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World War One historyVictoria’s story

WORLD WAR ONE HISTORY 2

LEST WE FORGET 2

AUSTRALIA & WORLD WAR ONE 3

VICTORIA & WORLD WAR ONE 3

SOME PROMINENT VICTORIANS 4

ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS 6

CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE COMMUNITIES 9

WOMEN IN THE WAR 10

SIGNIFICANT DATES 12

STATISTICS 17

KEY BATTLES 18

ARMISTICE 29

LETTERS & DIARIES 29

World War One historyWorld War One (WWI) was one of the most significant events of the twentieth century, claiming the lives of more than 16 million people across the globe.

WWI remains the greatest cause of casualties in Australia’s history. In 1914, Australia had a population of just under 5 million. Around 416,800 Australians enlisted to serve in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). More than 60,000 were killed, and approximately 156,000 were badly wounded or taken prisoner.

Victoria had a population of approximately 1.45 million in 1914, and as many as 112,400 Victorians enlisted to serve with the AIF. Of this number, it is estimated around 19,000 Victorians were killed in action or later died from their wounds.

Even now, 100 years on, Victorians of many backgrounds are connected to WWI through their family histories, the heritage of their local communities and the lasting impact it left on generations of Australians. Our cultural diversity means that the families of many who now call Victoria home experienced the conflict with similar devastation in other places around the world.

This booklet is designed to give you a glimpse into the events of WWI and share some of Victoria’s stories.

Lest We Forget“The battles of the Great War have become well known; from the tales of dry air and dust that enveloped our soldiers at Gallipoli, to the cold, muddy horrors of Fromelles and other small towns dotted along the Western Front where the long battle for peace played out.”

“When war broke out in August 1914, many thought it would be over in a matter of months. However, it was soon obvious that the Great War was gaining momentum and would not be resolved quickly. The ensuing years left their mark on almost every country around the world.”

The Hon Daniel Andrews MPPremier of Victoria

The Hon John Eren MPMinister for Veterans

Australia & World War OneWhen war was declared by Britain on 4 August 1914, Australia was in the middle of a national election campaign.

Both leaders promised that Australia would support Britain in the war. Supporting the initial pledge of 20,000 men, the new government watched an extraordinary rush to enlist all around the country and soon promised an increase in the expeditionary force to take the total to 50,000 men. The recruits were enthusiastically received in their various marches and parades in each of the capital cities. Large crowds gathered to say farewell as the first troopships departed Australian shores.

The Anzacs’ bravery and determination at the landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915 captured the imagination of the Australian public as no other event in Australian history had ever done. Enthusiasm for the war continued, even though the Anzacs were evacuated from Gallipoli in December 1915, leaving more than 8,000 Australians in lonely graves.

The events at Gallipoli provoked a rush of Australian recruits to the AIF and ultimately around 320,000 Australians, including a significant number of Aboriginal Australians, would serve overseas in the war – an extraordinary contribution from a nation of less than 5 million people. Australian women also responded generously to the call, either by serving overseas or by supporting the war effort at home.

After re-training and refreshment in Egypt, and with the expansion of the AIF to accommodate the huge number of new recruits, the Australians set off for France and the Western Front. On arrival they received an enthusiastic reception from the French, who were amazed men would travel from the ends of the earth to help France in its greatest crisis.

Australia suffered huge losses in 1916 and 1917, which dwarfed the casualties experienced at Gallipoli. The numbers of recruits dwindled in Australia from early 1917 onwards, possibly because there were few men left with the capacity to enlist. The work of the nation in factories, offices, schools, shops and on farms had to be continued somehow. Yet war patriots began to think that every man in the right age group should be at war. They demanded that the government introduce conscription to bolster reinforcements. The Commonwealth Government introduced two plebiscites, one in 1916 and one in 1917. Both were defeated.

By 1918, the AIF was at the height of its fighting powers: experienced, grimly determined and well led by its own Australian commanders. Though savagely reduced in numbers, the AIF battalions won some remarkable victories in 1918 at Villers-Bretonneux, Hamel, Mont Saint-Quentin, Peronne and in the Battle of Amiens. Exhausted, the Australians were withdrawn from fighting on the Western Front in October, after months of continuous action.

Victoria & World War OneSince Federation in 1901, when Australia became one nation, Melbourne had been the seat of the Australian Federal Government.

The most populous, the grandest, the most dignified of the colonial capitals and now the national centre, Victorians took pride in the status of their capital city.

War would focus even greater attention on Melbourne: Federal Parliament sat there and the Governor-General and the Prime Minister resided there. The major government departments, including the Department of Defence, were in Melbourne and the headquarters of the military was Victoria Barracks on St Kilda Road.

Shortly after the declaration of war, a major public meeting was held at the Melbourne Town Hall to garner support for the war and to encourage men to enlist. The meeting was packed with enthusiastic men and women carrying Union Jack flags. Organ music played, anthems were sung, and the Premier Sir Alexander Peacock addressed the crowd: “When the day came that the British Empire would be endangered, its children in the far-out dependencies would be prepared with any sacrifices for Empire and peace.”

In October 1914, Victoria’s first convoy of WWI left from Port Melbourne. This convoy, carrying troops, nurses, horses and supplies, was so large that all three piers at Port Melbourne were used. There was an air of secrecy surrounding the departure of the first convoy due to German raiders patrolling the Pacific Ocean. However, anxious friends and relatives got wind of the news and descended on the port to catch a glimpse of their loved ones before they departed.

These well-wishers were not allowed onto the piers, but the crowd eventually grew so large that it overwhelmed the guards and swarmed onto the pier. Strains of the national anthem rose up and streamers sailed through the sky.

Later, with the growing list of Australian casualties, hospital ships carrying wounded servicemen began arriving back at Port Melbourne where the mood was now sombre. When returning troopships were expected, the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria asked motorists to drive to the pier and help transport wounded soldiers to the military depot in Sturt Street, South Melbourne.

Victoria was at the centre of the WWI activity in Australia in other ways too:

The first shot of WWI in the British Empire was fired from Victoria’s Fort Nepean to halt the German ship SS Pfalz, which was attempting to flee Australian waters.

One of the first members of the Australian forces killed in the war at Bita Paka (see page 23) was Able Seaman Billy Williams, a resident of the Melbourne suburb of Northcote and a former employee of the City of Melbourne.

Some prominent VictoriansThe approximately 112,400 Victorians who served with the AIF in WWI would exceed the total seating capacity of the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the Boxing Day Test. Among the many brave men and women who served in the war were five great Victorians.

Sir John MonashJohn Monash was given command of the 4th Infantry Brigade when it was formed in Broadmeadows in September 1914. Monash proved himself an inspired and excellent trainer of men. It was his privilege and good fortune to be given command of the newly formed Australian Corps in June 1918, when for the first time all the Australian divisions came together to form a national unit. Monash took over just as the Australian troops had reached their peak of efficiency and experience.

Monash believed that his Australian troops would fight best if they knew the outline of the battle and what was required of each individual unit. He had large terrain maps constructed on the ground so that men could see every feature of the land across which they would fight.

He insisted that the troops train with the tanks that would support them until, for the first time, both infantry and tanks had great confidence in each other. He called in aircraft to assess the progress of the battle. He also used aircraft to resupply the troops with ammunition from the air, solving one of the great hazards of fighting on the Western Front – how to keep ammunition supplied to the troops in battle.

When John Monash died at home in Toorak on 8 October 1931 he was just 66 years of age. More than 300,000 people lined the streets of Melbourne to witness the passing of his funeral cortège and to farewell one of the best-known Victorians.

Albert Jacka‘Shy’ is the word that most have used to describe Bert Jacka, whose remarkable actions earned him Australia’s first Victoria Cross in WWI. Bert was born in 1893 at Layard near Winchelsea in south-west Victoria. He later lived in Wedderburn, north-west of Bendigo. Two of his brothers, Sydney and William, would also serve in the AIF.

Bert was in the Victorian 14th Battalion. On 20 May 1915, at about 3.30am, the Turks charged Courtney’s Post. A party of them, throwing bombs as they came, jumped into a section of the trench that Bert was defending. Bert was standing in the fire-step, which was cut into the front of the trench, and was not wounded by the explosions. He stood at his post firing into the back wall of the trench to stop the Turks from coming on.

It was disastrous that the enemy was now in possession of a portion of the Australian line. Bert held up the Turkish advance alone for 15 minutes before he jumped out into no-man’s-land and, from there, back into the trench the Turks now occupied. Bert engaged in close-quarters fighting in the trench. He then waited for the dawn, holding the trench line entirely on his own. This was one of the most remarkable actions of the entire campaign at Anzac Cove, and, for this, Bert received the Victoria Cross.

In France, he was equally as gallant – some say he might have been awarded the Victoria Cross twice more. He emerged from the war as Captain Albert Jacka, VC, MC and Bar. He died in 1932, at 39 years of age.

Harold Edward ElliottHarold Edward Elliott, known to all, to his regret, as ‘Pompey’, was born at West Charlton in central Victoria in 1878. Pompey simply loved soldiering. He had fought in South Africa, continued in the militia after that war, and in August 1914 he was back in the thick of it, first appointed to command Victoria’s 7th Battalion.

After hearing that his 15th Brigade would be one of the three Australian brigades to attack at Fromelles, Pompey was appalled.

First, the attack would commence in broad daylight. Second, the attackers would be pushing up into the higher ground, running directly into massed German machine guns, able to fire down onto them before they were anywhere near the enemy’s trenches. Third, the Germans were very well dug in indeed, and would be sheltering in their concrete bunkers, ready to re-emerge as the infantry came through, and free to employ their massive machine-gun superiority. It was madness, Pompey raged, suicidal. But the attack went ahead.

Fromelles represented a sickening loss of life. The 57th Battalion came off relatively lightly. The 58th lost one third of its strength at Fromelles, the 59th suffered heavy losses, and with 757 casualties the 60th Battalion was virtually wiped out. Pompey stood in the frontline shaking the hand of each of the returning survivors, tears streaming down his cheeks. Charles Bean, Australia’s official war correspondent, said of Pompey that he looked like a man who had lost his wife, so great was his affection for his men.

Sadly, Pompey took his own life in 1931 at 52 years of age.

Vera Deakin WhiteVera Deakin White was the youngest daughter of Alfred Deakin, an early Prime Minister of Australia, and was brought up and educated in Melbourne. She visited Europe just before the outbreak of war to study music in Berlin and Budapest.

Vera established the Australian Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau in October 1915, having left Australia to take up an opportunity for war work with the Red Cross in Cairo. The Bureau assisted families in tracing Australian soldiers in the confusion and loss of communications that occurred after the Gallipoli campaign. As Australian soldiers moved to the Western Front, Vera took the activities of the Bureau to London.

The work with the Bureau was not easy. The focus of the army was naturally on the current campaigns, and Vera developed considerable skill in managing competing priorities to achieve outcomes for the relatives of soldiers. The Bureau was responsible for more than 25,000 answers to inquiries from relations in one year alone. Vera reactivated the Bureau during World War Two.

In 1917, Vera was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire. In the same year she met a young officer, Thomas White, who had recently escaped from Turkey where he had been a prisoner of war. They married in Toorak in 1920.

Vera worked for many significant philanthropic projects, although her main commitment was always to the work of the Red Cross, founded in 1914 in Melbourne. She was described as someone who always maintained a sense of moral commitment, was a capable organiser, an eloquent speaker and was strict but gentle.

Cyril Brudenell WhiteBorn at St Arnaud in central Victoria in 1876, Cyril White worked as a banker before becoming a professional soldier, first in the Queensland colonial forces and then with the Commonwealth forces after Federation. At the outbreak of WWI, White was appointed chief of staff to General Bridges, the commander of the Australian contingent.

After the death of General Bridges at Gallipoli, White began his long association with the British commander of the Australian forces, General William Birdwood. White was largely responsible for the evacuation plans of Gallipoli – the most successful operation of the campaign.

In France, White was crucial to the operation and success of the Australian forces. White developed the administrative efficiency of the corps, and was responsible for all the behind-the-scenes work. Only a few knew of his vital contribution.

White continued to serve Australia after the war, though he was happiest on his grazing property near Buangor in Victoria’s western district. Recalled to the army as Chief of the General Staff in 1940, he was killed in the Canberra air disaster in August of that year. He left a legacy of remarkable devotion to duty.

Aboriginal AustraliansWhen WWI was declared in Australia, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians enlisted for service. It is estimated that at least 1,000 Aboriginal Australians served in WWI.

At enlistment camps, Aboriginal Australians stood side by side with other Australians to answer the call of duty. They fought together with their mates in the trenches, they suffered the hardships of war, and their families and communities grieved those who did not come home. It is sobering to realise that it was not until 1967 that Aboriginal Australians were officially recognised as Australian citizens.

Until recently, the contribution of Aboriginal Australians in the defence of Australia has not been well recognised. It is only since 2006 that the Victorian Indigenous Remembrance Service has been held annually at the Shrine of Remembrance, recognising the contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to the defence of Australia.

The Victorian Indigenous Remembrance Service was initiated by Aunty Dot Peters, a Wurundjeri Elder, who wanted to recognise the service of her father who died on the Burma Railway in WWII, and

to commemorate the service of all those Aboriginal service men and women who have served in the Australian Defence Force.

The story of Aboriginal service is not well documented. The history is gradually being pieced together by Aboriginal Australians, and by a number of non-Aboriginal people who have committed themselves to researching and documenting the story.

The Anzac Centenary provides an opportunity for local communities to research local stories, and to recognise the contribution of Aboriginal people from their community to the war effort.

Information can be found on the Shrine of Remembrance website (www.shrine.org.au) or download the iBook of the exhibition Indigenous Australians at war – from the Boer War to the present.

You can also research Aboriginal Australians’ service history in your area by exploring military records and by making contact with Aboriginal people in your local community. If you have a story of someone involved in WWI you would like to share, please visit the Anzac Centenary website (www.anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au).

The Lovett brothersAn example of Aboriginal Australians’ WWI history that has been shared is found in the story of the Lovett brothers. Their unique family story has come to symbolise the contribution that thousands of Aboriginal men and women have made to the defence of Australia, even while they were denied citizenship rights.

The Lovett brothers, who came from the western district of Victoria, occupy a special place in WWI history. Alfred, Leonard, Frederick, Edward and Herbert were the sons of James Lovett, an Aboriginal man from South Australia, and Hannah, a descendant of the Kerrup-Jmara clan of the Gunditjmara nation in western Victoria.

As a child, Hannah, her mother, and her brother were among the first Aboriginal people at Lake Condah Mission after it was established in 1862. Hannah went on to have 13 children, among them five boys who would enlist to fight in WWI.

Against the odds, all five brothers returned home safely. Although WWI had been an equaliser of men – racism had no place in the trenches – little had changed in civilian life. After the closure of Lake Condah Mission in 1919 the Lovett family made a living in the surrounding district.

Four of the five brothers re-enlisted during WWII, however, due to their age they served within Australia. Their younger brother, Samuel, and several other family members also served in Australia and overseas. All returned unharmed, as has every member of the Lovett family who has served in the Australian Armed Forces – 21 men and women in total.

Alfred John Henry Lovett (1880 – 1962)Private Alfred Lovett enlisted on 29 July 1915, just before his 36th birthday. After training in the Middle East from October 1915 to March 1916, he fought with the 26th Battalion. He later transferred to the 12th Battalion.

Alfred participated in the battle of the Somme in France, including the battles for Pozières and Mouquet Farm. He returned to Australia in March 1918 and was discharged in June that same year.

As a civilian, Alfred worked as a horse breaker and trainer near Casterton. He was also a well-known jockey. He married Sarah Spring, from Hamilton, with whom he had two sons. They ran a farm in the region. As the eldest brother, Alfred was ineligible to enlist in WWII due to his age.

Leonard Charles Lovett (1884 – 1951)Leonard Lovett, commonly known as Charlie, enlisted on 27 May 1916, and served as a Private in the 39th Battalion of the 3rd Division. He fought on the Western Front, including significant campaigns at Passchendaele in 1917 and Amiens in 1918. He returned to Australia in 1919.

Many people were surprised to discover that Leonard spoke fluent German. It is thought that he picked up the language while working around Tarrington, near Hamilton, which was settled by German-speaking pioneers.

Among his occupations, Leonard worked as a drover. He married Elsie Maude Clark, and together they had seven children. Leonard re-enlisted during WWII. Between 1941–42, he was stationed in Australia as a Private with the 3rd Garrison Battalion. His daughter Alice served with the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force in WWII and his son, also named Leonard Charles, served in the Korean War. His grandson Mervyn served in the Vietnam War.

Frederick Amos Lovett (1887 – 1958)Frederick Lovett enlisted on 13 May 1917. He was a Private in the 29th Reinforcements of the 4th Light Horse Regiment and fought in Palestine. He was discharged on 15 June 1919.

He married Mary Murray Rose and together they had 11 children. Frederick worked as a labourer for many years. He re-enlisted in March 1942. He was a Corporal and served in the Australian Army Catering Corps as a cook. He was discharged from the army in July 1947 at the age of 60.

Frederick’s grandson, Sergeant Ricky Morris, has recently served in the army with the International Force for East Timor and in Afghanistan.

Edward McDonald Lovett (1893 – 1957)Edward Lovett enlisted on 17 August 1915. He was a Trooper with the 4th Light Horse Regiment and the 13th Light Horse Regiment that patrolled the Western Front. He returned to Australia in May 1919.

A single labourer when he joined, Edward married Rose Ann Heron before he shipped out in 1915. The couple had two children, and ran a billiards hall and pub in Hamilton. Edward also worked as a labourer.

Edward re-enlisted in 1940 and served as a Corporal at the number 12 Garrison Battalion until 1943. Edward’s daughter Sarah Pearl served in the Australian Women’s Army Service during WWII.

Herbert Stahle Lovett (1898 – 1976)Herbert Lovett, the youngest of the brothers to serve in WWI, enlisted in 1917. As he was only 19 years old, his parents were required to give special permission for him to join. He fought on the Western Front as a Private in the 15th Machine Gun Company and participated in the attack that broke the Hindenburg Line in 1918 – the last and strongest of the German Army’s defence. He was discharged in July 1919.

Herbert married Emma Foster from Harrow in 1926 and went on to have six children. Herbert was musically gifted and played the organ at Lake Condah’s church. He was also the choirmaster and worked in the timber industry.

In August 1940, Herbert re-enlisted as a Private. He served as a cook in the Australian Army Canteen Corps and was discharged in October 1945.

The Lovett brothers are the first family group to be inducted to the Victorian Indigenous Honour Roll.

Culturally and Linguistically Diverse CommunitiesA world war spans many countries and continents, with battles fought in multiple theatres or combat zones.

By its very nature, WWI engulfed most countries in the world, impacting on relationships between countries, on the world economy, on national identity and on imperial power (four major powers – the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires – ceased to exist after WWI).

In 1914, the Indian Army was the largest volunteer army in the world. There were three battalions of Ghurkas and one of Sikhs at Gallipoli. Ottoman losses in the war (all causes) may have been as much as 25 per cent of the population. Serbia lost more than 50 per cent of its male population and, for a time, ceased to exist as a nation.

Australia in 1914 was still largely a country dominated by its links to Great Britain, although it already had a significant incidence of migration – particularly during the Gold Rush – of people from China, Canada, the USA and Europe. Victorians constituted about 18 per cent of Australia’s population in 1851. By 1856, this had increased to just under 47 per cent, predominantly as a result of the discovery of gold.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Victoria’s Jewish community was only around 3,000 people and many were enthusiastic to defend Australia: approximately 13 per cent of Victoria’s Jewish population enlisted to serve their country in WWI. Many of these men were killed during the war years.

Even those countries who adopted a position of neutrality – including Afghanistan, Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Venezuela – were affected by the war.

One hundred years on, we embrace the fact that Australians and Victorians trace their ancestry to every country in the world, and that today approximately 46 per cent of Victorians were born overseas or have at least one parent who was born overseas. Many countries have their own WWI stories – we now have the opportunity to share them as they have become our history and our stories too.

Women in the WarAs thousands of Victorian men departed Australia to fight overseas, women were left to take over the jobs of men away at war, which until then had been off-limits due to gender employment barriers.

“Every night there are two or three deaths, sometimes five or six; it’s just awful flying from one ward into another … each night is a nightmare, the patients’ faces all look

so pale with the flickering ship’s lights.”

— Sister Ella Tucker in Jan Bassett’s Guns and Brooches 1919.

Victorian women helped in whatever way they could while they waited for news of their loved ones. Lady Helen Munro Ferguson, wife of the then Governor-General, founded the Australian branch of the Red Cross at Government House Melbourne. In Victoria, women formed the greatest number of Red Cross branches in Australia. Members set to work raising money, preparing medical supplies and essentials such as clothing. Women also worked to send out thousands of packages containing small comforts such as soap, tobacco and non-perishable foods to men fighting overseas. So huge was the enterprise these women created and managed that the Governor-General for the rest of the war surrendered his grand ballroom, his sitting-room and occasionally his dining room to accommodate the range and amount of goods that were flowing in. This work continued throughout all the years of WWI.

An example of the huge amount of work produced by Victorian Red Cross branches comes from a tally recorded by the Red Cross Society of Rutherglen. By the end of WWI, members of that branch alone had forwarded to soldiers abroad:

8,512 pairs of underpants

2,405 pairs of socks

1,233 shirts

1,233 pairs of pyjamas

76 sheets

776 pillow cases.

Thousands of Australian women contributed to the war effort through nursing. Many military hospitals were set up across the nation for wounded and recovering returned soldiers. During the war Australian nurses served overseas in places as diverse as Egypt, England, France, Italy, Burma, Greece and India, treating patients of many nations and languages. Australian nurses witnessed first-hand the horrors of WWI. They faced many challenges, including staff shortages, exposure to disease and inadequate supplies of food, fresh water and medical equipment. Nurses often worked from makeshift hospitals which were dangerously close to battlefields, exposing them to shelling and aerial bombardment. During a bombing raid in August 1917, Australian nurse Sister Alicia Kelly shielded her patients’ heads with enamel wash basins and bedpans. The ratio of wounded soldiers to nurses often meant they were required to work around the clock. On one day during the Gallipoli battles, 557 patients on board a hospital ship were tended by seven nurses: “Convoy arrived, about 400 – no equipment whatever – just laid the men on the ground and gave them a drink ... they are shattered and [we] have nothing to give them – no comfort whatever. All we can do is feed them and dress their wounds.” – Matron Grace Wilson.

Of course, the biggest challenge for nurses was treating their patients who suffered from the appalling injuries and sights they had endured:

“Every night there are two or three deaths, sometimes five or six; it’s just awful flying from one ward into another … each night is a nightmare, the patients’ faces all look so pale with the flickering ship’s lights.” – Sister Ella Tucker in Jan Bassett’s Guns and Brooches 1919.

While soldiers and nurses hold a prominent place in history for their contribution to World War One, many other occupations were represented both on and off the battlefields, all with an important role to play. These included:

Australian Army Medical Corps

Dentists

Stretcher bearers

Voluntary Aid Detachment workers

Veterinarians

Red Cross personnel

Catering Corps

Runners and message carriers, including pigeon handlers

Chaplains

Journalists.

Significant Dates191428 June Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo.

30 July The Australian Governor-General receives a message from London about the approaching war, but officials fail to understand its significance.

31 July Labor leader Andrew Fisher pledges in Colac, Victoria, that ‘Australians will stand beside our own to help and defend her to our last man and our last shilling’.

3 August A Cabinet meeting is held in Melbourne to consider the situation in Europe. Ministers agree that a force of 20,000 Australian soldiers will be raised in the event of war.

4 August Great Britain declares war on the German Empire & Allies at 11.00pm GMT (5 August 9.00am AEST).

5 August German vessel SS Pfalz is prevented from leaving Port Phillip Bay by a shot fired from Fort Nepean – considered by many to be the first WWI shot fired in the British Empire.

13 August The first Australian branch of the British Red Cross Society is established in Melbourne.

19 August Broadmeadows Military Camp opens on the outskirts of Melbourne. The first recruits march in from Victoria Barracks.

5 September Andrew Fisher’s Labor Party wins a 10-seat majority in the Federal election. William Morris Hughes becomes the Federal Attorney-General.

11 September Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force lands at Rabaul in New Guinea and six days later takes possession of what was then German New Guinea.

11 September The first engagement of Australian forces in WWI begins at the Battle of Bita Paka. During the battle, the Australian forces suffer one of their first casualties with the death of Able Seaman Billy Williams, a former City of Melbourne employee from Northcote, Melbourne.

18 October The first Victorian convoy begins departing from the Port of Melbourne to join the first Australian convoy at Albany. All the troopships are warmly farewelled by large crowds of well-wishers.

1 November The first Australian and New Zealand convoy of 38 ships – 28 from Australia and 10 from New Zealand – and the four escorting cruisers HMAS Sydney, HMAS Melbourne, HMS Minotaur and the Japanese cruiser Ibuki – leave Albany, Western Australia.

9 November HMAS Sydney leaves the troopship convoy and engages with the German raider Emden near the Cocos Islands. After a savage battle, the captain of HMAS Sydney

cables to defence headquarters: ‘Emden beached and done for’.

3 December Australian troops begin disembarking at Alexandria, Egypt to begin training in the desert.

191518 March After earlier naval action in the Dardanelles in November 1914 and February

1915, British and French warships enter the Dardanelles again and are subjected to heavy shore-based fire and mines. Three ships are sunk and three disabled, and 700 lives are lost. The British and French discontinue the action.

20 April More than 200 ships assemble at the harbour of Mudros on the island of Lemnos in preparation for the invasion of Turkey.

25 April Australian and New Zealand troops arrive at what will soon be known as Anzac Cove and move inland; they fail to reach the high ground and suffer significant losses. British troops land at Cape Helles with large loss of life and French troops land at Kum Kale.

6 May Anzac troops enter the Battle of Krithia after initial lack of success from British forces. Australia suffers 1,056 casualties and New Zealand suffers 771 casualties for no gain.

19 May Albert Jacka, born in Winchelsea, Victoria, becomes the first Australian to be awarded the Victoria Cross in WWI for fighting at Courtney’s Post. Upon the news, there is widespread rejoicing in Victoria.

1 June There is heavy recruiting throughout Australia as men pledge to replace those already lost at Anzac Cove. In Victoria, 21,698 men soon enlist in the AIF.

6–9 August At the Battle of Lone Pine, fierce fighting, largely hand-to-hand combat, sees seven Australians awarded the Victoria Cross. Four of these recipients are Victorians.

7 August Australian Light Horse regiments charge the Turkish lines at the Nek with heavy loss of life.

10 August The first party of wounded soldiers from Gallipoli arrives in Melbourne aboard hospital ships. They parade through the streets of Melbourne before enormous crowds of well-wishers and are then taken to the new Caulfield Military Hospital.

21 September A meeting in the Melbourne Town Hall agrees to the formation of a Universal Service League to agitate for the introduction of conscription in Australia.

27 October Andrew Fisher resigns as Prime Minister of Australia for health reasons and is appointed Australian High Commissioner in London. He is replaced by William Morris Hughes.

31 October General Sir Charles Monro advises a complete withdrawal from Gallipoli. A disappointed Churchill responds with the comment: ‘I came, I saw, I capitulated’.

7 December The British Government finally gives its approval for the evacuation of Gallipoli.

15 December Prime Minister Hughes issues his emotive ‘Call to Arms’, inviting every eligible

Australian to say if they were prepared to enlist and if not, explain why.

19 December The last Anzac troops evacuate for Lemnos, bringing an end to the campaign at Anzac Cove.

19161 January Anzac veterans return to their camps in Egypt where large numbers of new

Australian troops are massing.

20 January Prime Minister Hughes departs Australia for consultations in New Zealand, Canada and England.

13 March The Australian 2nd Division departs from Egypt for France, and begins arriving at Marseilles on the afternoon of 19 March.

25 April The inaugural ANZAC Day commemorations are held by the veterans in their battalions, at Westminster Abbey in London and at various church services in Australia. More than 2,000 Australians and New Zealanders march through London.

28 June Australian battalions move into the frontline on the Western Front.

1 July The Battle of the Somme at Pozières begins. The British suffer shocking casualties.

19 July During the Battle of Fromelles, Australia has more than 5,500 casualties in 24 hours for no gain.

23 July The Australians enter the Battle of the Somme. In fighting there and at nearby Mouquet Farm, three Australian divisions have more than 23,000 casualties.

3–5 August Australian Light Horse engages in the battle of Romani, the last ground attack by the Turkish on the Suez Canal. The attackers are driven off and are pursued by the Light Horse over the next few days.

8 August Prime Minister Hughes returns to Melbourne and is warmly welcomed by large crowds. All expect him to accept the inevitability of the introduction of conscription.

30 August Prime Minister Hughes announces that a plebiscite will be held on 28 October asking voters to consider whether Australians should be conscripted for service overseas.

16 September Melbourne’s Catholic Archbishop Mannix gives a short address telling his audience why he will vote against conscription.

29 September The Governor-General issues a call-up notice to all single men between the ages of 21 and 35 in anticipation that voters will agree to the introduction of conscription.

28 October Australians vote ‘no’ to conscription by a small margin; Victorians vote ‘yes’, along with Tasmania and Western Australia. The majority for ‘yes’ in Victoria is 25,714 votes of a total of 682,000 votes cast.

1 December Australian troops endure an appalling winter, with many stationed at Flers, France.

23 December The Anzac Mounted Division attacks an entrenched Turkish garrison in the Battle of Magdhaba. The garrison withdraws.

19179 January A mixed force of Australian and New Zealand Light Horsemen attack Turkish

positions at Rafa, removing the last Turkish presence in Sinai.

23 February Germans withdraw to the Hindenburg Line, a massive defensive position along the Western Front.

2 March Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, abdicates.

6 April The USA declares war on Germany.

10 April The first Battle of Bullecourt begins. The plan for the attack exposes the AIF to severe German fire without support from its own artillery. The Australians lose 3,000 men. As many as 1,170 Australians are taken prisoner.

3 May The second Battle of Bullecourt begins. Better co-ordination of the battle leads to the capture of the village of Bullecourt, but for little strategic advantage. The Australians lose 7,000 men.

5 May Australia holds its most bitterly fought federal election. Hughes’s Nationalist Government is easily returned with a 31-seat majority.

7 June During the Battle of Messines, involving two Australian divisions, troops capture Messines Ridge. The 3rd Australian Division loses 4,100 men and the 4th 2,700 men.

31 July The third Battle of Ypres begins. In a series of water-logged battles in Belgium around Ypres and Passchendaele, Australian casualties soar. Four Australian divisions lose a total of more than 11,000 men in less than two weeks of fighting. For the Australians, 1917 is the worst year of the war.

1 September Only 2,460 men enlist throughout the whole of Australia – the lowest monthly total in the war so far. Recruiting has effectively collapsed.

31 October The 4th Light Horse Brigade charges at Beersheba. It is later described as the ‘last great cavalry charge in history’.

6 November Following the victory at Beersheba, Turkish forces withdraw.

7 November Prime Minister Hughes announces a second conscription plebiscite to be held.

15 December Russia signs an armistice with Germany.

20 December The second conscription plebiscite is held. The government’s proposal is again defeated with a stronger, though still small, ‘no’ majority. This time, Victoria votes ‘no’ with a slight majority of 2,718 votes.

191810 January Governor-General recommissions Prime Minister Hughes to form a new

government, despite his pledge that he would not be able to govern if conscription was defeated.

3 March At Brest-Litovsk, Russian Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky signs a peace treaty with Germany.

30 March The Australians repel a German attack at the Battle of Dernancourt, but the village is later lost by British troops.

11 April British General Douglas Haig issues his famous communiqué ‘to all ranks of the British Army’: ‘with our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each one of us must fight on to the end’.

24 April The Australians attack at Villers-Bretonneux, which is a crucial position on the road to Amiens and vital to the defence of Paris. They play a critical role in halting the German advance.

26 April Prime Minister Hughes leaves Australia for Britain.

31 May Victorian General John Monash is appointed Commander of the Australian Corps and promoted to Lieutenant-General. This is the first time an Australian has commanded the Australians on the Western Front.

4 July At the Battle of Hamel, Monash’s brilliant set-piece battle is played out, which engages all arms of service, even employing aircraft to resupply the troops.

8 August The Battle of Amiens begins.

2 September The 2nd Australian Division captures Mont Saint-Quentin in a brilliant and aggressive attack. The Germans have no choice but to retreat to the Hindenburg Line.

17 September Prime Minister Hughes announces in London the granting of ‘Anzac leave’ to men who had enlisted in Australia in 1914. Those granted leave would be withdrawn from the fighting line immediately and would have a three-month furlough in Australia, returning to the war in time for the anticipated spring offensive of 1919.

26 September The Australians begin their attack on the Saint-Quentin canal and Hindenburg Line defences.

29 September The 5th Australian Division captures Bellicourt.

5 October The last Australian infantry action of the war on the Western Front takes place at Montbrehain. With its capture, the Hindenburg Line is broken. The Australian Corps is withdrawn to rest.

26 October Mounted units capture Aleppo as the Turkish retreat.

11 November Armistice is signed by Germany.

11 November At around 9.00pm, news of the armistice is received in Melbourne. Victoria erupts in a demonstration of joy and happiness, tinged with mourning for the 19,000 Victorians among the more than 60,000 Australians who have been killed

overseas.

12 November A public holiday is declared for Victoria to celebrate victory.

1 December Members of the AIF begin to return to Melbourne on Anzac leave and are met joyously in the city, in their homes and in their communities.

StatisticsAustralia Population of Australia in 1914: 4.9 million – Aboriginal Australians were not included in the

census

Australians enlisted in the AIF: approximately 416,800 – 38.7 per cent of the Australian male population aged between 18 and 44

Australians killed: approximately 60,000

First departure: 19 August 1914, HMAT Berrima from Sydney – Victoria’s troops travelled by train to Sydney to depart

One of the first deaths: 11 September 1914, Able Seaman Billy Williams from Northcote, Victoria

First convoy: 1 November 1914, from Albany, Western Australia

First shot fired: 5 August 1914, at Fort Nepean, Victoria

Victoria Population of Victoria in 1914: approximately 1.45 million

Victorians enlisted for service in the AIF: approximately 112,400

Number killed in action or later died of wounds: approximately 19,000

AIF Around 320,000 members of the AIF embarked for service overseas

Of these, approximately 60,000 were killed in action or later died of wounds

Around 156,000 members of the AIF were wounded, gassed or became prisoners of war

Number offering to serve that were medically examined: approximately 590,000

Number rejected following medical examination: approximately 178,800

Victorian Football League Number of players killed in action or later died of wounds overseas: 68

Due to WWI, only four teams competed in the 1916 season: Carlton, Richmond, Fitzroy and Collingwood

This led to the anomaly of Fitzroy winning both the wooden spoon and the Premiership

Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne Amount of money raised by public subscription to build the Shrine of Remembrance in 1928:

£160,000

Number of people at the opening of the Shrine of Remembrance in November 1934: approximately 300,000 – one-third of Melbourne’s population at the time

Cost of building the Shrine of Remembrance in 1934: £250,000

Victorian war memorials Number of war memorials in public places: approximately 360

Amount of money raised by the people of Geelong to build the Geelong Peace Memorial: £23,000

New Zealand New Zealanders enlisted: approximately 120,000

New Zealanders killed: approximately 18,500

New Zealanders who served in Australian or British imperial forces: approximately 3,370

Key Battles1914

11 SeptemberBita Paka

1915

19 FebruaryDardanelles – long-range naval bombardment

18 MarchDardanelles – naval assault

25 AprilGallipoli – the first landing

5 AugustAugust Offensive – Gallipoli, the Nek and Hill 60

6–9 AugustLone Pine

1916

1 JulyThe Somme

19 JulyFromelles

23 JulyPozières and Mouquet Farm

1917

11 AprilFirst Bullecourt

3 MaySecond Bullecourt

7 JuneMessines Ridge

31 JulyPasschendaele

31 OctoberBeersheba

14 NovemberYpres

1918

25 AprilVillers-Bretonneux

4 JulyHamel

8 AugustAmiens

1 OctoberDamascus

1914

Bita Paka11 September 1914

The battle of Bita Paka was the first engagement of Australian forces during WWI. German presence in the Pacific had been problematic for Australian colonial governments as well as for the Federal Government since Federation in 1901. A force of Australians, despatched to the European war, could be at risk from German raiders in the Pacific Ocean. Recognising the risk, the British Government, as soon as war was declared, asked the Commonwealth Government to seize and destroy German radio installations in New Guinea.

To this end, the first Australians to fight were members of the specially raised Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force, under the command of Colonel William Holmes, who was later to serve in Gallipoli and was killed on the Western Front by a stray shell.

Holmes’s force, a somewhat unconventional 1,500-strong grouping of naval reservists, infantry and a machine-gun section, left Sydney on 19 August 1914 just as the first recruits to the AIF were assembling in the major military camps around Australia for initial training. The force landed at Blanche Bay, north of New Guinea, on 11 September 1914 and met with limited German resistance in which six Germans were killed.

Later, stronger resistance was made at Bita Paka, five miles inland from Rabaul in New Guinea. In the fighting, German reservists, supported by Melanesian police, held up the Australians for some time before surrendering. Seven Australians were killed in the action at Bita Paka, or later died from their wounds, including Able Seaman Billy Williams who was shot in the stomach and became one of the first members of the Australian forces to die in the war. He was from Northcote, Victoria and was 28 years of age.

The Germans abandoned Rabaul when the Australians landed there on 12 September, retreating to the island of Toma, where they surrendered on 17 September. With heavy naval assistance the Australians had been well placed to prevail in an unequal fight. The Australians installed a military government for the duration of the war and then accepted a League of Nations mandate for continuing government in New Guinea and Papua.

1915

Dardanelles – long-range naval bombardment19 February 1915

The Gallipoli campaign was conceived by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, and approved by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John Fisher. They elaborated a strategy in the face of failure on the Western Front.

The British Empire and its Allies needed a win. The war on the Western Front, even by late 1914, was a costly stalemate where the movement of troops and the gaining of territory from the enemy was virtually impossible. Russia needed support and supplies as much as their Allies needed a victory. To approach Russia from behind Germany’s back, through the Black Sea, made strategic sense. The way to the Black Sea was through the Dardanelles, through the Sea of Marmara and beyond Constantinople (modern Istanbul).

The problem was that in late 1914, Turkey had declared itself on the side of the Germans. Turkish forts guarded the waterway of the Dardanelles and powerful guns could be used against any ships seeking passage through those waters.

British strategic thinkers had a low regard for Turkey’s military capacity, underestimating the possibility of Turkish resistance. From late 1914 onwards, British warships began shelling the Turkish forts from a considerable distance offshore. This bombardment achieved notable success at Cape

Helles, all but destroying an ancient fort there, and gave the British an unrealistic sense of the ease of their mission. Eventually, the British realised that they could not knock the forts out at a great distance. It was decided to send the warships into the Dardanelles for direct action against the forts.

Dardanelles – naval assault18 March 1915

To ensure the destruction of the Turkish forts lining the shores on both sides of the Dardanelles, the British and French assembled a mighty armada. The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John Fisher, was reluctant to use his most modern and powerful warships, but he was overruled. The armada was thought to be an irresistible force.

To defend their forts, the Turkish forces employed mobile artillery and the forts’ guns themselves. Crucially, they also mined the sea lanes as a third level of defence. The British believed that the mines stretched across the Dardanelles, which was true, but the Turks had also laid a stretch of mines parallel to the eastern (Asian) shoreline. British reconnaissance had failed to detect this. The British mine-sweepers removed many of the mines across the Dardanelles – unknowingly, they left the parallel mines undisturbed.

On the morning of 18 March 1915, the armada sailed through the opening to the Dardanelles at Cape Helles with guns at the ready to bombard the forts. In charge was the British Vice-Admiral John de Robeck. He had placed his ships in three lines, the first line led by the dreadnought Queen Elizabeth, the most powerful battleship afloat.

As the ships’ guns created havoc among the forts, at about midday de Robeck called for the ships in the first line to withdraw, bringing the ships in his second line into the fight. To the astonishment of all, in turning seawards along the Asiatic coast, the French ship Bouvet suddenly struck a mine and sank within minutes. There were very few survivors. Two other ships struck mines soon after and were badly damaged.

De Robeck decided the Turkish forces must be floating mines randomly down the waterway on the current, placing all of his ships in mortal danger. What if he were to lose the Queen Elizabeth? He withdrew and declined to engage the forts the following day as Churchill had expected. It would now be necessary, Churchill believed, to have troops assault the forts from behind, across country, if the warships were ever to reach the Black Sea.

Gallipoli – the first landing25 April 1915

It is the hardest thing soldiers can be asked to do, so difficult that it has rarely been attempted: to invade a defended foreign land from the sea; to push the defenders from their entrenched positions; to push ahead deep into enemy territory. This is what the Anzacs were asked to do at Ari Burnu point on the Gallipoli peninsula, and what British soldiers were asked to do at Cape Helles.

At Anzac Cove, as it came to be called, the initial difficulty was the terrain as much as the opposing forces. Though only lightly defended at first – no-one expected troops to attempt to land there – the soldiers needed to reach the small beach from the sea, adjust themselves, and then pour into the cliffs above them. The climb was steep and what faced the troops on the high land beyond was utterly unknown. To make matters worse, the first troops landed in the dark, just as dawn was breaking.

The key to success at Anzac Cove was to gain the high land, above and beyond the second ridge line. With command of the high points, such as Chunuk Bair and Hill 971, the whole of the land below could be observed and be covered by fire.

In the early afternoon on the day of the landing, some Australians had made good progress. All they needed was more ammunition and more men, which Captain Joseph Peter Lalor, among others, attempted to obtain. After repeatedly dashing back to seek men and guns, Captain Lalor was shot and killed. With the failure to obtain the heights that day, the Anzacs’ hopes for success on their part of the peninsula died with him.

The campaign now became a siege. The besieged had all the advantages of land at their rear for resupply, food and water. Those laying the siege had all the disadvantages, principally lack of movement and the difficulty of the supply of water, food and ammunition.

August offensive – Gallipoli, the Nek and Hill 605 August 1915

There were only two routes to the high land at Anzac Cove: along the gullies and spurs from the beach to the hills, or directly from the Anzac lines to the Turkish forces defending Baby 700. In August, General Sir Ian Hamilton determined to try both routes in an all-or-nothing attempt to push the Turkish, at last, from the heights and end the siege.

Light Horsemen, predominantly from Victoria and Western Australia, would make the attack at the Nek, directly charging the Turkish forces. Colonel John Monash’s 4th Brigade would attempt to make their way up Chunuk Bair from the beach. Both actions failed, and the hopes for the August offensive came to nothing.

The charge at the Nek was a suicidal tragedy. No-one could say why the naval bombardment of the Turkish trenches stopped a full seven minutes before the Anzacs attacked, but the cessation gave the Turkish soldiers the time to position themselves and their guns for the coming attack.

When the first line left the Anzac trenches they ran into a wall of lead from rifles and machine guns sited higher. Few of the attackers gained more than several metres from their own trenches before they were gunned down. Some were lucky enough to fall back into the Anzac trenches, others were able to crawl back to their own lines. The rest all died on the field of battle where they fell. Despite this, two further charges were attempted before the disaster was called off.

Monash’s men never found their way to Chunuk Bair. The terrain was impossibly difficult: gullies leading to dead ends, spurs leading nowhere. It was night when they set off and, to keep the element of surprise, they moved without lights and largely in silence. Later, New Zealand troops succeeded where Monash had failed and they held Chunuk Bair briefly until a ferocious Turkish counter-attack pushed them off the heights and down into the gullies. The August offensive was over.

Lone Pine6–9 August 1915

General Sir Ian Hamilton, the Allied Commander at Gallipoli, planned to capture the essential high ground. To distract the Turkish forces from the main game at the Nek, Baby 700 and Chunuk Bair, Hamilton ordered an assault on the Turkish trenches at Lone Pine.

In the late afternoon of 9 August the Anzacs were at their start lines. Some were out in no-man’s-land crouching in tunnels, which had been dug to lessen the length of their run to the enemy’s trenches. The main force was in the Anzac trenches closer to the sea. When the whistles sounded these men made a determined dash for the Turkish lines.

What followed was the fiercest hand-to-hand fighting in which Australians had ever been involved at war. The fight went on over three days and nights, largely below ground in the trenches. Rifles were unsuited for use in the close-quarters combat of Lone Pine. Troops used bayonets, clubs and their own bare fists to gain the ascendancy.

The conditions in the trenches were appalling. Men were forced to fight over and around the dead bodies of their mates and enemies. Such was the bravery at Lone Pine that seven Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross for action there – four of them Victorians. None of those involved in the initial rush for the Turkish trenches were so honoured – no officer survived to make a recommendation.

1916

The Somme1 July 1916

The Somme valley, perhaps one of the most beautiful regions of France, was the scene of some of the most horrifying fighting of WWI. To relieve pressure on the French at Verdun, General Sir Douglas Haig insisted on a massive attack at the Somme, timed to start on 1 July 1916. Haig was so confident of success that he had mounted troops ready to ride through the Germans to attack at the moment that they scattered and ran. However, Haig had tragically underestimated the spirit of the enemy and their capacity to endure the most appalling and enduring artillery barrage.

The statistics are frightful. When British troops hurled themselves against the German line on the first day of the battle it has been estimated that they walked into a wall of lead of 6,000 bullets per minute. The British 4th Army suffered nearly 60,000 casualties on the first day alone, of whom 19,000 were killed.

The cost of the battle is best shown by the experience of the Newfoundland Regiment. The regiment from the North American British colony, which was not yet a part of Canada, paraded for the last time the night before the battle. The regiment comprised 25 officers and 776 other ranks. The Newfoundlanders went into action at 9.15am on the first day. Within 30 minutes the regiment was no more: 710 men had been killed, wounded or were missing.

The battle of the Somme continued until winter came to the region in November and it was not possible to keep the fight going. Casualties amounted to a staggering 1 million men.

Fromelles19 July 1916

The AIF began arriving in France from late March 1916. The first troops were sent to a ‘nursery sector’, an area of little strategic importance, to learn the way of warfare on the Western Front.

On 1 July the British began their summer assault, massing a huge number of troops near the River Somme and expecting to drive the Germans back in retreat.

By mid-July it was evident that the Somme battle was not going well. British General Sir Richard Haking decided to create a diversion in the nursery sector, hoping to draw off German troops from the Somme. It was a forlorn, even idiotic, hope. Worse, Haking decided that the untested Australian troops would play a major part in the assault on the German lines, and, worse still, he decided that the assault would take place in the late afternoon, in full daylight.

With minimal planning or thought, Haking passed his orders on to the Australian brigade commander, Harold Edward ‘Pompey’ Elliott who, though inexperienced in Western Front fighting, was appalled at the idea. Pompey sought to have the orders recast, to no avail.

The Australians hurled themselves across the German lines, coming in front of rising ground without adequate cover. German machine guns and artillery caused massive loss among the attackers who gained no hold at all in the German lines. It was as tragic as it was predictable.

When the losses were tallied it was discovered that the Australians had suffered more than 5,500 casualties in less than 24 hours of fighting.

Pozières and Mouquet Farm 23 July 1916

The Australians first went into action on the Somme on 23 July 1916, and were ordered to capture the ruins of the former village of Pozières. By 25 July, they had succeeded and had gained significant territory of about 1,000 yards. But success came at a terrible price. The Germans counter-attacked and directed a furious and seemingly unending artillery barrage against the Australian positions. Somehow, the Australians stuck to their task.

Pozières was a high point on the battlefield which gave it strategic significance. Mouquet Farm was in a valley below Pozières and here the Australians also participated in fierce and ongoing fighting. The misery and the suffering of these places is unimaginable to anyone except those who endured it. The fight went on and on across seven weeks. The Germans had constructed secure fortifications with reinforced underground concrete bunkers all along the battlefield. At Mouquet Farm, the Germans made excellent use of the farm’s cellars which allowed them to survive allied shelling.

Three Australian divisions fought at Pozières and Mouquet Farm from 23 July until 3 September when they were relieved. During this period, the Australians had 23,000 casualties. War historian Charles Bean said of the windmill site at Pozières that “no place is more thickly drenched in Australian blood than that tiny and apparently insignificant pocket of land.”

It was perceived in Australia that voluntary recruiting would never make up these terrible losses. Eventually, the Commonwealth Government agreed to ask voters to give their approval for the introduction of conscription – a direct outcome of this appalling battle.

1917

First Bullecourt11 April 1917

By 1917, Albert Jacka was an experienced and skilled soldier. The first Australian to be awarded a Victoria Cross in WWI for action at Gallipoli, he might well have been awarded another at Pozières. When told of the plans for the assault on the Hindenburg Line in April 1917, Jacka went out into no-man’s-land to have a look for himself. He was appalled by what he discovered.

He found flat, level farm land with no hint of protection, not even small indentations where a man might shelter. Then there were the massive belts of German barbed wire in front of the trenches, completely undamaged by any artillery in recent times. All this amounted to an impenetrable barrier for the infantry; “pure murder”, Jacka reported, to send men against this uncut wire.

But it was worse than that. The generals had decided that, as surprise would be the best method of attack, they would not put in the usual artillery bombardment. Instead, the troops would be protected not by guns but by tanks – a new and untried weapon. British General Sir Hubert Gough decided that with 12 tanks to go into battle beside them, the soldiers would prevail. Jacka was furious when he studied the plan and pleaded his case – but no-one was listening.

Early in the morning of 10 April 1917, Australian troops massed at their start lines, bitterly cold and in incredible danger if discovered. The tanks failed to arrive and the battle had to be postponed. The Germans watched silently as men rose from the ground in front of them and walked back to their own lines. The surprise that the generals had hoped for was now entirely lost.

The next morning the troops were at their start lines again when they heard the tanks growling and coughing their way to the front line. They were hopeless, becoming bogged and a target for German fire. Soldiers watched in amazement as tank crews abandoned their machines in the face of the deadly assault and made a dash for safety. There was nothing for it, the infantry must advance unassisted, and they did; across the snow-covered field, into the uncut wire, and remarkably, some even made it into the German trenches.

The 4th Brigade had gone into the fight with about 3,000 troops. Roll calls in the four battalions after the battle would show that the brigade had suffered 2,339 casualties, nearly 1,000 of whom had been captured. The brigade and Victoria’s 14th Battalion, which was part of it, were crippled. The 14th Battalion had lost 19 officers and 582 other ranks.

Second Bullecourt3 May 1917

Great bravery was shown by the Australians at Bullecourt in the attempt to take a section of the Hindenburg Line without the support of the artillery. It was, however, considered to be bad use of the soldiers in General Gough’s care. Charles Bean wrote – “the [troops] had been employed in an experiment of extreme rashness, persisted in by army commanders after repeated warnings, and that the experiment had failed with shocking loss.” He was scathing in his criticism of General Gough, describing him as working with “almost boyish eagerness” and breaking rules that would have been observed by even a platoon commander.

In May, the Australians were asked to do it again, despite the losses sustained up to that point. This time the artillery had managed to break up the swathes of wire in front of the German trenches.

The battle began on 3 May with the Australians penetrating the Hindenburg Line – a remarkable achievement in itself. They fought ferociously with the defenders over the next two weeks, inching their way to a commanding position. While all were in awe of the determination and bravery of the Australians, observers were unsure of the strategic advantage of taking the village.

Using two Australian divisions, the 5th Division and the 2nd Division, General Gough persisted and eventually German resistance crumbled. The village was captured, the battle won, ‘a small, tactically useless village’ as one historian wrote. The Australians lost around 10,000 casualties at Bullecourt in the two attempts at its capture for no obvious gain.

Messines Ridge7 June 1917

The Germans on Messines Ridge had an excellent view of the entire Ypres Salient, frustrating British hopes of progress there. The capture of the ridge was a necessary pre-condition to the capture of territory around Ypres, an important objective in 1917.

British artillery began shelling the ridge on 21 May 1917. For once, they succeeded in reducing the German defences to ruins. Huge mines had also been placed under the German lines after extensive tunnelling, including from the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company. When detonated at the beginning of the battle the mines produced the greatest man-made explosion in human history to that date.

The ridge and the ruined village of Messines were soon over-run by the British and Australian attacking force in a particularly successful battle. Unfortunately, British artillery, mistaking the successful troops for a German counter-attack, opened fire again, as did the German artillery. Those crowded on the ridge suffered heavily from their own side, despite their stunning success.

The 3rd Australian Division suffered 4,100 casualties and the 4th Division suffered 2,700 casualties. The way was open to Ypres but, inexplicably, the British failed to push on with their attack, delaying for seven weeks.

Passchendaele31 July 1917

The battle we know as Passchendaele is, in reality, a series of battles at sites around Ypres. General Sir Douglas Haig waited a full seven weeks before pressing the attack that the victory at Messines had made possible. This was a fatal delay. The main offensive resumed on 31 July. On 1 August, even before the day’s fighting could begin, it started to rain heavily; before long the battlefield was a quagmire and only became worse as the weeks passed.

There were successes. The Australians made good progress in the battle of Menin Road on 20 September and also fought at Polygon Wood and Broodseinde for small gains. The plan of attack demanded a heavy involvement of the artillery, but in the atrocious conditions on the ground it was difficult, if not impossible, to move the guns readily and speedily.

Experience should have shown that the battles must be stopped in these conditions. At Passchendaele there was no support from the artillery. The mud was so deep that the troops struggled to stand. The misery of these battles of late 1917 give us the defining images of fighting on the Western Front: fighting in a sea of unimaginable mud.

Beersheba31 October 1917

Following experience in the South African war, authorities undertook to provide mounted troops of the Australian Light Horse almost as soon as war was declared. The Light Horse could provide quick movement of troops and surprise the enemy. The Australian Light Horse was created with an understanding of the Australian as a type of fighting soldier.

Rapid movement, the element of surprise, and Australian innovation and determination were on display at Beersheba. The charge of the 4th and 12th Light Horse regiments represented the high point of the service of the Light Horse in the war. The charge is now remembered as one of Australia’s greatest feats of the war. It is claimed to be the last great cavalry charge in the annals of human warfare.

Deprived of water for at least 30 hours before the charge, the horses seemed to sense the water in the wells of Beersheba and, under the able direction of the 4th Light Horse Regiment’s commander Murray Bourchier, the horses galloped the mile and a half to the enemy’s trenches. With shells bursting all around them, and in heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, the Light Horse regiments were determined to take Beersheba.

Ignoring the dust and the smoke, and in a fearsome noise, the horses remained steady to their task, allowing the men to ride directly in among the Turkish forces who began to flee when the full impact of this manic charge became clear to them. The result was an overwhelming victory: the capture of about 1,200 men and 14 guns, the death of more than 500 Turkish soldiers and only modest Australian losses. The two regiments lost between them 32 men killed and 36 men wounded. The 4th Light Horse Regiment’s motto ‘Endure and Fight’ is precisely what happened at Beersheba.

Ypres14 November 1917

Every one of the 60 Australian battalions to fight on the Western Front passed through Ypres at some point during the war. This fact alone gives some indication of the importance of Ypres in the story of Australia in the war.

All the towns and villages surrounding Ypres – Messines Ridge, Langemark, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Poelcappelle, Broodseinde – are places linked to the Australian involvement. In every battle the tactics were much the same. The artillery would attempt to pound the German defences which were stoutly built – pillboxes, underground concrete shelters, depth of trench lines and heavy artillery concentrations. Then the troops would be sent forward, often in small unit formations. Having pushed off the Germans, the troops would then attempt to dig in against the anticipated counter-attack. Fresh troops would also be brought up at this point in the engagement to help resist the incoming German attack.

Casualties could then be assessed and a calculation made of the territory gained. In the entire fighting over several months around Ypres, in the most atrocious weather conditions, the British campaign pushed forward no more than 4,500 yards. The Belgian coast, which was General Haig’s objective, was about 50 miles away.

Ypres, with its remarkable Cloth Hall, had been a medieval masterpiece. It was all but destroyed in the fighting in 1917. The loss of Australian life was astonishing; the suffering of the troops beyond our understanding. The year of 1917 was a dark time in Australian history.

1918

Villers-Bretonneux25 April 1918

Villers-Bretonneux was a key village on the Western Front; it served as the gateway to Amiens and was an important railway junction. Possession of Villers-Bretonneux would give the German Army an open path to Paris. The Germans attempted a breakout from their defensive positions in March 1918 along the frontline. This breakout was, at first, highly successful. Within days the Germans had regained much of the ground they had surrendered in 1916. The Australians counter-attacked from both north and south on the night of 24–25 April 1918 with great ferocity. The confidence of the Australians was high; they trusted their commanders and they had become very experienced attacking troops.

For the first time in the war, tanks were employed by both sides. The Germans had begun their attack on the village with tanks and the Allies also used tanks to repel them. The Australian attack linked up on the eastern side of the village, surrounding the enemy and expelling the Germans from the village completely. This involved close-quarters fighting between the two forces in the rubble of houses and in the cellars beneath.

The Australians were successful at Villers-Bretonneux with the village remaining in Allied control thereafter. Much later, the Australian National Memorial in France was built just outside the village and national commemoration takes place there each year on the anniversary of the battle. Victorian schoolchildren contributed liberally to a fund to rebuild the village school, named the ‘Victoria School’, after the war and they are still remembered there.

Hamel4 July 1918

Though a relatively small-scale affair, the battle at Hamel was the most successful in which the Australians had yet participated. It had become the great ambition of just about every Australian soldier on the Western Front that the five Australian divisions be brought together in one corps, fighting as an integrated national unit. In May 1918, General Sir John Monash was given command of the corps as a fitting recognition of his masterful ability as a soldier and a commander.

Monash planned his first set-piece battle at Hamel and, because the Australians would also be joined by American troops, Monash set the battle down for 4 July. His planning was meticulous: he had large models prepared of the battlefield so that the soldiers could familiarise themselves with every detail of the terrain over which they would fight. He also insisted on involving tanks in the battle, ensuring that the Australians trained long and hard with the tanks to learn how best to work with them.

It was the artillery, however, that gave the attackers the edge at Hamel. Employing a ‘creeping barrage’, where the shells fell just in front of the advancing troops, and using 600 guns, the Australians had a clear advantage over the Germans. With the tanks to provide movement and terror and aircraft used to attack and to resupply the advancing troops with ammunition, the battle at Hamel was an overwhelming success. Monash had timed the battle in his plans and orders to take just 90 minutes. In fact, the troops were a little slow – the battle was over in 93 minutes.

By the end of the battle of Hamel, the Australians had 850 casualties, but the Germans suffered 1,000 casualties, losing another 1,000 of their soldiers who had become prisoners of war.

Amiens8 August 1918

By mid-1918 it was at last apparent that the Allied leadership had come to some conclusions about the best way of fighting the war. At the same time it was apparent that the Allies, having successfully halted the March German breakout, had dealt a significant blow to German morale. The German Army was no longer the force it had once been.

As at Hamel, the key to success was now seen to be the use of massed artillery protecting advancing troops with a curtain of shells falling just in front of their advance. An important part of this tactic was the increasing accuracy of the gunners.

When the Allies attacked the German lines along a broad front the objective was to relieve any possibility of the city of Amiens falling back into German hands. The attack began in the morning in thick fog. The Germans had little idea of the number of troops involved or the extent of what was to come.

By mid-afternoon it was apparent that all major objectives had been secured by the Allies and that the battle had achieved significant success. The Australians suffered about 3,000 casualties among total Allied casualties of about 9,000. The artillery had been crucial in allowing the infantry to reach their first objectives. Then tanks had been sent in as a second wave which created chaos among the German defenders. Fresh troops then leap-frogged through the first wave.

Later, German resistance improved and the battle continued in places for several more days. However, the Germans, who suffered 27,000 casualties in the first phase of the battle, were unable to provide the solid, almost impregnable, defence of earlier years.

Damascus1 October 1918

By 1918, General Harry Chauvel was an experienced and skilled commander who had served the entire war in Gallipoli or in the desert. Though he could have secured an infantry appointment on the Western Front he chose to stay with the Anzac Mounted Division, later commanding the Desert Mounted Corps, and was promoted to Lieutenant General – the first Australian officer to reach that rank.

In 1918 the Desert Mounted Corps pushed hard, if not always successfully, against the Turkish Army, and persistence paid handsomely in the later part of the year. It was Chauvel’s uncompromising approach, his extraordinary determination, that finally broke Turkish resistance.

With an important victory at Megiddo during 19–25 September and follow-up harassment of the fleeing Turkish forces, Chauvel was at the gates of Damascus on 1 October. He then pursued the enemy to Aleppo, where by the end of October the Turkish had agreed to an armistice and the war was over.

ArmisticeBy 1918, the AIF was at the height of its fighting powers: experienced, grimly determined, and well led by its own Australian commanders, at last, to the great satisfaction of Australian soldiers.

Though savagely reduced in numbers, the AIF battalions won some remarkable victories in 1918, at Villers-Bretonneux, at Hamel, Mont Saint-Quentin, Peronne and in the Battle of Amiens. Exhausted, the Australians were withdrawn from the line in October, after months of continuous fighting, and the war ended on 11 November 1918 when the Germans submitted to the signing of an armistice.

Approximately 60,000 Australians had been killed in the war. Young Australian men lay buried, in unknown graves, in countries far from home. Many returned home badly wounded in mind or body. The news that the war had ended with the victory of the British Empire and its Allies, after more than four years of bloody conflict, was met with great rejoicing in Australia.

A massive crowd attended a remembrance service in Melbourne held in front of the federal Parliament House in Spring Street. A special reserve was set aside for the relatives of the fallen. A reporter leaving the service heard a woman remark: “I have lost seven nephews. Life can never be the same again, but, oh!, I feel so proud.”

On 3 May 1919 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the Governor-General, Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, conducted a Grand Review of ‘Victorian Naval Men and Members of the AIF’, described as the first Grand Review of its kind in the Commonwealth.

Letters & DiariesCommunications between those serving in the war and those at home were slow and difficult. Wireless, the precursor to radio, was just emerging at the beginning of WWI. By the end of the war, government wireless stations were established along the entire Australian coastline. There was no television. Telegraph was the quickest way of sending short and essential messages. Telephones were still the privilege of government, business and the wealthy.

Letters, however, were prized by all. For those at home they were precious proof that their loved ones were still alive and coping somewhere, somehow, although the delay in delivery sometimes created tragic errors in communication. For those serving, letters from home were a warm reminder of better times and the life they longed to resume.

The written word was still the best and most natural form of communication for those far from home, and diaries were a way to record the war unfolding around them. Small diaries were specially made for serving men and women, easy to tuck into pockets without adding to their already considerable burden of weaponry, equipment or provisions.

There are thousands of photographs, letters and wartime diaries existing today as records of Australians’ WWI experiences. One hundred years on, while those who served are no longer with us, we can still hear their voices – with insights to their world in all its pathos, hardship and even humour. These records help us understand at least a little about the war from their perspective.

Six voices are included here – let us find, keep and treasure all the rest.

Nursing in France 1917Alice Elizabeth Barratt Kitchen trained as a nurse at Melbourne Hospital. Prior to the war, she served in the Australian Army Nursing Service. She enlisted on 26 September 1914, was promoted to sister and was repatriated to Australia on 28 August 1919.

15 April 1917 Saturday

We did duty 3 hrs & afterwards both went for a walk over the hill & through 2 villages. We are billeted at an empty hotel near by the hospital, with 2 sisters, 2 sl. N. & 5 orderlies. It is bitterly cold here & we are thankful to have some winter clothing to put on. The wards are pretty and in beautiful order, red blankets for guests, red screens, waxed floors, gorgeous flowers & kindly sisters, good orderlies & patient sufferers. So many awful amputations & injuries.

16 April 1917 Sunday

A ship went down this morning near the shore, possibly struck a mine. I think no lives were lost. We were on the afternoon, & spent the time bedmaking etc. The evening we unpacked necessaries, very cold & blowy & wintry atmosphere.

17 April 1917 Monday

On this afternoon, wintry, cold & miserable. Home was never like this! We sat in the little sitting room here, filled in some passport papers & discussed Australian & British characteristics for a time, then went to bed. A wild night setting in.

18 April 1917 Tuesday

An awful day: the wind is wild and tears the door out of your grasp & the breath from your body almost – & the air is icy. Nothing to do when off duty but write up the diary, letters etc. & try and keep warm without a fire. Fortunately we have a comfortable, warm bed, warm bottles. The sisters have a nice sitting room at their home & a stove. … The patients’ food is excellent & they lack for little that will aid their recovery. Some lady in England keeps the place supplied with the most beautiful flowers – carnations, tigerlilies, tulips, narcissus.

20 April 1917 Thursday

A good many of the D. I. patients went off to “Blighty” – & the ward is light, but so many broken bodies, so many limbs gone.

25 April 1917 Tuesday

Anzac Day. It scarcely seems a year since that dreadful landing at Gallipoli. L Dudley is inviting all Australians to a sort of bunfight. It seems queer to celebrate what must be to so many a day of mourning in such a fashion. To so many in Australia it will only be a day of grief.

This morning a G airship flew over the place & much excitement prevailed – 40 or 50 shots were fired at it but it sailed serenely on. About 4pm, the same one or another like it appeared again & we had the performance repeated.

Christmas in Egypt 1914

Diary EntryCaptain Leo Tennyson Gwyther was born in 1892 and enlisted on 20 August 1914. He served with the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade and was repatriated to Australia on 13 March 1918. He was awarded the Military Cross and Bar. He died in 1950.

23 December 1914 Wednesday

Getting ready for Christmas day got the camp cleaned up & the stores in ready for a good spree and we had it Sgt Arrowsmith got it all out of our 6d a day extra allowance. I feel real fit and am going to bed early so as I can stay up late tomorrow night.

24 December 1914 Thursday

Christmas eve in Egypt and the sand was burning hot but we don’t mind at all as we do not have much to do today as we have everything ready for tomorrow Plum puddings 1 ham boiled 1 turkey also what a real beno for us in this foreign land only difference from others christmas was that we knew so few about. I got a bottle of Champagne to celebrate a 2 dollar bottle amongst 42 of us just a wet of our lip.

25 December 1914 Friday

Christmas day in Mena Camp and what a day as hot as L and a dry wind blowing – this expression is quite excusable as our Capt says it. So if we do as our captain does we will never go wrong he says our Messroom is started today. A.B & C sections had dinner together a great feed peanuts & oranges & biscuits to finish on after Plum duff.

26 December 1914 Saturday

Boxing Day and we are not at any sports this year. Wondering very much tonight why we have not heard from anyone at all wrote a terrible lot of letters on the boat but hope to get some soon now.

27 December 1914 Sunday

Up early to have a bath in open under the taps it was cold a fog night up till 10 o’clock in the morning and obscured the first Pyramid’s top altogether till 2 in the afternoon. All of our vehicles arrived from Cairo Barracks where they have been since the day we landed here at Cairo. The Army Service fetched them out.

28 December 1914 Monday

All the Column out at drill with the wagons & they look dead funny with their little farm like wagons. They are not built right at all the poles are too long altogether & the front carriages too low I don’t like them at all. The little General Service wagons limbered are a good make and ought to last well. Too heavy though for only two horses when loaded.

29 December 1914 Tuesday

Reveille at 6.30 & Parade at 6.45 late we were in falling in as the last trumpeter forgot to blow the quarter call and he did get a roaring at by the Sgt Major Horses all out at drill without wagons today as they are too heavy to pull about in sand every day.


Up at 5 o’clock for a bath and enjoyed it although it was very cold & I shivered like a leaf. Parade at 6.30 fed & watered & turned out for breakfast then we went out for a manouvre with wagons for a couple of hours when we came back we had to water in little canvas buckets a big job when the buckets only hold 1 ½ gal and we have 291 horses.

31 December 1914 Thursday

In charge of the guard. The Sgts are nearly all full tonight drinking their Superiors healths’ in big glasses they were singing all the time till the New Year was in, then I went and chipped them & told them it was time they went to bed & they did not like it at all. I posted a guard just as the twelve o’clock struck. Feel very tired tonight. Started another diary for 1915 as this is too big to keep in pocket.

Remembrance Day 1919Willie Grant was an experienced horseman and became a member of the Mounted Cadets in Box Hill when he was 10. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force aged 17, in 1915, serving in the 2nd and 5th battalions. He was seriously wounded at the Somme in mid-1916, and recuperated in Manchester, England before returning to the Western Front. On his return to Melbourne, he took charge of the art department at Niven’s printery.

London 12 November 1919My Dear Brother, Sister, Gwenda & Graham

I hope this letter finds you in the best of health & spirit (Not Johnny Walker) as I am thankful to say it leaves me at present (also not Johnny Walker.) It’s snowing at present & the warmest place is by the fire or in bed & as it’s just ten o’clock I shall finish this lengthy epistle before going to the land of dreams. I don’t quite know whether this letter will run the length of my last to letters, one to Mum & one to Vi, both of 16 pages but I have a lot to say & am going to set about saying the things I want to properly so I hope you will please forgive my presumption in offering you advise (which you will have to do) & take it in the spirit that it is given which I know you will do.

As you see by my heading I am writing this the day after the first anniversary of the signing of armistice so I am going to tell you what I did, what I thought & what I think now. I went to Trafalgar Square which contains the great statue of “Nelson” which looks down the famous thoroughfare called “Whitehall” in the centre of which stands the magnificent & impressive statue to “Our Glorious Dead” the Cenotaph. As the hour of 11AM approached, great crowds gathered in all public places & that particular place was crowded. Beautiful floral tributes had been laid at the foot of the Cenotaph and bearing the subscription of the King & Queen, another placed there personally by the Prime Minister. France sent a floral tribute. As the hour of eleven struck and the Guns crashed out their signals, men bared their heads, soldiers stood at the salute & women bowed their heads. Traffic stopped & everything became silent. The whole empire stood still to pay homage to the men whom that beautiful Column of Stone that I was gazing at represented.

Just near where I was a child started to cry but was quieted by its mother, but that cry sounded 100 times louder than ordinary because of the great hush, who knows but the mother, whether or not the father of that child was represented in that Column of Stone. Imagine, as I imagined that as I was standing there a Great Phantom army moved by that stone swiftly, silently & singing the song of triumph of victory which to me seems to hand down to coming Generations a great message. We will consider what that army was composed of. Nearly one million of the British Empires best men, one & a quarter million of France’s best men, one half million of Italy’s best men & hundreds of thousands of the best men of the other allied nations. Now we consider their message as it appears to me & that is “that they pass on to the future Generation the duty which they held themselves in honour bound to do, to the country which gave them birth & to the people they love, to the unborn generation of men and women so that they may enjoy the freedom of a ruling nation as just as mighty as Great Britain”. If that message is unheeded, then to a great extent the sacrifices of that great army has been for nothing.

Some day I hope to have a son & I am going to teach him from the time he can talk till he can think & reason for himself & will then still keep teaching him of his duty to his country & the remembrance of that phantom army & this is where I venture to offer my advice to you at the same time knowing that you have those same sentiments. Don’t think I don’t know what hardships a mother & father goes through by mental torture for the safety of the one who is away fighting. I know what Mum & Dad went through but would they have had me a single man stay at home ... I should be home about the end of January & with luck perhaps before, but it is absolute that no matter how much I would like to, I will not be able to be home before New Year.

France 1917

Diary Entry

George Downey Flanagan enlisted on 27 September 1916 and served as a sapper with the 4th Division Signal Company. He was repatriated to Australia in July 1919 and died in Essendon in 1974.


Morning while awaiting pay, I walked with a few pals up the Rue Gambatta to the Market Square. We there saw a sight that will live long in the memory of us all Women were lined up along the pavement selling rabbits eggs in fact all kinds of dairy produce. I first mistook these vendors for purchasers and was greatly surprised to find on closer examination that their small packs and baskets were filled up with eggs and butter. The rabbits of course told their tale (it seems hard though for an Australian to grasp that in Europe our sworn enemy the rabbit is actually bred in boxes for table purposes). In the square itself stalls were erected on which drapery stationery confectionery and all sorts of fancy goods were on sale.

Thursday

By this hour we had arrived at Villers Carbonne and during a pause amused ourselves throwing stones along the surface of a frozen stream on which the ice was extremely hard. The remainder of the journey was uninteresting nothing but miles & miles of devastated houses which we have grown so weary of. By 1.30pm we had reached our destination Peronne and an hour later we were riding in a motor wagon to a camp at Haut Allaines, Haut Allaines Camp. About ¼ kilo from the once famous village on Haut Allaines & about 4 kilos from Mt St Quentin, a number of iron cubicles had been erected and in these Military “villas” the head quarters were established our unlucky section was issued with 4 bell tents which we erected on the crest of a ridge facing an embankment honeycombed for miles with old German dugouts.

07 December 1917 Friday

Night extremely cold spent day exploring surrounding country a few hundred yards from our tent is a massive canal lock blown up by the Boche (X) also an iron bridge which has received similar treatment by our enemy.

10 December 1917 Monday

Morning rifle inspection after which with a few pals I explored the surrounding German dugouts which honeycombed the ridge for miles. Before evacuating our enemy had charged these strong points with shells which for some reason or other still remained unexploded. In the afternoon we came across a trip wire fixed to a rifle trigger probably another pitfall left by the enemy.

11 December 1917 Tuesday

Voted for the Commonwealth Referendum.

15 December 1917 Saturday

Morning Rifle inspection and route march to Moiselaines. Afternoon visited the ruins of Moiselaines Church. We found its walls had been the target of many shells and here and there a statue stood with arms missing as if in mute appeal against this brutal war. A few chairs (about 6) were the only remnants of the seating accommodation of this once large & beautiful church (see Souvenir a). It memorial windows probably the first victims of the shell fire had almost completely disappeared likewise its pictures As is the custom in all European Churches it had its graveyard around church. But what a sight its fine marble crosses and vaults were blown to pieces.


Pay Day. Nothing doing.

A letter from ScotlandEdited extract from a letter to Mathew Sharman, headmaster of University High School, from Stanley Sissons, a science and mathematics teacher at the school, who worked in Scotland during World War One. Sissons (often known simply as “Sisso”) became a highly respected and influential dean of the College of Pharmacy in Swanston Street, Melbourne in the 1930s and a leader in the scientific development of pharmacy.

18 January 1917 Dear Mr Sharman

I hope you will not think I have been tardy, with this letter; but my working hours are so long, that I get very little time for letter writing.

To go back a little. I arrived in London on Nov 11th, and reported to Munitions Dept. Storey’s Gate: where I found that a new Cordite factory had been established at Gretna, Scotland; that men were badly needed on the Nitro Glycerine section; I was sent up as a staff chemist for this work. At first we worked 15 hr shifts – but that has now been eased a little and I do in rotation 6.30am to 4.40pm; 9.30pm–9am; 2.30pm–12. … This factory is the largest explosive factory in the world, its length extends over 12 miles. It has upwards of 50 miles of railway line in it; It employs 16,000 hands on factory work; and 25,000 in new construction work. Two former country hamlets, Gretna & Dornock, have been transformed to busy towns within 12 months, each boasting Post Office, Cinema, Town

Hall, Fire-Station, Institute (library, reading room etc), Staff-Hostel; all substantial brick buildings. But you have to be here to see the rapacity with which the place grows – to realise what a “mushroom” town is & what Munitions work involves.

There are quite a crowd of Australians at work here – Callister and Parkin who did the university course with me in Melb. have responsible positions here. Parry – whom you will remember – arrived here 1 month after I did. 6 Melbourne graduates and 6 Working Men’s College students are also on the work …

An outstanding feature of the Munitions work is the great part played by women. Women of all stations of life – young & old; married & unmarried; are working side by side with the men. If we win thro’ this war owing to our superiority in munitions – the victory will be largely a women’s victory. We’ve worked in mixing houses beside Tyneside factory girls who stood at their mixing tables, with dreadful headaches caused by the N.G., till they fainted: You can’t help admiring them all. … They are a merry crowd too, & have quite a collection of their own songs: I am trying to get some of these – in later years they will be an interesting reminder of this war …

I am sending along a copy of the British Australasian, to let you see how we get our Australian news in the quickest way.

A Last LetterCaptain Herbert Franklin Curnow, of Kangaroo Flat, Victoria was killed at Pozières, France on 5 August 1916. He was 22 years and eight months old.

26 June 1916Dear Mum,

We are now down at Albert & expect to go into the fighting tonight. In case I am killed in action or die of wounds I want you to know that I have lived a clean straightforward & honest life.

I have kept myself pure & have not touched a drop of intoxicating drink, neither have I taken up smoking. I have a clear conscience & have no fear of meeting my Maker.

I have tried to live that my example to others may be for good & trust that such has been the case. I must thank you for your love, training care & every attention & only hope that if anything happens that I may not see you again that our Heavenly Father will give you grace & strength to bear your loss. I feel sure that those who know me can vouch for the truth of the foregoing statements & believe that any who may be fortunate enough to survive will substantiate what I have written.

I have lived a Soldier’s life & will not be ashamed to die a Soldier’s death. I have done my duty to my King, my country & to you home folks. I am writing this on a hill-side outside Albert waiting for the order to move up to the front. We are 4 miles back & the guns are going almost constantly.

Other units have been badly cut up & I am writing this to set your minds at ease should anything happen to me. I’ll give this to the Padre. I am not writing to Flo or Emma.

I’ll have you all in mind as I commence the advance. After that I’ve my duties to attend to. I have 3 officers & 214 men in A. Co. The responsibility is great & I pray earnestly & humbly that God will give me wisdom, courage & fortitude to perform my allotted task with credit.

Goodbye now. Give my filial love to Father & a brother’s love to Flo, Les, Janet & Amy. There’s a lump in my throat & my eyes are moist as I scribble this down but the hasty jottings may possibly comfort you in trouble and if nothing happens the knowledge that I am

Your loving sonBert.

AcknowledgementsPhotographs courtesy of the Australian War Memorial, Pictures Collection and the State Library of Victoria

ResourcesThis booklet has been compiled using the resources of the Victorian Government’s Department of Premier and Cabinet and with contributions from writer Michael McKernan on ‘key battles’ and historian Dr Adrian Threlfall on ‘significant dates’ and ‘statistics’.

Thank you also to the Chair of the Victorian Anzac Centenary Committee the Hon Ted Baillieu

The following organisations have also provided information:

Australian War Memorial http://www.awm.gov.au/

State Library Victoria http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/

Department of Veterans’ Affairs http://www.dva.gov.au/

Australian Army http://www.army.gov.au/

RSL Victoria http://www.rslvic.com.au/

Shrine of Remembrance http://www.shrine.org.au/

Anzac Centenary – New South Wales http://www.veterans.nsw.gov.au/

Jewish Museum of Australia http://www.jewishmuseum.com.au/

Gallipoli and the Anzacs http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/

Australian Dictionary of Biography http://www.adb.anu.edu.au/

Note: Due to the mass casualties experienced by both sides in WWI, the figures provided in this booklet are approximations. The word ‘casualties’ refers to the number of people lost through death, injury, sickness or taken prisoner.

Although this document has been prepared with due care, we do not warrant or represent that the information is free from errors or omission.

Authorised and published by the Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne

Printed by Rooster IMC, Mount Waverley

Cover Image: Australian troops in shell craters at Polygon Wood, Ypres sector, 21 September 1917

http://www.anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au/

This publication is printed on Australian made paper.

http://www.anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au/

http://www.adb.anu.edu.au/

http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/

http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/

http://www.jewishmuseum.com.au/

http://www.veterans.nsw.gov.au/

http://www.shrine.org.au/

http://www.rslvic.com.au/

http://www.army.gov.au/

http://www.dva.gov.au/

http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/

http://www.awm.gov.au/

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