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21.
Personal liberties
were in some cases limited. Censorship was
utilised by both sides to restrict individual reports going back to families
and preventing soldiers from disobedience and mutiny under the guise of
stopping military information being picked up by the opposition. To
prevent mutiny a number of soldiers from Britain and France were
executed as a measure to prevent any major movement against the war’s
continuance from within those suffering at the front. Unfortunately, many
of the soldiers who were executed had only suffered from mental
conditions like shell shock. Despite continued encouragement for
Australia to adopt similar measures, neither the AIF nor the Australia
Corps adopted execution for any offence.
Trench Warfare - a final statement
Award winning Author, Les Carlyon, summarizes the war’s main features
and new determinants on the course of the war in his book
The Great
War
(page 42) when he says “ attrition on a front of 400 miles, hardly any
movement, lots of horses but mostly only as baggage animals, killing
done from a distance (sometimes as far as 20 miles), men blown into so
many pieces that there was nothing to pick up, trenches and tunnels,
galleries and saps, massed artillery, massed armies, millions of civilian
soldiers, nightmares of supply, administration and communication”.
A new type of warfare that allowed and required some adjustment after
four years of mistakes and slaughter.
INTERESTING INFORMATION
Each battle fought by the Australians resulted in very heavy casualty
rates. Hence for the need of a constant supply of “reinforcements’, periods
of rest behind the lines, and continual training periods for new
reinforcements.
The idea that you may soon become a casualty statistic probably
encouraged all our soldiers, particularly those who were single, to play up
on leave.
An example of Australian soldiers’ attitudes is reflected in the book
Over
the Top
which tells the story of a senior officer telling his soldiers of the
need for them to avoid the large number of deer on a close-by property.
That night he comes back to their billet unaware that the strange but good
cooking smell coming from the cook pot is venison.
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