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The Last Bastion is a television mini-series telling the story of Australia's involvement in World War II, and its often strained relations with its two main allies, Great Britain and the United States.

Robert Vaughn and Timothy West in The Last Bastion (1984)

I have mentioned (in reviewing the television film, CHURCHILL AND THE GENERALS) that Sir Winston had a tragically inflated view of his ideas on military strategy. In particular his constant insistence that the way to win wars against a Continental power (Germany) was to attack Europe by it&#39;s &quot;soft underbelly&quot;. Twice the result was disaster. In World War II it would be the fight for the island of Crete, which actually was a bloodbath for both England and Germany. In World War I it was the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915, best remembered for the name of one location in the straits involved: Gallipoli. Churchill wanted to use a surprise attack on the Turks to force allied troops into Constantinople and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war (and provide a means of supplying the Tsar of Russia and his forces). The leadership of this enterprise was in General Sir Ian Hamilton, who was not an inspiring or clever leader. While he spent most of his time on a yacht in the Aegean, tens of thousands of Allied soldiers were killed in a series of stupid, costly attacks. Many of these casualties were known as &quot;Anzacs&quot;. They were volunteer soldiers from the colonies of Australia and New Zealand. And in the end the campaign was a failure. The only positive achievements were that it brought pride to the Turks for defending their territory, and that it brought to the forefront their national hero Mustafa Kemal (later their President and modernizer, Kemal Ataturk). The Australians were not happy at being used as useless cannon fodder. They had only unified the various colonies on the smallest continent in 1901, and this was (actually) their second experience in warfare that didn&#39;t benefit them. They had supplied troops for the second Anglo-Boer War (1899 - 1902) only to have a small flare-up of anger at the questionable court-martial and execution of &quot;Breaker&quot; Morant in that war. The Australians were mostly descended from convicts from Britain, and there were always questions about why they were loyal to the mother country that threw them out. Gallipoli made them even more suspicious. With the coming of World War II the conflict between Britain and Australia would come to a head, and leave Britain with the realization that Australia was going to be less and less likely to be attached to them in the future. Churchill would be the first to discover this. Churchill (Timothy West here) became Prime Minister in 1940 due to the failure of the campaign to save Norway from Nazi invasion. Churchill expected that the entire British Commonwealth of Nations would fully support the war effort (soon he would discover that Eamonn De Valera of Ireland was declaring neutrality for the duration, and there was nothing he could do about it). But most unexpected was Australia. The Southern Cross country had just had an election in which the perennially elected Tory Prime Minister Robert Menzies (John Wood) was defeated by John Curtin (Michael Blakemore) the Labor Party leader. This was unsettling to Churchill, but he figured that Australia would fall in line. It didn&#39;t happen that way. Curtin (whose cabinet included the Australian Prime Minister from World War I, Billy Hughes (Jon Ewing)) was suspicious of any British control over Australian troops. The cabinet (which was a coalition) agreed with him. Churchill tried to ignore this, but found his military ideas constantly being questioned by Curtin. After all, Churchill planned Gallipoli. This television film follows how Curtin gradually pulled out all stops to insist that Australia controlled it&#39;s own military destiny. Unlike DeValera in Eire, Curtin faced a foe (the Japanese) who were soon attacking Port Moresby, and threatening invasion through New Guinea. He wanted all the Australian military reserves used for defending the homeland. Chuchill kept trying to send them to the Middle East and Europe. The crux of the confrontation was when Churchill tried to put Australian troops in Egypt (to bolster North African defenses) when Curtin objected. Churchill sent them to Singapore (closer to Australia geographically) where they were all captured when the &quot;Gibraltar of the East&quot; fell to Japan. Slowly Curtin begins to reverse the history of Australia, and tie it&#39;s future to it&#39;s cousin country the United States. The commander of Australia&#39;s forces, General Tom Blamey (Ray Barrett) works closely with General Douglas MacArthur (Robert Vaughn) in the struggle in New Guinea. Blamey&#39;s men reverse the Japanese advance, allowing the Americans to send in reinforcements. MacArthur was always grateful and respectful to Blamey (who he made sure was present at the Japanese surrender on the U.S.S. Missouri in 1945). Curtin died before the war ended, but he knew that he had made his point to the mother country about his nation&#39;s coming of age. Churchill underplayed the slap in his face, but realized that Curtin&#39;s activities were one more step in the replacement of Britain by the U.S. as the world&#39;s superpower. The film followed this little known story (little known here in the U.S.) quite well. Timothy West has played Churchill several times, and has the great man&#39;s brilliance and arrogance down pat. Blakemore plays Curtin as a decent man who finds a world crisis on his watch, and rises truly to the occasion. Wood is wasted - Menzies got stuck in London as part of the Imperial War Cabinet, so he was (oddly enough) out of the loop of Australian politics during much of the war. Ironically one side of his London period is ignored: in 1942 there was a move to try to replace Churchill. Menzies, with his long service as Australian Premier was seen as an alternative. But military news started improving, and the coup never occurred. As for Barrett as Blamey, he makes the General sympathetic by showing his struggles with a helpless Curtin for supplies, and slowly winning Vaughn&#39;s MacArthur&#39;s respect as a fighter. As a historical television film it was quite good,

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The Last Bastion

Many of us have seen dramas of what transpired in England, the U.S., France, Italy, etc. during WWII....but what about those beloved, amiable mates down under? This docudrama does a very fine job of showing what they went thru. It&#39;s not as well-done as CHURCHILL AND THE GENERALS or WORLD WAR II: WHEN LIONS ROARED, but it&#39;s a cinch to say that viewers who loved those dramas will enjoy this one. Some of the actors (including Warren Mitchell as FDR) are not always convincing with their American accents, and even some of the actual Americans have laughable moments(Robert Vaughn plays MacArthur wearing sunglasses, even while indoors). However, no smart viewer cares about such quibbles. One cares for learning about the factual complexities/anxieties that Australia underwent during world history&#39;s most dramatic time. That is what makes this compelling viewing from the start. It also provides many pleasures, from a stirring score and to memorable performances from many, including Michael Blakemore and Timothy West as (once again!) Churchill.

To me this was one of the best displayed movie that what Churchill. Roosevelt and Mc Cather thought of our Australian fighting forces. The 3 of them thought that our men were all Cowards and would not stand and fight. The is also what Churchill also thought when in WW1 he was the First Sea Lord and had them along with the New Zealanders land in the wrong place at in what was to be called ANZAC Cove. While the English landed in the right place with their Generals sitting on the beach drinking tea like it was a weekend lunch time. Mc Cather would not go to see the conditions that our men had to endure fighting in the Owen Stanley Mountains on the Kerkode Trail, while his men sat on their backsides and did nothing. All Mc Cather wanted was to get his face on the front page of every newspaper in Australia also in the Times.

User reviews

The Last Bastion

The Price of Gallipoli: 1939 - 1945

Australia during World War II

Very well displayed

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