The March of the Dungarees was a snowball march in November 1915 in South-East Queensland, Australia, to recruit men into the Australian military during World War I at a time when enthusiasm to enlist had waned after the loss of life in the Gallipoli campaign. The march began at Warwick with 28 men and followed the Southern railway line through Toowoomba, Laidley, and Ipswich to its destination in Brisbane, gathering 125 recruits along the way.
Australian recruiting poster "Fall-in!" by Norman Lindsay
Landing at Gallipoli, April 1915
Stanthorpe Shire Hall (now museum), 2015
Crowd gathers at the start of the Dungarees March in Warwick, 1915.
During World War I, recruitment marches or snowball marches to state capital cities were a feature of volunteer recruiting drives for the Australian Imperial Force in rural Australia. Between October 1915 and February 1916, nine marches were held starting from various points in the state; the most notable was the first march from Gilgandra, New South Wales, known as the Cooee march. The March of the Dungarees took place in south-eastern Queensland in November 1915. In 1918, in an effort to promote recruitment, another march was staged, but this was less spontaneous and the marchers in fact travelled by train.
The Boomerangs at Forbes
The March of the Dungarees along Queen Street, Brisbane, 1915
Kangaroo March near Wallendbeen, New South Wales.
'Men from Snowy River' at Cooma