'The position as stated, will be held' : the Great War and its aftershocks in Hamilton, Tasmania, 1914-1924

Lieutenant Frank Pogson Bethune, a native of Hamilton, Tasmania, issued orders eight days before the Germans launched their 1918 Spring Offensive. Found pinned to the wall of a pillbox near Ypres, Belgium, they were later described by The Times as 'inspiring and famous' and embodying the do or die attitude of the Empire, where people willingly sacrificed their safety for the greater good. British and French commanders used them to galvanise their troops, and even in World War II, they appeared on posters as the 'spirit which won the last war'. In his Official History, Charles Bean lauded Bethune's bravery and determination. Dominating the depiction of the wartime experiences and repatriation of Australian soldiers from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), Bean emphasised bravery and ingenuity, crafting the image of Anzacs as larrikin bushman warriors. In subsequent decades, Australian historiography treated the war as a military and political clash between empires. Combined with Bean's heroic portrayal of soldiers such as Bethune, the Anzacs became mythologised in what Douglas Newton described as the 'epic' tradition of narratives, which position war as necessary and foundational for Australia. Most Australians viewed their participation as a test of patriotism and status within the British Empire. In Britain, the war's legacy focused on the physical, social, and psychological costs and subsequent social dislocation, but it was more optimistic in Australia. Nationalist histories tend to emphasise wars and violent revolutions as formative events, and in the wake of the relatively peaceful act of Federation, Australians seized on the Great War as a moment to test and forge the new nation. It took until the 1960s for Australian academics to begin researching beyond the narratives of the Official Histories, memoirs, and battalion histories to analyse the historical significance of the war and its impact of the war on Australian society. Revisionists like Marilyn Lake, Gavin Souter and the Marxist Ian Turner formed what Newton termed a 'tragic' school of historians analysing the human cost of war and the fragmentation of Australian society. Robson argues this was influenced by contemporary issues of conscription and the cost and seeming futility of the Vietnam War. This radicalism focused on political history and social division, with some historians arguing the epic historiography as mythmaking. Lake termed Gallipoli 'our national creation story', where popular history and political leaders attribute the Australian national identity to acts of individual and collective heroism by men on European battlefields‚ÄövÑvÆpartly because it is a more palatable narrative than indigenous dispossession in Australia. Without the war, Beaumont argues, Australian national mythology would have taken a different direction. Both the epic and tragic interpretations predominantly present the war as a national political and military event separated from daily life in Australia. The mention of specific acts by ordinary people is only used to spice the narrative of Australia's war. With volunteers' lives condensed to the information on enlistment forms, there was little recognition of personal motivations and life circumstances. Research on the home front similarly focussed on major political and economic issues, especially the conscription debate. Whilst still in the tragic tradition, Lloyd Robson, Ken Inglis and Bill Gammage looked beyond politics, repositioning the Great War as a central player in the lives of all Australians.