Australia And Britain Relationship Essay

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Changing relationship between USA, Australia and Britain Overview: Prior to the war Britain and Australia had a very close and strong relationship. This was mainly due to the fact that Australia was a colony of Britain and majority of the Australian population was of British decent. Also Australia depended heavily on Britain and adopted many of the lifestyle traits from Britain. Australia considered Britain as its mother-country. However this relationship deteriorated after Prime Minister Churchill of Britain despite strong pleads not to, decided to send Australia’s 6th and 7th divisions to reinforce British forces in Burma. The Australian Government wanted these divisions to be redirected to the Australian home front and to New Guinea as the Japanese had made critical advancements that threatened Australia. The divisions were redirected by John Curtin. This decision by Churchill to disregard Australia’s requests and Curtin’s demand to disobey Britain and redirect the soldiers greatly changed the relationship between the two countries. The major change in the relationship was when Great Britain couldn’t help Australia when they needed them most while Australia helped Britain when they needed it. This caused John Curtin to Context: Britain had been under threat from German invasion. Australia had sent its best…show more content…
After overturning the British naval power and the major base in Singapore, Japan had set their sights on moving further south to Port Moresby in New Guinea. Taking this port would prove to be a critical point if successful. It would enable them a strong naval base and airport which they could use to either attack Australia or isolate them and force them into surrendering after being starved of resources. This phase of the war would be the first time that Australia would be completely open to attack and was the first time it had no supporting allies to protect

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