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I first met Trevor in March 1966
after I had enrolled to study history,
my special subject being 20th century
British history. Trevor was my tutor.
He had recently published The Downfall of the Liberal
Party and I offered to send him reviews from the public
library where I was working.
This was a dangerous enterprise because few authors
like to be informed by third parties that their book has
just been canned. Fortunately this never occurred and I
was able to pass on one good review after another.
It was widely known that he was writing an
enormous book on the Great War. This was proceeding
through the 1970s when I was ready to embark on a
doctoral dissertation.
I went to see Trevor and we kicked around several
subjects, and he hit on a critique of Winston Churchill’s
history of the First World War, The World Crisis. This
was to develop into the longest book review and ran
to two volumes as the University had no word limits
on a thesis at that time (I have heard that they were
introduced shortly afterwards.)
Because Churchill’s work encompassed almost all
aspects of British activity in the war, and Trevor was
writing a general history, our work often overlapped and
we could help each other. It must be said that most of
the help came my way, although I could provide the
occasional shard of information for him.
As the years went by it became clear to me that
Trevor was writing a history of the Great War like no
other. He was not only dealing with the main military
campaigns, but he was also looking at the role of
labour, the part played by women, the politics of the
war, war production and a myriad other facets of the
conflict. This eventually provided a title for the book
– The Myriad Faces of War – which was published in
1986 to enthusiastic reviews.
It is a paean to liberal democracy at war, to a society
that remained relatively decent, though prosecuting
the most deadly war in its history. Trevor’s liberal values
shine through the book as does his conviction that
Britain had to emerge on the winning side if Europe was
to undergo further democratisation.
Before publication of the book, our paths had diverted
because there were few academic jobs in the early 1980s.
I was working in the parliamentary library, writing
speeches for backbenchers when Trevor came up with
an idea of editing a general’s diary of the Great War.
We were to apply to a strange body called the ARC
and as I read the instructions I discovered there were
fellowships that would pay a salary for three years.
We immediately changed our application
from one for $6,000 dollars for photocopying
to one for $120,000 for me. It worked and in 1983 I
started on a joint enterprise with Trevor which resulted
in the book Command on the Western Front: The
Military Career of Sir Henry Rawlinson.
Our original thesis, Rawlinson as unsung hero, soon
morphed into Rawlinson as buffoon, but it was a successful
book which encouraged scholars to look at warfare on
the Western Front in a more technological way.
Trevor and I were to write three more books
together – two on particular battles (the Somme and
Passchendaele) and a general short history of the war. We
were often asked how joint authorship worked, especially
when one of the authors was in Canberra (I eventually
got an academic post) and the other in Adelaide.
There is no great mystery here. Draft chapters were
written by one or the other of us and we would then
get together. The chapter would be read out loud and
criticisms and amendments would be made as we went.
Trevor tended to draft the political chapters and I
would concentrate on the more technical aspects of the
fighting. The chapters went through so many revisions
that in the end they were joint productions and better
books perhaps than we could have written on our own.
It is fitting in the 100th anniversary year of the
outbreak of the First World War that we acknowledge
that it was Trevor who pioneered Great War studies at
this university and created for it a worldwide reputation.
My own debt to him is obvious but there were a raft
of students who first became interested in the war as
a result of reading his books or taking his courses and
these were not just students based in Adelaide but
scattered all over the world.
It is not given to many to create a field of historical
enquiry. We should celebrate the fact that in Great War
studies it happened at Adelaide and that one of ours,
Trevor Wilson, was its presiding genius.
Professor Robin Prior
About the author
Professor Robin Prior is a University of Adelaide
Visiting Research Fellow in the School of History
and Politics and graduate of the University (BA
(Hons) 1975, PhD 1979). He is one of the leading
authorities, nationally and internationally, on the
history of warfare and is widely esteemed on the
world stage for his contribution in clarifying the
essential problems and failed endeavours of major
battles of the First World War. His recent work on
Gallipoli contributes to a deeper understanding of
war and society. His publications include Gallipoli:
The End of the Myth (2009), The Somme (2005, with
Trevor Wilson) and The First World War (1999).
|e University of Adelaide | Alumni Magazine 9
