Abstract
This study investigated New Zealand teaching resources produced for the 100th anniversary of the First World War. The purpose was to explore how the war was viewed today by examining what was being presented to children and young people. We analysed hard copy and online resources that were specifically prepared or suggested for the anniversary. Our study revealed that the myth of the Anzac landing at Gallipoli as marking the start of Australia and New Zealand’s separation from Britain was alive and well. So, too, was the legend of the Anzac soldier as brave, stoic, resourceful and heroic. What was of particular interest, however, was that over the course of the centennial commemorations, the tone of the rhetoric moved from one of adulation to a more critical stance as a wider variety of perspectives on the war and its consequences began to appear to challenge the orthodox story of New Zealand’s role in the war. This article concludes by discussing what might be behind this upsurge in interest in the First World War before making recommendations on teaching about the war, or indeed other contested issues, in ways that acknowledge significant events yet hold unchallenged assumptions up to scrutiny.
Keywords
Introduction: Changing depictions of the First World War
In 1970s and 1980s New Zealand, Anzac 1 Day parades had become so unpopular some thought that the ritual would become obsolete. Then things turned. A resurgence of interest in the First World War over the last 25 years has peaked in the years running up to and during the war’s centenary. There has been a rise in attendance at Anzac Day dawn parades, the development of new resources on the Anzacs, even a minute’s silence before rugby games to mark the deaths in the Gallipoli campaign. 2 This article explores this changing phenomenon.
Pennell (2012) notes that the war was reported upon and represented in a variety of ways from the moment it broke out. The Anzac character – cheerful, resilient, brave, hardworking and enthusiastic – was first presented in newspaper reports and newsreels in 1915 to reassure audiences back home. In an article from
Charles Bean,
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the official Australian war reporter, is often credited with promoting the notion that Australian soldiers, with their pioneering backgrounds, were particularly suited to war, and embedding the idea that the war established Australia as a nation (Carlyon, 2001; Hart, 2011). The same foundation myth emerged in New Zealand (Carlyon, 2001; Pugsley, 1984). In the Foreword to Pugsley’s (1984) book, Lt-General Sir Leonard Thornton writes, For my generation, brought up in constrained reverence of ANZAC and of the Anzacs, the insistence of history fell on reluctant ears. We subscribed to the legend of victory in defeat, of a brilliant feat of arms against overwhelming and fanatical enemies …. Yet when all is said, something of lasting significance for us emerged from the Dardanelles debacle. The experience came to be seen as giving tentative expression to a new national consciousness, setting us apart as New Zealanders, not merely British, and more than the affiliates of Australia. (p. 7)
More recently, the online
The trope of the plucky Anzac defending the Empire was present in the media until the 1960s, by which time the British Empire was no longer to the fore in New Zealand consciousness. By the 1970s, at a time of strong anti-war sentiment, a more negative version of the First World War gained prominence (Arrow, 2015; MacCallum-Stewart, 2007; Pennell, 2012). In 1981, the Anzac character re-emerged in an evolved form in Peter Weir’s film
Carlyon (2001) suggests that ‘Gallipoli has become Australia’s Homeric tale. There is more interest in the campaign than there was half a century ago’ (p. 533). In the 1950s, very few people visited the war cemeteries at Gallipoli, and even by 1984, only 300 people attended the Anzac Day service at Ari Burnu (Carlyon, 2001). In 2000, 15,000 people attended the service relocated to North Beach and, in 2015, a ballot was conducted to keep numbers manageable.
This renewed patriotism led, in part, to our decision to undertake the project ‘Teaching about war, yesterday and today’ (see other articles in this Special Issue for further detail on the wider project). This particular article reports on an investigation into the teaching resources that were produced for or being used in the teaching of the 100th anniversary of the First World War in New Zealand schools. We next outline the project methodology and share the key findings before discussing some important themes and issues that have arisen from this investigation.
Research methods
A comprehensive search was undertaken for electronic and hard copy resources through a Google search and the databases and catalogues available at the University of Auckland library. Search terms such as Anzac, Gallipoli, World War 1, soldiers and commemoration were used. The resources needed to have a New Zealand focus and either be prepared for the anniversary or be recommended for use in teaching about the anniversary. We found over 30 illustrated books, mostly non-fiction, for younger readers, as well as the ubiquitous
While there is now a wealth of resources about New Zealand’s role in the First World War, these resources are constantly evolving. It is not possible, therefore, for this analysis to be comprehensive but it does give a snapshot of what we found between 2014 and 2017. It is important to note, however, that because the online world is fluid, we found that websites were regularly updated or published new material, often without indicating the date of the changes, and in some cases, the links became inactive.
Findings from the analysis
Resources for younger children
Picture books for younger children were dominated by the Anzac legend (
The overriding impression for children from these stories was that the New Zealand soldiers were heroes and the war was worth it, as it made New Zealand into the exceptional nation it is today. Children were encouraged to follow the example of Anzac soldiers, affirm their choices and emulate their virtues. This was often portrayed through a child discovering what part their family played in past wars and coming to accept that to go to war, and possibly die, was an honoured tradition (
The extreme youth of children targeted to become involved in centennial commemorations was notable. The RSA’s
Resources for older children
Stories for older primary and secondary school students offered more perspectives and the curriculum approach to teaching demanded more critical inquiry. There was an underlying dignity conferred to the war in the materials, although there were also some aspects of war suitable for senior students that were not as well covered.
Some of the themes in the resources for younger children were still apparent in books, such as the bravery of our soldiers (
The
The most numerous and comprehensive resources were available on various websites. The Ministry of Culture and Heritage’s
To bring First World War history alive, the
The Ministry of Education provided both curriculum resources (on its
Key findings
One of our key findings was that over this period of time, the tone in which the resources were presented or discussed changed. At the beginning of the project, we noted a celebratory tone in the resources, individually and collectively, that affirmed the war as an unavoidable part of life, as a rite of passage for the soldiers and of the significance of the First World War for New Zealand as an independent nation. This effect diminished a little, especially after the special issues of the
The second key finding was that as the commemorations evolved, more perspectives on the war were included. Resources that by their nature were comprehensive and had the widest audiences, like the
A third finding related to how social studies and history are taught in New Zealand and the role of resources in that pedagogical approach. The curriculum encourages an inquiry approach to teaching social studies and history which means that students seek out information to answer broad investigative questions on a topic rather than simply learning and repeating an official narrative. At the secondary school level, more contentious issues were recommended. Many discussion questions were provided to provoke deep thinking and build key knowledge and competencies in historical thinking, such as understandings of causation and significance. One problem, however, is that deep knowledge and interpretation of evidence are key to understanding causation and significance. In an inquiry, students research the information for themselves and this will most likely come from the resources provided to them or websites that are appealing, easy to find and use. The largest, most slick and easy to access online resources were those funded by the government – a source likely to be trusted by many students – but they tended to present the orthodox Anzac view that the Gallipoli campaign established New Zealand as a nation. Even as late as June 2017, a Google search for ‘New Zealand First World War’ brought up 10 entries, half of which presented the Anzac ‘foundation-of-a-nation’ myth on their first page.
Our fourth finding was that there are still notable absences. The first absence is of crimes committed against civilians in war, including rape, murder, robbery and arson. There is more focus on the suffering of soldiers than those who suffer at the hands of them. Historian Tony Simpson notes that we do not like to be reminded of the dark side of war, but doing so does not take away from the heroism of those who fought. He discusses the Surafend village massacre which took place just after the close of the war, in what was then Palestine: ‘Soldiers from a New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade camped near the village slaughtered more than 40 Arabs and Bedouins in retaliation for the theft of a soldier’s bag and the shooting of that soldier by the thief’. 22
The second absence is of the privations of civilians, including poverty, hunger, displacement and the effects on their physical and mental health. One example was the difficulties faced by women raising their children without a husband. The third absence is the contribution of, or impact on, immigrant groups during the war.
These absences are not surprising but they are problematic. To critique war has to involve considering all available facts and these criminal and racist acts were as inevitably part of war as they are the antithesis of the portrayal of New Zealand’s role in the war as ‘all that is decent, honourable and just’ as expressed by the RSA. Simpson claims, ‘… until we can come to terms with the fact that these atrocities are part of war and our part in it, we won’t have grown up as a society’. 24
Discussion
As we examined the resources, we found ourselves asking broader questions about the renewed interest in the war, the various rewritings of history and how our understanding of the war aligns with new historical research. It is these broader issues that we turn to in this discussion section. Arrow (2013, 2015) offers useful insights into the Anzac revival. She includes the influence of film and television, the growth in genealogy, new understandings of war and war trauma and the new nationalism of the late twentieth century. We use her ideas as a framework for our discussion then conclude this section by synthesising the advice offered to teachers of social studies and history when approaching contentious topics, such as the First World War.
The First World War centenary through film, television, theatre and publishing
It is not surprising that the centenary led to increased production of books, films, documentaries, television series and plays about the war. In the years leading up to and over the course of the centenary, there were reprints of earlier books on New Zealand’s (and Australia’s) involvement in the First World War, such as
Despite the efforts to impose moral lessons on war stories, it is the horror and heroism of war that capture viewers’ attention. This may lead to unintentionally enhancing stories or even repeating historical inaccuracies about real events. This tendency became apparent in some of the resources recommended for students, such as the films mentioned earlier. Some stories in the There is such a thing as the Anzac spirit or tradition, although no-one can define it neatly. It is compounded of many ideas: refusing to give up no matter how hopeless the cause, dry humour and irreverence, mateship, fatalism, stoicism and more again. (Carlyon, 2001: 534)
Making personal historical connections through genealogy
Arrow (2013, 2015) suggests that the rise in genealogy and popularity of television programmes such as Recent children’s literature about the First World War expresses a confusion concerning notions of ‘respect’ and the ‘pity of war’. Both these ideological positions can occlude historical, cultural, or social details. By suggesting that war can only be represented in certain ways, and consequently bolstering this idea through critical agreement, children’s literature, which engages with the First World War privileges more recent political and ideological beliefs rather than the actual events …. It also encourages the notion that certain ways of thinking about the war are valorized over others. (p. 178)
New perceptions of war and war trauma
While we have critiqued some of the resources as presenting soldiers as engaging in an exciting adventure, more recent historical interpretations often frame soldiers as victims rather than victors, especially in relation to the Gallipoli campaign: ‘Our society has been moulded by that Gallipoli experience. We are the sum of they did, what they found and what they lost. It was the loss of innocence’ (Pugsley, 1991: 360). Presenting soldiers as passive victims relates to new understandings of war trauma. We now know that much of the information on which soldiers based their desire to sign up was incomplete, false, overly hopeful and out of date. Yet the essence of war – conquering the enemy through violence – has never changed. New understandings of trauma, which were first presented to excuse a soldier’s physical and mental condition, such as extreme violence or passivity, particularly post–First World War, now appear as a repeated trope of soldiers as victims of a hellish and futile war. Known as the ‘war is hell’ trope, it appears in various modern portrayals of war stories on screen, which … often show the
What is interesting is that the ‘war is hell’ trope has come to be applied in modern times to all soldiers to exonerate them from their violence. It is easier to sustain the idea of the hero or the enemy if they are never encountered in the flesh.
While early presentations were overly jingoistic, MacCallum-Stewart (2007) argues that modern fiction may be more didactic than what preceded it. Modern children’s First World War literature falls into the presentism trap: ‘… to suggest that any participant may have “enjoyed” war, even through the freedoms of female emancipation or familial independence, is very much
The rise of nationalism
The rise in nationalist rhetoric is obvious to any regular followers of news and current affairs. What is of interest here is how the commemorations of the First World War were appropriated to this cause. In the United Kingdom, those who dared critique the resurgence of patriotism surrounding the commemorations have come under fire from politicians, such as Michael Gove. Edwards (2015) states, in relation to Gove’s and others’ dismissal of Wilfred Owen’s poetry, One of their frequently made arguments is that British soldiers who fought in World War One believed in the cause they were fighting for and that it is somehow patronising and disrespectful for us, one hundred years on, to question that cause.
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Israeli scholar, Avi Shlaim (cited in Richardson, 2014), also rebuts Gove’s patriotic rhetoric, describing his view as ‘narrow, nationalistic and blinkered’ (p. 3). Shlaim continues, The stories that nations tell about themselves, like epic poems, are filled with heroes and villains and stirring events … Nationalist versions of history, whether British or German, French or Russian, Serbian or Austro-Hungarian, have one thing in common: they tend to be simplistic, selective, self-righteous and self-serving. Nationalist movements always re-write history. (Cited in Richardson, 2014: 3)
In Australia, Bob Hawke, the first Australian politician to visit Gallipoli (for the 75th anniversary of the landings in 1990), is credited with revitalising interest in Anzac Day which had languished since the anti-war and feminist protests of the 1970s and 1980s (Khan, 2017). Australia went on to spend more money on the 100th anniversary than any other country involved in the First World War. The surge in national pride created some interesting controversies, including a supermarket chain using photos of soldiers in their ‘Fresh in our memories’ marketing campaign. The revival of interest did, however, serve to recognise the role that women, immigrants and indigenous Australians had played in the war, which had been largely overlooked (Khan, 2017).
Patriotic war rhetoric found its way into New Zealand, as well. In 2015, Hekia Parata, New Zealand’s Minister of Education, in relation to debates around New Zealand’s engagement in current conflicts, stated, And we should not turn away as a nation when that responsibility looks us in the face and says: ‘Will you stand alongside the allies whom, in times of both war and trade, we look to for those relationships?’ So, no, this Government will not turn away from those responsibilities, and it is important that not only we confront them in a timely fashion but we demonstrate to young New Zealanders that that is part of who we are. We are descended from people who played their part, who took the risks, and who were prepared to do what was necessary.
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What does the resurgence of the Anzac legend in New Zealand indicate about our society today? Does it serve to draw attention away from more problematic historical narratives surrounding colonisation or Māori land confiscation or current crises around poverty and housing? As the divide between rich and poor becomes wider, perhaps the Anzac legend distracts from those issues by speaking to the idea that New Zealanders are unique, New Zealand is an exceptional place and we are lucky to live here. Scholars note that myths are often used by nationalist movements to unify a people against a common enemy (see, for example, Chomsky & Herman, 1988). The identity of the common enemy at this time in New Zealand is perhaps less important than the cultivation of loyalty towards the
Teaching about war
Teaching about war is a complex activity. What our investigation revealed is that it is easy for emotionally charged events, in this case, the 100th anniversary of the First World War, to be captured for a range of causes, from the RSA’s ‘learn and remember’ to the Quakers’ ‘peace warriors’. When a range of relevant, colourful, easily accessible and engaging resources are produced to support curriculum and assessment requirements, it is not surprising that teachers want to make use of them. What this section asks teachers to do is to take a moment to consider the origins and purposes of the materials that have become available. Who funded the resource? What are the aims and purposes of the agency or organisation? How are their values and intentions reflected in the resource? What assumptions underpin the resource? What overt and covert messages are contained within the resource? Perreau (2015, drawing on Tomasevski, 2001) has devised a set of criteria for examining resources, in her case for the teaching of social justice, which could be adapted for evaluating resources on other topics. The criteria are availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability. Under acceptability, she asks questions about the way diversity is portrayed, what range of perspectives is presented, how is information positioned and how different identities are acknowledged.
Similarly, in his article, ‘Teachers, your countries need you’, Richardson (2014, again citing Shlaim) asks that teachers subject all positions and claims ‘to rigorous scrutiny in light of all the evidence available’ (p. 3). He reminds teachers that ‘the subversive role of history is thus of supreme importance’ (p. 3). While the Certainly it would be a poor history teacher who would regard the
Harcourt et al. (2011) caution that constructed memory built by secondary sources and long-term familiarity with stories connected to an event can give an … is not linked with historical thinking but rather is typically characterised by a particular version of the past that reflects presentist concerns. For example, the view that a New Zealand sense of nationhood was shaped by the experiences at Gallipoli in 1915 has more to do with the ANZAC mythology than it does with the reality of what occurred. (p. 28)
Building on the work of Counsell (2004, cited in Harcourt et al., 2011), they suggest one way to see through a constructed narrative is to consider not only why something is significant but to consider what the criteria for significance should be. It is also important to separate the traces of the event (such as war memorials) from the event itself (in this case, the First World War) so that the two are not conflated. This could also apply to many of the resources that were examined in this study, from stories, to films and official histories – what constructed narratives did they promote and whose attitudes and values were they reflecting?
When providing alternative interpretations of war history, teachers can risk being viewed as unpatriotic or causing offence to families with connections to historical and current conflicts (Finley, 2010). Finley suggests some less confronting ways to discuss war by sidestepping the rhetoric and considering conflict from less didactic points of view. Activities could include reframing metaphors, building vocabulary and encouraging dialogue over polarising debate. The Ministry of Education through their various websites and teaching guides encouraged engaging children and young people in just such a range of activities – individual inquiries, oral history, photo interpretation, vocabulary extension and literary criticism. The Ministry also raised a note of caution in that war is not just something that happened in history. Teachers should be aware that children in their classes, such as refugees, might have very recent experiences of the horror and trauma of war and it was therefore important to consider how to approach such topics sensitively.
Finally, Harcourt (2015) argues for us to critically consider not just what is taught in history classes but what is
Conclusion
This study was part of a wider project to investigate the teaching of war in New Zealand schools in relation to the anniversary of the First World War. While other aspects of the wider project investigated historical accounts or contemporary classroom practices, this study’s aim was to examine more closely the teaching resources that were specifically produced or recommended for teaching this topic today. The study examined a range of resources from children’s picture books to interactive websites. Two important observations and four key findings emerged. The first observation was that the myth of the Gallipoli landings laying the foundation stone of ‘who we are as New Zealanders’ is still being perpetuated. The second observation was that the Anzacs in the First World War, despite the availability of alternative perspectives, are uniformly portrayed as legendary characters – brave, stoic, resourceful and heroic.
The first key finding from the analysis of the resources was that the tone moved from celebratory and patriotic to more critical and circumspect as the commemorations evolved. The second finding, linked closely to the first, was that as time passed, more diverse perspectives were made available, many of which challenged the orthodox history. The third finding highlighted the way that an inquiry approach, in which students seek answers to investigative questions, is dependent on easy access to range of credible, inclusive and balanced resources, yet the ones they were most likely to access did not always meet these criteria. The fourth finding raised concern over the silences in the resources. By portraying soldiers as heroes, for example, the acts they committed and the harm they left in their wake is glossed over. We must take care, of course, not to judge historical events by contemporary ethics but at the same time, we need to provide a wider range of evidence to paint a more accurate picture of the realities of war.
The First World War was a significant event and its importance has not lessened over time. The war and New Zealand’s role in it should be taught as part of our social studies and history curricula. Studying the First World War, for example, provides an insight into how propaganda was used to shape public opinion and gain support for actions which in retrospect could be seen as unwise or unethical. However, if the Anzac myth continues to be promoted as the foundation of New Zealand’s identity, it can overshadow other conflicts and events, both positive and negative, whose legacy also contributed to shaping our nation, from colonisation and land confiscation to universal suffrage and the welfare state.
In conclusion, what our study revealed and what we hope teachers will take from it is that the resources made available to teach contested topics, such as war, represent particular perspectives and use persuasive techniques to foster various points of view. It behoves teachers to use the same skills of critical inquiry that they are aiming to instil in their students when they select resources. By doing this, teachers can complicate traditional narratives and provide more realistic, inclusive and nuanced representations of significant events in our history.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank to the University of Auckland for funding Vanessa Cameron-Lewis’ summer internship and to Maria Perreau and Alexandra Bonham, who assisted in various ways with this project.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article, other than the internship noted in the acknowledgements.