Unnecessary sacrifice

THANKS to John Howard of Cranbourne (Fight Worth Fighting, News, 27 February) for his response to my letter about the Australian Anzac tradition and WWI.
Mr Howard has unfortunately accepted a very “conventional view” of the Anzacs and the Great War.
But I much prefer former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating’s view and he said: “There was no virtue in WWI”, and there certainly wasn’t.
The best sacrifice made by anyone during WWI was made, not by the Allied forces, but by all of those who led the successful anti-conscription campaigns in Australia.
These campaigns were courageously led by Archbishop Daniel Mannix, the Women’s Peace Movement, the Victorian Socialist Party, and the IWW 12 (also known as the Sydney 12).
Without the defeat of the conscription referendums many thousands more lives would have been wasted.
But despite widespread opposition to the war and conscription, both federal and state governments, however, did all they could to destroy the IWW 12 leaders.
They were all eventually framed and imprisoned on charges of sedition and for allegedly plotting to burn Sydney.
Mr Howard of Cranbourne believes Germany had imperialist ambitions to invade other countries even though there was never ever any evidence of this.
I can best paraphrase former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating when he said the truth of Gallipoli was shocking for all of us.
“Dragged into service by the imperial government in an il-conceived and poorly executed campaign, we were cut to ribbons and despatched – and none of it in defence of Australia.”
John Glazebrook,
Endeavour Hills.