Case Study: Australian Prisoners of War in the First World War

Australian Prisoners on the Western Front, July 1916

The Great War was to be a terrible experience for the newly federated nation of Australia. A war that became a baptism of fire, killing tens of thousands of young men, also creating the foundation for new traditions of patriotism and an increasingly distinct national identity apart from Britain. 

Some 60,000 Australian military personnel were killed during the Great War, and about 160,000 were wounded. More than 4,070 Australians spent the war as prisoners. The Gallipoli campaign saw the first of 232 Australians captured by Ottoman [Turkish] forces. The AE2, Australia’s second war submarine, was sunk in the Sea of Marmara on 30 April 1915. Torpedoed by the Turkish boat Sultan Hissar, the 32-man crew was forced to abandon ship, and all were taken prisoner. The crew of the AE2 were put to work on building a railway in southern Turkey. Suffering from disease and starvation, four died in captivity.

Other Australians were captured during the Gallipoli and Middle Eastern ground campaigns, and Australian airmen were also captured in what is now Iraq. One-quarter of Australian POWs died in Turkish captivity due to poor food and disease.

Four Australian Officers Held Prisoner in Turkey

On the Western Front battlefields, from 1916 to 1918, 3,853 Australian troops were taken prisoner by German forces, most of them held in Germany. A third of these Australian prisoners were captured on 11 April 1917 at the First Battle of Bullecourt in northern France. A number of Australian airmen were also shot down and captured by the Germans. 

Although these Australian prisoners survived in proportionally higher numbers than their comrades in Ottoman camps, their experience was a difficult one, and their captors were generally harsh. Conditions were crowded (the Germans held over five million Allied POWs during the war), and food supplies were often disrupted, particularly during the Allied blockade of 1917–1918. Many non-officer POWs were made to work for the Germans in war-related capacities—a direct breach of the Hague Conventions.

Sources: The History of Australian Prisoners of War by Rosalind Hearder; Australian War Memorials