ABSTRACT
British influence over Australian commemorative activity has waned, and local Belgian agents have come to play an increasingly significant role in the development of Australian Imperial Force (AIF) remembrance projects. This chapter focuses on how the interactions between Australian, imperial and Belgian agents have left Australia with a relatively shallow memorial footprint in Flanders, which has helped maintain third Ypres on the periphery of Australian First World War memory for much of the last century. In the case of Australian commemorative activity in Belgium, the Commission’s strategies of accommodation and coercion can be clearly seen in two major memorial projects in the salient: the 5th Division’s memorial at Polygon Wood and the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing. As Australians have gradually ‘rediscovered’ these European battlefields in recent years, it has been the national, as opposed to divisional or imperial, dimension of the memorial at Villers-Bretonneux that has helped channel renewed interest in the commemoration of the AIF’s 1916–18 battles.
