Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 185
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[Page 185]
92
Though the total population of the Commonwealth was only about 4½ millions, "Andy" Fisher declared in a famous speech that Australia was prepared to back Britain in the war to the "last man and the last shilling", and send an expeditionary force to the theatre of war forthwith. Immediate appointment of senior commanders followed, and recruiting, accommodating, training and fully equipping a full-sized Infantry Division of about eighteen thousand officers and other ranks was well under way within a fortnight. It was named the Australian Imperial Force and during the first eighteen months of the conflict four more similar Infantry Divisions and a Cavalry Division were formed, entirely by voluntary enlistment.
Recruitment of the four battalions of the First Brigade, of an artillery battery, a field company of engineers and a field ambulance unit, all to be raised in N.S.W., was advertised to begin at Victoria Barracks, Paddington, on the 17th of August. The Commanding Officers of these units had been gazetted the day before, and Major-General Bridges, the founding Commandant of the Royal Military College at Duntroon, had already been appointed the General Officer Commanding this First Division. The R.M.C. had just passed out its first batch of young officers.
With the blessing of my parents and close friends I had decided to volunteer as soon as the call came, but on 15th August decided that I could not wait for it any longer, and would go to Sydney at my own expense at once. So I hurriedly packed my uniform and other baggage, and Dad drove me to the station just in time to catch the usual late-afternoon train: I think it is generally accepted that I was the first volunteer from Parkes and its district.
On arrival in the City early next morning, I took the ferry to Manly and went to stay at a boarding house in Pine St where two of my erstwhile schoolmates at "Scots" were living. After breakfast, I recrossed the Harbour and hurried out to Victoria Barracks, where I waited in a crowd for nearly an hour for a very brief interview with a gruff Major ("Bull" Antill) who noted my name and address, told me to watch the newspapers, and