Battle of Broken Hill

Battle of Broken Hill
Part of the First World War
Broken Hill Broken Hill
Location	Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia
Date	January 1, 1915 (1915-01-01)
Target	Australian civilians
Attack type	Ambush, spree shooting
Deaths	6 (including both perpetrators)
Injured	7
Perpetrator	Badsha Mahommed Gool Mullah Abdullah
Motive	Ottoman nationalism, Islamic extremism, personal vendetta

The Battle of Broken Hill, also known as Broken Hill massacre, was an incident that took place near the Australian town of Broken Hill, New South Wales, on 1 January 1915. Two Muslim former camel drivers from colonial India—Badsha Mahommed Gool and Mullah Abdullah—shot dead four people and wounded seven others before being killed by the police and local vigilantes. Although the attacks were politically and religiously motivated, the men were not members of any sanctioned armed force. Three days after the attack, the pair's suicide notes were discovered by a miner. Mullah Abdullah's note suggested he was motivated primarily by personal grievances against a local food safety inspector.

The incident has been described as Australia's first terrorist attack. In 1995, Australia's Turkish community announced plans to create a memorial in honour of Gool and Abdullah and the Turkish embassy in Canberra requested that the assailants' remains be handed over to the Turkish government for burial in that country. In 2014, the mayor of Broken Hill requested that the Australian government help finance a ceremony marking the one-hundredth anniversary of the incident. The request was rejected by the government, but the ceremony was held regardless. The attack has been dramatised in film, literature and art.

Background

Arrival of the Afghan camel drivers

An Afghan camel caravan in Australia, 1900

During the second half of the 19th century, as many as 4,000 Afghans were brought to Australia as camel drivers. The Afghan presence in Australia can be traced back to 1860, when the Government of Victoria imported 24 camels from Afghanistan for use in the Burke and Wills expedition. Early European explorers faced great difficulties traversing the outback. Horses and bullocks, which had proven reliable on earlier expeditions in the bush, were rendered unusable by water scarcity and extremely high temperatures. Camels, which can travel for days without water and make excellent desert transport, were selected for such expeditions instead. "Without the Afghans," journalist Bilal Cleland writes, "the exploration of central Australia would have been impeded, the establishment of the inland telegraph would have been delayed and many of the inland mining towns would not have survived."

Upon arriving in Australia, the camel drivers established a series of informal settlements, colloquially known as "ghantowns". In the 1860s, the Afghans built Australia's first mosque in Broken Hill. By the 1890s, most of the Afghans living in the country were camel drivers, and they exercised virtually unlimited control over the camel driving business in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Central Australia. Most settled in Marree, Broken Hill, Alice Springs, Adelaide and Perth; all were men. Since they were not intended as permanent settlers, they came to Australia without their families. Some went on to marry Aboriginal or socially disadvantaged and marginalized women.

From the 1890s onward, attempts were made to prevent Afghans from working in certain industries. Efforts to remove them from the goldfields in particular led to much inter-communal resentment. Tensions flared on 13 October 1894, when a White Australian bullock driver shot two Afghans performing ritual ablution at a watering hole, killing one and wounding the other. The introduction of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, which formed the basis of the White Australia Policy, reduced the number of Afghan camel drivers from several thousand to several hundred within a few years. Historian Abdullah Saeed attributes their flight to the hostile atmosphere created by the policy. The sudden departure of many Afghans made it difficult for those who remained to retain their identity and resist assimilation into the dominant White Australian culture. Those who stayed behind were denied citizenship and experienced discrimination. The advent of the automobile around the turn of the century further contributed to the decline and eventual demise of the camel driving business.

The assailants

Part of the rocky outcrop where the final battle took place

Mullah Abdullah was a cameleer and Muslim religious leader living in Broken Hill. His date of birth is uncertain. Authors Philip Jones and Anna Kenny write that he was born in 1850. Other sources suggest that he was born in 1855. He is believed to have been from Afghanistan or British India. Historian Christine Stevens believes it is more likely he was from Afghanistan because he was literate in Dari, a variant of Persian that is only spoken in that country. He immigrated to South Australia around 1890. He may have come from a family of mullahs, a profession generally passed on from father to son and requires undergoing theological training at a madrasa. Abdullah moved to Broken Hill around 1899 and found work as a camel driver. He asserted himself as the spiritual leader of the town's small Muslim community and became the imam of the local mosque. His responsibilities included leading daily prayers and slaughtering animals al-Halāl. In November 1906, Mullah Abdullah and another Muslim religious leader visited the Adelaide Gaol to read a prayer for the Afghan-born death row inmate Natulla Habibulla, who had been convicted of murdering his White Australian wife.

Badsha Mahommed Gool was born in 1874 or 1875. He was a Pashto-speaking Afridi from the Khyber Pass area straddling the border between Afghanistan and British India. The region was under tribal jurisdiction and had a reputation for lawlessness and banditry. Gool came to Australia in his youth, likely at the turn of the century, and worked as a cameleer before leaving the country to enlist in the Ottoman Army at some point in the early 1900s. He thus pledged allegiance to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, who as the custodian of Mecca and Medina (Islam's two holiest cities) claimed to be the Caliph (or spiritual leader) of all Muslims. Gool returned to Australia around 1912, but with the decline of camel driving, he was forced to find work in Broken Hill's silver mines. He likely lost his job in the silver mines following the outbreak of the war, which caused the demand for silver to plumet and led to many miners having their contracts terminated. While many of the other Muslims who were laid off enlisted in the Australian Army, Gool became an ice cream vendor.

Outbreak of the First World War

The Germans believed that the construction of the Berlin–Bagdad railway would give them access to the Middle East's plentiful oil resources and allow them to threaten British India. Given the Royal Navy's undisputed dominance in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, in the event of war, German military strategists proposed using Mesopotamia as a land bridge to provide arms to mujahedin in Afghanistan, who would then carry out attacks against the British. A similar course of action was envisaged being implemented elsewhere. As part of this strategy, the Germans sought to exploit Muslims' perceived religious zealotry and stoke revolts in the overseas colonies controlled by the United Kingdom and France, and German officials publicly proclaimed "Muslim liberation from European rule" as one of their aims. Kaiser Wilhelm stated that he wished to see "the whole Mohammedan world" be thrown into a "wild revolt". Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, the Chief of the German General Staff, wrote that it would be prudent of Germany to encourage an "awakening of the fanaticism of Islam."

On 2 August 1914, Germany and the Ottoman Empire concluded a secret treaty cementing their alliance. The Ottomans sought to recapture the territories they had lost in previous years, and the Germans reasoned that Ottoman gains in the Caucasus would force the Russians to divert troops from the Eastern Front. On 29 October, the Ottoman Navy launched a surprise attack against Russia on the Black Sea coast. On 2 November, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, and the United Kingdom and France declared war three days later. The United Kingdom's declaration of war effectively brought Australia into the war against the Ottomans as well, angering a sizeable portion of the Australian Muslim population. On 11 November, Sultan Mehmed proclaimed a jihad, or holy war, against the Allied countries, calling upon all Muslims to carry out attacks against the "infidel".

Attack

Each New Year's Day the local lodge of the Manchester Unity Order of Oddfellows held a picnic at Silverton. The train from Broken Hill to Silverton was crowded with 1200 picnickers in 40 open ore trucks. Three kilometres out of town, Gool and Abdullah positioned themselves on an embankment about 30 metres from the tracks. As the train passed, they opened fire with two rifles, discharging 20 to 30 shots.

The picnickers initially thought that the shots were being discharged in honour of the train's passing, as a sham fight, or as target practice. Alma Cowie, aged 17 died instantly. William John Shaw, a foreman in the Sanitary Department, was killed on the train and his daughter Lucy Shaw was injured. Six other people on the train were injured: Mary Kavanagh, George Stokes, Thomas Campbell, Alma Crocker, Rose Crabb and Constable Robert Mills.

The conductor of the train was "Tiger" Dick (Eric Edward) Nyholm, also of Broken Hill. He was a renowned marksman and proved instrumental in protecting the train's passengers from further injury.

Police response

Gool and Abdullah made their way from the train towards the West Camel Camp, where they lived. On the way they killed Alfred E. Millard, who had taken shelter in his hut. By this time the train had reached a siding where the police were telephoned. The police contacted Lieutenant Resch at the local army unit, who despatched his men. When police encountered Gool and Abdullah near the Cable Hotel, the pair shot and wounded Constable Mills. Gool and Abdullah then took shelter within a white quartz outcrop that provided good cover. A 90-minute gun battle followed, during which armed members of the public arrived to join the police and military. In support of the police, military, and local militia, the Cameleers assist against the perpetrators, in some instances walking into the line of fire to remove members of the wider community when they were injured or allowing the police to utilise their dwellings for shelter during the gun battle. By the end of the battle very little shooting came from the pair and most of it was off target, leading Constable Ward to conclude that Abdullah was already dead and Gool was wounded. An eyewitness later stated that Gool had stood with a white rag tied to his rifle but was cut down by gunfire. He was found with 16 wounds. The mob would not allow Abdullah's body to be taken away in the ambulance. Later that day the police secretly disposed of both bodies.

James Craig, a 69-year-old occupant of a house behind the Cable Hotel, resisted his daughter's warning about chopping wood during the gun battle and was hit by a stray bullet and killed. He was the fourth to die.

Aftermath

Immediate events

The attackers left notes connecting their actions to the hostilities between the Ottoman and British Empires, which had been officially declared in October 1914. Believing he would be killed, Gool Mahomed left a letter in his waist-belt which stated that he was a subject of the Ottoman Sultan and that, "I must kill you and give my life for my faith, Allāhu Akbar." Abdullah said in his last letter that he was dying for his faith and in obedience to the order of the Sultan, "but owing to my grudge against Chief Sanitary Inspector Brosnan it was my intention to kill him first." Turkish sources claim that the letter from the Ottoman Sultan was a forgery, and that the Turkish flag found with the perpetrators was planted. It is claimed that the incident was attributed to Turks in order to rally the Australian public for the war.

The actions were seen as representative of enemy aliens and Germans in the area were the focus of violence, as it was believed that the Germans had agitated the assailants to attack. On the evening of Friday 1 January an angry mob burnt the local German Club to the ground, cutting the hoses of the firemen who came to fight the flames. Afterwards, the mob marched over to a nearby camp used by Afghan camel drivers, but were prevented from attacking the settlement by the police and military. There was no further violence against the Afghan community. Following the deaths of the perpetrators, the Cameleers were offered the bodies so they could be buried according to Islamic burial rites. However, the local Cameleers refused to accept them as they stated they were angry at the actions of the perpetrators and refused to wash the bodies according to Islamic practice nor have them buried within the "Mohammedan" section of the cemetery.

The next day the mines of Broken Hill fired all employees deemed enemy aliens under the 1914 Commonwealth War Precautions Act. Six Austrians, four Germans and one Turk were ordered out of town by the public. Shortly afterwards, all enemy aliens in Australia were interned for the duration of the war.

On Sunday 3 January thousands of people assembled in Broken Hill to witness the funerals of the four victims.

The Silverton Tramway Company refunded in full the fares for the picnic train, and the money was used to launch a public relief fund.

German propaganda

The Sydney journal The Bulletin published a burlesque of the incident in the style of German propaganda, suggesting the Germans lauded the attack as a victorious military battle between Turkish forces and recruits on a troop train. Supposedly the Turkish attackers killed 40 and wounded 70 (ten times the real figures) for the loss of only two dead. The parody was, for some reason, taken seriously by other newspapers, which published it almost verbatim as a genuine example of German propaganda. The story was picked up by international papers in the US, the UK and NZ. When clippings from the foreign papers filtered back to Australia in serving soldiers' letters to home, it only reinforced the belief that the story in the Bulletin was true. Australian newspapers revived the story as an example of German mendacity during the Second World War, and even as late as 1951 in Broken Hill's own Barrier Daily Truth paper.

Publishing of the event

In the late 1970s, Ayten Kuyululu intended to turn the story into a film, The Battle of Broken Hill. Initially she planned to direct the film herself but found backers unwilling to fund an unknown female Turkish director, so Donald Crombie took over as intended director. Her efforts were however unsuccessful.

Nicholas Shakespeare wrote the novella Oddfellows (2015) based on this event.

The battle is the subject of the song "Battle of Broken Hill" by the Sydney-based Celtic-punk band Handsome Young Strangers, found on their 2016 EP of the same name.

In 2014 the Greek Australian genocides scholar Panayiotis Diamadis noted that the attack occurred only a few weeks after the declaration of jihad (holy war) on 14 November 1914 by Sultan Mehmed V and Shaykh al-Islām (primary religious leader) Essad Effendi of the Ottoman Empire against Great Britain and the Allies.

The Australian government refused requests to fund a commemoration of the event for its 100th anniversary. A ceremony marking the centenary of the event was held at Broken Hill railway station on 1 January 2015.

A 2019 Turkish film by Can Ulkay, Türk Isi Dondurma (Turkish Ice Cream) presented a highly fictionalised version of the story.

See also

• List of mass shootings in Australia

Works cited

• Aydin, Cemil (2017). The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-67497-738-9.
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• Cleland, Bilal (2001). "The History of Muslims in Australia". In Akbarzadeh, Shahram; Saeed, Abdullah (eds.). Muslim Communities in Australia. Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales Press. pp. 12–32. ISBN 9780868405803.
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• Gregory, Jenny (2011). "Traversing the Margins, Connecting Worlds". In Mayne, Alan; Atkinson, Stephen (eds.). Outside Country: Histories of Inland Australia. Adelaide, Australia: Wakefield Press. ISBN 9781862549609.
• Jones, Philip; Kenny, Anna (2010). Australia's Muslim Cameleers: Pioneers of the Inland, 1860s–1930s. Adelaide, Australia: Wakefield Press. ISBN 9781862548725.
• Kabir, Nahid (2013). Muslims in Australia. London, England: Routledge. ISBN 9781136215063.
• Mazur, Eric Michael (2011). Encyclopedia of Religion and Film. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780313330728.
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• McMeekin, Sean (2012). The Berlin-Baghdad Express. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674058538.
• Murphy, Damien (14 October 2014). "Broken Hill, New Year's Day, 1915 was Australia's first terrorist attack". The Sydney Morning Herald.
• Murphy, Damien (31 October 2014). "Battle of Broken Hill an act of war or terrorism won't be commemorated". The Sydney Morning Herald.
• Palmer, Scott (1988). A Who's Who of Australian and New Zealand Film Actors: The Sound Era. New York, New York: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810820906.
• Palmer, Alan (1992). The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. New York, New York: M. Evans & Company. ISBN 9781566198479.
• Saeed, Abdullah (2006). "Muslims in Australia". In Mansouri, Fethi (ed.). Australia and the Middle East: A Front-Line Relationship. London, England: I.B.Tauris. pp. 73–84. ISBN 9780857710673.
• Şakul, Kahraman (2016). "Contemporary Turkish Perceptions of the Gallipoli Campaign". In Gürcan, Metin; Johnson, Robert (eds.). The Gallipoli Campaign: The Turkish Perspective. London, England: Routledge. pp. 181–204. ISBN 9781317030850.
• Shakespeare, Nicholas (28 February 2015). "The bloody ballad of Broken Hill: How jihad came to the Australian outback in 1915". The Independent.
• Stanley, Peter (2017). The Crying Years: Australia's Great War. Canberra: National Library of Australia. ISBN 9780642279057.
• Stevens, Christine (2002) [1989]. Tin Mosques & Ghantowns: A History of Afghan Camel Drivers in Australia. Alice Springs, Australia: Paul Fitzsimons. ISBN 9780958176002.
• Stevens, Christine (2005). "Abdullah, Mullah (1855–1915)". In Cunneen, Christopher; Roe, Jillian; Garton, Stephen; Kingston, Beverley (eds.). Australian Dictionary of Biography, Supplement: 1580–1980. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 9780522852141.
• Strachan, Hew (2001). To Arms. The First World War. Vol. 1. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198208778.
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• Wittmann, Anna M. (2014). "Film and World War I". In Tucker, Spencer C. (ed.). World War I: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 560–569. ISBN 9781851099658.
• Whyte, Brendan (2016). ""Propaganda Eats Itself: The Bulletin and the Battle of Broken Hill"". Sabretache. 57 (3): 48–57. ISSN 0048-8933.

External links

• Sharing the Lode: The Broken Hill Migrant Story
• The Battle of Broken Hill film
• Battle of Broken Hill, Postcards TV show visits the area
• "Broken Hill Picnic Train Massacre" Archived 14 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine by Brendan Whyte in Strategy & Tactics, no. 231, pp. 30–31, November/December 2005 (11 MB)
• Abu Bakr Sirajuddin Cook (2023). "Mullah Abdullah, A Mullah? A Reassessment of the Assertions and the Evidence". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs.