Political problems in Australia in 1941

From the perspective of most Australian soldiers in Tobruk, they expected that they would leave Tobruk when the siege was lifted. After the failure of Operation Battleaxe, that seemed to be unlikely to happen any time soon. General Blamey, the senior Australian soldier in the Middle East, suggested that the 9th Australian Division be withdrawn by ship. Hardly anyone in Tobruk during the summer of 1941 knew anything about this possibility. When WInston Churchill published his volume The Grand Alliance, postwar, that was news to most people in Auxtralia. In his book, Churchill only quoted his messages to the Government of Australia, and did not quote the responses from the Australian Government. Churchill portrayed the situation as the Australian Government feeling political pressure from the Opposition as the cause.

From the Australian perspective, this seems not to have been true. There was a committee of the leaders of the three political parties that met on this subject. The subject was raised by General Blamey's communication. The dispersion of the Australian forces in the Middle East and Mediterranean was the basis for their concern. Another aspect of this was the formation of the ANZAC Corps in Greece, which was ultimately dissolved. There was continued interested in having the combined New Zealand and Australian divisions included in a reconstituted ANZAC Corps. In early May 1941, General Wavell had written approvingly of having an ANZAC Corps. General Blamey wrote that he thought that having the three Australian divisions and the New Zealand division grouped into two two-division corps was a good idea. The 7th and 9th Australian Divisions would form an Australian corps and the New Zealand division and the 6th Australian Division would form the ANZAC Corps. General Blamey endorsed General Freyberg as the ANZAC Corps commander with General Laverack as the Australian Corps commander.

By 7 June 1941, General Blamey wrote to the Australian Prime Minister about the need to have fixed formations in place, rather than everything being ad hoc. That was mentioned as his main reason for agreeing to the ANZAC Corps with an Australian Corps. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.