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Essay On Australia's Response To Ww2

834 Words4 Pages

Australia’s experiences of World War II were significant for Australia and impacted on the shaping of our national identity. Australia 's response to entry into World War II in 1939 differed from Australia 's entry into World War I in 1914. Reasons for this includes attitudes towards war changing after gaining the knowledge and experiencing consequences of World War I, the conditions and lead up to World War II as well as Australia’s strong support for Britain. Firstly, the attitude of Australians changed due to World War 3I proving that war was not glamourous or exciting like it was assumed. During the lead up to World War II Australians had already struggled to survive through the depression and were now required to survive at war. Finally, by 1939, Australians were questioning the validity to support and defend the 'Mother Country ' at all costs. These are just three of the World War II experiences that helped shape the nation. The response of Australia to the declaration of World War II was different and less …show more content…

As the world grew more populated, to many Australians it seemed that Great Britain was both a physically long way and also very different to Australia. The Australia of pre World War II was now very different to the Australia colonised by the British so many years earlier. In 1919, Australia had, for the very first time, been considered a fully self-governing nation and was asked independently of Great Britain to be a part of the Treaty of Versailles (Carrodus, Delany and McArthur, 2012). Prior to this, Britain was responsible for all political agreements for Australia (Museum of Australian Democracy). During the next 20 years’ Australian citizens grew to consider themselves separate from ‘Mother Country’ making Australia a nation in its own right. This line of thought lead to people questioning if it was still acceptable to give everything they had for Britain. In particular, was it sensible to join a war no matter what the cost to

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