Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE AUSTRALIAN CENTURY
The Commonwealth of Australia came into being on 1 January 1901 and New South Wales
(NSW) became a state of the new Australian nation. Yet Australia's legal ties with, loyalty
to, and dependency on Britain remained strong. When WWI broke out in Europe, Australi-
an troops were sent to fight in the trenches of France, at Gallipoli in Turkey and in the
Middle East. This was a first test of physical stamina and strength for the nation, and it held
its own, although almost 60,000 of the 330,000 troops perished in the war. A renewed pat-
riotism cemented the country's confidence in itself. But, in the wake of so much slaughter,
many Australians also questioned their relationship with their old colonial overlords. The
bond between Britain and Australia was never quite the same.
If Australia was now notionally independent, the same could not be said for its indigen-
ous peoples. From 1910 to the end of the 1960s, a policy of 'cultural assimilation' allowed
Aboriginal children (usually of mixed race) to be forcibly removed from their families and
schooled in the ways of white society and Christianity. Around 100,000 children (dubbed
the 'stolen generation') were separated from their parents in this way, causing untold stress
and damage to the nation's indigenous community.
Meanwhile, Australia's economy grew through the 1920s until the Great Depression hit
the country hard. By 1932, however, Australia was starting to recover due to rises in wool
prices and a revival of manufacturing. With the opening of the Harbour Bridge in the same
year, Sydney's building industry gained momentum and its northern suburbs began to de-
velop.
In the years before WWII, Australia became increasingly fearful of the threat to national
security posed by expansionist Japan. When war broke out, Australian troops again fought
beside the British in Europe. Only after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor did Australia's
own national security begin to take priority. A boom with a net barrage to prevent submar-
ine access was stretched across the entrance channels of Sydney Harbour, and gun fortifica-
tions were set up on rocky harbour headlands.
Unlike the Northern Territory's capital city, Darwin, which was pretty much razed by
Japanese bombings, Sydney escaped WWII virtually unscathed - although on 31 May
1942, three Japanese M24 midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour, sank a small supply
vessel and lobbed a few shells into the suburbs of Bondi and Rose Bay.
Ultimately, US victory in the Battle of the Coral Sea protected Australia from Japanese
invasion and pushed along Australia's shift of allegiance from mother Britain to the USA.
 
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