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| Michael Gove, the British education secretary belittling Australia's war dead | Michael Gove, the British education secretary belittling Australia's war dead |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| In Britain, the conservative education secretary Michael Gove has been writing for right-wing newspaper the Daily Mail about what he sees as a negative politicisation of the first world war. This August marks the centenary since the “world to end all wars” began, and Gove’s piece is entitled “Why does the Left insist on belittling true British heroes?” | In Britain, the conservative education secretary Michael Gove has been writing for right-wing newspaper the Daily Mail about what he sees as a negative politicisation of the first world war. This August marks the centenary since the “world to end all wars” began, and Gove’s piece is entitled “Why does the Left insist on belittling true British heroes?” |
| In it, the man in charge of the British national history curriculum makes a fervent argument that “it’s important that we don’t succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict”. Gove is concerned that a cabal including Cambridge academics, the makers of Blackadder, the London Theatre Workshop and the shadowy thought-beast known as “the left” are perpetuating that conflict in history “as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite”. | In it, the man in charge of the British national history curriculum makes a fervent argument that “it’s important that we don’t succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict”. Gove is concerned that a cabal including Cambridge academics, the makers of Blackadder, the London Theatre Workshop and the shadowy thought-beast known as “the left” are perpetuating that conflict in history “as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite”. |
| As an Australian, I’m more concerned that the man at the head of any national history curriculum anywhere is mythologising world war one as an historical event to which only Gove’s United Kingdom meaningfully turned up. While he laments a conspiratorial denigration of “the bravery of men and women who fought for, and believed in, Britain’s special tradition of liberty”, it would have perhaps been polite for him to acknowledge in the centenary of that conflict that of those fighting for British liberty, only slightly fewer than 15% were actually British. | As an Australian, I’m more concerned that the man at the head of any national history curriculum anywhere is mythologising world war one as an historical event to which only Gove’s United Kingdom meaningfully turned up. While he laments a conspiratorial denigration of “the bravery of men and women who fought for, and believed in, Britain’s special tradition of liberty”, it would have perhaps been polite for him to acknowledge in the centenary of that conflict that of those fighting for British liberty, only slightly fewer than 15% were actually British. |
| Beyond even considering that the other side of the conflict has a history, too, 17 other nations (and four “insurgent nationalities”) mobilised personnel to the “Triple Entente” of Britain, Russia and France, with no lesser general rate of slaughter. In fact, the British casualty rate is slightly less than the average amongst their allies – the French far worse. My own nation, Australia – only 13 years into its existence as a federated nation – fought for “British liberty” because Britain compelled it to do so: the one power withheld from the Australian constitution by the British Crown was the right to make peace or declare war. | Beyond even considering that the other side of the conflict has a history, too, 17 other nations (and four “insurgent nationalities”) mobilised personnel to the “Triple Entente” of Britain, Russia and France, with no lesser general rate of slaughter. In fact, the British casualty rate is slightly less than the average amongst their allies – the French far worse. My own nation, Australia – only 13 years into its existence as a federated nation – fought for “British liberty” because Britain compelled it to do so: the one power withheld from the Australian constitution by the British Crown was the right to make peace or declare war. |
| It's a historical fact that the Australian nation was, at the onset of its forced commitment, enormously supportive of the war. Volunteers amassed in thousands and the fight for “king and country” – for the king of another country – was a rallying cultural catchcry. With the belief that it would be “over by Christmas” and desire to “see the world”, Australian troops were shipped to a war in Europe under a British high command. The “misbegotten shambles” and “series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite” that Gove insists is mythology was precisely what the idealistic Australian forces found. | It's a historical fact that the Australian nation was, at the onset of its forced commitment, enormously supportive of the war. Volunteers amassed in thousands and the fight for “king and country” – for the king of another country – was a rallying cultural catchcry. With the belief that it would be “over by Christmas” and desire to “see the world”, Australian troops were shipped to a war in Europe under a British high command. The “misbegotten shambles” and “series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite” that Gove insists is mythology was precisely what the idealistic Australian forces found. |
| Every Australian schoolchild learns of what met the Australian troops at Gallipoli on the coast of Turkey in 1915, where the British high command deployed Australian troops in a half-cocked invasion attempt of Constantinople. Through mistake or carelessness, the Australians were landed at a beach at the base of a cliff on which Turkish troops were already perched – yet they were instructed to ascend, suffering massive loss of life from the moment they approached from the water, let alone in the gory months that followed. This was Australia’s first “blooding” of the war – but it wasn’t the last or the worst. | Every Australian schoolchild learns of what met the Australian troops at Gallipoli on the coast of Turkey in 1915, where the British high command deployed Australian troops in a half-cocked invasion attempt of Constantinople. Through mistake or carelessness, the Australians were landed at a beach at the base of a cliff on which Turkish troops were already perched – yet they were instructed to ascend, suffering massive loss of life from the moment they approached from the water, let alone in the gory months that followed. This was Australia’s first “blooding” of the war – but it wasn’t the last or the worst. |
| Redeployed from the Gallipoli slaughter to the Western front, in 1916 Australian forces encountered similarly incompetent British leadership in battles like Fromelles, part of the doomed Auber’s Ridge campaign. Under the command of Douglas Haig – whose reputation Michael Gove insists has been rehabilitated – the Australian troops were supposed to be receiving training for the trench battlefield in an area called the Nursery when, untrained and unprepared, they were committed to a diversionary attack to draw the Germans north away from the Somme. | |
| The attack failed, and the Australians suffered 5,533 casualties over the course of a single engagement. The slaughter was so destructive that remains of our Fromelle dead were discovered only as recently as April. | The attack failed, and the Australians suffered 5,533 casualties over the course of a single engagement. The slaughter was so destructive that remains of our Fromelle dead were discovered only as recently as April. |
| The once heady Australian enthusiasm for the conflict evaporated; from April 1915 until the Armistice in 1918, 1100 telegrams were delivered every week across Australia relating to the dead and wounded, leaving no single community of our distant country untouched by casualty. | The once heady Australian enthusiasm for the conflict evaporated; from April 1915 until the Armistice in 1918, 1100 telegrams were delivered every week across Australia relating to the dead and wounded, leaving no single community of our distant country untouched by casualty. |
| It’s sobering to consider that as shambolic as he was, Earl Haig had been brought in to replace Viscount French, who had been deemed equally incompetent. Michael Gove may decry criticism of British leadership as an “out-of-touch elite”, but aerial photographs have proved that while the German defence had constructed concrete bunkers four deep, as late as 1916 old Oxford cavalrymen like Haig – drawn from class not qualification – desisted from resourcing trench warfare, insisting that a breakthrough was still possible. | It’s sobering to consider that as shambolic as he was, Earl Haig had been brought in to replace Viscount French, who had been deemed equally incompetent. Michael Gove may decry criticism of British leadership as an “out-of-touch elite”, but aerial photographs have proved that while the German defence had constructed concrete bunkers four deep, as late as 1916 old Oxford cavalrymen like Haig – drawn from class not qualification – desisted from resourcing trench warfare, insisting that a breakthrough was still possible. |
| Imagine the frustration of the likes of the Australian general Sir John Monash, engineer and polymath, who advocated of infantry, artillery, aircraft and tanks and was told he “lacked dash”. Monash was a logistical genius who did not begin the war as a general but finally rose to become commander of the Australian forces because he reached objectives and won battles. General Montgomery declared Monash the best general of the first world war, but his contemporary General Rawlinson described him as “a clever, slippery, creepy, crawly Jew”. | Imagine the frustration of the likes of the Australian general Sir John Monash, engineer and polymath, who advocated of infantry, artillery, aircraft and tanks and was told he “lacked dash”. Monash was a logistical genius who did not begin the war as a general but finally rose to become commander of the Australian forces because he reached objectives and won battles. General Montgomery declared Monash the best general of the first world war, but his contemporary General Rawlinson described him as “a clever, slippery, creepy, crawly Jew”. |
| These quotes, statistics and facts are not, of course, a left-wing conspiracy, but a matter of record. History leaves debris that those wishing to avoid its mistakes are sensible to analyse with honesty. If Michael Gove truly believes in a need to “commemorate, and learn from [world war one] in the right way” the necessary lesson for Britain’s education minister is to realise that other nations have history, too, and in them lay repositories of facts that even the world’s most wilful ideologues can’t politicise away. | |
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