Last Post and other tributes: a category index

I watch the flag dancing half-way down the pole
That damn bugle player sends chills to my soul
I feel the pride and the sorrow - there’s nothing the same
As standing to attention on ANZAC Day

from "Sir" by Damien Morgan

"Lest We Forget"

Mourning a fallen comrade, August 1917

IWM Q 2756

Sub-category index

On 29 December 1922, Admiral Gilly, head of a French trade mission to Australia, presented to the Australian Prime Minister, Mr W M Hughes, on behalf of the French President, a bronze palm leaf tied with a tricolour sash. It was, Gilly said, at the public luncheon where he presented the palm, 'a tribute to the memory of Australia's fallen soldiers...a symbol of undestroyable remembrance to perpetuate the memory of the heroic children of a noble country who fought in the great war and met death on the battlefields'. The palm leaf and sash were transferred to the Australian War Museum in Melbourne on 3 January 1923 and placed on display the following day. Newspaper advertisements encouraged the public to come and see the French tribute.

Drum-major Sgt. ‘Mick’ Polley at ANZAC Shrine, Brisbane, 1952.

for Last Post

Last Post

The bugle call Last Post is inextricably part of the end of day traditions which include Beating the Retreat and Tattoo.

Retreat is the older custom dating back to the 16th Century and consisting of prolonged drum beating at sunset to warn the night guard to mount and also to give notice that the gates of the town walls were about to close.

This custom was also part of the end of day battle procedure when volleys were fired and a hymn played in honour of those who had fallen during the day.

At this time of evening the colour would be trooped. Today this latter activity is replaced by the lowering of the National Flag.

There is some confusion over the ‘post’ calls. It seems that the ‘First Post’ and 'Last Post' came into being in the early part of the 19th Century.

The ‘First Post’ was sounded as the orderly officer, the orderly sergeant and a drummer (with a bugle) started the Tattoo.

They then marched from post to post with the drummer beating his drum. Upon reaching the final post the drummer would sound the Last Post. (This is why drummers carry a bugle.) The Last Post was really the end of the day (a hard day’s fighting and a hard night’s drinking).

This bugle call has been passed down through the centuries in many countries of the world as an accompaniment to the impressive rites of a soldier’s farewell - the closing bars wail out their sad valediction to the departing warrior.

Reveille or The Rouse

The custom of waking soldiers to a bugle call dates back to the Roman Legions when the rank and file were raised by horns playing Diana’s Hymn. To this day the French term for Reveille is ‘La Diana’.

When bugle calls were officially introduced into the British System by George III, a special call was written for the waking of troops. This was known as Reveille meaning ‘to wake again’, from the old French. Joseph Hayden is generally regarded as the composer of the calls which exist substantially unchanged today.

On ANZAC Day, Reveille or The Rouse breaks the silence that follows the playing of the Last Post, symbolising the awakening of the dead in the next and better world. (The Rouse is the bugle call more commonly used in conjunction with the Last Post and to the layman is often incorrectly called Reveille. Although associated with the Last Post, Reveille is rarely used because of its length.)