In November 1932, the Australian military went to war against an enemy that couldn't fly, didn't have weapons, and could run at around 50 kilometres an hour.

The enemy was the emu. And the emu won.

How do you end up at war with a bird?

After the First World War, Australia offered land in Western Australia to returning veterans so they could become farmers. Many of them ended up growing wheat in marginal country near towns like Campion and Walgoolan.

Then the Great Depression arrived, wheat prices collapsed, and in 1932 a new problem appeared: about 20,000 emus, migrating inland after their breeding season, discovered that freshly cleared farmland was full of water and food.

They ate the crops. They knocked down fences, which let rabbits in to eat the rest.

The farmers were ex-soldiers. They knew what machine guns could do. So they asked the Minister of Defence, Sir George Pearce, for help — and remarkably, he agreed.

The campaign

Major G. P. W. Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery was put in charge. His force: two soldiers, two Lewis machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.

It went badly from the start.

The emus refused to behave like an army. When the soldiers approached, the flock scattered into small groups and ran in every direction. When the gunners set up an ambush near a dam where a thousand emus had been spotted, a gun jammed after killing only a handful. The soldiers mounted a gun on a truck to chase the birds — but the truck couldn't keep up on rough ground, and the gunner couldn't aim while bouncing around.

After a week of embarrassing headlines, the soldiers were withdrawn. The emus remained.

Round two

Farmers kept complaining, so the military returned in mid-November for a second attempt that lasted until early December. This time the results were somewhat better.

Meredith reported 986 confirmed kills using 9,860 rounds of ammunition — almost exactly ten rounds per bird — and estimated that around 2,500 more had died of their injuries.

It was not the decisive victory anyone had hoped for. The press had a wonderful time.

What actually worked

In the end, the most effective weapon against the emus wasn't a machine gun. It was paperwork.

A bounty system, paying hunters for each emu killed, proved far more effective. In 1934, over just six months, more than 57,000 bounties were claimed. Later, better fencing did much of the rest.