The first settlers arrived in Australia 35,000 years ago during the great ice age. The sea levels lowered between Indonesia and New Guinea and created a land bridge that would allow nomadic tribes to cross from Southeast Asia. Like many other humans of that epoch, they were hunters and gatherers and traveled from place to place in search of young creatures. Thousands of years after these drifters arrived; the glaciers thawed and brought up the seas once again, which kept the citizenry of Australia permanently in that esteem. The people that inhabited Australia before the English settlers were known as Aborigines or the Australian Aboriginals. Aborigines occupied most of Southeast part of the continent on the shoreline, as well as all parts …show more content…
Australia gave full support to Britain and received an overwhelming number of volunteers with over 400,000 men enlisting. Australia took in its first activity at Rabaul on September 11, 1914 with the Australian Naval and Expeditionary Forces taking possession of German New Guinea. Australia would fight on many fronts and campaigns to include the Western and Middle East fronts. Along the Western front, Australia fought in Gallipoli along with New Zealand, France and Britain. The battle ended in stalemate with the evacuation of all the forces. After Gallipoli Australian forces split into five divisions and transferred to France and the Middle East. In 1916, Australia encountered trench warfare at Fromelles where they suffered 5,000 casualties in the first 24 hours. At the close of the year in 1916 Australia suffered more than 40,000 killed in action on the western front. In the Middle East, the Australian fought more like a mobile military unit with their light cavalry brigades. In three years of contending in the Middle East, Australia looked very little casualties with 1,300 killed or wounded. Australia lost more than 60,000 Soldiers and 156,000 wounded when the Great War ended in