Anzac Street
What's in a Name - Anzac Street
Place names are amazing things – we stop thinking about the implications of them, and just think of them as the places themselves. They become a dull detail of our everyday lives.
But place names always have a story: H Jones Road in Port Stanley,in the Falkland Islands, for instance. It is named after Kingswear’s own Lt Col Herbert ‘H’ Jones, who was killed attacking an Argentine Machine Gun Nest during the Falklands War.
Often ‘dull’ place names reveal amazing stories. Like Anzac Street. When it was originally named, the people of the town chose ‘Hanover Street’ – the earliest mention of it was in 1798 – to flatter the new Royal Line from Hanover. George I swept to the throne after the Act of Settlement in 1714. He was 52nd in line to the throne, but the first Protestant – a vital qualification at the time.
The German king was notable for many things - he never learnt English, he imprisoned his wife and had two mistresses who accompanied him everywhere and were nicknamed the Maypole and the Elephant by unkind society gossips and his motto was ‘take what you can’.
Naming the street after his homeland was probably thought to be an important sign of support which hopefully would encourage Dartmouth to be favoured in some way by Government or Royalty. But the name was to become toxic in the early 20th century.
Britain’s close ties to Germany in the 19th Century were partly due to the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The German Prince wowed the public and all who met him, and the family he sired with Queen Victoria tied the British monarchy to Europe in a way it never had been before. Queen Victoria was dubbed ‘The Grandmother of Europe’ because so many of her children were now married to members of European Royalty.
This led to the belief in the late 19th Century that the British Isles would see more integration with Europe – a war with many of the mainland powers seemed inconceivable. But the Great War was a watershed – and in so many ways changed the entire world-view of everyone affected by it.
Suddenly Germany was the enemy – people with German names were persecuted, anti-German riots erupted across the country and businesses which even sounded a bit German hurriedly changed their names. The ‘German Shepherd’ dog breed was even renamed ‘Alsatian’ by the Kennel Club – a rule that was not repealed until 1977.
The Royal Family - the Saxe-Coburg dynasty who had relatives in the imperial houses of many of the country’s new enemies – knew which way the wind was blowing. George V looked around for a thoroughly English sounding name and picked the name of the village near his family’s large castle in Berkshire.
The new ‘Windsor’ patriarch also gave up all his German titles and stripped the British titles from his German relatives.
This happened in 1917 and in the same year the people of Dartmouth decided that ‘Hanover’ was too German to be allowed. But what name should they pick?
Rather than follow the example of their King and choose a safe, English name, they chose the name of a group of men who represented the realities and horrors of the first truly world conflict. In 1915, the war had been sinking into stalemate and carnage along the Western front. The Allies needed a new supply route to Russia and also a ‘Second Front’ to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war and reduce the support it could give to Germany. Suggested by Winston Churchill, the Dardenelles campaign, via the Gallipoli Peninsula, would achieve both aims. However, the plan was poorly thought out and not properly resourced. It was then badly executed by inept commanding officers. It would turn into a bloodbath protracted over nine months.
It was the first engagement of the newly formed Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or ANZACS, and marked both countries’ first major catastrophe in war too. The campaign started as a Naval campaign, which failed because of the terrain and strong defences – so those in command decided to send men onto the beaches now so well defended to ‘take out the artillery’.
The first two waves of troops were from the ANZACS and, on the morning of April 25, things went wrong almost from the first moment – the landing craft were seen by the defenders, then went off course and landed in the wrong place. Men were left out of position and separated from their commanders. After the first night, all those on the Peninsula were in agreement – the operation had failed and they should evacuate. The commanders had not planned for so abject a failure, and anyway said it would be impossible to evacuate because they had to get the hundreds of injured men off the beaches first. So they ordered the men to ‘dig, dig, dig’ trenches. This quickly ended up in a stalemate, occasionally punctuated by massacres. Nine months later, following the deaths of 160,000 men, the troops were eventually evacuated. More than 34,000 ANZACS were killed or injured, and countless more died from infections they picked up in the searing heat.
After the debacle Churchill was removed from the Admiralty and ultimately left politics to serve on the Western Front. The commander of the Ottoman forces, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, went on to become leader of the new Republic of Turkey, having inspired his troops by saying ‘I do not expect you to attack, I order you to die’.
The ANZACS were reorganised and sent to the Western Front and took part in a new offensive – at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
So in naming the street ANZAC, the people of Dartmouth were doing more than dismissing a connection with a foreign power, they were acknowledging the sacrifice of allies and comrades.
First Published June 2011 By The Dart