After the Great War ended, around 200,000 ANZAC soldiers were repatriated home.
Coming Home After the Great War ended, around 200,000 ANZAC soldiers were repatriated home. Our dominant image of this event is of triumphal soldiers returning on troopships, which dock at ports overflowing with cheering loved ones; of heartfelt reunions under colourful bunting and tossed streamers. Yet Private Arthur Foxcroft’s account of returning home provides an alternative narrative. Enlisting in 1915, Arthur meticulously recorded his war experience in his diary. Foxcroft described his splendid Sydney send off, the wonderment of visiting ancient Egypt, and the joy of marching through the French countryside in full bloom. His diary entries darkened in mid-1916, when he recorded the ‘awful slaughter’ on the Somme, where he sufferred a serious wound. In 1917, Foxcroft wrote soberly of being seriously wounded a second time, which left him with ‘drop foot’. His mother, Amelia, pleaded with authorities for his return so he coul...