Quick questions on The Australian experience of World War I: Gallipoli, the Western Front, the home front and the Anzac legend (QCE Modern History Unit 3)

The landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 was Australia's first major action of the war. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed at what became known as Anzac Cove, advanced inland to a series of ridges, and then dug in. The campaign aimed to force the Dardanelles, open a sea route to Russia and knock Ottoman Turkey out of the war. None of these objectives was achieved.

The Australian Light Horse and Imperial Camel Corps fought in Egypt, Sinai and Palestine from 1916 to 1918. Major actions included the second battle of Gaza, the charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade at Beersheba on 31 October 1917 (one of the last great cavalry actions in history), and the advance into Damascus in October 1918. The Palestine campaign produced a different Australian experience from the trenches: mobile, mounted, and based around water and supply rather than fixed positions.

The home front mobilised in ways that were significant for Australian society.

The Anzac legend was not the spontaneous product of Gallipoli. It was constructed.

The Commonwealth took control of wheat marketing and shipping. Federal income tax was introduced (1915), initially as a war measure. Government war loans funded the AIF.

Two referenda on overseas conscription (October 1916 and December 1917) split the Labor Party, sent Billy Hughes out of the ALP into the National Labor and then the Nationalist Party, and divided the country along sectarian and class lines. Both referenda were defeated. (Treated in detail in the conscription-debates dot point.)

Catholic Irish-Australians, led by Archbishop Daniel Mannix, voted "No" disproportionately in the conscription referenda. Anti-Catholic feeling rose and shaped post-war politics for a decade.

Women moved into clerical, retail and some industrial roles, organised the Red Cross and Comforts Funds, served as nurses overseas and campaigned in the conscription referenda. The 1903 federal franchise for white women was already in place; what was new was visibility, organisation and the experience of paid work outside the home.

The war disrupted shipping and prices. Wages did not keep up with inflation. The 1917 general strike (initiated in NSW railway workshops over time-and-motion cards) reflected the tension.