The melody of this song is based on traditional Irish folk music. Although it has had many iterations, the tune remains easily recognisable and has endured in popular memory. Over the centuries the lyrics and their intent have changed. It has been a drinking song, (“Johnny Fill the Cup”) a love ballad (using the words of a Robbie Burns poem) and a music hall favourite. In its most popular form, the song expresses the hope that the soldiers will return to their loved ones and anticipates a joyful homecoming and a bright future for those re-united.
There is another more embittered version, composed at the beginning of the 19th century as a protest against the conscription of young Irishmen to fight in England’s foreign wars. Written to the same tune, it tells of a soldier who has lost both arms and legs, returning to the girl he left behind and a bleak future as a crippled beggar. The song, “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye”, became an anthem of protest against war and has been sung as such ever since.
“When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” was registered in the US in 1863. It is attributed to bandmaster Patrick Gilmore who said he heard parts of this tune being whistled by Irish immigrants and decided to set words to it. “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye” was registered four years later, although it previously existed in various forms. It was popularised by music hall performer Joseph Byrant Geohegan, who is usually credited as its lyricist. The war he was writing about was the Kandyan Wars (Sri Lanka) between 1796 -1818, where Irish conscripts were used, partly because conditions were so terrible that other troops refused to go there. There was little by way of providing for wounded soldiers at that time. They were generally discharged and left to fend for themselves.
The popularity of “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye” reflects the changed mood of the American public at the time. The Civil War had wrought enormous costs in terms of casualties and social disruption. Conscription was introduced in the North to sustain the number of soldiers needed to prosecute modern warfare against the more lethal weapons of an industrial age. Wealthy Northerners, however, could avoid conscription by paying someone else to take their place. The arrival of thousands of impoverished Irish immigrants provided the “cannon fodder” to feed the “guns of war”.
Coincidently, the name “Yankee” was a corruption of the word “Johannes” a derogatory term for a Dutch man. In the 17th century Dutch farm labourers emigrated to what was then New Amsterdam. The term “Yankee” became interchangeable with Johnny, referring to anyone from New York. The connection would not have been lost on Americans singing about Johnny coming home again at the end of a terrible war.
The duality reflected in the two versions of this song is encapsulated in the mood of the nation when the first boatloads of wounded Australians returned from the war in 1916. The number of casualties and the extent of their injuries shocked the public, but it was important to maintain morale and support those at the front and the war effort in general. To do otherwise would have been seen as unpatriotic and so it was a case of “Public Commemoration/ Private Grief”.
So great was the impact of the losses, that the Hughes Government feared to erect too many memorials and largely left this to local groups to organise. The result was the memorials erected at the time greatly varied in format and design. There was no central authority to determine what names were to go on the memorial, whether their listing would be based on rank, date of enlistment or in alphabetical order. Some memorials had combinations of all three. There was no consistency as to who was a local. Should this be determined by where they lived at the time of enlistment, where they enlisted, where they worked or worshipped or by membership in community groups? The only record available to the authorities of what locality a soldier identified with was the address of their next of kin. The two were not necessarily the same.
The uncertainty of how the Commonwealth Government ought to respond on the Home Front to the war in Europe and the Middle East is reflected in its decision not to declare a public holiday on the first anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, although each of the states had done so. It was not until 1928 that the Commonwealth held the first official commemoration of Anzac Day at the Cenotaph in Sydney where a small crowd gathered in the early hours of the morning to mark the day with a short service.
Each of the states marked the event differently. Queensland, where Anzac Day was first promoted, held fast to the idea that this was a solemn occasion on which there was to be no fundraising or celebration. South Australia took the opposite approach and held games and festivities to raise funds for the soldiers and celebrate the day as they believed the Anzacs would have wanted. That was certainly the mood at the Australian Headquarters in Egypt, where Brigadier John Monash (later General Sir John) wrote to his wife explaining that the men had “spent the morning playing cricket and other games. In the afternoon they took part in a giant aquatic carnival, followed by a skit about the landing and band concerts”.
To assuage the grief and feelings of helplessness many communities threw themselves into projects such as the local Volunteer Workers Associations, who built houses for wounded soldiers. Several were built in Concord West and Cabarita. Some were paid for and built by Concord volunteers, others were funded by Burwood VWA and built in Concord because of the availability of cheaper land. Funds for Soldiers Aid were raised by the Red Cross, church groups and private charities.
Amidst the wave of patriotism and popular support, there was the grim realisation that this was a war unlike previous wars. It could not be put to one side, wrapped in jingoistic platitudes and forgotten. The public wanted some way to make sense of their loss – honour rolls in churches, places of employment or sporting clubs went part of the way to easing their pain. Community buildings erected and dedicated to the memory of those who served became a feature of towns and suburbs around Australia.
As it was difficult for grieving relatives to visit the graves of those who died on overseas service, the Army under pressure offered to provide (at a cost) a photograph of the deceased grave where this could be identified.
To be fair, though, the Commonwealth Government was still coming to terms with the extent of its role vis a vis the states, it had the constitutional responsibility for Defence, but the states retained the major source of revenue, in the form of income tax. In 1914 it was still unclear how big a part the Commonwealth should play in the economy and who would pay for it.
History has always been about what we choose to remember. So it is that while humming the same tune we each choose what song to sing in our heads.
Andrew West
