A new project asks the public to help sift through thousands of pages of wartime material. Doing so helps us to see war free from political appropriation

Almost 50 years ago historian Geoffrey Serle conjured a prescient description for the nationalistic hyperbole that had attached, limpet-like, to Anzac.

Anzackery. What a word.

I stepped off (a duckboard) to allow a ... chap to pass, and found myself suddenly in a deep shell hole, full of snow. On recovering my equilibrium, I started to get out, and seeing something dark on the side, I came to the conclusion that another chap must also have fallen in, so caught hold of him to assist me in my endeavours to get out. What was my surprise to find that instead of the fellow going from me he came towards me, and to my horror I discovered it to be the dead body of a Fritz, frozen hard and stiff.

Billy Hughes came out from London. He came about four o’clock, he was giving a bit of a speech when I came away – I’m a bit fed up with their speeches for they are always about what wonderful men we are.

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