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Australian First World War historiography tends to focus on the ordinary soldier: his background, character and involvement in the war. This is a legacy left by Charles Bean who, following the history from below approach, believed in the need for soldiers’ stories to be told. On the other end of the spectrum, attention is given to political leaders and the British high command. British commanders and, by extension, other Allied commanders are too often portrayed as poor leaders who were reluctant to adapt to modern warfare, and did not demonstrate a sense of responsibility for the men under their command. The evidence shows that this perception is not accurate. A comprehensive understanding of the progression of Australian forces on the Western Front cannot be gained without investigating the progression of those in command.This thesis examines the brigade commanders of the Australian Imperial Force who held that level of command for a substantial period while on the Western Front. These commanders challenge preconceived notions of First World War commanders, as they continually developed tactics and adapted to modern warfare as it evolved. They embraced new technology and ensured that their formations were able to effectively work with it. As the war progressed, they gained an appreciation of the importance of collaborating with other formations and ensuring effective communication, and demonstrated an understanding of the challenges of war on the Western Front. By 1918, the brigade commanders were effective leaders who undoubtedly played a significant role in the success of the Australian forces.

This thesis revives interest in a philosopher, Matthew Walker Robieson (1890-1919), Assistant Lecturer in Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University from 1911 to 1913, Lecturer in Moral Philosophy and History of Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) from 1914 to 1919, and frequent contributor to The New Age journal and other publications.Trained in Glasgow as a philosopher, Robieson became engaged in politics during his student days, then as a contributor to ideas on the side of the democratic Left. Robieson supported Guild socialism; he tried to fit his ideas into a theory of liberty. The thesis explains and critiques his account of liberty. Robieson articulated a set ofvalues that stood in stark contrast to Fabianism, collectivism, and Marxism (including Bolshevism). By studying Robieson the thesis aims to shed light on aspects of British intellectual culture in the years before, during and just after World War I. The thesis sheds new light on the Scots Guild Socialists, the contest of ideas in political theory, and the intellectual formation and contrast in the thinking of two philosophers influenced by Robieson, William and John Anderson. The thesis considers why the spirit of experimentation and hostility to servile notions of political action, such as collectivism, both inspired and divided the Guild Socialists in their quest for influence in the UK Labour movement. Robieson once observed that socialist theory needed to constantly renew itself, commenting that as the old Scots cobbler is reported to have said of the boots: “They’ll need new soles and new uppers, but the auld whangs ’ll dae.” In his time, Robieson made a valuable contribution to this process – hence the title of this work.

This thesis argues that confrontation between the nationalist community and British troops in Northern Ireland was virtually inevitable, despite the celebrated „honeymoon period‟ that followed the deployment of troops in August 1969. The thesis will show that the army‟s attitudes, experience and culture led it to move rapidly from a neutral, „peacekeeping‟ posture to counter-insurgency operations before an insurgency had begun. It will also show that the deployment itself was the culmination of a series of ill-conceived and usually counterproductive decisions by British governments torn between a deeply-ingrained fear of becoming involved in Irish conflicts and a belief that Irish problems could be solved by exporting British norms and institutions. Such poor decisions continued after the deployment and helped to create a vacuum that the army filled with a strategy derived from its own recent experiences of colonial policing operations. The settlement of 1921-22 led British authorities to believe that the Irish question had been permanently removed from British politics. However Britain‟s abdication of its constitutional responsibilities for Northern Ireland allowed the Unionist government to institutionalise sectarian discrimination while limiting the Westminster government‟s options for future intervention. When the province erupted into violence in 1968 Britain continued to hope that the problem could be resolved without British intervention. But when the Stormont government coercion against nationalist protest led to endemic sectarian violence, the British government found it had no choice but to send in the army. While this British army was experienced at using force to restore order in colonial conflicts it was utterly unsuited to aid the civil power within the United Kingdom. Moreover, key elements of the army nursed a latent hostility to any manifestation of Irish nationalism. The result was that early attempts at maintaining go

This thesis will investigate whether the rapid rate of technological change over the last two hundred years had increased or decreased the burden of the soldier. It will concentrate principally on the application of peripheral technology whose primary purpose is not that of killing. It will examine the first and second order effects of such technology, many of which will be proven to be counter-intuitive. This thesis is principally concerned with how the soldiers themselves viewed the application of this technology. It will therefore draw upon hundreds of narrative accounts of warfare written by combatants from many nations and a range of conflicts to establish what the soldiers themselves believed were the principal burdens they must bear on behalf of their nations. This thesis will determine that where technological advances have impacted upon the burden of the soldier, in a number of cases they have decreased one burden only to increase another. For example, recent advances in aeromedical capabilities and sophisticated treatment techniques mean that soldiers are now more likely to survive horrific injuries that even a generation earlier would most likely have been fatal. But those who survive often face a life of permanent disfigurement and disability, the possibility of which troubles many soldiers. In some aspects, a more definitive answer will be given as to whether technological advances have increased or decreased the burden of the soldier. The contemporary soldier knows that his body will likely be recovered from the battlefield and if recovered will almost certainly be identified, thereby avoiding the abiding concern of his predecessors that his body might be left on the battlefield, buried in an unmarked grave. However, in other aspects, technological advances have clearly increased the burden of the soldier. For example, the growth of the modern media, fuelled by satellite communications and the Internet, can potentially reveal operational information an

The aim of this thesis is to provide a general history of the army cadet movement in Australia from 1866 to 2004 by tracing the interactions between four fundamental forces that have stood as its foundation for almost 140 years. In various guises military, educational, social, and financial factors are the pillars on which the cadet movement has always rested. Over time the balance and relative dominance of each has determined the shape and state of the cadet organisation and will continue to do so in the future. When these four forces have been aligned the movement has thrived but when they have pulled in disparate directions it has faltered. Throughout the thesis, contextualising these four key concepts, are two more general themes concerning the influence of conservative politics and a recurring state school/private school divide. The history of army cadets, and therefore this thesis, is an investigation into the interplay of these dynamics. With such a purpose and methodology the thesis begins by tracing the development of the movement from its nineteenth century origins by identifying issues and circumstances that led some colonies to maintain thousands of cadets while others struggled to field any. It goes on to examine the formation, five years after Federation, of a Commonwealth cadet scheme birthed only to be swamped by the era of compulsory military training in Australia from 1911-29 which saw, at its peak, almost 100,000 schoolboys in khaki. The thesis analyses the re-organised voluntary cadet system in place from 1930-38 which, matching the circumstances of the adult army, faltered in numbers and support as it was restructured into dual 'Regimental' and 'School' branches. It goes on to assess the impact of the Second World War and the renewed impetus it provided to the cadet organisation before investigating the prosperity of the movement throughout the 1950s and 1960s in spite of the complexities raised by National Service and Australian involvement in

This thesis argues that Pearce is Australia's most significant defence minister, notmerely because of the length of his tenure, but because of the number of hisachievements. The senator played an important role in the creation of the RoyalAustralian Navy, the Royal Military College, Duntroon and the Royal Australian AirForce. He introduced compulsory military training and established a network ofdefence factories. He served as minister for almost all of the First World War and leftthe Labor Party because of his support for conscription. In the early 1920s, thesenator attended the Washington naval disarmament conference which established aregime of naval reductions and enabled a decade of peace in Asia and the Pacific. Hereturned to the portfolio in the early 1930s and initiated Australia's rearmament inresponse to Japanese aggression in China.During Pearce's career, the system of governance gave public servants minor rolesand expected ministers to take the main responsibility for developing policy andadministering the department. The senator successfully created policy based on hisbeliefs in the importance of sea power and forward defence, the assistance of theRoyal Navy, the existence of an Australian navy and arrangements for anexpeditionary force able to operate alongside the British army. Pearce was lesssuccessful as an administrator. He refused to delegate responsibility or fundamentallyreform departmental practices, resulting in gross mismanagement during the FirstWorld War and missed opportunities to improve the educational standard of publicservants and create a system to provide ministers with better policy advice.