Let me recall the first dark days of August 1914, when the minds of the people of the Australian Commonwealth were grappling with and striving to focus the position of the British Empire in the war into which they had been so precipitately hurled. On Sunday, 2nd August, I well remember in Melbourne an army friend of mine being hastily recalled from a tennis party; and when I went to see him at the Victoria Barracks that same night, I found the whole place a glare of lights from end to end of the grim, grey stone building. It was the same the next and the next night, and for weeks, and so into the months. But even when the Governor-General, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, sent to the Prime Minister (Mr. Joseph Cook), at noon on 3rd August the telegram bearing the announcement that we all knew could not long be withheld, the strain seemed unlifted. "England has declared war on Germany" was the brief but terrible message quickly transferred to the broadsheets that the newspapers printed at lightning speed and circulated, while the crowds in the streets cheered and cheered again as the message was posted on the display boards.
That night the streets were thronged (as they were for weeks to follow), and there was a series of riots, quickly subdued by the police, where raids had been made on German premises. Feeling was extraordinarily bitter, considering the remoteness of the Dominion. The Navy Office was barred to the casual visitor. Military motor-cars swept through the streets and whirled into the barracks square. Army and Fleet, the new Australian Naval unit, were ready. More than one person during those grey days felt a thrill of satisfaction and comfort in the knowledge that of that Fleet unit the battle-cruiser _Australia_ was greater and more powerful than any enemy vessel in Pacific waters.
Now it is no secret that arrangements exist with the British Admiralty under which the Commonwealth naval authorities receive at the first signs of hostilities a telegram in the nature of a warning. The second message simply says "Strike." The fact that the Navy Office in Melbourne received its warning cablegram not from the Admiralty, but from a message sent from H.M.S. _Minotaur_, then flagship of the China Squadron, asking particulars concerning the Australian unit, and "presuming" that the naval authorities had received their warning, was only subsequently whispered. Where, then, was the Australian message? The original cable apparently was sent at the moment when Mr. Winston Churchill and Prince Louis of Battenberg between them took steps to keep mobilized the Grand Fleet in British waters, subsequent to the review, and sent them forthwith to their war stations. According to the pre-arranged understanding, the Australian unit was to pass automatically under the control of the Admiralty. Urgent wires were sent to the then Minister of Defence, Senator E. D. Millen, who was absent in Sydney, and the missing cablegram was brought to light in his possession. As soon as that final message came, the Australian ships, having coaled and prepared, moved to their war stations. It is not within the scope of this brief review to go further into this naval mobilization, though I shall make reference later on to the Fleet unit and its war history.