Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/January 2015/Review essay


 * By Nick-D

Australia in the Great War is the Australian War Memorial's (AWM's) new permanent exhibition covering Australia's role in World War I. The exhibition is the result of a major revamp of the Memorial's World War I galleries (some elements of which had been in place so long that they'd become historic items in their own right), and opened in December 2014.

There is no doubt that the AWM's World War I galleries were over-due for renovation. While they did an adequate job of presenting the Memorial's remarkable collection of items related to the war (often considered to be one of the best in the world), they had a very 1980s feel to them and were let down by poor lighting and old-fashioned displays. Some elements of the displays, including the famous battle dioramas, were also presented out of order or were in need of restoration (comprehensive photo coverage of the galleries as they appeared in 2012 is available on Wikicommons).

Australia in the Great War starts strongly with an excellent display on the early campaigns of the war in the Pacific which does a good job of explaining the Royal Australian Navy's contribution. Visitors then enter two galleries on the Gallipoli Campaign which are generally well done - they display a range of interesting items illustrating key parts of the campaign (with the highlight for me being some of John Simpson Kirkpatrick's personal possessions), and the large diorama covering the Battle of Lone Pine remains striking.

Sadly, things go downhill in the next section of the exhibition. Visitors move into a very large gallery covering 1916 and 1917, with small side galleries having displays on the evolution of military technology. In my view, this part of the exhibition is a real failure. The small panels which explain the events of the war are hidden away, and the overriding impression the space gives is of jumble. There are confusing displays of uniforms and artefacts, an uninteresting horse-drawn cart and a truck are given pride of place in the technology alcoves, and a mawkish and rather weird display implying that all Australian soldiers had heroic characteristics undermines the historic legitimacy of the entire exhibition. The dark lighting also doesn't help. Given that the memorial had excellent temporary exhibitions to mark the 90th anniversaries of 1916 and 1917, it's a mystery why this section is such a mess. The end result is that the exhibition fails to explain the dramatic events of these years, which include several battles ranking among the worst days in Australian history due to the heavy casualties that resulted and the massively divisive referendums on conscription.

Thankfully the final major section of the exhibition is a lot better. The events of 1918 (which saw Australian units playing important roles in France and Palestine) are accorded a large gallery with well set out and selected items. The highlight here is Private George Giles' uniform and personal equipment, which was taken from him as soon as he left the front line and still bears the mud from the battlefield. I think that this gallery would also have benefited from more signage explaining the year's campaigns, but this is a fairly minor quibble.

The exhibition closes with two small rooms. The first covers the casualties of the war, including those who returned home wounded, and is very powerful. The final room includes a tear-jerking video covering the admirable qualities of the Australian soldiers and is a poor way to finish the exhibition - hopefully this is replaced by the famous painting Menin Gate at Midnight when it returns from loan from the Canadian War Museum (the video display is about the same size as the painting, suggesting that this is what will happen).

As a new design feature for the memorial, the items in the exhibition's display cabinets have very brief and undescriptive labels and visitors are expected to use tablet computers fixed to each cabinet for an explanation of what they're seeing. While this is a good idea in theory, it doesn't seem to work in practice - when I visited most other people glanced at the labels in the displays, and few used the tablets. As a result, most of the people visiting the exhibition won't really appreciate the significance or purpose of the items on display.

My first visit to the exhibition was on a quiet day just before Christmas, and the small attendance made it feel rather sparse. My second visit was on a very busy day, and the exhibition handled the crowd well. However, it was striking that while visitors lingered over the early galleries and the gallery on 1918, they rushed through the confusing 1916 and 1917 galleries.

Overall, Australia in the Great War is an improvement on what it replaced and is well worth visiting. The galleries are generally attractively designed and do a good job of presenting the Memorial's spectacular collection. However, I don't think that it succeeds in explaining the war to the general public, especially regarding its coverage of 1916 and 1917. The mawkish elements of the exhibition are also disappointing, and are a worrying step backwards from the Memorial's normal focus on presenting a generally unsentimental view of Australia's military history.