Billy Hughes's Army

DESCRIPTION: "Why don't you join (x3) Billy Hughes's army? Six bob a week and nothing to eat, Great big boots and blisters on your feet, Why don't you join...." Or ""Come on and join, come on and join... Lord Kitchener's army, Ten bob a week, Plenty grub to eat." "
AUTHOR: unknown / Music: "Alexander's Ragtime Band" by Irving Berlin (1911)
EARLIEST DATE: 2001 (Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver)
KEYWORDS: soldier hardtimes derivative
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1914-1916 - Horation Herbert Kitchener British Secretary of State for War
1915-1923 - William Hughes Prime Minister of Australia
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver, p. 3, "Come On and Join" (2 fragments, one about Lord Kitchener's Army, the other about Billy Hughes's Army)
ADDITIONAL: Gwenda Beed Davey and Graham Seal, _A Guide to Australian Folklore_, Kangaroo Press, 2003, p. 177, "(Billy Hughes' Army)" (1 partial text)
Roud #10587
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (tune)
NOTES [749 words]: Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver has two versions of this, one about Lord Kitchener's Army, the other about Billy Hughes's. Every indication is that the Kitchener's Army verse is older, but Arthur does not indicate a version from tradition, and Davey and Seal imply that they do have a traditional version of "Billy Hughes's Army." So here it files. (Besides, I found out the Hughes version first.)
Lord Kitchener was, of course, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, First Earl Kitchener (1850-1916), a career soldier whose record had earned him first a viscountcy and then an earldom, mostly for his work in Africa. In August 1914 he became the British Secretary of State for War (OxfordCompanion, p. 549; Pope/Wheal, p. 270). At the time of World War I, all the European powers had mass conscript armies, except Britain, which relied upon its navy and a small highly professional army. It showed, very clearly: At the start of World War I, when the Germans attacked France according to the Schlieffen Plan, the Germans attacked with eight armies (that is, collections of two or more corps). The French had about five armies on the front, and would count nine by the time of the Battle of the Marne. The British Expeditionary Force consisted of... two corps, barely enough to count as a single army (Forty, p. 78 -- although, because its men were professionals, and many of them good marksmen, they were much more effective than two ordinary rifle corps. But they had only enough artillery and other equipment for a weak force, and too few machine guns even for their small numbers). Even if the unit had survived intact, it wouldn't have made much difference in the war -- but, in any case, it was effectively destroyed by the end of 1914 (Forty, p. 79; Pope/Wheal, p. 86).
The British still didn't want to turn to conscription, but they had to have more troops, so they mounted an intense recruitment campaign. These men -- by March 1915, 27 divisions worth (Forty, p. 80), or the equivalent of three new armies -- responded to a poster of Kitchener saying he needed men. (Pope/Wheal, p. 270, calls it "perhaps the world's most celebrated recruitment poster.") Since the recruiting drive was organized by Kitchener, they became known as Kitchener's Army. Although inexperienced, they were generally the best Britain had to offer. Sadly, they too would be ground to shreds, eventually forcing the British into conscription in 1916 (a fact which contributed greatly to the rebellion in Ireland). Kitchener didn't see the worst of it; he had drowned in 1916 when the ship carrying him, H. M. S. Hampshire, hit a German mine and sank (OxfordCompanion, p. 549).
Billy Hughes had the same problem of finding recruits, only in Australia. Bassett, p. 135, reports that William Morris Hughes (1862-1852) was born in London but moved to Australia in 1884, becoming a union official, being admitted to the bar in 1903, and serving in the House of Representatives from 1901 to 1952 (!). In that time, he represented Labor, National Labor, Nationalist, United Australia, and Liberal parties. He was expelled from *three* of those parties, mostly over conscription issues. He was Prime Minister from 1915 to 1923, and was responsible for trying and failing to pass conscription in World War I; hence this song. He also explicitly supported racism.
Learmont, p. 269, calls him one of Australia's "most colorful and controversial political personalities" and says that he was a member of the New South Wales Parliament "in 1894, and of the Commonwealth Parliament from the first federal elections until his death. Hughes was small in stature, and in compensation for this as well as for the harsh conditions of his early life, he was hard, overbearing and arrogant. At the same time a brilliant political mind was accompanied by ready wit."
In 1916, he visited the Western Front of World War I, where he gained the name "The Little Digger."
Clark, p. 232, says that the first referendum on conscription was held October 28, 1916 (in other words, more than a year after the Gallipoli landings showed Australia just how deadly World War I would be, and after the death of Kitchener); 52% of the electorate voted against it. Clark, p 234, says that the second referendum, December 20, 1917, had 54% vote against. I am frankly amazed that Hughes survived two such substantial rejections. To be sure, he was kicked out of his party. The astounding thing is that he always managed to stitch together another coalition. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.6
File: DSeBHuA

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.