It’s a real honour for me to be here this morning to help launch this really, really outstanding book. There are, if I may say so, three responsibilities upon those of us who are entrusted with our national security. First; to keep our country and our people safe, second; to make considered, thoughtful and wise judgements about the use of force and third; never to forget the sacrifice of those who serve in our country’s name. It is our responsibility never to forget.
Of course amongst those who went ashore on the 25th of April 1915, was the war correspondent, historian and keeper of the Anzac flame, C.E.W. Bean. The First World War, as Ashley has just reminded us, was the crucible in which the Australian identity was forged and Charles Bean was the person who first and best told us what it meant.
His spirit, as we are constantly reminded, infuses this memorial and is honoured in Anzac Treasures, the book that we launch today. In this book, Dr Peter Pederson tells the story of the Australian historical mission to Gallipoli which Bean lead in 1919. As part of that mission Bean and his men crisscrossed the peninsula searching the ground for the marks of battle and gathering the relics of Australians at war. As Bean put it: “of what high morning hopes, what grim midday obstacles and what final tragedy do those cartridge cases or that torn fragment of uniform tell?” And in this book Dr Pederson answers some of these musings.
What price could you possibly place on a watch which stopped at 4.43am as its owner leapt into the water at Gallipoli or twigs bound into a cross to mark the grave of a mate or the final message from a son to his mother. But here in the Australian War Memorial, these relics are kept safe and in this book Dr Pederson brings the Anzac Treasures and their stories out of the memorial and into the world. He tells us how and why the Australians came to be sitting in small boats in the dark off a foreign shore awaiting the call to battle. He tells us the stories of the men of Anzac, the nurses of Lemnos and those who waited anxiously at home. He tells us of the battles and the stories of the evacuation which was in the end the only unambiguously successful part of the campaign.
Now every nation has a story and every nation has its story tellers. What actually happened matters but so too does how it is perceived. A nation after all is shaped by its historians, as well as by its history. To Dr Pederson I say that you have crafted words that are worthy of the treasured artefacts of this Australian War Memorial. It’s not a dry history book of words. Everything in this book reflects the author’s love of country and his deep yearning to tell the stories of those who loved our country so much that they were willing to put their lives on the line for it.
I congratulate the War Memorial for commissioning this book. I congratulate Dr Pederson for writing it and I congratulate all involved in bringing it to fruition. As you know over the next four years Australians will commemorate the Centenary of the Great War and remember the tide of events that shaped our nation and that still cast a shadow over the wider world. We honour their sacrifice by learning from it. There is so much to be learnt in this book. It deserves a wide readership and close study and I’m very honoured to be here to help launch it today.
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