Soldiers and Gentlemen: Australian Battalion Commanders in the Great War 1914-1918

Abstract

This thesis examines the infantry battalion commanders of the first Australian Imperial Force during the First World War. Although the command of an infantry battalion was an important and influential position within the army’s hierarchy it has been largely overlooked in Australian histories of the First World War. To redress this omission, this study evaluates the 183 men who held substantive commands between 4 August 1914 and 11 November 1918 and assesses their experiences, their competence, and their changing responsibilities. To do so, the exercising of command has been broken up into three components: tactical ability, administrative ability, and leadership. An officer was required to exercise all three competently if his battalion was to be effective. This study demonstrates that by 1918 Australian battalion commanders were largely competent in all three. Two factors were primarily responsible for this success. First, by situating Australian battalion commanders within the wider context of the British Army, they were integrated into and beneficiaries of the institutional learning process that allowed the British Expeditionary Force to develop into a successful war-winning army by 1918. Second, Australian battalion commanders achieved proficiency through ruthless removal of inefficient officers and the appointment of potentially competent replacements. This conclusion undermines the notion that Australians were natural soldiers and leaders and instead points towards a more technical understanding of warfare, which has been absent in many retellings of the Australian experience of the First World War.