The year in between: 1917,Passchendaele,and the Queensland press

Abstract

This article explores newspaper reports appearing in the Australian state of Queensland during the main Australian participation in the Third Battle of Ypres (31 July–10 November 1917). The manner in which the fighting at Ypres was mediated to Queenslanders through press reports offers an insight into the impact of war correspondence and censorship on a population with limited access to dissenting views or informed analysis. Although there was considerable domestic turmoil across Australia, Queensland was subject to a variety of heightened political and social pressures which makes it a fruitful area of study. The newspaper reports initially emphasized the battle’s potential to end the war and the central role being played by Australian troops. When the advance stalled, the press shifted its focus to the heroic endurance of the troops as they battled the Germans, the weather and the terrain. By then, the battle had been reimagined as a tactical move toward higher ground rather than the promised breakthrough. This shift in focus reflected the major alteration in the relationship between the army and the war correspondents, who were now a vital component of a complex system of propaganda, one that saw them increasingly acting as a mouthpiece for the British Army. By the final year of the war, Queensland was derided as being conspicuous among the Australian states for its disloyalty and anti-Empire and anti-Australian feeling. Nevertheless, the reports of the fighting at Ypres appearing in Queensland newspapers, which were numerous and detailed, are significant for their studied avoidance of anything other than the battlefield.