Background information about the book
What was it like back then?
It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for people living back in the 1900s. Writing about history means a lot of reading. There may be a few sound recordings, photos, newspapers and documents of the time, but most information is found in books. Here are some that Elizabeth read:
A Diary without Dates by Enid Bagnold 1917 (She wrote the classic National Velvet.) A moving and very real account of her time as a nurse in an English hospital during The First World War.
Australia, Willkommen. A history of the Germans in Australia by Jürgen Tampke & Colin Doxford
The Hard Road: The Life Story of Amalie Dietrich, Naturalist
Going It Alone. Australia’s National Identity in the Twentieth Century by W.F.Mandle
Elizabeth says:
I took a couple of quotes from this book which stayed with me: “Australia came to nationhood during the years of the war. It perceived its differences from others more readily, and examined its own nature more closely even if that involved much bitterness.”
Australia’s relationship with the Motherland, Britain, is hard to imagine now. Can we really put ourselves back in time to imagine what it was like? What was Australia like in 1913 to 1916? 1901 was the year of Federation – the separate states that had formed around the edge of our huge island continent united to become one country – Australia.
On 23 October, 2005, Geoffrey Blainey wrote in the Age about the death of last Australian who served in the First World War. He was a sailor, which Blainey found very fitting. Blainey says “On the opening day of World War 1 most Australians understood that they were fighting not only for the Empire but for their own future.” He says that Australia was very vulnerable. Germany had built up its navy and had a network of naval bases and wireless stations in the Pacific. “Germany’s navy held the potential to arrive out of the blue, isolate Melbourne and Sydney, and cut the nation’s trade routes.”
Britain, on the other side of the world would not have been able to protect the sea lanes to Australia. Britain had many colonies. She could not have hoped to protect them all particularly if she was fighting on the European front.
The First World War must have been an appalling time to live through; a time of misery and great sadness, when young men were sent off – and keen to go – with no idea what they were getting into. And once you joined the army there was no backing out. To desert, or leave, was a most serious offence. 'What happened to people who didn’t join up? How were they treated?'
