Learning the Hard Way: Developing Australian Infantry Battalion Commanders during the First World War

Abstract

The history of the Australian Army tends to neglect the development of ‘officership’, particularly during both world wars. The development of officers in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), for instance, presents an excellent opportunity to examine the evolution of the professional Australian combat officer, particularly in terms of battalion command, and to explore the role of structured training and education in the development of command. This progressed in three broad stages. The first generation comprised the older officers of the Australia militia who provided a firm foundation for AIF infantry battalions but lacked the physical and mental toughness to cope with the rigours of combat. The second generation consisted of those junior officers who assumed battalion commands once the first generation had moved on. Although there were many excellent officers in this generation, their rise to command owed much to their natural ability over professional development. The third generation of Australian commanding officers were those who had completed formal command training and demonstrated their competence while serving as battalion second-in-commands. These men were some of the most professionally capable officers Australia had produced to that point, and were among the most proficient unit commanders in the world in 1918, a significant achievement for ‘citizen soldiers’. This article describes their remarkable development.

Introduction

Henry Crowther was in many ways a typical AIF officer. Born in the late Victorian era into a British family in Jamaica, he was raised in Australia, receiving an above average education for the standards of the time and partaking in many of the activities that befitted a young gentleman in the colonies: swimming, football and shooting.¹ His university education enabled him to enter the workforce as a teacher, also providing him the opportunity to join the Melbourne University Rifles. While teaching he served as a lieutenant in the senior cadets and in March 1915 he enlisted in the AIF.² By the end of the First World War Crowther was the Commanding Officer (CO) of the 14th Australian Infantry Battalion.

Crowther’s military service is typical of a citizen soldier. While he had an interest in soldiering it was not his vocation and he never devoted his life to it, neither before nor after the war. Yet to claim that by the end of the war Crowther was not a professional officer is disingenuous. He had been on active service since 1915 and had commanded an infantry battalion within a formation — the Australian Corps — which, by late 1918, was at the peak of its powers. He passed through formal command training, was awarded the DSO and mentioned in despatches four times. Australia had never before had infantry commanders as experienced and as proficient. What then is the place of these citizen officers in the history of the Australian Army? In 1921, Lieutenant General Sir Harry Chauvel, Inspector-General of the Australian Military Forces (AMF), argued: ‘Because of the fact that our citizen army did so extraordinarily well during the late war there is a tendency on the part of the Australian public to discount the value of the professional soldier and to doubt whether he is necessary at all.’³ Yet, to what degree were Australian officers in 1918 still ‘citizen’ soldiers?

To answer this question it is important to understand what a ‘professional’ soldier is. Many definitions exist, and this article will take a relatively simple one: a vocational expertise in the management of violence, sanctioned by the state, developed through formal education and sustained through a high standard established and managed by the profession itself.⁴ While there is some debate within the literature as to whether enlisted men can be considered professionals, this article will ignore that debate and focus specifically on the professionalisation of the officer corps.⁵

Even without a technical definition there is still an obvious difference between a citizen soldier and a professional. For the former, soldiering is usually a pastime, an activity engaged around the structure of his full-time occupation. No matter how enthusiastic he is, the citizen soldier can never achieve the same level of expertise as the professional soldier. Although the pre-war Australian Army’s professional soldiers were few in number and many lacked active service experience, they had the benefit of more extensive training and more time and resources available to enhance their standard of proficiency in line with what was expected of their profession.

Even if citizen officers such as Crowther never made soldiering their vocation and thus never committed to ‘officership’ as a profession, during the war, many attained a level of expertise in the management of violence which was arguably higher than those truly professional Australian officers of 1914. To turn citizen soldiers into near professional officers was no small accomplishment, particularly in a military that lacked a lineage stretching back centuries and without a solid professional ethos.

Assessing any Australian officer corps is difficult, as Australian military history has been generally deficient in assessing the effectiveness of junior and mid-level officers, neither providing the tools for such work nor generally displaying the inclination to do so if these were available. Indeed the history of the AIF lacks a serious study of junior officers, officer-man relations, or the phenomenon of promotion from the ranks. Interestingly, the current Australian Army perhaps also places less emphasis on the development of ‘officership’ than it should. Captain James Brown (retd) argues that the modern Australian Army, like broader society, does ‘not appear to place a high premium on “officership”.’⁶

However, it must be acknowledged that the development of officers within an army is critically important. This is no less true now than it was 100 years ago. Although the composition and character of the AIF differs significantly from the current Australian Army, the question of how to best prepare officers to command in combat remains pertinent. This article will take one level of ‘officership’ — battalion command — and examine how it developed from 1914 to 1918, to the point at which those who held AIF battalion commands cannot be reasonably considered citizen soldiers, and were instead professional men of war. This discussion will explore the weaknesses in officer development in the pre-war army, and the structures and systems implemented during the war that enabled future battalion commanders to be trained and educated for the daunting task of unit command.

First generation

The development of professional Australian officers did not occur overnight, but was the result of a long evolutionary process within the AIF. To tell this story, the development of Australian COs will be examined in three broad stages, with caveats of course that these are generalisations and simplifications, but that they do, to a certain degree, help explain the developmental process.

The first stage of the AIF’s battalion command development came with the raising of the AIF itself, with officers required to fill newly created battalion commands. Given that the Australian military had a very limited number of well qualified and combat experienced regimental officers, the General Officer Commanding the AIF, Major General William Bridges, and his brigade commanders were forced to select from a pool of militia COs, retired British regulars and other assorted soldiers.

The men who comprised the first generation of AIF COs can easily be described as ‘amateur’ soldiers. They were older men, usually of high standing within society, serving as COs in the part-time Citizen Forces (also known as the militia), who made their living in the professional, commercial or public spheres. Although they were keen soldiers, few had active service experience and there was little professional development for militia officers, a significant proportion of whom had to devote most of their very limited time to training their men.

An amateur ethos pervaded the Citizen Forces at that time, resulting in amateur capabilities. This was typified in the development of officers. Professional command training was negligible and the manner in which officers were selected for promotion left a great deal to be desired. One Australian permanent soldier observed:

… the promotion of a young officer is not dependent on the zeal and ability which he shows in regimental work, but upon his success in examination. Yet, it will generally be admitted that the greater part of the subjects studied for examination [are] unassimilated and quickly forgotten, and have little influence on the officer’s mental equipment and habit of thought.⁷

In the pre-war army, officers seeking promotion from major to lieutenant colonel were required to pass ‘Tactical Fitness for Command’, a two- part examination, half theoretical and half practical. These exams were notoriously inadequate, particularly those designed for the militia officers. In 1912 The Advertiser in Adelaide commented that ‘not many years ago… three hours, and sometimes less, was considered sufficient for an examination for lieutenant-colonel.’⁸ Most officers also lacked relevant active service experience. Of the 44 AIF COs first appointed in Australia, only 11 had seen active service, most in South Africa. Much of this experience was gained serving in the light horse in a completely different operational environment to that they would experience in the First World War, and with different doctrine, weapons and equipment. Crucially, only three of these officers had commanded an equivalent battalion-sized unit.

Once in action, the deficiencies of this generation were obvious. The average age of the COs in the 1st Division was 48, which proved too old to lead battalions in combat. One CO even found the journey from Australia too difficult, forced to relinquish his command in Egypt due to his ‘weak physical condition’ and ‘lethargic demeanour’.⁹ The experience of combat only hastened the demise of many of these officers. The 53-year-old William Bolton, for instance, landed with the 8th Battalion and led them at the Battle of Krithia on 8 May at Cape Helles. Physically and mentally shaken by the battle, he wrote,

… the strenuous work of the last three weeks has been too much for [a] man of my years and I am broken down in body and mind: the horrors and strain … were more than I could stand, my nerve is completely gone, I have no confidence in myself and I shall never be able to take troops into action again.¹⁰

CO casualties were also a product of a lead-from-the-front style of command that was appropriate for the late Victorian and Edwardian era, but out of step with the reality of the First World War. At Lone Pine, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th battalions made the initial assault on 6 August. Of their three COs, two were killed during the battle and one was so badly wounded that he only returned in December.¹¹ This first generation of COs generally commanded through inspirational personal leadership, often placing themselves in the thick of the fighting to inspire their men and often paying the price for such reckless bravery.

Fundamentally, the first generation of AIF COs was not battle-hardened, and when faced with the rigours of combat, few were able to cope. All three divisions raised in Australia lost most of their initial COs; only three of the 44 went on to command brigades. With most aged in their 40s or older, they were more susceptible to illness than younger officers or less likely to recover from wounds. Half the cohort was removed for medical reasons, a phenomenon that was not repeated at any other stage of the AIF’s history. Field Marshal Archibald Wavell believed that ‘[t]he first essential of a general… [is] the quality of robustness, the ability to stand the shocks of war’.¹² This is equally if not more applicable to a battalion commander, who is often much closer to the face of battle.

That most of these men were commanding militia battalions that would have been used for the land defence of Australia in the event of invasion is an indictment both of the way the pre-war army had invested in their command development and its failure to remove men who were well past their prime as battlefield leaders. This is not so much a criticism of the officers themselves— men who volunteered for active service and, in most cases, led their commands bravely and enthusiastically — but the military and defence organisation that was unable to sufficiently resource and manage officers holding some of its most crucial appointments.

Despite their obvious drawbacks, members of the first generation did have one great strength — they knew how to conduct the type of training the AIF needed to raise its infantry battalions. The observation made of Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott, one of the few successful first generation COs, was that ‘he knows how to make soldiers’.¹³ For his part, the 12th Battalion historian argued that the unit’s first CO, Lancelot Clarke, had laid a ‘splendid foundation’ for the battalion’s future work.¹⁴

Second generation

The tenure of the first generation of the AIF’s battalion commanders was short. When their second-in-commands (if they had survived) began to take over, they usually did not alter the nature of the CO cohort as they shared many of the same faults as their COs. South African veteran Robert Gartside, William Bolton’s second-in-command, was the same age as him— 52. The 10th Battalion’s second-in-command, Frederick Hurcombe, had also fought in South Africa. He suffered a nervous breakdown in July 1915 and was later evacuated from the peninsula with dysentery.¹⁵ Robert Owen’s second-in-command, Alfred Bennett, had even served with his CO in the Sudan in 1885.¹⁶

The second generation of Australian COs predominantly comprised the junior officers from the militia who had been given commissions in the AIF, who had survived the Gallipoli campaign and had begun to assume the commands being left vacant by the first generation of COs. Typically, they had begun the war as majors or captains, and they certainly proved more durable than their predecessors. Among this group were some of the most highly decorated and respected unit commanders of the war.

The strength of this generation was that battlefield attrition had elevated them to commands, and their appointments were not determined by peacetime conditions but by the natural selection of active service. Thus men with natural ability, technical skill and luck were promoted very quickly. For some this was a very sudden rise. Owen Howell-Price landed at Gallipoli as a lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion and, by 6 September, he had assumed temporary command of the battalion.¹⁷ When he became the substantive CO in 1916 he was only 26 years old.

It is a remarkable feature of the second generation of COs that so many largely untried officers were to prove exceptional COs. Future lieutenant generals Iven Mackay, Gordon Bennett, Carl Jess, major generals James Cannan, Edmund Drake-Brockman, James Durrant and brigadier generals Ray Leane, James ‘Cast Iron Jimmy’ Heane, Cam Stewart, Cam Robertson and Sydney Herring were all junior battalion officers at the start of the war who rose to battalion commands during or immediately after the Gallipoli campaign and would go on to serve as brigadiers after successful periods in command of their battalions. Another second generation CO was Leslie Morshead, who began the war as a lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, was wounded at Gallipoli and returned to Australia to be appointed CO of the newly formed 33rd Australian Infantry Battalion, which he commanded for the rest of the war. Morshead later held brigade, divisional and corps commands in the Second World War, including commanding the 9th Australian Division during the siege of Tobruk in 1941.

The second generation successfully bore the burden of battalion command for the middle years of the war. Many excellent officers were given their chance to command far earlier than they probably expected, and those with ability made the most of it. This generation left a significant legacy; almost every brigadier in the Australian Corps during the Hundred Days campaign in 1918 had come from this second generation of battalion commanders. Most second generation COs who survived the war continued to serve in the AMF during the interwar years, bringing valuable experience to the militia, and many served during the Second World War as well.

However, they were not all brilliant soldiers and commanders — there were a number of poor quality officers who ascended quickly to battalion commands by virtue of necessity, and were promoted beyond the level of their competence. Miles Beevor, senior major of the 10th Battalion, became temporary CO in October 1915. By the start of 1916 he was despised by his battalion. He displayed complete indifference to the welfare of his men and an inability to develop a working relationship with his officers. By 1916 his adjutant wrote: ‘I am about fed up with the doddering old fool … so are the men and most of the officers. They have no respect whatever for him.’¹⁸ Beevor was transferred to command the 52nd Battalion in March 1916 but fared little better, and when he was wounded on the Somme in September he never returned. Beevor betrays the weakness of the second generation of battalion commanders, an unevenness that was largely due to the nature of the pre-war officer corps on which the AIF was still dependent for its officers. Beevor had been a major in the militia and his advancement in the Citizen Forces had seen him appointed to command an infantry battalion in active service when there was no evidence that he was trained or capable of doing so.

The fact that many members of this generation proved to be effective COs was not attributable to a developmental pathway, but rather the fact that the first brigadiers and battalion commanders had sufficient local knowledge to select good junior officers for their battalions. These men had largely lived up to their potential despite never having received formal training nor gained experience commanding a unit the size of a battalion on active service. However successful they were, the manner in which the second generation was developed was not a blueprint for future success, relying on natural talent over a systematic and structured approach to training and education. In this respect they were no better prepared than the first generation to assume battalion commands, but were simply younger and more robust, relying largely on raw talent and ability rather than expertise inculcated intentionally via formal learning processes. What the AIF lacked was a developmental process to ensure that all COs were at the appropriate standard. This would be a feature of the third generation.

Third generation

The third generation of COs did not generally comprise the big personalities of the AIF, yet they were the most competent and most professional. Looking at the second generation of COs, what was clear is that a system was needed to ensure that future battalion commanders were suitable before they took command. Commanding a battalion was unlike commanding a lower sub-unit; it was far larger and more complex, and it was preferable to have men already qualified to take over these commands once they became vacant, rather than having them learn ‘on the job’. This was how the peacetime army had theoretically operated, ensuring officers were qualified for promotion before they were promoted. Yet the exigencies of war, as well as the high officer casualty rate, meant that officers were being promoted so quickly that it was impossible to ensure that the right men were being placed in the right commands.

One factor that changed this process emerged from the first day of the Battle of the Somme. In some British battalions the CO, second-in- command and adjutant were all killed or wounded in a matter of minutes— figuratively decapitating the unit. After this, army policy forbade a CO and second-in-command to be in the line together, much less both participate in an operation. Theoretically, this meant that a battalion second-in-command would assume the CO’s front-line role 50% of the time, gaining valuable experience.

Although the original intention of the directive was to maintain a command nucleus if a battalion was decimated, what it did was to considerably enhance the command development process, allowing superior officers to gauge how well a second-in-command performed in a battalion commander’s role in battlefield conditions. This enabled brigadiers and divisional commanders to be gatekeepers, determining which officers became COs by ruthlessly removing ineffective second-in-commands, rather than being forced by necessity to take any second-in-command regardless of his suitability for higher command. In the 32nd Battalion, for example, the two most senior majors were removed in late 1917 and early 1918 because neither was deemed sufficiently competent and both blocked the progress of the third major, Blair Wark, who the CO, Charles Davies, declared was ‘fitted to command a Batt[alio]n at any time’.¹⁹

Davies’ judgement of Wark was vindicated in late September 1918 when, while temporarily commanding the battalion, he successfully led his men in breaching the Hindenburg Line, an action for which Wark was awarded the Victoria Cross, the only Australian officer in the war to be so decorated while in command of an infantry battalion.²⁰ In this instance, as in many more, the decision to remove senior but less effective officers was necessary to ensure that the right man was given the job.

More importantly, the third generation of Australian COs had completed a formal training process for battalion command. By late 1916 the British Army had established a specific school in the United Kingdom (UK) for the training of battalion commanders. Douglas Haig had acted on concerns raised by some of his senior commanders towards the end of the Battle of the Somme that many majors and lieutenant colonels in infantry battalions knew little of how to command infantry battalions — thus the Senior Officers’ School was born.²¹

The school took selected majors and sometimes captains from various battalions in the wider British Army and put them through a three-month course at Aldershot, the ‘home of the British Army’. From the very start, Australian officers were part of this process. Between October 1916 and March 1919 nine courses were conducted, teaching officers various aspects of command. In this sense it was a true ‘command’ school, not just providing COs an opportunity to learn the latest tactical doctrinal or technological changes, but also giving them practical lessons on battalion administration and theoretical guidance for leadership development.²²

As the third generation of Australian COs began to assume commands, the impact of this school became evident. Of the 29 COs appointed in 1918,²² of them had passed through a senior officers’ course at Aldershot. John Newman, CO of the 11th Battalion in 1918, considered his time at the school among his most interesting experiences of the war.²³ Similarly, Rupert Sadler of the 17th Battalion told the commandant that he had ‘profited very greatly’ from attending the course.²⁴

There were other strengths to the third generation too. They were the beneficiaries of the AIF’s increasing institutional memory, having been developed since its formation and certainly since it went into action at Gallipoli in April 1915. The longevity of officers remaining with the AIF meant that they accumulated a significant amount of knowledge, usually as they served as company commanders and second-in-commands, and some as adjutants or platoon commanders as well. At the Armistice, every CO in the 1st Australian Division had landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 as a junior officer or NCO. Don Moore, commanding the 3rd Battalion in 1918, had been a platoon commander at the landing and had served as both a company and battalion commander by the end of the war.²⁵

With the development of a growing pool of competent and educated second-in-commands, senior commanders began to feel more confident about moving the poorer second generation COs sideways out of combat commands. This was particularly noticeable in 1917. A year earlier, in 1916, the most common cause for the removal of a CO was medical. By 1917, the single most common reason was transfer to a line of communications unit, either in the rear areas of France or in the UK (see Table 1). As the war progressed, brigadiers or divisional commanders who knew of a second-in- command who was a potential CO would be less reluctant to hold on to a mediocre CO.

Thus, by 1918 the Australian Corps had a refined CO cohort that was very experienced and increasingly formally trained, moving COs towards a professional ethos in line with their evident expertise. However, the fact that there were many successful battalion commanders who came through the vetting process of the Senior Officers’ School and extended periods as battalion second-in-commands should not imply that the development of COs in the third stage was perfect or that a pure meritocracy developed in the AIF, as there was still room for patronage or for senior officers to make mistakes.

Table 1: Reason for CO removal, by year

Nor did the Senior Officers’ School always vet potential COs accurately. Major Montague Brearley, 48th Battalion, attended the sixth course from January to March 1918. His syndicate commander declared him to be a ‘capable’ officer and the commandant concluded that he was a ‘good sound regimental Officer who inspires confidence’.²⁶ In June 1918, when Brearley became the battalion second-in-command under new CO Stan Perry, he was criticised heavily for being a ‘hindrance’ to his new CO and for failing ‘to inspire the confidence of his subordinates’ during temporary command of the 48th Battalion.²⁷ Once he had been passed over for command he developed a ‘disinterested attitude’ towards the war and was practically untenable as Perry’s second-in-command. As a result, he was recommended for return to Australia.²⁸

Brearley’s case was in the minority, however. The general competence of most COs was a testament to the way the AIF was able to mature and produce an effective outcome if given sufficient time to succeed and the right will from those in senior positions. Charles Johnston, CO 15th Battalion in late 1918, believed that, by the Hundred Days, the battlefield success of the Australian Corps demonstrated that the AIF’s officers and men had become ‘veterans in the art of war’.²⁹ These robust and capable COs were at the forefront of a modern, sophisticated army, and not to describe them as professional officers is to devalue the extraordinary level of expertise and commitment required to command effectively on a battlefield dominated by the most powerful and destructive weapons systems the world had ever seen.

Conclusion

The story of Australian battalion command in the First World War is that of a cohort of citizen soldiers developing towards professionalism and creating the first professional Australian combat commanders. Although men like Henry Crowther were not regular soldiers, by the end of the war their level of expertise meant that the militia officers who had served in the AIF since August 1914 and who comprised the third generation were now among the most experienced and highly trained unit commanders in the world. As Garth Pratten observed of the Australian battalion commanders of 1945, this professionalism was exhibited in ethos, structure and proficiency, even if, at its heart, the officer corps of the AIF still comprised citizen soldiers.³⁰

It must be emphasised, however, that the evolution of Australian battalion command in the First World War is not a prescription for how to train and educate unit level commanders in future conflicts given that the conditions under which the AIF was raised and operated are unlikely to be reproduced. However it is a reflection of how and why the AIF (and the wider British Army) developed leaders with professional expertise in a short period of time and the benefits of doing so. The need to move the right people into commands (or at least remove the wrong people at junior levels) and then provide them the necessary education and training to succeed in a difficult command are themes that still resonate today.

For the AIF, the adoption of a systematic approach to command training, including a heavy investment in the senior officers’ course, proved much more effective than simply placing talented junior officers in commands and hoping for the best. To assume that an officer, however skilled, could have commanded an infantry battalion in the complex warfare of 1918, integrating his unit into the wider British Army weapons system without extensive experience, technical training and formal education, is to fall into the same trap of assuming that every Australian is a ‘natural soldier’ and thus requires no preparation before engaging with the enemy. The need to institutionalise command training for officers aspiring to lead a battalion was not lost on the British Army, which not only established the Senior Officers’ School on a permanent footing at Sheerness, Kent, in 1920/21, but also created a ‘sister’ school at Belgaum, India.³¹

Unfortunately for the Australian Army, with the Armistice in November 1918 and the final disbanding of the AIF in 1921, the collective knowledge and expertise of Australian officers who had learnt the difficult task of commanding an infantry battalion on active service was largely allowed to dissipate with few serious attempts to retain this knowledge for future reference. Many AIF COs returned to Australia and were given militia battalions to command; however, as most were not vocational soldiers, their knowledge was not permanently captured by the AMF which, in any event, did not have regular infantry battalions for these men to command. As such, the army lost the opportunity to institutionalise the collective experiences of these very accomplished soldiers. This is what happened to Henry Crowther, who commanded the Citizen Forces 14th Battalion from 1920 to 1924 before being placed on the Reserve of Officers in 1929.³² However, he returned during the Second World War and served as Assistant Provost Marshal, Southern Command.³³

The rise of the army’s professionalised combat commanders was premature, rather than the beginning of a trend. The tragedy is that the gains made during the First World War in battalion command were not used as the foundation for the future. Indeed, Jeffrey Grey argues that the ‘gains which the Australian Army made during World War I were largely undone during the twenty years which followed the defeat of Germany in 1918.’³⁴ The myth that Australians were ‘natural soldiers’ did nothing to reinforce the notion that the knowledge gained during the war needed to be institutionalised so that the processes and lessons did not have to be reinvented when they were needed again — a cautionary tale for any army emerging from a period of prolonged deployment heading into less active times. Without proper attention the quality of battalion commands fell throughout the interwar years.³⁵ It was not until the creation of a regular standing army in 1947 that the opportunity returned for professional regimental officers to be developed, and the profession of arms in Australia to further mature.³⁶ The false dawn of the First World War demonstrated the enormous leadership potential resident in the AIF as a professional Australian officer corps emerged for the first time.

Endnotes

1    C.E. Sligo, ‘Crowther, George Henry (1854-1918)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB), National Centre of Biography, ANU, 1981, at: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ crowther-george-henry-5835/text9911, published first in hard copy (accessed 4 January 2016).
2    Henry Arnold Crowther service record, NAA, B884, V80467.
3    ‘Professional Soldiers. Inspector-General’s Views.’, The West Australian (Perth, WA), 13 August 1921, p. 8.
4    Dayton McCarthy, ‘“Carefully selected, trained in his profession and scientifically educated”: The Royal Military College, Duntroon, and the Professionalisation of the Officer Corps’, in Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey (eds.), 1911 Preliminary Moves: The 2011 Chief of Army History Conference, Big Sky Publishing, Newport, NSW, 2011, pp. 148–52; Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967, pp. 7–18; Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait, Free Press, Glencoe, IL, 1960, pp. 5–6; Sir John Hackett, The Profession of Arms, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1983, p. 9.
5    See McCarthy, ‘Carefully selected’, pp. 151–52.
6    James Brown, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey: Officer Culture in the Australian Army’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. X, No. 3, 2013, p. 249.
7    E.H. Reynolds, ‘Education and Instruction of Regimental Officers’, Commonwealth Military Journal, January 1912, pp. 3-4.
8    ‘Defence Notes’, The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), 26 October 1912, p. 8.
9    James Michael Semmens service record, NAA, B2455, SEMMENS JAMES MICHAEL.
10    W.K. Bolton to GOC 1st Div AIF, 18 May 15, NAA, B2455, BOLTON W K.
11    J.H. McLennan, diary, 6 – 12 August 1915, AWM, 1DRL/0454; Ron Austin, The Fighting Fourth: A History of Sydney’s 4th Battalion, 1914-19, Slouch Hat Publications, McCrae, Vic, 2007, pp. 90–92.
12    Quoted in Harold E. Raugh, Wavell in the Middle East, 1939-1941: A Study in Generalship, Brassey’s, London, 1993, p. 252.
13    Ross McMullin, Pompey Elliott, Scribe Publications, Carlton North, Vic, 2002, p. 96.
14    L.M. Newton, The Story of the Twelfth: A Record of the 12th Battalion, A.I.F. during the Great War of 1914-1918, 12th Battalion Association, Hobart, 1925, p. 69.
15    Frederick William Hurcombe service record, NAA, B2455, HURCOMBE F W LIEUTENANT COLONEL.
16    Eric Wren, Randwick to Hargicourt: History of the 3rd Battalion, A.I.F., Ronald G.
McDonald, Sydney, 1935, p. 7.
17    Owen Glendower Howell-Price service record, NAA, B2455, HOWELL-PRICE O G
LIEUTENANT/COLONEL.
18    B.B. Leane, diary, 1 January 1916, AWM, 1DRL/0412, folder 3 of 3.
19    C.S. Davies to Brigade Major, 8th Aust. Inf. Bde., 4 October, 1917, Cecil Knight Tribe
service record, NAA, B2455, KNIGHT CECIL TRIBE.
20    Roger R. Freeman, Second to None: A Memorial History of the 32nd Battalion A.I.F. 1915-1919, Peacock Publications, Norwood, SA, 2006, p. 252.
21    Basil Kentish, This Foul Thing Called War: The Life of Brigadier General R.J. Kentish, The
Book Guild, Lewes, UK, 1997, p. 64.
22    See Peter E. Hodgkinson and William F. Westerman, ‘“Fit To Command a Battalion”: The Senior Officers’ School 1916-18’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 93, Summer 2015, pp. 120–38.
23    Australian War Records Section biographical forms – Lt Col J Newman, AWM183, 35.
24    Senior Officers’ School confidential report on Major R.M. Sadler, MC, 16 June 1917,
Rupert Markham Sadler service record, NAA, B884, V64336.
25    K.R. White, ‘Moore, Donald Ticehurst (1892-1972)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, ANU, 1986, at: http://abd.anu.edu.au/biography/moore-donald-ticehurst-7634/ text13347, published first in hard copy (accessed 5 January 2016).
26    Senior Officers’ School Confidential Report on Major M.S. Brearley, 3 March 1918, NAA,
B2455, BREARLEY M S.
27    S.L. Perry to GOC 12th Aust. Inf. Bde., 12 June 1918, Montague Sharpe Brearley service
record, NAA, B2455, BREARLEY M S.
28    E.G. Sinclair-MacLagan to Australian Corps, 17 June 1918, Montague Sharpe Brearley
service record, NAA, B2455, BREARLEY M S.
29    Australian War Records Section biographical forms – Lt Col C M Johnston, AWM183, 27.
30    Garth Pratten, Australian Battalion Commanders in the Second World War, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, 2009, pp. 235, 273.
31    David French, ‘Officer Education and Training in the British Regular Army, 1919-39’ in Gregory C. Kennedy (ed.), Military Education: Past, Present, and Future, Praeger, Westport, CT, 2002, p. 111.
32    Henry Arnold Crowther service record, NAA, B884, V80467.
33    Sligo, ‘Crowther, George Henry’, ADB.
34    Jeffrey Grey, The Australian Army: A History, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2006, p. 71.
35    Pratten, Australian Battalion Commanders, pp. 30–47.
36    McCarthy, ‘“Carefully selected”’, p. 167.