Encyclopedia

Enlistment statistics and standards First World War

Enlistments by State:

Australian population 1914-1918: four million

416, 809 Australians enlisted for service in the First World War, representing 38.7% of the total male population aged between 18 to 44.

State	Number enlisted
Queensland	57,705
New South Wales	164,030
Victoria	112,399
South Australia	34, 959
West Australia	32,231
Tasmania	15,485

At end of war:

Outcome	Number affected
died	58,961
wounded	166,811
missing or prisoners of war	4,098
suffered from sickness	87,865

At almost 65%, the Australian casualty rate (proportionate to total embarkations) was the highest of the war.

Source

Patsy Adam-Smith, The ANZACS (West Melbourne, Vic.: Thomas Nelson, 1978)

VC winners by State:

63 Victoria Crosses awarded to members of the Australian forces in the First World War.

State	Number of Victoria Crosses
New South Wales	19
Victoria	17
West Australia	10
Tasmania	8
South Australia	5
Queensland	3
Northern Territory (Borella)	1

Source

Lionel Wigmore, They Dared Mightily (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1963)

General Health

The health of men recruited under the new standard was of great concern to commanding officers.

The second volume of the Official History of the Australian Army Medical Services in the War of 1914-1918 by Colonel AG Butler contains the following:

On 30th March, 1917 General Howse wrote to General Fetherston:

"I am trying to arrange transport for two or three thousand "B" class men; they are absolutely unfit for service. Many of them do not disclose any organic disease upon a carefully conducted clinical examination, but are in and out of hospital, and are quite useless for front line, and practically useless for Home Service….Far better no reinforcements be sent from Australia as they do no duty, and only cause congestion in our hospitals and Command Depots. The class of reinforcements you are sending are not up to the old standard. Headquarters AIF Depots report that 20 per cent are unfit for the front line".

Butler in the footnote writes:

"Not unnaturally, seeing that the height standard had been reduced from 5ft 4 in. to 5ft 2in. the standard of vision reduced, and men with minor defects accepted. For special units additional lowering had been approved. Thus men for railway sections and mining corps were accepted up to 50 years, and men with spectacles were allowed to enter the ASC, AMC and ordnance corps. Men with minor and curable conditions suitable for operation could be taken into a military hospital for treatment. The conditions under which treatment was given was that if the operation was successful the man forthwith enlisted for general service, if not successful agreed to be discharged and had no further claim for compensation or pension. (So many men pleaded disability, as a results of such operations, and were subsequently discharged, that this method was abandoned)".

Source

Colonel A.G. Butler, The Western Front, Official History of the Australian Army Medical Services in the War of 1914-1918, Vol. 2 (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1940): p 902