Lest We Forget What? (ATOM Study Guide)

'The real failure in any military is to believe your own myths and legends.' – Major General (ret.) Jim Molan

Lest We Forget What? is a one-hour documentary that unpacks many of the myths and realities of what happened to Australians during World War One and examines the dominance that Gallipoli has in popular memory, the place that is so central to the Australian legend as the time and place where Australia is said to have come of age and out sense of what being an Australian means was created.

What is it we know? What are we remembering – mythology, verifiable history, or a bit of both? Anzac Day is increasingly used to define our nation's very essence –is it all about remembering a sepia-tinted pastiche of vague anecdotes about the ANZAC spirit and derring-do, or are we telling real stories about the ANZACs themselves? What about our actual role in World War One, based on fact and evidence?

Interrogating the ANZAC story is always going to be difficult because it occupies such a central place in the Australian national narrative. Why is it important to learn what really happened at Gallipoli in 1915 and on the Western Front in 1916–1918 during wartime? Is it important for us, 100 years on, to distinguish between fact and fiction? Why is it important to revisit the Gallipoli campaign and the legends and myths that have grown around it, and to explore questions about what has been forgotten and why? It is also important, given the significant investment Australians have committed to the centenary – both financially and emotionally – that we are able to identify the historical truths about what actually occurred. As the soldiers who fought there and returned home have all died, and with the records telling a range of different stories, surely it is critical to all those soldiers and nurses and their families who fought in wars over the past 100 years to try to understand what we are remembering and why when we say those words: 'Lest we forget.'

The phrase 'Lest we forget' comes from 'Recessional', a poem by British poet Rudyard Kipling, which he composed for the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. It was a phrase that became particularly poignant as Kipling's own son, whom he enthusiastically encouraged to enlist, was killed at Loos in 1915. The word 'lest' carries an implicit caution and a warning about the dangers of forgetting. This warning is echoed in the 1919 poem 'Aftermath' by the World War One soldier and poet Siegfried Sassoon, which is read at the end of the documentary with the repetition of the line, 'Have you forgotten yet?'

This documentary asks questions about what and why we as Australians remember, and why and what we have forgotten about World War One. It is a journey that will change what we all think.

Curriculum Guidelines

Lest We Forget What? would be suitable for middle and senior secondary students studying Australian History and Australian Culture and Society.