SMS from M

“Leaving Lake Titicaca 2 Cuzco. Love Bolivia so far…” I know he plans to go here:

The SMS arrived after midnight our time.

Melbourne Cup

Did you know there is a Melbourne Cup blog?

I can tell you who won this one:

This year? I reckon The Fuzz — but I wouldn’t bet one it!

Historians are not cheerleaders

While not disagreeing that respect should be paid to those who have served in the Australian Defence Forces, especially those who died, and while not applauding the cheerleaders of the extreme Left either, I do worry about some of the points made today by Gerard Henderson in Due respect at last – from most.

…As Remembrance Day approaches, it is appropriate to recall that the fallen have not always been so honoured. For years, many academics and commentators have maintained that Australians fought in other people’s wars – which covered every commitment from World War I [1914-18] to the first Gulf war (1990-91), with the exception of the Pacific war against Japan in the early 1940s.

This fashionable leftist view – which reached its zenith with the release of the film Gallipoli (director: Peter Weir; screenplay: David Williamson; historical adviser: Bill Gammage) in 1981 – essentially maintained that Australia’s fallen had died in vain…

My uncle, Driver Alan Dargavel, died 90 years ago tomorrow on the Western Front during the final stages of the Third Battle of Ypres. This was not a stunning military success, although, as Australia’s official war historian C.E.W. Bean pointed out, it did have a deleterious effect on the German army.

Uncle Alan’s death had a devastating impact on my mother’s family and I learnt of him at an early age. I still think often about Alan Dargavel and I visited his grave at Dickiebusch in Belgium during my first visit to Europe.

My family did not want to be told by tenured academics that he died in vain. Yet this was the view that emanated from universities around the 1960s until relatively recent times. In The Anzacs (Viking, 2007) Dr Peter Pedersen, who has served in the Australian Defence Force, makes a compelling case that “Germany’s defeat was vital for Australia’s future” and that the members of the Australian Imperial Force “were fully aware of that”. As were their family members and loved ones on the home front.