Australians fought to defend democracy during the Great War. But the greatest triumph of democratic values wasn’t on distant battlefields in Europe, it was in the polling booths back home. In 1916 and 1917, in two bitterly contested referenda, the Australian people voted against conscription. Great Britain introduced compulsory military service after the slaughter of the Somme, and most of her dominions did the same soon after. Australia would have the distinction of fielding one of the few volunteer armies in the world. No man would be forced to die or kill for his country.

Australian citizens may not have been forced to fight, but what of those born outside Australia? In 1914, the Italian community in Australia numbered several thousand. Most worked in the cane fields of Queensland and the remote minefields in Western Australia. It was poorly paid labour, work many Australians of British descent thought beneath them. But the Italian community made a crucial contribution to the national economy, and their clubs, restaurants, music schools and academies enlivened and diversified a largely Anglophile culture.

Italy entered the war in 1915. Italian citizens in Australia were immediately invited to join the colours. In 1916, the Australian Government offered space on AIF transports to take reservists to Europe. Then came conscription. As Rome faced one military disaster after another on a mountainous northern frontier, the Italian consulate in Melbourne called up male citizens aged between 18 and 43. They were to report for a medical assessment and, if deemed fit, they were dispatched to holding camps run by the Australian Army. Those who failed to comply, a sternly worded directive warned, ‘will be considered guilty of desertion and coercive measures prescribed by law will be taken against them.’1

Coercive measures prescribed by law: A leaflet produced by the radical press and distributed in Sydney. The War Precautions Act entailed a massive curtailment of the freedom of the press. Leaflets like this could be confiscated and those distributing them imprisoned, their actions deemed ‘prejudicial to recruitment’. NAA: MP367/1, 592/4/295 courtesy National Archives of Australia.

The Australian Government was to be the instrument of that coercion. And a willing instrument at that. Rebuked by defeat in the conscription referenda, the Nationalist Government under Billy Hughes did all in its power to compel Italian citizens to serve. Some accepted their fate, answering ‘with a heavy heart’ the ‘urgent call of their mother county’; others were persuaded by promises of support for the families they left behind; and some were forcibly deported, Giovanni Ferrando amongst them.2

Signor Ferrando was a former consul for the Kingdom of Italy, a successful businessman and twenty-two years an Australian resident. He had volunteered for service in the early days of the war, only to be classed as medically unfit, suited only for what was called ‘sedentary service’. By 1918, his health had further deteriorated. Medical officers noted with concern a weak heart and a nervous condition, and at the time of the call-up Ferrando was recovering from a serious operation. But that did not lesson the resolve of either the Italian Consul, Signor Eles, or the Australian Minister for Defence, Senator George Pearce. The former was a professional rival of Giovanni Fernando’s, ‘activated’, some said, ‘by spite’ and ‘petty jealousies’. Eles was determined to support his beleaguered Italian allies and willing to make an example of this well-connected ‘shirker’. Ferrando was told to leave Broadmeadows Military Hospital for service in Italy. He refused to do so. Pearce exercised executive powers under the War Precautions Act and ordered his immediate deportation.3

The Ferrando case made the headlines in Australia. He appealed to the High Court against the deportation order, protested at the curtailment of his liberty and claimed military authorities boasted of ‘rounding up’ all his countrymen.4 Fernando was 41 at the time of his arrest – over the age limit for deportation under a treaty signed by the British and Italian governments. Even so, with one dissenting judgment, the High Court upheld the government’s decision. Ferrando was sent under escort to a transport ship leaving for Europe.

The same labour movement that had rallied against conscription viewed the attack on the Italian community as an ‘outrage’. ‘This country has twice refused conscription,’ Percy Brookfield, MLA, told a gathering in Sydney’s Town Hall, ‘it is up to us to see that none of us are deported against our will.’

Further to the left of the political spectrum, the Industrial Workers of the World and the Australian Socialist Party warned deportation orders were ‘conscription by stealth’ and that the same coercive measures would soon be turned against Australian workers. Within the Italian community there was a small subversive element. Intelligence officers described Felice Corro as a ‘foreign agitator’, whose language was as immoderate as his appearance. Subject is dressed in ‘the revolutionary attire of the Italian Republicano’ ‘a red shirt, green sash and black handkerchief around the neck’.

Corro . . .  addressed the meeting in both Italian and English language, and exhorted his hearers to make every effort to prevent the deportation of Italian citizens . . .  and resist it to their last drop of blood. [He] would be willing to wear the revolutionary uniform and march in procession to the Domain on Sunday next, when the Anniversary of Garribaldi’s(sic) birth would be celebrated with Garribaldian [sic] Songs and Music.5

The deportation of Giovanni Fernando is a stark illustration of how the political climate in Australia drifted to extremes in the final years of the war. The conscription referenda, the great strike of 1917, and the draconian exercise of government powers under the War Precautions Act, created an atmosphere of crisis and fostered bitter divisions. In this particular case it served no real purpose. On arrival in Italy, Giovanni Ferrando was again deemed unfit for service, decorated by the King for his services to Italy and duly returned to Australia.

At the end of the war, Ferrando sued both Senator Pearce and the (then) Italian Consul for damages. ‘[I]n applying deportation to all the Italians and especially to a man like me,’ he explained, ‘the Australian government . . .  Committed the greatest blunder ever made amounting to cruelty . . .  suffering [and] humiliation.’6

Deportation had damaged his reputation, ruined his health and caused considerable financial loss. But an even greater price was paid by those Italians deported to fight ‘the white war’ in the frozen heights of the mountains. A good many of those men never returned to their families. Seven hundred thousand Italian soldiers died during the Great War, over ten times the AIF’s losses.

Giovanni Ferrando lost his case against the Australian Government. Many foreign nationals active in the labour movement were deported and in the wake of the Great War, nationalist governments encouraged renewed British immigration to Australia. Australia in the 1920s remained bitterly divided. We had emerged from the Great War a less tolerant and less inclusive society.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING: This story draws on intelligence records held in the National Archives of Australia NAA MP367/1; and contemporary newspaper reports. For political divisions during the Great War see Ian Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics: the Dynamics of the Labour Movement in Eastern Australia, 1900–1921 (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1979); Robert Bolard, In the Shadow of Gallipoli: The Hidden History of Australia in World War I (Sydney: Newsouth, 2013) and Joan Beaumont, Broken Nation:Australians in the Great War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2013). For an account of the fighting on the Italian front see Mark Thompson, The White War: Life and Death on the Western Front (London: Faber & Faber, 2008) and for further background on the Ferrando case see ‘Captive Allies: Italian Immigrants in World War One Australia’ Karen Agutter, Close NLA, 2009, nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/australian-studies/article/view/1558/1865.

1 Royal Consulate of Italy for Australasia, ‘Call to Arms and Repatriation’, Italian Reservists Mobilization, NAA: MP367/1, 592/4/295.

2 President of the Italian Club ‘Savoia’ to Baron Sonnino, Rome, 10 September 1920, ‘Italians- Enlistment in AIF and Calling up of Italian reservists, NAA: MP367/1 592/4/1116.

3 Giovanni Ferrando Writ, 25 July 1918, Giovanni Ferrando, NAA MP367/1 592/4/1086.

4 Affidavit by Cavalier Giovanni Ferrando lodged in the High Court of Australia, Italian Reservists- Giovanni Ferrando, NAA: MP 367/1 592/4/115.

5 Meeting of Italians at Trades Hall, Goulburn Street, Sydney, 3 July 1918; Report by Sgt Mathew Saunders, Royal Consulate of Italy for Australasia, ‘Call to Arms and Repatriation’, Italian Reservists Mobilization, NAA: MP367/1, 592/4/295.

6 Statement made by Giovanni Ferrando on HMAT Baraka in the English Channel, 13 November 1918, Deportation of Italian Reservist G Ferrando, NAA: MP 367/1 592/4/973.