School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemThe transformation of Australian military heroism during the First World War( 2019)This thesis examines how Australian heroism was defined and represented during the First World War. I present an in-depth analysis of two sets of primary sources: Victoria Cross (VC) medal citations and Australian wartime newspapers. Victoria Cross citations are official British military descriptions of battlefield acts that have earned a serviceman the VC medal and therefore offer a window into how British and dominion commanders awarded and prescribed heroism. My analysis of all British and dominion VC citations, from the institution of the medal in 1856 to the end of the First World War in November 1918, show that the type of act that was primarily awarded the VC changed in late 1916 and early 1917. While most VCs were awarded for acts of saving life before this point, this changed to an emphasis on acts of killing. Statistics compiled from VC citations also show that Australians were exceptional in the way they were awarded the medal during the conflict, receiving proportionally more awards for killing and fewer for life saving than any other British or dominion nation. Analysis of major Australian newspapers’ representations of military heroism during the war reveals a similar trend. Australian newspapers primarily represented stretcher-bearers and wounded men as the heroes of Gallipoli in reports throughout 1915, yet from the entry of Australian forces into the Western Front in 1916, newspaper representations of heroism focused far more on men who killed the enemy. This thesis offers an original contribution to the literature by showing how and why pre-war ideals of heroism transformed in Australia during the course of the First World War. It specifically identifies the dominant model of Australian heroism that existed in 1914, and traces how it was displaced by new ideals of heroism considered more necessary and apt for the conditions of the Western Front. In identifying the shifting ideals that were officially recognised and widely represented as epitomising the highest forms of military valour, this thesis is the first to examine the nature of Australian hegemonic heroism during the First World War. In analysing the dominant heroic model in Australia during the First World War and showing how and why this model transformed over the course of the conflict, this study presents new insights into the nature of heroism and masculinity in wartime Australia.
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ItemThe performance of war: experiences in the city of Melbourne 1914-1918( 2015)The First World War (1914-1918) had complicated implications for the people in the city of Melbourne. The conflict has predominantly been described as Australia's first national engagement or awakening, yet this thesis argues that, the ways in which the majority of people on the home-front experienced the conflict was in the contexts of their local communities, and for many, in their city. In participating in the conflict, the people of Melbourne performed varying roles in the war within different emotional communities. Performative methodologies will be used to explore how messages were manifested in the control of public spaces in the city, in displays of authority, and in expressions of citizenship and gender.
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ItemHomefront hostilities: the first world war and domestic violence in Victoria( 2004)This thesis examines the influence of the First World War on domestic violence in Victoria, Australia. A reading of court cases, newspaper reports, official records and oral testimonies reveals a connection between the war and individuals' violent behaviour within marriage, apparent during the war and in the decade following the cessation of hostilities. This connection explains what appears to be an increased incidence of domestic violence in the immediate aftermath of the war. A link between veterans' war trauma and domestic violence - frequently assumed in the historiography - existed, but this was just one aspect of the war's impact on domestic violence and did not account for all cases of returned-soldier wife abuse. The war contributed to both veterans' and civilian men's wife abuse by idealising male aggression and by provoking a range of experiences that personally disempowered men. Against the masculine ideal of the fearless Anzac, many men's self-esteem diminished. Failure to enlist, failure to fight, and failure to cope with horrifying memories of battle were some of the ways in which men fell short of their own and society's expectations of manliness. Male insecurity was further exacerbated by women's increased self-assertions. The war afforded many women greater social and economic autonomy, a situation which made wives' separation from violent husbands more viable. The war was influential, too, in shaping social responses to domestic violence. The new masculine hierarchy of wartime affected judicial determination of who was, and who was not, accountable for acts of violence. Official leniency towards returned-soldier perpetrators was noticeable both during and after the war, and in the post-war years such leniency also extended to civilian defendants. While the outbreak of war sparked renewed enthusiasm for male chivalry towards women, this ideal disappeared rapidly after 1918. ln a context of male antagonism towards women's apparent advancement, a new male ambivalence towards wife abuse emerged within the public realm. The notion of men as victims, rather than as brutal tyrants, informed much official reaction to actual cases of domestic violence. Greater official indifference to men's violence against their wives after the First World War was the result not only of men's fears of female encroachment on male privilege, but of a changing interpretation of the causes of domestic violence. The widespread phenomenon of shell shock in soldiers served to further the currency of psychological theories of human behaviour. In the post-war decade, the stereotype of the disturbed violent veteran both emerged from, and influenced, the proceedings of cases of domestic violence in Victorian courts. The idea that returned-soldier violence was a product of battle nerves weighed on cases of wife abuse, regardless of whether the facts of individual cases evinced such a connection. The violence of civilian men also increasingly came to be understood in a psychological framework during the 1920s. As the community's awareness of psychological factors burgeoned, the belief that domestic violence was an outcome of extraordinary stresses on ordinary men's minds began to prevail in the public sphere. Such an understanding helped to dismantle the dominant pre-war stereotype of the working-class 'wife-beater'.
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ItemJourneys to war: experiences of Australian recruits in the Great War( 1999-09)Debates over 'the' experience of Australians in the Great War have attempted to characterise the way that Australians approached and experienced this war. This thesis is concerned with the experiences of recruits for the Australian Imperial Force from the point of enlistment, to their first experiences of battle. Those Australians who enlisted between 1914 and 1918 imagined their war before they experienced it. Recruits expected to pass through certain defining moments on their way to the front, moments by which they could chart and later recount their war. Recruits anticipated a quick passage through these stages, but the reality was a consistent rising and falling of expectations as they encountered extended periods of inactivity that did not accord with their imagined narrative of war. With battle essential to any war experience, recruits pictured themselves at the height of battle, perhaps in the midst of the old world in Europe, but more importantly, their vision was only made complete by imagining their homecoming. Under the illusions of previous wars, early recruits envisaged returning after a short conflict to a welcoming society. This vision suffered under the realities of a protracted war, and a growing awareness of the real conditions at the front. As this knowledge found its way back to Australia, recruits found themselves between two worlds of war, one constructed through newspapers and propaganda, the other becoming more apparent in attitudes gleaned from returned men and letters from those at the front. Both claimed to know the war, yet recruits knew neither world to be entirely true. Increasingly, recruits came to a closer understanding of the war, the corollary of which was that their vision of home changed in its emphasis. Men continued to be drawn by the war, but by 1917 and 1918, sought to return to homes they came to regard as a haven. They no longer anticipated that the war would enhance their social status after they returned. What they retained was a desire to reach the war and see battle, in order that they might earn the right to return home.
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ItemAn iconography of suffering: VD in Australia 1914-18( 1995)During the Great War, it was widely held that venereal disease had become ‘rife’ in Australia. This ‘rifeness’ related not only to a perceived rise in its incidence, but to the belief that it was becoming more prevalent in populations traditionally unaffected. By early 1915, a new wave of alarm had swept the nation as the presence of infected soldiers in Australia was made public in the mainstream media. The repatriation of AIF venereal cases from the Middle East in May, and startling reports of the rise of the new ‘amateur prostitute’, added to mounting concern that VD was spreading into populations ‘hitherto unaffected'. To many, these events signified that the ‘foul undercurrent’ of venereal disease was actually penetrating the ‘general population’. The perception that venereal disease was 'rife' was accompanied by the emergence of new regulating discourses, and an increased production of knowledges about VD. The period saw the unprecedented explosion of public discourse in the form of pamphlets, essays, books, lectures conferences, cartoons, and films. This thesis concerns itself with this ‘epistemic epidemic’. (From introduction)