S.

Encel

T H E S T U D Y OF M I L I T A R I S M
IN A U S T R A L I A *

The international development of sociology has been accompanied by a

rapid growth of interest in comparative studies. The intellectual validity
of such comparisons is likely to remain a matter of controversy. How-
ever, there would be general agreement that the study of institutions of a
basically similar character can be of great value, and such agreement
evidently lies behind the growing volume of comparative investigations
of military institutions. In examining military institutions in Australia, a
country of little military consequence but of some sociological interest, I
have attempted to develop a frame of reference which may be of value
for comparative purposes. This has four major components:
(1) The part played by violence, or the threat of violence, in the
community as a whole, the development of values and attitudes in
response to it, and the extent to which coercion forms part of the
structure of legitimate authority.
(2) The accepted pattern of civil-military relations, including the
degree of 'politicization' of the army and the extent to which military
chiefs will accept, without resistance, the directions of a civilian political
head.
(3) The part played by military rank in the prestige hierarchy. This
includes the extent of deference to military rank by civilians, the
attitude to commissioned rank within the armed forces themselves, and
the degree of public recognition given to the ex-soldier. It is prima
facie likely that a country where civilians defer to an officer in uniform

* This is a revised version of a paper presented to the 6th World Congress of

Sociology at Evian in September 1966.

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will be militaristic in character, but the situation is much more complex

and subtle than this simple example would suggest.
(4) The social origins of the officer corps, which constitute part of
the general structure of class and status.
In the English-speaking democracies like Australia, this framework is
now being affected by the increased militarization of society. This has at
least three special features of interest. The institutionalization of violence
and the growth of elaborate bureaucratic means of managing violence
constitute a major modification of the social structure of this group of
countries. Secondly, the growth of a professional military establishment
means the introduction of elaborate forms of hierarchy which are not
part of the traditional social structure, and have frequently been re-
garded as alien or repellent. Finally, the growth of professional military
careers introduces a relatively new dimension into the pattern of
occupational and social stratification. In the study of which this article
forms part, I have attempted to show the operation of the processes
just outlined in the Australian context.

1. MILITARISM AND DEMOCRACY

Militarism, as a system of ideas and values which places "military

institutions and ways above the ways of civilian life"1 has always been
relatively feeble in the English-speaking countries, where public authori-
ty presents a less forbidding aspect on account of its lack of militariza-
tion. Michael Howard observes that whereas many European countries
have been characterized by a profound rift between the civil and the
military interest, in Britain there is no more than a 'shallow depression'.2
The Central European etiquette which gives social predominance to an
officer in uniform, satirized in Arthur Schnitzler's story Leutnant Gustl,
is subtly reversed, as in the custom of not wearing uniforms off duty.
Huntington observes that liberalism is, on the one hand, hostile to the
existence of a military establishment, but the fact of its existence arouses
continuous attempts at refashioning the institutions of war to make them
lose their peculiarly military characteristics. Military heroes do not figure
in the liberal pantheon, except when they display the virtues of a
Cincinnatus. "The liberal hero", remarks Huntington, "is a versatile
1
Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism (New York, Meridian Books, 1959),
p. 17.
2
Michael Howard, Soldiers and Governments (London, Eyre & Spottiswoode,
1957), p. 21.

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The Study of Militarism in Australia

hero" - especially if he is a man of peace who leaves his trade to beat

the professional military men at theirs. Both professional and citizen
soldiers have been prominent in American politics, but historians and
the general public alike seem to stress the latter at the expense of the
former. "While the American people like their political candidates to be
military heroes, they want their military experience to be an interlude in,
or a sideline to, an otherwise civilian career." 3
Huntington's analysis applies directly to Australia, where a history of
citizen military effort in two world wars has further contributed to the
relatively low esteem enjoyed by the professional soldier. The fact that
Australia's greatest military commander, Sir John Monash, was a citizen
soldier with a distinguished civilian career, is another factor of some
psychological importance. Perhaps the most typical of popular attitudes
to military glory is summed up in the private soldier's wisecrack: "The
only kind of soldier I want to be is a returned soldier."
Such attitudes, coupled with the smallness of the permanent military
establishment, can easily lead to an undervaluation of the influence of
militarism. Yet the very strength of the citizen tradition is a reason for
the stress on military virtues - hierarchy, loyalty, order, patriotism -
which are paraded so frequently on Australian public occasions,
commonly by ex-officers. The most distinctive of all national holidays
is Anzac Day, anniversary of the first important battle in which
Australian (and New Zealand) troops were engaged in large numbers.
Moreover, the enormous value of being a 'returned serviceman' in the
social and occupational spheres would be difficult to exaggerate.

2. THE IDEOLOGY OF THE NATION IN ARMS

The values embodied in the citizen military tradition were first formu-
lated by Dr. C. E. W. Bean, editor of the official history of the 1914-18
war. At Gallipoli, he wrote, "the consciousness of Australian nationhood
was born". A more recent writer has reminded us that the Anzac
tradition is in many ways co-extensive with older Australian nationalist
tradition, and that the legend of the 'digger' has both civilian and military
aspects. The strength of the Anzac tradition means that one cannot
accept, without qualification, the view of many radical historians that
the working class is anti-militarist and anti-war.4
3
Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, Belknap Press
of Harvard U.P., 1957), pp. 155-159.
* Kennett S. Inglis, "The Anzac Tradition", Meanjin Quarterly, No. 1 (1965).

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In an essay published more than a century ago, Friedrich Engels

argued that the characteristics of the military establishment in any state
are determined by the dominant political characteristics of that state.
Recently, Rapoport5 has described military and political institutions as
"mutually dependent variables". The political function of an army is
the key to its character, and both character and function depend on
prevailing conceptions about the place of the army in civil society. An
example is that of the 'nation in arms', historic examples of which go
back to the Greek city-states and the Roman republic; in the modern
world, Switzerland and Israel are leading examples. The nation in arms
is characterized by the ability to mobilize a large proportion of its
population at short notice, and by emphasis on a citizen army rather
than a professional one. The manner in which this concept has affected
the development of the military establishment in Australia is exemplified
in the long-standing support for compulsory military training found
among groups like the Labour Party before the first world war, and the
Returned Services League since then.6 In the case of the R.S.L. and
other selfconsciously patriotic groups, moreover, compulsory training
appears to be advocated at least as much on civic as on military grounds;
if they had read Harrington, they would agree with him that universal
military training was the most important guarantee for the stability of
the commonwealth. The concept of the nation in arms is also expressed
in folklore, in imaginative literature, in military history, and in painting.
The painter Sidney Nolan attracted wide attention some years ago with
his series depicting the outlaw Ned Kelly, and has captured in his
pictures the martial undertone which runs through the Kelly legend. The
artist has used Kelly's home-made suit of armour to create a dominant
motif.
On the literary plane, there is abundant evidence of a distinctive
military tradition. The sources of this tradition lie partly in necessity,
partly within the everyday culture which has been carried over into the
brief interlude of military life, and partly in accepted myths about the
qualities of the Australian soldier, which are generally notions about
'national character' transferred to a warlike setting. Thus, Bean ascribes

5
David C. Rapoport, "A Comparative Theory of Military and Political Types",
Changing Patterns of Military Politics, edited by S. P. Huntington (New York,
Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), pp. 71-98.
• For an analysis of the development of Australian attitudes to the outside
world and their influence on the military tradition, see S. Encel, "Defence and
the World Outside", Australian Outlook, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1963).

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The Study of Militarism in Australia

the virtues of the Australian soldier to a combination of nature and

nurture, to the effect of the conditions of outback life on British stock.
"It was a fact often observed", he remarks, "that in a shipwreck or a
bush-fire one man of British stock could compass the work of several
Germans; and this capacity the Australian possessed to an extreme
degree." 7 To the inherent superiority of the British race, the Australians
had added qualities of initiative, resourcefulness, and leadership. British
soldiers, who were "the best-natured of men, extraordinarily guileless,
humble-minded to a degree, never boastful, and seldom the cause of any
serious trouble (sic!) instinctively looked up to the Australian private as
a leader".8 Similar sentiments, which are simply a literary expression of
the opinions of the rank-and-file, are dotted throughout Australian
writing about war.
Others have also contributed to the picture. The British airman,
Colonel Strange, who served with Australian flying squadrons in the
first world war, was impressed by the Australians as "the finest material
for an attacking force in the air, just as their infantry divisions on the
ground were the best that the war produced on either side". Just as
Australians have quaint views about Britain and the British army, so
Strange's account of Australia becomes adulterated by the American
Wild West. Australian initiative, he writes, was "inherited from ancestors
who had been cattlemen, sheep-ranchers, poachers, trappers, outriders,
overland post and transport drivers . . . they were equally at home when
cutting out cattle at a round-up or shooting the rapids in a canoe". The
Australian squadrons made him think of "the sheriff and his posse going
out after bushrangers".9
These qualities of initiative and resource are, traditionally, accom-
panied by a casual if not downright hostile attitude to the hierarchical
structure of the military command system. Bean noticed "a sort of sup-
pressed resentfulness, never very serious, but yet noticeable, of the
whole system of 'officers' ".10 Field-Marshal Allenby is said to have
observed that he had never met troops so completely unimpressed by
senior rank. A widely-held view in both world wars was that British
officers, accustomed to instant and unquestioning obedience from other
ranks, were unable to handle Australian troops, who did not care for the
7
C. E. W. Bean, The Story of Anzac, volume 1 of the Australian official
1914-18 war history (Sidney, Angus & Robertson, 1923), p. 5.
s Ibid., p. 48.
9
L. A. Strange, Recollections of an Airman (London, John Hamilton, 1933),
pp. 175-178.
10
Bean, op. cit., p. 48.

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outward show of obedience and were liable to react unfavourably to

orders which were demonstrably stupid. The notorious refusal of
Australian soldiers to salute British officers when off duty was the
cause of numerous incidents during the first world war. Several incidents
of this kind, evidently based on fact, are recounted in Leonard Mann's
novel of the 1914-18 war, Flesh in Armour. The spirit of the times
was also reflected in an Australian version of the famous song, "Fred
Karno's Army", which was current in the British army at the time:
We are the Anzac Army,
The A.N.Z.A.C.,
We cannot shoot, we don't salute,
What bloody good are we?11
The contrast was noted by no less an observer than Monash, who was
gratified that in the Australian army, unlike the British, "there was no
officer caste, no social distinction in the whole force. In not a few
instances, men of humble origin and belonging to the artisan class rose,
during the war, from privates to the command of battalions . . . the
whole Australian army became automatically graded into leaders and
followers according to the individual merits of every man, and there
grew a wonderful understanding between them".12
Australian hostility towards rank and its prerogatives has sometimes
been compared with American attitudes, but the comparison is perhaps
misleading. The most typical attitude found in American war literature
is that the possession of rank is bound to turn a man into a son-of-a-
bitch, and that there is nothing more grotesque than the officer who is
'R.A. all the way'. In Australia, the suspicion of rank seems to rest less
on hostility to the idea of hierarchy as such than on the feeling that the
men who attain command are rarely worthy to exercise it. A recurrent
myth about the Australian army concerns what Laffin describes as "the
unwritten creed among officers . . . that they would never ask a man to
do anything they themselves could not or would not do".13 Anecdotes
embodying this 'creed' are not uncommon, and often involve a British
officer to whom this superior standard of behaviour is demonstrated by
one of his Australian compeers. A remarkable discussion of rank in
fiction is to be found in T. A. G. Hungerford's novel, The Ridge and the
River. The hero, Corporal Alec Shearwood, leader of a patrol in the
11
Quoted by John Laffin, Digger (London, Cassel, 1959), p. 61.
12
Sir John Monash, The Australian Victories in France (Melbourne, Lothian,
1923), p. 300.
1S
Laffin, op. cit., p. 48.

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jungle of Bougainville, has several times refused a commission. When

his superior, Major Lovatt, asks him why he refuses to go to an officers'
school, Shearwood replies that he cannot face the thought of ordering
men to get killed. He dreads the "responsibility of standing out from the
ruck"; commissioned rank is an 'implacable Rubicon' which he does not
wish to cross. Looking at Lovatt, whom he esteems, Shearwood "felt
sure that he hated his loneliness, and hated the necessity for making the
men resent him". At the climax of the book, Lovatt tells Shearwood that
he has been given a commission in the field, without the need for an
officer's training course, and this Shearwood at last accepts, because he
feels that in this way he has earned his rank.
Necessity has played a decisive part in moulding an Australian mili-
tary tradition. Because of limited resources, sparse population, in-
capacity to defend the country unaided and reliance on citizen forces,
the features of this tradition are bound to contrast with countries pos-
sessing large and well-equipped standing armies. Lack of material re-
sources leads to great emphasis on the bravery and resource of the
individual soldier or the small independent unit. "Scrounging' becomes
a major virtue, sometimes reaching embarrassing proportions. The skill
of Australian soldiers in bartering liquor or dubious 'souvenirs' for
American cigarettes, clothing and small items of military equipment
during the Pacific campaign was proverbial. Air-Commodore Scherger,14
commanding R.A.A.F. formations in New Guinea in 1944, noted that
he had been compelled to order the jettisoning of a great deal of equip-
ment collected by R.A.A.F. units through 'scrounging' and 'magpieing'.
By comparison, he observed, this was unknown among American units,
and concluded: "There is little doubt in my mind that 'scrounging' is a
characteristic only of a Service which has been or is starved of adequate
supplies for all its requirements." 15 The manufacture of small arms has
always been the predominant feature of Australian war production, and
the best-known local contribution to military technology during the
second world war was the Owen sub-machine gun, a weapon of great
simplicity and durability under adverse conditions.
Limited resources of manpower, and the lack of a large and elaborate
general staff of professionals, help to account for the relative absence of
massive pitched battles in Australian military history, and an emphasis

14
Later Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Scherger, Chief of the Air Staff and
chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
15
George Odgers, Air War Against Japan, Vol. 2, Series 3 of the official
history of the 1939-45 War (Canberra, Australian War Memorial, 1958), p. 200.

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on tactical skill and cunning as opposed to the large-scale strategic

operation and the deployment of big battalions. "The Digger has never
had a hankering for fighting as a way of getting more battle honours on
the regimental colours, nor does he place too much reliance on armour
and artillery. He expects success to follow the taking of calculated risks,
plus confidence in himself, in his mates and in his leaders." 16 It may,
indeed, be argued that both strategic and tactical concepts are governed
largely by long-term social factors rather than by positive military
doctrine. As evidence, one could cite the British failure to recognize
tank warfare and air power, and the refusal to abandon either cavalry or
the battleship, between the two world wars. In the American case, the
overproduction of weapons of mass destruction, and the related failure
to digest the lessons of partisan warfare, may be explicable in politico-
economic rather than strategic terms.
The writing of military history in Australia is clearly influenced by
these social attitudes. Military history is generally concerned with
strategy, with campaigns, with large battles, and with the personalities,
attainments, and failings of commanders. Dr. Bean, however, laid down
a very different principle and his successors have all adhered to it. For
them, war history is made up of the doings of individual soldiers and of
the small units which form the framework of their everyday existence. It
is history written from the point of view of the men in the field, rather
than the staff at G.H.Q.
As Professor Inglis notes, Bean identifies himself with the man in the
front line. "He believed that he was writing about an army which was
unusually good because of the character, and in particular the egalitarian
comradeship, of its members; and he wrote a history appropriate to this
belief." 17 As Bean himself explained, military historians generally treat
the dispatches of the commanding officers as the most authoritative
sources of information, whereas every war correspondent knew that this
was not true. The Australian war historians determined that "their
subject should be viewed from the front line as well as from the rear,
and that as far as possible, the responsibility for the events described
should be attributed to the men actually responsible".18 This, as Inglis
says, is democratic war history. The great strategic decisions, the historic
battles, the political conflicts, the personal rivalries of generals and
admirals in search of glory, are no more than a distant backdrop for
18
Laffin, op. cit., p. 178.
17
Inglis, loc. cit.
18
Quoted, ibid.

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hundreds of personal dramas taken from regimental diaries. It is the

kind of history that would have commended itself to Tolstoy.

3. THE OFFICER CORPS

In terms of both numbers and influence, citizen soldiers have been

predominant in Australian military history. Out of the 43 senior officers
of the Australian Corps in France in 1918, 25 were citizen soldiers.19 A
similar proportion was to be found during the second world war, when
posts at this level were filled in the approximate ratio of 80 citizen
officers to 50 regulars.
The role of the citizen soldier is epitomized in the career of Monash,
the only Australian to be recognized outside his own country as an
outstanding military leader. The son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant, he
qualified as a civil engineer after a brilliant scholastic and academic
record. He also read law and qualified as a patent attorney. Fluent in
French and German, he read both engineering literature and military
history in those languages. From this reading, he learnt the use of re-
inforced concrete, of whose use he was a pioneer in Australia. At the
outbreak of war he was a lieutenant-colonel, and served in the Gallipoli
campaign and in France. In 1918, the five Australian divisions in France
were grouped into a single corps, and Monash was chosen to command
them, with the rank of lieutenant-general, at that time the highest posting
ever held by an Australian. Later, he was the first Australian to be given
the rank of full general. His achievements during the last 6 months of the
campaign in France were such as to make Lloyd George describe him as
"the most resourceful general in the whole of the British army". Captain
B. H. Liddell Hart wrote in his London Times obituary that Monash "had
the greatest capacity for command in modern war among all those who
held command".
In civilian life, Monash's greatest achievement was as chairman and
general manager of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, one of
the most notable public enterprises in Australian history. He was also
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, president of the
Institution of Engineers (Australia), etc., and his civilian career alone
would have made him one of the outstanding public figures of his

" Monash, op. cit., p. 323, gives a list comprising divisional commanders, their
chief staff officers, and brigade commanders.

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generation.20 The combination of civilian and military eminence makes

him the archetype of the citizen military tradition, especially as his fame
rests partly on unflattering comparisons with the British generals in
France who were, of course, professional soldiers. Lloyd George wrote
sourly in his memoirs that the War Cabinet had never heard of Monash's
abilities until the summer of 1918, because "professional soldiers could
hardly be expected to advertise that the greatest strategist in the Army
was a civilian when war began".
A recent British writer on the first world war argues that Monash was
a successful soldier precisely because he was not a professional. He
possessed "the 'Big business' type of brain which the vast complex of
the modern army has made necessary for successful command".21 This
is an echo of Monash's own words. In a letter from the front to his
friend, Dr. Felix Meyer, he declared that the only way to command was
"to deal with every task and every situation on the basis of simple
business propositions, differing in no way from the problems of civil
life, except that they are governed by a special technique. The main
thing is always to have a plan; if it is not the best plan, it is at least
better than no plan at all." 22 In his book The Australian Victories in
France in 1918, Monash described his successes as due to the applica-
tion of engineering principles, and on this basis he presented the work as
a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Engineering Science. His tactics,
involving the effective use of tanks, aircraft, and motor vehicles, were
far in advance of contemporary practice, and foreshadowed the 'com-
bined operations' of the 1939-45 war.
This emphasis on the role of technique and professionalism in military
matters is to be expected in a country with an egalitarian, materialist
ethos in which the rigidly hierarchical, caste-like features of the tradi-
tional army are unlikely to fit comfortably. With the growth of national
armies, the officer corps became one of the most thorough-going attempts
to create a deliberately chosen and specially trained élite, with an ethos
reaching back beyond the national state to the traditions of aristocracy
and chivalry. The professional officer, William Windham wrote, was
"a class of man set apart from the general mass of the community,
trained to particular uses, formed to particular notions, governed by
20
N o comprehensive life of Monash has yet appeared, but a sketch is given
by Warren Perry, "General Sir John Monash", Proceedings of the Australian
Jewish Historical Society, Vol. 4, Part 6 (1957).
21
Barrie Pitt, 1918 - The Last Act (London, Cassell, 1962), p. 171.
22
F. M. Cutlack, editor, War Letters of General Monash (Sydney, Angus &
Robertson, 1934), p. 245.

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peculiar laws, marked by peculiar distinctions".23 Two centuries later,

an ex-regular officer found that the purpose of the quasi-moral impera-
tives instilled into British officer candidates was precisely to convince
them that they were members of an élite. "To all intents they come to
resemble a feudal class in their confirmed sense of status." 24
In egalitarian communities like those of North America and Australia,
such feudal attitudes are unlikely to be tolerated. The necessity for the
existence of an officer corps is softened by playing down its separateness
and by emphasizing the technical context of officer training. Even so,
the sense of belonging to something like a feudal estate, in a society
suspicious of rank and privilege, is bound to engender strains in the
individual. When General Robert E. Lee left the army, he is said to
have declared that the greatest mistake of his life had been to take a
military education.
Janowitz suggests that the traditional military code has four compo-
nents — gentlemanly conduct, personal fealty to superior officers,
membership of a self-regulating fraternity, and the pursuit of glory. In a
democratic society, however, "it is highly inappropriate for honour to
be the sole, or even the dominant, value of the professional military
cadre".25 Military men are required, rather, to think of themselves as
technicians in a technological society. The increasing professionalization
of military life has accentuated the shift from traditional discipline to
authority based on "persuasion, explanation and expertise", especially
as the military establishment comes to be staffed more and more by
technical specialists. Janowitz estimates that, in the American Civil
War, 93.2% of U.S. army officers had 'purely' military occupations;
this proportion had fallen to 28.8% after the Korean war, and was
lower still in the navy and air force.
In Australia, as in America, the social role of the officer corps is
anomalous. Regular soldiers, complains one writer, "were treated by
their Government and by the Australian public as more or less of an
unnecessary evil".26 Even citizen service has never been exactly popular.
"An Australian who made the militia a hobby was likely to be regarded
by his acquaintances as a peculiar fellow with an eccentric taste for
23
William Windham, A Plan of Discipline (London, 1760).
24
Simon Raven, "Perish by the Sword", The Establishment, edited by Hugh
Thomas (London, A. Blond, 1959).
25
Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier (New York, Free Press of Glencoe,
1960), p. 225.
2
* John Hetherington, Australians - Nine Profiles (Melbourne, F. W. Cheshire,
1963), p. 4.

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uniforms and the exercise of petty authority." 27 The social problem is

accentuated by the small size of the military establishment and the un-
importance of Australia as a military power, which means that the
exercise of professional skills is severely hampered. For most regular
officers, the common form of employment has been that of area com-
mandant in charge of a drill hall, an activity which is hardly calculated
to stimulate imagination or flexibility of outlook. The unattractiveness
of the profession was accentuated by its low pay. Before 1939, salaries
and superannuation benefits were well behind the British army and
Australian civilian public services.
The professional military model embraces features such as early
recruitment, the specialized training of cadets in a separate college,
careful career planning, and post-graduate work in a staff college.
Normal as these are in the military profession, they are unusual in
Australia, especially when compared with civilian branches of public
employment. The whole process of advancement in the army is rigidly
controlled and maintained on a strict hierarchical pattern, by which the
officer is consciously prepared through education and experience for
promotion to a rank at least two levels above that which he currently
holds. The military rule (laid down in the Defence Act), that promotion
to major and lieutenant-colonel depends upon courses of instruction and
the passing of examinations would be inconceivable in the public
services. The Australian system, concludes B. B. Schaffer, is seeking
"an image which is inherently paradoxical and especially difficult for
Australia to meet . . . We have had here a continual effort to introduce
an overseas model which does not fit easily into Australia and has not so
far found normal times in which to operate." 28
Until the opening of the Royal Military College in 1911, appoint-
ments to the Staff Corps of officers were made either from Australians
who had gained commissions in the British Army, or on the basis of
examinations held at irregular intervals when vacancies arose. The first
class had not yet graduated when war broke out, and they were forth-
with commissioned and posted on active service. 158 Duntroon gradu-
ates served in the 1914-18 war, and 42 were killed. Between the two
world wars, graduates were normally posted for one year to a British
Army unit in India or the British Isles. On their return, they were ap-

27 Gavin Long, To Benghazi, series 1, no. 1, of the official history of the 1939-
45 War (Canberra, Australian War Memorial, 1954), pp. 11-12.
28 B. B. Schaffer, "Policy and System in Defence: The Australian Case", World
Politics, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1963).

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pointed as adjutants or quartermasters to militia units, or as regimental

officers with units of the permanent forces. At the outbreak of war in
1939, there were 233 on the active list out of 406 graduates. Of
the rest, 64 had resigned or become reserve officers, 58 had died, 27
had transferred to the British or Indian armies, and 24 had joined the
air force.29
The importance of Duntroon as a source of officers has, however,
been muted by the traditional preponderance of citizen forces in the
Australian military system, both in peace and in war. There are neither
rules nor conventions barring the appointment of militia officers to even
the highest ranks. The symbolic case is again that of Monash, who be-
came commander-in-chief and a full general. Even in the regular army,
because of its short history, RMC graduates have provided less than
one-third of officers with long service commissions. In 1959, out of a
total of 2,284 such officers, 631 had graduated from Duntroon, as com-
pared with 305 who had passed through the Officer Candidate School
at Portsea (established in 1951), 187 who had graduated from officers'
qualifying courses, and 86 from qualifying courses for 'other ranks'.301
Ultimately, it is planned that one-half of the entry should be via the
RMC.
Parsimonious treatment of the army between the wars contributed to
this situation. In 1922, the regular staff corps of 300 was reduced by 72
enforced retirements, and promotion slowed down to a snail's pace. The
result was a "sense of injustice and frustration . . . Not until 1935 and
1936 had most of the senior Duntroon graduates regained in the peace-
time army the substantive rank and the pay they had won in the
Australian Imperial Forces [the wartime army]. A number of their
most enterprising members had resigned and had joined the British or
Indian Armies where they had gained more rapid promotion than those
who remained in Australia. Promotion of militia officers had been
relatively rapid, so that some had risen from the ranks to lieutenant-
colonel in ten years, while it had been usual for a Staff Corps officer,
after having spent eight years as a lieutenant, to remain in the rank of
captain for ten or perhaps twelve." 31
The sense of isolation and unfairness, on the other hand, accentuated
the solidarity of the senior members of the officer corps and helped to
turn them into the "closed corporation" whose existence was noted and
29
J. E. Lee, Duntroon (Canberra, Australian War Memorial, 1952), p. 181.
30
Schaffer, loc. cit.
31
Long, op. cit., p. 45.

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resented during the second world war. The starvation of the regular
army between the wars meant that in 1939 there were very few regulars
who were senior enough to be appointed to the new commands of their
staffs. When the second A.I.F. was formed, the Prime Minister an-
nounced that commands in the new 6th Division would go to militia
officers, an announcement that caused chagrin throughout the whole
Staff Corps.32 Uneasiness in the relation between regular and citizen
generals persisted during the war. A notable instance was that of Lieut-
General Gordon Bennett, one of the most senior citizen officers, who was
known as an inveterate hater of 'blimps'. In a series of newspaper
articles on defence written in 1937, he had asserted that "experience
has proved that citizen officers can handle our citizen army more
efficiently than permanent officers. Our permanent officers are trained
as staff officers and not as active soldiers." When the series was sus-
pended because the Military Board forbade Bennett to write for the
press, Bennett wrote to a friend that the regular officers on the Board
regarded it as 'sacrilege' for a citizen soldier to criticize defence policy,
and added: "The Military Board, which had never forgiven me for my
promotion . . ., and which could not abide any criticism from a civilian
. . ., now turned on me the full force of its fury." 33 Partly because of
this tension between regular and citizen soldiers, and partly because the
senior officers of the staff corps were determined that the shabby treat-
ment meted out to them after 1918 should not be repeated, a special
section was set up at Army H.Q. in 1944 to ensure that command
postings after the end of the war should go to regular officers.
The effects of this determination by the regular officers to assert their
positions are evident from several sets of figures. To demonstrate trends
in senior appointments, I examined the careers of 40 senior officers who
were on the retired list in 1956. All had served in both world wars, and
comprised 13 lieutenant-generals, 19 major-generals, and 8 brigadiers.
Eleven of them had been appointed to the permanent forces before the
R.M.C. opened in 1911; another 24 were Duntroon graduates. This is in
marked contrast to another group of 48 senior officers who were on the
active list in 1956. In this case, details were obtained about 36 generals
and brigadiers (out of a possible 44) and 12 of the 20 most senior
32
Ibid., p. 55.
33
Frank Legg, The Gordon Bennett Story (Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1965),
pp. 151-153. A similar view about the superiority of citizen officers as opera-
tional commanders is expressed in the autobiography of another citizen general,
Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, The Turning Wheel (Perth, Paterson Brokensha,
1960).

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colonels. Of this group, no less than 40 were Duntroon graduates.

Historical events have an important bearing on these figures. One
aspect of the retrenchment of 1922 was that entry into the staff corps
was reserved for RMC graduates. In 1947, all serving members of the
staff corps, except for one lieutenant-general and one major-general,
were Duntroon men. In 1961, there were 304 regular officers above
the rank of major; 151 were RMC graduates. Of 38 generals and
brigadiers, 32 were RMC men. The relative advantage of Duntroon
graduates at higher levels is also shown by the structure of promotions
in the calendar year 1958. All those promoted to the rank of colonel
and above were RMC men; at lieutenant-colonel, the proportion was
85 % , at major 5 0 % , at captain 4 9 % , and at lieutenant 42% ,34
This pattern shows an interesting affinity with the United States,
where, as in Australia, the ratio of regular to citizen officers has risen
steadily. Before the 1939-45 war, a large majority of general officers
came from the National Guard. During the war, however, more than
57% of all commands from division upwards were held by West Point
graduates. Eleven army commanders (out of 20), seven army group
commanders (out of 9), and all three supreme commanders had come
through West Point. Since the war, although less than 3% of officers
commissioned by the U.S. Army have come from military schools, about
one-half of officers from the rank of major-general upwards have been
West Point graduates - in 1950, the number was 80 out of 166.35
It might be expected that differences in the roles of citizen and
professional officers would also be reflected in differences of social
background. These contrasts do, in fact, emerge from a detailed bio-
graphical analysis. The tables which follow are derived from surveys of
the senior serving officers of all three services made at the end of 1956.
The coverage was virtually complete in the case of the navy (R.A.N.)
and air force (R.A.A.F.), and 75% in the case of the army.
The preponderance of training college graduates in the army and navy
contrasts with the more varied character of the air force. The difference
will undoubtedly diminish as the postwar pattern becomes the dominant
one in the RAAF, which began to establish its own training institutions
only during the 1939-45 war. In the table, the eight members of the
R A A F who passed through training college were Duntroon graduates
who had transferred from the army, except for one who had trained in
England with the R.A.F.
34
Schaffer, loc. cit.
36
Janowitz, op. cit., pp. 54-60.

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TABLE 1

Recruitment of senior officers

Method of entry Navy Army Air Total

Force
1. Direct commission in peace-
time 5 — 23 28
2. Training college 28 40 8 76
3. Permanent appointment after
war service 1 7 6 14
4. Specialist commission 4 1 9 14
38 48 46 132

Education is generally taken to be one of the most important corre-

lates of social status. In Australia, social distinctions are related to the
existence of two well-defined groups of private schools, Catholic and
non-Catholic. Taking attendance at these schools as an indicator of
social status, the navy emerges as the most socially selective of the three
services, and the air force as the least. Among our total group of
132, 76 were educated at state secondary schools as against 56 who
attended private schools. In the RAAF, however, the proportions were
30 state school pupils as against 16 private school pupils; in the navy,
18 as against 20; in the army, 28 as against 20. Fifteen of the naval
men, moreover, attended private schools at both the primary and
secondary levels. Forty of the 56 who were educated at private schools
attended schools affiliated with the Headmasters' Conference of
Australia. The three leading independent schools in the city of Melbourne
stand out. Between them, they accounted for 18 members of our group
- Melbourne Grammar School took 7, Wesley College 6, and Scotch
College 5. A similar pattern may be found among our 1956 group of
40 retired army officers, 22 of whom attended schools belonging to the
Headmasters' Conference; 8 went to Melbourne Grammar School and
Wesley College.
The prominence of Wesley College is related to the personal influence
of its long-time headmaster, L. A. Adamson, who held firmly to the
British tradition that a public school should produce men who would
devote their lives to the service of their country. Accordingly, he pro-
vided special coaching for boys wishing to enter the RMC, and 5 out of
the 30 cadets admitted in 1930 were from Wesley. An instance of a
boy who was influenced by Adamson was Major-General George Vasey,
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one of the notable leaders of the Australian troops in the New Guinea
campaigns of 1942-3.36
School attendance also provides some guidance as to religious affilia-
tion. Seven members of the group received their secondary education at
Catholic denominational schools. As about one-quarter of all Catholic
children attend state schools, and Catholics make up one-quarter of the
total population, it may be computed that 6-7% of state school pupils
would be Catholics. Applying this proportion to the group under
examination, we may assume that no more than 15 of them were likely
to be Catholics. Other biographical data suggest that the actual number
was less, so the proportion in the total group may be estimated as be-
tween 5% and 10%. This figure is in accord with Janowitz's data, which
show that 91% of all generals in the U.S. Army between 1898 and
1940 were Protestants. In 1950, the proportions were still similar:
among senior officers in the navy, 90% were Protestants, in the army
89%, and in the air force 84% ,37
Father's occupation is another important criterion of social status. The
results are tabulated below.
TABLE 2
Occupations of fathers of senior officers

Army Air
Occupational group Navy Total
Force
1. Rural 6 5 6 17
2. Professional 12 8 7 27
3. Schoolteachers 3 4 6 13
4. Business (directors and man-
agers) 6 6 8 20
5. Armed Forces (officers) 1 9 — 10
6. Commercial 6 8 12 26
7. Clerical 2 6 2 10
8. Manual workers 2 2 3 7
9. Others — — 2 2
38 48 46 132

These figures, taken together with the statistics on education, suggest

that our group of senior officers is predominantly of lower-middle class
origin, with the professions and business some distance behind. We may
also note the high proportion (10%) who were the sons of school-
teachers. The link between schoolteaching and the army has been
36
John Hetherington, op. cit.; Felix Meyer, Adamson of Wesley (Melbourne,
Robertson & Mullens, 1932).
37
Bean, op. cit., p. 56.

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evident for a long time. A number of generals began their careers as

teachers, including six of the 40 officers who were on the retired list in
1956. The late Field-Marshal Sir Thomas Blarney began life as a school-
teacher before joining the Staff Corps in 1906. In the first eight years
of the RMC, 17 out of 66 entrants were the sons of teachers. A further
six were sons of clergymen.38 This is in line with the studies of Janowitz,
who found that the sons of teachers and clergymen were strongly
represented in the U.S. officer corps.39
Applicants for admission to the RMC are required to state their
father's occupation on the application form. From 1911 to 1961, 2088
cadets entered Duntroon. Although the details given on their forms are
subject to errors of description, the major tendencies are unmistakable. 40

TABLE 3
R.M.C. cadets, 1911-61
Father's occupation Niumber %
Armed Services 210 10.06
Government officials 196 9.39
"Managers" 140 6.70
Schoolteachers & school inspectors 118 5.65
Farmers 90 4.31
Clerks 85 4.07
Accountants 73 3.50
Others * 848 40.61
Not stated 328 15.71
2088 100.0

* All other occupations given in the R.M.C. records account for less than 5 per cent of the total
in each case.

Available data concerning citizen soldiers indicate that their social

status is appreciably higher than that of the regulars. The following
table gives information about the civilian occupations of 60 senior
citizen officers of the 1914-18 war, and 80 who served in the 1939-45
war.
In the first world war, two-thirds of senior citizen officers came from
a professional or business background; in the second world war, three-
quarters. The distribution of occupations was matched by the educational
pattern. Whereas 60% of the regular soldiers analysed above were
38
See note 36, above.
39
Janowitz, op. cit., ch. 5.
40
A list of occupations entered on enrolment forms was kindly supplied by
Major-General C. H. Finlay, commandant of the RMC.

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TABLE 4

Civilian occupations of citizen officers

1914-18 1939-45
Occupational group
group group
Professional 26 39
Business (directors & managers) 14 23
Farmers and graziers 14 4
Government officials 6 8
Others — 6
60 80

educated at state secondary schools, among the citizen officers the

proportion was 25% for the 1914-18 group and 40% for the 1939-45
group. (Part of this increase is attributable to the expansion of state
secondary education since about 1910.) In both groups, the influence
of a small number of leading schools affiliated to the Headmasters'
Conference was apparent. Of the 1914-18 group, 45 attended private
schools. 24 of these went to Headmasters' Conference schools, and 12
came from four leading schools in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Of
the 1939-45 group, 53 attended private schools; 29 went to schools of
the Headmasters' Conference, and 15 attended five leading schools in
Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and Adelaide. In the 1939-45 group
particularly, there was also a high level of tertiary education; out of the
total of 80, 21 were university graduates and 27 had other tertiary
qualifications. By comparison, only one-sixth of the 48 regular soldiers
in our survey were graduates.

4. THE CITIZEN SOLDIER AND THE COMMUNITY

Occupational and educational background are not the only indices of

the high social status of the citizen soldier. The career of Monash is the
prototype of many similar life histories in which military rank is comple-
mented by prominence in various other spheres, including public
administration, education, politics, and business. But the best known
manifestation of social esteem is the remarkable cachet attaching to the
title of 'returned serviceman'. This has expressed itself in a variety of
important practical measures, including a far-reaching network of
preference in employment, guaranteed by legislation at both federal and
state levels of government and reinforced by informal social norms.
The role of ex-soldiers in civilian life, and the workings of preference
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in particular, are inseparable from the history of the Returned Services

League, one of the best known of all voluntary associations in Australia,
and one of the most successful of ex-service organizations anywhere.41 A
former Governor-General of Australia, Field-Marshal Sir William Slim,
told the 1953 national conference of the R.S.L. that although he had
seen ex-service bodies elsewhere, "I do not think that anywhere I have
been has the organization been so vigorous or played so large a part in
the ordinary affairs of the nation as it does in Australia." 42 The degree
of formal recognition according to the R.S.L. by the federal government
since its establishment in 1916 is quite remarkable. Under the Re-
patriation Act of 1920, the federal Repatriation Department is managed
by a commission of three members, one of whom is always a representa-
tive of the R.S.L. The same pattern of representation operates through-
out all the various boards and tribunals which form part of the depart-
mental structure. Since 1935, appointment as a member of the
Repatriation Commission has been the natural culmination of the
career of the national secretary of the R.S.L.
The R.S.L. also takes with great seriousness its role as the spokesman
of the citizen military tradition, and by extension of the patriotic virtues:
. . . the precepts which taught
the heroes of old to be hardy and bold,
and the men who at Marathon fought.
(Aristophanes, The Clouds)
Some American writers have pooh-poohed the patriotic functions of
ex-service organizations as a mere veneer for their effective role as
pressure groups for the material interests of veterans.48 The case of the
R.S.L. does not support this contention. Although its strength depends
on its great success as an interest group, it is this very strength which
enables it to be taken seriously as the hierophant of the patriotic virtues.
The R.S.L. has been a principal agency in keeping alive the concept of
the 'Empire' long after the effective disintegration of that institution.
Until 1965, the initials R.S.L. were merely a contraction of the full title
of "Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen's Imperial League of Austra-
lia" (RSSAILA); in that year, the name "Returned Services League"
41
A detailed history of the League has recently been published; see G. L.
Kristianson, The Politics of Patriotism (Canberra, Australian National Univer-
sity, 1966).
42
Annual Report of the Returned Services League for 1953.
4S
This is the view of Dixon Wecter, When Johnny Comes Marching Home
(Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944), e.g. at pp. 428-430, and of W. E.
Davies in Patriotism on Parade (Cambridge, Harvard U.P., 1955), e.g. at p. 355.

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was officially adopted. Through the R.S.L. (in which regular soldiers
have never played a significant part), the citizen ex-soldiers have found
their mouthpiece for reminding the public, and governments, of the
continuing importance of the citizen tradition.

5. THE CITIZEN TRADITION A N D THE F U T U R E

Since the Pacific war, Australia's strategic problems have borne little
relationship to the defence of the Empire. The need to plan a defence
policy based on the American alliance, and on the development of
Australia's relations with her Pacific neighbours, have placed increasing
emphasis on the need for professionalism in the military sphere. In
1947, for the first time, the federal government decided to establish a
regular army, and despite oscillations of policy since that time the regular
forces have grown both in size and importance. In 1957, the Prime
Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, stressed the need for "a judicious balance
of highly trained regular forces possessing mobility and power, and
adequate reserve forces capable of rapid expansion in time of emergen-
cy".44 Two years later, the Minister for Defence stated that citizen units
would be integrated into the regular army framework instead of being
maintained as separate formations.45 This policy was followed when the
Australian government decided, in 1965, to send troops to Vietnam in
support of American forces.
In spite of these developments, it is notable that the citizen tradition
retains its strength, and that the new strategic problems of he 1960s
have not yet induced the federal government to come to grips with the
problems of creating a predominantly professional military establish-
ment.46 By contrast, Canada has grasped this nettle and decided that a
'middle' power must think in terms of relatively small, but compact and
highly professional armed services which are not only 'integrated' but
completely unified. There is little doubt that, in the long run, Australia
will be required to move in a similar direction. In the meantime, the
citizen tradition will act as a powerful countervailing force.

THE UNIVERSITY OF N E W SOUTH WALES

44
Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 1957, H. of R. 14, p. 574.
45
Ibid., 1959, H. of R. 25, p. 3186.
49
These questions are critically examined by Schaffer, loc. cit.; by B. D . Beddie
and T. B. Millar in J. Wilkes (ed.), Australia's Defence and Foreign Policy
(Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1964); and in T. B. Millar, Australia's Defence
(Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1965).

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