The story of a defining campaign and a monumental exhibition PUAWAI CAIRNS · MICHAEL KEITH · CHRISTOPHER PUGSLEY · RICHARD TAYLOR
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· CHRISTOPHER
PUAWAI
· RICHARD
and a monumental
The story of campaign exhibition CAIRNS MICHAEL KEITH PUGSLEY TAYLOR
a defining
He tangata, he tipua An almost magical power Ngā tipua o mua Pillars from our past Te atamira o Tū Reimagining a theatre of war Ko Aotearoa me te emepaea New Zealand and empire Ngā tāngata māori nō Aotearoa Ordinary New Zealanders CONTENTS 106149656
Ngā Tamatoa a Tūmatauenga The chosen heroes of Tūmatauenga Ngā kōrero nō Karipori Stories from Gallipoli Ngā matarahi The murals Ngā whakaahua Image credits • He tuhinga anō Further reading • Ngā kaituhi About the authors • Ngā kaimahi Exhibition credits • He kuputohu Index 214–32196164144
We realised this particular challenge, already on a short timeframe, needed to be met in a different way. By partnering with Richard Taylor and Wētā Workshop, we were able to bring the immersive vividness and strong character focus of cinematic storytelling to the classic physicality and detail of a history exhibition. We are incredibly proud of the result. It is a superb example of talented creative people with passion, skill and dedication coming together.
‘I felt a weight in my lower chest as I learned about the stories and suffering of the people, witnessed their rage and despair sculpted on their faces, and felt the ground tremble under my feet. I was immersed by this, and now feel much more sympathy towards these people.’ Handwritten message left on one of the commemorative paper poppies in the final gallery of Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War
6 He tangata, he tipua An almost magical power
A ny historical anniversary is an opportunity –and an obligation – to both understand where we have come from, and to consider how we might want to move forward. In 2014, the commemoration of the centenary of Aotearoa New Zealand’s part in the First World War, therefore, posed a significant question for Te Papa. How should the national museum bring people together around this major event in our history? And how could this be done in a way that would contribute to our collective understanding, in the twenty-first century, of Gallipoli and of our involvement in overseas wars?
Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War could not be a heavy exhibition of facts and figures and black and white images. Nor could it be a glib or glossy encounter that swept audiences through but left
Courtney Johnston and Arapata Hakiwai Tumu Whakarae and Kaihautū, Te Papa
Arapata Hakiwai and Courtney Johnston outside the exhibition entrance in 2022 with Te Papa Tour Guides (from left) Anna Sheffield, Roger Gascoigne and Rangimoana Taylor.
‘It is hard to tell the story of an army with intimacy.’
Richard Taylor, Wētā Workshop
TE ATAMIRA O OFAREIMAGININGTŪTHEATREWARMichaelKeith1
Te Papa’s leadership decided that the muse um would benefit from another range of creative expertise to produce an engaging experience of this kind. Wellington-based Wētā Workshop, the internationally renowned player in the film indus try, with credits and Oscar wins for blockbuster successes such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, was the obvious choice – as an audience drawcard, as well as for its skillset. The exhibition was an ambitious project that needed special funding. A collaboration between a leading public institution and a highly successful private company – with the accompanying brand recognition – would, it was thought, attract support from funders like the Lotteries Commission. They were right, and in 2014, with funding in place, the Te Papa Board appointed Wētā Workshop’s Richard Taylor as creative director for the project. Te Papa designer Ben Barraud was appointed team leader on the museum’s side. And with eight months to opening, one week before Anzac Day in April 2015, the highly experienced freelance project manager Sue Harrop took the reins to deliver the exhibition on time and within budget, handling a pair of mighty organisations that had never been in harness together. Why Gallipoli? In the vast arena of the First World War, the Allied attempt to knock the Ottoman Empire out of contention was a modest campaign – and a failed one at that. But as the annual commemorations of Anzac Day remind us, the campaign had a focus and magnitude for Australia and New Zealand that went far beyond its military significance. And research undertaken by Manatū Taonga the Ministry for Culture and Heritage had found that the New Zealand public’s prime interest in the First World War was Gallipoli and understanding its place in the history of this nation at war.Military historian and Gallipoli expert Dr Christopher Pugsley, the exhibition’s historical
OPPOSITE Creative director Richard Taylor of Wētā Workshop adds the final details to the large-scale figure of Lottie Le Gallais during the installation of the exhibition at Te Papa.
16 It was 2013. The centenary of the First World War was coming up, and here was the challenge: how would Te Papa, the national museum of Aotearoa New Zealand, mark the significance of this anniversary? An exhibition, obviously, would be core business for the museum. But in amongst the flurry of commemorations of that long-ago event, how to create a museum experience that would make a special impression on its twentyfirst-century audience? How to represent a seminal piece of history in ways that engaged today’s generations, especially the rangatahi, the young people, yet honoured the generation who lived through it? How to do storytelling with impact, gravitas and pathos, respectful of the past and meaningful for the present and future?
1 THE GREAT ADVENTURE Lieutenant Spencer Westmacott 2 ORDER FROM CHAOS Lieutenant-Colonel Percival Fenwick 3 PrivateSTALEMATEJackDunn 6 1 2 3
4 CHUNUK BAIR Maori Contingent machine-gun section 5 SAYING GOODBYE Staff Nurse Lottie Le Gallais 6 WESTERN FRONT Sergeant Cecil Malthus 5 4
(1) The fibreglass body of Lottie Le Gallais is partially mounted. (2) Le Gallais’ bespoke shoes are fitted. (3) The bottom half of Percival Fenwick is dressed and mounted on the display base. (4) Head of costume, Alistair McDougall, adjusts Spencer Westmacott’s tie. 2
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ABOVE The completed diorama of the SS Maheno FROM TOP RIGHT Details of the deck and interior cabins.
INSET OVERLEAFDETAILMAP
After a failed naval attempt on 18 March 1915, the Anzacs made the northernmost of a series of landings to seize the Gallipoli peninsula and allow warships access through the Dardanelles Strait and on to the Sea of Marama. The Anzacs landed north of Gaba Tepe. The British 29th Division landed on a group of beaches in the south. The French Expeditionary Force sent a regiment ashore at Kum Kale. The ships of the Royal Naval Division made a diversionary attack (feint) at Bulair.
‘The whole of the scrubby slope opposite to us is FULL SNIPERS,OF dead Lieutenant-Colonelshots.’William Malone
83 OPPOSITE New Zealanders in the trenches on Second Ridge at Quinn’s or Courtney’s Post. In the background, a sniper takes aim through the mirror on a periscope rifle, guided by his spotter, who is using a periscope camouflaged by hessian sacking. In the foreground, two recent arrivals have their photo taken for family at home. The soldier on the left holds a Long Tom rifle with fitted bayonet. heavy casualties. Overly ambitious, the move lacked both planning and coordination and the soldiers’ bravery could not compensate for poor planning by the New Zealand commanders.
The Australians suffered a similar fate in an equally forlorn attack during that afternoon. After suffering 835 casualties that day, and 2800 since the 25 April landing, the New Zealanders were now only 1700 strong. At half-strength, Malone’s Wellingtons were the strongest of the four battalions. The disaster of Krithia demonstrated the inability of British and Anzac commanders to adapt their thinking in order to overcome the growing strength and complexity of the Ottoman defences. They seemed to consider that bravery alone was sufficient, but it was not. Malone was scathing in his criticism, telling Johnston that a night advance would have been far more effective and led to far fewer Meanwhile,casualties.inside the Anzac perimeter, men from the Royal Naval Division replaced the New Zealand Infantry Brigade within Godley’s NZ & A Division. These were surplus stokers, sailors and marines, many of them mere boys with very little infantry training. Captain Jesse Wallingford, who was described as ‘our wolf who never sleeps’, held them together by placing his machine guns in support and hand-picking fifty of the best shots from the recently arrived New Zealand reinforcements to work in pairs as snipers among the inexperienced sailors.
8 May: Krithia, Cape Helles
The severe losses caused a drop in morale and a breakdown in cohesion among the battalions that suffered most. This was particularly so for the Otagos, who carried out the attack. As Private Peter Thompson wrote in his diary, ‘My regiment was lit erally cut to pieces, and although we charged several times, we were unable to gain any ground under such a terrible fire … At the first roll call … in my platoon, 14 out of 50 answered.’ The Anzacs’ failed attack on Baby 700 confirmed for Hamilton that it was necessary to relieve the Australians and New Zealanders with a British advance from Cape Helles.
On the night of 5–6 May the 2444 men of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and the 2568-strong 2nd Australian Brigade were transferred from Anzac Cove to Cape Helles. Facing Krithia on 8 May, at 11am, the New Zealanders were ordered to attack from 500 metres behind the British front line. The Ottomans, prepared and dug in, caused heavy casualties even before the men reached the British front trenches, and any advance beyond this was stopped by enemy machine-gun and rifle fire after 200–300 metres. The open ground among the scattered trees was covered in wild daisies, which the New Zealanders referred to in their letters as the ‘daisy patch’. Fifty years later Cecil Malthus of the Canterbury Infantry Battalion (see page 140) would write a classic account of his Gallipoli experience that included this terrible day. ‘Hugging the ground in frantic terror we began to dig blindly with our puny entrenching tools but soon the four men nearest me were lying one dead two with broken legs and the other badly wounded in the shoulder.’
On 12 May the Royal Marines were relieved by
A KEEN OPPOSITEOBSERVERPAGE,CLOCKWISE
FROM TOP LEFT Spencer Westmacott at a Territorial Force camp in Auckland in 1914, before war broke out; sketch of a New Zealand soldier on the Western Front, 1916; sketch of the Auckland Infantry Battalion landing at Anzac Cove, 25 April 1915; sketch of soldiers at the British Army tactical school on the Western Front, 1916. THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Studio portrait taken at the time of Westmacott’s marriage to volunteer-nurse Jean Patricia Campbell, September 1918; portrait at the easel, painted by James Cook, a fellow student at Canterbury College School of Art, c.1920–25; with the Otorohanga Battalion of the Home Guard; on the main street of Ōtorohanga, c.1940s.
OPPOSITE PAGE. ABOVE, FROM LEFT Major Percy Overton, Canterbury Mounted Rifles; Lance-Corporal Guy ‘Swannie’ Overton, Canterbury Mounted Rifles; Frank Mortimer and William Rupert Pyle, Otago Mounted Rifles. BELOW, FROM LEFT Privates John ‘Jack’ Dunn, Wellington Infantry Battalian (right) and Matt Dunn, Wellington Mounted Rifles; Private Henry Hayward Harrison, Auckland Mountain Rifles; Private Charles Benjamin Harrison, Auckland Mountain Rifles.
THIS PAGE. ABOVE, FROM LEFT Corporal Cyril Bassett, New Zealand Divisional Signal Company; Captain Alfred Shout, 1st Battalion, Australian Imperial Force; Corporal Charles Saunders, 1st Field Company NZE. BELOW, FROM LEFT Major Peter Buck, Te Hokowhitu a Tu; Captain Hēnare Wēpiha Te Wainohu, chaplain to Te Hokowhitu a Tu.
RIGHT A letter from Malone to his daughter, Norah, from Egypt, 1915. After his death, she added the words ‘He is dead now, Daddy is dead now’.
ABOVE Lieutenant-Colonel William (George) Malone outside his dugout at the top of Walker’s Ridge, in April or early May 1915. A bayonet driven into the sandbags serves as a useful hook and an ammunition box provides shelving for a toothbrush and mug.
BELOW A bronze next of kin memorial plaque (also known as a ‘Dead Man’s Penny’), designed by Edward C Preston and made by the British Ministry of Munitions between 1919 and 1921. Mrs Ida Malone was one of 1.35 million people in the British Empire who received this plaque after losing a loved one in the war.
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The Commanders
The clash of wills between Malone and BrigadierGeneral Francis ‘Earl’ Johnston, his New Zealand
Selected by Godley to command the Wellington Battalion, at fifty-six, Malone, tall and solidly built, was the oldest man in the battalion, but assessed himself as ‘fit, hard & well’. He had spent many years reading military history and strategy and achieved a lifelong ambition by going to war, and was determined to make his men the best in the force. During training in Egypt, he drove his battalion mercilessly and weeded out those who did not meet his standards. On Gallipoli his leadership was critical in preventing the Anzacs from being driven back into the sea in the late-April battle for Walker’s Ridge. His rebuilding of Courtney’s and then Quinn’s Posts in early June was the turning point in securing the defence of the Anzac perimeter. Malone fought for building materials and basic comforts for his men as fiercely as he fought the Ottomans. His diaries chart a growing disenchantment with impractical British regular officers, and a growing love for those under his command.
Lieutenant-Colonel William George Malone was one of the outstanding New Zealand leaders in the Gallipoli campaign. British-born, he had followed his brother out to New Zealand in 1880, served in the Armed Constabulary and was at the sacking of Parihaka in 1881. Through hard work, he became a lawyer-farmer in Stratford and was a keen Territorial soldier. Although he was not represented as one of the exhibition’s giants, he is everywhere. His image can be seen at the entrance, pistol in hand, wearing the lemon-squeezer hat he introduced when commanding the 11th Taranaki Regiment in 1911. Malone insisted it be worn by the Wellington Battalion on Gallipoli, and it was adopted as the official headdress of the NZEF in August 1916. Today it is the official headwear of the New Zealand Army.
ABOVE Hat badge of the 11th Taranaki Rifles of the New Zealand Territorial Force.
Lieutenant-Colonel Percival Fenwick Private John ‘Jack’ Dunn
Private Rikihana Carkeek Staff Nurse Lottie Le Gallais
Sergeant Joe Gasparich of the Auckland Battalion remembered how he and the men felt: ‘We could not understand two things: one was withdrawing in front of an enemy and the other was leaving our cobbers behind. You don’t know how that hurt the blokes.’
19 DECEMBER 1915. The last night of the evacuation from Anzac and Suvla. The lights are still on as the last New Zealanders silently embark the troopships in the shadow of the landmark known as the Sphinx.
GALLIPOLI: THE SCALE OF OUR WAR Puawai Cairns, Michael Keith, Chris Pugsley and Richard Taylor RRP: $35.00 ISBN: PUBLISHED:978-1-99-115095-0December2022PAGEEXTENT:236pagesFORMAT:LimpboundSIZE:250x190mm FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO https://tepapa.nz/BookGallipoliORDER
–Richard Taylor, Wētā Workshop One of Te Papa’s most memorable and popular visitor experiences, Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War combines the creative artistry of Wētā Workshop with the museum’s expert historical research. Why were New Zealanders at Gallipoli, and what did they endure? This illustrated exhibition companion details the human scale of the Gallipoli campaign and goes behind the scenes to tell how the exhibition was made. It takes readers up close to the remarkable giants of the exhibition and the stories of those who vividly convey the scale of our war.
www.tepapapress.co.nz ‘These were ordinary people who went into extraordinary circumstances and had to find in themselves the strength to endure.’