Anzac Day 2015

Today it is 100 years on from the Gallipoli Landing on April 25, 2015.
The world has been remembering World War One since late last year.

Off to a Dawn Service in a few minutes.

I've read only a few books related to the war since last year.

TWO BROTHERS, Ben Elton 
A FATAL TIDE, Steve Sailah

Adelaide War Memorial

Ode: To the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon (1869–1943)

Anzac Day Australia 2013

98 years today since the landing at Gallipoli (25 April 1915) and we observed the day by attending the Walkerville RSL Dawn Service and then the ANZAC Day march through Adelaide.

Other tributes to check

• Lest We Forget (@ Crime Watch)
• Let Us Aways Remember (@ Confessions of a Mystery Novelist)

Anzac Day 2012 - We Will Remember Them

Adelaide War Memorial

Today is the 97th anniversary of the Gallipoli Landing at Anzac Cove in 1915.

Ode: To the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon (1869–1943)

Coincidence of two Celebrations

Here in the land of Oz we have embarked on an unprecedented 5 days off work. (Unprecedented that is unless you count what we do between Christmas Eve and January 2!)

The occasion this time is Easter from today Good Friday (22 April) to Easter Monday (25 April). But because Easter Monday has fallen on Anzac Day, which always happens on the anniversary of the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915, we have an extra public holiday on Tuesday April 26.

I was particularly struck by the confusing cultural messages for overseas visitors when I was at a morning tea for international students on Wednesday. It was intended to provide explanations of what the 5 days "off" were for.
Someone talked about the meaning of Easter, because among the gathering were Muslim and Hindu students, and then another person talked about Anzac Day. Yet another talked about Easter signifying the end of Lent.

On the table for the morning tea were hot cross buns, and the organiser of the event wore rabbit's ears and held a basket of Easter eggs. The only thing that was missing were some Anzac biscuits.
We capped everything off with a hunt for small chocolate Easter eggs. Three people found 3 eggs each and so we had a play-off where an extra egg was hidden in public view and these three had to find it.
The prize was a large fluffy toy rabbit.

And then the Indian lad I was standing next to asked me "why an egg-laying rabbit?"
The thought of explaining fertility symbols (for Spring) when we are actually in Autumn almost tipped me over the edge with hysterical laughter.

Talk about mixed messages! What did they learn about Australian culture? That we are all mad?

ANZAC DAY, 25 April 2010

Just over 2 weeks ago we were travelling in Turkey and we visited Anzac Cove.
Today we'll be at the Dawn Service and then the band will be marching in the Adelaide Parade, but for moments throughout the day I'll be thinking of this place
- the Australian cemetery near Anzac Cove.

and also of this one - the Turkish Memorial near Lone Pine

Anzac Day posts 2009 & 2008
Read Craig Sisterson's blog post for today

ANZAC Day Adelaide 2009

The photo on the right is of the Adelaide War Memorial on North Terrace. Not today though, and the photo is not by me. (see acknowledgement in the foot of this post)

ANZAC Day observations began for us last night at the footy match (at which Port Power were soundly trounced by St. Kilda unfortunately) with a small ceremony with The Last Post and the Rouse being played, the Australian flag lowered and raised, and the Ode spoken.

The person speaking the Ode To the Fallen must have been a bit nervous and will long be remembered, probably to his eternal embarassment, for "at the going down of the morning, and in the sun".

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Today in Adelaide is a bit damp and overcast.
My account is through the eyes of a camp follower of the Enfield Brass Band. It began for us with the Dawn service at the Walkerville Cross of Sacrifice, followed by a gun-fire breakfast at the Walkerville RSL.
Today the Mayor of Dernancourt in France was with us, so the band played the Marseillaise as well as the Australian National Anthem. [I wrote last year about our close association with French towns like Dernancourt, after which a nearby suburb is named, and Villers Bretonneux.]
The gun-fire breakfast consisted of bacon, eggs, a meat patty, and baked beans, and the gun-fire part, a tot of rum in our coffee. Gerdt, Enfield Brass Band's Belgian import, had never come across it before, but that didn't inhibit his enjoyment.

We have just come back from the 2 hour Anzac Day March through the streets of Adelaide. Enfield Brass had to play and march twice, and it rained lightly from time to time, and at one stage an F-111 roared overhead.
Just now we've been watching the dawn service at ANZAC Cove in Gallipoli on television, and now the service at Villers Bretonneux, with the Unley Concert Band as the band.

Last year I posted about some fiction associated with World War One.
The books I wrote about in that post were

• THE FIRST CASUALTY by Ben Elton. My rating 4.6
• MURDER IN MONTPARNASSE by Kerry Greenwood. My rating 4.6
• THE SHIFTING FOG (aka THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON) by Kate Morton. My rating 4.7
• BIRDS OF A FEATHER by Jacqueline Winspear. My rating 4.6
• PARDONABLE LIES by Jacqueline Winspear. My rating 4.6

In that posting I also listed a couple of films to look out for, and a play to hunt down.
Read the post to learn more.

I haven't read a lot since then set in the period, but I have read the first 10 Agatha Christie novels and have come to recognise in her an astute observer of the relief, social dislocation, and general fear that followed the cessation of hostilities at the end of 1918.

For example THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, published in 1920, is set towards the end of World War One, and Christie makes a number of observations about the privations of life in England during the war, rationing, and shortages, and a style of living that is fast disappearing. The house at Styles once had a much larger domestic, household and garden staff, but is now "making do". The Cavendish brothers have inherited money, John lives the life of a country squire, and Lawrence, the younger brother is delicate and follows literary pursuits. Other members of the family are working in "acceptable" occupations, for war time that is, a nurse, the land army, and a companion. The War features not only in Hastings' convalescence, but also in the fact that one of the characters is a German spy.

More links to check out:

• A new resource has been released this week for Anzac day by the ABC
  It is an interactive 3D exploration of Anzac Cove and the events around 25 April 1915.
• The Australian Department of Veteran Affairs has a page called Commemorations and the Australian War Memorial has a page with, among other things, the sound files for the Last Post and the Rouse.
  
• Another page to check is the Anzac Site, a government sponsored page of resources.
  
• Check also ANZAC - newly created by SouthOzSue.
  
• Visit the The London War Memorial site. Click on Australians in World War I and hear the Last Post, World War II and you hear O God Our Help in Ages Past. Search for the name of your town on the wall.
• There is also an edna theme page which contains a number of customised search links drawing on the edna database.
• More on ANZAC DAY at Wikipedia.

Just some stats:

• 46,000 Australians died on the Somme
• 62,000 Australians died altogether in World War One
• 18,000 Australians who died on the Somme have no known grave.
• 113,000 Australians were wounded on the Somme.

Photo courtesy http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2044/2303609908_696f7daea7.jpg

Historic Anzac Day dawn service at Villers Bretonneux

90 years ago on 24 April 1918 Australian troops recaptured the village of Villers Bretonneux from the Germans ending the German advance on Amiens.
Today a special Anzac Day dawn service was held at Australian War Memorial (above) at Villers Bretonneux. This is the first time an Anzac day Dawn service has been held on this site.

Since 1919, the memory of the Australian contribution to Villers–Bretonneux has indeed been ‘kept alive’. The town was adopted by the City of Melbourne and funds collected to help with its reconstruction. Victorian schoolchildren raised money towards the rebuilding of the local school which has ever since been known as the ‘L’Ecole Victoria’ (Victoria School). In the school building is the ‘Franco–Australian Museum’ which houses a range of materials dealing with the Australian connection with the town both during the war and into more recent times. And, since 1919, the men and women of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, on behalf of Australia and all the other countries of the old British Empire and Commonwealth who lost soldiers and airmen in the battles around Villers–Bretonneux, have carefully tended and looked after the war cemeteries and memorials which dot the region.

Husband Bob and I visited both these places at the end of 2006 when we visited the Somme for about a week, so watching the television footage of the ceremony this morning has raised some memories for us. In addition Bob's father was at the 2nd landing at Gallipoli in 1915, and later on the Somme in 1916, at Bullecourt and Moquet Farm where he was awarded the Military medal.

We are never very far from memories of what happened here, whether it is through Bob's father's medals given an annual airing when every Anzac day, the Enfield brass band participates in a dawn service or marches in the Anzac Day parade in Adelaide, or simply through the name Dernancourt given to a neighbouring suburb.

Anzac Day

Friday is Anzac Day, 25 April, a very important day in Australian history, and an important day in our annual calendar. It is a public holiday here, and we have dawn services, marches through city streets, and meetings of old comrades.

25 April 1915 is the day regarded Australia's "baptism of fire", the first day Australian troops went into battle on behalf of their country. It commemorates the landing of ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand troops) at dawn at Gallipoli, at the place now known as Anzac Cove. It also commemorates a defeat.

It has become a day when nationally we remember those who have participated in wars on our behalf, who gave their lives to protect and promote democracy. Increasingly both young and old Australians pilgrimage to Anzac Cove to see the dawn rise there.

Check out the Australian War Museum site.

I thought I'd point you to some books, plays, and films to look out for.

Books in my database:

THE FIRST CASUALTY by Ben Elton. My rating 4.6
The setting is 1917 and the Great War grinds on, with the youth of the British Empire and Germany being sacrificed on the Somme. Douglas Kingsley, an inspector in His Majesty's Metropolitan Police in London, finds himself in gaol when he declares that the war offends his sense of logic. Rejected by his wife and condemned as a conscientious objector, Kingsley is sent to Flanders to investigate the murder of a British officer, also renowned as a poet. The setting in the war allows the author to ask questions about the importance of investigating the murder of one man when so much bloodshed is occurring all the time.

MURDER IN MONTPARNASSE by Kerry Greenwood. My rating 4.6
A Phryne Fisher Mystery read by Julia Davis. At the end of World War 1 in Paris, Bert, Cec and 5 other Australian soldiers witness a murder when a man is pushed under a Paris train. Now, in Australia in 1928, two are very recently dead and Bert and Cec believe they are being targetted. Phryne was in Paris in 1918 and remembers the train incident. It also brings back memories of the man she was infatuated with then. Now she learns that he has recently arrived in Melbourne.

THE SHIFTING FOG (aka THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON) by Kate Morton. My rating 4.7
Set mainly during World War I and immediately after it. Six months before the war starts young Grace Bradley, 14, takes up a position as a housemaid at Riverton Manor. Eighty four years on, she is contacted by a young female filmmaker who is making a romance film about the death of Robbie Harrison, a young poet, who suicided at the house during a mid summer's eve party in 1924. Many will argue this is not a murder mystery, but you'll have to decide for yourself.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER by Jacqueline Winspear. My rating 4.6
This novel is set some time after the first in the Maisie Dobbs series. Maisie is now an established detective with rooms of her own and an assistant. It's now the early Spring of 1930. Her friend Detective Inspector Stratton of Scotland Yard's Murder Squad is investigating a murder case in Coulsden, while Maisie has been summoned to Dulwich to find a runaway heiress. The woman is the daughter of Joseph Waite, a wealthy self-made man who has lavished her with privilege but kept her in a gilded cage. His domineering ways have driven her off before, and now she∂'s bolted again. Waite's instructions are to find his daughter and bring her home. When Maisie looks into the disappearance she finds a chilling link to Stratton's murder case, and to the terrible legacy of The Great War.

PARDONABLE LIES by Jacqueline Winspear. My rating 4.6
A deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs to confirm that his son, an aviator in the Great War, did actually die when his plane crashed in France. It was something his wife never accepted and it was a torment that drove her mad. Lawton believes his son is dead and is expecting Maisie to confirm just that. Maisie was in France during the War herself as a nurse and it is where her friend Simon was wounded and brain-damaged, so going back to France is no easy thing for Maisie. She takes on an extra mission - to find out for her friend Priscilla Evernden what happened to one of her three brothers who were also killed there. I would call this book a comfortable, rather old-fashioned read, which are the qualities that I liked in the first book in the series, and which led others to dislike the book.

Films to look out for

Gallipoli (the following courtesy of Wikipedia)

Gallipoli is a 1981 Australian film, directed by Peter Weir and starring Mel Gibson and Mark Lee, about several young men from rural Western Australia who enlist in the Australian Army during the First World War. They are sent to Turkey, where they take part in the Battle of Gallipoli. During the course of the movie, the young men slowly lose their innocence about the purpose of war. The climax of the movie occurs on the Anzac battlefield at Gallipoli and depicts the brutal attack at the Nek. Gallipoli provides a faithful portrayal of life in Australia in the 1910s — reminiscent of Weir's 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock set in 1900 — and captures the ideals and character of the Australians who joined up to fight, and the conditions they endured on the battlefield. It does, however, modify events for dramatic purposes.

The screenplay is by David Williamson and original music was provided by Australian composer Brian May (who had also scored Mad Max).

1915 (film)- available now on DVD

A classic Australian World War I saga, 1915 captures the hopes and heartaches of innocent country boys as they embark on the greatest and worst adventure of their lives, when they face the filthy deprivations and shocking savagery of trench warfare.

Best mates Billy and Walter have forged their friendship fighting over girls, racing each other on horseback and dreaming of excitement - but their biggest challenge awaits them in a war unfolding on the other side of a changing world. Caught up in the glamour of soldiering and the naïve enthusiasm to defend God, King and Country, the young men enlist in the army to prove themselves glorious heroes in the "war to end all wars." Instead, the grotesque, bloody horror will scar them for the rest of their lives, haunting them to ponder, "What did we achieve?"

Starring: Scott McGregor, Scott Burgess, Sigrid Thornton, Bill Hunter, Lorraine Bayly, Arna Maria Winchester, Serge Lazareff, Richard Moir, Ilona Rodgers, Martin Vaughan, Gerard Kennedy, Diana Benedetto, Graham Rouse, Adrian Wright.

Play to read

THE ONE DAY OF THE YEAR by Alan Seymour (1958)
A controversial look at how Anzac Day is remembered in Australia. Central to Alan Seymour's modern Australian classic is the paradoxical nature of Anzac Day. We chose as our venerated, inescapable symbol of military remembrance a campaign that was both a tactical fiasco and a defeat. There is an article in Sydney Morning Herald worth reading. Find a copy of the play if you can. It was banned from the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1960.