Commandeering by Andrew Barton Paterson
"Commandeering" is a comic verse by Banjo Paterson, first published in the *Sydney Mail* on 26 May 1900, satirizing the euphemistic military slang that arose during the Boer War, when British troops routinely seized Boer property under the polite label of "commandeering" rather than admitting to outright theft. The poem opens by introducing its unnamed hero, a British Tommy of such an easy, care-free conscience and such a broad, guileless face that he seems to "commandeer" even the very air he breathes, since he draws in more of it than his fair share. From this comic image, Paterson pivots to a wry commentary on contemporary usage: he observes that whenever a man is "on the make" and covets other people's belongings, polite society no longer calls it stealing, collaring, pinching, or shaking — the fashionable word for any such act of appropriation is now "commandeered." Having established this satirical frame, the poem follows its Tommy as he grows increasingly resentful of the one-sidedness of the practice. He grumbles that "commandeering" has become "a little bit too hot," since he is forever forced to carry every article he owns for fear that the moment he sets something down, somebody else will commandeer it from him in turn. Weary of always being on the losing end of the exchange, he resolves that it is his turn to do some commandeering of his own, and sets about looking for an opportunity to profit by the same rules everyone else seems to be playing by. His chance comes when, poking about a cottage, he spies a bottle sitting invitingly on a shelf. Assuming it to be a bottle of ale left unguarded, and reasoning that fair's fair, he decides on the spot that this too shall be "commandeered." Delighted with his own cleverness at finally turning the fashionable practice to his own advantage, he makes off with his prize, anticipating a welcome drink as his reward for outwitting the system that has spent the poem plaguing him. The joke, and the poem's punchline, is that the bottle does not in fact contain ale at all — it is sheep dip, a caustic chemical wash used for treating livestock, mistakenly left in a bottle that gave no obvious external sign of its true, noxious contents. The unsuspecting soldier, having triumphantly "commandeered" what he took to be a free drink, swallows a mouthful of the stuff, with predictably disastrous and undignified physical consequences: he ends up requiring the attentions of a stomach pump to survive his own act of petty larceny. Paterson closes the poem on this note of slapstick comeuppance, in which the very habit of casual appropriation that the soldier has spent the poem complaining about and then eagerly embracing turns around and punishes him directly. Structurally, the poem is built as a piece of light satirical balladry in Paterson's characteristic bush-ballad style, using a loping, sing-song metre and a recurring refrain built around the verb "commandeered," which is repeated and varied across the stanzas to comic effect, always landing at the end of each stanza as a kind of ironic punch-line. The repetition of the word in ever more absurd contexts — breathing air, complaining about the unfairness of the practice, and finally a poisoned bottle — is the engine of the poem's humor, turning a single piece of contemporary military jargon into an extended running joke. Beneath its slapstick surface, the poem functions as a piece of topical social and political satire aimed at the linguistic sleight-of-hand by which wartime authorities and ordinary soldiers alike dressed up looting and requisitioning in respectable-sounding vocabulary. Paterson, who was in South Africa at the time as a war correspondent covering the Boer War for Australian newspapers, had firsthand exposure to the practice of commandeering as it was actually carried out by British forces against Boer farms and civilians, and the poem reflects a satirist's skepticism about the euphemisms used to sanitize such appropriation. By having his own foolish, self-interested soldier fall victim to the very practice he tries to exploit for personal gain, Paterson delivers a mildly moralistic, comic comeuppance: the man who tries to profit from a corrupt and evasive verbal convention is undone by his own greed and carelessness, poisoned by the very "commandeered" prize he thought would reward his opportunism. The poem thus combines broad physical comedy with pointed commentary on wartime hypocrisy, using the mock-heroic device of an "unnamed hero" undone by farce to puncture the self-serving language soldiers and officials used to disguise plunder as procedure.
By Andrew Barton Paterson · First published 1940 · Genre: Satirical Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Humorous Poetry · 373 words
First lines
Our hero was a Tommy with a conscience free from care, / And such an open countenance that when he breathed the air / He mopped up all the atmosphere -- so little went to spare / You could hardly say he breathed, he "commandeered" it.
For nowadays you'll notice when a man is "on the make", / And other people's property is anxious for to take, / We never use such words as "steal", or "collar", "pinch", or "shake". / No, the fashion is to say we "commandeered" it.
And our simple-minded hero used to grumble at his lot, / Said he, "This commandeerin's just a little bit too hot, / A fellow has to carry every blooming thing he's got; / Whatever he puts down they'll commandeer it."
What this Textopian page supports
Commandeering is listed on Textopian as a poem by Andrew Barton Paterson, dated 1940 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Andrew Barton Paterson
- Date: 1940 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Satirical Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Humorous Poetry, Military Fiction, War Poetry
- Length: 373 words
- Structure: 1 section, 7 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for Commandeering by Andrew Barton Paterson
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Satirical Poetry — The entire poem satirizes the euphemistic use of 'commandeer' to describe theft and looting, particularly in military contexts during the Boer War.
- Narrative Poetry — The work tells a complete story with plot progression, character arc, and resolution told entirely through verse.
- Humorous Poetry — Written with explicit comedic intent, using irony and an unexpected, darkly comic ending for entertainment effect.
- Military Fiction — Set in a military context involving a soldier (Tommy), commanding officers, and activities during the Boer War era.
Tags
satire · Australian bush poetry · humorous · linguistic critique · social commentary · vernacular language · folk narrative · ironic · moral commentary · euphemism · theft · rural setting