0:00 In November 1932, the Australian military deployed soldiers with two heavy machine guns and ten thousand rounds of ammunition to wage war on… BIRDS.0:10 No, seriously.0:11 Last week, we were talking about how clever programmers in the early days of PCs turned technical limits into these incredible creative breakthroughs.0:22 This is kind of the flip side of that coin.0:25 This is a story about what happens when your opponent is unexpectedly brilliant, and your opponent is a two-meter-tall flightless bird.0:34 The whole thing kicked off in Western Australia, in the Campion district.0:40 You have to remember the context.0:42 It’s 1932.0:43 The Great Depression is biting hard, and there’s a severe drought.0:47 The government has settled a bunch of World War One veterans on farmland out there, promising them a new start.0:55 But their wheat crops are being absolutely decimated by an estimated twenty THOUSAND emus who are migrating in from the interior, looking for food and water.1:06 So the farmers, many of them ex-soldiers, go to the government for help.1:12 And they have an idea.1:13 They say, "Hey, we've got all these emus.1:16 You've got machine guns.1:18 Let's do some target practice." And the Minister of Defence, Sir George Pearce, agrees.1:24 He figures it's good P.R., shows the government is supporting the struggling farmers, and gives his troops some live-fire training.1:33 So he dispatches Major G.P.W.1:35 Meredith with two soldiers and two Lewis machine guns to solve the emu problem.1:41 Permanently.1:42 Here’s where it gets incredible.1:44 The military’s plan was classic, textbook stuff.1:48 They’d use local farmers to herd the emus into an ambush, and then just open up with the machine guns.1:55 Easy, right?1:56 Point-blank fire into what one report called "serried masses of Emus." Except, the emus didn't read the textbook.2:04 On the very first day of the "war," they set up an ambush.2:08 A group of about fifty birds was spotted.2:11 The soldiers got ready, the locals tried to herd them into range...2:16 and the emus just scattered.2:18 They split into tiny groups and ran.2:20 These things can hit thirty miles an hour, you know.2:24 The gunners fired off a bunch of rounds, but they maybe, maybe killed a dozen.2:29 It was a total failure.2:31 A few days later, they got a second chance.2:34 A scout reported a flock of over a THOUSAND emus at a local dam.2:39 This was it.2:40 The perfect kill zone.2:41 Major Meredith set up the guns, waited for the birds to get close… and a machine gun jammed after firing just twelve rounds.2:50 Before they could clear it, the birds were gone.2:53 Vanished.2:54 After a week of this, they had fired over twenty-five hundred rounds of ammunition.3:00 Their official body count?3:02 Maybe two hundred emus.3:03 Some reports say it was as low as fifty.3:06 One ornithologist just called the whole campaign an "unmitigated failure." The emus, it turned out, were tactical geniuses.3:15 A military report later said, and I am quoting this, "The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics." It sounds like a joke, but they were serious!3:26 The birds stopped moving in large flocks.3:29 They split into small, unpredictable units.3:32 They even seemed to post sentries, where one emu would watch for danger while the others ate.3:39 Major Meredith himself complained that each bird was "like a tank," capable of absorbing multiple bullets and just… keeping on running.3:48 And this is where we've seen this shape before, right?3:52 This isn't just a funny story about losing a war to birds.3:56 This is a perfect, almost comically literal example of ASYMMETRIC warfare.4:02 The Australian military showed up with a conventional, centralized plan designed to fight a conventional enemy.4:10 They had superior firepower, a clear command structure, and a straightforward objective.4:16 But the emus were an insurgency.4:18 They had no center of gravity.4:20 No supply lines to cut, no command bunker to bomb.4:24 Their strength was their decentralization and their mobility.4:28 Every time the military tried to force a decisive battle, the emus simply refused.4:34 They melted away, using their knowledge of the terrain to their advantage.4:39 You can't defeat an enemy that won't fight on your terms.4:43 The military was trying to play chess, and the emus were playing… something else entirely.4:50 They were just being emus.4:52 And that was enough to win.4:54 The whole operation was called off in December.4:57 It was a national embarrassment.4:59 The media had a field day, dubbing it "The Great Emu War." When the farmers asked for help again the next year, the government just said no.5:09 Instead, they ended up putting up miles and miles of pest-exclusion fencing.5:15 A simple, practical, non-military solution.5:18 It turned out the answer wasn't a bigger gun.5:21 It was a better fence.
