The Holden family - Activities

Examine the images and film below, and answer the discussion questions.

Collection Item C1007316

Accession Number: A03456

A chaplain writing a field card for a wounded soldier in Salonika, 1914–1918. (AWM A03456)

  1. Chaplains have played an important role in the wars in which Australia has been involved. How might they have helped troops far from home during the First World War?
Collection Item C1303121

Accession Number: RCDIG0000209

A letter from Albert to Mrs Boulton, 1918. (AWM RCDIG0000209)

  1. How do you think Mrs Boulton would feel reading this letter?

  2. What do you think she would have written in her reply?

  3. Albert writes in his letter to Mrs Boulton that he felt "in no mood to wave flags" when the war finally ended on 11th November 1918. This day has since become an important anniversary for communities across Australia to remember those who were lost. How does your community commemorate Remembrance Day? Who do you remember on this day?

Silent film showing a chaplain conducting a funeral service on the Western Front (extract), c. 1916. (Geoffrey Malins and John Benjamin McDowell, AWM F00050)

  1. How do you think the troops in this film might have been feeling? How do they appear at the end of the segment? Why do you think the funeral service was so brief?

  2. What does the title of this segment, “all honour to the glorious dead, they have given their lives for the Empire that it may live”, suggest about the purpose and audience of this film?

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