Anzac

I

Introduction

Anzac, acronym formed from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and first used in World War I, by extension designating all Australian and New Zealand units or servicemen participating in overseas conflicts. Both Anzac nations lost many men in the Gallipoli campaign during World War I, and in both countries Anzac Day on April 25 (the date of the landings at Gallipoli) is marked by ceremonies in honour of Australian and New Zealand war dead.

II

Early Involvements

At the advent of the Federation of the Australian colonies on January 1, 1901, Australians were on active service in South Africa as part of a vast British Empire army which had been fighting the South African War since the end of 1899. Some 16,175 Australians fought in South Africa, the vast majority as members of colonial contingents; only the last two drafts of men went to the war as members of an Australian Army in the newly raised Australian Commonwealth Horse, and of these a number arrived too late to see any fighting. Total casualties were 120 officers and 1,280 men, of whom 518 were killed. Along with the men of various other colonial and dominion contingents, the Australians had impressed British observers with their apparent aptitude for soldiering, although Australian officers were generally held in lower regard.

The initial enthusiasm for the commitment displayed at home quickly waned, while the guerrilla nature of the war in its last two years, and the revelations concerning the deaths of Boer civilians in concentration camps, tarnished such lustre as it had otherwise attained. At the turn of the century the colonies of New South Wales and South Australia also committed small contingents to aid the international force raised to suppress the Boxer rebellion in China; their experiences, while exotic, were relatively uneventful.

New Zealand faced many of the same defence problems as did the Australian colonies in the early part of the 20th century, although its solutions were not always the same as those of its larger Pacific neighbour. Like all the colonies of settlement, New Zealand sent forces to South Africa to fight the Boers, some 6,495 men in ten contingents. Proportionate to population this was a greater military effort than Australia's.

III

World War I

Involvement in World War I provided one of the defining moments in modern Australian history, and shaped the nature of Australian society more profoundly than almost any other single event. Australian troops were first combined with New Zealanders into a single combined corps, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps or Anzac Corps, and were then separated in early 1916. Australian divisions fought in the Gallipoli campaign, on the Western Front and as a significant proportion of the mobile arm in Sinai and Palestine, while smaller forces helped take control of Germany's Pacific territories in late 1914, formed part of the unsuccessful expedition against the Turks in Mesopotamia, and at the war's end formed detachments for service against the Bolsheviks in north Russia and Transcaspia. Ships of the Royal Australian Navy, only formed in 1911, reverted to Admiralty control at the war's outbreak, and helped first to contain and then sink the German Pacific Squadron in 1914 before seeing service in the Mediterranean and North Sea for the rest of the war. Alone of the self-governing dominions, Australia had formed a military aviation service, the Australian Flying Corps, before the war (in 1913), and, as part of the army, this fielded four squadrons for duty in the Middle East and on the Western Front.

Australia's major contribution however was the Australian Imperial Force. Some 331,000 men, and a few women, enlisted for service overseas in its ranks, and along with the much tinier contribution from South Africa it remained the only army raised entirely by voluntary enlistment for the duration of the war, an achievement which brought penalties of its own in terms of the proportion of the force killed or wounded, when volunteers dried up in the last two years of the war. Of its ranks, 58,961 were killed or died of other causes, 254,667 wounded or sick, and 4,098 became prisoners of war. With a casualty rate of 64.98 per cent, the Australians paid the highest price for their commitment of any combatant force in the war.

At the outbreak of war in 1914 the New Zealand Expeditionary Force sailed to Egypt in convoy with the Australians, consistent with pre-war planning, which had envisaged a combined force in the event of a major war. The New Zealand infantry regiments and mounted rifles duly took part in the Gallipoli campaign as part of the Anzac Corps, and like the Australians were then split up at the beginning of 1916; the infantry contingent was expanded to a full division and sent to France as part of II Anzac Corps, while the mounted units were combined with the Australian light horse and stayed in the Middle East to fight the Turks. Losses in France were heavy—in one month of the First Battle of the Somme in 1916 the 1st New Zealand Division suffered 7,000 casualties—and this led to the introduction of conscription in November the same year. More than 100,000 New Zealanders served overseas, suffering a 58 per cent casualty rate: nearly a third of the male population between 20 and 40 was killed or wounded in the war.

IV

World War II

A tiny number of Australians, almost entirely on the political left, volunteered for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 saw the raising of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force, not without some hesitation because of uncertainty over Japanese intentions. Three divisions (6th, 7th, and 9th) served in the Mediterranean theatre, against the Italians and Germans in Libya, Greece, and Crete, and the Vichy French in Syria, while ships of the Royal Australian Navy joined Royal Navy squadrons in the Mediterranean, North Sea, Indian Ocean, and Atlantic, and (mostly) young aircrew entered the Empire Air Training Scheme for ultimate service in Bomber and Coastal Commands, in which a high proportion of them were killed. A further division (the 8th) was split between southern Malaya and the islands to Australia's north where, following the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, the overwhelming majority were killed, captured, or murdered following capture. The 9th Division stayed in North Africa until the beginning of 1943, taking a leading part in the British 8th Army's decisive victories at El ’Alamein, while the 6th and 7th returned to Australia early in 1942 to defend their country against the Japanese.

The brunt of the first Japanese onslaught in New Guinea was borne by young, under-equipped, and generally ill-trained militia soldiers, and these, with a stiffening of experienced AIF men, gradually forced the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track in the last months of 1942. Thereafter the Australian Army, AIF, and militia alike, gradually cleared New Guinea of the enemy in a succession of gruelling campaigns throughout 1943-1944, although Australian formations were still containing Japanese armies in New Guinea and the islands at the war's end. Australian casualties were far lighter in this war, with 33,826 killed, 180,864 wounded, and 23,059 prisoners of war, although the trauma of the thousands captured and brutalized by the Japanese, with their attendant high death rate, introduced a new and distinct element to Australians' experience of war.

The 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force was raised and sent to the Middle East in 1940 and fought in Greece and Crete, where it lost heavily. The 2nd New Zealand Division remained in the Mediterranean theatre throughout the war, fighting right through the North African campaign as part of the British 8th Army, and on into the Italian campaign, where it played a leading role in the costly battles for Monte Cassino. In May 1942 the New Zealand government raised the 3rd Division, of two brigades, for service in the Pacific against the Japanese, and this formation fought alongside the Americans in the Solomon Islands before being disbanded in October 1944. Like their Australian counterparts, New Zealanders also played a leading part in the costly aerial campaign over Europe as members of the RAF's Bomber Command. A total of 150,000 New Zealanders served in World War II, suffering some 12,000 dead and approximately 17,000 wounded.