Anne-Marie Conde, the NAA’s exhibitions curator, has been examining the century-old documents she describes as the “paper trail that led Australia into the war”.

She said an absent prime minister, coded top secret cablegrams without their decryption keys and a defence minister caught flat-footed by the emerging global crisis are some of the elements of pre-WWI narrative that have been glossed over in the past.

The apparent ineptitude of the Australian politicians who, in their defence, were preoccupied with a double-dissolution election campaign that saw the government soundly defeated six weeks later, was so great the then governor-general, Sir Ronald Munro-Stevenson, an experienced British politician with an uncharacteristically interventionist view of his role, stepped in to put matters to rights.

Ms Conde said it was “very significant” that on July 31, 1914, Sir Ronald sent a telegram to prime minister Joseph Cook asking: “Would it not be well, in view of the latest news from Europe, that ministers should meet in order that the Imperial government may know what support to expect from Australia?”

The original handwritten draft of that wire is one of the many historical treasures available in electronic form through the NAA website.

“It was not normally up to the governor-general, even back then, to suggest if and when cabinet should meet,” said Ms Conde, who has previously worked at the Australian War Memorial and the National Museum. “It sounds like the governor-general took on a greater role, an advisory role, to ensure the appropriate action was taken."

Until Sir Ronald made his “suggestion” the colonials were dangerously close to dropping the ball.

The meeting, attended by five of the 10 members of cabinet, was held in Melbourne (then the seat of the Commonwealth government) on August 3, 1914. It offered Britain an expeditionary force of 20,000 men to be sent to any destination required at Australia’s expense. This formed the basis for the Australian Imperial Force which, by the end of 1918, had grown to almost 332,000 men and women.

When the first telegram advising war was imminent and ordering the mobilisation of Australia’s military forces, such as they were, arrived in Melbourne on July 30, Cook was in country Victoria, Sir Ronald was in Sydney and the attorney-general, William Irvine QC, was in Queensland.

The first cabinet minister to see the document, which stated “See preface defence scheme. Adoption precautionary stage. Names of powers will be communicated later if necessary”, was Edward Millen, the defence minister.

Millen, caught offguard by the incorrectly decoded word “adoption” (it should have said adopt) mistakenly thought the cable was a routine query, not an instruction to clear the decks in preparation for imminent war.

Sir Ronald, to whose office the cable had been addressed, appreciated its true significance. His decision to step up was in character for a man who, according to his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, “believed he could seek advice from any source, even the opposition, and acted on his assumption that he could discuss confidential government business with any privy councillor”.

His cable to Cook followed representations to Millen from rear admiral George Patey, the British Royal Navy Officer who commanded the Royal Australian Navy from aboard his flagship, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia.

Patey was in direct communication with the British Admiralty, then headed by Winston Churchill as the First Lord.

Millen signed the naval preparations, by then a fait accompli, but continued to drag his heels on placing land forces in a state of readiness.

“Days passed,” Ms Conde said. “In Europe the major (future) combatants – Austria, Russia, Germany and France – were mobilising and declaring war on one another. Finally, on August 2, Millen was persuaded by senior military officers and also by attorney-general, Sir William Irvine, to put Australia’s (land-based) military forces on alert.”

By August 3 Cook was back in Melbourne and cabinet met. On August 4 Sir Ronald was able to cable the Colonial Office in London that “... every precaution possible is being taken. There is indescribable enthusiasm throughout Australia in support of all that tends to provide for the security of the Empire in War.”

At 12.30pm, Melbourne time, on August 5, he received this message: “See preface defence scheme. War has broken out with Germany.”

It had begun.