![anzac and its enemies small](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/anzac-and-its-enemies-small.jpg)
The Anzacs’ Most Determined Foes
What follows is the text of Mervyn F. Bendle’s speech at the most recent Quadrant dinner, April 22, 2015, when his book, Anzac and Its Enemies: The History War on Australia’s National Identity, was launched.
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Australia is unique among all the nations that fought in the Great War because of the way in which the Anzac legend developed as a central part of its collective memory, national identity, and unifying historical narrative. It is also unique in the way in which it has been subject to continual attack.
Even while record crowds attend the Centenary Dawn Services across the country, the Anzac legend remains under concerted assault by the intelligentsia, a former prime minister, and academics in Australia’s elite universities and institutions, including the Australian National University, the Australian Defence Forces Academy, the Australian War Memorial. And, of course,
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