The Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC), which was a part-time volunteer force of 100,000 men based on the British Home Guard, was also available for local defence.
A total of 4,400 rifles, 60 machine guns and 28 field guns in these lancer and infantry regiments were available for the defence of Beersheba.
Seeing the threat that the Japanese posed to Australia, the government had begun to bring AIF units back from the Middle East but the bulk of the forces immediately available for the defence of Australia came from the militia, which was at that stage an organisation of some 265,000 men organised into five infantry and two cavalry divisions.
Finally, in a study conducted in Acacia drepanolobium, it emerged that the presence of mutualistic species could provide a direct metabolic benefit to the plants that, in turn, enhanced the pool of photosynthates available for additional defence and/or for tolerance-related growth (King and Caylor 2010).
But no funding has yet been allocated, despite £700m of new government funding being made available for flood defences in March.
However, The IoS can reveal that the Labour Party has not made any funding available for the shadow defence team to commission research or hire outside experts as would normally be the case with a major policy review.
But hours before each of the 14 competing nations was required to submit a 24-man squad, Sonny Bill Williams confirmed on his Twitter feed that, having previously informed the New Zealand selectors that he was not available for their title defence, he had changed his mind.
The only forces immediately available for Vienna's defence were Prince Louis of Baden's force of 36,000 stationed in the Lines of Stollhofen to watch Marshal Tallard at Strasbourg; there was also a weak force of 10,000 men under Field Marshal Count Limburg Styrum observing Ulm.
A third of the available spectrum is used for defence, maritime, aeronautical, scientific and emergency services.
