Anzac Legend Analysis

The ANZAC Legend is a Lie

The Gallipoli Campaign has long been regarded as a defining period of Australia’s history and has played a large part in the foundation of the nation’s identity. The legacy which continues today, however, has been transformed into a cultural myth, and has created the ‘ANZAC Legend.’

The ANZAC Legend embraces the ‘ANZAC Spirit’, the common characteristics of which were possessed by all ANZAC soldiers. The legend illustrates the supposedly ever-present qualities which were upheld: endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, and mateship, and an irreverence to authority unlike their British counterpart.

The ANZAC Legend generalises all the soldiers with a single stereotype: that they were all brave and enthusiastic Anglo men who fought with a sense of willing sacrifice for the sake of patriotism. Recognised as a founder of the legend, war correspondent C.E.W Bean recalls, “…ANZAC stood, and still stands, for reckless valour in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship and endurance that will never own defeat.” Bean has created a generalised impression of the character of an ANZAC soldier, one which commends their fortitude and bravery, but hardly applies to every man at Gallipoli. Alistair Thompson wrote, “Bean and his successors…have excluded or marginalised individual experiences that do not fit the homogeneous national legend.” Bean is here criticized for establishing a false interpretation …show more content…
This legend glorifies the campaign, misleading with the well-worded bias of C.E.W Bean and his successors who claim that Gallipoli was the birth of the nation, however, the national identity had been created well before the war. The legend is a misrepresentation of the legacy of the ANZAC

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