“When you go home, tell them of us, and say for your tomorrow we gave our today.”

World War 1 & AE2

Length of War:1914-1919
 
Numbers of Australians involved in the war: 416,809 troops
 
Numbers of Australian troops who died: 60,000
 
Numbers taken prisoner: 4,149 approximately
 
Prime Ministers: 
Joseph Cook (Commonwealth Liberal Party) 1913-1914
Andrew Fisher (Labor) 1914–1915
William Hughes (Labor) 1915-1923

World War 1

A series of political events and complex European alliances culminated in this, the first global war and drew countries from around the world into a much greater conflict that anyone could have anticipated. The escalation of the war inflicted phenomenal carnage that was to change the world forever.
 
Although the conflict began in Europe, it ultimately involved countries as far away as the United States and Japan. At the time, the English-speaking world knew it as the “The Great War”. The term “World War I” was applied decades later.
 
Historians still disagree over the fundamental causes of The Great War as the period leading up to the war was a complex tangle of diplomacy and political manoeuvring.
 
However, historians agree nearly unanimously about the war’s consequences: World War I led almost directly to World War II and set the stage for many other events in the twentieth century.
 

Australia’s Involvement in World War 1

On the 4th August 1914, Great Britain declared war on Germany and the Triple Alliance and young Australians from all over the country enlisted for “The Great Adventure” to help the Motherland from the scourge of the “Hun”.
 
In Turkey, soldiers from Australia and New Zealand fought side by side in the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915 and the word “ANZAC” was born.
 
The word ANZAC became the name that soldiers from Australia and New Zealand Army Corps were to be known and the name became synonymous with respect, courage, and mateship. We celebrate ANZAC Day on the 25th April each year where we remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) took part in some of the bloodiest battles of World War 1 and they were used as “Shock” troops by the British Commanders as they got the “job done”.
 
In July 1916 Australian infantry in the trenches and the battle for Fromelles, suffered 5,533 casualties in 24 hours. By the end of the year about 40,000 Australians had been killed or wounded on the Western Front. In 1917 a further 76,836 Australians became casualties in battles, including Bullecourt, Messines, and the four-month campaign around Ypres, known as the battle of Passchendaele.
 
Unlike their counterparts in France and Belgium, the Australians in the Middle East fought a mobile war against the Ottoman Empire in conditions completely different from the mud and stagnation of the Western Front. The light horsemen and their mounts had to survive extreme heat, harsh terrain, and water shortages. Casualties in this campaign were comparatively light, with 1,394 Australians killed or wounded in three years of war.
 
The campaign began in 1916 with Australian troops participating in the defense of the Suez Canal and the allied re-conquest of the Sinai peninsular. In the following year Australian and other allied troops advanced into Palestine and captured Gaza and Jerusalem; by 1918 they had occupied Lebanon and Syria. On 30 October 1918 Turkey sued for peace. 
Australians also served at sea in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and in the air with the newly formed Royal Flying Corps (RFC). The Great War was the first armed conflict in which aircraft were used; about 3,000 Australian airmen served in the Middle East and France with the Australian Flying Corps.
 
Australian women volunteered for service in auxiliary roles, as cooks, nurses, drivers, interpreters, munitions workers, and skilled farm workers. 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. 
The effect of the war was also felt at home. Families and communities grieved following the loss of so many men, and women increasingly assumed the physical and financial burden of caring for families. When the war ended, thousands of ex-servicemen, many disabled with physical or emotional wounds, had to be re-integrated into a society keen to consign the war to the past and resume normal life.
 
The GREAT WAR ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th Month in 1918 when an Armistice Agreement was signed and the guns fell silent. The official DECLARATION OF SURRENDER was signed on the 28th June 1919 and became known as “The Treaty of Versailles”.
 
World War I introduced new words and technologies that would shape the future of the World forever. The word Tank, Airplane and Submarine (U-Boat) would become household names.
 
The aftermath of World War I also marked the practical end of monarchy on the European continent and of colonialism throughout the rest of the world. Most European nations began to rely increasingly upon parliamentary systems of government, and socialism gained increasing popularity.
 
The brutality of the conflict and the enormous loss of human life inspired a renewed determination among nations to rely upon diplomacy to resolve conflicts in the future.
 
This resolve directly inspired the birth of the “League of Nations”.
 
Sixty-five Victoria Crosses were awarded to Australians during World War 1.