Following his arrival in London in late 1884, and understanding that Russian warships armed with highly effective Krupp guns were likely to be the principal foe of the Australian colonies, Major General Scratchley sought to gain approval from the War Office to purchase of a range of Breech-Loading guns for Victoria.
In December 1879 the guns at Queenscliff were dismounted to allow for the commencement of permanent fortification works and it was also decided that the four gun 80-pdr sandbag battery at Point Nepean was to be enlarged to six 80-pdr guns – with four of the guns to be replaced with heavier 10-inch RML ordnance, […]
This book is a biography of Humphrey James, who was born on 17 July 1831 in County Carlow, Ireland.
The author believes there are no previous in-depth examination of the two temporary sand-bag gun batteries constructed at Point Nepean during 1878-1882. Utilizing contemporary newspaper descriptions and five 1882 Fort Nepean drawings from the Australian National Archives collection, this article provides a comprehensive description of these two significant 19th Century defence works.
The purpose of this work revealed in his earlier publication Military Law in The Twentieth Century – The Development of a Common Disciplinary Code was the first in what might have been a trilogy covering three eras of Military Discipline in Australia.
In his foreword to this book, the Director of the Australian War Memorial, Dr Brendan Nelson, describes this volume as ‘a detailed look at an intriguing man’.
Logistics Exercises like this, small in scale and time by Easter camp standards though it was, still required considerable logistics – rations had to be arranged and issued to the soldiers to carry in their haversacks or ration carts pre-positioned in the exercise area, medical arrangements had to be made in case of exercise casualties, […]
Introduction 1888 was a particularly busy year in the life of the nascent Militia forces in Victoria. Formed in 1885 to replace in large part Volunteer forces which had been in existence since the mid- 1850s, Militia involvement in the social, civil and military life of this wealthy colony was already comprehensive and well reported.
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