Australia ventures into intelligence

Led by flagship HMAS Australia, the Australian fleet enters Rabaul in 1914. While this was seen as a great triumph, Australian naval intelligence had already achieved a greater victory. This is the second in a new series on Australia's early intelligence activities. 

Reading John Faye’s 2018 book, Australia’s First Spies, I was struck by the relative sophistication of Australia’s early intelligence efforts. I was also struck by the way that bureaucratic and political infighting tarnished that early promise.  

Three intelligence networks were important in the first two decades after Federation.

The first and least important was military intelligence.

In November 1901, British Major General Edward Hutton was appointed as the first General Officer Commanding the newly formed Australian Military Forces. Hutton, an experienced soldier who understood the importance of intelligence and the need for armies to study other armies, began building military intelligence.

On 1 July 1909, Hutton was replaced by Australian born Major General John Hoad. Hoad was an ambitious man and an effective bureaucratic politician, but he had little knowledge of, or interest in, military intelligence, and the function decayed.

The second intelligence network was the civilian network established by Atlee Hunt.

A lawyer, Hunt had been Edmond Barton’s private secretary in the period leading up to Federation. In May 1901, Barton appointed Hunt as secretary and permanent head of the Department of External Affairs to which, until 1909, the Prime Minister's Office was also attached.

Hunt immediately began to build an intelligence network using, among others, the overseas trade representatives appointed by the Australian colonies, now states.

"The third and by far the most effective Australian intelligence network was that founded by the newly formed Royal Australian Navy"

It was Hunt who launched Australia’s first ever international spy mission in 1901 when Wilson Le Courtier was sent to the New Hebrides to spy on the competing French and British interests in that territory,

The third and by far the most effective Australian intelligence network was that founded by the newly formed Royal Australian Navy.

Today, we think of the successful invasion of German New Guinea in as the first successful action by the Royal Australian Navy.

That’s true at one level, but it’s not really correct. Arguably, the most important RAN success, one that had a significant effect on the outcome of the First World War, was the breaking of the German maritime ciphers.

I will tell you this story in my next column. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 23 January 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019  

Australia ventures into foreign policy - and spies

Raising the flag, Port Moresby 1883: This action by Queensland set the initial framework for both Australian foreign policy and its espionage activities. This is the first in a new series on Australia's early intelligence activities. 

In this new short series of columns I am going to take you into the world of Australia’s early spies, well before ASIO, ASIS and the alphabet soup of this country’s multifarious intelligence agencies.

In a way, Wednesday 4 April 1883 provides a useful entry point to our story. On that day, Henry Chester, the Police Magistrate on Thursday Island, raised the flag at Port Moresby to formally annex New Guinea and adjacent islands in the name of the British Empire.

Chester was acting on the instructions of the Queensland Premier, Sir Thomas McIlwraith.

The Australian colonies had been concerned for some time about the expansion of German power in the Pacific. They had asked the central Government to annex New Guinea, but also refused to pay any of the costs. In 1876, London declined.

Frustrated, McIlwraith. decide to act unilaterally.  

The British government repudiated the action. However, after the Australian colonies agreed to provide financial support, the British Government made the territory a British protectorate the following year.

Agreement was also reached between the Netherlands, Germany and Britain defining a key dividing boundary.

West Papua became a Dutch colony. The north eastern portion of the island became German New Guinea, the south eastern portion became British New Guinea, later Papua. Four years later, in 1888, Britain formally annexed the territory along with some adjacent islands.

In 1902, authority over Papua was effectively transferred to the new Australian Federation. With the passage of the Papua Act of 1905, the area was officially renamed the Territory of Papua, with Australia assuming formal control in 1906.

This simple tale provides the basis framework for understanding both Australian foreign policy and the emergence of Australia’s intelligence activities.

To the Imperial Government in London trying to balance costs and. imperial economic and political interests at time of growing competition between rising empires including that of the United States, the acquisition of new, distant and potentially costly territories was a low priority.

The self-governing Australian colonies and then the new Commonwealth of Australia were well aware of the imperial position, but took a different view.

While loyal to the Empire, they saw the South Pacific as their economic and political territory, wishing to establish a hegemony similar to that asserted by the Unites States over the Americas with the 1823 Munroe Doctrine. They were also concerned at the growing influence of other rival empires in the Pacific that threatened this dream. 

The end result was the early emergence of a quite distinct if parochial Australian foreign policy. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 16 January 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019