Sleepless Travels Reloaded

ANZAC day, national Australian holiday was celebrated yesterday.

From the wiki (because I’m too lazy to write my own stuff and hey, this is perfect):

ANZAC Day is commemorated by Australia and New Zealand on 25 April every year to remember members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who landed at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I.

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During the 1920s, ANZAC Day became established as a national day of commemoration for the 60,000 Australians and 18,000 New Zealanders who died during the war. The first year in which all the States observed some form of public holiday together on ANZAC Day was 1927, By the mid-1930s all the rituals we today associate with the day - dawn vigils, marches, memorial services, reunions, sly two-up games - were firmly established as part of ANZAC Day culture. With the coming of the Second World War, ANZAC Day became a day on which to commemorate the lives of Australians lost in that war as well, and in subsequent years the meaning of the day has been further broadened to include Australians killed in all the military operations in which Australia has been involved. ANZAC Day was first commemorated at the Australian War Memorial in 1942, but due to government orders preventing large public gatherings in case of Japanese air attack, it was a small affair and was neither a march nor a memorial service. ANZAC Day has been annually commemorated at the Australian War Memorial ever since.

Australians and New Zealanders recognise 25 April as an occasion of national commemoration. Commemorative services are held at dawn, the time of the original landing, across the nation. Later in the day ex-servicemen and women meet and join in marches through the major cities and many smaller centers. Commemorative ceremonies are held at war memorials around the country. It is a day when Australians and New Zealanders reflect on the many different meanings of war.

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Although Australia’s official national day is in fact “Australia Day”, many Australians have now come to regard ANZAC Day as the true national day of the country. Despite federation being proclaimed in Australia in 1901, many argue the “national identity” of Australia was largely forged during the violent conflict of World War 1

Hit the jump for my impressions on my visit to the Australian War Memorial.

And this is just for Ray

ANZAC Day is a national public holiday and is considered one of the most spiritual and solemn days of the year in Australia. Marches by veterans from all past wars, current serving members of the Australian Defence Force, and cadets, are held in capital cities and towns nationwide. The ANZAC Day parade from each state capital is televised live with commentary. These events are followed generally by social gatherings of veterans, hosted either in a pub or in an RSL Club, often including a traditional Australian gambling game called “two-up”, which was an extremely popular pastime with ANZAC soldiers. The importance of this tradition is demonstrated by the fact that though most Australian states have laws forbidding gambling outside of designated licensed venues, on ANZAC Day it is legal to play “two-up”.

I visited the Australian War Memorial in Canberra in November last year. It was a fascinating place. (Official AWM site here. You can browse the galleries too.) There was a big museum sort of section on all the conflicts Australian soldiers have been involved in. I was surprised how big it was. It definitely looks much smaller on the outside. Because we went there near closing time I didn’t get to see the whole airplane section, but meh (not so interested war technology). I am more interested in the human side of things and the displays that concentrated on the soldiers themselves I found quite moving.

Surrounding the walls on the outside are plaques with the names of the fallen in all the wars Australia participated in. It’s really verrrry depressing how much space World War II took up. Families of the dead place poppies besides their names. The earlier the war, the less dense the poppies get. So for example in the Soudan war (Sudan?), the start of the board, there are no poppies. But Iraq has a disproportionate amount of poppies. Who will remember those soldiers in time to come?

My favourite exhibit was probably the one about Ypres. Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. During World War I, Ypres was the centre of intense and sustained battles between the German and the British Empire forces. Because it was in a strategic location 3 battles were fought there, the third one, aka “The Battle of Passchendaele” was the largest and most costly. 448,000 Allied forces shoulders were killed and wounded while 260,000 Germans were killed and wounded.

The Allied commander’s strategy was sort of like…go hard, go long. (Sort of like Pratchett’s Lord Rust) Torrential rains and the swampy land that was torn up already by heavy British preparatory bombardment turned the battlefield into a sea of liquid mud in which an unknown number of soldiers drowned. The “Battle of Mud” became a war of attrition.

The Allies gained only a few kilometres. World War I ended only a couple of weeks after. It was a senseless battle that served no purpose but claimed so many lives.

Will Longstaff’s ghostly “Menin Gate at Midnight” (1928) was the exhibit that really stood out to me, and is my favourite. It is displayed in a darkened alcove. I remember standing there practically mesmerized by the painting, holding back tears.

This tiny thumbnail really does the painting no justice. In the midground there are ghostly soldiers marching to Menin Gate along the road to the battlefield that many will never march back across. (Menin gate is one of the landmarks of the town and still stands to this day in the modern city of Ypres.) A scattering of scarlet-red poppies, which represents blood and is used to this day as symbol of remembrance, blooms on the foreground.

The beginning and the end

ANZAC Day is a day to remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Remembering those who have given themselves in the senseless sacrifice is not to glorify war, but to remember the horror and destruction it causes. One would hope that we would learn from history and never again repeat the same mistakes.

Unfortunately, “history repeats itself” is too accurate an idiom.