The French Australian Review – No 64 Australian Winter 2018

JANE GILMOUR, Foreword

BARRY McGOWAN, Convicts and Communards: French-Australian Relations in the South Pacific, 1800–1900

An examination of the impact on French-Australian relations of the decision by the French government to establish a penal colony in New Caledonia. The article documents Australian reactions to the colony drawing on press reports and official documents. The transportation of some 4,000 Communards in the 1870s was a particular cause of concern and various escapes and attempted escapes are documented. Reference is made to the possible influence of one of these escapees on the character of the hero of Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life. The treatment of convicts on New Caledonia is described as well as incidents between the Melanesian inhabitants and the French colonists.

Keywords: New Caledonia, penal colony, Communards, Marcus Clarke, Michel Sérigné, Henri Rochefort

COLIN NETTELBECK, French Awareness of Australia: The Role of Albert Métin (1871–1918)

Drawing on two articles which appeared in Le Petit Parisien in July and September 1918, the author presents a case for the importance of Albert Métin’s role in raising awareness of Australia in France and of the potential for France to establish closer economic ties with Australia following the First World War. The article documents Métin’s career, including his study visit to Australia in 1899, his subsequent publication of Le socialisme sans doctrines and his appointment to lead the French Economic Mission to Australia in late 1918. The two articles are included as Appendices in the original French and in English.

Keywords: Albert Métin, French Economic Mission to Australia, Le socialisme sans doctrines, World War One, musée social

WILLIAM A. LAND, France-Australia by air

This article documents the role of French aircraft and pilots in Australian aviation history. Reference is made to a small number of key figures who were active in the air forces of both countries. An appendix lists the aircraft of French origin that were used by all three of the Australian armed forces.

Keywords: aviation history, Walter Oswald Watt, Marcel France Dekyvere, Maurice Guillaux

YANNICK LAGEAT and LES HETHERINGTON, Juliette Lopès-Rastoul-Henry

This brief note in an addendum to an article that appeared in Issue 63. It documents the recent discovery of a letter from Juliette to Victor Hugo. It also includes the reproduction of a photograph of Juliette, which is held in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Powerhouse Museum, in Sydney.

Keywords: Juliette Lopès-Rastoul-Henry, Victor Hugo

WALLACE KIRSOP, A Hitherto Unnoticed Image of Francis de Castelnau, French Consul General in Melbourne 1863–1877

The recent purchase by the Baillieu Library of the University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria, of the former Ploos van Amstel collection of nineteenth-century illustrated Australian newspapers, has brought to light a previously unknown image of Francis de Castelnau. The note documents the occasion and transcribes the text of the accompanying article in The Argus of 11 July 1863.

Keywords: Francis de Castelnau, Ploos van Amstel

NATALIE EDWARDS, An Interview with Catherine Rey: Écrire entre deux langues/Writing between two languages

This note is the transcription of an interview with the French writer now living in Australia who has recently published her first novel in English. Two previous novels had been translated into English. The interview explores issues of translation, voice and how it is defined to a certain extent by voice and the creative process.

Keywords: Catherine Rey, translation, The Lovers, Stepping Out, The Spruiker’s Tale

JANE GILMOUR AND ELAINE LEWIS, The Morning Star Tapestry in the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux

This note documents the opening of the Sir John Monash Centre in Villers-Bretonneux on 24 April 2018 and the creative process and production of the Morning Star Tapestry, designed by artists Charles Green and Lyndell Brown and produced by the Australian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne, for permanent display in the Centre.

Keywords: Sir John Monash Centre, Australian Tapestry Workshop, Villers-Bretonneux, Morning Star tapestry

PETER HODGES, French-Australian Encounters, Number 1

This encounter describes a chance meeting with l’Association Internationale des Amis de Pierre Loti when they came to visit the grave in a nearby neighbour’s field, where the wife of Pierre Loti was buried.

Keywords: Pierre Loti, Blanche de Ferrière, La Birondie

BOOK NOTES

Their Fathers’ Land: For King and Empire, by Paul Wenz, introduced and translated by Marie Ramsland and The Thorn in the Flesh, by Paul Wenz, with an introduction by Helen Garner translated by Maurice Blackman, notes by Ivan Barko

Food for Friends, by Babette Hayes with illustrations by Francis Yin, notes by Patricia Clancy

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographic Notes

The French Australian Review – No 59 Australian Summer 2015

(SPECIAL WORLD WAR I ISSUE)

STUART MACINTYRE, Foreword

COLIN NETTELBECK, Introduction

LEAH RICHES, ‘De l’ombre à la lumière’ – Remembering Fromelles through a Century of Private Grief and Public Politics

This article examines the way the memory of the battle of Fromelles has been sustained in private and public spheres. It identifies three distinct phases from 1916 to the present. First, remembrance was predominantly private and localised, driven by returned servicemen and families. Second, a resurgence of interest in war memory saw Fromelles enter a public commemoration phase from the 1980s. Finally, with the recovery of the Fromelles soldiers, there has emerged a major reconnection between Fromelles and Anzac in public discourse.

Keywords: Fromelles, RSL, renaissance of war memory, personal memory, politics of commemoration, Lambis Englezos

JACQUELINE DWYER, Ahead of their Time – the French Economic Mission to Australia 1918

This article undertakes a more detailed description and analysis of the Mission than has been done to date, in order to cast light on French-Australian relations of the time. The author has drawn on a number of sources: the Mission’s official report for the general public, The Economic Relations between France and Australia; an article by Robert Aldrich ‘La Mission Française en Australie de 1918’, which was based on the diplomatic archives of the Quai d’Orsay; and the Rapport Thomsen.

Keywords: French Economic Mission to Australia, General Pau, trade, wool, Labour Mission

COLIN NETTELBECK, Not Just a Nostalgic Farewell: The “Dernière Heure” as a Landmark Document in Franco-Australian Friendship

This article argues that the story of a magazine, The “Dernière Heure”, produced by members of the AIF awaiting repatriation after the Armistice, contains many aspects of the complex story of the disengagement of Australian forces from the First World War, an assessment of the costs and an awareness of a deepening friendship between Australia and France.

Keywords: The “Dernière Heure”, The Jackass, Australian General Hospital in Rouen, James R. W. Taylor, Cyril Leyshon White, 1918-9

JANE GILMOUR, An Australian Chaplain on the Western Front, 1916. Extracts from the Diary and Letters of the Reverend Chaplain Joseph Lundie

Using her grandfather’s diary and a few letters that have survived, the author describes her grandfather’s experience as a chaplain with the Ninth Battalion on the Western Front. The published memoires of other chaplains add further substance to the experiences and attitudes of chaplains at the front.

Keywords: Ninth Battalion, Reverend Chaplain Joseph Lundie, 1916, the Western Front, Fleurbaix, conscription debate, chaplains

PAULINE GEORGELIN, Encounters between Diggers and Poilus: Finding the History in Family History

This article investigates the intersection between family history and its wider context, by exploring aspects of the interactions between French and Australian soldiers. It draws on family history research about the author’s grandfather who was born in France, moved to Australia and returned to France as a digger.

Keywords: family history, 14th Battalion, the Western Front, 1918, the ‘International Post’ interaction between French and Australian soldiers, the AIF Education Service

JILLIAN DURANCE, ‘Un bon souvenir pour nous’: Australian Soldiers Billeted in France and Belgium after World War I

This article is an exploration of the wartime connections between Australian soldiers and the people of France and Belgium. Its starting point is a postcard sent by a young Belgian woman to an Australian soldier (the author’s grandfather) after the war (1919).

Keywords: 21st battalion, 1919, host families, learning French, the Western Front, Nalinnes, contributions of the troops to village and rural life

ANDREW PLANT, Villers-Bretonneux: a Different Landscape. An Author’s Reflection on Remembrance of the Great War in Australia and France

The author, who is an author and illustrator of childrens’ books describes his research about the battle of Villers-Bretonneux and his visit to the town in 2011 to photograph, sketch and research locations for the book.

Keywords: Villers-Bretonneux, March 1918, role of the AIF in recapturing the town, Brigadier General Harold Edward Elliott, Brigadier General Thomas William Glasgow, German offensive on the Somme

ANNE BRASSART, ‘Je suis en Australie’: a Personal Memoir of Villers-Bretonneux

The author was a former inhabitant of Villers-Bretonneux and president of the Franco-Australian Assocaiaion of the village from 2007-2010. The article recalls her childhood memories of Villers-Bretonneux and her return, many years later to the village.

Keywords: impact of the war on the village, establishment of Museum in the school, Comité d’accueil Franco-Australien, the Australian Memorial, black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, 2009, Franco-Australian Association of Villers-Bretonneux

JOHN DRURY, Help from Afar: The Adoption of Dernancourt by Adelaide after World War I

This article recounts how Adelaide decided to adopt Dernancourt in Picardie at the end of World War I

Keywords: Dernancourt, the Somme, the British League of Help, Berthe Mouchette, Maire Lion, General Pau, fundraising activities

ELAINE LEWIS, A Selected Bibliography of Australian Literature Relating to World War I

Notes on Contributors to this Special Edition of FAR