Australian Army Reserve

The Army Reserve is a collective name given to the reserve units of the Australian Army. Since the Federation of Australia in 1901, the reserve military force has been known by many names, including the Citizens Military Force (CMF), Militia, Citizens Forces and, unofficially, the "Australian Military Forces". In 1980 it was renamed the Army Reserve and in the mid 1990s it was renamed to General Reserve (as opposed to Ready Reserve) which is sometimes abbreviated to GRes. For the first half of the 20th Century, due to a widespread distrust of permanent military forces in Australia, the reserve military forces were the primary focus of Australian military planning, however, following the end of the Second World War, this focus gradually shifted due to the changing strategic environment, and the requirement for a higher readiness force available to support collective security goals. Since then, Australian defence policy has been focused more upon the Regular Army, and there has been considerable debate about the role of the Army Reserve within defence planning circles. As the strategic situation has evolved in the past decade the organisation, structure, training and role of the Army Reserve has undergone considerable changes, and members of the Army Reserve are increasingly being used on overseas deployments, not only within Regular Army units, but also in units drawn almost entirely from Reserve units.

History

Federation to World War I

Following the Federation of Australia in 1901 the amalgamation of the military forces controlled by the six separate self–governing British colonies to form a unified force controlled by the Commonwealth was an inevitable, albeit slowly realised, consequence, given that the new Constitution of Australia assigned the defence power solely to the Commonwealth. Indeed this process took some time as to a large extent matters of defence were not necessarily a priority of the new Australian legislature at the time, and there was also a considerable diversity in opinion regarding the composition and size of the new national army and role it would play at home and indeed within the wider Imperial defence system. Nevertheless, the official transfer of forces from the states to the Commonwealth occurred on 1 March 1901, and this date is today celebrated as the birthday of the modern Australian Army. At the outset the bulk of the Commonwealth military force was to be made up of part–time volunteers. This was arguably due to two factors. Firstly, there was a widespread desire amongst Australian policymakers to keep defence expenditure low, whilst secondly there was a widespread mistrust or suspicion surrounding the idea of a large standing army.

Members of the Militia in Tasmania, c. 1913

After the initial transfer of forces in March 1901, further progress was rather slow as administrative and legislative instruments took time to develop. Indeed it was not until 1 March 1904 that the Defence Act (1903) was proclaimed, providing the Commonwealth Military Forces a statutory framework within which they could operate. Amidst a background of political manoeuvring and personal agendas the military forces were eventually re–organised into a more or less unified command structure. As a part of this, state–based mounted units were reformed into light horse regiments, supplemented by the transfer of men from a number of superfluous infantry units, whilst the remaining infantry were organised into battalions of the Australian Infantry Regiment and engineers and artillery were organised into field companies and garrison artillery batteries. Due to the provisions of the Defence Act which did not provide for the establishment of a regular infantry force, the notion that the Commonwealth Military Forces would be largely based on a part–time militia was set out in legislation.

The lack of importance placed on military matters in Australian political circles continued for some time, and the size of the Australian military in this time continued to fall, in part due to the emphasis placed upon mounted units in the new command structure. However, following a number of strategic and political "scares" defence matters slowly began to take on more primacy in the Australian psyche before a review of defence needs was made in 1909 by Field Marshal Lord Kitchener. The result of this review was the realisation of the need to build a credible defence force that could not only defend the nation, but also possibly contribute to the Imperial defence system (although this later realisation remained little more than a consideration on paper only). The review also validated the compulsory military training scheme that was to be introduced in 1910, which was directly responsible for expanding the militia by up to 50 per cent in the three years prior to the outbreak of World War I.

Undoubtedly, the scheme proved to have numerous benefits, as many of these youths went on to serve in the First AIF during World War I and the expanded organisation allowed Militia officers more experience in commanding formed bodies of men. However, it was the main factors contributing to the decision to recruit the AIF on the basis of voluntary enlistment. Because the army in 1914 was largely made up of young men aged between nineteen and twenty–one who had been enlisted under this scheme, and due to the provisions of the Defence Act that precluded sending conscripts overseas, upon the outbreak of the war it was necessary for the Australian government to raise a separate force, outside of the militia organisation for service overseas.

During the precautionary stage on 2 August 1914, AMF units were called up to guard essential points and man coastal forts and harbour defences. The first Australian shots (many sources report the first Allied shots) of both World War I and World War II were fired by the garison at Fort Nepean. By June 1918, 9,215 home service troops were on active duty in Australia, alongside 2,476 regular soldiers. From 1915, only skeleton garrisons were maintained at coastal forts, but the personnel manning them were forbidden to enlist in the AIF. This ban was lifted in April 1915 but the presence of a German commerce raider caused a mobilisation from February to April 1916. Raiders were responsible for another mobilisation in April 1918.

Post World War I

Following the end of World War I the units that had been raised as part of the AIF were disbanded and the focus of Australian defence planning returned once more to the maintenance of the Militia. To this end, a review of defence requirements in 1920 established the need for Australia to be able to field a force of approximately 270,000 men in the event of a war, of which half of this would be maintained in peacetime through compulsory enlistment in the militia. It was also decided that the militia would be re–organised along the lines of the AIF, adopting the numerical designations of AIF units and maintaining their battle honours. The AIF officially ceased to exist on 1 April 1921 and the new organisation of the militia was adopted a month later.

There was little support for this program, however, amongst the Australian public and as the government felt pressure to reduce defence expenditure their commitment to the program was tested. The compulsory training scheme was maintained, however, it was decided that it would only be focused on the more populated urban areas, with the result that the scheme was abolished in rural areas, and over the course of only a year the strength of the militia fell from 127,000 to only 37,000 in 1922. Throughout the 1920s numbers decreased even further and although the divisional structure was maintained, it was little more than a skeleton force as units found their numbers dropping drastically.

In 1929, following the election of the Scullin Labor government, the compulsory training scheme was abolished and in its place a new system was introduced whereby the militia would be maintained on a part–time voluntary basis only. The force would be based upon the five divisions of the old AIF, although it was decided to limit the overall number of units. This force would also be armed with modern weapons and equipment. That, at least, was the promise, however, in reality this never came to fruition and to a large extent they continued to be trained and equipped with 1914–18 equipment right up to and during World War II. The result of this change in recruitment policy was a huge drop in the size of the Army, as numbers fell by almost 20,000 in one year as there was little prospect for training and as the financial difficulties of the Great Depression began to be felt.

Despite the up turn in the economic situation in the mid 1930s there was little respite for the Militia in this time, although as the situation continued to improve in the mid 1930s the defence vote was increased steadily after 1935. In 1938 it was decided to double the strength of the militia as war clouds began to loom on the horizon, however, when World War II broke out in September 1939 the militia was by no means an effective fighting force and the nation as a whole was not as well prepared for war as it had been in 1914.

World War II

Following the outbreak of the war, the government's immediate response was to announce on 5 September 1939 that it would begin calling up 10,000 militiamen at a time to provide sixteen days continuous service manning guard posts at selected points around the country. This was later expanded on 15 September to include all of the militia, in two drafts of 40,000 men, for one month's continuous training, however, the suspension on compulsory training introduced in 1929 was not amended until January 1940. On 5 September 1939 it was also announced that a division would be raised for overseas service, but there was still large–scale opposition to the concept of conscription and the provisions of the Defence Act still precluded conscripts from serving overseas, so it was announced that this force would be raised from volunteers only and would not be raised directly from the militia.

As was the case during World War I, many members of the militia would go on to serve in the Second AIF, however, for a period of time the government attempted to limit the number of militiamen transferring across to the AIF in order to build defences at home against concerns that Britain might not be able to fulfil its pledge to defend Singapore in the event of an attack there by the Japanese. As such, once again Australia maintained a policy of two armies, and for the first two years Australia's involvement in the war was focused in overseas theatres in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, it was the AIF that was involved in the fighting overseas, whilst units of the militia were used in garrison duties at home in Australia. During this time, the Militia units came to be derided by the men of the AIF units, with militiamen sometimes being labelled as "chocolate soldiers" or "koalas".

Militia soldiers of the 39th Battalion following their relief at Kokoda in September 1942

This changed dramatically, however, following the entry of Japan into the war on 8 December 1941, with the attack on Pearl Harbour and on the British forces in Malaya. Suddenly the war was brought to Australia's doorstep and there was a risk that the Japanese could attempt to invade the Australian mainland. In April 1942, the threat of invasion of Australia seemed to grow in the eyes of many Australians following the loss of Malaya and Singapore and the subsequent Japanese landings in New Guinea. Seeing the threat that the Japanese posed to Australia, the government had begun to bring AIF units back from the Middle East but the bulk of the forces immediately available for the defence of Australia came from the militia, which was at that stage an organisation of some 265,000 men organised into five infantry and two cavalry divisions.

Despite earlier derision, a number of Militia units distinguished themselves and suffered high casualties during the Pacific War, especially in 1942, when they fought Japanese forces in New Guinea, which was then an Australian territory. As the situation in the Pacific worsened in July 1942 and the Japanese drove towards Port Moresby, members of the Militia, many of them very young, untrained and poorly equipped, distinguished themselves and suffered heavy casualties, in a stubborn rearguard action on the Kokoda Track that ultimately delayed the Japanese advance long enough for reinforcements from the AIF to arrive from Australia. At the same time, the militia battalions of the 7th Brigade played a key role in the Australian–US victory at the Battle of Milne Bay, the first outright defeat suffered by Japanese land forces in the war.

Later in the war, the Defence Act was changed to allow the transfer of Militia units to the AIF if sixty–five percent or more of their personnel had volunteered for overseas service. Additionally, changes to the Act meant that Militia units were able to serve anywhere south of the Equator in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA), excluding western Java and northern Borneo, and as a result of this, Militia units saw action against Japanese forces in the Dutch East Indies, at Merauke, later in the war. Despite this, the AIF remained the Australian Army’s main combat force during the war and indeed more than 200,000 members of the militia transferred to the AIF throughout the course of the conflict. Militia divisions saw service over much of the South West Pacific and participated in the campaign in the Salamaua-Lae campaign, Huon Peninsula campaign, Finisterre Range campaign, New Britain campaign and Bougainville Campaign.

Post World War II to the Vietnam War

Due to an over commitment of resources early in the war, the Australian economy suffered badly from manpower shortages as early as 1942. As a result the government began the demobilisation process before the war was even over, and when it had finally come to an end the government was necessarily very keen for the demobilisation process to be completed as quickly as possible. Understandably defence issues were not given a high priority as people tried to rebuild their lives after the war and as such it was not until 1948 that the Citizen Military Forces was reformed.

Subsequent reviews of defence policy and the strategic situation in South East Asia after the war had resulted in the formation of the Australian Regiment in 1948, the first regular infantry unit of the Australian Army. From that time on as tension within the region increased the strength of the Regular Army increased rapidly in contrast to the CMF, signifying if not an end to Australian military planners' reliance upon citizen soldiers, at least a shift in focus and a realisation of the mistakes that had been made prior to World War II. This would see the CMF providing a platform upon which the Army could mobilise in the event of a war. Initially, the plan had been for the CMF to be made up of 50,000 men organised into two divisions and other units, however, recruitment was unable to meet these targets as initially it was attempted to achieve this through voluntary enlistment. In March 1951, a system of compulsory national service was re–established.

The reintroduction of this conscription scheme saw the numbers of the CMF rise substantially but its management and administration required the allocation of a large number of resources and personnel from the Regular Army at a time when the army Regular Army already heavily committed in Korea and Malaya and so the scheme was suspended in 1959. This was a significant blow to the CMF and its strength fell by more than half in that year to just 20,000 men. Further pain was to come with the introduction of the Pentropic (five–battle group) division into the Australian Army. This proved a disaster for the CMF, as wholesale changes were made and units removed from the order of battle. Seven artillery regiments were disbanded from an original total of seventeen, while thirty–one infantry battalions were reduced to seventeen. A further change that occurred at this time was the amalgamation of the old local and regional units that had existed under the regimental system into six new multi–battalion state-based regiments. Whilst the Pentropic system fell by the wayside, these regiments have endured, maintaining the battle honours of the previously existing militia units that had perpetuated the units of the AIF and serving as a valuable link to the traditions and service of earlier units. Nevertheless, there are those that argue that the introduction of these regiments has reduced the Army’s links with the community in general, which has in turn affected recruitment and retention. In 1965, as the Pentropic system was abandoned, a further re–organisation of the CMF was undertaken as existing battalions were reduced and additional battalions were raised in the more populous areas, namely in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales.

The subordinate relationship between the CMF and Regular Army was further underlined when the national service scheme was re–introduced in 1965, albeit in the guise of a selective ballot. Whereas previous incarnations of the system had not allowed for national servicemen to be sent overseas (within various definitions of that term), the new scheme was implemented with the express purpose of sending these recruits overseas as Australia’s commitments in the region required a large–scale increase in the Army. A further change from previous schemes was that instead of being used to fill the ranks of the CMF, due to the terms of service required it was essentially used to fill the ranks of the Regular Army, albeit for a short period of time for under this scheme, national servicemen were required to service two years full time in Regular Army units, after which they were required to serve a further three years in CMF units. Due to the prospect of being called up for overseas service, those of military age who were eligible for the ballot, but whose date of birth had not yet been called out were able to elect to enlist in the CMF voluntarily and therefore be exempted from the draft. It was estimated that by 1968 almost half of the 35,000 men in the CMF had joined in order to avoid being drafted.

This led to a widespread public perception that the CMF was a refuge for “draft dodgers”, and to the creation of a organisation in which the majority of its members had little or no motivation to fulfil their training obligations. This severely affected the morale of the CMF and coupled with the decision by the government not to activate CMF units for service in Vietnam, this led to a sharp decline in genuine voluntary enlistment. To a large extent also, the failure of the government to utilise the CMF during this time highlighted the organisation’s increasing structural irrelevance, and questions about the role that the CMF had to play in the defence of Australia would remain until following the end of the Vietnam War.

Post Vietnam War to the New Millennium

When the Whitlam Government came to power in late 1972 the CMF was in a very poor state. The new government moved quickly to end conscription, and this caused the CMF's strength to fall from 28,000 to 23,119 between June 1972 and June 1973. In 1973 a committee of inquiry in to the CMF was announced, under the chairmanship of Dr. T.B Millar and the subsequent report developed from this inquiry became known as the Millar Report. Far from being a vehicle of the Regular Army to denigrate the CMF as some opponents predicted, the report did much to highlight many of the conceptual and structural problems that the CMF was afflicted by at the time, however, the way in which the government chose to implement the recommendations, and indeed the way in which some of them were allowed to lapse, ultimately served to at least partially justify some of the cynicism voiced in certain CMF circles about the report.

The committee found that the CMF was a hollow shell of its former self, depleted in numbers and in equipment and unable to adequately fulfil its tasks. However, it still found that there was a role for the CMF to play in the strategic environment that existed at the time, although it would no longer be called upon to provide the base upon which mobilisation in a time of war would be built, instead it would be used to augment the Regular Army. This was the first step in creating the concept of a total force, in which the differing virtues of the citizen soldier and the regular soldier would be used to compliment each other, and in this vane the Millar Report recommended that the name be changed from the CMF to the Australian Army Reserve.

Nevertheless, due to further cuts in defence spending and an eagerness of the government to implement those recommendations that could assist in achieving this goal, Units that were unable to meet attendance requirements were disbanded or amalgamated with others, thus further diffusing the community links units had established in their local areas and thus further impacting upon recruitment and retention. Further, the decision was made to abolish the old CMF divisions, as the role of the Army Reserve would no longer be to act as a skeleton force that would be filled out upon mobilisation, but rather a force that could provide individual sub-units of capability should the need arise to augment the Regular Army. Centralisation of training was also a result of the Millar Report, for beforehand recruit training had been an ad hoc process managed mainly by the units themselves. Other issues such as pay and conditions of service, protection of civilian employment and recruitment and retention were touched upon but remained largely unaddressed until more recently.

Australian infantry during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2007 at Shoalwater Bay, Queensland. Today, Australian Army Reserve units are equipped with the same standard equipment as units of the Regular Army and participate in multinational exercises with Australia's foreign allies on a regular basis.

Further reviews came in this time as Defence planners attempted to grapple with the questions regarding strategy following the wars of diplomacy of the previous three decades. The emergence of the Defence of Australia doctrine as the foundation upon which Australian defence policy would be based following Paul Dibb’s 1986 review of Australia’s defence capabilities seemed to provide the Reserves with a definite role, however, there remained a reluctance to rebuild the Reserves and despite these major reviews, as late as the 1990s the Army still had not managed to develop a well-structured reserve force, as it had continued to grapple with the competing demands of maintaining large–scale readiness over developing a ‘hard core’ of capability within the Reserves that would be able to provide the Army with a nucleus force in times of national emergency. By the time that the East Timor operation came around in 1999, this conflict still had not been resolved, and instead of being able to call upon formed units of the Reserves to augment the Regular Army, the Reserves was reduced to providing individuals for round-out purposes only. In the end there were only one hundred Reservists available to fill positions in INTERFET, mostly in specialist roles that the Regular Army had trouble providing, although as the deployment progressed towards a second rotation in April 2000, some six hundred and thirty had volunteered for service.

The deployment to East Timor highlighted the limits of the Australian Defence Force, and highlighted the need for an Army Reserve that could effectively provide plug-in capabilities and round-out to the Regular Army in times of high operational tempo. As such, in late 2000 the Howard Liberal government did what many governments had toyed with since the formation of the citizen force almost a hundred years earlier and brought into effect legislation that enabled the call–up of Reservists to full–time service in circumstances that fell short of a full scale defence emergency, allowed for their deployment overseas and protected their employment and provided remuneration to their employers.

The continuing high operational tempo of the Army after East Timor has further emphasised the need to develop the capability of the Army Reserve and since then increasing numbers of Reservists have been deployed overseas in varying capacities as well as undertaking periods of full–time service in Australia in order to maintain capabilities within Regular units heavily committed to deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. In lower intensity areas, such as East Timor to a limited extent, although more specifically the Solomon Islands, formed units of Reservists, albeit formed from personnel drawn from many units, have been deployed on peacekeeping duties in order to relief the pressure being placed upon the units of the Regular Army.

As such it can now be seen that the role of the Army Reserve is now encompassed in fulfilling the ‘3 Rs’ – that is reinforcement, round-out and rotation. With a total strength in 2005–06 of just 15,579 personnel, recruitment and retention remain an ongoing issue for Defence planners, nevertheless Australian Reservists continue to have a comparatively high level of commitment compared to those of other countries, with an expected obligation of up to four nights and two full days per month, alongside a two week annual course. Since September 2006, in an incentive to rectify sliding retention rates, Reservist salaries have been streamlined with those of regular forces as a reflection of overall higher standard of training. This initiative shows that in recent decades, there are now many positions for which there is little training gap at all between Reservists and Permanent Force members

Current Structure

Main article: Structure of the Australian Army

The majority of the current Australian Army Reserve is located in the 2nd Division in six state based brigades, although there are now quite a few "integrated" units that are essentially Regular Army units within 1st Division, that have either full sub-units that are Reserve units or that have a large number of Reserve personnel in them. There are also many Reservists serving on full–time service within Regular Army units, performing the same roles and under the same pay and conditions as Regular soldiers.

2nd Division is currently made up of the following brigades:

• 4th Brigade - Victoria
• 5th Brigade - Southern New South Wales
• 8th Brigade - Northern and Central New South Wales
• 9th Brigade - South Australia and Tasmania
• 11th Brigade - Southeast Queensland
• 13th Brigade - Western Australia

References

• Australian Government Printing Service. (1974). Committee of Inquiry into the Citizen Military Forces–Report. (Millar Report).
• Davies, Andrew (2008). Stepping up: Part-time forces and ADF capability. Strategic Insights 44. Canberra: Australian Strategic Policy Institute. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (2000). From Phantom to Force: Towards a More Efficient and Effective Army. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
• Grey, Jeffrey. (2008). A Military History of Australia. 3rd Edition. Cambridge University Press: Melbourne. ISBN 978-0-521-69791-0.
• McCarthy, Dayton. (2003). The Once and Future Army: A History of the Citizen Military Forces, 1947–74. Oxford University Press: New York. ISBN 978-0-19-551569-5.
• Palazzo, Albert. (2001). The Australian Army: A History of its Organisation 1901–2001. Oxford University Press.
• Scott, Ernest. (1936) Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Volume XI - Australia during the War. Angus and Robinson: Sydney.
• Shephard, Allan. (1992). Australian Defence Statistics 1972–1992. Department of the Parliamentary Library.
• Stanley, Peter. (2008). Invading Australia: Japan and the Battle for Australia, 1942. Penguin Group (Australia): Melbourne. ISBN 978-0-670-2925-9.
• Thomson, Mark (2008). ADF capability review: Australian Army. Canberra: Australian Strategic Policy Institute. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Thompson, Peter. (2008). Pacific Fury: How Australia and Her Allies Defeated the Japanese Scourge. William Heinemann: Sydney. ISBN 978-1-74166-708-0.

External links

• Australian Army Reserves - Australian Army web site