St John's Cathedral, Brisbane and the Anzac Legend

While the Cathedral’s Anzac flag commemorates the engagement of Australian soldiers at Gallipoli, the Cathedral’s stained-glass windows in the South Transept recall all Australian Defence Force personnel who served and, in many cases, gave their lives in the First World War. During the war, following their evacuation from Gallipoli, Australian forces fought the German Army on the Western Front in France and Belgium, under overall British command, and in concert with other Allied forces including that of France. The Western Front, which stretched from the English Channel to Switzerland, is remembered as a gruelling, terrible and bloody war of attrition characterised by stalemate, miniscule advances and retreats, trench warfare, unremitting shellfire, the use of poison gas and mass slaughter. Throughout 1916 and 1917 on the Front, in a series of horrific battles like Pozieres and Third Ypres, casualties were heavy and allied gains were small. But in 1918, under the command of the brilliant Jewish-born Australian general Sir John Monash—who replaced static trench warfare with mobile armoured warfare—the Australians played a crucial role in a series of decisive allied advances against the Germans. Their initial success was the Battle of Amiens, the first major allied victory against the German Army, where the Australians captured 10 kilometres of ground on the first day of fighting. The allied advances, assisted by the entry of American troops into the conflict, led to Germany’s eventual surrender on 11 November 1918, a day commemorated as ‘Armistice’ or ‘Remembrance’ Day.

Opposite page: Windows in the South Transept of the Cathedral commemorating the service and sacrifice of all Australians, men and women, who took part in the First World War.

Ken Lilley / St John’s Cathedral

In the Anzac legend Australia’s participation on the Western Front has been overshadowed by Gallipoli, yet during the First World War the Western Front was the more important military theatre. Five times as many Australians served on the Front compared to Gallipoli (250,000 versus 50,000), more than five times as many died there (46,000 versus 8700) and Australians fought in more than 30 significant battles on the Front compared to 10 at Gallipoli. Following the victory at Amiens, French President Georges Clemenceau visited the battlefield and praised the Australians. He told them: “We knew from Gallipoli you would fight a real fight but we did not know that from the beginning you would astonish the whole Continent with your valour.”

The Third Battle of Ypres, France, 1917, claimed more than 38,000 Australian casualties (killed or wounded), some of whom are shown in the photograph here.

State Library of Queensland

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