Australian Attitudes Towards Ww2 Essay

Australia’s declaration for entering into World War Two, was different from World War One, due to the lack of enlistments at the beginning of war, fear of invasion by the Japanese and how propaganda reflected attitudes towards war. The lack of enlistments in war, was mainly caused by the change of characteristics after World War One. Due to Japan invading Singapore in 1942, Australia had a fear that they were going to be invaded by the Japanese next. The recruiting posters impacted the different attitudes towards war, in World War One and World War Two. Thus, the main cause for all these differences in World War One and World War Two, was due to the loss of “innocence,” after soldiers experiencing injuries and death in World War One.

One of

Once WWI ended, less Australians wanted to be part of the Australian Army. This can be illustrated from the photo of the Australian military, as a lot less men were in training in the time of peace (Army, 1919-1938). Importing that WWI was meant to be the ‘war that ends all wars, ‘so the soldiers from WWI didn’t want to continue training in the military. This is because they lost their “innocence” after WWI. The word “innocence” is a significant reason why there were less enlistments at the outbreak of WWII. In WWI, Australians were innocent, thinking war was going to be fun and adventurous, whereas after the war ended, they knew the reality to war was death, glory and misery. This source also corroborates to primary source 4, where the cartoon with four wounded soldiers wanting money is titled, ‘Nothings too good for the soldier’ (Bulletin, 1921). This suggests that after WWI, the government did not

Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, China in 1937 and then Singapore in 1942, which gave Australia the impression that Japan was heading south, thus Australia might be their next target (Skwirk online education, 2016). This means that Australia knew that Japan had great power to invade three countries, leaving Australia scared and vulnerable. This suggests, that Australia’s main focus was on protecting their own sole, other than the Commonwealth. This corroborates with the fourth primary source, as the quote, “You must make complete sacrifice for Australia, or become a complete sacrifice to the enemy (John Curtin, 1941).” This source means that if men did not enlist for war, Japan would invade Australia, murdering many innocent families. Also suggesting that Australia didn’t care about the quality in the men enlisting for war, they just wanted quantity, meaning there was a lack of numbers in the military. Thence, WWII had different characteristics compared to WWI, during the announcement of War, because Australia had a great fear of Japan’s power in invading, which forced man to enlist to protect their home