It was to be the war that would end all wars and when the peace agreement was signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiegne, France, at 1100 hours on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, it signalled the cessation of hostilities on the European western front.
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This significant event in world history became known and respected as Armistice Day, it is also known in France as The Armistice of Compiegne. [Latin arma meaning ‘arms’ and sister meaning ‘to stop’]. Following the armistice, Australian soldiers returned to home soils to reconnect with their families and to re-establish employment while others hit the ‘wallaby’ trail looking for work.
And when only four and half years later in 1923, word spread that men were needed on the new western mineral site, many of the World War One veterans jumped the rattler to Duchess and with ingenuity found their way across the spinifex covered rocky ranges to Mount Isa.
The Digger miners proved to be valued workers who not only accepted but thrived in the barren tent camps under the blazing hot summer sun. Two of the first Diggers to arrive in Mount Isa were Capt. J E Stevenson and R A Clarke who by 1931 were joined by many as 80 veterans working and contributing to the growth of Mount Isa Mines and the community at large.
For them Armistice Day was a day, in which for two minutes of silence at 1100 hours, they would reflect on their fallen comrades and the senselessness of war.
For the indigenous soldiers the armistice signing may have ended World War One, but they came home to another insidious war, that of continual dispossession as a race of people.
Once on Australian soil they reverted to their persona non gratis, as their loyalty, bravery and tracking skills, were disregarded only for their names to be resurrected on the Aborigines Protection Board register; their contribution to the war efforts were dismissed out-right by the government of the day.
Sadly, but true, even in Mount Isa indigenous soldiers found it hard to break the community attitude to equal representation at Anzac Day and Armistice Day commemorations.
And just as many men were reticent about their war experiences so too were many women, all with their own memories of the impact war had on their families. One such woman was Edie O’Hanlon who was a steadfast attendee each year, at Mount Isa’s Anzac Day and the Armistice Day commemorations.
Growing up in Exeter, Devonshire, England, she was only 14 years of age, when war was declared in August 1914. And while she may have been too young to fully understand the consequences of war, she volunteered with the Land Army as a cook in the Army Officers’ Mess.
“It was a position coveted among the women in the army ‘because the tucker was so good”, she said.
Innocently, she had expected the war to last a matter of months, but as the years dragged by, she became discouraged and more world weary. Both Edie’s father and brother enlisted in the war, her father to return home injured while her brother was captured and became a prisoner of war in Germany.
Three of her cousins enlisted with the British army; one was killed, another a violinist had an arm blown off and the third cousin, who was a talented tap dancer, arrived back from the war with no legs. For Edie, familial sadness was sidelined, in November 1918, when news arrived of the armistice signing at Compiegne in France.
When interviewed by Nadine Kuhn 70 years later, Edie was a frail but cognisant lady of 88 years who recalled vividly the jubilation at the news of the armistice signing at Compiegne in France.
“I was only 18-years-old when the war ended but by that time I knew I wanted to leave England and all the sadness, to start a new life either in Canada or Australia.”
Australia won the coin toss and Edie arrived in Sydney two years after the war, in 1920, on the last ex-servicewomen’s ship.
Sadly, Armistice Day and the significance of the signing of the agreement between the Allies and Germany did not deter Adolf Hitler and his Nazi army from instigating yet another war, World War Two.
Once again, Edie, like thousands of mothers, had to face the prospects that one of her family would go to war, not to fight against Hitler but in another war in the Highlands of New Guinea, this time against Australia’s new foe – Japan.
Edie’s concern for the safety of her son was compounded when she received word that her family home in Exeter received a direct bomb hit and her entire family was killed. When questioned, she was reluctant to voice the nightmares of war and the consequences that followed each of them.
Instead like mothers of all nationalities including Aborigine, she would allow a little self-indulgence, with a tear or two and her private memories of loved ones and hard times, as she stood reservedly amongst the crowd on Anzac Day and Armistice Day.
Mount Isa may have been born out of the rich mineral field discovered by John Campbell Miles in 1923, but it was built by the hands of many, including the Diggers of World War One, whose incalculable value to mining and community spirit saw a few shabby dub-overs expand into a viable town.
In 1918, Edie O’Hanlon naively believed that The Armistice of Compiegne would end all wars and like Capt. J E Stevensen, R A Clarke, Paddy McCarthy, J P Mulholland and Harold ‘Johno’ Johnson and their Digger miner mates, she continued to hold that belief albeit in silence, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month every year - Armistice Day now acknowledged as Remembrance Day.
