THE "ANZAC."

Taranaki Daily News, 2 February 1917, Page 3

THE "ANZAC."

Will 7 HL IS NOT. (By Captain C. K. W. Bean, Official Correspondent with the Australian ' Forces).. British Headquarters, France, Nov. 2S. | "You don't call lis the Anzacs. do you," asked the man with (lie. cl'.c.v.sling appealing!)'. "You call us just Australians and Xav ZealamUrs, don't you?'' ] hesitated for a minute or two racking my brain—it seemed to me that oi:ec some months hack I hail used lluu, convenient term in a cabled message '•Oh. don't for goodness say you do it too.' : said (lie owner of tl'e eli'ow sling pathetically. "Isn't Australiansgr.od enough*'' 'l'm not sure—once —I may have. Not tor a Ions: time anyway. I sometimes speak of tho Anzae troops or the Anzae guns." "Oh, that is nil right—Anzac troops there's no oujcei ! on to that—we ara that," went on die grammarian with the elbow sling, "but there's no mii'li thin? as an Anzac—the Auzaes--it's nonsense." I remember that dav well. Tt wan the day before their first entry on the Scminc. The man with the elbow sling had stopped a shrapnel pellet one frosty morning, eight months before at Aiizae; the man who sat next to him hod a Turkish shrapnel shell burst between his shins at Hell Spit. They were some of the oldest, hands brick again, and about to plunge with the oldest division imo (he heaviest battle the division had yet fi ecd. It was more than a grammatical objection. Ynu know the way in whfch it makes you wince, if ever you have lived in Australia or New Ztalard or Canada, to hear people talk of "tha Colonies'' or "the Colonials." The people who use the words do not realise that there is anything unpopular in their use. nlthough the objection if rcplly finite universal in the self-govern-ing States, and represents a revolt against an out-of-date point of view wl.ich still lingers in some quarters. Jn the same way anyone who is ill to'.ieh with them knows that to speak of the feats of "an Anzae" or of "the Anza-'S, - ' is unpopular with t"he men to whom it is applied. You will never hear the nseu refer to themselves as Anzaes. They cf;ll themselves simply Australian.- or New Zealand-Ts. It is an interesting mental phase The reason of it is not, that Australians mil Xew Zealanders dislike being clubbed together. Quite the reverse —the Australians are -.lever more satisfied than when they are next to the New Zeaknders. The two certainly feel themselves in some respects one and inseparable to a great extent to anv other troons here. Thev are proud of Anzac as the name of their corps, and as the name of that hillside in Gallipoli, where their graves lie side by side. The reason why thev always avoid calling themselves ''Anzaes" is that the term was at one time associated in the press with so many highlv-eolored tyiaginative mock heroic stories of individual feats which they were supposed to have performed, Ilia* itsi use from that time forth was by a sort of tacit consent, irrevocably prejudiced within the force. The picture which it called up was that of the "Anziie" in London, with glory of the acrobatic performances his shining gaiters and buttons and cocks' feathers in his hat, reaping th* unlovely with the sweat and dust were credited with achieving in "No Man's Lan." 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 tl-.eni; when the day of real trial came thev 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 1 ' was when Australians and New Zealand era were doing little beyond hard work in France, aro knew it. The li.uni "an Anzae" now bears with it 111 th( force the suggestion of a man who with or approves cf that sort of 'swank., and. there arc tew of them.