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Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War
The Great War is, for many Australians, the event that defined our nation. The larrikin diggers, trench warfare, and the landing at Gallipoli have become the stuff of the Anzac 'legend'. But it was also a war fought by the families at home. Their resilience in the face of hardship, their stoic acceptance of enormous casualty lists and their belief that their cause was just, made the war effort possible.
Broken Nation is the first book to bring together all the dimensions of World War I. Combining deep scholarship with powerful storytelling, Joan Beaumont brings the war years to life: from the well-known battles at Gallipoli, Pozieres, Fromelles and Villers-Bretonneux, to the lesser known battles in Europe and the Middle East; from the ferocious debates over conscription to the disillusioning Paris peace conference and the devastating 'Spanish' flu the soldiers brought home. We witness the fear and courage of tens of thousands of soldiers, grapple with the strategic nightmares confronting the commanders, and come to understand the impact on Australians at home and at the front of death on an unprecedented scale.
A century after the Great War, Broken Nation brings lucid insight into the dramatic events, mass grief and political turmoil that makes the memory of this terrible war central to Australia's history.
Review:
The first of many good things about Joan Beaumont's Broken Nation, her new book about Australians in the first world war, is its timing. Next year will mark both the centenary of the start of the first world war and the release of a deluge of books covering just about every conceivable aspect of the cataclysmic conflict relating to Australia.
The Anzac "industry" – in our cultural institutions and media, in the tourism and publishing businesses – has been gearing up for this for the best part of a decade. There is a lot of money to be made from all of this "Anzackery", as some of Australia's most esteemed, though dissenting, historians and researchers have already named what they fear will be a festival of mythology. So buyer beware.
But not of Beaumont's book, which, arriving before the deluge, sets an inordinately high benchmark against which, I hope, all those that follow from our publishing houses over the next five years might be judged.
Beaumont, a historian at the Australian National University, has effectively given us the story of two wars – that which the Australians fought in German New Guinea, Gallipoli, in Europe and the Middle East; and that of the "home front" which mustered the means to fight and then dealt with the loss of more than 60,000 men and the impairment of too many others.
As might be expected from a historian of such stature, she applies an acute academic discipline to the story. But Beaumont's triumph rests in conveying it to a broad audience by interweaving stories of what was happening in Australia – politically, socially and domestically – with those stories of the men who volunteered, shipped out, fought and all too often died or endured terrible injury.
The result is a compelling narrative of light and shade, balance and rhythm. Beaumont's eye for detail is not confined to the tactics and strategy that sometimes dominates the work of professional military historians, at times rendering their work turgid to all but the expert or the obsessive aficionado.
But when she does go into tactics and strategy – troop movements, supply lines, attacks, counter-attacks – her descriptions are refreshingly accessible. Her account, for example, of the planning, execution and efficacy of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 (the point at which Australia, culturally at least, tends to mark the war's beginning, although the first Australian Imperial Force action took place in German New Guinea in 1914) is impressively lucid.
The narrative is then dexterously shifted to focus on the prosaic horrors of life and death during the eight month Dardanelles operation. Here – as elsewhere when she considers other theatres and battles such as those in Europe – Beaumont lends disturbing insight into the profanity of organised armed conflict.
She recounts the wounded begging to be shot by their colleagues, quoting soldier George Mitchell on his encounter with a comrade at Gallipoli: "The bullet had fearfully smashed his face and gone down his throat, rendering him dumb. But his eyes were dreadful to behold. And how he squirmed in his agony. There was nothing I could do for him but to pray that he might die swiftly. It took him about 20 minutes to accomplish this." It's worth dwelling on, that: just what might impel a man to pray for the death of a colleague?
Many fine Australian books have been written about Australia's involvement in the war, not least Les Carlyon's The Great War. But Beaumont's book, arriving just before the centenary, is especially welcome for its detailed explanation of why Australia jumped in and how support w...
Broken Nation is the first book to bring together all the dimensions of World War I. Combining deep scholarship with powerful storytelling, Joan Beaumont brings the war years to life: from the well-known battles at Gallipoli, Pozieres, Fromelles and Villers-Bretonneux, to the lesser known battles in Europe and the Middle East; from the ferocious debates over conscription to the disillusioning Paris peace conference and the devastating 'Spanish' flu the soldiers brought home. We witness the fear and courage of tens of thousands of soldiers, grapple with the strategic nightmares confronting the commanders, and come to understand the impact on Australians at home and at the front of death on an unprecedented scale.
A century after the Great War, Broken Nation brings lucid insight into the dramatic events, mass grief and political turmoil that makes the memory of this terrible war central to Australia's history.
Review:
The first of many good things about Joan Beaumont's Broken Nation, her new book about Australians in the first world war, is its timing. Next year will mark both the centenary of the start of the first world war and the release of a deluge of books covering just about every conceivable aspect of the cataclysmic conflict relating to Australia.
The Anzac "industry" – in our cultural institutions and media, in the tourism and publishing businesses – has been gearing up for this for the best part of a decade. There is a lot of money to be made from all of this "Anzackery", as some of Australia's most esteemed, though dissenting, historians and researchers have already named what they fear will be a festival of mythology. So buyer beware.
But not of Beaumont's book, which, arriving before the deluge, sets an inordinately high benchmark against which, I hope, all those that follow from our publishing houses over the next five years might be judged.
Beaumont, a historian at the Australian National University, has effectively given us the story of two wars – that which the Australians fought in German New Guinea, Gallipoli, in Europe and the Middle East; and that of the "home front" which mustered the means to fight and then dealt with the loss of more than 60,000 men and the impairment of too many others.
As might be expected from a historian of such stature, she applies an acute academic discipline to the story. But Beaumont's triumph rests in conveying it to a broad audience by interweaving stories of what was happening in Australia – politically, socially and domestically – with those stories of the men who volunteered, shipped out, fought and all too often died or endured terrible injury.
The result is a compelling narrative of light and shade, balance and rhythm. Beaumont's eye for detail is not confined to the tactics and strategy that sometimes dominates the work of professional military historians, at times rendering their work turgid to all but the expert or the obsessive aficionado.
But when she does go into tactics and strategy – troop movements, supply lines, attacks, counter-attacks – her descriptions are refreshingly accessible. Her account, for example, of the planning, execution and efficacy of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 (the point at which Australia, culturally at least, tends to mark the war's beginning, although the first Australian Imperial Force action took place in German New Guinea in 1914) is impressively lucid.
The narrative is then dexterously shifted to focus on the prosaic horrors of life and death during the eight month Dardanelles operation. Here – as elsewhere when she considers other theatres and battles such as those in Europe – Beaumont lends disturbing insight into the profanity of organised armed conflict.
She recounts the wounded begging to be shot by their colleagues, quoting soldier George Mitchell on his encounter with a comrade at Gallipoli: "The bullet had fearfully smashed his face and gone down his throat, rendering him dumb. But his eyes were dreadful to behold. And how he squirmed in his agony. There was nothing I could do for him but to pray that he might die swiftly. It took him about 20 minutes to accomplish this." It's worth dwelling on, that: just what might impel a man to pray for the death of a colleague?
Many fine Australian books have been written about Australia's involvement in the war, not least Les Carlyon's The Great War. But Beaumont's book, arriving just before the centenary, is especially welcome for its detailed explanation of why Australia jumped in and how support w...
628 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2013
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September 19, 2014This is an excellent book for those of us who sense that the World War I national commemoration has taken what is abnormal -- sacrifice for national honour and security -- and related it as a normative value. I had thought that the popular expression, "last man and last shilling" was a flippant rallying cry, but Beaumont's tome shows just how serious the proposition was during World War I. Beamount has interwoven many subjects and issues in the large arena of the war. In doing so, she has maintained a well-balanced narrative, while at the same time, kept the critical perspective from the scholarly literature. It is an informative perspective which has the ability to condemn the pro-militarist outlook, one that has too little regard for the human cost of war; a cost which was (and is) well beyond the comprehension of narrow nationalist sentiment. What is extremely troubling about the public commemoration is how the ANZAC Tradition has become a diversion for the awful fact that terribly, terribly, wrong decisions were made in the conduct of war, and the development of the ANZAC tradition -- as much good there is in honouring the dead -- prevented the calling to account the awful wrong done in the name of military command. Beamount is much more sympathetic to the ANZAC tradition, but to her credit, she has explained how that ANZAC tradition has been reshaped from the anachronistic values of 1914-1919 -- militarism, empire, racism, rigidity in gender expectations, and so forth -- to a tradition more sensitive to multiculturalism, a more autonomous & liberal nationalism, and the voluntary military codes (i.e. opposed to conscription, supporting the individual right not to enlist). Nevertheless, the public commemoration has failed to grasp the great evil of the militarist outlook -- that the conduct of war is justified to "the last man and last shilling". To date, those who wage war at all costs have not been called to account, except in the excellent history we read from historians like Joan Beamount.
September 4, 2019
This is a competent narrative account of Australian's involvement in the First World War. The military events are succinctly described - with the key events placed in their historiographical and societal context - and the domestic politics of Australia are given due prominence. This is an informative contribution to the history of Australia.
October 17, 2021
Beaumont has probably written the definitive book on Australia in WW1. She goes through each year of the war looking at the political, military and social history of the war and gives an explanation of why (or why not) that is memorialised in Australia today. There is not a whiff or jingoism or triumphalism that pervades so many Australian history books these days. She sticks to the facts and puts events in global context.
My only quibble reading this was that figures would be introduced by their surname only perhaps with a presumption we knew who they all were. (Or maybe I wasn't reading carefully enough). I found I had read a page and a half about someone called Elliott and it was only when she mentioned his post-war suicide did I realise she was talking about Pompey Elliott. But a minor quibble in an otherwise excellent book.
My only quibble reading this was that figures would be introduced by their surname only perhaps with a presumption we knew who they all were. (Or maybe I wasn't reading carefully enough). I found I had read a page and a half about someone called Elliott and it was only when she mentioned his post-war suicide did I realise she was talking about Pompey Elliott. But a minor quibble in an otherwise excellent book.
April 17, 2022
Very good. A history of the First World War from the Australian perspective. As well as the key battles, political and social aspects are examined. The author also traces the evolution of the Anzac story.
May 27, 2014
Really good history - long and hefty, but very readable, well-researched and, though grueling in parts (upon reading how some aristocratic British generals saw common soldiers I nearly hurled it through the wall), definitely a must-read for anyone with a strong interest in history.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews