From Trench and Troopship: The Experience of the Australian Imperial Force, 1914-1919

Abstract

'From Trench and Troopship' deals with the experiences of the men who served in the Australian Imperial Force (AI.F.) during the Great War, but it is not a conventional military history. This book examines the soldiers' writings contained in their trench and troopship papers and magazines, but it is not shaped by literary theory. It is principally a work of social history and my intention has been to illuminate an aspect of Australian popular culture. I have always believed that until we recover the lived experiences of people in the past we cannot begin to attach meaning to their behaviour or write their history. Much has been written about the battles fought by the ALF. and it may be thought that the soldiers' experiences have been fully explored. In fact, this is far from the case. Apart from his time in action, the Australian soldier during the First World War spent long periods on troopships and in camps, and shorter periods on leave or in hospital. These episodes are generally neglected by military historians and as a result we acquire a fairly narrow understanding of the soldiers' lived experience. But the times spent out of the fighting were always treasured and often the best remembered, and they should form a vital part of any history of the ALF. during 'the war to end all wars'. It is with some trepidation, however, that I make this foray into Australian social and military history. As a historian who normally works on eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain, I know only too well the penalties facing the unwary trespasser in other scholars' fields. I have ventured into the closes of military history and literature, however, in an attempt to make good a significant deficiency in the historiography of the A.L.F. and to lay a very personal ghost.