Australia and New Zealand — nationhood and the First World War (History (2028+) HL)

By 1900, Australia was six separate British colonies — New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania. Each had its own government, its own laws, even its own railway gauge.

That was inconvenient for trade and defence. So on 1 January 1901, the six colonies joined to form the Commonwealth of Australia — a new nation, still loyal to the British Crown but self-governing in almost everything else. This is called Federation.

Why 1901, and why federation rather than full independence?: Business leaders wanted one national market, not six. Colonies also worried about defence — a united Australia looked stronger against rival powers in the Pacific. But nobody wanted to break with Britain: the new Commonwealth kept the British monarch as head of state and Britain still controlled its foreign policy. Australia became self-governing, not independent.

New Zealand had actually been invited to join the Australian federation, but chose to stay separate — it was geographically distant and had its own distinct relationship with Māori. In 1907, New Zealand's status was upgraded from a colony to a Dominion, meaning it governed its own domestic affairs while Britain still handled defence and foreign policy.

Both countries built reputations as bold social reformers. New Zealand introduced old-age pensions in 1898; Australia set up a national minimum wage system (the 1907 Harvester Judgement) and compulsory arbitration to settle disputes between workers and employers peacefully.

The debate: real nations, or just loyal colonies with new paperwork?: Some historians stress genuine nation-building — new parliaments, pioneering democratic and welfare laws, a growing sense of separate identity. Others argue 1901 and 1907 changed little in practice: both countries kept the British monarch, British courts of final appeal, and depended on Britain for defence and trade. "Nationhood" was legal and administrative, not yet full independence or a fully separate identity — that came later, partly through the experience of war.

When Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, Australia and New Zealand were automatically at war too — as Dominions, they had no independent foreign policy. Both rushed to send troops, partly from loyalty to Britain and partly to prove themselves as capable, trustworthy nations.

Australian and New Zealand soldiers were combined into the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or ANZAC. In April 1915, they were sent to the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey), as part of a British plan to open a sea route to Russia and knock the Ottomans out of the war.

The campaign itself was a failure: On 25 April 1915, ANZAC troops landed on the wrong beach, at a narrow, steep cove now called Anzac Cove, facing well-prepared Ottoman defenders under commanders including Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk). The campaign became a stalemate of trench warfare lasting eight months. The Allies evacuated in December 1915–January 1916 having gained no strategic objective.

Around 8,700 Australians and 2,700 New Zealanders died at Gallipoli, out of roughly 130,000 Allied and Ottoman dead combined. Militarily, it achieved nothing. Yet within a few years it had become the founding legend of both nations.

How can a defeat become a national legend?: The Anzac legend claims Gallipoli revealed distinctly Australian and New Zealand qualities: courage under fire, mateship (loyalty between ordinary soldiers), resourcefulness, and a laid-back disrespect for rigid British class-based military discipline. Journalists at the time, especially Australian correspondent Charles Bean, wrote reports emphasising these qualities, and Bean later shaped the official war history around them.

25 April became Anzac Day, still the most solemn day of remembrance in both countries — arguably more significant than each nation's actual founding date.

The human cost went far beyond Gallipoli. Both countries kept fighting on the Western Front in France and Belgium until 1918, and losses there dwarfed Gallipoli's. Australia suffered roughly 60,000 dead and 156,000 wounded from a population of under 5 million; New Zealand lost about 18,000 dead from a population of just over 1 million — one of the highest death rates per capita of any country in the war.

Conscription split Australia in two: Australia never introduced conscription — two referendums (1916, 1917) on forcing men to fight were both narrowly defeated, revealing deep divisions along class, religious (Irish Catholic versus Protestant), and political lines. New Zealand did introduce conscription in 1916, which was less divisive there but still controversial, especially for Māori, some of whom were conscripted while their land was simultaneously being confiscated.

Worked example: assessing the claim "Gallipoli mattered more as a myth than as a real event": A student could argue for: strategically Gallipoli achieved nothing, so its huge cultural weight (Anzac Day, war memorials, "the Anzac spirit") shows the idea of it mattered far more than what actually happened on the ground. Against: the campaign was still a genuinely significant historical event in its own right — real deaths, a real turning point in how both nations saw their relationship with Britain, and real evidence (letters, diaries, official records) beyond the legend. A strong essay would weigh both and reach a judgement, not just describe the myth.