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CHAPTER XXV
THE ARMIES OF AUSTRALASIA
Until the year 1870, the Imperial Government maintained a small body of troops in Australia for the defence of the country. They existed for two purposes: the chief one being to protect the country from risings of the convicts. The other purpose was to assist in repelling any foreign invasion, for they formed the garrisons of the rather primitive forts which protected some of the Australian harbours. From time to time local defence bodies were formed, when the troubles of the Mother Country seemed to bring a foreign invasion among the actual possibilities of Australian history. As soon as the trouble, whatever it might be, had blown over, these defence organizations would die a natural death, to be revived when fresh clouds appeared upon the horizon.
The withdrawal of the Imperial troops in 1870 forced each Australian state to initiate measures for defence, and caused the establishment of a small professional army in each of the six separate states, that were later federated into the Commonwealth of Australia. These very small groups of soldiers were designed to form a nucleus for a citizen defence force. This was purely voluntary, the men of Australia drilling and training without any payment; and the Governments finding uniform and weapons, and allowing a fairly large supply of ammunition for practice, at a very cheap rate.
In 1880 a militia system was substituted for the volunteer system, and a yearly payment of something like £12 for each volunteer soldier was arranged. At the same time an admirable cadet system was established, and the schoolboys of Australia entered into the business of drilling, training and shooting with an enthusiasm that did much to keep the ranks of the militia full, as they grew up. The smaller country settlements also established rifle clubs, which had a remarkably large membership. A little drill was combined with a great deal of shooting under service conditions, and to the rifle clubs Australia owes the possession of a very large number of sharpshooters that certainly have no superiors in the world.
The cadets attracted the notice of King George when, as Duke of York, he made his great Empire tour in 1900. They took part in a remarkable review of defence forces held on the famous Flemington racecourse; and Mr. E. F. Knight, one of the London journalists who accompanied the King on that tour, wrote of them in the following terms: —
"The first to pass the saluting base were the cadets, who to the stirring strains of the British Grenadiers marched by with a fine swing and preserved an excellent alignment. They presented the appearance of very tough young soldiers, and they exhibited no fatigue after a very trying day, in the course of which they had been standing for hours with soaked clothes in the heavy rain. They looked business-like in their khaki uniforms and felt hats.
"During the march past I was in a pavilion reserved chiefly for British and foreign naval officers. The German and American officers were much struck with the physique and soldierly qualities of the Australian troops, but they spoke with unreserved admiration when they saw these cadets."
The cadet system was elaborated, between the years 1909 and 1911, into a system of compulsory military training based on a scheme drawn up by Lord Kitchener himself, followed by a report on Australian defences made by Sir Ian Hamilton, the General who is now in supreme charge of the Australasian forces at the Dardanelles. When the new scheme came into force, the numbers of the land forces of the Commonwealth were nearly 110,000 men and boys; the figures comprising 2,000 permanent troops, nearly 22,000 militia, over 55,000 members of rifle clubs, and 28,000 cadets.
At the time the new compulsory system came into force, the number of males in Australia was —
For compulsory training it was enacted that the citizens of cadet and military age should be divided into four classes as under: —
Junior Cadets, from 12 to 14.
Senior Cadets, from 14 to 18.
Citizen soldiers, from 18 to 25.
" " 25 to 26.
The prescribed training was: (a) For junior cadets, 120 hours yearly. (b) For senior cadets, 4 whole-day drills, 12 half-day drills, and 24 night drills yearly. (c) For citizen soldiers, 16 whole-day drills, or their equivalent, of which not less than eight should be in camps of continuous training.
The scheme came into operation at the beginning of 1911, when the new cadets, to the number of over 120,000, were enrolled. At the same time 200 non-commissioned officers, as a training force for the new army, went into camp for a six months course of instruction. From July 1 the new system of cadet training began, 20,000 of the boys, of the age of eighteen, going into training as the first year's crop of recruits. Every year afterwards this number, approximately, of trained senior cadets was added to the citizen army in training, while the number of cadets remained about 120,000; some 20,000 junior cadets at the age of twelve reinforcing the cadets as each draft of eighteen-year-old cadets became citizen soldiers.
It will be seen that the outbreak of the war in 1914 found the Australian scheme still incomplete, since the number of citizen soldiers in training was approximately only 80,000, even including the 20,000 cadets of that year, who had just been drafted into the citizen army.
Australia had also arranged for the training of its own young officers, who in time should develop into Area Officers under the compulsory services scheme, which provides for the division of the Commonwealth into over 200 military Areas, with an officer in charge of each. The establishment of a military college at Duntroon, near the new Australian Federal capital city of Canberra, had made excellent progress when war came.
The Duntroon establishment was an efficient rather than a showy establishment; its modest wooden bungalows, in which the officers were quartered, contrasting strangely with the elaborate arrangements at similar establishments such as Sandhurst or West Point. But the teaching was remarkably thorough for such a young institution. The democratic tendencies of Australia are illustrated by the fact that tuition at Duntroon is absolutely free, the parents of the young officer being not even asked to supply him with pocket money, since an allowance of 5s. per week is made by the Government to each cadet in training. The course of instruction is one of four years' training, and necessitates the daily application of six hours to instruction, and two hours to military exercises. A vacation of two months is observed at Christmas time, the height of the Australian summer, and there are frequent camps for practical instruction in all branches of field work.
Cadets are required to make their own beds, clean their own boots, and keep their kit in order. Special emphasis is laid upon the value of character, and any cadet, however able in acquiring knowledge or brilliant in physical exercises, must, if he lacks the power of self-discipline, be removed as unfit to become an officer who has to control others. The College was opened in June, 1911, with forty-one cadets, and has since been employed by the New Zealand Government for the training of its young officers, a step in co-operation which is likely to show the way to still closer relations between the Dominion and the Commonwealth in many matters relating to defence.
The Commandant of the College was the late General Bridges, whose death in action at Gaba Tepe is so universally mourned by Australians. Writing of him and the College in the Sydney Morning Herald, V. J. M. says: —
"Duntroon is his masterpiece. To have left it as he did, after a bare four years, represents the greatest educational feat yet accomplished in Australia. Before attempting it he studied the greatest colleges in Europe and America – Sandhurst, Woolwich, West Point, Kingston, Saint-Cyr, L'Ecole Polytechnique, L'Ecole Militaire, die Grosslichterfelder Kadettenanstalt – all were visited and carefully investigated by him. His endeavour was to incorporate, so far as local conditions would allow, the best of each in Duntroon. How far he has succeeded is well known. In the opinion of Viscount Bryce, Sir Ian Hamilton, Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, and others, it stands out one of the most efficient military schools – some say the most efficient – in the world. Four years ago there were a station homestead and a rolling sweep of lonely country. What a strong driving force must have been behind it all. The crisis found Duntroon ready. Already seventy-one officers from its class-rooms and training fields are at the front, of whom some twenty have fallen. So excellent has been the work of these young soldiers in the desert camp that, in a recent letter, General Bridges mentioned that General Birdwood has specially written of them to the King. Australia will have reason in the troublous years ahead to be thankful that her great military school was conceived by a man of broad grasp and wide knowledge. The soldiers of the future will be moulded and the armies of the future organized by its graduates. He meant it to be, and it is, a great military university."
The precedent that Australasian soldiers should take part in the wars of the Mother Country was set in 1883, when the State of New South Wales sent a contingent of 800 infantry and artillery to the Soudan. The initiative in this matter was due to Mr. W. B. Dalley, then Premier of New South Wales. The force, after being reviewed by Lord Loftus, the State Governor, sailed from Sydney on March 3, 1883, on the transports Iberia and Australasian. The services rendered by them were comparatively slight; indeed, they were treated by the Imperial authorities as rather a gratuitous nuisance, intruding where their presence was not required. But the precedent had been set, and was followed by all the Dominions Overseas, on the outbreak of the African war.
Once again the War Office was inclined to regard the Greater Britons as useless interlopers, and the offer to provide cavalry was met with the historical cable that in Africa "foot soldiers only" were required. It is further a matter of history that the authorities very sensibly revised this estimate as the war progressed, and were glad of the services of every man who could ride and shoot. Contingent after contingent was despatched from Australasia, New Zealand especially providing a wealth of fine soldiers. In proportion to population, the Dominion supplied more men to fight the Empire's battle in South Africa than any part of the British realm.
CHAPTER XXVI
CLEARING THE PACIFIC
When the war broke out, the ports of Australasia lay within striking distance of German harbours, where lay a powerful squadron of armoured and light cruisers. A very real danger to Australasian shipping and seaports had to be encountered; and the first warlike steps taken by Australia and New Zealand were expeditions against Germany's Pacific Colonies.
At that time they were very considerable possessions, about 100,000 square miles in extent. Chief among them was Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, or, to give it its British appellation, German New Guinea, contiguous to the Australian possession of Papua, and 70,000 square miles in area. Next came the Bismarck Archipelago, better known as New Britain, a group of islands with an area of 20,000 square miles. Other colonies were German Samoa, and the Caroline, Marshall, Ladrone, Pelew, and Solomon Islands. In these colonies were established wireless stations of great strategical importance to Germany.
The squadron maintained to protect these possessions was a very modern and powerful one, as Great Britain was to learn to her cost. It consisted of the armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the light fast cruisers Leipzig, Nürnberg, and Emden. The units of the British navy on the spot were the three old third-class cruisers Psyche, Pyramus, and Philomel; and upon these New Zealand, the Dominion most threatened, would have been forced to rely if Australia had not been provided with a navy of her own.
That navy had made ready for sea at the first sign of a great European war, and met at an appointed rendezvous off the coast of Queensland on August 11. One section of it, consisting of the battle-cruiser Australia, the light cruisers Sydney and Melbourne, and the destroyers Parramatta, Yarra, and Warrego, set off to the Bismarcks in the hope of encountering the German squadron. The destroyers, under convoy of the Sydney, made straight for Rabaul, the chief German settlement there, although there were no charts of the harbour, while the big ship and the other light cruiser kept watch at a distance.
In the darkness of a pitch-black night the destroyers steamed into the harbour, and captured all the ships in the bay. Right up to the pier they steamed, and then out again, having effected their purpose for the time being. They set out from that point to a rendezvous at Port Moresby, in Australian New Guinea, while the Sydney returned to Australian waters. The Australia and the Melbourne made for New Caledonia, where their presence was needed in aid of the Sister Dominion of New Zealand.
With the greatest secrecy the New Zealand Government had equipped a force of 1,300 volunteers from the province of Wellington, for an expedition against German Samoa. They knew the big German warships were somewhere in the vicinity, but that risk did not deter them. The men were sent on transports, and convoyed by one of the antiquated British cruisers; their first port of call was New Caledonia, distant five days. Fortune favours the brave, and this was a brave little adventure, if ever there were one such. But they won out all right, reaching New Caledonia safely, to receive a joyous welcome from the Australia, the Melbourne, and the French cruiser Montcalm, which were awaiting them at Noumea.
Their course to Samoa was now a safe one, comparatively speaking, and they had the satisfaction of lowering the German flag at Apia, and hoisting the Union Jack in its place, before the war was a month old. The warships left the Expedition in possession, and steamed away. A fortnight later the two big German ships were sighted off the harbour, and the little garrison had a thrilling experience. They prepared to defend the place against the heavy guns of the Germans, but it was not necessary. After some delay the Germans, apparently fearing some trap, steamed off, and were not again seen in the vicinity.
Samoa fell on August 29, and on September 9 the Australia and the Melbourne were keeping another rendezvous at Port Moresby. Their appointment was with the transport Berrima, which, escorted by the cruiser Sydney, conveyed to that port an Expedition launched against the German Colonies in the North Pacific. It consisted of six companies of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, under Colonel Holmes, D.S.O., and a battalion of infantry with machine-guns. With the Berrima were the two Australian submarines AE1 and AE2, both of which came to an untimely end before the war was nine months old. At the rendezvous were the destroyers, a transport with 500 Queensland soldiers, and store ships and other requisites for such an expedition.
The objects of the expedition were two; they meant to occupy Rabaul, the chief settlement in the Bismarck Archipelago, and to destroy the German wireless station they knew to be established somewhere in Neu Pommern, the principal island in the group. The Australia, with the transports, made straight for Rabaul, which capitulated. The destroyers, under convoy of the Sydney, were sent forward to search for the wireless station. The first landing party marched straight inland, and soon encountered trouble. A heavy fire was directed upon them from sharpshooters, who were so well hidden that it was suspected they were in the trees; and the Australians were forced to take to the bush. They signalled for help, and also worked through the dense scrub until they came upon an entrenched position.
The signal for help brought every available man from the destroyers ashore; a picturesque touch was added to the reinforcement by the uninvited presence of one of the ship's butchers, who attached himself to the party in a blue apron, and armed with his cleaver of office. This relief party was followed by two others, one landing at Herbertshöhe to execute a flank movement. The first party had some stiff bush fighting, in which Lieutenant Bowen was wounded, and three Germans were captured. When the first two forces joined hands, Lieutenant-Commander Elwell was shot dead; and they were glad to see the main expeditionary force, with machine-guns, arrive on the scene of action.
The machine-guns settled the question, and the German commander, Lieutenant Kempf, at once hoisted the white flag. With some Australians he proceeded to a second line of trenches, and ordered the occupants to surrender. A number of them were taken prisoners; and then resistance broke out, and they all tried to escape. They were fired upon, and eighteen were shot in the act of running away. In the end the remainder were content to surrender.
The surrender of the wireless station was negotiated by Lieutenant Kempf himself, after giving his parole. He cycled alone to the place, and announced that he had arranged that there should be no resistance. Three Australian officers followed him and, placing reliance upon his word, boldly entered the station late at night. They found it strongly entrenched, but the natives who formed the majority of the defending force had quite understood Admiral Patey's threat that he would shell the place unless the flag were hauled down, and had no relish for such an ordeal. The next afternoon the British flag was hoisted over the station.
The next objective was Toma, a town inland whither the German administrator of the Colony had fled when the warships appeared before Rabaul. An expedition against this place, with the complement of a 12-pounder gun, was accordingly arranged. The Australia paved the way for this expedition by shelling the approaches to the town, with the result that a deputation was sent out by the Administrator to meet the force half-way. The column continued its march without paying any attention to this deputation, and entered Toma the same day in a dense cloud of tropical rain.
The Administrator sent another messenger to the officer in charge, promising to repair to Herbertshöhe the next day to negotiate a surrender. As the French cruiser Montcalm had now arrived the most sanguine German could not expect any continued resistance, and the surrender was signed.
Thus on September 13 all resistance had been crushed in the Bismarck Islands, and the Colony had been reduced by the Australians at a cost of two officers killed – Captain Pockley and Lieutenant-Commander Elwell – and three men. One officer, Lieutenant Bowen, and three men were wounded.
On September 24 the warships put in an appearance at Friedrich Wilhelmshafen, the chief settlement in German New Guinea, where no resistance was encountered. That evening the German flag was blotted out of the Pacific Ocean, the last of the German colonies there having fallen to the energetic Australian navy.
Two wireless stations established by the Germans, one at Nauru and the other at Anguar, were seized and destroyed, to the disadvantage of the German Pacific squadron against which the Australian navy now directed its operations, taking a prominent part in the driving movement which finally committed them to the battle of the Falkland Islands and their destruction by Admiral Sturdee on December 8.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE YOUNGEST NAVY IN THE WORLD
On the morning when the news of the sinking of the Emden reached London there was at least one good Briton of that city whose elation was curiously mingled with puzzlement. He was puzzled to know how Australia came by a navy; he had seen references to an Australian navy before, but had always supposed that a misprint had been made for "Austrian navy."
His wonder is so far excusable that the first ship of that navy was only launched as recently as 1911, when the battle cruiser Australia left the stocks in the yards of Messrs. John Brown & Co., of Glasgow; and she only arrived in Australia two years later. The other units of the navy are of even later construction. The existence of these vessels in Australian waters is a tribute to the enterprise and foresight of the Commonwealth of Australia. Their history and performance since the outbreak of the war has utterly confounded the naval experts of this country, who, if they had had their way, would not have had such ships in such a place.
For a quarter of a century before the foundation of the Australian navy, the whole question of naval protection for Australasia had been one profoundly unsatisfactory, both to the Imperial government and to the governments of the Southern Nations. Australia and New Zealand paid a naval subsidy to the Imperial coffers; recently it amounted to the annual sum of £200,000 from Australia and £40,000 from New Zealand. In return, the Admiralty maintained a number of obsolete warcraft in Australian waters, at a cost vastly exceeding the annual tribute. The Australasians wanted better ships; the Imperial Government desired a larger subsidy; it was an arrangement that pleased nobody.
The makeshift fleet in Australasian waters was explained by postulating the theory that when trouble came, the battle for the defence of Australasia would be fought in the North Sea, or somewhere far from the reach of Australasian ports. The experience of the first twelve months of the war may surely be held to have exploded that theory. The North Sea fleet did not prevent the Emden from bombarding Madras, and sinking merchant shipping worth £2,500,000 in Eastern waters. It would not have prevented the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau from battering Wellington and Sydney, and destroying half the ships in Australasian waters. But the theory was the pet one of all the experts, and it was employed seriously to disturb the pleasant relations between the Motherland and the Dominions.
For, about the year 1905, the uncontestable fact that the Dominions were not contributing sufficiently to the naval protection of the Empire could no longer be evaded. The question was discussed at Colonial Conferences; it was the subject of bitter newspaper articles. The Dominions wished to meet some part, at least, of their great obligations, but not in the way required by the Imperial Government. Put bluntly, the demand made of them was tribute; they were to supply money for naval defence, and have no voice in its expenditure.
Canada took a straightforward course, and withdrew her naval subsidy. New Zealand, with an admirable spirit, had a Dreadnought built, and handed it over to the Imperial Government. The battle cruiser New Zealand has done fine service in the North Sea since the outbreak of war, but had Australia been as sentimentally generous, Australasia would certainly have had cause to regret it.
But Australia planned to build a navy of her own; and a scheme for the construction of the first instalment of warships was drawn up by Rear-Admiral Sir William Cresswell, now first naval adviser to the Commonwealth. He came to London in 1906 to support his scheme, and to his sane and able advocacy of it Australia and the Empire owe a debt it will be hard to repay. It would be possible to quote some of the criticism he received here, but it would serve no good end. Suffice to say, it was couched in the superior vein that proves so irritating to the Colonial in Great Britain, especially when he knows he is right.
At the Colonial Conference of 1907, the matter came up for discussion, and Mr. Deakin and Senator Pearce, who represented Australia, succeeded in carrying their point. Expert reports were obtained, the probable cost was reckoned, and bravely faced; and Australia began to build her own warships. It is an open secret that she did so with the tacit disapproval of the Admiralty, and in face of the violent criticism of the experts.
Thus it happened that when war broke out, the Australians were able to place at the disposal of the Admiralty the following up-to-date warships in Australasian waters: —
The battle cruiser Australia of 19,200 tons displacement, in length 555 feet, with an 80 foot beam, and a draught of 26½ feet. Her armament consists of eight 12-inch guns, sixteen 4-inch guns, and two torpedo tubes. Of her ship's company of 820 more than half are Australians. She flies the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir George Patey, K.C.V.O.
Three light cruisers: the Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, all of 5,600 tons displacement, and with a speed of 26 knots. (The Sydney made 27 when steaming to her duel with the Emden.) Each has eight 6-inch guns, four 3-pounders, four machine guns and two torpedo tubes. The Sydney and Melbourne were built in Great Britain, but the Brisbane is of local construction.
Six destroyers: the Parramatta, Yarra, Torrens, Warrego, Swan, and Derwent. All are of the same type; of 700 tons displacement, 26 knots speed, and carry one 4-inch gun, three 12-pounders and three torpedo tubes.
Two submarines: the AE1 and AE2.
Thus had Australia provided for the defence of her coast, at a cost which excited strenuous criticism in the Commonwealth itself. Until war broke out – then every penny of the money was saved by the 12-inch guns of the Australia. "No," wrote an officer of the Scharnhorst, shortly before Admiral Sturdee had made an end of that armoured cruiser, "we did not raid any Australian port, nor sink any Australasian shipping. And why? Because we knew our 8·2-inch guns were no match for the armament of the Australia."
It is interesting to remember that at the launching of the Sydney Captain R. Muirhead Collins, C.M.G., the Secretary to the Commonwealth Office in London, made a speech almost prophetic in its prescience of the glory with which that vessel was to cover herself in her first ocean combat.
"From time immemorial," he said, "much significance and ceremony had been attached to the launch and christening of a ship. Apart from the mystery of the sea, and the fact that those who went down to the sea in ships saw the wonders of the deep, the act of placing a vessel in the water appeals to us all strongly, because ships are freighted, not only with human lives, but with human interests.
"How much stronger is the appeal to our emotions when ships, those great engines of war, carried with them the future of the Empire and of the English-speaking races under the flag? (Applause.) To the launch, therefore, of this cruiser, as in the case of the vessels which had preceded her, there was the added significance that they are freighted with, or carry with them, national and Imperial aspirations. National aspirations, because they represent the determination of a young, strong and vigorous community, proud of their British descent and of the glorious traditions of the sea which they share, to be no longer satisfied to dwell under the protection of the Mother's wing, but to take on the responsibilities of a self-governing community and to support the Mother Country in the great task of defence of the Empire – (applause) – and Imperial aspirations, because we see in the unity of the Empire, which depends on free communication by sea, the guarantee of freedom and security of peace to all those who dwell within its borders.
"We see in the co-ordination and consolidation of the naval resources of the Empire the chief means of its preservation, founded as it is on maritime enterprise and supremacy. Naval defence alone, however, will not suffice to save the Empire. Co-ordination in military preparations will also be required, based on the recognition of the obligation of every citizen to take his share. In this respect Australia is setting an example in its system of national training. (Applause.)
"We must go back to the days of ancient Greece for a record of maritime confederacy. It failed; and the Empire, which under other conditions it might have safeguarded, was destroyed and its peoples conquered, because, in the words of a recent writer, the Athenians neglected to make the outlying States of their Empire living and active parts instead of mere dependencies on the central government. These new vessels, which were to form the Australian unit in our naval forces, were the embodiment of a living and active partnership in the defence of the Empire. The Navy of Britain had always been justly the Briton's pride. That pride and that interest should now be extended to embrace the Navy of the Empire."
It is instructive to contrast the events in Eastern waters, where the Admiralty, in pursuance of the great theory that the Empire was to be saved by a battle in the North Sea, had weakened the China fleet almost in proportion to the strength supplied in Southern waters on Australian initiative. The operations against Kiao-Chau so far occupied the British warships that the Emden was able to bombard Madras, to enter the British port at Singapore and to sink the warships of our Allies while at anchor under the protection of the Empire's flag, and to heap insult and damage upon the first sea power of the world.
New Zealand, but for the Australian fleet, would have been as defenceless as the East Indies. The Dominion, while thrilled with a genuine and comprehensible pride at the fine work done elsewhere by its Dreadnought, was frank in admitting that the practical end of the argument lay with Australia. Mr. Massey, the Prime Minister, in a speech of the utmost import to Australasia, declared that the future policy of the Dominion would be one of co-operation with the Commonwealth for the naval defence of Australasian shores.
The work of the Australian warships in the reduction of the German Pacific Colonies has already been detailed. In the first seven weeks of the war the Australia and the Melbourne covered 12,000 miles. Not a single British merchant ship was molested in Australasian waters, while all the German shipping in the locality was gobbled up in the most summary fashion. Then, their work at home being completed, the vessels of the Australian fleet set out for wider adventures.
