Last Stop to Nowhere

You've heard of Gallipoli, but have you heard of the Emu War? Or the war of vengeance against the Mad Mahdi of Sudan? Do you know who was made the Lord of Armageddon after WWI? This episode, we look at three unusual, lesser known conflicts that Australian soldiers have fought in. Emu War [00:15], Sudan [18:55], Palestine.[38:20]

What happens when 238 settlers described as the "misfits, failures, and malcontents of the left wing of Australian democracy" leave Australia in the aftermath of a brutal shearers strike and attempt to found a socialist utopia in the jungles of Paraguay? This is the story of New Australia: the misguided and ill-conceived search for a workers' homeland.

While Jeronimus Cornelisz reigns over the wreck survivors on a tiny island, Pelsaert and Jacobsz are stuck with each other in a tiny boat on the way to Indonesia. Cornelisz knows that if the authorities are told about the wreck, his part in the intended mutiny would be revealed. As we approach the conclusion of this horrifying story of Australia's first European inhabitants, we will meet a man who can only be described as a Bond villain, sex scandals, and rivalry.

In the mid-17th century, when an unmapped Australia was still only known as Terra Australis Incognita, a Dutch East India Company vessel wrecked off the West coast, only days before mutineers could seize the ship in a bloody uprising. The tale of the Batavia is a story of the harshness of our wide, brown land and how it can turn good people to the foulest actions out of desperation and fear. The mutiny, murder and megalomania that gave Australia its first European settlers.

In part 2 we're almost ready for the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge but dissent is making its way through the New Guard while Jack Lang's success as Premier continues to haunt Eric Campbell. Around the world, fascists are gaining popularity. How far can Eric Campbell's charisma take the New Guard? The Great Depression is in full swing and Sydney descends into brutal violence and political chaos that may take it to the brink or put it on the world map.

It's 1932 in Sydney: The Harbour Bridge is almost complete after nine years and the whole country continues to struggle with the economic disaster of the previous decade. But for well-heeled Sydney lawyer and ex-WWI officer Eric Campbell, the biggest peril of the Great Depression was not mass unemployment or starvation: It was NSW premier Jack Lang—aka the ALP’s “Red Wrecker”—and his dangerously socialist platform. As Sydney enters a long hot summer, Campbell starts to plot how he and the New Guard can take Jack Lang out of the picture for good. This is a tale of passion and politics in a time of global financial crisis. The rise and fall of Eric Campbell’s New Guard: the fascist army that gatecrashed the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and plotted to overthrow the NSW premier in a military coup.