Victims of War: The First World War, Returned Soldiers, and Understandings of Domestic Violence in Australia

Abstract

In the wake of the First World War in Australia, numerous ex-soldiers appeared before the courts after having committed acts of violence against their wives. Reports and records of these court cases suggest that many in the community accepted explanations that connected men's apparent nerve-shattering experiences of battle with their violent actions back home. While a link between war trauma and wife abuse appears to be borne out in many cases, there were also many instances where such a link clearly did not exist. As public attention focused on men's war injuries (whether real or assumed), the abuse suffered by wives was overlooked. The notion that returned soldiers' violence in the home was the result of mental disturbance can be seen as a contributing factor in the shift towards a psychological understanding of domestic violence that occurred in Australia over the first half of the twentieth century.