Anzac Day's shared history

University of Otago researcher George Davis at Dunedin's Queens Gardens. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
University of Otago researcher George Davis at Dunedin's Queens Gardens. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
Heroism, sacrifice, lost innocence... Anzac Day has an ongoing, compelling resonance. Dunedin man George Davis has dug deeper than most to unearth its meaning, writes Shane Gilchrist.

It is the year 2000, some 85 years since the battles that made Gallipoli famous, and there is a Turk in tears.

Known to many as "TJ'', Ilhami Gezici is a tourist guide on the Gallipoli Peninsula. He has a vocal delivery that rises and falls sharply, like the bluffs and steep valleys over which so many fought and died.

Given TJ's highly modulated voice, it is almost easy to miss the point at which it cracks, capitulating to the emotions of a story about a young woman lamenting the loss of a lover, friend and father-to-be, a husband buried in an unmarked grave.

Married to an Australian, TJ went to high school in the nearby town of Eceabat, where a teacher told stories of the campaigns between Turkish and British, French, Australian and New Zealand (and other) forces from April 1915 to January 1916.

Inspired by the enthusiasm of his teacher, who took him on tours of the area, TJ eventually became a guide, relaying to visitors tales of the battles that occurred in the dry, scrubby hills to which he is drawn.

TJ's tour also takes in the Kabatebe Museum, located within Gallipoli Historic National Park. The museum has a variety of exhibits from the World War 1 campaign, from letters to loved ones to shaving kits, photographs, uniforms and, of course, weapons.

In a glass case, not far from a skull with a hole in its forehead and a shoe containing the foot bones of its owner, lie a couple of bullets. They don't look like bullets, however. These ones are misshapen, almost flat. Having missed their targets, they struck each other.

Now they serve as evidence of the ferocity of the fighting in the area, small details in a bigger story.

Eight years later, a few weeks before Anzac Day, and the history lessons continue. George Davis, a PhD student at the University of Otago, is discussing the meaning of the April 25 commemoration, in particular the changing perspectives in Anzac Day, both in New Zealand and Australia. Turkey's influence on the event is also put under the spotlight.

The crux of Mr Davis' thesis lies outside the more traditional examinations of Anzac Day. The role the Anzac soldiers' battles, defeat and evacuation at Gallipoli played in the forging of national identities of New Zealand and Australia has been well-documented. He is more interested in comparing the developments of Anzac Day in the respective countries.

Mr Davis spent 34 years teaching history and English at Kaikorai Valley High School then Kaikorai Valley College. He moved from one set of classes to another in 2001, tutoring students on a variety of history papers at the University of Otago.

In October 2004, members of the university's history department asked him if he would be interested in researching aspects of Anzac Day. By September this year, he hopes to present a thesis on the subject.

"I had about 20 pages of notes, bits and pieces that were stuck in my computer in no organised fashion... they told me they'd really like me to do this work, and I gave in. That was 38 months ago,'' Mr Davis says, adding he has also been asked to write a book about Anzac Day.

"It's more work, but at least most of the research has been done.

"The issue of national identity has been plugged hard and long by various writers. I've moved away from that. I've looked at it pretty hard and thought, 'hmm, this is not really what Anzac Day is about'.

"Anzac Day, particularly for young people or folks of all ages who go to Gallipoli, is not really about national identity. It's about trying to understand why people from half a world away were there, and trying to understand why the Turks have reacted the way they did. While some people go all the way to Turkey to find out what happened to their relation, they also find out what it is that is special in the relationship between Turkey, Australia and New Zealand.

"I think there is a universal acceptance in Australia, New Zealand and Turkey that issues of memorialisation and memory are fundamental parts of how we interpret our society. In sense, it is linked into national identity, but it's not necessarily the flag-waving style of identity.

It conveys an understanding of what people are actually about and an expression of gratitude for what has been done in the past.''

To better understand what Anzac Day means to us also requires an examination of what the hostilities of 90-odd years ago mean to others.

Across the Tasman, though Australian governments and military officials recognise our contribution, there is less public acknowledgment of New Zealand's place in the Anzac story, Mr Davis says.

What began as a joint military venture has since been examined within an exclusive nationalistic frame, particularly from an Australian point of view.

"The Australians put their stamp on it very early on and New Zealanders have been left complaining about the Australians' overt ownership of the day. That complaint went right through the century; it started in 1916 and still was there in 2000.

It is the matter of exclusivity which I think is a denial of what Anzac and Anzac Day is, and of how it started.''

Further afield, Turkey, in addition to hosting Anzac Day ceremonies, marks the Gallipoli campaign with "Victory Week'', a celebration of the defeat of the Allied fleet in the Dardanelles on March 18, 1915.

Three battleships were sunk and three others were badly damaged by a combination of mines and on-shore batteries. That naval loss set the foundation for the Allies' ill-fated ground-based invasion.

"This is a really hard thing for New Zealanders and Australians to understand - that Gallipoli and the Dardanelles campaign and our withdrawal... occurs within a victory for Turkey.

"About May 24, 1915, when the two forces laid down arms in the sector and got out and buried each other's bodies; that was a huge learning experience. The ordinary Turkish soldier got to find that the Anzacs were different; they didn't treat them badly. They all got along quite well. Turk farmers were peasant farmers; New Zealanders and Australians were farmers; there were city guys. They were just ordinary folk,'' Mr Davis says.

"From that beginning started this rather strange relationship. It is quite particular. It is not a relationship that involves others who were there. The other nations, the French, the Indians, the Newfoundlanders, were not engaged in this special relationship nearly as much as the Anzacs. The issue of memory is important, however, for the British 29th Division, whose sacrifice at Gallipoli was a major one and whose members have participated in Gallipoli or Anzac Days.

"New Zealanders and Australians have to face up to the fact that the Turks never saw the issue of the Anzac landing and Anzac Day the same way as the Anzacs did,'' Mr Davis says, pointing to the enormous changes that occurred within Turkey in the early 20th century, including its move from an empire to a republic, from totalitarianism to democracy, from ancient Islamic Sharia doctrine to modern, westernised law.

Though their focus was on internal events post-World War 1, the feeling of Turks, particularly those in the Canakkale region, towards their former Anzac foes was respectful.

"You have to ask how this relationship exists. And this is something that is central to Anzac Day; it is about a special relationship. It is increasingly recognised by younger people who go to Anzac Cove.''

Mr Davis believes a central component in this relationship is the conciliatory and humane statement made by Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1934.

Prompted by a "readers' corner'' section of a Melbourne newspaper, in which mothers asked about the graves of their lost sons, Ataturk drafted his now-famous words (engraved in stone at Anzac Cove):

"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 far away countries
Wipe away your tears.
Your sons are now living in our bosom
And are in peace.
Having lost their lives on this land they have
Become our sons as well.''

The "wonderfully evocative'' statement is one of the 20th century's fundamentally important documents, Mr Davis says.

It was all the more remarkable given the rigorous treaties placed on Turkey in the aftermath of World War 1 and the political climate in which it was drafted.

"You've got to understand it occurred in the middle of the age of dictators, in the 1930s. It is completely out of step with everything else around. And yet, there it is, standing like a shining example to ex-enemies.''

The issue of graves is another key factor in the Anzac story. On November 10, 1918, the day before Armistice, New Zealanders, Australians and others representing the Imperial War Graves Commission headed to Gallipoli to evaluate burial sites, their visit preceding the bulk of the grave work that took place from 1919-1926.

The continued visiting of Gallipoli graves through the 20th century has struck a chord with the Turkish, Mr Davis says.

"It accounts, to some extent, for why the Turks respond so graciously to Australians and New Zealanders. It's not that we made such a glorious impression on them when we were over there; it's that this issue of graves over there rather than bodies over here is fundamental. The main issue is one of memory... which is revived every Anzac Day.''

Witness an Anzac Day ceremony in one of New Zealand's main centres now and you're likely to see a large number of young people: teenagers and groups of students merging with families and veterans of various military campaigns.

It is a rare, and very public, coming-together of generations, brought about by the ongoing, compelling, resonance of the Gallipoli story, with its elements of heroism, sacrifice and lost innocence.

"There is a discussion that Anzac Day is a civic religion, but I'm not sure I'd buy into that argument entirely,'' Mr Davis says. "I'm not absolutely sure about that. What I am quite sure about is that there is a need for ritual in people's lives.''

Mr Davis believes we have moved beyond the reaction that "hopeless British commanders got us into a messy situation'', to a point where there is a general acknowledgement of the calamity of World War 1. There is an understanding that everybody loses in war.

"Young people, for some reason, seem to appreciate that to make the country the way it is at the moment, people sacrificed themselves. Younger people, having been more widely taught about the issues of Anzac Day, are coming to the party, as it were... I think it has resonated in young people far more than us older types have realised.''

Yet the Anzac Day service has not always been so popular. Mr Davis points to its nadir in the 1960s and '70s during the Vietnam War.

"It seemed to mark the end of relevance for Anzac Day services... it was subverted in a way; it was used. But it has always had a political base. It has been used for political purposes since its inception; to broaden various government, and other, messages.

"In the '60s and '70s, it was used as a platform for social agitators to put forward their anti-war or feminist claims of that period; in the 1930s, the claim was over the unemployment of returned soldiers; immediately after World War 1, it was about repatriation; immediately after World War 2, it was about the new world order and repatriation.''

However, for many, Anzac Day is more about the personal than the political. Through his research, which has taken him to Turkey, Britain, Australia (several times) and throughout New Zealand, Mr Davis discovered as many reasons for attending as not.

Consumption of alcohol has been a concern, frivolity suggesting a demeaning of old mates; for some, the memories have been too painful; for others, the day provided an opportunity to share experiences with others who would understand.

"You have that mixture of motives, which either impelled people to go or restricted others from going.''

Children have even been caught up in the debate.

"Right from World War 1, there are photos - particularly in Australia, less so in New Zealand - in the newspapers of young people wearing the medals of a person who had died in their family.

"Sometimes, diggers used to engage in actions that were disapproved of by organisers of the RSL and RSA, such as including boys in the parade,'' Mr Davis says.

"There was public argument about this in Melbourne in 2006 when a local RSL dignitary stated children wouldn't be allowed to march in the parade. Of course, on the morning of the parade he changed position and admitted making a mistake.

"There is an essential link going on: the service is not just for the person who served; the service is for the future of the community, which is found in the children. I think it is a simple issue of statement: 'Here is my grandson or son; this is whom I fought for; this is the person who will inherit what has happened'.''

These days, Mr Davis says, Anzac Day has a twofold meaning. Like the collision of two bullets over Turkish soil, each is connected to the other.

"For ex-servicemen and women, the commemorations revive their own memories. For the State and the community, it confirms the place that those people have in society; it says that their service during war was an honourable thing.

"The fact that Anzac Day exists is an open stamp of approval by society - that the service of those people who march and those who died is respected.''

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