Britain's war was ours too
Britain's war was ours too - Patrick Walters, The Australian.
Quote:
AUSTRALIANS learned they were at war with Germany at 9.15pm on Sunday, September 3, 1939, from a nationwide radio broadcast by prime minister Robert Menzies.
Menzies' belief that Australia was automatically at war following Britain's declaration of war just hours earlier in response to Germany's invasion of Poland came despite the strong reservations of the opposition Labor Party at the prospect of involvement in another European war just two decades after the end of the "war to end all wars".
"We in Australia are involved because the destruction or defeat of Great Britain would be the destruction or defeat of the British Empire and would leave us with a precarious sense of our own independence," the then United Australia Party prime minister had declared just a week before.
By midnight on September 3, Australia and New Zealand were the only nations outside Europe that had declared war on Germany. Other British dominions summoned their parliaments and debated the issue before following suit, with South Africa declaring war three days later and Canada on September 10.
When the Australian parliament met on September 6 no one, including opposition leader John Curtin, queried the prime minister's immediate declaration of war three days before. There was no sense in the parliament that Australia was being dragged into "other people's wars"...
