What happened on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey 108 years ago has shocked and shaped Aotearoa New Zealand ever since. The challenge in the 21st century, then, is how best to give contemporary relevance to such an epochal event.

The essence of the Anzac story is well known. As part of the first world war British Imperial Forces, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) landed at Gallipoli on April 25 1915. For eight months they endured the constant threat of death or maiming in terrible living conditions.

Ultimately, their occupation of that narrow and rugged piece of Turkish coast failed. The 30,000 Anzacs were evacuated after eight months. More than 2700 New Zealand and 8700 Australian soldiers died, with many more wounded.

The first anniversary of the landing was a day of mourning, with Anzac Day becoming a public holiday in 1922. A remembrance day of sorrow mixed with pride, it has grown over the years to include all those who served and died in later international conflicts.

Over time, various narratives and themes have emerged from that Gallipoli “origin story”: of Aotearoa New Zealand’s emergence as a nation, proving itself to Britain and Empire; of the brave, fit, loyal soldier-mates who emblemised the Kiwi spirit of egalitarianism, fairness and duty. All this mingled with the lasting shock and underlying anger at class hierarchy and the British leadership’s incompetence.

But historians know well that the “Anzac spirit” is a complex and ever-evolving idea. In 2023, what do we teach school-aged children about its meaning and significance? One way forward is to rethink those Anzac narratives and tropes in a more complex way.

Colonialism and class
The Anzac story is tied up in the nation’s history as part of the British Empire. The Anzac toll was just part of a staggering 46,000 “Britons” — including many from India and Ireland — who died at Gallipoli.

Some 86,000 Turks also died defending their peninsula. We need to teach about the Anzac sacrifice in the context of a global conflict where the magnitude of loss was horrific.

Importantly, Anzac themes are bound up in early forms of colonial nationalism: New Zealand proving itself to Britain and developing its own fighting mentality on battlefields far from home.

Part of this involves the notion of incompetent British commanders who let down the Anzac troops — but this is part of a bigger story.

Focusing on imperial and class hierarchies of the time can place what happened in that broader context. The legendary story of Chunuck Bair, taken on August 8 by Colonel William Malone’s Wellington Regiment, but where most of the soldiers were killed when they were not relieved in time, is particularly evocative.

Māori and the imperial project
From our vantage point in the present, of course, we cannot ignore the Māori experience of war and colonialism. As the historian Vincent O’Malley has suggested, New Zealand’s “great war” of nation-making was actually Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa — the New Zealand Wars.

It’s time to teach the complexity of this past and the multiple perspectives on it. For example, Waikato leader Te Puea Hērangi led opposition to World War I conscription and spoke against Māori participation on the side of a power that had only recently invaded her people’s land.

Conversely, Māori seeking inclusion in the settler nation did participate. On July 3, 1915, the 1st Māori Contingent landed at Anzac Cove. Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck) (Ngāti Mutunga) was to say:

Our feet were set on a distant land where our blood was to be shed in the cause of the Empire to which we belonged.

These words echo the familiar Anzac trope of the New Zealand nation being born at Gallipoli. Such sentiments led to postwar pilgrimages to retrace the steps of ancestors and claim the site as part of an Anzac heritage — a corner of New Zealand even.

For many young New Zealanders it has become a rite of passage, part of the big OE. That a visit to Anzac Cove is still more popular than visiting the sites of Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa is something our teaching can investigate.

Mateship and conformity
The notion of the Anzac soldier as courageous and beyond reproach, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for nation and empire, is also overdue for revision. The “glue” of mateship — a potent combination of masculine bravery and strength with extreme loyalty to fellow soldiers — is again a contested narrative.

By the 1970s, as historian Rowan Light’s work shows, there was a significant challenge to such perceptions from the counterculture, peace protesters and feminists. And by the 1980s, veterans were sharing their stories more candidly with writer Maurice Shadbolt and war historian Chris Pugsley.

Teaching about the meaning of mateship might examine the history of those peer-pressured into participating in war, those who were conscripted and had no choice, and more on the fate of conscientious objectors like Archibald Baxter. At its worst, the idea of mateship was window dressing for uniformity and parochialism.

New Zealanders today have complex multicultural and global roots. We have ancestors who were co-opted to fight on different sides in 20th-century wars, including those who fought anti-colonial wars in India, Ireland and Samoa.

Some came here as refugees escaping conflict. Jingoism and what it really represents deserves critical analysis.

Poppies and peace
The ubiquitous poppy, an icon much reproduced in classrooms, is also ripe for contextualisation and debate over its meaning. In the age of global environmental crisis, it can be seen as more than a symbol of sacrifice immortalised in verse and iconography.

The poppy also reminds us of the landscapes devastated by the machinery of war that killed and maimed people, plants and animals. It contains within it myriad lessons about the threats science and technology can pose to a vulnerable planet.

Anzac Day rose from the shock, loss and grief felt by those on the home front. And beyond the familiar tropes of nationalism, mateship and egalitarianism, this remains its overriding mood.

Remembering and learning about the terrible physical and mental cost of war is the real point of those familiar phrases “lest we forget” and “never again”. That spirit of humanitarianism chimes with Aotearoa New Zealand’s modern role and evolving self-image as a peacekeeping, nuclear-free nation.

Anzac Day also speaks to the need for global peace and arbitration, and how war is no viable solution to conflict. Those are surely lessons worth teaching.

Dr Katie Pickles is professor of history, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific countries held dawn services today to commemorate Anzac Day and recognise the 107th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli in Turkey.

Tonga paid tribute to its war veterans with a dawn ceremony held in Nuku’alofa this morning.

The ceremony took place on the Royal Palace grounds of King Tupou VI with prayers and hymns sung by His Majesty’s Armed Forces.

Ambassadors from Australia, Japan, China, the United Kingdom and New Zealand attended the ceremony.

Navy Officer Sione Ulakai acknowledged the sacrifices of Anzac soldiers in Gallipoli.

“We are celebrating the life of brave soldiers who at this time, 107 years ago, fell on the beaches of Gallipoli,” he said.

Anzac Day is a public holiday in Tonga held to honour the country’s contribution to World War I and World War II.

Two Tongans killed in battle for Solomon Islands
Two Tongan soldiers were killed in World War II during the battle for the Solomon Islands.

In the Cook Islands, Prime Minister Mark Brown has called on Cook Islanders to remember their almost 500 soldiers who served in World War I.

The men were part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force’s Māori Pioneer Battalion.

Some died during the conflict and others died later from war-related illness.

Brown called on people to pay tribute to all Cook Islanders who have served, or are currently serving, in various forces around the world.

Thousands of New Zealanders gathered for dawn services around the country today.

World War II and Defence Force aircraft were flying over numerous towns and cities as part of Anzac commemorations.

Veteran aircraft on display
Spitfire and Harvard aircraft, a P3K2 Orion, NH90 helicopters and other aircraft have been in the air.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum hosted a slimmed down version of its Anzac Day commemorations this year.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was in attendance.

In Wellington, Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro spoke at both the Dawn Service and the National Commemorative Service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park.

Returned and Services Associations national president BJ Clark said the public was welcome to come into their local RSA and be part of remembrance events, and to chat with veterans.

Anzac Day, which was first held in 1916, honours more than 250,000 New Zealanders who have served overseas either in military conflicts or other roles, such as peacekeeping missions, said the Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Pae Mahara manager Brodie Stubbs.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In late 1913 one of the most famous men in Britain arrived in Pago Pago.

Rupert Brooke, 26, was a literary sensation at the time and was taking an escape from celebrity to explore the South Seas: “I want to walk a thousand miles, and write a thousand plays, and sing a thousand poems, and drink a thousand pots of beer, and kiss a thousand girls – oh, a million things.”

Brooke landed in Pago Pago and quickly moved onto German ruled Āpia.

He marvelled at his accommodation: “I lived in a Sāmoan house (the coolest in the world) with a man and his wife, nine children, ranging from a proud beauty of 18 to a round object of 1 year, a dog, a cat, a proud hysterical hen, and a gaudy scarlet and green parrot, who roved the roof and beams with a wicked eye; choosing a place whence to — twice a day, with humorous precision, on my hat and clothes.

“The Sāmoan girls have extraordinarily beautiful bodies, and walk like goddesses. They’re a lovely brown colour, without any black Melanesian admixture; their necks and shoulders would be the wild envy of any European beauty; and in carriage and face they remind me continually and vividly of my incomparable heartless and ever-loved X.”

The German officials running Sāmoa impressed him saying the two governors had blocked forces that might destroy Sāmoa.

‘Painful operation’
“Dr Schultz, I have been told by old residents of Samoa, was tattooed in the native style, as were certain of his officials. It is reasonable to suppose that this judge, administrator, and collator of Samoan proverbs at least has some ulterior and altruistic purpose in view in undergoing a very painful operation.

“A Samoan who is not tattooed —it extends almost solid from the hips to the knees — appears naked beside one who is; and in no way can the custom be considered as disfiguring.”

English inhabitants had little to complain of other than saying the Germans were “too kind to the natives – an admirable testimonial”.

A Royal Navy gunboat had visited Āpia and were entertained by Sāmoans with music and dance, provided by “an eminent and very charming young princess”. She was a famous beauty with a keen intelligence. Her glorious singing voice made for a successful party.

“The princess led her guests afterwards to the flagstaff. Before anyone could stop her, she leapt onto the pole and raced up the sixty feet of it.”

At the top, she seized the German flag and tore it to pieces.

After visiting Fiji and Auckland, Brooke headed to Tahiti, staying at Mataiea, outside Pape’ete. He met Taatamata: “I think I shall write a book about her – only I fear I’m too fond of her.”

Three poems, no book
“There were three poems, but never a book.

He returned to England, moving toward war.

The Great War broke out in August 1914 and Brooke in September 1914 become a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Division, an unusual section of the British Army.

He heard that Deutsch-Sāmoa: “is ours,” he wrote, recalling his stay there a year earlier.

“Well, I know a princess who will have had the day of her life. Did they see [Robert Louis] Stevenson’s tomb gleaming high up on the hill, as they made for that passage in the reef….

“They must have landed from boats; and at noon, I see. How hot they got! I know that Āpia noon. Didn’t they rush to the Tivoli bar but I forget, New Zealanders are teetotalers.

“So, perhaps, the Sāmoans gave them the coolest of all drinks, kava; and they scored. And what dances in their honour, that night! but, again, I’m afraid the houla-houla would shock a New Zealander.

Sweetest South Sea songs
“I suppose they left a garrison, and went away. I can very vividly see them steaming out in the evening; and the crowd on shore would be singing them that sweetest and best-known of South Sea songs, which begins, ‘Good-bye, my Flenni’ (‘Friend,’ you’d pronounce it), and goes on in Sāmoan, a very beautiful tongue.

“I hope they’ll rule Sāmoa well.”

That last line was prophetic, given who buried Rupert Brooke.

George Richardson had been born in Britain but in years leading up to war, had been based in New Zealand. In December 1913, then Colonel Richardson sat as New Zealand’s representative on the Imperial General Staff in London.

With war, he became chief of staff of the new Royal Naval Division, an idea of First Sea Lord Winston Churchill to get unneeded sailors into the fighting as infantrymen. It was deployed to Gallipoli.

Rupert Brooke in December 1914 wrote to a friend from a camp in Dorset, that he had dreamt that he was back in Tahiti, where he met a woman who told him that Tahiti lover Taatamata was dead: “Perhaps it was the full moon that made me dream, because of the last full moon at (Tahiti).

“Perhaps it was my evil heart. I think the dream was true.”

A good time
Weeks later, Brooke received a letter from Taatamata, dated 2 May 1914 in which she told of having a good time with Argentinian sailors. She was always thinking of Brooke but wondered if he had already forgotten her.

After she died there were often rumours that Taatamata had a child, a girl, with Brooke and she grew up in Pape’ete.

Brooke wrote The Soldier:
If I should die, think only this of me;
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.

Two days out from the landings at Gallipoli, on Shakespeare’s birthday (and the same day he died), April 23, Brooke died, the result of an infected mosquito bite.

He was buried on the Aegean island of Skyros.

George Richardson, who after the war would become one of Sāmoa’s worst colonial administrators, was given the job of burying Brooke.

‘I selected his grave on a little knoll under an olive tree and there he lies peacefully today.”

Republished from The Pacific Newsroom with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz