Talk:First Australian Imperial Force

A couple of suggestions for further improvement

Gday. There is still obviously quite a bit of work outstanding on this to get it close to being complete, that said I don't think I will get around to this any time soon so if anyone else was interested in chipping in that would be great. A couple of observations:

• Operations - a section should be added on this, but obviously only a summary as these are covered in many other articles.  Done
• Commanders - this section needs to be expanded. Done
• Corps - a discussion on the various evolutions could be included in this section. Done

Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 23:41, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I have some suggstions as well.

1. Recruitment. A lot more could be said about this. Done
2. Three theatres of war are mentioned, but the First AIF also served in Salonika, India, Mesopotamia, Iran and the Western Desert, Done
3. There should be a section on the administration of the First AIF.  Done

Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:54, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

As another idea, the article could cover the much-written-about topic of discipline within the AIF. Building on Hawkeye's first and third points, the article could also be expanded to explain how the AIF was trained (including the little-remembered training camps in Australia and the large training establishment which was set up in the UK). Nick-D (talk) 11:01, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for these suggestions gents. I've done some of these now and may or may not get around to the rest so by all means feel free to jump in an add anything that's missing if you wish. A few others that I see could be included as well:

1. Training Done
2. Pay Done

No doubt there are others. Anotherclown (talk) 05:53, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Sections have now been added on most of these topics by either myself or AR (I've not done pay yet - not sure if I will). I guess my question now is whether the coverage is sufficient? @Hawkeye7: and @Nick-D: - if its not too much trouble would you pls be able to run your eyes over the article again and let me know what you think? Thanks again. Anotherclown (talk) 07:29, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Now added a bit on pay too. Seemed relevant. Anotherclown (talk) 12:27, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: and @Nick-D: - thanks very much for your comments and significant contributions to this article. Do you think its sufficient for a GA nomination? If so would you be interested in a co-nomination (@AustralianRupert: has already expressed interest in this). Of course I'd be quite happy to share this one. Indeed its obviously a fairly important topic so I'd be grateful for your continued interest and think the article would benefit of your expertise moving forward. Thanks again. Anotherclown (talk) 01:36, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Partly duplicative articles?

Follow the (excellent) expansion of this article, the relationship between it and the Australian Army during World War I articles is now a bit unclear - the Australian Army article is focused mainly on the AIF (which is fair enough), but provides much more detail on its campaign history than this article. Possibly adding to the confusion, I've moved the long-under-development World War I defences of Australia article into main space. There seem to be three few approaches for clarifying the relationship between the articles: 1) moving the campaign history in the Australian Army during World War I article into this article (and converting that article into a summary of the Army's somewhat confusing organisation) 2) creating a new Campaign history of the First Australian Imperial Force article from the material in the Australian Army during World War I article and tweaking that article as proposed in 1) or 3) leaving things as they are. In the interests of keeping article lengths to a manageable limit, I think that option 2 might be the best approach. Nick-D (talk) 23:58, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Gday - yes I agree there are some areas of overlap (although I think some is required for completeness of each article). In my mind I see the following heirachy of articles:

• Australian Army during World War I
  • World War I defences of Australia
  • Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
  • First Australian Imperial Force

As such I see the Australian Army during World War I as being the overview of the Army during this period (and its three main components, i.e home army, AN&MEF and AIF), and by necessity summarizing these topics, including their campaigns (but not in detail). I'd then see each of the component articles going in to more depth particularly on the forces themselves and covering their campaigns in summary style (hopefully as we have achieved with this article now). Ultimately the campaigns themselves are (mostly) covered in considerable detail in the existing articles on these topics already. As such I wouldn't see the need for further detail (or perhaps even for creating a new Campaign history of the First Australian Imperial Force). If anything I think the solution is to rework Australian Army during World War I to fit this hierarchy of articles, reducing the detail there and adopting more of a summary style, as it covers the AIF in too much detail given that this article now does this (pretty sure some of the text was copy pasted from the old version of this article). We also have Military history of Australia during World War I as well. Anotherclown (talk) 00:41, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Gday again Nick. Adding to my cmts above. Potentially I saw Australian Army during World War II (currently an A class article) as being used as an example / template of the structure and coverage that might be used to refactor Australian Army during World War I, although given that the bulk of the fighting was done by the First AIF it would of course have to devote a large amount of space to that topic (unlike in World War II where both the Militia and the 2nd AIF were utilized). Also do you think we should hold off on the GA nomination for this article until this issue has been resolved or should we proceed? Thanks again. Anotherclown (talk) 01:07, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Another consideration is that a lot of the detail at Australian Army during World War I seems to come from the articles on each division (possible copy and paste given the nature of the birth of that article), and I'm not really sure this is a logical way of covering the campaigns in a overview article (it is too disjointed going from one division to the next and it really isn't clear how they worked together). Realistically I'd fold all that info back into the division articles (another level down in the hierarchy I listed above) which is where I think it belongs, and will probably propose doing just that on the talk page there at some point. Thoughts? Anotherclown (talk) 02:05, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the best scope for this article would be to cover the AIF as an institution, and to exclude any detailed coverage of its campaigns for the sake of readability (the length of the 'Operations' section looks about right). Your preference for folding the division-specific material in the Australian Army during World War I into the articles on the divisions sounds good: the current structure is pretty clunky (especially as the divisions tended to all fight in the major battles, albeit being rotated through different phases/time periods). I guess that it would be tricky to write a detailed, but not too detailed, campaign history of the AIF given the amount of fighting it did, and the dramatic/complex nature of its key engagements. I think that this article could go to GAN - my suggestion above mainly covers the other articles. Nick-D (talk) 10:17, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Nick. Anotherclown (talk) 05:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Logistics units

I've just revised the first section to change a statement that the AIF mainly depended on the British for logistical support to state that it was largely self-sustaining. While Kuring's book is excellent, it's focused on the infantry, and I think that Wilson makes a convincing case for his argument that the notion that the AIF was essentially "all teeth, no tail" is a myth (though he does probably over-egg things a bit himself). Nick-D (talk) 23:48, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Looks good to me, cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 10:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Note on Indigenous Australians in the AIF

I'd like to add the following as a note on the numbers of Indigenous Australians in the AIF, but can't get the code to work:

<ref group="Note">As examples of the differing estimates, {{sfn|Dennis et al|2008|p=3}} states that "approximately 400 to 500 Aboriginal soldiers served as enlisted soldiers"; the Australian War Memorial states that "over 1,300 of Australia’s Indigenous population, are known to have enlisted"<ref>{{cite web|title=Anzac Diversity|url=http://www.awm.gov.au/education/schools/resources/anzac-diversity/|publisher=Australian War Memorial|accessdate=4 January 2015}}</ref> and the Anzac Centenary Victoria website gives a figure of "between 800 and 1,000".<ref>{{cite web|title=Aboriginal Victorians Involvement in World War I|url=http://anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au/history/aboriginal-australians-involvement-world-war/|website=The Anzac Centenary|publisher=Department of Premier and Cabinet|accessdate=4 January 2015}}</ref> </ref>

Can anyone help? (I think that having references-within-a-reference is the problem here) Nick-D (talk) 06:22, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

G'day, Nick, I find using {{#tag:ref|Content of note.{{sfn|Smith|2009|p=1}}</ref>|group=Note}} usually works. I have an example here: 39th Battalion (Australia). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

That worked perfectly - thanks a lot Nick-D (talk) 09:47, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:First Australian Imperial Force/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This is an excellent and helpful article. I cannot detect any inaccuracies, but I am not an expert, nor Australian. I suggest that the books C E W Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, can supply many authorative references. I don't have a copy, so cannot do anything just now. Suggest it is added as further reading. Regards, chris.little@mail.com

Last edited at 12:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 15:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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total number of losses

I have searched the article to find the total number of the losses of the 1st AIF.

Does someone have reliable sources / figures ?

Imo, it would be worth an own section 'losses' in the article. The official site https://www.awm.gov.au says From a population of fewer than five million, 416,809 men enlisted, of whom more than 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner.

--Neun-x (talk no native speaker ) 03:58, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

G'day, these are covered in the Disbandment section: approximately 210,000 casualties, of which 61,519 were killed or died of wounds. Sources include Fleming, Kuring and Horner. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:22, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

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A-class?

@Anotherclown, AustralianRupert, and Hawkeye7: are you interested in progressing this article to A-class (and FA?). I think that it's pretty much at A-class status as is, and could be developed to FA status with some further work - which of course would be a good way to mark the centenary of the war. Nick-D (talk) 00:31, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Sure. I haven't looked at it for a while, but it looks pretty good. Is there anything that you think needs further work? Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:14, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

G'day gents. By all means I'd be happy to assist with this where I can. Anotherclown (talk) 04:16, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

I will also try to help out, but I'm afraid I'm not in a position to write much at the moment (call it a severe case of ennui maybe). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:30, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Some suggestions for work prior to A-class (on the basis of a fairly light read-through) are:

• The lead is probably a bit short (maybe an extra para)
• The formation section would benefit from material on how the AIF related to pre-war planning (from memory, the rapid formation of an infantry division and light horse brigade for service overseas was essentially a default 'break glass' type of plan)
• Perhaps a little bit of material on the condition of the Australian Corps when it was withdrawn from the line for the last time (various sources note that it was greatly under-strength) Nick-D (talk) 08:27, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Actually, the last one is already in the article Nick-D (talk) 11:47, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
• Something that surprised me when reading through the 1914 documents was to see the term "First AIF". Just as the division formed in 1914 was the "1st Division" from the very beginning, so Bridges foresaw that one day a Second AIF might be formed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:51, 5 July 2017 (UTC)