Australia's Global Memory Footprint: Memorial Building on the Western Front, 1916–2015

Abstract

Shortly after the First World War ended, Australian authorities erected memorials in France and Belgium in memory of the Australian Imperial Force. Decades later, during the so-called ‘second generation of memory’, Australians again engaged in planting memorials on sites of memory on the Western Front. This article compares the two periods of memorial building, contrasting the sites that were chosen for commemoration and examining what these suggest about the difference between past and contemporary modes of remembering the First World War. It highlights the growing importance, in extra-territorial commemoration, of memorial diplomacy and the development of a shared memory between Australians and the communities which host their memorials.

Notes

Unless otherwise stated, archival records are from the Australian War Memorial (hereafter AWM) or the National Archives, Australia (NAA).

¹ Skipper Francis, ‘For Auld Lang Syne! Australia Will be There’. http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.mus-an5434562-s1-e (accessed 1 September 2014).

² Australian War Memorial (AWM), ‘First World War Embarkation Rolls’. http://www.awm.gov.au/research/people/nominal_rolls/first_world_war_embarkation/introduction/?query=embarkations+world+war+1 (accessed 20 August 2014).

³ AWM, ‘Deaths as a result of service with Australian units’. http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/war_casualties/ (accessed 20 August 2014).

⁴ Ian Hamill, ‘An Expeditionary Force Mentality? The Despatch of Australian Troops to the Middle East, 1939–1940’, Australian Outlook 31, no. 2 (1977): 319–29.

⁵ Matthew Graves, ‘Memorial Diplomacy in Franco-Australian Relations’, in Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration: Mobilizing the Past in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, eds Shanti Sumartojo and Ben Wellings (Bern: Peter Lang, 2014), 182.

⁶ The seminal work on Australian war memorials is K. S. Inglis, Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 1998).

⁷ Jay Winter, Remembering War: The Great War Between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 26.

⁸ I borrow this term from Graves, ‘Memorial Diplomacy’.

⁹ See Joan Beaumont, Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2013), 176–81, 307–9, 421–2; Eric Andrews, ‘25 April 1916: The First Anzac Day in Australia and Britain’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial 23 (1993): 13–20.

¹⁰ Photo EZ0131, Photo E02059, AWM collection.

¹¹ AWM, ‘Bronze Plaque from the base of wooden memorial cross Pozieres [sic]: 1 Division, AIF’. http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL29088/ (accessed 20 August 2014).

¹² Memo to Fabian Ware, Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), 18 January 1930, A458 P337/6 pt 2.

¹³ John Bodnar, ‘Public Memory in an American City: Commemoration in Cleveland’, in Commemorations: The Politics of National identity, ed. John R. Gillis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 75.

¹⁴ Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan, War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 9.

¹⁵ Minutes of conference at Ham-sur-Heure, Belgium, on Battle Memorial Scheme, 14 March 1919, AWM27 623/3; ‘Australian War Memorials in France’, 14 March 1919, AWM27 623/4; Australian Battle Memorials and Soldiers' Graves (ABM& SG) Committee, Minutes, 20 March 1919, A2909 AGS6/1/5 pt 1.

¹⁶ Minutes of conference at Ham-sur-Heure.

¹⁷ Acting Prime Minister A. W. Watt to Hughes, Papers of W. M. Hughes, MS1538 Series 24.1 Box 122 Folder 2, National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA).

¹⁸ Hughes to Watt, 20 May 1919, Hughes papers, MS1538 Series 24.1, Box 122, Folder 3, NLA.

¹⁹ L. F. Fitzhardinge, William Morris Hughes: A Political Biography, II, The Little Digger 1914–1952 (London: Angus & Robertson, 1979), 113.

²⁰ Department of Defence to Prime Minister’s Department, 7 October 1919, A461 D370/1/15.

²¹ Captain G. S. Keesing, ‘War Memorials in France and Belgium’, A461 D370/1/15.

²² ADC Australian Corps, Lieut. Temperly, ‘Re War Memorial’, 4 April 1919, AWM27 623/3; Brig-General I. Mackay, ‘Australian War Memorials’, 16 March 1919, AWM27 623/4.

²³ Meeting of G.O.C.s Divisions and Brigades, ‘Australian War Memorials in France’, 14 March 1919, AWM27 627/3.

²⁴ ABM& SG Committee, 20 March 1919, A2909 AGS6/1/5 pt 1.

²⁵ Keesing, Australia House, ‘Proposed A.I.F. Memorials in France’, 27 February 1919, A2909 AGS6/1/5 pt 1.

²⁶ ‘1st Australian Divisional Memorial’, AWM27 623/4.

²⁷ ‘1st Australian Division’, ‘1st Australian Divisional Memorial’, AWM27 623/4; C. E. W. Bean, Anzac to Amiens: A Shorter History of the Australian Fighting Services in the First World War (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1946), 264.

²⁸ ‘2nd Divisional Memorial’, 4 December 1918, AWM27 623/5. Other possibilities considered by the 2nd Division included Pozières, Bullecourt, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Amiens and Montebrehain: Memo by Brigadier G. Martin, 12 April 1919, A458 P337/6 pt 1.

²⁹ Conference at Ham-sur-Heure, 14 March 1919; Meeting of ABM& SG Committee, 29 April 1919, A2909 AGS1/2/1.

³⁰ Sir Charles Rosenthal diary, 3 November 1918, MLMSS 2739, vol. 1, State Library of NSW; Memo, Charles Rosenthal, ‘Second Australian Division’, 4 December 1918, AWM27 623/5.

³¹ ‘War Memorials in France and Belgium’, nd (mid-1919), A461 D370/1/15; Rosenthal, ‘Second Australian Division’, 4 December 1918, AWM27 623/5.

³² Rosenthal diary, 23 November 1918.

³³ ‘Second Australian Division Memorial’, Australians on the Western Front 1914–1918. www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/mont-st-quentin/visiting-mont-st-quentin.php (accessed 20 August 2014).

³⁴ So, too, did the statue of a United States ‘doughboy’ standing on a giant eagle, sword in hand, marking the spot at St Nazaire where the American Expeditionary Force landed in April 1917. See 87th Infantry Division, http://gallery.87thinfantrydivision.com/Personal-Remembrances/McAuliffe-Sculptors/2685673_HB9PPQ/142189560_D5TzBSg#!i=142189560&k=D5TzBSg (accessed 18 October 2014).

³⁵ John Monash, The Australian Victories in 1918 (London: Hutchinson, 1920), 28–9.

³⁶ ‘4th Divisional Memorial’, AWM27 623/7.

³⁷ Memo by Commander 12th Australian Infantry Brigade, 13 March 1919, AWM27 623/7; Memo by Commander 13th Battalion, 13 March 1991, AWM27 623/7. Other sites on the list for the 4th Division memorial were: Mouquet Farm, Guedecourt, Messines, Broodseinde, Hébuterne, Hamel, Amiens (Proyart), Hindenburg Line.

³⁸ John Coates, ed., An Atlas of Australia’s Wars (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001), 60.

³⁹ E. G. Sinclair-MacLagan to Hobbs, 28 March 1919, AWM27 623/7.

⁴⁰ Commander 12th Australian Infantry Brigade, Ref. G53, 13 March 1919, AWM27 623/7.

⁴¹ Sinclair MacLagan to Hobbs, 28 March 1919.

⁴² ‘5th Australian Divisional Memorial’, AWM27 623/8.

⁴³ ‘War Memorials in France and Belgium’, A461 D370/1/15.

⁴⁴ Christina Twomey, ‘Trauma and the Reinvigoration of Anzac: An Argument’, History Australia 10, no. 3 (December 2013): 88.

⁴⁵ ‘Suggestions for Inscriptions on Divisional memorials’, 10 July 1919, A2909 AGS6/1/6 pt 1.

⁴⁶ Battle Exploit Memorials Committee, April 1919, A2909 AGS1/3/1.

⁴⁷ Appendix to Paper no. 2, Battle Exploit Memorials Committee (BEMC), April 1919, A2909 AGS1/3/1.

⁴⁸ Army Order, 12 April 1919, AWM27 623/7, Appendix to Paper 2, BEMC. The only claim about which there was any hesitation was Polygon Wood (Minutes of 2nd Meeting of the Battle Exploit Memorials Committee, 24 April 1919, A2909 AGS1/3/1), but this was approved by end May 1919.

⁴⁹ David Crane, Empires of the Dead: How One Man’s Vision Led to the Creation of WWI’s War Graves (London: William Collins, 2013), 190.

⁵⁰ War Office, Army Order, ‘Memorials on Battlefields’, 12 April 1919, AWM27 623/9.

⁵¹ Fabian Ware, The Immortal Heritage: An Account of the Work and Policy of The Imperial War Graves Commission During Twenty Years 1917–1937 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1937), 25, 41.

⁵² The Australian representative, Captain A. H. Bardin, made recommendations to the ABM& SG Committee which forwarded these to the IWGC for action with the French government: Minutes of ABM& SG Committee, 17 July 1919, A2909 AGS1/2/1. All sites were formally transferred back to the French state in 1937: Minute for Prime Minister, ‘Australian War Memorials in France’, October 1937, A461 A370/1/15.

⁵³ Major Phillips, Minute, 9 June 1920, A2909 AGS6/1/5 pt 1.

⁵⁴ Bardin, ‘Australian Battle Memorials’, 11 June 1920, A2909 AGS6/1/5 pt 1; Rosenthal, ‘Second Australian Division’, 4 December 1918, AWM27 623/5.

⁵⁵ Bardin, ‘Australian Battle Memorials’, 11 June 1920.

⁵⁶ C. E. W. Bean, ‘Our Most Sacred Acre’, 31 May 1935, AWM38 3DRL/6673, item 403.

⁵⁷ The 5th Division memorial at Polygon Wood had then to be reconstructed in 1920 because of insufficient filling-in of tunnels and dugouts underneath: CO Australian War Graves Services, ‘Australian Memorials’, 17 December 1920, A2909 AGS6/1/6, pt 1.

⁵⁸ ‘Australian Memorials’, 17 December 1920, A2909 AGS6/1/6, pt 1.

⁵⁹ ‘Australian Memorials’, 17 December 1920, A2909 AGS6/1/6, pt 1. The Hill 60 memorial was replaced in 1923 by a granite obelisk after the original fell into a state of disrepair.

⁶⁰ Figure for graves provided by Commonwealth War Graves Commission, August 2014. This includes dead and unidentified Australian dead.

⁶¹ See John Stephens, ‘ “The Ghosts of Menin Gate”: Art, Architecture and Commemoration’, Journal of Contemporary History 44, no. 7 (2009): 21–5.

⁶² Meeting of ABM& SG Committee, 29 May 1919, A2909 AGS1/2/1.

⁶³ David Coombs, The Lionheart: A Life of Lieutenant-General Sir Talbot Hobbs (Loftus, NSW: Australian Military History Publications, 2007), 241.

⁶⁴ Hobbs to Lieutenant-General C. B. B. White, 4 April 1919, A2909 AGS6/1/5 pt 1.

⁶⁵ ‘Australian Memorials’, 17 December 1920, A2909 AGS6/1/6.

⁶⁶ Crane, 212.

⁶⁷ Letter, Major C. K. Phillips, IWGC, 16 February 1923, WO 32/5865, National Archives, London.

⁶⁸ Similar ‘mixed committees’ were established with the Belgians (1919), the Greeks (1921), the Italians (1922) and the French and Germans (1935).

⁶⁹ ‘Report on Meeting of Anglo-French Mixed Committee’, 16 July 1926, Minutes of 7th Meeting of Anglo-French Mixed Committee, 25 June 1926, A461 H370/1/15 pt 1.

⁷⁰ ‘National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux’, August 1927, A6006 1927/08/16; Gazette no. 106, 17 December 1925, A461 H370/1/15 pt 1.

⁷¹ Australia House to Prime Minister’s Department, 31 May 1929, A461 H370/1/15 pt 1; ‘The Villers Bretonneux Memorial’, nd, A461 H370/1/15 pt 1.

⁷² Cabinet agenda no. 118, 15 March 1932, A461 H370/1/15 pt 1.

⁷³ Ware, 31.

⁷⁴ Prime Minister Lyons to Minister for Repatriation, 7 February 1938, A461 H370/1/15 pt 3.

⁷⁵ ‘Villers Bretonneux War Memorial’, 18 March 1938, A461 H370/1/15 pt 3.

⁷⁶ Letter, J. D. Anthony to Senator Edward Mattner, 18 March 1964, A463 1964/4940; Appendix to Cabinet Submission on Australian Divisional Memorials in France and Belgium, 16 January 1947, A2700 1208A; Second Australian Division 1st A.I.F., Circular no. 2, April 1970, A3211 1971/1087 pt 8.

⁷⁷ Circular no. 2.

⁷⁸ Keith Pallor, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, to A. D. Watt, Australian High Commissioner, London, 15 April 1971, A3211 1971/1087 pt 8. The RSL initially opposed change but then advocated for a new statue to mark the anniversary of Mont St Quentin in 1968: Anthony to PM Holt, 21 July 1966, A463 1964/4940.

⁷⁹ G. J. Yeend, Assistant Secretary to Prime Minister, nd 1966, A463 1964/4940.

⁸⁰ Meeting of Commonwealth Art Advisory Board, 21–22 April 1969, 15–16 January 1970, A463 1964/4940.

⁸¹ W. F. Anderson, Mont St Quentin Memorial Association, to PM Gorton, September 1970, M4251 15 pt 2; E. S. Keehn, Department of Interior, to Secretary PM& C, 15 April 1971, A3211 1971/1087, pt 8.

⁸² For a recent engagement with this question see Carolyn Holbrook, Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography (Sydney: NewSouth, 2014).

⁸³ For one leading contribution to the debate see Mark McKenna and Stuart Ward, ‘ “It Was Really Moving, Mate”: The Gallipoli Pilgrimage and Sentimental Nationalism in Australia’, Australian Historical Studies 38, no. 129 (2007): 141–51.

⁸⁴ Minutes of conference at Ham-sur-Heure, 14 March 1919. At that time Bennett was acting commander of the 1st Division; later he would become notorious for leaving Singapore in February 1942.

⁸⁵ Linda Wade, ‘ “By Diggers Defended, By Victorians Mended”, Searching for Villers-Bretonneux’ (PhD thesis, University of Wollongong, 2008); Linda Wade, ‘The Reconstruction of Villers Bretonneux 1918–22’, in Anzac Legacies, eds Martin Crotty and Marina Larsson (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2010), 146–65.

⁸⁶ Beaumont, Broken Nation, 433–45.

⁸⁷ Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Media Release, 17 June 1998, supplied by Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) under special access.

⁸⁸ Romain Fathi, ‘ “A Piece of Australia in France”: Australian Authorities and the Commemoration of Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux in the Last Decade’, in Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration, eds Sumartojo and Wellings, 280.

⁸⁹ Age, 25 April 2008.

⁹⁰ J. F. C. Fuller quoted in Geoffrey Serle, John Monash: A Biography (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1982), 335.

⁹¹ Families and Friends of the First AIF, ‘John Laffin’. http://fffaif.org.au/?page_id=27 (accessed 30 September 2014).

⁹² Holbrook, 179–94.

⁹³ The Hamel memorial was undergoing further renovation at the time of writing.

⁹⁴ Graves, 170.

⁹⁵ Address by Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, supplied by DVA under special access, file reference 990975.

⁹⁶ Beaumont, Broken Nation, 305–7.

⁹⁷ See Joan Beaumont, ‘Remembering the Heroes of Australia’s Wars: From Heroic to Post-Heroic Memory’, in Heroism and the Changing Character of War: Towards Post-Heroic Warfare? ed. Sibylle Scheipers (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 344–6.

⁹⁸ For a full account see Patrick Lindsay, Fromelles (Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books, 2008).

⁹⁹ Australian, 1 February 2010.

¹⁰⁰ Winter, 40.

¹⁰¹ Department of Veterans’ Affairs, ‘Australian Remembrance Trail along the Western Front’. http://www.dva.gov.au/commems_oawg/OAWG/Pages/art.aspx (accessed 25 August 2014).

¹⁰² Bullecourt, l’Historial de la Grand Guerre at Péronne, the Memorial Museum Passchendaele in Zonnebeke and the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ieper.