Newsletter for the Rotary Club of Western Endeavour - Issue No.: 1112 Issue Date: 24 Mar, 2024

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Bruce (left) and Mark (right) Fielding

Creators of Legends

Dr Mark Fielding has become a regular guest and provided a different insight into the ANZAC legend. Mark presented about the creators of the legends of Anzac, the four men who all contributed in their own way to what is now part of history and remembered each year at the various dawn services around the country and the world.

The four contributors to the Gallipoli campaign legends were Charles Bean, Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, Phillip Schuler and Keith Murdoch.   

Charles Bean was Oxford trained and the official historian based in the Dardanelles who was frustrated with the censorship and was quoted to say “There is horror and beastliness and cowardice and treachery, over … which the writer, anxious to please the public, has to throw his cloak reported was quoted”.  It appears his factual reporting was too boring for the newspapers and is he known as the, custodian of the ANZAC legend, with his official history of the campaign. Perhaps one of the best reflections of the campaign by Charles Bean was "By dawn on December 20th Anzac had faded into a dim blue line lost amid other hills on the horizon as the ships took their human freight to Imbros, Lemnos and Egypt. But Anzac stood, and still stands, for reckless valour in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship, and endurance that will never own defeat”.

Ellis Ashmead- Bartlett was a British war correspondent with the Daily Telegraph and his first recorded account of the Gallipoli campaign was published on 8 May 1915 in Australia was “They waited neither for orders nor for the boats to reach the beach, but, springing out into the sea, they waded ashore, and, forming some sort of rough line, rushed straight on the flashes of the enemy’s rifles.”

Phillip Schuler was a photographer who volunteered to be there and later enlisted in the armed services. Phillip arrived on the peninsula in July 1915 in time to cover the August offensive and worked closely with Charles Bean.

Keith Murdoch met Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett who reported of poor leadership and lack of support for the campaign and planned to send an uncensored account to London with Keith Murdoch. Murdoch was arrested in France and the document was removed however Murdoch wrote what he recalled of Ashmead-Bartlett’s account which got the attention of the politicians and the change in command to lead the withdrawal from the peninsula.

The recording and reporting of the campaign and the accounts by these men are often referred to as the creation of the ANZAC legend.

 

Author: Donna Thornton

Published: 22 April, 2017

 


Meeting Rosters
Date
Host
Thanks & Cleanup
3 minute bio
Setup
Writer
26 Mar, 24
Marcus Harris
 
 
Laurie Glossop
Jennifer Lee
02 Apr, 24
Michael Lee
Michael Lee
 
Donna Thornton
Barrie Heald
09 Apr, 24
 
 
Marina Berzins
 
Judy Dinnison
17 Apr, 24
 
 
 
 
 
14 May, 24
Laurie Glossop
 
 
 
Judy Dinnison
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