Military history of Australia
Encyclopedia
The military history of Australia spans the nation's 220-year modern history, from the early Australian frontier wars
between Aborigines
and Europeans
to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
in the early 21st century. Although this history is short when compared to that of many other nations, Australia has been involved in numerous conflicts and wars, and war and military service have been significant influences on Australian society and national identity, including the Anzac spirit
. The relationship between war and Australian society has also been shaped by the enduring themes of Australian strategic culture and its unique security dilemma.
As a British colony, Australia participated in Britain's small wars of the 19th century, while later as an independent nation it fought in the First World War and Second World War, as well as in the wars in Korea
, Malaya
, Borneo
and Vietnam
during the Cold War
. In the Post-Vietnam era Australian forces have been involved in numerous international peacekeeping
missions, through the United Nations
and other agencies, including in the Persian Gulf
, Rwanda
, Somalia
, East Timor
and the Solomon Islands
, while more recently they have also fought as part of multi-lateral forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In total, nearly 103,000 Australians died during the course of these conflicts.This figure represents military casualties only and does not include those that died during the frontier conflict. See Coulthard-Clark 1998, p. v.
has been one of the single greatest shared experiences of white Australian males, and although this is now changing due to the professionalisation of the military and the absence of major wars during the second half of the 20th century, it continues to influence Australian society to this day. As such war and military service have been defining influences in Australian history
, while a major part of the national identity has been built on an idealised conception of the Australian experience of war and of soldiering, known as the Anzac spirit
. These ideals include notions of endurance, courage, ingenuity, humour, larrikinism
, egalitarianism
and mateship
; traits which, according to popular thought, defined the behaviour of Australian soldiers fighting at Gallipoli during the First World War. The Gallipoli campaign was one of the first international events that saw Australians taking part as Australians and as such, it has been seen as a key event in forging a sense of national identity.
The relationship between war and Australian society has been shaped by two of the more enduring themes of Australian strategic culture: bandwagoning
with a powerful ally, and expeditionary warfare
. Indeed, Australian defence policy was closely linked to Britain until the Japanese crisis of 1942
, while since then an alliance with the United States
has underwritten its security. Arguably, this pattern of bandwagoning—both for cultural reasons such as shared values and beliefs, as well as for more pragmatic security concerns—has ensured that Australian strategic policy has often been defined by relations with its allies. Regardless, a tendency towards strategic complacency has also been evident, with Australians often reluctant to think about defence issues and to allocate resources until a crisis arises; a trait which has historically resulted in unpreparedness for major military challenges.
Reflecting both the realist and liberal
paradigms of international relations
and the conception of national interest
s, a number of other important themes in Australian strategic culture are also obvious. Such themes include: an acceptance of the state
as the key actor in international politics, the centrality of notions of Westphalian sovereignty
, a belief in the enduring relevance and legitimacy of armed force as a guarantor of security, and the proposition that the status quo
in international affairs should only be changed peacefully. Likewise multilateralism
, collective security
and defence self-reliance have also been important themes. Change has been more evolutionary than revolutionary
and these strategic behaviours have persisted throughout its history, being the product of Australian society's democratic political tradition and Judaeo-Christian Anglo-European heritage, as well its associated values, beliefs and economic, political and religious ideology. Equally though, these behaviours are also reflective of its unique security dilemma
as a largely European island on the edge of the Asia-Pacific, and the geopolitical circumstances of a middle power
physically removed from the centres of world power. To be sure, during threats to the core Australia has often found itself defending the periphery and perhaps as a result, it has frequently become involved in foreign wars. Throughout these conflicts Australian soldiers—known colloquially as Diggers
—have often been noted, perhaps paradoxically, for both their fighting abilities and their humanitarian qualities.
From 1788 until 1870 the defence of the Australian colonies was provided by British Army
regular forces. Originally Marines
protected the early settlements at Sydney Cove
and Norfolk Island
, however they were relieved of these duties in 1790 by a unit specifically recruited for colonial service, known as the New South Wales Corps
. The New South Wales Corps subsequently was involved in putting down a rebellion of Irish convicts at Castle Hill
in 1804. Soon however shortcomings in the corps convinced the War Office
of the need for a more reliable garrison in New South Wales
and Van Diemen’s Land. Chief of these shortcomings was the Rum Rebellion
, a coup mounted by its officers in 1808. As a result, in January 1810 the 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot arrived in Australia. By 1870, 25 British infantry regiments had served in Australia, as had a small number of artillery and engineer units.
Although the primary role of the British Army was to protect the colonies against external attack, no actual threat ever materialised. The British Army was instead used in policing, guarding convicts at penal institutions, combating bushranging, putting down convict rebellions—as occurred at Bathurst in 1830
—and to suppress Aboriginal resistance to the extension of European settlement. Notably British soldiers were involved in the battle at the Eureka Stockade
in 1854 on the Victorian goldfields. Members of British regiments stationed in Australia also saw action in India
, Afghanistan
, New Zealand
and the Sudan
.
During the early years of settlement the naval defence of Australia was provided by detached Royal Navy
units of the East Indies Station
, based in Sydney. However, in 1859 Australia was established as a separate squadron under the command of a commodore
, marking the first occasion that Royal Navy ships had been permanently stationed in Australia. The Royal Navy remained the primary naval force in Australian waters until 1913, when the Australia Station
ceased and responsibility handed over to the Royal Australian Navy
; the Royal Navy's depots, dockyards and structures were gifted to the Australian people.
The reactions of the native Aboriginal inhabitants to the sudden arrival of British settlers in Australia were varied, but were inevitably hostile when the settler's presence led to competition over resources, and to the occupation of the indigenous inhabitants' lands. European diseases decimated Aboriginal populations, and the occupation or destruction of lands and food resources sometimes led to starvation. By and large neither the British nor the Aborigines approached the conflict in an organised sense and conflict occurred between groups of settlers and individual tribes rather than systematic warfare. At times, however, the frontier wars did see the involvement of British soldiers and later mounted police
units. Not all Aboriginal groups resisted white encroachment on their lands, while many Aborigines served in mounted police units and were involved in attacks on other tribes.
Fighting between Aborigines and Europeans was localised as the Aborigines did not form confederations capable of sustained resistance. As a result, there was not a single war, but rather a series of violent engagements and massacres across the continent. Organised or disorganised however, a pattern of frontier warfare emerged with Aboriginal resistance beginning in the 18th century and continuing into the early 20th century. This warfare contradicts the popular and at times academic "myth" of peaceful settlement in Australia. Faced with Aboriginal resistance settlers often reacted with violence, resulting in a number of indiscriminate massacres. Among the most famous is the Battle of Pinjarra
in Western Australia
in 1834. Such incidents were not officially sanctioned however, and after the Myall Creek massacre
in New South Wales in 1838 seven Europeans were hanged for their part in the killings. However in Tasmania
, the so-called Black War
was fought between 1828 and 1832 and aimed at driving most of the island's native inhabitants onto a number of isolated peninsulas. Although it began in failure for the British, it ultimately resulted in considerable casualties amongst the native population.
It may be inaccurate, however, to depict the conflict as one sided and mainly perpetrated by Europeans on Aborigines. Although many more Aborigines died than British, this may have had more to do with the technological and logistic advantages enjoyed by the Europeans. Aboriginal tactics varied, but were mainly based on pre-existing hunting and fighting practices—utilising spears, clubs and other primitive weapons. Unlike the indigenous peoples of New Zealand and North America
, on the main Aborigines failed to adapt to meet the challenge of the Europeans. Although there were some instances of individuals and groups acquiring and using firearms, this was not widespread. The Aborigines were never a serious military threat to European settlers, regardless of how much the settlers may have feared them. On occasions large groups of Aborigines attacked the settlers in open terrain and a conventional battle ensued, during which the Aborigines would attempt to use superior numbers to their advantage. This could sometimes be effective, with reports of them advancing in crescent formation in an attempt to outflank and surround their opponents, waiting out the first volley of shots and then hurling their spears while the settlers reloaded. Usually such open warfare proved more costly for the Aborigines than the Europeans, however.
Central to the success of the Europeans was the use of firearms. However, the advantages afforded by firearms have often been overstated. Prior to the late 19th century, firearms were often cumbersome musket
s: muzzle-loading, smooth-bore, single shot weapons with flint-lock mechanisms. Such weapons produced a low rate of fire, while suffering from a high rate of failure and were only accurate within 50 metres (164 ft). These deficiencies may have given the Aborigines an advantage, allowing them to move in close and engage with spears or clubs. By 1850 significant advances in firearms gave the Europeans a distinct advantage, with the six-shot Colt revolver, the Snider single shot breech-loading rifle
and later the Martini-Henry rifle as well as rapid-fire rifles such as the Winchester rifle
, becoming available. These weapons, when used on open ground and combined with the superior mobility provided by horses to surround and engage groups of Aborigines, often proved successful. The Europeans also had to adapt their tactics to fight their fast-moving, often hidden enemies. Tactics employed included night-time surprise attacks, and positioning forces to drive the natives off cliffs or force them to retreat into rivers while attacking from both banks.
The conflict lasted for over 150 years and the face of battle followed the pattern of British settlement in Australia. Beginning in New South Wales with the arrival of the first Europeans in May 1788, it continued in Sydney and its surrounds until the 1820s. As the frontier moved west so did the conflict, pushing into outback New South Wales in the 1840s. In Tasmania, fighting can be traced from 1804 to the 1830s, while in Victoria
and the southern parts of South Australia
, the majority of the violence occurred during the 1830s and 1840s. The south-west of Western Australia
experienced warfare from 1829 to 1850. The war in Queensland
began in the area around Brisbane
in the 1840s and continued until 1860, moving to central Queensland in the 1850s and 1860s, and then in northern Queensland from the 1860s to 1900. In Western Australia, the violence moved north as European settlement moved north, reaching the Kimberley region by 1880, with violent clashes continuing until the 1920s. In the Northern Territory
conflict lasted even later still, especially in central Australia, continuing from 1880s to the 1930s. One estimate of casualties places European deaths at 2,500, while at least 20,000 Aborigines are believed to have perished. Far more devastating, however, was the effect of disease which significantly reduced the Aboriginal population by the beginning of the 20th century; a fact which may also have limited their ability to resist encroachment.
was dispatched to help the New Zealand colonial government in its war against Māori in Taranaki. Victoria was subsequently used for patrol duties and logistic support, although a number of personnel were involved in actions against Māori fortifications. One sailor died from an accidental gunshot wound during the deployment.
province against the Māori. Promised settlement on confiscated land, more than 2,500 Australians (over half of whom were from Victoria) were recruited to form four Waikato Regiments. Other Australians became scouts in the Company of Forest Rangers. Despite experiencing arduous conditions the Australians were not heavily involved in battle, and were primarily used for patrolling and garrison duties. Australians were involved in actions at Matarikoriko, Pukekohe East
, Titi Hill, Orakau and Te Ranga. Fewer than 20 were believed to have been killed in action. The conflict was over by 1864, and the Waikato Regiments disbanded in 1867. However, many of the soldiers who had chosen to claim farmland at the cessation of hostilities had drifted to the towns and cities by the end of the decade, while many others had returned to Australia.
between 1855 and 1890, and while the Colonial Office
in London retained control of some affairs, the Governor of the each colony was required to raise their own colonial militia. To do this, they were granted the authority from the British crown to raise military and naval forces. Initially these were militias in support of British regulars, but when military support for the colonies ended in 1870, the colonies assumed their own defence responsibilities. The colonial military forces included unpaid volunteer militia, paid citizen soldiers, and a small permanent component. They were mainly infantry, cavalry and mounted infantry, and were neither housed in barracks
nor subject to full military discipline. Even after significant reforms in the 1870s—including the expansion of the permanent forces to include engineer and artillery units—they remained too small and unbalanced to be considered armies in the modern sense. By 1885, the forces numbered 21,000 men. Although they could not be compelled to serve overseas many volunteers subsequently did see action in a number conflicts of the British Empire
during the 19th century, with the colonies raising contingents to serve in Sudan, South Africa and China.
Despite a reputation of colonial inferiority, many of the locally raised units were highly organised, disciplined, professional, and well trained. During this period, defences in Australia mainly revolved around static defence by combined infantry and artillery, based on garrisoned coastal forts. However, by the 1890s, improved railway communications between the mainland eastern colonies led Major General James Edwards
—who had recently completed a survey of colonial military forces—to the belief that the colonies could be defended by the rapid mobilisation of brigades of infantry. As a consequence he called for a restructure of defences, and defensive agreements to be made between the colonies. Edwards argued for the colonial forces to be federated and for professional units—obliged to serve anywhere in the South Pacific—to replace the volunteer forces. These views found support in the influential New South Wales Commandant, Major General Edward Hutton, however suspicions held by the smaller colonies towards New South Wales and Victoria stifled the proposal. Despite these reforms remaining unresolved, defence issues were increasingly driving debate on the political federation of the colonies.
With the exception of Western Australia, the colonies also operated their own navies
. In 1856, Victoria received its own naval vessel, HMCSS Victoria
, and its deployment to New Zealand in 1860 during the First Taranaki War marked the first occasion that an Australian warship had been deployed overseas. The colonial navies were expanded greatly in the mid-1880s and consisted of a number of gunboats and torpedo-boats for the defence of harbours and rivers, as well as naval brigades to man vessels and forts. Victoria became the most powerful of all the colonial navies, with the ironclad HMVS Cerberus
in service from 1870, as well as the steam-sail warship on loan from the Royal Navy, three small gunboats and five torpedo-boats. New South Wales formed a Naval Brigade in 1863 and by the turn of the century had two small torpedo-boats and a corvette. The Queensland Maritime Defence Force was established in 1885, while South Australia operated a single ship, HMCS Protector
. Tasmania had also a small Torpedo Corps, while Western Australia’s only naval defences included the Fremantle Naval Artillery. Naval personnel from New South Wales and Victoria took part in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion
in China in 1900, while HMCS Protector was sent by South Australia but saw no action. The separate colonies maintained control over their military and naval forces until Federation
in 1901, when they were amalgamated and placed under the control of the new Commonwealth of Australia.
, backed by the British, came under threat from rebellion under the leadership of native Muhammad Ahmad
(or Ahmed), known as Mahdi
to his followers. In 1883, as part of the Mahdist War
, the Egyptians sent an army to deal with the revolt, but they were defeated and faced a difficult campaign of extracting their forces. The British instructed the Egyptians to abandon the Sudan, and sent General Charles Gordon
to coordinate the evacuation, but he was killed in January 1885. When news of his death arrived in New South Wales in February 1885, the government offered to send forces and meet the contingent's expenses. The New South Wales Contingent consisted of an infantry battalion of 522 men and 24 officers, and an artillery battery of 212 men and sailed from Sydney on 3 March 1885.
The contingent arrived in Suakin
on 29 March and were attached to a brigade that consisted of Scots, Grenadier and Coldstream Guards. They subsequently marched for Tamai in a large "square" formation made up of 10,000 men. Reaching the village, they burned huts and returned to Suakin: three Australians were wounded in minor fighting. Most of the contingent was then sent to work on a railway line that was being laid across the desert towards Berber
, on the Nile. The Australians were then assigned to guard duties, but soon a camel corps was raised and 50 men volunteered. They rode on a reconnaissance to Takdul on 6 May and were heavily involved in a skirmish during which more than 100 Arabs were killed or captured. On 15 May, they made one last sortie to bury the dead that were killed from the fighting of the previous March. The artillery were posted at Handoub and drilled for a month, but they soon rejoined the camp at Suakin.
The British government decided that the campaign in Sudan was not worth the effort required and left a garrison in Suakin. The New South Wales Contingent sailed for home on 17 May, arriving in Sydney on 19 June 1885. Approximately 770 Australians served in Sudan; nine subsequently died of disease during the return journey while three had been wounded during the campaign.
British encroachment into areas of South Africa
already settled by the Afrikaner Boers and the competition for resources and land that developed between them as a result, led to the Second Boer War
in 1899. Pre-empting the deployment of British forces, the Afrikaner Republics of the Orange Free State
and the Transvaal Republic
under President Paul Kruger
declared war on 11 October 1899, striking deep into the British territories of Natal
and the Cape Colony
. After the outbreak of war, plans for the dispatch of a combined Australian force were subsequently set aside by the British War Office and each of the six colonial governments sent separate contingents to serve with British formations, with two squadrons each of 125 men from New South Wales and Victoria, and one each from the other colonies. The first troops arrived three weeks later, with the New South Wales Lancers—who had been training in England before the war, hurriedly diverted to South Africa. On 22 November, the Lancers came under fire for the first time near Belmont
, and they subsequently forced their attackers to withdraw after inflicting significant casualties on them.
Following a series of minor victories, the British suffered a major setback during Black Week
between 10–17 December 1899, although no Australian units were involved. The first contingents of infantry from Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania arrived in Cape Town on 26 November and were designated the Australian Regiment under the command of Colonel John Charles Hoad
. With a need for increased mobility, they were soon converted into mounted infantry
. Further units from Queensland and New South Wales arrived in December and were soon committed to the front. The first casualties occurred soon after at Sunnyside on 1 January 1900, after 250 Queensland Mounted Infantry and a column of Canadians, British and artillery attacked a Boer laager at Belmont. Troopers David McLeod and Victor Jones were killed when their patrol clashed with the Boer forward sentries. Regardless, the Boers were surprised and during two hours of heavy fighting, more than 50 were killed and another 40 taken prisoner. Five hundred Queenslanders and the New South Wales Lancers subsequently took part in the Siege of Kimberley
in February 1900.
Despite serious set-backs at Colenso
, Stormberg
, Magersfontein
, and Spion Kop
in January—and with Ladysmith
still under siege—the British mounted a five division counter-invasion of the Orange Free State in February. The attacking force included a division of cavalry commanded by Lieutenant General John French
with the New South Wales Lancers, Queensland Mounted Infantry and New South Wales Army Medical Corps attached. First, Kimberley was relieved following the battles of Modder River
and Magersfontein
, and the retreating Boers defeated at Paardeberg
, with the New South Wales Mounted Rifles locating the Boer general, Piet Cronje
. The British entered Bloemfontein
on 13 March 1900, while Ladysmith was relieved. Disease began to take its toll and scores of men died. Still the advance continued, with the drive to Pretoria
in May including more than 3,000 Australians. Johannesburg
fell on 30 May, and the Boers withdrew from Pretoria on 3 June. The New South Wales Mounted Rifles and Western Australians saw action again at Diamond Hill
on 12 June. Mafeking was relieved on 17 May.
Following the defeat of the Afrikaner republics still the Boers held out, forming small commando
units and conducting a campaign of guerrilla warfare
in order to disrupt British troop movements and lines of supply. This new phase of resistance led to further recruiting in the Australian colonies and the raising of the Bushmen's Contingents, with these soldiers usually being volunteers with horse-riding and shooting skills, but little military experience. After Federation in 1901, eight Australian Commonwealth Horse
battalions of the newly created Australian Army
were also sent to South Africa, although they saw little fighting before the war ended. Some Australians later joined local South African irregular units, instead of returning home after discharge. These soldiers were part of the British Army
, and were subject to British military discipline. Such units included the Bushveldt Carbineers
which gained notoriety as the unit in which Harry "Breaker" Morant
and Peter Handcock
served in before their court martial and execution for war crime
s.
With the guerrillas requiring supplies, Koos de la Rey
lead a force of 3,000 Boers against Brakfontein, on the Elands river in Western Transvaal. The post held a large quantity of stores and was defended by 300 Australians and 200 Rhodesians. The attack began on 4 August 1900 with heavy shelling causing 32 casualties. During the night the defenders dug in, enduring shelling and rifle fire. A relief force was stopped by the Boers, while a second column turned back believing that the post had already been relieved. The siege lasted 11 days, during which more than 1,800 shells were fired into the post. After calls to surrender were ignored by the defenders, and not prepared to risk a frontal attack, the Boers eventually retired. The Siege of Elands River was one of the major achievements of the Australians during the war, with the post finally relieved on 16 August.
In response the British adopted counter-insurgency
tactics, including a scorched earth
policy involving the burning of houses and crops, the establishment of concentration camps for Boer women and children, and a system of blockhouses and field obstacles to limit Boer mobility and to protect railway communications. Such measures required considerable expenditure, and caused much bitterness towards the British, however they soon yielded results. By mid-1901, the bulk of the fighting was over, and British mounted units would ride at night to attack Boer farmhouses or encampments, overwhelming them with superior numbers. Indicative of warfare in last months of 1901, the New South Wales Mounted Rifles travelled 1814 miles (2,919.3 km) and were involved in 13 skirmishes, killing 27 Boers, wounding 15, and capturing 196 for the loss of five dead and 19 wounded. Other notable Australian actions included Slingersfontein, Pink Hill, Rhenosterkop and Haartebeestefontein
.
Australians were not always successful however, suffering a number of heavy losses late in the war. On 12 June 1901, the 5th Victorian Mounted Rifles
lost 19 killed and 42 wounded at Wilmansrust, near Middleburg
after poor security allowed a force of 150 Boers to surprise them. On 30 October 1901, Victorians of the Scottish Horse Regiment also suffered heavy casualties at Gun Hill, although 60 Boers were also killed in the engagement. Meanwhile at Onverwacht
on 4 January 1902, the 5th Queensland Imperial Bushmen lost 13 killed and 17 wounded. Ultimately the Boers were defeated, and the war ended on 31 May 1902. In all 16,175 Australians served in South Africa, and perhaps another 10,000 enlisted as individuals in Imperial units; casualties included 251 killed in action, 267 died of disease and 43 missing in action, while a further 735 were wounded. Six Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross
.
The Boxer Rebellion
in China began in 1900, and a number of western nations—including many European powers, the United States, and Japan—soon sent forces as part of the China Field Force
to protect their interests. In June, the British government sought permission from the Australian colonies to dispatch ships from the Australian Squadron to China. The colonies also offered to assist further, but as most of their troops were still engaged in South Africa, they had to rely on naval forces for manpower. The force dispatched was a modest one, with Britain accepting 200 men from Victoria, 260 from New South Wales and the South Australian ship HMCS Protector, under the command of Captain William Creswell
. Most of these forces were made up of naval brigade reservists, who had been trained in both ship handling and soldiering to fulfil their coastal defence role. Amongst the naval contingent from New South Wales were 200 naval officers and sailors and 50 permanent soldiers headquartered at Victoria Barracks, Sydney
who originally enlisted for the Second Boer War. The soldiers were keen to go to China but refused to be enlisted as sailors, while the New South Wales Naval Brigade objected to having soldiers in their ranks. The Army and Navy compromised and titled the contingent the NSW Marine Light Infantry.
The contingents from New South Wales and Victoria sailed for China on 8 August 1900. Arriving in Tientsin, the Australians provided 300 men to an 8,000-strong multinational force tasked with capturing the Chinese forts at Pei Tang, which dominated a key railway. They arrived too late to take part in the battle, but were involved in the attack on the fortress at Pao-ting Fu
, where the Chinese government was believed to have found asylum after Peking was captured by western forces. The Victorians joined a force of 7,500 men on a ten-day march to the fort, once again only to find that it had already surrendered. The Victorians then garrisoned Tientsin and the New South Wales contingent undertook garrison duties in Peking. HMCS Protector was mostly used for survey, transport, and courier duties in the Gulf of Chihli, before departing in November. The naval brigades remained during the winter, unhappily performing policing and guard duties, as well as working as railwaymen and fire-fighters. They left China in March 1901, having played only a minor role in a few offensives and punitive expeditions and in the restoration of civil order. Six Australians died from sickness and injury, but none were killed as a result of enemy action.
The Commonwealth of Australia came into existence on 1 January 1901 as a result of the federation of the Australian colonies
. Under the Constitution of Australia
, defence responsibility was now vested in the new federal government. The co-ordination of Australia-wide defensive efforts in the face of Imperial German
interest in the Pacific Ocean
was one of driving forces behind federalism, and the Department of Defence
immediately came into being as a result, while the Commonwealth Military Forces (early forerunner of the Australian Army
) and Commonwealth Naval Force were also soon established.The land forces of Australia have held a number of titles during their history. From 1901 to 1916 they were called the Commonwealth Military Forces, after which they were renamed the Australian Military Forces
(AMF). In 1980 the AMF was renamed the Australian Army
, see
The Australian Commonwealth Military Forces came into being on 1 March 1901 and all of the colonial forces—including those still in South Africa—became part of the new force. 28,923 colonial soldiers, including 1,457 professional soldiers, 18,603 paid militia and 8,863 unpaid volunteers, were subsequently transferred. The individual units continued to be administered under the various colonial Acts until the Defence Act 1903 brought all of the units under one piece of legislation. This Act also prevented the raising of standing infantry units and specified that militia forces could not be used in industrial disputes or serve outside Australia. However, the majority of soldiers remained in militia units, known as the Citizen Military Forces (CMF). Major General Sir Edward Hutton
—a former commander of the New South Wales Military Forces—subsequently became the first commander of the Commonwealth Military Forces on 26 December and set to work devising an integrated structure for the new army. In 1911, following a report by Lord Kitchener the Royal Military College, Duntroon
was established, as was a system of universal national service
.
Prior to federation each self-governing colony had operated its own naval force. These navies were small and lacked blue water capabilities, forcing the separate colonies to subsidise the cost of a British naval squadron in their waters for decades. The colonies maintained control over their respective navies until 1 March 1901, when the Commonwealth Naval Force was created. This new force also lacked blue water capable ships, and ultimately did not lead to a change in Australian naval policy. In 1909, Prime Minister Alfred Deakin
, while attending the Imperial Conference in London, sought the British Government's agreement to end the subsidy system and develop an Australian navy. The Admiralty
rejected these approaches, suggesting instead that a small fleet of destroyers and submarines would be sufficient. Deakin was unimpressed and had previously invited the American Great White Fleet
to visit Australia in 1908. This visit had fired public enthusiasm for a modern navy and in part led to the order of two 700-ton River class destroyers
. The surge in German naval construction prompted the Admiralty to change their position however and the Royal Australian Navy
was subsequently formed in 1911, absorbing the Commonwealth Naval Force. On 4 October 1913, the new fleet steamed through Sydney Heads
, consisting of the battlecruiser HMAS Australia
, three light cruisers, and three destroyers, while several other ships were still under construction. And as a consequence the navy entered the First World War as a formidable force.
The Australian Flying Corps was established as part of the Commonwealth Military Forces in 1912, prior to the formation of the Australian Military Forces
in 1916 and was later separated in 1921 to form the Royal Australian Air Force
, making it the second oldest air force in the world. Regardless, the service branches were not linked by a single chain of command
however, and each reported to their own minister and had separate administrative arrangements and government departments.
When Britain declared war on Germany at the start of the First World War, the Australian government rapidly followed suit, with Prime Minister Joseph Cook
declaring on 5 August 1914 that "...when the Empire is at war, so also is Australia" and reflecting the sentiment of many Australians that any declaration of war by Britain automatically included Australia. This was itself in part due to the large number of British-born citizens and first generation Anglo-Australians that made up the Australian population at the time. Indeed by the end of the war, almost 20% of those who served in the Australian forces had been born in Britain.
As the existing militia forces were unable to serve overseas under the provisions of the Defence Act 1903, an all-volunteer expeditionary force known as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was formed and recruitment began on 10 August 1914. The government pledged 20,000 men, organised as one infantry division
and one light horse brigade
plus supporting units. Enlistment and organisation was primarily regionally based and was undertaken under mobilisation plans drawn up in 1912. The first commander was General William Bridges
, who also assumed command of the 1st Division
. Throughout the course of the conflict Australian efforts were predominately focused upon the ground war, although small air and naval forces were also committed.
(AN&MEF), was rapidly formed under the command of Colonel William Holmes. The objectives of the force were the wireless stations at Yap
in the Caroline Islands
, Nauru
, and at Rabaul
in German New Guinea
. The force reached Rabaul on 11 September 1914 and occupied it the next day, encountering only brief resistance from the German and native defenders during fighting at Bita Paka
and Toma
. German New Guinea surrendered on 17 September 1914. Australian losses were light including six killed during the fighting, but were compounded by the mysterious loss offshore of the submarine AE1 with all 35 men aboard.
The AIF departed by ship in a single convoy from Albany
on 1 November 1914. During the journey one the of the convoy's naval escorts——engaged and destroyed the German cruiser at the Battle of Cocos
on 8 November, in the first ship-to-ship action involving the Royal Australian Navy. Although originally bound for England to undergo further training and then for employment on the Western Front
, the Australians were subsequently sent to British-controlled Egypt
in order to pre-empt any Turkish
attack against the strategically important Suez Canal
, and with a view to opening another front against the Central Powers
.
Aiming to knock Turkey out of the war the British then decided to stage a landing at Gallipoli
and following a period of training and reorganisation the Australians were included amongst the British, Indian and French forces committed to the campaign. The combined Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC)—commanded by British general William Birdwood—subsequently landed on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April 1915. Although promising to transform the war if successful, the Gallipoli Campaign was ill-conceived and ultimately lasted eight months of bloody stalemate, without achieving its objectives. Australian casualties totalled 26,111, including 8,141 killed.
For Australians and New Zealanders the Gallipoli campaign came to symbolise an important milestone in the emergence of both nations as independent actors on the world stage and the development of a sense of national identity. Today, the date of the initial landings, 25 April, is known as Anzac Day
in Australia and New Zealand and every year thousands of people gather at memorials in both nations, and indeed in Turkey, to honour the bravery and sacrifice of the original Anzacs, and of all those who have subsequently lost their lives in war.
and the AIF underwent a major expansion. In 1916 the infantry began to move to France while the cavalry units stayed in the Middle East to fight the Turks. Australian troops of the Anzac Mounted Division
and the Australian Mounted Division
saw action in all the major battles of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign
, playing a pivotal role in fighting the Turkish troops that were threatening British control of Egypt. The Australian’s first saw combat during the Senussi Uprising in the Libyan Desert and the Nile Valley, during which the combinded British forces successfully put down the primitive pro-Turkish Islamic sect with heavy casualties. The Anzac Mounted Division subsequently saw considerable action in the Battle of Romani
against the Turkish between 3–5 August 1916, with the Turks eventually pushed back. Following this victory the British forces went on the offensive in the Sinai, although the pace of the advance was governed by the speed by which the railway and water pipeline could be constructed from the Suez Canal. Rafa was captured on 9 January 1917, while the last of the small Turkish garrisons in the Sinai were eliminated in February.
The advance entered Palestine and an initial, unsuccessful attempt was made to capture Gaza occurred on 26 March 1917, while a second and equally unsuccessful attempt was launched on 19 April. A third assault occurred between 31 October and 7 November and this time both the Anzac Mounted Division and the Australian Mounted Division took part. The battle was a complete success for the British, overrunning the Gaza-Beersheba line and capturing 12,000 Turkish soldiers. The critical moment was the capture of Beersheba on the first day, after the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade charged more than 4 miles (6.4 km). The Turkish trenches were overrun, with the Australians capturing the wells at Beersheeba and securing the valuable water they contained along with over 700 prisoners for the loss of 31 killed and 36 wounded. Later, Australian troops assisted in pushing the Turkish forces out of Palestine
and took part in the Battle of Mughar Ridge
, Battle of Jerusalem
and the Battle of Megiddo
. The Turkish government subsequently surrendered on 30 October 1918. Units of the Light Horse were subsequently used to help put down a nationalist revolt in Egypt
in 1919 and did so with efficiency and brutality, suffering a number of fatalities in the process.
Meanwhile, the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) had undergone remarkable development, and its independence as a separate national force was unique among the Dominions. Deploying just a single aircraft to German New Guinea
in 1914, the first operational flight did not occur until 27 May 1915 however, when the Mesopotamian Half Flight
was called upon to assist in protecting British oil interests in Iraq
. The AFC was soon expanded and four squadrons later saw action in Egypt, Palestine and on the Western Front, where they performed well.
subsequently took up positions in a quiet sector south of Armentieres
on 7 April 1916 and for the next two and a half years the AIF participated in most of the major battles on the Western Front, earning a formidable reputation. Although spared from the disastrous first day of the Battle of the Somme, within weeks four Australian divisions had been committed. The 5th Division, positioned on the left flank, was the first in action during the Battle of Fromelles
on 19 July 1916, suffering 5,533 casualties in a single day. The 1st Division entered the line on 23 July, assaulting Pozieres
, and by the time that they were relieved by the 2nd Division on 27 July, they had suffered 5,286 casualties. Mouquet Farm
was attacked in August, with casualties totalling 6,300 men. By the time the AIF was withdrawn from the Somme to re-organise, they had suffered 23,000 casualties in just 45 days.
In March 1917, the 2nd and 5th Divisions pursued the Germans back to the Hindenburg Line
, capturing the town of Bapaume
. On 11 April the 4th Division assaulted the Hindenburg Line in the disastrous First Battle of Bullecourt, losing over 3,000 casualties and 1,170 captured. On 15 April the 1st and 2nd Divisions were counter-attacked near Lagnicourt
and were forced to abandon the town, before recapturing it again. The 2nd Division then took part in the Second Battle of Bullecourt, beginning on 3 May, and succeeded in taking sections of the Hindenburg Line and holding them until relieved by the 1st Division. Finally on 7 May the 5th Division relieved the 1st, remaining in the line until the battle ended in mid-May. Combined these efforts cost 7,482 Australian casualties.
On 7 June 1917, the II Anzac Corps
—along with two British corps—launched an operation in Flanders in order to eliminate a salient south of Ypres. The attack commenced with the detonation of a million pounds (454,545 kg) of explosives that had been placed underneath the Messines ridge, destroying the German trenches. The advance was virtually unopposed, and despite strong German counterattacks the next day, it succeeded. Australian casualties during the Battle of Messines
included nearly 6,800 men. I Anzac Corps then took part in the Third Battle of Ypres in Belgium as part of the campaign to capture the Gheluvelt Plateau, between September and November 1917. Individual actions took place at Menin Road, Polygon Wood
, Broodseinde
, Poelcappelle
and Passchendaele and over the course of eight weeks fighting the Australians suffered 38,000 casualties.
On 21 March 1918 the German Army launched its Spring Offensive
in a last-ditched effort to win the war, unleashing sixty-three divisions over a 70 miles (112.7 km) front. As the Allies fell back the 3rd and 4th Divisions were rushed south to Amiens
on the Somme. The offensive lasted for the next five months and all five AIF divisions in France were engaged in the attempt to stem the tide. By late May the Germans had pushed to within 50 miles (80.5 km) of Paris. During this time the Australians fought at Dernacourt, Morlancourt, Villers-Bretonneux
, Hangard Wood, Hazebrouck, and Hamel
. At Hamel the commander of the Australian Corps
, Lieutenant General John Monash
, successfully used combined arms
—including aircraft, artillery and armour—in an attack for the first time.
The German offensive ground to a halt in mid-July and a brief lull followed, during which the Australians undertook a series of raids, known as Peaceful Penetration
s. The Allies soon launched their own offensive—the Hundred Days Offensive
—ultimately ending the war. Beginning on 8 August 1918 the offensive included four Australian divisions striking at Amiens. Using the combined arms techniques developed earlier at Hamel, significant gains were made on what became known as the ‘Black Day’ of the German Army. The offensive continued for four months, and during Second Battle of the Somme
the Australian Corps fought actions at Lihons, Etinehem, Proyart, Chuignes, and Mont St Quentin, before their final engagement of the war on 5 October 1918 at Montbrehain. The AIF was subsequently out of the line when the armistice was declared on 11 November 1918.
In all 416,806 Australians enlisted during the war and 333,000 served overseas. 61,508 were killed and another 155,000 were wounded (a total casualty rate of 65%). The financial cost to the Australian government was calculated at £376,993,052. Two referendums
on conscription
for overseas service had been defeated during the war, preserving the volunteer status of the Australian force, but stretching the reserves of manpower available, particularly towards the end of the fighting. Consequently, Australia remained one of only two armies on either side not to resort to conscription during the war.South Africa was the only other nation not to implement conscription during the war.
The war had a profound effect on Australian society in other ways also. Indeed, for many Australians the nation's involvement is seen as a symbol of its emergence as an international actor, while many of the notions of Australian character and nationhood that exist today have their origins in the war. 64 Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross during the First World War.
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The Russian Civil War
began after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Bolshevik
party assumed power in October 1917. Following the end of the First World War, the western powers—including Britain—intervened, giving half-hearted support to the pro-tsarist, anti-Bolshevik White Russian
forces. Although the Australian government refused to commit forces, many Australians serving with the British Army became involved in the fighting. A small number served as advisors to White Russian units with the North Russian Expeditionary Force (NREF). Awaiting repatriation in England, about 150 Australians subsequently enlisted in the British North Russia Relief Force (NRRF), where they were involved in a number of sharp battles and several were killed.
The Royal Australian Navy destroyer HMAS Swan was also briefly engaged, carrying out an intelligence gathering mission in the Black Sea
in late 1918. Other Australians served as advisers with the British Military Mission to the White Russian General, Anton Denikin in South Russia, while several more advised Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak
in Siberia
. Later, they also served in Mesopotamia as part of Dunsterforce
and the Malleson Mission
, although these missions were aimed at preventing Turkish access to the Middle East
and India
, and did little fighting.
Although the motivations of those Australian's that volunteered to fight in Russia can only be guessed at, it seems unlikely to have been political. Regardless, they confirmed a reputation for audacity and courage, winning the only two Victoria Cross
es of the land campaign, despite their small numbers. Yet Australian involvement was barely noticed at home at the time and made little difference to the outcome of the war. Total casualties included 10 killed and 40 wounded, with most deaths being from disease during operations in Mesopotamia.
, although they predominantly supported the Spanish Republic
through the International Brigades
. The Australians were subsequently allocated to the battalions of other nationalities, rather than forming their own units. Most were radicals motivated by ideological reasons, while a number were Spanish-born migrants who returned to fight in their country of origin. At least 66 Australians volunteered, with only one—Nugent Bull, a conservative catholic who was later killed serving in the RAF during the Second World War—known to have fought for General Franco's Nationalist forces.
While a celebrated cause for the Australian left— particularly the Communist Party of Australia
and the trade union movement—the war failed to spark particular public interest and the government maintained its neutrality. Australian opposition to the Republican cause was marshalled by B.A. Santamaria on an anti-communist basis, rather than a pro-Nationalist basis. Equally, although individual right wing Australians may have served with the Nationalist rebels, they received no public support. Service in a foreign armed force was illegal at the time, however as the government received no reports of Australians travelling to Spain to enlist, no action was taken.Such service was technically illegal under the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870—an act of British Parliament. Notably Australia did not possess similar legislation until the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978 was passed. See Dennis et al 2008, p. 81. Consequently returned veterans were neither recognised by the government or the Returned and Services League of Australia
(RSL). Although the number of Australian volunteers was relatively small compared to those from other countries, at least 14 were killed.
(2AIF) began in mid-September. While there was no rush of volunteers like the First World War, a high proportion of Australian men of military age had enlisted by mid-1940. Four infantry divisions were formed during 1939 and 1940, three of which were dispatched to the Middle East. The RAAF's resources were initially mainly devoted to training airmen for service with the Commonwealth air forces through the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS), through which almost 28,000 Australians were trained during the war.
The Australian military's first major engagements of the war were against Italian forces in the Mediterranean and North Africa. During 1940 the light cruiser HMAS Sydney
and five elderly destroyers (dubbed the 'Scrap Iron Flotilla
' by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels
—a title proudly accepted by the ships) took part in a series of operations as part of the British Mediterranean Fleet, and sank several Italian warships. The Army first saw action in January 1941, when the 6th Division formed part of the Commonwealth forces during Operation Compass
. The division assaulted and captured Bardia
on 5 January and Tobruk
on 22 January, with tens of thousands of Italian troops surrendering at both towns. The 6th Division took part in the pursuit of the Italian Army and captured Benghazi
on 4 February. In late February it was withdrawn for service in Greece
, and was replaced by the 9th Division.
The Australian forces in the Mediterranean endured a number of campaigns during 1941. During April, the 6th Division, other elements of I Corps and several Australian warships formed part of the Allied force which unsuccessfully attempted to defend Greece from German invasion during the Battle of Greece
. At the end of this campaign, the 6th Division was evacuated to Egypt and Crete
. The force at Crete subsequently fought in the Battle of Crete
during May, which also ended in defeat for the Allies. Over 5,000 Australians were captured in these campaigns, and the 6th Division required a long period of rebuilding before it was again ready for combat. The Germans and Italians also went on the offensive in North Africa at the end of March and drove the Commonwealth force there back to near the border with Egypt. The 9th Division and a brigade of the 7th Division were besieged at Tobruk
; successfully defending the key port town until they were replaced by British units in October. During June, the main body of the 7th Division, a brigade of the 6th Division and the I Corps headquarters took part in the Syria-Lebanon Campaign
against the Vichy French
. Resistance was stronger than expected; Australians were involved in most of the fighting and sustained most of the casualties before the French capitulated in early July.
The majority of Australian units in the Mediterranean returned to Australia in early 1942, after the outbreak of the Pacific War
. The 9th Division was the largest unit to remain in the Middle East, and played a key role in the First Battle of El Alamein
during June and the Second Battle of El Alamein
in October. The division returned to Australia in early 1943, but several RAAF squadrons and RAN warships took part in the subsequent Tunisia Campaign
and the Italian Campaign
from 1943 until the end of the war.
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The RAAF's role in the strategic air offensive in Europe formed Australia's main contribution to the defeat of Germany. Approximately 13,000 Australian airmen served in dozens of British and five Australian squadrons in RAF Bomber Command
between 1940 and the end of the war. Australians took part in all of Bomber Command's major offensives and suffered heavy losses during raids on German cities and targets in France. Australian aircrew in Bomber Command had one of the highest casualty rates of any part of the Australian military during the Second World War and sustained almost 20 percent of all Australian deaths in combat; 3,486 were killed and hundreds more were taken prisoner. Australian airmen in light bomber and fighter squadrons also participated in the liberation of Western Europe
during 1944 and 1945 and two RAAF maritime patrol squadrons served in the Battle of the Atlantic.
From the 1920s Australia's defence thinking was dominated by the so-called 'Singapore strategy
'. This strategy involved the construction and defence of a major naval base at Singapore
from which a large British fleet would respond to Japanese aggression in the region. To this end, a high proportion of Australian forces in Asia were concentrated in Malaya
during 1940 and 1941 as the threat from Japan increased. However as a result of the emphasis on cooperation with Britain, relatively few Australian military units had been retained in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Measures were taken to improve Australia's defences as war with Japan loomed in 1941, but these proved inadequate. In December 1941, the Australian Army in the Pacific comprised the 8th Division, most of which was stationed in Malaya, and eight partially trained and equipped divisions in Australia. The RAAF was equipped with 373 aircraft, most of which were obsolete trainers, and the RAN had three cruisers and two destroyers in Australian waters.
The Australian military suffered a series of defeats during the early months of the Pacific War. The 8th Division and RAAF squadrons in Malaya formed a key part of the Commonwealth forces which were unable to stop
a smaller Japanese invasion force which landed on 7 December. The Commonwealth force withdrew to Singapore at the end of January, but was forced to surrender on 15 February after the Japanese captured much of the island
. Smaller Australian forces were also defeated during early 1942 in the Battle of Rabaul
, Battle of Ambon
, Battle of Timor, and Battle of Java
. The Australian town of Darwin
was heavily bombed by the Japanese on 19 February, to prevent it from being used as an Allied base. Over 22,000 Australians were taken prisoner in early 1942 and endured harsh conditions in Japanese captivity. The prisoners were subjected to malnutrition, denied medical treatment and frequently beaten and killed by their guards. As a result, 8,296 Australian prisoners died in captivity.
The rapid Allied defeat in the Pacific caused many Australians to fear that the Japanese would invade the Australian mainland. While elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy
proposed this in early 1942, it was judged to be impossible by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters
, which instead adopted a strategy of isolating Australia from the United States by capturing New Guinea
, the Solomon Islands
, Fiji
, Samoa
, and New Caledonia
. This fact was not known by the Allies at the time, and the Australian military was greatly expanded to meet the threat of invasion. Large numbers of United States Army
and Army Air Forces
units arrived in Australia in early 1942, and the Australian military was placed under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur
in March.
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Australians played a central role in the New Guinea campaign
during 1942 and 1943. After an attempt to land troops at Port Moresby
was defeated in the Battle of the Coral Sea
, the Japanese attempted to capture the strategically important town by advancing overland across the Owen Stanley Ranges and Milne Bay
. Australian Army units defeated these offensives in the Kokoda Track campaign
and Battle of Milne Bay
with the support of the RAAF and USAAF. Australian and US Army units subsequently assaulted and captured the Japanese bases on the north coast of Papua in the hard-fought Battle of Buna-Gona
. The Australian Army also defeated a Japanese attempt to capture the town of Wau
in January 1943 and went onto the offensive in the Salamaua-Lae campaign
in April. In late 1943, the 7th and 9th Divisions played an important role in Operation Cartwheel
, when they landed to the east and west of Lae
and secured the Huon Peninsula
during the Huon Peninsula campaign
and Finisterre Range campaign
.
The Australian mainland came under attack during 1942 and 1943. Japanese submarines operated off Australia
from May to August 1942 and January to June 1943. These attacks sought to cut the Allied supply lines between Australia and the US and Australia and New Guinea, but were unsuccessful. Japanese aircraft also conducted air raids against Allied bases in northern Australia which were being used to mount the North Western Area Campaign
against Japanese positions in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI).
Australia's role in the Pacific War declined from 1944. The increasing size of the US forces in the Pacific rendered the Australian military superfluous and labour shortages forced the Government to reduce the size of the armed forces in order to boost war production. Nevertheless, the Government wanted the Australian military to remain active, and agreed to MacArthur's proposals that it be used in relatively unimportant campaigns. In late 1944, Australian troops and RAAF squadrons replaced US garrisons in eastern New Guinea, New Britain
, and Bougainville
, and launched offensives aimed at destroying or containing the remaining Japanese forces there. In May 1945, I Corps, the Australian First Tactical Air Force
and USAAF and USN units began the Borneo Campaign
, which continued until the end of the war. These campaigns contributed little to Japan's defeat and remain controversial.
Following Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945 Australia assumed responsibility for occupying much of Borneo and the eastern Netherlands East Indies until British and Dutch colonial rule was restored. Australian authorities also conducted a number of war crimes trials
of Japanese personnel. 993,000 Australians enlisted during the war, while 557,000 served overseas. Casualties included 39,767 killed and another 66,553 were wounded.27,073 Australians were killed and 23,477 were wounded by enemy action during the war, however when non-battle casualties are included these figures are 39,767 killed and another 66,553 wounded. See 20 Victoria Crosses were awarded to Australians.
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On 25 June 1950, the North Korean Army (KPA) crossed the border into South Korea and advanced for the capital Seoul
, which fell in less than a week. North Korean forces continued toward the port of Pusan and two days later the United States offered its assistance to South Korea. In response the United Nations Security Council
requested members to assist repel the North Korean attack. Australia initially contributed P-51 Mustang
fighter-bomber aircraft from No. 77 Squadron RAAF
and infantry from the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
(3 RAR), both of which were stationed in Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force
(BCOF). In addition it provided the majority of supply and support personnel to the British Commonwealth Forces Korea
. The RAN frigate HMAS Shoalhaven and the destroyer HMAS Bataan
were also committed. Later an aircraft carrier strike group aboard HMAS Sydney was added to the force.
By the time 3 RAR arrived in Pusan on 28 September, the North Koreans were in retreat following the Inchon landings
. As a part of the invasion force under the UN Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur
, the battalion moved north and was involved in its first major action at Battle of Yongju
near Pyongyang
on 22 October, before advancing towards the Yalu River. Further successful actions followed at Kujin
on 25–26 October 1950 and at Chongju
on 29 October 1950. North Korean casualties were heavy, while Australian losses included their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Green
, who was wounded in the stomach by artillery fire after the battle and succumbed to his wounds and died two days later on 1 November. Meanwhile, during the last weeks of October the Chinese had moved 18 divisions of the People's Volunteer Army
across the Yalu River in order to reinforce the remnants of the KPA. Undetected by US and South Korean intelligence, the 13th Army Group crossed the border on 16 October and penetrated up to 100 kilometres (62.1 mi) into North Korea, and were reinforced in early November by 12 divisions from the 9th Army Group; in total 30 divisions composed of 380,000 men. 3 RAR fought its first action against the Chinese at Pakchon
on 5 November. The fighting cost the battalion heavily and despite halting a Chinese division
the new battalion commander was dismissed in the wake. Following the Chinese intervention, the UN forces were defeated in successive battles and 3 RAR was forced to withdraw to the 38th parallel
.
A series of battles followed at Uijeongbu
on 1–4 January 1951, as the British and Australians occupied defensive positions in an attempt to secure the northern approaches to the South Korean capital. Further fighting occurred at Chuam-ni
on 14–17 February 1951 following another Chinese advance, and later at Maehwa-San
between 7–12 March 1951 as the UN resumed the offensive. Australian troops subsequently participated in two more major battles in 1951, with the first taking place during fighting which later became known as the Battle of Kapyong
. On 22 April, Chinese forces attacked the Kapyong valley and forced the South Korean defenders to withdraw. Australian and Canadian troops were ordered to halt this Chinese advance. After a night of fighting the Australians recaptured their positions, at the cost of 32 men killed and 59 wounded. In July 1951, the Australian battalion became part of the combined Canadian, British, Australian, New Zealand, and Indian 1st Commonwealth Division
. The second major battle took place during Operation Commando
and occurred after the Chinese attacked a salient in a bend of the Imjin River
. The 1st Commonwealth Division counter-attacked on 3 October, capturing a number of objectives including Hill 355 and Hill 317 during the Battle of Maryang San; after five days the Chinese retreated. Australian casualties included 20 dead and 104 wounded.
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The belligerents then became locked in static trench warfare
akin to the First World War, in which men lived in tunnels, redoubts, and sandbagged forts behind barbed wire defences. From 1951 until the end of the war, 3 RAR held trenches on the eastern side of the division’s positions in the hills northeast of the Imjin River. Across from them were heavily fortified Chinese positions. In March 1952, Australia increased its ground commitment to two battalions, sending 1 RAR
. This battalion remained in Korea for 12 months, before being replaced by 2 RAR
in April 1953. The Australians fought their last battle during 24–26 July 1953, with 2 RAR holding off a concerted Chinese attack along the Samichon River
and inflicting significant casualties for the loss of five killed and 24 wounded. Hostilities were suspended on 27 July 1953. 17,808 Australians served during the war, with 341 killed, 1,216 wounded and 30 captured.
was declared on 18 June 1948, after three estate managers were murdered by members of the Malayan Communist Party
(MCP). Australian involvement began in June 1950, when in response to a British request, six Lincolns
from No. 1 Squadron
and a flight of Dakotas
from No. 38 Squadron
arrived in Singapore to form part of the British Commonwealth Far East Air Force (FEAF). The Dakotas were subsequently used on cargo runs, troop movement, as well as paratroop and leaflet drops, while the Lincoln bombers carried out bombing raids against the Communist Terrorist (CT) jungle bases. The RAAF were particularly successful, and in one such mission known as Operation Termite, five Lincoln bombers destroyed 181 communist camps, killed 13 communists and forced one into surrender, in a joint operation with the RAF and ground troops.
Australian ground forces were deployed to Malaya in October 1955 as part of the Far East Strategic Reserve
. In January 1956, the first Australian ground forces were deployed on Malaysian peninsula, consisting of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2 RAR). 2 RAR mainly participated in "mopping up" operations over the next 20 months, conducting extensive patrolling in and near the CT jungle bases, as part of 28th British Commonwealth Brigade. Contact with the enemy was infrequent and results small, achieving relatively few kills. 2 RAR left Malaysia October 1957 to be replaced by 3 RAR. 3 RAR underwent six weeks of jungle training and began driving MCP insurgents back into the jungle of Perak and Kedah. The new battalion extensively patrolled and was involved in food denial operations and ambushes. Again contact was limited, although 3 RAR had more success than its predecessor. By late 1959, operations against the MCP were in their final phase, and most communists had been pushed back and across the Thailand border. 3 RAR left Malaysia October 1959 and was replaced by 1 RAR. Though patrolling the border 1 RAR did not make contact with the insurgents, and in October 1960 it was replaced by 2 RAR, which stayed in Malaysia until August 1963. The Malayan Emergency officially ended on 31 July 1960.
Australia also provided artillery and engineer support, along with an air-field construction squadron. The Royal Australian Navy also served in Malayan waters, firing on suspected communist positions between 1956 and 1957. The Emergency was the longest continued commitment in Australian military history; 7,000 Australians served and 51 died in Malaya—although only 15 were on operations—and another 27 were wounded.
At the start of the 1960s, Prime Minister Robert Menzies
greatly expanded the Australian military so that it could carry out the Government's policy of Forward Defence in South East Asia. In 1964, Menzies announced a large increase in defence spending. The strength of the Australian Army would be increased by 50% over three years from 22,000 to 33,000; providing a full three brigade division with nine battalions. The RAAF and RAN would also both be increased by 25%. In 1964, conscription or National Service
was re-introduced, under the National Service Act (1964)
, for selected 20-year-olds based on date of birth, for a period of two years’ continuous full-time service.
In 1961, three Charles F. Adams class destroyers
were purchased from the United States to replace the aging Q class destroyer
s. Traditionally, the RAN had purchased designs based on those of the Royal Navy
and the purchase of American destroyers was significant. HMAS Perth and HMAS Hobart joined the fleet in 1965, followed by HMAS Brisbane in 1967. Other projects included the construction of six River class frigate
s, the conversion of the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne to an anti-submarine role, the acquisition of ten Wessex
helicopters, and the purchase of six Oberon class submarines
.
The RAAF took delivery of their first Mirage
fighters in 1967, equipping No. 3
, No. 75
and No. 77 Squadrons
with them. The service also received American F-111
strike aircraft, C-130 Hercules
transports, Orion
maritime reconnaissance aircraft and Italian Macchi
trainers.
The Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation
was fought from 1962 to 1966 between the British Commonwealth and Indonesia
over the creation of the Federation of Malaysia, with the Commonwealth attempting to safeguard the security of the new state. The war remained limited, and was fought primarily on the island of Borneo
, although a number of Indonesian seaborne and airborne incursions onto the Malay Peninsula
did occur. As part of Australia's continuing military commitment to the security of Malaysia, army, naval and airforce units were based there as part of the Far East Strategic Reserve
. Regardless the Australian government was wary of involvement in a war with Indonesia and initially limited it’s involvement to the defence of the Malayan peninsula only. On two occasions Australian troops from 3 RAR
were used to help mop up infiltrators from seaborne and airborne incursions at Labis
and Pontian
, in September and October 1964.
Following these raids the government conceded to British and Malaysian requests to deploy an infantry battalion to Borneo. During the early phases, British and Malaysian troops had attempted only to control the Malaysian/Indonesian border, and to protect population centres. However, by the time the Australian battalion deployed the British had decided on more aggressive action, crossing borders to obtain information and forcing Indonesian forces to remain on the defensive, under the codename Operation Claret
. The fighting took place in mountainous, jungle-clad terrain, and a debilitating climate, with operations characterised by the extensive use of company bases sited along the border, cross-border operations, the use of helicopters for troop movement and resupply, and the role of human
and signals intelligence to determine enemy movements and intentions.
3 RAR deployed to Borneo in March 1965, and served in Sarawak
until the end of July, operating on both sides of the border. The battalion had four major contacts with Indonesian forces and many smaller ones—including at Sungei Koemba
, Kindau
and Babang
—as well as suffering casualties in two mine incidents. 4 RAR
served a less-eventful tour between April and August 1966, and also operated over the border, clashing with the Indonesians on a number of occasions. A squadron of the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) was also deployed in 1965 and again in 1966, taking part in cross-border operations and inflicting significant casualties on the Indonesians, even though they were often tasked with covert reconnaissance. Other units included artillery and engineers, while a number of RAN ships were involved in shelling Indonesian positions in Borneo and in repelling infiltrators in the Singapore Strait
. The RAAF played a relatively minor role, although it would have been used far more extensively had the war escalated.A number of contingency plans existed, although none were ever fully implemented. For instance: Plan Spillikin, Plan Hemley, Plan Shalstone (renamed Mason), Plan Addington, and Plan Althorpe. These plans called for different levels of commitment depending on different contingencies, including using the majority of Australian air, land and naval forces in the Strategic Reserve, such as the Canberra bombers already based at Butterworth, as well involvement in the defence of Malaysian airspace from Indonesian attacks, air attacks on Indonesian bases by Australian aircraft flying from Australian bases and even the use of facilities in Darwin by the RAF Strategic V Bomber Force. See Dennis and Grey 1996, p. 196.
Operations in Borneo were extremely sensitive and they received little press coverage in Australia, while official acknowledgement of involvement in cross-border missions only occurred in 1996. Following a military coup in Indonesia in early 1966 which brought General Suharto to power, a peace treaty was signed in August 1966 which ended the conflict. 3,500 Australians served during Confrontation; casualties included 16 dead, with seven killed in action and eight wounded.
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Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War
was driven largely by the rise of communism
in Southeast Asia after the Second World War, and the fear of its spread which developed in Australia during the 1950s and early 1960s.
As a consequence, Australia supported South Vietnam
throughout the early 1960s. In 1961 and 1962, the leader of the South Vietnamese government, Ngo Dinh Diem
, asked for assistance from the US and its allies in response to a growing insurgency supported by communist North Vietnam
. Australia offered 30 military advisors from the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam
, which became known simply as "The Team". They arrived in July and August 1962, beginning Australia's involvement in the war. Later in August 1964, the RAAF sent a flight of Caribou
transport aircraft to the port city of Vung Tau
.
However with the security situation in South Vietnam continuing to deteriorate, the US increased its involvement to 200,000 combat troops by early 1965. Australia also committed ground forces, dispatching the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
(1 RAR) to serve with the US 173rd Airborne Brigade in Bien Hoa
province in June 1965 and it subsequently fought a number of significant actions including at Gang Toi
, Ho Bo Woods
and Suoi Bong Trang
. In March 1966, the Australian government announced the deployment of a brigade
-sized unit—the 1st Australian Task Force
(1 ATF)—to replace 1 RAR. Included were a large number of conscripts, under the increasingly controversial National Service scheme. Consisting of two infantry battalions as well as armour, aviation, artillery and other support arms, the task force was assigned primary responsibility for its own area and was based at Nui Dat
, in Phuoc Tuy Province
. Included were the Iroquois
helicopters of No. 9 Squadron RAAF
. At the Battle of Long Tan
on 18 August 1966, D Company, 6 RAR
with considerable artillery support held off and defeated a Viet Cong force that was at least six times bigger than itself. 18 Australians were killed and 24 wounded, while 245 communist dead were later recovered from the battlefield.
With the Phuoc Tuy province coming progressively under control throughout 1967, the Australians increasingly spent a significant period of time conducting operations further afield. 1 ATF was subsequently deployed astride infiltration routes leading to Saigon in order to interdict communist movement against the capital as part of Operation Coburg
during the 1968 Tet Offensive and later during the Battle of Coral-Balmoral in May and June 1968. At Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral the Australians had clashed with regular North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong main force units operating in battalion and regimental strength for the first time in near conventional warfare, ultimately fighting their largest, most hazardous and most sustained battle of the war. During 26 days of fighting Australian casaulties included 25 killed and 99 wounded, while communist casualties included 267 killed confirmed by body count, 60 possibly killed, 7 wounded and 11 captured. Other significant Australian actions included Binh Ba
in June 1969, Hat Dich
in late-December 1968 and early 1969 and Long Khanh
in June 1971. At the height of the Australian commitment, 1 ATF numbered 8,500 troops, including three infantry battalions, armour, artillery, engineers, logistics and aviation units in support. A third RAAF unit, No. 2 Squadron RAAF
, flying Canberra
bombers, was sent in 1967, and four RAN destroyers joined US patrols in the waters off North Vietnam
.
The Australian withdrawal effectively commenced in November 1970. As a consequence of the overall allied strategy of Vietnamization
and with the Australian government keen to reduce its own commitment to the war, 8 RAR
was not replaced at the end of its tour of duty. 1 ATF was again reduced to just two infantry battalions, albeit with significant armour, artillery and aviation support remaining. Australian combat forces were further reduced during 1971 as part of a phased withdrawal, and 1 ATF ceased operations in October. Meanwhile the advisors remained to train South Vietnamese troops until withdrawn on 18 December 1972 by the newly elected Labor government of Gough Whitlam
. The last Australian forces were finally withdrawn in 1973. The Vietnam War was Australia's longest and most controversial war and although initially enjoying broad support, as the nation's military involvement increased a vocal anti-war movement developed. More than 50,000 Australians served in Vietnam; 519 were killed and 2,398 were wounded. Four were awarded the Victoria Cross.
Although the importance of 'joint' warfare
had been highlighted during Second World War when Australian naval, ground and air units frequently served as part of single commands, the absence of a central authority continued to result in poor coordination between the services in the post-war era, with each organising and operating on the basis of a different military doctrine
. The need for an integrated command structured received more emphasis during the Australian military's experiences in the Vietnam War. In 1973, the Secretary of the Department of Defence, Arthur Tange
, submitted a report to the Government
that recommended the unification of the separate departments supporting each service into a single department and the creation of the post of Chief of the Defence Force Staff
.
The Whitlam
Labor
Government subsequently amalgamated the five defence ministries (Defence, Navy, Army, Air Force, and Supply) into a single Department of Defence in 1973, while conscription under the National Service scheme was abolished. On 1 January 1976, the three branches of the Australian military were brought together as a unified, all-volunteer, professional force known as the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Today, the ADF is headquartered at Russell Offices
in Canberra and is divided into Air, Land, Maritime and Special Operations Commands. In addition, Northern Command is based in Darwin
, and is responsible for operations in Northern Australia
.
', Australia developed a defence policy emphasising self-reliance of the Australian continent. This policy was known as the Defence of Australia Policy
, under which the focus of Australian defence planning was to protect the nation's northern maritime approaches (the 'air-sea gap') against possible attack.
In line with this goal, the ADF was restructured to increase its ability to strike at enemy forces from Australian bases and to counter raids on continental Australia. The ADF achieved this by increasing the capabilities of the RAN and RAAF and relocating regular Army units to Northern Australia. During this time the ADF had no military units on operational deployment outside Australia. However, in 1987 the ADF made its first operational deployment as part of Operation Morris Dance
, in which several warships and a rifle company deployed to the waters off Fiji
in response to the 1987 Fijian coups d'état. While broadly successful, this deployment highlighted the need for the ADF to improve its capability to rapidly respond to unforeseen events.
, deploying a naval task group of two warships, a support ship and a clearance diving team
; in total about 750 personnel. The Australian contribution was the first time Australian personnel were deployed to an active war zone since the establishment of the ADF and the deployment tested the it's capabilities and command structure. However, the Australian force did not see combat, and instead playing a significant role in enforcing the sanctions put in place against Iraq
following the invasion of Kuwait. Some ADF personnel serving on exchange with British and American units did see combat, and a few were later decorated for their actions. Following the war, the Navy regularly deployed a frigate to the Persian Gulf or Red Sea to enforce the trade sanctions which continued to be applied to Iraq.
in early 1989, Cambodia
between 1992 and 1993, Somalia
in 1993, Rwanda
between 1994 and 1995 and Bougainville
in 1994 and from 1997 onwards. The 1996 election of the Howard
Liberal government
resulted in significant reforms to the ADF's force structure and role, with the new government's defence strategy placed less singular emphasis on defending Australia from direct attack and greater emphasis on working in cooperation with regional states and Australia's allies
to manage potential security threats in recognition of Australia's global security interests. In line with this new focus, the ADF's force structure changed in an attempt to increase the proportion of combat units to support units and to improve the ADF's combat effectiveness.
The former-Portuguese colony of East Timor
was invaded by Indonesia in 1975, however, following years of violent struggle the new Indonesian government of President B.J. Habibie subsequently agreed to allow the East Timorese to vote on autonomy
in 1999. The United Nations Mission in East Timor
(UNAMET) was established to organise and conduct the vote, which was held at the end of August 1999 and resulted with 78.5% of voters deciding in favour of independence. However, following the announcement of the results pro-Indonesian militias supported by elements of the Indonesian military, launched a campaign of violence, looting and arson and many East Timorese were killed, while perhaps more than 500,000 were displaced. Unable to control the violence, Indonesia subsequently agreed to the deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force. Australia, which had contributed police to UNAMET, organised and led an international military coaltion, known as the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET), a non-UN force operating in accordance with UN resolutions. Total Australian forces committed included 5,500 personnel.
Under the overall command of Australian Major General Peter Cosgrove
, INTERFET began arriving on 12 September 1999 and was tasked with restoring peace and security, protecting and supporting UNAMET, and facilitating humanitarian assistance operations. With the withdrawal of the Indonesian armed forces, police and government officials from East Timor, UNAMET re-established its headquarters in Dili
on 28 September. On 19 October 1999, Indonesia formally recognised the result of the referendum and shortly thereafter a UN peacekeeping force, the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
(UNTAET) was established, becoming fully responsible for the administration of East Timor during its transition to independence. The hand-over of command of military operations from INTERFET to UNTAET was completed on 28 February 2000. Australia continued to support the UN peacekeeping operation with between 1,500 and 2,000 personnel, as well as landing craft and Blackhawk helicopters and remained the largest contributor of personnel to the peacekeeping mission. During these operations Australian forces regularly clashed with pro-Indonesian militia and on a number of occasions Indonesian forces as well, especially along the border with West Timor
. Significant actions occurred in Suai
, Mota'ain
and at Aidabasalala
in October 1999. However with the security situation stabilised the bulk of the Australian and UN forces were withdrawn by 2005. Two Australians died from non-battle related causes, while a number of Australians were wounded in action.
The unexpected deployment to East Timor in 1999 led to significant changes in Australian defence policy and to an enhancement of the ADF's ability to conduct operations outside Australia. This successful deployment was the first time a large Australian military force had operated outside of Australia since the Vietnam War and revealed shortcomings in the ADF's ability to mount and sustain such operations. In response, the 2000 Defence White Paper placed a greater emphasis on preparing the ADF for overseas deployments. The Australian government committed to improve the ADF's capabilities by improving the readiness and equipment of ADF units, expanding the ADF to 57,000 full-time personnel and increasing real Defence expenditure by 3% per year.
In May 2006, 2,000 ADF personnel were again deployed to East Timor
as part of Operation Astute
, following unrest between elements of the Timor Leste Defence Force. Australian forces were involved in a number skirmishes during this time, including a heavy clash with rebels commanded by Alfredo Reinado at Same
on 4 March 2007. However, by early-2010 the security situation has been stabilised and just 400 Australian personnel remain to train the local security forces as part of a small international force.
and Washington
on 11 September 2001, Australian forces were committed to the American-led international coalition against terrorism. The ADF's most visible contribution—codenamed Operation Slipper—has been a special forces task group operating in Afghanistan
from 2001 to 2002 and again from mid-2005 to fight against the Taliban. Over time the Australian commitment has grown, with the addition of further ground forces from 2006 to provide security, reconstruction and to mentor and train the Afghan National Army
. Australia has also contributed a frigate and two AP-3 Orion
surveillance aircraft and three C-130 Hercules
transport aircraft to international operations in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean since 2001, supporting both the operations in Afghanistan and those in Iraq under Operation Catalyst. A detachment of four F/A-18 Hornet
fighter-bombers was based at Diego Garcia
from late-2001 to mid-2002, while two Boeing 707
air-to-air refuelling aircraft were also based in Manas Air Base
in Kyrgyzstan
to provide support to coalition aircraft operating in Afghan airspace but have since been withdrawn.
As of 2011 a modest Australian force numbering 1,550 personnel remains in Afghanistan where they are involved in counter-insurgency operations in Uruzgan province in conjunction United States and other coalition forces, including the Dutch prior to their withdrawal in August. The force consists of motorised infantry, special forces, engineers, cavalry, artillery and aviation elements. This includes a combined arms
battalion
-sized battle group
known as the Mentoring Task Force, and the Special Operations Task Group, both based at Forward Operation Base Ripley outside of Tarin Kowt
, as well as the Rotary Wing Group flying CH-47D Chinooks, the Force Logistics Asset and an RAAF air surveillance radar unit based in Kandahar
. In addition, a further 800 Australian logistic personnel are also based in the Middle East in support, but are located outside of Afghanistan. Detachments of maritime patrol and transport aircraft continue to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, based out of Al Minhad Air Base
in the United Arab Emirates
. Also included is the deployment of one of the RAN's frigates to the Arabian Sea
and Gulf of Aden
on counter piracy and maritime interdiction duties.
Australian forces have at times been involved in heavy fighting, and significant actions have included Operation Anaconda
in 2002, Operation Perth
in 2006, the Battle of Chora
in 2007, the First and Second Battles of Kakarak
in 2009, and the Shah Wali Kot Offensive
and Battle of Derapet
in 2010; although others have yet to be publicly acknowledged due to operational security requirements. Casualties include 32 killed and 213 wounded, while another Australian also died serving with the British Army. Two Australians have been awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia
, the first such awards in forty years.
. The initial contribution was also a modest one, consisting of just 2,058 personnel—codenamed Operation Falconer. Major force elements included special forces, rotary and fixed wing aviation and naval units. Army units included elements from the SASR
and 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
, a CH-47 Chinook detachment and a number of other specialist units. RAN units included the amphibious ship and the frigates and , while the RAAF deployed 14 F/A-18 Hornets from No. 75 Squadron
, a number of AP3-C Orions and C-130 Hercules. Notably the Australian Special Forces task force was one of the first coalition units forces to cross the border into Iraq, while for a few days, the closest ground troops to Baghdad were from the SASR. During the invasion the RAAF also flew its first combat missions since the Vietnam War, with No. 75 Squadron flying a total of 350 sorties and dropping 122 laser guided bombs.
The Iraqi military quickly proved no match for coalition military power, and with their defeat the bulk of Australian forces were withdrawn. While Australia did not initially take part in the post-war occupation of Iraq, an Australian Army light armoured battlegroup
—designated the Al Muthanna Task Group
and including 40 ASLAV
light armoured vehicles and infantry—was later deployed to Southern Iraq in April 2005 as part of Operation Catalyst. The role of this force was to protect the Japanese engineer contingent in the region and support the training of New Iraqi Army units. The AMTG later became the Overwatch Battle Group (West)
(OBG(W)), following the hand back of Al Muthanna province to Iraqi control. Force levels peaked at 1,400 personnel in May 2007 including the OBG(W) in Southern Iraq, the Security Detachment in Baghdad and the Australian Army Training Team—Iraq. A RAN frigate was based in the North Persian Gulf
, while RAAF assets included C-130H Hercules and AP-3C elements. Following the election of a new Labor government under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
the bulk of these forces were withdrawn by mid-2009, while RAAF and RAN operations were redirected to other parts of the Middle East Area of Operations as part of Operation Slipper.
Low-level operations continued, however, with a small Australian force of 80 soldiers remaining in Iraq to protect the Australian Embassy in Baghdad
as part of SECDET under Operation Kruger. SECDET was finally withdrawn in August 2011, and was replaced by a private military company
which took over responsibility for providing security for Australia's diplomatic presence in Iraq. Although more than 17,000 personnel served during operations in Iraq, Australian casualties were relatively light, with two soldiers accidentally killed, while a third Australian died serving with the British Royal Air Force
. A further 27 personnel were wounded. Two officers remain in Iraq as part of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.
Australia's involvement in international peacekeeping operations has been diverse, and included participation in both United Nations sponsored missions, as well as those as part of ad-hoc coalitions. Australians have been involved in more conflicts as peacekeepers than as belligerents; however "in comparative international terms, Australia has only been a moderately energetic peacekeeper." Although Australia has had peacekeepers in the field continuously for 60 years—being among the very first group of UN military observers in Indonesia
in 1947—its commitments have generally been limited, consisting of small numbers of high-level and technical support troops (e.g. signals, engineers or medical units) or observers and police. This pattern changed in the mid-1990s, when Australia became involved in a series of high-profile operations, deploying significantly large units of combat troops in support of a number of missions including those in Cambodia, Rwanda
, Somalia
, and later in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. Australia has been involved in close to 100 separate missions, involving more than 30,000 personnel; 14 Australians have died during these operations.
! style="text-align: left; "|Date
! style="text-align: left; "|Number enlisted
! style="text-align: left; "|Killed
! style="text-align: left; "|Wounded
! style="text-align: left; "|Prisoners of War
! style="text-align: left; "|Notes
|-
| New Zealand ||1860–1861 || Crew of HMVS Victoria
2,500 in Waikato Regiments || 1
<20 || Nil
Unknown || Nil ||
|-
| Sudan || 1885 || 770 in NSW Contingent || 9 || 3 || Nil ||
|-
| South Africa
|| 1899–1902 || 16,463 in Colonial and Commonwealth contingents || 589 || 538 || 100 ||
|-
| China
|| 1900–1901 || 560 in NSW, SA and VIC colonial naval contingents || 6 || Unknown || Nil ||
|-
| First World War
|| 1914–1918 || 416,809 enlisted in AIF (includes AFC)
324,000 AIF members served overseas
9,000 in RAN
Total: 425,809|| 61,511 || 155,000 || 4,044
(397 died in captivity) ||
|-
| Russian Civil War
|| 1918–1919 ||100–150 in NREF and NRRF
48 in Dunsterforce
Crew of HMAS Swan|| 10 || 40 || Nil ||
|-
| Second World War
|| 1939–1945 || 727,200 in 2nd AIF and Milita
48,900 in RAN
216,900 in RAAF
Total: 993,000 || 39,761 || 66,553|| 8,184 (against Germany and Italy)
22,376 (against Japan)
(8,031 died in captivity) ||
|-
| Malayan Emergency
|| 1948–1960 || 7,000 in Army || 39 || 20 || Nil ||
|-
| Korean War
|| 1950–1953 || 10,657 in Army
4,507 in RAN
2,000 in RAAF
Total: 17,164 || 340 || 1,216 || 29
(1 died in captivity) ||
|-
| Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation
|| 1962–1966 || 3,500 in Army || 16 || 9 || Nil ||
|-
| Vietnam War
|| 1962–1973 || 42,700 in Army
2,825 in RAN
4,443 in RAAF
Total: 49,968 || 521 || 2,398 || Nil ||
|-
| Gulf War
|| 1991 || 750 || Nil || Nil || Nil ||
|-
| Somalia
|| 1992–1994 ||1,480 || 1 || || Nil ||
|-
| East Timor
|| 1999–present || || 4 || || Nil ||
|-
| Afghanistan
|| 2001–present || || 32 || 213 || Nil ||
|-
| Iraq
|| 2003–2011 || 17,000 || 3 || 27 || Nil ||
|-
| colspan="3" style="text-align: right;" | Total || 102,837 || 225,830 || 34,730 ||
|-
Australian frontier wars
The Australian frontier wars were a series of conflicts fought between Indigenous Australians and European settlers. The first fighting took place in May 1788 and the last clashes occurred in the early 1930s. Indigenous fatalities from the fighting have been estimated as at least 20,000 and...
between Aborigines
Australian Aborigines
Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...
and Europeans
European Australian
A European Australian is a citizen or resident of Australia who has origins in any of the original peoples of Europe...
to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
in the early 21st century. Although this history is short when compared to that of many other nations, Australia has been involved in numerous conflicts and wars, and war and military service have been significant influences on Australian society and national identity, including the Anzac spirit
ANZAC spirit
The Anzac spirit or Anzac legend is a concept which suggests that Australian and New Zealand soldiers possess shared characteristics, specifically the qualities those soldiers are believed to have shown on the battlefield in World War I. These qualities cluster around several ideas, including...
. The relationship between war and Australian society has also been shaped by the enduring themes of Australian strategic culture and its unique security dilemma.
As a British colony, Australia participated in Britain's small wars of the 19th century, while later as an independent nation it fought in the First World War and Second World War, as well as in the wars in Korea
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, Malaya
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
, Borneo
Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation
Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation during 1962–1966 was Indonesia’s political and armed opposition to the creation of Malaysia. It is also known by its Indonesian/Malay name Konfrontasi...
and Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. In the Post-Vietnam era Australian forces have been involved in numerous international peacekeeping
Peacekeeping
Peacekeeping is an activity that aims to create the conditions for lasting peace. It is distinguished from both peacebuilding and peacemaking....
missions, through the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
and other agencies, including in the Persian Gulf
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
, Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
, Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
, East Timor
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
and the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
, while more recently they have also fought as part of multi-lateral forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In total, nearly 103,000 Australians died during the course of these conflicts.This figure represents military casualties only and does not include those that died during the frontier conflict. See Coulthard-Clark 1998, p. v.
War and Australian society
For most of the last century military serviceMilitary service
Military service, in its simplest sense, is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, whether as a chosen job or as a result of an involuntary draft . Some nations require a specific amount of military service from every citizen...
has been one of the single greatest shared experiences of white Australian males, and although this is now changing due to the professionalisation of the military and the absence of major wars during the second half of the 20th century, it continues to influence Australian society to this day. As such war and military service have been defining influences in Australian history
History of Australia
The History of Australia refers to the history of the area and people of Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding Indigenous and colonial societies. Aboriginal Australians are believed to have first arrived on the Australian mainland by boat from the Indonesian archipelago between 40,000 to...
, while a major part of the national identity has been built on an idealised conception of the Australian experience of war and of soldiering, known as the Anzac spirit
ANZAC spirit
The Anzac spirit or Anzac legend is a concept which suggests that Australian and New Zealand soldiers possess shared characteristics, specifically the qualities those soldiers are believed to have shown on the battlefield in World War I. These qualities cluster around several ideas, including...
. These ideals include notions of endurance, courage, ingenuity, humour, larrikinism
Larrikinism
Larrikinism is the name given to the Australian folk tradition of irreverence, mockery of authority and disregard for rigid norms of propriety. Larrikinism can also be associated with self-deprecating humour.- Etymology :...
, egalitarianism
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
and mateship
Mateship
Mateship is an Australian cultural idiom that embodies equality, loyalty and friendship. There are two types of mateship, the inclusive and the exclusive; the inclusive is in relation to a shared situation , whereas the exclusive type is toward a third party...
; traits which, according to popular thought, defined the behaviour of Australian soldiers fighting at Gallipoli during the First World War. The Gallipoli campaign was one of the first international events that saw Australians taking part as Australians and as such, it has been seen as a key event in forging a sense of national identity.
The relationship between war and Australian society has been shaped by two of the more enduring themes of Australian strategic culture: bandwagoning
Bandwagoning
In realist theories of international relations, bandwagoning refers to the act of weaker states joining a stronger power or coalition within balance of power politics. The term is opposed to balancing, and unlike balancing, is a relatively new term...
with a powerful ally, and expeditionary warfare
Expeditionary warfare
Expeditionary warfare is used to describe the organization of a state's military to fight abroad, especially when deployed to fight away from its established bases at home or abroad. Expeditionary forces were in part the antecedent of the modern concept of Rapid Deployment Forces...
. Indeed, Australian defence policy was closely linked to Britain until the Japanese crisis of 1942
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
, while since then an alliance with the United States
ANZUS
The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty is the military alliance which binds Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States to cooperate on defence matters in the Pacific Ocean area, though today the treaty is understood to relate to attacks...
has underwritten its security. Arguably, this pattern of bandwagoning—both for cultural reasons such as shared values and beliefs, as well as for more pragmatic security concerns—has ensured that Australian strategic policy has often been defined by relations with its allies. Regardless, a tendency towards strategic complacency has also been evident, with Australians often reluctant to think about defence issues and to allocate resources until a crisis arises; a trait which has historically resulted in unpreparedness for major military challenges.
Reflecting both the realist and liberal
Liberal international relations theory
Unlike realism where the state is seen as a unitary actor, liberalism allows for plurality in state actors. Thus, preferences will vary from state to state, depending on factors such as culture, economic system or government type...
paradigms of international relations
International relations theory
International relations theory is the study of international relations from a theoretical perspective; it attempts to provide a conceptual framework upon which international relations can be analyzed. Ole Holsti describes international relations theories act as a pair of coloured sunglasses,...
and the conception of national interest
National interest
The national interest, often referred to by the French expression raison d'État , is a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, military, or cultural. The concept is an important one in international relations where pursuit of the national interest is the foundation of the realist...
s, a number of other important themes in Australian strategic culture are also obvious. Such themes include: an acceptance of the state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
as the key actor in international politics, the centrality of notions of Westphalian sovereignty
Westphalian sovereignty
Westphalian sovereignty is the concept of nation-state sovereignty based on two things: territoriality and the absence of a role for external agents in domestic structures....
, a belief in the enduring relevance and legitimacy of armed force as a guarantor of security, and the proposition that the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
in international affairs should only be changed peacefully. Likewise multilateralism
Multilateralism
Multilateralism is a term in international relations that refers to multiple countries working in concert on a given issue.International organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization are multilateral in nature...
, collective security
Collective security
Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement, regional or global, in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and agrees to join in a collective response to threats to, and breaches of, the peace...
and defence self-reliance have also been important themes. Change has been more evolutionary than revolutionary
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
and these strategic behaviours have persisted throughout its history, being the product of Australian society's democratic political tradition and Judaeo-Christian Anglo-European heritage, as well its associated values, beliefs and economic, political and religious ideology. Equally though, these behaviours are also reflective of its unique security dilemma
Security dilemma
The security dilemma asserts that both strength and weakness in national security can be provocative to other nations. If a nation is too strong, this can be provocative since “most means of self-protection simultaneously menace others.” On the other hand, if a nation is too weak, “great dangers...
as a largely European island on the edge of the Asia-Pacific, and the geopolitical circumstances of a middle power
Middle power
Middle power is a term used in the field of international relations to describe states that are not superpowers or great powers, but still have large or moderate influence and international recognition. There is no single specific definition of which countries are middle powers.-Definition:There is...
physically removed from the centres of world power. To be sure, during threats to the core Australia has often found itself defending the periphery and perhaps as a result, it has frequently become involved in foreign wars. Throughout these conflicts Australian soldiers—known colloquially as Diggers
Digger (soldier)
Digger is an Australian and New Zealand military slang term for soldiers from Australia and New Zealand. It originated during World War I.- Origin :...
—have often been noted, perhaps paradoxically, for both their fighting abilities and their humanitarian qualities.
British Forces in Australia, 1788–1870
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
regular forces. Originally Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
protected the early settlements at Sydney Cove
Sydney Cove
Sydney Cove is a small bay on the southern shore of Port Jackson , on the coast of the state of New South Wales, Australia....
and Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...
, however they were relieved of these duties in 1790 by a unit specifically recruited for colonial service, known as the New South Wales Corps
New South Wales Corps
The New South Wales Corps was formed in England in 1789 as a permanent regiment to relieve the marines who had accompanied the First Fleet to Australia. The regiment, led by Major Francis Grose, consisted of three companies...
. The New South Wales Corps subsequently was involved in putting down a rebellion of Irish convicts at Castle Hill
Castle Hill convict rebellion
The Castle Hill Rebellion of 4 March 1804, also called the Second Battle of Vinegar Hill, was a large-scale rebellion by Irish convicts against British colonial authority in Australia...
in 1804. Soon however shortcomings in the corps convinced the War Office
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
of the need for a more reliable garrison in New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
and Van Diemen’s Land. Chief of these shortcomings was the Rum Rebellion
Rum Rebellion
The Rum Rebellion of 1808 was the only successful armed takeover of government in Australia's history. The Governor of New South Wales, William Bligh, was deposed by the New South Wales Corps under the command of Major George Johnston, working closely with John Macarthur, on 26 January 1808, 20...
, a coup mounted by its officers in 1808. As a result, in January 1810 the 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot arrived in Australia. By 1870, 25 British infantry regiments had served in Australia, as had a small number of artillery and engineer units.
Although the primary role of the British Army was to protect the colonies against external attack, no actual threat ever materialised. The British Army was instead used in policing, guarding convicts at penal institutions, combating bushranging, putting down convict rebellions—as occurred at Bathurst in 1830
Bathurst Rebellion
The Bathurst Rebellion was a brief bushranging episode outside of Bathurst, New South Wales, involving a group of escaped convicts known as the ‘Ribbon Gang’, during September and October 1830. The insurgents were led by 25-year-old English convict-servant Ralph Entwistle and at its peak they...
—and to suppress Aboriginal resistance to the extension of European settlement. Notably British soldiers were involved in the battle at the Eureka Stockade
Eureka Stockade
The Eureka Rebellion of 1854 was an organised rebellion by gold miners which occurred at Eureka Lead in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The Battle of Eureka Stockade was fought on 3 December 1854 and named for the stockade structure erected by miners during the conflict...
in 1854 on the Victorian goldfields. Members of British regiments stationed in Australia also saw action in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and the Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
.
During the early years of settlement the naval defence of Australia was provided by detached Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
units of the East Indies Station
East Indies Station
The East Indies Station was a formation of the British Royal Navy from 1865 to 1941.From 1831 to 1865 the East Indies and the China Station were a single command known as the East Indies and China Station...
, based in Sydney. However, in 1859 Australia was established as a separate squadron under the command of a commodore
Commodore (rank)
Commodore is a military rank used in many navies that is superior to a navy captain, but below a rear admiral. Non-English-speaking nations often use the rank of flotilla admiral or counter admiral as an equivalent .It is often regarded as a one-star rank with a NATO code of OF-6, but is not always...
, marking the first occasion that Royal Navy ships had been permanently stationed in Australia. The Royal Navy remained the primary naval force in Australian waters until 1913, when the Australia Station
Australia Station
The Australia Station was the British—and later Australian—naval command responsible for the waters around the Australian continent.-History:In the early years following the establishment of the colony of New South Wales, ships based in Australian waters came under the control of the East Indies...
ceased and responsibility handed over to the Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
; the Royal Navy's depots, dockyards and structures were gifted to the Australian people.
Frontier warfare, 1788–1930
Mounted police
Mounted police are police who patrol on horseback or camelback. They continue to serve in remote areas and in metropolitan areas where their day-to-day function may be picturesque or ceremonial, but they are also employed in crowd control because of their mobile mass and height advantage and...
units. Not all Aboriginal groups resisted white encroachment on their lands, while many Aborigines served in mounted police units and were involved in attacks on other tribes.
Fighting between Aborigines and Europeans was localised as the Aborigines did not form confederations capable of sustained resistance. As a result, there was not a single war, but rather a series of violent engagements and massacres across the continent. Organised or disorganised however, a pattern of frontier warfare emerged with Aboriginal resistance beginning in the 18th century and continuing into the early 20th century. This warfare contradicts the popular and at times academic "myth" of peaceful settlement in Australia. Faced with Aboriginal resistance settlers often reacted with violence, resulting in a number of indiscriminate massacres. Among the most famous is the Battle of Pinjarra
Battle of Pinjarra
The Battle of Pinjarra or Pinjarra Massacre was a conflict that occurred in Pinjarra, Western Australia between a group of 60 to 80 Australian Aborigines and a detachment of 25 soldiers and policemen led by Governor James Stirling in 1834...
in Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
in 1834. Such incidents were not officially sanctioned however, and after the Myall Creek massacre
Myall Creek massacre
Myall Creek Massacre involved the killing of up to 30 unarmed Australian Aborigines by European settlers on 10 June 1838 at the Myall Creek near Bingara in northern New South Wales...
in New South Wales in 1838 seven Europeans were hanged for their part in the killings. However in Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, the so-called Black War
Black War
The Black War is a term used to describe a period of conflict between British colonists and Tasmanian Aborigines in the early nineteenth century...
was fought between 1828 and 1832 and aimed at driving most of the island's native inhabitants onto a number of isolated peninsulas. Although it began in failure for the British, it ultimately resulted in considerable casualties amongst the native population.
It may be inaccurate, however, to depict the conflict as one sided and mainly perpetrated by Europeans on Aborigines. Although many more Aborigines died than British, this may have had more to do with the technological and logistic advantages enjoyed by the Europeans. Aboriginal tactics varied, but were mainly based on pre-existing hunting and fighting practices—utilising spears, clubs and other primitive weapons. Unlike the indigenous peoples of New Zealand and North America
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, on the main Aborigines failed to adapt to meet the challenge of the Europeans. Although there were some instances of individuals and groups acquiring and using firearms, this was not widespread. The Aborigines were never a serious military threat to European settlers, regardless of how much the settlers may have feared them. On occasions large groups of Aborigines attacked the settlers in open terrain and a conventional battle ensued, during which the Aborigines would attempt to use superior numbers to their advantage. This could sometimes be effective, with reports of them advancing in crescent formation in an attempt to outflank and surround their opponents, waiting out the first volley of shots and then hurling their spears while the settlers reloaded. Usually such open warfare proved more costly for the Aborigines than the Europeans, however.
Central to the success of the Europeans was the use of firearms. However, the advantages afforded by firearms have often been overstated. Prior to the late 19th century, firearms were often cumbersome musket
Musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....
s: muzzle-loading, smooth-bore, single shot weapons with flint-lock mechanisms. Such weapons produced a low rate of fire, while suffering from a high rate of failure and were only accurate within 50 metres (164 ft). These deficiencies may have given the Aborigines an advantage, allowing them to move in close and engage with spears or clubs. By 1850 significant advances in firearms gave the Europeans a distinct advantage, with the six-shot Colt revolver, the Snider single shot breech-loading rifle
Snider-Enfield
The British .577 Snider-Enfield was a type of breech loading rifle. The firearm action was invented by the American Jacob Snider, and the Snider-Enfield was one of the most widely used of the Snider varieties. It was adopted by British Army as a conversion system for its ubiquitous Pattern 1853...
and later the Martini-Henry rifle as well as rapid-fire rifles such as the Winchester rifle
Winchester rifle
In common usage, Winchester rifle usually means any of the lever-action rifles manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, though the company has also manufactured many rifles of other action types...
, becoming available. These weapons, when used on open ground and combined with the superior mobility provided by horses to surround and engage groups of Aborigines, often proved successful. The Europeans also had to adapt their tactics to fight their fast-moving, often hidden enemies. Tactics employed included night-time surprise attacks, and positioning forces to drive the natives off cliffs or force them to retreat into rivers while attacking from both banks.
The conflict lasted for over 150 years and the face of battle followed the pattern of British settlement in Australia. Beginning in New South Wales with the arrival of the first Europeans in May 1788, it continued in Sydney and its surrounds until the 1820s. As the frontier moved west so did the conflict, pushing into outback New South Wales in the 1840s. In Tasmania, fighting can be traced from 1804 to the 1830s, while in Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
and the southern parts of South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
, the majority of the violence occurred during the 1830s and 1840s. The south-west of Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
experienced warfare from 1829 to 1850. The war in Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
began in the area around Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
in the 1840s and continued until 1860, moving to central Queensland in the 1850s and 1860s, and then in northern Queensland from the 1860s to 1900. In Western Australia, the violence moved north as European settlement moved north, reaching the Kimberley region by 1880, with violent clashes continuing until the 1920s. In the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
conflict lasted even later still, especially in central Australia, continuing from 1880s to the 1930s. One estimate of casualties places European deaths at 2,500, while at least 20,000 Aborigines are believed to have perished. Far more devastating, however, was the effect of disease which significantly reduced the Aboriginal population by the beginning of the 20th century; a fact which may also have limited their ability to resist encroachment.
Taranaki War
In 1861, the Victorian ship HMCSS VictoriaHMS Victoria (1855)
HMVS Victoria was a 580-ton combined steam/sail sloop-of-war built in England in the 1850s for the colony of Victoria, Australia....
was dispatched to help the New Zealand colonial government in its war against Māori in Taranaki. Victoria was subsequently used for patrol duties and logistic support, although a number of personnel were involved in actions against Māori fortifications. One sailor died from an accidental gunshot wound during the deployment.
Invasion of the Waikato
In late 1863, the New Zealand government requested troops to assist in the invasion of the WaikatoWaikato
The Waikato Region is a local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato, Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsula, the northern King Country, much of the Taupo District, and parts of Rotorua District...
province against the Māori. Promised settlement on confiscated land, more than 2,500 Australians (over half of whom were from Victoria) were recruited to form four Waikato Regiments. Other Australians became scouts in the Company of Forest Rangers. Despite experiencing arduous conditions the Australians were not heavily involved in battle, and were primarily used for patrolling and garrison duties. Australians were involved in actions at Matarikoriko, Pukekohe East
Defence of Pukekohe East 1863
The Defence of Pukekohe East was an action during theInvasion of the Waikato, part of the New Zealand Wars. On 13 September and 14 September 1863, 11 settlers and 6 militia men inside a half completed stockade around the Pukekohe East church held off a Māori taua or war party of approximately 200...
, Titi Hill, Orakau and Te Ranga. Fewer than 20 were believed to have been killed in action. The conflict was over by 1864, and the Waikato Regiments disbanded in 1867. However, many of the soldiers who had chosen to claim farmland at the cessation of hostilities had drifted to the towns and cities by the end of the decade, while many others had returned to Australia.
Colonial military forces, 1870–1901
From 1870 until 1901, each of the six colonial governments was responsible for their own defence. The colonies had gained responsible governmentResponsible government
Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability which is the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy...
between 1855 and 1890, and while the Colonial Office
Colonial Office
Colonial Office is the government agency which serves to oversee and supervise their colony* Colonial Office - The British Government department* Office of Insular Affairs - the American government agency* Reichskolonialamt - the German Colonial Office...
in London retained control of some affairs, the Governor of the each colony was required to raise their own colonial militia. To do this, they were granted the authority from the British crown to raise military and naval forces. Initially these were militias in support of British regulars, but when military support for the colonies ended in 1870, the colonies assumed their own defence responsibilities. The colonial military forces included unpaid volunteer militia, paid citizen soldiers, and a small permanent component. They were mainly infantry, cavalry and mounted infantry, and were neither housed in barracks
Barracks
Barracks are specialised buildings for permanent military accommodation; the word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes. Their main object is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training and esprit de corps. They were sometimes called...
nor subject to full military discipline. Even after significant reforms in the 1870s—including the expansion of the permanent forces to include engineer and artillery units—they remained too small and unbalanced to be considered armies in the modern sense. By 1885, the forces numbered 21,000 men. Although they could not be compelled to serve overseas many volunteers subsequently did see action in a number conflicts of the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
during the 19th century, with the colonies raising contingents to serve in Sudan, South Africa and China.
Despite a reputation of colonial inferiority, many of the locally raised units were highly organised, disciplined, professional, and well trained. During this period, defences in Australia mainly revolved around static defence by combined infantry and artillery, based on garrisoned coastal forts. However, by the 1890s, improved railway communications between the mainland eastern colonies led Major General James Edwards
James Bevan Edwards
Lieutenant General Sir James Bevan Edwards KCB KCMG was a senior British Army officer and politician.-Military career:Edwards was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1852...
—who had recently completed a survey of colonial military forces—to the belief that the colonies could be defended by the rapid mobilisation of brigades of infantry. As a consequence he called for a restructure of defences, and defensive agreements to be made between the colonies. Edwards argued for the colonial forces to be federated and for professional units—obliged to serve anywhere in the South Pacific—to replace the volunteer forces. These views found support in the influential New South Wales Commandant, Major General Edward Hutton, however suspicions held by the smaller colonies towards New South Wales and Victoria stifled the proposal. Despite these reforms remaining unresolved, defence issues were increasingly driving debate on the political federation of the colonies.
With the exception of Western Australia, the colonies also operated their own navies
Colonial navies of Australia
Before Federation in 1901 five of the six separate colonies maintained their own naval forces for defence. The colonial navies were supported by the ships of the Royal Navy’s Australian Station which was established in 1859...
. In 1856, Victoria received its own naval vessel, HMCSS Victoria
HMS Victoria (1855)
HMVS Victoria was a 580-ton combined steam/sail sloop-of-war built in England in the 1850s for the colony of Victoria, Australia....
, and its deployment to New Zealand in 1860 during the First Taranaki War marked the first occasion that an Australian warship had been deployed overseas. The colonial navies were expanded greatly in the mid-1880s and consisted of a number of gunboats and torpedo-boats for the defence of harbours and rivers, as well as naval brigades to man vessels and forts. Victoria became the most powerful of all the colonial navies, with the ironclad HMVS Cerberus
HMVS Cerberus
HMVS Cerberus is a breastwork monitor that served in the Victoria Naval Forces, the Commonwealth Naval Forces , and the Royal Australian Navy between 1871 and 1924....
in service from 1870, as well as the steam-sail warship on loan from the Royal Navy, three small gunboats and five torpedo-boats. New South Wales formed a Naval Brigade in 1863 and by the turn of the century had two small torpedo-boats and a corvette. The Queensland Maritime Defence Force was established in 1885, while South Australia operated a single ship, HMCS Protector
HMAS Protector (1884)
HMCS/HMAS Protector was a large flat-iron gunboat commissioned and purchased by the South Australian government in 1884, for the purpose of defending the local coastline against possible attacks in the aftermath of the ‘Russian scare', of 1870s...
. Tasmania had also a small Torpedo Corps, while Western Australia’s only naval defences included the Fremantle Naval Artillery. Naval personnel from New South Wales and Victoria took part in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
in China in 1900, while HMCS Protector was sent by South Australia but saw no action. The separate colonies maintained control over their military and naval forces until Federation
Federation of Australia
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed one nation...
in 1901, when they were amalgamated and placed under the control of the new Commonwealth of Australia.
Sudan, 1885
During the early years of the 1880s, an Egyptian regime in the SudanSudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
, backed by the British, came under threat from rebellion under the leadership of native Muhammad Ahmad
Muhammad Ahmad
Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah was a religious leader of the Samaniyya order in Sudan who, on June 29, 1881, proclaimed himself as the Mahdi or messianic redeemer of the Islamic faith...
(or Ahmed), known as Mahdi
Mahdi
In Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi is the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will stay on Earth for seven, nine or nineteen years- before the Day of Judgment and, alongside Jesus, will rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny.In Shia Islam, the belief in the Mahdi is a "central religious...
to his followers. In 1883, as part of the Mahdist War
Mahdist War
The Mahdist War was a colonial war of the late 19th century. It was fought between the Mahdist Sudanese and the Egyptian and later British forces. It has also been called the Anglo-Sudan War or the Sudanese Mahdist Revolt. The British have called their part in the conflict the Sudan Campaign...
, the Egyptians sent an army to deal with the revolt, but they were defeated and faced a difficult campaign of extracting their forces. The British instructed the Egyptians to abandon the Sudan, and sent General Charles Gordon
Charles George Gordon
Major-General Charles George Gordon, CB , known as "Chinese" Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, was a British army officer and administrator....
to coordinate the evacuation, but he was killed in January 1885. When news of his death arrived in New South Wales in February 1885, the government offered to send forces and meet the contingent's expenses. The New South Wales Contingent consisted of an infantry battalion of 522 men and 24 officers, and an artillery battery of 212 men and sailed from Sydney on 3 March 1885.
The contingent arrived in Suakin
Suakin
Suakin or Sawakin is a port in north-eastern Sudan, on the west coast of the Red Sea. In 1983 it had a population of 18,030 and the 2009 estimate is 43, 337.It was formerly the region's chief port, but is now secondary to Port Sudan, about 30 miles north. The old city built of coral is in ruins...
on 29 March and were attached to a brigade that consisted of Scots, Grenadier and Coldstream Guards. They subsequently marched for Tamai in a large "square" formation made up of 10,000 men. Reaching the village, they burned huts and returned to Suakin: three Australians were wounded in minor fighting. Most of the contingent was then sent to work on a railway line that was being laid across the desert towards Berber
Berber, Sudan
Berber is a town in the Nile state of northern Sudan, 50 km north of Atbara, near the junction of the Atbara River and the Nile.The town was the starting-point of the old caravan route across the Nubian Desert to the Red Sea at Suakin....
, on the Nile. The Australians were then assigned to guard duties, but soon a camel corps was raised and 50 men volunteered. They rode on a reconnaissance to Takdul on 6 May and were heavily involved in a skirmish during which more than 100 Arabs were killed or captured. On 15 May, they made one last sortie to bury the dead that were killed from the fighting of the previous March. The artillery were posted at Handoub and drilled for a month, but they soon rejoined the camp at Suakin.
The British government decided that the campaign in Sudan was not worth the effort required and left a garrison in Suakin. The New South Wales Contingent sailed for home on 17 May, arriving in Sydney on 19 June 1885. Approximately 770 Australians served in Sudan; nine subsequently died of disease during the return journey while three had been wounded during the campaign.
Second Boer War, 1899–1902
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
already settled by the Afrikaner Boers and the competition for resources and land that developed between them as a result, led to the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
in 1899. Pre-empting the deployment of British forces, the Afrikaner Republics of the Orange Free State
Orange Free State
The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...
and the Transvaal Republic
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
under President Paul Kruger
Paul Kruger
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger , better known as Paul Kruger and affectionately known as Uncle Paul was State President of the South African Republic...
declared war on 11 October 1899, striking deep into the British territories of Natal
Colony of Natal
The Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on May 4, 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, as one of its...
and the Cape Colony
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
. After the outbreak of war, plans for the dispatch of a combined Australian force were subsequently set aside by the British War Office and each of the six colonial governments sent separate contingents to serve with British formations, with two squadrons each of 125 men from New South Wales and Victoria, and one each from the other colonies. The first troops arrived three weeks later, with the New South Wales Lancers—who had been training in England before the war, hurriedly diverted to South Africa. On 22 November, the Lancers came under fire for the first time near Belmont
Battle of Belmont (1899)
The Battle of Belmont is the name of an engagement of the Second Boer War near the town of Belmont, 23 November 1899, where the British under Lord Methuen assaulted a Boer position on a kopje....
, and they subsequently forced their attackers to withdraw after inflicting significant casualties on them.
Following a series of minor victories, the British suffered a major setback during Black Week
Black Week
In one disastrous week, dubbed Black Week, from 10-17 December 1899, the British Army suffered three devastating defeats by the Boer Republics at the battles of Stormberg , Magersfontein and Colenso , with 2,776 men killed, wounded and captured...
between 10–17 December 1899, although no Australian units were involved. The first contingents of infantry from Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania arrived in Cape Town on 26 November and were designated the Australian Regiment under the command of Colonel John Charles Hoad
John Charles Hoad
Major General Sir John Charles Hoad KCMG was an Australian military leader, best known as the Australian Army's second Chief of the General Staff.-Family:...
. With a need for increased mobility, they were soon converted into mounted infantry
Mounted infantry
Mounted infantry were soldiers who rode horses instead of marching, but actually fought on foot . The original dragoons were essentially mounted infantry...
. Further units from Queensland and New South Wales arrived in December and were soon committed to the front. The first casualties occurred soon after at Sunnyside on 1 January 1900, after 250 Queensland Mounted Infantry and a column of Canadians, British and artillery attacked a Boer laager at Belmont. Troopers David McLeod and Victor Jones were killed when their patrol clashed with the Boer forward sentries. Regardless, the Boers were surprised and during two hours of heavy fighting, more than 50 were killed and another 40 taken prisoner. Five hundred Queenslanders and the New South Wales Lancers subsequently took part in the Siege of Kimberley
Siege of Kimberley
The Siege of Kimberley took place during the Second Boer War at Kimberley, Cape Colony , when Boer forces from the Orange Free State and the Transvaal besieged the diamond mining town. The Boers moved quickly to try to capture the British enclave when war broke out between the British and the two...
in February 1900.
Despite serious set-backs at Colenso
Battle of Colenso
The Battle of Colenso was the third and final battle fought during the Black Week of the Second Boer War. It was fought between British and Boer forces from the independent South African Republic and Orange Free State in and around Colenso, Natal, South Africa on 15 December 1899.Inadequate...
, Stormberg
Battle of Stormberg
The Battle of Stormberg was the first British defeat of Black Week, in which three successive British forces were defeated by Boer irregulars in the Second Boer War.-Background:...
, Magersfontein
Battle of Magersfontein
The Battle of MagersfonteinSpelt incorrectly in various English texts as "Majersfontein", "Maaghersfontein" and "Maagersfontein". was fought on 11 December 1899, at Magersfontein near Kimberley on the borders of the Cape Colony and the independent republic of the Orange Free State...
, and Spion Kop
Battle of Spion Kop
The Battle of Spion Kop was fought about west-south-west of Ladysmith on the hilltop of Spioenkop along the Tugela River, Natal in South Africa from 23–24 January 1900...
in January—and with Ladysmith
Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal
Ladysmith is a city in the Uthukela District of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is north-west of Durban and south of Johannesburg. Important industries in the area include food processing, textile and tyre production...
still under siege—the British mounted a five division counter-invasion of the Orange Free State in February. The attacking force included a division of cavalry commanded by Lieutenant General John French
John French, 1st Earl of Ypres
Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC , known as The Viscount French between 1916 and 1922, was a British and Anglo-Irish officer...
with the New South Wales Lancers, Queensland Mounted Infantry and New South Wales Army Medical Corps attached. First, Kimberley was relieved following the battles of Modder River
Battle of Modder River
The Battle of Modder River was an engagement in the Boer War, fought at Modder River, on 28 November 1899...
and Magersfontein
Battle of Magersfontein
The Battle of MagersfonteinSpelt incorrectly in various English texts as "Majersfontein", "Maaghersfontein" and "Maagersfontein". was fought on 11 December 1899, at Magersfontein near Kimberley on the borders of the Cape Colony and the independent republic of the Orange Free State...
, and the retreating Boers defeated at Paardeberg
Battle of Paardeberg
The Battle of Paardeberg or Perdeberg was a major battle during the Second Anglo-Boer War. It was fought near Paardeberg Drift on the banks of the Modder River in the Orange Free State near Kimberley....
, with the New South Wales Mounted Rifles locating the Boer general, Piet Cronje
Piet Cronje
Pieter Arnoldus Cronjé, commonly known as Piet Cronjé was a general of the South African Republic's military forces during the Anglo-Boer wars of 1880-1881 and 1899-1902....
. The British entered Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals – the other two being Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.Bloemfontein is popularly and...
on 13 March 1900, while Ladysmith was relieved. Disease began to take its toll and scores of men died. Still the advance continued, with the drive to Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
in May including more than 3,000 Australians. Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
fell on 30 May, and the Boers withdrew from Pretoria on 3 June. The New South Wales Mounted Rifles and Western Australians saw action again at Diamond Hill
Diamond Hill
Diamond Hill is a hill in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The name also refers to the area on or adjacent to the hill. It is surrounded by Ngau Chi Wan, San Po Kong, Wong Tai Sin and Tsz Wan Shan. Its northeast is limited by the ridge. It is principally a residential district.-Etymology:Contrary to its name,...
on 12 June. Mafeking was relieved on 17 May.
Commando
In English, the term commando means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means elite light infantry and/or special operations forces units, specializing in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and...
units and conducting a campaign of guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
in order to disrupt British troop movements and lines of supply. This new phase of resistance led to further recruiting in the Australian colonies and the raising of the Bushmen's Contingents, with these soldiers usually being volunteers with horse-riding and shooting skills, but little military experience. After Federation in 1901, eight Australian Commonwealth Horse
Australian Commonwealth Horse
The Australian Commonwealth Horse was a mounted infantry unit of the Australian Army formed for service during the Second Boer War in South Africa in 1902 and was the first expeditionary military unit established by the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia following Federation in 1901...
battalions of the newly created Australian Army
Australian Army
The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence commands the Australian Defence Force , the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army...
were also sent to South Africa, although they saw little fighting before the war ended. Some Australians later joined local South African irregular units, instead of returning home after discharge. These soldiers were part of the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, and were subject to British military discipline. Such units included the Bushveldt Carbineers
Bushveldt Carbineers
The Bushveldt Carbineers were a short-lived, multinational mounted infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in South Africa during the Second Boer War. The BVC is recognized as the world's first modern Special forces for the use of counter insurgency tactics.The 320-strong regiment was...
which gained notoriety as the unit in which Harry "Breaker" Morant
Breaker Morant
Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, poet, soldier and convicted war criminal whose skill with horses earned him the nickname "The Breaker"...
and Peter Handcock
Peter Handcock
Peter Joseph Handcock was a Veterinary Lieutenant in the Bushveldt Carbineers in the Boer War in South Africa. Handcock and Harry "Breaker" Morant were court martialed and executed by firing squad on 27 February 1902 on murder charges for shooting Boer prisoners and a German missionary, Jacob...
served in before their court martial and execution for war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s.
With the guerrillas requiring supplies, Koos de la Rey
Koos de la Rey
General Jacobus Herculaas de la Rey , known as Koos de la Rey, was a Boer general during the Second Boer War and is widely regarded as being one of the strongest military leaders during that conflict....
lead a force of 3,000 Boers against Brakfontein, on the Elands river in Western Transvaal. The post held a large quantity of stores and was defended by 300 Australians and 200 Rhodesians. The attack began on 4 August 1900 with heavy shelling causing 32 casualties. During the night the defenders dug in, enduring shelling and rifle fire. A relief force was stopped by the Boers, while a second column turned back believing that the post had already been relieved. The siege lasted 11 days, during which more than 1,800 shells were fired into the post. After calls to surrender were ignored by the defenders, and not prepared to risk a frontal attack, the Boers eventually retired. The Siege of Elands River was one of the major achievements of the Australians during the war, with the post finally relieved on 16 August.
In response the British adopted counter-insurgency
Counter-insurgency
A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...
tactics, including a scorched earth
Scorched earth
A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...
policy involving the burning of houses and crops, the establishment of concentration camps for Boer women and children, and a system of blockhouses and field obstacles to limit Boer mobility and to protect railway communications. Such measures required considerable expenditure, and caused much bitterness towards the British, however they soon yielded results. By mid-1901, the bulk of the fighting was over, and British mounted units would ride at night to attack Boer farmhouses or encampments, overwhelming them with superior numbers. Indicative of warfare in last months of 1901, the New South Wales Mounted Rifles travelled 1814 miles (2,919.3 km) and were involved in 13 skirmishes, killing 27 Boers, wounding 15, and capturing 196 for the loss of five dead and 19 wounded. Other notable Australian actions included Slingersfontein, Pink Hill, Rhenosterkop and Haartebeestefontein
Hartbeesfontein
Hartbeesfontein is a settlement near Klerksdorp, in the North West province of South Africa. It is situated at the intersection of the R503 and R507 routes.-Geology:...
.
Australians were not always successful however, suffering a number of heavy losses late in the war. On 12 June 1901, the 5th Victorian Mounted Rifles
Victorian Mounted Rifles
The Victorian Mounted Rifles was a regiment composed of Australian forces that served in the Second Boer War. It was first raised by Colonel Tom Price in the mid-1880s, composed of voluntary forces...
lost 19 killed and 42 wounded at Wilmansrust, near Middleburg
Middelburg, Mpumalanga
Middelburg is a large farming and industrial town in the South African province of Mpumalanga.Middelburg was established as Nasareth, , in 1864 by the Voortrekkers on the banks of the Klein Olifants River. The name was changed in 1872 to Middelburg to mark its situation midway between the Transvaal...
after poor security allowed a force of 150 Boers to surprise them. On 30 October 1901, Victorians of the Scottish Horse Regiment also suffered heavy casualties at Gun Hill, although 60 Boers were also killed in the engagement. Meanwhile at Onverwacht
Onverwacht
Onverwacht is a capital town of Para District, Suriname. It is located at around . The locality is notable for finding of some of the earliest known evidence of bacteria is in Onverwacht shales, dating to several billion years before present.-References:* C.Michael Hogan. 2010. . eds. E.Monosson...
on 4 January 1902, the 5th Queensland Imperial Bushmen lost 13 killed and 17 wounded. Ultimately the Boers were defeated, and the war ended on 31 May 1902. In all 16,175 Australians served in South Africa, and perhaps another 10,000 enlisted as individuals in Imperial units; casualties included 251 killed in action, 267 died of disease and 43 missing in action, while a further 735 were wounded. Six Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
.
Boxer Rebellion, 1900–1901
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
in China began in 1900, and a number of western nations—including many European powers, the United States, and Japan—soon sent forces as part of the China Field Force
Eight-Nation Alliance
The Eight-Nation Alliance was an alliance of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States whose military forces intervened in China to suppress the anti-foreign Boxers and relieve the siege of the diplomatic legations in Beijing .- Events :The...
to protect their interests. In June, the British government sought permission from the Australian colonies to dispatch ships from the Australian Squadron to China. The colonies also offered to assist further, but as most of their troops were still engaged in South Africa, they had to rely on naval forces for manpower. The force dispatched was a modest one, with Britain accepting 200 men from Victoria, 260 from New South Wales and the South Australian ship HMCS Protector, under the command of Captain William Creswell
William Rooke Creswell
Vice Admiral Sir William Rooke Creswell KCMG, KBE was an Australian naval officer, commonly considered to be the 'father' of the Royal Australian Navy.-Early life:...
. Most of these forces were made up of naval brigade reservists, who had been trained in both ship handling and soldiering to fulfil their coastal defence role. Amongst the naval contingent from New South Wales were 200 naval officers and sailors and 50 permanent soldiers headquartered at Victoria Barracks, Sydney
Victoria Barracks, Sydney
Victoria Barracks is an Australian Army base in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Victoria Barracks is located in the suburb of Paddington, between Oxford Street and Moore Park Road...
who originally enlisted for the Second Boer War. The soldiers were keen to go to China but refused to be enlisted as sailors, while the New South Wales Naval Brigade objected to having soldiers in their ranks. The Army and Navy compromised and titled the contingent the NSW Marine Light Infantry.
The contingents from New South Wales and Victoria sailed for China on 8 August 1900. Arriving in Tientsin, the Australians provided 300 men to an 8,000-strong multinational force tasked with capturing the Chinese forts at Pei Tang, which dominated a key railway. They arrived too late to take part in the battle, but were involved in the attack on the fortress at Pao-ting Fu
Baoding
-Administrative divisions:Baoding prefecture-level city consists of 3 municipal districts, 4 county-level cities, 18 counties:-Demographics:The Baoding urban area has a population of around 1,006,000 . The population of the Baoding administrative area is 10,890,000. The considerable majority are...
, where the Chinese government was believed to have found asylum after Peking was captured by western forces. The Victorians joined a force of 7,500 men on a ten-day march to the fort, once again only to find that it had already surrendered. The Victorians then garrisoned Tientsin and the New South Wales contingent undertook garrison duties in Peking. HMCS Protector was mostly used for survey, transport, and courier duties in the Gulf of Chihli, before departing in November. The naval brigades remained during the winter, unhappily performing policing and guard duties, as well as working as railwaymen and fire-fighters. They left China in March 1901, having played only a minor role in a few offensives and punitive expeditions and in the restoration of civil order. Six Australians died from sickness and injury, but none were killed as a result of enemy action.
Australian military forces at Federation, 1901
The Commonwealth of Australia came into existence on 1 January 1901 as a result of the federation of the Australian colonies
Federation of Australia
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed one nation...
. Under the Constitution of Australia
Constitution of Australia
The Constitution of Australia is the supreme law under which the Australian Commonwealth Government operates. It consists of several documents. The most important is the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia...
, defence responsibility was now vested in the new federal government. The co-ordination of Australia-wide defensive efforts in the face of Imperial German
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
interest in the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
was one of driving forces behind federalism, and the Department of Defence
Department of Defence (Australia)
The Australian Department of Defence is a Federal Government Department. It forms part of the Australian Defence Organisation along with the Australian Defence Force . The Defence mission is to defend Australia and its national interests...
immediately came into being as a result, while the Commonwealth Military Forces (early forerunner of the Australian Army
Australian Army
The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence commands the Australian Defence Force , the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army...
) and Commonwealth Naval Force were also soon established.The land forces of Australia have held a number of titles during their history. From 1901 to 1916 they were called the Commonwealth Military Forces, after which they were renamed the Australian Military Forces
Australian Military Forces
The Australian Military Forces was the official name of the Army of Australia from 1916 to 1980. This encompassed both the "regular army", and the forces, variously known during this period as the Militia, the Citizen Military Forces and the Australian Citizen Military Force .Initially this...
(AMF). In 1980 the AMF was renamed the Australian Army
Australian Army
The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence commands the Australian Defence Force , the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army...
, see
The Australian Commonwealth Military Forces came into being on 1 March 1901 and all of the colonial forces—including those still in South Africa—became part of the new force. 28,923 colonial soldiers, including 1,457 professional soldiers, 18,603 paid militia and 8,863 unpaid volunteers, were subsequently transferred. The individual units continued to be administered under the various colonial Acts until the Defence Act 1903 brought all of the units under one piece of legislation. This Act also prevented the raising of standing infantry units and specified that militia forces could not be used in industrial disputes or serve outside Australia. However, the majority of soldiers remained in militia units, known as the Citizen Military Forces (CMF). Major General Sir Edward Hutton
Edward Hutton (army)
Lieutenant General Sir Edward Thomas Henry Hutton KCB, KCMG was a British military commander, who pioneered the use of mounted infantry in the British Army and later commanded the Canadian Militia and the Australian Army....
—a former commander of the New South Wales Military Forces—subsequently became the first commander of the Commonwealth Military Forces on 26 December and set to work devising an integrated structure for the new army. In 1911, following a report by Lord Kitchener the Royal Military College, Duntroon
Royal Military College, Duntroon
The Royal Military College, Duntroon is the Australian Army's officer training establishment. It was founded at Duntroon, in the Australian Capital Territory, in 1911 and is situated on picturesque grounds at the foot of Mount Pleasant near Lake Burley Griffin, close to the Department of Defence...
was established, as was a system of universal national service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
.
Prior to federation each self-governing colony had operated its own naval force. These navies were small and lacked blue water capabilities, forcing the separate colonies to subsidise the cost of a British naval squadron in their waters for decades. The colonies maintained control over their respective navies until 1 March 1901, when the Commonwealth Naval Force was created. This new force also lacked blue water capable ships, and ultimately did not lead to a change in Australian naval policy. In 1909, Prime Minister Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
, while attending the Imperial Conference in London, sought the British Government's agreement to end the subsidy system and develop an Australian navy. The Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
rejected these approaches, suggesting instead that a small fleet of destroyers and submarines would be sufficient. Deakin was unimpressed and had previously invited the American Great White Fleet
Great White Fleet
The Great White Fleet was the popular nickname for the United States Navy battle fleet that completed a circumnavigation of the globe from 16 December 1907 to 22 February 1909 by order of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. It consisted of 16 battleships divided into two squadrons, along with...
to visit Australia in 1908. This visit had fired public enthusiasm for a modern navy and in part led to the order of two 700-ton River class destroyers
River class torpedo boat destroyer
The River class was a class of six torpedo-boat destroyers operated by the Royal Australian Navy. Three were ordered for the Commonwealth Naval Forces in 1909; two were built in the United Kingdom, while a third was partially built, disassembled, then transported to Australia for reassembly...
. The surge in German naval construction prompted the Admiralty to change their position however and the Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
was subsequently formed in 1911, absorbing the Commonwealth Naval Force. On 4 October 1913, the new fleet steamed through Sydney Heads
Sydney Heads
Sydney Heads , is the entrance to Port Jackson in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.North Head and Quarantine Head are to the north, South Head and Dunbar Head are to the south. Middle Head, Georges Head and Chowder Head are to the west and within the bay...
, consisting of the battlecruiser HMAS Australia
HMAS Australia (1911)
HMAS Australia was one of three s built for the defence of the British Empire. Ordered by the Australian government in 1909, she was launched in 1911, and commissioned as flagship of the fledgling Royal Australian Navy in 1913...
, three light cruisers, and three destroyers, while several other ships were still under construction. And as a consequence the navy entered the First World War as a formidable force.
The Australian Flying Corps was established as part of the Commonwealth Military Forces in 1912, prior to the formation of the Australian Military Forces
Australian Military Forces
The Australian Military Forces was the official name of the Army of Australia from 1916 to 1980. This encompassed both the "regular army", and the forces, variously known during this period as the Militia, the Citizen Military Forces and the Australian Citizen Military Force .Initially this...
in 1916 and was later separated in 1921 to form the Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
The Royal Australian Air Force is the air force branch of the Australian Defence Force. The RAAF was formed in March 1921. It continues the traditions of the Australian Flying Corps , which was formed on 22 October 1912. The RAAF has taken part in many of the 20th century's major conflicts...
, making it the second oldest air force in the world. Regardless, the service branches were not linked by a single chain of command
Chain of Command
Chain of Command may refer to:* Chain of command, in a military context, the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed* "Chain of Command" , the fifth episode of the first season of Beast Wars...
however, and each reported to their own minister and had separate administrative arrangements and government departments.
First World War, 1914–1918
Joseph Cook
Sir Joseph Cook, GCMG was an Australian politician and the sixth Prime Minister of Australia. Born as Joseph Cooke and working in the coal mines of Silverdale, Staffordshire during his early life, he emigrated to Lithgow, New South Wales during the late 1880s, and became General-Secretary of the...
declaring on 5 August 1914 that "...when the Empire is at war, so also is Australia" and reflecting the sentiment of many Australians that any declaration of war by Britain automatically included Australia. This was itself in part due to the large number of British-born citizens and first generation Anglo-Australians that made up the Australian population at the time. Indeed by the end of the war, almost 20% of those who served in the Australian forces had been born in Britain.
As the existing militia forces were unable to serve overseas under the provisions of the Defence Act 1903, an all-volunteer expeditionary force known as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was formed and recruitment began on 10 August 1914. The government pledged 20,000 men, organised as one infantry division
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...
and one light horse brigade
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...
plus supporting units. Enlistment and organisation was primarily regionally based and was undertaken under mobilisation plans drawn up in 1912. The first commander was General William Bridges
William Throsby Bridges
Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges KCB, CMG served with Australian forces during World War I, and was the first Australian to reach general officer rank...
, who also assumed command of the 1st Division
1st Division (Australia)
The 1st Division is the main formation of the Australian Army and contains the majority of the army's regular forces. Its headquarters is in Enoggera, a suburb of Brisbane...
. Throughout the course of the conflict Australian efforts were predominately focused upon the ground war, although small air and naval forces were also committed.
Occupation of German New Guinea
Following the outbreak of war Australian forces moved quickly to reduce the threat to shipping posed by the proximity of Germany's Pacific colonies. A 2,000 man volunteer force—separate from the AIF—and consisting of an infantry battalion plus 500 naval reservists and ex-sailors known as the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary ForceAustralian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force was a small volunteer force of approximately 2,000 men, raised in Australia shortly after the outbreak of the First World War to seize and destroy German wireless stations in German New Guinea in the south-west Pacific...
(AN&MEF), was rapidly formed under the command of Colonel William Holmes. The objectives of the force were the wireless stations at Yap
Yap
Yap, also known as Wa'ab by locals, is an island in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean. It is a state of the Federated States of Micronesia. Yap's indigenous cultures and traditions are still strong compared to other neighboring islands. The island of Yap actually consists of four...
in the Caroline Islands
Caroline Islands
The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the eastern part of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end...
, Nauru
Nauru
Nauru , officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest republic, covering just...
, and at Rabaul
Rabaul
Rabaul is a township in East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea. The town was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash of a volcanic eruption. During the eruption, ash was sent thousands of metres into the air and the...
in German New Guinea
German New Guinea
German New Guinea was the first part of the German colonial empire. It was a protectorate from 1884 until 1914 when it fell to Australia following the outbreak of the First World War. It consisted of the northeastern part of New Guinea and several nearby island groups...
. The force reached Rabaul on 11 September 1914 and occupied it the next day, encountering only brief resistance from the German and native defenders during fighting at Bita Paka
Battle of Bita Paka
The Battle of Bita Paka was fought south of Kabakaul, on the island of New Britain, and was a part of the invasion and subsequent occupation of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force shortly after the outbreak of the First World War...
and Toma
Siege of Toma
The Siege of Toma was a bloodless action during the First World War on the island of New Britain between 14–17 September 1914 as part of the occupation of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force...
. German New Guinea surrendered on 17 September 1914. Australian losses were light including six killed during the fighting, but were compounded by the mysterious loss offshore of the submarine AE1 with all 35 men aboard.
Gallipoli
Albany, Western Australia
Albany is a port city in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, some 418 km SE of Perth, the state capital. As of 2009, Albany's population was estimated at 33,600, making it the 6th-largest city in the state....
on 1 November 1914. During the journey one the of the convoy's naval escorts——engaged and destroyed the German cruiser at the Battle of Cocos
Battle of Cocos
The Battle of Cocos took place on 9 November 1914 during the First World War off the Cocos Islands, in the north east Indian Ocean. The German light cruiser attacked the British cable station on Direction Island and was engaged several hours later by the Australian light cruiser...
on 8 November, in the first ship-to-ship action involving the Royal Australian Navy. Although originally bound for England to undergo further training and then for employment on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
, the Australians were subsequently sent to British-controlled Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in order to pre-empt any Turkish
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
attack against the strategically important Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
, and with a view to opening another front against the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
.
Aiming to knock Turkey out of the war the British then decided to stage a landing at Gallipoli
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace , the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east. Gallipoli derives its name from the Greek "Καλλίπολις" , meaning "Beautiful City"...
and following a period of training and reorganisation the Australians were included amongst the British, Indian and French forces committed to the campaign. The combined Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC)—commanded by British general William Birdwood—subsequently landed on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April 1915. Although promising to transform the war if successful, the Gallipoli Campaign was ill-conceived and ultimately lasted eight months of bloody stalemate, without achieving its objectives. Australian casualties totalled 26,111, including 8,141 killed.
For Australians and New Zealanders the Gallipoli campaign came to symbolise an important milestone in the emergence of both nations as independent actors on the world stage and the development of a sense of national identity. Today, the date of the initial landings, 25 April, is known as Anzac Day
ANZAC Day
Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all...
in Australia and New Zealand and every year thousands of people gather at memorials in both nations, and indeed in Turkey, to honour the bravery and sacrifice of the original Anzacs, and of all those who have subsequently lost their lives in war.
Egypt and Palestine
After the withdrawal from Gallipoli the Australians returned to EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and the AIF underwent a major expansion. In 1916 the infantry began to move to France while the cavalry units stayed in the Middle East to fight the Turks. Australian troops of the Anzac Mounted Division
Anzac Mounted Division
The ANZAC Mounted Division was a mounted infantry and mounted rifles division formed in March 1916 in Egypt during World War I following the Battle of Gallipoli when the Australian and New Zealand regiments returned from fighting dismounted as infantry...
and the Australian Mounted Division
Australian Mounted Division
The Australian Mounted Division was a mounted infantry division formed in Egypt during World War I. When the British forces in the Middle East expanded in late 1916, a second mounted division was created called the Imperial Mounted Division...
saw action in all the major battles of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign
Sinai and Palestine Campaign
The Sinai and Palestine Campaigns took place in the Middle Eastern Theatre of World War I. A series of battles were fought between British Empire, German Empire and Ottoman Empire forces from 26 January 1915 to 31 October 1918, when the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and...
, playing a pivotal role in fighting the Turkish troops that were threatening British control of Egypt. The Australian’s first saw combat during the Senussi Uprising in the Libyan Desert and the Nile Valley, during which the combinded British forces successfully put down the primitive pro-Turkish Islamic sect with heavy casualties. The Anzac Mounted Division subsequently saw considerable action in the Battle of Romani
Battle of Romani
The Battle of Romani was fought east of the Suez Canal, near the Egyptian town of Romani and the site of ancient Pelusium on the Sinai Peninsula during the First World War...
against the Turkish between 3–5 August 1916, with the Turks eventually pushed back. Following this victory the British forces went on the offensive in the Sinai, although the pace of the advance was governed by the speed by which the railway and water pipeline could be constructed from the Suez Canal. Rafa was captured on 9 January 1917, while the last of the small Turkish garrisons in the Sinai were eliminated in February.
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
and took part in the Battle of Mughar Ridge
Battle of Mughar Ridge
The Battle of El Mughar Ridge , took place on 13 November 1917 during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War...
, Battle of Jerusalem
Battle of Jerusalem (1917)
The Battle of Jerusalem developed from 17 November with fighting continuing until 30 December 1917 during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I...
and the Battle of Megiddo
Battle of Megiddo (1918)
The Battle of Megiddo took place between 19 September and 1 October 1918, in what was then the northern part of Ottoman Palestine and parts of present-day Syria and Jordan...
. The Turkish government subsequently surrendered on 30 October 1918. Units of the Light Horse were subsequently used to help put down a nationalist revolt in Egypt
Egyptian Revolution of 1919
The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 was a countrywide revolution against the British occupation of Egypt and Sudan. It was carried out by Egyptians and Sudanese from different walks of life in the wake of the British-ordered exile of revolutionary leader Saad Zaghlul, and other members of the Wafd...
in 1919 and did so with efficiency and brutality, suffering a number of fatalities in the process.
Meanwhile, the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) had undergone remarkable development, and its independence as a separate national force was unique among the Dominions. Deploying just a single aircraft to German New Guinea
German New Guinea
German New Guinea was the first part of the German colonial empire. It was a protectorate from 1884 until 1914 when it fell to Australia following the outbreak of the First World War. It consisted of the northeastern part of New Guinea and several nearby island groups...
in 1914, the first operational flight did not occur until 27 May 1915 however, when the Mesopotamian Half Flight
Mesopotamian Half Flight
The Mesopotamian Half-Flight, or Australian Half-Flight was the first Australian Flying Corps unit to see active service.At the start of World War I, the air forces of the Allied forces were small and primitive. Most of the available aircraft and pilots were assigned to the Western Front...
was called upon to assist in protecting British oil interests in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. The AFC was soon expanded and four squadrons later saw action in Egypt, Palestine and on the Western Front, where they performed well.
Western Front
Five infantry divisions of the AIF saw action in France and Belgium, leaving Egypt in March 1916. The I Anzac CorpsI Anzac Corps
The I ANZAC Corps was a combined Australian and New Zealand army corps that served during World War I.It was formed in Egypt in February 1916 as part of the reorganisation and expansion of the Australian Imperial Force and the New Zealand Expeditionary Force following the evacuation of Gallipoli...
subsequently took up positions in a quiet sector south of Armentieres
Armentières
Armentières is a commune in the Nord department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region in northern France. It is part of the Urban Community of Lille Métropole, and lies on the Belgian border, northwest of the city of Lille, on the right bank of the river Lys....
on 7 April 1916 and for the next two and a half years the AIF participated in most of the major battles on the Western Front, earning a formidable reputation. Although spared from the disastrous first day of the Battle of the Somme, within weeks four Australian divisions had been committed. The 5th Division, positioned on the left flank, was the first in action during the Battle of Fromelles
Battle of Fromelles
The Battle of Fromelles, sometimes known as the Action at Fromelles or the Battle of Fleurbaix , occurred in France between 19 July and 20 July 1916, during World War I...
on 19 July 1916, suffering 5,533 casualties in a single day. The 1st Division entered the line on 23 July, assaulting Pozieres
Battle of Pozières
The Battle of Pozières was a two week struggle for the French village of Pozières and the ridge on which it stands, during the middle stages of the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Though British divisions were involved in most phases of the fighting, Pozières is primarily remembered as an Australian battle...
, and by the time that they were relieved by the 2nd Division on 27 July, they had suffered 5,286 casualties. Mouquet Farm
Battle of Mouquet Farm
The Battle of Mouquet Farm, which began on 5 August 1916, was part of the Battle of the Somme and followed the Battle of Pozières. The farm was eventually captured on 26 September by No. 16 Section of the 6th East Yorkshire Pioneers.-Battle:...
was attacked in August, with casualties totalling 6,300 men. By the time the AIF was withdrawn from the Somme to re-organise, they had suffered 23,000 casualties in just 45 days.
In March 1917, the 2nd and 5th Divisions pursued the Germans back to the Hindenburg Line
Hindenburg Line
The Hindenburg Line was a vast system of defences in northeastern France during World War I. It was constructed by the Germans during the winter of 1916–17. The line stretched from Lens to beyond Verdun...
, capturing the town of Bapaume
Bapaume
Bapaume is a commune and the seat of a canton in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:A farming and light industrial town located 10 miles south of Arras at the junction of the A1 autoroute and the N17 and N30 national roads its location is...
. On 11 April the 4th Division assaulted the Hindenburg Line in the disastrous First Battle of Bullecourt, losing over 3,000 casualties and 1,170 captured. On 15 April the 1st and 2nd Divisions were counter-attacked near Lagnicourt
Lagnicourt-Marcel
Lagnicourt-Marcel is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:A farming village situated southeast of Arras, at the junction of the D18, D14 and the D5 roads.-Population:-Places of interest:...
and were forced to abandon the town, before recapturing it again. The 2nd Division then took part in the Second Battle of Bullecourt, beginning on 3 May, and succeeded in taking sections of the Hindenburg Line and holding them until relieved by the 1st Division. Finally on 7 May the 5th Division relieved the 1st, remaining in the line until the battle ended in mid-May. Combined these efforts cost 7,482 Australian casualties.
On 7 June 1917, the II Anzac Corps
II Anzac Corps
The II ANZAC Corps was an Australian and New Zealand First World War army corps formed in Egypt in February 1916 as part of the reorganization of the Australian Imperial Force following the evacuation of Gallipoli in November 1915, under the command of William Birdwood...
—along with two British corps—launched an operation in Flanders in order to eliminate a salient south of Ypres. The attack commenced with the detonation of a million pounds (454,545 kg) of explosives that had been placed underneath the Messines ridge, destroying the German trenches. The advance was virtually unopposed, and despite strong German counterattacks the next day, it succeeded. Australian casualties during the Battle of Messines
Battle of Messines
The Battle of Messines was a battle of the Western front of the First World War. It began on 7 June 1917 when the British Second Army under the command of General Herbert Plumer launched an offensive near the village of Mesen in West Flanders, Belgium...
included nearly 6,800 men. I Anzac Corps then took part in the Third Battle of Ypres in Belgium as part of the campaign to capture the Gheluvelt Plateau, between September and November 1917. Individual actions took place at Menin Road, Polygon Wood
Battle of Polygon Wood
The Battle of Polygon Wood took place during the second phase of the Battle of Passchendaele in World War I. The battle was fought near Ypres, Belgium, in an area named the Polygon Wood after the layout of the area...
, Broodseinde
Battle of Broodseinde
The Battle of Broodseinde was the most successful attack of the Battle of Passchendaele. Using the "bite and hold" tactic , the Allied forces conducted an attack on well-entrenched German forces and showed that it was possible for the allies to overcome even the stoutest German...
, Poelcappelle
Battle of Poelcappelle
The Battle of Poelcappelle marked the end of highly successful British attacks during the Battle of Passchendaele. Pitting the attacking forces against relatively intact German defences in rain and muddy conditions like those in August, the main attack was a failure and only the diversionary attack...
and Passchendaele and over the course of eight weeks fighting the Australians suffered 38,000 casualties.
On 21 March 1918 the German Army launched its Spring Offensive
Spring Offensive
The 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht , also known as the Ludendorff Offensive, was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during World War I, beginning on 21 March 1918, which marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914...
in a last-ditched effort to win the war, unleashing sixty-three divisions over a 70 miles (112.7 km) front. As the Allies fell back the 3rd and 4th Divisions were rushed south to Amiens
Amiens
Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...
on the Somme. The offensive lasted for the next five months and all five AIF divisions in France were engaged in the attempt to stem the tide. By late May the Germans had pushed to within 50 miles (80.5 km) of Paris. During this time the Australians fought at Dernacourt, Morlancourt, Villers-Bretonneux
First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux
The First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, , was part of the wider First Battle of the Somme . The capture of Villers-Bretonneux, being close to the strategic centre of Amiens, would have meant that the Germans could have used artillery there to shell the city.-Background:With the general position...
, Hangard Wood, Hazebrouck, and Hamel
Battle of Hamel
The Battle of Hamel was a successful attack launched by the Australian Corps of the Australian Imperial Force and several American units against German positions in and around the town of Hamel in northern France during World War I....
. At Hamel the commander of the Australian Corps
Australian Corps
The Australian Corps was a World War I army corps that contained all five Australian infantry divisions serving on the Western Front. It was the largest corps fielded by the British Empire army in France...
, Lieutenant General John Monash
John Monash
General Sir John Monash GCMG, KCB, VD was a civil engineer who became the Australian military commander in the First World War. He commanded the 13th Infantry Brigade before the War and then became commander of the 4th Brigade in Egypt shortly after the outbreak of the War with whom he took part...
, successfully used combined arms
Combined arms
Combined arms is an approach to warfare which seeks to integrate different branches of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects...
—including aircraft, artillery and armour—in an attack for the first time.
Peaceful Penetration
Peaceful Penetration was an Australian infantry tactic used during the First World War , which was a cross between trench raiding and patrolling...
s. The Allies soon launched their own offensive—the Hundred Days Offensive
Hundred Days Offensive
The Hundred Days Offensive was the final period of the First World War, during which the Allies launched a series of offensives against the Central Powers on the Western Front from 8 August to 11 November 1918, beginning with the Battle of Amiens. The offensive forced the German armies to retreat...
—ultimately ending the war. Beginning on 8 August 1918 the offensive included four Australian divisions striking at Amiens. Using the combined arms techniques developed earlier at Hamel, significant gains were made on what became known as the ‘Black Day’ of the German Army. The offensive continued for four months, and during Second Battle of the Somme
Second Battle of the Somme (1918)
During the First World War, the Second Battle of the Somme of 1918 was fought on the Western Front from the end of the summer, in the basin of the Somme River...
the Australian Corps fought actions at Lihons, Etinehem, Proyart, Chuignes, and Mont St Quentin, before their final engagement of the war on 5 October 1918 at Montbrehain. The AIF was subsequently out of the line when the armistice was declared on 11 November 1918.
In all 416,806 Australians enlisted during the war and 333,000 served overseas. 61,508 were killed and another 155,000 were wounded (a total casualty rate of 65%). The financial cost to the Australian government was calculated at £376,993,052. Two referendums
Referendums in Australia
In Australia, referendums are binding polls usually used to alter the Constitution of the Commonwealth or a state or territory. Non-binding polls are usually referred to as plebiscites.-Federal referendums:...
on conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
for overseas service had been defeated during the war, preserving the volunteer status of the Australian force, but stretching the reserves of manpower available, particularly towards the end of the fighting. Consequently, Australia remained one of only two armies on either side not to resort to conscription during the war.South Africa was the only other nation not to implement conscription during the war.
The war had a profound effect on Australian society in other ways also. Indeed, for many Australians the nation's involvement is seen as a symbol of its emergence as an international actor, while many of the notions of Australian character and nationhood that exist today have their origins in the war. 64 Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross during the First World War.
Russian Civil War, 1918–1919
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
began after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
party assumed power in October 1917. Following the end of the First World War, the western powers—including Britain—intervened, giving half-hearted support to the pro-tsarist, anti-Bolshevik White Russian
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
forces. Although the Australian government refused to commit forces, many Australians serving with the British Army became involved in the fighting. A small number served as advisors to White Russian units with the North Russian Expeditionary Force (NREF). Awaiting repatriation in England, about 150 Australians subsequently enlisted in the British North Russia Relief Force (NRRF), where they were involved in a number of sharp battles and several were killed.
The Royal Australian Navy destroyer HMAS Swan was also briefly engaged, carrying out an intelligence gathering mission in the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
in late 1918. Other Australians served as advisers with the British Military Mission to the White Russian General, Anton Denikin in South Russia, while several more advised Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak
Aleksandr Kolchak
Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak was a Russian naval commander, polar explorer and later - Supreme ruler . Supreme ruler of Russia , was recognized in this position by all the heads of the White movement, "De jure" - Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, "De facto" - Entente States...
in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
. Later, they also served in Mesopotamia as part of Dunsterforce
Dunsterforce
Established in 1917, Dunsterforce was an Allied military mission of under 1,000 Australian, New Zealand, British, and Canadian troops , accompanied by armoured cars, deployed from Hamadan some 350 km across Qajar Persia. It was named after its commander General Lionel Dunsterville...
and the Malleson Mission
Wilfrid Malleson
Sir Wilfrid Malleson was a Major-General in the British Army who led a mission to Turkestan during the Russian Civil War. Malleson joined the Royal Artillery in 1886. In 1904 he transferred to the Indian Army and accompanied Sir Louis William Daneon on his mission to Kabul, Afghanistan, 1904–1905...
, although these missions were aimed at preventing Turkish access to the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, and did little fighting.
Although the motivations of those Australian's that volunteered to fight in Russia can only be guessed at, it seems unlikely to have been political. Regardless, they confirmed a reputation for audacity and courage, winning the only two Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
es of the land campaign, despite their small numbers. Yet Australian involvement was barely noticed at home at the time and made little difference to the outcome of the war. Total casualties included 10 killed and 40 wounded, with most deaths being from disease during operations in Mesopotamia.
Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939
A small number of Australian volunteers fought on both sides of the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, although they predominantly supported the Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
through the International Brigades
International Brigades
The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....
. The Australians were subsequently allocated to the battalions of other nationalities, rather than forming their own units. Most were radicals motivated by ideological reasons, while a number were Spanish-born migrants who returned to fight in their country of origin. At least 66 Australians volunteered, with only one—Nugent Bull, a conservative catholic who was later killed serving in the RAF during the Second World War—known to have fought for General Franco's Nationalist forces.
While a celebrated cause for the Australian left— particularly the Communist Party of Australia
Communist Party of Australia
The Communist Party of Australia was founded in 1920 and dissolved in 1991; it was succeeded by the Socialist Party of Australia, which then renamed itself, becoming the current Communist Party of Australia. The CPA achieved its greatest political strength in the 1940s and faced an attempted...
and the trade union movement—the war failed to spark particular public interest and the government maintained its neutrality. Australian opposition to the Republican cause was marshalled by B.A. Santamaria on an anti-communist basis, rather than a pro-Nationalist basis. Equally, although individual right wing Australians may have served with the Nationalist rebels, they received no public support. Service in a foreign armed force was illegal at the time, however as the government received no reports of Australians travelling to Spain to enlist, no action was taken.Such service was technically illegal under the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870—an act of British Parliament. Notably Australia did not possess similar legislation until the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978 was passed. See Dennis et al 2008, p. 81. Consequently returned veterans were neither recognised by the government or the Returned and Services League of Australia
Returned and Services League of Australia
The Returned and Services League of Australia is a support organisation for men and women who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force ....
(RSL). Although the number of Australian volunteers was relatively small compared to those from other countries, at least 14 were killed.
Second World War, 1939–1945
Europe and the Middle East
Australia entered the Second World War on 3 September 1939. At this time the Australian military was small and unready for war. Recruiting for a Second Australian Imperial ForceSecond Australian Imperial Force
The Second Australian Imperial Force was the name given to the volunteer personnel of the Australian Army in World War II. Under the Defence Act , neither the part-time Militia nor the full-time Permanent Military Force could serve outside Australia or its territories unless they volunteered to...
(2AIF) began in mid-September. While there was no rush of volunteers like the First World War, a high proportion of Australian men of military age had enlisted by mid-1940. Four infantry divisions were formed during 1939 and 1940, three of which were dispatched to the Middle East. The RAAF's resources were initially mainly devoted to training airmen for service with the Commonwealth air forces through the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS), through which almost 28,000 Australians were trained during the war.
The Australian military's first major engagements of the war were against Italian forces in the Mediterranean and North Africa. During 1940 the light cruiser HMAS Sydney
HMAS Sydney (1934)
HMAS Sydney , named for the Australian city of Sydney, was one of three Modified Leander class light cruisers operated by the Royal Australian Navy...
and five elderly destroyers (dubbed the 'Scrap Iron Flotilla
Scrap Iron Flotilla
The Scrap Iron Flotilla was an Australian destroyer group that operated in the Mediterranean and Pacific during World War II. The name scrap iron flotilla was bestowed upon the group by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels....
' by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
—a title proudly accepted by the ships) took part in a series of operations as part of the British Mediterranean Fleet, and sank several Italian warships. The Army first saw action in January 1941, when the 6th Division formed part of the Commonwealth forces during Operation Compass
Operation Compass
Operation Compass was the first major Allied military operation of the Western Desert Campaign during World War II. British and Commonwealth forces attacked Italian forces in western Egypt and eastern Libya in December 1940 to February 1941. The attack was a complete success...
. The division assaulted and captured Bardia
Bardia
Bardia is a geographic region in the Democratic Republic of Nepal.Bardia comprises a portion of the Terai, or lowland hills and valleys of southern Nepal. The Terai is over 1,000 feet in elevation, and extends all along the Indian border...
on 5 January and Tobruk
Tobruk
Tobruk or Tubruq is a city, seaport, and peninsula on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near the border with Egypt. It is the capital of the Butnan District and has a population of 120,000 ....
on 22 January, with tens of thousands of Italian troops surrendering at both towns. The 6th Division took part in the pursuit of the Italian Army and captured Benghazi
Benghazi
Benghazi is the second largest city in Libya, the main city of the Cyrenaica region , and the former provisional capital of the National Transitional Council. The wider metropolitan area is also a district of Libya...
on 4 February. In late February it was withdrawn for service in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, and was replaced by the 9th Division.
Battle of Greece
The Battle of Greece is the common name for the invasion and conquest of Greece by Nazi Germany in April 1941. Greece was supported by British Commonwealth forces, while the Germans' Axis allies Italy and Bulgaria played secondary roles...
. At the end of this campaign, the 6th Division was evacuated to Egypt and Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. The force at Crete subsequently fought in the Battle of Crete
Battle of Crete
The Battle of Crete was a battle during World War II on the Greek island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code-name Unternehmen Merkur...
during May, which also ended in defeat for the Allies. Over 5,000 Australians were captured in these campaigns, and the 6th Division required a long period of rebuilding before it was again ready for combat. The Germans and Italians also went on the offensive in North Africa at the end of March and drove the Commonwealth force there back to near the border with Egypt. The 9th Division and a brigade of the 7th Division were besieged at Tobruk
Siege of Tobruk
The siege of Tobruk was a confrontation that lasted 240 days between Axis and Allied forces in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War...
; successfully defending the key port town until they were replaced by British units in October. During June, the main body of the 7th Division, a brigade of the 6th Division and the I Corps headquarters took part in the Syria-Lebanon Campaign
Syria-Lebanon campaign
The Syria–Lebanon campaign, also known as Operation Exporter, was the Allied invasion of Vichy French-controlled Syria and Lebanon, in June–July 1941, during World War II. Time Magazine referred to the fighting as a "mixed show" while it was taking place and the campaign remains little known, even...
against the Vichy French
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
. Resistance was stronger than expected; Australians were involved in most of the fighting and sustained most of the casualties before the French capitulated in early July.
The majority of Australian units in the Mediterranean returned to Australia in early 1942, after the outbreak of the Pacific War
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
. The 9th Division was the largest unit to remain in the Middle East, and played a key role in the First Battle of El Alamein
First Battle of El Alamein
The First Battle of El Alamein was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, fought between Axis forces of the Panzer Army Africa commanded by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and Allied forces The First Battle of El Alamein (1–27 July 1942) was a battle of the Western Desert...
during June and the Second Battle of El Alamein
Second Battle of El Alamein
The Second Battle of El Alamein marked a major turning point in the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. The battle took place over 20 days from 23 October – 11 November 1942. The First Battle of El Alamein had stalled the Axis advance. Thereafter, Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery...
in October. The division returned to Australia in early 1943, but several RAAF squadrons and RAN warships took part in the subsequent Tunisia Campaign
Tunisia Campaign
The Tunisia Campaign was a series of battles that took place in Tunisia during the North African Campaign of the Second World War, between Axis and Allied forces. The Allies consisted of British Imperial Forces, including Polish and Greek contingents, with American and French corps...
and the Italian Campaign
Italian Campaign (World War II)
The Italian Campaign of World War II was the name of Allied operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to the end of the war in Europe. Joint Allied Forces Headquarters AFHQ was operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre, and it planned and commanded the...
from 1943 until the end of the war.
RAF Bomber Command
RAF Bomber Command controlled the RAF's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. During World War II the command destroyed a significant proportion of Nazi Germany's industries and many German cities, and in the 1960s stood at the peak of its postwar military power with the V bombers and a supplemental...
between 1940 and the end of the war. Australians took part in all of Bomber Command's major offensives and suffered heavy losses during raids on German cities and targets in France. Australian aircrew in Bomber Command had one of the highest casualty rates of any part of the Australian military during the Second World War and sustained almost 20 percent of all Australian deaths in combat; 3,486 were killed and hundreds more were taken prisoner. Australian airmen in light bomber and fighter squadrons also participated in the liberation of Western Europe
Western Front (World War II)
The Western Front of the European Theatre of World War II encompassed, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and West Germany. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale ground combat operations...
during 1944 and 1945 and two RAAF maritime patrol squadrons served in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Asia and the Pacific
Singapore strategy
The Singapore strategy was a strategy of the British Empire between 1919 and 1941. It was a series of war plans that evolved over a twenty year period to deter or defeat aggression by the Empire of Japan by basing a fleet of the Royal Navy at Singapore. Ideally, this fleet would be able to...
'. This strategy involved the construction and defence of a major naval base at Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
from which a large British fleet would respond to Japanese aggression in the region. To this end, a high proportion of Australian forces in Asia were concentrated in Malaya
British Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
during 1940 and 1941 as the threat from Japan increased. However as a result of the emphasis on cooperation with Britain, relatively few Australian military units had been retained in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Measures were taken to improve Australia's defences as war with Japan loomed in 1941, but these proved inadequate. In December 1941, the Australian Army in the Pacific comprised the 8th Division, most of which was stationed in Malaya, and eight partially trained and equipped divisions in Australia. The RAAF was equipped with 373 aircraft, most of which were obsolete trainers, and the RAN had three cruisers and two destroyers in Australian waters.
The Australian military suffered a series of defeats during the early months of the Pacific War. The 8th Division and RAAF squadrons in Malaya formed a key part of the Commonwealth forces which were unable to stop
Battle of Malaya
The Malayan Campaign was a campaign fought by Allied and Japanese forces in Malaya, from 8 December 1941 – 31 January 1942 during the Second World War. The campaign was dominated by land battles between British Commonwealth army units, and the Imperial Japanese Army...
a smaller Japanese invasion force which landed on 7 December. The Commonwealth force withdrew to Singapore at the end of January, but was forced to surrender on 15 February after the Japanese captured much of the island
Battle of Singapore
The Battle of Singapore was fought in the South-East Asian theatre of the Second World War when the Empire of Japan invaded the Allied stronghold of Singapore. Singapore was the major British military base in Southeast Asia and nicknamed the "Gibraltar of the East"...
. Smaller Australian forces were also defeated during early 1942 in the Battle of Rabaul
Battle of Rabaul (1942)
The Battle of Rabaul, also known by the Japanese as Operation R, was fought on the island of New Britain in the Australian Territory of New Guinea, in January and February 1942. It was a strategically significant defeat of Allied forces by Japan in the Pacific campaign of World War II...
, Battle of Ambon
Battle of Ambon
The Battle of Ambon occurred on the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies , on 30 January – 3 February 1942, during World War II. A Japanese invasion was resisted by Dutch and Australian forces...
, Battle of Timor, and Battle of Java
Battle of Java (1942)
The Battle of Java was a battle of the Pacific theatre of World War II. It occurred on the island of Java from 28 February-12 March 1942. It involved forces from the Empire of Japan, which invaded on 28 February 1942, and Allied personnel...
. The Australian town of Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
was heavily bombed by the Japanese on 19 February, to prevent it from being used as an Allied base. Over 22,000 Australians were taken prisoner in early 1942 and endured harsh conditions in Japanese captivity. The prisoners were subjected to malnutrition, denied medical treatment and frequently beaten and killed by their guards. As a result, 8,296 Australian prisoners died in captivity.
The rapid Allied defeat in the Pacific caused many Australians to fear that the Japanese would invade the Australian mainland. While elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
proposed this in early 1942, it was judged to be impossible by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters
Imperial General Headquarters
The as part of the Supreme War Council was established in 1893 to coordinate efforts between the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during wartime...
, which instead adopted a strategy of isolating Australia from the United States by capturing New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
, Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
, Samoa
Samoa
Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...
, and New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
. This fact was not known by the Allies at the time, and the Australian military was greatly expanded to meet the threat of invasion. Large numbers of United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and Army Air Forces
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....
units arrived in Australia in early 1942, and the Australian military was placed under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
in March.
New Guinea campaign
The New Guinea campaign was one of the major military campaigns of World War II.Before the war, the island of New Guinea was split between:...
during 1942 and 1943. After an attempt to land troops at Port Moresby
Port Moresby
Port Moresby , or Pot Mosbi in Tok Pisin, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea . It is located on the shores of the Gulf of Papua, on the southeastern coast of the island of New Guinea, which made it a prime objective for conquest by the Imperial Japanese forces during 1942–43...
was defeated in the Battle of the Coral Sea
Battle of the Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4–8 May 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. The battle was the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged...
, the Japanese attempted to capture the strategically important town by advancing overland across the Owen Stanley Ranges and Milne Bay
Milne Bay
Milne Bay is a large bay in Milne Bay Province, southeastern Papua New Guinea. The bay is named after Sir Alexander Milne.The area was a site of the Battle of Milne Bay in 1942....
. Australian Army units defeated these offensives in the Kokoda Track campaign
Kokoda Track campaign
The Kokoda Track campaign or Kokoda Trail campaign was part of the Pacific War of World War II. The campaign consisted of a series of battles fought between July and November 1942 between Japanese and Allied—primarily Australian—forces in what was then the Australian territory of Papua...
and Battle of Milne Bay
Battle of Milne Bay
The Battle of Milne Bay, also known as Operation RE by the Japanese, was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II. Japanese marines attacked the Australian base at Milne Bay on the eastern tip of New Guinea on 25 August 1942, and fighting continued until the Japanese retreated on 5...
with the support of the RAAF and USAAF. Australian and US Army units subsequently assaulted and captured the Japanese bases on the north coast of Papua in the hard-fought Battle of Buna-Gona
Battle of Buna-Gona
The Battle of Buna–Gona was a battle in the New Guinea campaign, a major part of the Pacific campaign of World War II. On 16 November 1942, Australian and United States forces attacked the main Japanese beachheads in New Guinea, at Buna, Sanananda and Gona. Both forces were riddled by disease and...
. The Australian Army also defeated a Japanese attempt to capture the town of Wau
Battle of Wau
The Battle of Wau, 29–31 January 1943, was a battle in the New Guinea campaign of World War II. Forces of the Empire of Japan sailed from Rabaul and crossed the Solomon Sea and, despite Allied air attacks, successfully reached Lae, where they disembarked...
in January 1943 and went onto the offensive in the Salamaua-Lae campaign
Salamaua-Lae campaign
The Salamaua–Lae campaign was a series of actions in the New Guinea campaign of World War II. Australian and United States forces sought to capture two major Japanese bases, one in the town of Lae, and another one at Salamaua. The campaign to take the Salamaua and Lae area began with the Australian...
in April. In late 1943, the 7th and 9th Divisions played an important role in Operation Cartwheel
Operation Cartwheel
Operation Cartwheel was a major military strategy for the Allies in the Pacific theater of World War II. Cartwheel was a twin-axis of advance operation, aimed at militarily neutralizing the major Japanese base at Rabaul...
, when they landed to the east and west of Lae
Lae
Lae, the capital of Morobe Province, is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located at the start of the Highlands Highway which is the main land transport corridor from the Highlands region to the coast...
and secured the Huon Peninsula
Huon Peninsula
Huon Peninsula is a large rugged peninsula on the island of New Guinea in Morobe Province, eastern Papua New Guinea. It is named after French explorer Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec who discovered it along with his personal assistant and porter, Henry Ole. The peninsula is dominated by the steep...
during the Huon Peninsula campaign
Huon Peninsula campaign
The Huon Peninsula campaign was a series of battles in the New Guinea campaign of the Second World War. Australian forces assaulted Japanese bases on the Huon Peninsula....
and Finisterre Range campaign
Finisterre Range campaign
The Finisterre Range campaign, also known as the Ramu Valley–Finisterre Range campaign, was a series of actions in the New Guinea campaign of World War II...
.
The Australian mainland came under attack during 1942 and 1943. Japanese submarines operated off Australia
Axis naval activity in Australian waters
Although Australia was remote from the main battlefronts, there was considerable Axis naval activity in Australian waters during the Second World War. A total of 54 German and Japanese warships and submarines entered Australian waters between 1940 and 1945 and attacked ships, ports and other targets...
from May to August 1942 and January to June 1943. These attacks sought to cut the Allied supply lines between Australia and the US and Australia and New Guinea, but were unsuccessful. Japanese aircraft also conducted air raids against Allied bases in northern Australia which were being used to mount the North Western Area Campaign
North Western Area Campaign
The North-Western Area Campaign was an air campaign fought between the Allied and Japanese air forces over northern Australia and the Netherlands East Indies between 1942 and 1945...
against Japanese positions in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI).
New Britain
New Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel...
, and Bougainville
Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. This region is also known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. The population of the province is 175,160 , which includes the adjacent island of Buka and assorted outlying islands...
, and launched offensives aimed at destroying or containing the remaining Japanese forces there. In May 1945, I Corps, the Australian First Tactical Air Force
Australian First Tactical Air Force
The Australian First Tactical Air Force was formed on 25 October 1944 by the Royal Australian Air Force . Its purpose was to provide a mobile force of fighter and ground attack aircraft that could support Allied army and naval units fighting the Empire of Japan in the South West Pacific Area...
and USAAF and USN units began the Borneo Campaign
Borneo campaign (1945)
The Borneo Campaign of 1945 was the last major Allied campaign in the South West Pacific Area, during World War II. In a series of amphibious assaults between 1 May and 21 July, the Australian I Corps, under General Leslie Morshead, attacked Japanese forces occupying the island. Allied naval and...
, which continued until the end of the war. These campaigns contributed little to Japan's defeat and remain controversial.
Following Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945 Australia assumed responsibility for occupying much of Borneo and the eastern Netherlands East Indies until British and Dutch colonial rule was restored. Australian authorities also conducted a number of war crimes trials
War crimes trials
War crimes trials are trials of persons charged with criminal violation of the laws and customs of war and related principles of international law. The practice began after World War I, when some German leaders were tried by a German court in the Leipzig War Crimes Trial for crimes committed during...
of Japanese personnel. 993,000 Australians enlisted during the war, while 557,000 served overseas. Casualties included 39,767 killed and another 66,553 were wounded.27,073 Australians were killed and 23,477 were wounded by enemy action during the war, however when non-battle casualties are included these figures are 39,767 killed and another 66,553 wounded. See 20 Victoria Crosses were awarded to Australians.
Korean War, 1950–1953
On 25 June 1950, the North Korean Army (KPA) crossed the border into South Korea and advanced for the capital Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
, which fell in less than a week. North Korean forces continued toward the port of Pusan and two days later the United States offered its assistance to South Korea. In response the United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
requested members to assist repel the North Korean attack. Australia initially contributed P-51 Mustang
P-51 Mustang
The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and in several other conflicts...
fighter-bomber aircraft from No. 77 Squadron RAAF
No. 77 Squadron RAAF
No. 77 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force fighter squadron. The Squadron was formed in 1942 and currently operates F/A-18 Hornet aircraft from RAAF Base Williamtown.-History:...
and infantry from the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment is a parachute infantry battalion of the Australian Army, based in Sydney. 3 RAR was initially formed in 1945 as the 67th Battalion and has seen active service in Japan, Korea, Malaya, South Vietnam, East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Afghanistan and Iraq...
(3 RAR), both of which were stationed in Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force
British Commonwealth Occupation Force
The British Commonwealth Occupation Force , was the name of the joint Australian, Canadian, British, Indian and New Zealand military forces in occupied Japan, from 21 February 1946 until the end of occupation in 1952...
(BCOF). In addition it provided the majority of supply and support personnel to the British Commonwealth Forces Korea
British Commonwealth Forces Korea
British Commonwealth Forces Korea was the formal name, from 1952, of the Commonwealth army, naval and air units serving with the United Nations in the Korean War. Australian, British, Canadian, Indian and New Zealand units were part of BCFK...
. The RAN frigate HMAS Shoalhaven and the destroyer HMAS Bataan
HMAS Bataan (I91)
HMAS Bataan was a Tribal class destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy . Laid down in 1942 and commissioned in 1945, the destroyer was originally to be named Chingilli or Kurnai but was renamed prior to launch in honour of the US stand during the Battle of Bataan.Although not completed in time to...
were also committed. Later an aircraft carrier strike group aboard HMAS Sydney was added to the force.
By the time 3 RAR arrived in Pusan on 28 September, the North Koreans were in retreat following the Inchon landings
Battle of Inchon
The Battle of Inchon was an amphibious invasion and battle of the Korean War that resulted in a decisive victory and strategic reversal in favor of the United Nations . The operation involved some 75,000 troops and 261 naval vessels, and led to the recapture of the South Korean capital Seoul two...
. As a part of the invasion force under the UN Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
, the battalion moved north and was involved in its first major action at Battle of Yongju
Battle of Yongju
The Battle of Yongju , also known as the Battle of the Apple Orchard, took place as part of the United Nations offensive towards the Yalu River, against the North Korean forces which had invaded South Korea during the Korean War...
near Pyongyang
Pyongyang
Pyongyang is the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea, and the largest city in the country. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River and, according to preliminary results from the 2008 population census, has a population of 3,255,388. The city was...
on 22 October, before advancing towards the Yalu River. Further successful actions followed at Kujin
Battle of Kujin
The Battle of Kujin , also known as the Battle of the Broken Bridge, took place during the United Nations offensive towards the Yalu River, which followed the North Korean invasion of South Korea at the start of the Korean War...
on 25–26 October 1950 and at Chongju
Battle of Chongju
Not to be confused with the Battle of ChungjuThe Battle of Chongju was one of the first Korean victories on land during the Imjin War. Also, it was won by the Korean irregular volunteers that included Buddhist warrior monks as well.-Prelude:...
on 29 October 1950. North Korean casualties were heavy, while Australian losses included their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Green
Charles Hercules Green
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hercules Green DSO was a senior officer in the Australian Army. He served as a battalion commander in World War II, and again later during the Korean War, where he was killed in action while commanding the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment...
, who was wounded in the stomach by artillery fire after the battle and succumbed to his wounds and died two days later on 1 November. Meanwhile, during the last weeks of October the Chinese had moved 18 divisions of the People's Volunteer Army
People's Volunteer Army
The Chinese People's Volunteer Army was the armed forces deployed by the People's Republic of China during the Korean War. Although all units in the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army belonged to the People's Liberation Army , the People's Volunteer Army was separately constituted in order to...
across the Yalu River in order to reinforce the remnants of the KPA. Undetected by US and South Korean intelligence, the 13th Army Group crossed the border on 16 October and penetrated up to 100 kilometres (62.1 mi) into North Korea, and were reinforced in early November by 12 divisions from the 9th Army Group; in total 30 divisions composed of 380,000 men. 3 RAR fought its first action against the Chinese at Pakchon
Battle of Pakchon
The Battle of Pakchon , also known as the Battle of Bochuan , took place ten days after the start of the Chinese First Phase Offensive, following the entry of the People's Volunteer Army into the Korean War...
on 5 November. The fighting cost the battalion heavily and despite halting a Chinese division
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...
the new battalion commander was dismissed in the wake. Following the Chinese intervention, the UN forces were defeated in successive battles and 3 RAR was forced to withdraw to the 38th parallel
38th parallel north
The 38th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 38 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean...
.
A series of battles followed at Uijeongbu
Battle of Uijeongbu (1951)
The Battle of Uijeongbu, also known as the Battle of Uijongbu, was a battle fought between 1–4 January 1951, at Uijeongbu, South Korea, as part of the United Nations retreat after the second Chinese offensive after entering the Korean War...
on 1–4 January 1951, as the British and Australians occupied defensive positions in an attempt to secure the northern approaches to the South Korean capital. Further fighting occurred at Chuam-ni
Battle of Chuam-ni
The Battle of Chuam-ni was a battle fought between 14–17 February 1951, at Chuam-ni, South Korea, as part of the Chinese and North Korean offensive towards Wonju during the Korean War...
on 14–17 February 1951 following another Chinese advance, and later at Maehwa-San
Battle of Maehwa-San
The Battle of Maehwa-San was a battle fought for control of the hills and area around Maehwasan mountain between the county of Hoengseong and the city of Wonju, between 7–12 March 1951, during the Korean War...
between 7–12 March 1951 as the UN resumed the offensive. Australian troops subsequently participated in two more major battles in 1951, with the first taking place during fighting which later became known as the Battle of Kapyong
Battle of Kapyong
The Battle of Kapyong , also known as the Battle of Jiaping , was fought during the Korean War between United Nations forces—primarily Australian and Canadian—and the Chinese communist People's Volunteer Army...
. On 22 April, Chinese forces attacked the Kapyong valley and forced the South Korean defenders to withdraw. Australian and Canadian troops were ordered to halt this Chinese advance. After a night of fighting the Australians recaptured their positions, at the cost of 32 men killed and 59 wounded. In July 1951, the Australian battalion became part of the combined Canadian, British, Australian, New Zealand, and Indian 1st Commonwealth Division
1st Commonwealth Division
The 1st Commonwealth Division was the name given, after July 1951, to Commonwealth land forces in the Korean War. The division was a multinational unit that was part of British Commonwealth Forces Korea, and whilst British and Canadian Army units formed the bulk of the division, Australian...
. The second major battle took place during Operation Commando
Operation Commando (1951)
Operation Commando was an offensive undertaken by UN forces during the Korean War between 2–5 October 1951. The U.S. I Corps seized the Jamestown Line, destroying elements of the 42nd, 47th, 64th and 65th Chinese Armies. This prevented the Communist forces from interdicting the U.N...
and occurred after the Chinese attacked a salient in a bend of the Imjin River
Imjin River
The Imjin River is a river of North and South Korea. It flows from North to South, crossing the Demilitarized Zone and joining the Han River downstream of Seoul, very near the Yellow Sea.- History :...
. The 1st Commonwealth Division counter-attacked on 3 October, capturing a number of objectives including Hill 355 and Hill 317 during the Battle of Maryang San; after five days the Chinese retreated. Australian casualties included 20 dead and 104 wounded.
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
akin to the First World War, in which men lived in tunnels, redoubts, and sandbagged forts behind barbed wire defences. From 1951 until the end of the war, 3 RAR held trenches on the eastern side of the division’s positions in the hills northeast of the Imjin River. Across from them were heavily fortified Chinese positions. In March 1952, Australia increased its ground commitment to two battalions, sending 1 RAR
1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment is a regular light infantry battalion of the Australian Army. 1 RAR was first formed as the 65th Australian Infantry Battalion in 1945 and since then has been deployed on active service during the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War...
. This battalion remained in Korea for 12 months, before being replaced by 2 RAR
2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment is a regular light infantry battalion of the Australian Army. 2 RAR was first formed as the Australian 66th Battalion in 1945 and since then it has seen active service during the Korean War, Malayan Emergency and Vietnam War...
in April 1953. The Australians fought their last battle during 24–26 July 1953, with 2 RAR holding off a concerted Chinese attack along the Samichon River
Battle of the Samichon River
The Battle of the Samichon River was fought during the final days of the Korean War between United Nations forces—primarily Australian and American—and the Chinese communist People's Volunteer Army...
and inflicting significant casualties for the loss of five killed and 24 wounded. Hostilities were suspended on 27 July 1953. 17,808 Australians served during the war, with 341 killed, 1,216 wounded and 30 captured.
Malayan Emergency, 1950–1960
The Malayan EmergencyMalayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
was declared on 18 June 1948, after three estate managers were murdered by members of the Malayan Communist Party
Malayan Communist Party
The Malayan Communist Party , officially known as the Communist Party of Malaya , was founded in 1930 and laid down its arms in 1989. It is most famous for its role in the Malayan Emergency.-Formation:...
(MCP). Australian involvement began in June 1950, when in response to a British request, six Lincolns
Avro Lincoln
The Avro Type 694, better known as the Avro Lincoln, was a British four-engined heavy bomber, which first flew on 9 June 1944. Developed from the Avro Lancaster, the first Lincoln variants were known initially as the Lancaster IV and V, but were renamed Lincoln I and II...
from No. 1 Squadron
No. 1 Squadron RAAF
No. 1 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force squadron based at RAAF Amberley. The squadron is currently being re-equipped with F/A-18F Super Hornet multi-role fighters.-World War I:...
and a flight of Dakotas
C-47 Skytrain
The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota is a military transport aircraft that was developed from the Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II and remained in front line operations through the 1950s with a few remaining in operation to this day.-Design and...
from No. 38 Squadron
No. 38 Squadron RAAF
No. 38 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force transport squadron. The Squadron was formed in 1943 and saw active service in the Second World War, Korean War and Malayan Emergency. No. 38 Squadron has also supported Australian peacekeeping operations around the world including in Kashmir and East...
arrived in Singapore to form part of the British Commonwealth Far East Air Force (FEAF). The Dakotas were subsequently used on cargo runs, troop movement, as well as paratroop and leaflet drops, while the Lincoln bombers carried out bombing raids against the Communist Terrorist (CT) jungle bases. The RAAF were particularly successful, and in one such mission known as Operation Termite, five Lincoln bombers destroyed 181 communist camps, killed 13 communists and forced one into surrender, in a joint operation with the RAF and ground troops.
Australian ground forces were deployed to Malaya in October 1955 as part of the Far East Strategic Reserve
Far East Strategic Reserve
The British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve was a joint military force of the British, Australian, and New Zealand armed forces...
. In January 1956, the first Australian ground forces were deployed on Malaysian peninsula, consisting of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2 RAR). 2 RAR mainly participated in "mopping up" operations over the next 20 months, conducting extensive patrolling in and near the CT jungle bases, as part of 28th British Commonwealth Brigade. Contact with the enemy was infrequent and results small, achieving relatively few kills. 2 RAR left Malaysia October 1957 to be replaced by 3 RAR. 3 RAR underwent six weeks of jungle training and began driving MCP insurgents back into the jungle of Perak and Kedah. The new battalion extensively patrolled and was involved in food denial operations and ambushes. Again contact was limited, although 3 RAR had more success than its predecessor. By late 1959, operations against the MCP were in their final phase, and most communists had been pushed back and across the Thailand border. 3 RAR left Malaysia October 1959 and was replaced by 1 RAR. Though patrolling the border 1 RAR did not make contact with the insurgents, and in October 1960 it was replaced by 2 RAR, which stayed in Malaysia until August 1963. The Malayan Emergency officially ended on 31 July 1960.
Australia also provided artillery and engineer support, along with an air-field construction squadron. The Royal Australian Navy also served in Malayan waters, firing on suspected communist positions between 1956 and 1957. The Emergency was the longest continued commitment in Australian military history; 7,000 Australians served and 51 died in Malaya—although only 15 were on operations—and another 27 were wounded.
Military and Naval growth during the 1960s
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
greatly expanded the Australian military so that it could carry out the Government's policy of Forward Defence in South East Asia. In 1964, Menzies announced a large increase in defence spending. The strength of the Australian Army would be increased by 50% over three years from 22,000 to 33,000; providing a full three brigade division with nine battalions. The RAAF and RAN would also both be increased by 25%. In 1964, conscription or National Service
Conscription in Australia
Conscription in Australia, or mandatory military service also known as National Service, has a controversial history dating back to the first years of nationhood...
was re-introduced, under the National Service Act (1964)
National Service Act (1964)
The National Service Act , was an Australian federal law, passed on 24 November 1964, which required 20-year-old males to serve in the Army for a period of twenty-four months of continuous service followed by three years in the Reserve...
, for selected 20-year-olds based on date of birth, for a period of two years’ continuous full-time service.
In 1961, three Charles F. Adams class destroyers
Charles F. Adams class destroyer
The Charles F. Adams class is a ship class of 29 guided missile destroyers built between 1958 and 1967. Twenty three ships were built for the United States Navy, 3 for the Royal Australian Navy, and 3 for the West German Bundesmarine. The ships were based on the existing Forrest Sherman class, but...
were purchased from the United States to replace the aging Q class destroyer
Q and R class destroyer
The Q and R class was a class of sixteen War Emergency Programme destroyers ordered for the British Royal Navy in 1940 as the 3rd and 4th Emergency Flotilla. They served as convoy escorts during World War II. Three Q class ships were transferred to the Royal Australian Navy upon completion, with...
s. Traditionally, the RAN had purchased designs based on those of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
and the purchase of American destroyers was significant. HMAS Perth and HMAS Hobart joined the fleet in 1965, followed by HMAS Brisbane in 1967. Other projects included the construction of six River class frigate
River class destroyer escort
The River class was a class of six destroyer escorts operated by the Royal Australian Navy . Plans to acquire four vessels, based on the British Type 12M frigate, began in the 1950s. The first two vessels had some slight modifications to the design, while the next two underwent further changes...
s, the conversion of the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne to an anti-submarine role, the acquisition of ten Wessex
Westland Wessex
The Westland Wessex is a British turbine-powered version of the Sikorsky S-58 "Choctaw", developed under license by Westland Aircraft , initially for the Royal Navy, and later for the Royal Air Force...
helicopters, and the purchase of six Oberon class submarines
Oberon class submarine
The Oberon class was a 27-boat class of British-built diesel-electric submarines based on the successful British Porpoise-class submarine....
.
The RAAF took delivery of their first Mirage
Dassault Mirage III
The Mirage III is a supersonic fighter aircraft designed by Dassault Aviation during the late 1950s, and manufactured both in France and a number of other countries. It was a successful fighter aircraft, being sold to many air forces around the world and remaining in production for over a decade...
fighters in 1967, equipping No. 3
No. 3 Squadron RAAF
No. 3 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force fighter squadron. It was first formed in 1916 and currently operates F/A-18 Hornet aircraft from RAAF Base Williamtown, near Newcastle, New South Wales.-World War I:...
, No. 75
No. 75 Squadron RAAF
No. 75 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force fighter unit based at RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory. The squadron was formed in 1942 and saw extensive action in the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, operating P-40 Kittyhawks. It was disbanded in 1948, but reformed the...
and No. 77 Squadrons
No. 77 Squadron RAAF
No. 77 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force fighter squadron. The Squadron was formed in 1942 and currently operates F/A-18 Hornet aircraft from RAAF Base Williamtown.-History:...
with them. The service also received American F-111
General Dynamics F-111
The General Dynamics F-111 "Aardvark" was a medium-range interdictor and tactical strike aircraft that also filled the roles of strategic bomber, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare in its various versions. Developed in the 1960s by General Dynamics, it first entered service in 1967 with the...
strike aircraft, C-130 Hercules
C-130 Hercules
The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built originally by Lockheed, now Lockheed Martin. Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medical evacuation, and cargo transport...
transports, Orion
P-3 Orion
The Lockheed P-3 Orion is a four-engine turboprop anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft developed for the United States Navy and introduced in the 1960s. Lockheed based it on the L-188 Electra commercial airliner. The aircraft is easily recognizable by its distinctive tail stinger or...
maritime reconnaissance aircraft and Italian Macchi
Aermacchi MB-326
The Aermacchi or Macchi MB-326 is a light military jet aircraft designed in Italy. Originally conceived as a two-seat trainer, there have also been single and two-seat light attack versions produced. It is one of the most commercially successful aircraft of its type, being bought by more than 10...
trainers.
Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation, 1962–1966
Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation
Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation during 1962–1966 was Indonesia’s political and armed opposition to the creation of Malaysia. It is also known by its Indonesian/Malay name Konfrontasi...
was fought from 1962 to 1966 between the British Commonwealth and Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
over the creation of the Federation of Malaysia, with the Commonwealth attempting to safeguard the security of the new state. The war remained limited, and was fought primarily on the island of Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, although a number of Indonesian seaborne and airborne incursions onto the Malay Peninsula
Malay Peninsula
The Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...
did occur. As part of Australia's continuing military commitment to the security of Malaysia, army, naval and airforce units were based there as part of the Far East Strategic Reserve
Far East Strategic Reserve
The British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve was a joint military force of the British, Australian, and New Zealand armed forces...
. Regardless the Australian government was wary of involvement in a war with Indonesia and initially limited it’s involvement to the defence of the Malayan peninsula only. On two occasions Australian troops from 3 RAR
3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment is a parachute infantry battalion of the Australian Army, based in Sydney. 3 RAR was initially formed in 1945 as the 67th Battalion and has seen active service in Japan, Korea, Malaya, South Vietnam, East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Afghanistan and Iraq...
were used to help mop up infiltrators from seaborne and airborne incursions at Labis
Labis
Labis is the second largest town in the district of Segamat, Johor, Malaysia, with a population of about 20,000 people. It has a large Chinese community. Labis is an agricultural town whose main export is rubber...
and Pontian
Pontian, Johor
Pontian is a district in southwest Johor. It is located 62km from Johor Bahru, the state capital of Johor. It is also located at Miles 37 from Johor Bahru. The name Pontian is also used in the names of two towns in the district, Pontian Besar and Pontian Kechil, of which the latter serves as its...
, in September and October 1964.
Following these raids the government conceded to British and Malaysian requests to deploy an infantry battalion to Borneo. During the early phases, British and Malaysian troops had attempted only to control the Malaysian/Indonesian border, and to protect population centres. However, by the time the Australian battalion deployed the British had decided on more aggressive action, crossing borders to obtain information and forcing Indonesian forces to remain on the defensive, under the codename Operation Claret
Operation Claret
Claret was the code name given to operations conducted from about July 1964 until July 1966 from East Malaysia across the border in Indonesian Kalimantan during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation. They were instigated by the Director of Borneo Operations Major General Walter Walker with the...
. The fighting took place in mountainous, jungle-clad terrain, and a debilitating climate, with operations characterised by the extensive use of company bases sited along the border, cross-border operations, the use of helicopters for troop movement and resupply, and the role of human
HUMINT
HUMINT, a syllabic abbreviation of the words HUMan INTelligence, refers to intelligence gathering by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the more technical intelligence gathering disciplines such as SIGINT, IMINT and MASINT...
and signals intelligence to determine enemy movements and intentions.
3 RAR deployed to Borneo in March 1965, and served in Sarawak
Sarawak
Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...
until the end of July, operating on both sides of the border. The battalion had four major contacts with Indonesian forces and many smaller ones—including at Sungei Koemba
Battle of Sungei Koemba
The Battle of Sungei Koemba took place during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation. Involving Australian and Indonesian troops, the battle consisted of a series of ambushes launched by the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment , along the Sungei Koemba river in Kalimantan...
, Kindau
Battle of Kindau
The Battle of Kindau took place during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation. Involving Australian and Indonesian troops, the battle was the third in a series of successful ambushes between May and July 1965 launched by the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment , in Kalimantan...
and Babang
Battle of Babang
The Battle of Babang was the fourth and last in a series of successful ambushes conducted between in May and July 1965 by Australian troops from 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment , this time at Babang in Kalimantan , during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation...
—as well as suffering casualties in two mine incidents. 4 RAR
4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
The 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, was an Australian Army infantry battalion and part of the Royal Australian Regiment. The battalion was formed on 1 February 1964 and was renamed the 2nd Commando Regiment on 19 June 2009....
served a less-eventful tour between April and August 1966, and also operated over the border, clashing with the Indonesians on a number of occasions. A squadron of the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) was also deployed in 1965 and again in 1966, taking part in cross-border operations and inflicting significant casualties on the Indonesians, even though they were often tasked with covert reconnaissance. Other units included artillery and engineers, while a number of RAN ships were involved in shelling Indonesian positions in Borneo and in repelling infiltrators in the Singapore Strait
Singapore Strait
The Singapore Strait is a 105-kilometer long, 16-kilometer wide strait between the Strait of Malacca in the west and the South China Sea in the east. Singapore is on the north of the channel and the Riau Islands are on the south...
. The RAAF played a relatively minor role, although it would have been used far more extensively had the war escalated.A number of contingency plans existed, although none were ever fully implemented. For instance: Plan Spillikin, Plan Hemley, Plan Shalstone (renamed Mason), Plan Addington, and Plan Althorpe. These plans called for different levels of commitment depending on different contingencies, including using the majority of Australian air, land and naval forces in the Strategic Reserve, such as the Canberra bombers already based at Butterworth, as well involvement in the defence of Malaysian airspace from Indonesian attacks, air attacks on Indonesian bases by Australian aircraft flying from Australian bases and even the use of facilities in Darwin by the RAF Strategic V Bomber Force. See Dennis and Grey 1996, p. 196.
Operations in Borneo were extremely sensitive and they received little press coverage in Australia, while official acknowledgement of involvement in cross-border missions only occurred in 1996. Following a military coup in Indonesia in early 1966 which brought General Suharto to power, a peace treaty was signed in August 1966 which ended the conflict. 3,500 Australians served during Confrontation; casualties included 16 dead, with seven killed in action and eight wounded.
Vietnam War, 1962–1973
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
was driven largely by the rise of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
in Southeast Asia after the Second World War, and the fear of its spread which developed in Australia during the 1950s and early 1960s.
As a consequence, Australia supported South Vietnam
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
throughout the early 1960s. In 1961 and 1962, the leader of the South Vietnamese government, Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was the first president of South Vietnam . In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a...
, asked for assistance from the US and its allies in response to a growing insurgency supported by communist North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
. Australia offered 30 military advisors from the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam
Australian Army Training Team Vietnam
The Australian Army Training Team Vietnam was a specialist unit of the Australian Army that operated during the Vietnam War. Raised in 1962, the unit was raised solely for service as part of Australia's contribution to the war in Vietnam, providing training and assistance to South Vietnamese forces...
, which became known simply as "The Team". They arrived in July and August 1962, beginning Australia's involvement in the war. Later in August 1964, the RAAF sent a flight of Caribou
De Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou
The de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou is a Canadian-designed and produced specialized cargo aircraft with short takeoff and landing capability...
transport aircraft to the port city of Vung Tau
Vung Tàu
Vũng Tàu is a city in southern Vietnam. Its population in 2005 was 240,000. The city area is including 13 urban wards and one village. It is the capital of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, and is the crude oil extraction center of Vietnam. It is also known as one of the most beautiful cities of tourism...
.
However with the security situation in South Vietnam continuing to deteriorate, the US increased its involvement to 200,000 combat troops by early 1965. Australia also committed ground forces, dispatching the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment is a regular light infantry battalion of the Australian Army. 1 RAR was first formed as the 65th Australian Infantry Battalion in 1945 and since then has been deployed on active service during the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War...
(1 RAR) to serve with the US 173rd Airborne Brigade in Bien Hoa
Bien Hoa
Biên Hòa is a city in Dong Nai province, Vietnam, about east of Ho Chi Minh City , to which Bien Hoa is linked by Vietnam Highway 1.- Demographics :In 1989 the estimated population was over 300,000. In 2005, the population wss 541,495...
province in June 1965 and it subsequently fought a number of significant actions including at Gang Toi
Battle of Gang Toi
The Battle of Gang Toi was fought during the Vietnam War between Australian troops and the Viet Cong. The battle was one of the first engagements between the two forces during the war and occurred when the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment struck a Viet Cong bunker system defended by...
, Ho Bo Woods
Operation Crimp
Operation Crimp , also known as the Battle of the Ho Bo Woods, was a joint US-Australian military operation during the Vietnam War, which took place north of Cu Chi in Binh Duong Province, South Vietnam...
and Suoi Bong Trang
Battle of Suoi Bong Trang
The Battle of Suoi Bong Trang was a major action during the Vietnam War fought between US and Australian troops, and the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army...
. In March 1966, the Australian government announced the deployment of a brigade
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...
-sized unit—the 1st Australian Task Force
1st Australian Task Force
The 1st Australian Task Force commanded the Australian and New Zealand Army units deployed to South Vietnam between 1966 and 1972. 1 ATF was based at Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy Province...
(1 ATF)—to replace 1 RAR. Included were a large number of conscripts, under the increasingly controversial National Service scheme. Consisting of two infantry battalions as well as armour, aviation, artillery and other support arms, the task force was assigned primary responsibility for its own area and was based at Nui Dat
Nui Dat
Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy Province was the location of a prominent Australian military base in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The site was chosen by Lieutenant General John Wilton in 1966 and was built mainly by men from the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment...
, in Phuoc Tuy Province
Phuoc Tuy Province
Phước Tuy Province was a province of South Vietnam. It now mostly corresponds to Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, just southeast of Ho Chi Minh City....
. Included were the Iroquois
UH-1 Iroquois
The Bell UH-1 Iroquois is a military helicopter powered by a single, turboshaft engine, with a two-bladed main rotor and tail rotor. The helicopter was developed by Bell Helicopter to meet the United States Army's requirement for a medical evacuation and utility helicopter in 1952, and first flew...
helicopters of No. 9 Squadron RAAF
No. 9 Squadron RAAF
No. 9 Squadron was a unit of the Royal Australian Air Force. The Squadron saw active service in World War II and the Vietnam War before being disbanded in 1989.-Fleet co-operation:...
. At the Battle of Long Tan
Battle of Long Tan
The Battle of Long Tân was fought between the Australian Army and Viet Cong forces in a rubber plantation near the village of Long Tân, about north east of Vũng Tàu, South Vietnam...
on 18 August 1966, D Company, 6 RAR
6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment is a motorised infantry battalion of the Australian Army. It was originally raised in Brisbane, Queensland, on 6 June 1965 and has since then served in a number of overseas deployments and conflicts including South Vietnam, East Timor and Iraq...
with considerable artillery support held off and defeated a Viet Cong force that was at least six times bigger than itself. 18 Australians were killed and 24 wounded, while 245 communist dead were later recovered from the battlefield.
With the Phuoc Tuy province coming progressively under control throughout 1967, the Australians increasingly spent a significant period of time conducting operations further afield. 1 ATF was subsequently deployed astride infiltration routes leading to Saigon in order to interdict communist movement against the capital as part of Operation Coburg
Operation Coburg
Operation Coburg was an Australian military action during the Vietnam War. The operation saw heavy fighting between the 1st Australian Task Force and North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong during the wider fighting around Long Binh and Bien Hoa...
during the 1968 Tet Offensive and later during the Battle of Coral-Balmoral in May and June 1968. At Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral the Australians had clashed with regular North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong main force units operating in battalion and regimental strength for the first time in near conventional warfare, ultimately fighting their largest, most hazardous and most sustained battle of the war. During 26 days of fighting Australian casaulties included 25 killed and 99 wounded, while communist casualties included 267 killed confirmed by body count, 60 possibly killed, 7 wounded and 11 captured. Other significant Australian actions included Binh Ba
Battle of Binh Ba
The Battle of Binh Ba , also known as Operation Hammer, was a hard fought, but one-sided, battle during the Vietnam War. The action occurred when Australian Army troops from the 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment fought a combined communist force of North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong in the...
in June 1969, Hat Dich
Battle of Hat Dich
The Battle of Hat Dich was a series of military actions fought between the 1st Australian Task Force and the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong during the Vietnam War...
in late-December 1968 and early 1969 and Long Khanh
Battle of Long Khanh
The Battle of Long Khanh was fought during the Vietnam War between elements of 1st Australian Task Force and the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army during Operation Overlord...
in June 1971. At the height of the Australian commitment, 1 ATF numbered 8,500 troops, including three infantry battalions, armour, artillery, engineers, logistics and aviation units in support. A third RAAF unit, No. 2 Squadron RAAF
No. 2 Squadron RAAF
No. 2 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force squadron. From its formation in 1916, it has operated a variety of aircraft types including fighters, bombers, and Airborne Early Warning & Control.-World War I:No...
, flying Canberra
English Electric Canberra
The English Electric Canberra is a first-generation jet-powered light bomber manufactured in large numbers through the 1950s. The Canberra could fly at a higher altitude than any other bomber through the 1950s and set a world altitude record of 70,310 ft in 1957...
bombers, was sent in 1967, and four RAN destroyers joined US patrols in the waters off North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
.
The Australian withdrawal effectively commenced in November 1970. As a consequence of the overall allied strategy of Vietnamization
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard M. Nixon administration during the Vietnam War, as a result of the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S....
and with the Australian government keen to reduce its own commitment to the war, 8 RAR
8th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
The 8th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment was an Australian Army Regular infantry battalion. The battalion was formed in July 1966 as part of an expansion of the Australian Army in the mid 1960s due to the perceived threat of Communism in southeast Asia...
was not replaced at the end of its tour of duty. 1 ATF was again reduced to just two infantry battalions, albeit with significant armour, artillery and aviation support remaining. Australian combat forces were further reduced during 1971 as part of a phased withdrawal, and 1 ATF ceased operations in October. Meanwhile the advisors remained to train South Vietnamese troops until withdrawn on 18 December 1972 by the newly elected Labor government of Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
. The last Australian forces were finally withdrawn in 1973. The Vietnam War was Australia's longest and most controversial war and although initially enjoying broad support, as the nation's military involvement increased a vocal anti-war movement developed. More than 50,000 Australians served in Vietnam; 519 were killed and 2,398 were wounded. Four were awarded the Victoria Cross.
Creation of the Australian Defence Force, 1976
Joint warfare
Joint warfare is a military doctrine which places priority on the integration of the various service branches of a state's armed forces into one unified command...
had been highlighted during Second World War when Australian naval, ground and air units frequently served as part of single commands, the absence of a central authority continued to result in poor coordination between the services in the post-war era, with each organising and operating on the basis of a different military doctrine
Military doctrine
Military doctrine is the concise expression of how military forces contribute to campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements.It is a guide to action, not hard and fast rules. Doctrine provides a common frame of reference across the military...
. The need for an integrated command structured received more emphasis during the Australian military's experiences in the Vietnam War. In 1973, the Secretary of the Department of Defence, Arthur Tange
Arthur Tange
Sir Arthur Harold Tange AC, CBE was a prominent Australian senior public servant of the middle to late 20th century....
, submitted a report to the Government
Government of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia is a federal constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, which became the six states...
that recommended the unification of the separate departments supporting each service into a single department and the creation of the post of Chief of the Defence Force Staff
Chief of the Defence Force (Australia)
Chief of the Defence Force is the most senior appointment in the Australian Defence Force . The CDF commands the ADF under the direction of the Minister of Defence, in a coequal arrangement with the Secretary of Defence, the most senior public servant in the Department of Defence.The position is a...
.
The Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
Government subsequently amalgamated the five defence ministries (Defence, Navy, Army, Air Force, and Supply) into a single Department of Defence in 1973, while conscription under the National Service scheme was abolished. On 1 January 1976, the three branches of the Australian military were brought together as a unified, all-volunteer, professional force known as the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Today, the ADF is headquartered at Russell Offices
Russell Offices
The Russell Offices is a complex of office buildings located in the Canberra suburb of Russell.Together with Campbell Park, these two complexes are home to the Australian Department of Defence and contain the administrative headquarters of the Australian Defence Force.The Office of National...
in Canberra and is divided into Air, Land, Maritime and Special Operations Commands. In addition, Northern Command is based in Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
, and is responsible for operations in Northern Australia
Northern Australia
The term northern Australia is generally known to include two State and Territories, being Queensland and the Northern Territory . The part of Western Australia north of latitude 26° south—a definition widely used in law and State government policy—is also usually included...
.
Defence of Australia, 1980s and 1990s
Until the 1970s, Australia's military strategy centred on the concept of Forward Defence, in which the role of the Australian military was to cooperate with Allied forces to counter threats in Australia's region. In 1969, when the United States began the Guam Doctrine and the British withdrew 'east of SuezEast of Suez
The phrase East of Suez is used in British military and political discussions in reference to imperial interests beyond the European theatre ....
', Australia developed a defence policy emphasising self-reliance of the Australian continent. This policy was known as the Defence of Australia Policy
Defence of Australia Policy
The Defence of Australia Policy was Australia's dominant defence policy between 1972 and 1997. The policy was focused on the defence of continental Australia against external attack...
, under which the focus of Australian defence planning was to protect the nation's northern maritime approaches (the 'air-sea gap') against possible attack.
In line with this goal, the ADF was restructured to increase its ability to strike at enemy forces from Australian bases and to counter raids on continental Australia. The ADF achieved this by increasing the capabilities of the RAN and RAAF and relocating regular Army units to Northern Australia. During this time the ADF had no military units on operational deployment outside Australia. However, in 1987 the ADF made its first operational deployment as part of Operation Morris Dance
Operation Morris Dance
Operation Morris Dance was an Australian military operation conducted in May 1987 in response to the first of the 1987 Fijian coups d'état.On the morning of 14 May 1987 the Military of Fiji took control of the country in a bloodless coup d'état. In response to the coup the Australian Defence Force ...
, in which several warships and a rifle company deployed to the waters off Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
in response to the 1987 Fijian coups d'état. While broadly successful, this deployment highlighted the need for the ADF to improve its capability to rapidly respond to unforeseen events.
Gulf War, 1991
Australia was a member of the international coalition which contributed military forces to the 1991 Gulf WarGulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
, deploying a naval task group of two warships, a support ship and a clearance diving team
Clearance Diving Team (RAN)
The Clearance Diving Teams of the Royal Australian Navy also act as commando frogmen: they consist of naval personnel who are qualified in diving, demolitions, underwater repairs, and reconnaissance...
; in total about 750 personnel. The Australian contribution was the first time Australian personnel were deployed to an active war zone since the establishment of the ADF and the deployment tested the it's capabilities and command structure. However, the Australian force did not see combat, and instead playing a significant role in enforcing the sanctions put in place against Iraq
Iraq sanctions
The Iraq sanctions were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the nation of Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 , and certain portions including reparations to Kuwait...
following the invasion of Kuwait. Some ADF personnel serving on exchange with British and American units did see combat, and a few were later decorated for their actions. Following the war, the Navy regularly deployed a frigate to the Persian Gulf or Red Sea to enforce the trade sanctions which continued to be applied to Iraq.
Global security, late-1990s
Since the late 1980s, the Australian government had increasingly called upon the ADF to contribute forces to peacekeeping missions around the world. While most of these deployments involved only small numbers of specialists, several led to the deployment of hundreds of personnel. Large peacekeeping deployments were made to NamibiaNamibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
in early 1989, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
between 1992 and 1993, Somalia
Operation Solace
Operation Solace was the Australian Defence Force's main contribution to the Unified Task Force which was a United States led, United Nations sanctioned, multinational force which operated in the Republic of Somalia from 9 December 1992 to 4 May 1993...
in 1993, Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
between 1994 and 1995 and Bougainville
Bougainville Province
The Autonomous Region of Bougainville, previously known as North Solomons, is an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea. The largest island is Bougainville Island , and the province also includes the island of Buka and assorted outlying islands including the Carterets...
in 1994 and from 1997 onwards. The 1996 election of the Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
Liberal government
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
resulted in significant reforms to the ADF's force structure and role, with the new government's defence strategy placed less singular emphasis on defending Australia from direct attack and greater emphasis on working in cooperation with regional states and Australia's allies
Foreign relations of Australia
The foreign relations of Australia have spanned from the country's time as Dominion and later Realm of the Commonwealth to become steadfastly allied with New Zealand through long-standing ANZAC ties dating back to the early 1900s, and the United States throughout the Cold War, to its engagement...
to manage potential security threats in recognition of Australia's global security interests. In line with this new focus, the ADF's force structure changed in an attempt to increase the proportion of combat units to support units and to improve the ADF's combat effectiveness.
East Timor, 1999–present
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
was invaded by Indonesia in 1975, however, following years of violent struggle the new Indonesian government of President B.J. Habibie subsequently agreed to allow the East Timorese to vote on autonomy
East Timor Special Autonomy Referendum
The East Timorese independence referendum was a referendum which was held throughout East Timor on 30 August 1999. The referendum's origins lay with the request made by the President of Indonesia, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 27 January 1999, for...
in 1999. The United Nations Mission in East Timor
United Nations Mission in East Timor
The United Nations Mission in East Timor was established by Security Council Resolution 1246 on 11 June 1999 for a period up to 31 August 1999...
(UNAMET) was established to organise and conduct the vote, which was held at the end of August 1999 and resulted with 78.5% of voters deciding in favour of independence. However, following the announcement of the results pro-Indonesian militias supported by elements of the Indonesian military, launched a campaign of violence, looting and arson and many East Timorese were killed, while perhaps more than 500,000 were displaced. Unable to control the violence, Indonesia subsequently agreed to the deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force. Australia, which had contributed police to UNAMET, organised and led an international military coaltion, known as the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET), a non-UN force operating in accordance with UN resolutions. Total Australian forces committed included 5,500 personnel.
Under the overall command of Australian Major General Peter Cosgrove
Peter Cosgrove
General Peter John Cosgrove AC, MC is a retired Australian Army officer. He was the Chief of the Defence Force from 3 July 2002 to 3 July 2005, when he retired from active service...
, INTERFET began arriving on 12 September 1999 and was tasked with restoring peace and security, protecting and supporting UNAMET, and facilitating humanitarian assistance operations. With the withdrawal of the Indonesian armed forces, police and government officials from East Timor, UNAMET re-established its headquarters in Dili
Dili
Dili, spelled Díli in Portuguese, is the capital, largest city, chief port and commercial centre of East Timor.-Geography and Administration:Dili lies on the northern coast of Timor island, the easternmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands....
on 28 September. On 19 October 1999, Indonesia formally recognised the result of the referendum and shortly thereafter a UN peacekeeping force, the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor provided an interim civil administration and a peacekeeping mission in the territory of East Timor, from its establishment on October 25, 1999 until its independence on May 20, 2002 following the outcome of the East Timor Special...
(UNTAET) was established, becoming fully responsible for the administration of East Timor during its transition to independence. The hand-over of command of military operations from INTERFET to UNTAET was completed on 28 February 2000. Australia continued to support the UN peacekeeping operation with between 1,500 and 2,000 personnel, as well as landing craft and Blackhawk helicopters and remained the largest contributor of personnel to the peacekeeping mission. During these operations Australian forces regularly clashed with pro-Indonesian militia and on a number of occasions Indonesian forces as well, especially along the border with West Timor
West Timor
West Timor is the western and Indonesian portion of the island of Timor and part of the province of East Nusa Tenggara, .During the colonial period it was known as "Dutch Timor" and was a centre of Dutch loyalists during the Indonesian National Revolution...
. Significant actions occurred in Suai
Suai
Suai is a city in East Timor. It has a population of 23,000 and is located 138 km to the southwest of Dili, the national capital. Suai is the capital of the Cova Lima district, which is in the southwest of the country. It is located just a few kilometers from the Timor Sea, on the south side of the...
, Mota'ain
Mota'ain
Mota'ain, also spelled Mota'in or Mota Ain, is a village in Bobonaro District in East Timor and is the country's main road border crossing into West Timor in Indonesia...
and at Aidabasalala
Battle of Aidabasalala
The Battle of Aidabasalala was a small but hard fought action during the 1999 East Timorese crisis between pro-Indonesian militia, and a small six-man Australian covert reconnaissance patrol from the Special Air Service Regiment operating as part of the United Nations-mandated International Force...
in October 1999. However with the security situation stabilised the bulk of the Australian and UN forces were withdrawn by 2005. Two Australians died from non-battle related causes, while a number of Australians were wounded in action.
The unexpected deployment to East Timor in 1999 led to significant changes in Australian defence policy and to an enhancement of the ADF's ability to conduct operations outside Australia. This successful deployment was the first time a large Australian military force had operated outside of Australia since the Vietnam War and revealed shortcomings in the ADF's ability to mount and sustain such operations. In response, the 2000 Defence White Paper placed a greater emphasis on preparing the ADF for overseas deployments. The Australian government committed to improve the ADF's capabilities by improving the readiness and equipment of ADF units, expanding the ADF to 57,000 full-time personnel and increasing real Defence expenditure by 3% per year.
In May 2006, 2,000 ADF personnel were again deployed to East Timor
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
as part of Operation Astute
Operation Astute
Operation Astute is an Australian-led military deployment to East Timor to quell unrest and return stability in the 2006 East Timor crisis. It is currently headed by Brigadier Bill Sowry, and commenced on 25 May 2006 under the command of Brigadier Michael Slater...
, following unrest between elements of the Timor Leste Defence Force. Australian forces were involved in a number skirmishes during this time, including a heavy clash with rebels commanded by Alfredo Reinado at Same
Battle of Same
The Battle of Same was fought in the village of Same in Timor Leste, south of the capital Dili, between Australian Special Forces and Petitioner rebels under the command of Alfredo Reinado...
on 4 March 2007. However, by early-2010 the security situation has been stabilised and just 400 Australian personnel remain to train the local security forces as part of a small international force.
Afghanistan, 2001–present
Shortly after the Islamist inspired terrorist attacks in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
on 11 September 2001, Australian forces were committed to the American-led international coalition against terrorism. The ADF's most visible contribution—codenamed Operation Slipper—has been a special forces task group operating in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
from 2001 to 2002 and again from mid-2005 to fight against the Taliban. Over time the Australian commitment has grown, with the addition of further ground forces from 2006 to provide security, reconstruction and to mentor and train the Afghan National Army
Afghan National Army
The Afghan National Army is a service branch of the military of Afghanistan, which is currently trained by the coalition forces to ultimately take the role in land-based military operations in Afghanistan. , the Afghan National Army is divided into seven regional Corps. The strength of the Afghan...
. Australia has also contributed a frigate and two AP-3 Orion
P-3 Orion
The Lockheed P-3 Orion is a four-engine turboprop anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft developed for the United States Navy and introduced in the 1960s. Lockheed based it on the L-188 Electra commercial airliner. The aircraft is easily recognizable by its distinctive tail stinger or...
surveillance aircraft and three C-130 Hercules
C-130 Hercules
The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built originally by Lockheed, now Lockheed Martin. Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medical evacuation, and cargo transport...
transport aircraft to international operations in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean since 2001, supporting both the operations in Afghanistan and those in Iraq under Operation Catalyst. A detachment of four F/A-18 Hornet
F/A-18 Hornet
The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is a supersonic, all-weather carrier-capable multirole fighter jet, designed to dogfight and attack ground targets . Designed by McDonnell Douglas and Northrop, the F/A-18 was derived from the latter's YF-17 in the 1970s for use by the United States Navy and...
fighter-bombers was based at Diego Garcia
Diego Garcia
Diego Garcia is a tropical, footprint-shaped coral atoll located south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean at 7 degrees, 26 minutes south latitude. It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory [BIOT] and is positioned at 72°23' east longitude....
from late-2001 to mid-2002, while two Boeing 707
Boeing 707
The Boeing 707 is a four-engine narrow-body commercial passenger jet airliner developed by Boeing in the early 1950s. Its name is most commonly pronounced as "Seven Oh Seven". The first airline to operate the 707 was Pan American World Airways, inaugurating the type's first commercial flight on...
air-to-air refuelling aircraft were also based in Manas Air Base
Manas Air Base
Transit Center at Manas is a United States military installation at Manas International Airport, near Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, primarily operated by the U.S. Air Force....
in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
to provide support to coalition aircraft operating in Afghan airspace but have since been withdrawn.
As of 2011 a modest Australian force numbering 1,550 personnel remains in Afghanistan where they are involved in counter-insurgency operations in Uruzgan province in conjunction United States and other coalition forces, including the Dutch prior to their withdrawal in August. The force consists of motorised infantry, special forces, engineers, cavalry, artillery and aviation elements. This includes a combined arms
Combined arms
Combined arms is an approach to warfare which seeks to integrate different branches of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects...
battalion
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
-sized battle group
Battlegroup (army)
A battlegroup , or task force in modern military theory, is the basic building block of an army's fighting force. A battlegroup is formed around an infantry battalion or armoured regiment, which is usually commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel...
known as the Mentoring Task Force, and the Special Operations Task Group, both based at Forward Operation Base Ripley outside of Tarin Kowt
Tarin Kowt
Tarinkot or Tarin Kowt is the capital of Orūzgān province in southern Afghanistan in Tarin Kowt District. It is a town of about 10,000 people, with some 200 small shops in the city's bazaar...
, as well as the Rotary Wing Group flying CH-47D Chinooks, the Force Logistics Asset and an RAAF air surveillance radar unit based in Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
. In addition, a further 800 Australian logistic personnel are also based in the Middle East in support, but are located outside of Afghanistan. Detachments of maritime patrol and transport aircraft continue to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, based out of Al Minhad Air Base
Camp Mirage
Camp Mirage is the codename for a former Canadian Forces forward logistics facility located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The facility was established in late-December 2001 and, though not officially acknowledged by the Canadian Forces, is considered an "open secret"...
in the United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
. Also included is the deployment of one of the RAN's frigates to the Arabian Sea
Arabian Sea
The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui in northeastern Somalia and Kanyakumari in India...
and Gulf of Aden
Gulf of Aden
The Gulf of Aden is located in the Arabian Sea between Yemen, on the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and Somalia in the Horn of Africa. In the northwest, it connects with the Red Sea through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which is about 20 miles wide....
on counter piracy and maritime interdiction duties.
Australian forces have at times been involved in heavy fighting, and significant actions have included Operation Anaconda
Operation Anaconda
Operation Anaconda took place in early March 2002 in which the United States military and CIA Paramilitary Officers, working with allied Afghan military forces, and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization and non NATO forces attempted to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Shahi-Kot...
in 2002, Operation Perth
Operation Perth
Operation Perth was an Australian military operation in Orūzgān Province undertaken in July 2006 during the War in Afghanistan. The nine day search and destroy operation occurred as part of a wider multi-national coalition operation to clear the Chora Valley, north-east of Tarin Kowt, involving...
in 2006, the Battle of Chora
Battle of Chora
The Battle of Chora took place in and around the town of Chora , in Afghanistan's Orūzgān Province, during June 15–19, 2007. The fighting was between ISAF and Afghan forces on one side and Taliban forces on the other for the control of the Chora District center, regarded by the Taliban as a...
in 2007, the First and Second Battles of Kakarak
First and Second Battles of Kakarak
The First and Second Battles of Kakarak were fought near the village of Kakarak in the West Dorafshan district of Orūzgān Province, in southern Afghanistan...
in 2009, and the Shah Wali Kot Offensive
Shah Wali Kot Offensive
The Shah Wali Kot Offensive was a five-day joint operation during the War in Afghanistan, conducted by Australian special forces and the Afghan National Army with US air support, between 10–14 June 2010...
and Battle of Derapet
Battle of Derapet
The Battle of Derapet was fought near the village of Derapat in the Tangi Valley in Deh Rahwod, Orūzgān Province, southern Afghanistan, between a combined Australian Army and Afghan National Army patrol and Taliban forces on 24 August 2010...
in 2010; although others have yet to be publicly acknowledged due to operational security requirements. Casualties include 32 killed and 213 wounded, while another Australian also died serving with the British Army. Two Australians have been awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia
Victoria Cross for Australia
The Victoria Cross for Australia is the highest award in the Australian Honours System, superseding the Victoria Cross for issue to Australians...
, the first such awards in forty years.
Iraq, 2003–2011
Australian forces later joined British and American forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
. The initial contribution was also a modest one, consisting of just 2,058 personnel—codenamed Operation Falconer. Major force elements included special forces, rotary and fixed wing aviation and naval units. Army units included elements from the SASR
Australian Special Air Service Regiment
The Special Air Service Regiment, officially abbreviated SASR but commonly known as the SAS, is a special forces unit of the Australian Army...
and 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
The 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, was an Australian Army infantry battalion and part of the Royal Australian Regiment. The battalion was formed on 1 February 1964 and was renamed the 2nd Commando Regiment on 19 June 2009....
, a CH-47 Chinook detachment and a number of other specialist units. RAN units included the amphibious ship and the frigates and , while the RAAF deployed 14 F/A-18 Hornets from No. 75 Squadron
No. 75 Squadron RAAF
No. 75 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force fighter unit based at RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory. The squadron was formed in 1942 and saw extensive action in the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, operating P-40 Kittyhawks. It was disbanded in 1948, but reformed the...
, a number of AP3-C Orions and C-130 Hercules. Notably the Australian Special Forces task force was one of the first coalition units forces to cross the border into Iraq, while for a few days, the closest ground troops to Baghdad were from the SASR. During the invasion the RAAF also flew its first combat missions since the Vietnam War, with No. 75 Squadron flying a total of 350 sorties and dropping 122 laser guided bombs.
The Iraqi military quickly proved no match for coalition military power, and with their defeat the bulk of Australian forces were withdrawn. While Australia did not initially take part in the post-war occupation of Iraq, an Australian Army light armoured battlegroup
Battlegroup (army)
A battlegroup , or task force in modern military theory, is the basic building block of an army's fighting force. A battlegroup is formed around an infantry battalion or armoured regiment, which is usually commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel...
—designated the Al Muthanna Task Group
Al Muthanna Task Group
The Al Muthanna Task Group was a battlegroup that formed Australia's main ground force contribution to the Multinational force in Iraq. The AMTG was established in April 2005 and ceased to exist in July 2006 when the Australian force was relocated to Dhi Qar Governorate as Overwatch Battle Group...
and including 40 ASLAV
ASLAV
The Australian Service Light Armoured Vehicle , is an Australian version of the Light Armoured Vehicle designed and manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada for the U.S. Marines. The initial design was the MOWAG Piranha 8x8, however the vehicle was re-designed to meet North American...
light armoured vehicles and infantry—was later deployed to Southern Iraq in April 2005 as part of Operation Catalyst. The role of this force was to protect the Japanese engineer contingent in the region and support the training of New Iraqi Army units. The AMTG later became the Overwatch Battle Group (West)
Overwatch Battle Group (West)
Overwatch Battle Group was an Australian Army battlegroup that represented Australia's largest contribution to the Multinational force in Iraq. The Battle Group was established in July 2006 and was based at Tallil Airbase in Dhi Qar Governorate....
(OBG(W)), following the hand back of Al Muthanna province to Iraqi control. Force levels peaked at 1,400 personnel in May 2007 including the OBG(W) in Southern Iraq, the Security Detachment in Baghdad and the Australian Army Training Team—Iraq. A RAN frigate was based in the North Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
, while RAAF assets included C-130H Hercules and AP-3C elements. Following the election of a new Labor government under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
the bulk of these forces were withdrawn by mid-2009, while RAAF and RAN operations were redirected to other parts of the Middle East Area of Operations as part of Operation Slipper.
Low-level operations continued, however, with a small Australian force of 80 soldiers remaining in Iraq to protect the Australian Embassy in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
as part of SECDET under Operation Kruger. SECDET was finally withdrawn in August 2011, and was replaced by a private military company
Private military company
A private military company or provides military and security services. These combatants are commonly known as mercenaries, though modern-day PMCs refer to their staff as security contractors, private military contractors or private security contractors, and refer to themselves as private military...
which took over responsibility for providing security for Australia's diplomatic presence in Iraq. Although more than 17,000 personnel served during operations in Iraq, Australian casualties were relatively light, with two soldiers accidentally killed, while a third Australian died serving with the British Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
. A further 27 personnel were wounded. Two officers remain in Iraq as part of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.
Peacekeeping
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
in 1947—its commitments have generally been limited, consisting of small numbers of high-level and technical support troops (e.g. signals, engineers or medical units) or observers and police. This pattern changed in the mid-1990s, when Australia became involved in a series of high-profile operations, deploying significantly large units of combat troops in support of a number of missions including those in Cambodia, Rwanda
United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda
The United Nations Assistance Mission In Rwanda was a mission instituted by the United Nations to aid the implementation of the Arusha Accords, signed August 4, 1993, which were meant to end the Rwandan Civil War. The mission lasted from October 1993 to March 1996...
, Somalia
Operation Solace
Operation Solace was the Australian Defence Force's main contribution to the Unified Task Force which was a United States led, United Nations sanctioned, multinational force which operated in the Republic of Somalia from 9 December 1992 to 4 May 1993...
, and later in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. Australia has been involved in close to 100 separate missions, involving more than 30,000 personnel; 14 Australians have died during these operations.
Military statistics
! style="text-align: left; "|Conflict! style="text-align: left; "|Date
! style="text-align: left; "|Number enlisted
! style="text-align: left; "|Killed
! style="text-align: left; "|Wounded
! style="text-align: left; "|Prisoners of War
! style="text-align: left; "|Notes
|-
| New Zealand ||1860–1861 || Crew of HMVS Victoria
2,500 in Waikato Regiments || 1
<20 || Nil
Unknown || Nil ||
|-
| Sudan || 1885 || 770 in NSW Contingent || 9 || 3 || Nil ||
|-
| South Africa
Military history of Australia during the Second Boer War
The military history of Australia during the Boer War is complex, and includes a period of history in which the six formerly autonomous British Australian colonies federated to become the Commonwealth of Australia...
|| 1899–1902 || 16,463 in Colonial and Commonwealth contingents || 589 || 538 || 100 ||
|-
| China
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
|| 1900–1901 || 560 in NSW, SA and VIC colonial naval contingents || 6 || Unknown || Nil ||
|-
| First World War
Military history of Australia during World War I
In Australia, the outbreak of World War I was greeted with considerable enthusiasm. Even before Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, the nation pledged its support for the Empire alongside other Commonwealth nations and almost immediately began preparations to send forces overseas to...
|| 1914–1918 || 416,809 enlisted in AIF (includes AFC)
324,000 AIF members served overseas
9,000 in RAN
Total: 425,809|| 61,511 || 155,000 || 4,044
(397 died in captivity) ||
|-
| Russian Civil War
Australian contribution to the Allied Intervention in Russia 1918–1919
The Russian Civil War began after the provisional government collapsed and the Bolshevik party assumed power in Russia in October 1917. The principal fighting occurred between the Bolshevik Red Army and the forces of the White Army, being a group of loosely-allied anti-Bolshevik forces...
|| 1918–1919 ||100–150 in NREF and NRRF
48 in Dunsterforce
Crew of HMAS Swan|| 10 || 40 || Nil ||
|-
| Second World War
Military history of Australia during World War II
Australia entered World War II shortly after the invasion of Poland, declaring war on Germany on 3 September 1939. By the end of the war, almost a million Australians had served in the armed forces, whose military units fought primarily in the European theatre, North African campaign, and...
|| 1939–1945 || 727,200 in 2nd AIF and Milita
48,900 in RAN
216,900 in RAAF
Total: 993,000 || 39,761 || 66,553|| 8,184 (against Germany and Italy)
22,376 (against Japan)
(8,031 died in captivity) ||
|-
| Malayan Emergency
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
|| 1948–1960 || 7,000 in Army || 39 || 20 || Nil ||
|-
| Korean War
Military history of Australia during the Korean War
The military history of Australia during the Korean War was very eventful. Japan's defeat in World War II heralded the end to 35 years of Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula...
|| 1950–1953 || 10,657 in Army
4,507 in RAN
2,000 in RAAF
Total: 17,164 || 340 || 1,216 || 29
(1 died in captivity) ||
|-
| Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation
Military history of Australia during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation
The Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation was fought from 1962 to 1966 between the British Commonwealth and Indonesia. Indonesia, under President Sukarno, sought to prevent the creation of the new Federation of Malaysia that emerged in 1963, whilst the British Commonwealth sought to safeguard the...
|| 1962–1966 || 3,500 in Army || 16 || 9 || Nil ||
|-
| Vietnam War
Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War
Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War began as a small commitment of 30 men in 1962, and increased over the following decade to a peak of 7,672 Australians deployed in South Vietnam or in support of Australian forces there. The Vietnam War was the longest and most controversial war Australia...
|| 1962–1973 || 42,700 in Army
2,825 in RAN
4,443 in RAAF
Total: 49,968 || 521 || 2,398 || Nil ||
|-
| Gulf War
Australian contribution to the 1991 Gulf War
Australia was a member of the international coalition which contributed military forces to the 1991 Gulf War, also known as Operation Desert Storm. While the Australian forces did not see combat, they did play a significant role in enforcing the sanctions put in place against Iraq following the...
|| 1991 || 750 || Nil || Nil || Nil ||
|-
| Somalia
Operation Solace
Operation Solace was the Australian Defence Force's main contribution to the Unified Task Force which was a United States led, United Nations sanctioned, multinational force which operated in the Republic of Somalia from 9 December 1992 to 4 May 1993...
|| 1992–1994 ||1,480 || 1 || || Nil ||
|-
| East Timor
1999 East Timorese crisis
The 1999 East Timorese crisis began with attacks by anti-independence militants on civilians, and expanded to general violence throughout the country, centred in the capital Dili. The violence erupted after a majority of eligible voters in the population of East Timor chose independence from...
|| 1999–present || || 4 || || Nil ||
|-
| Afghanistan
Operation Slipper
Operation Slipper is the Australian Defence Force contribution to the war in Afghanistan. The operation commenced in late 2001 and is ongoing...
|| 2001–present || || 32 || 213 || Nil ||
|-
| Iraq
Australian contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
The Howard Government supported the disarmament of Iraq during the Iraq disarmament crisis. Australia later provided one of the four most substantial combat force contingents during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, under the operational codename Operation Falconer. Part of its contingent were among the...
|| 2003–2011 || 17,000 || 3 || 27 || Nil ||
|-
| colspan="3" style="text-align: right;" | Total || 102,837 || 225,830 || 34,730 ||
|-