AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
(Use the following handout to help you track and annotate your world and Europe maps on you’re A3 piece of paper)
Australia's army and navy first began World War One by landing at Rabaul on 11 September 1914 and taking possession of German New Guinea at Tomaon 17 September 1914 and the neighbouring islands of the Bismarck Archipelago in October 1914.
On 14 November 1914 the Royal Australian Navy made a significant contribution when HMAS Sydney destroyed the German raider SMS Emden in the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Australia was however planning for a bigger war. It had promised Britain support (20,000 men to begin with) and began recruiting an army. As you would have already read and seen, most soldiers have multiple and often different reasons for joining up to fight in World War One. They would have been pressured by those around them, by the government (through a broad range of recruitment posters and propaganda) and by various people in society.
100s of soldiers joined up from all over Australia, including the suburb or Cranbourne. One such person was John Lyons who was 2 months away from his 23rd birthday. You can view his service record here:
John would most likely have gone to the recruiting office in Melbourne. Here he would have had his details taken down and would have been eventually asked to complete a medical examination.
Being from Victoria, John would have undertaken his initial training in places like Broadmeadows and Seymour (currently Puckapunyal army base).
After basic training (remember the German soldier’s training in ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’), in late December 1914, John and 20,000 other ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) soldiers headed by ship to Europe through the Suez Canal(plot this journey on your map).
However, in early February 1915, the Anzac soldiers would disembark (get off) at Egypt. Here they camped near the pyramids getting used to the conditions and doing extra training.
On the 25th of April 1915 the Anzacs having already left Egypt landed on the Gallipoli peninsula. They were part of a large allied invasion force, ready to fight against Turkey (at the time known as the Ottoman Empire), who had formerly declared war on the allies on the 28th October 1914. The Anzacs and the rest of the Allied forces left Gallipoli on the 20th December 1915, after a total lack of success.
By March 1916 the Anzacs were fighting in large numbers on the Western Front. Here they would stay until the end of the war. [WE WILL LOOK AT THIS IN MORE DETAIL LATER]
At the same time from 1916 until the end of the war Australian soldiers were involved in fighting the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East in places such as:
- The Suez Canal
- The Sinai peninsula
- Palestine and captured Gaza and Jerusalem
- Lebanon
- Syria
They would stay here until 30 October 1918 when Turkey asked for peace.
Arguably, the most famous of these encounters was the charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade at the Battle of Beersheba (it was later made into an Australian film)
At home, in Australia, Australian women volunteered for service in auxiliary (supporting) roles, as cooks, nurses, drivers, interpreters, munitions (factories where ammunition was made) workers, and skilled farm workers.
While the government welcomed the service of nurses, it generally rejected offers from women in other professions to serve overseas. Australian nurses served in Egypt, France, Greece, and India, often in trying conditions or close to the front, where they were exposed to shelling and aerial bombardment.