Introduction
For almost the entire period between the two world wars, Australia experienced what could at best be termed a cantankerous relationship between the Government and its senior Army officers. By the end of 1922, the Government and the Army had made conflicting assessments of the Australian national security environment and put into place divergent policies to address their separate concerns. At no point during this period were the two parties able to overcome their differing opinions and agree on a single concept for the defence of the nation.
The Army’s leaders based their requirements, plans and training goals on the belief that they should prepare to repel a Japanese invasion. They sought a large, well-trained army, capable of deterring or containing a hostile force until the British Empire mobilised its resources and came to the Commonwealth’s assistance. While they accepted that Australia had to make its preparations within the Imperial system, they insisted that Australia must have the capability to stand alone until aid could arrive. The Government, however, preferred a lesser degree of defence readiness. It believed that the Royal Navy was best suited to meet Australia’s defence requirements. From the Government’s perspective, Australia’s first line of defence was the British fleet. Successive prime ministers declared that, as the Royal Navy would prevent an invasion, all Australia needed to prepare against was bombardment by Japanese raiders and landings by small parties of enemy troops. Consequently, Australia required only a small number of soldiers capable of resisting minor raids and protecting those installations that the Royal Navy might need.
In 1932 the impasse between the two parties actually deepened after the newly installed ministry of Joseph Lyons made a concerted effort to persuade the Army to adhere to an anti-raid defence policy. Instead, the Army chose to undermine these instructions while continuing to press on the Government its preferred mission of invasion defence. The deception reached its low point when the Army deliberately refashioned the First Line Component, an organisation whose designated purpose was raid defence, which actually became another method of invasion defence.
The conflicting requirements of the anti-invasion and anti-raid strategies dominated defence policy for the inter-war period. Neither changes in government nor the rotation of officers could alleviate the impasse. The inability of the two sides to direct their efforts towards the attainment of a single strategic purpose helped to undermine Australia’s military preparations, and served to distract defence thinkers from realistic assessments of the threat environment. In a period of strained budgets, the disagreement also made the task of allocating resources more difficult. Moreover, it brought into question the proper role of military leaders in a democratic society. The First Line Component deception represented the nadir of Australian civil-military relations, and was a factor in the decline of Australia’s military capabilities—a development so grave that, when war returned in 1939, the nation was virtually defenceless.
The Security Environment
In 1920 the Minister for Defence, George Pearce, assembled a committee of the Army’s senior officers in Melbourne. He charged them with the responsibility of identifying the military requirements for the defence of Australia.1 The committee consisted of Lieutenant General Sir Henry Chauvel, Lieutenant General Sir John Monash, Major General Sir Cyril White, Major General Sir James McCay, Major General James Legge, and Major General Joseph Hobbs. The senior officers determined that the Army needed a force structured in such a way that it would be capable of either deterring a Japanese invasion or tactically delaying an invasion force until the arrival of reinforcements. They recommended a force of 180 000 men, organised into four infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, and three mixed brigades that could unite to form a fifth division, as well as additional corps, army, and line of communication troops, and garrisons for the coastal defences. Following prewar practice, nearly all of the troops were part-time militiamen. The force’s only permanent soldiers were members of the staff and instructional corps, and the gunners and engineers who garrisoned the coastal forts. The response of Prime Minister William Hughes and the Minister for Defence George Pearce to the officers’ proposals was initially quite positive. Soon the Army began to raise the units that would make up the divisions and mixed brigades, and the Government acquired stocks of the equipment and stores—albeit at minimal levels.
Then, even before the Army could complete its formation, the Government suddenly changed the basis of its security policy. At the Washington Conference of 1922, the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan agreed on a number of issues for security in the Pacific. Among the matters decided was a naval disarmament treaty that set limits on the amount of capital ship tonnage that the signatories could maintain.2 Before World War I, Britain had set its fleet capabilities on the basis of a two-power standard. It defined this as a sufficient margin of strength to defeat the forces of the next two largest fleets. Now Britain accepted a capital ship limit of just 500 000 tons, which effectively reduced its naval capabilities to a one-power standard. Complicating the situation further was the fact that the United States and Britain had misjudged their future adversary. They mistakenly assumed that Japan was a contented power that did not have any further territorial ambitions. Furthermore, since the treaties reduced the ability of the United States and Britain to project power into the Western Pacific, it gave the signatories little ability to deter Japanese militarism. The terms of the treaty all but guaranteed that Japan would have a near monopoly of power in the Western Pacific. 3
Despite the Army’s misgivings, Australian political leaders lost no time in embracing the agreement, and the new Minister for Defence, Walter Massy-Greene, moved quickly to slash expenditure on his armed forces. The Army retained its seven-division organisation but had to accept a staffing reduction that left its units at barely 25 per cent of establishment, reduced training to only a few days a year, and essentially suspended the purchase of equipment and stores. In 1921 the Army had over 120 000 personnel on its establishment. By the end of the 1922-23 fiscal year, its posted strength had contracted to less than 33 000. In essence, the Army was a paper organisation bereft of soldiers, training and equipment.
The following year, the operational relevance of the Army deteriorated even further. At the 1923 Imperial Conference, the Australian Government accepted London’s commitment that, in case of a crisis in the Pacific, the Royal Navy would deploy to the east to deter or repel aggression against Australia and New Zealand. The Admiralty would dispatch the fleet to the as-yet-unbuilt base at Singapore, from which it would operate against the Imperial Japanese Navy. The conference also reasserted the longstanding principle that maritime supremacy was the basis of the Empire’s collective defence. The plan outlined at the Imperial Conference was known as the Singapore Strategy and became the cornerstone of the Australian Government’s security policy, although the Army’s leaders never accepted its principles.
The Singapore Strategy gave the Government a reason to maintain the Army at a minimum standard of effectiveness. The promised naval intercession guaranteed, theoretically, that no significant threat could reach Australian shores. Thus, the Government concluded, and defence assessments from London repeatedly confirmed, that the Army’s only field force role was to repel insignificant parties of raiders put ashore by small enemy warships that had managed to elude the Royal Navy. The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 further reinforced this dependency and led to even more reductions in defence expenditure.
The Inter-War Security Debate
By 1923 Australian decision-makers had put into place two contradictory national security policies. The Army’s leaders supported an anti-invasion role for their forces, while political leaders insisted that all the nation required was an anti-raid capability. Despite their subservient position, Army leaders never accepted their assigned responsibility and spent the rest of the inter-war period attempting to advance their preferred option-invasion defence. The Government, on the other hand, displayed little more than ennui on the subject of national security, failed to engage its military advisers, and abandoned the matter to Imperial authorities.
In order to reopen the question of the Army’s defence role, senior officers missed few chances to suggest that their political masters were deluding themselves if they thought that Britain would actually dispatch its fleet more than 10 000 miles from its homeland if a crisis loomed. As early as a 1923 meeting of the Council of Defence, the Army’s senior officers argued with Massy-Greene as to how he expected Britain to deter Japan with a fleet based on a one-power standard. The Minister for Defence stubbornly chose not to question British assurances.4 Twelve years later, the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), Major-General John Lavarack, again highlighted the decline of British naval strength from a two- to a one-power standard in an attempt to get the Council of Defence to reconsider security policy. His effort was also unsuccessful. 5
Whenever the Government asked for advice, the Army made sure to use it as an opportunity to exert its views on national security strategy. In 1928, for example, the Army’s governing body, the Military Board, provided the then Minister for Defence, Sir Thomas Glasgow, with a memorandum on army policy for his use at conferences in Washington and Ottawa. Both documents began with a polite concession to the idea that the nation’s defence depended on maritime power. However, they then noted that Australia’s distance from the centre of the Empire created a special situation. The Washington document reminded Glasgow that the Australian Government could not ignore the possibility that the Royal Navy might not be available for the direct defence of the Commonwealth. The Ottawa brief observed that, in the advent of war, the arrival of the fleet at Singapore could be delayed or even postponed indefinitely. The papers concluded that Australia had to improve its own defence capability and recommended the strengthening of the Army.6
In March 1930, in his capacity as CGS, Chauvel issued an ‘Appreciation of Australia’s Position in Case of War in the Pacific’.7 Chauvel followed the now-established pattern of conceding that in the past the security of the Empire depended on the strength of the Royal Navy. He then went on to explain how this policy was no longer relevant to Australia. Chauvel accepted that there was ‘little hope that the British Government and people will ever consent to the dispatch of a considerable portion of the main fleet ... to a theatre on the other side of the world’. After all, he explained, the command of the Atlantic was vital for the British people while command in the Far East was not. He also observed with great prescience that Japan would choose to strike when Britain was fully focused on events elsewhere. He then summed up his conclusions by stating that ‘British sea-power has ceased to be adequate for the protection of all Imperial interests at any one moment ... it follows that local security will demand the maintenance in Australia of mobile land and air forces’. 8
For reasons of economy, Chauvel also served as the Army’s Inspector-General. In this capacity he used his annual report as another opportunity to argue for an anti-invasion capability for the Army. For example, in his 1927 assessment, he reminded the Government that defence of Australia ultimately fell on the Army and Air Force because circumstances could arise that would prevent the British fleet from sailing to Singapore.9 Australian politicians consistently ignored such entreaties and preferred instead the much more palatable advice of British advisers. They found comfort in reports such as an assessment by the London-based Overseas Defence Committee that identified the Commonwealth’s level of risk as not more than the bombardment or mining of its harbours by a raider.10 A 1925 report by the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) into the defence requirements of Australian ports, CID Report 249-C, maintained that the only attacks against which Australia should prepare were those that could be made by a cruiser, an armed merchant cruiser or a submarine.11 The British Government considered that the arrival of a Japanese invasion fleet, or the bombardment of the Australian coast by a squadron of enemy battleships, was simply an impossibility. All efforts to get the Government to re-examine the 1925 assessment failed.12
The Forming of the First Line Component
In 1932 the Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons, made the only attempt by an inter-war government to force the Army’s leaders to accept an anti-raid mission. Ultimately, Lyons and his Minister for Defence, once again Pearce, failed, and the Army continued to advocate its own defence ideas while also undermining the Government’s instructions. Although the surviving records do not outline the process precisely, it is clear that by 15 February Lyons had made his decision, and informed the Army that it was to formulate its plans around the requirement of resisting raids.13
More specifically, the Government expressed its defence policy in terms of Imperial participation. The Government explained that ‘British seapower is the first line of Australia’s Defence against invasion’.14 Lyons was also direct on the Army’s role. He defined it as:
Supplementary to seapower as a general defence against raids, the Army and Air Force organisation provide for the defence of vital localities by means of:
A) Artillery and anti-aircraft artillery defences and garrisons;
B) Military forces sufficient to deal with landing parties where such operations are feasible;
C) Co-operation aircraft.15
In addition, the Army was to have the capability to raise an expeditionary force of one division for service overseas to help secure Australia’s line of communication with the Empire. The most likely destination for this formation was the Malayan Peninsula to bolster the Singapore garrison, although the Government accepted that it could serve anywhere from Gibraltar to Singapore. At no point did Lyons suggest that the Army’s mission was to defend against an invasion.16
Shortly after establishing this policy, Lyons received Imperial confirmation of his decision. His Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs, John Latham, had asked the CID to answer the question: ‘[What is] the most effective apportionment of moneys available in Australia for purposes of defence [?]’. The response, CID Report 372-C, reiterated Imperial maritime principles, namely that the basis of the Empire’s defence was the Royal Navy’s maintenance of sea supremacy. The CID defined the duty of the Australian Army as the defence of the ports and anchorages required by the fleet. The report also repeated the conclusion of CID Report 249-C of 1925 that all Australia had to fear was attack from ‘cruisers or armed merchant vessels and submarines’. Lastly, the CID agreed that it would be better for Australia to provide ‘efficient protection against raids rather than inefficient measures against invasion’.17
Lyons had recognised that the Army required a larger share of the defence vote, but virtually all new moneys went to the modernisation of the coastal forts. It was true that they were in a desperate state. Their design was obsolete and their weapons could not match the power of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s warships. In order to upgrade the coastal defences, the Government authorised new 9.2 and 6 inch guns. The selection of these calibres is significant. The weight and range of shell that they fired was effective only against vessels of up to the size of cruisers. They would be useless against the larger battleships and battle cruiser classes. An invasion fleet would certainly contain battleships, whereas an enemy would use lesser vessels for a raid. Thus the weapons met the Government’s anti-raid strategy. In effect, Lyons’s policy identified the Army as nothing more than a supplement to the Singapore Strategy.
The Army responded quickly to Lyons’s anti-raid initiative by suggesting a major reorganisation of its formations. The Army’s objective was to reduce the number of formations and units that it fielded, thereby lowering overhead and administrative costs. The Army would then apply the resultant savings to the remainder of its structure, thereby improving the smaller force’s readiness. The Adjutant General, Major General T. H. Dodds, went so far as to write to the affected commanders advising them of the imminent disbandment of their formations. A secondary benefit of this plan, the Army argued, was that, by improving the capability of the residual force, the Army would also have improved its ability to respond to a raid. In March 1932 the Military Board presented to Pearce its proposed reorganisation, namely a force of three cavalry brigades, two infantry divisions and four mixed brigades.18
Surprisingly, given the Government’s initial determination, Pearce postponed a decision pending the outcome of the Geneva Disarmament Conference, which was then under way. In fact, no formal changes in the Army’s organisation would eventuate. The Army revisited its proposed reorganisation several times over the next two years, but in each instance the Government demurred.19 Instead, the Army was to compose an anti-raid response force from within its existing organisation of four infantry and two cavalry divisions, and three mixed brigades. This response force was to become known as the First Line Component.
Surviving documentation does not clearly detail the emergence of the First Line Component, but by 1935 its conception was well developed.20 The First Line Component was to defend against raids and act as the source of troops for a one-division expeditionary force. The Army’s existing organisation of seven divisions was to serve as an expansion base in case of a full mobilisation.21 Oddly, the composition that the Army proposed for the First Line Component was the same that it offered to the Government in 1932.
Lyons’s statement of a clear role, the development of the First Line Component, and the Army’s seeming acceptance of an anti-raid priority had little effect on the pattern of Australian civil-military relations, however. Soon the Army’s old practices re-exerted themselves. In fact, for the Army the First Line Component became just another tool in its drive to undermine the Government’s anti-raid policy, overturn the Singapore Strategy and adopt an anti-invasion mission. Moreover, its leaders moved extremely slowly to implement the First Line Component idea. The result was that, instead of raising an anti-raid force, they succeeded in making the First Line Component into another form of anti-invasion defence.
The CGS, Major-General Julius Bruche, made a concerted effort to reopen the debate in mid 1934. He wrote to Pearce admitting to his confusion over the Army’s role and requesting clarification. While The agreed that in 1932 the Government set the Army’s priority as anti-raid defence, Bruche continued that, since the Government had rebuffed suggestions for a reorganisation of the Army, The could only conclude that the Government had abandoned this policy. The General then attacked the anti-raid policy by noting that it entailed great risks and staked all on the ability of the entire British battle fleet to move to Singapore.22 Pearce’s reply was terse and to the point: ‘the Defence policy as laid down by the Government in 1932, still obtains’.23
Undeterred, Bruche wrote again. his time The revealed that the Army had not yet developed any anti-raid plans because it had been too busy preparing its antiinvasion mobilisation and concentration plans. Bruche then explained that, if the Army were to prepare properly for the repulsion of raids, The had to know the magnitude and nature of these incursions. Pearce passed the matter to the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral George F. Hyde, for a reply. Hyde, originally a Royal Navy officer, naturally accepted the Admiralty’s position, and his response could have been drafted by the British Government. In Hyde’s opinion, major centres were safe from ground attack, and the enemy would risk a shore party only at remote areas such as in the mandated territories or possibly Darwin. The Chief of Naval Staff made it clear that, under an anti-raid policy, the Army would have very little to do and required little more than a minuscule force structure. The subsequent development of the First Line Component showed that the Army rejected such an insignificant mission.24
As Bruche’s successor, Lavarack continued the Army’s opposition. In early 1936 Lavarack admitted that, despite the passage of four years, The still had not finalised the organisation of the First Line Component. He stated that he regarded the subdivision of the Army into two parts as merely a means of giving priority for the allocation of funds for the next few years. Lavarack’s real desire was to improve the entire force, rather than just a section of it. Increased funds, he wrote, would prevent the development of a marked disparity between the capabilities of first- and second-line units. Lavarack’s sentiments were certainly not in the spirit of the policy that the Government had entrusted him to put in place.25
It was not until the end of 1937 that Lavarack finally identified the units that would form the First Line Component. Even at this point, one must question his loyalty to the Government’s mandate. The resulting organisation was a lengthy list of unit mobilisations that called for the redeployment and redesignation of units, the raising of support units that did not exist in peace, and the downgrading of existing units to training establishments. A large component of the organisation dealt with the assignment of units to base and administrative tasks. Upon activation, the plan’s primary objective was to set up the foundation for the Army’s expansion, and this was greatly in excess of what was required to oppose a minor raid.26
Another organisational plan, also prepared in 1937, illustrates the true intentions of the Army’s leaders. Called the ‘Strategic Concentration Plan’, it assumed that the Japanese would land at the Commonwealth’s most vital point in order to obtain a decisive result before Imperial help could arrive. The targeted area was the Sydney-Newcastle-Wollongong region—the nation’s industrial heartland. The plan called for the Army to concentrate in the Sydney basin to prevent its occupation.
What makes the Strategic Concentration Plan even more interesting is that, while it includes the same units that were listed on the First Line Component organisation, it assigns them a different role. Units that converted to training establishments or transferred to other formations in the First Line Component plan now appear as combat units on the anti-invasion order of battle. For example, the Melbournebased 3rd Division, whose units became training establishments in the First Line Component organisation, now suddenly played a critical role in the nation’s antiinvasion defence. The Strategic Concentration Plan called for the 3rd Division to move to the Sydney basin.27
The particular units that Lavarack finally selected for the First Line Component also support the conclusion that he was trying to undermine the purpose of the concept. In the end, he designated forty infantry battalions as First Line Component units. On initial examination, this appears a reasonable figure, given the great extent of the Australian coastline. However, at that time the Army had only forty-four battalions on its order of battle. This meant that 91 per cent of the Army’s infantry was a part of the First Line Component. In addition, eleven out of fifteen artillery brigades and ten out of fifteen field engineer companies belonged to the first line. These forces represented an overwhelming allocation of the Army’s strength to the First Line Component.
Lavarack’s list also distributed the Army’s support units between the First Line Component and the rest of the force. It is in examining these units that the Army’s utilisation of the First Line Component as a base for an anti-invasion force is driven home. For example, while any military operation would require medical support, Lavarack allocated to the First Line Component nine general hospitals with a total capacity of 6000 beds. If this was not enough to tend to the casualties resulting from a raid, the First Line Component contained a further 3250 beds in seven convalescent depots, and a multitude of motor ambulance convoys and field ambulances. Of the Army’s eighty-four medical units, seventy-one were part of the First Line Component. Lavarack committed other support elements in similar proportions.28
In effect, the First Line Component had become a means for the Army’s leaders to appear to meet the Government’s demands while continuing to maintain an organisation to defend against invasion. Although it must be admitted that many of these units existed only on paper, or in a cadre state, their inclusion in the Army’s First Line Component underscores the conclusion that Lavarack was developing an anti-invasion force under an anti-raid guise.
Both the troops allocated and the weaponry desired further reinforce the idea of the Army’s duplicity. In the final year before war, the Army sought to finish the equipping of the First Line Component. Among the multitude of deficiencies that Lavarack sought to rectify was a lack of: thirty-six 3 inch anti-aircraft guns, 228 2 pounder anti-tank guns, sixteen 60 pounder medium guns and sixteen 6inch medium howitzers. These weapons represented a large increase in the Army’s firepower, and were far in excess of what was needed to repel small parties put ashore by an enemy raider. Moreover, it is beyond belief that the Army really expected a raiding force to include tanks and planes, thereby necessitating the anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns.29
After 1937 the Army’s personnel numbers began to rebound, and as the force grew, the First Line Component also expanded. By early 1939 the Army had allocated to the First Line Component 5326 officers and 102 690 other ranks, out of a total establishment of approximately 175 000. To command this force the First Line Component received nineteen generals and forty-three brigadiers. This all suggests that the Army had successfully blurred the rationale for the First Line Component. In effect, the First Line Component had become the Army’s expansion base, with its true rationale being invasion defence.30
The Army also used its officer training to highlight the role of the First Line Component in resisting an invasion. At first appearance, the aim of a 1938 exercise without troops was to prepare officers to oppose a raid. However, the exercise presumed that the enemy would use small-scale landings as the initial phase of a larger enterprise. One example examined the enemy’s seizure of Coffs Harbour and its use as an air base to support other operations further south. Another study forecast the capture of Jervis Bay as a preliminary step to an advance on Sydney. The Army expected the raiders to establish a lodgment and use it to build up an invasion force, rather than return to their ships.31
The Army leaders’ response to government statements on defence policy further demonstrates the extent to which the military were determined to resist the wishes of their political masters. In 1933 Pearce delivered a major address on Australian security policy. In it he concluded that Australian security was based ‘on the power of the [Royal] Navy to defend her against aggression’.32 The speech was well received in London, and the secretary to the CID, Maurice Hankey, claimed it was ‘one of the most remarkable expositions of Imperial Defence’ that he had read in years.33 he directives emanating from Army Headquarters, however, continued to take a different tone. Also in 1933, the Director of Military Operations and Intelligence, Lieutenant Colonel V. A. H. Sturdee, wrote that ‘the present organisation of the Army is designed to guard against invasion as well as raids.’34 Clearly, a considerable difference of opinion still remained between the officers and the Government.
At the Government’s request, Hankey visited Australia in 1934 to conduct a review of the Commonwealth’s defence requirements. He presented predictable findings, which satisfied Lyons. Hankey discussed the importance of the Singapore Strategy, assured the transfer of the fleet to the Far East, and asserted the ability of the Royal Navy to defeat the Imperial Japanese Fleet single-handedly. The response by Bruche was brutal, direct, and bordered on insubordination. One by one he countered Hankey’s claims. Then he turned his attention to the Government and testily asserted that its defence policy was wrong. Instead, Bruche believed that the Government should honour the recommendations of the Senior Officer Conference of 1920. As Bruche was of retirement age, he did not have to tread lightly. However, Lavarack, his successor, only moderated his tone slightly. Under his tenure, the Army issued its own position paper on the Australian security environment. Titled ‘A Common Doctrine on the Organisation and Employment of the Australian Military Force’, its aim was to convince the Government of the necessity to prepare against invasion. As in so many other instances, the Government overlooked the Army’s advice, finding the assurances of London more appealing.35
Conclusion
World War II began in September 1939 and, despite twenty years of preparation, the Australian Army was unready for the conflict. The Army was unable to defend against invasion, readily dispatch an efficient expeditionary force overseas, or even safeguard the nation’s shores against a raid. In part, this lack of military effectiveness was a result of government policies that were beyond the Army’s control. The interwar period had been an extremely difficult era for the force’s leaders. They combated inadequate budgets and dealt with governments that were reluctant to purchase modern equipment or provide funds for adequate training. Despite these disabilities, the Army did have one great advantage. The Government had provided it with a clearly defined role—one that remained unchanged from 1923 to the outbreak of war.
The Army chose to disregard this advantage, however, and instead advanced its own preferred role of anti-invasion defence. As a result, its leaders spent nearly the entire inter-war period undermining and misconstruing official defence policy in order to make room for its own objectives. In the end, the Army ignored clear instructions to develop the First Line Component as an anti-raid force, and instead used this body as another means to secure for itself the desired anti-invasion mission. Thus the poor quality of the Army in 1939 was, in part, a condition of the officers’ own making.
It was the prerogative of the Government to define the nation’s defence arrangements, and the obligation of its military leaders to accept and implement their political masters’ wishes. This practice holds true even when the Government’s policy is wrong or foolish, as was certainly the case during this period. The Government’s unquestioning adherence to the Singapore Strategy was not based on a realistic assessment of the Empire’s security situation. Instead, Australian politicians accepted Imperial platitudes because they found them comforting and these platitudes allowed them to avoid hard decisions and extra expenditure.
The Army’s interpretation of Australia’s security situation was the more correct one. While the Admiralty did send a fleet to the east, it did so when Britain was fully engaged elsewhere, as the Army had predicted, and the Japanese had little difficulty in sinking these ships and overrunning Singapore. It is also correct that the Australian mainland never suffered invasion. Indeed, as predicted by British defence planners, the only direct attacks on the Commonwealth were raids: bombardment from either ships or planes. However, it was the United States Navy’s turning back of the Japanese at the Battle of the Coral Sea that really safeguarded Australia. Had the Japanese landed at Port Moresby and finished the conquest of New Guinea, the Army’s worst fears may have been realised.
Being correct does not mean that the actions of Australia’s military leaders were proper, however. One of the cornerstones of Anglo-American military tradition is the absolute subservience of officers to the wishes of their government. It is not the place of officers to make policy, but to implement it. The First Line Component deception illustrates that even in Australia, a nation whose military officers are normally subservient, the balance of civil-military relations can go awry. Australia is fortunate that its officers never went further in their insubordination. This deception is a cautionary tale as to how easily the balance between a government and its military can go wrong.
Endnotes
1 Report on the Military Defence of Australia by a Conference of Senior Officers of the Australian Military Forces (1920), AWM1, item 20/7, Australian War Memorial (hereafter AWM), Canberra.
2 Malcolm H. Murfett, ‘Living in the Past: A Critical Re-examination of the Singapore Naval Strategy, 1918-1941’, War & Society, vol. 11, no. 1, May 1993 p. 79.
3 John McCarthy, Australia and Imperial Defence 1918-39: A Study in Air and Sea Power, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1976, p. 11; and Council of Defence, Report of Discussions, 22 March 1923, A9787, item 3, National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA-ACT), Canberra.
4 Minutes of Meeting of Council of Defence, 30 August 1923, A9787/2, item 12, NAA-ACT.
5 Council of Defence Meeting, Agenda No. 2/1935: Comments by CGS for Representation to the Council, June 1935, MP826, item 39, NAA-VIC.
6 ‘Aide-mémoire for the Minister in Connection with His Attendance at Washington’ and ‘Note on Australian Army Policy and Activities for use of the Minister of Defence During His Forthcoming Visit to Ottawa’ 16 June 1928, A2653/1, vol. 1, NAA-ACT.
7 ‘Appreciation of Australia’s Position in Case of War in the Pacific’, March 1930, revised 23rd March 1932, AWM 54, item 910/2/4, AWM.
8 Ibid.
9 Henry Chauvel, Report for the Inspector-General of the Australian Military Forces Government Printer, Melbourne, 1927, p. 5.
10 Probable Scale of Attack Against Dominions and Indian Ports, August 1923, A5954/1, item 1810/10, NAA-ACT.
11 The Defence of Ports at Home and Abroad, Section II—Australian Ports, CID Report 249-C, 25 July 1925, MP826/1, item 6, NAA-VIC.
12 Council of Defence Meeting, Agenda No. 2/1935: Comments by CGS for Representation to the Council, June 1935, MP826, item 39, NAA-VIC.
13 Neumann, Claude, ‘Australia’s Citizen Soldiers, 1919-1939: A Study of Organization, Command, Recruitment, Training, and Equipment’, MA thesis, University of New South Wales, 1978), p. 42. For a full discussion of the defence debate see Neumann, chap. 2.
14 Memorandum to Minister from Secretary, 18 December 1934, re: Defence Policy: Questions Awaiting Settlement, A5954, item 1015/9, NAA-ACT.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 CID: Chief of Staffs Sub-Committee, The Defence of Australia, CID Report 372-C, August 1932, A981, DEF 59 Part 3, NAA-ACT.
18 Circular Letter to Military Districts, 11 March 1932, B1535, item 849/3/165, NAA-VIC; and Council of Defence Agenda, No. 1/1935, A9787/2, item 12, NAA-ACT.
19 Council of Defence Agenda, No. 1/1935, A9787/2, item 12, NAA-ACT.
20 The exact date on which the Government advanced the First Line Component idea is unclear, but by 1935 it was well developed. See Minutes of Meeting of the Council of Defence, 19 June 1935, A9787/2, item 11, NAA-ACT; and CGS Periodical Letter No. 3/1935, 7 August 1935, A6828, item 3/1935, NAA-ACT.
21 Council of Defence Agendum: Review of Defence Preparations—he Army, MP726/6, item 15/401/59, NAA-VIC.
22 Bruche to Pearce, 27 June 1934, A5954, item 1016/12, NAA-ACT.
23 Pearce to Bruche, 2 July 1934, A5954, item 1016/12, NAA-ACT.
24 Bruche to Pearce, 17 July 1934, and Scale of Overseas Attack on Australian Territory, 31 July 1934, A5954, item 1016/12, NAA-ACT.
25 CGS Periodical Letter No. 1/1936, 15 January 1936, A6828, item 1/1936, NAA-ACT.
26 Composition, Organisation and Distribution of the First Line Component of the Australian Army for War, 1 December 1937, MP826/1, item 62, NAA-VIC.
27 Strategic Concentration Outline Plan, 4 June 1937, MP826/1, item 62, NAA-VIC.
28 Infantry Battalions of the Australian Military Forces, August 1936, B1535, item 849/3/435, NAA-VIC; and Summary of Units by Arms, A5954/69, item 896/10, NAA-ACT.
29 First Line Component—Summary of Weapons Required for all Units, 1 February 1939; First Line Component—Summary of Personnel, Horses and Horse Transport Required for all Units, 1 February 1939; and First Line Component—Funds Needed to Complete Requirements, 17 March 1939, MP729/6, item 20/401/42, NAA-VIC.
30 First Line Component—Summary of Personnel, Horses and Horse Transport Required for all Units, 1 February 1939, MP729/6, item 20/401/42, NAA-VIC; and Schedule Showing Personnel Required for ODB—Gen. Mob., MP826/1, item 51, NAA-VIC.
31 Report on Military Aspects of No. 1 Course, 8-13 August 1938, B1535, item 931/3/141, NAA-VIC.
32 George Pearce, ‘Statement of the Governments Policy Regarding the Defence of Australia’, (25 September 1933), 3-4, in Pearce Papers, 1827, series 1, item 1, National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA), Canberra.
33 Hankey to Pearce, 16 November 1933, Pearce Papers, 1827, series 1, item 7, NLA.
34 Lecture on the Plan of Concentration, AWM 54, item 243/6/150, AWM.
35 Memorandum by the CGS on Report on Certain Aspects of Australian Defence by Sir Maurice Hankey, 5 March 1935, Memorandum by Lavarack on Report on Certain Aspects of Australian Defence by Sir Maurice Hankey, Hankey Collection, 180391, Australian Defence Force Academy Library, Canberra. See also, A Common Doctrine on the Organisation and Employment of the A.M.F., MP826/1, item 14, NAA-VIC.
