Mont St Quentin history

Peter Stanley

The lives and deaths of a group of Australian soldiers who fought in the 1918 battle of Mont St Quentin are being researched by Dr Peter Stanley.

Peter is Director of the National Museum of Australia's Centre for Historical Research.

The book which results from this project will reflect his changing interests in Australian history.

In 2005, when Peter was Principal Historian at the Australian War Memorial, he signed a contract with Scribe Publications to write a book on the battle of Mont St Quentin.

As a 'military social historian', Peter would not have written a conventional military history.

Working at the National Museum in Canberra has changed the focus of the book from a study of the battle to the experiences of one small group of Australian soldiers who fought in France.

Peter is using the lives and deaths of the men of Nine Platoon, C Company, 21st Battalion, to explore the way the Great War affected Australia in the twentieth century.

Peter is tracing the lives of the survivors using family and pension records.

The book spans Australia's military and social history much more broadly, a reflection of Peter's past and future research interests.

In 2007, as well as continuing research on official and family records in Canberra and Melbourne, Peter travelled to France and Britain with the assistance of a grant from the Australian Department of Defence's Army History Unit.

On the Somme Peter traced Nine Platoon's steps, based on the survivors' detailed accounts of the battle. He learned more about Mont St Quentin than the documentary sources reveal.

Peter used official and private records in Britain to expand the picture he had gleaned from Australian documents.

Peter has been awarded a Visiting Fellowship in the Research School of Humanities at the Australian National University, which he will take up in 2008.