Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

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This study examines the changing perceptions of Anzac Day in New Zealand, Australia and Turkey in the twentieth century. Changing interpretations of Anzac Day reflect social and political changes in the nations over that time. Anzac Day is an annual commemoration which has profound significance in the Australian and New Zealand social landscape. It has undergone significant changes of meaning since it began, and may be regarded as being an example of the changeable script of memory. The thesis argues that memory and landscape intersect to influence the way commemorative gestures are interpreted. Personal and community memories are fluid, influenced by the current historical landscape. This means that each successive Anzac Day can have different connotations. The public perception of these connotations is traced for each of New Zealand, Australia and Turkey. Anzac Day reflects the forces at work in the current historical landscape. Within that landscape it has different meanings and also functions as an arena for individual and community agency. On Anzac Day there are parades and services which constitute a public theatre where communities validate military service. Individual and communal feats are held high and an ethic or myth is placed as a model within the social fabric. Anzac Day is contested and reflects tides of opinion about war and society and the role of women. It is also the locale of quiet, personal contemplation, where central family attachments to the loved and lost and the debt owed by civilian communities to the military are expressed. Generational change has redefined its meanings and functions. Anzac Day was shaped in a contemporary historical landscape. It reflected multi-national perspectives within British Empire and Commonwealth countries and Turkey. For Turkey the day represented a developing friendship with former foes and was couched within Onsekiz Mart Zaferi, a celebration of the Çanakkale Savaşlari 1915 victory in the Dardanelles campaign. As Anzac Day evolved, Turkey, the host country for New Zealand and Australian pilgrims, became the focus of world attention on the day. Gallipoli is now universally recognised as the international shrine for Anzac Day.

The First World War is remembered by many as a series of gigantic battles along a system of tranches in France. However, a number of other engagements, equally important, took place. One of the most prominent and fascinating of these engagements was the Dardanelles Campaign. Beginning in February 1915, the campaign lasted until the evacuation of the Cape Halles positions in January 1916. It originated as an attempt by the political leadership in London to seek a victory which would ease the Imperial situation, strengthen allied diplomacy with the neutrals, boost morale and achieve a victory without the expansive methods being advocated by the 'Westerners' in northern France. [...]

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Constructions of memory, myth and legend relating to Gallipoli have dominated the academic assumption which suggests that this dimension alone has allowed for the reawakening of the exceptional interest in the Anzac tradition; a tradition that has converged at the physical site in modern day Turkey. While these intangible constructions have waxed, waned, and re-emerged over the Twentieth Century, possessing the site to commence the construction of an Anzac Battlefield Cemetery has been ignored in academic enquiry. This significant series of events from 1916 to 1965 were indispensable to memory perpetuation and essential to the commemorative primacy that this preserved headland now enjoys. The desire to repossess, and then own in perpetuity the battlefield in order to attach the appropriate masonry adornments, is in itself unique. This dimension has not been academically scrutinised by any historian until now. Nor has the deliberate desire to construct an Anzac shrine that would someday attract pilgrims from the Antipodes been studied. Present day site-sacralisation by rite-of-passage pilgrims, thoroughly emersed in the Anzac tradition, suggests the convergence of the two dimensions is complete. To counteract this problem of the �hegemony of the intangibles� this thesis explores primary sources, gleaned largely from archival records, then evaluates the significance of the history of �physical Gallipoli.� Thematic approaches based upon the lines of possession, preservation and pilgrimage argue that this parallel dimension has played an indispensable role in shaping the end result today. Tens of thousands Australasian travellers now flock to this preserved battlefield to encounter the actual physicality of the tradition. The battlefield cemetery, complete with botanical emblems of ownership, had been out of the reach of the very generation who had created, acquired and constructed the battlefield landscape. The New Zealand public had to be content with assorted forms of vicarious pilgrimage coupled with widespread domestic memorialisation. New Zealand�s post-evacuation experience at Gallipoli became a story completely distinctive from that of Australia or Great Britain. The deliberately constructed Anzac Battlefield Cemetery is a unique landscape artefact that a proud but mournful generation set out to create. They eventually achieved this end by a complicated mixture of conquest, occupation, careful preservation, and commemorative ownership. These efforts were assisted by the vagaries of economic happenstance and international politics that left this remote Peninsula isolated and off-limits to human encounter. Fortuitously frozen in time, this landscape artefact, so steeped in Classical history, has emerged as one of the most sacred, and perhaps the most recognisable, geographic features associated with Australasia. Overriding these plans for shrine construction had been the stated goal of securing a reverent final resting place for those who fell during the creation of the Anzac legend in 1915. Sepulture perpetuelle became the post-evacuation catchphrase that propelled this Great War generation to go almost to the brink of war to secure the principles of this phrase. This lofty goal of permanence, by passage of time and the re-appropriation of nature, had mercifully been completed before the current �second invasion� that commenced in the 1980s. The Anzac Battlefield Cemetery is now a victim of its own very successful physical preservation.

Constructions of memory, myth and legend relating to Gallipoli have dominated the academic assumption which suggests that this dimension alone has allowed for the reawakening of the exceptional interest in the Anzac tradition; a tradition that has converged at the physical site in modern day Turkey. While these intangible constructions have waxed, waned, and re-emerged over the Twentieth Century, possessing the site to commence the construction of an Anzac Battlefield Cemetery has been ignored in academic enquiry. This significant series of events from 1916 to 1965 were indispensable to memory perpetuation and essential to the commemorative primacy that this preserved headland now enjoys. The desire to repossess, and then own in perpetuity the battlefield in order to attach the appropriate masonry adornments, is in itself unique. This dimension has not been academically scrutinised by any historian until now. Nor has the deliberate desire to construct an Anzac shrine that would someday attract pilgrims from the Antipodes been studied. Present day site-sacralisation by rite-of-passage pilgrims, thoroughly emersed in the Anzac tradition, suggests the convergence of the two dimensions is complete. To counteract this problem of the �hegemony of the intangibles� this thesis explores primary sources, gleaned largely from archival records, then evaluates the significance of the history of �physical Gallipoli.� Thematic approaches based upon the lines of possession, preservation and pilgrimage argue that this parallel dimension has played an indispensable role in shaping the end result today. Tens of thousands Australasian travellers now flock to this preserved battlefield to encounter the actual physicality of the tradition. The battlefield cemetery, complete with botanical emblems of ownership, had been out of the reach of the very generation who had created, acquired and constructed the battlefield landscape. The New Zealand public had to be content with assorted forms of vicarious pilgrimage coupled with widespread domestic memorialisation. New Zealand�s post-evacuation experience at Gallipoli became a story completely distinctive from that of Australia or Great Britain. The deliberately constructed Anzac Battlefield Cemetery is a unique landscape artefact that a proud but mournful generation set out to create. They eventually achieved this end by a complicated mixture of conquest, occupation, careful preservation, and commemorative ownership. These efforts were assisted by the vagaries of economic happenstance and international politics that left this remote Peninsula isolated and off-limits to human encounter. Fortuitously frozen in time, this landscape artefact, so steeped in Classical history, has emerged as one of the most sacred, and perhaps the most recognisable, geographic features associated with Australasia. Overriding these plans for shrine construction had been the stated goal of securing a reverent final resting place for those who fell during the creation of the Anzac legend in 1915. Sepulture perpetuelle became the post-evacuation catchphrase that propelled this Great War generation to go almost to the brink of war to secure the principles of this phrase. This lofty goal of permanence, by passage of time and the re-appropriation of nature, had mercifully been completed before the current �second invasion� that commenced in the 1980s. The Anzac Battlefield Cemetery is now a victim of its own very successful physical preservation.

"December 2004" / Bibliography: leaves 390-420. / vii, 420 leaves : ill., maps, photos. (col.) ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, Discipline of History, 2005