In 1914 many Sydney Anglicans saw the "Great War' that was unfolding as a "holy war'. God was on the side of the British Empire as it fought the aggressor Germany, the unrivalled heartland and bastion of liberal theology.

Leading the charge was the young, fiery, Irish Moore College lecturer and Diocesan Missioner, Dr Everard Digges La Touche.
Digges La Touche argued that German aggression was basically a theological problem. The liberal Protestantism that was so prevalent in Germany had so weakened the spiritual fibre of the German people that they had inevitably turned to Prussian militarism.

Christ or Nietzsche? Cross or sword? For Digges La Touche the war was so starkly a battle between good and evil that he saw no option but to enlist, even against the advice of his Archbishop who needed him for ministry in Sydney. 

Digges La Touche, 31 years old and now a Second Lieutenant, arrived at Gallipoli in August 1915. He had one purpose in mind: to die for a cause he saw as holy and righteous. It was an intention he soon achieved. Within just 12 hours of landing he begged to join an attack. Carrying just a cane and revolver he led his men into battle. Almost immediately he was shot down and bled to death over the next 20 hours.

It was a deliberate self-sacrifice which sought, in Digges La Touche's mind, to defend evangelical Christianity. Later that year his mother wrote, "of the glorious self-sacrifice of our brave sons which will do so much to lead the world to a better knowledge of Christ'.

In fact World War I proved to be catastrophic for Sydney Anglicans. With all Australians they mourned the loss of a generation of their best and brightest young men. Of the 330,000 men who enlisted, just 120,000 survived the war unharmed. Astonishingly, historian Philip Knightley notes that the war left 1 in every 2 Australian families bereaved. It is likely that the very "English' Sydney Anglicans fared worse than most, with clergy aligning the cause of the gospel so closely with the cause of the British Empire.

It has also been argued that the Anglican Church's strong backing of the war effort and conscription hindered the communication of the gospel to Australia's working class in that era and beyond. The diocesan leadership was certainly blind to the evangelistic needs of the moment. There was just one Anglican ministering to the more than 20,000 soldiers based at three camps across Sydney " and he was the full-time headmaster of the Kings School! The cautious Archbishop of Sydney, John Charles Wright, had been reluctant to redirect scarce diocesan funds into army chaplaincies. It was a tragic lost opportunity to take the gospel to the troops. 

The cataclysmic turmoil of the Great War saw many Australians turn away from "establishment' Protestant Christianity. The percentage of Australians attending church each week was about 45 per cent in 1900. By the late 1930s that figure had crashed to less than 30 per cent, despite this overall figure being boosted by the strengthening of Roman Catholic church attendance.

Some Australians turned to the atheistic dream of socialism to build heaven on earth. The Communist Party of Australia was formed in 1920 and in just over a decade it had headquarters in every city, hundreds of suburban branches, membership in the tens of thousands, leadership of many trade unions and control of the NSW Labor Party. By the 1930s pitched battles would be fought with police and right-wing militia on inner-Sydney streets. Spiritualism and theosophy " a blend of Hinduism and Buddhism " became flavour of the month, particularly amongst women. By 1922, there were about 2,000 theosophists in a Sydney. The theosophists were mainly academics and professionals, and in that year they established radio 2GB to proselytize the city with their new beliefs.

It was clear to many Sydney ministers that their fast-emptying pews was not merely lack of commitment but a crisis of unbelief. Strong leadership was needed.

The leadership of Archbishop Howard Mowll during World War II stands in stark contrast to that offered just 20 years before. Mowll, formerly a bishop in China, was a man of action. A big man with bigger ideas. His wife Dorothy was very much "the power behind the power and the strategist behind the visionary' writes historian Stuart Piggin. Together, "they were missionaries at heart'.

At the outbreak of war, Mowll saw what was needed and ordered it to be done. Within just one month, Mowll had established an emergency fund (called CENEF) to provide chaplains and church halls to the army camps. In a further few short weeks, Mowll had placed a full-time chaplain at the Ingleburn camp. In the course of the war nearly 80 Sydney Anglican chaplains would serve in the armed forces.

But the Mowlls' most visible work was built on George Street outside St Andrew's Cathedral. Less than 6 months after the war had been declared a makeshift canteen was built there to provide troops on leave with meals and showers. CENEF hostels were also built to provide them with short-term accommodation in the city. The canteens and hostels were staffed by a volunteer team of 2,000 women organized by Mrs Mowll. Across the six years of the war, 80,000 meals were served and 8,000 people were given a bed.

Always mission-minded, Mowll made the Cathedral Sydney's spiritual heart-beat. The bells rang at noon to call the city to prayer. Impromptu memorial services were held on the announcement of tragic news " the sinking of the warship Sydney, the fall of Singapore.

Early in the war Mowll brought the clergy together to discuss the key issues. He wanted his preachers to present a clear and unambiguous message about the war " no inflammatory accusations of blame, but a call for all to repent from revenge and hate.
Archbishop Mowll's energetic leadership had put Sydney Anglicans in a position to reap a harvest from the good-will of post war reconstruction. 

Edited by Jeremy Halcrow, primarily from Sydney Anglicans (AIO, 1987) by Stephen Judd and Kenneth Cable.

Other Sources:
Birmingham, John Leviathan: a biography of Sydney
Knightley, Phillip Australia: a biography of a nation, Vintage, 2000
Piggin, Stuart Evangelical Christianity in Australia: spirit, world and work, OUP, 1996
Church attendance statistics courtesy Dr John Bellamy, National Church Life Survey team.