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"Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny and Murder in the Australian Imperial Force" by Peter Stanley is a 2010 non-fiction book that does what it says on the tin. Stanley trawled through the AIF court martial files and basically put together this book about the various miscreants of the AIF. This is interesting on its own and also useful as a reference book for people studying the era.

The AIF was, of course, famously “ill disciplined�� - they viewed the army as a job, which meant they expected to agitate for pay and conditions, be informed, and challenge the “bosses��. They didn’t think the army had a right to control what they did in their leisure hours, or to waste their time with pointless ritual or subservience. They expected to get into the trenches and do their job, and then have a good time afterwards. Sensible officers behaved like bosses, and consulted their men; "Pommy" officers were treated with round contempt. The incidences of AWL and absenteeism were astronomically high compared to other forces. General Haig found this so galling he constantly pressured the Australian Government to allow Australian soldiers to be executed, but for political reasons this was never agreed.

Many of the stories relate to discipline, pranks, industrial action and the like that give a sense of what the culture of the AIF was like. Some of the stories are really touching - the man who hesitated to enlist because he was gay and worried about the possible consequences of that - or tragic and disturbing - the man who returned home and in a moment of probable PTSD murdered his sister. Stanley approaches this book with a "to know all is to forgive all"�� attitude, which allows him to tell each story engagingly and without moralising.

There was a lot that worked for me in "Bad Characters", both as a history source, and as an engaging read about the life and times of the men of the AIF. One big thing that didn’t work was that the book was structured by year, not by type of crime. Since the categories of crimes committed each year were not mutually exclusive, this was pretty confusing and didn’t really work for me. It might have worked better if I’d read the book cover to cover, but I was using it as a reference, which meant I jumped around a bit.

"Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny and Murder in the Australian Imperial Force" won the Prime Minister’s prize for Australian History in 2010-11, so if you don’t believe me that it’s worth a read, believe her!