Gallipoli - 98 years on

Should our national mythology focus more on the victories of the Western Front?

No, we should not have a national mythology. Mythologies, which by their nature are not true, have no place in our understanding of history. They are pernicious. They mislead and distort. They lead to bombast and bragging and to untruths that do us no favours. We can understand why the idea that Australia was somehow 'born' at Anzac Cove should have been proposed and propagated. That idea was important to the young nation that had endured the Great War. But a mature, independent, confident Australia today has no need of such tales, any more than grown-ups need fairy stories to go to sleep.

I (and those who support the idea of Honest History) believe that Australians can tolerate knowing the truth about their part in this war and other wars. Though they might pride themselves on their independence of mind, they are easily led and will fall for patriotic blandishments more easily than they imagine. But many want to learn the truth and will respond to it honestly.

My experience with my book Bad characters (2010) gives me hope. Sub-titled Sex, crime, mutiny, murder and the Australian Imperial Force, it explored the dark side of the Anzac legend. It disclosed that Australian troops had higher rates of absence and venereal disease than comparable forces, that many offences went beyond 'larrikinism' and that they included crimes such as rape, murder and self-inflicted wounds. It challenged the assumption that Australians fought as mates by showing that as the war continued rates of desertion increased; those who paid the greatest price were those who did not go absent.

But in the three years since the book appeared no one has argued that the book was unfounded or that it disclosed things better hidden. Instead, readers seem to have appreciated that it told what could be justified as true, even if it was uncomfortable or unpalatable.

Part of that story involved accounts of men wounding themselves to get away from Gallipoli. I believe that Australians want to hear the truth about their history and that includes Gallipoli. Are we brave enough to reject myths and offer those curious to understand our past what we can regard as the truth? That is a further question worth pondering.