How Australia And New Zealand Helped Provoke And Escalate The First World War – OpEd eurasiareview.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurasiareview.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Every year on April 25, Anzac Day is observed in Australia and New Zealand. It originally commemorated Australians and New Zealanders who served and died during the First World War.
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- They Called it Passchendaele, Lyn Macdonald, 1978. An English historian details the daily lives and struggles of the much maligned British Tommy on the Western Front.
- Man Alone, John Mulgan, 1939. A novel based around a man named Johnson, a British soldier who was billeted with Kiwis on the Western Front. After the war he came out to New Zealand looking for a better life. Instead, he finds a “grim” country struggling to recover economically from the impact of the war.
- We Will Not Cease, Archibald Baxter, 1939. If there is a book that dispels the myth that New Zealand was fighting for democracy or freedom, this is it. A conscientious objector, Baxter was tortured and sent to a mental hospital for opposing the war.
A few words from the New Zealand Prime Minister on Anzac Day 2020.
OPINION: Imagine this. It’s a lovely sunny day in Auckland on April 25, 1915, with locals getting ready to go yachting as the sun rises. From the mist, a large naval contingent emerges and the quiet of dawn is broken by shelling and rifle fire. A large Muslim army, who claim they have God on their side, is trying to force its way ashore. Luckily, New Zealand is prepared and the invaders struggle to get any sort of toehold. The invaders come from a range of countries on the other side of the world and fight bravely, but their leaders are incompetent. After six months, they give up.