Australian Rum Rebellion (1808)

PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: Australian liquor interests and their military supporters vs. colonial governor William Bligh PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Sydney, Australia MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: Bligh, with typical bluster, sought to rule Australia with an authoritarian hand; the local liquor interests and military commanders sought to deny his authority and have him removed from office. OUTCOME: Bligh was […]

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Australian Irish Convict Revolt (1804)

PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: Irish convicts vs. British colonial authorities in Australia PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): New South Wales MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: The convicts, feeling unjustly imprisoned, rebelled, seeking to escape the penal colony. OUTCOME: The rebellion was suppressed and its leader publicly executed. APPROXIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MEN UNDER ARMS: 266 convicts; 56 colonial troops CASUALTIES: Convicts, […]

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Kokoda Trail

Japanese offensive in the Owen Stanleys, 21 July-26 September 1942. Scene of a bitterly fought and difficult offensive in New Guinea during July-November 1942, in which the Japanese sought to capture Port Moresby by an overland route following the defeat of a naval operation to seize that place. The Japanese began landing near Gona on […]

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Gulf of Oman 1990

Gulf of Oman: an Iraqi motor vessel is intercepted by HMAS Darwin. Gulf of Oman, a series of incidents during September-October 1990 in which warships enforced maritime trade sanctions imposed by the United Nations Organisation against Iraq, following that country’s invasion of Kuwait on 2 August. The Australian vessels involved were units of a three-ship […]

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Gallipoli

Turkey, heart of the Ottoman Empire, had joined the Central Powers in October 1914.Through a combination of botched diplomacy, neglect, and underestimation of the ability of Turkey to put up much of a fight, leaders in England and France rather suddenly found themselves confronted with a new set of major problems growing out of the […]

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Big Army’s hostility to Special Forces I

The cap badges and unit patches of Sparrow Force. here is nothing new about the Big Army’s hostility to Special Forces. It has been a feature of the relationship since the first ‘irregulars’ set foot on the battlefield either as enemies or allies. To the military establishment they have been upstarts with scant regard for […]

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Big Army’s hostility to Special Forces II

The East Timorese village of Mindelo (Turiscai) is burnt to the ground by Australian guerillas to prevent its use as a Japanese base, 12 December 1942. The colonial administrator prevaricated. Leggatt joined Spence on board the Surabaya and gave the order to proceed. As the men of Sparrow Force climbed into the long boats for […]

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“Kiwis” at Crete 1941

Lieutenant Colonel Les Andrew VC and the New Zealand 22nd Battalion at Helwan after their return from Crete, July 1941. As the exhausted Anzacs stumbled off ships at Suda Bay and took stock of their new surroundings, the prospect of an epoch-making battle against German paratroopers was far from their thoughts. Most were intent on […]

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December 1915 – Gallipoli

The smouldering remains of an accidental fire which began in the supply dump on North Beach at about 1 am on 18 December 1915, the day before the final stage of the evacuation. The fire, at first thought to have been deliberately started by treachery, threatened to alert the Turks to the evacuation in progress […]

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Eureka Stockade, Australia, 1854

Swearing Allegiance to the Southern Cross, watercolour by Charles Doudiet, Art Gallery of Ballarat. Depiction of the Eureka Stockade by Beryl Ireland (1891) The spark that detonated rebellion came in October 1854 with the murder of a digger. The culprit, his mates had good reason to think, was the publican of the Eureka Hotel at […]

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