Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War, E. C. Buley

 

 

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GLORIOUS DEEDS
OF AUSTRALASIANS IN THE
GREAT WAR

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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

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First printed October, 1915.
Reprinted November, 1915.
"      twice in December, 1915.
New edition (enlarged) January, 1916.

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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[4] 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.

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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[6] 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.

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CONTENTS

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[9]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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[11]

THE LONG BLACK SHIPS

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[12]
[13]

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[14] 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.

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 [15]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[16] 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:—

This was acknowledged by New Zealand in the following terms:—

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,[18] 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 pre[19]paration 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[20] 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.

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 [21]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[22] 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 reason[23]able 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[24] 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, 21s. per day; sergeant, 10s. 6d. per day; corporal, 10s. per day; private, 6s. per day.

Separation Allowance.—Married members receiving less than 8s. per day—(a) for wife living at home, 1s. 5d. per day; (b) for each child under 16 years of age, 4½d. 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[25] 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.

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THE END OF THE RAIDER "EMDEN"

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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[30] 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.

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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[32] 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[33] 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[34] 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[35] 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 ammuni[36]tion 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[37] 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[38] 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.

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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 im[40]possibility, 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,[41] 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.[42] 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.

[43]

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.

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[44]
[45]

IN THE LAND OF PHARAOH

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[46]
[47]

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[48] 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.

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 [49]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[50] £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.

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 [51]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[52] 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.

"What brings these forces here? Why do their [53]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[54] 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[55] 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.

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[56]
[57]

THE BATTLE OF BRIGHTON BEACH

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[58]
[59]

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[60] 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[61] 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.

[62]

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 [63]prelude to one of the bombardments to which they were now accustomed.

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,[64] 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[65] 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,[66] 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.

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. [67]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,[68] 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[69] 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[70] 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."

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 [71]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[72] 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."

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[73]

OCCUPYING THE LAND

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[74]
[75]

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 oppor[76]tunities 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[77] 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[78] 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[79] 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,[80] 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. [81]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."

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[82] 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[83] 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[84] 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[85] 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[86] 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.[87] 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[88] 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[89] 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 Australa[90]sians 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, [91]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."

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[92]
[93]

POPE'S HILL AND GABA TEPE

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[94]
[95]

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[96] 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[97] 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.[98] 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.[99] 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[100] 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.

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 [101]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[102] 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[103] 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.

[104]

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.

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[105]

THE CHARGE AT KRITHIA

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[106]
[107]

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[108] 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,[109] 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.

[110]

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.

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 [111]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[112] 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[113] 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[114] 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[115] 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[116] 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.

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 [117]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[118] 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.

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[119]

THE BATTLE OF QUINN'S POST

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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 after[122]wards 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.

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 [123]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[124] 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.

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 [125]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 ammuni[126]tion 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[127] 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;[128] 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[129] 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[130] 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.

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[131]

A THORN IN THE FLESH

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[132]
[133]

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[134] 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.

Therefore the presence of the Australasians [135]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[136] 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 Stron[137]ach 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.

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"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[139] 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[140] 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[141] 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[142] 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.

[143]

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[144] 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.[145] 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.

[146]

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.

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[147]

THE SOUL OF ANZAC

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[148]
[149]

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[150] 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.

[151]

"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[152] 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.

[153]

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[154] 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[155] 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.

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[156]
[157]

THE STORY OF LONE PINE

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[158]
[159]

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[160] 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,[161] 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[162] 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.

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 [163]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[164] 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.

[165]

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[166] 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."

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[167]

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT HORSE

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[168]
[169]

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,[170] 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,[171] 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[172] 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."[173] (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[174] 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.

"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 [175](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,[176] 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!

[177]

"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.

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[178]
[179]

THE MIGHTY NEW ZEALANDERS

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[180]
[181]

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.

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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."

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 [183]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[184] 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.

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"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[186] 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[187] 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[188] 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, there[189]fore, 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 pre[190]vious 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."

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[191]

THE VALLEY OF TORMENT

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[193]

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.

[194]

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[195] 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.

[196]

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[197] 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[198] 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—

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.

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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.[200] 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."

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[201]

THE GREAT NIGHT MARCH

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[203]

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[204] 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.

[205]

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[206] 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[207] 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[208] 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[209] 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[210] 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[211] 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."

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[213]

THE STORY OF THE SOUTHLAND

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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[216] 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.

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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[218] 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.

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 [219]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,[220] 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[221] 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 Aus[222]tralian 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.

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[223]

THE V.C.'s OF ANZAC

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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[226] 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[227] 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[228] 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[229] 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[230] 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.[231] 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[232] 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[233] 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[234] 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[235] 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.

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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.

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[237]

SAID AN AUSTRALIAN OFFICER

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[239]

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[240] 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.

"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 [241]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[242] 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[243] 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,[244] 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[245] 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[246] 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 [247]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[248] 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.

"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 [249]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."

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[250]
[251]

THE BAND OF BROTHERS

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[252]
[253]

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.[254] 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.[255] 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[256] 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[257] 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[258] 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.

[259]

"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.

[260]

"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[261] 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.

[262]

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[263] 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:—

But if you wish an Australian to tell you his story, you must ask for the Man with the Donkey.

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[264]
[265]

A TRIBUTE TO THE TURK

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[266]
[267]

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.

[268]

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.[269] 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.[270] 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 sur[271]plus 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[272] 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[273] 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[274] 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 death[275]traps 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.'"

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[276]
[277]

GURKHAS, WHITE AND BROWN

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[278]
[279]

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[280] 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[281] 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.[282] 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[283] 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.

[284]

"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[285] 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[286] 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,[287] 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."

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[288]
[289]

THE MAN WHO WASN'T LET

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[290]
[291]

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[292] 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[293] 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[294] 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[295] 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[296] 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[297] 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[298] 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.

[299]

"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?"

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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.

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[300]
[301]

THE AUSTRALASIAN SOLDIER

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[302]
[303]

CHAPTER XXIII

THE AUSTRALASIAN SOLDIER

"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[304] 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.

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 [305]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[306] 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 cir[307]cumstances 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[308] 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,[309] 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[310] 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 [311]of a vital kind in their military system, and in the change the defect in training had been remedied.

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[312] 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.

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[313]

FILLING THE GAPS

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[314]
[315]

CHAPTER XXIV

FILLING THE GAPS

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.

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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:—

"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 [317]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.

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"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[319] 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[320] 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[321] 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.

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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[323] 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:—

That Australian purses were opened with Australian [325]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[326] 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:—

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, [327]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.

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[328] 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.

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[329]

THE ARMIES OF AUSTRALASIA

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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 Common[332]wealth 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[333] 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[334] 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—

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[335] 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 quar[336]tered, 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 5s. 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[337] 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[338] 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,[339] 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.

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[341]

CLEARING THE PACIFIC

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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[344] 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[345] 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[346] 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.

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 [347]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[348] 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.

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, [349]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 Aus[350]tralian 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.

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[351]

THE YOUNGEST NAVY IN THE WORLD

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[353]

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[354] 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,[355] 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[356] 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:—

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 [357]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[358] 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[359] 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."

[360]

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[361] 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[362] 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.

[363]

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[364] 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.

[365]

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.

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[366]
[367]

THE HEART OF EMPIRE STIRRED

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[368]
[369]

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:[370] "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.

[371]

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[372] 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 Chris[373]tians, 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?'

[374]

"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[375] 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[376] 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,[377] 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[378] 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.

[379]

"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[380] 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[381] service gives response already to the rallying call of the poet-bishop of Australia:

"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 [382]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.

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[383]

THE SECOND DIVISION

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[384]
[385]

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.[386] 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.[387] 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,[388] 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[389] 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.

[390]

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.

[391]

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,[392] 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[393] 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.

---

[394]
[395]

THE LAST OF ANZAC

---

[396]
[397]

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[398] 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[399] 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[400] 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[401] 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.[402] "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."

---

[403]

HONOURS LIST

---

[404]
[405]

HONOURS LIST

AUSTRALIAN FORCES

C.B.

C.M.G.

D.S.O.

MILITARY CROSS.

D.C.M.

ROYAL RED CROSS DECORATION.

MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES.

Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train.

Australian Artillery.

Australian Engineers.

1st Field Company Engineers.

Divisional Sig. Co.

1st L.H. (N.S.W.).

2nd L.H. (Q.).

4th L.H. (Vic.).

5th L.H. (Q.).

6th L.H. (N.S.W.).

7th L.H. (N.S.W.).

8th L.H. (Vic.).

9th L.H. (Vic. and S.A.).

10th L.H. (W.A.).

1st Batt. (N.S.W.).

2nd Batt. (N.S.W.).

[413]

3rd Batt. (N.S.W.).

4th Batt. (N.S.W.).

5th Batt. (Vic.).

6th Batt. (Vic.).

7th Batt. (Vic.).

8th Batt. (Vic.).

[415]

9th Batt. (Q.).

10th Batt. (S.A.).

11th Batt. (W.A.).

[416]

12th Batt. (S.A., W.A., and Tas.).

13th Batt. (N.S.W.).

14th Batt. (Vic.).

15th Batt. (Q. and Tas.).

16th Batt. (S.A. and W.A.).

18th Batt. (N.S.W.).

20th Batt. (N.S.W.).

23rd Batt. (Vic.).

Australian Divisional Train.

[418]

A.A.M.C.

1st Field Ambulance.

2nd Field Ambulance.

3rd Field Ambulance.

[419]

1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station.

Chaplains' Department.

NEW ZEALAND FORCES

C.B.

C.M.G.

D.S.O.

[420]

MILITARY CROSSES.

D.C.M.

ROYAL RED CROSS DECORATION.

MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES.

Maori Contingent.

N.Z.A.

N.Z. Engineers.

Auckland Mtd. Rifles.

Canterbury Mtd. Rifles.

Wellington Mtd. Rifles.

Otago Mtd. Rifles.

Auckland Batt.

Canterbury Batt.

[424]

Wellington Batt.

Otago Batt.

Divisional Train.

N.Z.A.M.C.

N.Z. Field Ambulance.

N.Z. Veterinary Corps.

Chaplains' Department.

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[426]
[427]

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

[428]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

[429]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

[430]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

[431]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

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