This marked the birth of the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF), under the command of the British General Birdwood and consisting entirely of volunteers.

With its neighbours from New Zealand this force set out for the front, making up the famous Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or ANZAC, whose first important mission, together with French, English Newfoundland and Indian troops, was to mount an attack on the Turkish army, German's ally (the troops disembarked on 25 April 1915 on the Gallipoli peninsula.)

The first bloody battle in France was at Fromelles (Nord), on July 19th 1916, designed to provide a diversion for the Franco-British offensivethat had been launched on July 1st on the Somme.

On their arrival at Pozières on July 23th, the Australians' goal was to "unlock" Thiepval. After intense fighting (at "Gibraltar" and "the Windmill"), they overcame the village but were unsuccessful at Mouquet Farm where the Canadians relieved them on September 5th. Sent to rest after Pozières, the "Diggers" returned to the Somme in October, in the Flers-Gueudecourt sector where they suffered the rigours of an exceptionally severe winter.

With the end of the Battle of the Somme in mid-November, they settled into their winter quarters like the British, the French and the Germans.

Back in the Somme again in 1918, the Australians tried to halt the offensive at Sailly-Laurette on March 28th, at Villers-Bretonneux on April 4th and at Dernancourt on April 5th : but they distingued themselves at Villers-Bretonneux on April 25th - the third anniversary of Gallipoli.

The Allied counter-offensive, known by the Germans as "the black day", began on August 8th; the Australians liberated area from Villers-Bretonneux to Montbrehain (Aisne), after first liberating and striking through the Hindenburh Line with the people of Amiens, on September 2nd at Bellenglise and the tunnel of the Saint Quentin canal. In October they went into a rest area, not thinking that the armistice would be signed a month later.

The Australia contribution

Apart from its financial and industrial contribution, Australia provided the greatest military contribution of all the British dominions : 331,000 volunteers (out of a population of 4,875,000) -but she also suffered the greatest loses, 64.8 per cent, or 58,500 men, including 16,000 dead.

Paradoxically, however, it was Australia's participation in the First World War and her own terrible losses which became a contributing factor in the birth of this new nation.