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Britain declares war on Germany
Australia quickly pledged its support for Britain. As Andrew Fisher said shortly before he was elected prime minister, “Australians will stand beside our own to help and defend her to our last man and our last shilling.” -
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Australian War involement timeline
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Volunteer recruiting begins in Australia
By the end of 1914, 52,561 Australian volunteers passed the strict physical and medical standards for overseas service. Despite two attempts to introduce conscription, enlistment remained voluntary for the duration of the war. -
Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Forces capture German New Guinea
AN&MEF troops skirmished with Melanesian and German troops at Bitapaka in the German colony of New Guinea while attempting to capture a nearby radio outpost. The six Australians killed in the action were the first of 60,000 Australian troops to fall in the First World War. -
Australian troops in Egypt
Having arrived at the seaport of Aden at the entrance to the Red Sea, Australian and New Zealand troops were diverted to Egypt as a garrison force to protect the Suez Canal against the Ottoman Turks. This news was disheartening for many troops who were eager to fight the German army in the main theatre of the war. -
Australians land at ANZAC Cove
British, Australian, New Zealand and French troops made a pre-dawn amphibious landing on or near the Gallipoli peninsula. While the British landed at Helles on the southern tip of the peninsula, and the French at Kum Kale on the Turkish mainland, the Australians and New Zealanders landed at Anzac Cove. Although only lightly defended by the Turks, Anzac Cove was overlooked by precipitous terrain and was easily defended. Nevertheless, the Anzacs managed to gain a toehold, but in the following eigh -
Baby 700
Australian and New Zealand troops attacked the Turkish-occupied feature known as Baby 700. Turkish fire swept into the unsupported left flank of the assaulting infantry and the attack ground to a halt nowhere near its objective. It was a failure that cost the Australians and New Zealanders approximately 1,000 casualties. -
Burial truce
So pervasive was the stench of the Turkish corpses resulting from the attack on 19 May that a temporary truce was negotiated between Australian and Turkish troops to recover the dead from no-man’s land for burial. -
The August offensives
A series of British attacks were launched along the Gallipoli peninsula in a renewed attempt to break out from the beach heads at Anzac and Cape Helles and capture the high ground of the Kilid Bair Plateau and the Sari Bair Range. Several attacks were intended to draw Turkish reserves south from the main assault on the Sari Bair Range. The main assault of the offensive took place north of the ANZAC positions against the heights of Sari Bair. -
Charge at the Nek
On 7 August, dismounted Australian light horsemen charged the Turkish trenches at the Nek in what was a callous and ultimately futile charge against machine-gun and rifle fire. The attack failed, with 234 of the 8th and 10th Light Horse regiments killed and some 140 wounded. -
Evacuation of Gallipoli
The evacuation of all British, New Zealand, and Australian troops from Anzac Cove was, according to ANZACorps diary, completed with a single casualty. By then, the Australians had sustained 26,000 casualties, of which 8,000 were killed in action or died of wounds or disease. -
The British offensive on the Somme begins
I and II ANZAC arrived in France in the build-up to the battle of the Somme, a major British offensive orchestrated by General Sir Douglas Haig in conjunction with the French commander Maréchal Ferdinand Foch. The plan coincided with several other offensives being planned in other theatres, but was intended to create a rupture in the German line which could then be exploited with a decisive blow. It was hoped that tying down the German army on the Somme would relieve pressure on the French Army, -
Battle of Fromelles
Alongside the British 61st Division, the Australian 5th Division attacked the German positions near Fromelles. The intention was to make a demonstration in the Lille area so that the German army would be prevented from transferring reserves to the Somme. For the Australians, the action was a costly and unsuccessful introduction to the war on the Western Front, with the 5th Division suffering 5,533 casualties in less than 24 hours. -
Battle of Pozières
I ANZAC was assigned the task of capturing Pozières village and moving the line northwards towards Mouquet Farm. On 23 July the 1st Division attacked and captured the German-occupied village, making an advance of over 1,000 yards. The successful capture of the village pushed a bulge in the British line, thereby allowing German artillery to relentlessly shell the Australian positions from multiple sides. -
Battle of Romani
After several months of long-range patrolling east of the Suez Canal, the ANZAC Mounted Division fought its first major action at Romani. Australian, New Zealand, and British mounted troops engaged up to 8,000 Turks moving west towards British outposts. The mounted troops were able to turn the flank of the attacking enemy, who were ultimately forced to withdraw. The ANZAC mounted troops took the brunt of the Turkish assault at a cost of 900 casualties. -
First conscription referendum
With casualties on the Western Front soon outstripping enlistment, political leaders in Australia raised the issue of conscription. Australia divided along sectarian lines. The issue was put to the Australian people in a referendum, and was narrowly rejected with a margin of 49 per cent for and 51 per cent against. -
Battle of Flers
After returning to the Somme, I ANZAC conducted some smaller operations against the village of Flers. Although some gains were made, German counter-attacks ultimately recaptured the positions. -
Battle of the Somme ends
The battle of the Somme came to an end before the onset of winter. Many objectives set for the British for the first day of the campaign remained in the hands of the enemy. I ANZAC occupied positions between the villages of Flers and Gueudecourt, where it endured the harshest European winter for 40 years. -
Withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line
The German army made a tactical withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, a heavily fortified series of defences they had been preparing for some months. This had the advantage of shortening their defensive line as well as creating a much stronger position. -
Battle of Messines
While I ANZAC was recovering from Bullecourt, further to the north II ANZAC formed the southernmost flank of the British attack on Messines Ridge. The objective was to eliminate a salient that had developed in the line south of Ypres, enclosing the Wytschaete–Messines Ridge and thus providing the Germans with excellent observation of the area from which the British intended to launch a major offensive. -
Battle of Menin Road
I ANZAC attacked Menin Road as part of the British 2nd Army – the first in a series of attacks intended to capture the Gheluvelt Plateau in Belgium. Menin Road was the opening action of the second phase of the third battle of Ypres, and was the first time Australian troops were used in this campaign. Troops from the 1st and 2nd divisions successfully attacked German positions near Glencourse Wood as part of a wider operation. Overcoming formidable German positions, they made considerable gains. -
Battle of Broodseinde
I and II ANZAC fought alongside each other for the first time since their formation in what was the next step towards the Gheluvelt Plateau. With large amounts of artillery, and attacking on a limited front, the Australian troops successfully captured the German positions on Broodseinde ridge at a cost of 6,500 casualties. The Australians pushed through the German lines of infantry to take all of their objectives along the ridge. The Anzacs were heavily shelled in their jumping-off positions bef -
Attack on the village of Passchendaele
The last Australian attack during the Third Battle of Ypres attempted to capture the village of Passchendaele. The 3rd Division and the New Zealand Division advanced alongside five British divisions, but were bogged down in the valley well short of their objective. After this, the Australians were relieved by the Canadian Corps to the Messines sector for the winter. -
Battle of Beersheba
The most famous mounted charge involving the Australian Light Horse was carried out against the fixed Turkish defences at Beersheba in Palestine, and followed two failed attempts to capture Gaza. The charge was made by 400–500 troops of the 4th Light Horse Brigade, who galloped into the face of Turkish machine-gun, rifle, and artillery fire and breached the enemy defences. Beersheba fell to the Australian Light Horse with less than 70 casualties. -
Battle of Amiens
In response to the German Spring Offensive, 20 allied divisions launched a massive counter-offensive against the German Army. The Australians advanced 11 kilometres and the Canadians almost 13. Australia’s 4th and 5th divisions led the advance before the 2nd and 3rd divisions took another three kilometres and secured the secondary objective. So successful was the attack that German General Erich Ludendorff describes Amiens as the “black day of the German army in this war”. -
Battle of Montbrehain
The Australian Corps fought its last action on the Western Front at Montbrehain. By this time, the Australian Corps had been fighting for six months without rest, resulting in 11 of the 60 battalions being disbanded due to heavy casualties and low numbers of reinforcements. A total of 27,000 Australian troops had been killed or wounded since the start of the offensive at Amiens on 8 August. -
Armistice
On 11 November the German government signed an armistice that brought an end to the First World War. By the war’s end 61,512 Australians had been killed or died of wounds or disease, and 152,000 had been wounded.
