The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was the name given to all-volunteer Australian Army forces dispatched to fight overseas during World War I and World War II.
- First Australian Imperial Force (1914–18)
- Second Australian Imperial Force (1939–45)
Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the Commonwealth Military Forces were formed with a small regular army and a larger component of reservists in the Citizens Military Force (CMF). The CMF could not be deployed overseas, so the AIFs were formed in 1914 and 1939 respectively to provide troops for overseas service.
The two AIFs are distinguished by referring to the World War I contingent as the "1st AIF", and the World War II contingent as the "2nd AIF". During World War I, the Australian Flying Corps, the precursor of the Royal Australian Air Force, was part of the 1st AIF.
Members of the First AIF went on to serve in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1920 and many Australian First World War Memorials are to the Great War of 1914 to 1919 in recognition of this service.
The modern regular Australian Army was established in 1947 and its soldiers can be deployed anywhere in the world. Theatres where they have served include Korea, Malaya, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, various Pacific nations, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Famous quotes containing the words australian, imperial and/or force:
“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
—Vance Palmer (1885–1959)
“When your fathers fixed the place of GOD,
And settled all the inconvenient saints,
Apostles, martyrs, in a kind of Whipsnade,
Then they could set about imperial expansion
Accompanied by industrial development.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Collective guilt is borne by what is conventionally called the scapegoat. Now the scapegoat for white society—which is based on myths of progress, civilization, liberalism, education, enlightenment, refinement—will be precisely the force that opposes the expansion and the triumph of these myths. This brutal opposing force is supplied by the Negro.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)