Gievn the compexities of the politics within Europe at the time, I very much doubt that any lasting cease fire would have stuck. Fighting would have started somewhere else, or a stray bullet would have ignited the powder keg again. The simple fact is that the powerful were looking for a war and didn't care how many pawns had to die for it. It is nice to dream though...

What an interesting article, Brian and well researched.

I think we can all be proud of the fact that even though we may not be a Republic, we have served under the very last English officer as was the practice in the days of our subservience to the "mother country", such days still lingering in the background like a bad smell.
However, as is the make-up of the Australian character, always needing to play second fiddle to someone, we now take our directions from the USA, important as it is for us to always be subservient to someone’s empire. It keeps us in our place as a ‘little country’. And they are our ‘mates’, after all.

With an English Royal wedding grabbing the headlines, ad nauseum, we may have to wait for the brouhaha to die down before we can turn our minds to who we are and what we are capable of doing. Sadly our current role models of second-rate politicians and football players are not worth emulating and outside of a few worthy people, such as Michael Kirby, Peter Leahy, Fred Hollows, Fred Chaney, just to name a few, people with real quality, there is little in the way of people of whom we can be really proud.

Could take a while as it only started in 1788, but still going strong, still ‘moving forward’.

In the meantime we can be proud that we are represented by a non-Royalist, Gillard and ‘boyfriend’, both non-religious but going to a religious service to give the nod to the English couple that we are still tied to their apron strings, bowing, scraping since 1788 as we also were in 1914 to which Brian's article refers. Now it's 2011.

Hardly made any progress at all.
.
These days we are much better at reducing conflict with the toothless UN at the helm ( subject to the US veto, of course ) military dalliances everywhere, Afghanistan, Iraq, if Israel has its way, Iran... soon, all the Arab countries, oil wars, drug wars, religious wars and on.

By contrast, 1914 was relatively peaceful

Dear Mr. Holden,

Thank you for that. Sometimes great soldiers are great men. George Washington could have been re-elected president for life but refused to run for a third term. De Gaulle got the French out of Algeria. Eisenhower, unlike his successors, resisted the pressures to get the US more involved in Vietnam. Monash refused political office although there were Australians who would have made him dictator. General Smedley Butler recognised that he had served economic imperialism and opposed it. Great soldiers who are great men can recognise the limitations and abuse of power. Too bad Horace Smith-Dorrien wasn't one of them.

Great article, but I would imagine in that period of history, if Smith-Dorrien had done what you suggest, it would have been court martial and firing squad in short order.

Basing a dream like that, Brian, on the phenomenon of the soldiers fraternising and wishing for peace is completely unrealistic. The soldiers did not make those decisions, and that includes the commanding officer. They were not in a position to make any such decision.

You say: ” Neither side wanted to recommence the fighting the next day”. Neither side wanted to be in a war in the first place, but once started there was no way back.

I do not see any utility in this sort of unrealistic speculation. It was never going to happen. Smith- Dorrien was in the position he was because he was a successful soldier. A cease fire was not a solution, and would have left all of the underlying causes of the war in place.

Monash was a genius, and far more capable of acting as a humanitarian, but his solution to the war was to win it, and hostilities ceased. The only way out was forward.

If Monash had been put in charge earlier, the war would have finished earlier, but that was not going to happen until it had degenerated to the point it had, and he was put in charge of the theatre in which he succeeded so well that there was no need to put him in charge of the whole effort, as the war had been won.

Error is important in human progress, so we could just as well speculate on how it would have affected our progress if this terrible situation had been halted earlier. Perhaps every one would have joined the League of Nations, and we would have known better than to form a United Nations, in the manner it was set up after the next war, with no mechanism to make it accountable.

While not agreeing with the manner in which it is applied, I do commend the research upon which this article is based.

Refusal to continue hostilities by an ordinary soldier could have meant court-martial and firing squad. Refusal by a general would have most probably resulted in being relieved from command and possibly being sent to a mental institution for a while. There was a small chance that it might have meant more than that.

There are instances of high officers either refusing or avoiding following orders on humanitarian grounds. The German general in charge in Paris did not carry out Hitler's orders to burn the city when Allied forces were advancing on it. Somebody in the German command tipped off the Danes so they could evacuate Jews to Sweden in advance of a roundup.

Oh yeah, the great "if only" game. I love it.

I like to play it with real fiction, too.

OTHELLO
Lend me thy handkerchief.

DESDEMONA
Here, my lord.

OTHELLO
That which I gave you.

DESDEMONA
I have it not about me.

OTHELLO
Not?

DESDEMONA
No, indeed, my lord.

OTHELLO
That is a fault.
That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
She was a charmer, and could almost read
The thoughts of people: she told her, while
she kept it,
'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
Or made gift of it, my father's eye
Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies: she, dying, gave it me;
And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
To give it her. I did so: and take heed on't;
Make it a darling like your precious eye;
To lose't or give't away were such perdition
As nothing else could match.

DESDEMONA
Is't possible?

OTHELLO
'Tis true: there's magic in the web of it:
A sibyl, that had number'd in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;
The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk;
And it was dyed in mummy which the skilful
Conserved of maidens' hearts.

DESDEMONA
Indeed! is't true?

OTHELLO
Most veritable; therefore look to't well.

DESDEMONA
Then would to God that I had never seen't!

OTHELLO
Ha! wherefore?

DESDEMONA
Why do you speak so startingly and rash?

OTHELLO
Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out
o' the way?

DESDEMONA
Oh look, silly me - here it is...

[Exeunt omnes]

I think you should add to your article that ending the First World War could have prevented the Russian Revolution and the Communists coming to power there. I think the fact that you left this out, or that you didn't consider it, says something about your motives. Other than that, I found it a very interesting article. I sometimes argue that if the Gallipoli campaign had been handled more competently, the Western Allies could have broken through the Dardenelles and been able to supply Russia from the south, and again, avoid the Russian Revolution. If only, given that the USSR became the second most diabolical regime of the 20th century, exceeded only by the PRC.

I agree with another commenter here that the actions of a single man propbably would not make a difference.

Military comms often have redundancy. No one has the legal right to refuse to fight or to refuse to pass on the order to fight. If an acconpanying officer was aware of the order, he would be duty bound to pass it on even if his companion thought not.

The trials of Nazi war criminals established the true situation.

The responsibility to not carry out vile acts overrides any order to do so, each and every rank.

As I see it, it is the duty of command to provide proper information confirming the legality of orders, and of recipients to demand such.

Of course, if we only have just wars, I suspect the army will get very bored.

Rusty

Dear Brian,

Thank you for writing this poignant and wonderful article. Every day each one of us changes our world. For the better or the
worse. I've just read this. And you have just changed my world for the better.

You've made me think.

Tess Lawrence

With all the talk of the Anzac spirit, acknowledgement of heroism and remembrance of past struggle what effort is going into preventing future wars? We know some causes and exacerbating factors - too many people struggling over too few resources, unequal distribution of those resources, increasing population, religious and ideological conflicts, those in power wanting to keep and expand their power and those out of power wanting to gain power. Can we act rationally to attack the causes of war?

If Smith-Dorrien had not followed Orders & got the troops back fighting there would be about 1 Billion more people on this planet looking for a feed.
War & pestilence have their place in the natures scheme. It's a sorry fact of nature. Not many creatures live to an old age, most become food for something else. That's life (& death) unfortunately.

Dear Jayb,

With all the casualties of war they may result in an increase in population. Birthrate goes up as those uncertain of a future wish to produce new life. It is often national policy on all sides to outbreed the enemy.

There are rational ways of curbing population growth. War is not one of them.

War often takes the fittest and best.

David f: There are rational ways of curbing population growth. War is not one of them.

A nice Politically Correct reply. But You've missed my point. I'm not advocating War. I am saying that, "War" is one way nature keeps a balance. Pestilience is another. Overpopulation is one of the causes of war & pestilence. Nature uses these tools to create a balance.

If Smith-Dorrien had not ordered the fighting on the Western front to continue, then about 1 billion more mouths to feed would be on this planet.

At this stage in human history we are barely able to sustain the 9 billion people on this planet now. Untill new energy technologies are implemented world wide & we accept Climate Change as normal & adapt accordingly this poor old earth won't cope. Nature will react accordingly. See the Black death where 2/3 of the World population perished. Population was outstriping technology. The advances in peoples & technology after the plague improved in leaps & bounds.

"War often takes the fittest and best."

Yes, & pestilence takes the weakest. What is left is the moderate who have built an immunity & learnt to improvise ways to carry on.

"Birthrate goes up as those uncertain of a future wish to produce new life."

That's a given. There is room to expand, more food to eat & times of War & Pestilence diminish, though not entirely.

Dear Jayb,

I just plain disagree. I don't know where your figure of a billion comes from, and I don't think it has any basis. I think that WW1 may have resulted in a greater rather than a smaller population.

I think the births resulting from the war outweighed the deaths the war caused. Those who went to war tried to breed to leave something behind in case they didn't come back. Those who stayed at home and prospered because of the war were better able to afford children.

We have figures about the casualties of war, but I know of no figures concerning the births caused by war. I suspect they outweigh the casualties.

I got your point but don't agree with it. War may increase the imbalance. The spread over the earth of the English speaking peoples and their great numbers is a direct consequence of war.

David f; "there are rational ways of curbing population growth."

Unfortunatley being told to, "tie a knot in it," doesn't work. It's been tried & it failed.

Yes, "about I Billion", was an arbitary figure. I don't think would be too far off the mark though. In fact, possibly a little low.

"I think that WW1 may have resulted in a greater rather than a smaller population."

Well the death toll for WW1 was about 15 million of which only about 5 million were for battle casualties the rest pestilence. These were mostly "fit young men." After the war suicide took it's toll on those that returned. (My grandfather being one) Then, after the war Influenza killed 18 million, mainly women & children. The Turkish massacre of the Albanians too more than a million. The bounce back took some time, then came the depression. So for after WW1 I think you need to take a closer look at the world situation at that time.

WW2. Different matter. There was a boom in population after that. I am one of that resultant boom. I suppose it was like when we came home from excercise. We saved all the lollies in the ration packs & threw them out into the back yard lawn , then told the kids not to come inside until they'd found & eaten every one. ;-)

"I know of no figures concerning the births caused by war. I suspect they outweigh the casualties."

Do you thing an Army spends it's time after the battle rounding up all the women & impregnating them? This is pure fantasy David, fed by some Politicaly Correct Greenie BS, get a grip. Anyone who believes that, has a cadaver short in their cemetary.

"The spread over the earth of the English speaking peoples and their great numbers is a direct consequence of war."

Eh!!? What a load of Codswollop!