Happy Birthday to the Royal Military College, Duntroon, which turns 115 years old on 27 June. Established in 1911, in a homestead on the edge of what is now Canberra (Duntroon being the name of the old Campbell family homestead, now the officers’ mess), it has been...

Australian military history often celebrates battlefield success. But this week I want to look at something different: Australia’s worst military defeat before Gallipoli. It was the costliest Australian engagement of the war, and the performance of the troops...

Last week’s newsletter used an image of a political cartoon taken from the radical Sydney periodical, The Bulletin. The cartoon satirically depicts the return of the New South Wales Contingent to Sudan in 1885 and has William Dalley, who as acting-Premier had sent the...

This time of the year, 141 years ago, the New South Wales Contingent to the Sudan was steaming home from its brief involvement in an ill-fated campaign that Britain’s Gladstone government had reluctantly launched in northeast Africa. The despatch and service of the...

Wars are not always popular, despite claims from governments and rulers that they are just, necessary or being waged in the people’s interests. On 8–9 May 1970 what were then the largest street demonstrations in Australia’s history occurred around the country. They...