The First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) was the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army during World War I. It was formed from 15 August 1914, following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany. Generally known at the time as the AIF, it is today referred to as the 1st AIF to distinguish from the 2nd AIF which was raised during World War II.

The 1st AIF was a purely volunteer force for the duration of the war. In Australia, two plebiscites on conscription were defeated, thereby preserving the volunteer status but stretching the AIF’s reserves towards the end of the war. A total of 331,814 Australians were sent overseas to serve as part of the AIF, which represented 13% of the white male population. Of these, 18% (61,859) were killed. The casualty rate (killed or wounded) was 64%. About 2,100 women served with the 1st AIF, mainly as nurses. Close to 20% of those who served in the 1st AIF had been born in the United Kingdom but all enlistments had to occur in Australia (there were a few exceptions). As a volunteer force, all units were demobilized at the end of the war.

The Australian infantry did not have regiments in the British sense, only battalions identified by ordinal number (1st to 60th). Each battalion originated from a geographical region. New South Wales and Victoria, the most populous states, filled their own battalions (and even whole brigades) while the “Outer States” often combined to assemble a battalion. These regional associations remained throughout the war and each battalion developed its own strong regimental identity.

In the manpower crisis following the Third Battle of Ypres, in which the five divisions sustained 38,000 casualties, there were plans to follow the British reorganisation and reduce all brigades from four battalions to three. In the British regimental system this was traumatic enough; however, the regimental identity survived the disbanding of a single battalion. In the Australian system, disbanding a battalion meant the extinction of the unit. In September 1918, when the call was made to disband eight battalions, there followed a series of “mutinies over disbandment” where the ranks refused to report to their new battalions. In the AIF, mutiny was one of two charges that carried the death penalty, the other being desertion to the enemy. Instead of being charged with mutiny, the instigators were charged as being AWOL and the doomed battalions were eventually permitted to remain together for the forthcoming battle, following which the survivors voluntarily disbanded.

Charles Bean in the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 – Volume VI – The Australian Imperial Force in France during the Allied Offensive, 1918 described the situation as follows:

The 1st and 4th Australian Divisions were now relieved and went to the rear for the “Corps” rest for which they had been hoping since July. General Monash had also insisted that the three remaining Australian divisions must go into rest after the next battle. While he was in the thick of preparation for that offensive, another sharp trouble, though much less serious than it might appear to non-Australians, descended on him.

The Army Council in London was concerned at the depletion of the Australian infantry through lack of reinforcements. It pointed out that the 57 Australian battalions were 8,500 men short, and that reinforcement drafts for the next four months, estimated at 3,000 monthly, would be insufficient to keep up even the present strength. Battalions which entered the battle with 300-400 men were in some important respects uneconomic, requiring the same staff as a battalion that took in 750. In the British Army this difficulty had been met by disbanding the fourth battalion in each infantry brigade; a similar measure had long before been adopted by the French and Germans, and this policy had already been approved for the A.I.F. in February: Battalions had been earmarked for disbandment but, in view of the extreme reluctance expressed by the Australian Government, it was to be carried out only gradually as it became unavoidable.

Three battalions had been thus disbanded in the spring; Haig entirely accepted the Australian Government’s condition, but in June he pointed out that of the 57 remaining battalions 5 now had less than 700 men, 17 less than 800 and only 11 more than 900, which was the strength then laid down as minimum. He considered this (‘a rather alarming degree of unevenness.” Birdwood (as G.O.C., A.I.F.) explained that there were still hopes of keeping the battalions at 900 and that they were disbanded only when so weak as to be inefficient as fighting units. On August 29th the Army Council drafted a letter to Haig saying that, in view of the shortage then evident, it considered that the reduction of the remaining four-battalion brigades to three-battalion ones should be carried out as soon as possible. Before sending this letter it passed the draft to A.I.F. Headquarters for comment, and Birdwood asked Monash for his views. Both realised that the step would cause intense heart-burning, and Monash, even now that his battalions were going into battle 300-400 strong, urged that it should be postponed till the new year.

It is not likely that weather conditions will permit of our carrying on for much longer at the same intense pressure at which the Corps has been going for the last five months, (he wrote to Birdwood on Sep. 7). In all probability if we carry on, at latest till the end of October, we ought to be able to carry on right over the winter. It was possible, he added, that G.H.Q. might then be able to do “what we all desire”-keep the Australian Corps entirely out of the line for the four winter months. Australian battalions had never been so effective as in the last month when they were all far below strength; he urged that 750 should be considered a sufficient strength even for next year. I welcome any pretext (he said to a friend on Sep. 8th) to take the fewest possible men into action. So long as they have thirty Lewis guns (per battalion) it doesn’t very much matter what else they have.

And it was true that the A.I.F. battalions, entering these great battles with 300-400 rifles, still attacked on fronts of 850-1,000 yards, and had even attacked on fronts of up to a mile. Carrying parties could not be provided; Lewis gun teams were reduced to two men, and Vickers gun crews could no longer carry full loads of ammunition. These and the food supplies had to go by pack or waggon, and in recent fights this had worked very well. Monash asked to be allowed to reorganise his battalions on a three company basis, but he well knew that most of them had already done this for themselves, and reduced their companies to three or even two platoons. Finally he asked to be allowed discretion to recommend the disbanding of “one or more battalions” if he and his generals found it advantageous. Birdwood insisted on prompter action, pointing out that the principle had already been determined in January. He and Monash now agreed that it should not yet be applied to the four original brigades, but he informed the War Office that it would be applied in all unreduced brigades as soon as found necessary.

It was immediately after this that Monash learnt of the coming withdrawal of “1914 men” (estimated by him at “upwards of 6,000”) on furlough to Australia, which obviously would render the disbandments more urgent. The battalions selected by divisional commanders on the advice of their brigadiers were the 19th, 21st,25th,37th, 42nd,54th and 60th; and on September 23rd the order went out for their immediate disbandment: in each case their records, and a few representatives were to go to training battalions on Salisbury Plain, whose companies would assume the battalions’ names, but the rest would reinforce some other battalion or battalions of their own brigade.

To officers and men of these battalions the blow was overwhelming. The step might be necessary-but why should their battalion be chosen. Men and even officers held among themselves indignant meetings. In the first battalion to hear of its fate, the 37th, Col. Story, a fine leader, took the step of protesting not merely to the brigadier, but over his head to Gellibrand, Monash and Birdwood, a serious breach of discipline. Moreover in the bitterness of the moment Story’s letter was foolishly drawn, disparaging sister units. He was relieved of his command, but his attitude had become widely known. At a meeting the men of the 37th agreed that on the final parade they would obey every order but the last-the order to march to their new battalions. On September 22nd when that parade took place, they did so, obeying every command but the final one. Brig.-Genl. McNicoll was then summoned and spoke to the men, but with the same result. The officers then reluctantly obeyed an order to fall out; after them the sergeants did the same-and one corporal and one private. The remainder were told that, if they did not join their new units that afternoon, they would be posted as absent without leave. Being left to themselves they at once re-established strict military form in the battalion, choosing from their own number commanders to carry on temporarily the absent officers’ duties. It was noticeable that those selected were not the “bad hats” or of the demagogue type, but the men most fitted to lead in action, and strict discipline was maintained. The battalion marched back to its huts; men already in detention for various offences were retained under guard ; the medical aid-post was re-formed by the orderlies, and church parade for next day arranged with the padre, who went with the men.

The “commanders” had meals with the men, rations being obtained through the support of other units who “lost” occasional boxes of food from their own waggon-loads as they passed near by. There was keen sympathy for these troops throughout the force and, one after the other, the other selected battalions, when ordered to disband (mostly on September 24th and 25th) took the same action. General Gellibrand had asked for representatives of the 37th to meet him, and later went to the camp and talked the matter over with the men in a friendly, informal way. Monash also spoke quietly to representatives of the 37th, and battalion Commanders and brigadiers addressed all the recalcitrant battalions. The men’s argument was the same in every case and was entirely sincere.

Look Colonel (said those of the 25th to Col. Davis) the 25th from the first has been built on esprit de corps. We have been taught that the regiment is everything. You have often told us that we must sacrifice everything for its honour. We have always obeyed you and we always will-in everything but what you now ask. We cannot obey you in this just for that reason-we would sacrifice everything for the battalion. They told General Wisdom that it was their unanimous wish to go into the next battle and to be given the hardest task: there would either be no 25th left to break up, or they would leave such a record as would make it impossible to break them up. All the resisting battalions said they were keen to enter the great attack that they knew to be impending, but they demanded to be allowed to go in with their identity unchanged. A point elicited by Gellibrand was that the amalgamation of two battalions would be much less keenly felt than the extinction (in the field) of one of them.

Some units were clearly affected by their commanders’ arguments, the strongest of which was that they could not indefinitely resist, which the men knew to be true; but only one battalion gave way. It is a tribute to the unrivalled hold of Brig.-Genl. “Pompey” Elliott on the loyalty of his men that the 60th Battalion, after disobeying its commander’s order to join the 59th, agreed to do so upon being addressed by this beloved stout-hearted Australian. What was Elliott’s disgust when next morning, September 27th, he learnt that the other battalions were being allowed to go into the coming battle intact. As the great offensive was only a few days distant Monash had urged upon Rawlinson that the disbandment should be deferred for a fortnight, and asked him to press this upon Haig. The news of the order, says a record of the 21st Battalion, “was received with deafening cheers.” Naturally trouble at once recurred in the 60th, but Elliott again addressed it.

“By using my influence to the utmost,” he wrote in his diary, “I managed to sway the men over the line. My brigade is the only one in which the reorganisation was successfully accomplished.”
This incident has been called that of “the mutinies over disbandment,” and so in the strict sense of the terms it was; but the refusal was not treated as mutiny by any authority, Australian or British. In contrast to the mutiny in the 1st Battalion, it had its origin in some of the best men and finest qualities of the A.I.F. Australian soldiers had experienced few ties of loyalty in their civil lives; and a public loyalty once conceived was sustained with a flaming zeal disconcerting to those who had encouraged it. If, as General Brudenell White always strongly wished, it had been possible to tie the A.I.F. battalions oversea to the corresponding regiments of the citizen forces in Australia, so that the home regiment fed battalions or even companies overseas as in the New Zealand force, this trouble would probably never have arisen. But the A.I.F. was an improvised force and the disbandment of a battalion carried too many of the consequences of its extinction.

Mutiny was one of the only two offences punishable in the A.I.F. by death. No man was punished for his part in the disbandment mutiny. The mutiny in the 1st Battalion was in a totally different category. The men who refused duty, 119 in number, were tried and, with one exception, found guilty, not of joining in a mutiny, but of desertion. The ending of hostilities caused General Monash not to enforce the penalties and almost certainly saved him and the A.I.F. from having to face difficult problems whose solution would have called for not only tact but the highest qualities of wisdom, leadership and moral courage. Monash had some of these. In this decisive fighting, for such it was, he was right to work his troops to the extreme limit of their endurance, which normally is beyond the limit to which men themselves think they can endure. At such times victory often goes to the troops that hold out longest, withstanding strain, toil or exhaustion in perhaps unbelievable degree and for an unbelievable time; and the value of different armies depends largely upon how far they are ready to do this. On the other hand students of history may doubt whether mere eagerness for military prestige could ever, as Monash apparently imagined, maintain the will to such sacrifices, or could be wisely substituted for the high aims of justice and humanity in implanting a motive for which ordinary men, in such a war, will readily die.