How Aussie schoolboys trained for war and unions stepped up for ANZAC Day
AS thousands honour ANZAC day, and pay tribute to our service men and women, many may not realise the vital role the union movement played in helping care for the welfare of returning troops.
Although unions opposed conscription (see banner above), thousands of members joined up — many as young as 15.
Compulsory cadet training at all schools meant when war was declared in 1914, Australia had “a ready-made army of well-trained, disciplined and patriotic young lads, glad to risk their lives,” says historian and author Maxwell Waugh.
“We pride ourselves on the fact we had no conscription, but many were drilled in military exercises in public and private schools across the country,”
Waugh’s recent work Soldier Boys: The Militarisation of Australian and New Zealand Schools for World War I (published by Melbourne Books) examines why a large proportion of the more than 500,000 Anzacs who served in WWI enlisted so willingly.
Waugh says he now feels anger over Australia’s involvement in WWI, although he admires the bravery of the many thousands who went to fight.
“We should never have got involved,” he says. “Many of our young men were little more than cannon fodder. Like Vietnam, it was an unnecessary war. ”
Pulteney Grammar School, South Australia, cadet unit training, circa 1911.
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Many of these youngsters had little idea of what they were about to experience when they signed up.
”Far from being afraid, I really enjoyed the first few days on the line in France, finding my surroundings so weird and novel; but this feeling unfortunately proved to be short-lived, for I soon realised I was there to kill or be killed, and not for a joke.”
These thoughts, written in 1915 by schoolboy Reg Cunningham, who was just 15 when he left for the Western Front, capture a sense of the courage and foreboding shared by thousands of youngsters who enlisted in World War I.
Beechworth State School cadets. Note the ‘Rifle Room’ and ‘Guard Room’ signs on the doors. Photo: Courtesy Beechworth Primary School and Max Waugh
And when they returned home traumatised or injured, their union was there to help.
“Trade unions were established to provide security and sickness benefits for members, and the drive by unions to help returning service personnel stemmed from this long tradition,” writes Neale Towart in Working Life.
In Adelaide, members chose to change their traditional colourful Labour Day celebration to a parade in support of returning veterans. And this march and celebration was a precursor to ANZAC day.
For many the battlefront could be a bleak experience, says Waugh, recalling how his own grandfather, Alfred, came home from WW1 anxious and withdrawn, rarely leaving the house after he returned.
“He was suffering a nervous breakdown, but we didn’t understand that then,” the author says.
Military service runs through his family, and Waugh joined the Air Training Corps cadets at age 14 in the 1950s and did his national service training at the RAAF base at Laverton, Melbourne.
His own views on conflict changed after reading All Quiet on the Western Front, the seminal anti-war novel narrated by Paul Bäumer, a young man of 19 who, encouraged by a teacher, fights in the German army on the French front in World War I along with several of his school friends, but the group soon become disillusioned by the brutality they face.
Here, many brave youngsters felt the call to sign up. The Australian War Memorial says the total number of youth who served is impossible to determine as so many lied about their age to join up.
Private James Charles (Jim) Martin, thought to be the youngest Australian to die on active service. Photo: Courtesy Australian War Memorial P00069.001
The army’s enlistment age was 21, or 18 with the permission of a parent or guardian, however many got around that, including Private James Charles (Jim) Martin (pictured), believed to be the youngest soldier on the AWM’s Roll of Honour.
Jim joined the Australian Imperial Force in April 1915, aged 14 years, 3 months, having told recruiting officers he was 18. In September 1915 he landed at Gallipoli with his battalion. In October, he died.
And although Unions opposed conscription, many members felt the call.
For example, “The last ANZAC”, Alec Campbell was a railway union leader and close associate of left-wing ALP politician Bill Morrow.
At least 50 per cent of all who enlisted were injured but the government did not provide any sort of war pension.
And many of the servicemen who were fighting on the Western Front during the conscription referenda voted against conscription.
The Victorian Trades Hall honours these people with a plaque in its foyer to this day.
“Unions and unionists who refused to volunteer were not hostile to the workers who did volunteer.,” says Towe.
“They were their mates for the most part, whilst differing strongly with them in the attitude to war.”
Meanwhile, as the Anzac tradition is honoured, some ask why other important historical dates aren’t even acknowledged.
“It is no accident that Anzac Day is celebrated on 25 April, but 23 August passes unnoticed,” write the authors of What’s wrong with ANZAC?
August 23 marks the beginning of the Gurindji Strike in 1966, also known as the Wave Hill Walk-Off, and is a date of seminal importance in the struggle for Aboriginal rights.
“While we are encouraged to remember the symbolic birth of a nation through blood sacrifice at Gallipoli on 25 April, we are encouraged to forget the on-going dispossession, marginalisation and oppression of Aboriginal people in Australia, and especially the struggles they have waged.”
