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During World War I, recruitment marches or snowball marches to Sydney were a feature of volunteer recruiting drives for the Australian Imperial Force in rural New South Wales, 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, known as the Cooee march. There was also a similar march in south-eastern Queensland. In 1918, in an effort to promote recruitment, another march was staged, but this was less spontaneous and the marchers in fact traveled by train. The marches were called "snowball marches" in the hope that like a snowball rolling down a hill will pick up more snow, gaining more mass and surface area, and picking up even more snow as it rolls along, the marchers would also collect more marchers as they progressed to the recruiting depot. == Background == The Australian Imperial Force was formed promptly on the declaration of World War I as a volunteer force; many men signed up immediately. From mid-June 1915 there was a substantial increase in recruitment, as state-based Parliamentary recruiting committees were formed and became active in towns, boroughs and shires. In June 1915 the Minister for Defense set recruitment goals at 5,300 men per month in order to maintain the forces fighting at Gallipoli. This target was exceeded in Victoria when 21,698 men enlisted in that month, the largest number from any state during the war. The campaign in New South Wales by contrast was disappointing for state leaders — especially so in light of interstate rivalry between the two neighbors. It was suggested by the Premier of New South Wales, William Holman, that one of the reasons New South Wales was not meeting the targets was because the military authorities were not ready to accept the men at the time they offered to enlist and told them to come back later. In response to these embarrassing recruitment shortfalls, some New South Wales residents launched a series of 'snowball' recruiting marches, which were intended to encourage men to enlist through the marchers' example. The first march was a locally based initiative led by the captain of the local Rifle Club in October 1915; eight other marches were known to have taken place over the next four months. Military authorities were initially ambivalent about the marches; they were not certain whether or not the men should march with rifles, when their pay would start, and who would clothe or feed them. Along the route however, local communities fed and housed the men, and the marches gained tremendous publicity.〔 About 1,500 men marched in total, and they are credited by some sources with persuading anywhere from two to three times that number to enlist as a result.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Snowball marches」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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