"World War I Scare Map: Germany Invades Australia" Topic

"Back when Australia thought it was just another British Isle, accidentally misplaced in the South Pacific, the country regularly had nightmares of an Asian invasion – with the Indians, Chinese and Japanese as most likely perpetrators (see #380 and #748).

Around the time of the First World War, a geographically more improbable source of invasion anxiety was grafted on this pre-existing paranoia – fear of a Teutonic takeover. This undated poster shows a map of Australia with its name struck through and replaced by New Germany.

After the takeover, the main cities Down Under – sorry, Ganz Unten – would also receive more appropriate appellations, named for the most part after the German military top brass in the War…"
Main page

link

Amicalement
Armand

But could the Germans beat the Kangaroos?

I recently read Wolf, which was about the German commerce raider of the same name in WWI. In the book they mention that people in Australia were apparently so panicked that the Wolf was running amok in Australian waters that there were arrests of Germans throughout the country.

Here in South Australia there was a fair amount of German immigration in the 19th century, so there were towns and villages with German names scattered through the Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley. Many of these were replaced with more politically acceptable British names during WW1. Today we still have the kitch German tourist showpiece village of Hahnhdorf, and Barossa Valley towns that celebrate their German heritage with brass bands and other cultural trimmings, and Adelaide has the annual booze-up that is… Schutzenfest!

When were we worried about invasion by India or China? Russia, and later Japan, were the big concerns. Immigration from India and China was another matter.

With regard to Henry Martini's comments, during WW1, St Kilda Football Club changed its colours from the German white, black and red to the Belgian yellow, black and red.

Was reading one of my wargame magazines and they talked about assisting Mexico (as in Zimmerman letter). My only question was HOW are they going to get a few dozen ships out of Germany and get them to Mexico. Now Germany was having food shortages during WW1 and they are going to sneak hundreds of merchant ships out of Germany for an invasion of Australia? Then what happens when UK and Japanese army (yes, Japan was at war with Germany) counter attack.

Read an interesting book "1903" about Germany's invasion of the United States in a sneak attack. I then checked my copy of Conway and found out the US had a stronger fleet in 1903 then Germany had.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

It would have been interesting to see how a German invasion of Oz might have altered the career of Sir John Monash, whose parents were Prussian Jews, and who spoke German fluently.