On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 06:22:56 -0000, bustabraincell
Post by bustabraincellPost by Brian DooleyOn Sun, 11 Nov 2007 13:22:02 -0800, Fortitudo Dei
Post by Fortitudo DeiPost by ApairateefThe Australians are head and shoulders above NZ when it comes to recognising
what their soldiers did and allowing to share. There just seems a lot more
respect.
Lest we forget.
On a recent trip to Sydney I noticed the number of things named
"ANZAC". There was the massive (and very impressive) ANZAC Bridge,
ANZAC House in the CBD, the ANZAC Memorial in Hyde Park to name but
three. There seemed to be the recognition that the ANZAC legend
involved TWO countries - something that we seem to have almost
forgotten here. Each of these sites was topped with two large flags
with equal status - Australian AND New Zealand. The huge (and I mean
HUGE) NZ flag flying from one of the two peaks of the ANZAC bridge
made me so proud.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Anzac_Bridge_5.jpg
So where are the Australian flags on our notable sites named for the
ANZACS or on ANZAC day?
The ANZAC Bridge hasn't always been called that - it was renamed.
It was a cause of puzzlement to many (most) Ockers when the NZ
flag went up there because their knowledge of Gallipoli is based
on the movie of that name, which iirc doesn't acknowledge any
participants other than Mel Gibson, including NZ.
It is an undoubted fact that many Australians have no idea about
NZ at Gallipoli.
that is your shit opinion , Brian, based on ignorance and small
mindedness, and I suspect, envy. Dickhead
Based on a fair amount of reading, and a report on that very
subject some years ago: backed up by the fact that the wife of an
Ocker diplomat, living across the road from me, had to be told
that the guns on Anzac Day were banging off in memory of the NZ
fallen at Gallipoli. Nobody had ever told her that before, and I
thought that if a woman in her position didn't know then who else
in Oz didn't know.
In the meantime I refer you to 'Digger History':
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-battles/ww1/anzac/gallipoli-facts.htm#Top
The last paragraphs of which are:
Distorted propaganda is usually at its height during wars but
corrected in later years. In the case of Gallipoli the opposite
occurred. The official Australian war historian, Charles Bean,
was reluctant to hint that Australians were ever less than
heroic, and in the interests of maintaining good relationships
with Australia, Cecil Aspinall-Oglander, the official British war
historian, toned down even implied criticisms of any Australian
action. As Rhodes James observed, the result of massaging the
truth was an 'Australian mythology that Gallipoli was an
Australian triumph thrown away by incompetent British
commanders'.
Far worse distortions disfigure the Peter Weir film Gallipoli,
which seeks to contrast cowardly and idle British troops with
ANZAC heroes. Some British troops did bathe and drink tea at
Suvla Bay whilst horrific fighting was taking place a few miles
to the south, but others were as fully engaged in that conflict
as New Zealanders and Australians.
Rhodes James noted that the 'suicidal assault' of the Australian
Light Horse at The Nek on 7 August 1915 'had nothing to do with
the British landing at Suvla, but was intended to help the New
Zealanders, as the film's military advisers knew'.
However, 'the principal Australian sponsor of the film (Rupert
Murdoch) wanted an anti-British ending, and got it', with 'the
deliberately inaccurate final scenes' of the film, a potent
source of Australian republican sentiments.
Few Australians realise that 'the British, French and Indian
causalities were far greater than those of the Anzacs, and that
the British bore the brunt of the fighting - and the losses.'
Far from covering up British errors, British historians exposed
them at every level, from Kitchener, Churchill, Fisher and
Hamilton down. The indecisiveness of the naval commanders , the
muddle at Imbros, the incapacity of Sir Frederick Stopford, and
every other British failing, were laid bare to the world. This is
as it should be, if anyone is to benefit from past errors, but in
2001 British people, no more or less than Australians and New
Zealanders, can take pride in heroic deeds at Gallipoli, as
indeed can French, Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi people. We
should not allow latter-day propagandists to sow seeds of
unwarranted resentment between peoples whose ancestors fought
with great courage in a common cause.
EOQ
What it doesn't say is that my mother's eldest brother, Drummer
William Shaw, of the 9th Battalion the Manchester Regiment,
survived Gallipoli and lived to take to his bayonet between the
lines on the Somme some time later.
"Ignorance and small mindedness, and [you] suspect, envy."
Of what?
Dickhead
And you, sweetheart.
--
Brian Dooley
Wellington New Zealand
