Welcome to the video series Site Study: Ypres Salient, my name is Brad Manera.
When the Great War broke out in 1914, Australia saw itself as part of the British Empire. Many Australians spoke of Britain as home. The notion of Britain of the centre of a great empire that included Australia was still a very important one in this country, even after the outbreak of the First World War.
At the time of the First World War the attitude of the Australian public was that if Britain was in trouble, then Australia was in trouble too.
In reality, Australia was a primary producer and we relied on markets overseas, particularly markets around the British Empire. If Britain went to war our lines of communication and maritime trade would be disrupted. Australia's ability to get its wheat and wool out to market and the profits back home would be jeopardized if Britain no longer ruled the waves.
Germany's Asian and Melanesian colonies and its Pacific fleet made Australians aware of our isolation and the potential threat.
Australians also felt historical obligations and familial links with Britain and, more broadly, with Europe. So when there was a war in Europe, the Australian people felt that it was our war too.
Coincidentally as Europe prepared for war Australians prepared for a federal election. Would be prime ministers sought to demonstrate their loyalty to the empire. They knew that would have broad public appeal.
The most promising candidate stated that Australia would 'support Britain to the last man and the last shilling!'
When war was declared in August 1914 the Australian people responded with enormous enthusiasm. Our home defence force - the Australian Commonwealth Military Forces could not be sent away. We created a special little army for the war, the Australian Imperial Force often known by its initial AIF.
Where we had initially promised that we would support Britain with 20,000 soldiers, in NSW alone on the first day of recruiting for the AIF, 3,600 people turned up to volunteer in front of the Victoria Barracks in Oxford Street, Paddington.
We had those 20,000 places filled within weeks. 30 to 40 percent of Australian men of military age and hundreds of Australian women went to the war.
On the home front we imagined local threats. We created the War Precautions Act, and interned enemy aliens, became suspicious of foreigners generally. We even accepted internees from German colonies and other countries around the Pacific rim where the British had rounded up German populations. They didn't send them back to Britain, they sent them to NSW. Even the Germans that were rounded up at Tsingtao in China were sent to Holsworthy and Liverpool in NSW. The state established what were called German Concentration Camps.
If we were prepared to persecute foreigners from enemy countries, foreigners from friendly countries were supported generously. We held fundraising events for Belgium Day, France Day and others. The Australian Red Cross raised money for Italian refugees, for Belgian refugees, for all of the countries of allied nations.
The war had a major impact on the role of women in Australian society. Apart from the relatively small number of women who qualified for the Australian Army Nursing Service few women served overseas in a military role however the drain on manpower gave greater opportunities for women in the workforce. Possible the greatest impact on Australian women was the one that is impossible to measure, the impact of supporting loved ones away at the front. Letters took months and the anxiety of waiting for news of a brother, husband or father was a huge burden to bear.
The impact of the Great War varied for every individual, Aboriginal Australians were no exception.
For Aboriginal Australians living in the remote west or north the war was very distant and had very little impact on their lives. One of the few indications could have been the increased demand for horses to mount the Australian Light Horse and Australian Artillery. Aboriginal stockman played a major role in mustering and breaking horses for the Australian War effort.
In urban Australia and many of the larger rural areas Aboriginal men, like so many other Australians rushed to volunteer for the AIF in 1914 and 1915. They met a broad range of responses at the recruiting stations. Some were accepted straight away. Others, probably the majority, were turned away. Some recruiters were aware that the Defence Act of 1903 stated that to join an Australian defence force the volunteer had to be 'of substantially British origin'.
The decision to reject Aboriginal volunteers varied from one place of enlistment to another. By late 1915 non-European volunteers were being rejected as a matter of course and Aboriginal Australians found themselves treated in a very similar manner.
A year later recruitment had dropped and the AIF had suffered so many casualties that replacements were essential. Strict height requirements were dropped and the age range extended. Directives restricting the enlistment of foreign nationals and Aboriginal Australians were relaxed. Hundreds enlisted.
Once Aboriginal Australians had joined the AIF they were treated exactly the same as every volunteer. They received the same pay and served in the same units. Several were very highly decorated. In New South Wales for example William Allen Irwin, an Aboriginal shearer from the Darling earned the Distinguished Conduct Medal, second only to the Victoria Cross, in the fighting on the approaches to Mont St Quentin in late August 1918.
In contrast New Zealanders channeled Maori enlistees in 1915 into a small unit called the New Zealand native contingent. From 1916 it had grown to battalion strength but was restricted to labouring tasks. South Africa only allowed whites to serve in their infantry Brigade. Black South Africans went to war at unarmed and served as labourers on the Western front.
The difference came at the end of the war. Many Aboriginal veterans qualified for the same veteran's benefits as non-Aboriginal Australians. Others found prejudice or the complexities of the bureaucracy of the various Aboriginal Protection Boards too difficult to deal with and so missed out.
There's still misunderstanding and bitterness expressed by the descendants of some Aboriginal servicemen that served in the Great War about how their ancestors were treated at the end of the war.
Aboriginal Australian veterans were not the only ones facing extreme challenges at the end of the war.
The war had reached into every home in Australia.
Most had mistakenly believed that the war would be short and glorious. The Australian Imperial Force was only expected to serve overseas for a short time, then return victorious at war's end, and be disbanded so that it's volunteers could take up their civilian occupations again.
The reality was that the war was long and hard.
Over 330,000 Australians served overseas in the AIF. Some 62,000 of them were killed or died on active service or within months of returning home. 150,000 fell ill or were wounded during the war. In the following decades tens of thousands of veterans would die of the effects of their war service.
For the duration of the war families had been torn apart. While the soldiers suffered the terror of war their loved ones lived with the anxiety of their absence and the uncertainty of their fate.
By the 1930s a quarter of a million Australians received war pensions, 21,000 war service homes had been built and 1,600 men were still in hospitals and hostels for the seriously disabled. Blinded or maimed veterans had to learn to live with their disabilities. Some 4000 artificial limbs had been supplied. Repatriation schemes represented one fifth of all Commonwealth government expenditure.
The war may have lasted four years and three months but the scars it produced lingered for decades and its echoes can still be heard today.
I think Australia grew up during the First World War. We were very proud of our soldiers and their achievements. At Gallipoli in 1915 the AIF made a reputation for courage and endurance. On the Western Front from 1916 to 1918 the AIF was clearly identifiable and it gave Australia great patriotic pride and a strong sense of identity.
We were still part of the British Empire but an appreciation of our own worth as a nation blossomed.