War Trophies in Australia

Many war memorials around Australia incorporate guns and other war trophies, most of them relics of World War I.  The story of how they ended up on Australian memorials is an interesting one.

Prior to WWI various cannons brought back from the Crimean and South African wars were placed as ornaments in Australian parks. With the ending of the war in 1918, the issue of trophy weapons became a much larger one, not least because of the interest by Australians in the paraphernalia of a war that had caused so much grief.

The Australian War Records Section (AWRS) had been established in May 1917.  AWRS was initially responsible for the collection, preservation, and classification of all official documents relating to the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). This was later expanded to include photographs, trench and regimental magazines, sketches, personal memoirs, relics, and war trophies. By the end of 1917 AWRS controlled the administration of all war trophies captured by Australian units.

AWRS set up collecting depots in France and Egypt. Trophies were to be clearly labelled, contain the name of the unit that had captured the item, the town or area it was from, the time and place the item was found, and the unit’s wish for its ultimate disposal. The trophies were then shipped back to Melbourne and stored at the Royal Exhibition Building.

Trophies fell into two categories. The first group consisted of large items, such as artillery pieces, machine-guns, trench mortars, and vehicles which required little protection from the weather and could be easily exhibited.  The second group consisted of small trophies, such as rifles, daggers, bombs and ammunition.

State trophy committees were established to administer the distribution of trophies and relics with the committees administered from the Royal Exhibition Building.

The system of distribution was according to the size of a town and its population: towns (other than the capital city) with a population above 10,000were allocated two artillery pieces and two machine-guns; towns with a population between 3,000 and 10,000 were allocated an artillery piece; towns with a population between 300 and 3,000 were allocated a machine-gun or a mortar.

Consideration was also given to items which had been captured by units raised in a particular area. Each town was required to nominate three trustees (one of them being an ex-member of the AIF) to act on behalf of the town. They arranged for the trophy to be permanently housed in a public park, garden, or building within the town. They also organised a simple handover ceremony and bore movement and installation expenses after the item was delivered to the nearest railway station.

The allocation was not without controversy.  Some councils, despite the system in place, felt the efforts of local enlisted men and the war honours they had won merited a more substantial trophy. Other councils refused to accept such objects, seeing them as instruments of war that spread a message of militarism to a world experiencing a hard-won and precarious state of peace. However, by the end of 1921 about 500 artillery pieces had been installed on monuments around Australia.

The greatest of all war trophies is the so-called Little Bertha Amiens Gun. This is a German 11inch railway gun (originally mounted in the battleship SMS Hessen) that was captured by the AIF in August 1918. It was placed on public display on 26 March1920 adjacent to Central Railway Station, Sydney. While the gun's carriage was scrapped during the 1960s, the gun barrel remains on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Ironically, given WWI was meant to be the war that ended all wars, within 20 years the world was again at war and a large number of these artillery pieces were removed and melted down for new guns. After the WWII they were not replaced and guns that were allocated to war memorials were mostly surplus Australian artillery items.

Australia’s war memorials are cherished spaces where communities come together to reflect on the past and honour those who serve and sacrifice for country. Regular maintenance and conservation are key to preserving these important sites. Grants and funding for memorial conservation are available in every Australian state.

Learn more about the grants available here: Grants available for War memorial conservation in Australia