Army History, Issue 85, Fall 2012 - US Army Center Of Military History

where they were called on to do more. 45
The light horse faced a fundamental
manning crisis brought on by the pay
cut of the new scheme that did not
come close to compensating for the
costs of horse ownership. Moreover, as
the new inspector general, the imperial
officer Maj. Gen. G. M. Kirkpatrick,
toured the country in 1912 and 1913
he found that the forces were, by and
large, as poorly trained and inefficient
as they had been since Federation. 46
When in 1914 General Sir Ian Hamilton
visited to inspect the Australian
forces his report did not necessarily
make happy reading. Though it is often
cherry-picked for the encouraging
and supportive comments he made,
less is usually made of the grave deficiencies
he highlighted in manning,
logistical underpinnings, training, unit
cohesion, and tactical competence.
Referring to the mounted branch he
worried that any attempt at maneuver
by anything larger than a squadronsized
body would quickly degenerate
into “disarray and confusion.” 47 In
1917 the military board, made wise
by the realities of fighting a terrible
war, looked back at the militia of 1914
and realistically concluded that “at the
outbreak of war it would not have been
possible to take a Militia Regiment as
it stood and put it in the field at once
against an efficient enemy, without
disaster.” 48 Clearly if the force was going
to be required, a substantial period
of mobilization and training would be
necessary to get it ready.
Regardless, the ambition had not
disappeared. The Universal Training
scheme had made no specific
proposals for the establishment of
divisions, but there was provision for
divisional mounted troops and a close
correlation between the number of
battalions and brigades required, and
what would be required if divisions
were to be formed. 49 Establishments
prepared in 1912 had hinted at such a
step for the infantry, but nothing was
then done about it. 50 The idea clearly
stayed around though and on 1 July
1914, just a few weeks before the outbreak
of war, the military board met
and recommended that a divisional
organization be adopted. At that meeting
a memorandum prepared by the
36 Army History Fall 2012
Director of Military Operations, Maj.
C. B. B. White, and submitted by the
Chief of the General Staff, Brig. J. M.
Gordon, stated that as the division was
the “approved military organization for
the Empire . . . its adoption is therefore
recommended.” 51 Though it recognized
the problems that would come with creating
higher formations in a part-time
citizen army in which even brigades
were perhaps still more theoretical than
real, the scheme went on to propose
the establishment of a “Field Army”
of three light horse brigades and two
infantry divisions to be drawn from
General Hamilton, c. 1910
Library of Congress
the 2d and 3d Military Districts (essentially
New South Wales and Victoria).
District Field Forces, which in the 1st
and 4th Military Districts (Queensland
and South Australia) included understrength
infantry divisions, were also
to be established in the smaller states.
It was recommended that the commanders
and their divisional staffs
be appointed from the ranks of the
Australian permanent forces by reorganizing
the existing military district
headquarters (which had replaced
the older state-based commands of
the immediate post-Federation era).
In conclusion the submission recommended
that this structure be adopted
as the basis for planning until 1920. 52
The plan was apparently cut off by the
events of August 1914, but did not disappear
entirely and throughout the war
the military authorities issued revised
national establishments that set out the
organization of a force made up of two
light horse divisions and six infantry
divisions. 53
Whether this scheme for a divisional
army could have been attained, and
the problems that Hamilton identified
overcome, is impossible to know,
as the outbreak of war dramatically
altered the situation and the chance
to correct the deficiencies of what still
was a very new system was taken away
by the demands of the moment. The
Defence Act’s ban on sending troops
outside Australia without their specifically
volunteering precluded a war role
for the militia and a specially created
expeditionary force, the Australian
Imperial Force, would instead serve
in Europe and around the Mediterranean.
In a sense the prewar Citizen
Force gave this new force everything
it had to give, from its best and most
able officers, and much of its manpower,
to its materiel, and eventually
its financial lifeline. In other ways it
also gave it very little. Though many
officers of the Great War started their
military careers in the citizen forces,
and though the militia experience
gave the military an administrative
and organizational framework to work
with in 1914 and 1915, it is difficult to
conclude that what eventually became
the very effective Australian Imperial
Force that existed by 1917 and 1918 in
both France and Palestine owed much
of its competence to the prewar militia.
The militia did not disappear with
the war. Although the goal was to continue
with what had been started, gutted
of its best soldiers and officers, and
increasingly lacking resources as the
war went on, the militia in 1918 was
nothing like what had been hoped for.
Before Federation the Australian
colonial forces were enthusiastic and
often popular, but small in an age of
mass armies, largely parochial in their
outlook, established with minimal official
support, and, with some possible
exceptions, not very competent. In
the dozen or so years that passed after