Queensland in World War I

[1] The outbreak of war created a heightened sense of patriotism; the recruitment call for Queenslanders to volunteer for the Australian Imperial Force met its initial quota of 2500 enlisted men by September 1914.

With an increasingly active and unionised workforce, vocal and radical anti-war groups, and a change of government in 1915, the people of Queensland struggled to find a partisan approach towards the war.

Foreign-born reservists of combatant counties were considered to be prisoners of war; some were interned while others were paroled to move freely within the community provided they regularly reported to police.

[3] Anti-German sentiment led to a Cabinet direction in 1916 that persons of German or Austrian birth were not to be employed in the Queensland Public Service if there were British nationals available for the task.

Throughout the war Queensland police were required to maintain secret surveillance on members of the Turkish, Syrian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Italian communities across the state.

At the behest of the Queensland War Council, police also provided assessments of the moral character of soldiers' wives who were receiving assistance.

The Queensland Government's Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act 1917 provided land and financial assistance for which all returned servicemen could apply.

Relatively small numbers of women were accepted as military nurses, and only after prolonged lobbying were the Voluntary Aid Detachments of the Australian Red Cross able to send units to overseas hospitals.