memorial grove of scarlett oaks and the Gladstone War Memorial.
Many simply walked away - Whanganui's Bridge To Nowhere a famous example. There was no understanding of PTSD then, or the effects of chemical poisoning.
An excellently piece of writing - thank you so much. I'm at the age where I start crying as the first notes of the bugle sound out. And those poems - yes, they aren't ours, but the hundreds of students I've shared them with over 45 years really respond to them - even though I usually point out some of the dodgy implications [jingoism, sentimentality]. Visiting Gallipoli for the 3rd time last year still had me in a state of awe. And the words of Ataturk... Great to have you here as part of our whanau [apologies no macron on my old Chromebook!] Nga mihi
Hi Radne! Great point about the poems. I didn't really think here about how the poems get taught & passed around. I like to be clever and name their origins, but it's so true that once repeated through the years they do become your own. *Our* own, even? The welcome means a lot! Glad to be part of the whānau!
I’ve been to Gallipoli, but never to an Anzac Day service. They were sent to the wrong beach, and died needlessly, while “superior” officers refused to admit their mistakes. Makes me so cross.
Hi Lucy! That's so interesting--you've seen the real thing, but not the local echo. The error is awful indeed, and of course usually left out of the ceremony. Sacrifice is sacrifice, the story goes. It's tremendously sad either way.
Bloody as it was, Gallipoli took far fewer Kiwi lives than the western front. But it was the moment when the slaughter started. At the end of WW1, New Zealand had suffered the highest casualty rate of any combatant nation, because this colony of 1 million people had contributed its young men in disproportionate numbers.
The real kicker is when you travel through remote country towns and bucolic farming districts, and come across community halls with the requisite obelisk in front - and on that obelisk will be the names of 15 or 20 young men from that district who went overseas as citizen soldiers, and never came back.
Hi Philip! Yes, I went digging in the numbers for this post and was surprised that Gallipoli, which so dominates the narrative, was such a small portion of the total loss. Not surprised about the per capita numbers--Kiwis do get out there in the world. I wonder why there isn't as much naming of the Western Front battles.
Those small-town monuments are heartbreaking in their distance, no? We've got plenty here in the Wairarapa. In Martinborough there's even one for Boer War dead. I guess the privilege here--if that's the word--is that they got to fight to the war on someone else's land, rather than having to die defending your own ground. (A privilege Americans very much share, at least since the Civil War.)
I remember a small-town monument in Siberia to the local boys who'd fought for Russin on the Eastern Front in WW2. Same nation, but thousands and thousands of miles away. I can't imagine what that might feel like.
An excellent piece Dan. In a way it's always everyone's war.
That bugle is so mournful as are the words of reconciliation to the mothers of fallen at Wellington's Ataturk Memorial on the hill above the harbour. Even if those words are now 'shrouded in doubt' they are a reminder that the maths of war is more than just the arithmetic of the horrifically disproportionate injuries and deaths of those frontline ANZAC soldiers 'in service to the Commonwealth'
Here, and elsewhere, it's possible that the real cost was paid by future generations. The growth of a culture that outwardly celebrated service but condoned a silence that ignored the alcoholism, mental health issues, and family violence. The misery that carried that silence and embedded it in our culture through the wars to come - because, you know real men didn't, and some still don't, talk about it.
Hi Susan! Thanks for this--so true, all of it. We can appreciate Atutürk's words not only as a benediction but as a complication, one that reminds us how many bodies were piled up on that beach and elsewhere, as in the Armenians genocide. The math is terrible anyway, and anywhere, you look at it.
I hadn't really thought about the shadow on future NZ generations, and how that would play down through the culture. Of course the misery was there, and of course buttoned-down NZ wouldn't air it out! Plenty of the same in any country after a war, to be fair. In my American head WW1 is basically in the Old Testament, so how could its miseries affect us now? For us WW2 is the story is pure triumph, with no downside. Funny, then, how my grandparents NEVER talked about it. War is hell. We must remember because we will always forget.
A friend of mine also wrote a Substack about ANZAC Day and I found it really eye-opening. I have to admit I have very little knowledge when it comes to Turkish history so I feel like I learned a lot: https://open.substack.com/pub/johnnyfilmo/p/the-gallipoli-myth-part-1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1ez34s
Hi Cass! Thanks for this! Johnny's pieces were great, and a necessary complication here. The Turkish side in particular is a whole complex story I know nothing about outside a few scenes in Lawrence of Arabia. No innocents in war, truly. And war always cooks up myths. Nations, too. I've subscribed to his newsletter, looking forward to more!
The manner in which Kiwis, and to a degree Aussies, mark ANZAC day is indicative of the national psyche, if I am allowed to generalize. We Yankees love to celebrate the victories, don't we? (Though nobody ever mentions the disasters in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan). Here in NZ/OZ we revere those who served and especially those who lost their lives defending the Crown. I like that about my adopted homeland.
Totally! We do wins and wins only (unless you're celebrating Confederate History Month, which I'd like to say ain't my 'we' but my Texas grandmother would roll over in her grave.) I like the relative modestly of Anzac Day, and the sense that shared sacrifice is something to celebrate all on its own. It's the sacrifice *for the Crown* that sticks in my American craw. You live in NZ, and you died in Turkey fighting for England? That's a lot of sacrifice frequent flyer miles! But not having grown up in the Commonwealth I won't ever understand it, I think. That's OK. A lovely day, and a lovely shared & reverent pause. We all need those, in any form.
A lovely read.
I find ANZAC services incredibly hard to attend. My father served in WWII; his father in WWI - both in NZ Expeditionary Forces - a family legacy of horror and damaged lives.
My grandfather earned the Military Medal for bravery at Ypres, Messines and Passchendaele - a far more devastating and lethal theatre of WWI than Gallipoli - from where he returned, mustard-gassed and broken.
Along with Binyon's Lines, you may have encountered Kemal Atatürk's salutation to those who fell at Gallipoli, inscribed at ANZAC Cove and upon the Atatürk Memorial on a windswept peak on Wellington's south coast, overlooking Cook Strait:
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ...
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours ... You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
From the uttermost ends of the Earth.
Thanks for sharing! It's important to talk of the damaged lives, too. I get a little wary of all the glory heaped on the dead. Dead men are easier than broken men to turn into poetry. See a comment above--Philip was just saying that the Western Front took many more lives, and I'm glad to have some battle names here. (We Americans are hopeless about WW1. We worship the sequel.)
Atatürk's lines are beautiful indeed. It's a good feeling when the war passes and we go back to just being humans. But it's a bit easier to be so generous when you won the battle, no?
Also! WWI produced devastating art, in the form of the works of the War Poets (https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/9-poets-of-the-first-world-war) and the many composers from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Benjamin Britten.
When you travel through AoNZ you'll see roads named Soliders Settlement Road - and variations - where WWI servicemen were given land, often no stock or equipment, and expected to get on with breaking unbreakable land and making a living. One near you is Te Whiti Settlement Road on the right as you travel south on Te Whiti Road, just before you reach the memorial grove of scarlett oaks and the Gladstone War Memorial.
Many simply walked away - Whanganui's Bridge To Nowhere a famous example. There was no understanding of PTSD then, or the effects of chemical poisoning.