There's a famous quote by Ormond E Burton which gets mentioned many
times by Anzac commentators: ‘somewhere between the landing at
Anzac and the end of the battle of the Somme New Zealand very
definitely became a nation.’ . Just what this means exactly, and
just how much of our so called 'national identity' derives from our
inheritance of WW1 battle experience is a subject I will leave to the
various newspaper and magazine editors. I'm much more interested in
the man Ormond E Burton, and how this conservative trope squares –
or fails to square – with his subsequent statements about
nationhood and his militant pacifism.
Born in 1893, he is deeply immersed in the dominant colonial culture
of early twentieth century New Zealand. As a very devout Christian,
Burton begins life as a passionate and dedicated conformist. He is
loyal to the British Empire: its Kings and Queens, its Imperial state
apparatus and its Holy Church. After the war he feels betrayed and
disillusioned, so he ditches his loyalty to the state completely.
This is the radical side of Burton: he totally repudiates the idea
that war is either just or necessary. Nation states are selfish
Imperial powers fighting for the interests of the elite. He combines
the socialist argument that capitalism is the root cause of war with
the pacifist argument that war never leads to peace, only to more
war.
The other side of Burton is that of the loyal and brave soldier.
Favoured by the military authorities for his courage and ability, he
is commissioned to write about his regiment while he is taking leave
from the trenches near the end of the war. This small book, Our
Little Bit (1918) is followed by four more versions of the same
military history: The New Zealand Division (1919), Official History
of the Auckland Regiment (1921), The Silent Division (1935) and
Concerning One Man's War (1968). The most famous of these books is
the 1935 version, which includes an appendix declaring the author's
views on war and his adoption of Christian pacifism.
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Portrait of 3/483
Ormond Burton in Lance Corporal Uniform in 1916, Field Ambulance Unit
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All of these books
celebrate the courage and heroism of the New Zealand soldiers and
include the claim that New Zealand became a nation forged through
battle. Although Burton's pacifism comes through now and then in
passing references, these texts are all examples of remembrance in
its most literal sense: he describes his memories of each and every
battle, and offers us an authentic and frequently moving account of
the suffering endured by the Anzacs. Interestingly, Burton completely
refrains from making any moral or political judgements in these
descriptions. His intent is to establish an historical memorial to
the men he fought alongside. He deeply respects their courage, sense
of duty and willingness to sacrifice their lives for a greater cause.
This mode of historical
description is the dominant mode in 21st century New
Zealand writing about Anzac history. All questions about politics and
the morality of war are effectively marginalised by a very narrow and
highly personalised focus on the individual Anzac soldiers and their
experiences. A vast amount of energy is put into researching
soldier's diaries and letters, and huge amounts of money are spent on
movies and documentaries which focus almost exclusively on the
trenches. Famous battles such as Gallipoli are subject to a sort of
'forensic' version of historical inquiry: the various batallions are
described in great detail, battles are studiously recounted and
discussed.
Unlike the one dimensional forensic exercises of contemporary Anzac
history, there is another side to Burton. Although he retains his
deep respect for the individual Anzacs he fought alongside, he
becomes massively disillusioned by the political system which created
the conditions for the so called 'Great War'. Like many other men and
women of his generation, Burton realised that the promise contained
in the phrase “the war to end all wars” was completely false. The
war served to heighten rather than diminish a vicious form of
aggressive nationalism amongst a large number of people in all
western nations. The punitive conditions of the Treaty of Versailles
reflected this viciousness, and helped to lay the seeds of discontent
which would lead to another outbreak of imperialist war in 1939.
Alongside these reactionary developments there was another much more
positive reaction to the misery of the period between 1914 and 1918.
Many people began to question the justness and necessity of the
slaughter, and also the values of the jingoistic nationalism promoted
by the elites and the governments of the major powers. This
progressive reaction takes many forms, from pacifist statements such
as Erich Maria Remarque's book All Quiet on the Western Front,
to the growing popularity of socialist politics. The Russian
revolution in 1917 sends a powerful message to people all over the
world that an alternative to nationalism and war exists. This
socialist vision has a huge impact in New Zealand, and the rise of
the Labour party throughout the 1920s, eventually culminating in the
first Labour government of 1935, has a lot to do with this
progressive spirit engendered by the bitter disillusionment following
the WW1 bloodbath.
Burton's own words about this sense of bitter betrayal deserve
recognition:
The Great War, more perhaps than any other in history, was able to
preserve the sacrificial illusion. The infantry soldier was the
backbone of the army – the fighting man. He was subject to the
utmost rigour of scorching heat and freezing cold; sniped at by
unseen foemen; blown to bits by guns concealed miles away; smashed by
bombs that screamed down upon him from the skies; all the while
living in conditions of the most squalid sort – and for months at a
time never seeing an enemy soldier. Then in the fiery heat of a great
battle he perished on a torn battlefield under the fury of the
barrage. To suffer, to endure, to die; that was the life of the
infantry soldier. The real glory of the war was the amazing
willingness with which the youth of the world, of whatever country,
went to suffering and death for the best they could see. […..]
The war had come because the fear and greed of innumerable people of
all nations had produced the capitalist system, and from this,
operating within national groupings, had arisen the great
imperialisms that had come into head-on collision. The war was the
inevitable result of a process which could not be overcome, but only
intensified into still more monstrous forms, by military action.
Those of us who had fought for a new world and for the ideals the
politicians and editors and parsons and teachers had held up as our
goals were betrayed.
With this radical vision, shared by many others of his generation, it
is not surprising that Burton joined the Labour party shortly after
arriving home in 1919. He becomes good friends with another veteran
who was also a very notable figure in the Labour party, John A Lee.
His deep commitment to Christian principles, and the somewhat
intolerant political atmosphere of the party, lead to him being
expelled from the party in 1925. He retains his radical commitment to
both pacifism and socialism, and stands for parliament as an
independent in 1925. Burton puts forward a radical platform which
includes the socialisation of the means of production and the
complete abolishment of the 'depressive machinery of criminal courts,
penal laws, police and prisons'.
Writing about this period forty
years later, Burton maintains that even though he was very clearly
defeated (receiving only 200 votes), “.. I still think that most of
these things [in the platform] were sound. The fundamental error was
the endeavour to think nationally and Christianly at the same time”.
Clearly this critical, anti-nationalist perspective sits very
uneasily beside the famous example of Anzackery I quoted at the
beginning of this article. These tensions in Burton's writings
between his early nationalism, his socialism and his militant version
of Christian pacifism provide us with a complex and fascinating
alternative view into the meaning of Anzac day and the contested
politics which surround it.
(Quotes taken from Ormond E Burton's 1970 pamphlet 'Christian
Action”)
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