Before the First World War, Australia and New Zealand were not highly regarded of by other countries. Australia was a teenage country, having started independence in 1901. The Australians were known as convicts and were taken to be rule-breaking and liberalistic, breaking rules and the such. It was only after the First World War that Australia was regarded as just as hard-working as any other country. Things for New Zealand were even worse before the First World War. They had no independence and the First World War was the beginning of a long journey to self-sufficiency.
During the First World War, Australian and Kiwi (New Zealand) army troops fought in battles from Samoa to Palestine and, famously the ANZACs (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) fought at Gallipoli in Turkey. Through tough and well-fought battles, the ANZACs played a major role in the Allies’ victory over Germany, and respect bred through people in Britain and other European countries because of this. Australia and New Zealand were also outrageously behind their time before the First World War and the war contributed largely to the Australians catching up to larger countries. This is because the technology was traded so often between The Allies that Australia and New Zealand learned a great deal about the new inventions they had missed out on as lonely countries in the southern hemisphere. Another large role that played in the maturity of Australia and New Zealand was the increasingly fast-speed communication technology that was being evolved and worked upon. By the end of the First World War, electric telegraphs and such could be cheaply used to communicate from country to country, and Australia and New Zealand benefitted from this.
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Australia at the time of World War One did not know if it had the guts to be an independent country but after Gallipoli, as written by John Hirst, “Gallipoli freed Australians from the self-doubt about whether it had the mettle to be a proper nation”. Gallipoli was an extremely confronting experience for what were the country boys of Australia who had usually dealt with a laid-back lifestyle. This situation sparked confidence and innovation in Australian citizens and Australia became more patriotic of themselves and country boys became soldiers, generals, scientists, and politicians to make Australia greater than what we were stereotyped as. During the First World War, the Aboriginal population of Australia also made a huge step to equality which they are, sadly, still looking for today. Australia, almost scientifically known to be infected with racism due to Darwinism and the inclusion of Aboriginal peoples as fauna, allowed the same Indigenous people to fight for them. The bloody battles that the original owners of the land we took from them fought for the same land that was still ours at the time. Because of the war effort from the Indigenous peoples, we almost had to give them some respect in return. Unfortunately, we did not but now this issue has been addressed to many times using this key point.
The little attention paid to the small southern countries helped them greatly in the war. While France, Germany, England, and other European giants were being torn apart by one another, Australia and New Zealand got involved, but made sure to not let any outbursts of battle happen on their land as they were not as attached to this war as the other countries were. New Zealand had no bombings or large violent incidents and Australia had far fewer of them. This meant that the people back home in Australia did not have to worry about the economy too much and they certainly did not fear their lives the way people in hotspots in France and Eastern Europe did. Australia had little put on the field, little taken off. The Australians of course played a major role, but they were smart enough to not endanger their country too much and because of this, countries like France and England had major setbacks compared to the Australians and the New Zealanders.
In conclusion, Australians played it safe in the First World War and also gained confidence in themselves because of the patriotic way of the war. New Zealand too played it safe in the war and began to believe they could be an independent settlement.
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