Our final meeting for the year will be Tuesday 10th of December when we combine with the Politics class to watch a DVD that considers how Stalin & Communism was rejected by George Orwell & Winston Churchill. This brings to an end my series on 20th Century History.

Next year I revert to the Friday afternoon sessions for Armchair History and feast upon the Tudors as England is divided by religion.
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Terry Case

We had been looking at the ramifications of the Peace Treaties following WW1. We turned our attention to India, Britain’s richest and most important colony. The Indian Congress Party had been promised political progress as so many Indians volunteered and served in both the Middle East, Turkey and on the Western Front. Like other groups such as the Suffragettes they were betrayed and it was left to Ghandi & Nehru to lead the party in the post war period.

Gandhi implemented his non-violence campaigns to shame the British. Gandhi’s followers were brutally attacked on the orders of the Government, but the protests turned the tables on the British and it would lead eventually to Independence.
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Terry Case

We are reviewing the 1920s and 1930s both in Australia and Europe and  the period where all the hopes for peace and prosperity are challenged.  The focus will next move to Britain’s greatest asset, India "the jewel in the crown" and look at the tactics of the humble revolutionary, Gandhi. 
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Terry Case

Our August session looked at how the British and French made secret deals during WW1 to divide the Ottoman Empire and how they promised both the Arabs and Jews their support and betrayed them.  The present Syrian civil war being just one of the many conflicts that can be traced back to colonial meddling.

How do we know about the secret documents? Well after the Russian Revolution the Communists published all the secret documents in the Russian archives.  It did not stop the British & French drawing lines on maps causing thousands of people to flee their homes.
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Terry Case

Our July DVD covered the Versailles Treaty negotiations where Australian PM Billy Hughes was an outspoken advocate wanting Germany to become a subservient nation paying massive fines. This together with the formation of new European countries, led to WW2.

In our next session we will see how the Middle East was carved up in the scramble for oil resources.
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Terry Case

Our June meeting DVD focused on the revolutions that brought Lenin & the Bolsheviks to power in Russia. We saw the hopes and struggles to raise the desperately poor to a higher standard of living, at first applauded by many in the west. The Soviet Union set out to be a world leader that would see revolutions in many other countries; but lost many of its supporters who were horrified by the mass killings.  International support crumbled, to be replaced by fear of communism.

Our second program had been produced for an Anzac Day screening. It featured the battlefield cemeteries and included an acknowledgement that Aboriginals were also among the Australian war dead and wounded, but have only recently been acknowledged for their service. Those Aboriginal soldiers who survived were not eligible for Soldier settlement schemes and other support, nor were not allowed to join the RSL, although some branches allowed them to join ex comrades for Anzac Day.

The program asked us to understand the complexities of the war so we do not fall prey to “fairy stories”. The finale was a reading of war poet Siegfried Sassoon’s Aftermath written in 1919.   The harrowing poem asks:  “Have you forgotten yet?” Sassoon writes of the horrors of the Western Front, the rats & the dead, the terribly wounded and the young boys, now shattered men.      “ Look down & swear by the slam of the war,  you will never forget.”

The poem concludes :  “Do you ever ask if it's all going to happen again?” Of course we know that is exactly what happened just 20 years later. 

Terry Case

We looked in more detail at Australia’s development of the White Australia policy to disqualify Japanese and other Asian immigrants. The South China Morning Post had an article on Anzac Day about a Chinese migrant who had tried to join the Australian army at this time. He had been refused by Victorian recruiting centres on numerous occasions. He persisted and tried his luck in NSW where he was accepted, the army doctor merely noting he had dark skin and avoiding mention of his Chinese characteristics.
 
Aborigines were also banned from joining the army, but in recent years more is becoming known about those who were accepted, however surviving veterans were usually denied medical and financial support that others received on their return. This morning I heard a report of yet another who had succeeded in enlisting and fought on the Western Front.

We also discussed Australia’s invitation to the American navy to send their new battleship fleet to Australia in 1909. The Australian Government had to be careful to avoid British censure, as the British Government were very much against the American naval visits to the British Empire.
Now an Australian naval ship has joined others from around the world celebrating China’s navy 70th birthday.   
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Terry Case

At our March session we watched a dvd of slum clearance in London in the late 1890s and subsequent re development for better off tenants.  Robert Roberts’ book The classic slum provided a firsthand account of what it was like to live in a poor district of a large city and generated  comments of what our grandparents told of their upbringing.

Australia at this time was developing the White Australia policy to disqualify Japanese and other Asian immigrants, although they had to be careful to avoid British censure.  Queensland initially opposed the other states as labourers from the Pacific Islands were used extensively in that state.

The April session will feature a dvd giving an excellent overview of Europe & America in the period from 1900 to WW1.
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Terry Case

We started by listening to the Coronation music for King Edward VII, but this year will not be all about British Kings, as Parliament made the decisions and policies. By contrast the rulers of Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire & Russia all claimed to rule by Divine Right, whilst France was a Republic. These were the major European powers.
 
The last century closed and the new one opened with the Boer War spanning them. This war was deeply unpopular in Europe and became more so as reporters wrote of farms being burned and concentration camps being established. 1/1/1901 saw the birth of the Australian nation and the celebrations included a contingent of Colonial troops who had returned from the Boer War. These troops had been raised by the States : in future the Australian Federal Parliament would be responsible for recruitment.

Australian Colonial troops had fought in Campaigns like the Sudan, but the first use of such troops were in the two wars fought by the British in New Zealand against the Maoris. The British suffered some defeats and requested Australian troops to come to their aid.  In Australia a continuous frontier war was being waged against Aboriginals by settlers and it continued during the period we are now reviewing.
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Terry Case

​'After the Victorians', a new 'armchair history' course being offered by Terry Case, will be held on the 3rd Tuesday morning from 10 am to 12 midday in the U3A Meeting Room.
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"The 20th Century saw enormous changes in the period from 1900-1939. From the Boer War and Federation in Australia we then look at the White Australia policy and the fear of Japan as a world power. Germany and the USA overtook Britain as the leading industrial and military power. The Bolshevik Revolution was a turning point not just in W.W.1, but in European history.  Socialism, Fascism and Communism challenged existing orders.  The British Empire reached its peak in the 1930s, but the belief that Britain had a right to rule was challenged by Gandhi and others.  Dvds will be used to illustrate the sessions"

Collins St Melbourne c. 1910; State Library of Victoria