The Australian Army Reserve is a collective name given to the reserve units of the Australian Army. Since the Federation of Australia in 1901, the reserve military force has been known by many names, including the Citizens Forces, the Citizen Military Forces, the Militia and, unofficially, the Australian Military Forces. In 1980, however, the current name—Australian Army Reserve—was officially adopted, and it now consists of a number of components based around the level of commitment and training obligation that its members are required to meet.
Overview For the first half of the 20th century, due to a widespread distrust of permanent military forces in Australia, the reserve military forces were the primary focus of Australian military planning.Grey 2008, pp. 66–83. Following the end of World War II, however, this focus gradually shifted due to the changing strategic environment, and the requirement for a higher readiness force available to support collective security goals. Since then, Australian defence policy has been focused more upon the Regular Army, and there has been considerable debate about the role of the Army Reserve within defence planning circles.McCarthy 2003. As the strategic situation has evolved in the post Cold War era, the organisation, structure, training and role of the Army Reserve has undergone considerable changes, and members of the Army Reserve are increasingly being used on overseas deployments, not only within Regular Army units, but also in units drawn almost entirely from Reserve units.Grey 2008, p. 279.
Despite being the main focus upon which Australian defence planning was based, since Federation Reserve units have primarily been used in the role of home defence and to provide a mobilisation platform during times of war. During World War I Australia's contribution to the fighting came from forces raised outside the citizen forces that were in existence at the time, and although many citizen soldiers enlisted in these forces, the Citizen Forces units remained in Australia.Grey 2008, p. 80. With the outbreak of World War II a similar situation evolved, with the establishment of an all-volunteer expeditionary force,Grey 2008, p. 146. however, with the entry of Japan into the war the threat to Australia became more direct and a number of Militia units were called upon to fight in New Guinea and other areas of the South West Pacific.Grey 2008, p. 183.
Following the end of World War II, however, the decision was made to establish a permanent standing defence force and the role of Reserve forces was reduced to the point where for a while their relevance was called into question. Recently, however, there has been a move to develop a more capable Reserve force, as Australia's overseas military commitments in the Pacific and Middle East have highlighted the importance of the Reserves once more. As such, since 2000 units of the Australian Army Reserve have been deployed to East Timor and the Solomon Islands on peacekeeping duties and many more individual Reservists have been used to provide specialist capabilities and to fill in Regular Army formations being sent overseas.
History
Federation to World War I Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the amalgamation of the military forces controlled by the six separate, self-governing British colonies to form a unified force controlled by the Commonwealth was an inevitable, albeit slowly realised, consequence, given that the new Constitution of Australia assigned primary responsibility for defence to the Commonwealth.Grey 2008, p. 66. Indeed, this process took some time as, to a large extent, matters of defence were not necessarily a priority of the new Australian legislature at the time, and there was also a considerable diversity in opinion regarding the composition and size of the new national army and role it would play at home and indeed within the wider Imperial defence system. Nevertheless, the official transfer of forces from the states to the Commonwealth occurred on 1 March 1901, and this date is today celebrated as the birthday of the modern Australian Army. At the outset, the bulk of the Commonwealth military force was to be made up of part-time volunteers.The military forces under Commonwealth control in 1901 were 28,886 men, of whom only 1,500 were permanent soldiers—mostly serving in the artillery and instructional corps.Grey 2008, p. 67. This was arguably due to two factors. Firstly, there was a widespread desire amongst Australian policymakers to keep defence expenditure low, while secondly there was a widespread mistrust or suspicion surrounding the idea of a large standing army.
After the initial transfer of forces in March 1901, further progress was slow as administrative and legislative instruments took time to develop. Indeed, it was not until 1 March 1904 that the Defence Act 1903 was proclaimed, providing the Commonwealth Military Forces a statutory framework within which they could operate.Grey 2008, p. 69. Amidst a background of political manoeuvring and personal agendas, the military forces were eventually reorganised into a more or less unified command structure. As a part of this, state-based mounted units were reformed into light horse regiments, supplemented by the transfer of men from a number of superfluous infantry units, while the remaining infantry were organised into battalions of the Australian Infantry Regiment and engineers and artillery were organised into field companies and garrison artillery batteries.Grey 2008, p. 72. Due to the provisions of the Defence Act which did not provide for the establishment of a regular infantry force, the notion that the Commonwealth Military Forces would be largely based on a part-time militia was set out in legislation.Grey 2008, p. 141.
The lack of importance placed on military matters in Australian political circles continued for some time, and the size of the Australian military in this time continued to fall, in part due to the emphasis placed upon mounted units in the new command structure. However, following a number of strategic and political "scares",For example the Japanese victory over the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War. Grey 2008, p. 77. defence matters slowly began to take on more primacy in the Australian psyche before a review of defence needs was made in 1909 by Field Marshal Lord Kitchener.Grey 2008, p. 78. The result of this review was the realisation of the need to build a credible defence force that could not only defend the nation, but also possibly contribute to the Imperial defence system (although this later realisation remained little more than a consideration on paper only). The review also validated the compulsory military training scheme that was to be introduced in 1910, which was directly responsible for expanding the Citizen Forces by up to 50 percent in the three years prior to the outbreak of World War I. Separately then-Brigadier Kenneth Mackay CB VD was appointed to draw up plans for the Australian Army Reserve in 1915, and became its first director-general in 1916.
Undoubtedly, the scheme proved to have numerous benefits, as manyIt is estimated that up to 15 percent of AIF recruits had gained prior military experience as a result of this scheme. of these youths went on to serve in the First AIF during World War I and the expanded organisation allowed citizen forces officers more experience in commanding formed bodies of men. However, it was the main factor contributing to the decision to recruit the AIF on the basis of voluntary enlistment. Because the army in 1914 was largely made up of young men aged between 19 and 21 who had been enlisted under this scheme, and due to the provisions of the Defence Act that precluded sending conscripts overseas, upon the outbreak of the war it was necessary for the Australian government to raise a separate force, outside the Citizen Forces organisation for service overseas. Regardless, it has been estimated that up to 50,000 militiamen subsequently enlisted in the First AIF during the war.Wilcox 1998, p. 78.
During the precautionary stage on 2 August 1914, Citizen Forces units were called up to guard essential points and man coastal forts and harbour defences. The first Australian shots (many sources report the first Allied shots) of both World War I and World War II were fired by the garrison at Fort Nepean. By June 1918, 9,215 home service troops were on active duty in Australia, alongside 2,476 regular soldiers. From 1915, only skeleton garrisons were maintained at coastal forts, but the personnel manning them were forbidden to enlist in the AIF. This ban was lifted in April 1915 but the presence of a German commerce raider in Australian waters caused a mobilisation from February to April 1916, while another mobilisation occurred in April 1918 for the same reason.Scott 1941, pp. 196–198. Just before the end of World War I, Australia's home forces were reorganised to perpetuate the numerical identities of the AIF units. This was done renumbering the infantry regiments that had been formed in 1912, and giving them the numbers of the AIF units that had been formed in their regimental areas. A total of 60 AIF infantry battalions had seen active service during the war, but there were more than 60 infantry regiments; as a result, a number of the Citizen Forces regiments were reorganised with multiple battalions, while other units were converted to pioneer regiments.Shaw 2010, pp. 8–9.
Post World War I Following the end of World War I, the units that had been raised as part of the AIF were disbanded, and the focus of Australian defence planning returned once more to the maintenance of the Citizen Forces. To this end, a review of defence requirements in 1920 established the need for Australia to be able to field a force of approximately 270,000 men in the event of a war, of which half of this would be maintained in peacetime through compulsory enlistment,Grey 2008, p. 125. i.e. in essence a form of national service. It was also decided that the CMF would be re-organised along the lines of the AIF, adopting the divisional structure of the AIF units and maintaining their battle honours. The AIF officially ceased to exist on 1 April 1921 and the new organisation of the Citizen Forces was adopted a month later; this saw the reorganisation of the 88 infantry battalions and five pioneer regiments that had been established under the 1918 scheme, the abolition of infantry regiments and the re-establishment of the 60 infantry battalions that had existed within the AIF, as well as various other units, such as light horse regiments, as well.Shaw 2010, p. 9.Festberg 1972, p. 8.
There was little support for compulsory military service amongst the public, however, and combined with the financial pressure that the government felt at that time to reduce defence spending, the 1920 recommendations were not fully implemented. Although the compulsory training scheme was retained, it was decided that it would only be focused on the more populated areas, essentially ending the scheme in rural areas. The result of this was that the course of only a year the strength of the Citizen Forces fell from 127,000 to only 37,000 in 1922. Throughout the 1920s, numbers decreased even further and although the divisional structure was maintained, it was little more than a skeleton force as units found their numbers dropping drastically.