Douglas Newton

The Chilcot report should prompt much heart-searching, and not only about Australia’s commitment to the Iraq War in 2003. It should prompt us to think about two long-standing problems: the use of the ‘war powers’ by the Executive, without any requirement to consult parliament; and the broader issue of balancing Australia’s interests in her alliance relationships. In essence, two questions should haunt us. First, should our decision to go to war be made by handfuls of people at the centre of power? Second, do we as a people so crave the approval of powerful allies that we should plunge our military forces into faraway deployments without carefully weighing costs and objectives? (more…)

The Great War. What we fought for and why were peace initiatives resisted for so long.

Many of those promoting the Anzac Centenary appear to believe that there are certain essentials the Australian people must learn about the Great War: that Australians fought exceedingly well; that they fought even better when led by Australians; that in fighting so well they gave birth to our national consciousness; that we owe them so much because they fought for our freedom; that in serving our country they displayed the values of the Anzac Spirit that define the Australian character – a fierce egalitarianism, contempt for privilege, democratic instincts, and mateship, that is, a generous solidarity inspiring a collective spirit, never shrinking from support for each other through thick and thin. Sadly, it must be said, many of those rhapsodising upon this Anzac Spirit show not the remotest faith in this kind of egalitarianism or solidarity in their public policy.

Much of this may serve to distract the Australian people from deeply significant questions arising from our plunge into the Great War. How did Australia get into this catastrophe? For what objectives, precisely, did the Australian government commit our forces to the fighting? And why were they still fighting there in 1918?

Some see the Anzac Centenary as a stand-tall moment. It is milked as an opportunity to tell see-how-great-we-are stories, and to raise our national self-esteem. Surely the centenary of a cataclysm such as the Great War, that took tens of millions of lives across the world, by acts of state policy, is not a moment to blow our own small trumpet. This is unworthy and provincial. It is the acts of state policy that led to and prolonged the disaster of war that should focus our attention, not just the courageous acts of one small fragment of the men caught up in the quagmire.

What are the real lessons of the Great War, for Australians, and for all? That war is a blunt instrument, unleashing all manner of evil. That unqualified loyalty to big and powerful friends means being trapped in their misjudgements. That the war aims declared to the people, and the war aims for which wars are prolonged, are seldom the same thing. That war is never a simple choice between victory and defeat. That peace by negotiation is the live, innovative and often the most courageous alternative to gambling again and again with the blood of the young. That wars are so destructive that victory itself can be impotent, providing no lasting peace and no vindication for the mechanised killing.

The articles linked below are an attempt to sketch out these neglected aspects of Anzac. What did we fight for? What opportunities for a negotiated peace were lost along the way? They are an attempt to interleave two real stories of Australia’s Great War that took place largely behind the scenes – the escalation of war aims by those to whom the lives of Australia’s men were entrusted, and the choices that were made to shun peace by negotiation and keep Australia’s men in the firing line. Those who perished there demand respect. True respect demands a deep inquiry into why they died.

Douglas Newton. What we fought for from Gallipoli to Fromelles, 1914-1916.

Douglas Newton. What we fought for from Bullecourt to the Armistice 1917-1918.

Douglas Newton.Lost opportunities for a negotiated peace during the Great War from 1914-1916, Part 1.

Douglas Newton. Lost opportunities for a negotiated peace during the Great War from 1917-1918, Part 2.

A big centenary is approaching: the battle of Villers-Bretonneux, April 1918. Right now $93.2 million is being spent on the battle site to build the Sir John Monash Centre, ready for Anzac Day 2018.[1] Villers-Bretonneux is irresistible. It simplifies everything: German invaders, liberating Australians, grateful French. But it will provide a mere pinhole on the war, obscuring the big picture.

No one at the opening ceremony is likely to ask: Why were millions of men, including Australians, still struggling on the Western Front in April 1918?

The centre is likely to teach one lesson: the war was awful, but a dire necessity. Our political leaders frequently say so. On Anzac Day 2014 Prime Minister Abbott asked rhetorically, ‘But what was the alternative, in Britain’s time of need, and when Europe was at risk from Prussian militarism?’[2]

The governing assumption clearly is that there was never an alternative to the carnage. In fact, there were many lost opportunities for a negotiated peace.[3] 

1. Woodrow Wilson’s deathbed cable (4 August 1914)

On 4 August 1914, US President Woodrow Wilson, from his wife’s deathbed, cabled all the major belligerents, offering to take the Balkan dispute to The Hague. All made excuses, protested their innocence, railed against the enemy, and pretended war was irrevocable.

2. Danish initiatives 1914-15

The Danes began shuttle diplomacy in late 1914 between Berlin and St Petersburg, seeking a compromise peace. Loyal to the Pact of London (September 1914), Tsar Nicholas slammed the door.

3. Ambassadorial mediation, Washington (September-December 1914)

In September 1914, prompted by German Ambassador von Bernstorff, William Jennings Bryan, US Secretary of State, launched British-French-German ambassadorial talks in Washington. The British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, who was negotiating to bring Italy, Greece, and Rumania into the war, and to give the Straits to Russia in order to keep her in the war, closed the talks down. 

4. Christmas truce (December 1914)

Inspired by Pope Benedict XV’s suggestion (supported in the US Senate), soldiers on the Western Front began a spontaneous truce on Christmas Eve. Horrified, the Entente was careful to include ‘Article 15’ in the Treaty of London (April 1915), agreeing to shut down all Vatican peace diplomacy. 

5. The first Colonel House Mission (January-May 1915)

House travelled to Europe as special US emissary. He found both sides coy on disclosing war aims. US proposals for a simultaneous end to both German submarine warfare and the British blockade of Germany were then derailed by the Lusitania crisis. 

6. The International Congress of Women, The Hague (April-May 1915).

Female suffragists met to promote the liberal internationalist alternative to the bloodshed: neutral mediation, a diplomatic settlement, and a new rules-based order with stronger international institutions. This boosted new like-minded pressure groups, the League of Nations Society in Britain, the Dutch-sponsored Central Organisation for a Durable Peace, the League for a New Fatherland in Germany, and the League to Enforce Peace in the USA. 

7. The Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation (1915 to 1917)

The American peace movement urged America to lead neutral mediation. Wilson was reluctant, preferring private diplomacy. US peace activists then set-up the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation in Stockholm in February 1916 and later at The Hague. There were successes: a delegation to Berlin persuaded German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg to announce Germany’s acceptance of international arbitration and a League of Nations on 9 November 1916. 

8. The second House Mission (January-February 1916)

House encouraged both sides to moderate war aims and compromise. But London and Berlin preferred to gamble on coming battles (Verdun and the Somme). House and Grey did sign a memorandum: Grey agreed to invite US arbitration at a favourable moment; House agreed that, if Germany refused a reasonable settlement, the USA would ‘probably’ enter the war. Grey refused to initiate US mediation. 

9. Wilson’s speech to the US League to Enforce Peace (27 May 1916)

Wilson committed the USA to enter a League of Nations, based on collective security, thus offering the ‘guarantees of security’ all claimed to be fighting for. Responses were cool.

10. Emily Hobhouse’s ‘peace mission’ (June 1916)

Emily Hobhouse journeyed to Berlin from Switzerland, and obtained an interview with von Jagow, German Foreign Minister. He declared a readiness to respond to a peace offer from Britain. Grey refused to see Hobhouse on her return to Britain. 

11. Asquith Cabinet discussions and Lansdowne Memoranda (November 1916)

In September, British Prime Minister Asquith invited his Cabinet to reconsider war aims. Lloyd George told the US press there must be a fight to the finish, a ‘knock-out blow’. In November, Lord Lansdowne opted decisively for negotiations. With the support of the ‘super-patriotic’ press, Lloyd George then rolled Asquith. On 5 December, he headed a Tory-dominated government, shunning peace by negotiation. 

12. German and American Peace Notes (December 1916)

Bethmann-Hollweg offered a Peace Note on 12 December. However, the new High Command hobbled it by insisting that no terms be specified. The new Lloyd George government condemned the offer as a ruse of war. An American Peace Note followed (December 18), urging peace terms. This evoked an incomplete response from the Entente (10 January 1917). The Germans offered to enter talks, but were silent on terms. Wilson then lifted the pressure. In his ‘Peace without Victory’ speech (22 January 1917) he argued that a negotiated settlement would be more durable. Peace hovered. He had stopped loans and supplies to the Entente. But Wilson’s efforts were wrecked by the German elite’s decision to reinstate unrestricted submarine warfare (1 February 1917) – much to the relief of ‘knock-out blowers’ everywhere. Here, typically, the wild men on one side came to the rescue of those on the other. And peace was snuffed out.

Assoc. Prof. Douglas Newton is a retired academic. He has taught history at Macquarie University, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, and Western Sydney University. He is the author of a number of studies of war and peace, including most recently, The Darkest Days: The Truth Behind Britain’s Rush to War, 1914 (London, Verso: 2014) and Hell-bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War (Melbourne: Scribe, 2014). He is currently writing a book tentatively entitled, Ending Armageddon: The Search for a Negotiated Peace during the Great War, to be published by Scribe in 2017.

[1] Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Report 6/2015, Referrals made May and June 2015.

[2] Prime Minister Tony Abbott, ‘Address to the Anzac Day National Ceremony, Canberra’, 25 April 2014, https://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/release/transcript-23446

[3] For sources on the search for a negotiated peace, see Kent Forster, The Failures of Peace: The Search for a Negotiated Peace During the First World War (Washington, 1941), Laurence W. Martin, Peace Without Victory: Woodrow Wilson and the British Liberals (New Haven, 1958), Z. A. B. Zeman, A Diplomatic History of the First World War (London, 1971), David S. Patterson, The Search for a Negotiated Peace: Women’s Activism and Citizen Diplomacy in World War I (New York, 2008), Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 (New York, 2011), Neil Hollander, Elusive Dove: The Search for Peace During World War I (Jefferson, 2014).

From 1916 to 1918 on the Western Front, the Australian divisions suffered 181,000 casualties, including 46,000 dead.[1] Some 10,892 of these dead have no known grave.[2] They died mostly from shrapnel and high explosive shells designed to tear people to pieces, or bury them alive. Pulverised, or ploughed under, their remains were unidentifiable.

So, more terrible centenaries loom from 1917-18. Bullecourt, Passchendaele, Villers-Bretonneux, the Hindenburg Line. For what did Australians die?

To repel the German invader? It is simplistic to see in the German enemy a singular evil, a complete explanation for the protracted war, or a vindication of all that was done to resist German aggression. In this imperial bloodbath, all sides clung to territory conquered, all planned more conquest, all became more authoritarian, and all had their wide-mouthed politicians and generals insisting on more war.[3] The plague was on all houses – and they reinfected each other.

For democracy’s sake? Enthusiasm for war and enthusiasm for democracy were at opposite ends of the political spectrum in every belligerent nation.

What then were the Entente’s war aims for which the war was prolonged?[4]

The Entente Reply to President Wilson’s Peace Note, 10 January 1917 (PUBLIC)

In January 1917, while Australian soldiers on the Western Front endured a severe winter, Britain and her Entente partners, after 29 months of warfare, at last published war aims. They issued a formal reply to the German and American Peace Notes of December 1916. It ruled out a negotiated peace. It promised the Entente was ‘not fighting for selfish interests.’ It proclaimed moderate aims: ‘reparation, restitution’ and ‘guarantees’ against aggression. The war was to liberate Belgium, France, and Serbia, and get ‘indemnities’ for them. Grand aims followed: ‘the reorganisation of Europe’ along lines of nationality, the liberation of the oppressed inside Austria-Hungary, and the ‘expulsion’ of the Turks from Europe. The insincerity was stunning. There was to be self-determination, but only for enemy empires. There was silence on the secret treaties of 1915-16, and silence on plans for economic war.

The Franco-Russian ‘Left Bank of the Rhine’ Agreement (or the ‘Doumergue Agreement’), 14 February and 8 March 1917 (SECRET) 

Oblivious to imminent revolution, Tsarist Russia and France still played grab. Russia agreed to support France’s claim to the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar, and the seizure of the Rhineland. In return, France gave Russia ‘complete liberty’ to fix her borders with Germany and Austria. In short, France winked at Russian grab in the east, and Russia winked at French grab in the west.

Agreements on German colonies and other territories, 1914 to March 1917: (SECRET) 

The German colonial empire was carved up in a dozen agreements from 1914. Britain and France split German Togoland and the Cameroons (while Britain confirmed her annexations of Turkish territories, Egypt and Cyprus). In July 1916 Japan and Russia agreed upon their claims in China. By March 1917 the Balfour-Motono agreements were confirmed: Britain, France, and Russia granted Japan the German North Pacific Islands, and the German lease on the Shantung Peninsula, in China (Qingdao).

The Imperial War Cabinet Committees, April-May 1917. (SECRET)

While Australians endured hell at Bullecourt in April 1917, various Imperial War Cabinet sub-committees redrew maps of the colonial world. Louis Mallet’s ‘Committee on Territorial Changes’ recommended colonial seizures and swaps. Two imperial nabobs, both reactionaries, headed more powerful committees. Lord Curzon’s ‘Territorial Desiderata Committee’ insisted on Palestine and Mesopotamia (Iraq) for Britain, Germany’s elimination as a colonial power, and British territory running Cape to Cairo. Lord Milner’s ‘Committee on Economic Terms’ wanted more protection: ‘imperial preference’, ‘Control of Imperial Resources’, and indemnities to pay for the war. A League of Nations was ‘impracticable’.

St-Jean-de-Maurienne Agreements, 19 April 1917 (SECRET)

At the St Jean de Maurienne conference, France, Britain and Italy agreed to more annexations in Turkey, adding to Sykes-Picot. Italy was to gain a vast share, the ‘green’ area, that is the southern third of Anatolia (now Turkey) including Smyrna, and an area of indirect control to its north, on the Aegean coast and hinterland.

The Caxton Hall speech, 5 January 1918 (PUBLIC)

After the disaster of Passchendaele (38,000 Australian casualties), and facing pressure from both revolutionary Russia and President Wilson, Lloyd George shifted ground. At the Caxton Hall in London he espoused moderate aims. He disavowed annexations. Britain was fighting above all for Belgium and France. There was ‘no demand for war indemnity.’ Germany’s colonies were ‘held at the disposal of a conference’. Alsace-Lorraine deserved ‘a reconsideration’. Soaring ideals prevailed: the ‘sanctity of treaties’, ‘self-determination’ for all, and ‘some international organisation’. So, after 41 months of terrible war, Britain’s Empire at last had moderate war aims. But Lloyd George’s rhetorical slithers were everywhere.

True respect for Anzac 

Thus, from Bullecourt, through the quagmire of Passchendaele, and on to the armistice, Australians continued to die on the Western Front – for all these war aims, known and unknown, sincere and insincere.

Contemporary speakers on Anzac often indulge in sacrificial fantasies – young blood spilled to bring our nation to birth. They shower praise on the dead, imagining this is respect. It is not respectful of the dead to shun knowledge of the dubious causes smuggled into their heavy kits. It is not respectful of their generous instincts to gloss over what comes of empire. Catastrophes – such as the mechanised slaughter on the Western Front – demand the most searching inquiries.

To what war aims were the diggers sacrificed in 1917-18? Did the Australian government carefully weigh costs and objectives? Did it try to prevent the steady enlargement of war aims? Sadly, the truth is stark: our inexhaustible loyalty to our great and powerful friend saw our government marginalised and our soldiers left fighting largely in the dark.[5]

Therefore, was this horrific war truly a national awakening for Australia, or was it the high point of our imperial subservience?

Assoc. Prof. Douglas Newton is a retired academic. He has taught history at Macquarie University, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, and Western Sydney University. He is the author of a number of studies of war and peace, including most recently, The Darkest Days: The Truth Behind Britain’s Rush to War, 1914 (London, Verso: 2014) and Hell-bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War (Melbourne: Scribe, 2014). He is currently writing a book tentatively entitled, Ending Armageddon: The Search for a Negotiated Peace during the Great War, to be published by Scribe in 2017.

[1] ‘WWI The Western Front’: http://www.army.gov.au/our-history/history-in-focus/wwi-the-western-front

[2] Peter Pedersen, The Anzacs: Gallipoli to the Western Front (Camberwell, 2007), 411.

[3] John Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (Oxford, 2007), see Ch. 4 and 158: ‘It would be quite incorrect to speak of a German singularity of destructiveness…’ Hans-Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire, 1871-1918 (Leamington Spa, 1985), 194: ‘Wilhelmine Germany was not the only country to possess this sort of lunatic fringe.’ David Welch, Germany and Propaganda in World War I: Pacifism, Mobilization and Total War (London, 2014) p. xii: ‘This work reaffirms that German Society was a highly complex hybrid of competing groups and interests and that to compare the Kaiser’s war aims in 1914 with those of Hitler in 1939 (as some British military historians have attempted to do) is far too simplistic.’ Shelley Baranowski, Nazi Empire: German Colonialism and Imperialism from Bismarck to Hitler (Cambridge, 2011), 50: ‘Yet Imperial Germany was not Nazi Germany. Despite the horror of the German wars in Africa, the Imperial German suppression of colonial revolts did not differ significantly from the violent campaigns of other colonizing powers during the nineteenth century….’

[4] In addition to sources listed in an earlier post, ‘What we fought for: from Gallipoli to Fromelles, 1914-1916’ (https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=6275), works with a special focus on Britain, the Entente, and US war aims include Paul Guinn, British Strategy and Politics 1914 to 1918 (Oxford, 1965), Lloyd C. Gardner, Safe for Democracy: The Anglo-American Response to Revolution, 1913-1923 (Oxford, 1987), John Turner, British Politics and the Great War: Coalition and Conflict (Yale, 1992), David French, The Strategy of the Lloyd George Coalition, 1916-1918 (Oxford, 1995), Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (Princeton, 1992), Brock Millman, Pessimism and British War Policy 1916-1918 (London, 2001), and Peter Jackson, Beyond the Balance of Power: France and the Politics of National Security in the Era of the First World War (Cambridge, 2013).

[5] Neville Meaney, one of the most prominent historians of Australia’s Great War, has written that regarding Gallipoli Australia was ‘neither consulted nor informed about the British plans’; that on Japanese entry into the war London ‘was not disposed to consult Australia’; that in the formulation of war aims during 1917-18, Prime Minister Hughes ‘had had no part in making British policy’; and that Lloyd George simply ‘took the Dominions’ assent for granted.’ See Neville Meaney, Australia and World Crisis, 1914-1923 (Sydney, 2009), 44, 59, and 247-8.

Formal speeches about Australia’s Great War normally follow simple rules. The focus is upon military achievement, and defining national values – service, sacrifice, and mateship. Hardship and horror are added, giving lustre to military achievement. National awakening is emphasised: the diggers were ‘the founding heroes of modern Australia.’[1] Audiences are flattered: the Anzacs were ‘our mighty forebears.’[2]

But the objects of that war – the ‘war aims’ for which so many Australian lives were lost – are seldom mentioned. Ignorance of purposes is assumed. ‘Few of us can recall the detail,’ Tony Abbott told the Gallipoli Dawn Service in 2015, ‘but we have imbibed what matters most: that a generation of young Australians rallied to serve our country, when our country called.’ And fought for what? Generalities suffice. ‘It was for country, Empire, King, and the ideal that people and countries should be free.’ The diggers fought ‘for duty, loyalty, honour and mates: the virtues that outshine any cause.’[3]

But what cause? Many speechmakers simply confuse 1914-18 with 1939-45. They retrospectively democratise Britain’s Great War. Thus, our diggers fought for ‘freedom under the law, representative democracy and the universal decencies of mankind.’[4]

This draws a veil over everything difficult: the expansion of war aims, the Great Powers’ jostling to redivide the colonial world, the private corporate interests masquerading as national interests, and the blundering ‘old diplomacy’ – all the systemic evils that prolonged the slaughter of Australians.

Why did Australians die by the thousands at Gallipoli in 1915? At Fromelles in 1916? It is not enough to point to the wickedness of the German enemy.[5] We must explain the prolongation of the war. We must dig deep into our ‘war aims’.[6]

As a self-governing dominion within the British Empire, but without control of her own foreign policy, Australia was bound by Britain’s diplomatic deals. These included:

The Pact of London, 4 September 1914 (PUBLIC)

Britain, France and Russia became ‘Allies’ and promised not to conclude peace separately. Russia pressed for this. Britain and France truckled to Russia, to keep her loyal. Tsarist Russia – Europe’s most reactionary power – was already eyeing annexations in Eastern Europe, Turkey, and beyond, the so-called ‘Thirteen Points’. Tsar Nicholas II and his ministers dreamt of stifling democratisation in Russia with victory. In signing up, Britain and France accepted the risk that the war would go on – until Russian war aims were achieved.

The Straits Agreements, 8 and 12 March 1915 (SECRET)

After great pressure from Russia, Britain and France agreed to plans for Russian annexations in Turkey. These included control of the Straits (Gallipoli and the Dardanelles), and Constantinople (Istanbul) – Russia’s great prize. As compensation, Britain gained the oil-rich ‘neutral zone’ in Persia (Iran). France won Russian backing ‘for the realization of plans which they [France] may frame with reference to other regions of the Ottoman Empire or elsewhere’, such as Syria. The agreements were secret. Thus, Australians died at Gallipoli so that Russia might rule in Constantinople. Truly, a Gallipoli ceremony should be held every year in London – outside Chesham House, Belgravia, the old Russian embassy.

Cabinet Document ‘The Spoils’, 25 March 1915, CAB 63/3/104-7. (SECRET)

On Gallipoli’s eve, Lewis Harcourt, Britain’s Colonial Secretary, drew up ‘The Spoils’. It outlined a repartition of the colonial world. Britain must ‘dictate any terms’. If Russia gained Constantinople, Britain had a long shopping list: annexations in Mesopotamia ‘from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad’, and a brace of colonial seizures and swaps among the victors, in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Africa and the Pacific. Britain, her Dominions, and Japan would take all German Pacific colonies – anticipating ‘great trouble’ with Australia. To counter ‘Australian prejudices’, Britain aimed at ‘sweetening the pill’, giving Australia in addition Bougainville and the British Solomons.[7]

The Treaty of London, 26 April 1915 (SECRET)

During March 1915, Italian negotiators in London bargained on the price of Italy joining the war. The landing at Gallipoli closed the deal. It opened up the prospect of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse. So, the day after Anzac, the Italian elite signed the Treaty, agreeing to bounce Italy into war. In return, Italy would gain swags of Austro-Hungarian territory, in the north and along the Adriatic. Italy was offered a slice of the Ottoman Empire, a war indemnity, and a £50 million loan. Under Article 15, the Entente agreed to support Italy in ‘not allowing the representatives of the Holy See [the Pope] to undertake any diplomatic steps having for their object the conclusion of peace or the settlement of questions connected with the present war.’ Catholic Anzacs, perhaps 25% of the AIF, had no inkling of this. The treaty was secret.

The Sykes-Picot agreements, January-May 1916. (SECRET)

British and French diplomatic negotiators struck a deal in May 1916. The victors planned to gobble up the great bulk of the Ottoman Empire. Later Britain and France also agreed to Russian and Italian gains. Again, secrecy prevailed. Australians would fight on in the Middle East from 1916 for all these objectives – and 1,400 died – knowing nothing about them.

The Inter-allied Paris Economic Conference, 14-17 June 1916 (the ‘Paris Resolutions’) (PUBLIC)

Britain, France and Russia agreed to form a trade bloc after the war. The ‘Paris Resolutions’ proclaimed a post-war economic boycott of the enemy. German commerce would be shut out. This would hobble the defeated, as the victorious empires became exclusive economic zones. Protectionism would triumph across the British Empire. This public deal strengthened the hands of the German militarists: they argued that Germany’s war was now indispensable. Sadly, Australia’s Prime Minister Hughes loudly promoted the ‘Paris Resolutions’.

For such ‘war aims’, mostly secret, Australian troops endured their 5,533 casualties in one night at Fromelles on 19 July 1916. One hundred years later, the dead deserve better than to be washed into their graves afresh with a cascade of clichés and hyperbole. To honour them truly, we should ask ‘Why?’

Assoc. Prof. Douglas Newton is a retired academic. He has taught history at Macquarie University, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, and Western Sydney University. He is the author of a number of studies of war and peace, including most recently, The Darkest Days: The Truth Behind Britain’s Rush to War, 1914 (London, Verso: 2014) and Hell-bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War (Melbourne: Scribe, 2014). He is currently writing a book tentatively entitled, Ending Armageddon: The Search for a Negotiated Peace during the Great War, to be published by Scribe in 2017

[1] Prime Minister Abbott, ‘Anzac Cove Address’, 25 April 2015, https://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/release/transcript-24397

[2] Prime Minister Abbott, ‘Address to Legacy Clubs of Australia’ 18 Oct. 2013, https://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/release/transcript-23045 and ‘Address to the Anzac Day National Ceremony, Canberra’, 25 April 2014, https://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/release/transcript-23446

[3] Prime Minister Abbott, ‘Lone Pine Address, Gallipoli’, 25 April 2015, https://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/release/transcript-24398

[4] Prime Minister Abbott, ‘Remarks at unveiling of the Sir John Monash Centre winning design, Villers-Brettonneux’, 26 April 2015, https://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/release/transcript-24400

[5] As Fritz Fischer has argued, ‘There is no question but that the conflict of military and political interests, of resentment and ideas, which found expression in the July crisis, left no government of any of the European powers quite free of some measure of responsibility – greater or smaller – for the outbreak of war in one respect or another.’ Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War (London, 1967), 87.

[6] For surveys of ‘war aims’ on the Entente side, see David Stevenson, 1914-1918: The History of the First World War (London, 2005), David Stevenson, The First World War and International Politics (Oxford, 1988), David Stevenson, French War Aims Against Germany 1914-1919 (Oxford, 1982), Christopher Andrew and A. S. Kanya-Forstner, France Overseas: The Great War and the Climax of French Imperial Expansion (London, 1981), V. H. Rothwell, British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy, 1914-1918 (Oxford, 1971), William A. Renzi, In the Shadow of the Sword: Italy’s Neutrality and Entrance into the Great War (New York, 1987), Jukka Nevakivi, Britain, France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920 (London, 1969), Ronald P. Bobroff, Roads to Glory: Late Imperial Russia and the Turkish Straits (London, 2006), Sean McMeekin, The Russian Origins of the First World War (Harvard, 2013), Wm. Roger Louis, Great Britain and Germany’s Lost Colonies, 1914-1919 (Oxford, 1967).

[7] Lewis Harcourt, ‘The Spoils’, Secret. Cabinet Paper. Printed for the use of the Cabinet, dated 25 March 1915, in CAB 63: War Cabinet and Cabinet Office: Lord Hankey: Papers. ‘Magnum Opus files’, CAB 63/3, 104-107 (The National Archives, London).

On Anzac Day 2016, the centenaries of 1916 should loom large. In April 1916, the Australian divisions that had been mauled at Gallipoli were being despatched to the Western Front. The industrialised kill-chain at the Somme awaited them. Other centenary moments from 1916 are coming: of diplomatic deals that escalated the war, and of lost opportunities to end the war.

The cataclysm of that war for Australians ought to prompt hard questions – beyond the nationalist obsession over whether ‘the mettle of the men’ shone bright on the battlefield.

Why were Australians so exposed in this protracted catastrophe?

Because we plunged in, so recklessly.

From the outset, Australian politicians boasted of their absolute loyalty to the Empire. They offered men without qualification – anywhere, for any objective, under British command. George Reid, Australia’s High Commissioner in London, gushed that Britain and Australia were united, like ‘enraptured lovers’ – ‘Two hearts that beat as one.’[1]

Prime Minister Fisher told the British Colonial Secretary, in February 1915, that ‘when the King’s business will not fit in with our ideas, we do not press them.’[2] In October 1915, Prime Minister Hughes told parliament: ‘I do not pretend to understand the situation in the Dardanelles, but I know what the duty of this government is; and that is – to mind its own business, to provide that quota of men which the Imperial Government think necessary.’[3] In this spirit of imperial subservience were the men despatched to unimaginable horrors.

For what purposes were Australian lives committed?

For noble – and for dubious purposes. The noble were largely window-dressing.

War aims escalated on every side during 1916. The imperial leaders compiled shopping lists of annexations. In May 1916, Britain and France struck the Sykes-Picot Agreement, planning a carve-up of the entire Middle East. In June 1916, the Inter-allied Economic Conference in Paris confirmed plans to crush Germany, with a post-war economic boycott. In August 1916, Rumania was bribed into entering the war, with the promise of a great slice of Transylvania. These added to the fatal territorial deals struck in 1915, the Straits Agreement with Russia and the Treaty of London with Italy. All such bargains prolonged the war.[4]

One shell-shocked Anzac from the ‘Abattoirs’ at the Somme, Private E. J. Ryan, captured the soldiers’ disillusionment. In October 1916, he wrote to British Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald, urging him to resist the wide-mouthed ‘bitter enders’ and press for negotiations. ‘Has England still got her old ideal, that of Conquer & not the supposed new ideal, one of Peace? … Every man I have spoken to is absolutely sick of the whole business,’ he wrote.[5]

Why was peace not achieved in 1916?

Because promising opportunities to end the war by negotiation were stifled.

In February 1916, Colonel House, US President Wilson’s special emissary, concluded the ‘House-Grey Memorandum’. Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, agreed to invite American mediation at a moment of Britain’s choosing. But Britain never jumped. The ‘bitter enders’ preferred to speculate on more war. Armed with emergency powers, governments everywhere spooked and coerced their populations. Victory, they argued, was indispensable. In truth, reactionaries demanded it, to save as much of the old order as possible.

But there were always alternatives. Internationalists, radical Liberals, and socialists in every belligerent nation, pressed for negotiations and a new rules-based order. Even Tories tried. In November 1916 Lord Lansdowne challenged British Prime Minister Henry Asquith’s Cabinet: ‘Can we afford to go on paying the same sort of price for the same sort of gain?’ He argued that ‘the responsibility of those who needlessly prolong such a war is not less than that of those who needlessly provoke it.’[6]

Then, in late 1916 came a chink of light. On 12 December, the Germans offered round-table negotiations; a week later President Wilson issued a ‘Peace Note’, urging all sides to specify war aims, as a prelude to American mediation. The Entente Powers stamped upon the opportunity.

This year, we should remember all these telling centenaries – not just the bloodbaths at Pozières and Fromelles.

But what was ‘the Anzac spirit’? 

The posters proclaim ‘Their Spirit – Our History’. Countless sources testify that the original Anzacs were fiercely democratic and ferociously egalitarian. They hated privilege, defied hierarchy, and mocked inherited advantage. They believed in pooling resources against common dangers. Their spirit was collective – for above all else, they supported each other.

Do we have a right to invoke ‘the Anzac Spirit’ in contemporary Australia? If we tolerate widening inequality, monstrous private wealth amid public squalor, intensifying social stratification, and weakening social mobility, dare we speak of ‘Their Spirit’? If we pursue a neo-liberal agenda, that preaches an acquisitive individualism, hollows out the public sector, privileges the private provider, relentlessly privatises our pooled resources, and lauds lower taxes as the one true household god – is ‘the Anzac spirit’ alive?

And the hardest question: if egalitarianism is lost in Australia, what is the point of Anzac?

Assoc. Prof. Douglas Newton is a retired academic. He has taught history at Macquarie University, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, and the University of Western Sydney. He is the author of a number of studies of war and peace, including most recently, ‘The Darkest Days: The Truth Behind Britain’s Rush to War, 1914 (London, Verso: 2014) and Hell-bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War (Melbourne: Scribe, 2014).

[1] George Reid, ‘Empire Trade’, The Times, 7 Oct. 1914. Reproduced in George Reid, ‘Fifth Annual Report of the High Commissioner of the Commonwealth in the United Kingdom (printed 21 July 1915)’, dated 5 April 1915, in Papers Presented to Parliament, Vol. V, Session 1914-17, p. 247.

[2] Harcourt cited the letter from Fisher, dated 15 Feb. 1915, in Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5^th series, vol. 71, 16 (14 Apr. 1915).

[3] Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 29 Oct. 1915, p. 7022.

[4] Of course, Germany also planned annexations. As Fritz Fischer wrote, ‘all great powers had “annexationist” policies in the age of imperialism.’ Fritz Fischer, ‘Foreword’ to his Germany’s Aims in the First World War (London, 1967), p. x.

[5] Private E. J. Ryan (Service Number 4635) to Ramsay MacDonald, 16 Oct. 1916, Ramsay MacDonald Papers, PRO/30/69/1160 f. 108 (The National Archives, London). I am very grateful to Duncan Marlor for generously providing a copy.

[6] Memorandum from Lord Lansdowne, 13 November 1916, Lansdowne Papers, LANS (5) 85/9 (The National Archives, London).

One of the great clichés of Australia’s entry into the Great War is that Australia stepped up to ‘answer the call’ of the Mother Country. Much of the press coverage of the centenary of Anzac repeats this claim and adds a nationalist frosting: our entry into the Great War was a moment of national awakening. The facts fly in the face of this. Australia did not ‘answer the call’ in August 1914 – Australia jumped the gun. It was not a stand-tall moment of national awakening but of willing imperial subservience.

At the heart of the story of Australia’s response to the international crisis of July-August 1914 was the decision of the Cabinet of Australian Liberal Prime Minister Joseph Cook to cable London in the early evening of Monday 3 August, offering an expeditionary force to Britain and the transfer of the Royal Australian Navy to the British Admiralty – almost forty hours in real time before Britain’s declaration of war (deep in the evening of Tuesday 4 August). Of course, Australia had no power to choose neutrality in 1914. That Australia would fight on Britain’s side in a great war was certain. But Australia’s plunge into war through her government’s offer of an expeditionary force on Monday 3 August was excessive, reckless, and scarcely a democratic decision. A handful of decision-makers in Melbourne pushed ahead of events and chose to immerse Australia utterly in the looming war.

Events in Britain are crucial to the story. In London, during the last days of peace, the British Cabinet of Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith was evenly divided on the question of British intervention in any European war. On one side stood the faction of Liberal Imperialists, keen to act loyally with Britain’s Entente partners, Russia and France, in order to safeguard the British Empire from those two Powers as much as Germany. On the other side stood a faction of Radicals, anxious to preserve Britain’s neutrality, and pleading that she should focus upon mediating the dispute and restraining Russia in particular. The decision hung in the balance. Then, over the last weekend of peace, New Zealand, Canada and then Australia cabled the offers of expeditionary forces, to anywhere, for any objective. The Dominions appeared to be eager for war – champing at the bit. This boosted the campaign on the right of British politics for instant intervention in any war. It was one factor helping to push Britain over the edge.

Australia’s decision was made in the din of politics. The nation was in the throes of a bitter federal election campaign. At rallies on Friday 31 July, both the Liberal leader Cook and the Labor opposition leader Andrew Fisher promised Britain unlimited assistance (Fisher’s ‘last man and last shilling’). Over the weekend that followed, Liberal politicians, seeking political advantage, alleged that Labor was lukewarm on the Empire and a Fisher government would neglect Australia’s defence. Spooked, the Labor leaders pledged to support all Cook’s measures to secure Australia in this crisis. Seeking political safety in the middle of the election, they sidelined the ALP as a voice for caution at this critical hour. On Sunday, Cook’s ministers ordered the ‘precautionary stage’ of mobilisation, prompted by Britain’s ‘warning telegram’ seeking mere preliminary steps. Then, on Monday 3 August, Cook’s government sought 20,000 points on the political scoreboard, to eclipse Fisher’s vague ‘last man and last shilling’: a public offer of an expeditionary force of 20,0000 men, in any composition, to any destination, under British command, with Australia picking up the entire bill. This far exceeded the measures agreed between Australia and Britain as necessary upon the receipt of a ‘warning telegram’.

Australia’s offer is praised in nationalist histories as democratic audacity in action. In fact, it was imitative, reckless and driven by the politicians’ pursuit of political advantage. The bitter truth – that Australia’s rushed offer of an expeditionary force added to the momentum of reactionaries pressing for war in London – is scarcely recognised. Moreover, the offer was a dangerous precedent for Australia. Her politicians forfeited the chance to weigh carefully war aims against costs, in life and treasure. Australia was taken for granted, and scarcely gained any role in the high diplomacy of Britain’s war.

Was this a moment of national awakening for Australia? Just ten days into the war The Times of London drew the obvious lesson from Australia’s impetuosity. In an editorial it explained that the Dominion force that had been offered ‘is instantly under the orders of those who direct the movements of our Armies. They will go, without question and with eager alacrity, wherever they are sent. They will do what they are told to do. Theirs is not to reason why.’[1] A stand-tall moment? For Australia? We were hell-bent – and we got there.

Assoc. Prof. Douglas Newton is a retired academic. He has taught history at Macquarie University, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, and the University of Western Sydney. He is the author of a number of studies of war and peace, including most recently, ‘The Darkest Days: The Truth Behind Britain’s Rush to War, 1914 (London, Verso: 2014) and Hell-bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War (Melbourne: Scribe, 2014). This article is based on a longer article which appeared in The La Trobe Journal. See link below.

http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/about-us/our-publications/la-trobe-journal/la-trobe-journal-no-96-september-2015

[1] ‘Brothers in Arms’, editorial, The Times, 13 Aug. 1914.