Australia and the Empire. Chapter 1 of The Story of the Anzacs

Great sacrifices are not made, great deeds are not done, without a tradition which occasions and explains them. It therefore becomes important to examine the general view taken by Australia of the Great War, and of the part she has been called to play in it.

The present struggle is not the first, nor yet the second, occasion upon -which Australia has played her part worthily in the quarrel of the Empire. Three times already, in Egypt, in China, and in South Africa have her sons fought beside the sons of Britain in the common cause. And it is worth noticing that on all these occasions Australia's own safety was not directly imperilled by the issue of the conflict. Had these wars ended disadvantageously for Great Britain, there would still have been no talk and no danger of Australia's being invaded. 

What she did on these occasions, therefore, shows clearly that when Great Britain is involved in a quarrel Australia regards that quarrel as her own, even if she has nothing immediately to gain through victory. It also shows that she would have flung herself into the present War wholeheartedly, even if she had not felt herself to be in peril from Germany.

It is indeed certain that during the period immediately preceding and following the outbreak of hostilities she had not realised her own danger nor the tremendous issues at stake for her. Her chief preoccupation, during the  momentous days preceding August 4th, was with the honour of Great Britain.  She had only a mutilated and misleading account of the negotiations before her, and this caused her considerable perplexity and anxiety as to England's hesitation-or what then appeared such-to fulfil her obligations to France.

Up till this period Australia had hardly grasped the full significance of the situation, and until Germany -had actually declared war upon France she still dimly entertained the hope that peace with honour might be possible. Once the German troops had crossed the French frontier, however, she knew that this was out of the question, and her one hope was that the peace party in the British Cabinet might not prevent England from obeying the call of honour and duty. Germany's wanton invasion of Belgium intensified this feeling and aroused Australia to a white heat of indignation.

In Germany's description of neutrality as a "word" and of the solemn agreement of the Powers as a "Scrap of Paper," Australia saw the Teutonic soul lit up in its full perfidy as by a flashlight. She felt the whole agony of Belgium in the appeal addressed by her King to the King of Great Britain to repeat the kindly and merciful action of 1870, and to intervene once more that his land might remain inviolate; and her heart went out to the heroic little nation which had refused all Germany's materially advantageous offers, and had faced almost certain destruction in order to follow the high way of honour.

All things considered, it is no exaggeration to say that, although Australia was now becoming conscious of the vast perils and issues involved, she hailed the outbreak of hostilities with feelings of positive relief. Her remoteness from the European theatre and the fact that she has never yet
been visited by war perhaps prevented her from seeing certain aspects of the situation with the vividness which had been forced upon nations more immediately involved. 

During the first few clays of August, men went about the great Australian cities in a kind of feverish dream. It was impossible to adjust the War to ordinary conditions of life. It was difficult to believe that any nation could have been guilty, as Germany was now shown to be, of the enormity of precipitating a world-war for her own vain glory, and of brutally invading an innocent and peaceful country for her own military advantage. 

Australians, through the free and unfettered conditions of their life, are easy-going and unsuspicious in their relations with foreigners. It took them some time to understand that their own country, like the rest of the British Empire, had been for many years subjected to systematic espionage and treachery on the part of Germany.

Australia's first reaction upon the shock involved the extremely practical steps which -will be detailed in the next chapter. Her next step was to educate herself as to the causes of the War, the spirit and ambitions of modern Germany and the relation of these to the British Empire and civilisation in general. Such a review led necessarily to a review of Australia's own relation to the Empire and to an immensely quickened sense of the material and spiritual issues involved in her participation therein.

The result was a swift and remarkable education in nationalism. Never, it is fair to say, has the feeling of race consciousness and race pride been more profoundly stirred in Australia than it was in the last few months of 1914.

Anzac, it must be repeated, can in no wise be understood unless there be full understanding of the issues of the 'war as they appeal to the average Australian. Those issues were weighty and several. Perhaps, as has been already indicated, the element of moral indignation at the fate of Belgium and the wanton brutality of German militarism was uppermost. 

That feeling had not yet been quickened into the loathing and horror caused by the publication of the Bryce Report; but it quickly became evident that in Germany the civilised world was facing a phenomenon of ruthlessness and evil probably unparalleled- in all history, and that she had been the enemy, not merely of the Allied nations, but of civilisation, and the whole moral order of existence. 

Then, as the weeks went on, came reports, at first scarcely believed or believable, of doings that seemed less those of men than of fiends of the pit-of rapes and mutilations, of the infamous murder of children and aged non-combatants, of women driven into the firing line as a screen for the "heroic" German fighters, of the wanton destruction of venerable monuments, and of a cold, official, and inculcated cruelty. 

Australia had by this time begun to read a few of the books illustrating the spirit of modern Germany and was soon forced to see, almost against her own wish, that what was happening in Belgium was not the work of certain unruly soldiers who had got temporarily out of hand, but the outcome of a devilish policy and "philosophy" which had been preached to Germany by her publicists and professors, and adopted by the whole nation as an article of national belief.

Gradually Australia became acquainted with the message of Treitschke, and with the stern and calculated hate of Britain which emanated from his lecture room and spread through every German university and school. She realised that the organised teaching of violence and hate for which Prussia was primarily responsible had poisoned the very soul of a once great and noble nation. Inseparable from this evil education was the insatiable-ambition and vainglory of the German aristocratic and agrarian caste whom Treitschke flattered and worshipped - the caste whose aspirations found expression in the words of the astonishing Bernhardi. 

It was seen that the whole German people had become Bismarckian and believed that it is might which creates right, while the younger generation was Nietzschean in politics, and pinned its faith to the Will To Power, DER WILLE ZUR MACHT. A glance at recent European history confirmed this view of Germany with a wealth of sinister detail. It was seen that she had deliberately set out to destroy every barrier which came between her and her own insatiable ambition-that after the lapse of her famous "Reinsurance Treaty" with Russia, she had inveigled that Power into the Russo-Japanese War for the purpose of weakening her: that when Russia emerged from that war shattered and disillusioned regarding Germany's aim, and looked to a new alliance with England, Germany, jealous of this new tie and of Russia's growing strength, strove to humiliate her by every conceivable means, and eventually administered to her the studied diplomatic insult consequent upon Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1909 : that she showed similar jealousy and rancour toward France in 1905 over the Algeciras affair, and subsequently strove to weaken and break the Anglo-French entente by a policy of bluster and violence, culminating in the notorious Agadir coup of 1911. 

It was realised, too, that whereas since 1871 France had foregone her policy of revenge and made great sacrifices for the world's peace, Germany had made it impossible for her to live in quiet and security. By increasing her Army at one move by 300,000 men, she forced France to raise her term of compulsory military service from two years to three, and then used that increase as a pretext for levying on the German Empire a huge war tax of a milliard marks timed to fall due on a highly significant date-July 31st, 1914, the very week of the War. 

Her hectoring diplomacy, it was seen, had resulted in the dismissal of France's ablest foreign statesman, M. Delcassé. Her Machiavellian statecraft had supported Austria in her aggressive Balkan policy, had condoned her coercion of Servia and the Serbo-Croat coalition, and had fomented the policy of black injustice and oppression which culminated in the Friedjung State Trial and the Sarajevo murder. 

It even appeared likely from the dying words of the Arch-Duke Francis Ferdinand and from other sources that that murder was deliberately organised by extreme Germanophiles in high place in Austria; and it was certain that Germany encouraged Austria in her irreconcilable attitude toward Servia throughout the last negotiations, that when Austria had actually come to a settlement with Russia, Germany shattered this in pieces and precipitated war, and that she flouted the repeated offers of Russia to submit the whole matter at issue to the Hague Tribunal. And when on the eve of war, France, for the sake of peace, were peace any way obtainable with honour, drew her troops to kilometres back from her own borders, Germany wantonly precipitated the war which she might have averted by "simply pressing the button."

When Australians reviewed Germany's relations with Great Britain, they encountered the same story of truculence and treachery. They now realised, the significance of the encouragement given by Germany to Britain's enemies during the Boer War, and of her attempt to excite a European coalition against our Empire during the winter of 1899-1900. They reviewed her successive Navy Bills and Programmes and realised that these could be directed toward one thing only-the destruction of British sea power and the subjugation of the British Empire. 

They saw the meaning of the scornful and pointblank refusal with which Germany in 1905 met Britain's proposal for a naval holiday and a limitation of armaments. They investigated Germany's schemes in the Near East and soon understood that if these could be realised, Britain's communications via Suez with India would be menaced and probably destroyed: and they realised that these incidents were only stages in the concerted diplomatic policy of bluster and insolence which culminated in the closing days of July, 1914, when Germany, despite the pacific overtures and efforts of all the Allied Powers, deliberately kicked out the wedge which secured the world's peace.

Australia, having educated herself with regard to Germany's general policy, next began to consider that policy as it immediately affected herself, and such a reflection naturally led to a consideration of her own position under British rule. Here again it was the plight of Belgium that touched her imagination most deeply. Australia felt for Belgium the sympathy which one nation small in population feels for another small nation when it sees it suffering unjustly. "There but for the grace of God goes my own city" must have been the feeling of many an Australian who read of the rush on Namur and the sack of Louvain. 

And as the reports regarding the German atrocities were forced home on the nation it gradually came to see that if this war were not carried through to a clear finish, Belgium's fate would certainly sooner or later be Australia's own. Australia indeed realised that, as part of the race to whom Germany had extended her "best-hated nation clause," she would herself, in the case of a German invasion, suffer even greater horrors, were this humanly possible, than Belgium had suffered. And when she asked herself what manner of thing life might be for a nation conquered by Germany she found herself face to face with the terrible examples of Alsace-Lorraine, Posen and North Schleswig.

She read of the educational horrors perpetrated in German Poland where in 19o6 a hundred thousand school children went on strike rather than endure any longer the hideous cruelty of "Kultur" : of the Prussian Expropriation Acts of 1886 and 1908, by which the Polish peasant proprietors were driven from the land which they had tamed and made fruitful, to make way for the Prussian capitalist : of the abolition of Danish by Germany in 1886 throughout Danish Schleswig : of that terrible provision by which, in 1889, those parents who sent their children from Schleswig to school in Denmark, were compulsorily deprived of their control : of the impious blood tax of Lorraine, and of the official murders and insults meted out to Alsace during the notorious Zabern incident by the most brutal soldiery in the world. 

Australia contrasted the ideals of the British Empire, and her own existence under British rule, with the Imperialistic diabolism inculcated by K. F. Wolff in "All German Leaves," the official organ of the Pan-German League:

There are two kinds of races, master races and inferior races. Political rights belong to the master race alone, and can only be won by war. This is a Scientific Law, a Law of Biology. The rights of men may be, and ought to be, allowed to the inferior race, and these include individual liberty, the right to work, and the right to express opinions; but all other rights belong only to the master race.

The master race should be rich in men; only the races which are so are properly master races. It is unjust that a rapidly increasing master race should be struggling for room behind its own frontier while a declining inferior race can stretch its limbs at ease on the other side of that frontier. The inferior race will not be educated in the schools of the master race, nor will any schools be established for it, nor will its language be employed in public.

All these things, so intelligent Australians realised, might be part of their own fate if Germany were allowed to win the war, or to make so advantageous a draw of it that she could begin this devil's work again in another ten or twenty years. Intellectually adventurous Australians embarked upon an inquiry as to Germany's modern colonial ambitions, and the justice or injustice of her claim that England, through possessing the greatest colonies in the world, had stood in the way of German projects of colonial expansion. 

A little study convinced these investigators that if those projects had not been successful, Germany had nobody but herself to thank, and could by no just inference lay the blame on Australia or any other part of the British Empire. After the Franco-Prussian War, Germany had had the opportunity of becoming a great colonising power, but by Bismarck's advice and on his perfectly frank admission, had deliberately rejected colonisation schemes, in order that she might be able to devote herself to European affairs and involve France in extra-European complications. 

Great Britain and Australia could therefore enjoy their possessions with a perfectly free conscience as far as Germany was concerned, since she could not attribute to their adverse possession a failure which was in truth solely attributable to her own renunciation. On the other hand it was realised that, however pronounced had been Germany's indifference to colonies a generation ago, she lusted after them to-day and cared not by what means she might obtain them. In this fact Australia found a fresh realisation of the deadly peril which menaced her. 

The unscrupulous ambition of modern Germany, and its significance for herself, were brought home to her by certain remarks of General Bernhardi regarding colonies in general, and the ways in which they might be taken from their owners. Writing of the necessity to Germany of the French colonies, Bernhardi wrote : "If necessary they must be obtained as the result of a successful European war." There might be other windfalls. "A financial or political crash in Portugal might give us the opportunity to take possession of a portion of the Portuguese colonies." 

It would be easy for Australia to apply these remarks to Britain and herself, even had the hopeful Bernhardi not himself made the matter quite clear. Great Britain, it seemed, "had never justified her sovereignty by training up a free and independent population, and by transmitting to her subject peoples the blessings of an independent culture of their own. It was therefore very doubtful whether Canada, Australia, and South Africa would permanently retain any trace of the English spirit. Even if they did, they could not give much trouble to a hostile Germany. The British colonies have at their own disposal a militia which is only in process of formation. They could be completely ignored as far as concerns any European theatre of war."

It was quickly understood that no part of the world would offer a richer prey to Germany than Australia: that no other possession would give her, literally and metaphorically, her coveted "place in the sun." Canada must remain outside the scope of German ambition, both because of her larger population and of that extension of the Munroe doctrine which had declared that America would on no account permit permanent German occupation of the Dominion. Australia, however, if Great Britain could possibly be defeated, would fall an easy prey to Germany - indeed it was literally true that her peril was greater than Britain's own. 

However complete might be Germany's victory, she could never hope to occupy permanently Great Britain with her 45,000,000 inhabitants. Should Britain, however, at any time lose command of the seas, Australia's doom was sealed. With her small population Of 5,ooo,ooo and her huge area, she must fall an easy prey to the invader. She would, it was true, fight to the death; but Schleswig had fought to the death, and so had Alsace, and so had Belgium; and these countries were now beneath the German heel. It was necessary to make sure work at once and secure life and freedom for ever by doing so. 

Thoughtful citizens of Australia realised that if Germany could gain permanent possession of Belgium and control the Channel, British command of the sea would be entirely at an end. The decline might not come swiftly, but it would come surely. A drawn war would be hardly less dangerous to Australia and the Empire than a lost war, for Bernhardi and Milristerberg had warned the world that unless Germany was beaten to the dust in this war she would never rest till she had got even with her enemies. Unless Germany were defeated outright, Australia would never be free from the peril of invasion : she would have to live in continuous fear and tension, and, peace-loving nation though she was, would have to turn herself into an armed camp for several generations. 

An unbeaten Germany might even Teutonise Australia without in the first instance making war; she would attempt to do so by political pressure, "peaceful penetration," and an enforced policy of immigration, till the Commonwealth fell like an over-ripe peach into the hand of the conqueror. There was indeed fairly clear evidence that German agents had been at work throughout Australia, and that she was in considerable peril from such men as the German ex-member of the Australian military forces, who before the war had repeatedly visited Berlin, and who after it broke out expressed in his correspondence the pious wish that there were seventeen or eighteen "Emdens" around our coast instead of one. 

Australia had, in fact, no reason to think that she had escaped Germany's far-flung net of espionage nor was free from such German plots as those discovered by General Smuts in South Africa, and Lord Hardinge in India. She realised that, commercially speaking, she was in a large measure at Germany's mercy through the strangle-hold obtained by a German trust upon her great metal industry. Her attention was drawn to a speech made some months before the War by the German Consul-General in Australia, Herr Kiliani, who, in expounding the Delbrück law, had deliberately flouted the British naturalisation oath, and for recruiting purposes had treated Australia as a province of the German Empire.

Australia felt her own peril acutely and there were few of her inhabitants who did not realise that she was in the War up to the hilt, and was bound by way of duty, interest, and honour to see it through to a clean finish. All the best elements in Australia were eager that she should get to work, realising that the Mother Country was imperiling her life to save the whole Empire, and that the men who fought at Mons and the heroic conscripts of France and Russia had saved the tiniest Australian back block township no less than the great capitals of Paris and Petrograd. It was realised, moreover, that the debt to Britain was no new thing, but that ever since her existence as a nation, Australia had owed her life and freedom to the protection of the British Navy.

The men and women who have made their homes in Australia since the early part of last century have numbered some of the most enterprising and adventurous spirits of the Old Country. Most of them came to Australia with little other capital than their energy, their courage, and a desire to "make good" in a new land. Their energy developed the country, built its cities, and has made Australia one of the most prosperous communities in the world. Nearly all of them gained a greater measure of comfort and prosperity than they had enjoyed in the land they came from, and many have attained a success far beyond their remotest expectations.

In this country of the splendid climate, they found themselves enjoying conditions of liberty and security, and freedom of expansion probably unparalleled in the world. They and their descendants began to review their conditions of living and to realise more acutely than ever before what participation in the Empire really meant to them. A consideration of the economic, social and political conditions of the Australian worker disclosed the fact that he enjoyed a standard of prosperity unequalled anywhere throughout the world. 

Politically, as the Parliamentary representation of the Labour Party showed, he enjoyed the fullest say in the control of the nation's destinies. His economic welfare was protected by an elaborate system of Wages Boards and Arbitration Courts, operating both in the State and Federal spheres, and ensuring him against every form of material injustice.

The economic prosperity of the Australian worker was strikingly illustrated by some figures supplied to the public by the Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics. These showed in the first place that the standard number of hours per week worked in Australia was 48 as against from 52 to 58 in
Germany. As for pay, there were only two trades, out of a list of eighteen, in which the Australian rate was not more than twice that of the German, while in two or three instances it was three times as great. In the furniture trade, for instance, the weekly Australian wage was 58/-, as against 27/- in Germany. 

Most startling of all were the proportions prevailing in the saw-milling, hosiery, machinery, and electric working industries. Here the Australian rates were 60/3, 61/8, 62/7, and 61/9. The German rates were 21/7, 21/3, 23/5 and 29/11. The remarkable significance of these figures is enhanced by a consideration of the cost of living prevailing in Germany and Australia. This disclosed the fact. that if he had to confine himself to the ordinary necessaries of life, an Australian could live 16 per cent. cheaper in Australia than in Germany. Not having to restrict himself, and living at his own standard, the Australian worker, through the highness of his pay, actually spent 56 per cent. more on all items than did the German.

Australia realised as never before that those material benefits were made possible for her by one thing only - her participation in the British Empire. Had she stood alone, one of two things necessarily have happened. Either she would have had to increase her population vastly by immigration in order to hold the huge extent of country she possesses, in which case she would probably have had to become an exporting country, to conform to the economic conditions prevailing elsewhere, and therefore to lower her wages and standards of living all round; or else she would have had to come beneath the dominion of some foreign power which would have lowered that standard for her sharply and scornfully. 

All honest people in Australia realised this fact either consciously or subconsciously, and it helped greatly to quicken their sense of Imperial responsibility and their desire that Australia should play her part worthily in the War. Labour claimed to have won its battles against capital by its own energy and capacity for organisation : it was now borne in on all intelligent workers that they could never
have waged that battle nor enjoyed its fruits had not the British Navy held the ring for them while they fought out their fight. It was determined that Australia, who had enjoyed all these benefits at Britain's hands throughout the long years of peace, would now play her part worthily in the struggle
which threatened the life of Britain and the Empire. What resulted from this resolve will be described in subsequent chapters of this book.

But it must not be thought that Australia, in her desire to do her utmost towards the War, was inspired by a mere consideration of material benefits received or to come. Perhaps when hostilities broke out, few Australians had thought out to a finish the exact spiritual meaning of the British Empire to the world and themselves. With all intelligent members of the nation, however, there was a general realisation that British citizenship stood for, certain ideals as well as for certain material gains, and that if these ideals were shattered, life would be a poor not only for Britons, but for the whole world. A quarter of the world's population, it was seen, was under the sway of British civilisation and was administered, after a fashion befitting such a trust - a fashion making for the maximum of personal and national freedom compatible with order and safety.

British citizenship stood for two principles, the individualistic and the democratic. The individualistic principle determined the relations of the different Dominions toward one another, and consisted in the right possessed by each of them of working out its own spiritual and material salvation for itself after the law of its own being. This resulted in the maximum of national liberty among the separate parts of which the Empire was composed. Each was allowed the greatest amount of individual freedom consistent with the security of the whole. The second, or democratic principle, governed the relations of individuals within the separate parts of the Imperial Commonwealth, and consisted in the right possessed by each of these of having a full say in the governance of his country. 

Such democratic control prevailed throughout the Dominions, and in some of them it represented a more pronounced form of popular Government than that prevailing anywhere else. In Australia, both of these principles were in operation. Considered as a nation, she had practically unfettered powers of freedom and expansion, and could make her own fate and future for herself. Considered in relation to the individuals which composed her, she was ultra-democratic and even socialistic in her tendency. Nowhere in the world have the people fuller control of their affairs.

A glance at the recent history of Germany showed that her victory in the War would mean the absolute destruction of both these principles, on which the very life of the British Empire depends. Germany hates the principle of individual expansion amongst her dependencies as keenly as she detests that of socialistic emancipation among her own subject;. The former fact was illustrated by a glance at the submerged and persecuted nationalities of the German Empire. The latter was brought home with startling force to the Australian worker by the official and semi-official references to Socialism which were brought under his notice in the early months of the war. Germany's treatment of the Socialists was just as tyrannical as her treatment of the Poles. What German rule would mean to the cause of Labour was realised by Australian citizens perhaps for the first time, when they read such passages as these, from Bulow's "Imperial Germany ":

If the Prussian Government wanted to come to terms with the Social Democrats, and was willing to recognise as legitimate the demands of a party which for decades has been combating the monarchical and military foundations of the Prussian State, the Prussian civil servants, the middle classes, the country population east of the Elbe, and possibly the army itself would be at a loss what to make of the State and the authorities. If the Government renounced the fight against the Social Democrats, Prussia would take it to mean that they had yielded to the forces of revolution. And they would be right if, after half a century of fighting, the Government could find no other solution than a shameful peace with the enemy.

Forcible proceedings against the Social Democrats would immediately come into question if they were provoked by any violent outburst of the Social Democratic movement. That, however; is hardly to be expected. and is improbable, if the Government attacks the problem of dealing with the Social Democrats skilfully and performs its task energetically. There are politicians who think it would be no misfortune if a violent outburst took place, because then there would be a possibility of cutting the Gordian knot of the Socialist question with the sword and thus attaining a final solution.

A similar effect was produced by the comments made a few years ago by Herr Kirdorf, a Westphalian coal and steel magnate, apropos of Labour organisation:-

It is regrettable that our work-people are able to change their positions at any time. An undertaking can only prosper if it has a stationary band of workers. I do not ask that legislation should come to our help, but we must reserve to ourselves the right to take measures to check this frequent change of employment. The proposal has been made that all work-people should be compelled to join organisations, and that employers should be required to negotiate with these organisations. For myself, I would remark that I refuse to negotiate with any organisation whatever.

All these considerations helped to bring it home to Australians that should Germany win this War, the whole fabric of their national life would be shattered at a blow.

That this attitude was representative of Australia as a whole even from the beginning has been decisively proved by the part she has played in the War. The "unsound" elements throughout the Commonwealth merely represent a small and irresponsible minority. There has been a certain amount of anti-Imperialistic and anti-Australian agitation in certain organisations controlled by dangerous anarchical coteries operating from the Western States of America. But representative Australian Labour has long recognised these seditious malcontents as being among its worst foes, and they have had little weight with the masses of Australia, either before or since the War.

Suspicion has been growing that these agitators have been subsidised with German gold, and they are generally repudiated and scorned in all representative quarters. It must be admitted that the extreme Socialist Party - or the party which labels itself Socialist - has adopted an attitude irreconcilable with the protection and safety of Australia, and has tried from the beginning to discourage recruiting and to cause Australians to hold aloof from the War. But their representations were laughed at by men of all classes who understood the immensity of the issue and had watched the passionate enthusiasm with which representative Socialism throughout the rest of the world had flung itself on the side of the Allies. 

The cry was raised in certain quarters that this was "a capitalist war"; that is to say a war waged in the interests of the moneyed classes -a war from which the wage-earner might and should stand aloof; but this contention was soon dispelled by the facts of the situation and by the considerations just cited. The self-styled "Socialists" were answered out of the mouths of Socialist leaders like Hyndman and Belfort Bax, who proved that the interests of Socialism all the world over depended absolutely on the victory of the Allies. The passionate pro-Ally writings of French Socialists like Gustave Hervé and American Socialists like Floyd Dell had their effect even on the self-styled "Socialist Party" of Melbourne, whose Socialism is made up of feminism, anti-militarism, general faddism, and everything except true socialism. 

The neurotic and self-centred members of this party formed a very small minority of the community, though their incessant vociferance might have made strangers think that they were largely represented. Australia as a whole realised that she and the Empire were fighting not for territory nor gain, nor even for the great cause of racial unity, but for a conception of free, tolerant and decent life which was utterly inimical to the German system, and could not exist if this were allowed to prevail. 

It was seen that however perfect was the organisation which Germany might impose upon such part of the world as she conquered, she ruled ultimately and always by repression, and by the negation of individual and political liberty. British civilisation, on the other hand, if it stood for anything, stood for the passionate affirmation of such liberty, and of the right to live and to let other nations live and follow out in their own way the law of their being. And as the War continued and brought with it instance after instance of German "frightfulness," of official cruelty, deliberately adopted for the sake of policy, of the vilest acts committed under pretext of "the fiend's devilish plea, "Necessity," Australians saw that the German ideal stood not only for repression, out for brutality and cruelty incarnate, for a conception of life and authority which were not merely inhuman, bit devilish. 

Great Britain, like other great nations, might have sinned in the past but her sins had never at any time approached the monstrous turpitude eve7. here evident in Germany's conduct of the war, and to-day Great Britain stood before the nations with a clean conscience as the defender of her own liberty, the liberty of her Allies, and the civilisation of the world.

Australians remembered the sentence of Sir Edward Grey's despatch, in which he referred to Germany's proposal that Britain should desert France in her need-"to make this bargain with Germany at the expense of France would be a disgrace from which the good name of this country would never recover." And they remembered, too, the comment upon Sir Edward Grey's words by an eloquent Frenchman-"this simple phrase was a deed, a deed of a whole people of gentlemen, spurning with disgust one of the most degrading bargains recorded in history." Britain had now become the guardian of civilisation.

This was an issue which even the least sophisticated mind could grasp; and there were few Australians who did not realise it instinctively or after a little reflection. A very great moral reinforcement was provided to Australia by writers of neutral nations, and especially by the numerous American writers who, during the early months of the War, so fervently  expressed their belief in the justice of Britain's cause. Americans had fuller evidence before them than had been presented to Australians, for they had had every opportunity of studying the view of the case put before them by the German agents with which their country swarmed. 

It was well known that several American newspapers were bought with German gold and had devoted themselves since the war began to a deliberate suppression and distortion of the facts telling in favour of the Allies. It was, therefore, all the more significant that protest after protest should come forth from America against Germany's conduct of the War, and that some of these pronouncements should be couched in language of an indignation hardly to be found in the Allied countries themselves.

It was no mere partisan feeling, but an imperious moral impulse which had led many of America's leading thinkers to sign a manifesto refuting the so-called "Appeal to the Civilised World" put forth in Germany's interests by ninety-three Germans of distinction in science, literature and art. The same fiery indignation pulsed through the writings of men like Beck and Eliot and through the reply of Professor Harden Church to the German propagandist, Dr. Schaper. 

It was a considerable reinforcement to intelligent Australians to find that their view of Germany and her rulers was confirmed by such passages as the following from Church's letter:

Your Emperor was admired as one of the greatest men in the world. But what will be the fame that he leaves to posterity? Oh, what a fall is there! His inexcusable provocation of war humanity to the uttermost depths of Soul. Besides drenching Europe with human blood, he is giving her a new population of weeping and bereft mothers, of fatherless children, and of men without legs and arms. A heritage of hate!

These war dreams, this German solidarity, this Pan-Germanism, this mendacious diplomacy, this policy of being armed to the teeth, this false principle of the State above the individual, the still more fallacious sentiments of Germany above humanity, the contempt of your military rulers for human life, their eager will to destroy the whole body of property which marks the progress of mankind all this has made the world afraid of you. Your insatiate spirit has terrified us all. Your General Staff have even published a plan for attacking America. If you beat down the British Empire why will not our turn come next?

Later, the pictures of Raemaekers, and such publications as "J'Accuse," were to show Australia that her view of the struggle was shared by other neutral nations, and even by many Germans themselves. Yet even apart from such reassurances, the facts themselves had from the beginning left Australia in little doubt as to the justice of her cause and of the necessity of her joining in the struggle with all her might. Her remoteness from the scene of action and the fact that war had never visited her might at first have prevented her full realisation of the issues involved; but any shortcomings that might have occurred either at this time or subsequently were due to lack of information rather than to any deficiency of right feeling. 

The average Australian is a fair-minded person, ready, when he sees cause, to make sacrifices and take his full share of responsibility. He is also exceedingly independent, and objects on instinct to letting other people "do his bit" for him. He has too often had to face disaster by fire and flood to take a sentimental view of existence, to avoid the logic of facts or to shirk hardships, when these confront him. Over and above all considerations of his own safety and of the peril threatening all civilisation, was the feeling that men of his own race were imperiling their lives for the common cause, and that it was "up to him" to see them through and face danger side by side with them till it was beaten underfoot. 

Of profound appeal to all decent Australians was the thought of the British Navy holding its lonely and lasting vigil that the Empire might live. All the keen sporting blood of the younger generation was thrilled and quickened by the tale of Mons and the Marne. It was at first thought that the War which had flamed forth so suddenly might as suddenly subside; and this thought became almost a fear with many Australians when they read of the British heroism and thought that they might be too late to emulate it. The call of the race had come to Australia, the call that thrills men with a sense of common blood and brotherhood, and determines them to make the last sacrifice to keep this bond intact. It was in this spirit that Australia prepared to play her part in the Great War.

• The bugles of England were blowing o'er the sea, 
  • As they had called a thousand years, calling now to me;
  • They woke me from dreaming in the dawning of the day, 
  • The bugles of England-and how could I stay ?
• The banners of England, unfurled across the sea, 
  • Floating out upon the wind, were beckoning to me; 
  • Storm-rent and battle-torn, smoke-stained and grey, 
  • The banners of England-and how could I stay?
• 0, England, I heard the cry of those that died for thee, 
  • Sounding like an organ-voice across the winter sea; 
  • They lived and died for England, and gladly went their way, 
  • England, 0 England-how could I stay?

By the Late Corporal James D. Burns, 21st Battalion, 6th Brigade, A.I.F., (Born June, 1895: Killed in Action September, 1915.)