THE Australian War Memorial’s top historian hopes that the next four years will explode some ANZAC myths and educate Aussies about the truth of the Great War.
The principal historian said the real ANZAC story unfolded during the following weeks and months when the raw Australian troops dealt with what was a “costly, ill-conceived and futile” campaign.
“The ANZAC story is eight months of enduring, of hanging on,” he said.
“The real story is what those soldiers did … the story of suffering and the Australian character.”
Mr Ekins told the National Press Club yesterday that the “tsunami of commemorative activities” about to hit the nation at a cost of some $600 million should be driven by understanding and not celebration.
He said there was a risk that re-enactment and colour could overshadow the business of remembering.
“I hope education will be behind all of this,” he said.
An important part would be a better understanding of the great victories on the Western Front during 1917 and 1918.
“Australians were at the spearhead of a large British army … that brought the war to an end,” Mr Ekins said.
“This is the story of victory in 1918.”
Paying tribute to the work of official historian and journalist Charles Bean, he said the ANZAC myth grew from exaggerated reporting by British correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett.
Unlike Bean, who went ashore on April 25, the Englishman remained on a warship off the coast and wrote that the boats were met by a “terrible fusillade and the men went ashore with cold steel”.
“His account shows a remarkable clairvoyance,” Mr Ekins said.
The historian said that when Bean landed at 10am just 36 dead Australians were laid out.
“Never was the beach at Anzac Cove an inferno,” Bean wrote later.
Monday August 4 marks the 100th anniversary of Australia’s entry into World War 1 as part of the British Empire.
By 1918 the young nation of Australia had sent 300,000 of its best and brightest to war. More than 60,000 did not return while a further 150,000 or more were wounded.
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