Monthly Archives: December 2014

19. British immigrant farm workers prior to WW1

Leave a reply

When WW1 broke out, there was a large group of single, young men working in the Shire of Alberton who had only recently immigrated from the UK. As a general rule, they were working as farm labourers and they were among the first to enlist. The story behind this group throws additional light on the way migration policy was employed at the time.

An earlier post – The Defence of the Nation: The White Australia Policy – looked at how migration policy was used to protect the purity of the English race in Australia. Indeed, it was commonly believed, across all political points of view, that Australia offered the last and best chance for the full flowering of English – or at least White – civilisation. In this post the focus is more on the industrial agenda driving the same policy.

As the labour movement began to take on more formal and institutional power, at first in the separate colonies and then, post Federation, at both the State and Commonwealth levels, its political wing used migration policy to protect the perceived interests of its constituents. The policy was used to ensure that local jobs were not lost to immigrants and that immigration could not be used to force down wages or compromise hard-won conditions. In this context, the gravest threat was seen as coming from any unregulated and large-scale immigration of cheap “Asiatic” labour. White Australia and white Australian workers had to be protected from cheap Asian – and other non-White – labour. While this line was generally accepted across the political spectrum, the ALP went somewhat further, in the sense that it saw potential threats coming from even White immigrants workers. The ALP’s position was thrown into sharp relief by the so called ’Six Hatters’ affair of 1903.

The background to this affair was that when the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 was drawn up, the ALP insisted on the inclusion of a clause (g), under prohibited immigrants S.3, which identified as a class of people to be prohibited – any persons under a contract or agreement to perform manual labour within the Commonwealth. At the time, the assumption was that this was just another provision, amongst many others, to prevent the immigration of cheap, non White labour. However what happened with the Six Hatters affair was that the provision was used to stop the immigration of six British workers.

The episode was highlighted in The Argus of 12 December 1903 (p.17) under the outraged headlines: The “Six Hatters” Scandal. Britishers Blocked At The Wharf. Socialism Run Mad. According to The Argus, the 6 British workers had come to Australia on the RMS Orontes under contract to work in Messrs. Charles and Anderson’s new hat factory in Sydney, at union rates. However, they first disembarked at Melbourne where they were in fact welcomed by members of the local union who showed them round the city and entertained them generously. At this point the British workers gave a copy of their agreement to the local unionists, and it was this contract that triggered the application of clause (g) of the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act. As The Argus told its readers:

The men returned to the steamer. When they reached Sydney they were refused a landing on the evidence of the document [the contract of work], because those whom they had trusted had induced the Ministry to set the Immigration Restriction Act in motion to accomplish something it was never intended to be used for. When Ministers were condemned on all hands for their unpardonable yielding to Labour political pressure, the Prime Minister suddenly discovered that Messrs. Charles and Anderson had to show cause why the men should be exempted from the act before they could be admitted. He began an inquiry, and found that he had no option to allow the men to land.

While the British workers did enter Australia and take up the work – much was made of the claim that it was outrageous to discriminate against British subjects in such a way, and that being ‘British’ carried the same rights across the entire Empire – the episode certainly demonstrated how the labour movement in Australia saw migration policy as a tool to serve the industrial interests of Australian workers. Moreover, when clause (g) of the 1901 act was in time replaced by the Contract Immigrants Act of 1905 the new legislation still placed heavy requirements on any employer seeking to recruit immigrant workers. For example, equivalent labour had to be unavailable in Australia; contracts had to be in writing; and award wages had to be paid. But this new legislation did at least make it clear that British workers could not be denied entry to Australia. Under the new law, the Minster would approve any such contract (to perform manual labour) only if, in his opinion: 5. (2) (b) there is difficulty in the employer’s obtaining within the Commonwealth a worker of at least equal skill and ability (but this paragraph does not apply where the contract immigrant is a British subject either born in the United Kingdom or descended from a British subject there born)

The Australian population did not reach 4 million until 1904; and against the labour movement’s determination to employ migration policy to protect workers’ interests, there was a growing push after Federation to promote the immigration of British people. In large part, this was to strengthen the White Australia Policy. It was commonly accepted, by all parties, that White Australia could not be guaranteed – nor even protected or defended – if the population did not increase. The fear of not being able to hold onto an underpopulated and unprotected White Australia against the ‘teeming masses’ of Asia was a political constant, particularly as one Asian nation – Japan – had emerged as a genuine major power with formidable military and naval assets. WW1 would only strengthen the paranoia surrounding the White Australia Policy. Fear of Asian immigration would surface in the ranks of the AIF during the conscription debates of 1916 and 1917. The claim would be that the white working class of Australia was being so decimated that Asian immigration would be required to make up the labour shortfall. After the War, PM Hughes, when he returned to Australia from the Treaty of Versailles, where he had been instrumental in striking out claims of racial equality, boasted openly of his success in maintaining the White Australia Policy in the face of international opposition, and was applauded widely by the Australian press. Overall, throughout at least the first half of the 20C, Australia, as a nation of untold potential but limited population, had to be defended as both a far-removed but integral part of the Empire and as a unique society where the White (British) race could aspire to some kind of higher order, characterised in large part by the industrial and political rewards made possible for the working man. Hence the push for the immigration of British stock.

In the years between 1906 and 1914, 150,000 British assisted immigrants reached Australia, with the key period being 1910-1913. Over this time the individual States established Agents-General in the UK and promoted various assisted-migration schemes. The primary targets for such schemes were agricultural settlers and farm workers. The Commonwealth was increasingly forced to subsidise such individual programs and, of course, it used its legislative powers to maintain the racial integrity of the overall immigration process and protect the pay and working conditions of Australians.

The focus on farm labourers was widely accepted. British lads and men were encouraged and supported to come as immigrants and take up work in rural districts. Rural Australia was seen as the natural and uncontested focus for immigration. For a start, there were not likely to be industrial obstacles. Small scale selections and the practice of family farming meant that the workforce was not heavily unionised; and there was little prospect of a unionised workforce developing, particularly outside regional centres. Moreover, even though the mechanisation of agricultural production was speeding up there was still high demand for casual rural labour. Also, it was hard to hold onto such labour – pay and conditions were weak and the nature of the work cycle and, even more importantly the work environment, meant that it was difficult to support family life – so the prospect of a regular injection of young, single immigrant rural workers was an essential reassurance. Sitting behind such practicalities were the more ideological beliefs of how the vast interior of Australia had to be ‘opened up’ to the economic benefits of primary industry and how the nation’s very future depended on attracting an ever increasing number of rural settlers. Canada was cited constantly as the most relevant example of what had to be done and the benefits – particularly vastly increased agricultural production and dramatic population growth – that would inevitably flow. Besides, country life was believed to be of a higher order. The vices, unemployment, poverty and temptations of the city, whether here in Australia or back in Britain, gave way to a more natural, wholesome, community-minded and more character-building life, one which was held to be particularly valuable for young, unaccompanied British lads.

Idealised views of the British immigrant and what migration could achieve were tempered by some realities. It was difficult to attract immigrants to Australia. Canada was a far more desirable destination. The States were in competition with each other for a limited resource. It could prove very difficult to keep the immigrant work force in the rural districts after they reached Australia. This was hardly surprising if the young lads came from large British cities – with no experience in farming – and found themselves working on a small family selection, miles from the nearest country town, which was itself only small and also hundreds of miles from a city like Melbourne or some other large regional centre. Not surprisingly, one of the constant criticisms of the migration system was that it did not attract the “right kind” of immigrant. Essentially, this was code for those who were not prepared to live and work out in the rural districts. There were many laments in the media of the day. For example, the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative of 9 January 1914 (p.4) featured in its Melbourne Letter from a Special Correspondent, a rather negative assessment of the outcomes from migration:

What is wrong with the immigration work. It is certain that it is not what it should be. It does not seem to be possible to get adequate results from any of these State enterprises, and in this instance the fact the good results are not being obtained is more serious than in some others, because this is work that can be handled in no other way than by the State. Moreover, it is vitally important that it should be carried out. The need for population is generally acknowledged. There has been much money spent in the efforts to fill that requirement, and a fair number of people have been brought from the old country. But it is useless to delude ourselves by laying the flattering unction to our souls that the majority have been the right kind. They have not. And, in addition to that, there is the evidence of figures to show that during the past year [1913] there has been a decline in the numbers as well as in the class of immigrants.

According to this article, the number of “new arrivals” for Victoria over 1911-1913 were as follows: 1911 – 6,770; 1912 – 14,106; 1913 – 12,112. The article also noted that to ship the total group of immigrants who arrived in Victoria in 1913 – just over 12,000 people – some 125 vessels had had to be chartered. The large number of vessels and the obvious logistics involved give some idea of the challenges at the time in managing a large-scale immigration policy. Organising migration to Canada was more straightforward.

This is the background to the large number of young, single, British-born agricultural labourers who enlisted in the AIF from the Shire of Alberton at the outbreak of WW1. The origins of this group can be traced through the pages of the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative over 1914, accepting that some of them would have arrived as early as 1911, and possibly even earlier.

In the edition of 10 April (p.2) the editorial referred in detail to the migration program, highlighting its value:

Two large parties of lads, numbering altogether about 400, are expected to reach Melbourne during this month from Great Britain. They are coming out specially to engage in farm work, and though many of them are without previous experience in work of this kind, they are very willing and anxious to improve their position and prospects. The lads vary in age from 16 to 20 years, and their services are available at from 10s per week and keep. The Immigration Bureau is desirous of placing them immediately upon arrival on farms where they will have opportunities of gaining good experience and receive fair treatment… A considerable number of similar lads have already arrived in the State, and they have on the whole given very satisfactory service, a great many excellent reports having been received from farmers who have engaged them.

In the edition of 15 May (p.2) advice was given that another party of 500 lads was to arrive in Melbourne on the SS Indrapura on 27 May. Again local farmers were encouraged to contact the Immigration and Labor Bureau.

The edition of 5 June (p.2) reported on the next contingent of lads arriving from Great Britain for farm work. This time there was no indication of the number, but the conditions were the same.

The edition of 15 July (p.2) noted that another 380 British lads for farm work, station work, or other country employment were due to reach Melbourne on 25 July on the S S Hawkes Bay. The lack of any background in farming was still not seen as a problem: … although, generally speaking, they are without rural experience, they readily adapt themselves to country work and rapidly become good helpers, having come out specially to be employed in the country districts.

The edition of 22 July (p.2) advised of another group of potential farm workers, although this time they were described as two hundred men, some of whom were married.

Even after the War started, there were groups of immigrant workers from the UK on the high seas heading for Australia. In the edition of 20 September (p.2) it was reported that the steamer Themosticles would arrive in Melbourne in early October with a party of 70 lads whom it is desired to place in employment in country districts as soon as possible. The editorial also noted that whereas drought conditions in the north of the State had depressed the need for farm labour, the situation in Gippsland was far more buoyant:

With the dairying season in operation under propitious conditions in the western district and in Gippsland, it is expected that evidence of a considerable demand for labor of this description will be forthcoming.

The last advice of a group of potential farm workers came in the edition of 13 November (p.2). On this occasion it was a group of 60 men and 108 lads. The men were experienced in farm work and a few of them were immigrating with their wives as married couples. And in the edition of 18 November (p.3) there was a report of a special appeal by Rev. W Thompson, on behalf of the same group of immigrants. A Presbyterian minister, his title was given as Immigration Representative of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. He was in Yarram when he made his special appeal:

… Rev W Thompson put in a plea for the employment of of 108 lads and 60 men (some married couples) to arrive in Melbourne on 28 inst. He looked to the farmers in Gippsland to do what they could in the direction of finding work for those who booked and paid for their passage to Victoria before the war broke out. He appealed to Presbyterians in particular, but no matter what denomination, Protestant or Catholic, he was prepared to personally select those he considered most suitable for positions offering. He considered it a duty in these times of stress to help those less favorably situated. In other words, to stretch a point in order to find employment for those who have crossed the big waters in the hope of bettering themselves.

In addition to all the advice written in the editorial section of the local paper, there was also a series of related advertisements, prepared and lodged by the (Victorian) Immigration and Labor Bureau, which appeared in the classified ads section of the paper. Obviously, the scheme to bring out lads to work as farm labourers was not restricted to Gippsland but applied across all the rural districts of Victoria. The same advertisements and editorial attention were repeated in other rural locations.

The lads and young men from the UK who came to the Shire of Alberton in the period immediately prior to WW1 to work as farm labourers came as a cheap labour source for the non-unionised farming sector. They also came to strengthen the integrity of White Australia. When the War came, they enlisted in large numbers. There was no doubt a popular conception in the local community that they should be the first to enlist. It was, after all, their home land that was under direct threat. They had a duty to return to fight for Britain. Moreover, there were very few obstacles to prevent them from enlisting. The normal regulations covering parental approval for those under age did not apply. It is also worth repeating that many of these young people had grown up in the major cities of Britain. They had not come from a rural or farming background. As unaccompanied minors, they had travelled to the other end on the world and eventually found themselves working in isolated, both socially and geographically, rural settings. Lastly, the pay of 6/- per day in the AIF was considerably better than the 10/- per week they were supposed to receive as immigrant workers.

References

For a general overview of migration policy and practice in Australia in the early 20C see the National Archives of Australia research guide:
More People Imperative: Immigration to Australia, 1901-39

For a background the fear of Japan see National Library of Australia, Occasional Papers Series , Number 1:
Fears & Phobias: E. L. Piesse And The Problem Of Japan 1909-39

Immigration Restriction. An Act to place certain restrictions on Immigration and to provide for the removal from the Commonwealth of prohibited Immigrants. No. 17 of 1901. Commonwealth of Australia.

Contract Immigrants. An Act relating to Immigrants under Contract to perform Manual Labour in the Commonwealth. No. 19 of 1905. Commonwealth of Australia.

The Argus

Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative

18. Was it possible, by the end of 1914, to comprehend the reality and scale of industrial war in Europe?

Leave a reply

An earlier blog – The Belgian Narrative. Part 1 – gave some idea of military casualties in Europe by the end of 1914. The level, after just a few months of fighting, was on a scale never before experienced. Beaumont (2013 p. 28) gives the Austro-Hungarian casualties (dead, wounded, missing) in Galicia as 420,000. Strachan’s figure (2001 p. 278) for total French casualties through to just 10 September is 385,000. Hochschild (2011 p.117) gives total Russian casualties to the end of September as 310,000. Strachan (p. 278) gives combined German casualties for the first battle of Ypres as 80,000 and his equivalent figure for British losses in the same battle is 54,105. Hochschild (p.126) notes that by the end of 1914 the BEF had suffered 90,000 casualties. Strachan (p. 278) generally agrees with this level and notes that casualties to 30 November of 89,964 actually exceeded the size of the original establishment of the British Expeditionary Force. This is only a snap shot of just the first few months: it does not cover either all theatres of conflict or all battles.

At the time, it did not follow that the true level of casualties was either known or, if known, revealed. There was comprehensive censorship in place both in Britain and in Australia. Further, in the case of Australia there was the vast distance from the reality of Europe. In Britain, on the other hand, the constant flow of wounded men arriving back from France made it difficult to conceal the whole truth. Moreover, as British soldiers became casualties in France the letters back home began to dry up, and with this happening on such a scale it was increasingly clear that an unprecedented catastrophe was unfolding across the English Channel. Australia would not experience the equivalent situation until after the end of April 1915.

Casualty levels were quoted in Australian papers at the time, but the picture given was impressionistic, confused and understated. Reports in The Argus after the Battle of Mons (23/8/14) illustrate the point. On 3 September (p.7) under the headline How We Fought At Mons   Stories From The Front   Told By Returned Men  the British casualty figures appeared at the end of the article. In summary, an official list of British casualties showed that some 165 had been killed, 680 wounded and approx. 4,200 were missing. But, 5 days later, in The Argus on 8 September (p.7) another report gave total British casualties to 1 September as 42 killed, 147 wounded and approx 5,000 missing. Allowing for the discrepancy here in the casualty figures given just 5 days apart in the same publication, the more pertinent point is that a few days after Mons, at the Battle of Le Cateau on 26 August – a date well within the time frame of the 2 sets of casualty figures published in The Argus – British losses in a single day came to 8,500.

Whenever casualty figures were given they were always presented in a narrative intended to lionise the British or Allied troops and denigrate or demonise the opposing side. Copy was written so that casualty figures were filtered through the ideals of Imperial loyalty and national greatness. Heroic sacrifices and casualties could and had to be accepted by the grateful nation. For example, readers of the The Argus on 8 September (p.7) would have read in the same article that gave British casualty levels:

The British have established a personal ascendancy over the Germans, who are conscious that the result is never doubtful if the numbers are even. The British rifle fire has devastated every column in attack, while their superior training and intelligence enable the British to cope with vast numbers.

They would also have been buoyed by the following:

The British Press Bureau reports that 800 sick and wounded British troops are at Netley, in the Isle of Wight. Shrapnel had been responsible for the majority of the wounds. Cases of bullet wounds were few, which gave confirmation to the statement that the German infantry shoot badly. Cases of injury involving the loss of a limb are very uncommon, and the vast majority of the wounded were making good recoveries and would soon be able to rejoin their regiments.

Beyond the highly censored accounts of the fighting, understated casualty levels and the constant stories of bravery, duty and martial skill, newspapers of the time turned to other genres of reporting the War. For example in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative on 30 September (p.3) under the heading War Information. there appeared an unsourced and apparently random collection of war ‘trivia’. For those interested in the technical wonders of modern armaments there were items such as:

A 12-inch gun will send a projectile through three feet of wrought iron at 5000 yards.
12-inch guns fire a projectile weighing 850lb. whilst a 16.25-inch gun can throw a missile a ton weight 15 miles.
The guns of the H.M.A.S. Australia can pierce the heaviest armor used on any modern warship at a distance of 4 1/2 miles.
Machine guns fire over 1000 shots per minute. The best makers are the Maxim, Gatling, Gardner, Hotchkiss, Nordenfeldt and Krupp.

There were also items touching on military and naval strategy: The British dreadnoughts are of too great a draught to enter the Baltic, the sea being too shallow. This is therefore a safe hiding place for the German fleet.

Other trivia attempted to present some sort of comparison with earlier European wars: After the surrender of Paris in 1871 there were 534,000 French soldiers under arms and 835,000 Germans. The French lost during war 156,000 dead, and 143,000 were wounded or disabled. The Germans lost 28,000 dead, and 101,000 were wounded and disabled. French and German casualties had already exceeded these figures by the time the article appeared, just 2 months into a conflict that would run for another 4 years.

There was also the genre of ‘expert’ comment. Arguably, the most bizarre example of this genre appeared in the Sunday Times (Sydney) on 23 August (p.7). Again, it was unsourced but it was probably taken from a British paper. Under the headline – Modern Battles   Not So Sanguinary As Of Old   Improvement In Weapons, Followed By Decreased Proportion of Losses – the article set to establish that:

With the increase in death-dealing arms – machine guns of frightful rapidity, and so on – one would expect to find modern warfare more deadly than when men fought with swords and battle-axes or with flintlock muskets and pikes.
That, however, is not the case. Modern battles have distinctly shown that while numbers engaged on either side are ever growing larger, the proportion of losses has grown less.

There was even a table showing that over time – beginning with the Battle of Borodino (1812) and running through to the Battle of Shaho (1904) in the Russo-Japanese War – the proportion of those killed, wounded, missing and prisoners to total force engaged was declining. Accordingly, no matter how many were engaged in the conflict then underway in Europe, the rate of casualties could be expected to continue to fall.

Whether the article was written as propaganda or it was just superficial commentary from some ‘military expert’, the claims made in its opening paragraph – claims it was seeking to refute – did describe, accurately and graphically, the scale of the blood-letting to follow:

With millions of combatants facing each other in the present struggle in Europe evidently intending to fight to a finish, the carnage that must ensue cannot fail to be appalling. If, indeed, the same proportion of men were to fall as they used to do in battles of bygone times, half Europe would be absolutely drenched in blood.

However, as naive as such expert analysis could be, historians argue that even military commanders had been conditioned to underestimate the dreadful carnage to come. Hochschild makes the point that prior to the outbreak of conflict in Europe, modern weaponry had been reserved for colonial conflicts. He describes the Battle of Omdurman (Sudan) in 1898, noting the deadly efficiency of the new machine guns. Present at the battle were Winston Churchill – then a 23 year-old correspondent – and Major Douglas Haig who would go on to become commander of the BEF from 1915. According to Hochschild (pp. 18-19), on the day of the battle, some 50,000 Sudanese, twice the number of the British troops opposed to them, attacked on a broad front and were cut down by the latest version of the Maxim machine gun. There were 6 of the new weapons deployed and the particular model fired 500 rounds per minute.

… thanks to the Maxims, in a few hours the British were able to fire an extraordinary 500,000 bullets at the hapless Sudanese.
It was a historic slaughter. When the Battle of Omdurman was over later in the day, some 10,800 Sudanese lay dead on the desert sand beneath a brilliantly clear sky. At least 16,000 more had been wounded, and were either bleeding to death or trying to drag themselves away. The British lost only 48 dead.

Hochschild notes that while the new weapons demonstrated their killing power against poorly armed ‘natives’, military authorities were not inclined to consider what would happen if the same weapon was used by both sides in a European conflict. Indeed, Hochschild notes that the European powers appeared to have reserved the new weapons for exclusive use in Asia and Africa. Both British and German forces had used the new weapon in colonial wars. According to Hochschild (p.19),

This, to Europeans, seemed the machine gun’s logical use: “It is a weapon,” declared the Army and Navy Journal, “which is specially adapted to terrify a barbarous or semi-civilised foe.” No one imagined that either British or German soldiers would ever find themselves in the role of Sudanese Arabs, experiencing their very own Omdurmans in the very heart of Europe.

Elsewhere, Hochschild (p.110) also notes that for the military commanders of WW1 – including Haig, referred to above – their formative experiences in colonial wars had failed to prepare them for the true horror to come:

No one on either side was prepared for the fighting’s deadliness. Like the British, recent German and French experience of war had been of minor colonial conflicts with badly armed Africans and Asians: Erich von Falkenhayn, soon to be chief of the German general staff, had helped to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in China, and Joseph Joffre, the French commander in chief, had led an expedition across the Sahara to conquer Timbuktu. Neither side had spent much time on the receiving end of fire by machine guns or other modern weaponry.

Given the censorship and the news reporting of the time it was hardly surprising that people generally did not see the beginnings of industrial war, where new technology – the machine gun, modern artillery and barbed wire in particular – was to enable mechanised killing on a scale never seen before. Moreover, the people of the Empire carried with them into WW1 the tradition of lightning campaigns, the power and glory of the cavalry charge, the élan of the corps, the experience of limited casualties and the certainty of victory from countless Imperial campaigns.

Remarkably, there was one newspaper article at the time that did accurately foretell what was to come. Even more remarkably, it appeared in the Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire Representative (28 August, p.6). The article was headlined: The Million Unit.  Vastness Of Modern War.  Question Of Endurance.  Can Any Nation Stand It? The article also appeared in a range of regional papers round the same time, for example: The Bathurst Times (20 August p. 4); Gippsland Mercury, Sale (28 August, p.7); Preston Leader (29 August, p.4). Oddly, it does not appear that it ran in the large metro dailies at the time.

The article was written by Adam McCay who worked for the Sydney daily, the Sun. Adam Cairns McCay and his brother, Delamore William McCay, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, were well-known and successful journalists at the time. Both worked at the Sun after its establishment in 1910, and both in fact later served as editor of the paper. Adam McCay would become famous as the literary editor of Smith’s Weekly. However, what was most interesting in relation to the article written by Adam McCay in August 1914 was the fact that the oldest brother in the family was Sir James Whiteside McCay, who, amongst other positions, had been federal politician (1901-5), Minister for Defence (1905) and military censor at the outbreak of the War, and who had just been appointed as Commanding Officer of the 2nd Infantry Brigade of the AIF. At the time, the oldest McCay brother was regarded as one of the best military minds in Australia; although his actual military career through WW1 was dogged by controversy. It is reasonable to argue that the thesis expressed in the article reflected the thinking of, or was at least directly influenced by, the writer’s oldest brother.

The basic thesis presented in the article was that the current war in Europe was on a scale never seen before and the sheer scale of the conflict meant that it was unsustainable. The title – The Million Unit – emphasised that modern armies, where the basic unit of size was 1 million men, had never been seen before in history. Nor was it just the number of men in uniform because there were also the millions required to run the war industries to sustain the conflict; and all those either in uniform or in the war industries represented lost productive labour and lost economic wealth. Economically, war on this scale was unsustainable on anything but a very short-term basis and McCay gave a time frame of only two months, at a cost of £600,000,000 for Europe as a whole.

McCay argued that the notion of victory coming from overpowering the enemy in set piece battles was no longer tenable. Armies of this size could no longer be simply beaten in decisive battles. Supplying and managing the million-strong army was extraordinarily difficult: to then employ it strategically and dynamically within a complex and changing battle plan was almost impossible.

Great battles to-day cannot be won by swift tactics. Skilful moves in attack, clever out-flanking devices, brave charges and assaults will not suffice to drive out of position of advantage a vast force of a million men.

There was a natural tendency, in a conflict of this scale, for both sides to be forced to pull back and adopt defensive positions and strategies. McCay believed that, once this occurred, it would become obvious that there could be no military resolution. His was a prescient version of the 1950s doctrine of ‘mutually assured destruction’. It is interesting in the following how there is no reference to British strategy, interests or troops. Perhaps this was to avoid the censor’s attention. The conflict is being presented as essentially a European one:

The best hope for the world, if it is to be a world-condemning war, is that France and Germany may during the next few days or weeks fight a great battle which will be indecisive of the fate of the two nations in the war. If on the Russo-German frontier a similar deadlock should occur, there will be an obvious moral for the Continent which has for a generation devoted its vital energy to the task of preparing for this Titanic combat. It will then be shown that war is utterly futile. With two nations armed for mutual slaughter, the best result in the interests of future peace would be that they should realise that after all their huge preparations, they are both so well-prepared, and prepared on so vast a scale, that the exhaustion of their capacity for fighting must come before either can gain the decisive victory.

But McCay also hypothesised that even if the warring nations were forced into defensive warfare, exhaustion overtook them and each recognised that a military victory was not achievable, it was still possible that the war could be protracted. What he wrote in late August 1914 in a newspaper article, whose circulation appeared to be limited to regional centres, was stunningly accurate:

It is at the present moment hard to see how Germany and Austria can be defeated save by exhaustion. Placed by political boundaries in the dominant middle position between their two strong military opponents (France and Russia), and with other strategic advantages in their favor in the geography of the German frontiers, they present almost insuperable difficulties to conquest by invasion.

In the next paragraph he surmised that, equally, Germany could not overcome France and it would therefore eventually have to fail by ‘exhaustion’.

But there was no definite time frame for the ‘exhaustion’ to take effect. McCay argued it would be inevitable; but he conceded that his belief that it must be soon – principally because of the economic cost of war on such a scale – could be wrong:

When the first grandiose assault of arms has worn out the strength of the nations, supposing neither the Alliance nor the entente to have decisively won, what is to follow? A frightful possibility is that war may continue on a scale less in its devastation, with the impoverished nations struggling on for years in the midst of their misery. But surely human wisdom and mercy could not tolerate this iniquity; nor would the nations which bear the awful cost persist in the futile horror.

As the European conflict moved to its entrenched, defensive phase, McCay underestimated the power of industrial-scale war first to maintain and then surpass the level of casualties of the first phase. He also overplayed the powers of wisdom and mercy, and underestimated the resolution of nations to persist in the futile horror. Nor did economic drivers force the cessation of hostilities. However, for those who at least read it – and no doubt some in the Shire of Alberton, thousands of miles from Europe, did read it – McCay’s article demonstrated that amidst all the censorship and confused and uncritical reporting of the opening phase of the European war there was at least the beginning of an understanding of just how different the current war was to be. But Australia in late 1914, both in terms of distance and time, was still a very long way from the new reality of industrial war.

References

Beaumont, J 2013, Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest NSW.

Strachan, H 2001, The First World War. Vol 1. To Arms, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Hochschild, A 2011, To End All Wars: A Story Of Protest And Patriotism In The First World War, Pan Books, London.

Australian Dictionary of Biography

McCay, Adam Cairns (1874-1947)
McCay, Sir James Whiteside (1864-1930)

17. Updates 1 & 2

Leave a reply

1 December 2014
I am changing the way I include Updates on the blog. So as not to lose the first Update (27/9/14) in this new arrangement, I have copied it and included it below. This is why I have called this first of the new-style Updates, Update 1 & 2. From now on each Update will come out as a post. For those who want to go back over earlier Updates, they will also be accessible from the Home page.

I am also conscious that the blog does not have much visual and other media and I exploring ways of including more primary source materials in digital form on the blog – for example, maps and pictures of life in the Shire of Alberton round the time of WW1. Hopefully I will be able to incorporate some sort of gallery of such resources in the near future.

Thanks to those who are following.

27 September 2014
In terms of content, the intention to this point with the blog has been to set the background for the detailed study of the 600 – 800 men – depending on how you define ‘local’ – from the Shire of Alberton in Gippsland who served in the AIF in WW1. In fact, it was the most recent post that saw focus shift to the men.

Obviously, the Shire of Alberton was a particular rural community that had developed its own identity, one that was certainly different from that of metropolitan Melbourne. In fact, as already shown in previous posts, the Shire saw itself, and a great deal of history had been written about it, as the quintessential pioneering community. At the same time, as I have emphasised throughout, the commonality of world views between the Shire and the outside world. This commonality was based on forces such as the universal commitment to the Empire and the shared identity of being (White) British; the strength of common institutions, particularly state schooling; and the constant and widespread movement of people, particularly the working class, across the wider rural landscape and to and from Melbourne and other major centres. My basic argument has been that while the Shire of Alberton had its own particular history, it was tied inextricably to the broader Nation and Empire, to the extent that this particular study of how the Shire of Alberton responded to WW1 can be read generally as a case-study of the Nation’s response.

In terms of this commonality, certain key themes have emerged already: the pull of the Empire; the politics of White Australia and the fear of invasion; control of the narrative of the War; and class-based responses to the call to duty. Others will become more apparent in future posts: the culture of the AIF and attempts to mould this culture; the inherent conflict between the political and industrial wings of the ALP; the application of war-time controls and powers; the divisive impacts of the attempts to introduce conscription; and the solemn promise of repatriation.

It should definitely be clear by now that the blog is an exercise in social history. Social historians can accept at face value the motives people gave for their actions one hundred years ago. The motives commonly expressed at the time included the likes of loyalty to the Empire, the fight against German militarism and tyranny, and the bonds of camaraderie. We also have to acknowledge the incredible personal sacrifices made at the time and the heroism shown. However, social historians also search for the deeper ‘structural’ drivers that shaped society’s beliefs and actions, even if the people directly involved did not themselves acknowledge such drivers. It should be obvious by now that ‘class’ is one such driver that I am looking at. The social construct of ‘identity’ is another. The latter is particularly important in the context of a rural community with a high dependence on the rural working class. The transience of the rural working class often undermined its members’ ability to be recognised as ‘local’ and thus they could be written out of local history, even unintentionally. At the same time, the lack of connection to a particular location opened the possibility that their identity could be more strongly tied to a particular institution, in this case the AIF.

In terms of the technical features of the blog itself, it was good to be able to incorporate the first table, admittedly a fairly simple one, in the last post. The technique is not perfect but at least it shows the feasibility of incorporating the full array of data which is required for the quantitative analysis I need to present in relation to the large group of men.

Lastly, I would like to include photographs of the men who enlisted and served in the AIF and would definitely appreciate it if family members were prepared to forward them. Contact me at: philipcashen@gmail.com

Comments on the posts, including insights based on family history and local knowledge – and even anecdotes – would also be appreciated. It is also a good idea to become a ‘follower’ – via the Home page – because as a follower, the system will automatically email you a complete copy of each post.