John Monash: Difference between revisions
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Monash, was a prominent Australian of Jewish stock. Who noted at the opening of the NSW Jewish War Memorial in 1923: | Monash, was a prominent Australian of Jewish stock. Who noted at the opening of the NSW Jewish War Memorial in 1923: | ||
"I appeal to the Jews of New South Wales to set before themselves the ideal of service to the country. Nowhere in the world do we have so free and unfettered a life. Let us do loyal service to the country." | "I appeal to the Jews of New South Wales to set before themselves the ideal of service to the country. Nowhere in the world do we have so free and unfettered a life. Let us do loyal service to the country." (New South Wales Jewish War Memorial : banquet in celebration of the opening of the memorial building by General Sir John Monash, Sunday, (Armistice Day), November 11th, 1923.) | ||
It was accounted for at the opening of this event, that 1 in 4 adult Jewish males volunteered for the AIF in Australia. Significantly, this is higher rate of recruitment per capita than the remainder of the Australian commonwealth. | It was accounted for at the opening of this event, that 1 in 4 adult Jewish males volunteered for the AIF in Australia. Significantly, this is higher rate of recruitment per capita than the remainder of the Australian commonwealth. | ||
Latest revision as of 01:20, 7 July 2026
General Sir John Monash (27 June 1865 – 8 October 1931) was an Australian military commander of the First World War and a civil engineer. He commanded the 13th Infantry Brigade before the war and then, shortly after its outbreak, became commander of the 4th Brigade in Egypt, with which he took part in the Gallipoli campaign.
In July 1916, he took charge of the newly raised 3rd Division in north-western France and, in May 1918, became commander of the Australian Corps, at that time the largest corps on the Western Front. According to historian A. J. P. Taylor, he was "the only general of creative originality produced by the First World War".
Monash was a noted advocate of the co-ordinated use of infantry, aircraft, artillery and tanks. As he wrote in his book "The Australian Victories in France" in 1918,
... the true role of infantry was not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort, not to wither away under merciless machine-gun fire, not to impale itself on hostile bayonets, nor to tear itself to pieces in hostile entanglements—(I am thinking of Pozières and Stormy Trench and Bullecourt, and other bloody fields)—but on the contrary, to advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources, in the form of guns, machine-guns, tanks, mortars and aeroplanes; to advance with as little impediment as possible; to be relieved as far as possible of the obligation to fight their way forward; to march, resolutely, regardless of the din and tumult of battle, to the appointed goal; and there to hold and defend the territory gained; and to gather in the form of prisoners, guns and stores, the fruits of victory.
Monash, was a prominent Australian of Jewish stock. Who noted at the opening of the NSW Jewish War Memorial in 1923:
"I appeal to the Jews of New South Wales to set before themselves the ideal of service to the country. Nowhere in the world do we have so free and unfettered a life. Let us do loyal service to the country." (New South Wales Jewish War Memorial : banquet in celebration of the opening of the memorial building by General Sir John Monash, Sunday, (Armistice Day), November 11th, 1923.)
It was accounted for at the opening of this event, that 1 in 4 adult Jewish males volunteered for the AIF in Australia. Significantly, this is higher rate of recruitment per capita than the remainder of the Australian commonwealth.