The Military History Society of NSW

Welcome to the Summer 2020 issue of Reconnaissance, the quarterly magazine of the Military History Society of New South Wales . Australians have long cherished the classic image of the Digger. That dauntless fighter who, combining individualism − boarding on insubordination − with wily resourcefulness, routed the enemy and put docile Tommies to shame. A thread of disputation about the Digger image runs through Australian military history. Part of this focuses on how Australian soldiers accepted or bucked conventional discipline. On one view, the reputation is a myth and Australians submitted to discipline more or less the same way as, say, their British counterparts. Others contend the Diggers were genuinely different, either because their superiors, military and political, understood their egalitarian temperament and handled them differently or because Australians simply baulked at treatment they considered degrading, sometimes violently. We are fortunate in this issue of Reconnai...