"This desire for independence was reinforced by defence matters, in which Australia and Britain had divergent interests. British leaders' eyes were on Britain, Europe and India; while Australians were vitally concerned with the Pacific.

"This had been seen as early as the 1880s when Gladstone ignored the colonists' wishes over German and French moves in New Guinea and the Pacific."(88)

"At a public meeting in Sydney in 1885 Sir Henry Parkes, ex-premier of New South Wales, had moved a resolution of loyalty to Britain, but protested against the 'apathy and unconcern evinced by the Imperial Government in respect to the interests of these colonies'. The British attitude, on the other hand, was expressed by the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, two years later when he remarked that the Australians were

'the most unreasonable people I have ever heard or dreamt of. They want us to incur all the bloodshed and the danger, and the stupendous cost of a war with France... for a group of islands which to us are as valueless as the South Pole.'

"The fact was that 'neither the Pacific, the New Hebrides nor Australia were that important' to Britain. It is not surprising therefore that Chamberlain's suggestion at the 1897 conference for imperial federation and a coordinated army met with a blank response in Australia.

"...The Australian response in the years before the war [World War One] was to support Britain for emotional and security reasons, but at the same time to try to influence imperial policy to suit Australia's own needs.

"...The British government was preoccupied with the strategic situation in Europe, so when it spoke about 'imperial' foreign and defence policy, it really meant 'British'".(91)

"...The Colonial Defence Committee also believed in a centrally planned army for the Empire, and viewed Australian problems from a British perspective. Like Winston Churchill in 1942, it was prepared to sacrifice temporarily what were to it peripheral areas - such as Australia - to protect the centre.(92)

"...In Britain, the review of imperial defence for the House of Commons by A.J. Balfour, Prime Minister in 1905, made concentration 'at the centre of the Empire' the basis of general strategy.(93)

"...A special Imperial Defence Conference was held during July and August 1909. Here, it was finally agreed that the Australian government would create a naval unit, controlling the ships, while the discipline would be that of the Royal Navy. In time of war or emergency they would come under the Admiralty.(94)

"Meanwhile, the Naval Defence Act of 1910 brought the Australian Navy completely under British naval discipline."(95)

"In 1911 the Admiralty renegotiated its naval agreement, allowing the Dominions to have their own navies. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was to be regarded as a 'sister member' of the King's navy, with which its training and discipline were to be 'generally' uniform, as officers and men were to be largely interchangeable. It was to be under the control of the Australian government, except in time of war, when it came under the Admiralty, and was liable for service anywhere in the world... Moreover, as a result of the agreement the RAN became closely tied to the Royal Navy, while the purchase of equipment from Britain and the recruiting of British officers 'contributed... subtly to Australian dependence upon the Mother Country'."(96)

The war drums beat! The scene is changed!
The brown man is a brother.
Alas for dear Australia White!
The Japs are pals of Mother!

"The British, however, were worried by their declining world position after the unification of Germany. Britain wanted a greater contribution from the white colonies towards their own defence; to withdraw from 'unnecessary' commitments overseas - including what they called 'the Far East' - and to make a series of agreements with foreign nations to protect her colonies. These policies presented problems for Australia. While the British were negotiating the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in the second half of 1901, the Australians were formulating their Immigration Restriction Act - against Japanese as well as other Asian nationalities. G.F. Pearce, later Australian Minister for Defence, remarked at the time that the British government might 'not always have the best interests of this part of the Empire at heart'. It could hardly have been expected to, for the interests of Britain and Australia simply did not coincide."(99)

...[When Britain's] "General Sir Ian Hamilton was insensitive enough to suggest in December 1903 that the Australians contribute 3000-4000 mounted troops to help the Japanese (then preparing for the Russo-Japanese War) against Cossacks, the response was predictable."(100)

"The Round Table demanded that Britain maintain greater naval power in the Pacific, in face of 'Japan's rapidly increasing industrial, naval and military strength' - a Japan which it 'identified as the real menace to Australia'."(101)

"Australians... were not comforted when British officials and politicians, such as Winston Churchill, pointed to the Anglo-Japanese alliance as the protector of British interests in the Pacific. The alliance was with Australia's main perceived potential enemy."(104)

"In his long career Churchill never understood, let alone sympathised with, Australasian needs or fears. In his naval estimates on 17 March 1914 he criticised the idea of separate Dominion navies and reverted to his concept of an 'imperial' naval squadron, to which the Dominions would contribute their heavy ships. He had apparently sidestepped the naval agreement by putting obsolescent ships on the China station, and restressing the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. He insisted on the orthodox doctrine, that 'The situation in the Pacific will be absolutely regulated by the decision in European waters.'

"Not surprisingly, the Australian press was up in arms, while its government sought British assurance that the naval agreement was still in force. It was so incensed that the Minister for Defence, Senator E.D. Millen, tabled in federal parliament a memorandum which included 'the sharpest criticism of the British made by any Australian politician, in public or private, since Federation'. It accused the Admiralty of abandoning the 1909 agreement, sabotaging the basis for the RAN, ignoring Australian needs and views (especially over the treaty with Japan), and totally failing to consult, or even notify, the Dominions. As in the 1940s, Australians doubted Churchill's assurances of a speedy despatch of a British battle fleet. The Australian government therefore pressed on with the development of its own fleet.

"...Churchill's unilateral abandonment of the 1909 naval agreement revealed his Anglocentric attitude to the Empire".(105)

• The Boer war.
  The result: 588 Australians dead, and 573 casualties.(107)
  
  
• The First World War.
  The result: 60,284 Australians dead, and 586,581 casualties; also, this war directly cost Australia the massive amount of £376,993,052 (including indirect costs, by the mid-1930s this figure rose to £831,280,947). British bungling in the Dardanelles campaign (which included Gallipoli) cost us 8,418 dead, and 83,480 casualties.(108)
  
  
• The Second World War (European theatre).
  The result: 9,572 Australians dead, and 9,480 casualties; and still more foreign debt.(109)

                          Battle       Non-Battle         Total

Boer War
Dead                         274              314           588
Other casualties             538               35           573
Total                        812              349          1163

World War One
Dead                      53,884            6,400        60,284
Other casualties         155,133          431,448       586,581
Prisoners Of War           4,044              n/a         4,044
Total                    213,061          437,819       650,909

World War Two
(against Germany and Italy)
Dead                       9,572
Other casualties           9,480
Prisoners Of War           7,289
Total                     26,341

"...legally Australia had no option. Internally, under the Commonwealth Act of 1901 she was a 'self-governing colonial federation', but externally she was part of the British Empire, and ruled by the King of England, George V. When her king was at war, under international law Australia was also at war - and legally part of the prize if British forces were defeated."(114)

"Australia as a British colony would have suffered serious consequences if Britain had been defeated. At the very least she could expect that Britain, from whom she gained the bulk of her investment, would have been financially drained, and Germany would gain all of New Guinea and the British islands in the Pacific. At the worst she might have been obliged to accept German settlers and financial domination as well. For, as a New Zealand historian has noted, 'colonies had a nasty habit of changing hands as part of peace settlements. Racial disaffinity was no barrier to incorporation in another empire, as the French-speaking parts of Canada attested.'"(115)

"whatever the constitutional theory of the Empire might be, the fact remained that in international law Australians - and Canadians, South Africans and New Zealanders - were British subjects, and therefore as much at war on 4 August 1914 as British subjects domiciled in Yorkshire".(118)

"when war broke out between Germany and Great Britain, the view taken by the then Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, was that by virtue of His Majesty's declaration of war at Westminster all his subjects in the Dominions were automatically at war".(119)