Editorial: Anzac salvo falls short in judgment

Opinion

If confirmation of the increased status of Anzac Day were needed, it has been fulsomely provided by the persistence of the debate on the 90th anniversary commemorations. Utterances from far and wide and letters to this newspaper have canvassed the Australian Prime Minister's snubbing of the New Zealand service at Chunuk Bair and the appropriateness of the National Party leader's remarks on defence spending during a dawn parade speech.

But no issue has attracted more notice than the Chief of Defence Force's address at Anzac Cove. The reasons are readily apparent. Speeches at such occasions, especially by military personnel, are usually bland affairs, devoid of attempted insight. Air Marshal Bruce Ferguson's speech, reproduced in today's Weekend Review, is anything but that. British military strategists are lambasted for decisions at Gallipoli that led to the "squandering of life", and the campaign is termed the high-water mark of our "imperial subservience".

The speech has been derided in the Australian newspaper by columnist Greg Sheridan as "political correct adolescent spouting". It is hardly that, even if in many ways it is ill-considered. In fact, it harks back in time, recalling the message, drummed into generations of children, that if the Anzacs failed at Gallipoli it was all down to British incompetence.

That view has long been discredited. All military campaigns are replete with blunders. As much is largely unavoidable, given the confused and chaotic nature of war. New Zealand commanders at Gallipoli made mistakes, as did their successors at the likes of Maleme and Cassino. Similarly, the British were guilty of much floundering in the Dardenelles. That, however, does not detract from the validity of a strategy that would have knocked Turkey out of World War I. And the fact that it almost succeeded. The British ambition was tantalisingly close to fulfilment when the Wellington Battalion stood astride Chunuk Bair.

Air Marshal Ferguson's other particularly contentious remark - that New Zealand and Australia suffered from "imperial subservience" - is notable more for strength of phrase than novelty of thought. Undoubtedly, many of the Anzac troops considered themselves British. They may even, initially, have been in awe of the professional soldiers from "home". Only as the campaign endured did they develop, in the Air Marshal's words, "a sense of independence and confidence, that as soldiers they were the equal of any, friend or foe". This equates with the conventional notion that our sense of nationhood was forged at Gallipoli. It is hardly a new sentiment.

Nor, as Mr Sheridan would have it, is the speech reflective of New Zealand's "isolation, irrelevance and military irresponsibility". The Government's emasculation of the Defence Force, and the Air Marshal's role in that, are separate issues. The Prime Minister's championing of the commemoration of battles in which New Zealanders fought says as much.

In sum, however, Air Marshal Ferguson's speech, while strong in language, lacks in judgment. Our understanding of Gallipoli has been hindered, rather than helped, by this curious salvo.