Over the course of the war, 1,500 ‘Port boys’ departed for the front. In addition to this depletion of the population, the war had numerous effects on domestic life in Port Melbourne. Port’s hotels were mandated to be closed for the duration of troop embarkations and disembarkations, leading to protests by its hotel-keepers. At the piers, the same patriotism which led to the charitable works of the Busy Bees and the WWC also manifested as strong anti-German sentiment. Naturalized German and Austrian stevedores clashed with their Australian counterparts, and tension peaked when a German stevedore threatened to trample the British flag, eventually culminating in fights and riots.
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