Peter Jackson’s film on the centenary of the Great War, They Shall Not Grow Old, is a masterpiece. Jackson has brought the hostilities of the Western Front of 1914–1918 to vivid life in a brilliantly …
The Great War, 1914–18, was the most convulsive, tragic and defining event in Australian history. Its sacrifices bequeathed the bond of nationhood. But such sacrifice left the young country fractured by politics, religion and class, …
The numbers are stark and brutal. Out of a population of five million, more than 60,000 Australians were killed in the First World War and at least 137,000 more were wounded. But the statistics don’t …
In March 1950, Australia’s external affairs minister Percy Spender set out the Menzies government’s appreciation of the international situation in a parliamentary speech. The aims of Australian foreign policy, he declared, ‘are essentially the preservation …
The scale of Australian military losses in World War I is well known. From a population of fewer than 5 million, more than 62,000 men and women died, and over 150,000 were wounded. Less widely …