Preliminary Moves: The Royal Military College and the Professionalisation of the Officer Corps, 1910–1947

Abstract

This article is an amended version of a paper first presented at the 2011 Chief of Army History Conference. The theme of the conference was ‘1911–Preliminary Moves’, therefore the paper examined the professionalisation of the officer corps via the prism of the Royal Military College, Duntroon. The article demonstrates that there were elements of professionalism present in the Australian military prior to RMC’s founding in 1911; in fact these foundations were crucial in the long-term development of the military profession in Australia. This article is not a history of RMC per se but rather a study of the Australian military profession in its formative years. The kind permission of Professor Peter Dennis, organiser of the Chief of Army History Conference, in allowing the paper to be reprinted in the Australian Army Journal is duly acknowledged.

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This year marks the centenary of the founding of the Royal Military College, Duntroon (RMC). Among its many achievements, the college has had a fundamental impact on the Australian profession of arms. Although college graduates had served in the First World War, their numbers were few and their wider impact minimal. Before, during and after the First World War, the small cadre of permanent officers existed to support the larger citizen militia or the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). But by the Second World War, graduates had commanded divisions and held staff jobs at the highest levels. By 1946, the college had graduated 690 Australian officers. Moreover, after 1947, the profession of arms in Australia had matured to the extent that Duntroon graduates would serve in the newly created Australian Regular Army (ARA), rather than solely train and administer citizen soldiers.

That Duntroon had an impact is undeniable, but what influence did it have on the professionalisation of the officer corps? To answer this, one must first define professionalism and professionalisation. As such, this article will be divided into four parts. First, it will discuss briefly the development of the professions generally, with special reference to the profession of arms in Australia. From here, the criteria by which one can judge whether an avenue of human endeavour may rightly be called a profession will be stated. Against these criteria, the article will examine the status quo ante of the pre-1911 Australian military forces to see what professional developments had taken place. As it will demonstrate, crucial foundations for the military profession were laid during these decades. Next, the article will discuss the initial intent for Duntroon and examine how this contributed to creating or perhaps cementing the profession of arms in Australia. Lastly, to determine the extent to which RMC professionalised the officer corps, the article will examine briefly the Army in the period up to 1947 against these established criteria.

The Military Profession

So what is a profession and professionalism? These terms tend to be overused or indeed, misused to describe certain occupations. One definition of a profession is:

a relatively high status occupation whose members apply abstract knowledge to solve problems in a particular field of endeavour. The definition identifies three elements critical to the idea of a profession: high status, which (is linked to) a notion of legitimacy; applied abstract knowledge (which is) the source of expertise; and a field of endeavour or jurisdiction for problem solving...we can refer to these three simply as expertise, jurisdiction and legitimacy.¹

Another broader definition is that

a profession is an occupation that requires advanced training in a specialised field. The purpose of long and intensive training is to maintain high levels of achievement and conduct according to standards set either by the rules of the organisation or opinion of peers...(a profession also) needs to be able to serve the client to the best of (its) abilities.²

The concepts of expertise and legitimacy are well understood. It is worth clarifying two other preconditions for a profession. The mastery of this body of knowledge or ‘professional theory’ must be distinct and acquired only through education provided by the occupation in question.³ As such, this mastery of theory gives the professional a certain authority over non-professionals (or other professionals from another occupational group) and demonstrates the uniqueness and social worth of this profession vis-a-vis others.⁴

Moreover, a profession cannot exist without a dual relationship; it must serve a client and that client must deem the profession to have utility.⁵ A profession must also be deemed as such by the society in which it operates. ‘The acceptance by society of a group of experts with specialised knowledge is important in establishing the status and prestige of that group within that community’.⁶ And as we have seen, enforcing professional standards as the sine qua non of professional competency and demonstrating the continued need for the unique skills of the profession are the two key determinants in maintaining that prestige.

With this basic understanding in place, let us turn to the military profession in particular.⁷ Morris Janowitz considered the military professional to be unique because he ‘is an expert in war-making and in the organised use of violence’.⁸ Moreover, the officer corps represented the elite of the profession because entry into it required ‘prolonged training’ which equipped him to ‘render specialised service’.⁹ A profession, however, was more than a collection of people with a specialised skill. A profession also develops a group identity and a system of self-regulation; this self-regulation includes the evolution of its own ethics, standards of performance and internal administration.¹⁰ Professionalism, in the case of the military, also implied that this ‘management of violence’ could no longer be conducted by any other than those who have committed to a career of such service.¹¹

In the military context, the danger has been to conflate the notions of a regular soldier with that of a professional and a standing army with that of a professional military.¹² Much of this is due to misunderstanding the nature and purpose of training, which disseminates skills by instruction, and professional knowledge which is the theoretical and practical understanding of a subject. As such, most academics believe that only officers who have devoted themselves to mastering the esoteric body of corporate knowledge over extended periods can rightly be called military professionals.¹³ Samuel Huntington argued that while enlisted ranks form part of an army’s organisational bureaucracy, they are not part of its professional bureaucracy. Moreover, they could not be considered professional because they do not bear the professional responsibility which the officer corps must accept; he classed them specialists in the application of violence rather than its management.¹⁴

This is not to suggest that enlisted personnel cannot demonstrate elements of professionalism. One recent article on the subject offered that enlisted soldiers

may not be lacking in professionalism because of anything inadequate or missing within them. Rather, the structure of military service—the way they are treated, trained, educated and developed—prohibits many soldiers from being considered professional.¹⁵

At any rate, for the purposes of this article, I will only consider the question of military professionalism via the prism of the officer corps and the establishment of RMC.

So, based on what we have discussed, we may deem that the military is a profession and by inference, the officer a military professional. For our purposes in examining the rise of military professionalism in Australia, we may state that the following are a profession’s tenets:

• a profession demonstrates unique expertise within a distinct area that is deemed to solve a societal problem;
• this expertise may only be gained through formal, theoretical education;
• this education can only be obtained through schools controlled by the profession;
• the profession controls entry to those schools and maintains its own administration and ongoing standards for performance and behaviour;
• the profession serves a client (in this case the nation), and is held professionally responsible for its actions and the advice its gives the client;
• the profession’s own standards reinforce this notion of service;
• these demonstrable standards also grant it a degree of autonomy from general societal interference; and
• the profession is considered a ‘calling’—its members identify strongly with it, have a group identity and are highly regarded by society as a whole.

The First Steps - Professional Developments to 1911

What then was the state of the nascent Australian military profession in the decade post-Federation? As this article will argue, the establishment of RMC in 1911 would not represent a ‘Year Zero’, although it was the seminal event in the progression of the military profession in Australia. Instead there were small stirrings, false starts, bold moves and policy missteps before RMC was eventually established. Nonetheless, many of the foundations of professionalism were present and more importantly, there were officers, both British and Australian, who recognised the need for professionalism to take root in the Australian military.

Albert Palazzo, when describing influences that affect military organisations, noted:

Each country possesses national characteristics that help shape the organisation of its army according to the requirements of its individual situation...these characteristics tend to be inflexible and exert their influence over considerable lengths of time.¹⁶

The development of the post-Federation Australian military is a case in point. Upon Federation, the new nation inherited six disparate military forces from the former colonies, all of which had their own organisations, traditions and traits. Until the Defence Act was proclaimed in 1903, the new Army in fact continued to operate under the six sets of previous colonial legislation.¹⁷ Ironically, when one considers the ardent, nationalistic debates concerning the future of Australian defence policy, the new nation also inherited military forces at war as part of an imperial campaign, with some colonial elements serving overseas in South Africa at the time of Federation. 

These former colonial forces also brought with them the traditional British mistrust of standing armies and a preference for part-time and volunteer (both paid and unpaid) forces. This was underpinned by faith in the Royal Navy’s supremacy and despite concerns about being committed carte blanche to imperial adventures, most Australians held a general belief in the efficacy of operating within the imperial defence framework. With the so-called Braddon clause in place—which required three quarters of all Commonwealth customs and excise revenue to be remitted back to the states for the first decade—the new Commonwealth Government sought to spend as little on defence as possible while maintaining the control of its overall defence policy.¹⁸ The notion of a professional military was almost non-existent. To provide some context, when the former colonial militaries were inherited by Commonwealth in 1901, there were around 1400 permanents and 26,000 militia and volunteers.¹⁹ These permanent soldiers were instructors, administrators, engineers and garrison artillerymen only.²⁰ The Defence Act would enshrine the reliance on part-time forces for economy, belief in the efficacy of the citizen soldier and concerns that a larger permanent force may lead to European-style militarism.

These former colonial forces also brought with them the traditional British mistrust of standing armies ...

Military professionalism in Australia can rightly be traced to the colonial commandants, those British officers employed in the decades immediately before Federation by their respective colonies to improve all aspects of defence therein. Most, if not all, took to this task with zeal and competence. When the last of the British regiments left in 1870, a vacuum was created that was never filled by the hodge-podge of militia and volunteer units. It also removed the only source of professional independent military advice available to colonial governments.²¹ Much has been written about the imperial agenda that the commandants brought with them. At the time there were constant laments that suitable Australian officers should command the colonial forces; however, Australian officers with the requisite training, operational experience and organisational capacity did not exist. As Stephen Clarke notes, ‘it was a matter of professionalism...it was not a prejudice against colonial officers per se as a quest for professional officers’.²²

Military professionalism in Australia can rightly be traced to the colonial commandants, those British officers employed in the decades immediately before Federation ...

To be sure, there were imperial agenda at work; some of the commandants looked ahead to a time when their colonial forces might be integrated to a wider imperial army. In many ways, the despatching of colonial contingents for service in South Africa realised this aspiration and was testimony to their success in raising forces to a minimum standard. Whatever controversy they generated in relation to their imperial scheming or otherwise, the colonial commandants—and later the first and only General Officer Commanding, Major General Sir Edward Hutton—transferred the practices of the modern British Army to Australia, mentored a number of up-and-coming Australian-born officers, established schools of instructions and laid the foundations so that one day Australian officers with the requisite knowledge and experience would command at the highest levels.²³

Hutton, as General Officer Commanding, was directly (and solely) responsible to the Minister for Defence for all matters military. During his tenure from early 1902 through to late November 1904, he worked in a time of extreme ambiguity with no Defence Act or cogent defence policy in place, financial parsimony, and from some politicians and media, a fairly aggressive nationalistic public debate. He was an early advocate of an Australian military college, but he also believed that the citizen soldier should be the foundation of the new nation’s defence.²⁴ His lasting contribution was unifying the colonial forces into one Commonwealth military and then ambitiously organising it into mobile field forces and static garrison units. Despite his well documented faults, Hutton’s profound contribution to the development of the Australian military and military professionalism cannot be denied.

The Australian military continued to benefit from the close association with British forces, especially since there were a number of military reforms taking place at this time pertaining to military education, administration and the higher command. In 1904, after weaknesses were identified in the British staff during the Boer War, an inquiry recommended the establishment of a general staff, specially selected, divided into branches and responsible for providing professional advice. It also recommended the abolition of the position of General Officer Commanding, to be replaced by an Army Council. The Defence Act, when it was finally implemented, reflected these changes and Australia followed suit with the creation of the Military Board in 1905, along with an Inspector-General who would act as an independent auditor. Later, in 1909, the position of Chief of General Staff and first member of the Military Board was created, and then in 1911, positions and responsibilities were codified further for greater accountability. One can see that the establishment of the Military Board represented what was considered best practice at the time, provided greater accountability to the Minister and also a greater degree of professional regulation with the military itself. Moreover the implementation of a general staff system also designed to act in concert with an imperial general staff, focused the limited number of permanent staff officers on what one might today call ‘core tasks’; that is, the planning of operations, collection of intelligence and the training and equipping of forces ready for war.²⁵

The nascent Australian military also profited from exchanges with the United Kingdom to improve their professional knowledge. Some permanent officers were attached overseas on regimental service while others benefited greatly from exchanges to the United Kingdom for specialist training.²⁶ For example, in 1897 the then Lieutenant (later Major General and Chief of General Staff) Walter Coxen of the Queensland permanent artillery was sent to the School of Artillery at Shoeburyness to complete courses in garrison and field artillery. This allowed him to become Chief Instructor at the School of Gunnery in Sydney in 1902.²⁷ In 1904, Hutton argued for an officer to attend the staff college at Camberley, and nominated the then Lieutenant C B B White to attend.²⁸ The Australian military profession surely benefited from White’s attendance, as he was later to become perhaps Australia’s finest staff officer. This said, between 1904 and 1911, only four Australian officers had attended either Camberley or Quetta, meaning that for a long time, many staff positions had to be filled with ex-British Army or non staff college trained officers.²⁹

The nascent Australian military also profited from exchanges with the United Kingdom to improve their professional knowledge.

There had been other occasional sporadic steps towards creating and maintaining a corpus of professional knowledge, such as the establishment of the Royal United Service Institute in a number of cities, which allowed officers to keep abreast of new ideas and developments. Later, military ideas would also be disseminated by the Commonwealth Military Journal. It was short lived; established in 1911, it ceased publication in 1916, and the military profession would have to wait until the end of the Second World War for similar means to be created.³⁰ Tentative steps toward a more formal military education were taken in response to developments in Britain. The University of Sydney Diploma of Military Science was the first formal military qualification issued in Australia and was offered from 1906 to 1916. Of note, the course was designed primarily for the betterment of militia officers, rather than the professional education of permanent officers. The course offered subjects in military topography, military history, administration and military law, strategy and tactics, and military engineering.³¹ Figures vary, but it seems at its peak it had around thirty students enrolled, with a larger number of students attending lectures or taking the odd subject as part of other studies. When the course finally fell into abeyance, no more than twenty-five full diplomas had been awarded.³²

So in those decades prior to the establishment of RMC, one can already identify some of those prerequisites of professionalism being evident in the embryonic Australian military. With the Defence Act, no matter how flawed the document itself, the Australian military was granted the political legitimacy to exist and thence recognition that it was meeting a key societal need. Moreover, the Defence Act confirmed civil control of the military, enshrining the notion that the military served the government, therefore the nation would be the client of this budding profession. Distinct and unique expertise was slowly developed within the Australian military. This was through the emulation of developments abroad and the garnering of operational experience on colonial service. However, it was the direct and indirect transmission of knowledge via colonial commandants and British-trained officers in Australia and the training and exchanges of selected staff overseas that really began to generate the unique military expertise within Australia required to be acknowledged as a profession.

...  the Australian military was granted the political legitimacy to exist and thence recognition that it was meeting a key societal need.

Yet for all these tentative steps towards a military profession in Australia, there remained a number of obstructions that hindered its full development. The Australian government decided to rely on part-time soldiers and maintain a very small cadre of professional soldiers. This retarded any meaningful growth of the profession. Moreover, these professional soldiers most likely did not consider themselves fellow members of the one profession. The organisation of the post-Federation permanent forces generally reflected the structures inherited from the colonies, namely administrative and instructional staffs and a limited number of specialists such as gunners and engineers.³³ These were considered separate organisations; each body had its own training requirements, career progression and maintained its own seniority lists.³⁴ Although permanent soldiers were variously referred to as members of the ‘Permanent Forces’ or ‘Permanent Military Forces’, there was no overt group cohesion or collective self-identification with this nominal organisation. Moreover, the issue of prescribed establishments also meant that there were limited opportunities to first join, and then later be promoted in, these organisations. This meant that it was difficult to portray a career in the permanent forces as a particularly lucrative or attractive choice.

Respect and societal standing are preconditions for a profession; in many ways the worth by which a society views a profession can be gauged by the remuneration of its members. For most politicians, the post-Federation permanent forces were most likely viewed as an expensive, but necessary evil to maintain the nation’s citizen army. Thus the size of the permanent forces was kept at the absolute minimum to train and administer the militia. Moreover, the personnel costs of this small force were constantly under scrutiny. The proceedings of the Military Board during this time are full of minutes, submissions and discussion on pay and conditions, with the Board often deliberating on the merits of individual pay claims for relatively minor amounts. The Military Board was concerned, quite correctly, that the pay and conditions of the permanent forces, relative to other professions, made it a less than attractive career choice.³⁵ The citizen army—and therefore the foundation of the nation’s defence—relied explicitly on members of the small permanent force to train and administer it. Any of lack of public confidence in a career in the permanent forces therefore had ramifications for the efficiency of the military as a whole.

At any rate, the small Australian permanent military lacked, on the whole, the wider, higher regard normally shown towards professions. Indeed, politicians may have granted the military its legitimacy, via the Defence Act, but they rarely bestowed upon it the praise or respect accorded to other professions.³⁶ Moreover, as the discharge of the army’s unique skill set—that is, the ‘management of violence’—would be largely be undertaken by part-time forces, can one rightly claim that a professional jurisdiction was in place? To be sure, permanent officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) would train these part-time forces and permanent officers, and the staffs would plan and execute operations. Nonetheless, part-time officers commanded the units in peacetime and would lead them in wartime. Furthermore, most Australians believed their citizen soldiers were equal to, or better than, other soldiers. The contention that the organised use of violence required specialist expertise possessed by professionals only, must have seemed specious to most in the decade post-Federation.

The contention that the organised use of violence required specialist expertise possessed by professionals only, must have seemed specious to most in the decade post-Federation.

It appeared that the permanent forces’ professional jurisdiction, already challenged by the militia, would be diffused further by the introduction of universal military service in 1911.³⁷ An inspection by Lord Kitchener at the government’s behest in 1909 had endorsed the scheme, with Kitchener himself completing the finer organisational details. His would be a territorially-based scheme of 215 training areas producing a peacetime army of 80,000 soldiers. Twenty-one infantry brigades, twenty-eight light horse regiments, and fifty-six batteries of artillery along with supporting troops would be generated from these training areas. The crux of the scheme would be the junior and field grade permanent officers assigned to administer and train the troops in these training areas. Kitchener stressed that it was a ‘national necessity’ that these area officers were ‘carefully selected...thoroughly grounded in their profession and scientifically educated’ so that they were ‘good leaders, strict disciplinarians and thoroughly competent officers’.³⁸

Universal military training, based on a part-time obligation, reaffirmed the primacy of the citizen soldier. This seemed to be a further diffusion of the military professional’s jurisdiction. Instead, the scheme justified the establishment of the Royal Military College to furnish competent young officers with a broad military education to train this citizen army and staff its headquarters. Moreover, as 350 permanent officers would be required, the scheme validated the creation of a staff corps with sufficient employment and career progression for its members.³⁹ Ironically, it would be this decision to base the nation’s defence on a partially-trained mass army which lead to the creation of RMC. With its own military educational institution, the emerging military profession in Australia would develop slowly, but with growing purpose over the coming decades.

'Knowledge Promotes Strength' - The Concept And Purpose Of RMC

Discussions on the need for an Australian military college had taken place for decades. Over time, the colonial commandants, Hutton, various Australian politicians and officers had advocated such a college. In 1903, provisions had been made in the Defence Act, which gave the Governor-General the power to establish a college; in 1909, the Act was amended to state that such a college would be established. The models, utility and output of various overseas officer institutions were studied. The Chief of General Staff, Major General J C Hoad, thought that the college might provide commissioning training for permanent and citizen officers, as well as act as a staff college.⁴⁰ Previously, as Chief of Intelligence, Colonel W T Bridges had expressed a strong regard for West Point and RMC, Kingston, noting that its graduates benefitted from years of ‘strict discipline and had acquired the elements of a sound military education’, in contrast to the current system whereby Australian officers necessarily must ‘obtain most of their professional knowledge after being commissioned’.⁴¹

However, Kitchener, upon whose professional advice the government relied, made it clear what the college must achieve and for what ultimate purpose its graduates would serve. The college was to produce self-sufficient area officers wholly responsible for training and the administration of the scheme within their own areas, not young subalterns who would benefit from mentoring and on-the-job training provided by normal regimental soldiering. As such, the emphases and curriculum of the college had to reflect this. Indeed, Kitchener famously remarked that these area officers, whom he described as the cornerstone of the universal military training scheme, had to be ‘given a complete military education (and) brought up to realise that their career depends upon their ability to do their duty and on that alone’.⁴²

The college was to produce self-sufficient area officers wholly responsible for training and the administration of the scheme within their own areas ...

Kitchener preferred the West Point model as he saw it as successfully combining strict military virtues with an adherence to the wider democratic ideals of that country. But the final vision of RMC would be provided by Bridges after he completed his whistle-stop tour of a number of overseas academies in the first half of 1910. Afterwards, he reaffirmed his belief that the longer West Point course, with its emphasis on character, discipline and formal education, coupled with a rigorous selection process and unhesitating removal of poor-performing cadets, best suited Australia’s requirements.⁴³

It must be stressed that some selection standards for commissioning into the permanent forces were in place prior to RMC’s establishment. In fact, Bridges recommended that the educational examination for RMC be based on the extant initial examination set up in 1909. But the path to a permanent commission had been somewhat disjointed. For example, a candidate’s application was first considered by a special military board, which would determine whether the candidate could sit the educational examinations. The board was required to ensure that the candidate’s moral character was ‘satisfactory in all respects’ and determine whether he had the wherewithal to ‘exercise command efficiently and secure respect from those around him’. Therefore the board also had to consider a candidate’s general intelligence and bearing, whether he had any prior military service and whether he had been a sporting team captain.⁴⁴

The board was required to ensure that the candidate’s moral character was ‘satisfactory in all respects’ ...

From here, recommended candidates had to sit the educational examination. For example, a candidate for the Administrative and Instructional Staff was required to pass this examination if he had not previously passed a public or matriculation examination for a civilian university. Candidates for the technical arms of the artillery and the engineers had to meet different educational prerequisites. These examinations took place in various capital cities over the course of a week. At this point, successful candidates were put on a period as probationary officers during which time they had to pass military confirmatory examinations before those first appointments were confirmed. It was assumed that the candidate would have access to the various manuals, participate in and witness the regimental duties to be examined, and be mentored by other staff during this probationary period.⁴⁵

The confirmatory examinations were tailored to the branch of service, and covered such subjects as regimental duties, drill and field training, tactics and military law. If more applicants than vacancies existed, these examinations were competitive and candidates were ranked in order of merit. It was intended that if an officer failed to pass these examinations, his commission would not be confirmed. Moreover, regulations stated that the District Commander, under whom the candidate served, was to state whether the candidate performed his duties satisfactorily and whether he was likely to become a suitable staff officer.⁴⁶ The Military Board advised that such suitability would be demonstrated by ‘energy and commonsense’, the power to instruct citizen troops, ‘the faculty of administration’ and a general knowledge of all arms.⁴⁷

Bridges based admission into RMC on the competitive open entrance examination.⁴⁸ But RMC represented a marked change from the old system of examinations and probationary appointments. Previously, a candidate was required to demonstrate considerable officer qualities prior to commissioning and would be required to acquire the bulk of his professional knowledge after commissioning. Now RMC would prepare a cadet fully within its four year course, prior to commissioning and assuming his area officer responsibilities.⁴⁹

Reflecting pragmatism and no doubt his own pro-British inclinations, Bridges sought to secure the best possible staff for the college from overseas. As such, most of the military staff was British and this would remain so for a number of years. ⁵⁰ Bridges also designed the curriculum to equip future graduates with a thorough grounding across all arms. Generally speaking, the course was more academically focused in the first two years, with cadets undertaking more military studies in the latter two years. The military subjects would progress over the four years with infantry and light horse training providing the foundations for studies in artillery and military engineering later on. In accordance with Kitchener’s original vision of a military college with severe discipline, cadets would have the equivalent rank of private; scrutiny would be constant and living conditions austere.

... the course was more academically focused in the first two years, with cadets undertaking more military studies in the latter two years.

The military profession in Australia now had its own ab initio institution to educate, train and commission its officers. Bridges had left his stamp on the new college. He had essentially cherry-picked a number of successful elements from various overseas colleges, amalgamated them and tailored them for Australia’s specific purposes. A protege of Hutton and generally considered an imperialist, Bridges nonetheless selected a college modelled largely on the American institution, West Point. In doing so, he created a college for the distinctly Australian environment that selected on merit, provided a thorough and complete education and scrupulously maintained the quality of its cadets. The college’s motto Doctrina Vim Promovet or ‘knowledge promotes strength’ appropriately represented Bridges’ belief that a broad military and civil education was the best means to prepare officers for their profession. But he also understood that, for all his work, the college would ultimately be judged by the calibre of its graduates. On his departure from Duntroon, Bridges urged the cadets to remember that ‘the degree of utility of the College to the Australian Forces depends on whether you maintain its prestige or not’.⁵¹

Even so, one must not overstate RMC’s immediate impact. For example, the Military Board was well aware that the army would rely on citizen officers and newly commissioned former NCOs to act as area officers for a number of years before enough RMC graduates were in the system.⁵² At that time, it was planned that the current system of commissioning in the permanent military forces would remain until 1 June 1916, whereupon only graduates of RMC would be appointed officers in the Permanent Military Force.⁵³ It would still be some years before Duntroon’s impact would be truly felt; the senior professional officers who rose to prominence in the First World War had all been commissioned under the old system.

'A Success Exceeding The Most Sanguine Hopse' - RMC And The Profession Of Arms

Despite universal military service being the immediate catalyst for the college’s founding, Duntroon cadets would graduate early to serve in the newly raised AIF, not to act as the scheme’s area officers. The exigencies of war threatened to dilute the standards established at RMC. Many of the British officers at the college, employed specifically to establish those professional standards, left for the war. Ironically, Bridges, who was tasked to raise the AIF, might also have threatened such standards when he requested that Duntroon cadets graduate early into that organisation. Nonetheless, the war would prove the worth of the college and cement its reputation early in its existence. During the war, RMC would continue with its traditional course as well as providing staff and facilities for special commissioning schools for militia officers and officer candidates in the AIF. In its first eight years of existence, RMC had graduated 181 permanent officers, of whom forty-two were killed and sixty-five wounded. Although Duntroon graduates had won praise throughout, their numbers were minute within the context of the five divisions of the AIF.

... the war would prove the worth of the college and cement its reputation early in its existence.

After the war, with RMC established and its reputation secured by the performance of its graduates, societal esteem and recognition—one of the hallmarks of a profession—was often lacking. Much was due to the belief that the success of the citizen soldier in the AIF obviated the need for professionals. In 1921, the Inspector-General of the AMF lamented:

Because...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...people do not realise that the framework of the army...had been gradually built up for years before the war by the efforts of a small body of professional soldiers (and) that all the AIF formations were largely staffed by permanent officers...and that the officers of the Citizen Forces who attained great distinction during the war were in nearly all cases those who had devoted years of hard work and close study to their duties under the direction of such men as Sir Edward Hutton, General Bridges and other professional soldiers.⁵⁴

War-weariness inevitably followed the war and the attractiveness of a professional military career waned accordingly. In the post-war period, issues of pay, cost of living increases, lack of a robust superannuation scheme and forced retirements also plagued the permanent forces.⁵⁵

Matters would get worse before they got better. The universal military training scheme had continued throughout the First World War, but was scaled back in 1922 and scrapped altogether in 1929. This placed immediate pressure on career opportunities as permanent officers reverted back to their customary role of trainers and administrators in a drastically reduced all-volunteer militia. Promotions slowed to a snail’s pace. The onset of the Great Depression saw more redundancies, with many officers leaving and transferring to other armies or to the public service. The practice of sending new Duntroon graduates overseas to British or Indian units for regimental experience, which commenced after the war, was discontinued in 1931. In 1930, in order to prevent wholesale redundancies, the Military Board devised a scheme of work rationing whereby permanent soldiers and officers took varying periods of leave without pay depending on their salary.⁵⁶ This was followed by a reduction in salary under the auspices of the Financial Emergency Act of 1931, which remained in place until certain pay and allowances were restored under the Financial Relief Act in 1934.⁵⁷ Between 1931 and 1936, RMC was relocated from Duntroon to Victoria Barracks in Sydney. The military profession was in a parlous state in the 1930s.

Ultimately, it would take the Second World War to restore the profession’s fortunes. I will not elaborate on the famed Staff Corps/Militia feud in the Second World War as it well known and well documented by a number of historians. When the 2nd AIF was raised, there were concerns among permanent officers that only citizen officers would receive commands. Initially this seemed the case. However, senior permanent officers were keen to see Staff Corps officers gain operational and regimental experience and agitated on behalf of their junior counterparts to gain command opportunities. Some 540 Duntroon graduates served during the Second World War. Although small relative to the overall size of the 2nd AIF, the Staff Corps was now cohesive, self-aware and in enough positions of influence to look out for the interests of its members. At the war’s end, General Blamey commented that Duntroon graduates ‘formed a highly educated and practically trained accomplished corps of staff officers [able to] carry out staff work of the greatly increased army and [hold] high places amongst the leaders of the Australian Army’.⁵⁸ Duntroon and its graduates had arrived.

Ultimately, it would take the Second World War to restore the profession’s fortunes.

With the decision to raise a standing, regular army in 1947, RMC and its graduates could perhaps rightly claim to be part of a fully mature Australian profession of arms. It had taken some thirty-odd years after the college had produced its first graduates, with all the travails of the inter-war period, along with two wars, before the government accepted the need for a standing army. During this time professional officers were constantly required to justify their existence and validate the military profession. The ideal of the citizen soldier and brilliant amateur, the bête noire of the professional officer since Federation, was not immediately extinguished with the creation of a regular army. The widespread belief in the citizen soldier would continue for another decade, abetted by the first national service scheme and the post-war service of high quality and very experienced Citizen Military Force officers. However by the 1960s, the regular army was dominant, the part-time component existed to augment the full-timers, and fewer politicians felt compelled to take up the citizen soldiers’ cause in parliament. To be sure, the disputes on the utility and existence of the Reservist ‘part-time professional’ continue, but this debate remains outside the scope of this article.

Conclusion

Today all officers in the Australian Army, regular and reserve, general service officers and specialists alike, graduate from the Royal Military College. In the last fifty years, there have been other commissioning institutions such as Scheyville and Portsea, each with their own courses and each producing a different type of officer. And RMC itself has evolved over time. But these developments remained consistent with that fundamental tenet of professionalism, namely that entrance to the profession was conditional on specific expertise gained at a professional institution.

For the officer corps in Australia, the creation of the Royal Military College in 1911 was the key development for its long-term professionalisation. However, it was a series of small, incremental steps, made by British and Australian-born officers alike, which allowed the framework for an Australian military profession to take shape. It was these preliminary moves that laid the foundational schema of professional military attributes and supported the ultimate justification for a military college. Elements of professionalism existed, in an incomplete way, prior to 1911. But with its own college, the small permanent Australian officer corps could now rightly be considered part of a profession—the emerging Australian profession of arms.⁵⁹

About The Author

Major Dayton McCarthy served at 3 RAR as a platoon commander, assistant adjutant and company second-in-command. He saw operational service in the Solomon Islands, Iraq and East Timor. After two years as the Senior Careers Counsellor at Defence Force Recruiting, Parramatta, he was posted to RMC Duntroon in 2010 where he has been the SO3 Cadets and the Leadership and Ethics Package Master. Temporarily promoted to major, he assumed command of Bridges Company in July 2011. He has a PhD in military history and a Graduate Diploma of Science (Operations Research and Systems) from UNSW.

Endnotes

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1     James Burk, ‘Expertise, Jurisdiction and Legitimacy of the Military Profession’ in Don M Snider and Lloyd J Matthews, The Future of the Army Profession, McGraw-Hill, Boston, 2002, pp. 19–21.

2     Amos Perlmutter, The Military and Politics in Modern Times: On Professionals, Praetorians and Revolutionary Soldiers, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1977, p. 1.

3     Martin L Cook, ‘Army Professionalism: Service to What Ends?’ in Snider and Matthews, The Future of the Army Profession, p. 342.

4     In this regard, the sociologist Andrew Abbott argued that the history of professions is best understood as a continual clash over areas of work or jurisdictions. He believed that professions tried to claim or create jurisdictions over various forms of work by inventing forms of abstract knowledge to accomplish said work. From here, they sought recognition of this jurisdiction within the wider workplace, in public opinion and before the state itself. Logically, this jurisdiction also leads to a certain level of autonomy granted to the profession. This is because the profession has a monopoly over its specialised knowledge and skills and a monopoly on judging who is competent within the profession. See Andrew Abbott, ‘The Army and the Theory of Professions’ in Snider and Matthews, The Future of the Army Profession, p. 534; and Stephen John Harris, Canadian Brass: the making of a professional army, 1860–1939, Toronto University Press, Toronto, 1988, p. 2.

5     Bengt Abrahamsson, Military Professionalization and Political Power, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, 1972, pp. 60–63.

6     Lieutenant Colonel W J Finlayson, ‘Professionalism, Australian Army Journal, No. 205, June 1966, pp. 44–45.

7     Most sources agree that military professionalism as a concept did not emerge until after 1800. This does not suggest that professional traits or characteristics did not exist prior to this. Mercenaries and amateur aristocratic officers alike often demonstrated considerable interest, skill and devotion to their trade; however, their motivations were most likely pecuniary or bound with honour and adventure respectively. It would take some key developments over a number of centuries to usher in the preconditions for true professionalism to take root. The first of these was the growth of the nation-state. The shift from a feudal society meant that the military professional was now loyal to a government, a nation and its people rather than essentially a private employer in the form of a lord. Secondly, only the nation-state could generate the wealth to maintain large, technologically-advanced standing armies; the state became the sole potential employer of the military professional which reinforced his loyalty to the state. With the nation-state and its militaries came arms races. Brian Bond suggested that the rate of military professionalisation in a given country was related to the extent to which that country felt its security threatened by a neighbour. Furthermore, bursts of reformation of the military profession usually only followed a disastrous military defeat. For Britain, it would take the poor performance in Crimea for such reforms to begin; more pertinent to this study were the reforms pertaining to professional education and the higher command after the British Army’s performance in South Africa. Importantly, such developments led to the recognition that would-be officers needed to be specially educated in military schools before commissioning, rather than being trained haphazardly after commissioning. This also meant that the military would, in future, place a ‘greater premium than hitherto on professional zeal, qualifications and length of service as against privilege stemming from birth, influential connection or wealth’. See Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A social and political portrait, The Free Press, New York, 1960, p. 6; and Brian Bond, The Victorian Army and the Staff College, 1854–1914, Eyre Methuen, London, 1972, p. 13.

53    A2653, Military Board Proceedings, 1914, Item 74, ‘Appointment of Graduates from the Royal Military College’. However the arcane and tortured seniority system would be simplified with all graduates placed on one seniority list from this time, regardless of what branch of service they entered. See A2653, Military Board Proceedings, 1913, Agenda 46/1913, Minister’s Decisions, 13 November 1913.

54    Parliament of Australia, Report of the Inspector-General of the Australian Military Forces’, 1920–21, p. 17, contained in A2653, Military Board Proceedings, 1921, Vol. 2.

55    To some extent, matters of seniority and therefore a degree of certainty pertaining to a permanent officer’s career were clarified when the Military Board approved the creation of the Staff Corps in October 1920. All permanent officers would now be on one seniority list, with their date of graduation from RMC or their date of receiving a substantive commission being the date upon which seniority would be considered. Those holding honorary commissions such as those granted to warrant officers to act as quarter-masters would not be part of the Staff Corps, nor would specialist officers such as in the medical, remount, finance sections. Importantly, brevet rank would not be considered for the purposes of seniority.

56    B1535, 859/1/227, Military Board Instruction 33-36, ‘Enforced leave without pay for members of the PMF’, 28 March 1931.

57    B1535, 856/2/172, letter from Adjutant-General to Minister, 9 October 1933 and excerpt from Financial Relief Act, 1934.

58    General Sir Thomas Blamey, 10 June 1947, forward to Colonel J E Lee, Duntroon. The Royal Military College of Australia, 1911–1946, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1952, p. x.

59    The title of this segment is taken from Major-General Sir Charles Gwynn’s 1946 forward to Colonel Lee’s 1952 history of RMC. ‘Duntroon,’ he wrote, ‘has proved a success exceeding, I frankly admit, the most sanguine hopes of General Bridges and his original staff.’ Lee, Duntroon, p. xii.