The Military History Society of NSW

Below are the "From the Editor" comments of the Autumn 2019 edition of the Society's quarterly magazine, Reconnaissance .  Welcome to the Autumn 2019 edition of Reconnaissance . In this edition Robert Muscat expands on a theme he initially spoke about at a Society lecture in August 2017.   Did the Americans win the Revolutionary War or did the British lose it? Of course in any military engagement the winners contribute to their victory and the losers to their defeat to some extent. But it is often possible to assign the outcome predominantly to one side of the other after weighing up the factors at play. Robert argues that while the courage, initiative and tactical creativity of the American militias can’t be dismissed, the British were poised to snuff out the Revolution in 1777 by virtue of far superior resources, including maritime support, abundant materiel and better trained regular troops. All they needed was a bold plan to deliver the decisive stroke.

Militaristic and ambitious, by the 1880s Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany had acquired an overseas empire including a 3,000 kilometre cordon of Pacific islands marking the Coral Sea’s northern boundary, linked by powerful wireless stations and Admiral Graf von Spee’s navy. Did Australia have reason to fear Germany’s Pacific power? Most definitely yes argues Dr Bruce Gaunson, having examined the views of competent analysts at the time and dramatic evidence from the Kaiserreich’s records supporting those pre-1914 analysts. Thus long before the AIF fought the Germans in Europe, Australians defied the Kaiserreich in Papua, Rabaul and on the seas, leading to the ultimate defiance on the Western Front. The lecture will cover aspects of this epic struggle, why so many fought, the purpose behind their sacrifice, and how the AIF crowned its ordeals with a series of superb victories in 1918 which helped break the Kaiserreich. Dr Gaunson has been a teacher, author, academic and intell