Our long-term legacy after guns fell silent
One hundred years ago, on November 11, 1918, an eerie silence descended along the 760-kilometre length of the Western Front in France and Belgium.
After four years of unbelievable warfare, German representatives finally agreed to the Allies’ conditions for an armistice, and the Great War ended.
Sergeant Bob Charles, who became a soldier settler at Antwerp after the war, and later licensee of the Criterion Hotel in Wilson Street, Horsham, wrote in his diary, “...we received the glorious news that armistice was signed. There was rejoicing everywhere, some crying with joy, others offered prayer.”
Former Horsham bank clerk Robert Lindsay wrote to a Horsham friend, ‘Peace! We cannot realise properly yet...’.
For most fighting men, the end of hostilities had come surprisingly quickly.
A month earlier, on October 6, 1918, Australian forces had been withdrawn from the front for rest. A few Australians, those who had served continuously since 1914, were already on their way home on Anzac leave.
But many expected the war would continue into 1919.
Robert had written: “It looked as if the war was going to last a long while, but suddenly the tide turned...”
It’s official
When the final shots were fired on November 11 – the last official ‘killed in action’ was a Canadian shot by a sniper at 10.58am, two minutes before the Armistice commenced – 13-million people had died in the war, 10 million of them combatants. A further 20 million were severely wounded.
For Australia, from its 1916 population of five million, more than 60,000 had died and 152,000 were wounded.
Older readers will remember our childhoods, where we regularly saw limbless men on city streets, men with one arm, or one or no legs.
David Bamford, who had grown up near Penshurst, received gunshot wounds to his legs in 1917, and both were amputated.
‘Davey’ spent the remainder of his life in Penshurst and Hamilton, cared for by his two brothers, joining Anzac Day marches in his wheelchair with its ‘steel rims and wooden spokes’.
But it was easy for a community to forget: his grave in Penshurst Cemetery remained unmarked until 2009.
Les Brooksby, a farmer near Horsham, served barely one year when, in June 1918, he was wounded by shellfire that resulted in his left arm being amputated.
He treated the loss with humour. In a letter to his family at Noradjuha, written while in hospital in France, he described his right hand ‘working overtime on account of his lazy old mate getting tired of life and preferring to be buried in France’.
He considered himself lucky, comparing himself favourably with those who had not survived.
Les returned to Horsham and was rate collector for Kowree Shire until 1931.
He later returned to farming at Labertouche in Gippsland.
Of course, war deaths continued into the 1920s, and our local cemeteries hold many former soldiers who died as a result of their war service.
John Albert, who died in August, 1919 aged 24, from complications resulting from being gassed in France, is buried in Jung Cemetery.
Arthur Dumesny died in October, 1919 as a result of his injuries and is buried in Quantong Cemetery.
Former student and prefect at Longerenong Agricultural College, Roy Stephens, died in April 1920. And so many more carried their wounds throughout the post-war years.
The First World War cast its long shadow over the 20th century.
Who is to say how Horsham and district would have differed had not so many young men’s lives been lost?
• Wimmera First World War historian Pam Cupper will give a free presentation about the Armistice at 2pm on Sunday at Wimmera Legacy rooms, Pynsent Street, Horsham. Afternoon tea is provided. There is no need to book, but further information is available by calling 0429 260 466.