Emu War

Great Emu War
Part of	The Great Depression
The Great Emu War in a nutshell
Date	1932
Location	Western Australia
Causes	Emus eating crops
Status	Ended
Result	Decisive Emu victory
Territorial changes	Western Australia
Belligerents
Australiaball Royal Australian Artillery
Emus
Commanders
Sir George Pearce (refered to as Minister of the Emu War) Major G. P. W. Meredith
Emus
Strength
Two soldiers Two Lewis Guns 10,000 rounds of ammunition
20 000 birds
Casualties
Pride Dignity Self confidence IG User: @synced_stuff - Real Name: Jack 10,000 rounds of ammunition(10 rounds per confirmed kill)
986 birds
Notes
Apparently this is still considered a "war."

Was it a war?

The Great Emu War was a "war" between Australiaball and emus, which are a species of flightless birds native to Australia.

Explanation of the war

This "war" was not an actual war, rather it was a campaign to lower the population of Emus that infested rural farms and communities. People who lived in the Outback found their aggressive nature particularly annoying. And to get a nice new feather hat.

Background

Soldier Settlements

After the First World War many Australia- I mean Aussie veterans that fought along side the Entente saw farming as a great new hobby and pursued by the Australian Government, they took up farming in Western Australia.

Great Depression

When the Great Depression started in 1929, these farmers were ordered to increase the production of wheat, with the Australiaball government promising subsidies, which they forgot to deliver. In October 1932 kept going down and farmers were losing everything.

Arrival of emus

With the arrival of 20,000 emus to the area, for breeding purposes. The "wheat belt" (a ring in which most of the farms in Western Australia were located, situated around Perth). The emus would run as fast as they could, run into the fences of the farms, which were placed to stop them, so that a large hole would be opened so that they could eat the wheat crops. Then they would eat a 6th part of the crops, leave and then the rabbits would enter though the same hole, effectively cleaning the area of any profitable remaining wheat that the farmers could use.

Meeting with the minister of defense

Farmers were angry about the birds eating their crops so after going to the minister of agriculture, which had done little about the situation a group of ex-soldiers went to the Minister of Defence, Sir George Pearce. Since the soldiers had fought in WW1 they knew how effective machine guns were.

Use of the Emu War as a political tool by the Minister of Defence

The minister of defense then realized that he could help the farmers in Western Australia and gain their support, so that they could gain the support of the population of Western Australia or WA. WA had voted in a referendum on their status in the main community of Australia. The result was a clear victory of the population in favour of leaving. The referendum, still, saw low participation data.

Debate over machine guns

The Minister of Defense agreed on the use of machine guns, but they will only be held by official troops and the transport of troops would be paid by the Australiaball government.

The war

Planning

The Australiaball military was ordered to intervene in October of 1932. Major G. P. W. Meredith of the Australian Seventh Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery would go with 3 soldiers to gun down the emus. They thought it would be a very easy job. But if you know how a Ostrich is you can have a basic idea of how emus are. They are more though that they would have ever thought. The military also planned on using the feathers of 500 emus to make some cool feather hats for the light horsemen divisions of the army.

First attempt

First battle of the campion

The 2nd of November the small number of soldiers went to Campion, they were going to be involved in the first battle of the Great Emu War. They saw 50 emus in total. They tried shooting at them but they were too far of the Australian Machine Guns. Then local settlers made a ambush and tried catching the birds but they too failed, as the emus ran away in small numbers everywhere. They were able to kill a "number of birds with a second round of ammunition.

Second Battle of the Campion

Near a local dam, also in Campion, a group of approximately 1,000 birds were spotted running towards the Australian positions. This time the gunners opened fire when the Emus were closer to their positions. Only 12 birds were killed as the only weaponry the soldiers had at their disposal, the machine gun, jammed.

1ST AND 2ND BATTLES OF CAMPION: EMU VICTORIES

Organization of the Emu Army

Meredith moved south where there wasn't many birds. On the fourth day a observer of the army realized that the emus were getting organized in groups of five birds with a commander: -"one of the emus in the group gets up and watches the action while the rest of the emus conduct their aggressive war tactics against the australian dun dun bullets."-

Debate

By November the 9th the Australian army had wasted 2,500 rounds of ammunition of the 10,000 at their disposal. But there was an important debate over how much did those bullets went into waste. Some sources listed 12, others 50 and some even 200 to 500 emus.

The Australian Government was generally favorable to the continuation of the war against the emus. An ornithologist said that the Emus were using guerilla warfare, which lowered the Australian morale. Meanwhile, 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 can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop"

Result

The Great Emu War between the Man community of Australia, supported by the royal artillery, machine guns and 3 soldiers would keep on fighting against the 20,000 emus in Western Australia.

Second attempt

How it started

The second stage of the war had begun when the military withdraw. It wasn't a total withdraw, just a temporal one to see if the birds would react by leaving the area. They did not, and in fact, the crops were again being attacked by Emus. Farmers asked for support once again and with the emus invading farms in the wheat belt of Western Australia the Premier of Western Australiaball, which was strongly in favour of helping the farmers. The military assistance was renewed and so the army returned the 12th of November. As the Minister of Defence renewed the act of the war on emus it began again.

The last battle of the Emu War

First 2 days

The military headed for the valley the 13th of November of 1932. The military started a 27 day long battle that would be remembered as the time when the Australians fought slightly back. In the first 2 days the brave Australian soldiers saw success fighting the evil emu population, seeing as much as 40 dead emus in under 48 hours.

Rest of the battle

By December the 2nd the Australian Minister of Defence claimed that they were giving death to 100 emus per day in the territories that belonged to the Wheat ring in Western Australiaball.

Surrender of Australia and end of the Great Emu War

The 10th of December Meredith received a horrible story. They had only 140 remaining ammunition weapons left of the 10,000 they had at the start of the Operation. The Australians couldn't resist. The white flag rose over the Campion district. The Emus had won.

Aftermath

Immediate reaction

By December of 1932 the British public heard for the first time of the Emu War. Ecologists called the war a massive extermination event of the Emu bird and conservationists saw this as a act against the rare Emu Bird.

Reaction by the farmers

Massive chain-link fences were built around Australian farms in the 30's as a result of the 2 month-long campaign against the Emus. This helped protect the farms since the Emus are unable to break these chain fences.

Act of 1950

In November 1950 the government of Australiaball, made an act giving farmers about 500,000 rounds of ammunition of .303 bullets.

To this day

Why it became popular

The Emu War is still used as a way to ridiculize the Australian Nation and "thanks" to globalization the whole world can now hear about the Emu War.

Critics in the Internet

Many people (especially in USAball) make fun of Australia for "fighting birds for no reason" and as a Texan said on Twitter "Lol! those aussies fight f*****ng birds? How dumb!" Most of these people have no context and see this as the time Australia "fought with tanks" some big chickens. This is why the people of Australia have such a hard time defending their armamentistic capacities with the whole world dramatizing a small campaign that was just 3 dudes with a machine guns shooting birds.

Sources

1. Emu War