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Book Review
| Andrew Moore, Francis De Groot: Irish Fascist, Australian Legend, Federation Press, Sydney, 2005. pp. x + 222. $33.95 cloth.
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| Francis De Groot and his unauthorised 'opening' of the Sydney Harbour Bridge looms large in the scale of Australian political legends and, in this impressively researched, delightfully written and entertaining book, Andrew Moore comes as close as is possible to telling us everything we need to know about this man on horseback. Moore demonstrates rare skill in distinguishing facts from fictions (including some spread by De Groot himself). To me the first surprise was that De Groot was Catholic; knowing of his Irish birth I had always assumed he must be another representative of the Ulster Protestant ascendancy, an Alexander Leeper with all of the certainties but none of the doubts. Not only was De Groot a Catholic but in his Irish youth he was a Redmondite nationalist. As Moore notes De Groot is a fascinating contrast to the stereotype of the Anglophile Protestant conservative. |
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Despite war service De Groot had no involvement in right-wing returned soldier politics of the 1920s or in conservative politics. De Groot joined the New Guard shortly after its formation in 1931 and rapidly rose to a leading position. Here the book inevitably becomes a history of the New Guard and it is here that I disagree with some aspects of the analysis. Moore's description of the constituency of the Guard revives the now archaic thesis of post-war political sociology that presented fascism as a vehicle of the economically marginal. At one point De Groot is described as 'petit bourgeoisie' and the New Guard's constituency is described as an early version of Menzies' forgotten people; 'reliable, straightforward men, small shopkeepers, grocers, tradesmen, and service station proprietors, the backbone of a property-owning democracy', squeezed between the providers of credit and organised labour, but elsewhere the Guard's leaders are described as 'ruling-class understudies and young turks on the way up'. De Groot was able to close his entire business in 1929 and devote himself full-time to leisure and then political activity; he was hardly economically marginal. Moore might have followed the example of Marx's argument in the Eighteen Brumaire of Louis Napoleon that political factions of capital, such as the New Guard, do not necessarily reflect economic factions. Moore alludes to De Groot's social marginality but could make more of his Catholicism, for this surely closed off his options in mainstream conservative politics. Fascism provided an attractive alternative. Moore provides an insightful analysis of the internal politics of the New Guard and the role of its leader Eric Campbell and how Campbell's extravagant rhetoric in early 1932 backed the Guard into a corner where members, such as De Groot, felt impelled to act to preserve its credibility. |
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Moore's analysis shows a sure grasp of the realties of political life that is sometimes missing among political historians. The central chapters of the book describe the Bridge opening and deflate with deft skill not only various conspiracy theories but also libels against De Groot's horse. The comic, if slightly disturbing events that follow, De Groot's confinement in an asylum and his brief fame as a fascist sex-symbol are vividly described. Here the book provides some fascinating insights in the relationship between policing and politics. After his moment of fame De Groot slowly slipped from public view. He disagreed with Campbell's embrace of fascism and departed the New Guard. De Groot's military career ended as an unhappy wartime commander of a restive military camp in the Hunter Valley. |
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Moore stresses that De Groot was more than the man on horseback and that he made a major contribution to the material culture of interwar Sydney, but we know that it was those frantic seconds on the Bridge that made him a legend. For fascism to become a mass political force it needed people like De Groot; he was a typical fascist everyman. Michael Mann's Fascists highlights the contribution to fascism of those on the Right who saw it as a combative populist conservatism, capable of appealing to Catholics and workers, and who underestimated its radicalism. De Groot was a prosperous businessman; he seems to have carried no trauma from the war and unlike Eric Campbell did not harbour grand ambitions. It was impatient conservatives like De Groot who in Europe provided the popular and elite support that brought fascism from café and cult obscurity to power. After fascism came to power its conservative fellow-travellers were mostly swept up in the vortex of fascist governance towards complicity in unimaginable cruelties. |
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Moore skilfully evokes De Groot's personality and his time but without the excesses of empathy that marks some recent Australian political historiography, and we finish this book with an awareness of how far De Groot went and how much further he, an ordinary man of Australian fascism, might have gone. This is an excellent book and could be recommended to students as an example of historical writing. |
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| Deakin University |
GEOFF ROBINSON | |
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