Diversions in a tented field : theatricality and the images and perceptions of warfare in Sydney entertainments 1879-1902

This thesis examines the theatricality which accompanied the establishment, development and deployment of the colonial army in New South Wales during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. It investigates the transfer to the colony of the military ethos of the Imperial power, and explores the ways in which performances of military spectacle, in both theatrical and paratheatrical contexts, were interpreted by the colonists. The primary sources for the research are the Sydney press and the Mitchell `Australiana' collection of the State Library of New South Wales. The framework of the argument is presented in five chapters. The first, Displaying, investigates the relationship between civilians and the military forces at training camps, and then the performances of sham fights. The second, Committing, explores the attitudes of civilians and soldiers at the departures of New South Wales troops to the Soudan and Boer Wars. Informing, thirdly, investigates how the Imperial military ideology was conveyed through performance, and how this information was interpreted in the colony. Accommodating analyses songs and theatre performances which first reflected colonial anticipations at the commitment to conflict and then attempted to accommodate the actuality of the experience. Lastly, Desiring, explores the colonists' endeavours to invent traditions which satisfied the discrepancy between their hopes and their experiences of Imperial war. This thesis asserts that the colonial reinterpretation of military ideology was influenced by concepts both of service to the Imperial power and of national identity. The interplay between these influences led to the colonists' idealising the Imperial association. This ideal was not demonstrated in the practice of association. The result of this experience was a defining of the differences between colonial and Imperial perceptions, rather than a reinforcement of their similarities. Much of the exploration of thesis also prepares the ground for a fuller cultural understanding of the issues at play in the final emergence of the Anzac tradition at the engagement of colonial soldiers against Turkish troops at Gallipoli in April, 1915