Talk:John Monash/Archive 1

Archive 1

Background

"When war broke out in 1914 Monash became a full-time Army officer. Despite the anti-German hysteria of the time, there seems to have been no adverse comment on his German origins." I've always heard that he was Jewish not German.

The two things were not regarded as mutually exclusive in 1914-18. His parents were from Prussia and many Jews fought for Germany in WW1. Grant65 (Talk) 22:55, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Actually is was my understanding that there was considerable comment about both his german ancestry and his jewish religion. Both Bean and K Murdoch hated him. When I have time I will propose some changes to this article

cheers

Agree that Monash's background was a difficulty for some others, and picked up on the significance of that - in so much that in reaching the level of achievement and public acclaim that he did, he was a powerful force in breaking down (some of the) prejudice in Australian society. Also noting that he represented (and in some ways created) the 'modern' notion of an Australian military commander, that is someone who is responsible for every aspect of the success and welfare of the troops under their control, and who has - in theatres where they might operate under the control of other nation's commanders - an independant responsibility to the Australian Government to protect their troops' interests - although Blamey might take credit for consolidating that attitude. The attitude of Australian commanders in Vietnam reflects this, and in some ways explains how they came to be criticised for achieving some success in pacifying the province they'd been given control of, rather than engaging the enemy in large pitched battles. I'll come back to this in a while, I'm mostly involved in Antarctica and mountaineering (where I have maps and diagrams to finish off).Tban 00:37, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a view that Bean's objection to Monash was that he was 'pushy' (or ambitious) rather than Jewish. Bean's prejudice show's in his choice of words to describe such behaviour (to paraphrase) as typically Jewish. Bean favoured other candidates who were more self-effacing, and had a view that it was not in the (correct) Australian character to (again paraphrasing) 'beat your own drum too loudly'. Bean's ideal commander it seems was (in his mind) a man whose talent was evident to his troops, and who was elevated to the position of command by the decision of his troops. This was largely what happened in lower levels of command (troops while they didn't vote their commanders 'into place' had the capacity to remove them simply by performing well for some and not for others). Bean was mistaken (as he later admitted) to think that a 'quiet achiever' was necessarily the best person at the highest level of command, where the commander not only had to operate with the men under their command, but with allies and higher command with sometimes very different (and strongly held) views of the world. Put another way, Monash was keen to 'get in charge of the whole show' in order to have it run properly by a strong man'. Essentially an engineer taking control of a project that he saw as having previously been under 'variable' management (referring particularly to Gough and Haig), whose deficiencies had cost a great many lives for very little gain. It's a little glib to put it this way (but it captures the essence of it): Monash treated battle as engineering exercises, but was mindful that there were people in the middle of it all. That he was 'so different' to Bean's conception of what a commander should be, and that he (by his achievements) persuaded Bean to change his mind hints at what I was talking about when I made reference to Monash's impact on Australian society and it's view of 'outsiders'.Tban 23:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Australian Engineer

Shouldn't JM have a link to "Category:Australian_engineers" ? Afterall he did oversee construction of several important bridges, and part of the Melbourne railway line... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by BrisbaneLion (talk • contribs) 11:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

Copyright

To the wikipedia staff: I believe that quite a bit of the content used has been directly copied from AWM which clearly being a gov site has copyright protection, if it is not removed then what are people supposed to think of this encyclopedia?!

I don't know all the details, particularly as they pertain to the Australian case, but I do believe that as a rule, government documents are in the public domain. Government control is, after all, the difference between "public" and "private" ownership, is it not? LordAmeth 11:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

This is not the case in Australia. All government works are under Crown copyright. See also Australian copyright law.--cj | talk 19:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Businessperson?

I see that user 192.190.180.20 added "Australian engineers" as per the suggestion of BrisbaneLion above, but also "Australian businesspeople". What's the basis for that category? If he had a notable business career on top of everything else, shouldn't there be some mention of that career in the article itself? Zsero 04:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Removing "most of youth"

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100533b.htm "at Jerilderie, New South Wales, where John attended the public school in 1875-77"

2 years is not most of his youth, and is insignificant —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Shniken (talk • contribs) 09:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Arthur Currie

I changed the link to include his first name as it is the first time he is mentioned in the article. I also removed the apostrophe from the word "German's"; it should I think be "Germans." Joe Dick 01:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Kelly connection

An issue of an Australian heritage magazine, quite possibly 'Australian Heritage Magazine', but I am not sure, I recently read had a very detailed multipage main article on General Sir John Monash, indeed, this is why I read said magazine, and said article.

In this article it stated that Monash's father was a some time horse breaker and seller who often took young John with him when conducting this business, and, on occasion, 'procured' (rustled) horses from local British staioners. It also stated that one the better customers of the Monash's during this time was one Ned Kelly.

It was said that Kelly wasnt particularly racist, but considered there to be two types of Germans. Bad ones, and Good ones: Bad ones assimilated into the Empire and worked with the English, Good ones didn't, they stole horses (apparently a common practise amongst the immigrant Germans of South Australia and Victoria in the late 19th Century ). So, this article stated, he considered the Monash's good people, and young John met him on more than one occasion.

Further, it went to say that Monash's father recalled Kelly and his son sometimes joking and having private conversations whilst he organised the return trip to town. Monash himself, the article claimed, confirmed this in later years. He also said that once he and Kelly had a very intimate, if brief, conversation where Kelly gave advice and lessons that made and indellible impression on him from then on. Lesson he claimed later he drew on more than once during the course of his Accademic, Military and Engineering careers. Though through his entire life he apparently never went into any more detail on the matter than that, and to this day no one actually knows what he might have taken from his brief (and illegal: Kelly was public enemy number one, to be shot on sight, with total immunity to prosecution to anyone who pulled the trigger)association with the imfamous Ned Kelly.

Though this only happened relatively infrequently, and in no way was Kelly any sort of mentor to the young Monash, and only for a breif period in Monash's life (he was in his early teens I beleive, or so the article stated, during this time) I cant help but feel due to fact that this wasnt just any mere aquaintence of two individuals, but one between Australia's most imfamous, yet revered, Folk heroe, and Australia's most celebrated military commander, that it would be approprate for some one associated with the Australian Wiki project to verify this story and, if substanciated, include it in the section of Monash's early life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apis4 (talk • contribs) 14:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Stature edit, undone

I removed a large amount of material added, here. The style was anecdotal and digressive, the substance of the inclusion was to illustrate the 'stature' of Monash according to Menzies. I have not read the reference given, so I was unable to copyedit the inclusion. cygnis insignis 07:40, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Engineering

More is needed on Monash's engineering work (with the firm Monash and Anderson). He was a pioneer in the use of reinforced concrete in Victoria and his practice was reasonably successful. Monash himself claimed that it was his engineering approach to military operations that gave him his success. Iain Stuart (talk) 21:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Ethnicity

Why did someone revert my unlogged eidtion about his Polish Jewish, not Prussian Jewish origins? Kowalmistrz (talk) 20:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC) THIS IS MY SOURCE for the edition: Orły w krainie kangurów. Polacy w Australii do 1918 roku, Warsaw 2008. ISBN 9788391896532, link to the catalog of the National Library of Poland - http://alpha.bn.org.pl/search*pol/t?SEARCH=or%B3y+w+krainie+kangur%F3w. He is listed there as one of great Australians with Polish roots. The book was published by the I.J. Paderewski Museum of Polish Emigration in Warsaw, in co-operation with the Australian Embassy in Poland. I've heard about it at the openning of exhibition at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, divided to Polish Australians and Polish-Australian history and relations, Mrs Ambassador of Australia HE Ruth Pearce attended the event. Some source to that- http://aktualnosci.umk.pl/serwis.php?dzial=Aktualnosci&id=20081022144518 Krotoszyn, where Monoash family lived, was part of the Prussian Partition of Poland, and now finally part of the Republic of Poland, by the way :-p. Kowalmistrz (talk) 21:04, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

No doubt the place is in Poland now, but plenty of other sources describe him as being of German origin, and certainly being a German speaker. I think we need to reflect the variance in the sources, rather than making it as cut-and-dried as you would like. Are you sure you have the ISBN correct by the way, when I click on the auto-generated link to special:Booksources, I can't find any trace of it, even on the Polish catalogues. Really you need to put your source int eh article where I've indicated, using the {{cite book}} template to match up with the other sources already in the article. David Underdown (talk) 21:19, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I will go to the University's Library and check this ISBN. But, I think we do not need any source to state that his family was from Krotoszyn, cause I've read this in the [2] note, link to Australian Dictionary of Biography. And to write that it was under the Prussian Partition, it's widely known history of Poland. Hmm, http://alpha.bn.org.pl/search*pol/t?SEARCH=or%B3y+w+krainie+kangur%F3w - this is the National Library's catalogue, results of seraching this book. Does it open to you? Kowalmistrz (talk) 00:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't doubt he was born in what's now Poland, the point is that doesn't necessarily make hm of Polish ethnicity. We have other sources that decribe his family as being German, and they certainly seem to be German speaking, though I appreciate that the matter of language and ethnicity is not clear-cut at this time. Th elink you give does work, but trying to search on the ISBN http://alpha.bn.org.pl/search/i?SEARCH=9788391896532 doesn't. David Underdown (talk) 10:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Monash was born in Melbourne. His father Louis Monash came from Krotoszyn. His mother was from Stettin. I don't need sources to know that he was fluent in German; I can wander down the road to the National Library and read his German writings in his own hand, from writings as a child to translations of the Kavalleritische Monatshefte. Through his writings in the Australian Military Journal and elsewhere, Monash was influential in introducing German ideas to the Australian Army. This later developed into an important cause of difference in the method of command between the Australian and British Armies. Louis Monash considered himself to be German. He called his house Germania and he was for a time head of the Deutche Verein. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Oops, to say born was a stupid slip, had family origins in was what I meant. I think we're generaly in agreement though, although that would now be in Poland, there's pretty good evidence that he didn't consider that his ethnicity. David Underdown (talk) 09:55, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Citation

Should a citation be added since the quote:

the true role of infantry was not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort, not to wither away under merciless machine-gun fire, not to impale itself on hostile bayonets, but on the contrary, to advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources, in the form of guns, machine-guns, tanks, mortars and aeroplanes; to advance with as little impediment as possible; to be relieved as far as possible of the obligation to fight their way forward.

is found on... http://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/1918/people/genmonash.asp and accounts of what happened in the war were donated to them by the descendants of the decorated war heroes such as General Sir John Monash, GCMG, KCB, VD. so it would make sense would it not?

Done. The quote is widely distributed on the internet, but finding the actual source took some time. Google Books saves the day again. Billingd (talk) 05:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Anachronistic sentence?

From the lead - "The assumption that his parents were Polish seems to be based on the fact that they originated from a part of Silesia which has been part of Poland since the Second World War."

Monash died in 1931. What does Silesia's status since WWII have to do with anything here? HiLo48 (talk) 02:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems to have been added due to the #Ethnicity section above. I agree it doesn't seem relevant. I would say remove/reword as you see fit. Jenks24 (talk) 00:28, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Can't help but notice that Krotoszyn never really belongeded to Silesia, but to Greater Poland (Wielkopolska), in Poland for a couple of centuries, since Middle Ages, really. So there's that. But HiLo makes a good point, after WWII Poland got cities that were not populated by Polish, ever before (eg. Szczecin/Stettin), so status of a city after 1945 has nohing to do with it's ethnic compostion back in XIX century 79.163.56.214 (talk) 20:25, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Peaceful penetration

Picking up that peaceful penetration (a tactic of vigorously patrolling in front of the 'front line' and attacking isolated enemy outposts) has been 'attributed' to Monash. A careful reading of Bean might help, but just briefly the tactic only became viable when the Germans adopted a 'defence in depth' approach in 1918 which resulted in them setting up a chequer-board of positions in front of their main front-line. As crops grew in the spring of 1918 (the front line having largely moved into fresh ground), Australian's started attacking these outposts through the crops during the day and in night patrols. The first attacks were initiated by the troops (very small groups of men), and there was some suggestion (as I recollect)that it was 'frowned upon' (and disbelieved) by commanders initially. The effect on the German troops was as much psychological as tactical, but over time it led them to 'pull back' their isolated posts, and allowed the Australians to set up posts themselves closer to the main German lines. There had been since Gallipoli a policy of 'active patrolling' by the Australians in front of their own lines, basically seeking to control the ground otherwise known as 'no man's land' and this was a further expression of that, and vindication of the tactic. So while peaceful penetration allowed the Australians to 'improve' their position prior to the 'set-piece' battles (of which Hamel was an excellent example) and psychologically 'wear down' the Germant troops, it was not essentially a 'battle tactic' and couldn't be attributed to Monash. Tban 23:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Active patrolling to control "No Mans Land" and trench raids to gather intelligence, kill & capture Germans and keep the men on their toes and stop unofficial truces getting out of hand (eg. the "Live and Let Live" system, ritualised artillery exchanges at the same time every day) were encouraged throughout the BEF forces throughout the war and doubtless in other armies as well - as were infiltration tactics later in the war.

Haking was known to the Australians as "Butcher Haking" because of his love of trench raids, according to some sources, although Fromelles was somewhere between a very large raid and a small offensive by British standards and resulted in relatively large Australian losses.Paulturtle (talk) 01:30, 28 June 2011 (UTC)