Australians and New Zealanders Die in WWI Trenches

Australians and New Zealanders – and citizens of other British Commonwealth Dominions for that matter – are used to annual ritual  veneration of the war dead from generations of conflicts, but many of these commemorative events, such as Anzac Day on both sides of the Tasman, represent chilling massacres of our fellow citizens in idiotic battles that were a travesty of international goodwill and diplomacy.

To the good citizens of any country, however, what does a man do when he is told the equivalent of, “The Hun is coming!” Using a philatelic framework, this article explores the depravity of our losses in the trenches of Europe in WWI and asks some pertinent questions.

This is a very personal article I want to share with you. In my collection, I have rediscovered a set of 1940 Armed Forces stamps on cover (below), thenan imprint block of the 1945 3½d Peace stamp. Both sets issued at the time of the events. Since ASP has written about WWI fighter pilot heroes such as Kingsford Smith, I tried to think of Australian issues during WWI, connected with that tragic war. Surely there was something to mark such a large scale upheaval?

I could not recall an Australian stamp issue reflecting on WWI that had been issued circa 1914-1918. Had there been one I had forgotten or overlooked? “Nothing!” was my firm conclusion. The commemorative stamp had been well established by the USA with the Columbian issue of 1893. But this genre was slow to penetrate most monarchies, ours included. There was eventually the Australian ANZAC commemorative, but that was not until 1935.

There were wall to wall Roo and Map series, and enough KGV issues to wallpaper a house through the 1914 to 1920s period, and yes, there was even King George V, mounted in all his monarchial magnificence, for his Silver Jubilee in 1935. The king who all those boys supposedly died for had, of course, his anniversary celebrated in true philatelic style. Not even a scant mention of the “boys” themselves, however. “Ours is but to do and die…”

New Zealand was better. They waited until 1920, but at least there was a “Victory” issue (SG 453 – the ½d “Peace” and lion – and SG 454 – 1d ditto). There had even been an earlier NZ stamp to commemorate the NZ contingent sent to the “South African War” (SG 274 – 322d). But if you wanted to mount a broad WWI thematic collection, you would need to turn to modern Australian (or NZ) commemoratives and to look overseas for both contemporary and modern foreign issues and to turn to “other” philatelic items such as POW and Censor covers, postcards and postmarks to generate a respectable volume of potential items to collect.

Was there some reason, I wondered, that the monstrous shambles and mega-death disaster of WWI was not marked, or commemorated (if that’s the word) in some way by our postal authorities (or government) at the time of these “great” (shameful?) events? Not even the peace seems to have been accorded philatelic status in Australia at the time.
Perhaps, I thought, it was all so dreadful that the postal people, the Government and the population were just so glad when it was over they wanted simply to forget it. Collect some money, plant a memorial avenue,
erect a fine monument, bite your lip or sob your way through a memorial ceremony thinking of lost loved ones or mates, then get on with whatever life you have left.
TITLE ART: For want of contemporary local items, one might resort to collecting foreign-issued items, both contemporary and later, such as this 1962 Belgian Mini-sheet celebrating the millenium of ‘Ieper’. Ypres was the scene of a series of most horrific battles in which Aussies and Kiwis were involved. The stamp shows the British War Memorial at Ypres. SG MS1840 AU$11.67. NZ$13.60.