Why Did Australia Fight In Ww1

The Western Front ran from the border of Switzerland all the way to the North Sea and raged on from 1914-1918. There was a total of 32 countries involved in the “Great War” and Australia was one of them. For long enough has Gallipoli been the forefront of Australia's pride and it is about time the Western Front had the same recognition. On the Western Front the soldiers had to endure malaria, typhoid and trench fever. The Australians fought on the Western Front from 1916-1918 and had more success in Pozieres, Passchendaele and Fromelles than the whole Gallipoli Campaign. 417 000 Australians enlisted to fight and 295 000 went tp the Western Front and 60 000 went to fight at Gallipoli. Out of these people almost five times as many Australians

Another battle fought around the city of Passchendaele had heavy rainfall, harsh machine gun fire and artillery craters that made the battle a nightmare for the Australian troops. Disease was crawling on the Western Front and the numbers of deaths from diseases at Gallipoli did not correspond to the deaths on the Western Front. Because of the greater number of people serving on the Western Front dehydration would have been one of the main killers and the Australians dealing with this would have built courage and strength which would have added to the ANZAC legend that Gallipoli had created. A British writer, Michael Joseph, talked about the horrors of trench foot because of the wet weather the soldiers endured “Your feet swell up two or three times their normal size and go completely dead. You could stick a bayonet into them and not feel a thing. If you are fortunate enough not to lose your feet and the swelling begins to go down, it is then that the … agony begins. I have heard men cry and scream with pain and many had to have their feet and legs amputated.” Australia was the only country that did not introduce conscription to fight against the Germans. Because of this if Australia suffered any major losses the division would be recovering for months on end to be able to gain the strength they required to fight. C. (circa/approximately) 417 000 men enlisted to fight and 295 000 men fought on the Western Front in the prolonged stalemate of hard fought battles. Posters to get people to enlist were often dark and made you feel as if you were doing wrong by sitting at home. This is evident as on pg 249 of the History Alive 9 textbook, there is a poster that reads “Most emphatically I say NO! But I have a career that might be spoilt well what would my career be worth if the Huns won? I’ll go! The volunteer