"WWI peace movement - drawing up to 100,000-strong crowds to its public rallies"
Dear SJF please provide some evidence of this.
What WW1 did result in was a further split between Roman Catholic and Protestant Australians which lasted until the 60s. It related of course to the question of Irish independence. The nation was indeed divided over conscription but that was only an issue later during the war. The enlisted diggers treated their non-enlisted brothers with contempt but even they did not wish their brothers to be forced to endure the horrors of the Western Front.
If you want evidence of the overwhelming support for WW1 which was reflected in voluntary enlistments in the AIF just go to the Australian Archives site and have a look. And more sadly have a drive around rural Australia and look at the war memorials.

Bushbasher,

You're an arrogant s...head.

Why did you abuse me? Simply because I challenged the imputations your comments contained?

Yes you imputed that because you hadn't served in Vietnam you had a greater probability of corretly judging Australians involvement there.

Logic, mate logic when applied to your condesending remarks to oggy show just that.

If ever you dared talk to me in such a damnable condescending manner face to face I'd knock your bloody block off. But here you can hide behind petticoats and fake names ... so you're safe you c.....!

And you need to read oggy's remarks a damn lot better than you have. In your haste to condemn decency and justify your own beliefs and probable disgraceful past behaviours you simply didn't bloody listen to what oggy said!

Gosh, OLO just gets classier and classier.

I doubt I'll be back Graham.

Blairbar

The main source for WWI anti-war/conscription rally numbers is ‘The Wobblies at War’ by Frank Cain (1993). The active anti-conscription movement was driven by 3 major forces – the Irish Catholic population, the international labour movement and the Women’s Peace Army, all of which drew crowds in the 10s of 1000s to their rallies.

Also, the prolific presence of WWI memorials around the countryside is not an accurate measure of the level of support for the troops in WWI. Rather, they indicate the post-war political and financial clout of the RSL and the determination by post-war Australian governments to expunge virtually all traces of the anti-war movement and conscription defeats from the nation’s official WWI history.

The best indicator of the population’s real support for the troops was the defeat of the two conscription referendums in 1916-7 despite the anti-conscription case being almost completely gagged by the War Precautions Act.

Nifty

To those that never served in war, I am sorry, but you do not, and never will understand the Veteran. It is a sad fact but very true.’

This might come as a shock to you, but there are those of us who really couldn’t care less about whether or not the veteran is ‘understood’. Stripped of the beatific, canonising aura that surrounds them, the war veterans’ sense of ‘specialness’ is just another form of smug elitism.

Keith

Thank you for that insight into the noble warrior mentality. Is that your attitude to any COUNTRY that offends you as well?

Ken_L

Mate if you were fair dinkim you'd have raised objections about Bushbashers arrogant condescending attitude to oggy and his initial abuse of me.

You didn't! Why wait until after I responded?

Is it that you think the word less powerful, effective or frightening than a likely totally ineffectual punch on the nose!

Writers from the ages would be laughing at you!

SJF,

I am a pacifist but my Irish gets up and I tend to lose my composure with behaviours and speech that demean anybody, especially when I see the victims as people speaking from their heart. I'm a great sinner. Fortunately for everybody I'm quite unskilled as a pugilist, now very slight of build and have of late found a great gentleness in life. My comment was a throw back to my past... and geneology. I withdraw and apologise for the threat of violence. But stand by my charges of abuse and arrogant condescension by the cowardly Bushbasher.

SJF countries rarely speak let alone demean others ... sadly it's people who do.

My experience confirmes by anecdote the details of your research on anti-conscription. My Irish Catholic Grandfather was jailed for bashing horse-riding 'Special Constables' bought in especially to quell the growing demonstrations against conscription in NZ during WW1.
He simply believed the war was a European war and shouldn't have involved he and his family and friends. He was no pacifist.

SJF, Yup, I should have put a little more to the quote there."To those that never served in war, I am sorry, but you do not, and never will understand the Veteran. It is a sad fact but very true.’"
I was not trying to be elitist here at all. I should have added "Thankfully you will never know" Most of us try to absorb the death and destruction of war and hope that the least amount of people suffer it. It changes you, and you do not,, in most case's anyway, become elitist in any way, quite the reverse. We do get a little uppity of occasions when we go to pay respects to fallen mates, or when someone tries to offend their sacrafice... You will have to accept that.
For you knowledge, I did serve in Vietnam, and with an Infantry Battalion and seen too much combat. That info is not trying to garnish any respect or denigration, just so you know my background.