Story of the ANMEF (Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) ) Australia's first battle of World War One and thereafter the problems of governing the New Guinea Territory.
Historical study of the Australians who captured, occupied, and governed German New Guinea between 1914 and 1921. Moving beyond traditional battle narratives, Michael Pigott explores how members of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) navigated colonial occupation without major combat, and how they adapted to life in the tropics — often shaped by racial hierarchies, imperial assumptions, and moral blind spots.
Drawing on rich primary sources and grounded in rigorous scholarship, the book uncovers looting, reprisals, and the controversial assault on Reverend William Cox – an incident that tested official responses to misconduct. Pigott reveals how these events and attitudes reflected broader colonial practices and left long shadows, both locally and in national memory.
While countless books examine the Western Front, few confront Australia’s post-conflict presence in New Guinea. This long-overlooked episode has been largely neglected since two earlier full-length studies in 1927 and 1958. New Feller Master breaks that silence, tracing the ANMEF’s legacy and the century-long failure to acknowledge this chapter in Australia’s imperial history.
