Talk:John Monash

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More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: The John Monash page seems to have started as a military history page, but I note it also comes under the heading of Biography and Australian Studies. Information on Monash's earlier career is now being added. This is good, as he was 49 when he went to war! He had parallel careers in the part-time Militia and as a civil engineer. The former is summarised in a paper by Major E W O Perry, "The Military Life of General Sir John Monash", Victorian Historical Magazine, v28, Dec 1957, 25-42. As an engineer, Monash was responsible for many bridges, water towers, buildings, a wharf, and other projects. After working for various contractors and the Melbourne Harbor Trust, he went into partnership with J T N Anderson and was progressively the principal engineer in the Monier Pipe Company, the Reinforced Concrete & Monier Pipe Construction Co, and the South Australian Reinforced COncrete Co. After the war he became General Manager of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria. Unfortunately, the widely accepted view that he was Engineer of the Morell Bridge (as currently stated on the page) is almost certainly incorrect. The contract drawing for this bridge, which includes the graphical calculations, is signed by W J Baltzer and F M Gummow, on behalf of the firm Carter Gummow & Co (later Gummow & Forrest), based in Sydney. I have a theory as to how the 'myth' developed, but won't go into it unless anyone is interested. I have added Monash's birth date. Geoffrey Serle states that the family celebrated 27th, although Monash's official birth certificate shows 23rd. However, the clerk recorded the street name incorrectly, so it appears there was a failure to communicate. It would be good to see the militia and engineering careers included in this page. Amoorland (talk) 13:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC) Myth creation. My knee-jerk late-night response (above) was based on 10-year old memory. Double-checking in the cold light of day, I find that my photocopy of the drawing with the graphical calculations contains no signatures - only the stamp of Carter Gummow & Co. However, Monash & Anderson referred to it as "your drawing" in early correspondence with CG&Co. Another drawing showing improvements to one of the foundations is signed by F M Gummow. Baltzer's initials do not appear on any of my photocopies of drawings, but I am confident that as the technical expert who brought knowledge of the Monier system to Australia from Germany, and designed the Monier-arch aqueducts at Annandale, Sydney, which preceded the Morell Bridge, he was responsible for the initial calculations for Morell. There is additional circumstantial evidence. Both Monash and Anderson were capable of performing the necessary calculations, and did so for other bridges, but the weight of evidence in this particular case is that it was Baltzer. Amoorland (talk) 23:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC) (edit)

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Assessment comments The following comments were left by the assessors: (edit · history · watch · refresh) The John Monash page seems to have started as a military history page, but I note it also comes under the heading of Biography and Australian Studies. Information on Monash's earlier career is now being added. This is good, as he was 49 when he went to war! He had parallel careers in the part-time Militia and as a civil engineer. The former is summarised in a paper by Major E W O Perry, "The Military Life of General Sir John Monash", Victorian Historical Magazine, v28, Dec 1957, 25-42. As an engineer, Monash was responsible for many bridges, water towers, buildings, a wharf, and other projects. After working for various contractors and the Melbourne Harbor Trust, he went into partnership with J T N Anderson and was progressively the principal engineer in the Monier Pipe Company, the Reinforced Concrete & Monier Pipe Construction Co, and the South Australian Reinforced COncrete Co. After the war he became General Manager of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria. Unfortunately, the widely accepted view that he was Engineer of the Morell Bridge (as currently stated on the page) is almost certainly incorrect. The contract drawing for this bridge, which includes the graphical calculations, is signed by W J Baltzer and F M Gummow, on behalf of the firm Carter Gummow & Co (later Gummow & Forrest), based in Sydney. I have a theory as to how the 'myth' developed, but won't go into it unless anyone is interested. I have added Monash's birth date. Geoffrey Serle states that the family celebrated 27th, although Monash's official birth certificate shows 23rd. However, the clerk recorded the street name incorrectly, so it appears there was a failure to communicate. It would be good to see the militia and engineering careers included in this page. Amoorland (talk) 13:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC) Myth creation. My knee-jerk late-night response (above) was based on 10-year old memory. Double-checking in the cold light of day, I find that my photocopy of the drawing with the graphical calculations contains no signatures - only the stamp of Carter Gummow & Co. However, Monash & Anderson referred to it as "your drawing" in early correspondence with CG&Co. Another drawing showing improvements to one of the foundations is signed by F M Gummow. Baltzer's initials do not appear on any of my photocopies of drawings, but I am confident that as the technical expert who brought knowledge of the Monier system to Australia from Germany, and designed the Monier-arch aqueducts at Annandale, Sydney, which preceded the Morell Bridge, he was responsible for the initial calculations for Morell. There is additional circumstantial evidence. Both Monash and Anderson were capable of performing the necessary calculations, and did so for other bridges, but the weight of evidence in this particular case is that it was Baltzer. Amoorland (talk) 23:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Contents 1 Image 2 Background 3 Peaceful penetration 4 Copyright 5 Australian Engineer 6 Businessperson? 7 Removing "most of youth" 8 Arthur Currie 9 Kelly connection 10 Stature edit, undone

[edit] Image

That's a much better picture, but it's clearly the property of the AWM, and I suspect the Wikipedia copyright police will make you take it down. Adam 12:12, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

From the AWM website:

You DO NOT have to seek permission to use the Memorial’s images for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. The watermark MUST NOT be covered, removed or edited.

I figured WP's {{msg:noncommercial}} covered it but this is my first attempt at uploading other peoples' work so I could well be wrong. As for the copyright of the image, if the portrait's copyright is held by the Crown then the copyright lasts 50 years from the making (according to http://www.awm.gov.au/shop/legal/copyright.asp ) so should now be clear. Or perhaps not. If it's in dispute, I can contact the AWM and ask. Geoff 00:18, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I didn't realise the AWM are so liberal with the use of their images. Now it's a question of whether posting the pic at a free but public encyclopaedia constitutes "personal, non-commercial use." It's at least debateable that it is, so you are probably safe.

Australian Copyright Council website http://www.copyright.org.au Information Sheet "Duration of Copyright" contains the statement that if copyright on a photograph expired prior to 1 January 2005, when the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement took effect, it remains in the public domain. Under the previous rules, copyright on photographs taken before 1 May 1969 lasted 50 years from the end of the year in which the photo was taken. As Monash died in 1931, copyright on any photographic portrait of him must have expired by the end of 1981 according to Australian law. So what we are discussing here is the (established) right of the owner of a particular print of a public-domain image to place conditions on, and perhaps require payment for, the use of copies made from that print. So far - cut and dried, at least in Australia. But in many cases several prints are extant, let's say one in AWM; one in SLV; one in a local Historical Society's archives; one or two in private hands. Presumably all these owners are entitled to invent their own rules (or none), as takes their fancy? But what about other copies of the image that are likely to exist in old books and newspapers? If the book is in the public domain (for the Monash era: author dead 50 years) can one buy it second hand and, becoming the owner of the prints it contains, make copies of them to one's heart's content? The same might apply to images in old newspapers, but I have not yet found anything on the ACC website referring specifically to copyright duration of newspapers. Can anyone clear these last points up? And is it contributors or Wikipedia that has to check the copyright laws of every country connected to the internet in case they are more restrictive than Aussie laws?

[edit] Background

"When war broke out in 1914 Monash became a full-time Army officer. Despite the anti-German hysteria of the time, there seems to have been no adverse comment on his German origins." I've always heard that he was Jewish not German.

The two things were not regarded as mutually exclusive in 1914-18. His parents were from Prussia and many Jews fought for Germany in WW1. Grant65 (Talk) 22:55, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Actually is was my understanding that there was considerable comment about both his german ancestry and his jewish religion. Both Bean and K Murdoch hated him. When I have time I will propose some changes to this article

cheers

Agree that Monash's background was a difficulty for some others, and picked up on the significance of that - in so much that in reaching the level of achievement and public acclaim that he did, he was a powerful force in breaking down (some of the) prejudice in Australian society. Also noting that he represented (and in some ways created) the 'modern' notion of an Australian military commander, that is someone who is responsible for every aspect of the success and welfare of the troops under their control, and who has - in theatres where they might operate under the control of other nation's commanders - an independant responsibility to the Australian Government to protect their troops' interests - although Blamey might take credit for consolidating that attitude. The attitude of Australian commanders in Vietnam reflects this, and in some ways explains how they came to be criticised for achieving some success in pacifying the province they'd been given control of, rather than engaging the enemy in large pitched battles. I'll come back to this in a while, I'm mostly involved in Antarctica and mountaineering (where I have maps and diagrams to finish off).Tban 00:37, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a view that Bean's objection to Monash was that he was 'pushy' (or ambitious) rather than Jewish. Bean's prejudice show's in his choice of words to describe such behaviour (to paraphrase) as typically Jewish. Bean favoured other candidates who were more self-effacing, and had a view that it was not in the (correct) Australian character to (again paraphrasing) 'beat your own drum too loudly'. Bean's ideal commander it seems was (in his mind) a man whose talent was evident to his troops, and who was elevated to the position of command by the decision of his troops. This was largely what happened in lower levels of command (troops while they didn't vote their commanders 'into place' had the capacity to remove them simply by performing well for some and not for others). Bean was mistaken (as he later admitted) to think that a 'quiet achiever' was necessarily the best person at the highest level of command, where the commander not only had to operate with the men under their command, but with allies and higher command with sometimes very different (and strongly held) views of the world. Put another way, Monash was keen to 'get in charge of the whole show' in order to have it run properly by a strong man'. Essentially an engineer taking control of a project that he saw as having previously been under 'variable' management (referring particularly to Gough and Haig), whose deficiencies had cost a great many lives for very little gain. It's a little glib to put it this way (but it captures the essence of it): Monash treated battle as engineering exercises, but was mindful that there were people in the middle of it all. That he was 'so different' to Bean's conception of what a commander should be, and that he (by his achievements) persuaded Bean to change his mind hints at what I was talking about when I made reference to Monash's impact on Australian society and it's view of 'outsiders'.Tban 23:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peaceful penetration

Picking up that peaceful penetration (a tactic of vigorously patrolling in front of the 'front line' and attacking isolated enemy outposts) has been 'attributed' to Monash. A careful reading of Bean might help, but just briefly the tactic only became viable when the Germans adopted a 'defence in depth' approach in 1918 which resulted in them setting up a chequer-board of positions in front of their main front-line. As crops grew in the spring of 1918 (the front line having largely moved into fresh ground), Australian's started attacking these outposts through the crops during the day and in night patrols. The first attacks were initiated by the troops (very small groups of men), and there was some suggestion (as I recollect)that it was 'frowned upon' (and disbelieved) by commanders initially. The effect on the German troops was as much psychological as tactical, but over time it led them to 'pull back' their isolated posts, and allowed the Australians to set up posts themselves closer to the main German lines. There had been since Gallipoli a policy of 'active patrolling' by the Australians in front of their own lines, basically seeking to control the ground otherwise known as 'no man's land' and this was a further expression of that, and vindication of the tactic. So while peaceful penetration allowed the Australians to 'improve' their position prior to the 'set-piece' battles (of which Hamel was an excellent example) and psychologically 'wear down' the Germant troops, it was not essentially a 'battle tactic' and couldn't be attributed to Monash. Tban 23:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

To the wikipedia staff: I believe that quite a bit of the content used has been directly copied from AWM which clearly being a gov site has copyright protection, if it is not removed then what are people supposed to think of this encyclopedia?!

I don't know all the details, particularly as they pertain to the Australian case, but I do believe that as a rule, government documents are in the public domain. Government control is, after all, the difference between "public" and "private" ownership, is it not? LordAmeth 11:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

This is not the case in Australia. All government works are under Crown copyright. See also Australian copyright law.--cj | talk 19:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Australian Engineer

Shouldn't JM have a link to "Category:Australian_engineers" ? Afterall he did oversee construction of several important bridges, and part of the Melbourne railway line... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by BrisbaneLion (talk • contribs) 11:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Businessperson?

I see that user 192.190.180.20 added "Australian engineers" as per the suggestion of BrisbaneLion above, but also "Australian businesspeople". What's the basis for that category? If he had a notable business career on top of everything else, shouldn't there be some mention of that career in the article itself? Zsero 04:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing "most of youth"

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100533b.htm "at Jerilderie, New South Wales, where John attended the public school in 1875-77"

2 years is not most of his youth, and is insignificant —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Shniken (talk • contribs) 09:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Arthur Currie

I changed the link to include his first name as it is the first time he is mentioned in the article. I also removed the apostrophe from the word "German's"; it should I think be "Germans." Joe Dick 01:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kelly connection

An issue of an Australian heritage magazine, quite possibly 'Australian Heritage Magazine', but I am not sure, I recently read had a very detailed multipage main article on General Sir John Monash, indeed, this is why I read said magazine, and said article.

In this article it stated that Monash's father was a some time horse breaker and seller who often took young John with him when conducting this business, and, on occasion, 'procured' (rustled) horses from local British staioners. It also stated that one the better customers of the Monash's during this time was one Ned Kelly.

It was said that Kelly wasnt particularly racist, but considered there to be two types of Germans. Bad ones, and Good ones: Bad ones assimilated into the Empire and worked with the English, Good ones didn't, they stole horses (apparently a common practise amongst the immigrant Germans of South Australia and Victoria in the late 19th Century ). So, this article stated, he considered the Monash's good people, and young John met him on more than one occasion.

Further, it went to say that Monash's father recalled Kelly and his son sometimes joking and having private conversations whilst he organised the return trip to town. Monash himself, the article claimed, confirmed this in later years. He also said that once he and Kelly had a very intimate, if brief, conversation where Kelly gave advice and lessons that made and indellible impression on him from then on. Lesson he claimed later he drew on more than once during the course of his Accademic, Military and Engineering careers. Though through his entire life he apparently never went into any more detail on the matter than that, and to this day no one actually knows what he might have taken from his brief (and illegal: Kelly was public enemy number one, to be shot on sight, with total immunity to prosecution to anyone who pulled the trigger)association with the imfamous Ned Kelly.

Though this only happened relatively infrequently, and in no way was Kelly any sort of mentor to the young Monash, and only for a breif period in Monash's life (he was in his early teens I beleive, or so the article stated, during this time) I cant help but feel due to fact that this wasnt just any mere aquaintence of two individuals, but one between Australia's most imfamous, yet revered, Folk heroe, and Australia's most celebrated military commander, that it would be approprate for some one associated with the Australian Wiki project to verify this story and, if substanciated, include it in the section of Monash's early life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apis4 (talk • contribs) 14:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stature edit, undone

I removed a large amount of material added, here. The style was anecdotal and digressive, the substance of the inclusion was to illustrate the 'stature' of Monash according to Menzies. I have not read the reference given, so I was unable to copyedit the inclusion. cygnis insignis 07:40, 1 December 2007 (UTC)