Australian Army Reserve

The Australian Army Reserve is a collective name given to the reserve units of the Australian Army. Since the Federation of Australia in 1901, the reserve military force has been known by many names, including the Citizens Forces, the Citizen Military Forces, the Militia and, unofficially, the Australian Military Forces. In 1980, however, the current name—Australian Army Reserve—was officially adopted, and it now consists of a number of components based around the level of commitment and training obligation that its members are required to meet.

For the first half of the 20th century, due to a widespread distrust of permanent military forces in Australia, the reserve military forces were the primary focus of Australian military planning. Following the end of World War II, however, this focus gradually shifted due to the changing strategic environment, and the requirement for a higher readiness force available to support collective security goals. Since then, Australian defence policy has been focused more upon the Regular Army, and there has been considerable debate about the role of the Army Reserve within defence planning circles. As the strategic situation has evolved in the post Cold War era, the organisation, structure, training and role of the Army Reserve has undergone considerable changes, and members of the Army Reserve are increasingly being used on overseas deployments, not only within Regular Army units, but also in units drawn almost entirely from Reserve units.

Despite being the main focus upon which Australian defence planning was based, since Federation Reserve units have primarily been used in the role of home defence and to provide a mobilisation platform during times of war. During World War I Australia's contribution to the fighting came from forces raised outside the citizen forces that were in existence at the time, and although many citizen soldiers enlisted in these forces, the Citizen Forces units remained in Australia. With the outbreak of World War II a similar situation evolved, with the establishment of an all-volunteer expeditionary force, however, with the entry of Japan into the war the threat to Australia became more direct and a number of Militia units were called upon to fight in New Guinea and other areas of the South West Pacific.

Following the end of World War II, however, the decision was made to establish a permanent standing defence force and the role of Reserve forces was reduced to the point where for a while their relevance was called into question. Recently, however, there has been a move to develop a more capable Reserve force, as Australia's overseas military commitments in the Pacific and Middle East have highlighted the importance of the Reserves once more. As such, since 2000 units of the Australian Army Reserve have been deployed to East Timor and the Solomon Islands on peacekeeping duties and many more individual Reservists have been used to provide specialist capabilities and to fill in Regular Army formations being sent overseas.

Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the amalgamation of the military forces controlled by the six separate, self-governing British colonies to form a unified force controlled by the Commonwealth was an inevitable, albeit slowly realised, consequence, given that the new Constitution of Australia assigned primary responsibility for defence to the Commonwealth. Indeed, this process took some time as, to a large extent, matters of defence were not necessarily a priority of the new Australian legislature at the time, and there was also a considerable diversity in opinion regarding the composition and size of the new national army and role it would play at home and indeed within the wider Imperial defence system. Nevertheless, the official transfer of forces from the states to the Commonwealth occurred on 1 March 1901, and this date is today celebrated as the birthday of the modern Australian Army. At the outset, the bulk of the Commonwealth military force was to be made up of part-time volunteers. This was arguably due to two factors. Firstly, there was a widespread desire amongst Australian policymakers to keep defence expenditure low, while secondly there was a widespread mistrust or suspicion surrounding the idea of a large standing army.

After the initial transfer of forces in March 1901, further progress was slow as administrative and legislative instruments took time to develop. Indeed, it was not until 1 March 1904 that the Defence Act 1903 was proclaimed, providing the Commonwealth Military Forces a statutory framework within which they could operate. Amidst a background of political manoeuvring and personal agendas, the military forces were eventually reorganised into a more or less unified command structure. As a part of this, state-based mounted units were reformed into light horse regiments, supplemented by the transfer of men from a number of superfluous infantry units, while the remaining infantry were organised into battalions of the Australian Infantry Regiment and engineers and artillery were organised into field companies and garrison artillery batteries. Due to the provisions of the Defence Act which did not provide for the establishment of a regular infantry force, the notion that the Commonwealth Military Forces would be largely based on a part-time militia was set out in legislation.

The lack of importance placed on military matters in Australian political circles continued for some time, and the size of the Australian military in this time continued to fall, in part due to the emphasis placed upon mounted units in the new command structure. However, following a number of strategic and political "scares", defence matters slowly began to take on more primacy in the Australian psyche before a review of defence needs was made in 1909 by Field Marshal Lord Kitchener. The result of this review was the realisation of the need to build a credible defence force that could not only defend the nation, but also possibly contribute to the Imperial defence system (although this later realisation remained little more than a consideration on paper only). The review also validated the compulsory military training scheme that was to be introduced in 1910, which was directly responsible for expanding the Citizen Forces by up to 50 percent in the three years prior to the outbreak of World War I. Separately then-Brigadier Kenneth Mackay CB VD was appointed to draw up plans for the Australian Army Reserve in 1915, and became its first director-general in 1916.

Undoubtedly, the scheme proved to have numerous benefits, as many of these youths went on to serve in the First AIF during World War I and the expanded organisation allowed citizen forces officers more experience in commanding formed bodies of men. However, it was the main factor contributing to the decision to recruit the AIF on the basis of voluntary enlistment. Because the army in 1914 was largely made up of young men aged between 19 and 21 who had been enlisted under this scheme, and due to the provisions of the Defence Act that precluded sending conscripts overseas, upon the outbreak of the war it was necessary for the Australian government to raise a separate force, outside the Citizen Forces organisation for service overseas. Regardless, it has been estimated that up to 50,000 militiamen subsequently enlisted in the First AIF during the war.