In Australia, the outbreak of World War I was greeted with considerable enthusiasm. Even before Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, the nation pledged its support alongside other states of the British Empire and almost immediately began preparations to send forces overseas to engage in the conflict. The first campaign that Australians were involved in was in German New Guinea after a hastily raised force known as the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force was dispatched in September 1914 from Australia and seized and held German possessions in the Pacific. At the same time another expeditionary force, initially consisting of 20,000 men and known as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), was raised for service overseas.
The AIF departed Australia in November 1914 and, after several delays due to the presence of German naval vessels in the Indian Ocean, arrived in Egypt, where they were initially used to defend the Suez Canal. In early 1915, it was decided to carry out an amphibious landing on the Gallipoli peninsula with the goal of opening up a second front and securing the passage of the Dardanelles. The Australians and New Zealanders, grouped together as the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), went ashore on 25 April 1915 and for the next eight months the Anzacs, alongside their British, French and other allies, fought a costly and ultimately unsuccessful campaign against the Turks.
The force was evacuated from the peninsula in December 1915 and returned to Egypt, where the AIF was expanded. In early 1916 it was decided that the infantry divisions would be sent to France, where they took part in many of the major battles fought on the Western Front. Most of the light horse units remained in the Middle East until the end of the war, carrying out further operations against the Turks in Egypt and Palestine. Small numbers of Australians served in other theatres of war. Although the main focus of the Australian military's effort was the ground war, air and naval forces were also committed. Squadrons of the Australian Flying Corps served in the Middle East and on the Western Front, and elements of the Royal Australian Navy carried out operations in the Atlantic, North Sea, Adriatic and Black Sea, as well as the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
By the end of the war, Australians were far more circumspect. The nation's involvement cost more than 60,000 Australian lives and many more were left unable to work as a result of their injuries. The impact of the war was felt in many other areas as well. Financially it was very costly. The effect on the social and political landscape was considerable and threatened to cause serious divides in the nation's social fabric. Conscription was possibly the most contentious issue and ultimately, despite having conscription for home service, Australia was one of only three combatants not to use conscripts in the fighting, the others being India (though many volunteers were pressured into enlisting) and Siam. For many Australians the nation's involvement in World War I and the Gallipoli campaign was seen as a symbol of its emergence as an international actor; many of the notions of the Australian character and nationhood that exist today have their origins in the war, and Anzac Day is commemorated as a national holiday.
Outbreak of the war
On 30 July 1914, the British government informed the Australian government via an encoded telegram that a declaration of war was likely. The message came during the lead-up to the 1914 federal election, meaning parliament was not in session and key political figures were spread around the country campaigning. Prime Minister Joseph Cook spoke at Horsham, Victoria, on 31 July, telling an election meeting to "remember that when the Empire is at war, so is Australia at war [...] all our resources in Australia are in the Empire and for the Empire and for the preservation and security of the Empire". On the same day, Opposition Leader Andrew Fisher was speaking at Colac, Victoria, and promised that "Australians will stand beside our own to help and defend her to our last man and our last shilling". An emergency cabinet meeting – at which only five out of ten ministers were present – was convened in Melbourne on 3 August, the government deciding that it would offer to send an expeditionary force of 20,000 men. The United Kingdom declared war on 4 August at 11 p.m. (5 August at 9 a.m. Melbourne time), and Australia and the other Dominions were considered to be "automatically" at war as well. At 12:45 p.m. on 5 August, Cook announced to the press in his office that "I have received the following despatch from the Imperial government: 'war has broken out in Germany'". Given the predominantly British heritage of most Australians at the time, there was considerable support from all corners of the country and large numbers of young Australian men reported to recruiting centres around the country to enlist in the following months.
Within days, plans for an Australian expeditionary force were completed by Brigadier General William Throsby Bridges and his staff officer, Major Cyril Brudenell Bingham White. White proposed a force of 18,000 men (12,000 Australians and 6,000 New Zealanders). This proposal was approved by Prime Minister Cook but he increased the offer to the British of 20,000 men to serve in any destination desired by the Home Government. On 6 August 1914, London cabled its acceptance of the force and asked that it be sent as soon as possible. Recruiting offices opened on 10 August 1914 and by the end of 1914, 52,561 volunteers had been accepted, although strict physical fitness guidelines were put in place.
German New Guinea
In 1884, Germany had colonised the north eastern part of New Guinea and several nearby island groups. By the outbreak of the war, the Germans had been using the colony as a wireless radio base, and supporting the German East Asia Squadron which threatened merchant shipping in the region. As a consequence, Britain required the wireless installations to be destroyed. Shortly after the outbreak of war—following a request by the British government on 6 August 1914—the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) began forming. The objectives of the force were the German stations at Yap in the Caroline Islands, Nauru and at Rabaul, New Britain. The AN&MEF comprised one battalion of infantry (1,023 men) enlisted in Sydney, 500 naval reservists and ex-sailors organised into six companies who would serve as infantry and a further 500 men from the Kennedy Regiment, a Queensland militia battalion that had volunteered for overseas service and had been sent to garrison Thursday Island. Together, these forces were placed under the command of Colonel William Holmes, an officer in the militia who was at the time commander of the 6th Brigade and secretary of the Sydney Water and Sewerage Board.
The task force sailed from Sydney on 19 August 1914, and hove to off Port Moresby where they waited for their escorts to arrive. While they were at Port Moresby, Holmes decided to disembark the Queensland militia soldiers due to concerns about their preparedness for action. Escorted by the cruiser Sydney and the battlecruiser Australia, the task force reached Rabaul on 11 September 1914 and found that the port was free of German forces. Sydney and the destroyer landed small parties of naval reservists at the settlements of Kabakaul and the German gubernatorial capital Herbertshöhe on Neu-Pommern, south-east of Rabaul. These parties were reinforced first by sailors from HMAS Warrego and and later by infantry from the transport .
A small 25-man force of naval reservists was subsequently landed at Kabakaul Bay and continued inland to capture the radio station believed to be in operation at Bita Paka, to the south. The Australians were resisted by a mixed force of German reservists and Melanesian native police, who forced them to fight their way to the radio station. By nightfall, the radio station was reached and it was found to have been abandoned, the mast dropped but its instruments and machinery intact. During the Battle of Bita Paka six Australians were killed and five wounded; the defenders lost one German non-commissioned officer (NCO) and about 30 Melanesians killed, and one German and ten Melanesians wounded. Later it was alleged that the heavy losses among the Melanesian troops was the result of the Australians bayoneting all those they had captured during the fighting. As a result of this engagement, Able Seaman W.G.V. Williams became the first Australian fatality of the war. The first Army fatality was a medical officer, Captain B. C. A. Pockley, who died the same day.
At nightfall on 12 September, the Berrima landed the AN&MEF infantry battalion at Rabaul. The following afternoon, although the governor had not yet surrendered the territory, a ceremony was carried out to signal the British occupation of New Britain. The German administration had withdrawn inland to Toma at dawn on 14 September, and subsequently bombarded a ridge near the town while half a battalion advanced towards the town supported by a field gun. The show of firepower was sufficient to start negotiations, ending the siege of Toma following the surrender of the remaining garrison of 40 Germans and 110 native police. The German territory surrendered on 17 September 1914.
Although successful the operation was arguably not well managed, and the Australians had been effectively delayed by a half-trained native force. The Australians had prevailed not least of all because of their unexpected ability to fight in close terrain, and outflanking the German positions had unnerved their opponents. The losses of the AN&MEF were light in the context of later operations but were sufficiently heavy given the relatively modest gain. These losses were further compounded by the unexplained disappearance of the Australian submarine during a patrol off Rabaul on 14 September, with 35 men aboard.
Following the capture of German possessions in the region, the AN&MEF provided occupation forces for the duration of the war. On 9 January 1915, Holmes handed over command of the AN&MEF to Brigadier General Sir Samuel Pethebridge, the former Secretary of the Department of Defence. Holmes returned to Australia and re-enlisted in the AIF, as did most of his men. They were replaced by the 3rd Battalion, known as the "Tropical Force" because it had been specially enlisted for service in the tropics. Pethebridge established the administrative structures that remained through the period of military occupation. Although required by international law to follow the German forms of government, the territory gradually acquired the appearance of a British colony.
First Australian Imperial Force
At the start of the war, Australia's military forces were focused upon the militia and what Regular forces existed were mostly serving in the artillery or engineers and were assigned in most part to the task of coastal defence. Due to the provisions of the Defence Act 1903, which precluded sending conscripts overseas, upon the outbreak of war it was realised that a totally separate, all volunteer force would need to be raised. This force was known as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF).