Hi, I’m Margaret Harris, researcher with Monash University of Australia's Anzac Remembered project. I am a cultural military historian, focusing on military death, grief, and remembrance. (This is great at parties!) My qualifications; I have a handful of degrees in military science, social science, and in various types of history (one each in the classic old-school military history, European history, and new-style cultural history). I am just finishing up my PhD thesis with about four months to go on the topic of Anzac remembrance.
Because it's Anzac Day coming up, and all the people in New Zealand and Australia are running their annual media gamut of terrible history, I'm here to answer all your questions about the Gallipoli Campaign of World War One. This includes the military stuff but also its subsequent impact on countries all around the world (primarily New Zealand, Australia, and Turkey, but also Newfoundland, Britain, France, and India).
A bit of background to the campaign. During World War One, the Allied Powers (primarily the French, British, and Russian Empires) were fighting the Central powers (Germany, Austria) in France and Belgium. (The Ottoman Empire, which more concerns this story, never fought in Europe, and joined the war slightly late - November 1914). By late 1914, only a few months after the war had begun, trenches and earthworks stretched from the Swiss border all he way to the Belgian coast and both sides were locked in place.
But although Europe was clearly the major theatre of operations, that didn't mean other places didn't have their own problems. The British were especially worried about the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. The Ottoman Empire's entry to the war had cut the most practical warm-water shipping lane to Imperial Russia, and it threatened British control over the incredibly important Suez Canal in Egypt. To add more pressure, the Russian Army was fighting off Ottoman forces in the Caucasus region, and skirmishes had spilled closer to the oil-fields of southern Persia. Operations to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war were clearly very desirable indeed.
The Gallipoli Campaign was planned and executed under the auspices of the British cabinet in response to these pressures. Spoiler alert; it did not go well.
So, after I got a wee bit too into my history here and writing more than planned, it's your turn. Ask me anything! I’ll be checking back throughout the day, until about 6pm AEST.
7:45 AEST Thanks for the questions. I'm calling it - good night!
edit: as I get time I will go back and edit my spelling and grammar mistakes. Sorry for any left behind.
The Gallipoli campaign seems to be remembered best as being apparently foundational in the national myths of Australia and New Zealand, and for people to argue over the relative merits or incompetence of Winston Churchill. Sometimes Ataturk warrants a mention (normally related to a fabricated speech).
The myth making part has always looked suspect to me. Did ANZAC soldiers actually get a sudden feeling of national identity, or did the civilians feel this from afar, or is this a myth about the myth constructed later?
Churchill gets blamed for the whole expedition, or else the 2nd in command who resigned does. Was the planning bungled or overly optimistic, or the execution? Landing on the wrong beach is often mentioned.
Did Ataturk's performance have a material impact on his rise to power? Turkey gets left out of ANZAC discussions despite easily being the most affected country.
One of the most pervasive themes of ANZAC day celebrations is of Antipodean mate-ship and common-cause, however, a New Zealand lieutenant-colonel, William Malone (considered a war hero in NZ) of the Wellington Battalion, described his Australian neighbours as 'a source of weakness', and on their withdrawal on 28 April wrote:
It was an enormous relief to see the last of them. I believe they are spasmodically brave and probably the best of them had been killed or wounded. They have been, I think, badly handled and trained. Officers in most cases no good.
(Hew Strachan, The First World War, pp121-122)
Was this an isolated incidence of ill-feeling between ANZAC soldiery, or was the tension/antipathy hinted-at here more widespread?
And how have these remarks been perceived/reacted-to by Australian historians and/or veterans of the campaign?
What bad history has the media been pushing that upsets you?
Hi Margaret, thank you very much for hosting this AMA!
My questions today regard the topic of remembrance rather than the military aspects of the Gallipoli campaign - and my apologies, they're both very broad!
I live about 500 metres away from ANZAC parade in Canberra, and walking my dog this morning I saw the enormous amount of preparation work going on at the Australian War Memorial as it readies itself for a Dawn Service that will likely have more than 10,000 participants, followed by ceremonies throughout the day that will probably be considerably larger. My dad, who is ex-ADF, recalls that in his time at Duntroon Academy in the late 70s, the dawn service was held entirely within the cloister at the War Memorial and wouldn't have had more than a couple of hundred participants.
In the last few decades, Australia has seen a massive swell in public interest in the so called 'ANZAC Legend' and the Gallipoli campaign, just a little of which is apparent above. What were the driving factors behind this revival?
My second question is about the nature of this revival. This time last year, the Australian National University here in Canberra hosted a panel conference on the topic of ANZAC remembrance. Something I took away from that conference was the almost universal feeling of a disconnect between the significance of ANZAC and Gallipoli in the eyes of historians and researchers, versus its significance in the eyes of the general public which now embraces it so enthusiastically. This was a point specifically emphasised by James Brown, author of ANZAC's Long Shadow: The Cost of our National Obsession during his speech, and I've seen a similar sentiment expressed by Professor Bruce Scates, an esteemed historian in the field (and who if I understand correctly, is also a colleague of yours! I'm so envious!).
If I'm correct in my assertion that a disconnect between academics and the general public on the meaning of ANZAC does exist, I'd be fascinated to hear your thoughts on what forces have been driving it. Furthermore, I'd be interested to know what methods you'd suggest to bridge that gap.
Apologies for the overly wordy questions - hopefully they're comprehensible, but I really shouldn't try and post difficult things without coffee! Once again, many thanks for hosting this AMA!
What does historical remembrance mean historiograpgically speaking? How does one study it?
Last night, one of the 3 major stations did the annual airing of Gallipoli, that stellar film that promulgates the popular trope that the campaign mostly consisted of sweet, innocent Australian farm boys sent to their death by bumbling, incompetent British officers. Would you care to comment on the accuracy of this myth?
I've also heard from various sources that there was a particular hill that was the highest point on the peninsula that the ANZACs were meters away from capturing on the first day, and had they held it, the campaign would have most likely been successful. How true is this statement?
Why was the Gallipoli campaign mismanaged so badly?
Can you discuss the demographics of Australia and New Zealand in the war? How many served, and out of how big a population? Was this analogous Verdun, where an substantial chunk of fighting-age French men experienced it in some way? What were the casualty rates, and were they high enough that we can see a demographic effect?
Heh, I was doing stuff on the ANZAC for my methods and theory course about two years ago. It was, admittedly, a bit half assed, but it did get me interested in that sort of thing.
So, anyway, my question! I don't think I got quite a sense from what I looked up back then of this, but just how much did C.E.W. Bean's works, particularly The Anzac Book, impact Australian society? I got some sense that it certainly had some impact, but I'm unsure of the scale.
My great-uncle (Trooper A.J. Farr) died on/around Chunuk Bair on 8 Aug 1915 with the Auckland Mounted Rifles. Can you recommend a good book or books to help me get more detailed information about what happened?
Another Aussie here, hey.
How much of the whole "mateship" thing is just revisionist and romanticising? Were Australians and Kiwis particularly mate-y people or have we just retroactively decided that this best suits how we wish to view ourselves in the present day?
How would you periodize the memory of World War I for Australia and New Zealand? And are there major differences between Australian and New Zealand memorializations of the Great War?
What do you think can be done about the damage being done to the battlefield today due to the enormous increase in tourism over the last couple of decades and the accompanying infrastructural works, such as road widening?
I've heard that during the Korean War the Australian and Turkish forces planned a joint Anzac Day commemoration but due to Chinese attacks it was called off.
Do you know anything about this?
How historically factual is the Peter Weir film, Gallipoli? Always loved the movie and it made me fascinated with the campaign