Essay On Australian Enlistment

In World War 1, all Australian soldier enlisted voluntarily. When the war first began, this was more than enough to support the war effort overseas. But, when the news of the casualties and conditions at war became known on the home front, the number of enlistments fell rapidly. Australia was under a lot of pressure from Britain to ensure that the promised number of men would be enlisted. Under a lot of stress, Prime Minister William Hughes came to the decision the hold a referendum to see if the people of Australia agreed or disagreed with conscription and compulsory service overseas.

In Australia, during World War One, conscription was one of the most divisive and bitter arguments of the time, however, it can be argued that conscription had a huger impact on Australia in World War Two than in World War One due to its implementation. By 1916, two years after World War One had begun, most of

The Australian home front during WWI was drastically altered politically through the conscription vote that Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, believed necessary. 50,000 Australian men had signed up for the war before the year of 1914 had come to an end – which was a rate of over 10,000 per month – but the enlistment numbers dropped way down to 6,000 for the month of the Gallipoli landing in 1915. Once again, however, the numbers rose sharply on the home front after the news of the landing came back home, as many wished to avenge their fallen countrymen, and nobody could question the solemnity of the conflict. With five whole divisions overseas, Australia had to stay committed to their recruitment for the

Nothing was more divisive than the conscription debate in Australia during the First World War. The highly debated issue of conscription - compulsory enlistment for military service, particularly overseas - had a significant effect on Australian society.

In 1993, the reasons for which Australians chose to go to war and serve their country were completely different from those

Many people believed it was Australia’s duty to support Britain, as they colonised Australia and are a longstanding ally of the country. Due to these facts, numerous Australian’s believed sending more troops to fight alongside Britain in the war was the right thing to do, thus they pushed for conscription. Prime Minister Billy Hughes used this reason as one of his main arguments for supporting conscription. The issue of conscription was extremely politically driven. He reasoned that Australian’s should continue to support the British military if they expected to receive their support in return. In Source D the use of the sentence “Australia has promised Britain” shows evidence of why many people supported conscription and how political figures tried to convince the public to vote yes to conscription by saying Britain needs Australia’s support. Another group that was for conscription was the Anglican Church. They supported conscription as they had strong ties with Britain and its heritage, as well as British Church leaders. Therefore, support for conscription was showed by several Australian’s, political figures, and some religious groups, as many wanted to show their support to the mother country

Over the 6 years that ww2 was going for, more than 993,000 Australians served in the armed forces during World War II. More than 27,073 were killed fighting for Australia, 23,477 people were wounded fighting and 30,560 were taken prisoner and were not seen during the war, while 30,560 people were taking prisoner 8296 died in captivity. After more than 993,000 people going to ww2 to fight for our

Australia entered World War II (WW2) on the 3rd September 1939, following the United Kingdom’s declaration of war (551). During this period, The Australian Government sent almost half of the Royal Australia Air Force (RAAF) and Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ships to fight alongside Britain in the European war (anzacportal).

World War One was the cause of many significant changes in the world’s society. However, did it deeply affect the Australian home-front? The answer is different to many different people because the experiences differ. Some points of view would say that Australia was not deeply affected because the war wasn’t fought on Australian soil. On the other hand, people could argue that World War One saw a dramatic change in the Australian economy and the way of life for people on the home-front.

Many nations but mostly Australia, World War 1 suffered the most casualties. At the time of the outbreak of the war Australia only had just under five million people living there. 416,809 men enlisted in the war, which is nearly a tenth of the population, approximately 60,000 of those men died and around 156,000 were injured, gassed, wounded or help prisoner. (https://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/ww1/). This just proves the gaining strength in a growing reputation of Australian

The outbreak of war in August 1914 seemed to unleash a huge wave of enthusiastic support for Britain and support for Australia’s part in the war. All major political parties, churches, community leaders and newspapers seemed to support Australia’s entry. It was seen as a moral and necessary commitment. There was a rush to the recruiting offices, and, at this stage, only the very fittest and healthiest men were accepted. The whole country seemed to be both enthusiastic for the war, and united in support of it

The start of World War I was between great European countries whose armies clashed on a large scale. While these countries went head to head, the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was preparing to join in the conflict to support the British Empire. But instead of going to Europe these Australians along with New Zealanders were diverted to Egypt which formed into the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps

World War I (1914-1918) was considered the 'Great War' and Australia’s Gallipoli campaign has always been considered as the pinnacle of the Australian military feats. This is due to the constant glorification of the event despite the fact it was an unmitigated failure. However, the work of the Australian army force in the most important battleground of WW1 the 'Western Front' is often cast under the shadow of Gallipoli. The battles on the Western Front took place in France, Belgium and parts of Germany and this is where some of the most pivotal battles were fought. The contribution and success of the Australians will be assessed through the analysis of several sources related to four major contributions related to the Western Front. These include the amount of Australians involved, the external opinions of Australia in the Western front, The Battle of

With majority of the Australia defence force fighting in Europe, meant that Australia was left vulnerable to an attack from the Axis forces, forcing their way through the pacific. The so called “Cowards” who didn’t sign up for Europe, now had a second chance to be a hero. For the future generations of Australia. Everyone is understandably worried, it is more or less the citizens of Australia fighting against trained Japanese troops in jungle warfare. As we left to PNG we left a trail of white feathers behind.

Although military history has always been associated with the chronicle of Australia and its European inhabitants, the Boer War had been the first full commitment of troops by all the Australian Colonies to a foreign war. With the establishment of the Australian Commonwealth on 1st January 1901, it became our country’s first military contribution as a Nation (RSL NSW, 2014). Australians served in contingents raised by the six colonies (the Australian Commonwealth) and took the form of waves. First, there were the contingents raised by the Australian colonies in response to the outbreak of war in 1899 (Australian War Memorial, n.d) but soon after, the Boers inflicted three defeats on the British army during what was called ‘Black Week’. This