Playing soldiers: Sydney private school cadet corps and the Great War

Abstract

In an environment of growing militarism and loyalty to nation and empire, The King's School Magazine of March 1909 reported to its readership of students, parents, teachers, and old boys that 'the real practical work that gives a cadet [an idea] of what life is like in actual warfare, can only be had in camps, where everything is done methodically, and with discipline'. Seven years later in 1916 an old boy from The King's School and an ex-cadet, Arthur Henson Smith, wrote from a dug-out in France: 'The last 3 weeks I've been through the seventh Hell to which Dante's Inferno must surely be a pleasure resort in comparison.' Adventurous, exciting, and glorious illusions of war, and the belief that cadet training was preparing cadets for war, were both central beliefs fostered among the cadet corps of the private schools of Sydney. As this paper explores, these beliefs were also central to the nature of the confusion, fear, and shock experienced by old boys upon confrontation with the reality of the Great War, as Arthur Henson Smith's entry demonstrates.