Anzac's Dirty Dozen (16 page)

Combat and war need not necessarily be male-only experiences, and have not been so historically or in other societies. Yet twentieth-century government policy and social attitudes made them so in Australian. A desire to claim the equivalence of women's sacrifice or of the significance of their contribution must always be strained when women were excluded from the front line and from most dangers. Historians need to avoid devaluing what women were excluded from. One can certainly understand the dismay at the absence of heroines in our national mythology and culture, but nothing is gained by creating their existence through falsification or exaggeration. The historical gendered division of labour in warfare by Australians is a reality. It cannot be wished away just because it causes modern discomfort.
⁴⁴
One may wish that women's role had not been so marginal, but one must also recognise that it was.

Further reading

J. Beaumont, ‘Whatever happened to patriotic women 1914–1918?',
Australian Historical Studies
, October 2000, pp. 273–86.

J. Beaumont (ed.),
Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics
, The Australian Centenary History of Defence, vol. 6, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2001.

J. Damousi & M. Lake (eds),
Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century
, University of Cambridge Press, New York, 1995.

M. Lake et al.,
What's Wrong with ANZAC?: The Militarisation of Australian History
, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2010.

M. McKernan,
The Australian People and the Great War
, Nelson, Melbourne, 1980.

R. White, ‘War and Australian society', in M. McKernan & M. Browne (eds),
Australia: Two Centuries of War & Peace
, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1988.

[6]

THE NONSENSE OF
UNIVERSAL AUSTRALIAN
‘FAIR PLAY' IN WAR

Dale Blair

‘Australian soldiers are nothing if not sportsmen, and no case ever came under my notice of brutality or inhumanity to prisoners.'
¹
So wrote General Sir John Monash soon after World War I. There is no doubt a great many Australian servicemen in this and other conflicts, when called to the service of their country, have indeed attempted to uphold such chivalrous and sporting notions, and to act fairly and within the bounds of existing conventions or rules of war. However, the universality of this ideal, the suggestion that somehow Australian troops are unique and that all have unwaveringly applied their ‘digger-ethic' of fair play on the battlefield, is simply untrue. It is an Anzac myth of the first order. The historical record in this regard is clear. The sporting attitude of fair play implied by Monash has not always been evident in the Australian conduct of war. This has been most often exhibited through behaviour such as killing prisoners or through a refusal to take prisoners at all. Regardless of how uncomfortable an acceptance of such actions on the part of a minority of Australian servicemen might be, or how awkwardly it might sit within the contemporary public Anzac paradigm of unquestioning veneration of the deeds
of past servicemen, such acts are also part of this nation's military past and must be honestly acknowledged.

The brutal nature of war, conducted by humans with all their frailty and flaws, does not by any means guarantee chivalric attitudes and action by soldiers dragged into its violent sphere. Atrocities occur. Yet war crimes are things Australians prefer not to associate with the Australian military. Such things belong to the stories of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Taliban – not Australia. It is important, however, to accept and confront instances where transgressions of international law and the rules of war have occurred if we are to ensure that the historical record and memory of the nation's conduct in war retains objectivity and accuracy in this regard. Historical records show, unequivocally, that Australian soldiers in wartime have, at times, overstepped the mark and not played ‘fair'.

Given this, what is remarkable is that when presented with the facts, or even possibility, of such behaviour, some Australians stridently decry those who dare suggest that improprieties or poor judgement by Australian servicemen have occurred. A recent case in point was referred to the Director of Military Prosecutions (DMP), Brigadier Lyn McDade. Supposed supporters of Australian troops went into paroxysms because Australian commandos were to be charged with a variety of offences including manslaughter, failing to obey a lawful order, and dangerous conduct as a consequence of a series of events which unfolded in Afghanistan. In the action subject to enquiry, six Afghan civilians, including five children, were killed in a compound during a search for a Taliban leader. The case was referred to McDade only after it had been reviewed twice by army investigating officers. Doubts as to the legitimate conduct of these Australian soldiers were clearly at the forefront of the decision to pass the case on to the DMP. Yet McDade was subsequently subjected to a torrent
of abuse, in print, online and on the radio. She was attacked as being a grand-standing meddler seeking to further her career, and of being out of touch with the pressures facing combat troops. Federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott weighed in to the debate (if it could be called that) and suggested the troops had been betrayed and were being sent into action with one hand tied behind their backs. The tone of this vindictive campaign, as journalist Tom Hyland commented in the
Sunday Age
, suggested that ‘until now, we have sent troops to war unrestrained by the rule of law'.
²
Since Federation, however, international law has always governed Australian troops in battle, and these laws have also always been incorporated into the military manuals used to train Australian soldiers. The extent to which those laws have been obeyed and, when found to have been breached, the offenders prosecuted, is another matter.

The best-known of transgressions by Australian servicemen in killing enemy prisoners is that of ‘Breaker' Morant during the Boer War. Lieutenants Harry Morant and Peter Handcock of the Bushveldt Carbineers were executed after being found guilty by a British court martial for having killed eight Boer prisoners. Morant and Handcock's guilt in this matter is undeniable. Boer War historian Craig Wilcox declared that they were engaged in ‘cold blooded slaughter' and that they, having been implicated in four other deaths, were ‘closer to serial killers than soldiers'.
³
Morant and company were not alone in engaging in such behaviour, but nor was it a particular Australian transgression: the majority of Australian servicemen in South Africa did not kill prisoners. Furthermore, underpinning the Morant story is the assertion that he was acting in accordance with verbal orders issued from above to take no prisoners. This was refuted by the British in court but has remained a point of contention. If it were true, the order would have been an unlawful act by those higher
authorities that contravened existing rules of war and compromised the behaviour of both British and Empire soldiers. The Morant case only received much public attention in Australia after the event. Yet it was the perceived injustice of British military law, rather than the murder of enemy prisoners, upon which focus centred. One result was that the Australian government refused to allow the death penalty to be carried out against Australian soldiers in World War I.

World War I threw up numerous examples of Australian soldiers showing no quarter to the enemy and killing enemy prisoners. Incidents can be found in Charles Bean's volumes of the official history, in more detailed battalion histories, and in soldiers' personal letters and diaries. As such, the Morant case cannot be viewed as an aberration. In fact, one is left to surmise that the killing of prisoners was tacitly if not directly approved by higher command and systemic throughout the Australian Army during this conflict and again, in particular, against the Japanese in World War II. Killing enemy prisoners appears in some instances to have been viewed as acceptable and that enemy soldiers so disposed of were fair game.

Charles Bean, war correspondent and official historian, was forced to confront the existence of this attitude and behaviour soon after stepping ashore at Gallipoli. He was told by Australian and New Zealand soldiers ‘that they had orders from their subordinate officers in some cases to take no prisoners, in the first rush at any rate, and whilst things were bad'.
⁴
Bean added, ‘I don't believe this … though it may be true'.
⁵
Although Bean's disapproval was evident, it sat incongruously against his celebration of the spirit of the Australian soldier. In the same diary entry he compared the Australian soldier with his New Zealand counterpart. He quoted an Australian soldier as saying ‘Kind hearted beggars, the N. Zealanders, a Turk snipes them and then they
catch the beggar and take him by the hand and lead him down to the beach'.
⁶
The imputation was clear: the Australians would have shown no such clemency. Bean took the opportunity to point out a fundamental difference in national character as he saw it: ‘undoubtedly the N.Z. fights more with his gloves on than the Australian: the Australian when he fights, fights all in'.
⁷

Bean's description of the process of ‘ratting' at Pozieres in 1916 may be another prime example of fighting ‘all in':

Throughout the village could be seen isolated Australians ‘ratting' occasional fugitives from the rubble heaps, chasing terrified and shrieking Germans and killing them with the bayonet, or shooting from the shoulder at those who got away, and then sitting on the door-steps to smoke and wait for others to bolt from the cellars.
⁸

Are we being invited to share a pride in the nonchalant ruthlessness of the Australian soldier? Are we being asked to accept that such sport, of killing men who are clearly no longer a danger, was acceptable in the ‘fury of war'? To be fair, some prisoners were taken in this engagement, so we know ‘ratting' was not practised by all Australians at Pozieres. In this account, Bean also provided a context of extenuating circumstances: having taken the village and begun digging in, the Australians had become targets of some enemy snipers who had taken refuge in or survived in the rubble and cellars of the village during the bombardment and the initial Australian attack. It was this, Bean insinuated, that justified the merciless efficacy of some of the Australians on that occasion, the fact that they had been ‘stung by the killing of mates beside them'.
⁹
One can certainly understand soldiers being inspired by a thirst for revenge. That in itself, however, does not provide justification for killing men who are clearly placed in a situation where
they are incapable of resistance or no longer have a desire to resist.

Throughout his volumes of the official histories, Bean refrained from seriously judging or questioning Australian attitudes to killing in this manner. His uncritical approach has not always been accepted. The British historian John Keegan considered Bean's treatment of Australians involved in killing prisoners at Passchendaele in 1917 as platitudinous.
¹⁰
The incident Keegan referred to was that involving the death of Captain F. L. Moore of the 5th Battalion. When a German pillbox garrison signalled their intent to surrender, Moore moved forward to accept their capitulation, but was shot down. Moore's men immediately killed the perpetrator and others. The garrison's total extermination was only prevented by the interposition of other officers.
¹¹

In a footnote about this action Bean recounted what he considered a ‘terrible' incident, recorded by Captain W. D. Joynt, 8th Battalion, which took place about the same time in his brigade. Joynt admitted to seeing a group of Australians accepting the surrender of the defenders of the lower level of a doublestorey pillbox. As the Germans emerged, a shot was fired from the upper level – where the defenders were unaware of the surrender below – and an Australian was killed. Considering this the ‘vilest treachery', the Australians commenced to bayonet all the surrendering Germans. Although Bean described the men as being ‘too heated' to realise the facts, it was obvious that, for some, the action was cold and calculated and far from frenzied. Bean included a description of how one Australian who, on preparing to bayonet a German, found his bayonet unattached, so he proceeded to attach it while his imminent victim begged for his life. With his bayonet eventually fixed, the Australian then killed the defenceless soldier.
¹²
The calm detachment displayed was hardly indicative of someone ‘too heated' to act otherwise. It was a cruel, cynical and deliberate act of vengeance. In this
instance, Bean's argument does not sit comfortably with the facts. Joynt, too, although he knew the truth of the situation, was far from sympathetic in his post-war account. He voiced a widely held and subsequently entrenched view that Germans defending blockhouses and displaying the ‘bad sporting spirit of shooting as long as they were safe and then rushing out expecting mercy' were entitled to none.
¹³
For Keegan, the Australian behaviour here was an example of ‘improper violence'.
¹⁴

How should we interpret the behaviour of these Australian soldiers? Their actions suggest a group mindset that legitimised their actions even though in doing so they were contravening the rules of warfare. That the unfortunate Germans were ‘entirely innocent' was patently obvious, yet Bean was still unable to condemn the actions of the Australians. Instead he adopted a general and passive view that accepted the inevitability of such incidents, the blame for which he claimed lay with ‘those who make wars, not those who fight them'.
¹⁵
In the broadest sense, one can hardly argue with such a contention. Simply put, if there were no war there would be no killing of men – either legitimately or illegitimately. Yet by applying such a viewpoint, Bean was avoiding the immorality of such particular actions and, by extension, acting as an apologist for the Australian soldiers involved. Keegan's more objective chagrin is easily shared, as such actions raise fundamental questions about the morality underpinning the Australian conduct in this theatre. One must ask whether there are any circumstances at all that justify the practice of ‘no quarter', either through the killing of surrendered soldiers or through the refusal to take prisoners.