Blog category - Exhibitions

Surrender at Ziza 28 September, 1918

04 May 2007 by Robyn Van-Dyk. No comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, The Arab Revolt, The Light Horse

A force of nearly 5,000 from the Turkish Maan garrison was encountered by elements of the 5th Australian Light Horse Regiment at Ziza on 29 September 1918. This dramatic painting, Ziza by H. Septimus Power, depicts the unique event where members the Australian Light Horse for one night shared food and fire with soldiers of the Turkish Army and joined forces with the Turks against Arabs from the Beni Sakhr tribes.

H Septimus Power’s Ziza 1935 oil on canvas

The extraordinary event at Ziza occurred towards the end of Major General Chaytor’s successful campaign east of the Jordan. The Maan garrison was hopelessly cut off and had been fleeing northwards to Amman. On the morning of the 29 September 1918, their hasty defensive position at Ziza station was contacted by two squadrons of the 5th Light Horse Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Donald Cameron. Thousands of Beni Sakhr tribesmen had gathered in the hills surrounding the Turkish Garrison, threatening to strike against them. The Turkish commander wanted to surrender but was unwilling to lay down their arms to the small Australian force since that might mean their annihilation by the Arabs. General Chaytor himself came forward late in the afternoon to consult with Cameron about the situation and decided that the Turks should remain in their trenches and keep their arms until stronger reinforcements arrived the following morning. The 7th Light Horse Regiment assisted in the defence of the position overnight and this unlikely coupling of Turkish and Australian troops stood guard until daylight. By the next morning the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade had arrived and it was safe to disarm the Turks and formally take them prisoner.

The original official surrender document, signed by “Ottoman Company Commander at Djezir, Ali Housain,” Commander of the Ziza Garrison, ceding troops, guns and other stores to the Australian Forces, is held at the Australian War Memorial and will be on display in the exhibition.

A detailed narrative account of the surrender at Ziza written by Donald Cameron can be read in the appendices of the war diaries for the 5th Australian Light Horse here. Cameron notes in the war diary that the Turkish forces, although having great superiority of numbers, were terrified of the Bedouins and seemed “worn out”.

Further reading:

Damien Fenton, ‘Standoff at Ziza’ Wartime, 2003, Issue 24. View PDF file here.

H S Gullett, The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine, 1914–1918 Volume VII – (10th edition, 1941). Chapter 42, pp 724-727.

Public Lecture by Jeremy Wilson

03 May 2007 by Mal Booth. 1 Comment
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, Our exhibition

Jeremy Wilson will be coming out to Canberra for the opening of our exhibition, with support from the British High Commission in Canberra. He will give a public talk in our Telstra Theatre on Sunday, 9 December 2007. Jeremy who wrote Lawrence of Arabia – the Authorised Biography (1989) is recognised as the world’s leading scholar on Lawrence. He also wrote the catalogue for the 1988 National Portrait Gallery exhibition in London which marked the centenary of Lawrence’s birth. The catalogue has proved extremely useful for our own research into Lawrence.

Jeremy’s lecture will focus on Lawrence’s role in the capture of Akaba on 6 July 1917. Akaba became an important Red Sea base from which Lawrence and the Arab Revolt were able to launch attacks against the northern sections of the Hejaz Railway. Jeremy believes that Lawrence had a hand in the use of aerial photography to produce this map of Akaba that he identified in the Memorial’s collection. More details will follow closer to the event.

Mal

Maps of the battles

02 May 2007 by Craig Tibbitts. No comments
To Flanders Fields, 1917, Battles, Maps & Aerial Photos

These four basic maps are from Bean’s Official History (Vol. IV) and are just a quick and handy reference for anyone reading about the four battles featured on this blog.  Soon we hope to also feature some really great-looking original 1917 AIF maps, some of which will appear in the exhibition.

Map: Bapaume to Bullecourt from the Official History Vol IV, p 156

Map: Bullecourt from the Official History Vol IV, p 310

Map: Messines from the Official History Vol IV, p 610

Map: Ypres to Passchendaele from the Official History Vol IV, p 740

Original maps and aerial photos

Another great source of detailed maps and aerial photos are the war diaries of the various units.  These original historical documents may appear as hand-drawn sketch maps or printed maps or photos with numerous hand-written annotations.  They may be found scattered throughout a war diary, but in most cases they tend to be appendices toward the end of each monthly diary.  The good news is that now we are digitising this material and putting it online (for free), it’s easier than ever to find these fascinating maps and photos and zoom right in on them.  At present the corps and divisional war diaries are ready for viewing online, but now (July 2007) the first three infantry brigade diaries have also been done, with the others to follow, then the infantry battalions.  Check what’s available online at www.awm.gov.au/diaries/ww1/index.asp

the verso of the story

30 April 2007 by Janda Gooding. 1 Comment
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Conservation, Exhibition

With all the work the conservation team – David, Ilaria, Sharon, Gajendra and Sophie - have done on the Lamberts for the exhibition, lots of new things have emerged - and the backs of the images are a goldmine for information. We’ve uncovered other paintings, unfinished sketches and interesting old labels. All of this adds to our understanding of George Lambert and how he worked.

The ‘Double trouble’ post revealed the story of uncovering the back of one painting to find another – The top of the Taurus Ranges. On the back of The Nek, Walker’s Ridge, site of the charge of the light horse is a study of a horse and pack mule in Rest Gully at Gallipoli (now framed so that is visible). During his stay at Gallipoli in 1919, Lambert was assisted by soldiers assigned to help him. On this occasion he was accompanied by someone he termed a ‘Dinkum’ Aussie’ who carried the painting gear, and odd bits of salvage on a pack-mule. Lambert rode what he described as “a very ugly plug, a small draught horse which, though unspeakably plain, is useful and has a fondness for the mule. The mule breaks away every fifteen minutes or so when we camp for painting and the Dinkum shows the stuff he is made of by sliding down the side of the precipice and catching her, tethering her by some special stunt … then he climbs laboriously back to me and by the time he reaches my summit she is off again; quite a good circus for a grey day … one afternoon I varied the programme by doing a sketch of the little gully, called Rest Gully, where the 5th Field Ambulance, from Sydney, and commanded by Dr. Roth, was camped during the occupation. With the horse and mule in the foreground it made a decent sketch”. (1) 

On the verso of Jebel Saba, near Nalin is Walad Camp follower, an oil sketch of an Arab boy. It’s a fairly simple study with lots of the background quickly dashed in. There is one brief reference to this work in a list of paintings consigned by Lambert from Palestine to London in May 1918 where he says that on the back of Jebel Saba, near Nalin “there is a study of a Walad Camp Follower.” ‘Walad’ is Arabic for ‘boy’ and a short entry in the publication Australia in Palestine noted: “You occasionally find Arab boys travelling with the Light Horse, keen little beggars who act as cooks’ offsiders and batmen’s batmen, and officers smile and sympathetically shut their eyes to it.” (2) We don’t know as yet where Lambert painted this portrait and can’t assume that just because it’s on the back of the Nalin work that it was painted around there. All the backs of the Lambert oil on cardboard and wood panel sketches were sealed with varnish or shellac to prevent the wood from warping or splitting. This is what causes the dark and light bands across the image of the boy (above).

1. Thirty Years of an Artist’s Life, by Amy Lambert, Sydney 1938, pp. 104-05.

2. Australia in Palestine, Sydney 1919, p.118.

Blogging from Gallipoli

23 April 2007 by Mal Booth. No comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, Chauvel, Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, The Light Horse

John Lafferty from the Memorial’s Information Technology section has taken himself and his trusty camera to Gallipoli on our annual Battlefield Tour. John is a gifted photographer and he is maintaining a blog from the tour while they are all in Gallipoli. You can find the Gallipoli Battlefield Tour blog here.

The Dardanelles campaign is not covered by our exhibition, but both Lawrence and the Light Horse were involved. 

Many members of the Light Horse who were later involved in the defence of the Sinai and Allenby’s advance through Palestine had earlier served on Gallipoli. Sir Harry Chauvel and his 1st Light Horse Brigade landed at Gallipoli on 12 May 1915.

During the Dardanelles campaign Lawrence worked for the Cairo Intelligence Department and provided maps and intelligence for the forces on the Gallipoli Peninsula. He was also keenly involved in pioneering work done to use aerial photography taken over Gallipoli to produce maps.

General Sir Harold “Hooky” Walker and the AIF

19 April 2007 by Mal Booth. No comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, Chauvel, Less than six degrees of separation

This post is a bit of a stretch, but I think the link is there and it is interesting enough, so here it goes. Recently, I have been reading up on the actions of our Light Horse in Palestine, particularly in late 1917 and 1918. This has all been related to the development of the exhibition text or storyline. Earlier, our efforts had concentrated on selecting items for the exhibition and then negotiating loans for those items that have to be borrowed. There’ll be more about that soon. Currently, we are trying to finalise the text and all the captions and then get a designer on board.

So, now back to “Hooky” Walker . . . One of the loans we have negotiated from the UK is a sketch map that was drawn by Lawrence. It covers part of the route taken by Sharif Nasir’s expedition from Wejh to Akaba in July 1917 to capture the Red Sea port from the Ottomans. This map is owned by the Royal Society for Asian Affairs in London and my negotiations for this loan were greatly assisted by Sir Harold “Hooky” Walker, their Chairman. Sir Harold told me that his grandfather was Lieutenant General Sir Harold “Hooky” Walker, who as an English regular officer had commanded the 1st Australian Division. General Walker took command of the 1st Australian Division temporarily on Gallipoli in May 1915 after Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges was mortally wounded.  After being wounded himself, General Walker left Gallipoli, but returned to command the Division as a Major General in France from March 1916 until July 1918 when he relinquished command “to the deep regret of his officers and men” according to Bean. read on

Looking towards Gallipoli

19 April 2007 by Janda Gooding. No comments
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Battlefield Tours, Exhibition, Janda's Blog about Gallipoli

Cannakale is a small town on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles. From the waterfront you look across to the Gallipoli peninsula with some of the familiar landmarks visible in the distance – Kilid Bahr, Chunuk Bair and Mal Tepe. As we walked along the waterfront we searched for the spot where Lambert may have painted Dardanelles from Chanak, effects of blizzard on Gallipoli (ART02833).

Lambert wrote of his 7 day stay here: “Snow blizzards ice and general discomfort. No coal or wood and a damp gloomy fifth rate house called the Lion Hotel, may I live to forget it.” Frustrating as it may have been, the unexpected stay gave him time to paint this sparkling view across the rough seas to the snow shrouded slopes of Chunuk Bair.

The scene is very much the same today; the Narrows is a bustling waterway wth ships on their way to and from Istanbul and the Black Sea. In this fine spring weather the waterfront promenade was crowded with people ambling along, young kids coming out of school or Uni and others just sitting in sunny spots sipping some hot drink or other.

Already, from comparing the physical landscape with Lambert’s paintings, I am learning how he ‘framed’ his views, the choices he made about what to paint and then what he might have left out or put in.

Unfortunately, the picturesque wooden jetty is no longer here!

Inside the fort

19 April 2007 by Janda Gooding. No comments
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Battlefield Tours, Exhibition, Janda's Blog about Gallipoli

In late 2006 I was fortunate to receive a Gordon Darling Travel Grant to do field work at Gallipoli. The purpose of the grant is to examine the landscape of Gallipoli in relation to paintings and photographs of Gallipoli in the Memorial’s collection. I joined the Memorial’s Battlefield tour that left Australia 13 April. After 4 days in Istanbul we have arrived in Cannakale [Chanak] a small town on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles that looks across the Narrows to the Gallipoli peninsula. For a more detailed account of the battlefield group’s progress and some fantastic photos of what we are doing, check out my colleague John Lafferty’s blog.

Today we visited the ruins of Troy and the Dardanelles battery positions before heading back to Cannakale for an afternoon discussing the importance of this place to the Gallipoli campaign. George Lambert spent some time in Cannakale on his way to Gallipoli with the Australian Historical Mission in early 1919. Stranded for 7 days by rough seas and blizzards, Lambert spent his time painting and looking across the Narrows to Gallipoli. I know how he felt; we have been circling around, getting ever closer to our destination for the last few days!

While here, I wanted to locate the sites of a couple of Lambert’s paintings and in particular Inside the fort, Chanak (ART02832). This afternoon we visited the Cimenlik Castle fort built by Sultan Mehmet the second [the Conqueror] in 1461-1462. The fort now houses the Cannakale Military Museum.

When Lambert painted this, evidence of the fierce Allied bombardment of Cannakale was still very raw. The central feature of his painting is the Fatih Mosque of Sultan Mehmet II, with the badly damaged minaret rising from the battlements. The building on the right [the castle keep] has been completely restored but the damage line [so evident in Lambert's painting] is still visible in the stonework. The minaret has also been rebuilt and looks oddly new and somewhat incongruous amongst the stone battlements.

Lambert’s painting must have been quickly sketched in on a cold and bleak day but captures superbly the tone and atmosphere of the fort complex. John Lafferty has taken this great photo from a similar vantage point to Lambert’s painting to show how it was this afternoon!

The magic of purple pencil

17 April 2007 by gajraw. 1 Comment
George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine Landscapes, Conservation, Exhibition

Before the invention of the photocopier, people had to rely on all sorts of different techniques to make copies of correspondence and text. In the 1780s there was letterpress copying where a dampened sheet of thin tissue paper was laid against the inked side of an original document and then put in a press. The two sheets were pressed together producing a mirror image of the original text on the tissue. Due to the tissue’s semi-transparency, when it was held up to light the mirror image text could easily be read through from its back. The inks used in this process were made from oak galls (gallotannates) and logwood.  The most commonly used wet ink copy paper was high-quality Japanese tissue. The disadvantage with ink press was that the tissue paper had to be thoroughly wet to get the mirror image and only a few copies could be made. This made it a costly and complicated process.

Copying pencils were invented in the 1870’s and within a decade had overtaken the wet ink press method of letterpress copying. The younger generation might not know the magic of the colourful purple pencils. They were the predecessor to the ball point pen. Similar in appearance to graphite pencils, copying pencils contained a dye which turned purple when moistened. They were marketed as a product which could not be erased because the main component of the pencil was an aniline dye which produced a purple colour when dissolved in water or alcohol. The other components of the copying pencil were clay (kaoline) and graphite. Other colours used were red, black, green and combinations of dyes. The aniline dye in the copy pencil produced stronger copies and more copies. Another advantage was that the aniline dye was not affected by exposure to the air (as was the ink) and therefore copies did not have to be produced instantly.

The copying pencil rose to prominence during the First World War as it could not be smeared or erased easily. Archival records of the time show that Great Britain bought thousands of copying pencils per week to supply to British and Allied officers. These pencils were much more convenient to use in the field than were pen and ink.

George Lambert used copying pencil in some of his drawings including the work (left) Last Brigade Headquarters in the north: leading to Brigade Headquarters, with artist’s notes (loose sheet from the`Brown book’ ART11393.344). He was possibly issued some pencils by the War Records Section when he was commissioned and he also could have picked them up when travelling with the troops. Sometimes Lambert’s drawings were done completely with copying pencils and sometimes with a mixture of copying and graphite pencils. At the Memorial there are a few examples of these works. In preparing drawings for the George Lambert exhibition, we carefully surveyed all the drawings to make sure which ones might have copy pencil in them. Copy pencil drawings are easily identified under the microscope by their purplish tone, however identifying combination drawings can be problematic. To avoid dissolving the copy pencil component of a combination drawing, professional conservators conduct thorough solubility tests for every colour before washing and cleaning these delicate items.

Gajendra Rawat, Paper Conservator

Further reading:
1. Dube, Liz (1998). The Copying Pencil: Composition, History, and Conservation Implications.  AIC, The Book and Paper Group Annual, Vol 17, 1998.

Edward Cleaver died from wounds at the charge of Beersheba 31 October 1917

13 April 2007 by Robyn Van-Dyk. No comments
Exhibitions,Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, The Light Horse

Edward Randolph Cleaver joined the 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment in August 1914. He was the first man from Sale, Victoria to enlist. He was 29 years of age and a master butcher by trade. He had been a member of the 10th Australian Light Horse since 1910.  On the 1 November 1914, after a couple of months of training at Broadmeadows, he set sail from Albany in Western Australia on the HMAT Wiltshire arriving in Alexandria, Egypt on 11 December 1914.

HMAT Wiltshire was one of the ships of the First Contingent to carry Australian and New Zealand forces to Europe. The troops were moved as a convoy due to reports of German armed cruisers lurking along the transport routes. The troopships sailed unprotected to Albany and from there moved out in one large convoy across the Indian Ocean on 19 October 1914. The light cruisers HMAS Sydney and Melbourne formed part of the armed escort. The convoy travelled under a cloak of darkness with just a hooded stern light and no radio. The voyage of the First Contingent was not without incident.

read on