Sir Thomas Albert Blamey GBE KCB CMG DSO (24 January 1884–27 May 1951) was a controversial Australian General of World War II, and Australia's first and (so far) only Field Marshal.
Opinions about Blamey are polarised. Many historians and contemporaries view him as an inspired general, whose energy, skill and political acumen built the Australian Army into the highly professional organisation it became. Others have judged him as a spiteful, immoral and ultimately cowardly man who was ready to sacrifice anyone in order to preserve or advance his own position.
First World War
Blamey served in the 1st AIF in the First World War. In mid-1914 Blamey had been in Britain on the staff of the Wessex Division . In November he sailed for Egypt, along with Harry Chauvel, to join the Australian contingent and became intelligence officer on the staff of the Australian 1st Division for the Battle of Gallipoli. During the landing at Anzac Cove, Blamey was sent to evaluate the need for reinforcements by Colonel M'Cay's 2nd Brigade on 400 Plateau .
In July 1915 Blamey was promoted to lieutenant colonel and joined the staff of the newly forming Australian 2nd Division in Egypt. When the Australian forces moved to France in 1916, Blamey returned to the 1st Division staff and was involved in the Battle of Pozières.
Blamey briefly held battalion and brigade command posts in late 1916 and early 1917 but as an experienced staff officer was considered too valuable for a combat post. He was promoted to brigadier general on 1 June 1918 and became chief of corps staff of Lieutenant General Sir John Monash's Australian Corps. He played a significant role in the success of Monash's corps in the final months of the war. Indeed, Monash rated him as one of the key factors in his Corps' success.
Inter War Years
In between the wars, Blamey was appointed as Commissioner of the Victoria Police, where scandal first found him. During a raid on a brothel, a friend of his was found to be in possession of Blamey's police identity card.
As Police Commissioner he directed the 'political police squad' to break up Unemployed Workers Movement meetings at Sydney Road in working class Brunswick.
Blamey's treatment of the unionists was typical of his hardline anti-communist beliefs and as such his relations with left-wing governments were tense. Along with many senior army and ex-army officers, he was a leading member of the clandestine far-right wing organisation League of National Security . The LNS was reportedly a response to the rise of communism in Australia, its members ready to seize arms from army depots to stop a communist revolution.
Second World War
Blamey travelled to the Middle-East with the Second AIF as its commander in chief. He notably insisted to the British commander in Egypt General Archibald Wavell that Australian forces remain together as cohesive units, no Australian forces were to be deployed or engaged without the prior consent of the Australian government, and that he (General Blamey) be the sole commander-in-chief of all Australian forces. Australian forces did indeed remain together for the Siege of Tobruk, the Balkans Campaign and the Syrian Campaign (against the Vichy French) until the Second AIF was withdrawn in 1942.
Some of Blamey's most controversial actions concern the period after the Japanese declared war, and United States General Douglas MacArthur retreated to Australia. MacArthur had a low opinion of Australian fighting men, and was highly criticial of their performance during the early battles in New Guinea. Blamey appeared to be keen not to antagonise MacArthur or publicly hold a dissenting view. For example, during a speech to 21st Brigade, 2nd AIF in 1942, he accused the men in it of being "rabbits who run". This accusation of cowardice against the men who had turned back the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail was received by them with intense bitterness, and was widely seen as reflecting his own inability to stand up to MacArthur.
His treatment of senior officers was also controversial. Biographers of many of Blamey's WWII contemporaries, including Generals Lavarack, Rowell, Allen and Morshead, as well as Brigadier Potts, have all claimed that their subjects were dealt with unfairly, and in some cases atrociously, by Blamey - in ways ranging from holding rivals back from promotion, through to their dismissal from command appointments in order to cover up Blamey's own shortcomings.
Blamey left the Army in 1946, and was promoted to Field Marshal on his death bed.
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Last updated: 09-12-2005 02:39:13
