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Central to this attitude was the dislike of the appointment after Gallipoli,
initially of British generals for the new divisions. This dislike also
expressed itself in the practice by Australian troops of not saluting
English officers. The 3rd Division even had to have saluting drills that
lead to further aggravations. As English war correspondent Henry
Nevison said of the Australians “they could be counted upon to face death
but hardly to salute an officer”.
Throughout the war an integral part of the ANZAC spirit was a
propensity of the Australian soldiers to make fun of the the British
commanders and their aristocratic attitudes and behaviours and not
necessarily their decisions. There was an inflexibility of decision making
as exhibited by the forces under the command of the overall British
commander, General Douglas Haig and his planning commander,
General Making, they rejected Australian Brigadier General H. E.
“Pompey” Elliott’s advice not to go ahead with an impossible attack at
Fromelles which was unlikely to succeed but sure to end with many AIF
casualties.
This attitude, and the belief in the superiority of British tactical
experience, could be put down to aloofness of the British commanders
and perhaps a history of convicts versus British guards/troops and miners
versus mine owners. It should be noted that in particular many
commanders were stuck in a past where tactics still included blind frontal
charges. Improved technology had left the new tactical approaches far
behind to the detriment of the soldiers’ well being. The AIF had to earn its
stripes through daring, bravery and blood on the battlefield.
The Australians’ Anzac Spirit had a strong element of ill discipline as
demonstrated by their behaviour in Cairo on their way to the Western
Front. Together with the fact that the number of AIF soldiers in the
military prisons compared as a ratio of total force numbers far exceeded
other Empire soldiers. For example, 9 soldiers per 1000 soldiers
compared to British, Canadian or New Zealand soldiers combined of 1 to
1000. Peter Stanley at the Australian War Memorial provides these
statistics to demonstrate the ill discipline of many of our troops; a factor
you can appreciate if you look at the Service reports maintained in the
National Archives.
Probably in the initial stages of the AIF participation in the war the
soldiers best suited to their environment and the tactics needed to achieve
victory, were the Light Horse Battalions in the Middle East. This led to
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