Emu War

Was it a war?
The Great Emu War was a "war" between Australiaball and  emus, which are a species of flightless birds native to Australia.

Explanation of the war
This "war" was not an actual war, rather it was a campaign to lower the population of Emus that infested rural farms and communities. People who lived in the Outback found their aggressive nature particularly annoying.

Soldier Settlements
After the First World War many Australia- I mean Aussie veterans that fought along side the Entente saw farming as a great new hobby and pursued by the Australian Government, they took up farming in Western Australia.

Great Depression
When the Great Depression started in 1929, these farmers were ordered to increase the production of wheat, with the Australiaball government promising subsidies, which they forgot to deliver. In October 1932 kept going down and farmers were losing everything.

Arrival of emus
With the arrival of 20,000 emus to the area, for breeding purposes. The "wheat belt" (a ring in which most of the farms in Western Australia were located, situated around Perth). The emus would run as fast as they could, run into the fences of the farms, which were placed to stop them, so that a large hole would be opened so that they could eat the wheat crops. Then they would eat a 6th part of the crops, leave and then the rabbits would enter though the same hole, effectively cleaning the area of any profitable remaining wheat that the farmers could use.

Meeting with the minister of defense
Farmers were angry about the birds eating their crops so after going to the minister of agriculture, which had done little about the situation a group of ex-soldiers went to the Minister of Defence, Sir George Pearce. Since the soldiers had fought in WW1 they knew how effective machine guns were.

Use of the Emu War as a political tool by the Minister of Defence
The minister of defense then realized that he could help the farmers in Western Australia and gain their support, so that they could gain the support of the population of  Western Australia or  WA. WA had voted in a referendum on their status in the main community of Australia. The result was a clear victory of the population in favour of leaving. The referendum, still, saw low participation data.

Debate over machine guns
The Minister of Defense agreed on the use of machine guns, but they will only be held by official troops and the transport of troops would be paid by the Australiaball government.

Planning
The Australiaball military was ordered to intervene in October of 1932. Major G. P. W. Meredith of the Australian Seventh Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery would go with  3 soldiers to gun down the  emus. They thought it would be a very easy job. But if you know how a Ostrich is you can have a basic idea of how emus are. They are more though that they would have ever thought. The military also planned on using the feathers of 500 emus to make some cool feather hats for the light horsemen divisions of the army.

First battle of the campion
The 2nd of November the small number of soldiers went to Campion, they were going to be involved in the first battle of the Great Emu War. They saw 50 emus in total. They tried shooting at them but they were too far of the Australian Machine Guns. Then local settlers made a ambush and tried catching the birds but they too failed, as the emus ran away in small numbers everywhere. They were able to kill a "number of birds with a second round of ammunition.

Second Battle of the Campion
Near a local dam, also in Campion, a group of approximately 1,000 birds were spotted running towards the Australian positions. This time the gunners opened fire when the Emus were closer to their positions. Only 12 birds were killed as the only weaponry the soldiers had at their disposal, the machine gun, jammed.

1ST AND 2ND BATTLES OF CAMPION: EMU VICTORIES

Organization of the Emu Army
Meredith moved south where there wasn't many birds. On the fourth day a observer of the army realized that the emus were getting organized in groups of five birds with a commander: -"one of the emus in the group gets up and watches the action while the rest of the emus conduct their aggressive war tactics against the australian dun dun bullets."- 

Debate
By November the 9th the Australian army had wasted 2,500 rounds of ammunition of the 10,000 at their disposal. But there was an important debate over how much did those bullets went into waste. Some sources listed 12, others 50 and some even 200 to 500 emus.

The Australian Government was generally favorable to the continuation of the war against the emus. An ornithologist said that the Emus were using guerilla warfare, which lowered the Australian morale. Meanwhile, Meredith said: "If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world ... They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop"

Result
The Great Emu War between the Man community of Australia, supported by the royal artillery, machine guns and 3 soldiers would keep on fighting against the 20,000 emus in Western Australia.

How it started
The second stage of the war had begun when the military withdraw. It wasn't a total withdraw, just a temporal one to see if the birds would react by leaving the area. They did not, and in fact, the crops were again being attacked by Emus. Farmers asked for support once again and with the emus invading farms in the wheat belt of Western Australia the Premier of Western Australiaball, which was strongly in favour of helping the farmers. The military assistance was renewed and so the army returned the 12th of November. As the Minister of Defence renewed the act of the war on emus it began again.

First 2 days
The military headed for the valley the 13th of November of 1932. The military started a 27 day long battle that would be remembered as the time when the Australians fought slightly back. In the first 2 days the brave Australian soldiers saw success fighting the evil emu population, seeing as much as 40 dead emus in under 48 hours.

Rest of the battle
By December the 2nd the Australian Minister of Defence claimed that they were giving death to 100 emus per day in the territories that belonged to the Wheat ring in Western Australiaball.

Surrender of Australia and end of the Great Emu War
The 10th of December Meredith received a horrible story. They had only 140 remaining ammunition weapons left of the 10,000 they had at the start of the Operation. The australians couldn't resist. The white flag rose over the Campion district. The Emus had won.

Immediate reaction
By December of 1932 the British public heard for the first time of the Emu War. Ecologists called the war a massive extermination event of the Emu bird and conservationists saw this as a act against the rare Emu Bird.

Reaction by the farmers
Massive fences were built around Australian farms in the 30's as a result of the 2 month-long campagain aganist the Emus.

Act of 1950
In November 1950 the government of Australiaball, made an act giving farmers about 500,000 rounds of ammunition of .303 bullets.

Why it became popular
The Emu War is still used as a way to ridiculize the Australian Nation and "thanks" to globalization the whole world can now hear about the Emu War.

Critics in the Internet
Many people (especially in USAball) make fun of  Australia for "fighting birds for no reason" and as a  Texan said on Twitter "Lol! those aussies fight f*****ng birds? How dumb!" Most of these people have no context and see this as the time Australia "fought with tanks" some big chickens. This is why the people of Australia have such a hard time defending their armamentistic capacities with the whole world dramatizing a small campaign that was just 3 dudes with a machine guns shooting birds.