Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny and Murder in the Great War,

[bushfighter]

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/dirty-diggers-prized-book-corrects-record/2387032.aspx?storypage=1

Although this book appeared last year I cannot find reference to it in GWF.

It should interest our Australian Members especially.

I am pleased that honest historical studies such as this are appearing, as we do need to balance the prevalent jingoism with perhaps unpleasant facts and reality.

Harry

[spconnolly007]

Same happened in the second world war with a lot of american soldiers, though Ive no doubt most armies turn out their fare share of undesirables when in conflict.

[centurion]

Since joining this forum I've been aware of some bad characters, occasionally had dark thoughts of murder but opportunities for sex let alone crime have been notably absent ( I think at least one mod might wish to lay a charge of mutiny). Am I missing something?

Slightly more seriously all nations have had their "brutal and licentious soldiery" throughout the ages (we have just had a local case of one convicted and jailed for horrendous crime) but I suspect that the prevalence of such people is far lower amongst the military than amongst the civilian population today. Given the numbers of soldiers in WW1 enlisted with little more than a simple medical check it would seem inevitable that a proportion of the pscho and socio paths in the general population would be swept into the net along with the morally retarded. It was Murdoch pere who promulgated the myth of fine upstanding bronzed (but not too bronzed) Australian youth being betrayed by diseased, stunted, retarded and morally corrupt British soldiery (an attitude still shown by at least one ex Australian actor and film director today). As one whose recent ancestral hunting has revealed a family member on the 1st Fleet [a pioneer of the government assisted passage and he didn't even have to pay £10 - indeed it was his removal of the same from someone on the high road that got him his fare] I can only give a wry smile. Australia like almost everywhere else has always had its criminal classes sometimes unduly glamorised (oh Ned where are you?)

[marmi01]

I read this when it came out in 2010. I thought Peter Stanley did a great job to cover the scoundrel elements of the AIF.

A very well written book and worth a read.

Mick