The story of two senior soldiers and their influence
FOR sheer obduracy, Australia has never known a soldier like Thomas Albert Blamey.
Blamey’s career began as a permanent army officer in 1906 when such beings were a rarity, rising through determined mediocrity to have what was once described as a “good war”, though as a protected staff officer more at risk from bottle than battle.
By 1925 when there seemed little future in soldiering for someone with his ambitions, the then Deputy Chief of the General Staff Blamey resigned to become first in a select group of distinguished soldiers who became policemen.
Blamey was appointed Victorian police commissioner, retaining his military connections as 3rd Militia Division’s GOC.
In days when strict alcohol restrictions applied, Blamey was a regular, welcome guest at Melbourne pubs after closing time, though his reputation suffered when his official police ID was seized during a raid on a brothel.
Forced to resign, he dabbled in public service and right-wing politics until recalled to senior command in World War II.
Blamey was a divisive figure, largely despised by those under his command and ruthless with perceived rivals.
He was tolerated by senior allied commanders, though sidelined in the latter stages of the Pacific War by US General Douglas Macarthur who understood any major production could sustain but one star – or in his own case five.
Post war he remained divisive and controlling, though with the connivance of Melbourne’s political and military mafia, he was promoted field marshal on his death bed.
Early this week the Albanese government extended the appointment of Australia’s CDF Angus Campbell at a time Defence Minister Richard Marles described “as strategically complex as any since the end of the Second World War”.
Simultaneously Mr Marles said it was the Morrison administration’s fault that allowed the nation’s defence to drift, seemingly oblivious to the reality General Campbell had had his hands firmly on the tiller of HMAS Defence. The dour, abstemious, minutia obsessed General Campbell is no licentious Blamey, but is equally ruthless with those perceived as potential threats.
He is unpopular with lower ranks for his annoying, irrelevant edicts.
The SF community, which spawned him holds him in very low regard.
Mr Marles will tolerate General Campbell only so long as it suits his government’s agenda, and it won’t forget his stint in PM Howard’s inner bureaucracy.
Not every old and obdurate soldier deserves to die in his own bed.