The Burke and Wills expedition departs on August 20, 1860. Photo: State Library of Victoria
THOSE who do not remember their history are condemned to repeat the same mistakes over and over.
Today, 149 years ago, Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills wrote themselves into Australian history when they set out to conquer the vast continent.
The Royal Society of Victoria will commemorate their ill-fated expedition with events over the sesquicentennial year and on the anniversary, including an environmental audit along the historic route.
But a casual observer could be forgiven for asking why anyone would want to remember - let alone commemorate - a disastrous outback expedition on which the main two leaders died unnecessarily because of a string of avoidable mistakes.
Yet like the misadventure at Gallipoli, the triumph and tragedy of the Burke and Wills saga seems to grow stronger as it recedes further into the past.
Both events were ill-conceived missions of questionable value, riddled with mistakes, involving venturing into unknown and poorly researched territory, achieving very little, costing too many lives and generating public outcry, scandal and investigations.
Yet both enjoy a tightening grip on the heart of the nation, which seems far more interested in losing itself in gallant historical failures than celebrating spectacular successes.
There is a very fine line between bravery and stupidity. And when high-profile heroes die through stupidity, official observers often mask their fatal mistakes by presenting their deaths as gallant, glorious even mythical, blinding present and future generations to the truth and tempting fate. (For successive generations could make the same mistakes, venturing foolishly into the vast waterless deserts of the Australian outback unprepared.)
By revisiting the harsh realities for each new generation we can separate truth from fiction and explode unfounded myths.
Any analysis will confirm the Burke and Wills expedition achieved much as well as failing miserably.
Commissioned by the Royal Society of Victoria to cross the continent from south to north, searching for usable land and water, the explorers set out from Royal Park on August 20, 1860.
Their leader Burke, 39, was a Beechworth police officer recently migrated from Ireland. He was single but in love with a 16-year-actor, Julia Matthews (to whom he had proposed in vain) who was performing in a comic drama at the Princess Theatre called Handy Andy.
His deputy Wills, 25, a recent migrant from Devon, was a surveyor at the Melbourne observatory.
In his colourful farewell speech covered by The Age (established just six years earlier), Burke proclaimed: "No expedition has ever started under such favourable circumstances at this".
''The people, the government, the committee all have done heartily what they could do. It is now our turn; and we shall never do well till we justify what you have done by showing you what we can do.''
Burke's party of 19 men comprised doctors, artists, geologists, naturalists, botanists, cooks and German scientists, Afghan camel drivers and Hindu ''sepoys'' (a word which originally meant Indians serving in British armed forces). Their wagons, horses, and camels were hopelessly overloaded with unnecessary supplies and took three slow months to reach Menindee, via Swan Hill.
On October 19, Burke - impatient to get to the next base at Cooper Creek - split up the party, hurrying ahead with 11 men. He appointed William Wright, who he met at the Menindee pub, to lead the support party with the main supplies.
The advance party reached Cooper Creek in three weeks but waited in vain for Wright who refused to leave Menindee as he had not been paid or received written confirmation from Royal Society of Victoria's Exploration Committee.
On December 16, the impatient Burke set off on "a dash for the gulf" leaving William Brahe in charge of Cooper Creek and asking him to wait just three months for their return, after which Burke and his party would be dead. Alarmed at such bravado, Wills secretly begged Brahe to wait four months.
With six camels and one horse, Burke set off with Wills, Charles Gray and John King, reaching the Gulf of Carpentaria on February 11 - two months into Burke's allocated three months. They promptly turned around and headed back south.
Exhausted having walked most of the way on reduced rations (they had shot and eaten the camels), Gray died. On April 21, four months and four days since setting out, Burke, Wills and King made it back to Cooper Creek. But just a few hours earlier, Brahe had left. He did, however, leave food buried in a trunk under a tree he marked ''DIG'', but the food did not last and by the end of June 1861 Wills and Burke died of malnutrition.
Brahe, having second thoughts, had returned not long after but because Burke had reburied the trunk (which had notes inside) without leaving a message on the tree, Brahe did not know he was dying nearby.
King befriended Aboriginal tribes who cared for him until he was rescued on September 15, returned to Melbourne where he told a disbelieving city the terrible truth.
There was, however, triumph amid the tragedy: Burke and Wills were the first explorers to cross the continent; they demonstrated great courage and physical endurance; Wills successfully navigated through vast uncharted deserts; they avoided attacks by Aborigines who had killed other explorers; their scientists took observations, collected samples, wrote journals and reports adding significantly to scientific knowledge; expedition artists recorded Aboriginal life and they opened up the outback for pastoral use.
Conversely the Royal Society of Victoria's exploration committee had selected the wrong man for the job as Burke had never left the settled districts; could not navigate by day nor get directions from the Southern Cross by night; never kept a regular journal, failed to put orders in writing or leave messages; split up his party; appointed unknown deputies; underestimated the time to Cooper Creek and back and the necessary supplies; failed to find bush tucker, catch fish, shoot game or accept supplies offered by kind Aborigines who he shot at.
IT MAY all sound unworthy of such mythical heroes but remembering the explorers for the right reasons will benefit new generations.
We can learn from the mistakes we have made exploiting that usable land and water discovered by Burke and Wills. Which is why the Royal Society of Victoria is planning an Environmental Expedition under the patronage of Jack Thompson, who played Burke in the 1985 film Burke & Wills. It will be along the 1860 track to report on and recommend remedies for damage inflicted over the past 150 years.
Working with indigenous rangers, environmentalists and volunteers, this expedition will investigate and highlight over-grazing, salination, erosion, exhausted and/or contaminated water sources, feral weeds and camels, cane toads etc.
These issues are as pressing today as exploration was in 1860 and the RSV believes this is an appropriate way of remembering Burke and Wills, honouring the indigenous supporters and the fragile outback.
Supported in principle by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, relevant state premiers and the Australian Conservation Foundation, the expedition will be a timely opportunity to put something back after 150 years of mistakes.
Historian and RSV member, Dr Jonathan King, who organised 1988 First Fleet Re-enactment Expedition, is organising the Environmental Expedition and welcomes inquiries: firstname.lastname@example.org or (03) 96635259