Fischer urges posthumous promotion for Monash
FORMER deputy prime minister Tim Fischer is campaigning to upgrade Sir John Monash’s place in Australian history and have the Australian Army Corps commander posthumously conferred with the rank of field marshal.
In his new book, Maestro John Monash: Australia’s Greatest Citizen General, the politician turned author has asserted that Monash was overlooked for the high rank due to populist World-War I-era prime minister Billy Hughes’s borderline anti-Semitism and a lack of national knowledge about Monash’s achievements.
“The ignorance over the huge contribution to this nation by John Monash never ceases to astound me,” Fischer told The AJN from his home in Albury-Wodonga.
Fischer claimed Hughes, and Australia’s official World War I historian CEW (Charles) Bean, shared an outlook “bordering on” anti-Semitism in keeping Monash down. Bean’s historical record of the war impacted on the downplaying of Monash’s role in the Australian War Memorial, while the Imperial War Museum in London, at Fischer’s urging, has only now acknowledged the Jewish general’s contribution to the Allied victory.
Monash was kept at the rank of lieutenant-general despite his energetic work during 1919 in demobilising Australian troops for the return home and remained at that rank for the remaining five years of Hughes’ prime ministership. Fischer also alleged that Hughes kept Monash in London, as he feared the wartime icon would return to Australia and launch a run for prime minister.
Researching his book for four years, Fischer toured the European territory that was World War I’s Western Front, and took advice from acclaimed author Roland Perry and Australian military historian Peter Pedersen.
He is also campaigning to have the dome in the State Library of Victoria formally named the John Monash Dome and have a number of streets and bridges renamed after the wartime general.
As the April 25 centenary of Australia’s Gallipoli landing nears, Fischer pointed out that it is exactly 100 years since Monash’s sea voyage to the European battlefields.
“I am going to be putting the case loud and strong for Sir John to get his due reward at last,” said Fischer.
PETER KOHN
Sir John Monash.
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