First World War: Empire and Commonwealth Troops

Lord Goodlad Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodlad (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Lexden on introducing this debate and share his hope that the Government will arrange to commemorate the contribution of Empire and Commonwealth troops during the First World War. It is estimated that about one-third of the troops raised by Britain were from what was then the Empire: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India, the Caribbean, Africa, Fiji, Hong Kong and so on. In the short time available I shall say a very few words about the Australian contribution, which was enormous and, in the final weeks on the Western Front, some would say decisive.

Australia supported this country from the start. When warning of impending war arrived by cable in July 1914, the leaders of both political parties, then engaged in an election campaign, pledged to support, help and defend the mother country, in Andrew Fisher’s words,

“to our last man and our last shilling”.

The first Allied shot of the war was fired on 5 August by Australian artillery from Fort Nepean, Port Phillip, when the German ship “Pfalz” tried to leave Melbourne. The first Australian casualties were in September when the Australian expeditionary force to New Britain, in what is now Papua New Guinea, captured the German wireless station prior to capturing Rabaul and taking the surrender of German New Guinea.

On 1 November the first convoy of Australian and New Zealand forces, accompanied, it is said, by the largest embarkation of horses in the history of the world, left Albany in Western Australia for Egypt, where the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was formed.

On 25 April, the ANZAC forces landed in Gallipoli and fought heroically with British, French and Indian forces in an eight-month campaign that was intended to shorten the war but ended in withdrawal. Some 7,600 Australians and 2,500 New Zealanders—a very high proportion of those engaged—were killed or wounded. Out of a total of 265,000 Allied casualties, 46,000 perished. During the next few years, Australia, with a population of less than 4.9 million, raised over 416,000 military personnel, all of them volunteers. Over 59,000 of them were killed or died of wounds and over 152,000 were wounded. The war enhanced Australia’s sense of nationhood, with the Commonwealth of Australia having come into existence in 1901. At the same time, it caused deep rifts in society.

In January 1918, the Australian Corps came into being in France under the command of Sir William Birdwood, who had commanded the ANZAC forces since Gallipoli. He was succeeded in May by General John Monash, an Australian of German descent. The corps consisted of 166,000 troops, equivalent to 9% of the British and dominion combat forces in France. An engineer by profession, Monash developed methods of combining the deployment of artillery, aircraft, tanks and infantry, which won important victories at Hamel and Mont St Quentin. With his troops, Monash had acquired a formidable reputation—a ferocious reputation to the Germans—and was knighted in the field by King George V in August, before spearheading the final assault on the Hindenburg Line, which led to the Armistice.

In a letter to a relative in 1914, Monash referred to Australia’s duty,

“to help the Empire to crush a peril which may mean the end of Australia as a free country”.

He and his countrymen did that, together with troops from many other nations. Their valour is commemorated annually on Anzac Day and Remembrance Sunday. The British Government have done much work, as have others, since 2014 to commemorate the centenary of the war. As we approach the centenary of the end of the war, it would be fitting, as this country occupies the chair of the Commonwealth, for there to be a special commemoration of the contribution and sacrifice of the Empire and Commonwealth troops.