cts one and inseparable to a greater extent than any other troops
here. They are proud of Anzac as the name of their corps, and as the
name of that hill-side in Gallipoli where their graves lie side by side.
The reason why they always avoid calling themselves "the Anzacs" is that
the term was at one time associated in the Press with so many highly
coloured, imaginative, mock heroic stories of individual feats, which
they were supposed to have performed, that its use from that time forth
was, by a sort of tacit consent, irrevocably damned within the force.
The picture which it called up was that of the "Anzac" in London, with
his shining gaiters and buttons and generally unauthorised cock's
feathers in his hat, reaping the glory of the acrobatic performances
which his battered countrymen, very unlovely with sweat and dust, were
credited with achieving in No Man's Land. This was before the Somme
fight, when first these Gallipoli troops came to Europe. The regular
British war correspondents were not responsible for it--this nonsense
was not written by them; when the day of real trial came they wrote of
it conscientiously and brilliantly, and nothing that could be written
was too much. But the vogue of the wildest stories of the "Anzacs" was
when Australians and New Zealanders were doing little beyond hard work
in France, and knew it. The noun "an Anzac" now bears with it, in the
force, the suggestion of a man who rather approves of that sort of
"swank"; and there are few of them.

The Australian and New Zealander are both intensely, overwhelmingly
proud of their nationality; and only good can come of the pride. They
are also intensely proud of their two-year-old units--and one of the
drawbacks of the necessary rules of censorship is, that battalions of
our army, which are famous throughout the force by name, have to be
known to you only through vague references. Their character and history,
as distinct and strongly marked as those of different men, will only
come to be known to Australia when the history of these campaigns comes
to be written.

Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London,
E.C.4

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