At 9.15 pm on Sunday 3 September 1939, Australia’s Prime Minister, Robert Menzies (1894-1978), gave a radio address, announcing that Australia was at war with Germany:

The National Library of Australia holds primary documents relating to the announcement, including a photograph of the prime minister delivering the address, a sound recording of the broadcast, and a typed transcript of it.

In his speech, Menzies explained the two major events that led to Australia’s declaration of war. The first was the invasion of Poland by Germany.

German aggression

In 1933, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (better known as the Nazi Party) came to power in Germany under its leader, Adolf Hitler. Hitler moved quickly to consolidate power and to eliminate any political opposition.

In the mid- to- late 1930s, following a program of economic reconstruction and militarisation, Nazi Germany began making aggressive demands for territory. On the basis of its historical ties to neighbouring land, and a desire for Lebensraum (living space) for a perceived wider Germanic people, Germany seized both Austria and the Sudetenland (a German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia) in 1938 and 1939.

Much of Germany’s territorial expansion occurred under the terms of the Munich Agreement between the major powers of Europe. This settlement allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland—the Allies’ unsuccessful attempt to appease Germany.

When it looked like German expansion into Poland might be next, the British and French governments signed an agreement guaranteeing Poland’s sovereignty. The subsequent invasion of Poland by Germany led Britain and France to declare war at around 11 am, London time, on 3 September 1939.

Australian ‘Britishness’

The second event identified by Menzies in his speech as justification for Australia’s declaration of war was Britain’s own declaration of war. Because Australia was a self-governing British dominion at the time, if Britain was at war, Australia was duty-bound to support Britain. Accounting for the time difference between Britain and Australia, Prime Minister Menzies’ declaration of war came just over an hour after Britain’s.

Menzies was a firm believer in the Commonwealth, ‘a great family of nations’ based on common ancestry and allegiance to the Crown. As he stated in his speech:
There can be no doubt that where Great Britain stands, there stand the people of the entire British world.

There had been no Parliamentary debate on the decision to take Australia to war. But while Australians did not like the prospect of fighting another war, there was almost universal support of Menzies’ decision to declare war and for his explanation of its necessity. As Menzies later stated in his memoirs:

In the 1930s, Australians seeing themselves as British was not in conflict with a sense of ‘Australianness’. In his radio address, Menzies refers to Britain as the ‘Mother Country’. It is in this sense that Menzies has been described as having a similar attitude to an earlier prime minister, Alfred Deakin, albeit a generation later - as ‘an independent Australian Briton’.

If such a policy were allowed to go unchecked there could be no security in Europe and there could be no just peace for the world. A halt has been called. Force has had to be resorted to, to check the march of force. Honest dealing, the peaceful adjustment of differences, the rights of independent peoples to live their own lives, the honouring of international obligations and promises, all these things are at stake.

When the 1940 election resulted in a hung parliament and a minority UAP government, Menzies suggested a government of national unity to see out the duration of the war. The ALP had decided at a conference before the election that it would not support such a move:, its leader John Curtin suggesting instead an Advisory War Council, where the Government and opposition would have equal representation.

In late January 1941, Menzies left for London. Spending around four months overseas, he attended British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s War Cabinet, sought British reinforcements for Singapore, and toured the United States, lobbying Washington for intervention in the conflict.

Menzies was criticised for spending so much of 1941 abroad. Some even though he harboured ambitions to be the next British Prime Minister after Churchill. He returned home to find he had lost the support of his own party and was forced to resign. The independents who had made up the numbers for the UAP minority government withdrew their support and Labor leader John Curtin assumed the prime ministership.

Learning activities

1. Ask students about the nature of Australia’s relationship with Britain that led it to follow Britain into war.
2. Menzies famously described himself as ‘British to my boot heels’. Have students investigate Menzies’ heritage. Ask them whether there was a perceived conflict between being ‘British’ and being ‘Australian’ at the time.
3. Divide the class into groups and have them discuss the concept of ‘a ‘just war’. Ask them to investigate ‘just war theory’ as presented by Cicero and Thomas Aquinas.
4. Next, have the groups consider the following questions:
   • Do you agree that a ‘just war’ can exist?
   • Was World War 2 ‘just’?
   • Does it differ from subsequent conflicts in this sense?
   • Would you have enlisted to fight the Nazis in World War 2? What about Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan?
5. Ask students to imagine they are speechwriters for a head of government in September 1939. They have been asked to draft an address to the nation, following the declaration of war against Nazi Germany. Ask them what types of words they would use and what the tone of the speech would be.
   • Ask them how and why their speeches would be different from Menzies’ speech.
   • Ask students to write a short speech and swap it with a classmate, who will then deliver it.