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Title: Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War
Author: Buley, E. C.
Language: English
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GLORIOUS DEEDS
OF AUSTRALASIANS IN THE
GREAT WAR
Books of Topical Interest.
The Russian Campaign. The second series of Field Notes.
By STANLEY WASHBURN.
Demy 8vo, 70 Illustrations. Price 7 _s._ 6_d._ net.
[_Third Thousand._
Russia, the Balkans and the Dardanelles.
By GRANVILLE FORTESCUE.
Illustrated. Demy 8vo, cloth. Price 6_s._ net.
Ferdinand of Bulgaria.
By the Author of "The Real Kaiser." Cartoons by Will. Dyson.
Price 2_s._ net.
Sketches in Poland.
By FRANCES DELANEY LITTLE.
12 Illustrations in Colour. Demy 8vo. Price 9_s._ net.
[_Second Edition._
Field Notes from the Russian Front.
By STANLEY WASHBURN.
Demy 8vo, 60 Illustrations. 6_s._ net.
[_Fourth Thousand._
At the Front with Three Armies.
By GRANVILLE FORTESCUE.
Demy 8vo, 30 Illustrations. 6_s._ net.
[_Second Edition._
Germany's Swelled Head.
By EMIL REICH.
Crown 8vo, cloth. Jacket in Colours. Design by Kapp. Price 1_s._
net.
[_Ninth Edition._
LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE, LTD.
[Illustration: General Birdwood, in charge of the operations at Anzac.
_Frontispiece._]
GLORIOUS DEEDS OF AUSTRALASIANS
in the Great War
By
E. C. BULEY
Author of "Australian Life in Town and Country"
FIFTH (ENLARGED) EDITION
LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE, LTD.
3 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1916
First printed October, 1915.
Reprinted November, 1915.
" twice in December, 1915.
New edition (enlarged) January, 1916.
PREFACE
In the course of writing this book I have interviewed some hundreds
of wounded Australasian soldiers in London hospitals. From their
narratives, delivered with a modesty which I have not sought to
reproduce here, I gathered much material not obtainable in the short
official accounts given of their exploits.
The temptation to record individual deeds of remarkable bravery
has been strong, but in most cases it has been resisted. This
comparatively small force, which has suffered 25,000 casualties
in less than five months, consists of men who are all heroes.
After the first few days on Gallipoli, its officers recognized
the impossibility of officially recognizing deeds of bravery, and
practically no awards have been made since the end of April.
I have collected a large number of remarkable instances of gallantry,
but I have concluded that to mention these would be invidious, since
the bulk of such exploits has not come under my notice. Such an
exception as I have made in the case of Private Simpson, the dead
hero of the Ambulance section, will be pardoned. No Australasian ever
speaks of him without saying, "He earned the V.C. a dozen times."
I have heard Australasian officers recount deeds of wonderful bravery
which they have not cared to report, because "Any of my men would
have done the same"; and, in my attempt to record the main incidents
of this great adventure, I am constrained to accept this very high
standard of duty. Its effect has been to win for Australasian
soldiers a reputation for "daredevil bravery" in the mass, and to
ignore the supreme efforts of the individual.
I have to thank the _Daily Mail_ for the permission to reproduce
three of the wonderful exclusive photographs its enterprise obtained
from the Anzac zone; the _British Australasian_ for the use of all
the remaining photographs with which the book is illustrated; and
the _Weekly Dispatch_ for permission to reproduce matter which first
appeared in that paper.
Finally, I have spoken to no wounded Australasian in this country who
has not taken occasion to mention the great kindness shown by the
people of Great Britain. Many of them, hearing that I was writing
a book on Australasia's part in the war, have asked me to mention
this. Their thankfulness has been so spontaneous, and they have been
so profoundly touched, that I have ventured to refer to it. Their
gratitude cannot be too widely made known on this side of the world;
nor can the attentions which elicited it be too freely indicated to
those who sent them from Australasia.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
The rapid exhaustion of four editions of this book has been accepted
by myself as sufficient proof that I have succeeded in carrying out
the main idea suggested to me by Mr. Andrew Melrose, the publisher.
He divined that some continuous account of the deeds of Australasians
in the war would be received with interest, pending the appearance
of an authoritative work by the official historian of the Anzacs. I
have now extended the book to include all the main incidents of the
fighting in Gallipoli, and the evacuation of the Peninsula.
I wish to thank my many friends of the Australian and New Zealand
Imperial Forces who have written pointing out errors in the
original text, and amplifying my accounts of various engagements.
The appreciation they have expressed of my modest performance
has indeed been gratifying, and any fear I may have had of their
misunderstanding the purpose of the book has been entirely removed.
I have added an alphabetical list of those members of the Anzac
Army who have been decorated for services in the field, or mentioned
in dispatches. I hope it will be found useful, as well as the index
to the contents of the book. With these additions I am content to
let the fifth edition go, in the fullest confidence that it will be
accepted for what it is intended to be, a brief and simple outline of
the most adventurous enterprise and most heroic deeds that the whole
history of war can discover.
LONDON, _February 25_, 1916.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I THE LONG BLACK SHIPS 13
II THE END OF THE RAIDER "EMDEN" 29
III IN THE LAND OF PHARAOH 47
IV THE BATTLE OF BRIGHTON BEACH 59
V OCCUPYING THE LAND 75
VI POPE'S HILL AND GABA TEPE 95
VII THE CHARGE AT KRITHIA 107
VIII THE BATTLE OF QUINN'S POST 121
IX A THORN IN THE FLESH 133
X THE SOUL OF ANZAC 149
XI THE STORY OF LONE PINE 159
XII THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT HORSE 169
XIII THE MIGHTY NEW ZEALANDERS 181
XIV THE VALLEY OF TORMENT 193
XV THE GREAT NIGHT MARCH 203
XVI THE STORY OF THE "SOUTHLAND" 215
XVII THE V.C.'S OF ANZAC 225
XVIII SAID AN AUSTRALIAN OFFICER 239
XIX THE BAND OF BROTHERS 253
XX A TRIBUTE TO THE TURK 267
XXI GURKHAS, WHITE AND BROWN 279
XXII THE MAN WHO WASN'T LET 291
XXIII THE AUSTRALASIAN SOLDIER 303
XXIV FILLING THE GAPS 315
XXV THE ARMIES OF AUSTRALASIA 331
XXVI CLEARING THE PACIFIC 343
XXVII THE YOUNGEST NAVY IN THE WORLD 353
XXVIII THE HEART OF EMPIRE STIRRED 369
XXIX THE SECOND DIVISION 385
XXX THE LAST OF ANZAC 397
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
General Birdwood, "the Soul of Anzac" _Frontispiece_
Australian Infantry Training at Broadmeadows 14
Troops Leaving Brisbane 20
The Australians returning to Camp at Mena, in Egypt 48
Australian Soldiers at the Foot of the Pyramids 50
Sir George Reid, High Commissioner for the Commonwealth,
Reviewing the Australian Expeditionary
Force at Mena Camp, Egypt 52
Transports bearing the Australasians to Anzac Cove. 62
The Landing at Anzac Cove on Sunday, April 25, 1915 66
Shrapnel bursting over Anzac Cove 70
Roll-call on Brighton Beach. The Sad Scene after
an Engagement 80
Sir George Reid, High Commissioner for the Australian
Commonwealth, 1914-15 90
General James McCay, commanding 2nd Brigade,
Australian Infantry 100
The New Zealanders Reviewed at Heliopolis 110
General Bridges, who commanded the 1st Expeditionary
Force from Australia 116
General Monash, Commander of the 4th Brigade,
Australian Infantry 122
Australian Field Artillery in Action 124
Map showing the stretch of Gallipoli Peninsula from
Gaba Tepe to Suvla Bay 134
A Battery of Australian Field Artillery going into
Action 162
Sergt.-Major Wynn, a Typical Trooper of the
Australian Light Horse 174
A Battalion of New Zealand Mounted Rifles 182
General Legge, who commanded the Second Division 218
General Sir Newton Moore, in Charge of the Australasian
Depôt at Weymouth 240
The Valley of Death 248
Captain Richardson of the 1st Brigade 252
A New South Wales Battalion, ready for the Front 304
The Last March through Sydney Streets 310
General Sir A. J. Godley commanding the New Zealanders
and the 4th Brigade, Australian Infantry 316
Farewell to the Troops in Melbourne 324
The Canterbury Section of the New Zealand Expeditionary
Force 326
The Australian Submarines AE 1 and AE 2, both lost
in the First Year of War 346
Rear-Admiral Sir George Patey, commanding the
Australian Squadron 348
H.M.A.S. _Australia_ in Sydney Harbour 356
The Governor-General of Australia 364
Australian Guns in Action before Sari Bair 390
THE LONG BLACK SHIPS
CHAPTER I
THE LONG BLACK SHIPS
On November 1st, 1914, there steamed out of the harbour of Albany,
in Western Australia, three long lines of great ocean steamships. At
their head proudly steamed the Australian cruiser _Melbourne_; the
procession was brought up in the rear by another Australian cruiser,
the _Sydney_. So the long black ships, forty in all, set out from the
last port of Australia in the golden Southern spring, bearing the
army of Australasia to the Antipodes in the Old World.
If another such army has ever been seen, it must have been a goodly
sight. Each man was a volunteer, who sailed away to fight, not so
much as a duty--but as a proud privilege. For that privilege many
thousands of fine young men had competed unsuccessfully; those
selected were truly the very pick of the flower of the youth and
strong manhood of Australasia. The ranks contained men from every
class of life. A young barrister, who had relinquished a practice
worth some thousands a year, had as his fellow ranker a kangaroo
shooter from the far remote bush fastness. Well-to-do young farmers
rubbed shoulders with architects and miners, shearers chummed up with
city clerks. Men of all grades were bound together by the common
cause that had impelled them to take up arms.
The Australasian army was a democratic army. The officers held their
rank for no other reason than their fitness to command. Social
station counted for nothing; soldier-like qualities alone decided the
allotment of commissions, and of appointments to the non-commissioned
grades. In one regiment the major was a stockbroker's clerk; the
stockbroker himself, formerly the chairman of his stock exchange,
was glad to serve in the same regiment as a private. Many of the
officers, and especially the non-commissioned officers, had seen
much active service in the Boer war. In the ranks there was a strong
leavening of the young soldiers who were the product of the system of
compulsory national service adopted throughout Australasia only a few
years before.
[Illustration: Australian Infantry Training at Broadmeadows.]
Physically, the men were as near perfection as could be attained in
so large a body. The average height of the 20,000 Australians was
5 feet 8 inches; the 8,000 New Zealanders averaged quite an inch
more. One battalion of Australians averaged 5 feet 10 inches; while
New Zealand again outdid this figure with a battalion averaging an
inch better. The 12,000 horses they took with them were the very
pick of two countries renowned for the stamina and quality of their
horseflesh. Their equipment was all of Australasian manufacture; the
khaki of their uniforms the best that could be made of the best wool
the world produces, their rifles, their ammunition, and every last
trifle of their outfit all home-made, and all designed to show how
well the Southern Nations could answer a sudden call on behalf of the
Empire. It was the first instalment of Australasia's vindication of
the promise made by the Prime Minister of Australia: "the last man
and the last shilling."
The offer by Australasia of this substantial aid in fighting the
battles of the Empire was made before the war-cloud had burst upon
Europe, but when the prospects looked very threatening.
The actual outbreak of war was anticipated by the Governments of the
Commonwealth and the Dominion of New Zealand by offers of every loyal
support. "All Australian resources are for the Empire's preservation
and security," declared Mr. Cook, then the Australian Prime Minister;
a sentiment crystallized by Mr. Andrew Fisher, then leader of the
Opposition and now Prime Minister, in the phrase, "Australia will
stand by to the last man and the last shilling"; which has become the
war motto of the Commonwealth. The Prime Minister of New Zealand,
Mr. Massey, said New Zealand would send an expeditionary force, and
would support the Empire to the utmost of its resources. A stirring
scene followed in the New Zealand Parliament, when the members rose
spontaneously and sang "God save the King."
The loyal messages of the Australasian Governments were acknowledged
by King George in the following cable:--
"I desire to express to my people of the Oversea Dominions with
what appreciation and pride I have received the messages from
their respective Governments during the last few days. These
spontaneous assurances of their fullest support recall to me the
generous self-sacrificing help given by them in the past to the
Mother Country. I shall be strengthened in the discharge of the
great responsibilities which rest upon me by the confident belief
that in this time of trial my Empire will stand united, calm,
resolute, trusting in God.
"GEORGE R.I.
"LONDON, _August_ 4."
This was acknowledged by New Zealand in the following terms:--
"I am desired by the New Zealand Government to acknowledge your
Majesty's gracious message, and to say that, come good or ill,
she, in company with the other Dominions and Dependencies of the
Crown, is prepared to make any sacrifice to maintain her heritage
and her birthright.
"LIVERPOOL, _Governor General_."
Australia made a specific offer of 20,000 men as a first instalment
for an expeditionary force, which was promptly accepted, as was the
offer of the Australian navy. New Zealand offered 8,000 men as a
first instalment, and these were also accepted promptly. The work of
selecting the best men from the many thousands of eager applicants
was a difficult one. New Zealand had 30,000 men in camp at the time,
training under the system of compulsory national service. They
volunteered for service abroad practically to a man. No immature boys
were selected, the age limit being twenty; and in the end it was
necessary to ballot for places among the large number of suitable men
who applied for places in the Expedition.
In Australia equal enthusiasm was shown. The age limit here was
nineteen, which excluded a large number of the youths training under
the Australian system of compulsory service. The medical tests were
very severe, as were the tests for horsemanship in the cavalry
brigades. Australia had to deny thousands of highly suitable men the
privilege of serving in the first contingent, but 10,000 of these
were put into training at once in order to be ready for a second
instalment.
An example of the eagerness to enlist was afforded by the case
of a young Queensland grazier, who mounted his horse and, as a
preliminary, rode 460 miles from his place at Cooper's Creek to the
nearest railway station, whence he travelled by train to Adelaide.
He wished to join a Light Horse regiment, and finding there was
no vacancy in South Australia, he set off to Hobart, in Tasmania,
by boat. There he was also unsuccessful, solely because all the
vacancies were filled. Not to be denied, he took boat to Sydney,
where he found his place at last, after having travelled over 2,000
miles, on horseback, by train, and by steamer, to serve as a private
soldier in the Empire's cause.
The instance is not unique; it is rather typical. Men went willingly
under the surgeon's knife for the removal of physical excrescences or
defects which were held to incapacitate them for service. Those who
could not find a place in the Australasian armies took their passages
literally by hundreds to Great Britain, there to enlist in the new
armies that were being gathered by Lord Kitchener for training.
Others obtained promises of places in future contingents, and at once
went into camp for practical training in all the duties of a soldier
on active service. The men selected for the first contingent threw
themselves into the work of preparation with a splendid ardour, that
shortened the time of preparation and permitted a speedy dispatch of
the troops to the old world. The actual work of embarkation began on
October 17, and was concluded on October 22, so that 20,000 men and
9,000 horses were got on the transports in five days, a sharp bit of
work. Before the actual departure, General Bridges sent the following
message to the people of Australia:--
"I hope to report that the conduct of the Australians, both in camp
and on the field, is worthy of the trust imposed upon them by the
people of the Commonwealth. The men are a fine lot, soldierly and
patriotic. I am grateful to the soldiers and citizens for the help
they have given me in organizing and preparing the force now about
to do its part for the good of the Empire. I venture to express the
hope that no matter how great the demands on their patience, the
Australian people will see to it that there is no diminution of their
determination to face their responsibility. This spirit cannot fail
then to pervade the troops."
Mr. Pearce, the Minister for Defence, sent to the troops on their
departure the following message:--
"Upon the force devolves the honour and responsibility of
representing Australia and of performing Australia's share in the
great Imperial effort in the interests of justice, honour and
international integrity. The ultimate issue of that undertaking can
never be in doubt, but its attainment demands a steadfast display
of the British qualities of resolution and courage, which are yours
by right of heredity. The people of Australia look to you to prove
in battle that you are capable of upholding the traditions of the
British arms. I have no fear that you will worthily represent the
Commonwealth's military forces. Your presence among the Imperial
forces has, however, a wider significance, as representing the
solidarity of the Empire and the Imperial spirit of loyalty to the
King."
And now the men of Australasia are embarked on their mighty
adventure. Six months later they were to thrill the Empire with a
feat of arms as brave and brilliant as anything contained even in the
annals of this, the greatest war of all times. So much they hardly
dared to hope then, but they strove by every means in their power
to keep themselves fit for the ordeal to come, when they would be
matched against the trained soldiers of the greatest and proudest
military Power history has ever known.
[Illustration: Troops leaving Brisbane.]
A glance around those forty troopships would reveal an interesting
object lesson in the production of new types of the great Anglo-Saxon
race. These are all picked men, whose parentage consisted of the same
kind of Britons, drawn from the four root stocks of the islands of
Great Britain. But the wide range of climate permitted between the
tropical plains of North Queensland and the rugged fastnesses of the
mountains of the New Zealand Southland has already produced types so
divergent that it is hard to believe that they sprang from the same
stock.
Compare McKenzie of Townsville, Queensland, with McKenzie of Dunedin,
New Zealand, and the difference is apparent. They may be cousins:
such things occurred in that wonderful army of Australasia; but the
Northerner is dark, slight, lean and wiry. The lines are bitten in
his browned face by exposure to many a glaring day in the merciless
direct rays of a tropical sun. His broad shoulders and narrow hips
make him an ideal athlete, but he is loosely built. He walks with a
swing; his movements look slower than they really are; the sun has
given him something of a languor that is not all graceful. But the
fire of a high courage burns in his dark eyes, and the sea breezes
have already brought a touch of colour to the pallor of his cheek. He
is in superb physical health, for all that he is so sallow and hard
bitten.
McKenzie of Otago weighs two stone more, though he has no whit of
advantage in height. He carries no spare flesh, but is a big-boned,
thick-set fellow, brought up on mutton and oatmeal. His cheeks are
rosy and tanned with the salt wind that never ceases to blow over
the wholesome island where he grows rich harvests of grain and
tends his plentiful flocks. He is a stiff, great fellow, as hard
as nails, and as healthy as a big bullock. His keen blue eyes look
out from under a smooth brow unfurrowed by any care. He comes from
a land where there is no want; his million or more of fellow New
Zealanders have not yet built a big city or created a huge fortune.
Easy prosperity, an abundance of physical well-being, and a continual
strife for high moral excellence are the characteristics of his
country, where the death-rate is the lowest in the world and the sale
of intoxicants is subject to closer restriction in peace time than
anywhere else in the Empire.
Between these two extremes are all sorts of modifications; the
Tasmanian, who grows apples on the sunny borders of the beautiful
Huon river and enjoys a country that resembles in many of its
features the rustic beauty of the best parts of Southern England.
He is a big, stocky fellow, this Tasmanian, with something of the
rustic simplicity of an English yeoman. But he is not by any means
as simple as he appears. Now look at Tommy Cornstalk from New South
Wales, tall and lanky, slow of speech and swift as a miracle in
action. Hear his queer slang as he talks of his "cobbers" or mates;
and shrewdly reckons his chances of seeing Australia again within
a reasonable number of years. The Victorian from the rich Western
plains is a stouter man, who has an intimate acquaintance with that
exasperating animal the cow. Butter has been to him a means of
realizing prosperity; from his early youth he has milked so many cows
every morn and evening. And when he wishes to express his opinion of
the Germans he calls them cows. It is his last term of abuse.
The West Australians, for some reason not yet apparent, are, as a
class, the heaviest and stoutest of Australians. They number many
a jack-of-all-trades in their ranks, for they have learned to turn
their hands to many things. They are bronzed by a climate where the
sun seldom fails to shine brilliantly; healthy, shrewd, sane and full
of reckless courage. The South Australians approximate more nearly to
the Cornstalk type, and from them are drawn some of the finest riders
in the ranks of Australia's celebrated Light Horse.
The speech of these Australasians varies remarkably. The
short-clipped speech of the men from the coastal cities contrasts
strangely with the monotonous drawl of the bushmen. In the New
Zealanders the old accents survive strangely; many of them talking
Scotch as broad as the men of a Highland regiment. Others speak
English of a remarkable purity of accent, though strangely tinged
with the slang of the shearing shed, the stable and the bush track.
Of the 631 officers and 17,305 men comprised in the Australian
contingent, twenty-two officers only and 6,098 men had seen no
previous service. The large remainder were veterans of the Boer war.
Only 190 officers and 1,451 men were married, the bulk of Australia's
soldiers being single men. Eighty-two per cent. of the officers
and 73 per cent. of the men were of Australian birth, the ranks
containing a fair percentage of "new chums" of comparatively recent
arrival from Great Britain.
Their conditions of service were as follows:--
_Rates of Pay._--Lieutenant, 21_s._ per day; sergeant, 10_s._
6_d._ per day; corporal, 10_s._ per day; private, 6_s._ per day.
_Separation Allowance._--Married members receiving less than
8_s._ per day--(_a_) for wife living at home, 1_s._ 5_d._ per
day; (_b_) for each child under 16 years of age, 4½_d._ per day.
A similar allowance as in (_a_) is paid to the mother of a member
who is solely dependent upon him for support.
_Pensions._--Payable to widow on death of member of the forces
or to a member on total incapacity:--Lieutenant, £91 per annum;
sergeant, £70 per annum; corporal, £68 per annum; private, £52
per annum. In addition, on the death or total incapacity of a
member, for each child under 16 years of age, £13 per annum. In
the case of total incapacity, the wife in addition receives half
the rate specified above for the respective ranks.
Under these conditions they were heading Northwards, daily
approaching nearer to that Old World where the war flame burned so
fiercely. For many days nothing occurred to break the regularity of
the discipline by which they kept themselves fit for the great task
they had undertaken; then the monotony of their journey was disturbed
by an event which startled them into a sudden realization of the grim
imminence of battle and death.
THE END OF THE RAIDER "EMDEN"
CHAPTER II
THE END OF THE RAIDER "EMDEN"
At 6.30 a.m. on the morning of November 9 the _Melbourne_ was
steaming at the head of the three long lines of transports when she
picked up a wireless message from the cable station at Cocos Island.
The message was imperfect, but conveyed to the _Melbourne_ the fact
that an enemy warship was then off the island. The convoy was at the
time about sixty miles away from the island, so that it was obvious
there was no time to be lost. The _Melbourne_ was the flagship, and
her commander was responsible for the safety of the transports, he
had, therefore, to deny himself the supreme pleasure of setting
off to deal with the stranger. He sent instead instructions to the
_Sydney_, which at once set off, gathering speed as she went.
The excitement on board the _Sydney_ was intense. It was an
open secret that the notorious _Emden_ was somewhere in that
neighbourhood, and every soul on board, from Captain Glossop to the
two boys who had been taken aboard at Sydney from the training ship
_Tingara_ at the last minute, was fervently praying that it might
be the sea-raider which had sunk more than twenty British merchant
vessels, and bombarded Madras. Down below the stokers were at work
like demons; a significant sentence in Captain Glossop's official
report afterwards revealed how well they worked. He reported that the
engines worked splendidly, developing a higher rate of speed than
upon the official trials of the ship; as a matter of fact, the crew
worked her up to the great speed of twenty-seven knots.
Meanwhile it may be as well to explain just what had happened at
Cocos Island. At five o'clock on the evening of November 8 the
inhabitants, who were all officials connected with the cable and
wireless stations there, noticed a strange warship approaching
the island. She paid no heed to their wireless signals, but after
approaching very close, stood away again at night time. Early in
the morning she again appeared, and as nothing could be made of
her, and she was lowering a boat, a wireless call for help was sent
off at random. The stranger tried to obliterate this by sending
strong wireless calls, which accounts for the message reaching the
_Melbourne_ in a mutilated condition.
The message was despatched just in time, for three boats put to land
with a strong party on board. They were Germans, and at once took
possession of the station, and began the work of dismantling it
without any delay.
The _Sydney_ was now making good time, and at a little after nine
o'clock sighted the island, seventeen miles away. To the right of
the island could be seen the smoke of a steamer, quite stationary;
then the people on the _Sydney_ knew they were in time. They were
going so fast that all that could be seen of them from the island was
a great plume of smoke and a mighty bow wave. That was enough for
the _Emden_--for the stranger was, of course, the German corsair.
"If that is an Australian cruiser," said the captain, von Mueller,
"I'm going to sink her." Out he put to make good his vainglorious
boasting, and the distance between the two vessels rapidly decreased.
There was an international group of spectators for the wonderful
ocean duel that followed. The people of the cable station gathered
on the roof of their building to get a view of the fight; and they
were joined there by the members of the German landing party, who
had no time to rejoin their ship. The manœuvres of the two vessels
were dictated by their armaments. The _Emden_ had guns of only 4-inch
calibre, and it was her policy to fight at comparatively short
range. The _Sydney_ had eight 6-inch guns, and Captain Glossop was
determined that she should enjoy the tactical advantage due to her by
reason of her heavier metal.
The _Sydney's_ people were all aglow with excitement, but
level-headed withal. Many of them were young Australians, members
of the newest navy in the world, and determined that in the first
important action fought by that navy all concerned should do it
credit. Lads of nineteen, with eyes ablaze with excitement, stood as
coolly at their guns as the veterans of a dozen sea fights might have
done. The two boys from the _Tingara_ carried ammunition about the
decks at a steady run, laughing and whistling with glee.
The ships were now steaming parallel courses at a distance of about
five miles, the _Emden_ trying to get closer and the _Sydney_
outmanœuvring her. The order was given on the _Sydney_ to load, when
the _Emden_ fired the first shot of the duel, a salvo which went
harmlessly over the _Sydney_; as intended, for it was meant to give
the German gunners the range. The _Sydney_ replied similarly, with a
broadside from her port guns; and the fighting had now begun in real
earnest. It was about a quarter to ten in the morning, with a calm
sea and a clear atmosphere.
The _Emden_ began with some very good shooting; its excellence was
emphasized by the fact that the German gunners were firing at the
extreme range of their guns, and had to use an elevation of about
thirty degrees. The shots that struck the _Sydney_--there were ten in
all, and all in the first ten minutes of the fighting--were falling
at such an angle that their hole of exit on the starboard side was
much lower than the shothole where they struck on the port side. But
the shots of the _Sydney_ went straight through the _Emden_, the hole
of exit being practically on the same level as the entry. Such an
advantage do heavier naval guns give in a duel at sea.
The fourth shot of the _Emden_ was a good hit; it went through the
_Sydney's_ deck and exploded below, wounding Petty Officer Harvey
and another man. An Australian lad who was detailed there to watch
for torpedoes never even turned round at the explosion, nor did he
move the telescope from his eyes. At the same time the _Sydney_ was
scoring hits on the _Emden_, though the first sign of it to the
Australians was not observable until the fall of one of the German's
funnels, which was greeted with loud cheering from all the _Sydney's_
company. A minute afterwards the foremast of the raider toppled over,
carrying with it the main fire control, and throwing its members into
the sea.
When fighting had been in progress for a quarter of an hour the
_Sydney_ discharged a salvo which settled any hope the Germans may
have cherished either of victory or escape. It entered the _Emden's_
stern under the afterdeck, where it burst, blowing up the whole of
the steel deck. The steel plates were twisted and shattered beyond
anything that could have been deemed possible; the after gun was
dismounted, and the crew blown into the sea; the ship was set afire
aft, and remained afire for the rest of the fight. Most serious
effect of all, the salvo destroyed the steering gear, and for the
rest of the battle the _Emden_ had to steer by means of her screw,
thus reducing her speed immensely, and leaving her completely at the
mercy of the manœuvres of her opponent.
The _Emden_ now swung round, doubling in an attempt to reduce the
distance; but the _Sydney_ easily countered the move by following
the operation; and continued steaming parallel with the German,
and battering her to pieces. In the first quarter of an hour, and
before she had received her deadly injury, the _Emden_ had scored
several important hits on the _Sydney_. One had struck the second
starboard gun, and set fire to some cordite, which the gun crew threw
overboard. This shot was followed by a shrapnel shell in the same
quarter, which killed two of the gun's crew and injured all the rest
except two. Another shot exploded in the lads' room, and damaged
their kits; but the room was empty, and no one was hurt.
But after that explosion aft she never struck the _Sydney_ again,
though the fight lasted for an hour longer. She had been firing with
remarkable speed; it is believed that the third salvo was out of her
guns sometimes ere the first had reached the neighbourhood of the
_Sydney_. In all she fired 1,400 shots, of which only ten struck
their mark; and of these only three, or at the most four, could be
considered important hits.
Again she doubled, with smoke pouring from her at every quarter.
Suddenly the whole company of the _Sydney_ burst into ringing cheers.
"She's gone," was the shout; and indeed for a time it appeared as
though the _Emden_ had suddenly gone down. Reports from the centre of
a patch of curiously light-coloured smoke dissipated the notion; the
_Emden_ was still afloat, and still fighting. The smoke that hid her
was the smoke that showed how badly she was hurt. One by one her guns
ceased firing, as the well-directed shots from the _Sydney_ put them
out of action; but still she ran, and still she fought her remaining
guns.
One by one her funnels collapsed, and fell across the twisted
deck. Only one gun was left, a gun far forward on the port side.
Desperately the crippled _Emden_ ran, and desperately she fought
her last little gun. What an inferno she then was, only those who
fought her can tell. Her gnarled steel work was hot with the raging
fire; the smoke from her furnaces belched from the holes left by the
fallen funnels, and streamed in scorching clouds across her deck.
Her ammunition hoists, and most of the rest of her equipment, had
been hopelessly damaged; and what ammunition was being used had to
be carried to her remaining gun by hand. The ship was a shambles,
with dead men lying everywhere, and badly wounded as well. But in the
conning tower Captain von Mueller still fought his ship, and prayed
for a shot to carry him and it away.
His ship was wrapped in flame; the stern actually glowing red hot
with the fire. She no longer could be steered, even by the employment
of her screws; and with her ensign still flying, and her solitary gun
roaring at intervals, she ran high up on the coral reef, a hopeless,
shattered wreck. Her conqueror gave her two broadsides as she lay
there, with her bow high out of the water and only a short stretch
of surf between her and dry land. Her ensign was still flying, and
Captain Glossop had to make sure.
While the fight was in progress a merchant ship had hovered round the
combatants; obviously most anxious as to the result of the duel. At
one period she showed signs of wishing to take part with the _Emden_,
and the guns of the _Sydney_ had been trained upon her, though no
shot was fired at her. She was really a collier which had been
captured by the _Emden_, and with a prize crew from the _Emden_ on
board had met the raider at Cocos Island. Her crew had considered the
advisability of trying to ram the _Sydney_, but were wise enough to
abandon the scheme, and make for safety when the fight went so badly
against their side.
When the _Emden_ ran ashore this collier was already a long distance
away; in fact she was almost out of sight. The _Sydney_ put after
her, and after a long chase came near enough to send a shot across
her bows as a summons to surrender. She was boarded, but by this time
she was sinking, as some one on board had turned on the seacocks, and
filled her with water. The crew was accordingly taken off her, and
she was abandoned to her fate, the _Sydney_ returning to the _Emden_.
The tide had gone out, and the one-time terror to the commerce of
the British Empire was lying high and dry, with her ensign still
floating. "Do you surrender?" signalled the Australian warship. To
this question the _Emden_ replied by hand signal: "We have lost
our book, and cannot make out your signal." Then Captain Glossop
sent the curt demand, "Haul down your ensign." As the Germans paid
no attention to this, he sent yet another message, intimating that
he would resume hostilities if the ensign were not hauled down in
twenty minutes. For so long he steamed up and down her stern, while
the white flag with the black cross still fluttered upon the wreck.
Then reluctantly, and because he had no option, Captain Glossop fired
three more salvos at the defiant raider. Down came the German ensign
and in its place the white flag of surrender was hoisted.
Those three last salvos, unwillingly discharged at short range into
a helpless hull, did terrible havoc. The scorching decks were strewn
with dead and wounded sailors, hapless victims to a tradition the
Kaiser has sought to impose upon a navy that has no traditions of
its own making. The _Sydney_ could not succour them yet, for there
was still work left for her to do. A boat manned by the German prize
crew of the collier was sent to the wreck, with the message that the
_Sydney_ would return to the assistance of those on board early in
the morning.
It is now necessary to relate what occurred upon the island, where
we left the British and Germans together gazing spellbound at the
opening of this remarkable ocean duel. After the deadly salvo which
crippled the _Emden_ had been fired, the German landing party
recognized that their ship was doomed. They at once ordered the
British off the roof of the cable station, and shut them up in a
room where they could not know what was going on. They behaved
courteously but firmly, taking every precaution that there should be
no interference with the work now before them. There was lying at
the island the schooner _Ayesha_, and into this vessel they loaded
everything they could find that was likely to be useful for a long
ocean voyage.
By the middle of the afternoon they were all ready, and about half an
hour before the _Sydney_ returned from her chase of the collier they
set sail, taking with them the three boats and four maxim guns with
which they had landed. They were about forty in number, and their
bold plan of escape was successful. The story of their adventures on
the little schooner is a romance in itself; it belongs to the history
that Germany will one day produce of the daring of her own men.
Before leaving, they had done all the damage they could to the cable
and wireless stations.
Next morning the _Sydney_ returned to the wreck, taking with her the
doctor from Cocos Island, and all the helpers that could be mustered.
The _Emden_ was found in a condition truly pitiful. The deck was
a tangle of twisted steel; so shattered that it was impossible to
make a way about it. The survivors were huddled together in the
forecastle, the only part of the ship which had not been made an
inferno by the fire, which was still burning aft, and had scorched
the stern out of all shape or even existence. There was not a drop of
fresh water on the ship, and the food supplies were inaccessible or
destroyed. For quite twenty-four hours the survivors, many of them
suffering from terrible wounds, had been without food or even drink.
To reach the shore was a matter almost of impossibility, so heavy
was the sea that was running. To make matters worse, the more
experienced of the two doctors carried by the German cruiser had had
his thigh broken in the action. In their despair some of the crew,
including a number of wounded men, had managed to reach the shore,
only to be mocked by a waterless and utterly barren patch of sand.
The work of rescue was a difficult business. Only four or five
wounded men could be taken off by each boat; and the company of the
_Sydney_ worked hard all day at their task. Night fell with it still
unaccomplished, but it was completed on the following day. Each
wounded man meant a hard task, the work of getting the injured on the
boats, and hoisting them from the boats on to the _Sydney_, being
complicated by the roughness of the sea, and the dreadful injuries
and sufferings they had one and all experienced.
The losses on both sides showed how utterly the _Emden_ was
outfought. The _Sydney_ lost three men killed outright, while one
more afterwards died of his wounds. Four were seriously wounded,
four more were returned as wounded, and yet another four as slightly
wounded. The men killed were: Petty Officer Thomas Lynch, Able Seamen
Albert Hoy and Reginald Sharpe, and Ordinary Seaman Robert Bell.
The _Emden_ lost, in the action and by drowning, twelve officers
and 119 men; the prisoners totalled eleven officers, nine warrant
officers, and 191 men. Of these three officers and fifty-three men
were wounded, most of them seriously. The fight lasted for an hour
and forty minutes, though after the first fifteen minutes the battle
was a hopeless one for the Germans. In their manœuvres the combatant
vessels covered more than thirty miles during the progress of the
fight.
Every courtesy was extended to the prisoners; the officers were
allowed to keep their swords, and were treated by the Australians
with such consideration as their refusal to give parole permitted.
The wounded were tended with the utmost solicitude, and repaid the
care lavished on them with expressions of the liveliest gratitude.
The _Sydney_ rejoined her convoy at Colombo, one of the world's
great ports of call. The great roadstead was swarming with friendly
vessels, the city lay white above the cliffs of Galle Face, the
houses nestling among the brilliant green of the palms, bisected with
startling red roads. Above, a cloudless blue sky, and the British
flag proudly floating over all. Colombo is one of those "places in
the sun" which have aroused the covetous greed of his Majesty Wilhelm
II.
The flagship _Melbourne_ signalled her course to the _Sydney_, and
the victorious cruiser swung round and steamed between the long
rows of transports. The side of each swarmed with Australasian
soldiers, all greeting the conqueror, hat in hand. The silence was so
oppressive that the captured Germans looked uneasily at one another.
Every ship in the harbour showed its bunting, but no whistle blew, no
cheer was raised to greet the heroes of the fight.
Piqued into an unrestrainable curiosity by this apparent lack of
emotion, one of the German captured officers asked an officer of the
_Sydney_ why there was no cheering. He was told, very simply, that as
there were prisoners on the cruiser, suffering from serious wounds
gallantly sustained, the _Sydney_ had sent a message asking that no
noisy demonstration should mark her return to the fleet. This reply
unmanned him completely. With tears in his eyes he said, "You have
been kind, but this crowns all; we cannot speak to thank you for it."
For Australians not the least proud of the memories of the first
engagement fought by their navy will ever be that silent greeting
of the returning conqueror. The restraint imposed upon that army of
Australasians, going out for the first time to make war in Europe,
was hardly natural, when the thrilling nature of the incident is
considered. The chivalrous care for the wounded enemy will surely
immortalize the gallant sailors who desired it, and the brave
soldiers who respected their wish so thoroughly.
But elsewhere such restraint was not necessary. On November 10, the
news of the destruction of the _Emden_ was announced at Lloyd's in
London, the parting knell of the raider being rung on the bell of
the old _Lutine_. The underwriters, mindful of the £2,500,000 of
damage done by the raider to British commerce, burst spontaneously
into hearty cheering for the _Sydney_ and her bold crew; also for the
newest navy in the world, the navy of the Commonwealth of Australia.
From all parts of the world messages of congratulation were flashed
to the Prime Minister of Australia. For the first time the man in the
street realized that Australia really had a navy, efficient in the
highest degree as to quality, though still limited in the number of
its component vessels.
IN THE LAND OF PHARAOH
CHAPTER III
IN THE LAND OF PHARAOH
The fight that ended in the destruction of the _Emden_ was the one
exciting incident that broke the monotony of the tedious voyage
from Australia. When they had left Albany, the last port of call in
Australia, the men believed that they would go to Great Britain,
there to train for service in Northern France. The intervention
of Turkey in the war on the side of the Teutonic nations caused
the original intention to be altered, and the men heard that they
were to disembark at Egypt. This decision shortened the voyage
originally undertaken by nearly one-half, but delays, especially
at the Suez Canal, made the journey still a long one. The men who
shipped in Tasmania spent nine weeks on the transports before finally
disembarking in Egypt; while some of the New Zealanders had even a
longer spell of troopship life.
All were glad, therefore, for the break in the monotony afforded by
the _Emden_ incident; for the whole fleet witnessed the sudden dash
of the _Sydney_ at break-neck speed, and shared the glad news flashed
by the cruiser by wireless, that reached the convoy some six hours
later. The one menace to the safety of the convoy was thus removed,
and the remainder of the journey was devoid even of the interest
arising out of the possibility of attack. All were correspondingly
pleased when they left the transports and entered their Egyptian
camps; the Australians at Mena in the shadow of the Pyramids, and the
New Zealanders at Heliopolis.
It is doubtful whether the good people of Cairo have quite yet
got over the surprise occasioned them by the proceedings of our
Australasian army during their first few days in residence in Egypt.
The men certainly behaved as no soldiers had ever behaved before, in
Egypt's fairly wide experience. They were as unlike the traditional
Mr. Atkins of the British regular army--the type to which Cairo has
been accustomed--as it is possible for men of the same race to be.
They were young men just freed from the restrictions of life on a
troopship; many of them had plenty of money to spend; few of them had
ever called any man master, or been subject to any will but their own.
[Illustration: The Australians returning to Camp at Mena, in Egypt.]
Their frame of mind was well understood by those in control of them;
and for the first few days a good deal of latitude was allowed the
newly-landed Australasians. In those few days the word went round
the bazaars that all the Australasians were surely millionaires;
and that many of them were many times madder than the mad English.
Taxicabs (at two shillings an hour) became unattainable things each
evening in Cairo; they were monopolized by Australasian private
soldiers seeing the sights.
They went into camp on December 8, at the very height of the Egyptian
season. A night or two later, a table was set in the most prominent
part of the dining-room of one of Cairo's costliest and most
fashionable hotels. The place was crowded, and many visitors sought
in vain for seats at dinner; this table was exclusively guarded by
an unapproachable waiter, who averred that it had been set aside
for a party of most particular gentlemen. Presently these gentlemen
arrived, all attired in the uniforms of privates in the Australian
army, and to the scandal of some of those present proceeded to enjoy,
cheerfully but decorously, the best the house could produce.
One dragoman of Cairo was accosted by an Australian private, who
engaged his services, explaining that he wished to buy carpets to
send to Australia as presents to his friends there. The dragoman,
wishing to overawe him by a display of the unattainable, took him
to a merchant who exhibited three carpets as a beginning, one of
which cost £100, and the other two £75 each. While the dragoman was
explaining to the seller of carpets that his would-be customer was
but a private soldier, and only able to buy very cheap goods, the
Australian produced the cash for all three carpets, and leaving an
address to which they were to be sent, strolled off. This case is
but one of many incidents which excited the keen merchants of Egypt,
and gave rise to the bazaar talk of the unlimited wealth of these
Australians, even those who served in the ranks.
From Cairo to the Pyramids there runs a thin asphalt road, bordered
by green irrigation patches and sandy wastes of desert. Each night in
those first easy weeks in Egypt, this road was thronged at midnight
by all the motley vehicles Cairo could produce, all crammed with
happy soldiers returning to camp after a night's fun in the city.
Every day the sights of the neighbourhood were visited by scores of
curious Australasians; the desire to climb to the top of the great
pyramid of Cheops consumed them; no less than seven men fell in
attempting it. Four of them were killed outright, and another was
maimed for life.
[Illustration: Australian Soldiers at the Foot of the Pyramids.]
The wisdom of affording them an outlet for their high spirits was
apparent when, a week or so after landing, the work of military
training began in earnest. One and all, they settled down to the
collar like veterans, and soon twenty-mile marches through the
heavy sand became a joke, as battalion vied with battalion in
breaking records of physical fitness. "Physically, they are the
finest lot of men I have ever seen in any part of the world," wrote
Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, when they came under his observation at this
period in their training. At the end of the year both Australians and
New Zealanders were able to show at reviews how much they had already
benefited by their training.
The occasion of these reviews was the visit to Egypt of Sir George
Reid and the Hon. Thomas McKenzie, the High Commissioners in London
for the Commonwealth of Australia and the Dominion of New Zealand
respectively. The Australians were reviewed at Mena, and the New
Zealanders at Heliopolis; and at both reviews General Sir John
Maxwell, the officer commanding his Majesty's troops in Egypt, was
present. He asked the High Commissioner to convey to the Commonwealth
Government his congratulations upon the superb appearance of the
Australians. The New Zealanders, with their continuous lines of six
feet men, drew from him the observation, "It would be impossible to
obtain better material anywhere."
The men were much pleased with the visits of their London
representatives, and cheered them to the echo when they departed. At
the review of the Australians, Sir George Reid addressed them in the
following inspirited words:--
"Sir John Maxwell, General Birdwood, Mr. Mackenzie, General Bridges,
officers, and men,--I am glad to see you all. I am only sorry that
I cannot take each of you by the hand of friendship. Many anxious
mothers have implored me to look after their sons. Alas! it is
impossible; but I rejoice to think that you are under officers who
will be true guardians of you throughout the length of this great
venture.
"The youngest of these august pyramids was built 2,000 years before
Our Saviour was born. They have been silent witnesses to many strange
events; but I do not think that they could ever have looked down upon
so unique a spectacle as this splendid array of Australian soldiers,
massed to defend them. Who can look upon these majestic monuments
of antiquity without emotion, without regret? How pathetic, how
stupendous, how useless, have been these gigantic efforts to preserve
the bodily presence of Egyptian kings from the oblivion to which all
mortality is doomed. It is the soul of deeds that lives for ever.
Imperishable memories have sprung from nameless graves on land and
sea whilst stately sepulchres are dumb. The homes of our Imperial
race are scattered far and wide, but the breed remains the same--as
staunch, as stalwart, as loyal in the east and west and in our own
south as in the northern mother land.
[Illustration: Sir George Reid, High Commissioner for the
Commonwealth, reviewing the Australian Expeditionary Force at Mena
Camp, Egypt.]
"What brings these forces here? Why do their tents stretch across
this narrow parting of the ways between worlds new and old? Are
you on a quest in search of gain such as led your fathers to the
Australian shore? Are you preparing to invade and outrage weaker
nationalities in lawless raids of conquest? Thank God, your mission
is as pure and as noble as any soldiers undertook to rid the world of
would-be tyrants.
"In this bright climate, beneath these peaceful skies, which tempt so
strongly, do not forget the awful ordeal which is near you. Do not
forget the fearful risks which you are approaching. Do not forget the
desperate battles long drawn out which you must fight and win. Do not
forget Lord Kitchener's warning to the soldiers of the Empire. Do
not forget the distant homes that love you. Do not forget the fair
fame and stainless honour of Australia committed to your keeping.
A few bad ones can sully the reputation of a whole army. If such
there be in these ranks before me they must be shunned. They must be
thrust out. The first and best of all victories you can ever win is
the victory of self-control. Hearts of solid oak, nerves of flawless
steel come that way.
"Remember the generous rivalries that await you. Remember the
glorious soldiers of the British Isles, of the British Empire, who
long to greet you on the battle-line. Remember the heroes of Belgium,
of France, of Russia, of Serbia, and Japan. Remember all the fleets
watching on every sea. The allied interest is deep and vital, but
there are interests deeper and more vital still. The whole destinies
of the world are at stake in this titanic struggle. Shall the hand
of fate point backwards to universal chaos or forward to everlasting
peace. Backwards they must not, shall not, go. It is impossible. True
culture, crowned with chivalry and good faith, will prove too strong
once more for savage tricks and broken faith.
"Good luck. May God be with you each and all until we meet again."
The next two months were months of hard work. Twenty-mile marches
through the desert sand with a 70-lb. load took all the desire for
an evening's fun in Cairo out of even the friskiest of them, and in
surprisingly short time they settled down into soldiers as good as
they looked--steady, resourceful and disciplined, as they were soon
to prove on one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Great War.
For some of them the baptism of fire came in Egypt, when the Turks
made their farcical attempt on the Suez Canal. The New Zealand
Infantry and the Australian Engineers took part in the engagement
which ended that attempt, and comported themselves well. The New
Zealanders captured one of the celebrated galvanized iron boats,
which the Turks had lugged across the desert for the crossing of the
canal, and it was sent to New Zealand, the first trophy of the war
from the Old World for Australasia.
Training in Egypt continued till early in April, and then a large
proportion of the Australasians were despatched to the Dardanelles,
to assist in the attempt to force the passage of the Straits, already
begun by the combined British and French fleets. The first task
before the Expeditionary Force to the Dardanelles was to effect a
landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
THE BATTLE OF BRIGHTON BEACH
CHAPTER IV
THE BATTLE OF BRIGHTON BEACH
Four months in camp under the passionless gaze of the great Sphinx
had shaken the men into a thoroughly fit and efficient army. It had
also wearied them into an ardent desire to be up and doing. Each day
brought them news of the fierce fighting in Belgium and Northern
France. Their cousins and friendly rivals from Canada had already won
undying glory, and the Australasians chafed at the monotonous round
of hard work and military discipline that seemed to lead to nothing.
Not for this had they come half-way across the world; they yearned to
be in the thick of it, and show how they could fight for the Empire
they were so proud to serve.
The glad excitement that followed the announcement that they were
detailed for active and immediate service can well be imagined; and
additional joy was displayed when it became known that they were to
serve on the classic battleground that borders the Dardanelles. And
indeed, there is something of the miraculous in the dispatch of this
composite army from two nations that dwell where a century and a half
ago no white man existed to the scene of the first great adventure
recorded in written history: the quest of the Golden Fleece.
Their land of the Golden Fleece lay thousands of miles away, still
unscarred by any war, whatever the future may hold for it. Many of
them, until they embarked on this momentous expedition, had never
seen any other lands than their own. They had read of the adventures
of Homer's heroes, but the scene of those exploits might as well
have been laid in some other planet, for all the conception they
could form of it. They knew that Alexander the Great had crossed the
Dardanelles with a force no greater than their own, and had returned
as Conqueror of Asia. For thousands of years the possession of those
few miles of narrow sea passage had been the subject of contention
among nations that had passed away for ever. Now they, the first real
army of the newest nations, came to dispute its possession with an
old and decadent race, which for hundreds of years had terrorized
Eastern Europe.
Yes, these sheep-farmers and fruit-growers, these land agents and
miners and city clerks, were the new Argonauts. They had left
the Golden Fleece behind them, and the peaceful sunlit plains of
Australia. They had deserted the wind-swept heights of New Zealand,
where the salt breeze fans the cheek, and the snow-clad summits
of the mountains are mirrored in the placid bosoms of lakes more
beautiful than any the Old World has ever seen. Their quest was
honour for themselves and the young races they represented; they went
to fight for justice, for the unity of the Empire, for the cause of
the weak and small nations of Europe. Surely their dispatch to the
Dardanelles ranks with the greatest of great adventures.
The whole of the Dardanelles Expedition was commanded by General Sir
Ian Hamilton, a familiar name and figure to Australasians, since he
was instrumental, by his report on the state of the Australasian
defence forces, and by his recommendations, in the establishment
of the system of compulsory military training in vogue throughout
Australasia. Sir Ian Hamilton's plans provided for a number of
separate but simultaneous landings on the peninsula of Gallipoli;
and, as a blind, a landing by the French troops which formed a
component part of the force at his disposal, on the Asiatic shore
of the Dardanelles. Owing to the strong fortifications and defences
which had been contrived by the Turks upon plans of German origin,
the task of effecting a landing was an extremely difficult one; von
der Goltz, the German general who had designed the defences, boasted
that it was impossible of accomplishment. His boast, like that of the
_Emden's_ captain, was soon to be proved an empty and vainglorious
one.
The place chosen for the landing of the Australasians was Gaba Tepe,
a high point on the Gulf of Saros, opposite the town of Maidos on the
Straits. It should be pointed out here that the landing of troops at
this point was of the highest strategical importance, as the presence
of a hostile force there would be a continual menace to the Turkish
communications. A successful advance of such a force would drive a
wedge between the strong forts at the Narrows, on which the attack of
the Allies was concentrated, and the Turkish base at Constantinople.
The actual landing party was the Third Australian Brigade, a mixed
body of men from Queensland, South Australia and West Australia,
commanded by Colonel Sinclair Maclagan, D.S.O. These men 1,500 in
number, embarked at Mudros Bay on April 24 on British battleships,
and set out for Gaba Tepe. Following them were men of the 1st
and 2nd Brigades, a covering force of 2,500. These were conveyed
to the landing place in transports. The reason of embarking the
actual landing force in warships was fairly obvious. It was hoped
that a landing on the rough and inaccessible spot chosen for the
Australasians might be effected unopposed; and it was argued that the
Turks, who might have been alarmed at the sight of transports and so
have time to prepare an opposing force, would accept the presence of
warships as merely the prelude to one of the bombardments to which
they were now accustomed.
[Illustration: Transports bearing the Australasians to Anzac Cove.]
As a matter of fact, the British plans were not hidden from the
enemy, for the place actually chosen for the landing was afterwards
discovered to have been elaborately prepared for resistance. Barbed
wire was entangled under the water, and the beach was enfiladed
with machine guns. The cliff was honeycombed with hiding places for
snipers, and only a fortunate accident saved the Australians from a
much hotter reception than the very warm one accorded them by the
Turks.
The landing force arrived opposite Gaba Tepe at 1.30 a.m., and the
men were transferred in absolute silence to their boats. At the same
time the covering force was transhipped from the transports to six
destroyers; and all made for a point about four miles off the coast.
The dying moon rose as they steamed to this place, and the outlines
of the ships were visible to the Turks, who were watching from
the shore. At half-past three the landing force was ordered to go
forward, and the tows made for the land with all dispatch.
Now occurred the happy accident to which allusion has already been
made. The tows got off the line they had intended to take, and
reached the beach about a mile north of the spot actually selected
for the landing. A description of the landing place, which will go
down to history as Brighton Beach, is given by Sir Ian Hamilton in
his first official dispatch of the operations at the Dardanelles.
"The beach on which the landing was actually effected is a very
narrow strip of sand, about 1,000 yards in length, bounded on the
north and the south by two small promontories. At its southern
extremity a deep ravine, with exceedingly steep, scrub-clad sides,
runs inland in a north-easterly direction. Near the northern end of
the beach a small but steep gully runs up into the hills at right
angles to the shore.
"Between the ravine and the gully the whole of the beach is backed by
the seaward face of the spur which forms the north-western side of
the ravine. From the top of the spur the ground falls almost sheer,
except near the southern limit of the beach, where gentler slopes
give access to the mouth of the ravine behind. Further inland lie in
a tangled knot the under-features of Sari Bair, separated by deep
ravines, which take a most confusing diversity of direction. Sharp
spurs, covered with dense scrub, and falling away in many places in
precipitous sandy cliffs, radiate from the principal mass of the
mountain, from which they run north-west, west, south-west, and south
to the coast."
Obeying orders to the letter, the Australians sat as quiet as mice in
the boats as the tows neared the land; on the edge of the cliffs they
could see the Turks scampering along at breakneck speed, to be in
the right place to receive them. And now the boats were nearing the
shore, and a new sensation was provided for the men of Australia.
"You know one of those hot days when a storm blows up in Australia,"
said one of the party, in describing it. "The air seems heavy, as if
there was lead in it. Then, splash! All around you on the pavement
appear big drops, that hit the asphalt with a welt. Well, all of a
sudden something began to hit the water all round us just like that.
We knew from the rattle on the shore what it was. Bullets! A man two
places away from me sank quietly on the bottom of the boat; something
touched my hat and ruffled my hair. We were under hot fire for a
start."
As the boats reached the shallow water the Australians jumped in up
to the waist, and made for the sand; some of them died in the moment
their feet first touched Europe. "Like lightning," writes General Sir
Ian Hamilton, in his official dispatch, describing the landing, "the
Australians leapt ashore, and each man as he did so went straight
as his bayonet at the enemy. So vigorous was the onslaught that the
Turks made no attempt to withstand it, and fled from ridge to ridge
pursued by the Australian infantry."
It must be remembered that the cliff up which this bayonet charge
was made was from 30 to 50 feet high, and as described by Sir Ian
Hamilton, was "almost sheer." At each end of the strip of beach was
a higher knoll, about a hundred feet in height. On each of these were
posted scores of sharpshooters, who were firing as rapidly as they
could at the men scrambling up these cliffs; the Turks at the top
could not even fire at them, the cliffs were so steep.
As the men sprang from the boats they set off in groups of five or
six, acting on their own initiative. They had empty magazines, all
the work being left to the cold steel. In that terrible scramble
up the cliffside they fell by dozens, but the rest pressed on to
the trenches at the top. The Turks who waited for them there had to
encounter infuriated giants. One Australian still bears the name of
"The Haymaker," for his way of picking Turk after Turk on the end of
his bayonet and throwing them one after another over his shoulder
and over the edge of the cliff behind. Two or three more great men
preferred to use the butt, smashing down everything human that dared
to resist them. In a few moments the Turks had abandoned their
trenches and were flying up the foothills to another trench they had
prepared on the top of a ridge.
[Illustration: The Landing at Anzac Cove on Sunday, April 25, 1915.]
Fast as they ran, the Australians ran faster. The cries of "Come
on, Australians," rang through the ravines, and warned the Turks
ahead of their coming. The first ridge was occupied, and a second;
finally they reached a third nearly two miles inland. It must be
understood that they had waited for no orders and had not tarried
for any formation. Men of different battalions and from different
States swept forward together, all acting on their own initiative,
and all prepared to sacrifice themselves for the main object, which
was to clear the clifftops so as to permit of a safe landing for the
main body of the troops. These watched the fighting in the lightening
morning from the decks of the ships, while waiting their turn to land.
They could see on one ridge after another the gaunt figures of their
comrades appear, only to disappear over the crest, presently to
become visible yet farther inland. How they cheered as the pioneers
swept the Turks off the coast and drove them into the thick scrub
that skirted the more distant ranges of hills! The audacity of that
landing has no superior in history, and Australian soldiers will ever
be remembered for their initiative, resource, and daring. Where men
less used to acting on their own responsibility would have formed
bravely, and waited for orders from some superior, these men from the
South dashed off in little groups, all working efficiently, as if by
some tacit understanding.
So the 3rd Brigade cleared the way for the 1st and 2nd Brigades, so
that 12,000 infantry and two batteries of Indian mountain guns were
landed by two o'clock--smart work on such a difficult coast, in ten
hours. For this splendid record the greatest credit is due to the
Navy men, of whom the Australasians all speak as they would of the
greatest heroes on earth. Their coolness, their unassuming courage,
and their steadfast adherence to the object in view are topics of
which Australians who were there will never tire of talking. And the
men of the Navy have an equally high opinion of those law bushmen
whom they set down on that narrow strip of bullet-swept beach.
For it must not be supposed that the clearance of the trenches
opposite the landing place made the task of landing in any way a
safe one. All day long batteries posted in the hills, which had the
range of the beach quite accurately, continued to spray the landing
with shrapnel. One sandy point was christened by the Australians
Hellfire Spit, and will go down to history by that name. Their name
for the landing place was Brighton Beach, which name it now bears on
the official maps. British people must not suppose that this name
has any reference to the seaside town which is sometimes called
London-by-the-Sea. The Australians had in mind another Brighton,
12,000 miles away, where the cliffs rise abruptly from a sandy
beach, and where the eye rests on slopes covered with a thick growth
of scrubby ti-tree, of which the scrub on the hillsides at Gaba
Tepe reminded the men of Australia. So it is Brighton Beach near
Melbourne, and not Brighton Beach in Sussex, that gave its name to
the landing place at Gaba Tepe.
There were also guns on each of the two knolls which terminated
Brighton Beach, and from them and from machine guns very cleverly
placed on high points a cruel enfilading fire was directed upon the
beach. The guns on the knolls were one by one put out of action by
the warships, and three were captured by the infantry, but some of
the machine guns, as well as innumerable snipers, continued to fire
on the boats and on the landed men throughout the day. Many a brave
Australasian met a bullet before ever he set foot on the soil of
Europe, and the sailors suffered heavily but doggedly as they rowed
their boats to and fro between the ships and the landing place.
It is now necessary to follow the fortunes of the little bands of
the gallant 3rd Brigade, whose rush had carried them over three
successive ridges on to a high tableland, where the backs of the
retreating Turks were still visible. "Where's the Light Horse?" the
men shouted as they rushed on in pursuit. The Light Horse was then
eating out its heart somewhere in Egypt, wishing that such an animal
as the horse had never been created, and that they might be with
their comrades of the infantry, fighting in Australasia's first great
battle. Of course they could never have got cavalry up on to that
plateau, though mounted men would have been very useful when the
first Australian soldiers crossed the ridges, and reached its wide,
scrubby slopes.
These devoted little bands found more than stragglers on that
high plateau. Soon the advance guard of the main Turkish defence
force arrived on the scene, and then it went very badly with these
bold spirits. The fate of many of those little groups of brave,
resourceful soldiers is yet to be learned; most of them appear on
the sheets as "Missing." Those behind them were thrown back by sheer
force of numbers, as the main body of the Turks pressed on, and
fighting gallantly, fell back on the second line.
By nightfall the main body of the Australians, all mixed up just as
they had landed, and without regard to battalions or anything else,
was dug in on the clifftop, and fighting desperately to prevent the
Turks from dislodging them.
"The troops had had no rest on the night of the 24th-25th," writes
the General, "they had been fighting hard all day over most difficult
country, and they had been subjected to heavy shrapnel fire in the
open. Their casualties had been deplorably heavy. But despite their
losses and in spite of their fatigue, the morning of the 26th found
them still in good heart, and as full of fight as ever."
[Illustration: Shrapnel bursting over Anzac Cove.
This is one of the most remarkable photographs taken of the
Dardanelles fighting, since it shows the water on the right of the
picture pitted by the spray of shrapnel bullets.]
Such is the story of the battle of Brighton Beach, ending with our
boys "in good heart, and full of fight as ever." The wounded and
dying men were also in good heart. Mr. Ashmead Bartlett describes
the arrival of the first batch of Australian wounded back to the
ships in a passage that will stir every Australian's pulse till the
very end of time.
"I have never seen the like of these wounded Australians in war
before, for as they were towed among the ships while accommodation
was being found for them, although many of them were shot to bits
and without hope of recovery, their cheers resounded through the
night, and you could just see amid a mass of suffering humanity arms
being waved in greeting to the crews of the warships. They were happy
because they knew they had been tried for the first time in the war,
and had not been found wanting. They had been told to occupy the
heights and hold on, and this they had done for fifteen mortal hours
under an incessant shell fire without the moral and material support
of a single gun ashore, and subjected the whole time to the violent
counter-attacks of a brave enemy led by skilful leaders, while his
snipers, hidden in caves, thickets, and among the dense scrub, made a
deliberate practice of picking off every officer who endeavoured to
give a word of command or to lead his men forward.
"No finer feat of arms has been performed during the war than this
sudden landing in the dark, this storming of the heights, and, above
all, the holding on to the points thus won while reinforcements were
being poured from the transports. These raw Colonial troops in those
desperate hours proved themselves worthy to fight side by side with
the heroes of Mons and the Aisne, Ypres and Neuve Chapelle."
OCCUPYING THE LAND
CHAPTER V
OCCUPYING THE LAND
The morning of April 26 found the Australasians occupying the cliff
top in a long semicircle, with its right resting on the sea at a
point opposite the hill of Gaba Tepe, and the left resting on high
ground above the coast at a place called Fisherman's Hut. The New
Zealanders were on the extreme left, with the 4th Australian Brigade
in support of them; next were the 1st Brigade from New South Wales,
next to them were the 2nd Brigade of men from Victoria, while on the
right were the 3rd Brigade, or what was left of it.
All night they had been fighting, the Turks making brave but
ineffectual attempts to dislodge them, and being quite unable to
prevent them from digging themselves in. The scattered groups of
pioneers were soon sorted out into their various battalions, missing
men turned up from all sorts of unexpected places, and order was
rapidly instituted among the ranks. This was a very necessary step,
for men had been fighting side by side with perfect strangers, a
state of things which afforded unlimited opportunities to the host
of spies and snipers who swarmed boldly among the Australians, and,
employing perfect English, did much to create confusion and loss
among them.
Some incidents that occurred during that temporary confusion are
evidence of the amazing audacity of these enemies, most of whom were
Germans. They were equipped with undeniable Australian uniforms, and
spoke with the same accent as the average Australian officer. One of
these fellows encountered Captain Macdonald and Lieutenant Elston,
of the 16th Battalion (West Australia), and professed to convey to
them orders from a superior officer that they should at once go to
a spot beyond a piece of rising ground. Unsuspectingly they went,
and fell into the hands of a band of Turks, who made them prisoners.
The same man delivered a similar message to Colonel Pope, also of
West Australia, but on his way to the rendezvous this officer saw
something which made him suspicious. He took a flying leap from the
rise on which he was walking into a patch of soft sand many feet
below, and just in time to save his life. The rise where this took
place was promptly christened Pope's Hill; it lies to the left of the
deep ravine mentioned in Sir Ian Hamilton's dispatch as being one of
the main features of the ground before the Australian line.
The enemy had also become acquainted with the Australian bugle
calls, and in the darkness the "Retire" was frequently sounded on
the bugle, loudly and insistently. But before landing the precaution
had been taken to announce that all bugles had been removed, and
that other signals had been substituted. Consequently no notice was
taken of this ruse on the part of the enemy, except that it made the
Australians profoundly suspicious. And when their suspicions were
aroused, the Australians were not easily duped, as many a bold spy
found to his cost.
One fellow, in the dress of an Australian officer, ventured to convey
some spurious orders to a small group of men who were holding a
detached position. He was heard with a show of respect, and then the
sergeant asked, "What battalion is yours, sir?" "The 22nd" was the
ready reply; a very good one, if there had been a 22nd battalion.
"And what ship did you cross on?" continued the questioner. "There
is no need to cross-examine your superior officer" was the answer,
delivered with the utmost coolness. Just then a rifle cracked, and
the supposed officer spun round and fell. "Bit sudden, aren't you?"
asked the sergeant of the gaunt Australian who strode forward.
"What?" said the shooter, "22nd battalion! Don't know what ship he
came on! Let's look at his papers." There was found plenty of proof
that the summary methods of the bush were fully justified; and the
example was a wholesome one for the audacious colleagues the spy
undoubtedly possessed, who had found their way among the temporarily
disorganized Australasians.
The snipers, with whom the hillsides were thick, showed in some
instances an equal audacity, leaving their prepared hiding places in
the scrub on the approach of the Australians, and joining with them
in the dusk, pretending to help them look for snipers. During the
first few days these marksmen accounted for many brave Australian
officers, and in some instances it has been established that an
Australian officer was killed by a shot fired from behind, the
sniper's lair being passed by the advancing line, though that line
contained many bushmen of great skill and experience.
On the other hand, a great number of these fellows were tracked to
their hiding places, where they thought themselves quite safe, and
got short shrift. The nature of the country made all these ruses
possible to the Turks and their German tutors. Most of it was covered
with a dense scrub of short, bushy trees, with branches growing right
down to the ground. Set very close together, these afforded excellent
cover to both sides, but the initial advantage lay, of course, with
the defenders, especially in the early days before the Australasians
had become familiar with the country. An instance of the density
of this scrub is given by an officer of high rank, who, on a tour
of inspection, found a group of some twenty soldiers advancing
cautiously through the thickest of it. On asking them how they were
progressing, he was told, with a great show of genuine sorrow, that
they were the survivors of over a hundred, the rest having been cut
off. He was able to tell the "survivors" that they were the third
group he had encountered in his tour, each believing that the others
were hopelessly cut off by the enemy.
In that first twenty-four hours of fighting the Australasian officers
set an example of cool courage and hardihood that might have spurred
men less daring than their own to deeds of the greatest courage. "The
officers were splendid" is the universal verdict of the men, who
are not easily moved to enthusiasm. But Australia and New Zealand
paid a heavy toll of their finest officers and most trusted leaders.
The first man out of the boats was Major Gordon, of Queensland,
who leaped into the water shoulder high, followed by a dozen brave
fellows in the same instant. But a bullet cut the gallant Major off
before he set foot on dry land, the first Australian officer to give
up his life in Gallipoli. In the very act of landing Major Robertson,
of Queensland, fell dead; Colonel Braund and Colonel Garside did not
long outlive him, nor did Colonel Clarke.
Next day saw the death of Colonel McLaurin, one of the leading
barristers at the Sydney bar, and a man whose high character was
renowned from one end to the other of Australia. "He was a man of
singularly high, noble and chivalrous mind," wrote one who knew him
well, when his death was announced. "No unworthy word ever passed
his lips; it was impossible to imagine any action of his that would
be other than generous and just; and there is no doubt that with his
remarkable abilities, his courage, and his charm of character, he
would have attained the highest position in his profession, or in the
profession of arms."
An equally high value was rightly placed by Australia and New Zealand
upon other of their brave citizen soldiers who perished gallantly in
that first day's fighting so far from home. With simple emotion a
sergeant tells of the death of the brave Colonel Clarke. "We stormed
the cliff, and the Turks did not wait for us. Halfway up I came
across our Colonel. He had his pack on. I asked him to throw it down,
but he said that he did not want to lose it, so I carried it for him.
We advanced about one mile and a half due east of our landing-place,
and found the Turks holding a ridge in great strength, so we lay down
and opened fire. I was alongside the Colonel, and had just given him
his pack and got down again, when _zip_--a bullet got him in the
body. He was dead in a minute. Major Elliott was sent for. He had
been there only two seconds when he was hit. Another officer came up
and he was hit, so we had got into a fairly hot place."
[Illustration: Roll-Call on Brighton Beach.
The sad scene after an engagement, when the wide gaps in the ranks
are disclosed by the failure of dead, wounded and missing to answer
to their names.]
The difficult country made it necessary that officers should take
great risks when making observations, and they took them cheerfully
and courageously. The casualty lists show what a heavy penalty was
paid in officers killed and wounded, but the success attending the
operations proves that the risk and the loss was not without fruit.
Those lives, so cheerfully risked and lost, were not wasted; they
were spent audaciously for the purpose in view. "You cannot lead your
men from the rear," was the motto of the Australasian officers at
Gaba Tepe, and disregarding the imploring counsel of the men beside
them they set an example that Australasia will ever mourn and cherish.
The rewards for distinguished service earned in that first day's
operations are so numerous as to testify the great gallantry and
ability shown in the actual onset. The D.S.O. was granted to Colonel
McNicoll, of Victoria, for his gallantry and skill in leading
his battalion into action; and to Colonel White, of the Garrison
Artillery, for the skill he displayed in the work of reorganization
after the necessary confusion of the landing. Colonel McNicoll was
afterwards severely wounded when leading his men forward in the great
charge at Krithia; and at the time of writing lies slowly recovering
in a London hospital. Major Brand, of Queensland, carried messages
personally under heavy fire on many emergency occasions, and gathered
groups of stragglers into a band which, under his command, attacked
and disabled three guns. He, and Major Denton, of West Australia, who
occupied an important trench with only twenty men, and held it in
face of repeated attacks for six days, both got the D.S.O.
Among recipients of the Military Cross was Lieutenant Derham, of
Victoria, who was severely wounded in the thigh, but continued to
do his duty for five days more in spite of his agony. He returned
to Great Britain with five wounds. Captain Richardson, of New South
Wales, led his men up the steep path of the cliff into two bayonet
charges against bands of Turks five times their number. The men on
either side of him were killed, and he had a bullet through his cap.
Finally, an expanding bullet struck him on the shoulder, inflicting
a terrible wound. Many other officers were rewarded for their grand
work on that first day; the instances given are only typical ones
that come to hand.
The non-commissioned officers and the rank and file displayed no
less bravery and devotion. There was Sergeant Ayling, of Western
Australia, who was one of a platoon which got too far forward in an
exposed position, and received the command to retire. The officer in
charge, Lieutenant Morgan was severely wounded with shrapnel while
this operation was in progress; and Ayling, with three volunteers,
returned and drove off the advancing Turks with bayonets, afterwards
carrying his wounded officer to safety. Then he reformed his platoon
and returned to the attack, holding an exposed position until
reinforcements came.
Private Robey, of Queensland, seeing a boat drifting away from the
landing-place with a wounded man as its sole occupant, plunged into
the water, swam out to the boat under heavy fire, and rescued the
comrade from a certain death. Sapper McKenzie, of the Engineers,
displayed a similar devotion in carrying a wounded sapper to a
departing boat, and pushing it off under heavy fire. He himself was
wounded while making for cover. These are only examples among scores
of acts of individual bravery displayed on that day of April 25. Some
of them have received official recognition; some escaped unrewarded;
many of the heroes of that day paid for their gallantry with their
lives.
Foremost in heroism on that Sunday were the doctors and
stretcher-bearers, of whom the men speak with eyes glowing with
enthusiasm. Private Howe, of West Australia, tells how Dr. Stewart,
who had wrenched his leg so badly that he had to be invalided,
nevertheless picked him up when wounded and carried him on his back
under heavy fire for half a mile to a place of safety. Major O'Neill,
of New Zealand, has also received the D.S.O. for his bravery and
resource in command of bearers.
The Red Cross men were glorious. Most of them worked for thirty-six
hours without cessation, and some of them fell down asleep in exposed
positions from sheer weariness, as they toiled about the steep
rough hillsides at their grand work of mercy. "Two of them saved my
life, and I don't even know who they were," said one convalescent
Australian. "I was wounded in an exposed trench, and was bleeding
quickly to death. My mate wouldn't stand for it; a good chap, but
a bit fussy. He signalled back that a man was dying for want of a
doctor, and these two chaps came out through the thick of the bullets
and carried me off at a sprint. I remember no more until I was on
a Hospital ship. They ought not to have come; they risked two good
lives to save a doubtful one; and I don't know even who they were and
can never thank them." Perhaps those two nameless heroes will see
these words one day, and know that their devotion is not forgotten by
its grateful object.
Their work was equally as dangerous as that of the fighting soldier,
for in those first days of fighting at Gaba Tepe, the Turks made
no attempt to respect the Red Cross, though their conduct in this
respect improved later on. To advance into the line of fire with a
stretcher, under the supposed protection of the Red Cross, was to
court a speedy death, and yet there are countless instances of this
being done.
One incident, for which a number of witnesses will vouch, shows that
this disregard of the Red Cross was part of their training at the
hands of their German tutors. A German officer who was lying badly
wounded in the firing line attracted the attention of an Australian
Red Cross man, who bent over him to render assistance. The return was
prompt; the wounded man drew his revolver and shot his benefactor.
With a roar of anger, an Australian soldier rushed forward and drove
his bayonet time after time through the body of the ungrateful wretch.
The Australian Engineers, who landed about midday on that momentous
Sunday, were soon busily at work under the heavy fire directed upon
the landing-place. As if by magic, practical paths appeared leading
up the cliffside, with sandbag protections; and thus a means of
conveying stores and ammunition to the trenches above was at once
improvised. The landing-place was improved, and means of getting
guns and heavy stores rapidly ashore were contrived with marvellous
rapidity. Soon Brighton Beach assumed the appearance of a busy little
port, with boats coming and going continually, while shrapnel burst
around them and threw up the sand in showers on the beach.
The Australasians completely lost their hearts to the sailormen, with
whom they were working here. "I was glad to get out of the blooming
boats," said one Australian when recounting his experiences; "but
those Jack Tars went to and fro under the shells and bullets as if
they never knew of them. You ought to have seen the little middies
in charge of the boats; young boys that might have been larking at
school. Just boys with round rosy faces, but so keen. When I have a
boy I mean to put him in the Australian navy. It makes fine men of
them."
The Australasians excited a corresponding admiration from their
British sailor friends, not only for the way they fought, but for
their whim of bathing under shell fire. Brighton Beach is an ideal
place for a swim, barring the small circumstance that several Turkish
batteries concealed in the broken ground had the range of the place,
and devoted a flattering attention to it. But this did not deter the
Australasians, when their time came for a rest, from trying the tonic
effect of a plunge in Gallipoli waters.
One man would be stationed on the shore, to give warning, and a score
would take to the water together. "Duck," the signalman would cry,
as the whining groan of shrapnel shell was heard. Down would go
their heads all together, and up their heels, to disappear under the
water just in time to avoid the spray of bullets that tore the smooth
surface into foam. Then the sailors, watching the fun through their
glasses, would roar with laughter; and the gasping Australians would
show their heads again, to take breath for the next plunge. It sounds
reckless, but the practice continued, though many men subsequently
lost their lives through it.
But these amusements were not possible in the few days that followed
the first landing. Within twenty-four hours of the appearance of
the first warship off Gaba Tepe, the enemy had brought an army of
25,000 men to hold the strongly-prepared positions that commanded the
heights above it, and to attempt to drive the Australasians from the
precarious footing they had obtained with so much daring. Furious
attacks were made all along the line, the object being to prevent
the invaders from digging in, and establishing themselves. The 3rd
Brigade, which had led the way up the cliffs, and suffered most
severely in the initial fighting, had a very hot time of it. They
stood firm against repeated bayonet attacks, as did the whole line;
and the work of entrenching went on steadily, in spite of the brave
fury with which the Turks repeated their attacks.
The warships gave splendid help, shelling the main bodies of the
defenders wherever they showed on the ridges. The _Queen Elizabeth_
was conspicuous in this work, standing off so far to sea that she
was hardly discernible, yet landing her gigantic shells with amazing
accuracy among the ranks of the Turks. The havoc played by one of
these shrapnel shells may be imagined when it is considered that
they weigh three-quarters of a ton, and contain 20,000 bullets.
Nothing impressed the Australasians more than the hideous din made by
the explosion of one of these gigantic shells, and the scar on the
hillside that showed after its bursting.
It was under the supporting fire of the warships that the Ninth and
Tenth Infantry made a most gallant bayonet charge on the 26th, to
drive the Turks from a ridge beyond Pope's Hill, which commanded the
whole Australian position, and permitted machine guns to enfilade the
landing-place. They advanced in open lines through the scrub, making
dashes of a hundred and fifty yards at a swift run, and then dropping
to take breath for another charge. Twice they drove the Turks from
the position, and were in turn driven back; the third time they
stayed there.
The 8th Battalion (Victoria) had to bear the brunt of repeated
charges by bodies of Turks who far outnumbered them and came charging
with shouts of "Allah! Allah!" The losses sustained by the enemy in
these charges were enormous. The 4th (New South Wales) made one
dashing bayonet charge that carried them right through the Turkish
camp, but beyond they came into an area commanded by machine guns,
and got off again, having lost heavily and fought most gallantly.
These are only some of the incidents detailed out of the confusion of
the second day's fighting. By the end of that day the Australasians
recognized that they were there to stay. A conversation in one of
the advanced trenches bears quaintly upon their certainty on this
point. One by one the men gazed through a periscope at the prospect
commanded from the height they occupied. "Fair country for stock,"
remarked one, as he yielded his place. "Take a lot of clearing,"
commented another. The third was a miner. "Here," he said after a
long inquisitive look around, "chuck me an entrenching tool; I'm
going to try for a prospect."
Yes, they were there to stay right enough; until their duty should
call them to fight the cause of right and freedom somewhere else.
Already a lamentably large number of them were there to stay until
the last trump shall sound the call to them to arise and receive the
reward the hereafter holds for brave and noble men, who have laid
down their lives that justice and goodness may not perish from the
face of the earth. But dead or alive, the Australasians were there
to stay, until such time as they should receive the command to retire.
Already they had made history after a fashion which is testified in a
letter written about that time by General Birdwood, who had charge of
the whole of the Gaba Tepe operations, to Sir George Reid, the High
Commissioner in London for Australia. The General wrote:--
"The capture of the position we at present hold will, I feel sure,
go down to history as a magnificent feat of the Australians and New
Zealanders. Our one chance of success was to hurl ourselves on the
position on a broad front, and just insist on taking it. That is just
what we succeeded in doing. We tried our best to effect a surprise
by landing at night, though this was necessarily a risky matter, but
our one great chance. Our surprise, I fear, was by no means complete,
as owing to the moon setting late, our ships were necessarily
silhouetted against it as we approached, and we were consequently
met with a heavy fire whilst still in the boats. Nothing, however,
would stop the men, who just raced ashore, and up and all over this
most difficult scrub-covered hill, of which we now hold a portion.
In their great zeal, I am sorry to say, some detachments advanced
too far, getting right away from the flanks, while the enemy held
the centre in strength, and there were, I fear, completely cut off,
which made our losses heavy. That, however, could not possibly be
avoided, for had commanding officers and brigadiers waited to form up
their commands as they normally would have done, we should probably
never have captured the position at all, which great dash alone was
able to take."
[Illustration: Sir George Reid, High Commissioner for the Australian
Commonwealth, 1914-15.]
POPE'S HILL AND GABA TEPE
CHAPTER VI
POPE'S HILL AND GABA TEPE
"I heartily congratulate you on the splendid conduct and bravery
displayed by the Australian troops in the operations at the
Dardanelles. They have indeed proved themselves worthy sons of the
Empire."
When this message, graciously sent by his Majesty King George to the
Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, emerged from the fog
of war, there was widespread gratification and pride throughout a
continent of 3,000,000 square miles. Nobody knew what the Australians
had done, for though more than a week had passed since the Third
Brigade made its famous rush up the cliffs at Gaba Tepe, the Censor
still nursed the secret of their bravery, lest the waiting nations of
the South might communicate it to the powers of darkness in Berlin.
The gracious message of the King was the first intimation that
Australians were even at the scene of action, and the avidity with
which Australasia waited for further details may well be imagined.
Meantime the soldiers of Australasia were fighting hard, and
incurring enormous losses to make good their position. Their
first important offensive operation, after the actual landing was
established, was made against the knoll which now bears the name
of Pope's Hill. This position, described by Sir Ian Hamilton as a
commanding knoll in front of the centre of the line, was attacked
on the night of May 2. Behind it was the head of the deep ravine
called Monash Gully, down which the Turks directed a rifle fire so
continuous that its outlet on the beach was named Death Valley. The
enemy continually sought to extend their advantage to a point which
would allow them to direct their fire on the Australians from the
other side of the hill also.
The importance of the position can therefore be estimated. It was a
sort of no-man's-land, but its possession would give the occupants a
great advantage; it certainly would free the Australian lines from a
continuous and harassing fire from whole hosts of snipers.
The German officers who directed the Turkish operations had
themselves fully seized the value of the post to the invading force,
and had posted a number of machine guns with deadly science, covering
the whole slope approaching the knoll. When the attack opened on the
night of May 2, the attacking force was not long in discovering the
arrangements made for its reception. Line after line charged into a
perfect hail of bullets from the destructive machine guns, and no
less than 800 men were lost before the attackers desisted.
One incident of that terrible day was narrated to the writer by a
private of the 15th Battalion who took part in the attack. Early in
the morning part of his company was detailed to take a Turkish trench
on the slope of the hill. The men crouched in cover about forty yards
from the trench waiting a lead. It was given by Lieutenant Kerr, a
young South Australian officer, who sprang forward calling on the men
to follow. No sooner had he assumed an upright position than he fell
dead, with a bullet through his forehead. With a yell of rage the men
rushed forward and occupied the trench, bayoneting all the Turks who
awaited their coming.
In this operation but few men were lost, though they deeply lamented
the death of the brave young officer who had pointed the way to them.
But the position soon became a most difficult one to maintain. The
Turks appeared in front and to either side of them in overwhelming
force, and swept the ground behind them with machine guns, so that
none could come to their aid. They maintained a stout defence, until
they found to their dismay that their ammunition was running short.
Volunteers were quickly forthcoming to go to the rear for fresh
supplies, but they could see them fall one after another, within a
few yards of the trench.
They eagerly sought the cartridges still in the belts of the dead
and wounded, passing them from hand to hand along the trench, one
clip for each man. But this source was soon exhausted, and they were
confronted with the fact that they were defenceless and practically
cut off. How complete was their isolation they only realized when
they saw two machine gun sections of marines attempting to advance up
the hill to their assistance. Every man in both sections fell by the
side of the guns under the withering fire directed upon them as they
climbed upwards.
In this extremity the officer in command, whose name the narrator
of the affair could not ascertain, determined to try to reach the
communication trench in his immediate rear. He told his men of
his resolve, and said he would do all in his power to cover their
subsequent retreat, if he succeeded in reaching safety himself. The
signal for their retirement would be the hoisting of an entrenching
tool in the communication trench.
Having made this arrangement, the officer leaped from the trench and
made a dash down the hill. Apparently he took the enemy by surprise,
for he reached a safe place without a shot being fired. Then the
shovel was hoisted, and the men prepared to run the gauntlet. One
after another eight men bolted from the trench, not one of them going
ten yards before being cut off. The ninth was the narrator of this
experience.
"I knew it was death to stay," he said "and I knew it was almost as
surely death to go. I grit my teeth and made a dash for it. I doubled
like a hare; I checked and turned and twisted as I ran; the bullets
whizzed around me and cut my tunic to rags. Within two yards of
safety, and as I was preparing for the last leap into the trench I
was struck in the thigh, and the force of the bullet rolled me over
among my comrades."
Over two hundred men were lost in the futile attempt to hold that
trench alone. For many weeks Pope's Hill remained neutral territory,
a menace to the safety of the whole Australasian position at Gaba
Tepe. In the end the Australasians, after capturing and losing it
many times, made good their title to the position. Its importance was
at once demonstrated by the control it gave them of the high ridge
beyond, which they christened Dead Man's Ridge. Before the capture of
Pope's Hill the enemy continually shot down Monash Valley, and caused
serious casualties every day. Afterwards they were soon cleared
from this commanding ridge, and the whole Australasian position was
rendered comparatively safe. But this development was deferred for
nearly three months after the attack of the second of May.
Another point of vantage is the hill of Gaba Tepe, which is situated
on the very seaboard, at the extreme right of the Australasian line.
This knoll is only 120 feet high, but the batteries upon it, until
they were silenced by the guns of the warships, did an immense amount
of damage to landing parties coming and going in the bay. On May 4 an
attack was made upon this knoll, but proved unsuccessful, because, to
quote the official dispatch of Sir Ian Hamilton, "the barbed wire was
something beyond belief." Three months later Gaba Tepe still remained
in the hands of the Turks.
The actual losses in these first days of fighting were excessively
heavy, and the little force of Australasians, now facing a ring of
25,000 Turks, counted the missing ones ruefully, not only in grief
for their dead and wounded comrades, but because the strain placed
upon the survivors was by so much the heavier.
[Illustration: General James McCay, commanding 2nd Brigade,
Australian Infantry.]
The Second Brigade, composed of Victorians led by General McCay, had
landed with 4,300 men. After the unsuccessful attack on Gaba Tepe,
nine days later, the roll-call showed 2,600 remaining. A week later
the same brigade was engaged in a glorious charge at Krithia, and
returned with only 1,600 men. In a little over a fortnight that
Brigade had lost over 60 per cent. of its effectives, a heavy toll
indeed.
The experience of those early days had already taught the adaptable
Australasians many new things about bush fighting. They had learned,
for instance, how to deal with the snipers who had infested the
hillsides; and in a very short time put an end to them. This was
highly necessary, for in the first two or three days' fighting the
toll in officers had been intolerable, owing to the efforts of these
sharpshooters, whose mission was to pick off the leaders of the men.
The Australian method of stalking them called for a considerable
amount of hardihood on the part of those practising it. Two of them
would go out after one sniper, having roughly marked down the spot
where he lay by the sound of his rifle. They separated as they
crawled near him, so that one could approach him from either side.
Stealthily they crawled through the olive bush, waiting sometimes
for long half hours for the crack of his rifle to assist in locating
him. At last the exact thicket that sheltered him would be located;
then, at a given signal, both would rush on him with fixed bayonets.
Usually he was alert enough to account for one of them, but the
other invariably got him. Those snipers were ready to surrender when
caught and held at bay, and the self-control of an Australasian who
could spare the enemy who had just shot down his comrade is hard to
estimate.
Another new employment was the throwing of bombs, home-made for the
greater part. An empty jam tin, with some fuse and explosive, were
materials from which the handy bushmen constructed very serviceable
bombs, which were employed at that part of the line between Quinn's
Post and Courtney's Post, where the trenches approached very closely
together.
One team of bomb throwers achieved fame as the Test team, because the
sergeant always distributed the ammunition in his own way. He made
the distribution a "catching" practice, the bomb forming the cricket
ball. The record of no catches missed was well sustained; exactly
what might have happened had one been dropped had better be left to
the imagination.
It was at this period of their occupation of Gallipoli that the word
by which they have since become famous was coined. Every case of
ammunition and every parcel of stores landed on their beaches bore
the initials of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, thus:
A N Z A C, and the little cove where they were landed was quickly
christened Anzac Cove. But the real popularity of the word dated
from the time when an interpreter pointed out that this was really a
Turkish word, meaning "wholly just."
It was at once adopted as a name for the area they occupied, and was
avidly seized upon by the British and Australasian Press as a handy
and expressive substitute for Australasian, a cumbrous title that has
always offended those who have had to use it most frequently. So the
Australasians became the Anzacs, a title under which they have won
fame and will live for ever in the history of warfare.
During the whole of this time they had heard and seen nothing of
their British comrades, who had landed on the southern point of
the peninsula of Gallipoli at the same moment as they were scaling
the cliffs above Brighton Beach. The German spies who did so much
to confuse the initial operations were continually passing word to
detached bands to cease firing, as the British, or the French, were
immediately in front of them. Little attention was paid to these
false statements, except that a vigorous search was made for the
originators, and summary justice meted out to them when found. For
the Australians were well informed of the movements of the other
detachments of the Allied forces.
Between these and the Australasian post at Gaba Tepe towered a range
of hills, rising to its highest point at Achi Baba, the Gibraltar
of Gallipoli peninsula. The means of communication between the two
holdings was limited to the sea, for the Turks were strongly posted,
right down to the coast, in the intermediate territory.
By means of the sea, communication was established on May 6 between
the two forces; and 4,000 Australasians were detached for the time
being to help in the operations of the main body of the Allied armies
before the village of Krithia. The men chosen were the Second Brigade
of Australians, and the New Zealand infantry. They were taken off on
small boats, transferred to trawlers, and carried to the major scene
of operations, where they distinguished themselves after a fashion
now to be described.
THE CHARGE AT KRITHIA
CHAPTER VII
THE CHARGE AT KRITHIA
The men of Anzac were now called upon to take their part in a great
concerted attack, made by all the forces commanded by Sir Ian
Hamilton on Gallipoli Peninsula. Those familiar with the operations
in Gallipoli will remember that, simultaneously with the landing
of the Australasians at Gaba Tepe, no less than five landings had
been effected by the British and French expeditionary forces further
south, on points situated on the extreme southern point of the
peninsula.
A great mountain rampart lay between these forces and the Anzacs,
culminating in the summit of Achi Baba, the hardest nut to crack in
the whole peninsula. Loftily situated on the slopes of Achi Baba is
the village of Krithia, protected by a maze of Turkish trenches,
and a wilderness of barbed wire entanglements. Upon this village an
attack was directed from as many points as practicable, and in this
attack a large proportion of the Australasian troops participated.
The attack was opened by such a fusillade of shellfire from the
warships of the allied fleet as has seldom been seen or heard.
From all quarters they rained shell and shrapnel on the slopes of
Krithia, searching the ranges one by one in the attempt to dislodge
the defenders from their trenches and hiding-places along the
scrubby hillsides and precipitous ravines. The enemies' losses from
that shellfire were enormous, but the Turks are admirable defensive
fighters, and they clung to their trenches, making the most of the
shelters that had been constructed in anticipation of such an attack.
The Anzacs had been posted as reserves in this great attack on
Krithia, the Australians occupying positions on the left of the
Krithia road, in support of a division of the Naval Brigade. On the
other side of the road, and in support of the British 88th Brigade,
were the New Zealanders. The fighting had begun on May 6, and between
then and May 8 some ground had been gained; but the Turks were so
strongly entrenched, and counter-attacked so vigorously, that on the
morning of the 8th it appeared as though there were some danger of
the advantage being again lost.
It was on the evening of May 8 that the long-expected signal to
advance was received by the Australasian soldiers. Now they were to
prove themselves in the eyes of the world, for they were fighting
side by side with men drawn from four continents. Away to their
extreme right the French, with their brave Senegalese helping them,
had performed prodigies of valour during the preceding days. They
were still holding the mile of ground they had gained, hanging on
like grim death, and even pushing forward where opportunity permitted.
Nearer to the Australasian posts were Indian troops; Gurkhas, Sikhs
and Punjabis; while with them were Britons of all kinds, sailormen
and soldiers, regulars, Indian-service men, and a sprinkling of the
new Army raised by Lord Kitchener. On the warships in the Gulf of
Saros and the Dardanelles, eyes experienced in all the battlefields
of modern days were watching them critically. The cannonade from the
warships redoubled; the din was appalling, so that the very earth
shook with it. It was at this moment that the Australasians were
ordered to step into the limelight.
A quarter of a mile in front of the New Zealanders the gallant 88th
held a trench. The Maorilanders had to go through that, and forward
as far up the slope as a series of rushes with the bayonet would
carry them. Before the Australians were the sailormen, situated
similarly to the 88th. Past their trench the Australians had to
charge, and up the bullet-swept slope towards Krithia. They waited
for the signal to advance; it was given by the sudden cessation of
the deafening din that was proceeding from the great 15-inch guns of
the warships.
With a cry of "Ake! Ake!"--the war cry of the brave old Maori chief
Rewi--the New Zealanders swept forward in a solid body over the 400
yards that separated them from the trench held by the 88th. A pause
for breath was taken, and then they went on, taking with them many of
their English cousins, who wanted to be in it with the bold fellows
from the Long White Cloud. Just as they practised evolutions on the
sands of Heliopolis, so they performed them now. The solid lines
expanded, always advancing without check or pause. Sometimes they
doubled, sometimes they walked; but they moved steadily forward all
the time, a thin brown line that no human agency could stop. For
seven hundred yards more they went on, with bullets raining upon
them, and through a veil of constantly exploding shrapnel. Then
they could go no farther. But they would not go back; they flung
themselves on the ground and dug for shelter.
[Illustration: The New Zealanders reviewed at Heliopolis.]
From the warships that charge was watched by those who were there for
no other purpose than to observe and record. The great broken slope
up which the charge was made lay like the stage of some huge theatre
under the glasses of those who were watching, and with a fascination
in which intensest admiration was blended, every move of the soldiers
of the South was chronicled. Mr. Ashmead Bartlett was among those
who watched that unforgettable charge, and he has placed his
impressions on record in the following words:--
"The line entered one Turkish trench with a rush, bayoneted all
there, and then passed on into broken ground, shooting and stabbing,
men falling amid the terrible fusillade, but not a soul turning back.
No sooner had one line charged than another pressed on after it, and
then a third. On the right the New Zealanders and the Australians
advanced at the same moment, but over much more open ground, which
provided little or no cover. They were met by a tornado of bullets
and were enfiladed by machine guns from the right.
"The artillery in vain tried to keep down this fire, but the manner
in which these Dominion troops went forward will never be forgotten
by those who witnessed it. The lines of infantry were enveloped in
dust from the patter of countless bullets in the sandy soil and from
the hail of shrapnel poured on them, for now the enemy's artillery
concentrated furiously on the whole line. The lines advanced steadily
as if on parade, sometimes doubling, sometimes walking, and you saw
them melt away under this dreadful fusillade only for their lines
to be renewed again as the reserves and supports moved forward to
replace those who had fallen.
"In spite of all obstacles a considerable advance towards Krithia was
made, but at length a point was reached from which it was impossible
to proceed farther. Not a man attempted to return to the trenches.
They simply lay down where they were and attempted to reply to their
concealed enemy, not a man of whom disclosed his position. Only a few
hundred yards had been won, it is true, but these Australians and New
Zealanders were determined not to budge and proceeded to entrenching
themselves where they lay."
The simultaneous charge of the Australians was made with the same
steadiness and coolness as was displayed by the New Zealanders. The
men were led up to the firing trench occupied by the Naval division
by General McCay in person, and he gave them the signal to go forward
when they had taken breath after their first quarter of a mile rush.
"Now then, on, Australians!" he cried, waving the periscope he
carried. And they took up the cry. "Come on, Australians!" was the
shout, and there was no need to repeat it.
Through the bursting shrapnel they ran, line after line, always
forward, though their ranks were thinning rapidly. They opened out as
if on parade, they kept a straight thin line of advance. They raced
the New Zealanders on their left and far outdistanced the British
and Indians on their right. Then they too dug for shelter, and made
good their ground. They were congratulated by their British friends
afterwards on the fine show they had made, when one long bushman
drawled out, "Why, it was child's play to that first Sunday."
But they had played to a full house and the Anzac charge at Krithia
rammed home the reputation they had first won on the steep cliff of
Gaba Tepe. On the next day, May 9, the 15th and 16th Battalions of
the Fourth Regiment carried three more trenches near Gaba Tepe; and
on the following day resisted successfully a series of deadly and
persistent attacks. So they won fame, and again proved their title to
be considered soldiers of the very first rank.
It was after the fighting of these two days that General Sir Ian
Hamilton sent to Mr. Andrew Fisher, the Prime Minister of the
Australian Commonwealth, a message of which every Australasian should
be proud:--"May I, out of a full heart, be permitted to say how
gloriously the Australian and New Zealand Contingents have upheld the
fine traditions of our race during the struggle still in progress. At
first with audacity and dash, since then with sleepless valour and
untiring resource, they have already created for their countries an
imperishable record of military virtue."
The Anzacs holding the position at Gaba Tepe were naturally weakened
by the withdrawal of these reinforcements to co-operate in the main
attack, and this fact appears to have been known to the enemy. It is
at any rate certain that redoubled vigour was displayed in attacking
those who remained to hold the Gaba Tepe position, while their
comrades were employed elsewhere. All these attacks were successfully
repelled, and the defenders, now accustomed to their surroundings,
and becoming more inured to actual war conditions, gave even better
exhibitions of soldierly qualities than before. That is to say that,
while fighting as bravely as ever, they spared themselves more, and
reduced the number of avoidable casualties.
But constant and dangerous work had put a great strain upon them, and
a rest for many of them was badly needed. At this juncture a very
considerable and most welcome reinforcement arrived, and permitted
the needed rest to be taken. The reinforcement consisted of the
cavalry, who had been left behind in Egypt with their horses. The
news that their mates were in the thick of the fighting had not
tended to diminish their discontent at being left behind, and on
hearing the news from Gaba Tepe, and seeing the first wounded arrive
at Egypt, they arose and demanded as one man to be allowed to serve
in the trenches as infantry.
Those who know how close and intimate is the tie between the
Australasian horseman and his horse will recognize that this
volunteering had a special value of its own, coming from the class
of man that it did. The offer was gladly accepted, the men doffed
their mounted kit, and got into puttees and bluchers. They arrived in
the nick of time, and any difference between their training and that
of the infantry could not be appreciated, as soon as they got into
the trenches and to real soldiering work.
The coming of the "light-weights" made a great difference to the men
already at Gaba Tepe, whose numbers were sadly depleted; and the men
who had left their spurs behind got a welcome all the warmer because
they had not waited to be ordered there, but had volunteered. They
came in the very nick of time, for the presence of the Anzacs had
become so obnoxious to the German commanders of the Turkish forces
that active steps were even then being concerted to get rid of them.
These positions that they held so strongly midway between the
city of Gallipoli and the end of the peninsula, where the bulk of
the Expedition to the Dardanelles was operating were an enormous
hindrance to the Turks and their German masters. A large body of
troops had always to be kept on the spot to prevent the Anzacs from
cutting communications between the main defending force and the
depots whence they drew their stores and reinforcements. Not only
that; the actual progress of reinforcements was hampered by the
operations of these tireless Colonials, who were constantly harassing
the warrior natives of the soil.
Therefore General Liman von Sanders, in his wisdom, decided that the
Anzacs must be driven into the sea; and at the time of the arrival
of the reinforcements drawn from the Australasian Light Horse, was
gathering a strong army, which he soon afterwards directed in a
general frontal attack upon the Anzac positions.
But before that attack was delivered, the Australian army suffered
an irreparable loss in the person of its brave and skilful General,
General Bridges. This gallant soldier had been in the thick of the
fighting throughout the whole of the operations that began with the
landing of April 25. Wherever he went he set an example of cool
courage that acted as a tonic to the men, who trusted and loved
him dearly. At first he disdained to take the ordinary precautions
that were dictated by the conditions under which he was directing
operations, and with a grim carelessness walked about under shrapnel
fire, without making any attempt to seek cover.
[Illustration: General Bridges, who commanded the 1st Expeditionary
Force from Australia. Died from a wound inflicted by a sniper in the
Valley of Death on May 10.]
The warnings of his staff, and his early conviction that it was not
necessary to set so uncompromising an example of personal courage
to men so consistently brave as those under his command, caused him
later to adopt a more prudent attitude; and on the day when he
sustained his fatal wound he showed more than his customary care for
himself. He set out upon an inspection of a firing line, and for once
he consented to run through the more exposed parts of his round.
A description has already been given of the deep ravine that runs
down to the sea on the right of Pope's Hill. When he came to the
path that crosses this gully, he was warned by the dressers at the
ambulance station that the bullets were flying very thickly down the
gully. "You had better run across here, sir," said one of them. He
took the advice and reached another shelter. There he stood for a
time, and then remarking ruefully, "Well, I suppose I must run for
it again," he made a dash for the next cover. Before he reached it
a bullet struck him in the thigh, severing an important artery. He
would have rapidly bled to death but for prompt assistance. Stricken
as he was, his first thought was for others; he did not wish any one
to expose himself in helping to carry him down to the sea-front.
He was carried there, however, and transferred to the hospital ship
with every possible care. In spite of all attention and skill, he
never rallied; and died at sea on his way to Egypt. Australia mourns
him as a gallant and considerate leader, a man whose memory will be
ever revered in the Southern Continent. His command was temporarily
assumed by Brigadier-General Walker, who acted in that capacity until
the arrival from Australia of General Legge, who was appointed to
succeed General Bridges.
THE BATTLE OF QUINN'S POST
CHAPTER VIII
THE BATTLE OF QUINN'S POST
Captain Von Mueller boasted that he would sink the Australian
cruiser _Sydney_. He lost his ship, and was carried a captive by
the Australians to a British prison camp. General Liman von Sanders
declared he would drive the Anzacs off the face of Gallipoli
Peninsula into the sea. The result of his attempt was a slaughter of
Turks that has not been equalled in the Dardanelles fighting, and the
return of so many wounded to Constantinople that a panic was created
in the Turkish capital. If any boasting is to be done, the proper
time is after the event.
The preparations made by Sanders Pasha for his great attack upon
the Anzacs were long and elaborate. For days beforehand he was
busy in organizing the transport of great stores of ammunition to
the neighbourhood of Maidos, a town on the neck of the peninsula,
opposite Gaba Tepe. Five fresh regiments were brought from
Constantinople to stiffen the attacking force; they afterwards
proved to have been chosen from the very _élite_ of the Turkish army.
He detached in addition heavy reinforcements from the main body of
defenders, who were holding back the Allies at Achi Baba. He had
determined to do the thing very thoroughly.
His attack was launched on May 18, and he himself assumed personal
charge of the operations. Shortly before midnight on May 18 he began
to expend his huge store of shell after the approved German fashion.
All the batteries concealed in the hills around set up a hideous
din, swollen by the roar of the machine guns, and the cracking of
countless rifles. In that shelling, 12-inch guns, 9-inch guns,
and huge howitzers were employed, as well as artillery of smaller
calibre. Naturally every Anzac was on the look out; and word was sent
to every post to be prepared for the frontal attack it was assumed
would follow. The assumption was a correct one; for soon countless
Turks poured over the ridges and made for the centre of the Anzac
line.
[Illustration: General Monash, Commander of the 4th Brigade,
Australian Infantry.]
It has already been explained that this line was a rough semicircle,
the left, or Northern wing being situated on high ground above
Fisherman's Hut. Here was a ridge facing North-East, named Walker's
Ridge after Brigadier-General Walker, and to the right of that was
Pope's Hill. These spots were North of the great central gully or
valley, which was at first known as Death Gully by the Australian
soldiers, but was afterwards called Monash Gully, after General
Monash, commander of the 4th Brigade. Immediately to the right of
the Gully was Dead Man's Ridge, and the point where the line takes a
sharp turn to the South was known as the Bloody Angle.
The Turkish lines, which were some 250 yards distant at the extreme
left of the position, continued to get closer to those of the
Australasians until here they approached very closely. At Quinn's
Post, named after a gallant Major from Queensland who fell fighting
bravely at the spot, the lines were only twenty yards apart. The
gap widened going South to Courtney's Post, and continued to do so
through the other main positions at Steel's Post and McLaurin Hill,
down to Point Rosenthal, which faced Gaba Tepe itself on the extreme
right wing.
Quinn's Post, at the extreme curve of the Australasian semicircle,
came in for the hottest attack of all. In this part of the line were
stationed the Fourth Infantry Brigade, which comprised the bulk
of the Second Australian Contingent, and is commanded by General
Monash. Of this 4th Brigade more will soon be told, but it suffices
to say that their steadiness and fighting qualities were put to the
supreme test on this early morning of May 19. The trenches here faced
the ridge called Dead Man's Ridge, and over this ridge the Turks
pushed one another to the attack. Their advance was covered by a
continuation of the heavy bombardment of the trenches from Hill 700,
and from the top of the ridge where guns, heavy, light and machine,
had been concentrated.
This fire, added to the bullets from thousands of rifles, kept all
Anzac heads down. Bravely the Turks dashed through the scrub, taking
all the cover it afforded, and regardless of the field guns and
howitzers of the Anzacs, which were concentrated on them with deadly
effect. Many of them got right up to the edge of the trenches, and
were shot down at point-blank range. Still they crept out of their
cover, massing in every thicket, and advancing under pressure of
those behind.
The first light of early morning revealed to the waiting Anzacs a
dense mass of the enemy, exposed and within easy range. Then the
rifles of the best shots in the world--for there are at least no
superiors to them anywhere--rang out, and as fast as each man could
pull the trigger, the Turk fell under that deadly fusillade. Still
they poured over the ridges, their officers driving them on from
behind with loaded revolvers, and still the discriminate slaughter
went on.
[Illustration: Australian Field Artillery in Action.]
It was discriminate slaughter, for each Anzac, before he fired,
marked his man and made sure of him. It was no time for sentimental
considerations of mercy; and besides, the Anzacs were fierce with
the anger of men who had been sniped for three weeks, without too
many chances of getting their own back. They had charged against
positions held as their own now was, and had seen their bravest and
best fall by hundreds as they drove on in the face of shrapnel and
machine-gun fire. Now it was their turn, and they fired until the
barrels of their rifles got too hot to be touched. "It was like
killing rabbits with a stick," said one man, who was in the hottest
part of the fray.
The most terrible execution of all was done by a battery of eighteen
pounders, which, with a number of machine guns, had been posted and
carefully masked at a spot on the Anzac line between Steel's Post and
the Pimple. The fire from these guns took the Turks all unawares and
tore great gaps in their ranks. This ambush was arranged by General
Johnston, the officer commanding the artillery, and the spot was
afterwards known to the Anzacs by the peculiar name of Johnston's
Jolly.
All along the line from Quinn's Post to Courtney's the dead were
piled in heaps; and still they came on. Some of them died grasping
the barbed wire protections in front of the trenches, others fell
dead into the very trenches themselves, only stopped by a bullet met
on the parapet. They had the support of all the guns Sanders Pasha
had been able to muster, and all his huge store of ammunition was
expended in trying to drive those Australians into the sea. But not a
man budged from his post.
From daylight till ten o'clock that morning the bombardment and the
frontal attack were continued; then the Turks would have no more of
it. Sullenly they fell back, and as they did so shrapnel completed
the disorganization which had now begun. Soon after ten they turned
and ran for their trenches, and there they sheltered for hours while
the heavy cannonade continued. In the middle of the afternoon their
officers made another attempt to drive them forward, but it was a
half-hearted response that was elicited. Once more they faced that
deadly accurate rifle fire of the men from the South, and before it
they crumpled up and fled again for shelter. All night they kept
up an incessant fire from their trenches, but in the morning it
died away into nothingness. General Liman von Sanders had made a
mistake, and the most expensive mistake yet made on the peninsula of
Gallipoli. Such was the end to his boasting.
Not a Turk had entered an Anzac trench except dead Turks, not a yard
of ground had been gained in any direction. And from Quinn's Post all
along the line to Courtnay's, the ground was piled with the dead and
dying. "Eight acres of dead bodies," estimated one literal bushman,
after a close scrutiny of the field of battle through a periscope.
Another essayed to count the bodies in sight from his trench, and
stopped at an estimate of 4,000. At least 30,000 Turks took part
in that frontal attack, and on a conservative estimate, one-third
of them were put out of action. The wounded were sent back to
Constantinople literally by thousands, and the sight of them spread
panic and dismay far and wide through that city.
Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, who went over the lines on the following
day, presents a grim picture of the slaughter wrought by the
straight-shooting Australians.
"The ground presents an extraordinary sight when viewed through the
trench periscopes. Two hundred yards away, and even closer in places,
are the Turkish trenches, and between them and our lines the dead lie
in hundreds. There are groups of twenty or thirty massed together, as
if for mutual protection, some lying on their faces, some killed in
the act of firing; others hung up in the barbed wire. In one place
a small group actually reached our parapet, and now lie dead on it,
shot at point-blank range or bayoneted. Hundreds of others lie just
outside their own trenches, where they were caught by rifles and
shrapnel when trying to regain them. Hundreds of wounded must have
perished between the lines, for it was only on the 21st that the
enemy made overtures for an armistice for burying the dead; but up
to the present this has not been granted owing to the suspicious
number of troops in his front trenches.
"In places the Turks made four or five separate efforts to charge
home, using hand-grenades, but they all failed dismally."
"Ever alert," writes one who took part in the slaughter, "the
Colonials were ready to meet the strain when it came. The sight of
seemingly endless masses of the enemy advancing upon them might well
have shaken the nerve of the already severely-tried troops. Our
machine-guns and artillery mowed down the attackers in hundreds, but
still the advancing wall swept on. On, still! Would the ranks never
waste in strength? Not till the wave was at point-blank range from
the nimble trigger-fingers did it break and spend itself amongst our
barbed-wire entanglements. Turks were shot in the act of jumping into
our trenches. Corpses lay with their heads and arms hanging over our
parapets. Our fire gradually dominated the ground in front. Those who
turned to fly were mowed down before they could go a dozen yards. The
Germans sent their supports forward in droves. It was sickening to
behold the slaughter our fire made amongst the massed battalions as
they issued from concealment into open spaces.
"These unfortunate Turks scrambled along towards us over piles of
dead bodies. In an instant a company would be enveloped in the smoke
of a shrapnel salvo. When the smoke cleared that company would be
stretched or writhing on the ground, with another company approaching
and ready to share its predecessor's fate."
The Anzacs did not lose one man for every twenty they put out of
action. Coolly and methodically they took the chance sent them by
Sanders Pasha, and every bullet was sent home in memory of the brave
comrades they had lost, and the grand general who was even then
breathing his last. They had previously displayed bravery, hardihood,
and resource beyond imagination; the qualities shown at the battle
of Quinn's Post were steadiness, accurate shooting, and a reasoned
discipline that would have done the utmost credit to the most
seasoned veterans of the British regular army.
Two days later the Turks craved an armistice to bury their thousands
of slain. Too great indulgence could not be given them in the
performance of their gruesome task, for under the tuition of their
German masters they are apt to employ such breathing spaces for
purposes to which they ought not to be devoted. The requests for
armistices became very frequent after that slaughter of May 19, but
the Anzacs knew just how to deal with them.
And so the Anzacs got their own back with enormous interest. After
being sent forward over open country against big fields of barbed
wire, with enfilading machine-guns hidden at every turn, it was a
sheer luxury to lie in the trenches and let the other fellow do a bit
of self-immolation. They knew, too, that they had struck a deadly
blow at German prestige with the Turk. General Birdwood told them so
when he inspected their defences, after the fight was over.
A THORN IN THE FLESH
CHAPTER IX
A THORN IN THE FLESH
The failure of the attempt to drive the Australasians into the sea
was followed by two months of desultory fighting that resembled
nothing so much as the deadlock between the Allies and the Germans
in the North of France. The operations, of course, were on a scale
infinitely smaller, and the Anzacs held the advantage of occupying
the position of invaders. They were, indeed, a thorn in the flesh
of the Turkish army, for they held a position with infinite
possibilities.
The object of the whole land expedition in Gallipoli was to obtain
command of that part of the straits of the Dardanelles known as the
Narrows, where Europe and Asia are only separated by a mile of sea
water. Here are the strongest of the forts built by the Turks to
protect the passage of the Dardanelles. Before this narrow passage
lies a minefield so thick that it defied the attempt of the fleet
of the Allied Powers to force a passage through the Dardanelles to
Constantinople. An attempt to dredge the minefield with trawlers was
defeated by hidden batteries on the very heights for which the Anzacs
were fighting, and also by the guns of the forts at the Narrows.
At the southern point of the peninsula the main force of the Allies
was attempting to cut a way through to a tableland known as the
Plateau of Kilid Bahr, which dominates the European coast of the
Dardanelles from the entrance as far as the Narrows themselves. The
spot occupied by the Anzacs on the Gulf of Saros was opposite the
town of Maidos on the straits, and therefore above the Narrows. This
much must be grasped in order to understand the possibilities arising
from the existence of an Australasian force in that spot, and the
precautions forced upon the Turks because they remained there.
The main body of the Turkish army was concerned with the defence
of the fort of Achi Baba and all the strong positions centring in
that height. All supplies for this defence force must come from
the base at Constantinople, by sea to Gallipoli, and thence by
road through Maidos, the town threatened by the Australasians.
Moreover, all reinforcements must pass by the same way; and the heavy
losses inflicted upon the Turks by the Allied forces in Gallipoli
necessitated many reinforcements.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT GEOGRAPHIA L^{TD} 55 FLEET STREET LONDON E.C.]
Therefore the presence of the Australasians around the hill of
Sari Bair, even while they remained passive, forced the Turks to
maintain a force of from 25,000 to 30,000 men at this point, merely
to keep them in check. For two months the slightest sign of any
diminution of that force was the signal for a demonstration by the
Anzacs, which at least had the effect of bringing the Turks back to
the trenches they are so anxious to vacate.
But the full importance of the Anzac position did not end there. Sir
Ian Hamilton, finding that his attempt to force the great mountain
stronghold of Achi Baba was doomed to failure without a strengthening
of his forces which could not be granted him, decided on a new plan
for cutting through to the Dardanelles. This, in his own words, was
by a reinforcement of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps,
combined with a landing in Suvla Bay. Then with one strong push to
capture Hill 971, and, working from that dominating point, to grip
the waist of the Peninsula.
The objects to be attained were three--
1. To break out with a rush from Anzac and cut off the bulk of the
Turkish army from land communication with Constantinople.
2. To gain such a command for my artillery as to cut off the bulk of
the Turkish army from sea traffic, whether with Constantinople or
with Asia.
3. Incidentally, to secure Suvla Bay as a winter base for Anzac and
all the troops operating in the northern theatre.
These operations were not begun until early in August. But during the
latter part of May, and through the months of June and July, they
were forced to mark time steadily, and jealously to conserve the
little patch of ground they had won with such incredible audacity on
the cliffs of Sari Bair. The extent of that holding may be gauged
when it is stated that the beachline was a little over a mile long,
and that the furthest point inland of the Anzac line was not more
than a mile from the sea, as a crow flies. Thus the Australasians
were clinging on to less than a square mile of the Gallipoli
peninsula; and for two months never lost an inch of it, but steadily
consolidated their holding.
Mining and sapping went on all day and all night, and the Turks have
proved themselves masters at this underground warfare. The Anzacs
replied in kind, and the outcome of some of these adventures was
lively hand-to-hand fighting. On May 29 the Turks got a sap close up
to the Anzac line, and occupied two shell craters within four yards
of the trenches. They soon turned them into bombproof shelters, and
were established there before they were discovered.
Three men of the 15th Infantry Battalion of the Australasian Force,
Sergeant Kidd, Corporal Stronach and Private Birch, have written the
following account of what followed, and placed it at the disposal of
the writer. All three men were wounded in the fighting of that May
29. Their account runs:
"Everything was quiet on the morning of May 29. At the hour of 3
a.m. a few rifles rang out from time to time, but for Quinn's Post
this was comparative silence. Suddenly a bright glare shot skywards,
followed by intense darkness, and a deep reverberating roar--the
Turks had blown our trenches up. Almost simultaneously with the sound
of the explosion an uproar of rifle and machine gun fire burst from
the enemy's trenches, and was answered from ours, making a din in
which it was impossible to hear an order, unless shouted in one's
very ear.
"We stood to arms and in five minutes we rushed up the hill in the
faintly gathering dawn. The enemy's artillery had the range, and
their shells burst continuously overhead, lighting up the rugged
sides of the great ravine like a terrific thunder-storm. The
detonation of the guns, fired incessantly, reverberated through the
hills and gullies and increased the likeness to some titanic tempest,
while the sight of the ever-increasing stream of wounded we met
coming down hill, all covered with blood and maimed and crippled,
added to the terror of the moment.
"When we reached the hill-top we found the worst had happened: the
Turks had got possession of three lines of trenches. The duty of
turning them out fell to our battalion, the Fighting Fifteenth. As
the faint light broadened to day we lined up and awaited the word
to charge. If any one says that at such a moment he felt no anxiety
or terror, let him be branded as a liar and empty braggart. No man
should face death without some tremor, let alone the hail of bombs
which the victorious Turks threw over from the conquered trenches,
and which seem to hold a terror in themselves that is even worse than
death.
"Yet it was through this screen of horror that we had to dash, and
by sheer force drive the enemy out of their newly-acquired position.
Clear above all other noises shrilled a whistle; and with a yell each
man dashed forward. There was a confused glimpse of men falling, and
of others staggering back through the smoke, all streaming with blood
and with limbs shattered by the hideous bombs. But in thirty seconds
the communication trench was clear.
"From the support trench, which was full of Turks, there poured a
hail of bullets and grenades, causing us to reel and fall back for
a breathing space. Then our own bomb throwers stepped forward and
hurled bombs into the trench, whence fragments of shattered humanity
leaped up into the air. The desperate men sprang from the trench
and bravely charged, but ten yards was as far as they got; under our
deadly rifle and machine-gun fire they went down like wheat before
the scythe.
"We counter-charged in the next moment and scores of our fellows went
over the parapet into the trench, where the stabbing blows of the
bayonet could be heard for a good three minutes. Then the firing line
was ours again.
"But the support trench in the centre still held out. Owing to the
bombproof shelter there was no possible way of shifting the stubborn
defenders. Bravely they fought for their footing but the use of bombs
convinced them of the hopelessness of the position they occupied.
Finally they surrendered; and came out covered with blood and dust,
eighteen limping heathen heroes. We hope we showed them due respect,
the respect we felt for their brave fight.
"Then came the task of clearing the trench of the dead, a gruesome
work. Poor shattered fragments of humanity, without any likeness
to the human form remaining had to be gathered up in sandbags and
carried away. No words can paint the hideous thoroughness with which
the grenades do their devilish work. So ended the fight of May 29."
The craters were also taken by a body of Light Horse who, after
throwing a large number of bombs into the craters, boldly leaped in,
with their bayonets fixed. They cleared the holes of Turks, though
all of the attacking force were wounded but two, and the greater part
of them were isolated in the craters for a night. But they held the
craters until relief could be sent them.
This necessitated some brisk work by an Australian machine-gun
section, in the course of which one young gunner distinguished
himself by bravery and devotion of the highest order. He was engaged
against two Turkish machine guns, and continued to work his own
gun, though they were cutting away his parapet of sandbags, and
must eventually expose him to a stream of bullets. The maintenance
of his fire was of the utmost importance, since it covered a series
of operations by a considerable force of men. At last he fell back
wounded, but not until he had saved the situation by his devoted
bravery.
With a little experience, the Anzacs became in their turn first-class
sappers.
"I am a voluntary sapper now," writes one of them, "digging a tunnel
to some new trenches we have dug just behind a ridge about 100 yards
in front of the Turks' trenches. We went out one night to dig them
in moonlight, and they opened a pretty brisk fire for a bit, but we
were practically safe behind the ridge; all the same, we were ready
for them. Three of the evening party got hit, but most of the damage
was done by fellows bumping their picks into one another, tearing the
seats of their trousers out, etc. Some of our saps go through dead
Turks buried during the armistice before we came. We wash ourselves
and clothes in the sea, as fresh water is too scarce for anything but
drinking purposes just yet."
A diversion from this trench warfare was occasioned on June 28 by an
attempt on the part of the Turks to withdraw part of their forces for
use in the more southerly part of the peninsula. The Australasians
replied with a strong attack. It opened in the regular way by the
ships bombarding the hillsides. Then the 2nd Brigade of Australian
Light Horse and the 3rd Brigade of Australian Infantry advanced 700
yards, and gave the Turks something to think about. This produced a
counter-attack, which was repulsed by the Australasians with heavy
loss to the enemy. Then, having fulfilled their mission, the Anzacs
retired in good order within their lines.
They are now thoroughly familiar with the strange rough country of
Gallipoli, of which one of them writes:--
"The world seems to have been built up on end, and the high cliffs
are accessible only by the spurs and valleys. The place is very
different now--roads have been cut and built, and steep as they
are, mules can reach the top fairly easily. It is very exasperating
to look out on the peaceful flat country just a few miles away with
peaceful homesteads in places. Our chief pastime in life is smashing
Turkish periscopes, of which they don't possess very many. It is good
target practice, and helps to prevent them from being too perky. At
present we are just marking time, and things are rather quiet."
Things were quiet by the deliberate plan of Sir Ian Hamilton. Having
decided that his next attempt was to be made from Anzac, his hope was
to divert the attention of the enemy, as far as might be, from that
particular theatre of operations. The Anzacs were therefore confined
to trench warfare and to those underground operations which made of
their holding a warren of saps and tunnels.
They could watch the Turks entrenching busily all around them,
until they were confronted with a series of defence works that were
practically impregnable. North-east of them, where the mountain spurs
of Sari Bair ran up from the coast to the dominating height of Koja
Chemen (Hill 971), every rise had its network of trenches. Opposite
Quinn's Post a net of trenches was dug so intricate that it was
given the name of The Chessboard. Not a day passed but the Turks,
working on higher ground, made their holding as secure as digging and
earthwork could make it.
Also they posted guns on well-chosen positions, and the Anzacs had
to endure a bombardment that recurred every day. On Battleship Hill
there was a battery that had the whole of the southern posts ranged,
and dropped shells on them with unceasing regularity and remarkable
accuracy. In the mangroves south of Gaba Tepe there was hidden a
quick-firing gun known to the Anzacs as Beachy Bill. He had the Anzac
beaches ranged, and did enormous damage with his sudden bursts of
shrapnel.
This monster, and a twin gun on an elevation to the north, somewhere
behind Anafarta village and known as Anafarta Anne, made the old
amusement of beach bathing a deadly peril. Long before the final
abandonment of the Anzac position a camp statistician had reckoned
that the score of casualties due to the activities of Beachy Bill
exceeded the total of 1,500, and on one bad day he accounts for
sixty-four men. Many attempts were made by the warships to silence
these guns and blow away their emplacements. Sometimes they were so
damaged that they had to remain quiescent for a day or two, but just
when hope was growing in the Anzac ranks that they had heard the
last of Beachy Bill, a bathing party would be reminded by a spray of
shrapnel that he was very much in being.
The sufferings endured by the troops holding the southern part of the
Anzac line, from Quinn's Post down to The Pimple, arising out of the
shelling of their trenches with high explosive, will never be told.
The remnants of the Second Brigade, which were posted at Steel's Post
and Johnston's Jolly, endured this for weeks, especially toward the
end of July.
One experience related to me by a young officer of the 7th will ever
stick in my memory. His company had maintained a ceaseless vigil for
days and nights, men falling asleep where they stood under arms. When
things appeared at their worst, he was delighted at the appearance
of a small party of reinforcements, fifteen in number. He gave a
relieved glance at the new-comers, and conducted them to a deep
trench that had been made a few yards behind the firing line where
the men used to retire to rest in comparative safety.
He left them there while he selected from his band of overwrought
warriors those who needed rest most of all where every one was in
vital need of a spell. No sooner had he left this rest trench than a
great "Jack Johnson" came, burying the reinforcements under many feet
of earth. Their comrades sprang to their assistance, digging away the
earth like possessed beings. One by one the dead and dying men were
discovered, and tenderly borne back to the beach from which they had
just come. Finally all had been removed but one, and of him no trace
could be found.
"I urged the men to dig on," said my informant, and as I spoke I
felt something move under my feet. I was standing on the hip of the
buried man. We worked with our hands to clear his face, and I removed
as well as I could the dirt from his mouth and nostrils. He was black
in the face, and, I feared, beyond recovery.
"But, as we worked to clear him, I saw his face resume its natural
colour, and he opened his mouth and spoke, 'Ah, Edith,' he muttered;
then he opened his eyes and saw me bending over him. He struggled to
his feet and saluted, with the remark, 'I'm all right, Sir.' I told
him to go back to the beach, but he would have none of it. He said he
was all right bar a bruise or two, and wanted to take his place in
the firing line. Of course I would not hear of that, so sent him back
for medical treatment. And that was all we got of our reinforcements."
Multiply this instance by hundreds, and you will get some idea of the
stern endurance required of these men during those weeks of waiting,
and the spirit in which they endured. With the hot weather came
dysentery, and their sufferings were terrible. But they knew that
a big move was shortly expected, and many of them concealed their
complaint and carried on in silence, determined not to miss the great
attack to which they were all looking so eagerly forward. When the
word was finally given for the advance, many of these heroes charged
the enemy, weakened as they were by many days' concealed suffering
from this last scourge of Gallipoli.
The anticipated movement was heralded by the resumption of the
offensive on the extreme right of the Anzac line on July 31. This
operation can best be described in the words of Sir Ian Hamilton's
dispatch:--
"On the extreme right of Anzac the flank of a work called Tasmania
Post was threatened by the extension of a Turkish trench. The task of
capturing this trench was entrusted to the 3rd Australian Brigade.
After an artillery bombardment, mines were to be fired, whereupon
four columns of fifty men each were to assault and occupy specified
lengths of the trench. The regiment supplying the assaulting columns
was the 11th Australian Infantry Battalion.
"At 10.15 p.m. on July 31 the bombardment was opened. Ten minutes
later and the mines were duly fired. The four assaulting parties
dashed forward at once, crossed our own barbed wire on planks, and
were into the craters before the whole of the débris had fallen.
Total casualties: 11 killed and 74 wounded; Turkish killed, 100."
And now English troops began to land on Anzac Beach, and the final
dispositions for the great attack were put in train.
THE SOUL OF ANZAC
CHAPTER X
THE SOUL OF ANZAC
The great attack of August may well be divided under two main heads,
the sortie from Anzac, and the landing at Suvla Bay. It is only with
the first of these operations that I am called upon to deal in this
book. The entire details, subject to Sir Ian Hamilton's approval,
were formulated by General Sir William Birdwood, described by the
Commander-in-Chief as "The Soul of Anzac," a description joyfully
accepted by every man who ever set foot on the beach at Anzac Cove.
Nobody but a born leader of men could so have gripped the imagination
of a whole army. He came to the head of these Colonial soldiers,
few of whom had ever heard his name, and most of whom were born and
reared with an innate prejudice against any domination except that
of their own folk. In a few weeks he was the idol of each isolated
post along the Anzac fighting line. He went everywhere and inspired
everybody. He set the example of sane fearlessness that was the
model of conduct in the Anzac trenches.
Few of the Anzacs are not convinced that they are personally known
to their general. He came among them, and talked their bush slang
and used their pet names. His presence pervaded the whole camp, his
manner accorded well with the light-hearted daring that characterized
the men he led. Soon a score of stories were associated with his
name, and they were just the kind of stories that appeal to the men
of Anzac.
Snowy Devine, a famous sharpshooter, was sitting outside his dug-out
one morning when he was greeted by a pleasant voice, "Well, Snowy,
how does the score stand now?"
"Twenty-nine, that I know of," replied Snowy, who kept careful count
of the Turks who fell to his rifle.
"You'd better buck up; there's a man down at Quinn's who claims
forty."
"Is there? Then tell him from me that he's a flaming liar."
Snowy's questioner retired, possibly to deliver this uncompromising
message, and Snowy's mates started the usual chaff.
"I see you're getting very pally with the General, Snowy." Snowy's
jaw dropped, and he stared in dismay. Then the slow grin of the
Australian bushman crept over his hard face.
"Pally! I should think so. He called me Snowy. And I didn't know what
to call him back. I s'pose I oughter called him 'Birdie.'"
A wound sustained during the early days of May, and General
Birdwood's active devotion to duty while it was in the course
of healing, completed his ascendancy over the men he commanded.
Obedience to his commands was rendered in a cheerful and zealous
spirit by every man; and this success in winning all hearts may serve
to explain some of the impossibilities achieved by the Anzacs in the
second week of August.
The commissioned officers from Australia and New Zealand are no less
devoted to their distinguished leader than their men. To them he was
a model of appreciative consideration. Many of them have been awarded
decorations for services of special merit, but I have found that more
prized even than these honourable awards are the few lines scribbled
by Sir William Birdwood to his officers lying sorely wounded in
hospital. He does not forget, even under the load of the heavy
responsibilities that weighed upon him on Gallipoli peninsula. Nor
will the officers and men of Australia and New Zealand ever forget
Sir William Birdwood.
The dispatches of the Commander-in-Chief are testimony that he is
as distinguished a General as he is sympathetic as a leader of men.
Writing of the Anzac plans drawn up by General Birdwood Sir Ian
Hamilton says:--
"So excellently was this vital business worked out on the lines of
the instructions issued that I had no modifications to suggest, and
all these local preparations were completed by August 6 in a way
which reflects the greatest credit not only on the Corps Commander
and his staff, but also upon the troops themselves, who had to toil
like slaves to accumulate food, drink, and munitions of war. Alone
the accommodation for the extra troops to be landed necessitated an
immense amount of work in preparing new concealed bivouacs, in making
interior communications, and in storing water and supplies, for I
was determined to put on shore as many fighting men as our modest
holding at Anzac could possibly accommodate or provision. All the
work was done by Australian and New Zealand soldiers almost entirely
by night, and the uncomplaining efforts of these much-tried troops in
preparation are in a sense as much to their credit as their heroism
in the battles that followed."
On the fourth of August reinforcements of British troops were landed
by night at Anzac, and the work was continued through the following
night, until the forces at the disposal of the General were 37,000
men and seventy-two guns; while two cruisers, two destroyers, and
four monitors were detailed to support the operations from the sea.
The men were divided into two bodies. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Brigades
of Australian Infantry, and the 1st and 3rd Brigades of Australian
Light Horse, were detailed to hold the original Anzac line, and from
it to make demonstrations designed to hold the main body of the enemy
in defence of the strong positions they had provided in front of the
line.
The other body was ordered to attack the mountain mass of Chunuk
Bair. It consisted of the New Zealanders, the 2nd Brigade of
Australian Light Horse, and the 4th Brigade of Australian Infantry.
British troops and Gurkhas co-operated with this body, as well as
the Indian Mountain Battery, which had from the very day of landing
rendered such magnificent service at Anzac.
The number of machine-guns along the Anzac line was notably
increased, and large stores of ammunition had been accumulated in
convenient spots. The report of these new machine-guns was entirely
different to that of the original weapons with which the Anzacs had
been armed; and this, as well as the activity of the warships during
the days immediately preceding August 6, must have warned the Turks
that some move was impending.
As far as can be ascertained the desired impression was created. The
capture of Tasmania Ridge, and the activity along the right of the
Anzac line misled the enemy into expecting a strong attack in that
direction. Nor were they disappointed; but by massing their defences
in that quarter they left the positions on the north of the Anzac
line weakly defended. Most important of all, they took no precautions
to hinder the great landing of British forces which had been planned
to take place at Suvla Bay.
The most northerly boundary of the original Anzac position was the
range of hills known as Walker's Ridge, which culminates in the sheer
height of Russell's Top. North of this ridge were three outposts,
isolated from the main position and the scene of some fierce fighting
in the early days of the Anzac occupation. Two of these outposts
were connected with the main line by deep saps. Into the larger
of these saps, connecting Walker's Ridge with Outpost No. 2, and
known as Russell's secret sap, a party of charging Turks had once
blundered, unaware of its very existence. The result was disastrous
to themselves, for not one of them ever got out again.
By this sap a huge store of munitions and other requisites for an
attack in force had been conveyed to No. 2 Outpost, which had been
held by the Maori contingent attached to the New Zealand forces, and
was consequently known as the Maori Outpost. And here, on the night
of August 6, all the men detailed for the attack on Chunuk Bair were
concentrated.
Such, in outline, was the plan laid by General Birdwood for the
operations from Anzac. Examined in the light of after events, no flaw
can be found in it, nor in the execution of that part of it which
was entrusted to the men whose deeds are described in this book. Let
it be remembered that every man knew what was coming, and that all
had been keyed up to the keenest pitch of expectation by weeks of
weary waiting and arduous preparation. On August 6, the long-expected
moment had arrived, and on the evening of that day the first bolt was
launched.
THE STORY OF LONE PINE
CHAPTER XI
THE STORY OF LONE PINE
The 1st Brigade of Australian Infantry, from the State of New South
Wales, and led by General Smyth, had the honour of opening the ball.
They were massed on the right of the Anzac line, in trenches that
ran along a salient known as The Pimple. It was on the seaward edge
of a heath-covered plateau, on the shoreward edge of which, almost
among the formidable series of Turkish earthworks, stood one little
solitary pine tree. Lone Pine plateau was a no-man's land, an open
expanse swept by the fire from innumerable trenches.
From its south-western edge, held so strongly by the Turks on that
afternoon of August 6, a dim view could be obtained of the forts at
Chanak, across the Dardanelles. It not only commanded one of the main
Turkish sources of water supply, but was, as Sir Ian Hamilton points
out, "a distinct step on the way across to Maidos."
The preparation of the Turkish position had been elaborated for
three months. Their trenches were protected by a network of that
thick barbed wire that resists all but the very largest, sharpest and
most powerful cutters. The trenches had been designed to enfilade one
another, and artillery and machine-guns had been posted on heights in
the background to cover the approach across the open plateau. Such
was the position which the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Battalions of the 1st
Brigade were asked to charge on the evening of August 6.
The affair opened with a heavy bombardment of the Turkish position
from the warships and monitors, which lasted for an hour. Then,
punctually at 5.30, the whistle for the charge was sounded, and the
men sprang over the parapet, and rushed across the plateau.
As they left their trenches, the enemy rifle fire rang out, and the
burden was rapidly taken up by machine-guns here and there. But
the charging Australians ate up the distance, and were soon among
the barbed wire and at the very loopholes of the parapet. Then the
observers saw a strange thing. The men stopped as if puzzled; many of
them ran hither and thither as though in search for something.
The reason soon became clear, for men stooped and tore up from the
earth huge planks of timber. The trenches had been roofed over
with heavy sleepers of timber, on which earth had been cast, thus
constituting a shell-proof defence, and one which could only be
entered from the rear save by such expedients as the men of the 1st
Brigade now adopted. Some of them stopped and tore up the sleepers
which roofed in the foremost trenches, others charged on over the
roofs to the communication trenches which afforded an exit to the
Turks. These took the Turks in the rear; while the others, making
holes for themselves through the roofing, dropped down into the
darkness where the Turks were waiting for them.
The enemy, taken in front and rear, put up such a fight as the
Australasian forces had never before experienced on the peninsula of
Gallipoli. In the dark and fetid trenches men fought hand to hand,
with bayonets and clubbed rifles, with bombs or knives or anything
that came to hand. The Turks had the advantage of knowing every
turn and twist of the rabbit warren which they had constructed, and
fought as desperate men in the 150 yards of darkness over which these
underground trenches extended.
One man who fought in that dark inferno told me a moving experience
of its mysterious horrors. He found himself alone, a man with whom
he had been engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand fight having suddenly
fled into the encompassing darkness. The Anzac straightened himself,
and after taking breath advanced, dully noting that he was treading
on the bodies of the dead. He was brought to a standstill by the
sound of hurrying feet and had time to shrink behind the angle of a
traverse when a body of six Turks came running by.
As they passed him crouching there, he made a lunge with his bayonet,
and a yell told him he had found his mark. Freeing his weapon he
discharged his magazine at the invisible backs of the retreating foe.
It was a dangerous experiment, for in another second he realized
that three of them had turned back and were attacking him with their
bayonets. How long that struggle in the semi-darkness lasted he could
not say; it seemed ages, though it could only have been of a few
seconds' duration.
As he fought he shouted lustily, back to wall, and striving to
anticipate each move of his adversaries. His shouts brought him
timely help, and in another second he was stooping over the dead
bodies of his recent assailants, who had been dispatched by quick
shots from an officer's revolver.
[Illustration: A Battery of Australian Field Artillery going into
Action.]
From both sides more men came to mingle in the fight, and the
passages became choked with dead and dying men. They fought there in
the darkness with the corpses piled three deep under their feet. It
had been said that the Turks would not resist the bayonet, but here
in the darkness many Australians died of bayonet wounds, and were
clubbed to death by the desperate men they had taken in front and
rear. Finally, the Turks were driven out of the underground trenches
and an attack was delivered upon the positions behind them.
Here again the Turks stood up to their enemies, and fought with the
bayonet. They had little option, for those who tried to flee through
the open were caught by fire from well-posted machine-guns, and mown
down in scores. Some hundreds of them were driven into incompleted
saps of their own digging, and forced to surrender.
The trenches were so cumbered with the dead that they were piled up
shoulder high, and held in place by ropes, so that a passage might
be kept clear on the other side of the trench. All the horrors of
modern explosives helped to make that fight more hideous; the rending
of deadly bombs in confined places, the rattle of machine-guns that
cut off from desperate men the last hopes of retreat. Men who lived
through that fight will preserve to their dying day a new estimate of
the horror of war under such conditions. It was possibly the fiercest
hand-to-hand fight even in the history of the Great War.
Eventually every Turk was cleared out of the Lone Pine trenches, but
the position was still a most precarious one. The approach to the
position was swept by heavy artillery and machine-gun fire from the
enemy, so that the supporting battalions lost heavily in charging to
the help of the first bold stormers of the position. From the gloom
of the underground trenches over 1,000 dead bodies of friend and
foe were dragged, and as a counter-attack was developing these were
hastily piled in a parapet to help the defence of the position.
The 1st Battalion (N. S. Wales), and the 7th (Victoria), which had
been in reserve, were now brought forward. It was time, for by seven
in the evening the Turkish attack was at its height. They came in
dense masses armed with an abundance of bombs, and fought as no Turk
had ever fought before in the experience of the Anzacs. All night
the attack was maintained, but the Anzacs meant to hold what they
had got. A section of a trench was lost here and there, owing to the
showers of bombs which the Turks lavished on their former position.
But always the men of Anzac recovered what they had lost.
At midday on August 7 the Turks once more advanced to the attack,
and for hours fought like demons. Every man that could be mustered
was thrown forward in the Anzac defence. The 4th Battalion lost an
important section of trench owing to persistent showers of bombs, but
Colonel McNaghten led them back to it, and they killed every Turk in
occupation of it. At five the attack ceased, only to be resumed at
midnight, and maintained until dawn broke over Lone Pine Ridge.
The 1st Brigade of Light Horse was brought up later to help in the
defence of this position, which continued to be assaulted through the
succeeding days. The ramparts of corpses festered under the sun, and
bred corruption, so that the trenches crawled. The fire of the hill
batteries was concentrated on the spot, and there was no respite,
night nor day. But the men of Anzac held on.
Six Victoria crosses were awarded for acts of individual bravery in
the course of that week. The men who received them were abashed at
being singled out among so many who had fought as deathless heroes.
It was a long-sustained and bloody fight, but in the end the Turks
had to relinquish possession of this important position.
"Thus," writes Sir Ian Hamilton, "was Lone Pine taken and held.
The Turks were in great force and very full of fight, yet one weak
Australian brigade, numbering at the outset but 2,000 rifles, and
supported only by two weak battalions, carried the work under the
eyes of a whole enemy division, and maintained their grip upon
it like a vice during six days' successive counter-attacks. High
praise is due to Brigadier-General N. M. Smyth and to his battalion
commanders. The irresistible dash and daring of officers and men in
the initial charge were a glory to Australia. The stout-heartedness
with which they clung to the captured ground in spite of fatigue,
severe losses, and the continual strain of shell fire and bomb
attacks may seem less striking to the civilian; it is even more
admirable to the soldier.
"From start to finish, the artillery support was untiring and
vigilant. Owing to the rapid, accurate fire of the 2nd New Zealand
Battery, under Major Sykes, several of the Turkish onslaughts were
altogether defeated in their attempts to get to grips with the
Australians. Not a chance was lost by these gunners, although time
and again the enemy's artillery made direct hits on their shields.
"For the severity of our own casualties some partial consolation
may be found in the facts, first, that those of the enemy were much
heavier, our guns and machine-guns having taken toll of them as
they advanced in mass formation along the reverse slopes; secondly,
that the Lone Pine attack drew all the local enemy reserves towards
it, and may be held, more than any other cause, to have been the
reason that the Suvla Bay landing was so lightly opposed, and that
comparatively few of the enemy were available at first to reinforce
against our attack on Sari Bair. Our captures in this feat of arms
amounted to 134 prisoners, seven machine-guns, and a large quantity
of ammunition and equipment."
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT HORSE
CHAPTER XII
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT HORSE
By midnight on August 6 the British forces were landing at Suvla Bay.
It is probable that by that time the Turks were in full possession of
this outstanding fact. The attack delivered successfully on the Lone
Pine position during that afternoon had drawn a large number of the
enemy from positions farther to the north to the defence, and so had
helped to protect the landing. With the same object attacks were made
from the Anzac trenches on strong positions in front of their line
farther north than Lone Pine.
One of the positions so attacked was that mysterious stronghold
known as the German Officers' Trench. It was only a short section
of trench, but had early attracted the attention of the observers
because of the elaborate preparations that were made for its defence.
The interest excited by these preparations was heightened by the
accounts given of it by Turkish prisoners. According to these
accounts no Turk of any degree whatsoever was permitted to enter this
section of trench, access being only granted to the German officers
with the Turkish forces.
Many theories existed among the men of Anzac as to the purpose
for which this trench existed, the most popular one being that it
contained the apparatus for making and projecting poisonous gas.
An opportunity for testing the truth of this conjecture was now
afforded, for the 2nd Brigade was allotted the task of charging the
German Officers' Trench.
The attack was delivered at midnight, while the struggle for Lone
Pine farther to the left was at its height. The 6th Battalion, which
had suffered severely in the charge at Krithia on May 8, but had
since received welcome reinforcements, was sent out to show the way,
after some bombardment from the ships in the bay.
The men knew only too well what was before them. The sixty yards
of plateau that separated them from their objective was clear and
flat, and was swept by well-posted machine-guns, and by rifle fire
from cleverly placed enfilading trenches. They ran for the trench
silently, but their silence was of no avail to them. No sooner had
the first man climbed the parapet of the Anzac trench than the storm
of bullets began. It was, as one of the assailants said, "like rice
at a wedding." Not a man ever reached the trench.
Later another charge was made for this trench, with as little
success. Humanly speaking, the position was an impregnable one, but
it had to be attacked. The men of the 2nd Brigade had a hopeless
task, but their devotion was not all unavailing. Their opponents, who
were badly needed elsewhere to resist the landing at Suvla Bay, were
fixed to the spot, and kept fully occupied in resisting their gallant
and self-sacrificing attacks.
It was not otherwise at Russell's Top, the supreme point of Walker's
Ridge, where the 3rd Brigade of Australian Light Horse were
entrenched. One side of this peak fell a sheer 200 feet to the valley
below, while inland it was joined by a narrow neck to the slope of
the hill called Baby 700. On this neck was concentrated the fire of
more than a score of machine-guns, while the approach to the hill
beyond was scarred by trench after trench, each one enfilading that
before it.
Many a time had the men of Anzac peered through their periscopes at
that neck, and shaken their heads over the probable fate of any bold
fellows who might venture to assault it. At dawn on August 7 the time
had come for this arduous operation to be attempted, and the 8th and
10th Light Horse were selected for the experiment.
I am told that a previous bombardment of the position by the warships
had been ordered, but men who took part in the charge are positive
that nothing of the sort took place. Like the 2nd Brigade before the
German Officers' Trench they were under no misconception of what was
before them. Colonel White, who led the 8th, shook hands with Colonel
Antill and said good-bye before the signal was given. He knew he was
going to his death.
Twenty yards separated them from the enemy trench at the centre
of the position and about fifty at the wings. No man crossed that
twenty yards alive. One man of the 8th, it is said, reached the enemy
parapet and sheltered under it, afterwards to crawl back unobserved
to safety.
The 10th were hot on the heels of the 8th. This is a crack regiment
raised by Major Todd of Western Australia, a fine soldier who had won
his D.S.O. in the African War. Every man provided his own horse, and
among them were some of the finest horsemen and athletes of their
State.
They passed over a ground strewn with the bodies of their comrades.
Some of them, taking advantage of slight depressions in the ground,
threw themselves down to shelter from the tornado of bullets that met
them. One little group, consisting of a lieutenant and half a dozen
men, found themselves sheltered by a little hillock. They knew it was
certain death to go on; without orders they would not retire.
As they lay as close to the ground as they could squeeze, the
lieutenant made a suggestion. "Boys, a shilling in, and the winner
shouts." (Shout is the Australian word for treating.) The suggestion
was eagerly accepted, and the men chose their numbers, and proceeded
to "sell a pony" after a time-honoured Australian custom. But before
the lottery was decided they heard the "retire" whistle blow. "And
so," said the narrator of the incident mournfully, "we never knew who
ought to stand the drinks."
Men who can so behave in the very shadow of death are beyond any
comment of mine.
The survivors returned to their trench, and made occasional dashes
out to assist single wounded men, who were crawling painfully back
to shelter. The whole affair was very soon over, and any one curious
to know what it cost may turn up the casualty list of the 3rd
Brigade of Light Horse for that date. But the enemy, who had packed
their effects to turn on the landing force at Suvla, and on the New
Zealanders who were now attacking Chunuk Bair, were held to the spot,
so that the sacrifice of the Light Horse was not made in vain.
Almost simultaneously with the charge of the 3rd Brigade of Light
Horse across the Neck to the Baby 700 trenches, the 1st Brigade (1st,
2nd and 3rd Regiments) made an equally desperate charge across the
corner known as the Bloody Angle, the objective being the Turkish
trenches at the foot of Dead Man's Ridge.
The 2nd Regiment (Queensland), under command of Major Logan, were
supposed to charge from Quinn's Post, while the 1st Regiment (New
South Wales) charged from the trenches at the foot of Pope's Hill.
The first line of the Second left Quinn's Post at the signal, and
as they crossed the parapet most of them crumpled up under a steady
stream of machine-gun bullets. The remainder of the fifty men were
all killed or wounded, with the exception of one man, before they had
covered the twenty-five yards which separated the two lines. That one
man, who came back unscathed, is said to have jumped high in the air
at the place where he imagined the stream of bullets to be pouring
across the line of charge, and so escaped even a scratch.
The 1st Regiment reached the line of trenches and took five in
succession. These they held for two hours, but the Turks had the
upper ground and counter-attacked with bombs most desperately. The
positions were no use, in any case, and after this fact had been
recognized the First retired, taking their wounded with them. Of 250
men who went out only fifty-seven returned unwounded.
I am indebted to Sergeant-Major Wynn of the 1st Regiment for some
graphic details of that charge from the foot of Pope's Hill.
[Illustration: A Typical Trooper of the Australian Light Horse.]
"While we were preparing on the evening of August 6," he says, "the
scrap down at Lone Pine began. I wish I could tell you what I saw
through my glasses in the odd spare moments (very few, you may
be sure). It was marvellous to see the reserves dash in through the
blazing scrub, without arms, to bring in any of the first or second
line who had gone down. There's not enough bronze to spare to V.C.
those chaps.
"About this time Abdul, facing us, held above the parado of the
trench a board that said Warsaw had fallen. 'Why don't you put
on your white armlets and come across?' it added. As I was just
tearing up the calico to sew on our arms and right shoulders we were
naturally amazed. But we made matchwood of their board; no wonder
they were ready for us later on.
"At sunset the artillery began, and kept it up all night. There
was one gun which drove shells just skimming over our heads in the
trenches up there; I can hear it yet, and the clay and gravel rolling
down where the shells exploded. That night nobody slept, for the
cessation of artillery fire was to be the signal for a charge by A
and B squadrons. I was in B squadron.
"When the signal came A went straight over their parapet and across
the Bloody Angle to the Turkish trenches. We went down the sap to
the foot of a gully at the base of Quinn's, turned to the right, and
were slap into it. We cleared their first trench with practically the
first bombing rush, and crouched down to gather breath for another
rush.
"One of our bomb-throwers had gone down here, and he gave me a poke
and pointed to a little heap of eight or nine grenades, which I was
permitted to carry to the nearest band of throwers. From one I pulled
the safety-pin and passed it forward as a present to the Unspeakable.
"When I returned the boys were all lying flat, and the skipper
nowhere to be seen. He had got it in the first trench, and was taken
out later, so badly wounded that he died at Malta. I started to
shout, and I am glad I opened my mouth pretty wide. A bullet struck
my left cheek, carried all my front teeth and my right ones out
through my right cheek, and never touched my tongue.
"I felt as though I had been hit on the right jaw by the red hot
spike fixed to the cowcatcher of a fast express and I promptly 'took
the count.' When I found myself again, one of Ours was trying to
gather my sagging cheek and lips into the naval shell bandage he had
taken from me, and using the most wonderful language. He was hit in
the head too, but we managed to get back the way we came. And, my
word, the stretcher-bearers were busy.
"That day we lost Major Reid of A Squadron, who should theoretically
have remained behind in the trench to direct operations, but
preferred to lead his own men over the parapet. He went West with
many other good men, but first accounted for a few with his revolver,
I'm told. A great soldier and a gallant gentleman!
"No one had much chance in the charge. Believe me, you'd swear you'd
met a swarm of locusts, the bullets were so thick and the hum of them
so loud, and the very ground seemed to open under your feet. For the
rest of it, it was like any other hustle. When you are in the thick
of it you only think how you are going to get the other fellow. The
waiting was the worst; the silence and the few handclasps exchanged
in the gloom before dusk, when we stood in single file along that
sap, and not a whisper was heard. Yes, that was eerie."
Such were the desperate means by which the men of Anzac sought to
detain the Turkish army before their old lines, while the British
force was being landed at Suvla Bay. These were demonstrations
made with the object of attracting the attention of the enemy and
of leading him to believe that the preparations that had obviously
been made at Anzac were in anticipation of this frontal attack on
the positions between Anzac and Maidos. In the meantime, as already
explained, another body of the Anzacs had slipped silently out into
the country, north of Walker's Ridge, with the object of attacking
the heights of Sari Bair. We shall now see how it fared with them.
THE MIGHTY NEW ZEALANDERS
CHAPTER XIII
THE MIGHTY NEW ZEALANDERS
Reference has already been made to the two New Zealand Outposts, at
the second of which the troops to take part in the night sortie had
been massed. Inland from these was a third post, once held by the
Anzacs but afterwards wrested from them by the Turks. It had been
the custom every night for some weeks for a British destroyer to
arrive about nine o'clock and bombard the parapet of this trench for
about half an hour. The Turks had learned to expect it; they always
crept out of the trench as soon as the searchlight was turned on, and
returned when the fun was over to rebuild their parapet and restring
their torn barbed wire.
On this night of August 6 the destroyer, the _Colne_, came as usual
and bombarded the trench. The cessation of the bombardment was the
signal for the first move from Outpost No. 2. The Auckland Mounted
Rifles silently rushed the trench, and had the returning Turks
bayoneted almost without a shot being fired.
Just as silently the Wellington Mounted Rifles made through the
scrub for the hill known as Greater Table-Top, an elevation with
perpendicular sides and a flat summit, which the Turks had adorned
with an infinity of trenchwork. Here the Turks were taken completely
by surprise. The position, if held by an adequate force of alert
men, was an impregnable one. But the men of Wellington were too much
for them; they carried this fortress by assault and captured 150
prisoners.
Writing of this feat Sir Ian Hamilton says:--
"The angle of Table-Top's ascent is recognized in our regulations as
'impracticable for infantry.' But neither Turks nor angles of ascent
were destined to stop Russell or his New Zealanders that night. There
are moments during battle when life becomes intensified, when men
become supermen, when the impossible becomes simple--and this was one
of those moments. The scarped heights were scaled, the plateau was
carried by midnight."
[Illustration: A Battalion of New Zealand Mounted Rifles]
The Otago Mounted Rifles and the Maori Contingent had the task of
capturing a hill mass known as Bauchop's Hill. Like the other New
Zealanders, the Otago men worked silently with the bayonet. The
entrance leading to this hill was protected by a trench very strongly
held by the enemy, and the Maoris were sent out to charge it. It
was their first opportunity to fight in the open, and they rose to
the occasion. In their wild charge they drove the Turks headlong
out of their trenches and pursued them through the darkness of the
foothills.
They came over a spur of the hills, yelling with excitement, and
seeing in the dim light that a trench before them was occupied by
armed men, rushed upon it, shouting their war cry. The men before
them were the men of Auckland, who at once recognized the war cries
of the Maoris. Fortunately the average New Zealander rather prides
himself upon possessing a fair smattering of the Maori tongue, and
this knowledge came in very handy as the Maoris charged down upon
their own friends.
The Auckland men shouted at them what phrases of Maori they could
summon up in such an emergency, and the Maori charge was stayed on
the very parapet of the trench itself.
The beginning of that fierce charge of Maoris, when they swept every
Turk out of their path, was described to me by a New Zealander who
was present, in the following words:--
"We lay under cover in the dark waiting for the word to go. Every man
had his bayonet fixed and his magazine empty. The work before us had
to be done with the cold steel. The Turks had three lines of trenches
on the hill slope opposite.
"Suddenly I became aware of a stir among the Maoris on my left; I was
right up against them. Next to me was a full-blooded Maori chief, a
young fellow of sixteen stone, as big and powerful as a bullock. I
played Rugby against him once and tried to tackle him; it was as much
use as trying to stop a rushing elephant. He is a lineal descendant
of fighting Rewi, the Maori chief from whom all the legends descend.
"You know the story of Rewi. Once he and his tribe were surrounded
in a Pah by a force of white men who outnumbered them three to one.
The whites had got between them and the stream of water on the top
of the hill, which is unfair fighting according to Maori rules. Then
they sent a message to Rewi bidding him surrender. He replied, 'Ka
Whawhai Tonu, Aké Aké Aké.' ('We fight on and on; for ever and for
ever and for ever.') 'Then send away the women and children,' was the
next suggestion. 'The women fight too,' says brave old Rewi. An hour
later the Maoris rushed out of the Pah with Rewi at the head of them
and before the astonished whites knew what was doing had cut a way
through and escaped.
"This descendant of Rewi's is a different sort of chap. He holds two
good university degrees and is one of the finest speakers in New
Zealand. Not much more than a year ago I saw him in a frock coat and
a silk hat, with creases in his pants that would have cut cheese,
telling a lot of bush Maoris of the virtues of cleanliness and the
nobility of hard work.
"But now he had dressed for the occasion in a pair of running shoes
and shorts which covered about eight inches of the middle of him.
I could see the whites of his eyes gleaming and his brown skin
glistening with perspiration in the dim light. His head was moving
from side to side and his lips were twitching. From time to time he
beat the earth softly with his clenched fist.
"Then I got the swing of it. I suppose the 500 Maoris picked me up
into their silent war song. For I know the words of the Haka well,
and though they could not dance it they were beating out the measure
of it with their fists on the ground. There they lay, and after each
soft thump I could feel that their bodies strained forward like dogs
on a leash. They caught me up in their madness and I longed to be at
it. I thumped the ground with them, and prayed to be up and dancing,
or out and fighting.
"Would the whistle never blow?
"Now their eyes were rolling and their breath was coming in long,
rhythmical sobs. The groaning sound of it was quite audible; in
another minute they would have been up on their feet, dancing their
wild war dance. But then came the signal; and Hell was let loose.
"'Aké, Aké,' they shouted, 'we fight for ever and for ever.' Up to
the first trench they swept, and we gave them the right of way. It
was their privilege. I could hear some of them yelling, 'Kiki ta
Turk' ('Kick the Turk'). Those were the fellows who had kept on their
heaviest boots, and meant to use their feet. God help the Turk who
got a kick from a war-mad Maori.
"Our own blood was up; I know mine was. We were not far behind them
to the first trench, and you never saw such a sight in your life.
The Turks had been bashed to death; there is no other word for it.
We got up to them at the second trench, where there was a deadly
hand-to-hand going on. Some of them had broken their rifles and
were fighting with their hands. I saw one Maori smash a Turk with
half-a-hundred-weight of rock he had torn up. I don't remember much
more, because now I was in it myself. That is why I am here.
"I don't know anything more at first hand. I hear a good many of them
came back, though I shouldn't have thought it possible. I am also
told they were very pleased with themselves, as they have had good
reason to be. The Turks who escaped from them will not wait another
time when they hear the Maoris coming; that I'll answer for. And you
can hear them coming all right."
Through the gully so opened, and through one parallel to it, the New
Zealand infantry now moved to the attack on the height of Chunuk
Bair. They met fierce opposition, but drove the Turks before them up
the slopes, and eventually reached the crest of a ridge immediately
below Chunuk Bair itself, known as Rhododendron Ridge. In this
position they were well established on the morning of August 7.
The Auckland Mounted Rifles, the Maoris and the Indian Mountain
battery now joined them, with some British troops, and before
daybreak on August 8 they assaulted the height of Chunuk Bair. In
that gallant climb their loved leader Colonel Malone was killed, and
many another brave New Zealand officer. But nothing could stop them,
and in the face of a furious fire above them they actually scaled to
the summit and dug in upon the crest. That night they held what they
had so painfully won.
No words can paint the gallantry of the fighting of the four days
that followed the night of August 6. August 9 saw the gallant
little band of New Zealanders still in the trench that spans the
summit of Chunuk Bair, while a little later the Gurkhas, who had
occupied a gully still farther north than those penetrated by the New
Zealanders, arrived on the crest of 971 itself.
From that point of vantage the bold pioneers could see all they had
striven for through many weary weeks of constant fighting. Away to
the south-east were the forts of the Narrows. At their very feet
ran the road of communication, which leads from Gallipoli town to
the main Turkish position at Achi Baba. They could see the trains of
mules and the transport vehicles passing along this road. The goal of
their efforts was there, in their full sight.
Right and left, on higher crests, were the Turks in force, determined
to drive them from their post of vantage. Desperately the New
Zealanders hung on to what they had gained, until support should
come. The history of that attempt to hold a hilltop is one of the
most glorious in all the annals of war. Some day the world will know
how sixteen New Zealanders kept a long section of trench against a
whole host of enemies for three hours. If the desperate valour of the
men of New Zealand, and of their Gurkha friends, could have conserved
the advantage, it would never have been lost.
The story of the loss of the position had best be told in the
merciful words of Sir Ian Hamilton's despatch:--
"During the night of the 9th-10th the New Zealand and New Army troops
on Chunuk Bair were relieved. For three days and three nights they
had been ceaselessly fighting. They were half dead with fatigue.
Their lines of communication, started from sea level, ran across
trackless ridges and ravines to an altitude of 800 ft., and were
exposed all the way to snipers' fire and artillery bombardment. It
had become imperative, therefore, to get them enough food, water,
and rest; and for this purpose it was imperative also to withdraw
them. Chunuk Bair, which they had so magnificently held, was now
handed over to two battalions of the 13th Division, which were
connected by the 10th Hampshire Regiment with the troops at the farm.
General Sir William Birdwood is emphatic on the point that the nature
of the ground is such that there was no room on the crest for more
than this body of 800 to 1,000 rifles.
"The two battalions of the New Army chosen to hold Chunuk Bair
were the 6th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and the 5th Wiltshire
Regiment. The first of these arrived in good time and occupied
the trenches. Even in the darkness their commanding officer,
Lieutenant-Colonel Levinge, recognized how dangerously these trenches
were sited, and he began at once to dig observation posts on the
actual crest and to strengthen the defences where he could. But
he had not time given him to do much. The second battalion, the
Wiltshires, were delayed by the intricate country. They did not reach
the edge of the entrenchment until 4 a.m., and were then told to lie
down in what was believed, erroneously, to be a covered position.
"At daybreak on Tuesday, August 10, the Turks delivered a grand
attack from the line Chunuk Bair Hill Q against these two battalions,
already weakened in numbers, though not in spirit, by previous
fighting. First our men were shelled by every enemy gun, and then,
at 5.30 a.m., were assaulted by a huge column, consisting of no less
than a full division plus a regiment of three battalions. The North
Lancashire men were simply overwhelmed in their shallow trenches by
sheer weight of numbers, whilst the Wilts, who were caught out in the
open, were literally almost annihilated. The ponderous mass of the
enemy swept over the crest, turned the right flank of our line below,
swarmed round the Hampshires and General Baldwin's column, which had
to give ground, and were only extricated with great difficulty and
very heavy losses."
THE VALLEY OF TORMENT
CHAPTER XIV
THE VALLEY OF TORMENT
The loss of the crest of Sari Bair was the turning point in the fight
for the Dardanelles. The whole of the Turkish forces were thrown
into action at this point. The plan of attack had been designed so
that a portion at least of these defensive forces should be held
up by the advance of the troops which had landed at Suvla Bay. But
the advance of those troops was delayed, for reasons which do not
rightly come within the scope of this book, and therefore the bulk
of the defending forces could be concentrated in one desperate and
successful effort to drive back the invaders.
But the defenders paid dearly for their success. The slope up which
the New Zealanders had advanced with such painful effort, and over
which the victorious Turks were now pouring in dense masses, was
ranged by the Anzac artillery, by the guns of the warships and by the
Indian Mountain batteries. Their fire was all concentrated upon these
serried masses of the enemy, and great gaps were torn in their ranks
as they swept over the hill-top.
Even deadlier was the work of the New Zealand machine-gun section,
directed by the famous Major Wallingford, D.S.O. A whole book could
be written of the feats which the New Zealanders ascribe to this
remarkable soldier, "The human machine-gun" as they call him. His
quick eye for a tactical advantage had grasped the probability of
a rush of Turks over the crest of Sari Bair, and his ten guns were
posted to take the fullest advantage of the materialization of that
surmise.
In the slaughter that followed those ten guns consumed 16,000 rounds
of ammunition, and the claim made of 5,000 hits is probably a
conservative estimate. But our own losses had been very heavy. Of the
37,000 men under General Birdwood's command on August 6, 12,000 were
out of action on the evening of August 10. Of these quite one half
were New Zealanders. Gloriously had they fought. Their silent charges
in the dark will for ever remain as the high-water mark of restrained
courage and enterprise. Their wounded showed the same qualities of
silent endurance and devotion to their fellows.
The New Zealand wounded had an experience that is an epic of
suffering. Only the supreme fortitude with which it was endured
impels me to give some account of the days and nights spent by over
four hundred of these heroes in a place which they have christened
the Valley of Torment. It was placed on the rugged side of Sari Bair,
a deep depression in the hillside. On one side of it a mountain wall
rose in a perpendicular cliff that would have defied a mountain goat
to climb it. On the other rose the steep declivity of Rhododendron
Ridge. Below, the valley opened out upon a flat plateau, so swept
by the guns of both sides that no living thing could exist for one
moment upon its flat, clear surface.
The only way in and out of the valley was from above, where the New
Zealanders were fighting like possessed beings for the foothold
they had won on the crest of Sari Bair. And to this valley the
stretcher-bearers had carried the men who had fallen in the fight, a
sad little group of wounded men whose numbers were hourly increasing.
There, too, crawled those who were less severely injured. And there
the unwounded soldiers carried their stricken mates for shelter from
the hail of bullets, while the fight lasted.
As the wounded men came in, a devoted band of Red Cross men lent them
what aid they could. There was no doctor nearer than the dressing
station on the beach, but these Red Cross workers stayed their wounds
with bandages, tying tourniquets round limbs to check the flow of
arterial blood, and making tortured men as easy as circumstances
would permit.
The approach to this valley was so dangerous that no one might come
to it by daylight. There was no water there, until one man, less
severely wounded than some of his comrades, dug into a moist spot far
down the valley, and chanced on a spring that yielded a thin trickle
of brackish water.
By midday on August 8 there were three hundred wounded men in this
place of refuge, and more were continually arriving. They were
suffering from all the terrible manglings that exploding bombs and
high explosive shells can inflict. And in the Valley of Torment they
lay and endured. Some of them told their experiences, and sought to
cheer the rest by predicting a great victory as the result of the
attack in which they were taking part. Here and there a man could be
heard reciting verses to those who would listen.
No one moaned, and no one uttered a complaint. When a man too sorely
wounded died of his hurts, they expressed their thanks that he had
been spared further pain. The filling of the little spring was
eagerly awaited, so that each man could have his lips moistened with
a little brackish water. So there they lay and waited for the night,
which might bring them aid.
When night at last came, the weary stretcher-bearers tried to move
some of them over the ridge to a safe valley which lay on the other
side. A few were so moved, but these men had been working for days
and nights without rest or respite, and the task was beyond their
strength; for the steepness and roughness of that hillside is beyond
description. A message was sent down to the dressing station asking
for help, and a reply was sent in the early morning that it would be
forthcoming on the following night.
Through the night the parched men were tortured by the sight of water
being carried through the valley to the men in the firing line above
them. There was none of it for them, and they did not expect any; for
they knew the necessities of warfare, and recognized that at such a
time the combatant must come first.
The next day came with a hot sun, and clouds of flies. Also there
came many more wounded to the Valley of Torment, until the tale of
living men exceeded four hundred. And that day many died. Among those
who lived the torture from tourniquets that had been left too long on
wounded limbs became unendurable. Many of them will never recover the
free use of the limbs so tortured; others have already died from the
unavoidable mortification which resulted from this long delay.
Meanwhile, down at the dressing stations, the weary doctors were
struggling with hundreds of cases just as bad, and men seriously
wounded were waiting by scores for their turn for attention. These
are the necessary evils of war, accentuated at Gallipoli by the
very rough nature of the country in which the fighting took place,
and by the severity of the struggle and the importance of the issues
depending upon its outcome.
At last that day ended too, and evening fell with a cool breeze. The
exhausted men heard the stealthy approach of many men in the dark,
from the safe gully that lay beyond the range. And one of them, out
of thankfulness, began to sing the hymn--
At even, ere the sun was set,
The sick, O Lord, around Thee lay.
Nearly all of them took up the singing.
While they were still singing, there came over the ridge a large
number of soldiers, and put them all on stretchers. Then the
new-comers, some thousands in number, ranged themselves in two rows
facing one another. The double row of soldiers stretched up to the
crest of the ridge, and down the other side into the safe gully that
was there. And each stretcher was passed from hand to hand, up the
steep ridge and down the slope to the safety that lay on the other
side.
When all had been taken from the Valley of Torment, a long procession
of men with stretchers was formed, bearing the wounded down to the
sea. Two miles it stretched from start to finish, and it serpentined
slowly down the gully, each pair of bearers walking with slow care,
for the sake of the tortured man who was in their charge.
So the wounded men of New Zealand were carried out of the Valley
of Torment. One could fill whole volumes about the tender care of
the lightly wounded for their more grievously injured comrades, and
of the stoical indifference to pain and personal suffering shown
by these men. I have met many of the men who suffered there; and I
know that in their eyes the real tragedy of the experience is not
the torture they experienced. It is that, after all, their comrades
eventually had to forgo the advantage that had been won by so much
hardihood and loss of life.
Most handsomely, and for all time, has General Sir Ian Hamilton
proclaimed the fact that they were blameless of the final
catastrophe. His tribute concludes as follows:--
"The grand coup had not come off. The Narrows were still out of
sight and beyond field-gun range. But this was not the fault of
Lieutenant-General Birdwood or any of the officers and men under his
command. No mortal can command success; Lieutenant-General Birdwood
had done all that mortal man can do to deserve it. The way in which
he worked out his instructions into practical arrangements and
dispositions upon the terrain reflect high credit upon his military
capacity. I also wish to bring to your Lordship's notice the valuable
services of Major-General Godley, commanding the New Zealand and
Australian Division. He had under him at one time a force amounting
to two divisions, which he handled with conspicuous ability.
"As for the troops, the joyous alacrity with which they faced
danger, wounds and death, as if they were some new form of exciting
recreation, has astonished me--old campaigner as I am. I will say no
more, leaving Major-General Godley to speak for what happened under
his eyes:--'I cannot close my report,' he says, 'without placing
on record my unbounded admiration of the work performed, and the
gallantry displayed, by the troops and their leaders during the
severe fighting involved in these operations. Though the Australian,
New Zealand, and Indian units had been confined to trench duty in
a cramped space for some four months, and though the troops of the
New Armies had only just landed from a sea voyage, and many of them
had not been previously under fire, I do not believe that any troops
in the world could have accomplished more. All ranks vied with one
another in the performance of gallant deeds, and more than worthily
upheld the best traditions of the British Army.'
"Although the Sari Bair ridge was the key to the whole of my tactical
conception, and although the temptation to view this vital Anzac
battle at closer quarters was very hard to resist, there was nothing
in its course or conduct to call for my personal intervention."
THE GREAT NIGHT MARCH
CHAPTER XV
THE GREAT NIGHT MARCH
It is now time to follow the fortunes of the 4th Brigade of
Australian Infantry who, under General Monash, had massed at Outpost
No. 2 on the night of August 6. Their mission was to cross the two
gullies up which the New Zealanders had charged to the capture of
Chunuk Bair, and to storm a third and more northerly gully, known as
the Aghyl Dere. The upper portion of this gully leads to the slopes
of the height of Koja Chemen, the highest point of the mountain mass
of Sari Bair. Its crest is 971 feet above sea level, and is marked on
the maps as Hill 971.
Their line of march lay north-east, through unknown country that
was badly broken by gullies and steep hills. It took them over
part of the open plain which lay between Sari Bair and Suvla Bay,
an agricultural plain comparatively flat and clear, where the
Australasians had watched the Turkish peasants getting in their crops
through the month of July.
It was the individual resource and confidence of each unit of
these Colonial troops which permitted this difficult night march
to be accomplished successfully. The task of co-operation set to
the newly landed troops at Suvla Bay was by no means so difficult.
Without intending any disparagement of these forces, it has to be
said that if they had displayed the initiative and resource of their
more seasoned Colonial comrades, a more successful outcome of these
operations could surely have been recorded.
The plan adopted by the Australians was beautiful in its simplicity,
and in the full reliance placed upon each individual man. The
officers showed the non-commissioned men their maps of the unknown
country through which the night march was to be made; and the
non-coms, in their turn explained to each man the object of the
march, and the nature of the chief obstacles marked on the maps.
When the word to advance was given, the men simply melted away into
the darkness, and without any noise made their way towards the goal.
Sometimes two or three pressed forward silently together; more often
the fellows made their way alone. The most impressive part of that
advance was its noiselessness. Now and then the enemy would turn
their guns down the gullies up which the advance was being made,
and then each man found cover as best he could, and waited until he
thought it safe to pursue his onward way.
The net result of these tactics was that a surprisingly large
percentage of the men reached their objective unharmed. Where
opposition had to be overcome, the men massed silently in the
darkness, and charged at the word of their officers. The terror
inspired among the Turks by these midnight charges, coming suddenly
out of the silent darkness, has been testified by the prisoners taken.
Thus the 4th Brigade reached its first objective after the wonderful
night march; but the expected supports were not forthcoming. During
the day that followed, the enemy appeared in great force, and there
was some stiff fighting. The 13th Battalion captured the emplacement
of a 75-gun, which had worked great havoc during the preceding six
weeks in the Australasian trenches. The 15th Battalion saw the gun
disappearing round one long bend of a valley, as they emerged from
the scrub at the elbow below. A few shots were fired at it, but the
chance was lost, by at most two minutes.
The 14th Battalion captured a Turkish bakery, and a Turkish major
in charge of it; also a telephone exchange and a very sullen German
lieutenant. Later in the day the 16th Battalion encountered a strong
force of the enemy, very skilfully posted, and suffered very severe
losses.
On August 7 a fresh advance was made from the Aghyl Dere to a gully
still further north; the Asmak Dere. As they advanced they drove
the enemy back, and got into touch with a regiment of Sikhs from
Suvla Bay. So reinforced they made an attack upon the big hill, but
found that by this time the Turks had come up from further south. The
effect of the frontal attacks from the old Anzac line had expended
itself, and the enemy had moved north in force. It is worthy of
mention that the official estimate of the total number of Turks
mustered to the defence of Sari Bair places it at 75,000. They were
certainly strong enough to check the attack on Hill 971 without much
difficulty.
In the evening of the same day (August 7) the 4th Brigade attacked
the height of Abduo Rahman Bair, running out from Koja Chemen to the
north, and met a perfect hell of machine-gun fire. In less than an
hour's fighting they lost 1,000 men, and were nearly surrounded. They
managed to withdraw to their original positions, and spent the night
resisting a series of vicious attacks from the intrepid enemy. In
this fighting they inflicted severe loss, without budging one foot
from the line they had taken up.
From this point, slightly south of the hill known as Kaiajik Aghala,
or Hill 60, they saw the loss of the crest of Chunuk Bair, and the
great slaughter of Turks that followed. And there they remained for
the next fortnight, while the line across the valley which led to the
village of Biyuk Anafarta was being strengthened. On August 21 it
was deemed that the time had come for an attack upon Hill 60 itself,
and in this the 4th Brigade participated.
They were joined by General Russell and his New Zealanders, and by
the 18th Battalion of Australian Infantry, who had landed on the
preceding day as the advance guard of the Second Division of the
A.I.F. The fighting was desperate and the newcomers suffered most
severely in their baptism of fire. In the end the capture of Hill 60
had to be postponed.
But on August 27 the attack was renewed, this time with success. The
operations are clearly told in the official dispatch:--
"The conduct of the attack was again entrusted to Major-General
Cox, at whose disposal were placed detachments from the 4th and 5th
Australian Brigades, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, and
the 5th Connaught Rangers. The advance was timed to take place at
5 p.m. on August 27, after the heaviest artillery bombardment we
could afford. This bombardment seemed effective; but the moment the
assailants broke cover they were greeted by an exceeding hot fire
from the enemy field-guns, rifles, and machine-guns, followed after
a brief interval by a shower of heavy shell, some of which, most
happily, pitched into the trenches of the Turks. On the right the
detachment from the 4th and 5th Australian Brigades could make no
headway against a battery of machine-guns which confronted them.
In the centre the New Zealanders made a most determined onslaught,
and carried one side of the topmost knoll. Hand-to-hand fighting
continued here till 9.30 p.m., when it was reported that nine-tenths
of the summit had been gained.
"On the left the 250 men of the 5th Connaught Rangers excited
the admiration of all beholders by the swiftness and cohesion of
their charge. In five minutes they had carried their objective,
the northern Turkish communications, when they at once set to and
began a lively bomb-fight along the trenches against strong parties
which came hurrying up from the enemy supports and afterwards from
their reserves. At midnight fresh troops were to have strengthened
our grip upon the hill, but before that hour the Irishmen had been
out-bombed, and the 9th Australian Light Horse, who had made a most
plucky attempt to recapture the lost communication trench, had
been repulsed. Luckily, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles refused to
recognize that they were worsted. Nothing would shift them. All that
night and all next day, through bombing, bayonet charges, musketry,
shrapnel, and heavy shell, they hung on to their 150 yards of trench.
At 1 a.m. on August 29 the 10th Light Horse made another attack
on the lost communication trenches to the left, carried them, and
finally held them. This gave us complete command of the underfeature,
an outlook over the Anafarta Sagir valley, and safer lateral
communications between Anzac and Suvla Bay.
"Our casualties in this hotly contested affair amounted to 1,000.
The Turks lost out of all proportion more. Their line of retreat
was commanded from our Kaiajik Dere trenches, whence our observers
were able to direct artillery fire equally upon their fugitives and
their reinforcements. The same observers estimated that the Turkish
casualties as no less than 5,000. Three Turkish machine-guns and
forty-six prisoners were taken, as well as three trench mortars, 300
Turkish rifles, 60,000 rounds of ammunition, and 500 bombs. Four
hundred acres were added to the territories of Anzac. Major-General
Cox showed his usual forethought and wisdom. Brigadier-General
Russell fought his men splendidly."
This was the last great offensive movement made by the Anzacs on
the Gallipoli peninsula. Shortly afterwards the whole of the Second
Australian Division was landed, a step which permitted the temporary
withdrawal of the veteran brigades to Lemnos for a much-needed spell.
Then operations at Anzac dragged on until the entry of Bulgaria
into the war established easy communication between Berlin and
Constantinople, and made the evacuation of Gallipoli an imperative
necessity.
The story of those last months at Anzac, and the final act of
withdrawal, will be found in the two concluding chapters of this
book. The position occupied by the Anzacs at the point now reached
was summarized by Lord Kitchener in the House of Lords on September
15 in the following terms:--
"The attack from Anzac, after a series of hotly contested actions,
was carried to the summit of Sari Bair and Chunuk Bair, which are
the dominating positions in this area. The arrival of the transports
and the disembarkation of the troops in Suvla Bay were designed to
enable the troops to support this attack. Unfortunately, however,
the advance from Suvla was not developed quickly enough and the
movement forward was brought to a standstill after an advance of
about 2½ miles. The result was that the troops from Anzac were
unable to retain their position on the crest of the hills, and after
being repeatedly counter-attacked they were ordered to withdraw to
positions lower down.
"These positions, however, have been effectively consolidated, and
now, joining with the line occupied by the Suvla Bay force, form a
connected front of more than twelve miles. From the latter position
a further attack on the Turkish entrenchment was delivered on August
21, but after several hours of sharp fighting it was not found
possible to gain the summit of the hills occupied by the enemy, and
the intervening space being unsuitable for defence the troops were
withdrawn to their original position.
"Since then comparative quiet has prevailed and a much-needed rest
has been given to our troops. In the course of these operations the
gallantry and resourcefulness of the Australian and New Zealand
troops have frequently formed a subject for eulogy in Sir Ian
Hamilton's reports. General Birdwood and his staff have greatly
distinguished themselves both in planning and conducting the
operations of the Australian and New Zealand Corps, whose activities
have been marked by constant success. Their determination to overcome
apparently insuperable difficulties has been no less admirable than
their courage in hand-to-hand fighting with the enemy.
"It is not easy to appreciate at their full value the enormous
difficulties which have attended the operations in the Dardanelles
or the fine temper with which our troops have met them. There is now
abundant evidence of a process of demoralization having set in among
the German-led (or rather the German-driven) Turks due, no doubt, to
their extremely heavy losses and to the progressive failure of their
resources. It is only fair to acknowledge that, judged from a humane
point of view, the methods of warfare pursued by the Turks are vastly
superior to those which disgraced their German masters."
THE STORY OF THE _SOUTHLAND_
CHAPTER XVI
THE STORY OF THE "SOUTHLAND"
The transport of the Second Australian Division from Egypt to
Gallipoli was not to pass without at least one striking incident,
which proved that the Australian army, if without traditions of its
own, is able at a moment's notice to live up to the finest traditions
of the soldiers of the British race. There is probably no Australian
who has not been made familiar with the history of the _Birkenhead_,
and it fell to the lot of one battalion of the Second Division to
show that "To stand and be still in the _Birkenhead_ Drill" is not
too tough a thing for the untried troops of the south.
This battalion was the 21st, a Victorian Battalion mainly composed
of farmers' sons from the Wimmera district; and it left Egypt on the
last Monday in August on board the transport _Southland_ in charge of
Colonel Linton. The transport had also on board General Legge, the
officer in command of the Second Division, and his staff--the brains
of the Second Division, as one of the men told me. And, when she
left Egypt, it was freely prophesied that she would be the object
of attack by the submarines that were at that time very busy in the
Ægean Sea.
No precaution was omitted on the voyage. The men were daily paraded
by their Colonel (Colonel Hutchinson) and instructed in boat and
lifebelt drill. All went well till Thursday morning, just after the
early exercises. It was a beautiful morning, and the deck was crowded
with men, smoking and chatting, and some of them cleaning their
equipment in readiness for the imminent landing.
Suddenly a cry was heard, "God, is that a torpedo?"
No one who saw the deadly thing ripping through the water had any
doubt of it. A moment later there was a dull clanging roar, and
a hole nearly thirty feet in diameter was blown in the side, two
holds being destroyed. In a second the siren was blowing the signal
to abandon ship, and the Australians, conforming to the drill
regulations, lined up on deck as if on parade.
The ship's officers kept magnificently cool. The captain, by a
magnificent piece of navigation, contrived to avoid a second torpedo
which if it had struck the _Southland_ would undoubtedly have sunk
the vessel in a couple of minutes. The engineer closed the bulkheads
and a number of open portholes, and to him also must be ascribed the
credit of having prevented the vessel from sinking.
Obeying the order conveyed by the siren, the crew of the _Southland_
made for the boats, and most of them were afloat before any
Australian moved. They stood at attention along the deck and waited
for a lead from their officers.
It came from the General himself. In full uniform, with spurs and
cane, he stood at the side of the ship and lighted a cigarette.
General Legge was joined there by his Chief of Staff, Colonel Gwynn
of Duntroon College, and the two chatted unconcernedly as they
surveyed the scene.
The order was given to the men to remove their boots, and they began
to do so. One of them noticed the General standing there, booted and
spurred, and ventured the question, "What about General Legge?" "Oh,
the General is going to walk it," he was told.
There was a heavy rolling sea, and the ship was now in a bad way,
listing as though she were about to sink at every roll. Some of those
bush boys could not swim, and to all of them boats and lifebelts were
unfamiliar articles. But they stood in line and saw the sailor men
go, waiting for orders.
Then they were set to launching boats and life rafts, and it cannot
be said they made a very good job of it. The first boat was launched
by one rope only, and turned all its occupants out as it struck the
water. It was one of four boats overturned for some reason. In one of
these was Colonel Linton, the Brigadier, who unfortunately died of
heart shock in the water.
While this was happening destroyers were steaming to the spot at a
rate of thirty knots, and did not arrive one moment too soon. The
water was dotted with the floating rafts and coops and with the heads
of swimming men. Remarkable gallantry was displayed by many, and one
young officer who was a fine swimmer is mentioned as swimming about
and helping the struggling men to places on the rafts and collapsible
boats.
But before all had left the ship, the captain of the _Southland_ made
a call for volunteers to stay by the sinking ship, on the chance
that she might be driven under her own steam to the beach. He had
a response from three times as many men as he required, and the
Australians, officers and men together, stripped for the stokehold.
Their bravery met with its just reward. The _Southland_ held out long
enough to be driven ashore at Lemnos, and all who had remained aboard
got off her safely. In all there were some twenty men drowned, among
them the Brigadier, and several were killed and about fifteen wounded
by the explosion of the torpedo.
[Illustration: General Legge, who succeeded General Bridges.]
The steadiness and grit displayed by the men on the deck of the
shattered transport was matched by their behaviour in the water and
on the crowded boats. Although some of the collapsible boats were
loaded almost to sinking point, and although the heavy sea had made
many of the men extremely seasick, they waited for the expected help
to come with the utmost sang-froid.
An officer on another transport, which came up three hours later
and took many of the men on board, tells of their coolness and
unconcern:--
"We slowed down as we came up, but missed some of the boats, as no
rope was thrown out to them. They drifted past us, calling out 'Don't
you want us?' and another wag added, 'We've just been fishing.' In
another boat they were singing 'Here We Are Again.' All were more or
less merry, including the injured, for some had their hands torn with
sliding down the ropes; others had got under the capsized boats, and
had a struggle to get out, especially if they had the lifebelts on;
others got cuts on the head."
"You couldn't get bustled," one of the 21st told me, "when the
General and all the officers were taking it so coolly. And the
skipper of the _Southland_ too; talk about the spirit of a British
sailor, he showed us what it was that day. And I think from what I
heard him say he likes Australians. I was one of those who escaped
a ducking, being lucky enough to be chosen for stokehold duty. So I
never even got my feet wet."
The story of one of the men who had a swim of over a mile is eloquent
of the spirit of the fellows, and of the dangers in which they found
themselves:--
"Some of the sights I saw I'll never forget. A boat full was being
let down and one of the ropes either broke or slipped, and one end
dropped, and there it was hanging end on. Naturally its occupants all
fell out all ways, and then the other end broke, and the whole boat
dropped on them. There were yells, etc., but I didn't wait to see any
more, and espied a boat some distance away and made for it.
"Eventually I reached it, about a mile or so from the ship, and
got hauled in, although I don't remember that; I was feeling a bit
goosed. However, after five minutes' spell, I got on to an oar and
started to row. Not that we wanted to row anywhere, but just to keep
head on to the waves and keep the water down. It was a collapsible
boat, and lived up to its name admirably and collapsed frequently.
After about an hour or so smoke appeared on the horizon, and it
turned out to be a hospital ship, coming up fast. Then another
appeared, and then another, and then a destroyer came in sight,
and soon quite a collection had arrived, but all made for the ship
herself, which was still hanging on to life.
"Then our boat went to the pack and started to sink. Oh! it was a
lovely sensation--I don't think. Eventually after four and a half
hours up to our knees in water, baling and rowing like fiends, we
reached the hospital ship, and--talk about a relief to feel something
solid again! As soon as we came up the ladder each man was handed a
packet of cigarettes, and we were then bundled below, and had beef
tea and dry clothes given us.
"I forgot to say that soon after we were hit our little 4.7 let fly.
I don't know if she hit the submarine; at all events she scared it,
or we'd have stopped another for a cert. And God only knows what
would have happened if we hadn't had wireless to let every one know.
However, it's all over now, and I'm safe and sound, bar a bang on the
head and the ankle, but have only a pair of pants and singlet and my
knife; no hat, or boots and socks."
Throughout their trying experiences not a man among the Australians
showed a sign of panic or concern. Naturally their General was very
proud of them, as they of him. General Legge, as soon as all were
collected together, issued an order congratulating them upon their
pluck and fine discipline at a critical time.
Later General Birdwood, the officer commanding at Anzac, issued an
order commending them in the eyes of the whole forces in the Anzac
zone. It was worded in the following terms:--
"On behalf of all the comrades now serving on the peninsula, I wish
to convey to the Australian unit concerned our general feeling of
admiration for the gallant behaviour of all ranks on the transport
_Southland_. All the troops of the army corps have heard with pride
of the courage and discipline shown at the moment when the nerves of
the bravest are liable to be so highly tried. Not only was there not
the slightest confusion on the part of the troops, who quietly fell
in and prepared to meet whatever fate might be in store, but later,
when there was prospect of the _Southland_ being able to make way
under her own steam and stokers were called for, the men at once came
forward and successfully helped in getting the _Southland_ into port."
The episode of the _Southland_ confirmed the impression created by
the gallant behaviour of the 18th Battalion at Hill 60, when they
were thrown into the thick of the fight within a few hours of their
landing on Gallipoli, and behaved like veterans. It was established
that the Second Division was composed of the same splendid fighting
material as the First. They had a thankless task before them, as the
reader will learn from the last two chapters of this book. But they
carried it through in the fine spirit displayed by the men of the
_Southland_ and of Hill 60.
THE V.C.'s OF ANZAC
CHAPTER XVII
THE V.C.'S OF ANZAC
In all records of bravery, and in all chronicles of devoted deeds,
there occur some acts that stand out even against the brilliant
background on which they are set. It was so at Anzac. The immortal
story of the landing is set with such resplendent actions, but in
many cases there was no responsible officer at hand to report the
amazing daring of the Australasians on those first days. Afterwards
it was possible to keep a closer record of individual actions, and
the result was that a number of the men of Anzac received the supreme
award for valour in the British army, the Victoria Cross.
The first of these distinctions fell to a non-commissioned officer of
the 14th Battalion of Australian Infantry, for a remarkable exploit
performed on the night that followed the attempt made by Liman von
Sanders to drive the Anzacs into the sea on May 19. Sergeant Jacka,
then a Lance-Corporal, was the hero of this feat of daring.
On the night of May 19 a body of Turks suddenly delivered so fierce
a bomb attack upon a section of advanced trench held by ten men and
a sergeant of the 14th Battalion that every man in the trench was
either killed or wounded. The Turks followed up this success by
jumping into the trench, and Captain Boyle, who entered this section
of trench by a communication trench, was wounded by a shot fired by
them, but was able to give the alarm.
Jacka immediately jumped from the communication trench up to the
step or bench behind the last traverse of the section of the trench
in which the Turks were, and with fixed bayonet held them at the
traverse, round which they feared to come. Meanwhile Lieutenant
Hamilton, a gallant young officer of the 14th, went to the other
end of the captured trench, and began firing at the Turks with his
revolver. He appears to have accounted for three of them before he
was shot by them through the head.
At his end Jacka, single-handed, kept the Turks at bay. The cry of
officer wanted brought up Lieutenant Crabbe with a platoon, three
men of which, Howard, De Gruchy and another, were all friends and
fellow-townsmen of Jacka. Howard sprang forward, followed by the
other two, but when he put his head round the traverse he fell,
wounded in three places. At this moment Jacka rushed around to the
other end of the trench, and took the Turks in the rear. Five he
killed in succession with rifle shots and two more he caught and
bayoneted as they were trying to escape by climbing out of the trench.
At the same time the party at the other end of the trench advanced
and accounted for four more Turks, thus clearing the trench
effectually.
Jacka has a remarkable record, as he was at the original landing,
and fought through the whole of the Anzac battle. When the final
withdrawal took place he was one among five of the original members
of the 14th still remaining.
No more V.C.'s were awarded until the August fighting, when this
distinction was awarded to a number of the men of Anzac. Foremost
among them was Captain Shout, of the 1st Battalion, who died at
the post of duty after earning deathless glory for himself and the
country that will be for ever proud to number such men among her sons.
On April 27 Lieutenant Alfred John Shout won the Military Cross and
his promotion for conspicuous bravery and ability as a leader. From
that time forward he was a shining example of cheerful courage to
those associated with him. His name crops up in countless letters of
Australian soldiers; his coolness, his audacity and his good cheer
were on the lips of all.
His battalion was the reserve of the 1st Brigade when the Lone Pine
position was taken by assault, and was soon called to take part in
repelling the fierce counter-attacks delivered by the enemy. A
feature of the position was a long communication trench, one end of
which was held by the Turks, while the other led almost directly to
the Brigadier-General's head-quarters.
While General Smythe was standing outside his dug-out on the morning
of August 9, the Turks made a very desperate attack by way of this
trench, coming round the last traverse in full view of the General,
and only separated from him by a barricade breast high. They were
driven back behind this barricade, and then Captain Sass, with three
men, determined to drive them farther back with bombs and rifle
shots. In this he was joined by Captain Shout.
They started together, Captain Sass with his rifle and Captain Shout
with bombs. Captain Shout had a good look round to see the position
and then pushed the barricade down. They went forward two abreast,
Captain Sass shooting and Captain Shout bombing. As Captain Shout's
bombs fell those following could hear the bustle of accoutrements
and scrambling cries round the next corner. They finally reached the
point where it was decided that it would be suitable to build the
last barricade. Captain Shout all the time was laughing and joking
and cheering the men immensely by his example. He resolved to make
a big throw before the final dash. He tried to light three bombs at
once, so that they might be quickly thrown, and the Turks prevented
from hindering the building of the barricade. He ignited all the
three and threw one, then either the second or the third burst as
it was leaving his hand, shattered one hand and most of the other,
destroyed one eye and laid open his cheek, and scored his breast and
leg. Captain Shout was nevertheless conscious and talked cheerfully.
He drank tea and sent a message to his wife. Since the day of his
arrival he had been the heart and soul of his section of the firing
line. His invincible buoyancy and cheerfulness was a great help to
the men. He succumbed to his injuries.
Captain Tubb of the 7th Battalion also won the Victoria Cross in the
defence of Lone Pine, and associated with him were Sergeant William
Dunstan, and Corporal Alexander Stuart Burton of the same battalion,
both of whom were similarly honoured. In the early morning of August
9 Captain Tubb, then a lieutenant, was holding with his company a
section of newly-captured trench of the utmost importance to the
defence of the whole position. A fierce bomb attack was delivered
upon the centre of the trench and maintained for hours with the
utmost fury.
Every man worked like a hero, the officer setting a shining example.
The bombs were fielded as they came over the barricade and returned
before they had time to explode. Dunstan himself returned over
twenty bombs in this fashion, and his work was equalled by Burton
and others. One nameless and devoted soldier, seeing a bomb about to
explode at the feet of Captain Tubb, threw himself upon it and saved
his officer's life at the cost of his own.
Three times the enemy blew in the barricade which separated them from
the brave Anzacs, and as often Captain Tubb led his men forward,
drove them off, and rebuilt the barricade. Once again they came
forward, and in rebuilding the barricade under a perfect hail of
bombs the gallant Burton lost his life. The Captain was wounded in
the head and the arm, but he still cheered his men on, and eventually
the enemy were beaten off.
Sergeant Dunstan, who came from my own native city of Ballarat, is
further the hero of an act of self-denial which it is pleasant to
record. The Mayor of the city, proud of his gallantry, promoted a
testimonial which had already grown to a very substantial sum when
the knowledge of it came to Dunstan. He at once wrote a letter,
couched in terms of modest dignity, refusing to be the recipient of
any testimonial for the mere performance of his duty.
On the preceding night, not far from the spot where these gallant
actions were performed, Lieutenant William John Symons, also of the
7th Battalion, was similarly hard pressed by the Turks. With a
gallant little band of this brave battalion he was holding a section
of the freshly-captured trench somewhat to the right of that held
by Captain Tubb. The enemy came in force, and rained bombs into the
trench. He repelled a number of furious attacks, and early in the
morning was called to a sap-end where six officers in succession had
been killed or wounded, and a portion of the sap retaken by the enemy.
The lieutenant led a charge which resulted in the recapture of the
whole sap, and in the charge he shot two Turks with his revolver.
He then withdrew for fifteen yards and ordered the construction of
a barricade across the sap. His part in this work was to hold up an
iron shield which covered the men at work with the sandbags, while
he was exposed. The enemy succeeded in setting fire to the woodwork
and fascines of the head cover, but Lieutenant Symons put the fire
out, and continued the work of building the barricade. His coolness
and determination finally compelled the enemy to discontinue their
attacks.
Lance-Corporal Leonard Keyzor, of the 1st Battalion, obtained his
V.C. chiefly for his actions in the south-eastern corner of the Lone
Pine, where the situation was so difficult on August 7 that a section
of the outer trench had to be abandoned, and which has not since been
held by ourselves or the Turks, and in personally superintending
the retirement from which the gallant Colonel Scobie was killed.
Keyzor was one of the best bomb-throwers in the Australian and New
Zealand Army Corps. During these fierce attacks he was throwing for
fifty hours almost continuously. He was sent to first one corner of
the trenches and then to another, but mainly to this warm corner,
not only throwing bombs but constantly smothering with his coat or
sandbag the enemy's bombs which had fallen in the trench. He often
threw them back. Finally, when the enemy cut down the time of the
fuses, he caught several bombs in the air like a cricket ball and
threw them back before bursting.
On August 8, at the same place, Private Keyzor bombed the enemy out
of a position, from which a temporary mastery over his own trench had
been obtained, and was again wounded. Although marked for hospital,
he declined to leave, and volunteered to throw bombs for another
company which had lost its bomb-throwers.
Private John Hamilton, of the 1st Battalion, won his V.C. on August
9, also at the Lone Pine. About daybreak, when the Turks were
beginning to creep up the communication trenches to attack the
captured trenches with bombs, Hamilton climbed up on to the top of
the parapet and waited there in the open overlooking the trench
up which the enemy came, and making a little position behind the
sandbags, told the officer below whenever the Turks were coming up
to attack. Several other men were up beside him a portion of the
time, doing the same, but Hamilton stayed up there, under the open
sky and entirely unprotected from shrapnel or snipers, five or six
hours, shooting the approaching Turks and passing down the word of
their advance.
Corporal Cyril Royston Guyton Bassett, New Zealand Divisional Signal
Company, received the Victoria Cross for most conspicuous bravery and
devotion to duty on the Chunuk Bair ridge in the Gallipoli Peninsula
on August 7.
After the New Zealand Infantry Brigade had attacked and established
itself on the ridge, Corporal Bassett, in full daylight and under a
continuous and heavy fire, succeeded in laying a telephone line from
the old position to the new one on Chunuk Bair. He has subsequently
been brought to notice for further excellent and most gallant work.
The last V.C. awarded at Anzac was that won by the gallantry
displayed at Hill 60 on August 29 and 30 by Lieutenant Hugo Vivian
Hope Throssell of the 10th Australian Light Horse. Lieutenant
Throssell was second in command to Captain Fry, who led a charge to
retake a section of trench captured from the enemy and retaken by
them. The section of trench was successfully stormed and the enemy
driven out. A barricade was then built, and the Turks returned and
delivered a fierce bomb attack, in the course of which Captain Fry
was killed.
Lieutenant Throssell then took charge, and with Sergeant Ferrier,
Corporal McNee and Private McMahon maintained a resolute defence of
the barricade. The Turks repeatedly renewed their attacks, which
Throssell and his men withstood, returning the bombs that were thrown
and replying energetically in kind. With them was associated Private
Renton, who like his comrades did excellent work in fielding and
returning bombs.
The attacks were continued all the night of the 29th and through
the morning of the 30th. Ferrier sustained a wound from which he
subsequently died, and Renton was so badly wounded that his leg has
since had to be amputated. Lieutenant Throssell was himself twice
wounded, but he continued a vigorous defence of the trench until he
was relieved. He then had his wounds dressed, and returned to the
position to see that all was right there.
The holding of that section of the trench meant the subsequent
capture of the hill itself. By his personal courage and example
Lieutenant Throssell kept up the spirits of his party, and was
largely instrumental in saving the situation at a critical period.
During the course of the war at least three other Australians,
attached to the British army, have been awarded the V.C. for deeds
of great courage. Foremost among these is the well-known airman,
Captain Lance George Hawker, of the Royal Engineers and Flying Corps,
who was decorated with the V.C. and D.S.O. He was awarded the D.S.O.
for a bomb-dropping exploit, and the V.C. for an extraordinarily
valiant fight against three German aeroplanes on July 25. The first
managed to escape, the second was badly damaged and compelled to
descend, while the third, which was assailed at a height of 10,000
feet, was not only badly damaged, but was driven to ground in the
British lines, both the pilot and the observer being killed. The
personal bravery shown by the young officer was exceptional, as each
of the enemy aeroplanes carried machines-guns, a pilot and observer.
Corporal William Cosgrove, of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Munster
Fusiliers, is an Australian, and was awarded the Victoria Cross for
displaying most conspicuous bravery in the leading of his section
with great dash during the attack from the beach to the east of Cape
Helles, on the Turkish position on April 26, 1915.
Corporal Cosgrove, on this occasion, pulled down the posts of the
enemy's high wire entanglements single-handed, notwithstanding
a terrific fire from both the front and flank, thereby greatly
contributing to the successful clearing of the heights.
The latest case is that of Lieutenant Dartnell, of the Regiment of
Frontiersmen, who lost his life and won the V.C. at the same time,
by a singularly devoted action in East Africa. Himself wounded,
Lieutenant Dartnell returned to a body of wounded men to endeavour
to save them from the advancing black troops of the enemy. His dead
body was found surrounded by a number of the enemy whom he had slain,
showing that he had sold his life dearly when it came to the last.
Lieutenant Dartnell was a well-known actor in Australia and a great
public favourite. He is said to be the first actor who has been
awarded the supreme honour for valour.
SAID AN AUSTRALIAN OFFICER
CHAPTER XVIII
SAID AN AUSTRALIAN OFFICER
"Fraternizing with the Indians!" chuckled the Australian officer,
as he laid down a London evening paper which had been expressing
satisfaction at the fact that Australasians and Indians were fighting
side by side before Sari Bair. "The last fraternizing I saw was being
done by a young officer of the A.S.C. He was brandishing something
that looked like a pick handle (of course he never used it), and
demanding a lost transport mule in a fervid mixture of Arabic,
Turkish, and Never-Never talk from the Back of Nowhere.
"You see, these Indians are fatalists to a man; they think that if
they are to be hit, they must be, and there's an end of it. The
consequence is, they take no care of themselves; and that wouldn't
matter so much, if they'd only take reasonable care of the mules.
Mules are precious, but they take their mules anywhere, and lose
them. Hence the fraternizing. 'Where's my mule, son of Belial?' this
chap was shouting; and the other things he was saying made even a
little middie look shocked.
"We never got tired of those middies. You'd see a pinnace coming up
to the beach under shellfire, and a little chap of fourteen talking
to the boat's crew like a Yanko bullock driver. The big sailor men
were all grinning with sheer delight at the snap of the boys, who
didn't seem to know what fear was. I tried some middy's talk on my
men once, and startled them down to their bones. They thought about
it for half a minute, and then one fellow asked me where I was hit.
"When we go back to Australia, the Australian language will be richer
for a word or two of Arabic, that will go there to stay. We have made
a regular battle cry of 'Imshi Yalla,' which means 'Get on with it'
as far as we can make out. Then there's 'Mafish,' meaning 'Finished.'
It was the last word on the lips of many a good man in those days at
the end of last April. The ordinary camp greeting is 'Sayeeda'--'Good
day,' or 'How d'ye do?' as I take it. There's a word or two more, but
there is no need to translate them. They are useful words.
[Illustration: Colonel Sir Newton Moore, in charge of the
Australasian Depôt at Weymouth.]
"The Turks are fine fellows. People ask me if they were not very
cruel; and I hear all sorts of rumours about mutilations, and so
on. There is not one word of truth in it. The story went round
that one well-known Australian officer had been found hideously
mutilated; and I happen to be in a position to contradict that story
point-blank. When the armistice was declared at the end of the battle
of Quinn's Post, it was my sorrowful duty to identify and bury the
body of that officer. He had not a mark on him, except the honourable
wound that caused his death. Dr. Springthorpe, who is the chief
Australian medical officer in Egypt, has assured me that no case of
mutilation has been treated in the hospitals there; which contradicts
some very circumstantial stories that have found their way into
print, both here and in Australia.
"That armistice was a funny business. Of course, the only people with
any business between the lines were the Red Cross people, but no
sooner had the armistice begun than a whole lot of German officers
in Turkish uniforms stepped out, and began to make the best use of
their opportunities for taking observations. The only counter for
that was that we should go out too, and we did so. The Germans were
as grumpy as pigs about it, but the Turkish officers turned out to be
fine gentlemen. Soon I was swopping cigarettes with them, and we were
carrying on a conversation in bad French, eked out with scraps of all
other tongues. They were quite jolly fellows, and brave fighters into
the bargain.
"It was during that armistice that I saw a German officer talking to
some Turkish soldiers with a shovel. They did not move quickly enough
to suit him, I suppose, and he laid into them with it. He was not
particular whether the flat or the edge of it struck them, so long as
he did not miss altogether. I said to my fellows, 'How should we get
on, if I did that to you?' and they only scowled. Two of them went
out a night or two afterwards, and came back with some buttons they
said were his. I don't know.
"Yes, the Turks are brave men, and brave women, too. I saw with my
own eyes one sniper brought in, all covered with twigs and painted
green in the face. This sniper was smoking a cigarette presented
by one of our fellows, and when a couple more added a pat on the
back, and said 'Cheero,' the sniper burst into tears. It was a
young Turkish girl. Upon my word, I saw the thing happen. She had
provisions for three weeks and a thousand rounds, and as nice a
little cubby-hole as you ever saw to hide in. I don't know what
became of her, but I can vouch for what I am telling you being true.
"We will always remember the Turks kindly for one thing. We lost
General Bridges, our chief; who fell to a sniper's bullet in Monash
Gully (The Valley of Death), when on his round of inspection. He
refused to be carried down to the sea-front, because of the danger
his bearers would have to risk. Of course, no one would hear of such
nonsense; and he was carried. He was taken slowly through all the
most dangerous windings of the valley; yet not a single Turk fired
a shot. That stands to their credit with every Australian on the
peninsula.
"There are lots of funny things I could tell you, but you might
think I was qualifying for the post of 'First Man.' The First Man?
Oh, that's a title any fellow gets in the trenches who begins to
tell tall yarns. You see, in the first days there was a lot of talk
about who was the first man ashore. He turned up here, there, and
everywhere; everybody knew him. I believe there were some fights
about it. Then some fellows out at Courtney's had a big tin medal
made, and whenever any one began boasting, he would be presented
with this medal, inscribed, 'For the First Man Ashore.' Nearly every
battalion has one of those medals now.
"There were three brothers in my company, all as brave as lions.
Fred, the youngest of the three, was reckless with it; and his two
brothers were always worrying about him. One day he was hit on the
shoulder, and when they saw him go down one brother shouted to the
other, 'Thank Heaven, young Fred's got it!' Of course, we all knew
what he meant--he was pleased the boy had got off with a light
wound--but it made the fellows laugh. After that, whenever one of
them was hit, he'd shout, 'Thank Heaven, young Fred's got it!' and
then lie down and curse.
"This brother was the coolest customer in the trench, and that was
saying something. He was a crack shot, and a great hand at destroying
Turkish periscopes. Smashing the business end of a periscope with
a rifle bullet, even at short range, is not so easy as it sounds;
for the observers keep them moving about erratically, so that it is
something like a very small disappearing target. But Bill nailed one
nearly every time he shot, and the Turks used to chatter with rage at
each loss. I don't think they had too many of them.
"They broke a good many of our periscopes in the same fashion; and
the broken glass used to fly about in a very nasty way. I had five
men cut about the face and head on one day, through their periscopes
being broken at observation work. Then we improvised a sort of safety
helmet out of half a kerosene tin, and put an end to that trouble. We
tried the new steel embrasures at Quinn's Post, but I consider them
sheer death traps, where the trenches are so close to those of the
enemy as twenty yards. The fellows who used them at a distance of 150
or 200 yards spoke most highly of them; but where I was, a gap in the
sandbags served much better.
"The Turk is a punctual beast. We used to time our watches every
evening by the first shell of the evening bombardment, which
invariably came along at ten minutes past six. On the night of May
18, that first shell was followed by 170 others before it had gone
seven o'clock, which was pretty good going. The armistice of the 20th
May was supposed to end at four o'clock in the afternoon, and at one
minute past, along came the first shell, just to show us that our
friend Abdul had his eye on the clock.
"It came from an entirely new direction, too, which showed that the
opportunity for observation afforded by the armistice had not been
wasted. But I think we were able to show that we had not shut our
eyes to things that were easily noticeable. They certainly did not
gain much in the exchanges over that armistice. It's all in the
game, after all. There has been little said about the work of the
Australasian artillery, and for the very best of reasons. But the
gunners, and especially the New Zealanders, will get their due later
on.
"There is one New Zealander who is a perfect marvel with a
machine-gun--Captain Wallingford, a champion shot. He got the
Military Cross for his great work on the opening days, so one can
speak about him. A machine-gun soon draws fire, and it was no
uncommon thing for the whole of a section to go down soon after
a machine-gun opened fire. The way he shifted his gun about in
unfamiliar, broken country, through thick scrub and in the dark, was
something to dream about. He had a sharpshooting section, too, that
was death on snipers, and cleared a whole section of the front in
very quick time.
"Colonel Owen's men (the 3rd Battalion) always call him 'Old
Never-Retire.' I asked one of them the reason, and he said that on
the morning of the first landing the Colonel had to take his fellows
up a very steep bit of cliff, almost inaccessible. His position
worried the Admiral so much that he signalled that he had better
retire, and try farther to the right. The Colonel turned on the chap
who brought the message and said, 'My compliments to the Admiral, and
tell him I'll see him damned first.' I don't know whether that is
true, for I never had the chance of testing it. But his men swear to
it.
"The loudest cheer I heard from the trenches was given to a
sergeant[1] whose name I never found out; but I heard he was a
Western Australian. Two sharpshooters had crawled out about thirty
yards for a better shot, and had gone down together; one with a
broken arm, and the other with a shot through the thigh. They lay
there, with bullets kicking up the dust around them, when this
sergeant went out with a rope. He tied it round the waist of the man
with the broken arm, who was dragged to the trench, yelling with
pain. Then he picked the other fellow up on his back, and brought him
in through a perfect rain of bullets. He never had a scratch. It was
away to the left of me, and below me, and I saw it all through my
glasses, and heard the cheers, as if I were sitting in the circle at
a theatre. We found by signal he was unhurt, but could not get his
name.
"There were two platoons away on the right who distinguished
themselves by getting farther inland than any one else. Not many of
them returned to tell the tale, but it was a queer story. They lost
all their officers and most of the non-coms. quite early on. The rest
only knew they were there to take a hill, and so they took one. Then,
for fear that might be the wrong hill, they took another. That set
them off taking all the hills in sight, a pretty tall order. They
only stopped when they blundered on to the Turkish camp; the wonder
is that any of them ever got back.
"I wish the Turks were as cleanly as they are brave and punctual.
They keep their trenches in a filthy condition. I know, because I
occupied one for half a day. We were told to take it; and that was
all right, with the help of the bayonet. We stayed there half a day,
and were quite glad when we were ordered back again. It was dangerous
enough there; but, for the moment, the danger was nothing compared
to the stench and vermin. We lost a lot of men getting out; but were
told the tactical purpose had been achieved. So that was all right.
"Shortage of water was one of the chief hardships of the place. If
one wanted a wash, he had to go down and wash in the sea; and that
was only safe at night time, up to the time I left. I got my bullet
down on the beach; it had come from Dead Man's Ridge, right at the
top of the Valley of Death--or Monash Gully, as it is now called. I
understand the Turks have been cleared from that ridge now, and that
a trip down the valley is safe enough. But for two months after the
landing it was asking for death to walk down it in the daylight. The
water? Oh, the allowance is a quart a day to each man for drinking,
and as much for cooking; and all fare alike. We saved for three days
for a comfortable shave, and had to go short of a drink to do it.
[Illustration: The Valley of Death.]
"The grimmest experience I encountered was in the early days, when I
had to decide in a second to order my men to shoot on unarmed Turks.
They came forward with their hands up, and I fancied I saw the flash
of a bayonet or two in the scrub behind. So I gave the order to
shoot; and five seconds later I knew I was right, for we were busy
repelling the determined attack of a considerable force. If we had
tried to make prisoners of their pioneers, we would have been in
a nice fix. Incidents like that explain why the number of prisoners
taken is not large; there is so much cover there that it is a risky
game making prisoners.
"There are plenty of Germans there; the artillery officers and the
whole of the machine-gun sections are Germans. They wear Turkish
uniforms, and are what we call 'Pointers' in Australia. During the
armistice, they were trying very hard to get their rifles away with
bolts and all, back to the Turkish lines. They were supposed to take
the rifle and leave the bolt, thus making the weapon useless. I had
to stop quite a number who were sneaking off with complete rifles;
there was a bit of a row about one man, because I happened to hit
him with my fist. I could not make him understand what I wanted by
any other means. But there are fewer Germans now than when we first
landed."
FOOTNOTE:
[1] I am informed that the hero of the exploit was Sergeant Duffy, of
the 8th Battalion (Victoria).
THE BAND OF BROTHERS
[Illustration: Captain Richardson of the 1st Brigade, who was awarded
the Military Cross for his fine work at the landing.]
CHAPTER XIX
THE BAND OF BROTHERS
An Australian officer had been telling me of the remarkable bravery
of two men of his company, and I asked the natural question: "Did you
report them for recognition?" "No," was the answer. "They did no more
than their duty; no more than any other two of my men would have done
in similar circumstances."
The feeling that underlay that reply cuts far deeper than the award
of crosses and orders. It proclaims the Australasians for what they
are, a band of devoted brothers, fighting for something far dearer
to them than public recognition. I will allow the same officer to
tell what kind of men they were, and to describe the mutual love and
respect that animated them as a band in the worst of their days in
Gallipoli. He said:--
"The Australian soldier is often said to be lacking in discipline.
Well, it all depends what you call discipline. Let me give you an
example. When we landed the men were ordered to advance with fixed
bayonets and do the work with the cold steel. They were not to fire
unless it was absolutely necessary. Days afterwards we found some of
our men out in the bad country around Quinn's Post dead with their
rifles beside them; the bayonets fixed and not a round fired. They
had obeyed orders until the last, because they were good orders. They
must have had innumerable temptations to loose off their rifles, but
they died like soldiers with red-tipped bayonets and clean barrels. I
call that discipline.
"On August 7 our fellows were relieved in the firing line by a
draft of Kitchener's men. The scrub around was stiff with snipers,
all eager to pick off an officer or two for choice. Yet here were
these chaps saluting every officer who looked at them; saluting like
clockwork. Our major is a peppery chap who rose from the ranks in the
African war. 'What the blue fire do you mean by it?' he roared at one
of the 'Kitchener's.' 'Do you want to have me killed?' They simply
couldn't understand him. Now you may call that discipline, but I do
not. I call it rank foolishness, and worse.
"The reputation of the major was that he never threw away a life and
never risked his own unnecessarily. Yet he was always risking his
own, and the men would follow him anywhere. He had only to speak to
get the most implicit obedience. One day he said, 'Look here, men!
Some English staff officers are coming to see you this afternoon.
Shave yourselves and try to look smart if you can. And, for Heaven's
sake, don't call me Alf.' My word, they did him proud that day.
"I see some of them now, with their hard faces shaded by their
slouched hats, and I remember them a grousing, cursing crowd in the
transport, and I think to myself, 'Can these be the uncomplaining,
unselfish, God-fearing heroes I fought with at Courtney's Post?'
I tell you that battle turned those fellows' best side outermost.
Having seen their best side I can never pay any attention to the
other side of them as long as I live. They made me proud to belong to
the same race as they, and more than proud to be entrusted with the
command of such splendid men.
"Their bravery had as many facets as a well-cut diamond. But the
side I admired most was their sheer grit. The first five days in the
firing line they had no sleep at all, and were fighting every minute
of the time. They had no food except some dirty water and a few hard
biscuits. On the evening of the fifth day the C.O. came into the
trench and said, 'Boys, you've stuck it splendidly, and now you're
going to be relieved. I've got you some hot tea that will come round
in a minute or two, and shortly after you will be relieved.' And they
answered, 'Only get us some tea, sir, and we'll stick it as long as
you like.'
"Their hard, stern-lipped faces will never more blind me to the
big, soft hearts they mask so effectually. One day I was resting in
a bit of a dug-out, sopping wet, shaking with a feverish cold, no
greatcoat or blanket or cover of any kind. I was not feeling very
good. A great big fellow went toiling up the hill, pulling himself
from one tree to the other by the branches, the only way to get up.
He had got some way past me when he caught sight of me. I suppose
I looked very wretched. Back he came with the good word, 'Feeling
knocked out, matey?' asks he. 'Never mind, you buck up and ---- Oh, I
beg pardon, sir.' A day or two later he came up to me and again began
to apologize. To apologize, when he had done me more good than I had
imagined anything short of a quick and painless death could have done!
"We had a young subaltern from Duntroon College, as gallant a boy as
ever looked death in the face, and that he did every hour of the day
and night for weeks. He commanded men old enough to be his father,
and he was the darling of their hearts. One day the inevitable
happened and he went down (to the sea front) with a big hole in him.
Some days afterwards his men were going back to rest camp and they
came to me to inquire after him. I can see them now, half a score of
as unsavoury-looking ruffians as ever could be seen. Their faces were
shaggy with two weeks' beard and their eyes were red and bulging with
unintermittent vigils. They had cheated death for yet another week.
And the tears ran down their cheeks as they begged to know if 'there
was any chance for the Boy.' Men like that stir your innermost fibre.
"I have seen those men shepherding that boy in the trenches in all
sorts of ways. I have seen them standing between him and the place
from where the rifle fire was coming and he did not know it. One man,
to my certain knowledge, was hit that way. I charged him with it in
the dug-out--he was not badly wounded--and he gave me the lie in
the most emphatic Australian fashion. I don't know what discipline
demanded of me, but I do know that I shook hands and whispered to him
that I would never tell the boy. And he grinned and winked like the
jolly old bushman he was.
"Some of them were pretty rough, but it is wonderful how they yield
to the refining fire of battle. There was one trench where the
language was pretty sulphurous. One day they lost their lieutenant,
a great favourite, by a shell which wounded him mortally and kicked
a lot of sandbags on top of him. The men set to work like maniacs,
pulling away the sandbags and cursing horribly. He heard them and
said, 'Don't swear, men; that does no good.' They were his last
words. It is a fact that an oath in that trench was a worse crime
than cowardice from that day forward.
"The best laugh we had for six weeks came out of the lurid language
used by Tommy Cornstalk. Our post was at the head of a deep gully
between two high hills and there were places in that gully where the
weirdest echoes lived. A few words spoken at one of these spots would
ring through the hills for a minute after and eventually die away in
a ghostly whisper. After the great armistice near the end of May we
had good reason to know that the enemy had been using their eyes to
some purpose. They had new lines of fire, and places that were safe
before the armistice were deadly dangerous afterwards. I suppose that
is part of the game of war.
"While the armistice was on two platoons were down in the rest camp,
and when they came back none had told the men of the altered state of
affairs. Next morning two of these fellows were basking in the sun
on the hillside, drinking hot tea and smoking. As far as they knew
the place was quite safe. I was just going to call out to them, when
the first bullet arrived. It kicked up a great patch of dust between
them. Both men jumped down simultaneously, a drop of 20 feet, and as
they jumped both made the same emphatic remark. The echoes took it
up and passed it along in a sort of monotonous repetition. We stood
spellbound to hear the immortal hills of Gallipoli repeating to one
another the round oaths of the Australian backblocks in a shocked
whisper.
"When it was all over it was like the curtain going down on an
excruciatingly funny scene in a theatre. The men were all strung
very high by the events through which they had lived, and they gave
themselves up to laughter that was almost hysterical. In the middle
of it the Turks in the trench opposite began to blaze away as if
cartridges cost nothing, and that made us laugh harder than ever.
We held our sides and yelled. An hour afterwards you could see men
wiping the tears from their cheeks and thumping their mates on the
back, and telling them not to be blooming fools. Then they would all
start over again.
"We had a good many brothers in our battalion, and it was touching
to see the anxiety of the elders for their younger brothers. One
fellow was a signalman, and if I say that the casualty average among
signalmen was 100 per cent., I am guilty of only the slightest
exaggeration. His young brother was about the youngest man there,
and we had him in a place where he was as safe as possible, in such
circumstances. I used to hear this fellow come in at night from his
signalling work, where his life wasn't worth an hour's purchase, and
the first thing he would say was always: 'Is Hal all right?' I tell
you he would wring my heart. I used to lie in my dug-out waiting for
that question and fearing I would not hear it. For it was not Hal
that I was worrying about.
"I remember the last service the battalion had before we landed. We
were steaming past Cape Helles to Anzac, the untried soldiers of a
new country preparing for our first battle ordeal. The warships were
roaring together to cover the British landing at Cape Helles, and
the padre gathered the men together for a simple service and talk.
One thing he told them that sank in. The band, who were also the
stretcher-bearers, had come in for a lot of chaff, as non-combatants.
'And the time is at hand,' says the padre, 'when you'll want to
bite off your tongues for every idle word you've said to the band.'
If ever words of man came true those words did. Ask any Australian
who were the bravest men at Anzac, and you are sure to get the
unhesitating answer, 'The stretcher-bearers.'
"I have seen them carrying wounded men down those hills up which we
pulled ourselves by ropes passed from tree to tree. The bullets were
spitting all around them, and they were checking and going slow,
their only concern being not to shake the tortured man they were
carrying. I know an officer whom they carried down through shell
fire, and every time they heard a shell coming these two men put
down the stretcher and threw themselves across his body to protect
him from the shrapnel. The proportion of their dead and wounded in
the casualty lists shows how these non-combatants did their work.
Jokes about the band are not popular any longer; they never were very
funny."
Perhaps the most famous of all the stretcher-bearers at Anzac was
the ubiquitous hero known to every Australasian there as the Man
with the Donkey. They were a quaint couple. The man was a 6 ft.
Australian, hard-bitten and active. His gaunt profile spoke of wide
experience of hard struggles in rough places. The donkey was a little
mouse-coloured animal, no taller than a Newfoundland dog. His master
called him Abdul. The man seemed to know by intuition every twist
and slope of the tortuous valleys of Sari Bair. The donkey was a
patient, sure-footed ally, with a capacity for bearing loads out of
all proportion to his size.
Some days they would bring in as many as twelve or fifteen men,
gathered at infinite risk in the dangerous broken country around
far-out Quinn's Post. Every trip saw them face the terrors of the
Valley of Death; here all day and all night the air sang with the
bullets from the Turkish snipers hidden on Dead Man's Ridge. Their
partnership began on the second day of occupation of the Anzac zone
of Gallipoli. The man had carried two heavy men in succession down
the awful slopes of Shrapnel Gully and through the Valley of Death.
His eye lit on the donkey. "I'll take this chap with me next trip,"
he said, and from that time the pair were inseparable.
When the enfilading fire down the valley was at its worst and orders
were posted that the ambulance men must not go out, the Man and the
Donkey continued placidly at their work. At times they held trenches
of hundreds of men spellbound, just to see them at their work. Their
quarry lay motionless in an open patch, in easy range of a dozen
Turkish rifles. Patiently the little donkey waited under cover, while
the man crawled through the thick scrub until he got within striking
distance. Then a lightning dash, and he had the wounded man on his
back and was making for cover again. In those fierce seconds he
always seemed to bear a charmed life.
Once in cover he tended his charge with quick, skilful movements. "He
had hands like a woman's," said one who thinks he owes his life to
the man and the donkey. Then the limp form was balanced across the
back of the patient animal, and, with a slap on its back and the Arab
donkey-boy's cry of "Gee," the man started off for the beach, the
donkey trotting unruffled by his side.
For a month and more they continued their work. No one kept count of
the number of wounded men they brought back from the firing line.
One morning the dressers at the station near the dangerous turn in
the valley called "The Pump" saw them go past, and shouted a warning
to the man. The Turks up on Dead Man's Ridge were very busy that
day; moreover, a machine-gun was turned on a dangerous part of the
valley path. The man replied to the warning with a wave of his hand.
Later he was seen returning, the donkey laden with one wounded man
and the man carrying another. As they reached the dangerous turn the
machine-gun rattled out, and the man fell with a bullet through his
heart. The donkey walked unscathed into safety.
There was a hush through the Australian trenches that night, when the
news went round that the Man with the Donkey had "got it."
His grave bears the rough inscription:--
"Sacred to the memory of Private W. Simpson, of the Third Field
Ambulance, West Australia."
But if you wish an Australian to tell you his story, you must ask for
the Man with the Donkey.
A TRIBUTE TO THE TURK
CHAPTER XX
A TRIBUTE TO THE TURK
In his speech delivered in the House of Lords on September 15, the
Minister for War said: "It is only fair to acknowledge that, judged
from a humane point of view, the methods of warfare pursued by the
Turks are vastly superior to those which disgraced their German
masters."
The unanimous testimony of the Australasians supports this statement
of Lord Kitchener. The decency and fairness with which the Turk makes
war came as a pleasant surprise to the Australasians, who had been
led to expect something so entirely different that they landed on
Gallipoli with very stern resolves. My own cousin, a private in the
2nd Brigade, has told me that he and all his mates had determined
to end their lives, rather than fall into the hands of the Turks as
prisoners. A similar resolve was carried out by many an Australasian
soldier in the first weeks of the fighting. Yet the testimony of the
Australasians who fell into Turkish hands is now to hand and shows
that they are treated with remarkable consideration.
The rumours of Turkish atrocities were rapidly dissipated, and the
Australasian soldier soon got to respect the Turk as a brave man
and fair fighter. The fact that a hospital ship was always moored
off Anzac Cove within easy range of the Turkish guns, and was never
known to suffer, is prima facie evidence to the Australasians of
the honesty of Turkish intentions. The consideration shown to their
wounded general, mentioned elsewhere in this book, made a deep
impression in the Australasian ranks. The prevailing opinion of
the Turk is now a very favourable one; and I will let one of the
Australian friends I have made in British hospitals voice it on
behalf of his comrades.
"Foreign travel expands the mind," sententiously observed Trooper
Billy Clancy, of the Australian Light Horse. "I had to travel in a
troopship to Gallipoli to learn that all I thought I knew about the
Turk was not so. Many's the time I didn't know anything at all about
Turks. I expected to find a lot of jelly-bellies in baggy trousers
and turned-up slippers, with gaspipe guns and hooked noses. I thought
they'd be cruel cowards, rotten shots, and easy marks. I thought
I was going to serve it up hot to the men with the bull's-wool
whiskers. And that was just where I was wrong; I know better now.
"To begin with, my friend Bismillah is quite as well equipped as
anyone else for modern war. He has a better rifle than we have, if
anything. I have two scars on my left forearm that show he knows how
to use it. He carries plenty of cartridges, and in his pockets two or
three up-to-date bombs guaranteed to hurt the other fellow. Sometimes
he paints his face green and lets on that he is a tree. Sometimes he
quits his trench and pretends he is a mountain goat, trying for a
record in the hill-climbing class. But he's a soldier all the time--a
born soldier and a brave one. Fighting for home and country dear is
meat and drink to him.
"They used to say the Turks were cruel and tortured the wounded. No
Australian believes that at Anzac now. Why, there was a Turk in the
trenches opposite us at Russell's Top that we used to call Fatty
Burns. Of course, that was not his name, but we called him that
because he looked so much like Fatty Burns that kept the Ninety-mile
shanty on the road to Winton. He had the same short beard and Roman
nose, the same bright black eye and a benevolent expression as much
as to say, 'I wouldn't lamb a bushman down.' This Turk was the dead
spit of Fatty--like brothers they were.
"He was always sticking up his head and getting fired at. Then he
would signal a miss and laugh like one o'clock. You could hear him
quite plain, for the trenches were only twenty-five yards apart. At
last the fellows gave up shooting at him. 'It's only Fatty Burns,'
they used to say. We got to look for his cheerful grin, and sometimes
we used to fire just to hear him laugh.
"One morning early, we made a bit of a demonstration, and left two of
our boys wounded out on an open space between the trenches. No one
could go to them, and there they lay in the burning sun. Presently
somebody said, 'Here comes Fatty Burns.' The old chap puts his head
and shoulders out of the trench and salaams like a Cairo shopkeeper.
We were all struck dumb. Next he climbed out of the trench, which was
a bold thing to do, and walked over to our wounded. A dozen rifles
were covering him, and I expect he knew it. But Fatty just strolled.
"You could have heard a pin drop, as the saying is. We watched him
stroll over to the two men and lift up their heads and give them
a drink of water each. He tried to make them comfortable, with us
looking on, hardly able to believe our eyes. Then he strolled back
quite unconcerned; and we gave him a cheer. That's not all. Just
before dusk he came out again, and dragged both men over near a bit
of cover, so that we could get them in when dark came. And those are
the people that were supposed to be cruel!
"We always had too much bully beef, and when we left the firing line
we had to dispose of the surplus and leave the trench in order for
those who relieved us. This time we made up our minds to chuck the
beef--there were three four-pound tins of it--across to old Fatty
Burns. We did, and there was a terrible hullabaloo when it landed. I
suppose they thought they were some new-fangled bombs. But an hour or
so later some one threw a whole lot of fine dates into the trench,
and we reckoned it was Fatty. Some one said they might be poisoned,
but we risked that and enjoyed them fine.
"But that's not all. A day or two after we returned to the firing
line we got one of our meat-tins back--with additions. I just had
time to throw my overcoat down on it when it exploded. The overcoat
was never any more good, and it wasn't Fatty Burns's fault that we
were sound after the meat-tin came back. He had put in a stick of
gelignite and filled up with the remains of an old clock and some
spare scraps of iron and things. The clock-wheels fair murdered my
overcoat. But what an old sport!
"There was a Maori up on Walker's Ridge who was a very fine swimmer
and diver; he could stay under water longer than any man I ever saw.
When he was spelling he _would_ go in swimming, no matter what the
shrapnel was like on the beach. And there was a Turkish sniper up on
'Baby 700' who was after his goat and used to fire at him all the
time he was swimming. That made a bit of fun for Te Patara, who used
to tantalize the sniper something cruel.
"But these Turks have a lot of time to think, and one day the sniper
turned up with a pal and a loader as well. They made it very hot for
the Maori gent, who found the bullets arriving two to the second in
one long stream. He kept under water and breathed through his ears,
or something. Anyhow, he got flustered and made a long dive for the
shelter of an iron barge that was stranded on the beach. He got the
cover all right and stood up behind the barge in about a foot of
water. Abdullah and Co. up in the hills made up their minds to keep
him there.
"I should say they got two rifles fixed on each end of the barge
and fired them at irregular intervals. And every now and then they
would bombard the barge, 'ping, ping,' just to let him know they were
watching. It wasn't a particularly warm day; there was a cold sea
breeze. Te Patara had no dressing-gown at all, and about two hundred
of the boys were down on the beach under cover giving him advice. It
was good enough advice, but it was dangerous to take it. He only got
away after dark, and then he was the chilliest Maori I ever saw. He
seemed to have lost some of his love for swimming, too.
"We reckoned the Turk would not stand up to the bayonet; and he
certainly ran away from it a good many times. Then the First Brigade
was sent out to take the trenches at Lonesome Pine, and got the
surprise of their lives. A good deal of the fighting was in roofed-in
trenches, where it was as dark as Jack Johnson. And there Bismillah
stood up and fought with the bayonet. He wasn't a bit particular;
if he couldn't use the point he used the butt, clubbing and hacking
like a madman. That rough-house in the dark, through 150 yards of
underground trenches, was one of the toughest fights of 1915. And the
Turk took all the beating the First Brigade could give him. He died
fighting, but he would not run.
"Between Anafarta Village and the big salt lake there was a wide
valley of agricultural land; the maps do not show how big it is.
Before the landing at Suvla Bay all this land was under cultivation,
and we used to watch the Turkish farmers at work. They were old boys
with big long beards, and we used to imagine them going about saying
to one another, 'By the beard of the Prophet,' and things like that.
But we decided they were quite harmless, and we let them get in
their crops without touching them in any way. A good many of us were
thinking of the crops ripening 8,000 miles away south, and us not
there to help get them in. So we let these farmers do as they pleased.
"Then came the landing at Suvla; and do you know these old boys
raked up great long Snider rifles from somewhere, that fired an
expanding bullet big enough to kill an elephant. One of my mates was
hit with one, and it blew the shoulder clean off him. And these old
boys fought as bitter as poison. Then the Regular Turkish Army came
there, and when the officers found out what these farmers were doing,
they kicked up an awful row and took the old guns away from them. We
noticed that they went out of use very suddenly, and a prisoner we
took told us how it happened. But it shows that the Turks want to
fight fair; and that was our experience always.
"This prisoner was a curious fellow. He spoke as good English as I
did, and he told me that he used to serve coffee at a big London
restaurant. He said he used to go round in a Turkish uniform with a
sort of truck, and make special Turkish coffee for those who wanted
it. Of course, I did not believe that; where's the sense of it? But
he told me a lot of things about the Turks I never knew before, and
put them in a new light to me. After all they are only fighting for
their own country, and every man ought to do that.
"Whoever planned their defences was a master hand. Every trench is
enfiladed from some other one, and the lines of defence fall back,
each one endangered to the attacker by that behind it. Some of their
trenches were nothing but deathtraps to anyone who might choose to
occupy them, so skilfully were their machine-guns and snipers posted.
I can tell you that we learned a lot about trench digging from our
despised brother Bismillah before we had been a month at Gallipoli.
"Yes, the Turk has taught us to respect him for a fair and brave
fighter and a dashed sight better man than the fat-faced Germans I've
seen driving him against our trenches with their revolvers and the
flat of their swords. He is a cunning beggar, is Bismillah; but we
bear him no malice for that. It is a pity he was dragged into this
scrap by those German beasts. They are the enemy we are all longing
to have a cut at. But when poor old Bismillah comes charging in
droves against our trenches we hardly like to shoot him down with
machine-guns. As one of our chaps said, 'It hardly seems fair to take
the money.'"
GURKHAS, WHITE AND BROWN
CHAPTER XXI
GURKHAS, WHITE AND BROWN
"Here you are," cried my friend Trooper Billy Clancy, of the
Australian Light Horse, as I entered the convalescent camp. "Ask him.
He knows what I'm saying is true." His very charming visitor regarded
me doubtfully. "Go on; ask him," urged the soldier; "he knows." "Is
it true," asked the fair ministrant to lonely Colonials, "that there
is a real Australian language and a different way of comparing such
adjectives as good?" "Good; bonza; boshter," I answered promptly.
"There," crowed Trooper Clancy, "what did I tell you?" "I don't
believe either of you," replied his visitor, and departed with an
effect of dimples and blushes.
"These English ladies are awful kind-hearted," said Clancy, evading
my eye, "but they do ask some rummy questions. Did you never hear
what happened to Shorty Shaw? You know Shorty? He's six feet five and
got a face like a grown-up baby's. Everybody likes old Shorty, but
the lady I'm going to tell you about took the greatest fancy to him.
She used to come in a motor-car and bring her little boy and girl
to see him. She treated him as if he was a very nice, interesting
specimen from the planet Mars. Why, when he said he felt the cold she
brought him a contraption she made herself of Jaeger goods to wear
next his skin.
"It was all patent fastenings and tied itself into knots when he
tried to get into it. And when he had it on he couldn't sit still;
kept hunching his shoulders and rubbing his back against the chair.
She asked him how he liked it without batting an eye, and Shorty
up and said he was all of a glow. Well, one day she was talking to
Shorty when I heard a noise like a hen clucking, and saw her going
out with her face very red and her nose in the air. And Shorty was
squirming about like his wound was hurting him. It seems she had
asked Shorty wasn't he proud to be called a White Gurkha? What Shorty
said he would never tell us, but it was the last we ever saw of the
kind-hearted lady.
"Of course she wasn't to know that Shorty's teaming business had been
ruined by Afghan camel-men. She didn't guess that Shorty used to
say that when he died the words 'A White Australia' would be found
written on his heart. 'White Gurkhas!' he used to say; 'they'll be
calling Chinamen smoked Australians next.' I tried to argue with him.
'Look here,' I said. 'Why do we call you Shorty?' 'Because you are
a lot of naturals,' says he. 'No; because you're the longest chap
in the brigade. Well, it's the same with the name of White Gurkhas.
The Gurkhas are all little, short, broad chaps, and the Australians
are all long, thin blokes. Don't you see?' But Shorty didn't; his
prejudices prevented foreign travel from improving his mind.
"As a matter of fact, there was only one Australian I ever saw that
looked at all like a white Gurkha; and that was Jimmy Young, the
celebrated footballer. He was a cabdriver in South Melbourne, and
the trickiest footballer that ever played the game. He was short and
as broad as he was long; he wore whiskers and he was bandy-legged.
His capers earned him the name of Diddly. He'd come down the field
bouncing the ball and breaking evens. Being so short he seemed to
be running even faster than that. When the other side tried to stop
him they'd be tackling a man who wasn't there; and all the South
Melbourne barrackers would call out, 'Oh, you Diddly!' He was a
ringer, was Diddly Young.
"The first mob of Gurkhas we ever saw was in charge of a sergeant
that must have come out of the same mould as Diddly. He and his push
had come from Cape Helles way, where they'd been fighting with the
English and the French. They hadn't been an hour at Anzac when this
sergeant got in a hurry about something and started to run. At
once about half a dozen of our chaps said at the same time, 'Diddly
Young!' You simply couldn't mistake the action. And he answered to
the name of Diddly with a grin a foot wide; it turned out that it
wasn't so far from his real name.
"We saw a lot of the Gurkhas then, and soon got to like them fine.
They were always laughing and joking; you never saw jollier little
chaps. Not like the Tommies, who were solemn and worried; nor like
the Sikhs, who were a bit sour. It was astonishing how quickly they
picked things up; this Diddly learned to talk Australian in no time.
One day he was chatting to me and a shell burst a bit close; and I
said something. He burst out laughing. 'One shell go bang,' he says;
'Frenchman lie down flat. Two shell go bang, Englishman go in his
dug-out. Three shell go bang, Australian look up and say "You ----."'
"Just about that time we were getting a lot more bursting shells
than we altogether cared about. They came from all directions, but
the two worst nuisances were two guns that had our beaches ranged
from north and south. The one to the south was Beachy Bill, that
they say has knocked out over 2,000 men and is still going. He lived
somewhere among the mangroves between Gaba Tepe and Achi Baba. The
other was Anafarta Anne, that was hid up in the hills--behind Suvla
Bay. Anafarta Anne was our particular worry and there was nothing we
wouldn't have done to shut her up.
"It afterwards turned out that she lived in a deep cutting, driven
sixty feet in the hillside, and was run out on rails when they wanted
to use her. The kick of her recoil drove her back into her hole
and shut a door in the front that was dodged up to look like the
hillside. Everybody was out after Anafarta Anne. Cruisers used to
come along and shell the hillside where she lived. A destroyer came
fussing up every day almost to give her a round or two. They sent up
captive balloons to watch for her and aeroplanes observers hovered
over the spot. All to no purpose.
"Then there would come a day when the cruiser was away at Cape
Helles. The destroyer would be engaged on important business
elsewhere and the captive balloon deflated. Perhaps the aeroplane
man was away dropping bombs on Maidos. And there would be a score or
two of our chaps in swimming after a fortnight in the firing line
without so much as a rinse. Then Anafarta Anne would pop out of her
hole and send a great shrapnel shell that would spread a spray of
bullets over a piece of water a hundred yards long by fifty wide.
Our chaps would be lucky if they ducked in time and could swim under
water to the beach. They would come out nearly black in the face, but
not so strangled that they could not find breath to curse the name of
Anafarta Anne.
"One day Anne went a bit too far. There was a mule team coming up
from the beach with water. There were five mules with Indian drivers
and two kerosene tins to each mule. The water was pukka Malta water
sealed in the kerosene tins and was most important water indeed, as
it turned out. You see, it was specially reserved for the sacred
ablutions of the Gurkhas. Well, this Anafarta Anne had no more sense
than to drop a high-explosive shell right on top of the procession.
Up in air went three good mules and every drop of the water was
wasted. I believe there was a mule-man or two missing as well, but I
never counted them myself.
"The boss mule-driver was an excitable Punjabi who loved mules like a
pawnbroker loves diamonds. He came leaping down to the Gurkha camp,
making a chattering noise like the whole Turkish army, and the first
Gurkha he ran into was Diddly. What he said I couldn't tell you, but
he must have rubbed it in about the Gurkhas' holy water, for Diddly
got very serious and very busy. He got all his push together and sent
somebody for the white officer sahib. In his presence they all drew
their big knives and nicked one another's thumbs and swore an oath.
They swore they would put an end to Anafarta Anne. So much I gathered
from Diddly afterwards.
"Naturally there was a good deal of interest among our chaps to see
what would happen. Fellows like Shorty Shaw said it was all nonsense
for a pack of Gurkhas to expect to do what everybody else had failed
in. It seemed a tall order, and some of the boys betted long odds
against the thing ever being done that way. I don't mind telling you
that I had my little bit at five to one on little old Diddly. He gave
me confidence somehow or other; I don't know why.
"Well, every night some of the Gurkhas would be out of the trenches.
As for Diddly, he used to be missing for days on end. And when you
saw him he was no longer laughing and full of jokes. He looked just
about as happy as a Belgian farmer. This went on for a bit, and then
one day Diddly turned up all jokes and smiles again. The odds went
down to six to four that night, and even Shorty Shaw admitted that
little old Diddly must know something.
"Then came the Suvla Bay landing on August 6. The night before all
the Gurkhas went off somewhere, and we were left behind. We had our
own troubles early next morning, and they were bad enough. But not
so bad, but every man was on the keevee (qui vive) for some sound of
Anafarta Anne. When there was not a word from that quarter we all
allowed that Diddly had done it on the Turks; and that night I could
have had my money if I had insisted on it. But, as it turned out, it
wasn't so.
"It was a good time afterwards that I had the true story of what
happened from a man in the ----th, who was in the big night march
from the Maori Outpost. The ----th were hot after Anafarta Anne,
too, and got to the gun emplacement a few minutes after Diddly and
his Gurkhas. He says he found them there in possession of the place,
and of a lot of dead Turks pretty badly cut about with knives. But
Anafarta Anne, drawn by a mule team, was just showing her tail around
a bend of the hills half a mile or so away. He said Diddly was very
sore about it; but I never heard that till much later.
"I saw Diddly himself the following day, but only at a distance. The
Gurkhas were just going out to charge, and that was worth seeing.
Each man of them had his rifle slung over his back, and his big knife
in his teeth, so as to leave his hands free. They had been laughing
like in camp; a very gay push. Then they got the word to go. An
English officer ran first, a fair-headed man a foot taller than his
Gurkha band. He was in front, but not a pace away ran old Diddly and
another Gurkha tough. They had only eyes for one thing: the sahib
officer. So I saw them charge away into the dusk of early morning.
"You know that charge carried them right away to the top of the big
hill, and to a sight of the Dardanelles beyond. But Diddly never
saw the Dardanelles. We moved up behind them in support, and found
Diddly in a little spur of the gully. He and his tough little mate
were lying dead, and underneath them was the dead body of that fine
white officer. The left hands of the two Gurkhas were all cut to
ribbons, where they had grabbed the Turkish bayonets, and there was
awful evidence that they had known how to use the notched knives they
still gripped in their other hands. The rest of that day, and of some
bad days that followed, I felt as if I had lost another dear old
mate. And I wasn't the only one that felt like that about good old
Diddly.
"So, you see, it doesn't do to judge a man by the colour of his skin.
I knew a good Chinaman once. And my Uncle Fred, who used to spar with
Peter Jackson, often used to say he would as soon shake hands with
Peter as with any white man he ever knew. That's why I say to Shorty
Shaw that I'm never going to worry if nobody never calls me nothing
worse than a White Gurkha."
THE MAN WHO WASN'T LET
CHAPTER XXII
THE MAN WHO WASN'T LET
Perhaps he was Let, eventually. But when I met him he was
emphatically the man who wasn't Let to fight.
I met him in London, a tall, well-set Australian, wearing the
all-wool khaki of the Commonwealth and the neat leather cap of the
Australian Divisional Supply Column. In his own words he was a
"Leatherhead." He was a thirteen-stone man, but without a spare ounce
of flesh on him anywhere; one could quite believe him when he said he
was "as strong as a Monaro steer." And over his right eye he wore a
pink celluloid patch.
This decoration moved my curiosity, for I knew the Leatherheads had
not taken part in the Dardanelles fighting but were at that time
destined for very active service elsewhere. In fact, they were on the
very eve of embarking; therefore I opened a conversation by asking if
he were off "to the front."
"No, worse luck," he said, "I'm the only man staying behind. They
won't let me fight." This with some bitterness.
A little sympathy, judiciously expressed, started him talking;
and in the monotonous drawl affected by the men of the Australian
bush--natural to them, it may be--he unfolded a strange story of his
wanderings in search of a fight. He told me who he was, and what he
was; they are not essential to the point of his story. It is enough
to say that he sacrificed a very good income and excellent prospects
to join the Australian Expeditionary Force.
"You see," he said, "I've got only one eye, my left; but it's a good
one. I lost the other eight years ago--mining. Since then I've come
to the conclusion that a man doesn't need two eyes, except in case of
accident, like mine. I had a glass eye fixed up in Sydney, just like
the other one, and you couldn't tell the difference; well, when I
tell you, you'll know that you couldn't.
"I was always fond of soldiering, and joined the militia. I got my
musketry certificate, so that shows you a man with one eye can shoot
as well as any man with two, and a sight better than most of them.
I've done some 'roo shooting, too, and a fellow that can knock over
an old man running at three hundred with a worn Martini, don't want
any spare eyes.
"When I was in Sydney I learned to drive a motor-car, and never had
any trouble. A man who can take a fast car through the Sydney traffic
don't want to worry about being shy of one eye. And nobody ever
noticed; I used to get on well with girls, and all that; and they're
the first to grumble if a man's got anything wrong with him.
"I've seen a lot of bush life; done thirty miles a day with a big
swag in my time, and was never sick or sorry in my life. All this
leads up to what I'm going to tell you.
"Naturally I volunteered when the war came, having no one dependent
on me. Besides, I never liked Germans. I passed the medical
examination all right; and they are mighty particular over there.
Of course the doctor never tumbled to my glass eye, and there was
nothing else the matter with me.
"When they found I could drive a motor, they put me among the
Leatherheads; but I had to pass a driving test first, and that was no
child's play. But still nobody tumbled to my glass eye, and I wasn't
saying anything. I went into camp in the Domain, and everything was
all right till they inoculated me against typhoid.
"It took pretty bad with me; they tell me that's a good sign. But
I was feverish and felt rotten, and had to go into hospital. When
the doctor came round the second day, I had a dirty tongue and a
temperature, and he whistled a bit.
"'Let's look at your eye,' he said; and before I knew what he was
after, he had pulled back my bottom lid to see if there was any
inflammation there. Of course, my old glass eye rolled out on the
pillow.
"You oughter seen that doctor jump. He went quite white in the
face, too. Well, there was nobody about, and presently he burst out
laughing, which I took to be a good sign. So I said, 'Are you going
to be a sport, doctor? No one knows but you, and there's no need for
you to know.'
"'Are you sure nobody knows?' he asked, still laughing fit to burst.
'Not a soul,' I told him. He tried the eye. 'Wonderful,' he says;
'don't know either.' So I got away with the Contingent."
"When our boys got off at Egypt we came on here, because our motor
outfit was no manner of use in the sand there. We never went to the
Dardanelles for the same reason; but have been five long months in
camp at Romsey. All that time I've been doing the same work as the
rest; transporting gravel in the motor wagon, and all the rest of it.
And not a soul ever tumbled to my glass eye.
"Then it was settled that we should be sent--somewhere. But before
we could go, the whole lot of us had to go through a fresh medical
examination; British Army doctors this time. I was going to chance
it; and I don't think they would ever have found me out. But you
never know what you're doing with these English doctors; they're not
reasonable chaps like in Australia, as you shall see. And I didn't
want to get the C.O. into trouble; he's a grand chap, Tunbridge.
"So when the doctor came to me, I made a clean breast of it; you
ought to have seen the C.O.'s face. He was dead surprised; so would
any one be. But the doctor turned nasty. 'I can't pass you,' he said.
'A one-eyed man driving a car! Disgraceful!' And so on.
"Nothing I could say or do was any use; I was rejected. I'm as strong
as a Monaro steer, and my eye is as good as three ordinary ones.
But--no good.
"So I got a week's leave, and went off to see a bit of England. Down
at Southampton I fell in with some Canadians; real good sorts, they
were. We had a drink or two, and I found they were off to the front
that very night. Here was a chance! I fixed things up with them, and
borrowed a slouch hat; then I made my cap into a neat parcel, and
left it at the railway parcels office. There was I, as good a Canuck
as any of them. Except that I had 'Australia' on my shoulders instead
of 'Canada,' but that didn't matter.
"It was dark when we lined up on the pier and they called the roll. I
got into the back row, and they called everybody's name but mine; and
everybody said 'Here,' except me. Bit neglectful, I call it; but I
was there all right. 'Australia _will_ be there.'
"We got over to Havre, and everybody was fussing about his dunnage,
so I fussed about mine. Of course I didn't have any, but I gave such
a good description of it that to get rid of me the fellow said, 'It's
over there.' So I got on to the train, and up to the front at a place
I think they called Dickiesborough. It sounded like that.
"We were all billeted in a big barn with stacks of grub; and next
evening my pals were detailed to go out into the trenches. I got hold
of a rifle and some ammunition; there was no difficulty. And I went
off with them.
"It was dusk, and about 400 yards from the communication trench we
all went down on our hands and knees and crawled. I crawled, too, and
kept low, as they told me, when we got to the communication trench;
and presently we were all snug in the first line of trenches.
"Then my luck turned. Along came a Canadian officer, to inspect.
'Are you all right here, sergeant?' he says. 'How many men have you
got?' 'Twenty-one, sir,' says the sergeant in quite a little voice.
'Twenty, you mean.' 'No, sir, twenty-one. There's a long Australian
galoot here, that wants to have a shot at the Germans, so we brought
him with us.'
"Now if that'd been an English officer there'd have been a row, and
I should have been shot, or something. But this captain says, 'Here,
that won't do. Let's have a look at you.' So he ran the rule over me,
and examined my papers, and felt my khaki--he even felt my khaki! He
knew a bit, that Canuck captain.
"Then he said, 'I believe you are telling the truth, but I can't
have you here. You'll be getting wounded or something; you're just
the sort of fool that would.' He spoke very nice. 'You wouldn't have
the sense to get killed,' he said. 'You'd be wounded, and I couldn't
account for you. So, get,' he says.
"'How am I to get out?' I asked. 'The same way you got in,' he says,
very short. 'And where am I to go?' And I wouldn't like to tell you
where he told me to go to.
"Well, I stooped and went back along the communication trench. I
wasn't going to draw the fire on the boys who were in the firing
line. But when I got to the end of it, I stood up, and put my fingers
in my mouth and I whistled as loud as I could. I couldn't shoot at
the Germans, but I did want a bit of fighting. I put my hands in my
pockets and strolled back over that ground where we'd been crawling;
and I whistled 'The Wild Colonial Boy'. Nobody took a bit of notice.
"I slept in the billet that night, and had a real good breakfast;
then the wounded began to come in. There was a pretty lively scrap
through the night; of course I slept through it all--just my luck.
I made myself useful--stretcher-bearing and what not. But I could
see that if I stayed there, I'd only get myself into trouble, and
somebody else, too, very likely.
"I went to the little base hospital, and I said, 'Can you give me an
eyeshade. My eye is paining me.' And they gave me this. They were
just making up a hospital train for the coast, so I chucked away my
glass eye--I was disgusted with it anyhow--and put on the shade. Then
I got on the train as one of the poor wounded.
"Presently another doctor comes round--this place seems stiff with
doctors--and examined me. 'That's getting on nicely,' he says,
looking very hard at me. 'Yes, doctor,' I says, as if I was in pain.
Of course he must have seen there was something wrong, but he was too
busy to worry about a little thing like that.
"We had a pleasant journey down: nurses fussing around, and so
on. And what do you think I struck on the ship? 'Another blooming
doctor!' (unconsciously quoting Kipling).
"He was so pleased with my quick recovery that he brought an
assistant to look at me. They seemed quite dazed about it, but they
were busy men: plenty to keep them occupied without troubling about
me, which is just as it should be.
"I got my cap at Southampton, and joined up with my old corps. No
fighting for me.
"Now I've got to send in my papers. But I've not come 12,000 miles
for a fight with the Germans to go home without firing a shot. I'm
getting a new eye made here in London; I've seen it in the rough and
it's a boshter, the real thing. They know how to make them here.
"And I'm going to have it riveted in, and soldered down and fastened
in its place with concrete; then I'm going to enlist with Kitchener's
boys. If they find me out, they can only jug me. Do you think they
would?"
* * * * *
I could not tell him. It is more than likely. A strong man with a
glass eye, who insists on fighting the enemy at a time like this, is
apt to be considered a danger in this country. Especially when he has
an undetectable glass eye.
THE AUSTRALASIAN SOLDIER
CHAPTER XXIII
THE AUSTRALASIAN SOLDIER
And Southern Nation, and Southern State aroused from their dream
of ease,
Shall write in the book of Eternal Fate their stormy histories.
"The Australasians are possibly the finest troops in the world."
The considered judgment of an observer at the Dardanelles, Commander
Josiah Wedgwood, M.P., deliberately pronounced for publication in the
Press, caught the attention of many readers of newspapers in this
country. Cabled out to the Southern Hemisphere, it was reproduced in
every newspaper in Australia and New Zealand, where a thrill of pride
and gratitude vibrated from end to end of the country, radiating back
to the most remote township at the very Back of Beyond.
This was generous appreciation indeed, and accepted in the same
spirit of generosity in which it was tendered. The vow, "Our last
shilling and our last man," with which Australasia had solemnly
entered upon the Great War was as solemnly renewed. The Southern
Britons quivered with comprehensible pride at the generous and timely
praise; it was more than they would have claimed--much more--but it
carried a message of consolation to many a stricken home ten thousand
miles away from the blood-stained battlefields of Europe. "Good
soldiers, none better!" Then they have not died for nothing if they
have merited that epitaph from the Motherland.
[Illustration: A New South Wales Battalion, ready for the Front.]
Nature, as well as the deliberate plan of the Australasians
themselves, has ensured that an army of Australasians must
necessarily compose a very fine fighting force. It may be that the
qualifications of the soldier of the future shall consist of an
incredible callousness of heart, and an extended knowledge of all the
detestable forms that can be assumed by the most hideous of human
crimes. But the qualifications of a warrior have not yet been so far
modified by the Great War that he has been converted into a poisoner.
It is still assumed that he is a man who risks his life in the fair
fight he wages with fair-minded men, whom unfortunate circumstances
have made his foes for the time being. Coolness and resource in
danger, magnanimity in the glory of victory, and stoutheartedness
in the first abashment of defeat may still be called the soldier's
virtues; and the oldest excuse for war, that the soldier kills
without murder in his heart, can still be pleaded by the Briton who
takes up arms in defence of his country.
Soldiering of this sort has always been an instinct with the Southern
Briton. The individual citizen there is under no misapprehension
about the preparedness of his country for war; he looks around
and sees for himself. To desire to retain a great continent for
ever for the exclusive use of the white races is a privilege
involving heavy responsibilities. There is an obvious danger in
excluding one's neighbours because they do not conform to the high
ideals of civilization adopted by the Briton. Very deliberately
the Australasian has adopted this provocative attitude toward his
coloured neighbours, who far outnumber him, though possessing only
very restricted areas of territory for their habitation, as compared
with the spacious elbow room which the Australasian reserves for
himself.
From his early boyhood the young Australasian is made familiar with
the possibility of taking up arms in self-defence. Whatever may be
thought of the measures he takes for the development of his holding,
in proof of his title to it, there can be no difference of opinion
as to his readiness to fight for his spacious heritage. He knows
what such a war would mean to his country, with its long stretches
of undefended coastline, and the sparse population of the country
behind them. These coasts are so obviously vulnerable spots that only
a purblind fool could ignore their terrible significance. And the
Australasian is certainly no fool.
There are other circumstances, too, in his daily life that may be
partly responsible for his curious readiness to take off his coat and
fight. The uncertainty of his surroundings may be responsible for his
belief that life is one long fight with circumstance. He goes forth
to his daily occupation with the light of battle in his eye; there
is something pathetically cynical in his creed that it is necessary
to fight for what he gets, even after he has fairly earned it by
more peaceful means. He gives his admiration to the man he calls
a "battler," and reserves a contemptuous surprise for the man who
expects to get anything at all without fighting for it.
Wherever he comes into contact with Nature, the Australasian finds
justification for his idea that life is a long struggle against
adverse conditions, a struggle which must only be relinquished
at the merciful call of Death itself. Considering the fewness of
his numbers, he is engaged in the most terrific task that engages
any of the nations of the world. He is developing a vast unknown
continent, and contending with conditions that are most curiously
fickle. The unconsidered circumstances of one year become the
determining factors of the next, and that by some whimsical no-law
that baffles all intelligent prevision. In another century he may
have mastered some of the tricks that climate and environment, to
mention but two of his ever-present problems, are playing with his
means of livelihood; for the present they make his existence one long
uncertain struggle.
For instance, a bag of seed wheat brought from another district
may contain a few seeds of a harmless weed, known for many years
to be innocent; not worth worrying about one way or the other. The
transfer to new conditions of soil and atmosphere suddenly transforms
this inoffensive plant into a vegetable pest, that climbs over all
saner growths and chokes them out of existence with the ineradicable
monstrosity of its new functions. Fertile farms are rendered useless,
and the product of the work of whole lifetimes negatived by such
malevolent miracles; but they give the Australasian the fighting
spirit. Two or three men will go out and face a roaring bush fire
with a two-mile front, in the apparently hopeless task of holding it
in check till further assistance can be procured. Drought, flood and
pestilence are fought in the same uncompromising way, for the race
has the instinct of grim battle implanted deep down in its nature.
The Australasian knows there is always something to contend with; he
knows it is no use to expect a soft time; he must fight.
So he becomes resourceful, inventive, open to suggestion. He is
certain there is a counter to every blow delivered by Fate, if one
could but discover it. To expect to fight, to realize that there
is always a chance to win, but a reasonable expectation of defeat,
to seek expedients without being discouraged by failure; all these
things make good training for soldiering. They are all part of the
daily life of the Australasian, even of the Australasian of the
cities. Disaster, sudden and swift; change, inexorable and sweeping;
disappointment, bitter and undeserved; he recognizes them all as
everyday factors in his existence. The fighting spirit cannot be held
long in abeyance if they are to be countered and overcome.
Then the Australasian has the fighting equipment. He is superbly
healthy, in spite of his leanness and the drawn look due to the
lines that life bites into the faces of even the young men. These
men of the sun-dried plains and the rocky ranges look upon illness
as something unnatural, something to be ashamed of and concealed;
they seem almost to have the instinct that prompts the sick animal to
hide from its fellows, and sometimes impels the hale beasts to slay
the sick one for the reason that illness is unnatural, dangerous,
and an offence. Australasia has the lowest death-rate of the world,
a significant fact in the health record of a nation. A nation of
athletes! Swift runners, fast swimmers, tall lean men whose movements
are made with incredible and deceptive swiftness, inured to the
saddle and to long marches under a tropical sun. Compare a regiment
of them with a regiment of home-bred Britons, and the advantage in
smartness of appearance would lie with the latter. The Australasian
is inclined to be loose-jointed and slabby; they use the word "lanky"
themselves. They are inclined to economy of physical effort, to walk
with a slouch and a swing. Do not be misled by the lack of "snap" in
their movements; it is deceptive.
Enterprise and daring are theirs by heredity. They have descended
from a race of adventurers. Their immediate forbears were those whom
the love of adventure drew to new and little known countries, who
were not content to rust out in quiet English villages, to economize
for a lifetime on oatmeal and potatoes in a Scottish croft, or to die
of rheumatism on the edge of an Irish bog. They married brave girls,
and crossed the long oceans to become pioneers of the newer races,
transmitting their health and love of adventure to a whole nation.
The Australasians have been accustomed to the weapons of the soldier
all their lives; they are part of the daily life of many of them. The
rifle and the entrenching tool pass into accustomed hands, which know
just how to make the best use of them. Their far-sighted eyes detect
little signs of the country through which they pass; their trained
minds, versed in all the lore of the country-side, draw the just
conclusions. All the work of the camp comes naturally and easily to
their hands; many of them are practised guides and scouts. They find
the shortest and best way from one place to another by an uncanny
kind of instinct; they select the best paths by some natural process
that cannot be explained.
When the Australasians were first submitted to the practical test of
campaigning to prove their worth in actual warfare, they were held
by experts to have failed in one particular, due to their lack of
special training. One requisite of the modern soldier was wanting
in their composition; they were deficient in discipline. They
insisted on ignoring many of the formalities in behaviour exacted
from the trained soldier; they protested that they could not see
the necessity for them. It would have been easier to underestimate
this disadvantage than to correct it, had the Australasians adhered
to their original schemes of national defence. But before a second
time of testing had come round, they had made differences of a
vital kind in their military system, and in the change the defect in
training had been remedied.
[Illustration: The Last March through Sydney Streets.]
With the introduction of national service in Australasia, provision
was also made for the local production of the implements and
munitions of warfare, and for military equipment. Their local supply
of the raw material for such purposes is unequalled in the world,
and thus it came that the Australian forces in the Great War were
equipped in a style of serviceable comfort that was the admiration
of all who examined it. In short, the Australasian forces who were
sent to participate in the Great War were first-class material,
well-trained and excellently found, a body of men of whom it was
reasonable to expect fine deeds should the chance ever come their way.
The other factors to be taken into consideration are important ones.
The first was their fine youthful pride in the opportunity of serving
side by side with the soldiers of the Mother Country, and of the
proud European nations allied to her. There will always be generous
rivalry between the troops of two great nations fighting side by side
in a just cause. But the spirit in which the Australasians went out
to the service of the Mother Empire goes deeper and further still. It
holds nothing questioning or calculated, it is the conduct of men who
hail as a proud privilege the opportunity of laying down their lives
for the underlying principles on which the structure of the British
Empire is reared. The danger note had only to be sounded and these
men hastened to record their eagerness to serve; more, they well knew
why they were so keen. With them duty and inclination walked hand in
hand.
Finally, the people of Australasia are well assured of the justice of
the cause for which they fight. Nowhere was more interest displayed
in the speeches that explained the causes to which the war is due,
nowhere is there a public better informed of the efforts made to
preserve peace, and of the deliberate flouting of them by Germany.
Small nations themselves, the Southern Britons fully comprehend the
danger to the small nations of Europe from the grasping aggression
of their strong unscrupulous neighbours. They claim as part of their
heritage those pages of British history which tell how gloriously
Great Britain has espoused the cause of the weak in the past. There
is no quarrel in which the men of Australasia would more gladly
take up arms with the Mother Country than one for the innocent
weak against the guilty strong. And such a quarrel, they are well
persuaded, is the root cause of the Great War in which they are now
fighting.
FILLING THE GAPS
CHAPTER XXIV
FILLING THE GAPS
From Blackboy to Mena, from Mena to where
They drew the first blood with the bayonet,
They hoisted the heathen foe out of his lair
Who'd the Germanized courage to stay in it.
From Suez they scattered the truculent Turk,
To far Teheran and to Tripoli;
And at last they beheld British Jackies at work
On the gun-bristled hills of Gallipoli:
On the gun-bristled hills of Gallipoli,
A minute of wading in bullet-splashed waves,
The Cooees of Motherland thrilling 'em.
But those minutes cut holes in that brown line of braves
And--What about filling 'em?
So wrote one of Australia's bards when the first news of the battle
of Brighton Beach reached the Commonwealth. The practical patriotism
of Australia at once grasped the fact that there must be wide gaps
in the ranks, and that the best reward the Commonwealth could make
to those who had upheld the honour of Australasia so nobly was to
support them with all the additional men and money required for the
completion of the task so nobly begun.
It has already been stated that the original Expeditionary Force
from Australasia totalled 28,000 men in all; but even before they
had left Southern waters, arrangements for further contingents were
well advanced. As a matter of fact, the second contingent, which
was 10,000 strong, had arrived in Egypt in time to take part in the
training at Mena, and was part of the landing force of April. With
the New Zealanders the infantry of this contingent served under
General Sir A. J. Godley as the 4th Brigade, and reference has
already been made to their gallant defence of the central position at
the battle of Quinn's Post, where Sanders Pasha led the Turks to an
irretrievable disaster.
Their General expressed his personal opinion of the services of the
gallant 4th at Anzac on June 2, when he gathered the men together and
delivered to them the following inspiriting address:--
[Illustration: General Sir A. J. Godley, commanding the New
Zealanders and the 4th Brigade, Australian Infantry.]
"Colonel Monash, officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the
Fourth Australian Infantry Brigade:--I have come here to-day to tell
you all with what great pride and satisfaction I have watched your
performances for the past five weeks, and to tell you also that not
only your comrades in this division, but also those of the whole
Australasian Army Corps, have looked on with the greatest admiration
at your gallant doings, from the moment that you landed in the
Gallipoli Peninsula. You have been for five weeks continuously in
the front trenches, fighting particularly hard the whole of that
time. Never have troops been subjected to such heavy shell and rifle
fire, not to speak of bombs and hand grenades; you have lived and
fought in a din and turmoil which would have sorely tried most men.
You began your fighting immediately on landing, pitchforked, I might
say, into the middle of the battle, with the whole brigade scattered
in small fragments in different parts of the firing line, as the
several units landed. You were in the firing line continuously for
seven days with nothing but what you carried on you. It took days of
hard work for the brigadier and his staff to collect the battalions
together and to consolidate the section of defence allotted to
this brigade. During this time many deeds of heroism, many acts of
gallantry were performed, which will remain unknown and will go
unrewarded, and many of your comrades were killed and wounded. Again,
on May 2 and 3, this brigade undertook a sortie from its lines which
was very far-reaching in its results, and which shattered the enemy's
plans for a combined assault most effectually. Again, on May 9, this
brigade made another highly successful sortie, and only a few days
ago, during the greater part of May 18 and 19, you bore the brunt of
the very severe Turkish attack by which the enemy hoped to drive this
army corps into the sea.
"Yours is a fine record, and one of which you yourselves, and
the whole of the people of Australia, have the fullest reason to
be proud. You have made, and are making, the military history of
Australia--a history equal to that of any other brigade or body of
troops in the Empire, or in the world--and you have performed deeds,
and achieved successes, of which the Commonwealth will surely be
proud. Pope's Hill position is named after the gallant commander
of the 16th Battalion, which held it so long against such odds;
Courtney's Post will for ever be associated with the 14th Battalion,
which has defended it against all attacks for the whole period; the
most difficult post of all--Quinn's Post, named after Major Quinn,
who bravely died at this post in the service of his country, and who,
I am sure, would have preferred no more glorious death--this post
will be for ever associated with the name of Lieut.-Colonel Cannon,
and the 15th Battalion. Nor will be forgotten the gallant behaviour
of the 13th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Burnage, who, among many
other fine performances, held on for a night and a day in a difficult
advanced position, which they had stormed, and from which they did
not withdraw until ordered to do so in view of the subsequent course
of the operations.
"Among so many whose names are worthy of record and distinction, it
has been very hard to single out individuals, but as commander of
this division, I have had the honour of sending on the names of some
twenty officers and men, from that of your brigadier downwards, for
special and honourable mention in despatches for most meritorious
service and conspicuous gallantry.
"It has pleased his Majesty the King to confer upon this brigade
eleven honours, comprising two Distinguished Service Orders, two
Military Crosses, and seven Distinguished Conduct medals. These
rewards, earned between the landing of the brigade on April 25 and
May 5, are surely a rare and enviable distinction.
"On behalf of the Imperial Government, because of the great services
you have rendered to the glory of the Empire--greater services than
you probably yourselves realize--I thank you, Colonel Monash, your
staff, your commanding officers, and all your personnel from the
highest to the lowest, for the work you have done during the past
five weeks."
This second contingent, which distinguished itself so remarkably from
the time of its landing, was followed by yet a third, also of 10,000
men, led by Colonels Spencer Browne, C.B., V.D.; W. Holmes, D.S.O.,
V.D.; and Linton. They were of physique equal in every respect to
their forerunners, and may be trusted to render an equally good
account of themselves.
These supplementary contingents are to be regarded as additions to
the first Expeditionary force, for the Australian method of filling
the gaps is to send monthly reinforcements, sufficient to replace
all men lost in battle. The original estimate was for 3,000 a month,
but when the Australian Government grasped the serious nature of the
operations in which their men were engaged, and the extent of the
casualty lists, they increased this number to 4,000 monthly. These
steps were taken before the full accounts of the Gallipoli fighting
had reached Australia; they provided merely for what was thought a
serious operation bearing a prospect of success at no remote date in
the future.
But the full grandeur of Australian patriotism was only to be
realized when it was gathered that the whole Turkish army was
mustered in defence of the Straits of the Dardanelles, and that
Australasia was called upon to bear a very considerable share of a
separate war, waged against the full strength of a desperate warrior
nation. Then Australasia became one vast recruiting ground; and
military enthusiasm reached a pitch which has not yet been realized
in the Mother Country.
It would be a salutary lesson to that section of the London Press
which persisted in a sour pessimistic view of the whole of the
Dardanelles adventure to be made to reprint a few columns of the sane
but ardent patriotism with which the Australians were spurred by
their worthy Press to shoulder the load apportioned to them. There
were none of those hints of possible failure which so appalled the
unsophisticated Briton during the summer months of 1915. A nation of
5,000,000 people that prepares to put 250,000 men down on the spot,
and back them with its last shilling, cherishes no such unworthy
doubts. A more splendid answer to croakers than that given by
Australasia could hardly have been devised.
Perhaps, though, the spirit of calm and unshaken resignation
with which Australia and New Zealand accepted the tidings of the
evacuation of Anzac was even a better answer still. The assurances
of the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth and the Dominion that the
reverse would but nerve those countries to still greater effort rang
through the Empire like a clarion call. Australia decided to increase
its quota of 250,000 men to 300,000, and New Zealand made a similar
increase, in proportion to population. And throughout the width and
breadth of those great Dominions went the call for more men still.
Only cabled accounts of that wave of recruiting energy, which
converted Australia into a great armed camp, have yet reached this
country. But they make the heart swell with pride at the indomitable
courage with which the Southern Nations are preparing to tackle the
problem of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
The cost was laid before Parliament and, after consideration,
approved without question. An expenditure of £40,000,000 was faced
without a murmur. "In three months' time," said a responsible
minister, "Australia would be paying more per head for the war than
the people in England." The statement was received with cheers.
The suggestion of a war tax met with no opposition in the House of
Parliament; nor from the mass of the Australian people. The money is
to be found without any grumbling.
As for the men, they sprang to the call. The State of Victoria showed
the way with a great recruiting campaign, with the avowed object of
getting a thousand men per day. At the end of a fortnight the record
was 18,970 applications, of which 13,810 were accepted. On the same
scale of recruiting, the United Kingdom would yield nearly 500,000
soldiers in a fortnight. The figures, in proportion to population,
seem almost incredible, but they are accurate.
The Mother State of New South Wales followed with a similar campaign.
One city of less than 100,000 people--the city of Newcastle--provided
363 applicants in one day. On the same lines recruiting was organized
all over Australia; as these words are written it is going on with
such enthusiasm that there can be no doubt of the result. The farmers
and stock-raisers were facing the best season the country had ever
seen. They left their bumper harvest to ripen and be gathered by the
women and boys; it is for them to see this business through "on the
gun-bristled hills of Gallipoli."
The spirit of Australia can best be gauged by reading an extract
from a letter written to the Australian wounded by a young lady who
is a teacher at the High School in Ballarat, and which was cabled
all over the world, since it echoes truly the pride of Australia in
its heroes, and the determination of the Commonwealth that all shall
be worthy of their devotion and grand patriotism. The letter was
received at the hospital at Malta, and runs as follows:--
"_May 12._
"DEAR AUSTRALIAN BOYS,--Every Australian woman's heart this
week is thrilling with pride, with exultation, and while her
eyes fill with tears she springs up as I did when the story in
Saturday's _Argus_ was finished and says, 'Thank God, I am an
Australian.' Boys, you have honoured our land; you, the novices,
the untrained, the untaught in war's grim school, have done the
deeds of veterans. Oh, how we honour you; how we glory in your
matchless bravery, in your yet more wonderful fortitude, which
the war correspondent says was shown so marvellously as your
boatloads of wounded cheered and waved amid their pain as you
were rowed back to the vessels!
"What gave you the courage for that heroic dash to the ridge,
boys? British grit, Australians' nerve and determination to do
or die, a bit of the primeval man's love of a big fight against
heavy odds. God's help, too, surely.
"Dear boys, I'm sure you will feel a little rewarded for your
deeds of prowess if you know how the whole Commonwealth, nay, the
whole Empire, is stirred by them. Every Sunday now we are singing
the following lines after 'God save the King' in church and
Sunday school. They appeared in the _Argus Extraordinary_ with
the first Honour Roll in it:
God save our splendid men!
Send them safe home again!
Keep them victorious,
Patient and chivalrous,
They are so dear to us:
God save our men.
"What can I say further? With God the ultimate issue rests.
Good-night, boys. God have you living or dying in His keeping.
If any one of you would like to send me a pencilled note or card
I'll answer it to him by return.--Your countrywoman,
"JEANIE DOBSON."
[Illustration: Farewell to the Troops in Melbourne.]
That Australian purses were opened with Australian hearts is
proved by the remarkable total of gifts in money and kind made by
Australia to various funds on behalf of sufferers by the war. In
the first ten months the Commonwealth contributed in cash the sum
of £2,329,259 to the various funds arising out of the war, apart
from immense gifts in kind, the value of which is not estimatable.
The State contributions are totalled as follows:--New South Wales,
£980,889; Victoria, £850,000; Queensland, £200,825; South Australia,
£127,540; Tasmania, £36,750; and Western Australia, £133,255. Total,
£2,329,259.
The Australian care for the wounded is the subject of a testimony
from Sir Frederick Treves, which may be included here to show the
appreciation with which this care has been met by the most eminent
surgeon in the Empire:--
"The generosity with which Australia has provided motor ambulances
for the whole country, and Red Cross stores for every one, British or
French, who has been in want of the same, is beyond all words. I only
hope that the people of Australia will come to know of the admirable
manner in which their wounded have been cared for, and of the noble
and generous work which that great colony has done under the banner
of the Red Cross."
New Zealand is no whit behind Australia; indeed, in proportion to
population, the Dominion supplied more men during the first ten
months of the war than even the Commonwealth. The troops actually
sent on active service by this community of a little more than a
million people were:--
First Samoan Force 2,000
Main Body 8,000
First Reinforcements 800
Second Reinforcements 2,000
Third Reinforcements 1,800
Samoan Relief Force 500
Fourth Reinforcements 2,200
Fifth Reinforcements 2,000
Sixth Reinforcements 2,000
Extra Force 2,500
Seventh Reinforcements 2,000
------
Total in 10 months 25,800
Throughout this period the Dominion held a valuable reserve in hand,
for the minimum age had been kept at twenty years. This excluded a
fine body of young men between the age of eighteen and twenty, all
of them well trained under the compulsory system; as grand a body of
young soldiers as the world can show. Their number is estimated at
22,000, and over 90 per cent. of them have volunteered for service
abroad. At the time of writing the question of lowering the age limit
to eighteen was being considered in New Zealand, though the number of
recruits of the standard age was still so satisfactory that the step
was not necessary. New Zealand is preparing, like Australia, to
send out five per cent. of its whole population to fight the battles
of the Empire abroad; that is a force of 50,000 men. The whole number
of men of military age in the Dominion is less than 200,000.
[Illustration: The Canterbury Section of the New Zealand
Expeditionary Force.]
Those who remain for the defence of the Southern nation are now busy
in preparing munitions for the Great War. The factories of the young
nations have already been converted into arsenals under the control
of Munitions Boards, and hosts of volunteers are working long hours
to supply the men of Australasia with every requisite for victory.
Lastly, Australasia has not forgotten that the duty of providing the
Empire's food is one of the most important within her province. The
year of the outbreak of war saw her producing industries hampered by
a disastrous drought, so that the harvest failed and less than twenty
per cent of the anticipated wheat supply was garnered. The year 1915
saw quite a different state of affairs; bountiful rains prepared the
way for huge crops, and the farmers had sown lavishly, so that full
advantage might be taken of this favourable state of affairs.
The wheat crop of 1915-16 nearly doubled the previous record for
an Australian harvest. It was garnered by boys and old men and
women. Over 200,000 tons of this precious wheat was placed at the
disposal of the Allied nations, its freighting and sale being made
a national affair. Thus Australia was able to supply 200,000 tons
of wheat as one contribution to the fighting forces of the Allies,
and was a price as obtained never before approached in the history
of Australian agriculture, the Commonwealth was the better able to
bear the burden of warfare the Australians had so generously taken on
themselves.
Thus Australasia keeps a watchful eye on the gaps wherever they
occur, and sets about filling them with a single-minded devotion to
the great object which has obliterated all other consideration in
the minds of those young nations of the peaceful lands beneath the
Southern Cross.
THE ARMIES OF AUSTRALASIA
CHAPTER XXV
THE ARMIES OF AUSTRALASIA
Until the year 1870, the Imperial Government maintained a small body
of troops in Australia for the defence of the country. They existed
for two purposes: the chief one being to protect the country from
risings of the convicts. The other purpose was to assist in repelling
any foreign invasion, for they formed the garrisons of the rather
primitive forts which protected some of the Australian harbours. From
time to time local defence bodies were formed, when the troubles
of the Mother Country seemed to bring a foreign invasion among the
actual possibilities of Australian history. As soon as the trouble,
whatever it might be, had blown over, these defence organizations
would die a natural death, to be revived when fresh clouds appeared
upon the horizon.
The withdrawal of the Imperial troops in 1870 forced each Australian
state to initiate measures for defence, and caused the establishment
of a small professional army in each of the six separate states,
that were later federated into the Commonwealth of Australia.
These very small groups of soldiers were designed to form a nucleus
for a citizen defence force. This was purely voluntary, the men
of Australia drilling and training without any payment; and the
Governments finding uniform and weapons, and allowing a fairly large
supply of ammunition for practice, at a very cheap rate.
In 1880 a militia system was substituted for the volunteer system,
and a yearly payment of something like £12 for each volunteer
soldier was arranged. At the same time an admirable cadet system
was established, and the schoolboys of Australia entered into the
business of drilling, training and shooting with an enthusiasm that
did much to keep the ranks of the militia full, as they grew up. The
smaller country settlements also established rifle clubs, which had a
remarkably large membership. A little drill was combined with a great
deal of shooting under service conditions, and to the rifle clubs
Australia owes the possession of a very large number of sharpshooters
that certainly have no superiors in the world.
The cadets attracted the notice of King George when, as Duke of York,
he made his great Empire tour in 1900. They took part in a remarkable
review of defence forces held on the famous Flemington racecourse;
and Mr. E. F. Knight, one of the London journalists who accompanied
the King on that tour, wrote of them in the following terms:--
"The first to pass the saluting base were the cadets, who to the
stirring strains of the British Grenadiers marched by with a fine
swing and preserved an excellent alignment. They presented the
appearance of very tough young soldiers, and they exhibited no
fatigue after a very trying day, in the course of which they had been
standing for hours with soaked clothes in the heavy rain. They looked
business-like in their khaki uniforms and felt hats.
"During the march past I was in a pavilion reserved chiefly for
British and foreign naval officers. The German and American officers
were much struck with the physique and soldierly qualities of the
Australian troops, but they spoke with unreserved admiration when
they saw these cadets."
The cadet system was elaborated, between the years 1909 and 1911,
into a system of compulsory military training based on a scheme drawn
up by Lord Kitchener himself, followed by a report on Australian
defences made by Sir Ian Hamilton, the General who is now in
supreme charge of the Australasian forces at the Dardanelles. When
the new scheme came into force, the numbers of the land forces of
the Commonwealth were nearly 110,000 men and boys; the figures
comprising 2,000 permanent troops, nearly 22,000 militia, over
55,000 members of rifle clubs, and 28,000 cadets.
At the time the new compulsory system came into force, the number of
males in Australia was--
Between 12 and 18 (of cadet age) 260,000
Between 18 and 26 (of citizen soldier age) 366,000
Between 26 and 35 330,000
Between 35 and 60 614,000
For compulsory training it was enacted that the citizens of cadet and
military age should be divided into four classes as under:--
Junior Cadets, from 12 to 14.
Senior Cadets, from 14 to 18.
Citizen soldiers, from 18 to 25.
" " 25 to 26.
The prescribed training was: (_a_) For junior cadets, 120 hours
yearly. (_b_) For senior cadets, 4 whole-day drills, 12 half-day
drills, and 24 night drills yearly. (_c_) For citizen soldiers, 16
whole-day drills, or their equivalent, of which not less than eight
should be in camps of continuous training.
The scheme came into operation at the beginning of 1911, when the
new cadets, to the number of over 120,000, were enrolled. At the
same time 200 non-commissioned officers, as a training force for
the new army, went into camp for a six months course of instruction.
From July 1 the new system of cadet training began, 20,000 of the
boys, of the age of eighteen, going into training as the first year's
crop of recruits. Every year afterwards this number, approximately,
of trained senior cadets was added to the citizen army in training,
while the number of cadets remained about 120,000; some 20,000 junior
cadets at the age of twelve reinforcing the cadets as each draft of
eighteen-year-old cadets became citizen soldiers.
It will be seen that the outbreak of the war in 1914 found the
Australian scheme still incomplete, since the number of citizen
soldiers in training was approximately only 80,000, even including
the 20,000 cadets of that year, who had just been drafted into the
citizen army.
Australia had also arranged for the training of its own young
officers, who in time should develop into Area Officers under the
compulsory services scheme, which provides for the division of
the Commonwealth into over 200 military Areas, with an officer in
charge of each. The establishment of a military college at Duntroon,
near the new Australian Federal capital city of Canberra, had made
excellent progress when war came.
The Duntroon establishment was an efficient rather than a showy
establishment; its modest wooden bungalows, in which the officers
were quartered, contrasting strangely with the elaborate
arrangements at similar establishments such as Sandhurst or West
Point. But the teaching was remarkably thorough for such a young
institution. The democratic tendencies of Australia are illustrated
by the fact that tuition at Duntroon is absolutely free, the parents
of the young officer being not even asked to supply him with pocket
money, since an allowance of 5_s._ per week is made by the Government
to each cadet in training. The course of instruction is one of
four years' training, and necessitates the daily application of
six hours to instruction, and two hours to military exercises. A
vacation of two months is observed at Christmas time, the height of
the Australian summer, and there are frequent camps for practical
instruction in all branches of field work.
Cadets are required to make their own beds, clean their own boots,
and keep their kit in order. Special emphasis is laid upon the value
of character, and any cadet, however able in acquiring knowledge
or brilliant in physical exercises, must, if he lacks the power of
self-discipline, be removed as unfit to become an officer who has to
control others. The College was opened in June, 1911, with forty-one
cadets, and has since been employed by the New Zealand Government
for the training of its young officers, a step in co-operation which
is likely to show the way to still closer relations between the
Dominion and the Commonwealth in many matters relating to defence.
The Commandant of the College was the late General Bridges,
whose death in action at Gaba Tepe is so universally mourned by
Australians. Writing of him and the College in the _Sydney Morning
Herald_, V. J. M. says:--
"Duntroon is his masterpiece. To have left it as he did, after
a bare four years, represents the greatest educational feat yet
accomplished in Australia. Before attempting it he studied the
greatest colleges in Europe and America--Sandhurst, Woolwich, West
Point, Kingston, Saint-Cyr, L'Ecole Polytechnique, L'Ecole Militaire,
die Grosslichterfelder Kadettenanstalt--all were visited and
carefully investigated by him. His endeavour was to incorporate, so
far as local conditions would allow, the best of each in Duntroon.
How far he has succeeded is well known. In the opinion of Viscount
Bryce, Sir Ian Hamilton, Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, and others,
it stands out one of the most efficient military schools--some
say the most efficient--in the world. Four years ago there were a
station homestead and a rolling sweep of lonely country. What a
strong driving force must have been behind it all. The crisis found
Duntroon ready. Already seventy-one officers from its class-rooms and
training fields are at the front, of whom some twenty have fallen.
So excellent has been the work of these young soldiers in the desert
camp that, in a recent letter, General Bridges mentioned that General
Birdwood has specially written of them to the King. Australia will
have reason in the troublous years ahead to be thankful that her
great military school was conceived by a man of broad grasp and wide
knowledge. The soldiers of the future will be moulded and the armies
of the future organized by its graduates. He meant it to be, and it
is, a great military university."
The precedent that Australasian soldiers should take part in the
wars of the Mother Country was set in 1883, when the State of New
South Wales sent a contingent of 800 infantry and artillery to the
Soudan. The initiative in this matter was due to Mr. W. B. Dalley,
then Premier of New South Wales. The force, after being reviewed by
Lord Loftus, the State Governor, sailed from Sydney on March 3, 1883,
on the transports _Iberia_ and _Australasian_. The services rendered
by them were comparatively slight; indeed, they were treated by the
Imperial authorities as rather a gratuitous nuisance, intruding where
their presence was not required. But the precedent had been set, and
was followed by all the Dominions Overseas, on the outbreak of the
African war.
Once again the War Office was inclined to regard the Greater Britons
as useless interlopers, and the offer to provide cavalry was met
with the historical cable that in Africa "foot soldiers only" were
required. It is further a matter of history that the authorities
very sensibly revised this estimate as the war progressed, and
were glad of the services of every man who could ride and shoot.
Contingent after contingent was despatched from Australasia, New
Zealand especially providing a wealth of fine soldiers. In proportion
to population, the Dominion supplied more men to fight the Empire's
battle in South Africa than any part of the British realm.
CLEARING THE PACIFIC
CHAPTER XXVI
CLEARING THE PACIFIC
When the war broke out, the ports of Australasia lay within striking
distance of German harbours, where lay a powerful squadron of
armoured and light cruisers. A very real danger to Australasian
shipping and seaports had to be encountered; and the first warlike
steps taken by Australia and New Zealand were expeditions against
Germany's Pacific Colonies.
At that time they were very considerable possessions, about 100,000
square miles in extent. Chief among them was Kaiser Wilhelm's
Land, or, to give it its British appellation, German New Guinea,
contiguous to the Australian possession of Papua, and 70,000 square
miles in area. Next came the Bismarck Archipelago, better known
as New Britain, a group of islands with an area of 20,000 square
miles. Other colonies were German Samoa, and the Caroline, Marshall,
Ladrone, Pelew, and Solomon Islands. In these colonies were
established wireless stations of great strategical importance to
Germany.
The squadron maintained to protect these possessions was a very
modern and powerful one, as Great Britain was to learn to her cost.
It consisted of the armoured cruisers _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_,
and the light fast cruisers _Leipzig_, _Nürnberg_, and _Emden_. The
units of the British navy on the spot were the three old third-class
cruisers _Psyche_, _Pyramus_, and _Philomel_; and upon these New
Zealand, the Dominion most threatened, would have been forced to rely
if Australia had not been provided with a navy of her own.
That navy had made ready for sea at the first sign of a great
European war, and met at an appointed rendezvous off the coast
of Queensland on August 11. One section of it, consisting of
the battle-cruiser _Australia_, the light cruisers _Sydney_ and
_Melbourne_, and the destroyers _Parramatta_, _Yarra_, and _Warrego_,
set off to the Bismarcks in the hope of encountering the German
squadron. The destroyers, under convoy of the _Sydney_, made straight
for Rabaul, the chief German settlement there, although there were no
charts of the harbour, while the big ship and the other light cruiser
kept watch at a distance.
In the darkness of a pitch-black night the destroyers steamed into
the harbour, and captured all the ships in the bay. Right up to the
pier they steamed, and then out again, having effected their purpose
for the time being. They set out from that point to a rendezvous at
Port Moresby, in Australian New Guinea, while the _Sydney_ returned
to Australian waters. The _Australia_ and the _Melbourne_ made for
New Caledonia, where their presence was needed in aid of the Sister
Dominion of New Zealand.
With the greatest secrecy the New Zealand Government had equipped a
force of 1,300 volunteers from the province of Wellington, for an
expedition against German Samoa. They knew the big German warships
were somewhere in the vicinity, but that risk did not deter them. The
men were sent on transports, and convoyed by one of the antiquated
British cruisers; their first port of call was New Caledonia, distant
five days. Fortune favours the brave, and this was a brave little
adventure, if ever there were one such. But they won out all right,
reaching New Caledonia safely, to receive a joyous welcome from the
_Australia_, the _Melbourne_, and the French cruiser _Montcalm_,
which were awaiting them at Noumea.
Their course to Samoa was now a safe one, comparatively speaking,
and they had the satisfaction of lowering the German flag at Apia,
and hoisting the Union Jack in its place, before the war was a month
old. The warships left the Expedition in possession, and steamed
away. A fortnight later the two big German ships were sighted off the
harbour, and the little garrison had a thrilling experience. They
prepared to defend the place against the heavy guns of the Germans,
but it was not necessary. After some delay the Germans, apparently
fearing some trap, steamed off, and were not again seen in the
vicinity.
Samoa fell on August 29, and on September 9 the _Australia_ and the
_Melbourne_ were keeping another rendezvous at Port Moresby. Their
appointment was with the transport _Berrima_, which, escorted by
the cruiser _Sydney_, conveyed to that port an Expedition launched
against the German Colonies in the North Pacific. It consisted of
six companies of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, under Colonel
Holmes, D.S.O., and a battalion of infantry with machine-guns. With
the _Berrima_ were the two Australian submarines AE1 and AE2, both of
which came to an untimely end before the war was nine months old. At
the rendezvous were the destroyers, a transport with 500 Queensland
soldiers, and store ships and other requisites for such an expedition.
[Illustration: The Australian Submarines AE 1 and AE 2, both lost in
the First Year of War.]
The objects of the expedition were two; they meant to occupy Rabaul,
the chief settlement in the Bismarck Archipelago, and to destroy the
German wireless station they knew to be established somewhere in Neu
Pommern, the principal island in the group. The _Australia_, with
the transports, made straight for Rabaul, which capitulated. The
destroyers, under convoy of the _Sydney_, were sent forward to search
for the wireless station. The first landing party marched straight
inland, and soon encountered trouble. A heavy fire was directed
upon them from sharpshooters, who were so well hidden that it was
suspected they were in the trees; and the Australians were forced to
take to the bush. They signalled for help, and also worked through
the dense scrub until they came upon an entrenched position.
The signal for help brought every available man from the destroyers
ashore; a picturesque touch was added to the reinforcement by the
uninvited presence of one of the ship's butchers, who attached
himself to the party in a blue apron, and armed with his cleaver of
office. This relief party was followed by two others, one landing
at Herbertshöhe to execute a flank movement. The first party had
some stiff bush fighting, in which Lieutenant Bowen was wounded, and
three Germans were captured. When the first two forces joined hands,
Lieutenant-Commander Elwell was shot dead; and they were glad to see
the main expeditionary force, with machine-guns, arrive on the scene
of action.
The machine-guns settled the question, and the German commander,
Lieutenant Kempf, at once hoisted the white flag. With some
Australians he proceeded to a second line of trenches, and ordered
the occupants to surrender. A number of them were taken prisoners;
and then resistance broke out, and they all tried to escape. They
were fired upon, and eighteen were shot in the act of running away.
In the end the remainder were content to surrender.
The surrender of the wireless station was negotiated by Lieutenant
Kempf himself, after giving his parole. He cycled alone to the
place, and announced that he had arranged that there should be no
resistance. Three Australian officers followed him and, placing
reliance upon his word, boldly entered the station late at night.
They found it strongly entrenched, but the natives who formed the
majority of the defending force had quite understood Admiral Patey's
threat that he would shell the place unless the flag were hauled
down, and had no relish for such an ordeal. The next afternoon the
British flag was hoisted over the station.
[Illustration: Rear-Admiral Sir George Patey, commanding the
Australian Squadron.]
The next objective was Toma, a town inland whither the German
administrator of the Colony had fled when the warships appeared
before Rabaul. An expedition against this place, with the complement
of a 12-pounder gun, was accordingly arranged. The _Australia_ paved
the way for this expedition by shelling the approaches to the town,
with the result that a deputation was sent out by the Administrator
to meet the force half-way. The column continued its march without
paying any attention to this deputation, and entered Toma the same
day in a dense cloud of tropical rain.
The Administrator sent another messenger to the officer in charge,
promising to repair to Herbertshöhe the next day to negotiate a
surrender. As the French cruiser _Montcalm_ had now arrived the most
sanguine German could not expect any continued resistance, and the
surrender was signed.
Thus on September 13 all resistance had been crushed in the Bismarck
Islands, and the Colony had been reduced by the Australians at a cost
of two officers killed--Captain Pockley and Lieutenant-Commander
Elwell--and three men. One officer, Lieutenant Bowen, and three men
were wounded.
On September 24 the warships put in an appearance at Friedrich
Wilhelmshafen, the chief settlement in German New Guinea, where no
resistance was encountered. That evening the German flag was blotted
out of the Pacific Ocean, the last of the German colonies there
having fallen to the energetic Australian navy.
Two wireless stations established by the Germans, one at Nauru and
the other at Anguar, were seized and destroyed, to the disadvantage
of the German Pacific squadron against which the Australian navy
now directed its operations, taking a prominent part in the driving
movement which finally committed them to the battle of the Falkland
Islands and their destruction by Admiral Sturdee on December 8.
THE YOUNGEST NAVY IN THE WORLD
CHAPTER XXVII
THE YOUNGEST NAVY IN THE WORLD
On the morning when the news of the sinking of the _Emden_ reached
London there was at least one good Briton of that city whose elation
was curiously mingled with puzzlement. He was puzzled to know how
Australia came by a navy; he had seen references to an Australian
navy before, but had always supposed that a misprint had been made
for "Austrian navy."
His wonder is so far excusable that the first ship of that navy
was only launched as recently as 1911, when the battle cruiser
_Australia_ left the stocks in the yards of Messrs. John Brown & Co.,
of Glasgow; and she only arrived in Australia two years later. The
other units of the navy are of even later construction. The existence
of these vessels in Australian waters is a tribute to the enterprise
and foresight of the Commonwealth of Australia. Their history and
performance since the outbreak of the war has utterly confounded the
naval experts of this country, who, if they had had their way, would
not have had such ships in such a place.
For a quarter of a century before the foundation of the Australian
navy, the whole question of naval protection for Australasia had been
one profoundly unsatisfactory, both to the Imperial government and to
the governments of the Southern Nations. Australia and New Zealand
paid a naval subsidy to the Imperial coffers; recently it amounted
to the annual sum of £200,000 from Australia and £40,000 from New
Zealand. In return, the Admiralty maintained a number of obsolete
warcraft in Australian waters, at a cost vastly exceeding the
annual tribute. The Australasians wanted better ships; the Imperial
Government desired a larger subsidy; it was an arrangement that
pleased nobody.
The makeshift fleet in Australasian waters was explained by
postulating the theory that when trouble came, the battle for the
defence of Australasia would be fought in the North Sea, or somewhere
far from the reach of Australasian ports. The experience of the
first twelve months of the war may surely be held to have exploded
that theory. The North Sea fleet did not prevent the _Emden_ from
bombarding Madras, and sinking merchant shipping worth £2,500,000 in
Eastern waters. It would not have prevented the _Scharnhorst_ and
_Gneisenau_ from battering Wellington and Sydney, and destroying
half the ships in Australasian waters. But the theory was the pet
one of all the experts, and it was employed seriously to disturb the
pleasant relations between the Motherland and the Dominions.
For, about the year 1905, the uncontestable fact that the Dominions
were not contributing sufficiently to the naval protection of
the Empire could no longer be evaded. The question was discussed
at Colonial Conferences; it was the subject of bitter newspaper
articles. The Dominions wished to meet some part, at least, of their
great obligations, but not in the way required by the Imperial
Government. Put bluntly, the demand made of them was tribute; they
were to supply money for naval defence, and have no voice in its
expenditure.
Canada took a straightforward course, and withdrew her naval subsidy.
New Zealand, with an admirable spirit, had a Dreadnought built, and
handed it over to the Imperial Government. The battle cruiser _New
Zealand_ has done fine service in the North Sea since the outbreak of
war, but had Australia been as sentimentally generous, Australasia
would certainly have had cause to regret it.
But Australia planned to build a navy of her own; and a scheme for
the construction of the first instalment of warships was drawn up by
Rear-Admiral Sir William Cresswell, now first naval adviser to the
Commonwealth. He came to London in 1906 to support his scheme, and to
his sane and able advocacy of it Australia and the Empire owe a debt
it will be hard to repay. It would be possible to quote some of the
criticism he received here, but it would serve no good end. Suffice
to say, it was couched in the superior vein that proves so irritating
to the Colonial in Great Britain, especially when he knows he is
right.
At the Colonial Conference of 1907, the matter came up for
discussion, and Mr. Deakin and Senator Pearce, who represented
Australia, succeeded in carrying their point. Expert reports were
obtained, the probable cost was reckoned, and bravely faced; and
Australia began to build her own warships. It is an open secret that
she did so with the tacit disapproval of the Admiralty, and in face
of the violent criticism of the experts.
Thus it happened that when war broke out, the Australians were able
to place at the disposal of the Admiralty the following up-to-date
warships in Australasian waters:--
[Illustration: H.M.A.S. "Australia" in Sydney Harbour.]
The battle cruiser _Australia_ of 19,200 tons displacement, in length
555 feet, with an 80 foot beam, and a draught of 26½ feet. Her
armament consists of eight 12-inch guns, sixteen 4-inch guns, and
two torpedo tubes. Of her ship's company of 820 more than half are
Australians. She flies the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir George Patey,
K.C.V.O.
Three light cruisers: the _Sydney_, _Melbourne_, and _Brisbane_,
all of 5,600 tons displacement, and with a speed of 26 knots. (The
_Sydney_ made 27 when steaming to her duel with the _Emden_.) Each
has eight 6-inch guns, four 3-pounders, four machine guns and two
torpedo tubes. The _Sydney_ and _Melbourne_ were built in Great
Britain, but the _Brisbane_ is of local construction.
Six destroyers: the _Parramatta_, _Yarra_, _Torrens_, _Warrego_,
_Swan_, and _Derwent_. All are of the same type; of 700 tons
displacement, 26 knots speed, and carry one 4-inch gun, three
12-pounders and three torpedo tubes.
Two submarines: the AE1 and AE2.
Thus had Australia provided for the defence of her coast, at a
cost which excited strenuous criticism in the Commonwealth itself.
Until war broke out--then every penny of the money was saved by
the 12-inch guns of the _Australia_. "No," wrote an officer of the
_Scharnhorst_, shortly before Admiral Sturdee had made an end of that
armoured cruiser, "we did not raid any Australian port, nor sink any
Australasian shipping. And why? Because we knew our 8·2-inch guns
were no match for the armament of the _Australia_."
It is interesting to remember that at the launching of the
_Sydney_ Captain R. Muirhead Collins, C.M.G., the Secretary to the
Commonwealth Office in London, made a speech almost prophetic in its
prescience of the glory with which that vessel was to cover herself
in her first ocean combat.
"From time immemorial," he said, "much significance and ceremony had
been attached to the launch and christening of a ship. Apart from the
mystery of the sea, and the fact that those who went down to the sea
in ships saw the wonders of the deep, the act of placing a vessel in
the water appeals to us all strongly, because ships are freighted,
not only with human lives, but with human interests.
"How much stronger is the appeal to our emotions when ships, those
great engines of war, carried with them the future of the Empire
and of the English-speaking races under the flag? (Applause.) To
the launch, therefore, of this cruiser, as in the case of the
vessels which had preceded her, there was the added significance
that they are freighted with, or carry with them, national and
Imperial aspirations. National aspirations, because they represent
the determination of a young, strong and vigorous community, proud
of their British descent and of the glorious traditions of the sea
which they share, to be no longer satisfied to dwell under the
protection of the Mother's wing, but to take on the responsibilities
of a self-governing community and to support the Mother Country in
the great task of defence of the Empire--(applause)--and Imperial
aspirations, because we see in the unity of the Empire, which
depends on free communication by sea, the guarantee of freedom and
security of peace to all those who dwell within its borders.
"We see in the co-ordination and consolidation of the naval resources
of the Empire the chief means of its preservation, founded as it is
on maritime enterprise and supremacy. Naval defence alone, however,
will not suffice to save the Empire. Co-ordination in military
preparations will also be required, based on the recognition of
the obligation of every citizen to take his share. In this respect
Australia is setting an example in its system of national training.
(Applause.)
"We must go back to the days of ancient Greece for a record of
maritime confederacy. It failed; and the Empire, which under other
conditions it might have safeguarded, was destroyed and its peoples
conquered, because, in the words of a recent writer, the Athenians
neglected to make the outlying States of their Empire living and
active parts instead of mere dependencies on the central government.
These new vessels, which were to form the Australian unit in our
naval forces, were the embodiment of a living and active partnership
in the defence of the Empire. The Navy of Britain had always been
justly the Briton's pride. That pride and that interest should now be
extended to embrace the Navy of the Empire."
It is instructive to contrast the events in Eastern waters, where the
Admiralty, in pursuance of the great theory that the Empire was to
be saved by a battle in the North Sea, had weakened the China fleet
almost in proportion to the strength supplied in Southern waters
on Australian initiative. The operations against Kiao-Chau so far
occupied the British warships that the _Emden_ was able to bombard
Madras, to enter the British port at Singapore and to sink the
warships of our Allies while at anchor under the protection of the
Empire's flag, and to heap insult and damage upon the first sea power
of the world.
New Zealand, but for the Australian fleet, would have been as
defenceless as the East Indies. The Dominion, while thrilled with
a genuine and comprehensible pride at the fine work done elsewhere
by its Dreadnought, was frank in admitting that the practical end
of the argument lay with Australia. Mr. Massey, the Prime Minister,
in a speech of the utmost import to Australasia, declared that the
future policy of the Dominion would be one of co-operation with the
Commonwealth for the naval defence of Australasian shores.
The work of the Australian warships in the reduction of the German
Pacific Colonies has already been detailed. In the first seven weeks
of the war the _Australia_ and the _Melbourne_ covered 12,000 miles.
Not a single British merchant ship was molested in Australasian
waters, while all the German shipping in the locality was gobbled
up in the most summary fashion. Then, their work at home being
completed, the vessels of the Australian fleet set out for wider
adventures.
Some day the manœuvres which led to the destruction of the German
Pacific squadron will be described by an expert, and the world will
know what part the _Australia_ played in bringing about that desired
consummation. A cruise of 48,000 miles, by which the marauders were
swept ever farther East, was the share of the battle cruiser of the
Commonwealth. She burned 5,000 tons of coal and 6,000 tons of oil
fuel, and had the satisfaction of overhauling and sinking a big
German liner, of the Woermann line, which was fitted as a store ship
and laden with all sorts of necessaries for the German warships.
Later she was visible at a British port, where, after an official
inspection, Admiral Patey was complimented on the fact that her guns
were still in better order than those of any vessel of his Majesty's
fleets. She is now serving the Empire many thousands of miles from
her own waters, and when next the _New Zealand_ is heard of, it may
well be that the _Australia_ also will be there.
The _Melbourne_ and the _Sydney_ returned, somewhat unwillingly,
to undertake that convoy work which, incidentally, resulted so
disastrously for the _Emden_. The present outlook promises that
much will still be found for them to do in this direction, for the
passage of Australasian troops through the Indian Ocean has now
been regularized, and the supply is in course of being enormously
increased.
The fate of Submarine AE1 was later shared by AE2, in a bold attempt
to enter the Sea of Marmora, having pierced the Dardanelles as far as
the Narrows. AE2 possessed, it is claimed, the record for a submarine
in distance covered, for her operations during the war extended over
a distance of 30,000 miles. Before misfortune overtook her, she had
rendered excellent service at the Dardanelles, and was the first
submarine to penetrate the Straits and enter the Sea of Marmora. Her
officers, and all her crew save nine, fell into the hands of the
Turks, and are now in Turkish prisons.
Such has been the performance in twelve months of the vessels which
form the nucleus of a fleet which will one day consist of fifty-two
vessels and be manned by 15,000 men. It is intended by Australia that
the warships shall be manned and officered by Australians, and with
that end in view, training establishments for navel cadets and for
sailors have been established in the Commonwealth. The Australian
Naval College is still in its infancy, but it occupies a magnificent
position at Jervis Bay, about eighty miles south of Sydney, on the
coast of New South Wales.
An area of nearly fifteen square miles has been reserved for the
establishment, and modest buildings have already been erected for
the future Australian middies. A fine stream flows into the bay,
and bathing and boating facilities are admirable. The College was
occupied in March, 1915, and a start was made with twenty-four
boys of thirteen years of age, selected from a large number of
applications. The quality of the boys is illustrated by an incident
of the first few months.
One youngster, during a game of cricket, was injured so seriously
by the ball that an operation was immediately necessary. The lad
walked into surgery, and saluted the doctor, who informed him that an
anæsthetic would be necessary. The boy drew himself up proudly. "For
the credit of the service, sir," he said, "I must decline."
This naval college--the only one in the Dominions--will in 1916 have
150 picked lads in training.
The Royal Australian College is open to all classes. In the first
quota of Cadet Midshipmen--it should be noted that in Australia the
English term "Naval Cadet" has a different meaning--more than one
half were pupils of State Schools. The cadets enter the College at
the age of thirteen and from that day all their expenses are borne
by the Commonwealth Government, even to the munificent grant of one
shilling a week in pocket money. In return the boy is required to
remain in the navy for a period of twelve years on attaining the
age of eighteen, that is, on completing a four-year course at the
College. A penalty of £75 for each year's training undergone will
be imposed on parents or guardians who withdraw a cadet midshipman
without the consent of the Australian Naval Board.
Appointments to the College are made by the Minister for Defence,
upon the recommendation of the Naval Board, from such candidates as
are considered suitable by the Selection Committee, and who have
afterwards passed a qualifying examination in educational subjects.
Nominations bearing a certain proportion to the number of midshipmen
required for the College in any particular entry are allotted by the
Governor-General in Council, as nearly as possible in the following
proportions:--New South Wales, 38 per cent.; Victoria, 31 per cent.;
Queensland, 12 per cent.; South Australia, 10 per cent.; Western
Australia, 6 per cent.; Tasmania, 3 per cent.
For the selection of the most promising youths an interviewing
committee, on properly advertised dates, sits at Brisbane, Sydney,
Melbourne, Adelaide, and Hobart; Adelaide doing duty also for Western
Australia, and Brisbane for the Northern Territory and Papua. The
interviewing committee consists of the Captain of the College,
Captain of Training Ship, District Naval Officer, Director of
Education (with consent of the State Government), and a Naval Medical
Officer.
[Illustration: The Governor-General of Australia.]
On a similarly adequate basis, arrangements have been made for the
instruction of sailors on training ships at several of the chief
ports. The quality of the young Australian sailors on the _Australia_
and the _Sydney_ was one of the most satisfactory features of the
fine service rendered by those vessels.
Such, in brief, are the main features of the scheme now in successful
operation for the establishment of an adequate Australian Navy.
What has been written above is written in no sense of useless
recrimination or vainglorious boasting. The Dominions are asking for
a conference with the Imperial authorities to discuss matters of
Empire defence. One of the reasons which impels them to press for
it now, and not hereafter, may be found in a conversation in which
a leading citizen from Overseas voiced an opinion too little heard
in Great Britain, but familiar enough to those who are in touch with
Oversea ideals.
"You shout with rage," he said, "when some big German cruisers
slip across the sea in the night and pump a few shells into a
one-horse town like Scarborough. But when a little ashcan like the
_Emden_ holds up the proudest ports in your wide Empire, and gets
off scot-free with her little 4-inch guns, you chuckle and say her
captain is a fine sport. A conference is wanted to teach some of your
big men a little Empire sense."
Perhaps there is something in that.
THE HEART OF EMPIRE STIRRED
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE HEART OF EMPIRE STIRRED
If Australasia sought reward for the devotion and heroism displayed
in the time of the peril of the whole Empire, other than the
consciousness of duty done ungrudgingly and continuously, that reward
has surely been accorded by the proud Mother Country. From the King
himself down to the humblest of his subjects, Britons have shared
with the Southern nations all the sentiments that have been elicited
by the performance of Australasians in their first great essay at
waging war.
London, the very Heart of the Empire, has been from time to time
profoundly stirred as the news of some exploit by the representatives
of Australasia has been received. It laughed with glee at the
discomfiture of the boasting captain of the _Emden_, and gladly
recognized the maiden prowess of the young Australian fleet. It
thrilled with sympathetic pride for the great charge up the cliff at
Gaba Tepe; and accepted without cavil the generous estimate of one
of the foremost British war correspondents: "It is certainly the
most remarkable climb in the history of war since Wolfe stormed the
heights of Quebec."
Most grateful of all to hundreds of sorrowing hearts in Australasia,
London turned aside from its own countless griefs to mourn with
Australasia the loss of the brave dead from the South. Nothing was
more eloquent of the profound stir at the Heart of the Empire than
that solemn memorial service to the Australasian dead held in St.
Paul's Cathedral on the evening of June 15, 1915. In that sacred
building, where repose the mortal remains of Nelson, Wellington, and
many another great one who died for the Empire that Australasia is
so proud to serve, there gathered an assemblage of mourners come to
pay a spontaneous tribute to the brave young men who had laid down
their lives for a great ideal. The King was represented there; and
the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Bonar Law, himself born in the Dominions
Overseas, attended on behalf of the Government. Great men and noble
women of all shades of opinion thronged in the aisles to pay their
tribute to the heroes dead, but never to be forgotten. And the
citizens of the greatest city of the world were represented by their
Lord Mayor, as by many a humble sympathizer who gained a place in the
thronged building as a mark of loving kindness to mourners so far
away, yet so near to the Empire's heart.
Some hundreds of Australasian soldiers were there--men who had fought
bravely by the side of the dead ones the Empire was mourning, and
had themselves sustained grave wounds in that Empire's defence. The
rays of the setting sun lit their dull khaki as it lit the brilliant
scarlet uniform of the bandsmen of the Grenadier Guards. The hush of
true mourning was on the mighty building, and every sentence of the
impressive sermon preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury could be
heard in the farthest corner.
The Primate, who took for his text St. John xv. 13--"Greater
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends"--said:
"We are met to-night for a definite and a very sacred purpose. Here
at the centre and hub of the Empire's life, we desire to thank God
together for the splendid devotion of our brothers from Australia and
New Zealand, who in the cause whereto we as a people have set our
hand regarded not their lives unto the death. It is as Christians
that we are here to-night, as men and women, that is, who hold
definitely to certain great truths, and are not ashamed to say so. We
are firm in the belief that the bit of life which we spend here--be
it, on man's reckoning, long or short--is not all. This part of it is
of vital moment. It is a great opportunity. It is a high trust. It is
capable of splendid use. But it is quite certainly--as we Christians
view it--not all. It is part of something larger, something with a
nobler range.
"And Christ has to do with all of it, here and hereafter, and He
made it clear that in His eyes it matters vitally how we spend and
use this part of it, how we devote it, how, if need calls, we lay it
down. He spoke of those things to His friends on the night before He
died, when the full moonlight was flooding the upper room, and He
was bidding them farewell. This is only a part, He told them, but
it ought to be a glad and bright part, of the larger life. And its
gladness, its joy, would depend, in each man's case, upon whether
he had learned the greatness of its value as something to be used,
devoted, laid down, if need be, for the sake of other people. That
was the key to His life, His joy; it would be the key to theirs. He
bid them try to understand it so. That, He says, was why He had been
reminding them of what He had come to do. 'These things I have spoken
unto you.' Why? 'That my joy'--the joy of ready sacrifice for others,
the true test of love--'might remain in you, and that your joy might
be full.... Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends.'
"You see, my brothers and sisters, how all that bears upon the
thought which is just now sweeping across and through us as a
people, and which helps to crowd these seats to-night. We want, as
Christians, to say together in St. Paul's this evening that we
honestly, deliberately, believe these fearful perils, these wounded
or stricken bodies of our best and bravest, these saddened hearths
and darkened homes, to be worth while. And if they are 'worth while,'
they are right. The offering, terrible as it is, ought to be made
without reserve for the sake of what is, as we deliberately judge,
the cause of truth and honour, the cause of good faith and ordered
liberty among the peoples of Europe and of the world. It is a duty
grave, inspiring, urgent, which ought to rally us every one.
"I do not pause to ask whether the sacrifice would be worth while
if this life on earth were all. I think it would, but I need not
dwell upon that now. It is as Christians that we meet to-night, and
to a belief in the larger life lying behind and around and beyond
what we see, a Christian, however bewildered he feel about how
it can all work out, is clearly pledged. Most of us, I suppose,
whisper longingly at times, perhaps in hours like this we say out,
almost imperatively, 'We want to know more, a great deal more, about
the nature, even the particulars, of that other life. They are so
difficult to picture in plain words in their relation to what we are
familiar with here, and the more we try to work out the vision the
more bewildered we grow. Is there nothing in the Bible to tell us
plainly how it all will be, or, rather, how it all is?'
"The answer is not difficult. The Bible does not furnish any such
detailed answer to our longing inquiry. It gives us unchallengeably
the sure and certain faith in that greater life. That faith underlies
as a firm basis the whole New Testament. But neither in vision nor
parable is the veil wholly drawn aside. As the old seer said, 'The
secret things belong unto the Lord our God,' and these are among
the secret things. We know little; but what we do know we know for
certain. Remember this. We are loyal to our Lord Christ, Whose life
was the light of men, and Whose words and teaching are our strength
and stay. We believe Him whatever else we doubt.
"Now, take any section, say, any five chapters of the Gospel story,
about what He said and did. Read them anew, trying, as you read, to
destroy or do without the basis and background of that other larger
life, and you will find the account, I do not hesitate to say,
simply unintelligible as words of truth. The belief, the knowledge
as to that larger life underlies and colours the whole, and makes it
literally true to say that if we are Christians, if we are believers
in Him at all, that certitude which He gives us is and must be ours.
Without it you cannot advance a yard in the understanding of what His
Gospel meant. On that last evening He told them He was going away.
But why? 'I go to prepare a place for you ... that where I am there
ye may be also.' That is to say, 'You are to live on and to work on.'
What meaning else for some of the most uplifting and inspiring of
the parables which He had given them? 'Thou hast been faithful over
a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou
into the joy of thy Lord.' What meaning for the story of the rich man
and Lazarus? What meaning for the words of definite and uplifting
promise to the thief upon the cross? 'To-day shalt thou be with Me in
Paradise.' And so we might run on. Brothers, to us Christians it is
not a hope only, it is a sure and certain hope.
"It is well to remember that this is so when in the cloudy and dark
day we are fretting and wondering and seem only to stretch lame hands
and grope. But we perhaps ask: 'Why, why, this absence of some clear
exposition of it all?' Well, what if, to our present faculties, such
knowledge would be literally unconveyable in terms that we could
understand? Many here are familiar with--some perhaps have ere now
quoted--a certain picture-parable which belongs specially to this
Cathedral. Just two centuries ago, the Christian philosopher, George
Berkeley, a singularly clear thinker, was standing, as he tells us,
in St. Paul's Cathedral, where he noticed a little fly crawling
on one of those great pillars. He had been uplifted in thought by
the overwhelming grandeur of symmetry and design in pier and arch
and dome and gallery, and the relation of each part to each and to
the whole. And then he watched the little crawling fly, to whom no
understanding of the whole was possible, who could see nothing of its
harmonies, and to whom, as he puts it, 'nothing could appear but the
small inequalities in the surface of the hewn stone, which in the
view of the insect seemed so many deformed rocks and precipices.'
Here, he thought, is the likeness of each human being as he creeps
along. The sorrow which, like some dreadful precipice, interrupts
our life, may turn out to be nothing but the joining or cement
which binds the portions and sections of the greater life into one
beautiful and harmonious whole. The dark path may be but the curve
which, in the full daylight of a brighter world, will be seen to be
the inevitable span of some majestic arch. 'Now I know in part,' and
what a very little part it is, 'but then shall I know even as also I
am known.'
"Does all that seem poor and vague and cheerless to the young wife
across whose sunny home the dark shadow has fallen, to the mother
who, through all her brave faith, looks out dazed and dry-eyed upon
the shattering of the hopes which had been her daily happiness
and strength? The message is not--or it will not always be--vague
and cheerless if the firm and even glad courage with which a few
months ago she offered willingly what she loved best on earth, be
transmuted now into trustful prayer and into loyal proud thankfulness
for duty nobly done, and into quiet awaiting of the ampler life
beyond, with the answer it must bring in His good time to the
questions of the aching heart. Which of us but has been inspired
already by what Our Father has shown us to be possible--nay, rather
to be actually attained--in the ennobled lives of those whom He 'out
of weakness has made strong.' There is, for we are seeing it every
day, as real a heroism of the stricken home as the heroism of the
shell-swept trench, or of the quivering deck. For that, too, for
those brave women in England, or in the Southern Seas, we are upon
our knees to-night, thanking 'the God of all comfort Who comforteth
us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them
which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are
comforted of God.'
"But in this great gathering to-night we want another note besides
that. We must have the triumph-note for those whose self-sacrifice
has meant so much to their country and to those who honour them. It
has been theirs, in enthusiastic eager self-surrender, to reach what
Christ marks as the highest grade of human love. 'Greater love hath
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'
Gratefully and reverently we remember that heroism now. That is what
brings us here for thanksgiving and for prayer. Among the lives
laid down could be found, as always, bright examples of the young
leadership to which we had looked for upholding among their fellows
the spirit which sets manliness upon the surest basis, the basis of
personal loyalty to Christ. For those lives and for the footprints
which they have left upon the sands of time we give praise to God
to-day.
"But it would be unnatural, untrue, to claim for all who thus gave
their lives in their country's cause, the character of stainless
purity, or of the saintliness which we sing of in our hymns. Some
of them, perhaps many of them, were not 'saints' at all. They were
manly sons of the greatest Empire in the world. They were brave
and buoyant, with plenty of the faults and failures which go so
often with high spirit. They need, as we shall need, forgiveness
and cleansing and new opportunity, and they are in their Father's
keeping, and He knows and cares. Be it theirs--shall we not pray it
with all our hearts?--be it theirs, under His good hand, to pass
onward in the new and larger life from strength to strength.
Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow!
For never shall their aureoled presence lack:
I see them muster in a gleaming row,
With ever-youthful brows that nobler show:
We find in our dull road their shining track;
In every nobler mood
We feel the orient of their spirit glow,
Part of our life's unalterable good.
"Do these words seem too high for what we are remembering? I think
not. This vast war, without parallel in history for the horrible
scale and sweep of its devastating bloodshed, is unparalleled in
other ways as well. The feat of arms which was achieved on the rocky
beach and scrub-grown cliff of the Gallipoli Peninsula in the grey
dawn of St. Mark's Day, April 25, was a feat, we are assured, whose
prowess has never been outshone, has scarcely ever been rivalled, in
military annals. As the open boats, under a hail from hidden guns,
poured out their men in thousands on the beach, below perpendicular
cliffs of tangled scrub, the task of breasting those heights looked,
to many expert eyes, a sheer impossibility. But by the dauntless
gallantry of brave men the impossible feat was accomplished, and the
record of those hours and of the days which followed is now a portion
of our Empire's heritage for ever.
"And who did it? It was not the product of the long discipline of
some veteran corps of soldiers. It was mainly the achievement of men
from sheep-stations in the Australian Bush, or from the fields or
townships of New Zealand, who a few short months ago had no dream
of warfare as, like other civilians, they went about their ordinary
work. But the call rang out, and the response was ready, and the
result is before us all. 'I have never,' says one competent observer
after the battle, 'I have never seen the like of these wounded
Australians in war before. They were happy because they knew they had
been tried for the first time, and had not been found wanting. No
finer feat of arms has been performed during the war than this sudden
landing in the dark, the storming of the heights, and, above all, the
holding on to the position thus won while reinforcements were poured
from the transports.'
"It is high praise, but the witness is true, and those Australians
and New Zealanders are enrolled among the champions whom the Empire,
for generations to come, will delight to honour. One of the best
traits of all is the generous tribute given by each group to the
indomitable valour of the rest. To quote from the private letter of a
young New Zealander: 'The Australians were magnificent, and deserve
every good word that is said of them.' And all unite to praise the
officers, midshipmen, and men who formed the beach parties in that
eventful landing, each boat, we are reminded, 'in charge of a young
midshipman, many of whom have come straight from Dartmouth after only
a couple of terms.'
"But of necessity it was at fearful cost that these gallant deeds
were done, and the great roll of drums under this dome to-night
will reverberate our reverent and grateful sympathy to the Empire's
farthest bound. This memorable act of stoutest service gives
response already to the rallying call of the poet-bishop of Australia:
By all that have died for men,
By Christ who endured the Cross,
Count nothing but honour gain,
Count all that is selfish loss.
Take up with a loyal heart
The burden upon you laid;
Who fights on the side of God
Needs never be afraid.
Be true to the great good land,
And rear 'neath the Southern sun
A race that shall hold its own,
And last till the world be done.[2]
"When in conditions the hardest and the most unpromising, Australia
and New Zealand came successively to the birth a century ago, as a
living part of the British Empire, who would have dared to fashion
in remotest vision the stern, yet romantic, story of 1915? The eager
manhood of the young raw Commonwealth, the product of our own time,
first carried with swift safety across the successive seas, then
disciplined and prepared for action under the shadow of the world-old
Pyramids, and then gaining their first experience of the shock of
the onset within sight and hearing of the plains of Troy--an almost
inconceivable intermingling of the old world and the new. The bare
story is itself a stimulus and a reminder of what the lessons of
history and the trust of Empire mean.
"God give us grace so to bear ourselves as a united people that
we may be building out of this welter of fearful pain and strife
the walls of His greater kingdom upon earth, the kingdom that is
to endure: when the nations of the earth, and not least our own
peoples--Britain and Canada and Australia and New Zealand and South
Africa and India--bring into it, each of them, their honour and their
glory, the distinctive powers and blessings that God has given to
each several one, to make glad the city of our God, the habitation of
the Prince of Peace."
At the conclusion of the Archbishop's sermon the band of the Guards
played the Dead March in "Saul"; the bugles rang out in the "Last
Post," and the mourners reverently left the building. So London paid
its tribute to Australasia's dead.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] _Australia_, by Dr. Gilbert White, Bishop of Carpentaria.
THE SECOND DIVISION
CHAPTER XXIX
THE SECOND DIVISION
The Second Division of the Australian Infantry consisted of the
twelve Battalions of the Third Contingent, numbered from Seventeen
to Twenty-eight. Their passage from Australia to Egypt had been less
eventful than that of the pioneers, and their training in Egypt had
been conducted on the same lines as that of their predecessors. They
landed at Anzac in August and September, and found their portion
in three months of dogged endurance of the most trying methods of
warfare.
The Turks were emboldened by the failure of the great offensive
movement, and proved more enterprising than at any time since the
first month's occupation of Anzac. The whole area was ranged by
their artillery, posted on all the commanding positions in the
neighbourhood, and there were many of these. The forts at Chanak
shelled them morning and evening; so regular was the visitation that
they were given the titles Sunrise and Sunset. Ceaseless mining was
going on against them; and they were driven to retort in kind.
There was little glory waiting for the Second Division on the
shores of Gallipoli, but an immense amount of danger and cumulative
suffering. The losses of the 5th, 6th and 7th Brigades through those
late autumn months are eloquent of the everlasting risks they had
to take. From Lone Pine to Hill 60 their line was constantly being
shelled by the heavy guns on Battleship Hill and elsewhere; while
Beachy Bill and his equivalents made the beach a place of death and
danger.
By this time the very ground of Anzac was reeking with infection. The
theory has been advanced that, as upon the battlefields of Flanders,
the germs lay in the subsoil ready to contaminate when turned up by
the entrenching tool. The dangers of tetanus on the Western front
were quickly grasped, and by scientific research a means of fighting
them was soon at the disposal of the R.A.M.C. But in Gallipoli
the epidemics of sickness were not so readily countered, and the
suffering and loss was proportionately greater.
Whether the soil of Gallipoli held the germs of old disease in its
bosom, or whether, as appears more probable, it became infected
through the conditions that prevailed there during the spring
and summer of the year, it is at least certain that it was most
insanitary during the autumn months. The swarms of flies, that no
human agency could abate, spread the seeds of disease far and wide.
Men suffered from an acute form of dysentery that was the more
dangerous because it was intermittent. The water supply was
insufficient, and water for washing could only be obtained from the
sea. The sickly odour of the whole place rose in the nostrils of the
fighting men, and afflicted them with a perpetual nausea. All food
was suspect, for the flies, that buzzed perpetually over the rotting
carrion that lay unburied between the lines, swarmed upon everything,
and could not be prevented.
Strong men conceived a loathing of their food. The bully beef that
was their staple was thrown away by many of them, who could not even
abide to look upon it. They tried to live upon the hard biscuits, and
on these many of them broke their teeth, so that there was nothing
they could find to preserve their strength.
Many who lived through those last months have told me of the awful
lassitude that fell upon them. The sickly weather, the hopeless day's
work, the atmosphere of death and disease that permeated all their
surroundings, combined to sap their vigour.
The constant shelling drove them to live underground and to carry
on a troglodytic warfare. Mines and countermines, sapping and
tunnelling, formed their daily occupations. The losses from the
heavy shellfire were considerable. Hardly a day passed but some
section of trench was filled up, and often men were buried in the
debris, never more to draw a living breath.
One experience related to me by a man who took part in the sufferings
of those days will always remain in my memory. He was posted at Lone
Pine, a post which the Anzacs held stubbornly in the face of the
shelling it daily received from all points of the compass. One day
he went forward with some of his comrades to an observation trench,
in order to place the battery on the Asiatic shore, which was daily
moved from place to place by means of a motor running on light rails.
In spite of the warnings of those with him, he raised himself high
in order to get a better glimpse of the flashes that resulted from
the sunset bombardment, when a "Jack Johnson" arrived and buried all
in the trench. He had the notes of his observations, and smothered
as he was by a load of earth, was able to take comfort from the
thought that he would quickly be disinterred, if only because these
observations were precious.
The expected help came in time for him, and for him only. He was dug
out before he suffocated, and then learned that he owed his life to
the daring that had raised him so high in the trench. Those with him,
who had taken full advantage of the cover it afforded, were buried
under tons of earth, and were doubtless crushed to death in the
instant of the explosion.
Between the lines, from north to south, stretched a no-man's land
that was constantly changing in character. Beneath it tunnels were
continually being made, and the men at their work with pick and spade
in the darkness could hear the enemy also tunnelling in to meet them.
Then there would come a day when contact between the two opposing
works would be made, and a lively encounter underground would follow.
Sometimes one of these Anzac drives underground would come
unexpectedly upon a great series of enemy works. Very often they
were found unoccupied, and an adventurous exploration would follow.
The almost inevitable result would be an encounter with the enemy,
perhaps at a distance from their own supports, and at a disadvantage
in numbers.
Or perhaps tunnels would be driven out in a parallel direction
from the ends of a section of trench toward the enemy's line. When
a certain distance had been reached, the miners would turn their
tunnels at right angles, so that two converging tunnels could be dug.
When the ends had been joined, the roof would be stripped away, and
one morning the enemy would find a deep firing trench established
within a few yards of their lines.
A furious bomb fight would be the inevitable sequel to such a
manœuvre. In this form of warfare the Anzacs had become very expert,
for when the conditions of Gallipoli fighting had once been grasped,
bomb practice became an essential part of their training. At all
times in those last months they outfought the Turks in these bomb
contests, using the weapons with more accuracy and skill, and
resisting attacks with more grit and determination.
It is now possible, also, to mention the work done by the artillery
from Australia and New Zealand. While the British forces remained
in Gallipoli, it would obviously have been improper to mention the
positions taken by the batteries, and the remarkable skill and
coolness with which the Anzacs fought their guns. But much of the
success achieved by the men of Anzac in holding positions that were
dominated by an enemy in superior force was due to the great work of
the artillery.
Miracles were achieved in getting big guns up those hills, and in
retaining them in positions on the very firing line. Such exposed
positions as Lone Pine were only held because of the protection
of guns so placed, and throughout their occupation of Anzac, and
especially during the months that followed the failure of the great
advance, the Anzacs had daily reason to thank the gunners.
[Illustration: Australian Guns in Action before Sari Bair.]
So they fought on week after week, aware of the constantly increasing
supplies of munitions that were flowing to the enemy, which could be
inferred from the increasing freedom with which shells were used. In
July the Turk had shown himself economical of shells, and had used
much ammunition of very ancient and inferior description. At that
time not more than thirty per cent. of the big shells that fell on
Anzac would explode, and some very old ammunition was employed by the
big guns in the forts of Kilid Bahr.
The most curious of these were round shells that must have been fired
from guns of the muzzle-loading type. They weighed about a hundred
pounds, according to the accounts I have had of them, and were known
as "footballs" or "plum-puddings." They announced their coming by a
singing noise, like the loud song of a bird, and were plain to be
seen as they hurtled through the air. Some of them exploded with a
dull roar, breaking into thick chunks of iron. But the majority of
them did not explode at all. They were much in demand as curios, and
many a dug-out was decorated with one of these unexploded "footballs."
But as the last quarter of the year wore on, there was no more need
for Abdul to use this old-fashioned ammunition. A plentiful supply of
good shrapnel and high explosive was at his service, and the shells
that continuously fell among the devoted men of Anzac were warranted
to explode, with only too deadly effect.
Late autumn brought tropical showers of rain, that flooded the
trenches and dug-outs and added to the miseries of the Australians
and New Zealanders. The Turks, on higher ground, had the better
of them there, but not of the heavy fall of snow which came at
the beginning of December. I have been assured by men who had the
opportunity of conversing with many prisoners that the Turkish army,
though well equipped in some respects, was not provided with any of
the necessities to comfort and health. Saving the officers, there
did not appear to be a blanket among them, and they fought and slept
in this cold weather without any more covering than the greatcoats
of their original outfit, by this time badly worn by the rough usage
they had received.
The prisoners complained, too, of lack of food, and of the fearful
sanitary arrangements in their trenches. So that the very cold
weather, though a mixed blessing, did nevertheless serve the Anzacs
by its dispiriting influence upon the Turk.
For the ravages of disease among the Anzacs, severe as they were,
were at least mitigated by sanitary arrangements, and by wholesome
food and good clothing. But the Turk was subject to the same causes
of disease, intensified by the lack of care that was displayed for
the Turkish fighting man. It is certain, then, that though a tough
defending force, the Turks who defended Sari Bair in December, 1915,
were greatly dispirited, and naturally lacking in the initiative to
seize any advantage that might come their way.
This circumstance may serve to explain to some extent the miracle
of the successful withdrawal which it is now my task to record.
The skilful plans made for this operation, and the boldness and
thoroughness with which they were executed, are not in any way
depreciated when it is said that the full measure of their success
could only have been achieved in the face of an enemy content to
defend, and tired of the punishment which any attempt at offensive
warfare had always involved him at the hands of the men of Anzac.
THE LAST OF ANZAC
CHAPTER XXX
THE LAST OF ANZAC
And so we come to the end of the Great Adventure.
The withdrawal from Gallipoli was suggested to Sir Ian Hamilton as
early as October 11. It was the subject of a report by Sir Charles
Monro, the skilful British general upon whose plans the transference
of the British Army on the Western front to the northern position
opposite Ypres was so successfully carried out. It was considered by
Lord Kitchener upon the spot in November, and his opinion that it was
not only necessary, but immediately necessary, may be held to have
clinched the matter.
The men of Anzac divined that it was about to take place early in
December, when the liberality with which they were supplied with
certain creature comforts gave them cause to consider. They decided
that it must be about time for them to go, for they knew that their
stores would not be moved when they left. Therefore, they argued, we
are being allowed to consume them to prevent the necessity for their
wanton destruction. It was close and accurate reasoning.
During the fortnight that preceded December 19, the night of the
actual withdrawal, there was a gradual movement of equipment and men
from Gallipoli by night. But the greater part of the work had to
be crowded into one night, and for this delicate operation unusual
weather conditions were essential. Strong winds and a rough sea are
the normal condition of the Gulf of Saros at this time of the year.
A smooth sea was an imperative necessity for the abandonment of the
peninsula. This condition was fortunately granted, and conduced
greatly to the wonderful success which attended the execution of the
elaborate plan of withdrawal.
The bulk of the Anzac forces were actually embarked at Ariburnu
Beach, north of Anzac Cove. The Cove was exposed to the shellfire of
the batteries below Gaba Tepe, including the redoubtable Beachy Bill.
The more northerly beach was not so greatly exposed, and possessed
equal facilities for embarking troops, though they were not of a very
high order.
After the possibility of withdrawal was first mooted I often had the
opportunity of discussing with wounded men from Anzac the probable
lines on which such an operation might be conducted. The view they
took of the position was tersely put by one bushman from Western
Australia. "It'll be 'Volunteers for the rearguard. Who wants to
die?'" Sir Ian Hamilton has made public his conviction that a
withdrawal should have involved the loss of thirty per cent. of the
efficient forces taking part in it. Yet the whole work was performed
with the loss of but one Anzac soldier wounded!
There were volunteers for the rearguard in plenty. Not one man of
the original landing force but claimed as his right a place among
the Diehards. There was more open grumbling among the men who were
ordered to leave their comrades behind than at any time in the
history of the occupation of Anzac. The spirit that had carried them
up the cliffs on that first day of landing still burned as brightly
within them when they were called upon at last to turn their backs
on the scene of their sufferings, and of a failure that was more
glorious than success.
Their personal preparations for departure were simple enough. Some
prepared farewell messages to their old enemy Abdul, praising him for
the decency he had shown in the long struggle against them. They were
able to leave, bearing no grudge against the Turk, whether officer or
common soldier, and they thought it fitting to signify as much.
Others paid their last visit to the graves of fallen comrades,
scattered, alas! so thickly over the sad and accursed hills that
have been drenched with so much Australasian blood. They re-painted
the rough stumps that marked these honoured graves, and renewed the
simple inscriptions that distinguished them. The wild holly may soon
overgrow the ground where these heroes lie, but the men of Anzac are
certain that their chivalrous foes will not mar their record by any
desecration of this hallowed ground, so far from the native land of
those who lie there.
Soon after dark the transports and warships slipped up from Cape
Helles, and the actual work of withdrawal was put in hand forthwith.
It was covered by a strong demonstration at Cape Helles, which was
maintained throughout the night with the utmost vigour. One by one
the transports were loaded, and slipped away, actually ahead of their
time-table. The enemy, to all appearance oblivious to what was going
on, kept up the desultory rifle fire and bomb throwing without which
a night could not pass at Anzac.
After midnight the men who still held the pioneer outposts at the
Apex, Lone Pine, and Chatham Outpost, were all withdrawn without
arousing any suspicion. Then the first really demonstrative event of
the night took place. A large store of explosive had been collected
and placed in a tunnel underneath the Neck, the narrow strip of land
which connected Russell's Top with the slope of Baby 700. This huge
mine was exploded, with the probable effect that a huge chasm now
yawns where there was formerly a passage from Walker's Ridge to the
slopes of Sari Bair.
There were boats at Anzac Cove and at Brighton Beach to take off the
Diehards, who now hurried to the nearest landing place from all the
outer posts. The two big howitzers were blown up, and a few of the
Australian eighteen pounders as well; the remainder were got away in
safety. A huge mass of stores on the beach was fired, and at the same
time a great bonfire at Suvla Bay to the north showed that the plan
of withdrawal had there been executed with equal success.
And so, by the grace of God and by the efficiency of the British
Navy, the impossible happened again. The whole Anzac force was
removed from its precarious footing, in the face of a foe vastly
superior in numbers without the death of one single man. The skilful
plans had succeeded beyond all possible expectation, and the word
failure had to be written to the finish of the Epic of Anzac, but not
Disaster.
Australia and New Zealand received the news with the calm that a sane
knowledge of the probabilities had made possible. Those who expected
or feared that there would be any useless recrimination from Overseas
were agreeably disappointed. "It is a blow," said the Oversea Prime
Ministers, "but it will only serve to nerve us to greater efforts
toward the final victory." Both Dominions forthwith undertook to
raise very substantial additions to the forces they were already
preparing to take part in the Great War.
The men of Anzac themselves turned their backs on the place that
has made them famous with unaffected relief. They had endured there
as few armies have ever been called upon to endure, and had long
recognized the hopelessness of their position. They took little
satisfaction in fighting the Turks, whom they regarded as innocent
and honourable victims of the ambition and cowardice of another
nation. They had left Australasia in the hope of exchanging blows
with the men of that hated nation that has brought woe upon the whole
world. One regret only they had; and this Mr. Malcolm Ross, the
official representative with the New Zealand forces, has allowed a
young New Zealand trooper to express.
"I hope, sir," he said to his battalion commander as they marched
past the graves of the immortal dead, "that those fellows who lie
buried here will be soundly sleeping, and will not hear us as we
march away."
HONOURS LIST
HONOURS LIST
AUSTRALIAN FORCES
C.B.
Lieut.-Col. Granville John Burnage, A.I.F.
Lieut.-Col. J. H. Cannan, 15th (Q. and Tas.) Batt.
Col. (temp. Brig.-Gen.) Henry George Chauvel, C.M.G., 1st
(N.S.W.) L.H.
Lieut.-Col. R. E. Courtney, 14th (Vic.) Batt.
Col. (temp. Brig.-Gen.) J. J. T. Hobbs, Commanding Div. Artillery.
Col. (temp. Brig.-Gen.) Frederick Godfrey Hughes, 3rd (S.A. and
Tas.) L.H.
Lieut.-Col. G. J. Johnston, 2nd A.F.A.
Col. (temp. Brig.-Gen.) the Hon. James Whiteside McCay, A.I.F.
Col. (temp. Brig.-Gen.) John Monash, A.I.F.
Lieut.-Col. Harold Pope, A.I.F.
Lieut.-Col. C. Rosenthal, 3rd A.F.A.
Lieut.-Col. E. H. Smith, 12th (S.A., W.A., and Tas.) Batt.
C.M.G.
Col. the Hon. J. L. Beeston, A.A.M.C.
Lieut.-Col. A. J. Bennett, D.S.O., 1st (N.S.W.) Batt.
Lieut.-Col. H. S. Bennett, 6th (Vic.) Batt.
Major A. J. Bessell-Browne, D.S.O., 3rd A.F.A.
Major E. A. D. Brockman, 11th (W.A.) Batt.
Major (temp. Lieut.-Col.) Walter Edmund Hutchison Cass, 2nd
(N.S.W.) Batt.
Lieut.-Col. S. E. Christian, 1st A.F.A.
Major G. H. M. King, 1st A.F.A.
Major David McFie McConaghey, 3rd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Lieut.-Col. Charles Melville Macnaghten, Commanding 4th (N.S.W.)
Batt.
Lieut.-Col. J. T. Marsh, Div. Train, A.A.S.C.
Lieut.-Col. Thomas Morgan Martin, Commanding No. 2 Australian
General Hospital.
Lieut.-Col. R. H. Owen, 3rd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Major R. L. R. Rabett, 1st A.F.A.
Major (temp. Lieut.-Col.) J. C. Robertson, 9th (Q.) Batt.
Col. (temp. Brig.-Gen.) Granville de Laune Ryrie, Commanding L.H.
Brig.
Major G. I. Stevenson, 2nd A.F.A.
Lieut.-Col. D. S. Wanliss, 5th (Vic.) Batt.
Major John Lawrence Whitham, 12th (S.A., W.A. and Tas.) Batt.
D.S.O.
Major Charles Henry Brand, 3rd Australian Infantry Brigade.
Major William Livingstone Hatchwell Burgess, 9th (Q.) Batt.
Capt. Arthur Graham Butler, Australian Army Med. Corps (attached
9th (Q.) Batt.).
Capt. Cecil Arthur Callaghan, 2nd Batt. A.F.A.
Major James Samuel Denton, 11th (W.A.) Batt.
The Rev. Walter Ernest Dexter, M.A., Chaplain, 4th Class,
Chaplains' Dept.
Major G. Eberling, 8th (Vic.) Batt.
The Rev. Father John Fahey, Chaplain, 4th Class, Chaplains' Dept.
Major James Heane, 4th (N.S.W.) Batt.
Major H. W. Lloyd, 1st A.F.A.
Major F. M. de F. Lorenzo, 10th (S.A.) Batt.
Lieut.-Col. Walter Ramsay McNicoll, 6th (Vic.) Batt.
Major William Owen Mansbridge, 16th (S.A. and W.A.) Batt.
Major Athelstan Markham Martyn, 2nd Field Co., A.E.
Major Robert Rankine, 14th (Vic.) Batt.
Capt. Cecil Duncan Sasse, 1st (N.S.W.) Batt.
Capt. Alan Humphrey Scott, 4th (N.S.W.) Batt.
Major A. B. Stevens, 2nd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Major (temp. Lieut.-Col.) L. E. Tilney, 16th (S.A. and W.A.) Batt.
Lieut.-Col. Cyril Brudenell Bingham White, Royal Australian
Garrison Artillery, Staff.
MILITARY CROSS.
Capt. James Sinclair Standish Anderson, Staff Capt.
Lieut, (temp. Capt.) H. Bachtold, 1st Field Co., A.E.
Sec. Lieut. Edwin Thorburn Bazeley, 22nd Batt.
Capt. Marwood Harold Cleeve, A.A.S.C.
Capt. Charles Stanley Coltman, 4th (N.S.W.) Batt.
Capt. George Cooper, 14th (Vic.) Batt.
Lieut. George Norman Croker, 3rd Field Co., A.E.
Lieut. Alfred Plumley Derham, 5th (Vic.) Batt.
Capt. Joseph Espie Dods, A.A.M.C.
Lieut. Charles Fortescue, 9th (Q.) Batt.
Lieut. Ronald Garnet Hamilton, Aust. Div. Sig. Co.
Lieut. Geoffrey Hamlyn Lavicourt Harris, 1st (N.S.W.) L.H.
Capt. John Hill, 15th (Q. and Tas.) Batt.
Capt. Owen Glendower Howell-Price, 3rd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Lieut. Herbert James, 11th (W.A.) Batt.
Capt. Raymond Lionel Leane, 11th (W.A.) Batt.
Lieut. Joseph Edward Lee, 13th (N.S.W.) Batt.
Lieut. Reginald George Legge, 13th (N.S.W.) Batt.
Capt. John Thomas McColl (Commonwealth Military Forces).
Capt. Geoffrey McLaughlin, 1st (N.S.W.) Batt.
Capt. Jasper Kenneth Gordon Magee, 4th (N.S.W.) Batt.
Lieut. Norman Marshall, 5th (Vic.) Batt.
Lieut. James Herbert Mirams, 2nd Field Co., A.E.
Sec. Lieut. William Anderson Moncur, 6th (Vic.) Batt.
Sec. Lieut. Ralph Ingram Moore, 3rd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Temp. Lieut. Alan Wilson Morey (S.A.), Royal Scots.
Capt. John Henry Francis Paine, 2nd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Lieut. (temp. Capt.) U. E. Parry-Okeden, 1st Aust. Div. Amm. Park.
Capt. Henry Petre, Aeroplane Section.
Sec. Lieut. Robert Ramsay, 1st (N.S.W.) Batt.
Capt. Clifford Russell Richardson, 2nd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Lieut. Percy John Ross, 7th Batt. A.F.A.
Lieut. Alfred John Shout, 1st (N.S.W.) Batt.
Capt. James William Albert Simpson, 13th (N.S.W.) Batt.
Lieut. Samuel Edward Sinclair, 1st A.F.A.
No. 96 Sergt.-Maj. D. Smith, 5th (Vic.) Batt.
Lieut. John Charles Merriman Traill, 8th (Vic.) Batt.
Capt. William Charles Nightingale Waite, Aust. Artillery.
D.C.M.
No. 6 Sergt. A. Anderson, 2nd (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 189 Sergt. W. Ayling, 11th (W.A.) Batt.
No. 881 Cpl. G. Ball, 7th (Vic.) Batt.
Cpl. R. Barrett, 15th Batt.
Bdr. C. W. Baxter, Hdqrs. Staff, 1st F.A. Brigade.
No. 1041 Pte. A. Bell, 23rd (Vic.) Batt.
No. 695 Pte. W. J. Birrell, C Co., 7th (Vic.) Batt.
No. 170 Lce.-Cpl. P. Black, 16th (S.A. and W.A.) Batt.
No. 503 Cpl. H. Brennan, 20th (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 997 Pte. L. W. Burnett, A.A.M.C.
Pte. R. R. Chapman, 13th Batt.
B. Dvr. N. Clark, F.A.
No. 182 Sergt. W. A. Connell, 12th (S.A., W.A. and Tas.) Batt.
No. 94 Staff Sergt.-Major M. E. E. Corbett, 15th (Q. and Tas.)
Batt.
No. 87 Sergt. R. Crawford, 4th (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 859 Lce.-Cpl. F. P. Curran, 7th (N.S.W.) L.H.
Dvr. G. Dean, Aust. Div. Sig. Co.
No. 1088 Sergt. A. G. Edwards, 3rd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Actg. Sergt. C. J. K. Edwards, F.A.
Dvr. L. Farlow, 4th Inf. Bgde. Train.
No. 325 Pte. A. Farmer, 3rd (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 851 Lce.-Cpl. W. Francis, 13th (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 764 Lce.-Cpl. H. W. Freame, 1st (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 918 Pte. F. Godfrey, 12th (S.A., W.A. and Tas.) Batt.
No. 20 Cpl. R L. Graham, 3rd. (N.S.W.) Batt.
Sergt. W. J. Henderson, 10th L.H.
No. 1293 Pte. R. Humbertson, 3rd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Bdr.-Fitter D. C. Inglis, 2nd Batt., F.A.
Staff-Sergt. H. Jackson, A.A.M.C.
Pte. W. Kelly, 4th Batt.
No. 1769 Pte. W. J. Kelly, 1st (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 75 Lce.-Cpl. T. Kennedy, 1st (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 741 Lce.-Cpl. J. Kenyon, 9th (Q.) Batt.
No. 37 Pte. J. H. Kruger, 22nd Batt.
Co. Sergt.-Major W. C. McCutcheson, 1st Div. Sig. Co.
No. 99 Spr. G. F. McKenzie, 3rd Field Co., A.E.
Lce.-Cpl. H. M. McNee, 10th L.H.
Pte. F. O. McRae, 1st L.H.F. Amb.
No. 280 Pte. A. C. B. Merrin, 5th (Vic.) Batt.
No. 115 Lce.-Cpl. R. I. Moore, 3rd (N.S.W.) Batt.
Pte. G. L. Peel, 3rd L.H.F. Amb.
No. 4128 Sapper C. R. Rankin, 4th Field Co., A.E.
No. 530 Pte. G. Robey, 9th (Q.) Batt.
No. 1088 Cpl. E. Robson, 4th (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 212 Sergt. P. F. Ryan, 6th (N.S.W.) L.H.
No. 156 Cpl. A. Sheppard, 2nd Field Co., A.E.
No. 355 Pte. W. E. Sing, 5th (Q.) L.H.
Cpl. P. Smith, 2nd Batt.
Tpr. T. B. Stanley, 10th L.H.
No. 41 Staff Sergt.-Major A. Steele, 9th (Q.) Batt.
No. 1149 Sergt. R. G. Stone, 22nd Batt.
Lce.-Cpl. J. Tallon, 1st Batt.
Bdr. J. P. Thomson, 2nd Batt. F.A.
Pte. J. C. Vaughan, 12th Batt.
Pte. A. J. Vines, 3rd L.H.F. Amb.
No. 1186 Sergt. A. J. Wallish, 11th (W.A.) Batt.
Pte. P. H. Ward, 3rd Batt.
No. 791 Pte. W. Upton, 13th (N.S.W.) Batt.
No. 456 Pte. J. C. Weatherill, 10th (S.A.) Batt.
Cpl. H. Webb, 7th Batt.
No. 1829 Cpl. J. Williams, 5th (Vic.) Batt.
No. 645 Cpl. E. D. Wood, 5th (Vic.) Batt.
No. 213 Pte. A. Wright, 15th (Q. and Tas.) Batt.
No. 2079 Pte. E. Yaxley, 12th (S.A., W.A. and Tas.) Batt.
ROYAL RED CROSS DECORATION.
FIRST CLASS: Miss E. J. Gould (Senior Matron), Australian Nursing
Service.
SECOND CLASS: Miss M. A. Raye (on duty with Reserve of Queen
Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service), Australian
Nursing Service.
MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES.
Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train.
No. 102 Chief P.O. J. H. Beton.
Lieut. T. A. Bond, R.A.N.R.
Lieut.-Commander L. S. Bracegirdle, R.A.N.
No. 108 Able Seaman T. McCarron.
No. 175 Leading Seaman J. McF. Harvey.
No. 42 P.O. S. Pender.
Chief W.O. H. Francis Shepherd, R.A.N.R.
Australian Artillery.
No. 2282 Bombr. E. Baynes (killed).
No. 540 Gunner F. T. Brem (killed).
Major W. L. H. Burgess.
Capt. C. A. Callaghan, D.S.O.
No. 2270 Gunner C. C. Carr (killed).
No. 805 Cpl. S. D. Cook.
No. 1678 Bombr. A. F. Dingwall.
No. 1645 Cpl. W. H. East.
No. 1619 Gunner S. A. Hillbeck.
Capt. A. H. K. Jopp.
No. 1655 Bombr. I. G. McKinnon.
Capt. G. McLaughlin.
No. 2020 Gunner P. A. Medhurst.
No. 1796 Cpl. N. Miller.
Major O. F. Phillips.
No. 3522 Gunner J. J. Reid.
Lieut. P. J. Ross.
Lieut. S. E. Sinclair.
Sergt.-Major (W.O.) J. S. Stamps.
Capt. W. C. N. Waite.
No. 1536 Dvr. A. J. Younger.
Australian Engineers.
No. 101 Sapper V. H. Allison.
No. 29 Sapper C. H. Batchelor.
No. 78 Lce.-Cpl. J. Climpson.
Major J. M. C. Corlette.
Sec. Lieut. G. N. Croker.
Capt. R. J. Dyer.
No. 26 Acting Sec. Cpl. S. Elliott.
No. 45 Cpl. A. T. Ewart.
Lieut. G. G. S. Gordon.
No. 192 Acting Sergt. J. Graham.
Sec. Lieut. H. Greenway.
Lieut. R. G. Hamilton.
No. 100 Dvr. A. J. Jonas.
No. 73 Lce.-Cpl. L. J. Jordon.
No. 597 Sapper S. Kelly.
No. 120 Lce.-Cpl. J. J. Lobb.
Major A. M. Martyn.
Lieut. J. H. Mirams.
No. 156 Cpl. A. Sheppard.
No. 160 Sapper H. E. Townshend.
No. 41 Sapper S. Vincent.
No. 110 Acting Cpl. G. C. Wilson.
1st Field Company Engineers.
No. 99 Sapper G. F. Mackenzie.
No. 191 Sapper F. Reynolds.
Divisional Sig. Co.
Lieut. (Hon. Captain) R. H. Goold, Commonwealth Military Forces.
Major H. L. Mackworth, D.S.O., R.E.
1st L.H. (N.S.W.).
No. 36 Pte. B. T. Barnes.
No. 397 Pte. F. Barrow.
No. 562 Cpl. E. E. Collett.
Lieut. G. H. L. Harris.
No. 566 Cpl. T. J. Keys.
No. 570 Pte. W. Little.
No. 437 Pte. R. C. Tancred.
No. 439 Pte. A. E. Thompson.
2nd L.H. (Q.).
Major T. W. Glasgow, D.S.O.
4th L.H. (Vic.).
No. 203 Lce.-Cpl. R. B. Forsyth.
No. 128 Tpr. W. Kerr.
5th L.H. (Q.).
Major S. Midgley, D.S.O.
No. 355 Pte. W. E. Sing.
6th L.H. (N.S.W.).
No. 448 Tpr. C. B. Paul.
No. 212 Sergt. P. F. Ryan.
Capt. G. C. Somerville.
7th L.H. (N.S.W.).
No. 859 Lce.-Cpl. F. P. Curran.
8th L.H. (Vic.).
No. 678 Tpr. F. L. A'Beckett.
No. 225 Lce.-Cpl. J. A. Anderson.
No. 515 Trumpeter L. G. Lawry.
Lieut. E. G. Wilson (killed).
9th L.H. (Vic. and S.A.).
No. 283 Pte. G. C. Howell.
Sec. Lieut. J. M. McDonald.
No. 166 Pte. W. N. Morrison.
10th L.H. (W.A.).
No. 110 Tpr. H. D. Firns (killed).
No. 404 Sergt. H. C. Foss.
Capt. H. P. Fry (killed).
No. 409 Sergt. J. A. Gollan.
No. 293 Lce.-Cpl. W. J. Hampshire.
No. 449 Cpl. E. T. McCleary.
No. 89 Tpr. F. McMahon (killed).
No. 468 Tpr. E. T. Roberts.
Major J. B. Scott.
1st Batt. (N.S.W.).
No. 1250 Pte. D. F. Allen.
No. 764 Lce.-Cpl. H. W. Freame.
No. 623 Pte. C. Judd.
No. 1769 Pte. W. J. Kelly.
No. 75, Lce.-Cpl. T. Kennedy.
Major F. J. Kindon.
No. 320 C.S.M. J. W. Norris.
No. 171 Pte R. T. Ramsay.
Sec. Lieut. R. T. Ramsay.
Capt. C. D. Sasse, D.S.O.
Lieut. A. J. Shout.
No. 385 Sergt. H. R. Sparkes.
Lieut. G. Steen.
No. 439, Pte. W. Thompson.
Lieut. H. Wells.
No. 555 Sergt. A. E. Wicks.
Lieut. V. Woodforde.
2nd Batt. (N.S.W.).
No. 6 Sergt. A. Anderson.
Lieut.-Col. G. F. Braund, V.D. (killed in action).
No. 496 Pte. A. J. Campbell.
Major (temp. Lieut.-Col.) W. E. H. Cass.
Capt. G. S. Cook.
No. 1745 Pte. W. Gandemy.
Lieut. D. McN. Heugh (died of wounds received in action).
No. 702 Sergt. W. J. Host.
No. 248 R.S.M. R. Howans.
No. 427 Cpl. J. H. McElroy.
No. 432 Pte. F. E. Moir.
No. 1787 Pte. J. A. Montgomery (killed).
Major L. J. Morshead.
No. 972 Pte. W. Nichol.
Capt. J. H. F. Pain.
Capt. C. R. Richardson.
No. 2196 Pte. A. B. Robertson.
Lt.-Col. R. Scobie (killed).
No. 1073 Pte. A. R. Townsend.
Lieut. and Qmr. C. A. White.
3rd Batt. (N.S.W.).
Major C. Austin (killed).
Capt. E. S. Brown.
Lieut.-Col. E. S. Brown (killed).
No. 2143 Sergt. C. O. Clark.
No. 1088 Sergt. A. G. Edwards.
Lieut. T. H. Evans.
No. 325 Pte. A. Farmer.
No. 1281 C.S.M. P. Goldenstedt.
No. 20 Cpl. L. Graham.
No. 2360 Pte. G. C. Green.
No. 941 Pte. C. T. Horan (killed).
Capt. O. G. Howell-Price.
No. 1293 Pte. R. Humberstone.
Major M. St. J. Lamb.
Major D. M. McConoghy.
No. 1364 Cpl. M. M. McGrath.
Lieut. L. O. McLeod (killed).
No. 354 Cpl. J. B. Malone.
Capt. D. T. Moore.
Sec. Lieut. R. I. Moore.
No. 1151 Cpl. R. I. Moore.
No. 2174 Pte. P. Morgan (killed).
No. 168 Lce.-Cpl. E. Powell.
Lieut. V. E. Smythe.
No. 1390 Cpl. E. Thomas.
Lieut. P. W. Woods.
4th Batt. (N.S.W.).
No. 946 Pte. W. Burley.
No. 1255 Sergt. R. Claydon.
Capt. C. S. Coltman.
No. 87 Sergt. R. Crawford.
Lieut. C. W. Foster.
Major J. Heane, D.S.O.
No. 789 Pte. G. W. Hewitt.
No. 144 C.S.M. J. Johnstone.
Capt. E. A. Lloyd.
No. 496 Pte. J. J. Lynn.
No. 808 Cpl. J. G. Macalister.
No. 143 C.S.M. R. McAlpine.
Lieut. W. T. McDonald.
Major I. G. Mackay.
No. 1029 Sergt. R. G. F. McMahon.
Lieut.-Col. C. M. McNaghten.
No. 668 Pte. W. G. McNeill.
Capt. J. K. G. Magee.
Lieut. and Adj. R. J. A. Massie.
Lieut. J. B. Osborne.
No. 1088 Cpl. E. Robson.
Lieut. M. P. Smith (killed in action).
No. 989 Cpl. E. H. Stone.
Lieut.-Col. A. J. O. Thompson, V.D. (killed in action).
5th Batt. (Vic.).
Lieut. A. P. Derham.
Lieut. N. Marshall.
No. 752 Sergt. A. G. Ross.
No. 1829 Cpl. J. Williams.
No. 645 Cpl. E. D. Wood.
6th Batt. (Vic.).
Major H. G. Bennett.
No. 1919 Pte. P. C. Callaghan.
No. 798 Pte. H. L. George.
Lieut.-Col. W. R. McNicoll, D.S.O.
Sec. Lieut. P. D. Moncur.
No. 1868 Pte. T. Thorning.
7th Batt. (Vic.).
No. 881 Pte. G. Ball.
No. 384 Cpl. A. S. Burton (killed).
No. 2130 Cpl. W. Dunston.
Lieut.-Col. H. E. Elliott.
No. 1939 Pte. O. Ellis (killed).
Capt. R. H. Henderson (killed in action).
No. 110 Cpl. J. E. Keating.
Lieut. P. J. Ross.
No. 864 Pte. J. H. Wadeson.
No. 1062 Cpl. F. Wright.
8th Batt. (Vic.).
Major (Hon. Lieut.-Col.) J. W. B. Field, V.D.
No. 17 Sergt. F. W. Goodwin.
No. 1532 Pte. Thomas Green.
No. 1534 Pte. F. Hicks (killed).
No. 323 Cpl. A. C. McKinnon.
Sec. Lieut. J. C. M. Traill.
No. 1863 Pte. P. J. Young (killed).
9th Batt. (Q.).
No. 874 Sergt. C. E. Benson.
Capt. A. G. Butler, D.S.O., A.A.M.C. (attached).
No. 871 Sergt. H. Clark.
Lieut. C. Fortescue.
No. 497 C. R. Heaton.
No. 741, Lce.-Cpl. J. Kenyon.
No. 88 Cpl. G. R. Page.
No. 530, G. Robey.
No. 41 S.S.M. A. Steele.
No. 974, Sergt. M. Wilder.
10th Batt. (S.A.).
No. 122 Pte. C. P. Greene.
Lieut. F. H. Hancock.
Lieut. F. H. G. N. Heritage.
No. 500 Cpl. T. Hill.
No. 1157 Pte. T. McDonald.
Lieut. E. W. T. Smith (died of wounds received in action).
No. 456 Pte. J. C. Weatherill.
11th Batt. (W.A.).
No. 189 Sergt. W. Ayling.
Capt. E. T. Brennan, Medical Officer, A.A.M.C. (attached).
Lieut. A. H. Darnell.
Major J. S. Denton, D.S.O.
Sec. Lieut. J. F. Franklyn.
No. 513 Sergt. W. Hallahan.
No. 556 Sergt. V. Horsewell.
Lieut. H. James.
No. 2153 Pte. B. D. Johns (killed).
Capt. R. L. Leane (twice).
No. 697 Sergt. J. M. McClerry.
No. 927 Sergt. G. Mason.
No. 2172 Pte. J. M. Morrison (killed).
Sec. Lieut. G. Potter.
Sec. Lieut. C. H. Prockter (killed).
No. 388 Pte. H. R. Retchford.
Major S. R. Roberts.
No. 2437 Pte. D. Roper.
No. 594 Lce.-Cpl. F. Smith.
No. 232 Pte. W. R. Smith.
No. 724 Lce.-Cpl. L. B. Taylor.
No. 1186 Sergt. A. J. Wallish.
No. 2044 Pte. H. Whitbread.
12th Batt. (S.A., W.A., and Tas.).
No. 182 Sergt. W. A. Connell.
No. 918 Pte. F. Godfrey.
No. 1612 Pte. E. J. Jarvis.
No. 867 Sergt. J. J. Keen.
No. 1611 Pte. J. Johnstone.
No. 19 Pte. J. T. McKendrick.
Lieut. G. A. Munro (killed in action).
No. 694 Pte. L. Reade.
No. 978 Pte. C. Smith.
No. 407 Cpl. R. Stevens.
No. 2017 Pte. E. G. Thomas.
No. 174 Pte. H. Ward.
Major J. L. Whitham.
No. 414 Sergt. J. H. Will.
No. 2079 Pte. E. Yaxley.
13th Batt. (N.S.W.).
Sec. Lieut. J. Annoni.
Lieut.-Col. G. J. Burnage, V.D.
No. 371 Pte. W. J. Doig.
No. 1940 Pte. A. Duncan.
Lieut. F. A. Faddy.
Lieut. H. C. Ford.
No. 851 Lce.-Cpl. W. Francis.
No. 1435 Pte. A. Henbury.
Major S. C. E. Herring.
Capt. C. B. Hopkins.
Capt. J. E. Lee.
Lieut. R. G. Legge.
Capt. W. J. M. Locke.
No. 305 Pte. C. Pappes.
No. 1092 Pte. P. Round.
Capt. J. W. A. Simpson.
No. 791 Pte. W. Upton.
14th Batt. (Vic.).
Capt. G. Cooper.
Major C. M. M. Dare.
Lieut. J. G. T. Hanby.
Major R. Rankine.
15th Batt. (Q. and Tas.).
No. 1410 Pte. R. Barrett.
No. 94 S.S.M. E. Corbett.
No. 733 Lce.-Cpl. I. Craven.
No. 774 Pte. H. Edelstin.
Capt. J. Hill.
No. 517 Pte. W. L. James.
No. 705 Cpl. L. Melia.
Capt. F. Moran (died of wounds).
No. 213 Pte. A. Wright.
16th Batt. (S.A. and W.A.).
No. 2066 Pte. R. A. Annear.
No. 1777 Lce.-Cpl. F. H. Benporath.
No. 170 Lce.-Cpl. P. Black.
No. 1787 Pte. G. V. Brown.
Lieut. A. E. Carse.
Sergt. G. Demel.
No. 16 Pte. A. B. Foster.
Capt. L. D. Heming (killed).
No. 436 Sergt. F. R. Howard.
No. 1887 Pte. C. Howland.
No. 1490 Cpl. V. Ketterer.
Major W. O. Mansbridge.
Lieut.-Col. H. Pope.
18th Batt. (N.S.W.).
No. 707 Pte. C. M. Collins.
No. 215 Cpl. Dryden.
No. 375 Sergt. R. Fidge.
Capt. S. P. Goodsell.
No. 877 Lce.-Cpl. J. C. Hooper.
No. 1044 Pte. S. Mahoney.
No. 1015 Pte. R. R. Martin.
No. 677 Pte. L. C. Workman.
20th Batt. (N.S.W.).
No. 503 Cpl. H. Brennan.
23rd Batt. (Vic.).
No. 1041 Pte. A. Bell.
Australian Divisional Train.
Capt. M. H. Cleeve.
No. T/507 Sergt. F. Smith, No. 2 Co.
No. 4176 Lce.-Cpl. J. Wimms.
A.A.M.C.
No. 984 Sergt. H. Baber.
Capt. J. Bentley.
Qrnr. and Hon. Lieut. E. T. Boddam.
No. 996 Cpl. L. Bosgard.
Capt. E. T. Brennan.
No. 68 Pte. R. B. Brighton.
Lieut.-Col. H. W. Bryant.
No. 997 Pte. L. W. Burnett.
Capt. H. V. P. Conrick.
No. 119 Pte. E. Cruikshank.
Capt. A. L. Dawson.
Capt. J. E. Dods.
Capt. (temp. Maj.) L. W. Dunlop.
No. 1128 Pte. H. G. Foster.
Capt. A. Y. Fullerton.
Lieut.-Col. C. Garner, M.B., Reserve of Officers.
No. 981 Staff-Sergt. G. Henderson.
No. 1343 Staff-Sergt. A. D. Hood.
No. 1065 Staff-Sergt. H. Jackson.
No. 1599 Pte. C. Millengen.
No. 2011 Staff-Sergt. W. L. Nickson.
Major H. A. Powell.
No. 396 Pte. T. Priestman.
No. 1313 Staff-Sergt. L. O. Sargent.
No. 795 Cpl. G. R. Smith.
No. 146 Pte. S. A. Spooner.
Capt. W. J. Stock.
Lieut.-Col. A. H. Sturdee.
Capt. C. W. Thompson.
Capt. H. L. St. V. Welch.
Capt. L. St V. Welch.
No. 1111 Sergt.-Maj. R. P. Wheeler.
1st Field Ambulance.
No. 611 Pte. Greig MacGregor.
Capt. C. E. Wassell.
2nd Field Ambulance.
No. 66 Lce.-Cpl. V. Cawley.
3rd Field Ambulance.
No. 151 Lce.-Cpl. G. C. Farnham.
Capt. D. MacWhae.
No. 178 Pte. C. H. G. Rosser.
1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station.
Major J. Corbin.
No. 1403 Pte. M. D. Cowtan.
Lieut.-Col. W. W. Giblin.
Chaplains' Department.
Rev. W. E. Dexter, M.A.
Rev. J. Fahey.
Rev. M. A. Gillson (died of wounds).
Rev. T. S. Power.
NEW ZEALAND FORCES
C.B.
Lieut.-Col. J. Findlay, Canterbury Mtd. Rifle Regt.
C.M.G.
Lieut.-Col. C. M. Begg, N.Z.A.M.C.
Major (temp. Lieut.-Col.) James Jacob Esson, 5th (Wellington)
Regt.
Lieut.-Col. John Gethin Hughes, D.S.O., Canterbury Batt.
Lieut.-Col. William Meldrum, Wellington Mtd. Rifle Regt.
Lieut.-Col. William Henry Parkes, M.D., F.R.C.S., Commanding New
Zealand Hospital.
Lieut.-Col. Arthur Plugge, 3rd (Auckland) Regt. (Countess of
Ranfurly's Own).
Major (temporary Lieut.-Col.) George Spafford Richardson, N.Z.
Staff Corps.
Lieut.-Col. Frank Symon, N.Z. Artillery.
Lieut.-Col. Robert Young, Auckland Batt.
D.S.O.
Major (temp. Lieut.-Col.) C. H. J. Brown, Canterbury Batt.
Capt. Arthur Cunliffe Bernard Critchley-Salmonson, Royal Munster
Fusiliers (attached N.Z. Forces).
Major Norris Stephen Falla, N.Z. Artillery.
Capt. Bertram Sibbald Finn, N.Z. Medical Corps.
Major Herbert Hart, Wellington Battalion, 17th (Ruahine) Regt.
Major Norman Frederick Hastings, Wellington Mtd. Rifle Regt.
Major Eugene Joseph O'Neill, F.R.C.S., N.Z. Medical Corps.
Major Geoffrey Samuel Smith, 14th (South Otago) Regt.
Major Ivon Tatham Standish, No. 3 Battery (Royal N.Z.A.).
Major William McGregor Turnbull, N.Z. Staff Corps.
Major Frederick Waite, N.Z. Engineers.
MILITARY CROSSES.
Capt. Leopold George Dyke Acland, N.Z. A.S.C.
Hon. Capt. W. T. Bock, N.Z.O.C.
Lieut. William Gibson Allen Bishop, Otago Batt.
Lieut. G. R. Blackett, Canterbury Mtd. Rifle Regt.
Capt. Duncan Barrie Blair. Canterbury Mtd. Rifle Regt.
Capt. Groves Edward Daniell, N.Z. Artillery.
Capt. Patrick Dore, Chaplain, N.Z. Forces.
Capt. Thomas Farr, N.Z. Artillery.
Capt. Alfred Greene, Chaplain, N.Z. Forces.
Capt. Robert Neil Guthrie, N.Z. A.M.C.
Capt. Peter Bain Henderson, N.Z. Staff Corps.
Temp. Sec. Lieut. Robert McPherson, N.Z. F.A.
Lieut. A. N. Oakey, N.Z. Engineers.
No. 8/1048 Sergt.-Maj. A. W. Porteous, 10th (North Otago) Regt.
Capt. John Murray Rose, Wellington Batt.
Capt. Louis Murray Shera, N.Z. Engineers.
Capt. Hugh Stewart, Canterbury Batt.
Capt. Nathaniel William Benjamin Butler Thoms, N.Z. Staff Corps.
Lieut. Frank Kingdon Turnbull, Wellington Batt.
Lieut. Frank Morphet Twistleton, Otago Mtd. Rifle Regt.
Capt. Jesse Alfred Wallingford, N.Z. Staff Corps.
Major J. H. Whyte, Wellington Mtd. Rifle Regt.
Capt. Ferdinand August Wood, Auckland Mtd. Rifle Regt.
Major R. Young, Wellington Batt.
D.C.M.
No. 13/5 Tpr. L. J. Armstrong, Auckland Mtd. Rifle Regt.
Sergt. A. A. Atkins, Canterbury Batt.
Pte. C. R. Barker, Wellington Batt.
No. 8/1370 Sergt.-Maj. P. C. Boate, Otago Batt.
No. 9/129 Sergt. J. Campbell, Otago Mtd. Rifle Regt.
Sapper A. L. Caselberg, Signal Troop, Mounted Rifle Brigade.
No. 4/506 Sapper B. L. Dignan, Div. Signal Co.
No. 8/465 Squadron Q.M.S. L. S. L. L. Graham, Otago Mtd. Rifle
Regt.
No. 7/516 Cpl. (now Sec. Lieut.) G. Harper, Canterbury Mtd. Rifle
Regt.
No. 7/517 Sergt. (now Sec. Lieut.) R. P. Harper, Canterbury Mtd.
Rifle Regt.
Pte. F. Mahoney, Wellington Batt.
No. 8/33 Sergt. F. Mitchell, Otago Batt.
Tpr. D. J. O'Connor, Canterbury M.R.R.
No. 16/107 Pte. T. A. U. Parganihi, Maori Contingent.
Tpr. H. Pidgeon, Canterbury M.R.R.
No. 11/442 Squadron Sergt.-Maj. W. Ricketts, Wellington Mtd.
Rifle Regt.
No. 4/208A Cpl. C. W. Salmon, N.Z. Engineers.
No. 4/60A Cpl. C. W. Saunders, N.Z. Engineers.
No. 3/95 Lce.-Cpl. W. Singleton, N.Z. Field Ambulance.
Lce.-Cpl. H. D. Skinner, Otago Batt.
No. 12/1799 Capt. H. Spencer, Auckland Batt.
No. 3/447 Lce.-Cpl. G. Steedman, N.Z. Medical Corps.
No. 6/1156 Pte. T. Stockdill, Stretcher Bearer, Canterbury Batt.
No. 10/1674 Pte. J. W. Swann, Wellington Batt.
No. 6/157 Sergt. B. N. Tavender, Canterbury Batt.
No. 12/1012 Pte. G. Tempany, Auckland Batt.
No. 12/1020 Cpl. F. W. Watson, Auckland Batt.
No. 1476 Lce.-Cpl. J. Wimms, N.Z. Div. Train.
No. 11/941 Tpr. J. H. Winter, Wellington Mtd. Rifle Regt.
ROYAL RED CROSS DECORATION.
FIRST CLASS.--Miss B. Nurse (Senior Matron), New Zealand Nursing
Service.
MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES.
Maori Contingent.
No. 4537A Sergt. P. Hill (killed).
No. 16/407 Cpl. T. A. U. Paranihi.
Lieut. W. H. Stainton.
No. 10/161 Co. Sergt.-Maj. H. R. Vercoe.
Lieut. W. H. Walker.
N.Z.A.
No. 2/8B Fitter N. Clark.
Capt. G. E. Daniell.
Major N. S. Falla.
Temp. Sec. Lieut. R. McPherson.
Lieut. C. N. Newman.
Capt. J. M. Richmond.
Capt. R. B. Smythe.
Lieut.-Col. F. Symon.
N.Z. Engineers.
No. 4/85A Sec.-Cpl. A. W. Abbey.
No. 4/911 Sapper Carlyon.
No. 4/596 Spr. B. L. Dignan, N.Z. Signal Co.
Sec. Lieut. M. G. R. Newbold.
No. 4/115 Sergt. H. W. Newman, No. 1 Co.
No. 4/208A Cpl. C. W. Salmon.
No. 4/60A Cpl. C. W. Saunders.
No. 4/1399A Sapper E. G. Scrimshaw.
Major F. Waite.
No. 4/72A Sergt. A. Wallace.
Auckland Mtd. Rifles.
No. 13/64 Sergt. F. Allsopp.
No. 13/6 Tpr. L. J. Armstrong.
Major F. Chapman.
No. 13/535 Tpr. H. D. Champney.
Lieut. W. Hacata.
Sec. Lieut. E. J. McGregor.
No. 13/273 Tpr. A. Mason.
Sec. Lieut. W. T. Palmer.
No. 13/438 Tpr. R. R. C. Rollett.
No. 13/237 Tpr. K. M. Stevens.
Capt. F. A. Wood.
Canterbury Mtd. Rifles.
Capt. D. B. Blair.
No. 7/311 Tpr. J. M. Boocock.
No. 7/800 Tpr. J. Edwards.
No. 7/441 Sergt. R. A. Fleming.
No. 7/340 Sergt. A. R. Greenwood.
No. 7/516 Cpl. G. G. Harper.
No. 7/517 Sergt. R. P. Harper.
Lieut. C. Hayter.
Major H. C. Hurst.
Major G. F. Hutton (Capt. R. Welsh Fus.).
No. 7/108 Sergt. F. L. Rees.
Lieut. G. N. Taylor.
Wellington Mtd. Rifles.
No. 11/742 Cpl. F. R. Corrie.
Major J. McG. Elmslie (killed).
Major H. F. Hastings.
Capt. W. Janson.
Capt. V. A. Kelsall (killed).
Capt. R. Logan.
Lieut.-Col. W. Meldrum.
No. 11/442 Sergt. W. Ricketts.
No. 11/736 Sergt. B. Ronaldson (killed).
Major J. H. Whyte, D.S.O.
No. 11/654 Sergt. J. W. Wilder (killed).
No. 11/941 Tpr. J. H. Winter.
Otago Mtd. Rifles.
No. 9/129 Sergt. J. Campbell.
No. 9/465 Sergt.-Maj. L. S. L. L. Graham.
Major R. R. Grigor.
Capt. B. S. Hay (killed).
Capt. P. B. Henderson.
No. 9/445 Sergt.-Maj. V. Marshall.
No. 9/343 Cpl. A. Simon.
Lieut. J. K. D. Strang.
No. 9/91 Trooper A. K. Topi.
Lieut. F. M. Twistleton.
Auckland Batt.
No. 12/1185 Pte. D. Davidson.
Major T. H. Dawson.
Major S. A. Grant (died of wounds).
Lieut.-Col. A. Plugge.
No. 12/1799 Sergt. H. Spencer.
No. 12/1012 Pte. G. Tempany.
No. 12/1020 Cpl. F. W. Watson.
Lieut.-Col. R. Young, D.S.O.
Canterbury Batt.
Lieut A. E. Conway.
No. 6/227 Pte. A. Findlay.
No. 6/227 Pte. A. J. Findlay.
Major (temp. Lieut.-Col.) J. G. Hughes, D.S.O.
Capt. A. C. B. Critchley-Salmonson, D.S.O. (Royal Munster
Fusiliers).
Lieut.-Col. D. McB. Stewart.
Capt. H. Stewart.
No. 6/1158 Pte. T. Stockdill.
No. 6/770 Lce.-Cpl. W. H. Studley.
No. 6/157 Lce.-Cpl. B. N. Tavender.
No. 6/1131 Pte. A. Thomson.
Wellington Batt.
No. 10/1731 Pte. C. R. Barker.
Lce.-Cpl. P. G. Barratt.
No. 10/706 Pte. A. V. Carbines (killed).
Major E. P. Cox.
Major W. H. Cunningham.
Capt. E. S. Harston.
Major H. Hart. D.S.O.
Pte. H. E. Haydon.
No. 10/2228 Pte. F. Mahoney.
Lieut.-Col. W. G. Malone (killed).
Lieut. A. H. Preston.
No. 10/1674 Pte. J. W. Swann.
Lieut. F. K. Turnbull.
Lieut. E. R. Wilson.
Otago Batt.
Lieut. G. Bishop.
No. 8/1370 Sergt.-Maj. P. C. Boate.
Lieut. J. G. Cowan.
Sec. Lieut. E. M. Gabites.
No. 8/33 Sergt. E. Mitchell.
Lieut. T. H. Nisbet.
No. 8/1048 Sergt.-Maj. A. W. Porteous.
No. 8/1837 Lce.-Cpl. H. D. Skinner.
Major G. S. Smith.
Major F. H. Statham (killed).
No. 8/494 Cpl. T. A. Timpany.
Major W. McG. Turnbull.
Sec. Lieut. G. L. Wilson.
Divisional Train.
Capt. L. G. D. Acland.
N.Z.A.M.C.
No. 3/233 Lce.-Cpl. T. Biggar.
Capt. G. Craig.
No. 3/144 Pte. A. F. D. East.
No. 3/251 Pte. J. Greenwood.
Capt. R. N. Guthrie.
No. 3/180 Pte. H. W. Keesing.
Capt. K. McCormick.
No. 3/269 W.O. F. W. Moor.
Major E. J. O'Neill, D.S.O.
Lieut.-Col. W. R. Pearless, V.D.
Capt. A. V. Short.
No. 3/447 Lce.-Cpl. G. Steedman.
N.Z. Field Ambulance.
No. 3/158 Pte. J. Comrie.
No. 15/606 Pte. L. Crawford-Watson.
No. 3/170 Pte. W. Heaver.
No. 3/168 Pte. W. J. Henry.
Major E. J. O'Neill.
Lce.-Cpl. W. Singleton.
N.Z. Veterinary Corps.
Major C. R. Neale.
Chaplains' Department.
Rev. P. Dore.
Rev. W. Grant (killed).
A. Green, Salvation Army.
Rev. A. MacDonald.
INDEX
Aghyl Dere, 203
Anguar wireless station, 349
Antill, Col., 172
Anzac, origin of the word, 102;
total area, 136
Apia captured, 345
Arabic used by Anzacs, 240
Archbishop of Canterbury's memorial sermon, 371
Argonauts, the modern, 60
Ariburnu beach, 398
Armistice, 129, 241
Artillery work, 390
Asmak Dere, 205
Auckland Mounted Rifles, 181
_Australia_ battleship, record of, 360
_Ayesha_, schooner, 38
Ayling, Sergt., 82
Barbed wire, 100
Bartlett, Ashmead, tribute to Anzac wounded, 71;
description of Krithia Charge, 111;
battle of Quinn's Post, 127
Bassett, Corpl., wins V.C., 233
Bathing under shell fire, 87
Battleship Hill, 143
Bauchop's Hill, 182
Beachy Hill, 143, 386
Bell, Seaman Robert, 40
Birdwood, Gen. Sir William, letter to Sir G. Reid, 90;
"The Soul of Anzac," 149;
total of his forces, 152;
commends men of the _Southland_, 221
Bismarck Archipelago, 343
Biyuk Anafarta, 206
Bloody Angle, charge of, 173
Bomb throwing, first experiences, 102;
effect of, 139
Brand, Col., 82
Braund, Col., 79
Bridges, Gen., message to people of Australia, 19;
death of, 116;
work at Duntroon, 337
Brighton Beach, battle of, 59;
origin of name, 68
Burnage, Col., 318
Burton, Corpl., wins V.C., 229
Cadet System in Australia, 332
Canada and the Navy, 355
Cannon, Col., 318
Caroline Islands, 343
Censored news, 95
Charitable gifts, Australian, 325;
New Zealand, 326
Chunuk Bair, New Zealanders' assault, 186;
loss of, 188
Clarke, Col., 79-80
Cocos Island, 29
Collins, Capt. Muirhead, speech at launch of the _Sydney_, 358
_Colne_ bombards Outpost No. 3, 181
Colombo, _Sydney_ arrives at, 41
Commonwealth Parliament, War Vote of £40,000,000, 322
Compulsory training, 334
Conditions of service, 24
Cook, Hon. J., 15
Cosgrove, Corpl., wins V.C., 235
Courtney's Post, 123
Cox. Gen., 207
Crabbe, Lieut., 226
Cresswell, Rear-Admiral Sir W., 356
Deakin, Mr. A., 356
Dartnell, Lieut., wins V.C., 236
Dead Man's Ridge, 99, 123
Death Valley, 96
Denton, Major, 82
Derham, Lieut., 82
Disease epidemic at Anzac, 145, 386
Discipline of Anzacs, 254
Duffy, Sergt., 246
Dunstan, Sergt., wins V.C., 229
Duntroon College, 256;
description of, 335;
work of Gen. Bridges, 337
Dysentery at Anzac, 387
Eighteenth Battalion A.I.F. at Hill 60, 207
Eighth Battalion A.I.F. charged by Turks, 88
Eighth Regiment of Light Horse, charge from Russell's Top, 172
Elston, Lieut., captured, 76
Elwell, Lieut.-Commander, 349
_Emden_, fight with the _Sydney_, 29;
losses, 41;
news at Lloyd's, 43
Engineers, 85
Evacuation of Anzac, 397
Fifteenth Battalion A.I.F. wins three trenches, 113;
night march, 205
First Battalion A.I.F. at Lone Pine, 164
First Brigade A.I.F., first landing, 67;
first position, 75;
at Lone Pine, 159
Fifth Brigade A.I.F. arrives at Anzac, 207
First Brigade Aust. Light Horse at Lone Pine, 165;
charge over the Bloody Angle, 173
First Regiment Aust. Light Horse, charge over the Bloody Angle, 174
Fisher, Rt. Hon. Andrew, 15
Fisherman's Hut, 75
Fleet, Australian, 344
Fleet, German Pacific, 344
Fourteenth Battalion A.I.F. night march, 205
Fourth Battalion A.I.F. charge Turkish camp, 89
Fourth Brigade A.I.F., position after landing, 75;
night march, 203;
heavy losses, 206;
thanked by Gen. Godley, 317
Freidrich Wilhelmshaven taken, 349
Gaba Tepe, 62;
assaulted, 100
Garside, Col., 79
German brutality, 241
German officers' trench charged, 169
Glossop, Capt., of the _Sydney_, 30, 37
Godley, General, tribute from Sir Ian Hamilton, 199;
praises 4th Brigade, 317
Gordon, Major, 79
Graves at Anzac, 399
Gurkhas scale Koja Chemen, 187
Gurkhas, White, 279
Gwynn, Col., 217
Hamilton, Lieut., 226
Hamilton, Private, wins V.C., 232
Hamilton, Sir Ian, 61;
message to Australia, 113;
Suvla Bay plans, 135;
praise for Anzacs, 199;
report on Australian defences, 333
Harvest, record, in Australia, 327
Harvey, Petty Officer, 33
Hawker, Capt., wins V.C., 235
Heliopolis camps, 48
Hellfire Spit, 68
Herbertshöhe captured, 347
Hill 60, 206;
captured, 209
Howard, Private, 226
Hoy, Seaman Albert, 40
Hutchinson, Col., 216
Indian Mountain Batteries, 67;
slaughter of Turks on Chunuk Bair, 193
Jacka, Sergt., wins V.C., 225
Jervis Bay Naval College, 362
Jobson, Miss Jeanie, letter to Anzacs, 323
Johnston, Gen., 125
Johnston's Jolly, 125
Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, 343
Keyzor, Sergt., wins V.C., 231
King George, message to the Dominions, 16;
praise of Anzacs, 95
Kitchener, Lord, speech in the Lords, 210;
Australian defence scheme, 333;
inspects Anzac, 397
Koja Chemen, 142, 206
Krithia, transfer of Anzacs to, 104;
charge at, 107
Legge, Gen., appointment, 118;
on _Southland_, 215;
his coolness, 217;
congratulates 21st Battalion, 221
Light Horse, 69;
volunteer for infantry service, 114
Linton, Col., on _Southland_, 215;
death, 218
Liverpool, Lord, message to the King, 16
Logan, Major, 174
Lone Pine Plateau, capture of, 159
Lynch, Petty Officer, 40
McCay, Gen., leads Krithia Charge, 112
Macdonald, Capt., captured, 76
Machine guns, 153;
Major Wallingford's work, 194
McKenzie, Hon. Sir Thomas, High Commissioner for New Zealand, 51
McKenzie, Sapper, 83
Maclagan, Gen. Sinclair, 62
McLaurin Hill, 123
McLaurin, Col., 80
McNaghten, Col., at Lone Pine, 164
McNicholl, Col., 81
Man with the Donkey, 261
Maori Contingent, 154;
at Bauchop's Hill, 182
Marshall Islands, 343
Massey, Hon. W., 15
Maxwell, Gen. Sir John, reviews Anzacs, 51
Memorial sermon to Anzacs at St. Paul's, 370
Mena Camp, 48
Militia, Australian, 332
Monash, Gen., 123, 319
Monash Gully, 96, 99, 123
Monro, Gen. Sir Charles, advises evacuation, 397
Morgan, Lieut., 83
Munitions, making, in Australia, 327
Nauru wireless station, 349
Naval College, Australian, 362
Naval subsidy, 354
Navy, services at landing, 68;
Anzac admiration, 86
Navy, Australian, 344
Neck, The, charge of Light Horse, 172;
blown up, 400
Neu Pommern wireless station, 346
New Guinea, German, 343
_New Zealand_ battleship, 355
New Zealand Infantry on Chunuk Bair, 187
New Zealanders' position after landing, 75;
charge at Krithia, 107;
attack Chunuk Bair, 186;
heavy losses, 194
Ninth Australian Light Horse at Hill 60, 208
Ninth Battalion A.I.F., early charge, 88
O'Neill, Major, 84
Otago Mounted Rifles, 182
Outpost No. 2, 154;
concentration, 181
Owen, Col., 246
Pearce, Hon. A., Minister for Australian Defence, message to troops, 19
Pelew Islands, 343
Periscopes, 244
Pockley, Capt., 349
Pope, Col., escape from capture, 76
Pope's Hill, 76;
attacked, 96
Pyramids, Australians at, 50
_Queen Elizabeth_, 88
Quinn, Major, 123, 318
Quinn's Post, Battle of, 121;
mine exploded, 137
Rabaul expedition, 344, 346
Recruiting in Australasia, 315
Red Cross, 84, 195
Reid, Major, 176
Reid, Rt. Hon. Sir George, speech under the Pyramids, 52;
Gen. Birdwood's letter, 90
Rhododendron Ridge, 187
Richardson, Capt., 82
Robertson, Major, 79
Robey, Private, 83
Rosenthal Point, 123
Russell, General, 182;
at Hill 60, 207
Russell's Top, 154;
charge of Light Horse, 171
Samoa, German, 343;
N.Z. expedition against, 345
Sari Bair, 134
Sass, Capt., 228
Second Brigade A.I.F., first landing, 67;
first position, 75;
Krithia, 107;
in trenches, 144
Second Brigade Aust. Light Horse, demonstration, 141
Second Division A.I.F., 209;
on _Southland_, 215, 385
Second Regiment of Light Horse, charge the Bloody Angle, 173
"Selling the Pony," 173
Seventh Battalion A.I.F. at Lone Pine, 164;
six V.C.s, 229
Sharpe, Seaman Reginald, 40
Shout, Capt., wins V.C., 227
Sickness at Anzac, 145, 386
Simpson, Private, 261
Sixteenth Battalion A.I.F. win three trenches, 113
Sixteenth Battalion A.I.F., night march, 205
Sixth Battalion A.I.F. charge German officers' trench, 170
Smyth, Gen., at Lone Pine, 165
Smyth, Gen., 228
Snipers, 78;
way of stalking, 101
Snipers, Girl, captured, 242
Snowfall, 392
Solomon Islands, 343
Soudan Contingent, 338
_Southland_, wreck of, 215
Spies, 77
Steel's Post, 123
Stewart, Dr., 83
Stretcher bearers' bravery, 260
Stretcher bearers, 84
Submarines, Australian, 362
Suez Canal, Turkish attack, 54
Sufferings of wounded, 195
Suvla Bay, plan of landing, 135;
landing, 169
_Sydney_, fight with the _Emden_, 29;
losses, 40
Sykes, Major, at Lone Pine, 166
Symons, Lieut., wins V.C., 230
Tabletop Hill, 182
Tasmania Post, 146
Tenth Battalion A.I.F. charge at Pope's Hill, 88
Tenth Regiment of Light Horse charge from Russell's Top, 172;
at Hill 60, 208
Third Brigade A.I.F., first landing, 62;
first position, 75;
hard pushed, 87;
demonstration, 141
Third Brigade of Light Horse charge from Russell's Top, 172
Thirteenth Battalion A.I.F., night march, 205
Throssell, Lieut., wins V.C., 233
Todd, Major, 172
Toma captured, 349
Tubb, Captain, wins V.C., 229
Turks, humanity of, 211, 241, 243, 267
Turks, last messages to, 399
Twenty-first battalion on the _Southland_, 215
Underground warfare at Anzac, 387
Valley of Death, 96
Valley of Torment, 195
Volunteers in Australia, 332
von der Goltz, boast of, 61
von Mueller, captain of the _Emden_, 31, 36
von Sanders, Gen. Liman, decides to drive Anzacs off, 116, 121;
his mistake, 126
Wallingford, Major, 194, 245
Walker, Gen., 122
Walker's Ridge, 122, 154
Water supply, 248
Wellington Mounted Rifles, 182
Wet season, 392
White, Col., 81, 172
Wynn, Sergt.-Major, 174
_Printed by_ Butler & Tanner _Frome and London_
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
A superscript is denoted by ^x or ^{xx}. For example, L^{TD}.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example,
cumbered; sulphurous; machine-gun, machine gun; landing-place,
landing place.
List of Illustrations, missing entry added:
'Captain Richardson of the 1st Brigade 252'.
Pg 146, 'columes of fifty' replaced by 'columns of fifty'.
Pg 172, 'sign 1 was given' replaced by 'signal was given'.
Pg 230. 'native city af' replaced by 'native city of'.
Pg 363, 'credit of the the service' replaced by
'credit of the service'.
Pg 365, 'a little ashcat' replaced by 'a little ashcan'.
Pg 424, 'No. 3/233 Lce.-Clp.' replaced by 'No. 3/233 Lce.-Cpl.'.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War" ***
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