Background to Eureka
The Eureka "Rebellion" (explanation of the inverted commas around the words in green is below) only lasted a couple of days. Reaching its denouement at around 6am (according to some sources, others scatter the timing around quite a bit) on the morning of Sunday, 3 December, 1854 (at least everyone agrees on the date!).
That was when what has come to be called the Eureka "Stockade", defended by around 150 virtually unarmed "rebels", was attacked by 276 heavily armed men, combining the "finest" of the British Army and the very definitely far-from-fine troopers of Victoria's police service, in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia (we feel like a kid labelling a textbook with their address in the universe). The soldiers were undoubtedly extremely happy the British authorities did not regard them as so fine as to be essential in the Crimea, where the Russians were proving to be more resistant to British, French, Italian, and Turkish violence than expected. Certainly, if the Ballarat soldiers had gone to the Crimea, many more would have become ill, or been killed, or terribly wounded, almost certainly to die very unpleasantly in one of the charnel houses the army called hospitals, than those who suffered at Ballarat. And certainly, the twelve month siege of Sevastopol was a heck of a lot more bloody than the 12 to 15 minute assault on Eureka. |
The "battle" probably lasted less than quarter of an hour. Although the actual time is not agreed upon, ten to fifteen minutes is the most common time given.
In that pathetically short time at least 22 "rebels" were killed. Possibly up to 30 died, with some reports putting the total at 50-70, although those writers are guessing at the number of wounded who died alone, hiding in the bush. Of course, not all died on the day. Several wounded and psychologically damaged died or committed suicide up to some years later. Pretty much all the dead were male gold miners and their supporters, but there was probably at least one woman killed. And the other side? The commanding officer of the first military unit over the "stockade" wall and five soldiers (some sources say four). To explain the inverted commas:
No, not guns, training, military experience, and the obvious things which, indeed, most of them lacked. It was leadership. And, it has to be said, a large part of the responsibility for this rests with the miners' hero, Peter Lalor, who appears to have depended to what turned out to be a deadly extent on a very shady character calling himself McGill. |