The Interwar Militia — A Reappraisal

Journal Edition

Abstract

The informal, part-time military formations of the Australian Militia between 1930 and 1945 are an understudied aspect of military history. Part of the Australian Military Forces (AMF) (the predecessor to the Australian Army), the Militia never achieved its key founding objective: to be a sufficient force for defending territorial Australia. Official and academic accounts of the organisation are largely critical, depicting it as a victim of poor government planning and cost-cutting. However, these accounts undervalue the extent to which the Militia was constrained by the economic and social consequences of the Great Depression. The Militia also contributed to the broader capability of the AMF—its decentralised structure and the leadership training it provided to AMF personnel were valuable. In examining the Militia’s constraints and successes, this article highlights how Army might structure and prioritise resources in future times of economic difficulty.

Introduction

The voluntary Australian Militia of 1930–1939 was a successful part-time force in the interwar period because it made institutional changes that produced quality leaders. This article will assess the two iterations of part-time service during the interwar period: the compulsory Militia of ⁶1921–1930 and the voluntary Militia of 1930–1939. The voluntary Militia was better able to undertake institutional and professional development due to better retention and recruiting of veterans of the First World War. This paper will contend that the voluntary Militia suffers an unfair reputation as an inefficient force and that this perception is based on key literature that is inconsistent with many of the primary and secondary sources.

The compulsory Militia sought continuity with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) by retaining a multi-division structure to defeat invasion; however, it was subsumed with the training of large numbers of conscripts to fill these divisions. Ultimately, it was unable to achieve any strategic aims and left no lasting institutional developments. The voluntary Militia’s problems extended beyond a lack of funding—namely its difficulty in recruiting and retaining personnel during the Great Depression and the inability to mechanise its force. The difficulties of personnel and mechanisation are related to the negative perception of this Militia. However, recruitment and retention ultimately improved by the end of the 1930s and it is difficult to fault the Militia for its inability to mechanise, given the complex range of war planning that faced the AMF. The voluntary Militia focused on producing leaders, and its individual and collective training concentrated on that task. It was a decentralised organisation where gradual improvements were accomplished at the unit level. There were some institutional developments as well, primarily at the end of the period, including in doctrine, centralised courses and collective training. The voluntary Militia became more effective throughout the 1930s, in part because of the diminishing effects of the Great Depression. The voluntary Militia made steady institutional improvements and became a positive organisation for the development of leadership.

Reasons for a Negative Perception of the Militia

Negative appraisals of the Militia are significantly more prominent than positive ones, particularly in official accounts immediately after the Second World War and in academic and popular accounts from the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the common criticisms relate to a lack of funding, reflected over time from Gavin Long’s official history Australia in the War of 1939–1945¹(1961) to Jeffrey Grey’s A Military History of Australia²(2001). The Commonwealth halved Defence allocations and curtailed acquisition between 1930 and 1936.³The desire of policymakers to avoid what were perceived as the mistakes of the Militia likely marks the start of a perception of the force’s inadequacy, commencing immediately after the Second World War. An emblematic political criticism came during the reformation of the part-time Citizen Military Forces (CMF) in the late 1940s when Minister of the Army and former Militia officer HBS Gullett stated in Parliament that the Militia of the 1930s had:

[n]ever been up to strength … and … I can say that the standard of the militia … was so low that on the eve of the war the militia forces could not have undertaken the simplest military operation against a trained force with the least chance of success … [T]hey were a paper army.⁴

The Directorate of Military Training reflected dissatisfaction in the Australian Army Journal in 1950 noting that the Militia was ‘too weak to provide useful experience for the leaders and not much more than elementary training for the troops’.⁵Part of the explanation for the negative sentiment was an attitude held by policymakers that both iterations of the interwar Militia failed to make a useful contribution to the defence of Australia in the lead-up to the Second World War. It should be recognised that many of the decision-makers immediately after the war, such as then Chief of the General Staff Sir Sydney Rowell, had clashed with Militia officers prior to and during the war and were now in a position to address perceived missteps.⁶These negative perceptions moved from official accounts to popular and scholarly accounts, with at least two prominent negative appraisals of the Militia featuring in the 1980s.⁷A comprehensive secondary source is the Master of Arts Thesis of Claude Neumann, Australia’s Citizen Soldiers, 1919–1939: A Study of Organization, Command, Recruiting, Training and Equipment in 1978. This more than any other single document exhaustively examines the Militia and is cited in many of the authoritative histories of the Australian Army, such as Jeffrey Grey’s The Australian Army: A History and Albert Palazzo’s The Australian Army: A History of Its Organisation. The consistent theme of Neumann’s thesis is the inability of the Militia to defend the Australian continent. The causes, according to Neumann, were largely systemic and rooted in the lack of funding, including poor quality of training,⁸an inability to retain trained personnel,⁹and issues with rationalising the strategic role.¹⁰

A popular perception of the Militia since the 1990s is perhaps best epitomised by the tone of Peter Brune’s books. They often commence with a short description of the prewar Militia, serving as a starting point for assessing the development of the AMF through the 1940s, with descriptions of it as ‘a threadbare defensive force rather than a highly trained army’.¹¹A similar perception is reflected in Adrian Threlfall’s well-researched 2014 book Jungle Warriors, where meagre training allocations are linked to poor performance: ‘This was clearly not sufficient to provide an adequately trained formation that could form the nucleus of an expanded force in the event of war’.¹²The position that the Militia failed to buttress the expansion of the Second AIF, and was in any event outperformed by the AIF in the Second World War, is central to the perception that it was an inadequate military organisation.

The Positive Perceptions

Positive assessments of the Militia largely reside in either official correspondence or personal accounts. Sir Carl Jess provided an early, useful narrative in 1945, hereafter called the Jess Report. Jess was the Adjutant-General from 1934–1939 and was defensive of policies with which he was associated. The report exists in draft form only, as Jess retired in March 1945 due to ill-health.¹³Notwithstanding that, it contains useful observations, particularly about improvements through the 1930s and the benefits of higher leadership standards. A balanced appraisal of the Militia and its surrounding circumstances can be obtained from the official history, specifically Gavin Long’s Volume 1—To Benghazi in 1961. Long was critical of all aspects of defence preparations during the interwar period.¹⁴Ultimately though, he accepted that the Militia produced good leaders¹⁵and acknowledged that leadership development had been the primary role predicted for the Militia at its inception in 1920.¹⁶Many memoirs and biographies of Second World War participants also incorporate their subject’s participation in the prewar Militia. These often reflect favourably on the formative experience and the utility of the professional relationships. An example is the memoirs of Rowley Richards, who served in the 1st Artillery Survey Company in the 1930s. He provided a positive perspective of being commissioned as a Militia officer in 1939:

I had been determined to rise through Militia ranks as quickly as I could … At that particular moment I thought the King and I were on equal status.¹⁷

The memoirs of GD Solomon, a staff corps officer, provide a positive perspective on the professionalism of a Victorian Militia battery at the start of the war.¹⁸These positive appraisals are reflected in some of the unit histories of CMF battalions, possibly because many of the histories were written by participants.¹⁹One noted that the small training budget ‘did not, however, prevent the men from utilising that which was available with great enthusiasm’.²⁰Some recent historical sources are also positive, or at least neutral, towards the Militia. Grey concluded in his 2001 history of the Australian Army, that the force ‘was neither as bad as its critics suggested, nor as satisfactory as its defenders in government maintained’.²¹

Garth Pratten’s comprehensive Australian Battalion Commanders in the Second World War, published in 2009, notes that approximately 90 per cent of Second World War battalion commanders served in the Militia, mostly as officers, and provides a number of examples of their positive development.²²Pratten’s book possibly marks a turn from the negative perceptions. The historiography is probably more positive, at least in terms of primary sources, than is popularly believed. Ultimately though, the official rejection must be more acceptable than the positive personal accounts because of the enduring prevalence of negative appraisals. The positive accounts of the Militia generally focus on perseverance and demonstrate that at least some participants regarded the experience as positive.

Implementation of the Compulsory Militia

The compulsory Militia aimed to preserve a multi-divisional structure, mirroring the First AIF, to defeat invasion. The establishment was determined at the Senior Officers Conference in 1920. The conference, constituted by ranking generals, determined that the Militia would consist of five infantry and two cavalry divisions and would be manned by selective conscription with a two-year commitment.²³The compulsory Militia’s structure directed brigades located along regional lines.²⁴However the primary function, executed at unit level, was training the substantial throughput of conscripts who manned the large number of units. This contradictory operation can be explained by the competing demands placed upon the organisation. The Senior Officers Conference had recognised ‘the importance of creating an effective, ongoing training organisation to compensate for the inevitable decline in the AIF’²⁵— and presumably to develop its own institutional professional standards. However, there was clearly a desire to retain as much of the structure and heritage of the AIF as possible.

Palazzo would describe adherence to the multi-divisional structure as causing ‘policy choices aimed at sustaining the organisational structure, even at the expense of creating a force capable of waging a modern war’.²⁶The force required 180,000 at war establishment.²⁷Subsequently, manning declined from 124,489 in 1921 to a figure approximately 25 per cent of the war establishment: 45,000 personnel in total by the late 1920s.²⁸Conscripts largely constituted the establishment of each unit, which had the responsibility to train these personnel. In effect, individual units became ab initio training organisations. Their ability to achieve individual training standards was limited by resourcing. There was initially a statutory allocation of 16 days of training annually, divided evenly between home training (usually in the evenings) and camps. Camps were effectively of eight days duration including travel; home training days generally consisted of one working day. The allocation was reduced to 12 days annually, still split evenly, by 1930.

The Commonwealth directed that the Military Board, the Army’s executive, make preparations on the basis that only localised raids would require an Army response.²⁹The Military Board largely ignored the Commonwealth’s direction and persevered with preparations to counter a substantial invasion, likely from Japan.³⁰The failure to rationalise this dilemma, in spite of the government’s clear direction, was a primary reason for the retention of the seven-division structure. It was felt that only this size, 180,000 men strong, ‘would give the nation a sporting chance to hold out until help arrived from overseas’.³¹The alternative and radically different Army contingency was Plan 401, which provided for the raising of a divisional-strength contingency force. Plan 401 was initiated due to a war scare with Turkey over the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres in 1922. The Military Board planned to raise a division ‘drawn from the various states on a pro rata scale in accordance with the size of the Force’.³²Training would have been conducted in the respective states. The planning was revised through the 1930s and ultimately implemented in 1939 for the raising of the 6th Division of the Second AIF. The Military Board demonstrated that the compulsory Militia was intended for continental defence by making provision for an expeditionary force. The structure of the compulsory Militia demonstrated its purpose, but manning this structure was the cause of its primary shortfalls.

Appraising the Compulsory Militia

The capability limitations of the compulsory Militia were a consequence of adherence to its structure and it left limited institutional developments. There were various reasons why the compulsory Militia was not a successful force. The organisation did not achieve any resounding collective training standards; nor did it leave any institutional structure. Grey has noted the Army’s own preference for compulsory training,³³which facilitated the multi-division structure. It also denied the force the ability to conduct functional collective training, because it was always occupied with training conscripts. The Jess Report estimated that in the period 1926–1929 approximately one-third of the posted strength of any unit were volunteers who had completed their compulsory obligation, one-third were 18-year-old conscripts in their first year, and one third were 19-year-old conscripts in their second year.³⁴He assessed that tactical training was confined to ‘the most elementary platoon drill in fire and movement’.³⁵

Notably absent from primary accounts and the secondary sources is the presence of formal or ad hoc leadership, command or staff training. The obvious reasons for these shortcomings were the lack of time and the fact that it was felt that the First World War veterans provided sufficient knowledge to abate the diminishing professional knowledge. Retention of conscripts after the completion of their compulsory service was pitiful and in reality substantially less than the one-third estimate of the Jess Report; approximately one in seven of the total force was a volunteer, inclusive of officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs). Most of the officers and the senior other ranks were AIF veterans or long-service militiamen.³⁶However, many of the ex-AIF officers resigned in short order. Their reasons were exemplified by those of Albert Jacka VC, who had no prewar military experience and was appointed a company commander in the compulsory Militia. He subsequently resigned when he ‘learned how expensive and time-consuming it was to hold a commission as a citizen officer’.³⁷Furthermore, common sense dictated that a new generation of younger officers would need to supplement these veterans, preparatory to replacing them; this was denied by the limited retention. The possible strategic purpose was unambitious but did not match the force that had been allocated to it.³⁸Plan 401 was a practical consideration; however, the compulsory Militia made no meaningful contribution its development. Similarly, defence against raids could only have been achieved with forces trained at least at unit level and with higher standards of readiness. The lack of institutional structures is probably the most concerning outcome.

Palazzo has critically compared the Australian Army in the interwar period to the Reichswehr in Germany. The German Army undertook doctrinal review during the interwar period, which culminated in sound institutional developments.³⁹Conversely, the British and Commonwealth armies did not effectively consolidate their lessons,⁴⁰with the key shortcoming being a failure to expand on British armoured doctrine after 1918.⁴¹There are limited sources examining the institutional developments of the period, apart from Neumann. However, the obvious inference is that the compulsory Militia was consumed with ab initio training to man its establishment. It consequently neglected collective development or professionalisation of its leadership.

Constitution of the Voluntary Militia

The voluntary Militia superficially resembled the compulsory force’s organisation but was motivated by clearer strategic direction and a changing recruitment and retention policy. The Scullin Labor government, elected in 1929, legislated to end conscription, largely because of its unpopularity,⁴²and replaced it with a smaller, volunteer force. The multi-divisional structure was retained,⁴³with a reduced peace establishment of 35,000 personnel, comprising less than 50 per cent of the war establishment.⁴⁴The government continued to direct preparations for localised raids⁴⁵articulated in the ‘Plan of Concentration’.⁴⁶The key assumption for policymakers was the infallibility of the Singapore strategy, whereby the presence of the Royal Navy at Singapore would deter major invasions.⁴⁷However, the persistence of formation-level headquarters remained controversial. Major General Thomas Dodds, who was the Adjutant General in the period and was responsible for the reorganisation after compulsory training, observed:

… the money the army saved through the elimination of division and brigade headquarters could provide for additional militia training … However on further reflection, the army decided to salvage its organisation.⁴⁸

This reflected a continued focus by the Military Board on countering a Japanese invasion.⁴⁹There were developments throughout the 1930s which increased Militia strength and potential. A recruiting campaign in 1936 raised the force to its authorised strength of 35,000; it had diminished somewhat in the preceding years. A more prominent effort increased the strength to 70,000 from 1938. The training day allocation increased from 12 days total to 12 days in camp and six days home training in 1938.⁵⁰The Militia was expanded by re-establishing a number of previously amalgamated battalions and regiments and filling existing vacancies with the new recruits. The voluntary Militia ended the 1930s as an enlarged force with less hollowness and a greater capacity for training.

Implications of the Depression for Personnel

The voluntary Militia was faced with complex personnel issues during the 1930s that extended beyond pay and funding. The ultimate personnel problem was retention. Several complicated considerations prevented effective retention until some of the broader economic conditions of the Depression abated. Neumann’s research demonstrates that the voluntary Militia came close to meeting recruiting targets and was able to maintain strong quotas even in the early 1930s.⁵¹There were many factors which impacted retention negatively. Firstly, Militia salaries were incomparably lower than those expected in civilian employment. The average salary of a private soldier, paid for each day of parade, was five shillings per day until 1936, and eight shillings until the Second World War.⁵²This was lower than the Commonwealth’s recommended basic weekly wage in capital cities (67 shillings in 1931, rising to 79 shillings by September 1939).⁵³

Militia attendance was also problematic. Some employers were unwilling to release their staff for training.⁵⁴There was also a high level of casualisation of the workforce in the early 1930s.⁵⁵Men were reluctant to jeopardise potentially more lucrative job opportunities by engaging in Militia training, so they separated, avoided training or were disinclined to join in the first place. Sustenance payments were suspended on attending Militia camps, further disincentivising service.⁵⁶The early 1930s featured a strain of pacifism probably stronger than at any stage in the 20th century.⁵⁷This was noted, possibly with a degree of overreaction, by staff throughout the 1930s.⁵⁸Each of these issues impacted retention. Better pay from 1936, lower levels of unemployment and greater acceptance of the need for military participation coincided with improved retention. The proportion of personnel separating who had served three or more years rose from 21 per cent between 1 July 1931 and 30 June 1936 to 34 per cent between 1 July 1936 and 31 December 1938.⁵⁹Discharges against total unit strength reduced from 43 per cent in 1932–33 to 25 per cent in 1936–37.⁶⁰The roots of this improved retention reflect the complexities of the period. Pay cannot explain the development, because it never reached parity with basic civilian standards. Ralph Honner, later the commanding officer of the 39th and 2/14 Battalions in Papua New Guinea, provided an interesting perspective on this period:

I had gone back to the Militia in 1936 … and although I was over age, over 35, to be a junior officer in the AIF, I think if I hadn’t made strenuous efforts to get in, I could hardly have held my head up high again.⁶¹

Honner’s re-engagement occurred after he completed his legal training and coincided with Militia participation by other Perth lawyers. Honner’s experience demonstrates many of the competing motivations for retention. It is likely that while Militia conditions improved and economic pressures diminished, men were also more willing to serve for altruistic reasons such as patriotism or a sense of obligation. There is no single cause for improved retention, and it reflects the complex conditions of the period.

The Inability to Mechanise

The AMF made appropriate decisions about mechanisation in the 1930s. Two narratives loom in the limited historiography of mechanisation. The first is that the Army made perfunctory attempts to mechanise and that these demonstrate the limitations of defence spending. Specifically, small numbers of officers were sent to the UK for training in tank tactics, a small number of tanks were purchased for demonstration purposes, and Light Horse regiments were converted into ad hoc armoured car units by mounting Vickers machine guns on trucks.⁶²These efforts have been assessed negatively, both contemporaneously⁶³and since. Grey noted of the period that the voluntary Militia suffered from ‘inadequate and ‘experimental’ equipment, funding deficiencies and conservative resistance to change’,⁶⁴and Wilcox described the mechanisation efforts as ‘gestures towards modernisation’.⁶⁵The second narrative reflects the fact that limited attempts to mechanise may have been responses born of necessity—specifically the decline of horse stocks and horsemanship in the interwar period. Jean Bou has identified the falling standards of Australian horsemanship and the difficulty in sourcing remounts as at least equal to the pressure to modernise.⁶⁶Chauvel observed in 1928 that ‘good saddle and harness horses are fast reaching the vanishing point’.⁶⁷Therefore, the gradual introduction of light car troops into cavalry regiments was probably intended to complement horses rather than replace them.⁶⁸

The Army remained committed to the utility of cavalry forces into the 1930s, a situation which the 1920 Senior Officers Conference predicted, partly because they assumed it would be difficult to supply fuel during a defence of the Australian continent.⁶⁹Undoubtedly the AMF reflected the British reluctance to accept the obsolescence of cavalry. As Jeremy Black has noted of the period:

Learning lessons was scarcely an easy process for, aside from issues of applying conclusions, there was a lack of clarity as to why the Allies had been successful in 1918.⁷⁰

The AMF placed unnecessary reliance on the performance of cavalry in the Middle East in 1918.⁷¹However, it is important to recognise that the AMF was not alone in this regard. Large cavalry forces were employed in the Russian Civil War, the Russo-Polish War and the Chinese Civil War, three of the largest conflicts of the interwar period.⁷²The fact that the AMF failed to mechanise seems consistent with prevailing military wisdom. A more appropriate explanation is that the AMF was trying to balance complex competing considerations in developing an appropriate force for its next conflict.

The voluntary Militia benefited from a bias of responsibility at the unit level, where informal methods of training enhanced efficiency. The regionalisation of units allowed commanders to leverage local assistance, which provided useful extensions to training budgets. This diminishes the relevance of the Military Board and the confusion that resulted from the divergent strategic direction. Consequently, doctrine and policy were of less importance.

The Primacy of the Unit

The voluntary Militia was decentralised so that unit commanding officers maintained a substantial level of responsibility for their own training and readiness. Partly this must have been a result of regionalisation⁷³and the nature of Militia leadership. Territorial titles were imposed on Militia units from 1937. The Jess Report observed that this was intended to endear units to local organisations from which they could draw support.⁷⁴Pratten notes that ‘each battalion had its own individual ‘character’.⁷⁵The nature of service was somewhat at odds with Australian notions of egalitarianism. Officers were obligated to purchase their own uniforms and attend a substantial amount unpaid training.⁷⁶Further, Neumann noted with regard to NCOs, ‘[t]he social composition and rank structure of Militia units followed the pattern set by the officer corps’.⁷⁷However one by-product of this class-biased selection was the appointment of officers and NCOs who were often able to serve without financial constraints. Another factor which defined the leadership was a preference to commission men who had served in the First World War. Furthermore, policy dictated that in the absence of First World War service, officers were to be commissioned from the ranks.⁷⁸Thus experience tempered the enthusiasm of the restricted pool of candidates. The First World War dominated all Militia units: most commanding officers were veterans as late as the 1940s.⁷⁹The First AIF possessed many young unit commanders in 1918. These officers often continued to serve into the 1930s. Many quickly found themselves outmoded at the start of the Second World War, but they had started the job of building the Second AIF.⁸⁰In 1935, 81 per cent of all Militia members had served in the First AIF, demonstrating renewed enthusiasm for Militia service after the low participation in the 1920s.⁸¹Independent units maintained responsibility for ab initio training. Some synergies must have been possible if there was greater retention.

As Pratten reflected of comparable ab initio unit training for the Second AIF:

… the individual battalion syllabi were structured on conventional military lines that first sought to train the individual soldier, both intellectually and physically, before progressing though the training of each successive subunit.⁸²

There was no broad increase in training allocation from 12 days annually until 1938; however, there is a general sense that by the late 1930s better retention was reducing the impost of ab initio training. This central role of training in all aspects of Militia operations ensured that leaders gained experience as instructors. Decentralisation stands in contradiction to the highly centralised divisional structure embodied by the Plan of Concentration. But as Horner has noted, ‘without the necessary resources the plans were quite unrealistic’⁸³and therefore, except as a guiding operational concept, were probably of little relevance at the unit level. In contrast, the unit maintained responsibility for all manner of technical, leadership and collective training.

Approaches to Leadership Development

Leadership development in the voluntary Militia benefited from innovation, adroit management of minuscule budgets, and perseverance. Its primary success was in the development of its leaders. The methods of developing leadership were tactical exercises without troops (TEWTS), staff rides and professional development courses at the unit level. Informal training approaches prevailed partly because the voluntary Militia lacked formal structures for professional development, but also because of lack of funding. There were seven corps schools during the 1930s, but they were intended for the permanent force instructors.⁸⁴These instructors, along with the five syllabi of the examinations for promotion, made up the primary institutional structure ensuring some standardisation, and there is minimal evidence of their reach at unit level. Unit programs of professional development were more prominent. Some focused on preparing candidates for promotion, others on imparting specific individual skills, such as in using a particular weapon. Comanding officers retained discretionary funds for the payment of NCO and officer salaries specifically for activities in support of career development.⁸⁵Additionally, the Jess Report noted that ‘many other (activities) were held at the voluntary expense of the individuals’.⁸⁶The effect of this experience can be demonstrated by the practice of Sir Edmund Herring, who served as an artillery commanding officer during the 1930s:

He kept himself abreast of military theory and technical developments so far as that was feasible … He joined weekend bivouacs and with other senior officers took part as often as possible in TEWTs, some conducted at the Naval and Military Club.⁸⁷

Many NCOs and officers ignored the six days of home training and paraded weekly, often without pay.⁸⁸The Jess Report and the independent accounts from the period demonstrate high levels of motivation and improvements in the performance of officers in the 1930s. This has led Pratten to note:

The Militia in the 1930s did have one strength however, and this was the commitment of its long-serving officers, NCOs and soldiers, who gave up much of their leisure time to military training despite the ‘rather discouraging circumstances’ in which they served.⁸⁹

Use of Community Opportunities

The voluntary Militia made significant use of community organisations to enhance training. These connections likely become more entrenched in the late 1930s as a consequence of continuous local connections. A prominent support was local rifle clubs. They had a long history of association with the part-time force;⁹⁰however, the 1920 Senior Officers Conference had recommended that the Defence Department cease the association,⁹¹a sentiment reciprocated in 1929.⁹²Nonetheless the cooperation continued. The effectiveness of the rifle club association is difficult to gauge. The Jess Report was positive,⁹³and they could have been expected to complement existing facilities. Units also developed their own social and garrison facilities. Training facilities had generally deteriorated by the 1930s. The Jess Report indicates that the camps of the First AIF were cannibalised for materials.⁹⁴Gavin Keating reflected on a rich social atmosphere in his biography of Stanley Savige, commenting that he ‘spent the whole of his army pay on improving the facilities in the Sergeants and Officers Messes in Surrey Hills and promoting their use’.⁹⁵There are a number of examples of business and philanthropy meeting expenses for Militia training. These included the donation of food, transport and training facilities.⁹⁶This assistance would doubtless have extended the very limited training budgets.

Institutional Developments

The voluntary Militia benefited from some limited institutional efforts to develop leadership. These included Australian doctrinal developments that reflected local conditions and improved centralised courses and exercises. Collective training also improved slightly by the end of the 1930s, incorporating technological considerations.

Examples of Doctrinal Development in the Voluntary Militia

There is a small amount of evidence that the AMF made practical doctrinal efforts which fostered the development of leaders. The AMF produced some doctrine in the 1930s. Specifically, Instructions for Training⁹⁷was released in 1933 and took the place of the UK publication Training and Manoeuvre Regulations.⁹⁸The earlier publication took a prominent place in the development of a uniquely British operational art by providing an overarching framework for the conduct of training.⁹⁹Instructions for Training replicated much of this content. But importantly it provided consideration for Australian conditions. Key principles were imported from the British document into Chapter 3 ‘Militia Force Training—General Instructions’. In contrast, the earlier UK document included separate considerations for territorials rather than devoting an entire chapter to them.¹⁰⁰This difference reflects the primacy of part-time forces for Australia. It contradicts Palazzo, who has stated that the primary purpose of the Directorate of Military Training ‘was to reissue British training publications and to conduct promotional examinations’.¹⁰¹The key distinction is the precedence afforded by the Australian doctrine to the training of junior leaders and specialists, which Chapter 3 indicated ‘is of paramount importance and will receive first consideration’.¹⁰²There is no real way of determining the prominence of Instructions for Training as there is no mention of it in any primary sources. However, it demonstrates that leadership development was prioritised in the AMF. The Jess Report also reflected this focus. It identified, largely anecdotally, several positive improvements. The nature of leadership changed: NCOs were appointed during the conduct of their Compulsory Military Training in the 1920s; many were in their late teens or early twenties. Jess regarded this as deleterious; older and more able personnel were less inclined to share NCO rank with these younger appointments. The return to a volunteer force saw the development of a pool of experienced, older NCOs typically at the Corporal level, who undertook longer periods of service.¹⁰³The voluntary Militia doctrinally and organisationally improved the conditions for leadership development.

Formal Training Developments

The voluntary Militia gradually developed formalised structures for individual and collective training that enhanced the development of leaders and readiness. The establishment of a Command and Staff College at Randwick Barracks in 1938 under Major General Sir Henry Wynter demonstrates improved efforts towards professionalism. The course for promotion from Major to Lieutenant Colonel was originally six days long, was conducted at a number of locations, and consisted of lessons and TEWTs. The Chief of the General Staff asserted that few officers who completed the course ‘were fitted for the immediate exercise of command’.¹⁰⁴The Command and Staff College taught a longer syllabus and, more importantly, centralised instruction. Pratten noted that from 1938:

… in the Militia battalions the first members of a new generation of commanding officers, who were to benefit from such innovations as the Command and Staff School were beginning to break the monopoly of the First World War veterans.¹⁰⁵

This reflects the value placed on the unit and the expectations the Army held for unit commanders.

Another area where the voluntary Militia demonstrated a gradual maturation was an increase in collective training. Long noted that ‘they were made to undertake complicated and arduous exercises’. The 1st Brigade conducted a coast defence exercise in October 1938 near Newcastle where ‘artillery fired over the heads of the infantry with accuracy and an air force squadron (No 3) cooperated’.¹⁰⁶Neumann notes that there were TEWTs that incorporated armoured vehicles, anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, and reconnaissance aircraft,¹⁰⁷as well as field exercises where infantry were landed by Navy ships.¹⁰⁸The developments in this area were tenuous, and their reception cannot be confirmed. However, they demonstrate that some of the positive personal accounts were not anomalous. Further, the voluntary Militia contemplated modern military developments. The improved training demonstrates that the increased professionalisation must have had some enduring benefits, as planners were incorporating contemporaneous developments. Further, the improved readiness doubtless provided more realistic opportunities to develop leadership. None of these collective actions resulted in a measurable enhancement of readiness.

Furthermore, they occurred so late that it is difficult to assess their actual success. However, they demonstrate that since the 1920s the Militia had advanced beyond ab initio and platoon training and was now capable of undertaking formation-level training. It likely positively influenced the development of the voluntary Militia’s key leadership at a point where this influence was of importance in their preparations for the Second World War.

The Militia’s Leadership Contribution

The voluntary Militia provided the foundations for the massive expansion of the AMF in the Second World War. It did this in two ways, largely simultaneously. Firstly, the initial officers and senior NCOs for the Second AIF were initially recruited from the Militia. The 2/2nd Battalion was formed on 24 October 1939 by the congregation of a commanding officer and an adjutant from the Militia and a quartermaster and regimental sergeant major from the regular forces.¹⁰⁹The initial draft consisted of 12 officers, two sergeant majors, one sergeant and 41 privates, all recruited from the Militia.¹¹⁰This force marched into Ingleburn camp on 2 November as an advance party for the substantive recruitment. This example demonstrates how the AIF relied on Militia leadership until they could employ their own graduates from officer training and internal promotion. Initially, half of the 6th Division’s positions were reserved for the Militia. In the event, it contributed only a quarter.¹¹¹

However, virtually all the officers were from the Militia. The official history noted that in forming the 8th Division, ‘[i]n choosing their senior officers, the battalion commanders looked for those who had been in militia units’. Further, these officers were permitted to recruit up to three-quarters of their NCOs from the Militia.¹¹²This was an important contribution: a pool of vetted leaders trained in the fundamentals by First World War veterans. Pratten notes:

As a military organisation, the pre-war militia failed in many ways, but it generally fulfilled its primary aim of providing a base of trained officers on which to found an expanded Army.¹¹³

That four AIF divisions were raised, trained and deployed overseas in the first two and a half years of conflict, largely with Militia officers, reflects the utility of the leadership focus.¹¹⁴The Militia also fielded its own units and formations for the defence of Australia and New Guinea. Certain CMF units were specially raised for full-time service; in September 1941 the force numbered 173,000 men, with 45,000 in full-time service. Most of these men were called out for full-time service in 1942. The performance of the Militia from 1942 is contested; however, having regard to the serious shortcomings of the 1930s, it is perhaps surprising that it functioned as effectively as it did.

Conclusion

The voluntary Militia ultimately focused on producing leaders and, despite being negatively perceived, it accrued some positive achievements. There are positive appraisals of the Militia, but in the official literature and in popular and some academic accounts a negative perception has prevailed. The compulsory Militia was subsumed with maintaining its establishment by a constant throughput of short-service conscripts. Leadership development was subordinated to this training function, and the compulsory Militia failed to develop meaningful collective training standards and left minimal institutional developments. The voluntary Militia was similarly underfunded but, presented with the extraordinary circumstances of the 1930s, it would have struggled in any event to retain personnel and mechanise properly. Ultimately the voluntary Militia delegated a substantial amount of training responsibility to units, who were then able to draw on significant local resources and experience to develop and promote their own leaders. Gradually some doctrine and secondary sources reflected this focus. Further, the AMF was able to use the limited improvements of the late 1930s to promote more effective individual and collective training. The voluntary Militia was an organisation that focused on the development of leaders and used its limited resources to accomplish this task despite extraordinarily complex circumstances. The Australian Army should continue to examine the historical implementation of effective part-time training. The largest deployments of Reserve forces occurred on two occasions in 2020 and there is every indication that Defence will continue to draw on Reserve forces as it enters an unpredictable period.

About the Author

Major Sam Baumgarten joined the Australian Army in 2003 and graduated with a BA (History and Politics) from ADFA before being commissioned as an RAA Officer in 2006. He served with 16th ADR and was deployed on Operations SLIPPER and CATALYST. He left the ARA in 2013 and transferred to RAE in 2014, serving with 8 ER and commanding 14th Combat Engineer Squadron. He currently commands A Coy, 1st/19th RNSWR in Wagga Wagga. He graduated with an LLB from the University of Newcastle in 2015 and was admitted as a solicitor in 2016. He currently works for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. He is married with two children.

Endnotes

1 Gavin Long, 1961, Australia in the War of 1939–1945: Volume 1—To Benghazi (Adelaide: The Advertiser Printing Office), 20–25.

2 Jeffrey Grey, 1999, A Military History of Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge), 134–136.

3 Craig Wilcox, 1998, For Hearths and Homes: Citizen Soldiering in Australia, 1854–1945 (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin), 93.

4 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (House of Representatives), 26 September 1947, 272.

5 Directorate of Military Training, ‘The Basis of Expansion for War’, Australian Army Journal 12 (May 1950), 7.

6 Karl James, 2017, ‘Fall and Rise—Lieutenant General Sir Sydney Rowell’, in Craig Stockings and John Connor (eds), The Shadow Men (Sydney: New South Publishing), 157, 170–174.

7 Peter Charlton, 1981, The Thirty-Niners (South Melbourne: MacMillan), 11–13; J Popple, 1982, ‘The Australian Militia 1930–1939’, Australian Defence Force Journal 33: 44–48.

8 Claude Neumann, 1978, Australia’s Citizen Soldiers, 1919–1939: A Study of Organization, Command, Recruiting, Training and Equipment, MA thesis, University of New South Wales, 210.

9 Ibid., 166.

10 Ibid., 81.

11 Peter Brune, 1991, Those Ragged Bloody Heroes (Sydney: Allen & Unwin), 5.

12 Adrian Threlfall, 2014, Jungle Warriors (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin), 18.

13 Chris Clark, 1983, ‘Sir Carl Jess’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9 (Melbourne University Press).

14 Long, 1961, 24–25.

15 Ibid., 31.

16 Ibid., 24.

17 Rowley Richards, 2005, A Doctor’s War (Sydney: Harper Collin), 26.

18 GD Solomon, 1978, A Poor Sort of Memory (Canberra: Roebuck), 217–218.

19 SE Benson, 1952, History of the 42nd Australian Infantry Battalion in World War 2 (Sydney: Dymock’s Book Arcade Ltd), 4; Stan Brigg and Les Brigg, 2003, Ike’s Marines: The 36th Australian Infantry Battalion, 1939–1945 (Loftus: Australian Military History Publications), 5–6; Philip Venables Vernon, 1961, The Royal NSW Lancers 1885–1960 (Sydney: Halstead Press), 190–204.

20 Allan Pedder, 1989, The Seventh Battalion 1936–1946 (7th Battalion (1939–45) Association), 3.

21 Jeffrey Grey, 2001, The Australian Army: A History (Melbourne: Oxford University Press), 92.

22 Garth Pratten, 2009, Australian Battalion Commanders in the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 294.

23 Grey, 1999, 120–121.

24 Senior Officers Conference, 1920, Report on the Military Defence of Australia by a Conference of Senior Officers of the Australian Military Forces, 1920, Volume I, Part 1 — Introduction and Summary (Melbourne: Government Printer), AWM1 20/7, 5–9 for determinations.

25 Albert Palazzo, 2001, The Australian Army: A History of Its Organisation, 1901–2001 (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press), 94.

26 Albert Palazzo, 1999, ‘The Way Forward’, in Jeffrey Grey and Peter Dennis, 1918— Defining Victory—Proceedings of the Chief of Army’s History Conference 1998 (Canberra: Army History Unit), 194–195.

27 Senior Officers Conference, 1920, Volume I, 22–23.

28 Palazzo, 2001, 106; Wilcox, 1998, 86.

29 Palazzo, 2001, 112, 118; Albert Palazzo, 2003, ‘Failure to Obey: The Australian Army and the First Line Component Deception’, Australian Army Journal 1, no. 1: 81–95.

30 Grey, 2001, 73.

31 Palazzo, 2001, 90.

32 Lieutenant General Sir Carl Jess, 1945, Report on the Activities of the Australian Military Forces: 1929–1939, 88.

33 Grey, 1999, 91;

34 Jess, 1945, 194–197.

35 Ibid., 194, para (c).

36 Wilcox, 1998, 88.

37 Ibid.

38 Grey, 2001, 82.

39 Palazzo, 1999, 194–195.

40 Ibid., 192–194.

41 Ibid., 200–203.

42 Grey, 1999, 134; Wilcox, 1998, 87–9.

43 Senior Officers Conference, 1920, Volume 1, 5–9 for determinations.

44 Ibid, 22–23.

45 Palazzo, 2001, 112, 118; Palazzo, 2003, 81–95.

46 David Horner, 1996, ‘Australian Army Strategic Planning Between the Wars’, in Serving Vital Interests: Australia’s Strategic Planning in Peace and War, 1996 Chief of Army History Conference, 5–8.

47 Grey, 2001, 133.

48 Palazzo, 2001, 111.

49 Ibid.

50 Jess, 1945, 55.

51 Neumann, 1978, 153–155.

52 Ibid., 131.

53 Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration tables in Quarterly Summary of Australian Statistics, Bulletin Nos 124, 133, 136, 140, 148, 156 (June 1931 – June 1939), from Neumann, 1978, 132.

54 Neumann, 1978, 138–140,

55 Jess, 1945, 16.

56 Neumann, 1978, 140.

57 Richard Overy, 2009, The Twilight Years (New York: Viking), Chapter 5.

58 Neumann, 1978, 140–143.

59 Ibid., 154.

60 Ibid.

61 Ralph Honner, interview in Peter Brune, 2000, Ralph Honner, Kokoda Hero (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin), 36.

62 Grey, 2001, 95–97.

63 It was contemporaneously noted that truck-mounted machine-gun squadrons were slower than horse-mounted cavalry over cross country (Jean Bou, 2009, Light Horse: A History Of Australia’s Mounted Arm (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press), 244).

64 Grey, 1999, 135.

65 Wilcox, 1998, 93; Long, 1961, 14.

66 Bou, 2009, 239.

67 Sir Henry George Chauvel, 1928, Report of the Inspector General of the Australian Military Forces (Melbourne: Government Printer), 19.

68 James C Morrison, 2006, Mechanising an Army: Mechanisation and the Conversion of the Light Horse, 1920–1943 (Duntroon, ACT: Land Warfare Studies Centre), 58–59.

69 Senior Officers Conference, 1920, Volume II, para 79(c)(iv).

70 Jeremy Black, 2012, Avoiding Armageddon (London: Bloomsbury), 91.

71 Bou, 2009; Morrison, 2006, 51.

72 Black, 2012, 10, 70, 240.

73 Wilcox, 1998, 89, 94–96.

74 Jess, 1945, 40.

75 Garth Pratten, 1994, ‘Under Rather Discouraging Circumstances’, Honours thesis, University of Melbourne, 38, 38–39.

76 Ibid., 13–14.

77 Neumann, 1978, 184.

78 Wilcox, 1998, 88.

79 Pratten, 2009, 30.

80 Ibid., 109.

81 Grey, 2001, 93.

82 Pratten, 2009, 69

83 Horner, 1996, 7

84 AMF, 1933, Instructions for Training (Melbourne: Government Printer), 76.

85 Jess, 1945, 29–31.

86 Ibid, 30.

87 Stuart Sayers, 1980, Ned Herring: A life of Lieutenant-General the Honourable Sir Edmund Herring (Melbourne and Canberra: Hyland House in association with the Australian War Memorial), 122.

88 Bob Doneley, 2012, Toowoomba to Torokina: The 25th Battalion in Peace and War (Newport: Big Sky Publishing), 23.

89 Pratten, 2009, 31.

90 Wilcox, 1998, 50.

91 Senior Officers Conference, 1920, Volume II, Part IV, 24.

92 ‘Defence Committee Report Regarding Certain Aspects of Defence Policy—Vol II: Army Program’, November 1929, National Archives of Australia (NAA) A2031, 18/1930 – 23/1930.

93 Jess, 1945, 15–16.

94 Ibid., 15.

95 Gavin Keating, 2005, The Right Man for the Right Job: Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Savige as a Military Commander (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press), 27, citing Allan Bamford, ‘General Savige Pilgrimage’, speech to 2/7 Infantry Battalion Association, 18 May 1980.

96 Wilcox, 1998, 94–95.

97 AMF, 1933.

98 War Office, 2013, Training and Manoeuvre Regulations (London: HMSO), 12–15.

99 Dr Christopher Pugsley, We Have Been Here Before: The Evolution of Decentralised Command in the British Army 1905–1989, Sandhurst Occasional Paper No. 9, 12, 25–26.

100 War Office, 2013, 12–15.

101 Palazzo, 1999, 210.

102 AMF, 1933, 33.

103 Jess, 1945, 14.

104 Pratten, 2009, 37.

105 Ibid., 31.

106 Long, 1961, 30.

107 Neumann, 1978, 206.

108 Ibid., 207.

109 Long, 1961, 59.

110 Ibid., 60.

111 Ibid., 61.