St John's Cathedral, Brisbane and the Anzac Legend

The Cathedral’s Gallipoli flag is exhibited as a permanent memorial to the Dardanelles campaign and to the sacrifice of Australian and New Zealand soldiers during this momentous episode in the life of the two nations. It was a particularly formative moment for Australia which in 1915 was a young country, only recently federated (1901) from a collection of separate, self- governing British colonies into a single nation. Gallipoli was the first military conflict in which Australian troops had fought as Australians rather than as New South Welshmen, Victorians or Queenslanders. However, militarily the Anzac campaign at the Dardanelles was a disastrous and misguided folly, fought against impossible odds, ill-thought and at times poorly led by the British Army High Command and the British War Cabinet. It was also—as retired Australian Brigadier Chris Roberts has more recently established— dogged by inexperience on the part of the Australian troop commanders. This inexperience resulted in a number of costly tactical errors and breakdowns in communication, resulting in failure to exploit initial Anzac successes immediately after the dawn landings and helping the Turks hold down the Anzacsonanarrowbeachof notactical importance. Yet Gallipoli created the Anzac legend, a set of beliefs that Australian troops—known as ‘Diggers’ (see section 3)—had special qualities that set them apart and reflected uniquely Australian characteristics of humour, courage, tenacity, ruggedness and ‘mateship’ plus elements of irreverence and ‘larrikinism.’ These characteristics were reflected in the renowned fighting quality of the Diggers displayed in all subsequent wars and engagements in which Australian Defence Force personnel have taken part. This includes the decisive Battles of Beersheba, Amiens, El Alamein, Kokoda and Milne Bay during the First and Second World Wars.

A Queensland school text book notes: “Put simply this legend was that a group of ordinary Australians took on the enemy under great difficulties, fought magnificently, endured where others might not have, showed great human qualities, and then had to withdraw because of the incompetence of the planners of the campaign. They did not win this battle strategically, but they set a standard and an example which others then could live up to. These soldiers showed what Australians were.” Another comment on the Anzac legend comes from a former chief of the Australian Army, General Sir Cyril Brudenell White—like the Reverend Maxwell a Queenslander and who as a colonel at Gallipoli had been responsible for the meticulous planning of the evacuation of the Anzacs: (Robert Lewis and Tim Gurry, The Anzac Experience, Anzac Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland, 1999).

“Who will say that Gallipoli was a failure if from the trials endured there, and in memory of the unconquerable spirit of those who died, Australia should have developed a nationalism based on the highest ideals.”

(Peter FitzSimons “Gallipoli” , Heinemann, Sydney, 2014).

Maxwell also underscored the Anzac legend when he preached to a packed Cathedral on the presentation of the Gallipoli flag to St John’s on Anzac Day 1929. He spoke of his time as a hospital ship chaplain ministering to the many thousands of young Anzacs who passed through his care. For Maxwell the two qualities which stood out most among the Anzacs were their courage and their sense of mateship towards their fellow soldiers. A newspaper reported Maxwell’s prophetic words:

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