Someone else's remembrance
Today is a weird day to be an ex-Pat.
New Zealanders and Australians generally celebrate Remembrance Day as ANZAC Day (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, in case you wondered) on April 25th, commemorating the beginning of the assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula in World War 1*. It was the ANZACs' first major battle. The Gallipoli Peninsula was basically the key to the Dardanelles**, a crucial sea passage from the Meditarranean, giving access to the Black Sea, which in turn gives on to Eastern Europe, southern Russia as was, and the north of the Ottoman Empire as was. It nearly worked. But all sorts of things went wrong and the result was, as you'd expect from WW1, months of bloody, devastating trench warfare. It took 10 months of bloody stalemate before exacuation was declared.
I think it's sort of interesting that we celebrate not the day of victory (however Pyrrhic it may have been), but a day that symbolises failure. Don't get me wrong, the ANZACs were crucial players in other battles, and especially in the Second World War. But those aren't the ones we think of at the cenotaph.
I'm sure I had a point when I started this post. Something about how, although the forms of remembrance are the same, the meaning is somehow subtly different and it's a little disorienting. And there's something in there about national identity as well, which has been on my mind since reading someone's (f-locked, so no link) post about their own national identity.
My own tribute to the day - The cemetery at Lone Pine, and the text from General Ataturk's monument to his fallen enemies - possibly one of the most beautiful tributes to the dead that I have ever seen, especially given that it is to the enemy's dead.
Those heroes that shed their blood
and lost their lives...
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies
and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
now here in this country of ours...
you, the mothers,
who sent their sons from faraway countries
wipe away your tears;
your sons are now lying in our bosom
and are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have
become our sons as well.
*The landing was actually 19 February, but it took two months for for the news to get home.
** Troy is just south of the Peninsula. Homer would like you to think the Trojan War was all about a couple of dumb teenagers, but really it was all about trade routes. My cynicism, let me show you it.
New Zealanders and Australians generally celebrate Remembrance Day as ANZAC Day (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, in case you wondered) on April 25th, commemorating the beginning of the assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula in World War 1*. It was the ANZACs' first major battle. The Gallipoli Peninsula was basically the key to the Dardanelles**, a crucial sea passage from the Meditarranean, giving access to the Black Sea, which in turn gives on to Eastern Europe, southern Russia as was, and the north of the Ottoman Empire as was. It nearly worked. But all sorts of things went wrong and the result was, as you'd expect from WW1, months of bloody, devastating trench warfare. It took 10 months of bloody stalemate before exacuation was declared.
I think it's sort of interesting that we celebrate not the day of victory (however Pyrrhic it may have been), but a day that symbolises failure. Don't get me wrong, the ANZACs were crucial players in other battles, and especially in the Second World War. But those aren't the ones we think of at the cenotaph.
I'm sure I had a point when I started this post. Something about how, although the forms of remembrance are the same, the meaning is somehow subtly different and it's a little disorienting. And there's something in there about national identity as well, which has been on my mind since reading someone's (f-locked, so no link) post about their own national identity.
My own tribute to the day - The cemetery at Lone Pine, and the text from General Ataturk's monument to his fallen enemies - possibly one of the most beautiful tributes to the dead that I have ever seen, especially given that it is to the enemy's dead.
Those heroes that shed their blood
and lost their lives...
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies
and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
now here in this country of ours...
you, the mothers,
who sent their sons from faraway countries
wipe away your tears;
your sons are now lying in our bosom
and are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have
become our sons as well.
*The landing was actually 19 February, but it took two months for for the news to get home.
** Troy is just south of the Peninsula. Homer would like you to think the Trojan War was all about a couple of dumb teenagers, but really it was all about trade routes. My cynicism, let me show you it.