Renowned military historian to teach New Zealanders about the costs of war
Tuesday 05 April, 2005
Military historian, Dr Chris Pugsley will be in New Zealand from 19 April – 11 May 2005 to present a prestigious lecture series, ‘ANZAC: The Cost to a Nation’ that coincides with ANZAC Day and the 90th Anniversary of Gallipoli.
The lecture series is a national activity and is sponsored by the Waiouru Army Museum.
Dr Pugsley will be presenting ‘ANZAC: The Cost to a Nation’ at four key venues:
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Auckland War Memorial Museum
Tuesday, 19 April 2005
7.30pm
Full house – seats are no longer available
Rutherford House, Victoria University
Thursday, 21 April 2005
6.45pm
RSVP: 0800 369 999
Otago Museum
Monday, 02 May 2005
5.00pm
RSVP: 03 455 3316
Canterbury University
Thursday, 05 May 2005
7.30pm
RSVP: 03 352 4668
Call 0800 369 999 for more information.
Dr Pugsley is a renowned New Zealand military historian and a senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy (RMA) Sandhurst. He is a former New Zealand infantry officer and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel to become a freelance military historian in 1988 after 22 years service in the New Zealand Army.
It is hoped that New Zealanders will seize the opportunity to learn more about New Zealand’s war history via interesting and lively lectures from an internationally acclaimed presenter.
ENDS
‘ANZAC: The Cost to a Nation’ by Dr Chris Pugsley
In November 2004 New Zealand brought one of its heroes home to be the focus of national attention. This Unknown Warrior represents those who have no known grave but more importantly the 18,166 New Zealanders who died serving with the NZEF in the First World War. Now on the 90 th Anniversary of the landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula of Turkey it is important to take stock of that experience and reflect on what it means to New Zealand both then and today.
In 1914 this small Dominion found itself willingly at war against Imperial Germany and its allies with little conception of what that meant. By 11 November 1918 members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force had served in Samoa, Egypt, Gallipoli, Sinai and Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia and on the Western Front.
New Zealand with a population of just over one million people mobilised 124,211 personnel, 91,941 of them volunteers and sent 100,444 overseas. This represented nearly 10 per cent of the total population and over 40 per cent of the eligible male population between the ages of 20 and 45 years. In terms of measurable cost New Zealand suffered 18,166 deaths, 41,317 wounded, a total of 59, 483, the highest percentage in terms of population of any Dominion in the British Empire. We are the sum of that experience.
Dr Christopher Pugsley reviews that experience both in personal terms but also in its social, cultural and political impact upon New Zealand society and New Zealand as a nation.
His visit to New Zealand is sponsored by the Waiouru Army Museum.
Biography – Dr Chris Pugsley
Dr Christopher Pugsley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Welsh-born he grew up on the West Coast, and went to high school in Thames and Christchurch. A former New Zealand infantry officer, he graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon in Australia in 1966 and retired as a lieutenant colonel to become a freelance military historian in 1988 after 22 years service in the New Zealand Army.
Since leaving the New Zealand Army he has worked with major institutions on travelling and permanent exhibitions, film research and cataloguing, and as a consultant to National Archives of New Zealand on the War Art Collection and to the New Zealand Film Archive on official film of the First World War.
In 1995 he was curator of the First World War display and in 1996, Creative Director of Second World War and post-war displays in the Scars on the Heart exhibition at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
He has lectured on military history at universities in New Zealand and Australia, before accepting the position at RMA Sandhurst in late 2000 where he lectures on the evolution of warfare in the 20 th and 21 st centuries.
His publications include:
- Gallipoli: The New Zealand Story, first published in 1984 and still in print.
- On the Fringe of Hell: New Zealanders and Military Discipline in the First World War, which was his DPhil thesis published in 1991.
- From Emergency to Confrontation: The New Zealand Armed Forces in Malaya and Borneo 1949-1966: which is a volume in the New Zealand official history series published by Oxford University Press in 2003, and
- The Anzac Experience: New Zealand, Australia and Empire in the First World War: published by Reed, New Zealand, in April 2004. All of which received critical acclaim on release.
- His latest book Operation COBRA, was published in December 2004, is on the American breakout in Normandy.
Dr Pugsley is currently finishing a book on New Zealand official film in the First World War. His interests include the New Zealand, Australian and Canadian experience in war in the 20th Century and the New Zealand Wars of the 19th Century. His goal during his time at RMA Sandhurst is to visit and walk every New Zealand battlefield in Europe and the Mediterranean.
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