Amidst the horrors of World War 1, Australian soldiers could escape for a few hours playing games of Australian Rules football. The playing fields were often recent battlefields, pockmarked with shell holes, but the games reminded them of happier times at home.
Read an extract from a talk by war correspondent and author Jill Jolliffe on the reporting of World War I and, in particular, the work of official historian C.E.W. Bean.
The State Library congratulates Ross McMullin who last night won the Australian History award in the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for his book Farewell, Dear People.
In August 1914, a young Samuel Figgis joined the Victorian Public Library as a library assistant, just after the outbreak of the Great War. Less than a year later he died on the beaches of the Dardanelles on his 20th birthday.
