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Why was Australia so supportive of the War?
Considering the events in the timeline the sense of duty and maintaining
strong links with the British monarchy and reliance on British naval
power meant that Australia was very supportive of the war. This is unlike
any modern day situation where Australians would likely be much more
sceptical and less willing to sacrifice our soldiers in pointless battles.
“Genuine” Australians did have a different attitude to their allies
capabilities in the war but overall still were very supportive of Britain and
willing to sustain their support in the face of considerable losses.
However, by the end of the war Australian troops were happy to have
Australian officers and commanders leading them into battle. This can be
demonstrated towards the end of the war when Monash says of the
Tommy (British) soldiers lack of effort at Villers Bretonneux “ not worth
the money it costs to put them into uniform” - Carlyon Page 585.
BATTLES OF WORLD WAR 1 ON THE WESTERN FRONT
Open flat ground, machine guns, pillboxes placed on high ground and
deadly artillery fire produced killing fields for Australians in the early
days of their participation in battles on the Western Front.
On the 19th July,1916, the Australian 5
th
Division, lacking local battle
experience and because they had only just arrived in the area, experienced
the poor use of supporting artillery fire and with a wide area of “No
Man’s Land”, suffered heavy losses without gaining any ground at the
Battle of Fromelles. The Australians suffered 5533 casualties, with nearly
2,000 killed in action. This constitutes our greatest military losses in a
military engagement in a 24 hour period, according to the Australian War
Memorial.
In one day Australian troops lost more men than any war Australian
soldiers have been involved in before and since.
Before the battle the 15
th
brigade commander General H. E. Elliott, aware
that his Brigade was inexperienced, and that a concrete protected series of
positioned machine guns at a high point called Sugar Loaf dominated the
area of “No Man’s Land”, had attempted to persuade the British command
to call off the attack. This he was unable to do, and consequently Elliott
saw his brigade decimated as Corporal Kyle Knynett wrote “ If you
gathered together the stock of a thousand butcher’s shops, cut it into a
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