John Monash

General Sir John Monash (27 June 1865 – 8 October 1931) was an Australian military commander of the First World War and a civil engineer. He commanded the 13th Infantry Brigade before the war and then, shortly after its outbreak, became commander of the 4th Brigade in Egypt, with which he took part in the Gallipoli campaign.

In July 1916, he took charge of the newly raised 3rd Division in north-western France and, in May 1918, became commander of the Australian Corps, at that time the largest corps on the Western Front. According to historian A. J. P. Taylor, he was "the only general of creative originality produced by the First World War".

Early life

Monash was born in 58 Dudley Street, West Melbourne, Victoria, to Jewish parents, both from Krotoschin in the Prussian province of Posen (now Krotoszyn, Poland). His birth certificate records his date of birth as 23 June 1865, but that is probably a mistake, because he was almost certainly born on 27 June. He was the first child of Louis Monash and his wife Bertha, née Manasse, who had arrived in Melbourne on the Empire of Peace on 5 June 1864. The family name was originally spelt Monasch and was pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable.

The young family soon relocated from Dudley Street to larger premises on nearby Victoria Parade, before moving to a third rental property in Church Street, Richmond. In 1873, Bertha received a large inheritance from her mother, with which she purchased two houses, a large one in Yarra Street, Hawthorn, and a smaller one in Clifton Street, Richmond. The family resided in the smaller one and rented-out the larger one. The young John was sent to St Stephen's School on Docker's Hill in Richmond, and was remembered as a bright and alert schoolboy, with a special interest in English, some skill in drawing, a keen sense of fun, and no interest whatsoever in organised sport. At home his mother taught him piano, and encouraged him to read to her in English, French and German. The family spoke German as their native language. As might be expected from a man brought up by cultivated German parents who had arrived in Australia barely two years before John's birth, Monash spoke, read, and wrote German fluently. However, from 1914 until his death, he had good reason not to attract attention to his German background.