Foxed catalogue cover for exhibition AUSTRALIA AT WAR 1885-1919 , mounted by the State Library of New South Wales , April 18 ,1980 to February 1 ,1981 .
Sudan Campaign ,1885
The assassination of General Gordon at Khartoum is said to have sparked off the most amazing outburst of patriotism throughout the British colonies .Within days , after a special cabinet meeting, NSW offered 500 infantry and two batteries of field artillery. A volunteer force of 734 men and 200 horses was raised , called the First Australian Expeditionary Force , embarked on March 3, l885 , returning on June 23, seeing little action .
Exhibits included a Martini Henry socket bayonet , used in all Australian colonies from late 1870s to 1900 and a list of the contingent on the back of a song composed to aid the Patriotic Fund .
South African War , 1899-1902
"Not deterred by threats of imperialism and greedy capitalism, Australians were wildly patriotic and scenes of unparalleled enthusiasm marked their (contingent's ) departure ". The text says they quickly revealed their superiority as horsemen , their mobility in the field and skills at reconnaissance , earning the admiration of Kipling.
There were "disciplinary troubles" with the British , and one would affect Australia. It involved a sergeant in the 2nd South Australian Contingent , Harry Harbord Morant , an expert horse breaker and ballad writer for the Sydney Bulletin .
Morant became enraged after a fellow officer and close friend, Captain Hunt, was shot and shockingly mutilated by Boers . Morant and some of his friends decided to shoot Boer prisoners in revenge . Three were sentenced to death by the British , but only Morant and Lieutenant P.J. Hancock were executed.
The catalogue stated : Lord Kitchener sent a false report to the then very new Australian Government about the execution and the whole affair was hushed up by the British and the press... In 1910, Kitchener visited Bathurst , Australia, to unveil the Boer War Memorial, refusing to perform the ceremony unless Hancock's name was erased . Quite recently his name has been re-inscribed on the memorial and his friend , the swash-buckling Morant has become almost a folk hero .
Items on display included photographs and a sketch of Morant , a poem written the night before he was executed , published books about Morant , a greeting card sent to Australian by Peter John Hancock . There were lithographs of Boer leaders, cartoons , accounts of various battles in the war, a litho of General S.S. Baden-Powell at Mafeking, a souvenir silk handkerchief , To the Memory of our Dead- a poem written as an epitaph to Morant by Will H. Ogilvie , another Johnny Boer, by Banjo Paterson.
TO COME : The First World War part of the catalogue and Breaker Morant's North Queensland connection.
