Fascist Trenches

[Iain Stuart]

I think all this has been a quite fascinating discussion all stemming from John P’s desire to know what type of barbed wire the New Guard may have used to erect temporary barriers if indeed they erected them.

 

It does show that we need a typology of fascist organisations as we are in danger of confusing them and they exist at different times and places.

 

My understanding that there was a National Front organisation in the Western District of Victoria in the late 1980s stirring up the locals about issues such as Aboriginal land rights and the renaming of the Grampians. I imagine that there is a similar organisation behind the booing of Adam Goodes yesterday (a doubly disgraceful day – booing of Goodsy and the way the Swans played).

 

I have certainly seen on aerial images and excavated WWII air raid trenches but these would have been of a different design to the sort of front line trenches that the AIF (and the Germans) would have used in 1918 which would have been more like shallow scrapes to act as concealment.  More substantial constructions took longer and would have attracted quite a bit of notice. In any case the evidence seems to suggest that the “National Emergency” at Wedderburn was over in 12 hours.    

 

Cheers

 

Dr Iain Stuart

 

JCIS Consultants

P.O. Box 2397

Burwood North

NSW 2134

Australia

 

(02) 97010191

Ia...@jcis.net.au

 

[John Pickard]

Hi Iain,

 

Despite my fetish and unhealthy obsession with rural fences and the developing technology used in components such as wire etc., my original question was purely about the trenches at Ouyen. So far I’ve seen nothing on wire being used to fortify Ouyen against the dreaded commos and tykes. Although a few barbed wire entanglements could have been more easily erected than digging regulation trenches, and there was almost certainly a lot of barbed wire in the district, it seems that the White Army in the area eschewed it in this case. Perhaps like the trenches, they didn’t have enough time, or no member was willing to donate the necessary rolls of barbed wire.

 

Racism and extreme xenophobia has always been just below the surface in Australia. Pauline Hanson scratched that scab, and got a wonderful response from the morons. Abbott is more skilful, but encouraged by the shock-jocks, he is also scratching at the same festering sore, and he will continue to do this until enough people are revolted by his endorsement of such racism and xenophobia. The fascist organisations like the White Army seem to wax and wane, and unfortunately the current Reclaim Australia mob wrapped in Australian flags, is just the latest manifestation of this. Of course, there is a delightful irony that while they wrap themselves in the Australian flag to protest e.g. Chinese ownership of land in Australia, they seem to forget that that most (? all) the patriotic flags are made in China! But why should we expect any consistency from these morons who are so blinded by hate and ignorance?

 

A para-military group that operated in NSW in the 1970s (?) was the Croatian group Ustasha who had various training camps on the south coast of NSW. I wonder if any relics remain?

 

Meanwhile back to the trenches ... I have a vague memory of seeing zig-zag trenches (i.e. with diagonal bends to stop enfilading fire) beside a creek near St Ives Showground in northern Sydney. At the time I was just a kid, so my interpretation and memory may both be wrong. What always made me doubt that the things were trenches was the location: why dig trenches in the bottom of a valley where any one in them would be a sitting duck from either hill above the creek? Although I have tried to find them again, I’ve had  no success. So perhaps I was just mistaken all those years ago.

 

However, given the large military training camps in Royal National Park (just S of Sydney) in WW1, it is likely that some trenches remain lost in the scrub. There are certainly impact craters from artillery, and the odd bit of artillery shells / shrapnel still lying about in the scrub. But these relics are all from the military, and not the fascist armies.

Cheers, John

John Pickard
john.p...@bigpond.com

[Iain Stuart]

John,

 

The Ustashi were certainly active in the early 1970s I know because a schoolmate’s house was accidently firebombed by them as it was next to the Yugoslav Consulate in Melbourne. They were doing para military training in the Dandenong’s. Notoriously ASIO  was so focused on the Communists it had little or no information on the Ustashi leading to the Minister – Senator Ivor Greenwood denying their existence in Australia which prompted the ABC to film them at training. One of the many highlights of the McMahon Prime ministership.

 

You forgot to mention John Howard’s courting of the right wing over the Tampa and the stupefying non-response of the ALP at the time.

 

However we are endanger of dragging oz-arch into the shallow waters of “contemporary  archaeology” and the even more frightening world of “Historical Research”.

 

Cheers

 

Dr Iain Stuart

 

JCIS Consultants

P.O. Box 2397

Burwood North

NSW 2134

Australia

 

(02) 97010191

Ia...@jcis.net.au

 

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[john...@ozemail.com.au]

 

Hello,

Zig zag trenches were all over the place in WWII and you can see numerous on the old air photos near schools and factories.

Tell me exactly where to look at St. Ives Showground and I will check there too ... The military around there, and other spots in KMC LGA such at Fiddens Wharf and what is now upper Garrigal national park, in WWII certainly left stuff that people have since found with metal detectors .. many spent catridge cases plus length of thrown tread off a tank near St. Ives Showground.   This is only according to what locals tell me though .. I myself have seen nothing and found nothing.   I have been looking in the bush around St. Ives but for laterite ... not military remains.

Re "we are endanger of dragging oz-arch into the shallow waters of “contemporary  archaeology” and the even more frightening world of “Historical Research”, I agree .. and for operational reasons will say no more.

Cheers,

 

JohnB

(Also researching the early Macquarie Farm grant at St. Ives which I guess is mostly history; but there were wells there too and a brick-making site, and such things could have slight chance of archaeological potential -- unless already dug out by the galloping highrise construction ..  Macquarie Farm was around the Passionist Monastery).

 

 

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RE: {OzArch} Fascist Trenches