From as early as July 1918, the people of NSW had anticipated a victorious and everlasting end to the Great War.
The signing of the armistice on the Western Front on 11 November 1918 catalysed in Sydney a marathon of celebrations; some of them premature, all of them frenzied. At last, peace and victory was theirs.
However, the people could never have anticipated the turmoil that would accompany such victory. The new year brought with it new and complex issues. The outbreak of Spanish ‘flu, the delayed repatriation of the AIF, and enduring conflicts upon old and new battlefields were just some of the problems to be grappled with. The realisation that peace was relative and victory precarious was almost universal.
The Anzac Memorial's Exhibitions Research Officer, Jacqueline Reid, will speak to the tumultuous year that was 1919 as she unpacks the curatorial ethos behind its newest exhibition, 1919: A time to mourn, a time to hope.
