"Nearest the front the country becomes more feverish. Angry bursts of tawny color are seen in a haphazard sort of way dotting the horizon and the countryside. Here and there are Australians standing behind mounds of earth with their rifles pointed over the top, bayonets always fixed. Frequently, when there is no other shelter there are hastily scooped trenches. A quarter of a mile away another party is lining a roadside, flat on their stomachs in the ditch, bayonets peeping over the top. Shells are whizzing by at the rate of two or three a minute, high explosives bursting on contact behind their backs about as far away as the other side of a cottage parlor.
PRISONER AND ESCORT.
"Frequently one meets a prisoner being escorted to the rear. There is something very impressive about these little processions of two men, prisoner and escort. The prisoner, usually a young German private in neat gray uniform and steel helmet, walks in front. After him, grasping his rifle with both hands across his chest, his weatherbeaten brows puckered as he picks his way over the tumbled stones, comes the living embodiment of the Australian back country. Nine cases out of ten, somehow, the soldier who escorts a prisoner seems to be that bit of pure Australian, either Western Australia or South Australia, the Warrego or the Burdskin.
"He is an earnest man, intent on executing his errand with dispatch and exactitude. 'Can you tell me the way to headquarters?' he asks as he passes. Then he disappears slowly up the street on the heels of his silent companion.
"These Australians are just as good fighters in this new warfare as they were at Gallipoli or in the trenches, perhaps even better. They had their first encounter with German cavalry the other day, but it was only a feint at a flank and lasted but a few minutes."
Australia is ambitious, some might even say self-centered, and Germany undoubtedly made the mistake of considering that Australia was awaiting a chance to become unfriendly to Great Britain when she started to fight. But no nation ever made a greater mistake. As soon as the House of Hohenzollern placed the mother country in a perilous position Australia was at the command of Great Britain. Notwithstanding the fact that the Australians are primarily peace-loving, most intent on attending to their own affairs, the response to the call was immediate and whole-hearted.
AUSTRALIA'S COMMENDABLE PROMPTNESS.
The Australian centers buzzed with activity, and within two months after war was declared the Australian fleet, which consisted of five unarmored cruisers, three torpedo-boat destroyers, and three light gunboats, which had been built and manned at the expense of the Australians, were in possession of the German Pacific Islands—Samoa, Marshall, Carolines, Pelew, Ladrones, New Guinea, New Britain—had broken the wireless system of the Germans, and had captured eleven of the vessels of Germany. She also forced twenty-five other ships to intern, and prevented the destruction of a British ship in Australian waters.
Then came the scouring of the seas by the German ship Emden, and her trip to Australian waters, with the object of carrying on the work of destruction which had marked her career in South American waters. She lay in wait for Australian transports, with the result that the Australian warship Sydney sent her to the bottom but three months after war had been declared. Shortly after this the Australian fleet drove von Spree's squadron from the Pacific directly into the trap set by Admiral Sturdee at the Falkland Islands.
The fact that all the troops of Australia must be transported to London—a distance via the Suez route of approximately 11,000 miles, and through the Panama Canal of 12,734 miles—did not keep back these brave men from quickly enlisting. The great distance made fighting extremely expensive, but the task was loyally assumed by the military of the far continent. Universal military service was inaugurated for the first time by an English-speaking community, and war loans were offered and quickly accepted. Transports were immediately constructed out of seventy steamers which were requisitioned.