A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott

Outbreak of war--The double dissolution--'The last man and the last shilling'--Third Fisher Government--The A.I.F--The SYDNEY-EMDEN fight-- Defence of the Suez Canal--The Dardanelles--The Gallipoli campaign-- 'Anzac'--On the Somme--Monash's Army Corps--Battles in France--The Palestine campaign--The Australian soldier--The split in the Labour Party--Conscription Referenda--The cost in men and money--The mandates-- The Bruce Government.

At midnight on August 4, 1914, messages were telegraphed from London to all parts of the British dominions announcing that a state of war with the German Empire existed from that hour. Australia was prepared for the news. Information from the Imperial Government had warned Commonwealth ministers, and the cablegrams in the newspapers had kept the public informed of the intense anxiety and breathless suspense existing in Europe during the interval between the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, at Sarajevo, on June 23, and the ultimatum presented by Austria to Serbia on July 23. The probability that if a war broke out, as a consequence of this crime in the Balkans, it would be a world war, was perhaps realized only by those who were close students of foreign politics. Day by day the news flashed through the cables that Serbia, though innocent of all official knowledge of the murder, which was committed in Austrian territory, had accepted practically all Austria's demands, but that Austria nevertheless continued to mobilize her forces with a view to crushing Serbia; that Russia had intimated that she would be compelled to intervene it Serbia were attacked; that Germany would in that event hurl her huge army against Russia; and that France, faithful to her alliance with Russia, would then make war on Germany.