'Always thinking in the other part of the globe': Australians and the meanings of wartime correspondence

This chapter investigates the conduct and meaning of correspondence between Australian soldiers and their families in the First World War, especially from the perspective of civilians whose lives were enmeshed in the conflict twelve thousand miles away. Australians at home could achieve potent understanding of the war at the fighting front, though even the most committed correspondents could experience long lapses and interruptions in their epistolary relationships. The content and anxiety-relieving power of letters stood in relation to the much more immediate news of fighting and casualties in the daily press. Thus proximity and distance were hardly fixed, but dynamic and changing in their relationship to the lived experience of thousands of individuals and families invested in the war.