Avid postcard
collector and researcher ,
Gary Davies, of
Magnetic Island, constantly turns
up items of immense interest , such as
the above World War l book
produced by New Zealand troops
in 1918 , which contains moving and surprising
content . Of particular note is use
of the term " Digger " to
describe its soldiers and its
origins.
Without any mention of Australians , it explains that the term "Digger" stands for a
New Zealand soldier, equivalent to the English "Tommy". The Digger term , it says, became general throughout
the Division , probably adapted because
New Zealanders had earned
fame as trench diggers ...Certainly
on no battlefield that he has visited , either on Gallipoli
or on the Western Front, has the editor ever seen better diggers . Man for man the Turk may have been almost his equal , the German a good second. In the days
of alluvial gold mining in New Zealand
the term "Digger" was in general use. There
are still many gold diggers in the
Dominion. This may have something to do with the adoption of the word by the
New Zealanders in France.
The publication includes a laconic
entry, THE DIGGER’S DICTIONARY, containing an
unexpected reference to prolific
author , Nat Gould, recently mentioned in this blog ( MELBOURNE CUP ON THE GHASTLY WESTERN FRONT BATTLEFIELDS ) saying he was read before soldiers " went over the top".
This indicates that Gould must have had a big following in New Zealand as well as in Australia.
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Written a day before he was to return to the front
line at Ypes , in France, the
boob-boop of guns heard in the distance, a writer , only identified as " Buzzer " , contributed a powerful article , Anzac : A Reverie . Having
just finished "Gallipoli " by poet and writer , John Edward Masefield , later the Poet Laureate , he had found it
a powerful and sober
narrative, providing pleasure , yet a
certain sense of disappointment . It contained
a picture from the beaches , not
from the ridges and plateaux. It seemed
inevitable that some member of the "wonderful family at Anzac " would one
day find leisure to reconstruct in a not unworthy form the manner of life lived at Gallipoli.
An intimate, detailed and truthful revelation might in literary
art fall far short of a book like Tolstoy’s "Sebastapol" and
yet prove a document valuable enough to justify
publication.
Then the soldier
goes on to describe in vivid language
aspects of the Gallipoli fighting...the black swollen dead...wave after wave of Australians ...
taking over Quinn’s Post from Australians ,Quinn shot dead standing erect on the parapet to direct
a counter attack against the Turkish assault ... a heap of about 30
Australian and Turkish dead ...a grim story at Quinn’s about an Australian narrating his cobber’s
difficulties with a jam–tin bomb
which blew his head off ...the screams of a poor Turkish devil
shrieking “ Allah! Allah!” as a
blockhouse is set on fire by shelling ...Australians playing two up ...the
Colonel with his famous Rhododendron cudgel
( swagger stick? )...a week’s spell at Lemnos (Anzac Nurses) where some terrible scented brandy was
bought ...trenches only 40 yards apart ...impossible operations, muddle
and inevitable failure ... a disastrous day ends dug in opposite lion-hearted Australians ...
in tactics –sniping , patrolling , bombing , and field engineering , the Turks at the
outset were indisputably more proficient
.
Buzzer commented
on the charge of lack of
discipline brought against Anzacs, sometimes based on misunderstanding
.Men who had never said "Sir" in their lives or obeyed another man’s
command gave unquestioning obedience
to a competent superior. But they saluted capability
and character rather than stars and badges . They had many of them been masters
of men and owned property ; they were ,if not much older,much maturer
and much more used to independence than
the English troops .They had roughed it
in every wild part of Australasia . The
proportion of adventurous spirits was noticeably higher than in the later reinforcements .They were by no means lambs , and had in their ranks a
fair number of dare-devil " hard cases ." Bastard passed into common use.
There had been an inevitable sprinkling
of unworthy spirits, he said, some of whom had in training been full of bluster and high talk. These did not stay long on Gallipoli
, but sought refuge in England , Egypt or New Zealand , where they told
laughable lies in newspapers and
achieved prominence on anniversaries . But the overwhelming majority , the flower of Australasian youth and manhood –these
were , in strength of character as of muscle , men indeed.
In the above cartoon , the cheeky Kiwis admit stealing Norman Lindsay's Blinky Bill ,
the famous Australian Koala . The wounded German is undoubtedly a reference to the air ace, Baron
von Richthofen, the Red Baron.
The editor’s
note states that some of those who
contributed to production of the book did so from hospital cots. Some had drawn
their last picture , written their last verse . Published by Cassell and Company, Limited
,London, New York ,Toronto and Melbourne, the book ran to 20,000 copies , is well
illustrated , some full plate colour ; a
cartoon attributed to " Finey " is almost
certainly the work of George Finey, an
under-age private who served in the war, became an official war artist . In his
book The Inked In Image , author Vane Lindesay , of Melbourne , who recently celebrated his 93rd
birthday , said Finey , who worked in Australia on Smith’s Weekly, drawing many
comic jokes , was one of the most famous of the 20th century portrait caricaturists.
