Veterans fighting new war

WHEN on March 19, 1932 Captain Francis de Groot intervened in the official opening of Sydney’s new Harbour Bridge, he was initially declared insane.

Though he had served with an Irish cavalry unit in World War I, de Groot immigrated to Australia where he became a furniture dealer.

His protest was in response to NSW premier Jack Lang’s socialist policies.

A member of the right wing New Guard, de Groot’s business suffered as Australia suffered in the Depression.

De Groot’s personal economic malaise had different causes than the multitudes of ordinary unemployed, though the disparate groups shared a common frustration with what they regarded as governmental economic failure.

They were desperate times, with a federal Labor government also pursuing Keynesian inflationary policies.

Lang’s simplistic solution was for NSW to default on international loans.

Post World War I many former soldiers, particularly senior officers, felt a sense of entitlement about directing future national policy.

A plethora of right wing groups were formed under the leadership of such World War I luminaries as Blamey, which exploited the media of the day to spread their message and recruit.

Both Scullin and Lang lost office but the economic miracle hoped for by millions of unemployed Australians did not occur. Australia was not alone, though the level of unrest was nowhere near the scale experienced by Germany and Italy, for example.

Many former right wing leaders held even more senior positions in World War II, again seeing themselves afterwards as a bulwark against particularly left wing regressive ideologies.

Disturbingly in 2020 there is similar unrest in former military ranks, which manifests itself via social media.

Combat-experienced veterans have no hesitation expressing themselves about those who threaten the fabric of the society they believed they served to protect and preserve.

They have no hesitation in organising and aggressively expressing their opposition.

Nor have they demonstrated any aversion to pursuing their arguments whatever it takes short of violence to achieve their goals. More tellingly they regard the ADF and its traditions, the organisation in which they served as theirs to influence as they see fit.

They don’t seek to rule but those who write them off as of little consequence would be wise to be cautious.