School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemStress and identity: Australian soldiers during the first World War( 1985)Historical treatment of Australian participation in the Great War has been profoundly influenced by the work of Dr. C.E.W. Bean (1880-1968), its principal, official historian. Much modern scholarship has been stimulated by his claims about the distinctive character of the Australian Imperial Force, its members and military performance, and the importance of their experience in the creation of a national consciousness. The Anzac legend which emerged from the Gallipoli campaign and its sequel has proved a popular issue amongst postwar Australian historians, some of whom have investigated the experience of ordinary Australian soldiers, drawing on their diaries and letters - sources which, Bean warned, need to be treated circumspectly. Bill Gammage's The Broken Years, now 10 years old, is the outstanding work in this field, but I have no doubt he wouldn't claim it was necessarily the last word in every respect. This thesis explores war experience further, concentrating on the detailed insights diaries and letters provide of the psychological impact of the war on Australian troops - especially the acute and chronic stress and on the ways in which their changing national consciousness and attachment to home were partly a product of this and also helped them endure. The diaries and letters in the La Trobe Library of 179 servicemen formed my main sources, but I have also read widely in such sources in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, to check their representativeness. In interpreting these diaries and letters, I have taken advantage of some seminal work by English military historians and of recent findings by American and English social psychologists and psychiatrists. (From Introduction)