For the typical Australian, late October and early November are likely most closely associated with horse racing and – increasingly – Halloween. From a nationalist perspective, this is a shame for several reasons. Halloween may well count among its Australian defenders a nationalist element, which insists its Celtic roots and connection with All Saints’ Day make it a worthy cultural observance for a nation founded on Christian and Celtic traditions; yet it is difficult to dispute that, in practice, Australian Halloween observances amount to little more than a regurgitation of the worst aspects of American consumerism. As for horse racing, the Melbourne Cup Carnival may equally be defended on nationalistic grounds given its role in shaping our rich sporting culture over the more than a century and a half of its existence. Such a defence, however, must be grounded in the purity of the sport itself, a difficult thing to discern among the cesspool of gambling, corruption, and general debauchery in which racing has been mired throughout its existence.
Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of these events, however, is their tendency to overshadow the observances of two of Australia’s most significant military victories – specifically Beersheba Day and Kokoda Day, henceforth collectively known as “Australian Victory Week”. The former commemorates the Battle of Beersheba on 31 October 1917, in which the 4th Light Horse Brigade of the Australian Mounted Division, armed only with bayonets and facing heavy machine-gun fire, conducted one of the last successful cavalry charges in history to capture the Ottoman garrison within the city. It was a victory that proved the turning point of the Sinai and Palestine campaign, which was ultimately won by Allied forces the following year. More than this, however, it established Australia’s military credentials far better than anything that preceded it. For all the mythology that has rightly developed around the unsuccessful Gallipoli campaign and Australia’s disastrous early involvement on the Western Front, it was Beersheba, notes historian Jonathan King, that marked “our first big achievement on the world stage” and that “established the Light Horse as the best cavalry force in the world”. This, it should be noted, is not the romantic distortion of more than a century later. Lieutenant Guy Haydon of the 4th, who was wounded in the charge, reported a British Cavalry Officer who witnessed the spectacle as having said the following: “I have seen every action in which the British Cavalry have taken part, but the charge of the L.H. at Beersheba is the finest thing that I have ever seen mounted troops do.” Yet despite the reverence in which Beersheba is held by the likes of King, who argues it “should be the cornerstone of Australian identity, replacing Gallipoli”, its annual commemoration is largely allowed to pass unnoticed each year amid our ever-expanding fascination with trick-or-treating and costume parties. Save for the 100th anniversary in 2017, which produced a slew of media articles and high-profile commemorative services involving Australian and Israeli leaders, local observances are largely restricted to a handful of small-scale RSL and country club events.
In advancing the case for Beersheba, and in decrying its lack of recognition, it is perhaps also worth noting that the victory has been credited with paving the way for the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Indeed, the communication between British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour and Baron Rothschild within two days of the victory, as well as the publication of the Balfour Declaration the following week, seems too convenient to be coincidence; and the aforementioned joint centenary commemorations between the Australian and Israeli governments only serve to reinforce this perception. Given the nefarious influence of Israel in global politics since its creation, and our government’s tendency to slavishly tie its foreign policy to Israel’s interests at the expense of our own, it is understandable that the success at Beersheba may sit uneasily with some nationalists. In assessing the legacy of Beersheba, however, one must weigh the long-term outcome alongside the motives that drove the men involved. Responding to Jewish and Christian Zionist claims to the contrary, Paul Daley notes that “few [of the lighthorsemen] saw themselves as being guided by the hand of God, let alone working towards the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland”. Rather, they fought in service of the Empire; and, as we have noted elsewhere, such service was widely understood by Australian troops as the price that must be paid to secure a White Australia. On this measure, then, as well as for the extraordinary courage and skill displayed by the men involved, Beersheba Day warrants attention from all nationalists.
If the Battle of Beersheba is largely disregarded by Australians today, the same cannot be said of the Kokoda Track Campaign. The success of our troops over Japanese forces along the track throughout 1942, particularly the exploits of the legendary 39th battalion, are a part of the national consciousness more than any other military event save Gallipoli. And despite the best efforts of historians such as Peter Stanley in recent years to diminish Kokoda by downplaying the likelihood of the threat of a Japanese victory in Australia, the general public rightly remembers it as the decisive victory of the only war ever fought in defence of our homeland; one waged against an enemy that, by war’s end, had launched no less than 111 attacks on Australian soil. Yet despite the campaign’s place alongside Gallipoli in Australian folklore, the annual Kokoda Day commemorations of 3 November – the day on which the Australian flag was raised at Kokoda village – pale in comparison to those of Anzac Day. Although the NSW Government’s gazetting of the event for the 80th anniversary commemorations in 2022 attracted some media attention, the occasion has again been allowed to slip back into obscurity amid our annual bout of equine infatuation, the admittedly excellent annual ceremony of the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway in Concord West the only notable event honouring the day.
With all this in mind, we encourage all true Australians to use the present unrelated festivities, particularly where they afford public holidays, as an opportunity to acknowledge “Australian Victory Week” by honouring the successes of our troops and reflecting on their role in shaping and securing our identity as Australians (something the ANA Victoria branch will do in a formal capacity – more to come on that later); and we hope that, moving forward, the sight of jack-o’-lanterns or the sound of race-day revellers in spring may call to mind weightier matters.
M.J. Brown
Governor – ANA Victoria