David Sutton

Dr David Sutton began working as a historian in the Military History Section at the Australian War Memorial in 2017. David has previously worked at the University of Wollongong, where he taught twentieth century history and politics, and world history in the early modern period. His research focuses on Australian involvement in the Second World War (particularly in Europe), and Australian peacekeeping operations from 1947 to the present. His doctoral research focused on Operations Barbarossa and Typhoon in the Second World War, particularly German Army Group Centre’s 1941 drive towards Moscow.

David is lead historian for the development of the Memorial’s new peacekeeping galleries. From 2017 to 2019 he served on the editorial committee of Wartime. He has worked on Memorial exhibitions including The Courage for peace (2019-20), and “Gentle in manner; resolute in deed”: Australian operations in Somalia (2023).

Key publications:

“Complications and compromise: the Paris Peace Conference and the end of the Great War”, in Paul R. Bartrop (ed.), The Routledge history of the First World War, London: Routledge, London, 2024.

With Stephen Brown, “The Russian Civil War”, and Alexander Hill (ed.), The Handbook on Soviet and Russian Military Studies, London: Routledge, 2024.

Syria and Lebanon 1941: the Allied fight against the Vichy French, Great Britain: Osprey Publishing, 2022.

With Stephen Brown, “Was Stalin Necessary? Soviet Command in the Great Patriotic War”, in Paul R. Bartrop (ed.), The Routledge History of the Second World War, London: Routledge, 2022, pp. 225-238.

With Stephen Brown, “Stalin’s War or People’s War? Total War behind the Front Lines”, in Paul R. Bartrop (ed.), The Routledge History of the Second World War, London: Routledge, 2022, pp. 334-348.

“Operation Exporter: eighty years ago, Australians made a major contribution to a misunderstood campaign”, Wartime, issue 95 (Winter 2021), pp. 30-35.

“Rwandan Tragedy: a small contingent of Australians deployed to provide assistance in horrifying conditions”, Wartime, issue 94 (Autumn 2021), pp. 60-62.

“Terms of surrender: With the Third Reich about to fall, the terms of Nazi surrender became as much about politics as combat”, Wartime, issue 87 (Winter 2019), pp. 42-47.

“Australian naval activities in the Pacific at the end of the Great War”, in Carolyn Holbrook and Keir Reeves (eds), The Great War: Aftermath and Commemoration, Sydney: UNSW Press Ltd, 2019, pp. 69-78.

“A century on: remembering the Australians who fought in the Russian Civil War”, The Strategist, September 2019.

“More than mud and snow: accounts of Hitler’s failed invasion of the Soviet Union should not overlook the determination of the Soviet armies”, Wartime, issue 86 (Autumn 2019), pp. 26-29.

“1941 and the National-Patriotic Revival in Russia”, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, vol. 32, no. 1 (2019), pp. 70-92.

“Coastal Sacrifice”, Wartime, issue 85 (Summer 2019), pp. 58-60.

“‘Don’t give an inch’: In 1943, outnumbered Australian forces at Wau fought and won a remarkable engagement against the Japanese”, Wartime, Issue 83, Winter 2018, pp. 38-42.

“The ‘Obscene Peace’ of 1918: eight months before the Armistice of November 1918, Germany struck a crucial deal with Russia”, Wartime, issue 82 (Autumn 2018), pp. 28-33.

“Aussies in the Arctic: An RAAF squadron played a small but important role in the delicate diplomacy that held the Allies together in the Second World War”, Wartime, issue 81 (Summer 2018), pp. 52-58.