Author: VERONIQUE DUCHÉ AND AMANDA LAUGESEN
The French Australian Review 73 (Australian Summer 2022–2023): 62–89.
https://doi.org/10.62586/NEQV5651
An exploration of the thesis that while for contemporary Australians Villers-Bretonneux is the main ‘lieu de commémoration’ (place of remembrance), for the First World War diggers, ‘lieux de mémoire’ (sites of memory) were created from a much wider and varied list of place names— places where they had been, and fought, Villers-Bretonneux being for them just one of many. Focusing on the 1918–1929 period, this article explores the Australian experience and memory of the First World War by analysing how the concept of place was constructed within trench journals and returned soldier periodical print culture.
Keywords: World War 1, ‘places of commemoration’, ‘places of memory’, trench journals, returned soldiers journals, returned soldiers’ periodicals.