Eureka Stockade .wmv

At 3 a.m. on Sunday, 3 December 1854, a party of 276 police and military personnel under the command of Captain J.W. Thomas approached the Eureka Stockade and a battle ensued. There is no agreement as to which side fired first, but the battle was fierce, brief, and terribly one-sided. The ramshackle army of miners was hopelessly outclassed by a military regiment and was routed in about 10 minutes. During the height of the battle, Lalor was shot in his right arm, took refuge under some timber and was smuggled out of the stockade and hidden. His arm was later amputated.

Stories tell how women ran forward and threw themselves over the injured to prevent further indiscriminate killing. The Commission of Inquiry would later say that it was "a needless as well as a ruthless sacrifice of human life indiscriminate of innocent or guilty, and after all resistance had disappeared".. Early in the battle "Captain" Henry Ross was shot dead.

According to Lalor's report, fourteen miners (mostly Irish) died inside the stockade and an additional eight died later from injuries they sustained. A further dozen were wounded but recovered. Three months after the Eureka Stockade, Peter Lalor wrote: "As the inhuman brutalities practised by the troops are so well known, it is unnecessary for me to repeat them. There were 34 digger casualties of which 22 died. The unusual proportion of the killed to the wounded, is owing to the butchery of the military and troopers after the surrender."

By 8am, Captain Pasley, the second in command of the British forces, sickened by the carnage, saved a group of prisoners from being bayoneted and threatened to shoot any police or soldiers who continued with the slaughter. One hundred and fourteen diggers, some wounded, were marched off to the Government camp about two kilometres away, where they were kept in an overcrowded lockup, before being moved to a more spacious barn on Monday morning.

Among the soldiers and military police, six were killed, including Captain Wise. Martial law was imposed, and all armed resistance collapsed. News of the massacre spread quickly to Melbourne and other gold field regions, turning a perceived Government military victory in repressing a minor insurrection into a public relations disaster, with widespread condemnation of the Government's action and support for the diggers' requested reforms.

Exact numbers of deaths and injuries are difficult to determine as many miners "fled to the surrounding bush and it is likely a good many more died a lonely death or suffered the agony of their wounds, hidden from the authorities for fear of repercussions." according to Eureka researcher and author Dorothy Wickham. The official register of deaths in the Ballarat District Register shows 27 names associated with the Eureka revolt.

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Education

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[trueblueaus1488]

thanx, no worries *_* 

[SaintTony1968]

TRUE AUSTRALIAN

[ryanpete1001]

verry good i understant it mmore clearly now