The five prime ministers who presided during this time — Cook, Hughes, Bruce, Scullin and Lyons — faced many challenges including World War I and the Great Depression. The creation of the Fusion Party at the end of the first decade of Federation, while strategically important, created a swing to Labor bringing Cook to power in 1913. However, with only a slim majority, he was eventually forced to call for the country’s first double dissolution in 1914. Just one month before Fisher succeeded him on 4 August 1914, Britain declared war on Germany, and Australia thus found itself at war. With so many young Australian lives lost at the landing at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli, and the country struggling to fulfil its commitment to the war effort, Hughes called two referendums on conscription, in 1916 and 1917. Both failed, causing Labor to split. Hughes then defected from the Labor Party in 1916, joining the newly created National Party and marking the rise of the conservatives which culminated with the formation of the Country Party in 1920.
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