Issue 2 of our new mag ("WM") arrived on Friday! Some fantastic work inside. If you want to know more, you could always visit wm.awm.gov.au

A beautiful, if windy, Remembrance Day in Canberra.

#otd in 1914: the first time a ship of the Royal Australian Navy went into battle. HMAS Sydney's success meant the Indian Ocean was clear for British shipping for much of the First World War.

www.navy.gov.au/about-navy/h...

#OTD in 1944, HMAS Australia (II) was struck by a Japanese suicide aircraft, killing 30 of the ship's crew including the CO, Captain Emile Dechaineux.

Story: seapower.navy.gov.au/ran-battle-l...

I’ve seen two published histories recently refer to the Australian “Infantry” Force. It should be *Imperial*.

The error omits soldiers (e.g. artillery), and also downplays just how important the British Empire was in Australia.
Cf. the “expeditionary” forces: BEF, CEF, NZEF.

#OTD in 1918, the British (incl. Australian) assault on the Hindenburg Line. Pic is from the fighting at Epéhy.

Pic: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...

#OTD in 1945, the Battle of Morotai began. HMAS Australia (pictured) and other Australian & US ships bombarded the island for some two hours prior to the landings.

HMAS Australia's history is remarkable: seapower.navy.gov.au/history/unit...

Fascinating reading about the Imperial Camel Corps, by one of our former Summer Scholars, Hannah Swaine:

wm.awm.gov.au/read/rough-r...

I really enjoyed reading Craig L. Symonds' *Nimitz at War* - as you can see from my review of it: researchcentre.army.gov.au/library/aust...

Come and study with us! It'll be fun!

Applications are open for the Australian War Memorial Summer Scholars program, to be held in Canberra next Jan-Feb.

Apply here: www.awm.gov.au/get-involved...

#OTD, 1898: the battle of Omdurman. The death blow to the Mahdist state. The British campaign in Sudan followed the same logic as retaliatory frontier parties, on a much grander scale. The brutal chastening of locals who had killed a high-ranking British man.

Story: www.nam.ac.uk/explore/egyp...

I'm re-reading Jonathan Richards' *Secret War* more than a decade after first encountering it, having developed a much better understanding of British Empire history, and military history.

What an amazing and groundbreaking piece of scholarship it really is.

This week, 125 years ago, Friedrich Nietzsche died.

Last year I was fortunate enough to visit the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, Germany - an amazing museum to a sparkling thinker. It's also the house in which he ailed and died.

For #bookweek this year, Andrew Gordon's *Rules of the Game*. Around a narrative of the Battle of Jutland in 1916, Gordon weaves a cultural history of the Royal Navy’s officer cadre from about 1860 onwards. On top of all that, it's eminently readable, and even funny at times! Truly a masterpiece.

This Indian Independence Day, I'm thinking about Rushdie's Midnight Children, which I read for the first time earlier this year. A fantastic read. Think Tristram Shandy but with the protagonist born in Bombay in 1947.