About 3850 men of the First Australian Imperial Force were captured on the Western Front in France and Belgium between April 1916 and November 1918. They were mentioned only briefly in the volumes of the Official Histories, and have been overlooked in many subsequent works on Australia and the First World War. Material in the Australian War Memorial has been used to address aspects of the experiences of these neglected men, in particular the Statements that some of them completed after their release This thesis will investigate how their experiences ran counter to the narratives of CEW Bean and others, and seeks to give them their place in Australia???s Twentieth Century experience of war.

This thesis examines the Citizen Military Forces (CMF) from 1947 until it ceased to exist under that name with the release of the report of the Millar Inquiry in 1974. This thesis examines three broad areas: the organizational changes that the CMF adopted or had imposed upon it; the political decision-making surrounding the CMF; and a social analysis of the CMF which questions the viability and validity of a number of the CMF???s long held precepts. The thesis will show that the majority of circumstances and decisions surrounding the CMF were beyond its control. For example, the CMF could not change the prevailing military thought of the post-war period which emphasized increasingly the role of smaller, professional, readily-available armies. The first three chapters recount the CMF???s ???heyday??? in which the Army, assisted by National Service after 1950, was based around it and its influence at the highest levels was strongest. The next two chapters chronicle the background to Australia???s adoption of the ???Pentropic??? organization and the repercussions this had on the CMF. Chapters Six and Seven examine the consequences of the introduction of a second compulsory service scheme and the concomitant result which precluded the CMF from operational service in Vietnam. Chapters Eight and Nine deal with the Millar Inquiry, which offered the CMF a new hope, but in some regards, brought forth little beneficial gains for the CMF. The final chapters analyze some of the characteristics unique to the CMF, such as territorial affiliation, high turnover rates amongst the rank and file and the concept of the ???brilliant amateur???. This thesis concludes that, despite the mixed performance of the CMF, there is still a place for the citizen soldier in contemporary warfare, but far more consideration at the highest political and military levels must be given to the peculiar and difficult, but by no means insurmountable, problems citizen soldiering encounters in Australia.

About 3850 men of the First Australian Imperial Force were captured on the Western Front in France and Belgium between April 1916 and November 1918. They were mentioned only briefly in the volumes of the Official Histories, and have been overlooked in many subsequent works on Australia and the First World War. Material in the Australian War Memorial has been used to address aspects of the experiences of these neglected men, in particular the Statements that some of them completed after their release This thesis will investigate how their experiences ran counter to the narratives of CEW Bean and others, and seeks to give them their place in Australia???s Twentieth Century experience of war.

Cadet sans terre d’une famille paysanne des Hautes-Alpes, Martin Bertrand (1915-2008) échappe au séminaire en s’engageant dans la garde républicaine mobile qui le conduira à Casablanca, au Maroc, où il sera stationné dès 1941. Mobilisé en 1943 à la suite du débarquement des Alliés en Afrique du Nord, il est affecté à l’encadrement d’une unité coloniale marocaine. Avec « ses » tirailleurs, il participe à la campagne d’Italie, au débarquement en Provence, à la libération de l’Alsace et à l’occupation de l’Allemagne. Après avoir regagné le Maroc pour quelques années, son bataillon est déployé de 1949 à 1951 à Tourane, en Indochine, où l’administration coloniale française tente de reprendre le contrôle de la région. Durant chacune de ses longues absences, Martin Bertrand écrira quasi quotidiennement à son épouse, Hélène, originaire d’une famille de colons espagnols installés en Algérie. Par l’analyse de cette correspondance, ce mémoire de maîtrise propose d’intégrer l’expérience de Martin Bertrand, sous-officier d’un régiment colonial, au sein d’une histoire impériale plus large; celle d’une France qui mène ses troupes au front de ses dernières guerres coloniales et qui déstabilise, dans ce processus, l’ordre qui régit la fonction et la position de chaque soldat. Ainsi, en faisant parler les mots intimes de Martin Bertrand au prisme du contenu de sources plus officielles, telles que les rapports militaires sur le moral des hommes, ce mémoire rend compte à la fois de la complexité des hiérarchies sociales et raciales qui établissent les rapports entre les sous-officiers français et la troupe « indigène » tout autant qu’il explore les questionnements identitaires plus personnels d’un petit cadre. / Deprived of his land inheritance like many youngest-born of peasant descent, Martin Bertrand (1915-2008) eventually fled life as a seminarian in the French High-Alps by enlisting in the Mobile Guard and then being stationed in Casablanca, Morocco in 1941. Following the Anglo–American invasion of French North Africa, he was drafted in 1943 to lead a Moroccan colonial recruit unit. With “his” tirailleurs, he took part in the Italian campaign, the Provence landing, the liberation of Alsace, and the occupation of Germany. After the War, he returned to Morocco only to be deployed 3 years later with the same battalion to Tourane, Indochina where the French colonial administration attempted to retake control of the region. During each one of his long absences, Martin Bertrand wrote almost daily to his wife Hélène, descendent of Spanish settlers established in Algeria. By analyzing these letters, this master’s thesis proposes to integrate Martin Bertrand’s experiences, in his functions as a non-commissioned officer in a colonial regiment, into a broader imperial story where France led her armies through her last colonial wars and destabilized the colonial order under which each soldier was governed. Furthermore, this study compares Martin Bertrand’s private letters with more official sources like troop morale reports which allows for an analysis of the complex social and ethnic hierarchies between French non-commissioned officers and “indigenous” troops. At the same time, it explores the deeper questionings of a military intermediary’s self-identity.