Langwarrin Flora and Fauna reserve
Langwarrin in the Local Government Area Frankston City southeast of Melbourne in the state of Victoria ( Australia ) was a military training area from 1886 and an internment camp for prisoners of war during the First World War . Today the large area is a nature reserve .
During the Boer War (1899-1902) soldiers of the British protection force of the Crown Colony Victoria (" Victorian Colonial Defense Forces ") in Langwarrin were trained, militarily trained and equipped for combat in South Africa . Most of these soldiers had been withdrawn from local regiments . Initially, the training and equipping time was very short. In April 1889, for example, 2,195 soldiers only practiced for four days with 669 horses and 29 wagons. With the expansion of the Boer War, this special training in Langwarrin then lasted several weeks. In 1901 the training area became the property of the British Commonwealth .
Since the outbreak of the First World War, Langwarrin was used on the one hand - based on the models from the Boer War - as a " concentration camp " (prisoner of war camp) and on the other hand as a hospital to care for Australian war invalids who had returned from France and Egypt. 420 German prisoners were interned in Langwarrin in May 1915 , plus political prisoners . A total of 6,890 German citizens were interned in Australia, 4,500 of whom were already living in Australia before the outbreak of war. The remainder were seafarers of German war and merchant ships who were moored in Australian ports when the war broke out, or German citizens from British territories in Southeast Asia who had been brought to Australia for internment on the orders of the British government.
After the end of the First World War, Langwarrin was again used as a military training area until 1945. Subsequently, the area was used for local recreational facilities. It was not until 1985 that the 214 hectare site was declared a " Langwarrin Flora and Fauna Reserve " nature reserve after extensive demolition and excavation work .
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Coordinates: 38 ° 9 ′ 13.6 ″ S , 145 ° 11 ′ 9.1 ″ E