Lessons From The Past – No More Wars

Lessons From The Past – No More Wars

Thousands have applied to attend the Dawn Service at Gallipoli in 2015, but it’s worth remembering that more Australians spent that war fighting in France.  A young soldier’s experience there is at the heart of Peter Yeldham’s novel “Barbed Wire and Roses”. When launching the book, he spoke of the shocking discoveries behind writing it.

In many Australian country towns there are memorials bearing hundreds of names. The high percentage of young men who rushed off to that distant war in 1914 has always made me curious.  Was it patriotism?   Pressure from their community?  Or was it simply a desire to see the world in a war that many believed would end by Christmas?    We now know it lasted four years, killing a  whole generation, and those small town cenotaphs bear the dreadful testimony of its cost.

In 2002 I went to France to visit the Somme and was astonished how many towns were filled with tributes to Australian soldiers. The infants school in Villers-Bretonneux sings “Waltzing Matilda” in French every morning, their young voices paying tribute after nearly 100 years to an Australian counter-attack that saved their town. Another school bears a huge sign “Never Forget Australia”. The Somme contains cemeteries where thousands of headstones mark the resting place of Aussies who are, as the inscriptions tell us, “known only to God”. It was in one of these well-kept places, where many soldiers of all nationalities are buried, that I decided to write this book.

I thought about my main character; did he come from one of those country towns? Was he forced, like some in small communities, to join up or face white feathers and taunts of cowardice?   In the end I decided against this. He should be typical of those swept up by the excitement of recruiting rallies and the chance to not only defend his country, but see the world. In a nostalgic moment I made him a descendant of the Conway family, the main characters in my novel, “The Currency Lads”, set in the 1840s, when Sydney became a city and transportation was abolished. This also allowed me to mention his grandparents who were both convicts, and remind readers how such people not only survived but prospered here.

Do not forget Australia_2My research revealed the appalling way shell-shocked men were treated.  How they were sent back to the trenches unfit to fight.  I discovered a disturbing clash between Australia and England.  The British imposed military death sentences on men unable to stand the shell-shock any longer, whereas we refused to allow our troops to face that same penalty of being “shot at  dawn”.

Over 1500 British and empire soldiers were executed by their own side in that war. Due to our stand, none of them were Australians.

That was one of the core conflicts in this book. It was written because, ever since I saw the vast number of names on those country cenotaphs I have been a pacifist, and deeply against Australia’s involvement in overseas wars. I believe we have been in too many of them, often when it is none of our business. Wars in Vietnam, Korea, South Africa, the Gulf, Timor, Malaya, Iraq, Afghanistan and more. From the New Zealand Wars in 1861 and the Sudan in 1885, the list goes on.  We seem to have volunteered too often to fight other people’s battles.

In ancient times leaders led their troops to war.  Maybe our parliamentary armchair warriors, who so readily send our youth to fight, should be up front leading them.  I venture there would be a lot less wars if we followed this historical custom.

One Response to Lessons From The Past – No More Wars

  1. Goodness I never knew about the execution of British soldiers. How cold and heartless. Then to see how our own Government developed soldier settlements in districts that were often not thought viable for farming. What was their intentions I wonder?
    In hindsight it is clear forethought for the returning soldier just was not considered. Thank God they didn’t shoot them like the Britts

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