Well-told story shows respect for Anzac chaplain

Review: The Man the Anzacs Revered

The name William McKenzie might be a familiar one to you.

McKenzie was a Salvation Army officer who ministered in some of Australia’s toughest mining and industrial towns around the beginning of the 20th century. With the outbreak of World War I, he was quick to volunteer to serve his country.

Despite McKenzie’s evangelistic zeal and preaching against the vices enjoyed by many of the soldiers, he soon became well known and loved by the men of the Australian Imperial Force, during their training camps in Egypt, on Gallipoli and then on the battlefields of France, as well as by many of the soldiers’ families back in Australia. On his return to Australia and for years after the war, McKenzie was mobbed by admirers wherever he went.

A new book by Daniel Reynaud goes much deeper into this remarkable story, the larger-than-life personality and the active faith of the most famous—but now almost forgotten—Anzac chaplain.

The Man the Anzacs Revered is a work of careful historical research and a good story, written with respect for McKenzie and an understanding of the faith that drove him. Reynaud is associate professor of history at Avondale College of Higher Education. He has been researching different aspects of the Anzac stories for many years, with a growing interest in the role of faith among those Australian and New Zealand soldiers.

Amid the strong interest in the Gallipoli centenary, The Man the Anzacs Revered is an important contribution to the discussions of what the Anzac mythology means, questioning some of the assumptions and offering another important story to our understanding of what it can mean to serve others and to serve God in even the most difficult of circumstances.