I decided to
tell you about one of the strangest wars. I’m sure, not many of you have heard
about it and probably won’t believe it has really happened. But it has. In 1932 in West Australia there was The Great
Emu War!
You might wonder
why Australians wanted to fight with these funny birds that look like an
ostrich. So… in 1932 in West Australia there was an Emu plague. Back then 20
thousand emu lived there!!! They are flightless 6
meter tall creatures. They love eating and one
day they decided to take over local wheat crops.
They trampled and ate grain; they also destroyed fences allowing rabbits to join
the fiesta. Eventually farmers couldn’t cope any more to watch their crops
being destroyed and decided to ask the army for help.
The Minister of
Defence, sir George Pearce, agreed to send soldiers under the following conditions:
1.
Only military
personnel can use rifles
2.
Transport of
the troops is financed by the West Australian
government
3.
Farmers provide
accommodation and food for soldiers, and they will pay for ammunition.
Sir George Pearce
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Sir_George_Pearce.jpg]
Farmers agreed
and two regiments of trained soldiers arrived to fight with the birds. Major
Meredith from Royal Artillery Australia became the commander of this military
operation.
2
regiments equals 3 battalions with 3,5 thousand soldiers in total!!!
They
also had two Lewis machine guns and 10 thousand bullets. It seemed like Emu
didn’t have any chance…
Lewis Machine Gun
[http://www.allworldwars.com/image/097/LewisMachineGun03.jpg]
The
war started on the 2nd of November 1932.
The
first day of combat was a total disaster. It turned out that emus could run
50km/h and even if hit by a bullet they are far from being killed to a big
surprise of soldiers.
After
a few days soldiers set up a trap at the wheat crop. One thousand emu went to
the place where soldiers were waiting for them. Despite that the birds managed
to escape and one of the machine guns broke down.
The
final strategy was to place a machine gun on a truck in order to catch up with
them and shoot. But birds were faster and ran away to the area
where shooting was very difficult. And at the end the driver bumped into a fence.
After the first week it turned out that 2500 bullets
were
shot and there were only 50 causalities among emu birds. No one from
soldiers got hurt.
The Australian House of Representatives was convened
to discuss the operation. After some negative press in the local media, the Minister of
Defence ordered to withdraw the troops. Unfortunately, after the troops left, emu birds continued to
ruin crops, so farmers asked for help, again.
James Mitchell, the Prime Minister
of West Australia, expressed a strong support for the military aid. During the second war, which started 13
November, soldiers were much more efficient in killing the birds. The war ended 10 December 1932. The soldiers
shot 9860 bullets and killed 986 birds.
Two
years later, in 1934, farmers asked for military help again. Also later in 1943
and 1948. However, after The Great Emu War the Australian government understood
that it’s pointless to start a war that couldn’t be won.
Major
Meredith said: "If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying
capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world. They could face
machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus...."
What do you
think about The Great Emu War?
Do you know
interesting and not so well know wars? If yes, share it with us!
What do I think about this war? I don’t know whether it is more ridiculous or embarrassing. Anyway absurd. I haven’t heard about it before, so from the beginning of presentation, I was firmly on the side of these big flightless. It seemed to me, that they haven’t chance, but they won. Bravo to them!!! As for the other sides of the conflict ..... no words. Intrigued by this story, I decided to find more information. To my surprise it turned out, that emu not invited rabbits to the feast. it’s a lie in order to conceal the human irresponsibility. The military foolishly, left the gate open in the dividing the continent for half, fence that protected the fields in front of rabbits. Comedy of human’s errors ..
ReplyDeleteDuring the search, I came across another embarrassing conflict with the animals. Unfortunately, in its result, the number of the victims on both sides was enormous.
“‘The campaign against the 'Four Pests' was initiated in 1958 as a hygiene campaign by Mao Zedong, who identified the need to exterminate mosquitoes, flies, rats, and sparrows. Sparrows – mainly the Eurasian Tree Sparrow – were included on the list because they ate grain seeds, robbing the people of the fruits of their labour. The masses of China were mobilized to eradicate the birds, and citizens took to banging pots and pans or beating drums to scare the birds from landing, forcing them to fly until they fell from the sky in exhaustion. Sparrow nests were torn down, eggs were broken, and nestlings were killed.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
Within a few days exterminated almost all the sparrows in China. Nature doesn’t like a vacuum. Food chain has been upended. When birds ran out, plagues of locusts and other pests that were normally eaten by the birds, begining to destroy the crop. Pests almost completely ate growing. Ecological imbalance is credited with exacerbating the Great Chinese Famine, in which at least 20 million people died of starvation. “Unofficial estimates vary, but scholars have estimated the number of famine victims to be between 20 and 43 million.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
Such was the balance sheet this senseless war with sparrows ...
@Mariusz- I'm very happy that my presentation made you curious and you made your own research :) I'm sorry about mistake with rabbits. I'm not an expert on this war. The Internet was my source...
ReplyDeleteKilling sparrows? Why?! They are so small! I can't believe they were such a big robbers to exterminate them :(
I've heard about this war some way back during my search through the Internet, and at first I was absolutely sure someone is trolling me. It's like a research that everyone thinks is real, because someone wrote about on the webpage - probably some of you still believe that "humans consume approximately seven spiders while sleeping during the whole lifetime", which is an example of internet trolling.
ReplyDeleteBut then... I realized it was true and I burst out with laughter. Australia is truely a weird place. Fun thing is, every Australian I've ever met thinks that it's the best place to live! When I ask them about spiders, scorpions and snakes, they reply "Well, it's not a big problem unless you live in the outskirts... I mean, you just have to check under every toilet seat in public places to see if there's no tarantulas there, but it's not a big deal at all". :)
And coming back to the subject - the best thing is, Emu won the battle. You go Emu!
@Martyna- I dream about living in Australia one day! Maybe it’s a little weird place, spiders and company are a bit terrifying but it’s still so beautiful country :)
ReplyDeleteWell, Emu Wars does sound really abstract to me. More like an episode from Monthy Pyton than a true thing. Everybody knows that power of naure is huge and very often people are not able to cope with it - even though our technology level is becoming higher and higer. But when you consider uncontrollable powers of nature, you think of tsunami's, volcano eruptions or similiar cataclisms. In this situation, all the problem to overcome were some BIRDS which actually even are not able to fly. I am really surprised that for so many years Australians did not come up with any better idea than shooting to fast-running creatures. Summarising, the conclusion is that maybe Australians just are not the brightest nation;-)
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about The Great Emu War?
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to know that you have to fire 10 bullets to kill 1 Emu. I still can't imagine how Emu could win this. I wonder if someone would make a movie about this :D There is enough material for a movie.. or three
Do you know interesting and not so well know wars? If yes, share it with us!
I don't know any interesting wars but I know a funny fact about 2nd World War. Did you know that King of the Dutch didn't realise his country was overrun by Germans until week or two later he met a German soldier in his garden and the German soldier ordered him to identify himself.
I'm surprised that such thing is even real it sounds like some urban legend! This case reminds me that humans without guns and other non-white weapons are very weak and it is only a temporay coincidence that we are "ruling" the world. Unfortunately I don't know any examples of not so well know wars but I'm looking forward to see others comments! This topic is quite interesting!
ReplyDelete@Michal- To make movie about the Emu war? That’s a great idea! I haven’t thought about it! I’m sure a lot of people would want to see it ;)
ReplyDeleteI also haven’t heard about the King of the Dutch. What a nice curiosity.
What do you think about The Great Emu War?
ReplyDeleteWell hey, first of all, how blind do you have to be to NOT kill a bird with 10 shoots. Seroiusly. Maybe that guy was throwing the bullets instead of shooting them. Or maybe he was shooting like nine in the air to scarre the bloody thing and then one to kill it. Who knows? There are many weird stories out there. Scientology ie.
Do you know interesting and not so well know wars? If yes, share it with us!
The great war between the people and alarm clocks. Did you notice that this thing can go on and on and on and on all the time. Who needs them? What is their purpose? It's either a conspiracy or war. Neither is good cause I had to wake up early...
When I first heard about it I couldn't believe it. It was so unbelieveable but at the same time very interesting. The war was a bit ridiculous as far as I am concerned. People should have foung better way to deal with this problem. But at least it makes funny story now…:)
ReplyDelete