STEPHEN GARTON The Cost of War. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck
This revised edition of Stephen Garton’s The Cost of War, on the impact of war on individuals and society, remains all too relevant.
Let us begin with the proposition that war is hell; that those who become involved in it become agents of terror, or victims, or both. The major issues that concern Stephen Garton are the impact of war on the lives of Australian servicemen (mainly) and women who fought in major wars during the twentieth century – World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam – and the broader implications of this impact for Australian society. In an introduction to the first edition, published in 1996, Garton said:
… this study deals with… the effects of combat, the emotional and physical scars born[e] by returned men and women, the impact of return on veterans, their families and friends, and the efforts of Australians to understand this pain and tend the bodily, psychological, and cultural wounds of war.
He has reissued The Cost of War because the key issues he explored almost a quarter of a century ago continue to be current. The preface to this revised edition provides a comprehensive account of recent research. Minor revisions have been made to the 1996 text where there were errors, where new material has become available, and the section on Korea, which (only) runs to three pages, is slightly longer.
The central theme The Cost of War comes back to is masculinity. The need to celebrate, affirm or respond to ‘issues’ associated with those men who engaged in battle has acted as a powerful cultural force in Australia. Those who returned from the first two world wars were hailed as heroes. How can we explain their heroism? They were heroes because they were Australian. What is the essence of being Australian? Mateship. Through living and fighting together these men developed bonds that enabled them to become an effective and revered fighting force. Garton says:
…these bonds of male friendship were quickened by the chasm of immanent annihilation that confronted each man… Without the comfort of being in the company of friends, of having those beside you who shared your thoughts and fears, and without the feeling that there would be someone there to protect you if you stumbled, or mourn you of you fell, it is difficult to imagine how men could summon the courage to charge forth time and time again.
Garton explains how these bonds were seen to have been forged by Anzacs at Gallipoli, and documents how those men were viewed as heroes imbued with exemplary qualities, an honour to their race. The valour of the Anzacs was a source of national pride and has assumed an importance that has been a part of Australia ever since. Garton maintains that the blood sacrifice at ‘Gallipoli became [a] defining event in the absence of any other’. The victory of European settlers over the First Australians, and the absence of a defining moment in the frontier wars, is something that Australia glosses over and is too guilt-ridden to celebrate.
An initial problem confronting the Anzac myth was the high incidence of shell-shock, of personnel ‘falling to pieces’ and unable to fight. It was initially believed that this was a response to physical phenomena (repeated shelling, noise). This gave way to psychological explanations and concerns about why many suffered shell-shock, but others did not. Was there a problem inherent in their masculinity? And, by extension, in the future of the Australian race?
The end of World War I witnessed the building of memorials across the length and breadth of Australia for those who had died in combat, with more substantial memorials subsequently built in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.
Garton provides extensive material on the way governments provided support for servicemen and women on their return to Australia – what became known as repatriation. This analysis is conducted alongside the emergence of groups such as the RSL, who lobbied on behalf of veterans on both a collective and individual basis. Benefits were paid to veterans who returned home wounded, and to widows of deceased soldiers. Veterans were given help in finding employment, granted soldier settlements, training and education (especially after World War II) and there was ‘welfare’ for those who fell on hard times.
Many on their return became listless, distracted, uncommunicative, depressed, unable to hold down jobs, and took to alcohol, went bush, became violent (especially towards wives and families), or suicided. They were experiencing what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder. Such phenomena transgressed notions of masculinity and again raised fears for the future of the race as interest in eugenics grew.
Repatriation constituted a second form of welfare in comparison to provisions available to the general population. Garton points out that repatriation was more generous than ‘general’ welfare, which was based on Victorian fears of welfare encouraging the undeserving to live off the public purse. The problem was to explain why such precepts did not apply to returned servicemen and women. A rhetoric developed of those who were entitled to receive benefits and those who were not, with the need to provide for those who were entitled having negative consequences for those deemed undeserving. Garton points out how this was a problem for women who fell on hard times, combined with the notion that their welfare was connected to the ‘family wage’ of the male breadwinner.
While overseas, servicemen let themselves go with gambling, drinking and whoring. Large numbers of men contracted venereal disease. Throughout all wars, servicemen have worried about what ‘their’ women were doing back home while they were defending the nation. Garton explains the tension between policymakers concerned with how men would settle back into married life and men concerned that their wives and sweethearts had taken up with others in their absence. Garton links these developments to the need for women who had worked during the war to vacate their jobs for returning men. Thus the virtues of family life were extolled, with women expected to ‘do their duty’ by supporting the needs of the male breadwinner. This was particularly evident after World War II.
Garton documents increased rates of divorce and violence, including sexual violence, against women following the return of servicemen. Most disturbingly, the response of the law was to find excuses for these men, even in cases involving rape. Defences would be mounted blaming the behaviour of victims and emphasising the stresses such men had experienced during war. Rape cases are still subject to these burdens.
The thoroughness of Garton’s research is breathtaking, including repatriation applications held by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, diaries, oral histories and books written by veterans; parliamentary debates, government reports, material from organisations such as the Returned and Services League (RSL) and the Vietnam Veterans Association, as well as academic and scientific material dealing with medical and psychological problems of war and how war impacted on Australia. He has also compared developments in other nations including Britain, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and in Europe.
The Cost of War is a masterful book, a tour de force written by a scholar of the highest order. It contains much more of interest than can be presented here. This is a book that speaks to Australia. Garton’s material is superbly organised, clearly written, insightful and wise. He writes with great understanding and compassion for the servicemen and women who fought and died for Australia, while not shying away from difficult, at times, darker aspects.
Possibly his finest moment occurs in the final paragraph of the epilogue:
…lurking beneath the worthy Anzac tradition is a darker story of premature death, grief, the shattered lives of many who survived, and the emotional wounds inflicted on those to whom they returned. Why has the nation come to be entwined with death? Can we have one without the other? Is one worth the other? Perhaps the challenge is to create a new polity without ignoring the old: to broaden our national values without losing the old and to find meaning in being Australian without suffering the futility of war and all its consequences. Or is willing sacrifice and the embrace of death for the collective the only way we can assure ourselves that where we live has any worth?
How sad it would be if the answer to this question is yes.
Stephen Garton The Cost of War: War, return and the re-shaping of Australian culture Sydney University Press 2020 PB 308pp $40.00.
Braham Dabscheck is a Senior Fellow at the Melbourne Law School at Melbourne University who writes on industrial relations and sport. He recently completed a history of the Rugby League Players’ Association.
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A terrific review. Thanks:)
A valuable contribution from Stephen Garton to the way in which Australia has mythologised war and all who fought, as glorious. But what of the cost? My grandfather returned wounded from Gallipoli and immediately went about, with others, establishing what is now known as the RSL. During his absence his wife, out of anxiety deteriorated into alcoholism and never recovered. My stepfather survived 4 years a Japanese POW, returned suffering PTSD and put his first family through hell. My brother was a Vietnam conscript and still bears the psychological scars. Well done Professor Garton and Braham Dabscheck for their excellent review