by Frank Crozier

Depicts a camel with a cacolet on his back which is used for carrying sick or wounded men, being led by an Arab on foot. Henry Gullet stated 'It would be scarcely possible to devise a more acute torture for a man with mutilated limbs than this hideous form of ambulance transport'. Crozier was in Egypt in 1916 as well as spending times there in 1917 and 1918. Several soldiers and Arabs can be seen standing in the background in front of tents. Frank Rossitor Crozier was a painter and illustrator. Born in Maryborough, Victoria he studied at the National Gallery School, Victoria from 1905-1907, winning prizes for landscape and drawing. He worked initially as a decorator and clerk before enlisting in the 22nd battalion, AIF in March 1915. He served in Egypt, at Gallipoli, where he contributed to the ANZAC Book , and in France where he was attached to the 1st Anzac Corp Topographical Section in 1917. In France he served under Brigadier-General Gellibrand who asked Crozier to make sketches of the Battle of Pozieres. He was appointed official war artist in September 1918. Like fellow official war artist Will Dyson, Crozier often painted the human dimension of warfare. Following the First World War he became the first combatant AIF artist to be appointed to War Records Section in London. Returning to Australian in 1919 his commission was terminated the following year. He undertook further studies in England and the United States from 1923-24 and exhibited with the Royal Academy in London. In 1936 he was appointed an artist to the War Memorial for a period of six months and during the Second World War worked in a munitions factory in Victoria. He died in Victoria in 1948.