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World War 1 and Working People

November 2008

With the recent passing of the 90^th Anniversary of the end of World War 1, it is worth reflecting on what war is all about. In particular, what war generally does to working people.

Australia lost more than 60,000 dead during World War 1. That is one out of five of those Australians who served abroad during that conflict.

After the cessation of hostilities, it was wrongly called “The Great War”. Great it was not. November 11^th 1918 brought to an end the worst war in history.

It involved 70 million soldiers being mobilised worldwide and caused untold horror and suffering. The grim legacy was 13 million people died, 9 million of them due to combat injuries. More than a third of those killed were deemed officially “missing’, that is they had no known grave. It was a terrible cost since eventually the ‘Great’ (sic) War would be seen as futile, as it led to a second bloody world conflict only two decades later.

For four years (1914-18), competing imperial and colonial powers had simply fought each other to a standstill, with the more powerful taking greater chunks of the less developed parts of the world as ‘spoils’ of war.

Australia paid a particularly heavy price for its one-sided commitment to Imperial Britain (the so called ‘mother country’). The ANZAC landing on Gallipoli in Turkey on 25^th April 1915 was a military disaster, a whim of Winston Churchill.

Of the 330,000 Australians who served overseas, more than half of those who returned, suffered some sort of wound.

By 1920, two years after the armistice, more than 90,000 incapacitated veterans, one-third of Australia’s “returned men”, were receiving disability pensions. By 1926, almost 23,000 were in hospital and by 1939 this number had grown to almost 50,000.

The war took a similar toll on Australian army nurses. Almost one-fifth were declared “medically unfit” upon demobilisation, and after discharge many more contracted illnesses due to the debilitating effects of their war service. Many of these women remained unsettled by their war experiences. More than half remained unmarried and many remained dependent upon war service pensions.

The social effects of the war were profound and enduring in Australia.

Many grieving widows never remarried; many parents never got over their loss. The war had also brought bitter and lasting division over the question of conscription for war service.

The trade union movement took a stand against the war, especially as the causalities mounted. This was reflected in the union movement’s active participation in the two referenda on the “no” side, when the then Federal Government (under Billy Hughes) sought power to force conscription on the population in order to be able to send more and more soldiers to the battlefields of Europe.

In the foyer of the Melbourne Trades Hall building two honour boards say the following:

1. The Melb. Trades’ Hall Council Nov. 14. 1918. Resolved To Commemorate The Action Of The People Who Voted Against The Introduction Of Conscription Into Australia.

1^st Referendum Oct. 28. 1916
For Conscription 1,087,557
Against “ “ “ 1,160,033

2^nd Referendum Dec. 20. 1917
For Conscription 1,015, 1591
Against “ “ “ 1,181,747

2. The Melb. Trades’ Hall Council. Nov. 14. 1918. Decided To Place On Record Their Appreciation Of All Those Australian Soldiers Who Whilst Fighting Abroad Voted Against The Introduction Of Conscription Into This Country.

None of the Australian soldiers of the ‘Great ‘War could have anticipated what the cost would be – or that its outcome would be eroded within a decade by the failure of the Versailles peace settlement and the subsequent rise of Nazism that led quickly to the Second World War.

To oppose war in general and to comment on the folly of World War I in particular and about those who started and conducted the war is not to take away from the due recognition that should be given to the men and women who died and suffered in the conflict. Far from it. The vast majority of killed and wounded were recruited from the working classes of the respective warring nation states. Their bravery and endeavour deserves to be remembered and respected, and should not be forgotten. But remembering that sacrifice should not be blurred or misrepresented to prevent analysis of who started it and who used the war for their own benefit and expansion of spheres of influence.

This ‘blurring’ and fudging of history is particularly a common practice by conservative commentators who like to glorify war as a thing in itself. Some even do so to prepare a current or future generation to be willing to fight in another war, when the ‘powers that be’ deem it necessary.

Recently, former PM Paul Keating expressed his views (early November 2008) on World War 1 and the Gallipoli campaign in particular. He suggested:

“The truth is that Gallipoli was shocking for us. Dragged into service by the imperial government in an ill-conceived and poorly executed campaign, we were cut to ribbons and dispatched – and none of it in the defence of Australia.

Without seeking to simplify the then bonds of empire and the implicit sense of obligation, or to diminish the bravery of our own men, we still go on as though the nation was born again or even was redeemed there – an utter and complete nonsense.” (emphasis added)

Paul Keating didn’t slander or besmirch the memory of those Australians who died at Gallipoli. He addressed the completely separate, legitimate question of why they were at Gallipoli in the first place. How did these fine Australians find themselves suddenly charging out of trenches into Turkish machine gun fire to their deaths?

It is a fair question, not an unpatriotic one.

Some commentators are desperate to claim a monopoly on how we honour our war dead. They have no intrinsic right to do so. It is reasonable when honouring our war dead to also assess and learn from the circumstances and even the geo-politics of how wars occur and what events and policies might put our citizens in harms way again.

RSL Victoria State President David McLachlan (1/11/08) said Paul Keating’s comments were “deplorable”. He then adds: “Mr Keating needs to remember that politicians send people to war”. This latter part, of course, is exactly what Keating is on about!

Mr McLachlan goes on to suggest that if Mr Keating visited the graves at Gallipoli and the Western Front “he would come away with a different feeling of what it is to be an Australian… if he didn’t, he doesn’t deserve to be an Australian”.

What contradictory, insulting claptrap!

Mr Keating’s comments clearly indicate he would and does feel for the bravery and loss of those Australians. Mr McLachlan is ‘blurring’ the issues so that the uselessness of war generally, as a negative human activity, cannot be commented upon, under the threat of deeming anyone who dares to offer critical analyses as ‘un-Australian’.

The Australian trade union movement has a strong history of opposing war. The experience of World War 1 only enhanced that position.