the Great War was a devastating bloody conflict that encompassed the entire world nothing really more illustrates the global nature of the war than a large impact it had on Australia which was virtually on the other side of the globe from the fighting on the Western Front having just become a country only thirteen years before the outset of war and with a population of under five million people the First World War powerfully affected the largest nation in Oceania but if the war affected Australia Australia also powerfully affected the war and not the least through the leadership of the man that the noted historian AJP Taylor described as the only general of creative originality produced by the First World War General John Monash and the Australian Corps changed not just the course of the war but the nature of warfare itself it is history that deserves to be remembered initially there was a great deal of enthusiasm in Australia when the war started on August 4th 1914 with prime minister Joseph cook declaring when the Empire is at war so also is Australia the first allied shot of the war was fired in Victoria by the Royal Australian garrison artillery at the German carbo ship SS flaws which surrendered was later used as a troop ship by the Australian Army Australian troops saw service very early in the war when the volunteer Australian naval and military expeditionary force shipped out on August 19th to capture German wireless stations in the southwest Pacific the a end and MAF fought a number of battles to capture German New Guinea which Australian troops occupied for the rest of the war denying the territories evasive support for the German East Asia Cruiser Squadron meanwhile Australia was raising an army for foreign service in the war with the first 20,000 men of the 1st Australian Imperial force or the first AI F under the command of Brigadier General William Crosby bridges shipping out in November it was a considerable feat to raise and equip an infantry division in Light Horse brigade so quickly while Australia used mandatory national service for home defense the defense act of 1903 did not allow conscripts to be sent overseas the armed forces were largely designed around part-time militia service with only a small number of regular personnel mostly engineers and coastal Tillery the AAI F had to be created as an all and tear force and also had to be raised independently of the a in and NDF and their mission in the South Pacific despite stringent enlistment requirements by December 1914 more than 53,000 men had been enlisted and the second contingent reinforced the AI F in December eventually the AI F would include over three hundred and thirty thousand men an astounding number provided by a nation with a population of less than five million well many of the officers had seen professional military service the first AI F initially suffered from a lack of training and equipment shortages while many of the men had received some basic training for their mandatory service there were neither trained nor experienced in combat the Australian Force also initially lacked logistics and support units had been comprised mostly of infantry unlike horse initially the AI F equipment did not include hand or rifle grenades and only included a small number of machine guns originally the Australians were to be sent to England for further training before being sent to the Western Front however they were diverted by two British Egypt instead a decision largely driven by ease of transport but also in light of the difficulty that the UK was already having housing and supplied Canadian troops in Britain in Egypt they could not only undergo further training but could work to deter an attack by Turkey on the ever-important Suez Canal the decision had a massive effect on Australian participation in the war and that their presence in Egypt allowed the Allies to ulai supports in an effort to open a second front against the Central Powers and attempt to knock Turkey out of the war they would be sent to the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign while bridges still had overall command of the AI F the Australians were combined with two brigades the 1st New Zealand Expeditionary Force to form the Australia New Zealand Army Corps the Corps consisting of the 1st Australian division the Australia New Zealand division and various Indian and British units was under the command of British general William Birdwood most of the Corps landed on the Aegean side of the Dardanelles on April 25th 1915 the Allies decided upon a night landing to divide cover and surprise however there was significant confusion in the darkness and forces were largely landed over a mile from the beach that they were supposed to land place the Allies called Anzac Cove in the confused battle units ended up being thrown in piecemeal and the beachhead was so tenuous that the division commanders recommended evacuation only to be told by the Navy that it was not possible the Corps took some 2,000 casualties in the landings to gain a precarious bridgehead of only about two miles the landing could have been more of a disaster but as the Turks had also taken around 2,000 casualties they were not in a position to effectively counter attack the Australian New Zealand Army Corps proved tough in the fight and the news of the landing initially spurred a wave of recruitment in Australia but the glibly campaign was a failure in eight months of bloody fighting with attacks and counter-attacks the Turks failed to dislodge the bridgehead but the Anzac failed to break out Anzac abandoned their bridgehead in December without achieving their objectives despite committing nearly a half-million British French Indian Canadian Australian and New Zealand troops the Allies were unable to achieve their objectives and abandon the campaign having taken over 300,000 casualties the AI F suffered more than 26,000 casualties with more than 8,000 of those killed among the casualties was general bridges who was shot through the leg by a sniper in May and died of an infection the AI F was evacuated back to Egypt where more recruiting allowed it to be expanded adding three more infantry divisions in establishing a mounted division the mounted division remained in the Middle East where they played a significant role in the Palestine campaign but the rest of the AI F was headed to France and the bloody statement on the Western Front five divisions was too large and unwieldy to be a single core and so in February 1916 the AI F was reorganized and once again combined with the New Zealanders and the British 25th division to form the 1st and 2nd Anzac Corps the 1st Anzac Corps remembered into the command of Birdwood and the 2nd Anzac Corps was under the command of general Alexander Godley who had commanded the Australian New Zealand division at Gallipoli thus the Australian troops were not under a single command and neither Corps was commanded by an Australian the 5 division saw significant combat in France and Belgium fighting in most of the major battles they gained a reputation as formidable fighters but also displaying poor discipline and insubordination especially on leave perhaps a reminder of their nations frontier founding but while they were in Europe the situation slowly changed back home while the fighting at Gallipoli spur greater recruitment the publican solely soured on the fighting and recruiting for the first time was insufficient to replace losses Australians were shocked at the number of casualties and for every soldier killed another two came home often with debilitating injuries during June until I 1916 the AI F took 23,000 casualties in just 45 days fighting in the Battle of the Somme Prime Minister beli Hughes visited the frock and Birdwood and Godley convinced him that Australia needed to like England start conscripted troops rather than depending upon volunteers it was a politically difficult position opposed by much of Hughes own Labour Party against their advice he called a plebiscite to extend the existing conscription to the home defence to be extended to overseas service the vote was held October 28th and rejected by a narrow margin the divisive vote toward the Labour Party apart and Hughes formed a new coalition to stay in power casualties continued to mount in the spring and the AAF could not make good its mounting losses after taking 7,500 casualties in the Battle of Bullock or plans to constitute a sixth division were scrapped by November the AAF was so depleted that there was talk of disbanding the 4th division instead the AAF was again reorganized and for the first time placed into a single core the Australian Corps under byrd woods command it was the largest allied core on the Western Front the New Zealand division became part of the newly formed british 22nd corps in december 1917 the second referendum unconstraint failed in a campaign so bitter that was marked by a minor scandal when two young Australians threw an egg at Hughes helping to prompt the creation of the Commonwealth Police Hughes was disgusted at the loss and resigned but with no credible replacement it was quickly recommissioned in the spring of 1918 the Germans buoyed by the capitulation of Bolshevik Russia and prodded by the prospect of an additional million American troops into the allied armies pressed a Spring Offensive the offensive was remarkably successful at first and the German army pushed within 50 miles of Paris on the verge of a stunning victory the five Australian divisions were instrumental in stemming the tide the offensive represented a turning point for the Corps as a result of the early losses General Sir Hubert commander of the British fifth army was relieved Birdwood was chosen to replace him making an opening for the leadership of the Australian Corps in May for the first time an Australian was chosen to command the Australian troops General John Monash Monash was an engineer who had been a colonel in the reserve at the outset of the war despite both parents being Prussian born Jewish immigrants a fact that created suspicion among some throughout his career when the a if' was formed he was given command of the 4th Infantry Brigade which had commanded at Gallipoli in July 1916 he had been promoted to command of the 3rd Australian division he was known for close attention to detail and impress the British High Command with his ability moreover he had come to understand what only a few commanders had come to realise during the Great War success depended upon a careful coordination of military arms not just infantry but artillery airpower and the new behemoths of the battlefield tanks he argued that the job of infantry was not to heroically throw themselves against machine guns but to advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources in the form of guns machine guns tanks mortars and aeroplanes to advance with his little impediment is possible to hold territory well the idea of combined arms was not new and the use of Tanks is part of combined arms had been pioneered in the Battle of Canberra in November of 1917 Monash displayed a greater degree of understanding of the importance of coordinated use of all the combined elements of modern warfare and the first test of his ability came on July 4th 1918 at the Battle of Hamel the battle an operation to take a strategically useful point of high ground was not a large engagement in the greater scheme of the vast First World War the battle was interesting in that a few companies of American trips were included in an attempt to provide the American Expeditionary Force with some combat experience a development that was notable given that the battle took place on the American Independence Day but it was the results of Monash as careful planning and coordination of arms that were most important as they were nothing short of astounding Monash carefully combined all the power of modern arms carefully deploying artillery tanks spotter and bomber aircraft he deployed a method to supply that the Australians had pie dropping medical supplies and food from aircraft using parachutes tanks moved up under the cover the noise of harassing artillery which then proceeded into a creeping barrage the attack was so well planned that Monash was able to supply troops with a hot meal during the attack the Battle of Hamel was a stellar demonstration of combined arms tactics for attacking an entrenched position Monash had planned for the attack to last 90 minutes to take all those objectives that turned out to be optimistic it took 93 minutes German counter-attacks were ineffective again to do to Monash his planning using artillery and air power disrupt their lines of supply and communication to Australians were awarded Victoria Crosses and one American was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions during the battle the following month on August 8th Monash is Australian cor spearheaded the attack at the Battle of M yen utilizing the tactics tested at Hamel it was a significant victory and a turning point in the war the first decisive win for the British on the western front and a crushing blow to the Germans 50,000 German troops surrendered German commander Erich Ludendorff described the defeat as the black day of the German army in the history of the war it was the start of the hundred days offensive the offensive that would end the war John Monash was knighted shortly after the Battle of mbn referring to his victories at Hamill and M en Bernard Montgomery who would become a field marshal in the next war described John Monash as the best World War One general on the Western Front the Australian Corps would continue to distinguished themselves through the hundred days campaign all the way through the end of the war while his victories must be seen in the broader context of the war in 1918 where the German army had exhausted itself from the Spring Offensive the infusion of troops from America significantly bolstered the Allies and commanders had all gained significant experience Monash achieved what others did not and his tactics more than any other provided the tools that broke the stalemate of trench warfare during the Great War over 400 21,000 Australian served in the military with more than 330 thousand of those serving overseas over 60,000 of them who lost their lives and another 137 thousand were wounded that represents a casualty rate of almost 65% of the is committed among the highest of the worst combatants - served in several civil roles after the war and was instrumental in the establishment of Anzac Day a National Day of Remembrance to commemorate all Australians and New Zealanders who served and died in all wars conflicts impeached keeping operations Anzac Day is celebrated on April 25th the anniversary of the landing at Anzac Cove during the Gallipoli campaign John Monash is perhaps the most famous military commander in Australian history today in Australia streets roads towns of administrative district a major highway in a large research university all bear his name in Australia he died of a heart attack in October 1931 at the age of 66 an estimated 300,000 people attended the funeral possession I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guide on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring comm and if you'd like more episodes don't forgotten history all you need to do you subscribe [Music]
