THE ARMIES OF AUSTRALASIA
Until the year 1870, the Imperial Government maintained a small body
of troops in Australia for the defence of the country. They existed
for two purposes: the chief one being to protect the country from
risings of the convicts. The other purpose was to assist in repelling
any foreign invasion, for they formed the garrisons of the rather
primitive forts which protected some of the Australian harbours. From
time to time local defence bodies were formed, when the troubles
of the Mother Country seemed to bring a foreign invasion among the
actual possibilities of Australian history. As soon as the trouble,
whatever it might be, had blown over, these defence organizations
would die a natural death, to be revived when fresh clouds appeared
upon the horizon.
The withdrawal of the Imperial troops in 1870 forced each Australian
state to initiate measures for defence, and caused the establishment
of a small professional army in each of the six separate states,
that were later federated into the Commonwealth of Australia.
These very small groups of soldiers were designed to form a nucleus
for a citizen defence force. This was purely voluntary, the men
of Australia drilling and training without any payment; and the
Governments finding uniform and weapons, and allowing a fairly large
supply of ammunition for practice, at a very cheap rate.
In 1880 a militia system was substituted for the volunteer system,
and a yearly payment of something like £12 for each volunteer
soldier was arranged. At the same time an admirable cadet system
was established, and the schoolboys of Australia entered into the
business of drilling, training and shooting with an enthusiasm that
did much to keep the ranks of the militia full, as they grew up. The
smaller country settlements also established rifle clubs, which had a
remarkably large membership. A little drill was combined with a great
deal of shooting under service conditions, and to the rifle clubs
Australia owes the possession of a very large number of sharpshooters
that certainly have no superiors in the world.
The cadets attracted the notice of King George when, as Duke of York,
he made his great Empire tour in 1900. They took part in a remarkable
review of defence forces held on the famous Flemington racecourse;
and Mr. E. F. Knight, one of the London journalists who accompanied
the King on that tour, wrote of them in the following terms:--
"The first to pass the saluting base were the cadets, who to the
stirring strains of the British Grenadiers marched by with a fine
swing and preserved an excellent alignment. They presented the
appearance of very tough young soldiers, and they exhibited no
fatigue after a very trying day, in the course of which they had been
standing for hours with soaked clothes in the heavy rain. They looked
business-like in their khaki uniforms and felt hats.
"During the march past I was in a pavilion reserved chiefly for
British and foreign naval officers. The German and American officers
were much struck with the physique and soldierly qualities of the
Australian troops, but they spoke with unreserved admiration when
they saw these cadets."
The cadet system was elaborated, between the years 1909 and 1911,
into a system of compulsory military training based on a scheme drawn
up by Lord Kitchener himself, followed by a report on Australian
defences made by Sir Ian Hamilton, the General who is now in
supreme charge of the Australasian forces at the Dardanelles. When
the new scheme came into force, the numbers of the land forces of
the Commonwealth were nearly 110,000 men and boys; the figures
comprising 2,000 permanent troops, nearly 22,000 militia, over
55,000 members of rifle clubs, and 28,000 cadets.
At the time the new compulsory system came into force, the number of
males in Australia was--
Between 12 and 18 (of cadet age) 260,000
Between 18 and 26 (of citizen soldier age) 366,000
Between 26 and 35 330,000
Between 35 and 60 614,000
For compulsory training it was enacted that the citizens of cadet and
military age should be divided into four classes as under:--
Junior Cadets, from 12 to 14.
Senior Cadets, from 14 to 18.
Citizen soldiers, from 18 to 25.
" " 25 to 26.
The prescribed training was: (_a_) For junior cadets, 120 hours
yearly. (_b_) For senior cadets, 4 whole-day drills, 12 half-day
drills, and 24 night drills yearly. (_c_) For citizen soldiers, 16
whole-day drills, or their equivalent, of which not less than eight
should be in camps of continuous training.
The scheme came into operation at the beginning of 1911, when the
new cadets, to the number of over 120,000, were enrolled. At the
same time 200 non-commissioned officers, as a training force for
the new army, went into camp for a six months course of instruction.
From July 1 the new system of cadet training began, 20,000 of the
boys, of the age of eighteen, going into training as the first year's
crop of recruits. Every year afterwards this number, approximately,
of trained senior cadets was added to the citizen army in training,
while the number of cadets remained about 120,000; some 20,000 junior
cadets at the age of twelve reinforcing the cadets as each draft of
eighteen-year-old cadets became citizen soldiers.
It will be seen that the outbreak of the war in 1914 found the
Australian scheme still incomplete, since the number of citizen
soldiers in training was approximately only 80,000, even including
the 20,000 cadets of that year, who had just been drafted into the
citizen army.
Australia had also arranged for the training of its own young
officers, who in time should develop into Area Officers under the
compulsory services scheme, which provides for the division of
the Commonwealth into over 200 military Areas, with an officer in
charge of each. The establishment of a military college at Duntroon,
near the new Australian Federal capital city of Canberra, had made
excellent progress when war came.
The Duntroon establishment was an efficient rather than a showy
establishment; its modest wooden bungalows, in which the officers
were quartered, contrasting strangely with the elaborate
arrangements at similar establishments such as Sandhurst or West
Point. But the teaching was remarkably thorough for such a young
institution. The democratic tendencies of Australia are illustrated
by the fact that tuition at Duntroon is absolutely free, the parents
of the young officer being not even asked to supply him with pocket
money, since an allowance of 5_s._ per week is made by the Government
to each cadet in training. The course of instruction is one of
four years' training, and necessitates the daily application of
six hours to instruction, and two hours to military exercises. A
vacation of two months is observed at Christmas time, the height of
the Australian summer, and there are frequent camps for practical
instruction in all branches of field work.
Cadets are required to make their own beds, clean their own boots,
and keep their kit in order. Special emphasis is laid upon the value
of character, and any cadet, however able in acquiring knowledge
or brilliant in physical exercises, must, if he lacks the power of
self-discipline, be removed as unfit to become an officer who has to
control others. The College was opened in June, 1911, with forty-one
cadets, and has since been employed by the New Zealand Government
for the training of its young officers, a step in co-operation which
is likely to show the way to still closer relations between the
Dominion and the Commonwealth in many matters relating to defence.
The Commandant of the College was the late General Bridges,
whose death in action at Gaba Tepe is so universally mourned by
Australians. Writing of him and the College in the _Sydney Morning
Herald_, V. J. M. says:--
"Duntroon is his masterpiece. To have left it as he did, after
a bare four years, represents the greatest educational feat yet
accomplished in Australia. Before attempting it he studied the
greatest colleges in Europe and America--Sandhurst, Woolwich, West
Point, Kingston, Saint-Cyr, L'Ecole Polytechnique, L'Ecole Militaire,
die Grosslichterfelder Kadettenanstalt--all were visited and
carefully investigated by him. His endeavour was to incorporate, so
far as local conditions would allow, the best of each in Duntroon.
How far he has succeeded is well known. In the opinion of Viscount
Bryce, Sir Ian Hamilton, Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, and others,
it stands out one of the most efficient military schools--some
say the most efficient--in the world. Four years ago there were a
station homestead and a rolling sweep of lonely country. What a
strong driving force must have been behind it all. The crisis found
Duntroon ready. Already seventy-one officers from its class-rooms and
training fields are at the front, of whom some twenty have fallen.
So excellent has been the work of these young soldiers in the desert
camp that, in a recent letter, General Bridges mentioned that General
Birdwood has specially written of them to the King. Australia will
have reason in the troublous years ahead to be thankful that her
great military school was conceived by a man of broad grasp and wide
knowledge. The soldiers of the future will be moulded and the armies
of the future organized by its graduates. He meant it to be, and it
is, a great military university."
The precedent that Australasian soldiers should take part in the
wars of the Mother Country was set in 1883, when the State of New
South Wales sent a contingent of 800 infantry and artillery to the
Soudan. The initiative in this matter was due to Mr. W. B. Dalley,
then Premier of New South Wales. The force, after being reviewed by
Lord Loftus, the State Governor, sailed from Sydney on March 3, 1883,
on the transports _Iberia_ and _Australasian_. The services rendered
by them were comparatively slight; indeed, they were treated by the
Imperial authorities as rather a gratuitous nuisance, intruding where
their presence was not required. But the precedent had been set, and
was followed by all the Dominions Overseas, on the outbreak of the
African war.
Once again the War Office was inclined to regard the Greater Britons
as useless interlopers, and the offer to provide cavalry was met
with the historical cable that in Africa "foot soldiers only" were
required. It is further a matter of history that the authorities
very sensibly revised this estimate as the war progressed, and
were glad of the services of every man who could ride and shoot.
Contingent after contingent was despatched from Australasia, New
Zealand especially providing a wealth of fine soldiers. In proportion
to population, the Dominion supplied more men to fight the Empire's
battle in South Africa than any part of the British realm.
CLEARING THE PACIFIC