Table of Contents
Australia was dependent on allies for the first 100 years of its military history. From 1885 until the end of participation in the Vietnam War in 1972, they underwrote Australian involvement in regional and international military emergencies and campaigns. The Australian armed forces found it difficult to project force when allies were not in a position to help. This difficulty increased risk at tactical tipping points in 1942 on the Kokoda Track during the New Guinea Campaign and in 1966 at the battle of Long Tan in Vietnam soon after Australia deployed an independent task force. On both occasions, Australian troops prevailed against the odds, thereby obviating major political and strategic embarrassment. From 1972 until 1985, Australia did not project significant military force regionally or internationally except for some Cold War maritime and air surveillance activities. By 1985, the nation aspired to self-reliant joint force projection in defence of Australia and its interests.
The dispatch of a New South Wales contingent to Sudan in 1885 set the first benchmark for rapid deployment. There were more to follow. Australia was able to recruit, prepare and dispatch first contingents in about four weeks. Rapid deployment was not required during the Second World War. There was time for contingents to begin preparation in Australia, and then complete training and equipping after arrival and before the test of combat. During the Cold War, Australian Governments allowed less time for preparation in home bases. There was little or no preparation after arrival before employment. For Korea and Vietnam, the time to prepare for deployment returned to about four weeks. Circumstances also forced land force elements to reinforce and reorganise hastily before departure.
This chapter is a short introductory history of Australian military force projection. Australia may indeed have projected military force successfully for 100 years with the assistance of allies, but it needed good luck when taking military action alone. Over time, Governments and circumstances allowed an average of four to six weeks preparation time from official warning to the departure of initial contingents.
The first official projection of Australian military force occurred in March 1885. In ‘an example of colonial military efficiency of a high order’, 750 men and 200 horses embarked in Sydney for the port of Suakin in the Red Sea to participate in the British Sudan War.[1] Impetus had come on 11 February from Major General Sir Edward Strickland, a retired British officer living in Sydney. He proposed in a letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald that ‘Australia’—though yet to be a nation—should respond militarily to the death of Major General Charles Gordon at Khartoum on 26 January 1885.[2] Australia’s first battalion group to deploy overseas arrived in the Sudan less than one month after official warning—a rapid deployment, by both historical and contemporary standards.[3]
A call to arms for another British military campaign in Africa prompted the next projection. On 3 July 1899, Joseph Chamberlain, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, sent secret cables to colonial governments in Australia asking them to consider sending contingents ‘in the event of a military demonstration against the Transvaal’.[4] The British were not compromising during negotiations about the political rights of a burgeoning population of British immigrants who had settled in the South African Republic of the Transvaal after the discovery of gold. The Republic declared war on 11 October 1899.[5] In a repeat of the circumstances of the Sudan expedition, Australian men from the bush and the cities volunteered for service and quick deployment.[6] Cooperation between colonial governments, citizen committees and military authorities facilitated efficient preparation. Australian contingents arrived in South Africa in November and December 1899, fully equipped and horsed, about six weeks after enlistment. Further contingents followed at regular intervals over the next two years.[7]
In June 1900, the Australian colonies responded to another overseas military emergency.[8] British forces, accompanied by French and Russian troops, landed in northern China and advanced on Peking in order to protect members of diplomatic legations and their families who were being besieged by anti-Western members of the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists—nicknamed ‘Boxers’.[9] Further Western incursions started a short war with China.
With forces committed to the Boer War, New South Wales and Victoria sent small contingents of sailors and marines from their permanent and volunteer naval forces to assist in China. After official warning in early June 1900, the Victorian Naval Contingent embarked in Melbourne on 31 July 1900. A 260-strong New South Wales contingent joined the Victorians on the same troop ship in Sydney, embarking on 8 August 1900, and arriving in China 38 days later. After the British had employed the Australians for six months on garrison duties, they returned to Australia in March 1901.
[1] E.J.H. Howard in Foreword to Ralph Sutton, Soldiers of the Queen: War in the Soudan, New South Wales Military Historical Society and The Royal New South Wales Regiment, Sydney, 1985.
[2] Kenneth S. Inglis, The Rehearsal: Australians at War in the Sudan 1885, Rigby Publishers, Adelaide, 1985, pp. 15–16.
[3] The contingent received two weeks specific force preparation (13 February–3 March 1885) after official warning, arriving in the Sudan 27 days later.
[4] Kenneth S. Inglis in Preface of Laurence M. Field, The Forgotten War: Australian involvement in the South African Conflict of 1899–1902, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1979.
[5] Robert L. Wallace describes the lead-up to the declaration of war in ‘The Boer War, 1899–1902’, in (ed.) Ralph Sutton, For Queen and Empire: A Boer War Chronicle, 75th Anniversary Commemorative Edition, New South Wales Military Historical Society, Sydney, 1974, p. 18.
[6] The most comprehensive account of Australian participation in the Boer War is Craig Wilcox, Australia’s Boer War, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2002.
[7] Field, The Forgotten War: Australian involvement in the South African Conflict of 1899–1902, Appendix C, Details of Colonial Contingents.
[8] See Bob Nicholls, Blue Jackets and Boxers, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1986.
[9] James J. Atkinson, Australian Contingents to the China Field Force 1900–1901, New South Wales Military Historical Society and The Clarendon Press, Sydney, 1976, p. 11–18.