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 [Illustration: LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR W. BIRDWOOD--"THE SOUL OF ANZAC."

  Frontispiece.]




    AUSTRALIA IN ARMS




           SOLDIER-SONGS
            FROM ANZAC

    By Signaller TOM SKEYHILL.

     With an Introduction by
 Major-General J. W. McCAY, C. B.

 Paper cover, 1s. net.


Private Skeyhill trained in Egypt from January 1915 to April 1915. He
landed with his battalion on Anzac Beach on 25th April, taking part in
the fighting of that first fierce week. The next week he was with his
battalion at Cape Helles, and shared in the well-known charge by the
2nd Brigade on the 8th May, when a high-explosive shell burst beside
him and sent him to hospital, a blind and helpless man. There are hopes
that eventually he may recover his sight, but at best the time must be
long. His poems breathe love of country and of courage, the spirit of
battle, soldiers' comradeship, and sympathy for the fallen.


T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., LONDON




    AUSTRALIA IN ARMS

 A NARRATIVE OF THE AUSTRALASIAN IMPERIAL
 FORCE AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENT AT ANZAC


             BY
    PHILLIP F. E. SCHULER

 Special War Correspondent of _The Age_, Melbourne


 WITH 9 MAPS AND 53 ILLUSTRATIONS


 LONDON
 T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.
 ADELPHI TERRACE




 _First published in 1916_


 (_All rights reserved_)




                  TO
     THE MOTHERS OF THE HEROES
           WHO HAVE FALLEN
 I HUMBLY DEDICATE THESE RECORDS OF
            GLORIOUS DEEDS




_TO THE MOTHER COUNTRY_


    _Because you trusted them, and gave them dower
    Of your own ancient birthright, Liberty--
    Forwent the meagre semblances of power
    To win the deepest truth and loyalty--
    Now, when these seeming slender roots are tried
    Of all your strength, behold, they do not move;
    The stripling nations hasten to your side,
    Impelled, as children should be, by their love._

    _And who shall grudge the pride of Motherhood
    To this old Northern Kingdom of the sea?
    Indeed our fathers' husbandry was good;
    This is the harvest of our history;
    Yet boast not. Rather pray we be not found
    Unworthy those great men who tilled the ground._

                _F. D. Livingstone_




PREFACE


One hot, bright morning early in the Dardanelles campaign, so the story
goes, Lieut.-General Sir William Birdwood was walking up one of the
worn tracks of Anzac that led over the hills into the firing-line when
he stopped, as he very often did on these daily tours of the line,
to talk with two men who were cooking over a fireplace made of shell
cases. General Birdwood wore no jacket, therefore he had no badges of
rank. His cap even lacked gold lace. Under his arm he had tucked a
periscope. But the Australian addressed did not even boast of a shirt.
Stripped to the waist, he was as fine a type of manhood as you might
wish to see. He was burned a deep brown; his uniform consisted of a
cap, shorts, and a pair of boots. His mate was similarly clad.

"Got something good there?" remarked the General as he stopped near the
steaming pot of bully-beef stew.

"Ye-es," replied the Australian, "it's all right. Wish we had a few
more spuds, though." Conversation then branched off into matters
relating to the firing-line, till at last General Birdwood signified
his intention of going, bidding the soldier a cheery "Good-day," which
was acknowledged by an inclination of the head. The General walked up
the path to his firing-line, and the Australian turned to his mate,
who had been very silent, but who now began to swear softly under his
breath--

"You ---- ---- ---- fool! Do you know who you were talking to?"

"No!"

"Well, that was General Birdwood, that was, yer coot!"

"How was I to know that? Anyway, he seemed to know me all right."

Those were the types of soldiers with whom I spent the first year of
their entry into the Great War. I watched them drafted into camps in
Australia, the raw material; I saw them charge into action like veteran
troops, not a year later. Never downhearted, often grumbling, always
chafing under delays, generous even to an alarming degree, the first
twenty thousand who volunteered to go forth from Australia to help
the Mother Country in the firing-line was an army that made even our
enemies doubt if we had not deliberately "chosen" the finest of the
race. Since then there have been not twenty, but two hundred thousand
of that stamp of soldier sent across the water to fight the Empire's
battles at the throat of the foe.

This narrative does not pretend to be an "Eye-witness" account. In most
instances where I have had official papers before me, I have turned in
preference to the more bold and vigorous stories of the men who have
taken part in the stirring deeds.

I left Melbourne on 21st October on the Flagship of the Convoy, the
_Orvieto_, that carried the 1st Division of Australian troops to
Egypt, as the official representative of the _Melbourne Age_ with
the Expedition. I landed with the troops and went with them into the
desert camp at Mena. It was then that I realized what staunch friends
these young campaigners were. Colonel Wanliss and officers of the 5th
Infantry Battalion insisted that I should become a member of their
mess. I can never be grateful enough for that courtesy.

I wish also to gratefully acknowledge the kindly help and courtesy
extended to me at all times by the Divisional Staff, and especially by
Brigadier-General C. B. B. White, C.B. (then Lieut.-Colonel), Chief of
the Staff, whom I always found courteous and anxious to facilitate me
in my work as far as lay in his power.

It was while witnessing the welding of the Australasian Army in Egypt
that I met Mr. W. T. Massey, representative of the _Daily Telegraph_,
London, and Mr. George Renwick, _Daily Chronicle_. We became a council
of three for the four months we were together in Egypt, and it was
a keen regret when Mr. Massey was unable to accompany me to the
Dardanelles on the trip we had planned together, whereby, taking the
advice of General Sir Ian Hamilton that we were "free British subjects
and could always take a ticket to the nearest railway-station to the
fighting," we had intended to witness together the landing. As it was,
I went alone on a small 500-ton Greek trading steamer; but on arrival
at Mitylene I was fortunate to find Mr. Renwick there and Mr. Stevens,
who was now representing the _Daily Telegraph_, and they, having a
motor-launch, invited me to join them in a little enterprise of our
own. For a fortnight we watched the operations from the shores of
Imbros and the decks of the launch, steaming up to the entrance of the
Straits, living on what resources the island might deliver to us, which
was mostly a poor fish, goat's milk, eggs, and very resinous native
Greek wine. Eventually the motor-boat (and correspondents) was banished
from "The Zone" by British destroyers.

So I returned to Alexandria at the end of May, and was able to visit
the hospitals and chat with the men from the firing-line. Then in July,
General Sir Ian Hamilton--who had told us prior to his departure that
he intended to do all in his power to help Mr. Massey and myself to
visit the Anzac front--wrote from his headquarters at Imbros giving me
his permission to come on to the famous battlefields.

In four hours I was on my way to the Dardanelles on a transport, and
by stages (visiting the notorious _Aragon_ at Mudros Harbour) reached
Kephalos Bay, where the Commander-in-Chief had pitched his tent. The
cordiality of General Hamilton's welcome will ever linger in my memory.
I remember he was seated at a deal table in a small wooden hut with a
pile of papers before him. He spoke of the Australians in terms of the
highest praise. They were, he said, at present "a thorn in the side of
the Turks," and when the time came he intended that that thorn should
be pressed deeper. He advised me to see all I could, as quickly as I
could.

I received a passport through the British and French lines and
travelled from Helles to Anzac and Suvla Bay at will. Lieut.-General
Birdwood and his Staff, Major-General Legge and the officers throughout
the 1st Australian Division, and Major-General Godley and the leaders
of the New Zealand Brigades, extended to me such courtesies as lay in
their hands. I was able to witness the whole of the August offensive
from the closest quarters, being in our trenches at Lone Pine during
the engagement of the 6th.

At Anzac I was heartily welcomed by Captain Bean, the official
correspondent with the Australian forces, who of all men was the most
enthusiastic, painstaking, and conscientious worker that I have ever
met, and I desire to acknowledge my debt to him for kindly criticism
and good fellowship.

I would never be able to record the names of friends in the force, both
in the firing-line and at the base, from whom I have received valuable
suggestions and practical help.

I wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Geoffrey Syme, proprietor of _The
Age_, for permission to use certain of the war dispatches I sent him
for publication; to Mr. Osboldstone for permission to utilize some of
the photographs he had already printed; and to the Minister of Defence
for the reproduction of photographs and orders.

I am deeply indebted also to Mr. J. R. Watson for the spontaneous
manner in which he offered to handle the manuscript for me in London
while I was far across the water and corrected the proofs, thus
enabling me to join the ranks of our Army. The apparent delight with
which he entered on the work removed from my mind all thought of
overtaxing a friendship.

Finally, I am most anxious to remove, at the outset, any suggestion
that might be gained from this narrative that the Australians alone
were the outstanding heroes of the Dardanelles campaign. When the
history of the British forces--the magnificent 29th Division, the
Lowland Division, and the Yeomanry--comes to be recorded, and the story
of the French participation in the assault of Achi Baba told, it will
be seen that, glorious as has been the name won by the Australians,
heroically as they fought, proudly and surely as they held all they
gained, they played a part in this "Great Adventure," and it is of that
part that I have written because it was the only one of which I had
full knowledge.

  PHILLIP F. E. SCHULER.

  Melbourne, _5th April 1916_.




CONTENTS


          PART I

          AUSTRALIA ANSWERS THE CALL

 CHAPTER                                                            PAGE

     I.  THE TOCSIN IN AUSTRALIA                                      15

    II.  THE ASSEMBLY                                                 24

   III.  ADVENTURES ON THE CONVOY                                     35

    IV.  THE FIRST PAGE OF AUSTRALIAN NAVAL HISTORY--FROM
         THE DECKS OF THE CONVOY                                      40

     V.  THE FIRST PAGE OF AUSTRALIAN NAVAL HISTORY
         (_continued_)--THE DESTRUCTION OF THE _EMDEN_      46

    VI.  UP THE RED SEA                                               61

   VII.  THE CAMPS ROUND CAIRO                                        67

  VIII.  RUMOURS OF THE TURKS' ATTACK                                 75

    IX.  FIRST SUEZ CANAL BATTLE                                      78


         PART II

         THE ANZAC CAMPAIGN

     X.  THE PLAN OF ATTACK                                           92

    XI.  THE DAWN OF ANZAC--THE LANDING                               99

   XII.  A TERRIBLE THREE DAYS                                       115

  XIII.  A BATTLE PANORAMA OF GALLIPOLI                              127

   XIV.  AN UNFULFILLED ARMY ORDER                                   134

    XV.  VICTORIANS' CHARGE AT KRITHIA                               143

   XVI.  TURKISH MAY ATTACK AND ARMISTICE                            157

  XVII.  ANZAC COVE                                                  168

 XVIII.  THROUGH THE FIRING-LINES                                    179

   XIX.  LIFE AT QUINN'S AND POPE'S                                  193

    XX.  JUNE AND JULY PREPARATIONS                                  204


         PART III

         THE GREAT ADVENTURE

   XXI.  THE AUGUST PHASE AND NEW LANDING                            212

  XXII.  LONE PINE                                                   221

 XXIII.  THE HEROIC LIGHT HORSE CHARGE                               236

  XXIV.  THE BATTLE OF SARI BAIR--FIRST PHASE                        245

   XXV. THE BATTLE OF SARI BAIR--THE CAPTURE OF THE
        RIDGE AND ITS LOSS                                           257

  XXVI. HILL 60, GALLIPOLI                                           272

 XXVII. THE EVACUATION OF THE PENINSULA                              279


         APPENDIX

     I.  DISTINCTIONS FOR GALLANTRY AND SERVICES IN THE FIELD        293

    II.  MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES                                     311


         INDEX                                                       318




ILLUSTRATIONS


 LT.-GEN. SIR W. BIRDWOOD, "THE SOUL OF ANZAC"      _Frontispiece_

                                                       FACING PAGE

 THE STAFF OF THE FIRST AUSTRALIAN DIVISION                     22

 A QUIET AFTERNOON ON A TROOP DECK                              36

 TATTOOING WITH A HOME-MADE ELECTRICAL NEEDLE                   36

 H.M.A.S. _SYDNEY_                                              42

 OFFICERS FROM THE _EMDEN_ ON THE FLAGSHIP                      56

 THE DIRK OF PRINCE FRANCIS JOSEPH OF HOHENZOLLERN              56

 THE FIRST TENTS IN THE MENA CAMP                               62

 VIEW OF MENA CAMP                                              62

 AUSTRALIANS COMING INTO CAIRO FROM THE CAMPS                   68

 GENERAL HAMILTON REVIEWING THE AUSTRALIANS AT ZEITOUN          72

 AUSTRALIANS AT THE SUEZ CANAL                                  82

 TURKISH PRISONERS IN CAIRO                                     82

 THE 29TH DIVISION                                              92

 PRESENTATION OF COLOURS TO THE FRENCH COLONIAL TROOPS          92

 AUSTRALIANS LEAVING FOR THE FRONT                              96

 BRIGADIER-GENERALS M'CAY AND MACLAGAN                          96

 FLEET IN MUDROS HARBOUR                                       100

 TRANSPORTS LYING OFF THE DARDANELLES                          100

 GABA TEPE AND THE PLANNED LANDING BEACH                       104

 SHELLING ANZAC COVE                                           104

 ANZAC COVE AS IT FINALLY BECAME                               108

 EARLY VIEW OF ANZAC BEACH                                     116

 HOSPITALS ON ANZAC BEACH                                      116

 "BEACHY BILL'S" SHRAPNEL OVER ANZAC COVE                      122

 BULLY BEEF GULLY                                              122

 ARMY SERVICE WAGONS AT CAPE HELLES                            128

 THE _RIVER CLYDE_ IN SEDDUL BAHR BAY                          128

 THE 29TH DIVISION DUGOUTS AT CAPE HELLES                      144

 THE GREAT DERE, CAPE HELLES                                   144

 WATER CARRIERS FROM THE SPRINGS AT CAPE HELLES                148

 HEADQUARTERS 1ST AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY BRIGADE                 148

 THE ROAD INTO KRITHIA                                         152

 THE TURKISH EMISSARY LEAVING ANZAC BLINDFOLDED                160

 TROOPS GOING INTO THE FIRING-LINE ON THE FIRST DAYS
 OF THE LANDING                                                164

 THE BEACH CLEARING STATION                                    164

 BRIGADIER-GENERAL MONASH'S HEADQUARTERS, REST GULLY           172

 SPHINX ROCK AND REST GULLY                                    172

 SHRAPNEL AND MONASH GULLY                                     180

 CHAPLAIN DEXTER AND A TRENCH MORTAR                           188

 SHELL GREEN                                                   188

 HEADQUARTERS OF 5TH INFANTRY BATTALION                        198

 THE GREAT SAP LEADING TO NO. 2 OUTPOST                        210

 TURKISH PRISONERS DIGGING DUGOUTS                             210

 A GLIMPSE OF NO MAN'S LAND                                    228

 THE COOKS' LINES IN BROWN'S DIP                               232

 DEAD ON THE PARAPETS OF LONE PINE TRENCHES                    232

 TURKISH MIA MIAS OCCUPIED BY THE AUSTRALIAN TROOPS            250

 WATER-TANKS IN THE GULLIES                                    250

 THE OVERHEAD COVER AT LONE PINE                               260

 A SAP LEADING UP AN EXPOSED HILL-SIDE                         260

 A GERMAN OFFICER'S DUGOUT                                     278


 MAPS AND PLANS

 ANCHORAGE OF AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORTS
 IN KING GEORGE SOUND, ALBANY, OCT. 31, 1914       _face page_  28

 PLAN OF THE _SYDNEY-EMDEN_ FIGHT                       _page_  51

 PLAN OF THE ATTEMPTED CROSSING OF SUEZ CANAL              "    87

 ANZAC POSITION ON MAY 19, 1915                   _face page_  112

 AN AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE MAP OF THE TURKISH
 TRENCHES                                          _face page_ 180

 GALLIPOLI PENINSULA AND THE OUTSTANDING FEATURES OF
 THE AUSTRALIAN AND BRITISH POSITIONS              _face page_ 216

 AUSTRALIAN AND TURKISH TRENCHES AT LONE PINE           "      224

 OPPOSING TRENCHES ON THE NEK                           _page_ 239

 HILL 60, GALLIPOLI                                        "   273




AUSTRALIA IN ARMS




PART I

_AUSTRALIA ANSWERS THE CALL_




CHAPTER I

THE TOCSIN IN AUSTRALIA


It is impossible to look back and recall without a glow of intense
pride the instantaneous response made by the young manhood of Australia
to the first signal of danger which fluttered at the central masthead
of the Empire. As time goes on that pride has increased as battalions
and brigades have followed one another into the firing-line; it has
become now a pride steeped in the knowledge that the baptism of fire
has proven the young nation, has given it an indelible stamp of
Nationhood, has provoked from the lips of a great English soldier the
phrase, "These men from Australasia form the greatest army that an
Empire has ever produced." To-day that pride is the courage with which
the people face and mourn the loss of their thousands of braves.

Let me recall the first dark days of August 1914, when the minds of the
people of the Australian Commonwealth were grappling with and striving
to focus the position of the British Empire in the war into which
they had been so precipitately hurled. On Sunday, 2nd August, I well
remember in Melbourne an army friend of mine being hastily recalled
from a tennis party; and when I went to see him at the Victoria
Barracks that same night, I found the whole place a glare of lights
from end to end of the grim, grey stone building. It was the same the
next and the next night, and for weeks, and so into the months. But
even when the Governor-General, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, sent to the
Prime Minister (Mr. Joseph Cook), at noon on 3rd August the telegram
bearing the announcement that we all knew could not long be withheld,
the strain seemed unlifted. "England has declared war on Germany" was
the brief but terrible message quickly transferred to the broadsheets
that the newspapers printed at lightning speed and circulated, while
the crowds in the streets cheered and cheered again as the message was
posted on the display boards.

That night the streets were thronged (as they were for weeks to
follow), and there was a series of riots, quickly subdued by the
police, where raids had been made on German premises. Feeling was
extraordinarily bitter, considering the remoteness of the Dominion. The
Navy Office was barred to the casual visitor. Military motor-cars swept
through the streets and whirled into the barracks square. Army and
Fleet, the new Australian Naval unit, were ready. More than one person
during those grey days felt a thrill of satisfaction and comfort in the
knowledge that of that Fleet unit the battle-cruiser _Australia_ was
greater and more powerful than any enemy vessel in Pacific waters.

Now it is no secret that arrangements exist with the British Admiralty
under which the Commonwealth naval authorities receive at the first
signs of hostilities a telegram in the nature of a warning. The
second message simply says "Strike." The fact that the Navy Office
in Melbourne received its warning cablegram not from the Admiralty,
but from a message sent from H.M.S. _Minotaur_, then flagship of the
China Squadron, asking particulars concerning the Australian unit, and
"presuming" that the naval authorities had received their warning, was
only subsequently whispered. Where, then, was the Australian message?
The original cable apparently was sent at the moment when Mr. Winston
Churchill and Prince Louis of Battenberg between them took steps to
keep mobilized the Grand Fleet in British waters, subsequent to the
review, and sent them forthwith to their war stations. According
to the pre-arranged understanding, the Australian unit was to pass
automatically under the control of the Admiralty. Urgent wires were
sent to the then Minister of Defence, Senator E. D. Millen, who was
absent in Sydney, and the missing cablegram was brought to light in
his possession. As soon as that final message came, the Australian
ships, having coaled and prepared, moved to their war stations. It is
not within the scope of this brief review to go further into this naval
mobilization, though I shall make reference later on to the Fleet unit
and its war history.

On everybody's lips there now (4th August) arose the question of the
young nation's part in the war. Would there be need of contingents? For
the first period, at least, the Australian military authorities were
too keenly occupied with home defence to vouchsafe much attention to
this question, though high officers told me that it was inevitable that
Australia would play her part very soon--to what extent and when, they
could not judge. The immediate need lay in the mobilization of part or
all of the available forces at hand for coastal defence. The nervous
tenseness of the situation was apparent on all hands; an underflow
of intense uncertainty was plainly traceable in all the military
movements. At the barracks day and night I found the military machine
that Australia had so recently set running, rapidly speeding up.

All leave had been stopped on 1st August, and officers were hurrying
back to their posts from various States of the Commonwealth. The
defences of the ports along the coast were manned, and on the day
when war was declared arrangements were completed for the extension
of these defences to a mobile army, certainly of no great size as
armies now are, to be used as shore patrols round the entrances of the
great harbours of the capital cities. These men were the first draft
of the Citizen Army that the Australian nation was training, and the
rapidity with which they were mobilized, albeit it was only a small
group, gave off the first spark from the machine, tested in a time
of need. Yet the question that was ever to the fore during the first
forty-eight hours after the declaration of war, and in fact until the
following Wednesday, 10th August, was whether the whole of the Citizen
Army was not to be mobilized. In other words, would there be a general
mobilization, the plans for which were lying ready waiting to be opened
all over the Commonwealth? The higher commands were told to hold
themselves in readiness, and every one, from the youngest cadet to the
Chief of the Staff, was expecting the word.

What would have been the need for such action? Remotely, of course,
the position of the German High Sea Fleet and the integrity of
the British Grand Fleet, but more closely the proximity of the
German Pacific Squadron, consisting of two powerful cruisers, the
_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, a number of smaller warships, colliers,
and perhaps transports. Fortunately, the battle-cruiser _Australia_
had been kept in Australian waters, and while she remained afloat, the
German ships would not venture in her vicinity. But the possibility to
which the military authorities looked was that of the German squadron
eluding our patrols that stretched across the north of Australia from
Darwin to the Marshall Islands, and convoying a landing party, arriving
off our eastern or southern coasts. They might or might not land; they
might content themselves with shelling the towns. At one time it was
believed that secretly Germany had been pouring troops into German New
Guinea and collecting stores there. That she had intended New Guinea or
Papua as a base in the Pacific was evident enough. However, the worst
fears were far from being realized. The British Fleet in the Pacific
(now containing the Australian warships), and soon the Japanese Fleet
cooperating, after an unsuccessful attempt to trap the enemy, edged
them from the Australian coasts across the Pacific to South America,
where they were eventually destroyed in the Falkland Islands engagement.

By this time the need for a general mobilization in Australia was
daily becoming less, as the enemy's ships were swept from the sea
and the High Sea Fleet had been reduced to the category of floating
forts. Accordingly the Government and military authorities turned their
attention to the sending of an army to help the Motherland. German
hopes had led them to suspect that the war would present for the people
of the Commonwealth an excellent opportunity for revolt. Never did a
young Dominion cling more closely or show its deep-rooted sense of
gratitude and affection and responsibility to the parent nation. Having
helped to secure herself, Australia immediately offered troops for
active service overseas. A tremendous wave of enthusiasm swept over the
land, and the acceptance by the Home Government of the offer was the
occasion of great outbursts of cheering by the crowds that thronged
the streets of the chief cities and eagerly scanned the news sheets
and official announcements posted outside the newspaper offices.
Recruiting began without delay. Already, in anticipation of events, the
Defence Department had received names of officers and men from every
State offering their services and anxious to join the first force. The
composition of the force, after due consideration and consultation with
the War Office, was to be a complete Division and a Brigade of Light
Horse, 20,000 men in all. Depots were established at the barracks, and
soon in the suburban drill-halls--halls which were already the centres
of the Compulsory Service movement in Home Defence--as well. The men
poured into the depôts. There was the keenest competition for selection.

In making these drill-halls centres for recruiting the authorities were
anxious to link up the regiments of the established Citizen Army with
those that were going forth to battle across the seas, giving them in
this way a tradition for all time. Young as the new army was, some 10
per cent. enlisted, those whose age was just twenty-one years. In this
way, throughout the battalions was a sprinkling of the young Citizen
Army, while the rest of the men were from the old militia regiments
that had existed in past years. There were, I suppose, 60 per cent. of
these men who flocked to the colours, and of these a proportion had
seen service abroad, mostly in the South African War. Only a small
number that went sloped a rifle for the first time.

Who would lead the force--Australia's first complete Division to take
the field? No doubt seemed to cloud the minds of the General Staff,
however much the mind of the Minister of Defence, Senator Millen, was
swayed hither and thither. Brigadier-General Bridges was just entering
on the fourth year of his command of the Duntroon Military College. The
success of that college was already an established fact; the men who
have left it have since proved that beyond question. It was, therefore,
on Brigadier-General Bridges (raised to the rank of Major-General) that
the choice eventually fell, and he at once handed over the control of
the college to Colonel Parnell, Commandant of Victoria, and immediately
commenced, on or about the 14th August, the selection of his higher
commands for the force designated "The First Australian Imperial
Expeditionary Force."

His task was no light one. Essentially a just man, but a man who
demanded the utmost capacity from those beneath him in rank, he soon
drew round him a brilliant Staff. The college, indeed, he robbed of
most of its English leaders, and their places were filled by Australian
officers. The Brigadiers were left the choice of their battalion
commanders, and that choice fell on the men actively engaged in leading
the young Citizen Army in the various centres, each State contributing
its quota. The battalion commanders at first had free choice to select
their officers, but subsequently a Board was established. Thousands
of names were available, and, with one or two exceptions, it is with
satisfaction I can write that every man chosen has proved himself in
that force again and again as being worthy of the trust put in him,
from high leaders to the most junior subalterns.

While recruiting went on apace, the Barracks remained illuminated day
and night, and the tension remained for many weeks at a high pitch.
Though the matter had been pondered over, the truth was, little or
no provision had been made to form the nucleus of an Expeditionary
Force. All Australia's energies had been devoted to preparing her Home
Defence Army. Yet the machinery that had been created for that army now
proved itself to be capable of such expansion as to provide all the
mass of material necessary for the organization and equipment of the
Division under Major-General Bridges. The rapidity, the completeness,
and efficiency with which that First Australian Contingent was equipped
(referred to now by the men with such pride in comparison with other
Empire troops) is eloquent enough praise in itself for the several war
departments that met the strain, always remembering that in addition
there was the partially mobilized Citizen Army to equip and maintain,
and the growing army of 30,000 young soldiers each year, to train. Much
impatience was exhibited at the delay in getting the Expedition away
from Australia. That delay was inevitable in the circumstances, though
apparently comparing so unfavourably with the Continental armies that
were in the field in a few days, and in three weeks numbered millions
of men. Australia in times of peace had never contemplated raising
an Expeditionary Force, and what reserve supplies she had were not
intended for such an emergency as this. Nevertheless, the General
Staff rose to the occasion in a manner which, as I have said, reflects
on them not only the greatest credit but high praise. Too much cannot
be said either of the manner in which the general public co-operated in
the assembling of the army, and especially in regard to the gifts of
horses for all branches of the service.

I consider myself indeed fortunate in having had an opportunity
of witnessing the march through the streets of Melbourne of 4,000
Victorians who were to form the backbone of Victoria's contribution to
the first 20,000 men. When I think of those lads on that bright August
morning, and the trained army which General Sir Ian Hamilton reviewed
in the desert in Egypt, one can laugh at those croakers who predicted
the need for eighteen months' training to make these men real soldiers.
I remember them on this morning, a band of cheerful youths (for the
army is, and always must be, thought of as a young army--a mingling of
freshness, vigour, eagerness, and panting zeal, the stuff that veterans
are made of), headed by a band of Highland pipes and bugles that had
volunteered to lead them, swinging with irregular, broken step along
the main streets. Their pride swelled in their veins as they waved
brown felt hats, straw-deckers, bowlers to their mates watching from
office windows and roofs. It was the first sight of the reality of war
that had come to really grip the hearts of the people, and they cheered
these pioneers and the recklessness of their spirits. There were men in
good boots and bad boots, in brown and tan boots, in hardly any boots
at all; in sack suits and old clothes, and smart-cut suits just from
the well-lined drawers of a fashionable home; there were workers and
loafers, students and idlers, men of professions and men just workers,
who formed that force. But--they were all fighters, stickers, men with
some grit (they got more as they went on), and men with a love of
adventure. So they marched out to their camp at Broadmeadows--a good
ten-mile tramp.

As they swung round through the break in the panelled fencing of
Major Wilson's property (placed generously at the disposal of the
Government), there was weariness in their feet and limbs, but not
in their spirits. Some shuffled now, and the dust rose from the
attenuated column right along the undulating dusty road, stretching
back almost to the city's smoke, just faintly visible on the horizon,
where the smoke-stacks and tall buildings caught the last rays of the
setting sun. And they found their tents pitched, and they had but to
draw their blankets and break up into groups of eight or ten or eleven
for each tent. Then they strolled round the green fields till the bugle
called them to their first mess, cooked in the dixies. And the rising
odour of well-boiled meat and onions whetted their appetite.

Then on the morrow they rose before the sun. Every morning they were
thus early roused, were doing exercises with rifle and bayonet, and
the drab black of their clothing changed to khaki uniforms; and as
rapidly as this change came, so the earth was worn more brown with
the constant treading of thousands of feet, and the grass disappeared
altogether from the camp and the roads became rutted. More men and
still more men crowded in and filled the vacant tents till other lines
had to be pitched. The horses began to arrive, and motor-lorries with
immense loads thundered across the paddocks to the stores, where huge
tarpaulins covered masses of equipment and marquees tons of meat and
bread. From four thousand the army grew to ten; for fresh contingents
were offered, accepted, and sent into training. Tents peeped from
between pine-trees that enclosed a field, and guns began to rumble in
and were parked in neat rows pointing to the road. They waited for
the horses which the gunners were busily lashing into control. It was
rapid, effective horsebreaking that I saw in this artillery school,
where the animals were left to kick logs till they tired, and then were
compelled to drag them, in place of the valuable artillery pieces. The
foam gathered on their haunches at such times and they flung themselves
to the earth--and then they threw their riders for a change--until
at length they grew weary of the play and subsided as fine artillery
horses as ever dragged guns

    Into the jaws of death,
    Into the mouth of Hell.

 [Illustration: THE STAFF OF THE FIRST AUSTRALIAN DIVISION AT MENA CAMP.

  To face p. 22.]

All around the hills were green still. Each day they were covered with
lines of moving troops. Infantry passed the guns on the road, and
Light Horse passed the infantry and wheeled in through the same break
in the panelled fence. The Commandant, Colonel Wallace, inspected the
units in the making, so did the Brigadiers and the General himself or
his representative. Then the State Governor, Sir Arthur Stanley, took
a part, and the Governor-General spent an afternoon at the camp and
reviewed the whole of the troops. The people flocked in thousands on
holidays and Sundays to see their soldier sons. The camp each night
was full of visitors till dusk, for those few precious hours permitted
after the day's duties were done when family ties might be drawn close
just a little longer. Every train and tram was filled with bands of
soldiers; the traffic on the roads showed its quota of khaki. Bands
turned the people's thoughts to war with their martial music, as they
woke the troops with their persistent beating in the early morning.

What it was in Melbourne, so in every State capital of the
Commonwealth, where the camps lay scattered on the outskirts of the
suburbs. Each State trained its own men for a common interest for the
First Division, and in each State the method, like the routine, was the
same.

The time was approaching for departure. Camps were closed to the
public. All leave was stopped. Nobody knew the date of going, and yet
everybody knew it and chafed under the wait. But before the men went
they showed "the metal of their pasture." In one never-to-be-forgotten
glistening line they swept through the centres of the cities, marching
from end to end. What once had been a heavy day--the march out to
camp--they made light of now; and while the Light Horse headed the
columns, the horses prancing and dancing to the drums, the guns rumbled
heavily with much rattling after the even infantry lines. And still it
was not farewell. Those tender partings were said in the quiet of the
hearth. It could only be taken as the cities' greetings and tributes
to the pioneers--those men of the 1st Australian Division--who went
quietly, silently, without farewells to the waiting transports in the
bright mid-October sunlight--train after train load of them--down to
the wharves.

And the people who watched them go were a few hundreds.




CHAPTER II

THE ASSEMBLY

[Illustration: Bugle Call.]


While it was general knowledge that the First Australian Contingent
was about to leave its native shores--26th September--no exact date
was mentioned as the day of departure. For one very sound reason. The
German cruisers had not been rounded up and some of them were still
known to be cruising in Australian waters. They could be heard talking
in the loud, high-pitched Telefunken code, but the messages were not
always readable, lucky as had been the capture early in the war of
a code-book from a German merchant ship in New Guinea waters. The
newspapers were prohibited by very strict censorship from giving any
hint of the embarkation of troops, of striking camps, or of anything
that could be communicated to the enemy likely to give him an idea of
the position of the Convoy that was now hurrying from the northern
capitals--from, indeed, all the capital cities--to the rendezvous, King
George's Sound, Albany. That rendezvous, for months kept an absolute
official secret, was, nevertheless, on the lips of every second
person, though never named publicly. It was apparent that the military
authorities had an uncomfortable feeling that though they had blocked
the use of private wireless installations, messages were leaving
Australia. I will say nothing here of the various scares and rumours
and diligent searches made upon perfectly harmless old professors and
others engaged in peaceful fishing expeditions along the coastal
towns; that lies without the sphere of this book. It seemed almost
callous that the troops going so far across two oceans, the first great
Australian army that had been sent to fight for the Mother Country,
should be allowed to slip away uncheered, unspoken of. For even the
final scenes in Melbourne, where there were some four or five thousand
people to see the _Orvieto_, the Flagship of the Convoy, depart, formed
an impromptu gathering, and for days before great liners, with two
thousand troops aboard, had been slipping away from their moorings with
only a fluttering of a few handkerchiefs to send them off. Still, the
troops had crowded into the rigging and sang while the bands played
them off to "Tipperary." In every port it was alike. How much more
touching was the leaving of the Flagship, when the crowd broke the
barriers and rushed the pier, overwhelming the scanty military guards
and forcing back Ministers of the Crown and men of State who had gone
aboard to wish Major-General Bridges success with the Division. It
was unmilitary, but it was magnificent, this sudden welling up of the
spirit of the people and the burst of enthusiasm that knew no barriers.
Ribbons were cast aboard and made the last links with the shore. Never
shall I for one (and there were hundreds on board in whose throat a
lump arose) forget the sudden quiet on ship and shore as the band
played the National Anthem when the liner slowly moved from the pier
out into the channel; and then the majestic notes of other anthems
weaved into one brave throbbing melody that sent the blood pulsing
through the brain.

  Britons never, never will be slaves

blared the bugles, and the drums rattled and thumped the bars with
odd emphasis till the ribbons had snapped and the watchers on the
pier became a blurred impressionist picture, and even the yachts and
steamboats could no longer keep pace with the steamer as she swung her
nose to the harbour heads.

All this was, let me repeat, in striking contrast to the manner in
which the ships in Sydney Harbour, in Hobart, in Port Augusta, and
from other capitals had pulled out into the stream at dusk or in the
early hours of the cold September mornings and hastened away to the
rendezvous. Before the final departure I have just described on the
afternoon of 21st October there had been a false alarm and interrupted
start. The reasons for this delay are certainly worth recording. The
Flagship was to have left Melbourne--the last of the Convoy from
Eastern waters--on 29th September. That is to say, by the end of the
month all the details of the Division had been completed, and were
embarked or ready for embarkation. Indeed, some had actually started,
and a number of transports left the northern harbours and had to anchor
in Port Phillip Bay, where the troops were disembarked altogether or
each day for a fortnight or more. For the reasons of this we have to
extend our view to New Zealand. It was not generally known at the
time that a contingent of 10,000 men from the sister Dominion were to
form portion of the Convoy, and that two ships from New Zealand had
already left port, when a hasty message from the Fleet drove them back.
Now it became the Navy's job, once the men were on the ships, to be
responsible for their safety--the safety of 30,000 lives. It had been
arranged that the New Zealand transports should be escorted across the
Southern Ocean to Bass Straits by the little cruiser _Pioneer_--sister
ship of the _Pegasus_, later to come into prominence--and another
small cruiser, as being sufficient protection in view of the line
of warships and destroyers patrolling the strategic line north of
Australia, curving down to the New Zealand coast. The German cruisers,
admittedly frightened of an encounter with the _Australia_, had been
successfully eluding that battle-cruiser for weeks, and were skulking
amongst the islands of the Pacific destroying certain trading and
wireless stations, and apparently waiting for an opportunity to strike
at the Convoy. One scare was, therefore, sufficient. The Dominion
Government refused to dispatch the troops without adequate escort,
and in consequence all the programme was thrown out of gear, and the
_Minotaur_--flagship of the escort--went herself with the _Encounter_
and the two original cruisers to New Zealand and brought across the
whole Maoriland Contingent. The alteration in the plans resulted in
a delay of three weeks, for the warships had to coal again before
proceeding across the Indian Ocean. However, it was better to be
safe than sorry, and the delayed Australian Convoy was released in
the third week of October and the ships commenced to gather at the
appointed rendezvous.

Yet I am loath to think that this alone was the reason for the delay.
One can read now into events happening at the heart of Empire a very
significant cause for hesitancy to send this Australian Contingent
to England for service in France. For matters in Turkey were already
unsatisfactory. On 25th September messages had reached London of the
preparations of the Turks on the Sinai Peninsula and the activity
of the Germans in the Ottoman Empire, led by that extraordinary
personality Enver Pasha. It was certain that every effort was being
made by Great Britain to preserve peace with the Turks, but the
Porte was taking a high hand, and it appeared that war would become
inevitable. How far the Australian Government was taken into the
confidence of the Foreign Office one can only guess. It must be
supposed that Major-General Bridges, the Prime Minister, and Minister
of Defence, together with the Governor-General of the Commonwealth,
were in possession of the main points of the diplomatic relations
between Great Britain and Turkey. Matters, too, in the Persian Gulf
were very unsatisfactory in the beginning of October, and by the time
that the last ship of the Convoy had left port it was certain from the
attitude of Turkey, as reflected in the reports of Sir Louis Mallet,
British Ambassador at Constantinople, that war would be declared.
Military preparations pointed to an attack on the Suez Canal being
pushed forward with all speed, and it was therefore necessary to have
a large defending force available to draw on. So far as it is possible
to read the inner history of events, this was the actual reason for
the holding up (strange paradox as it may sound) of the Convoy until
the destination of the 30,000 men should be determined. For it must be
conceded that, with the Cape route open, not very much longer and far
safer, with the venomous _Emden_ raiding Indian waters and the German
Pacific Fleet ready to dart out from the Northern islands, it was more
feasible than using the Suez Canal with such a vast convoy of ships. As
a matter of fact, this was the route chosen. True enough, when the time
came, the landing of this army in Egypt for training "and war purposes"
must have carried great significance to the Turks; and the plea of
the badness of the English climate at the time preventing training in
England, served as good an excuse as did the German cruiser menace in
New Zealand waters. For while there may have been a lingering suspicion
in Lord Kitchener's mind that perhaps the camps at Salisbury might not
be ready, it was a trump card to have a body of 30,000 troops ready
to divert either at once or in the near future to a strategic point
against Turkey. Be all this as it may, the combined Convoys did not
leave Australian shores until 1st November, and on the 30th October
Sir L. Mallet had been told to ask for his passports within twelve
hours unless the Turkish Government dismissed the German crews of the
_Goeben_ and _Breslau_ from Constantinople. So actually when leaving
the last port the Convoy were directed against Turkey. Yet I suppose no
one for a moment read in all the portents of the future even a remote
possibility of the landing of the Australian troops in Turkey. Later
it was admitted that while training they would simply defend Egypt--to
German plotting the one vital point to strike at the British Empire.

Let us return, however, with an apology for the digression, to the
gathering up of the Convoy. King George's Sound, the chosen rendezvous
of the fleet, is a magnificent harbour, steeped already in historical
associations. It offered as fine an anchorage as could be wished for
the forty transports and escorting warships. The harbour might have
easily held three or four times the number of ships. Yet was this host
of forty leviathians sufficient to find no parallel in history! True,
the Athenians in ancient times, and even the Turks in the sixteenth
century, had sent a fleet of greater size against the Order of St. John
at Malta, had entered on marauding expeditions, but hardly so great an
army had they embarked and sent across the Mediterranean. Here was a
fleet crossing three seas, still disputed--though feebly enough, it is
true.

 [Illustration:

  Anchorage of Australian
  AND
  NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORTS
  IN
  KING GEORGE SOUND
  ALBANY, OCTOBER 31^{st} 1916]

Of many thrilling scenes it needs no great effort of memory to recall
that Albany Harbour as those on the flagship saw it first through the
thick grey mists of the early morning of 26th October. Almost the last
of the Australian ships to enter port, the wind drove the waves over
her bows and cast the spray on the decks. Most of the Divisional Staff,
barely daylight as it was, were on deck, peering through the mists to
catch the first glimpse of the host that they knew now lay at anchor
in the harbour. First it was a visionary, fleeting glimpse of masts and
funnels, and then, as the coast closed in darker on either bow and the
beacons from the lighthouses at the entrance flashed, I could see ships
gradually resolving themselves into definite shape, much in the way a
conjurer brings from the gloom of a darkened chamber strange realities.
The troops were astir and crowded to the ships' sides. They stood to
attention as the liner glided down the lines of anchored transports,
for the mass of shipping was anchored in ordered lines. The bugles rang
out sharp and clear the assembly notes, flags dipped in salute to the
General's flag at the mast-head. It was calm now inside this refuge. A
large warship was creeping under the dark protection of a cliff like
a lobster seeking to hide itself in the background of rocks, and the
men learned with some surprise it was a Japanese cruiser, the _Abuki_.
She remained there a few days and then steamed out, lost in a cloud of
dense black smoke, while in her place came the two Australian cruisers,
the _Melbourne_ and _Sydney_. Each night the troops watched one or
others of these scouts put to sea, stealing at dusk to patrol, and not
alone, the entrance to the harbour wherein lay the precious Convoy.

On the morning of the 28th the New Zealand Convoy, consisting of ten
ships, arrived, and anchored just inside the entrance of the harbour.
From shore the sight was truly wonderful. Three regular lines of
steamers, each crammed with troops and horses, were lying in an almost
forgotten and certainly neglected harbour. What signs of habitation
there were on shore were limited to a whaling station on the west and a
few pretty red-roofed bungalows on the east; while the entrance to an
inner harbour, the selected spot for a destroyer base of the Australian
Navy, suggested as snug a little cove as one might wish. Opposite the
main entrance behind the anchored Convoy was the narrow channel leading
to the port where the warships anchored, protected from outer view
behind high cliffs from which frowned the guns of the forts. It was
from these forts, commanded then by Major Meekes, that I looked down
on to the ships--that was after nearly being arrested as a spy by a
suspicious vigilant guard. Each day three ships entered the port to
coal, until the bunkers of the whole fleet were filled to overflowing,
to carry them across the Indian Ocean. All was in readiness. It only
needed the signal from the Admiralty to the Convoy and its escort and
the army of 30,000 would move finally from Australian shores. This was
the mustering of a complete Division for the first time in the history
of the young Dominion. It had not as yet even been operating as an
army in the field, but here it lay, taking thirty ships to transport
(with ten more ships for the Maorilanders), in the same historical
harbour where as early as 1780 a British frigate had put in for refuge
from a storm and for water. It was this port, too, that two Princes of
royal blood had visited; while later, at the beginning of the present
century and a new era for Australia--the Commonwealth era--the King of
England, then the Duke of York, had come. His visit was as unavoidable
as certainly it was unexpected, for he had sought refuge, like the
ancient British frigate from a violent storm; but, liking the spot,
the King decided to stay, and festivities were transferred to Albany
in haste. In 1907 the American Atlantic Squadron, under Rear-Admiral
Speary, during its visit to Austral shores, had anchored in the broad
bay. Thus had tradition, in which this assembly of the First Australian
Expeditionary Force marked so deep a score, already begun to be formed
round the beautiful harbour.

It will not be out of place to quote here the disposition of the troops
and the ships bearing the men of the Contingent. It was the largest of
any convoy during the war, steaming over 6,000 leagues. The records
need no comment beyond pointing out that the indicated speeds of the
ships show how the speed of the Convoy had to be regulated by the speed
of the slowest ship--the _Southern_--and that the arrangement of the
three divisions of transports was based on the pace of each, the object
of which is apparent when viewed in the light of the necessity of the
Convoy scattering on the approach of enemy ships, and avoidance of slow
ships hindering those of greater speed.

In the closing days of October the message was flashed through the
fleet that the Convoy should get under way on 1st November, and that
right early in the morning, for Major-General Bridges, no less than
Captain Gordon Smith, who had command of the Convoy (he was Second
Naval Member on the Australian Naval Board), was anxious to be off to
his destination. That that point was to some degree fixed when the
ships left port I have no doubt, though the masters of the transports
actually did not know the route until they were some hundred miles
clear of the coast and the _Minotaur_ set the course to the Equator.
Incessantly all through the night previous the tug-boats had churned
the waters round our vessel's sides, darting off now to the uttermost
ship of the line--the _Miltiades_ (she had English reservists on
board), now to return from the lighted town which lay behind the
Flagship with rebellious spirits, who had come near to being left
behind, to explain away their return now as best they might. To and
fro panted the motor-boats, with their eyes of red as if sleepy from
overwork. The General of the Division, in fact all his Staff, were
up late settling these cases. I wondered at the matters that needed
his personal attention; even though the ships were to be together for
weeks, still they were in a sense isolated. When the last tug had
departed and the last lingering soldier been brought from the shore and
sent off to his own ship, there stole over the whole sleeping fleet a
great peace. It was Sunday morning.

Heaving up her anchor at six o'clock by the chimes of the distant
clocks on shore, the Flagship led the way from port. The waters were
calm. No white-winged yachts came to circle round the fleet, only a tug
with a cinematographer on board waited for the ships as they slowly
went forth on to the perilous deep, each ship dipping its flag, paying
tribute to the General on the Flagship, even down to the New Zealand
transports, painted all a dull warship grey. The cruiser _Melbourne_
lay in harbour still, while the other warships had gone ahead to the
open sea, the _Minotaur_ and _Sydney_ gliding gracefully through the
dull waters, leaving in their wake a terrible wash of foam, as warships
will. The bugles still rang in our ears, though the wind from the south
blew the notes astern. Amongst a group of officers I was standing on
a skylight of the dining saloon watching the moving panorama behind.
To bring the fleet, anchored facing the head of the Sound, into motion
meant the gradual turning of each ship so that they passed one another,
and because the entrance to the harbour was not quite wide enough,
the Flagship went out first, barely making 10 knots, followed by the
_Southern_, and the others in their line behind. We watched her bows
buried in the sea one minute and then


 DISPOSITION OF UNITS OF THE 1ST DIVISION IN THE CONVOY AND PLACES OF
 EMBARKATION.

 ---+--------------------+--------+------+---------------------------+----------------------------------+---------+-----+-------
 No.|      Name.         |Tonnage.|Speed.|      Embarking at--       |             Troops.              |Officers.| Men.|Horses.
 ---+--------------------+--------+------+---------------------------+----------------------------------+---------+-----+-------
 A1 |_Hymettus_          |  4,606 |11-1/2| {  Sydney, Melbourne,   } |        A.S.C. and horses         |     5   |  106|  686
    |                    |        |      | {    and Adelaide       } |                                  |         |     |
 A2 |_Geelong_           |  7,951 |12    | Melbourne and Hobart      |             Mixed                |    47   |1,295|   --
 A3 |_Orvieto_           | 12,130 |15    |       Melbourne           |   G.O.C., Infantry and details   |    94   |1,345|   21
 A4 |_Pera_              |  7,635 |11    |        Sydney             |        Artillery horses          |     5   |   90|  391
 A5 |_Omrah_             |  8,130 |15    |       Brisbane            |       Infantry and A.S.C         |    43   |1,104|   15
 A6 |_Clan MacCorquodale_|  5,058 |12-1/2|        Sydney             |             Horses               |     6   |  113|  524
 A7 |_Medic_             | 12,032 |13    |Adelaide and Freemantle    |{    Two companies Infantry,    } |    28   |  977|  270
    |                    |        |      |                           |{ Artillery, A.S.C., and A.M.C. } |         |     |
 A8 |_Argyllshire_       | 10,392 |14    |        Sydney             |            Artillery             |    32   |  800|  373
 A9 |_Shropshire_        | 11,911 |14    |       Melbourne           |            Artillery             |    42   |  794|  433
 A10|_Karoo_             |  6,127 |12    | Sydney and Melbourne      |      Signallers and A.M.C.       |    13   |  388|  398
 A11|_Ascanius_          | 10,048 |13    |Adelaide and Freemantle    |            Infantry              |    65   |1,728|   10
 A12|_Saldanha_          |  4,594 |11    |       Adelaide            |             Horses               |     4   |   52|  274
 A13|_Katuna_            |  4,641 |11    |   Sydney and Hobart       |             Horses               |     5   |   94|  506
 A14|_Euripides_         | 14,947 |15    |        Sydney             |            Infantry              |    29   |2,202|   15
 A15|_Star of England_   |  9,150 |13-1/2|       Brisbane            |          Light Horse             |    25   |  487|  457
 A16|_Star of Victoria_  |  9,152 |13-1/2|        Sydney             |          Light Horse             |    26   |  487|  461
 A17|_Port Lincoln_      |  7,243 |12    |       Adelaide            |          Light Horse             |    19   |  351|  338
 A18|_Wiltshire_         | 10,390 |14    |       Melbourne           |     Light Horse and A.M.C.       |    35   |  724|  497
 A19|_Afric_             | 11,999 |13    |        Sydney             |  Infantry, A.S.C., and Engineers |    48   |1,372|    8
 A20|_Hororata_          |  9,491 |14    |       Melbourne           |            Infantry              |    66   |1,986|  118
 A21|_Marere_            |  6,443 |12-1/2|       Melbourne           |             Horses               |     4   |   80|  443
 A22|_Rangatira_         | 10,118 |14    |       Brisbane            |  Artillery, Infantry, and A.M.C. |    15   |  430|  450
 A23|_Suffolk_           |  7,573 |12    |        Sydney             |            Infantry              |    32   |  979|    8
 A24|_Benalla_           | 11,118 |14    |       Melbourne           |       Infantry and A.S.C.        |    49   |1,185|   10
 A25|_Anglo-Egyptian_    |  7,379 |12    | Brisbane and Melbourne    |             Horses               |     6   |  105|  492
 A26|_Armadale_          |  6,153 |11    |       Melbourne           |      Lines of Communication      |    --   |   --|   --
 A27|_Southern_          |  4,709 |10-1/2|  Sydney and Melbourne     |             Horses               |     5   |  136|  281
 A28|_Miltiades_         |  7,814 |13    |  Sydney and Melbourne     |      Imperial Reservists         |    --   |  600|   --
 ---+--------------------+--------+------+---------------------------+----------------------------------+---------+-----+-------


 ORGANIZATION OF CONVOY.

 ----+--------------------+--------+--------+------------------------------
  No.|       Name.        |Tonnage.| Speed. | Officer Commanding Troops.
 ----+--------------------+--------+--------+------------------------------
     |  1st Division.     |        |        |
     |                    |        |        |
  A3 |_Orvieto_           | 12,130 | 15     |{Lieut.-Colonel D. S. Wanliss
     |                    |        |        |{   (Flagship of G.O.C.)
 A27 |_Southern_          |  7,635 | 11     | Lieutenant R. T. Sutherland
  A4 |_Pera_              |  7,635 | 11     |   Lieutenant E. W. Richards
 A26 |_Armadale_          |  6,153 | 11     |     Major P. W. Smith
 A12 |_Saldanha_          |  4,594 | 11     | Lieutenant P. A. McE. Laurie
 A13 |_Katuna_            |  4,641 | 11     |     Major S. Hawley
  A1 |_Hymettus_          |  4,606 | 11-1/2 |   Major A. A. Holdsworth
 A23 |_Suffolk_           |  7,573 | 12     | Lieut.-Colonel C. F. Braund
 A25 |_Anglo-Egyptian_    |  7,379 | 12     |   Lieutenant W. Standfield
     |                    |        |        |
     |  2nd Division.     |        |        |
     |                    |        |        |
 A18 |_Wiltshire_         | 10,390 | 14     |{Lieut.-Colonel L. Long
     |                    |        |        |{  (Divisional leader)
  A7 |_Medic_             | 12,032 | 13     |   Major A. J. Bessell-Browne
 A11 |_Ascanius_          | 10,048 | 13     |     Lieut.-Colonel S. P. Weir
 A15 |_Star of England_   |  9,150 | 13-1/2 | Lieut.-Colonel R. M. Stoddart
  A2 |_Geelong_           |  7,951 | 12     |   Lieut.-Colonel L. F. Clarke
 A17 |_Port Lincoln_      |  7,243 | 12     |   Lieut.-Colonel F. N. Rowell
 A10 |_Karoo_             |  6,127 | 12     |     Captain H. L. Mackworth
 A21 |_Marere_            |  6,443 | 12-1/2 |       Captain C. H. Spurge
  A6 |_Clan MacCorquodale_|  5,058 | 12-1/2 |         Major A. J. Bennett
     |                    |        |        |
     |  3rd Division.     |        |        |
     |                    |        |        |
 A14 |_Euripides_         | 14,947 | 15     |{Colonel H. N. McLaurin
     |                    |        |        |{  (Divisional leader)
  A8 |_Argyllshire_       | 10,392 | 14     |     Major S. E. Christian
  A9 |_Shropshire_        | 11,911 | 14     |     Colonel J. J. T. Hobbs
 A19 |_Afric_             | 11,999 | 13     |   Lieut.-Colonel L. Dobbin
 A24 |_Benalla_           | 11,118 | 14     | Lieut.-Colonel W. K. Bolton
 A22 |_Rangatira_         | 10,118 | 14     | Lieut.-Colonel C. Rosenthal
 A16 |_Star of Victoria_  |  9,152 | 13-1/2 | Lieut.-Colonel J. B. Meredith
 A20 |_Hororata_          |  9,491 | 14     | Lieut.-Colonel J. M. Semmens
  A5 |_Omrah_             |  8,130 | 15     |   Lieut.-Colonel H. W. Lee
 A28 |_Miltiades_         |  7,814 | 13     |     Major C. T. Griffiths
 ----+--------------------+--------+--------+------------------------------


 NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORTS.

 ----+-----------------+--------+------
  No.|      Name.      |Tonnage.|Speed.
 ----+-----------------+--------+------
     |  1st Division.  |        |
     |                 |        |
   3 | _Maunganui_     |  7,527 |  16
   9 | _Hawkes Bay_    |  7,207 |  13
   8 | _Star of India_ |  6,800 |  11
   7 | _Limerick_      |  6,827 |  13
   4 | _Tahiti_        |  7,585 |  17
     |                 |        |
     | 2nd Division.   |        |
     |                 |        |
  10 |_Arawa_          |  9,372 |  12
  11 |_Athenic_        | 12,234 |  12
   6 |_Orari_          |  6,800 |  12
   5 |_Ruapehu_        |  7,885 |  13
  12 |_Waimana_        | 10,389 |  14
 ----+-----------------+--------+------

the red of her keel, and saw her speed cone at the mast-head. We smiled
at the efforts of this craft to keep pace, a smile which later in the
voyage became wry at the mention of the ill-speeded vessel's name.
Gradually on either quarter there crept towards us the leaders of the
other lines or divisions, the _Euripides_ and _Wiltshire_ and their
nine followers. Each ship was coaling and threw her smoke in the air,
and each ship that left made a smoky trail, till the harbour became
obscured like in a fog. As the _Orvieto_, following the course of the
_Minotaur_ half a mile ahead, now turned to the westward, astern we saw
nothing but a bank of dark grey cloud, and from it masts and funnels
and sometimes the bows of a ship protruding. It was all so smoothly
and finely planned that it seemed almost unreal, as the ships took up
their positions, our central line slowing down to permit of the other
ships making up leeway. As I looked down the lines of ships each became
a little smaller and a little more indistinct, until the last was
scarcely more than "hull up" on the horizon. On either hand a warship;
ahead a warship. The coast faded to a dim blue, more distinct once the
sun rose over the hills, but soon vanishing over the swelling horizon.
It was the last link with the Homeland, and who knew how many would see
those shores again--and when! It was at last the real start.

Two days out--on the 3rd November--during the afternoon, the last two
transports joined the fleet, escorted to their places by the Japanese
cruiser _Ibuki_ and the _Pioneer_. They came through a storm, I
remember, and slipped into line without the least fuss. The _Minotaur_
had signalled across to the Convoy, and soon we saw the warships that
brought our escort up to five. This is how they lay beside the Convoy:
the _Minotaur_ a mile ahead marked the course (at night we steered by
a stern light); the _Ibuki_ on our right and starboard beam, a mile
away; the _Sydney_ on the left a similar distance. The _Melbourne_ was
a mile astern of the last New Zealand ship that followed hard in the
track of the Australian Convoy, their ten ships ranged up on either
side of the central division. The _Pioneer_ turned back. Each transport
was two cables length ahead of the one following; each division (on
parallel courses) four cables from the other. So went the fleet with
its precious Convoy into the Indian Ocean.




CHAPTER III

ADVENTURES ON THE CONVOY


Now the course set by the _Minotaur_, once the Convoy was well clear
of the Western Australian coast, was not the ordinary trade route to
Colombo. In the first place we steamed farther west, and then shaped
a course to pass some 60 or 70 miles to the east of Cocos Islands.
This was on the opposite side of that group to the ordinary track of
the mail steamers. The reason for the change of route was to ensure
protection. Other courses were open to us; for instance, the one which
would have led us amongst the Deia Garcia Islands off the Madagascar
coast. However, our destinies were guided by information received by
wireless on the Flagship from the Admiralty. The troops were not aware
of it, but there was a Japanese squadron operating round the coasts of
Java and in this distant way protecting our flank. The speed of the
Convoy varied from 9-1/2 to 11 knots an hour, though the usual run for
a day was about 244 knots.

The black sheep of the fleet--if one may call a vessel such--was the
_Southern_, the 4,000-ton vessel which I have already referred to as
following the _Orvieto_, the Flagship of the central line. She became
the cynosure of every eye, regarded in turn with interest, mirth,
derision, and finally anger and compassion. There was something in
the attitude of the steamer with her great heavy bows that suggested
she was always doing her best to keep up, and always she seemed to
be stoking. One pictures her ghost stalking each night along her
confined decks looking with alarm at the terrific pace! (10 knots) and
wondering for how long it would continue. Not the least amusing part
was that sometimes, gathering speed, she made spurts, and all but "came
aboard" the _Orvieto_, taking this opportunity of hauling her speed
cone part way down the mast, with an arrogance that she hastily had
to abandon some ten minutes later. It was never quite understandable
why she was chosen as a transport, and I have heard since that it was
a hasty bargain of the Government when an early departure of the force
was contemplated. The Medical Board had condemned certain ships as
overcrowded, and this ship was taken on as an extra vessel, thereby
reducing the speed of the Convoy by at least a knot an hour. The
shortsightedness of this policy will be apparent when one calculates
that the ships were hired by the day. With the _Southern_ absent, one
and a half knots an hour would have been added to the speed of the
Convoy. This meant the dropping of 36 knots in a day, which in a voyage
of thirty-five days was the same as two days wasted. Now, reckoning
coal at 15s. a ton, as a Government price, the cost of that first
Convoy a day was at least £6,000. That is to say, probably a great
deal more than £12,000 was flung away by keeping the _Southern_. I
cannot help including this incident. Captain Kiddle, of the _Minotaur_,
had been given power by the Navy Office to discard the vessel if she
was a nuisance, and it was thought at one time of turning her into a
hospital ship at Colombo; in fact, that zealous officer signalled to
Captain Gordon Smith, commanding the Convoy, telling him "to distribute
the horses and men when you get to Colombo, and then allow her [the
_Southern_] to return to the obscurity from which she should never
have emerged." Unfortunately, for some reason this was not done, and
she remained there faithfully with us till the end of the voyage--the
constant source of our gibes.

Routine on the transports was not a very strenuous affair after the
hard days of drill in the training camps and the long marches. To
begin with, there was very little marching; only on the _Orvieto_ and
ships like the _Euripides_, where there was a certain length of deck
available, did it permit of companies of men being marched round the
ship. Many is the time I have sat writing in my cabin listening to the
steady tramp of unbooted feet along the decks above, and the bands,
stationed amidships, thumping out march after march. Never, however,
could I grow accustomed to the distant squeal of the bagpipes, a band
of which we were unfortunate enough to have with us. One threw down
one's pen and tried to piece together some melody in the panting pipes.

 [Illustration: A QUIET AFTERNOON ON A TROOP DECK.]

 [Illustration: TATTOOING WITH HOME-MADE ELECTRICAL NEEDLE.

  To face p. 36.]

Each day the men roused out at réveillé, sounded at six o'clock, and
did physical jerks (exercises) before breakfast. Then they cleaned
ship and prepared for the ten o'clock inspection by the officer in
command of the troops, who went round with the Medical Officers and the
Captain. The troops by this time would be mustered on deck, gathered
in groups, learning all about rifles, machine guns, signalling,
listening to lectures by the officers on trenches and the way to take
cover, sniping, observation, and even aiming at miniature targets
realistically made by enthusiastic leaders. At 11.30 the main work was
over for the day. For an hour or two in the afternoon there were more
exercises, but as the ships steamed into the tropics this afternoon
drill was relaxed. The officers attended classes, and regular schools
were formed and an immense amount was done to advance their technical
knowledge. Besides all this, there were boat and life-belt drills
and occasional night alarms to vary the monotony--but a precaution
very necessary indeed. As the Convoy for the greater part of the six
weeks' voyage steamed without lights, or only lights very much dimmed,
work for the day ceased at dusk. Always there were guards and orderly
duties, for the correct running of the ship, which occupied about a
hundred men on the largest transport with a definite duty each day.

It was on the voyage that the skin sun-tanning process began, to be
carried to perfection in Egypt, and later on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
A pair of "slacks" (short pants) and a shirt and white hat was enough
for the men to wear on deck. They did not put on boots for three weeks,
and their feet became as hard as those of the mariners. One heard them
stumping round the deck with muffled tramp. But the physical exercises
regularly given, the rifle exercises and the earlier training, and high
standard demanded on enlistment, made this first contingent into a
force of young athletes.

It was the raiding _Emden_ that rendered the precautions taken on the
first Convoy that left Australia so very essential--a matter which
subsequent contingents knew nothing of, with the German commerce
and warships swept from the seas. The anxiety of Captain Gordon
Smith--the naval officer on the Flagship of the Convoy responsible for
the safe conduct of each transport, as the _Minotaur's_ captain, and
subsequently Captain Silver of the _Melbourne_, was responsible for the
whole fleet--at times turned to exasperation as he watched the lines of
transports through his telescope. The dropping out of a ship from the
long column through a temporary engine defect, the losing of position,
the constant disregard by the New Zealand transport of instructions
(they pulled out of the line deliberately to engage in target
practice), and other matters, caused caustic, and characteristically
naval, signals to go flying up and down the divisions. Once, when boxes
and the like were being thrown overboard, providing ample evidence to
the enemy, if found, of the track of the Convoy, the signal was made:
"This is not a paperchase." At night too, when some ship incautiously
showed lights through an open porthole, or a saloon door was left
open on deck, after certain warnings, would buzz the message: "You
are showing too much light; turn off your dynamos." When it came to
the merchant skippers steering by stern lights hung over each vessel
just above the propeller, throwing a phosphorescent light on the
whitened waters, it was a task at the same time their terror and their
despair, especially when orders came to draw closer together, during
the nights' steaming in the vicinity of Cocos Islands. The transports
were forbidden to use their wireless, and a buzzer was provided, with a
"speaking" radius of about 15 miles, for intercommunication throughout
the fleet. Relative to the tension at this period, I will make an
extract from my notes written on the _Orvieto_:--

"So we sailed on, drawing nearer and nearer into the middle of the
Indian Ocean. Looking at the chart each day, I feel that while we are
a large fleet, the largest that has ever crossed this ocean, after all
the seas are very broad. There is comfort as well as uneasiness in
the thought. It will be as difficult for a foreign ship to find us as
for us to run into a foreign ship by some chance. However, the lads
are taught to grow accustomed to meet any emergency and to muster on
deck with lights out.... It was on the night before we reached Cocos
Islands--to be exact, 7th November--shortly after our evening meal,
while the troops were lying about the decks loath to turn in on such
a hot night, that the lights suddenly went out altogether. I remember
wandering out of the saloon, having last seen the glowing end of
General Bridges' cigar, and stumbled on companies of troops falling
into their lines. I got to my station amidships, and remained there
for what seemed hours, but which in reality was fifteen minutes, while
I could only hear whispering voices round me, and just make out dim,
silhouetted figures and forms. There were muffled commands. It was
eerie, this mustering in the dark. I had been in alarms at night in a
darkened camp, when I had risen from warm blankets and the hard ground
and stumbled over guide-ropes to one's company down the lines, but to
feel one's way round a crowded deck was a very different proposition.
Over the whole fleet had been cast this shadow, for, in turn, each of
the ships disappeared from sight. I hardly like to contemplate what
would have happened to the soldier who ventured, thoughtlessly, to
light a cigarette at this moment. The Australian is a good talker,
and it seems impossible to absolutely stifle conversation. The ship
was strangely quiet. However, the alarm was exceedingly well carried
out.... Yet little did we dream that this testing was shortly to be
put into stern actuality. On the following Saturday night, while we
were steaming with very dimmed lights, cabin shutters closed, making
the interior of the ship intensely stuffy, all lights went out. Yet
that night, with a single light thrown on the piano, we held a concert.
But the very next night the evening meal was taken before dusk, and at
7.30 all lights were again extinguished. In not one of the ships was a
dynamo generating. The fleet had become almost invisible, like phantom
ships on a still sea. One undressed in the dark, and felt one's way
from point to point, bumping into people as one went. A few candles
stuck in heaps of sand flickered in the smoke-room. It did not take
long to get round that the reason for this drastic step was because it
was thought that, if any danger threatened--which none of us thought
it did, with the escort of warships around us--then to-night was the
night...."

How we passed the _Emden_ on this very evening, quite ignorant of our
danger and of that daring cruiser's destruction, needs to be related in
a separate chapter.




CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST PAGE OF AUSTRALIAN NAVAL HISTORY

I. FROM THE DECKS OF THE CONVOY


Taking events in their chronological order, I halt here in the
narrative of the advance of the Australian Contingent into Egypt to
deal with the incidents relating to the chase and destruction of the
notorious raiding cruiser _Emden_ by the Australian cruiser _Sydney_,
which, together with her sister ship, the _Melbourne_, at the time of
the action was part of the Convoy. It was singularly significant that
this first page of Australia's naval history--a glorious, magnificently
written page--should have occurred in the very presence, as it were,
of an Australian army. Well did it merit the enthusiasm and relief
that followed the exploit not only throughout India, but through the
Straits Settlements and amongst all the Allied merchant service that
sailed the seas. About this time the _Minotaur_, till then the Flagship
of the escort, had departed and was over 300 miles away on the route,
I believe, to the Cape of Good Hope to replace the _Good Hope_, sunk
by the German Pacific Squadron off Valparaiso a few days before. She
left at 5.30 on the evening of the 8th November with the parting
message: "Off on another service. Hope Australians and New Zealanders
have good luck in Germany and give the Germans a good shaking." This
had reduced our escort to the two Australian cruisers and the _Ibuki_.
It was, however, very evident that there was nothing now to fear
from the German ships after their short-lived victory off the South
American coast, so only the _Emden_ remained at large (the _Königsberg_
meanwhile having been successfully bottled up on the South African
coast). At the risk of tiring the reader's patience I will tell first
of the relative position of the Convoy, believing that the knowledge
that this great fleet, carrying 30,000 Australasians, had so narrow an
escape will strengthen the dramatic interest of the naval battle when
it shall be told. I intend to quote from a letter written at this time,
but which the Censor in Australia, for some reason I have been unable
to discover, refused to allow to be published, although approved by the
naval officers directly connected with the fight and the escort. In
consequence of which action, I may mention, much nonsense appeared in
the Press from time to time relating to the closeness of the _Emden_ to
the fleet.

Little did the people in Australia, when the news of the victory was
announced, know of the danger which their transports had run. The bald
announcement made some days later by the Minister of Defence (when the
news leaked out) that the Convoy had been within 100 miles of the sea
fight, was the only information vouchsafed. Sea romances have been
written by the score, but I doubt if there is any more thrilling than
the tale from mid-Indian Ocean of a fight to the finish which took
place quite unexpectedly in a calm tropical sea on a bright morning in
November. It seemed, indeed, nothing short of a fairy-tale (Captain
Silver's own words were: "It seems like a fairy-tale just to think that
when we are trying our utmost to avoid the _Emden_ we should run across
her tracks") that the ship for which the fleet--and no mean fleet--was
seeking high and low, which had eluded capture so long, should be
caught red-handed in the very presence of a Convoy of forty ships that
were creeping across the ocean, anxious above all else to avoid such an
awkward meeting.

In the light of what actually occurred, events previous to the fight
(which I described in the last chapter) had a curious significance.
I suppose that none of us at the time fully appreciated the reasons
which actuated the very drastic precautions against detection which
were taken three days before we reached Cocos Islands. We had boat
drills and day and night alarms. "On the evening of the 8th," I find
I wrote, "we were called to our evening meal earlier than usual, and
by dusk the fleet was plunged in darkness for the whole night. Of all
conjectures for this action, the one which gained most support was
that before dawn we would reach the danger-point of our voyage--the
Cocos Islands--the only possible rendezvous for a hostile ship in
mid-Indian Ocean. We knew that our course would carry us 50 miles to
the eastward of the islands and was far away from the ordinary trade
route, but still danger might lurk at this spot. Even mast-head lights
were extinguished, and not a gleam could be seen from any ship. So they
travelled through the night, while barely three hours ahead of them
the _Emden_ was crossing their path, silently, very secretly, bent on
a very different mission from what she might have undertaken had she
known of the proximity of the fleet. One, however, can only conjecture
what might have happened had the lights not been doused."

On Monday morning, 9th November, the troops were already astir when
they saw, at seven o'clock, the _Sydney_ preparing for action. Half an
hour previously they had watched the _Melbourne_, then in charge of the
Convoy and at the head of the line, dart away towards the south-west.
Captain Silver had not gone far on this course when he remembered he
was in charge, and there remained for him but to stay at his post
and send forward the sister ship, the _Sydney_, into action. It was
a sad blow for him and for the keen crew on board, who saw thus the
opportunity for which they had been longing snatched from under their
eyes. Nevertheless, he honourably stuck to his post, and I saw him
gradually edge his cruiser towards the Convoy until it almost came
alongside the _Orvieto_, the Flagship. Meanwhile the searchlight on her
forward control was blinking speedily, in the pale, chill morning air,
messages in code that sent the _Sydney_ dashing away to the south from
the position she had held on the port beam of the Convoy. In less than
ten minutes she disappeared behind a cloud of smoke. When the troops
saw, as I could with good glasses, a warship travelling at 26 knots an
hour with a White Ensign run up to her fore-peak, an Australian ensign
at her truck, and the Union Jack floating from her after-mast, with
the decks being cleared for action, they realized that some trouble
was brewing, though the Convoy as a whole knew nothing very definitely
for hours. On the Flagship we knew that a strange warship had been
seen at the entrance to the harbour of Keeling Island, then 40 miles
away. As the officers came on deck at 7.30, the _Melbourne_ was still
signalling and the _Ibuki_ was preparing for action. The wireless
calls for help had ceased abruptly, and we could see nothing but the
two threatening warships. For all on board it was a period of supreme
suspense and suppressed excitement. Captain Gordon Smith, Mr. Parker
(Naval Secretary), and General Bridges were on the bridge waiting for
the messages coming through from the _Sydney_ as she raced south.
Scraps of news were reaching me as they were taken by the operators
in the Marconi-room amidships. "It was Cocos Island that had called,
about 50 miles away--it might not be the _Emden_, but some other
ship--probably there was more than one, perhaps five!" Who was the
enemy? Would the _Sydney_ reach her in time? Would the other ships
go? Those were the thoughts drumming in our ears. The _Melbourne_,
quite near us again, was semaphoring rapidly, and then she darted away
between the lines of ships to a position 10 miles on our port-beam,
lying almost at right angles to the course we were taking. Obviously
she was waiting to catch any messages and act as a shield against the
approaching enemy should she escape the _Sydney_ and try and push in on
the Convoy.

 [Illustration: H.M.A.S. "SYDNEY" IN COLOMBO HARBOUR AFTER THE COCOS
 ISLAND ENGAGEMENT.

  To face p. 42.]

Meanwhile the Japanese cruiser _Ibuki_ presented a magnificent
sight. Long shall I remember how her fighting flags were run up to
the mast-heads, as they had been on the _Sydney_, where they hung
limp until the breeze sprung up and they floated out great patches
of colour. The danger was imminent enough for her to move, slowly at
first, and then rapidly gaining speed as she swept across our bows
towards the west. So close did she pass that I could see plainly enough
the white figures swarming over her decks. They worked in squads of
twenty or thirty and very rapidly, standing on the gun-turrets and on
the fire-control stations fastening the sandbags and hammocks round
the vulnerable points to stop the flying splinters of the shells. The
sun caught the dull colour of the guns and they shone. Masses of thick
smoke coiled from her funnels, growing denser every minute. Each thrust
of the propeller she was gaining speed. As the cruiser passed, there
flew to the truck of her after-mast the national ensign, with another
at her peak, half-way down the mast. Lit by the sun's rays, these flags
looked blood-red streaks on a background of white. In battle array the
cruiser won the admiration of all. Barely ten minutes after being
signalled was she ready. The breeze was so light that the smoke rose
in a column 40, 60 feet in the air; but as she gathered way the wind
caught it, and drew it back behind, just as it caught and stretched the
limp flags. And all the while were the great 12-in. guns being turned
this way and that, as if anxious to nose out the enemy. We watched them
swing in their heavy turrets.

Both _Melbourne_ and _Ibuki_ during the hours of the battle were
constantly changing their course, the latter turning and twisting,
now presenting her broadside, now her bows only, to the direction in
which the _Sydney_ had disappeared. Both were edging farther away, but
always lay between the enemy and the Convoy. Warning had come from
the _Sydney_ that the enemy was escaping northward, and a thrill ran
through the watchers on board as it was spread around. It seemed as
if any moment the Japanese guns might boom with their long range of
fire. At five minutes to ten we heard from the Australian cruiser, "I
am engaging the enemy," and again that "The enemy is escaping north."
In suspense for another hour we waited, until the message arrived
at 11.20, "Enemy ran ashore to save sinking." Though sent to the
_Melbourne_, these signals were received on the _Orvieto_, being the
Flagship of the Convoy, and knowing the code, as we had the chief naval
transport officer on board, they were quickly interpreted. At 11.28 we
heard, "Enemy beached herself to save sinking; am pursuing merchant
collier." Meanwhile the _Minotaur_ had been asking for information, and
accordingly the _Sydney_ sent the message, "_Emden_ beached and done
for" at 11.44 to that cruiser, which, I believe, had turned back ready
to give assistance if needed. A cheer rose from the troop decks and
spread through the fleet as the message, definitely stating it was the
_Emden_ that was destroyed, was semaphored from ship to ship down the
lines. By noon flashed the message across the calm, vivid blue waters
that our casualties had only been two (later three) killed and thirteen
wounded. I well recall what relief that news brought, no one daring to
hint how much the _Sydney_ had suffered. I thought, as I watched the
troops talking excitedly on deck, of Wordsworth's line:--

  Smiles broke from us and we had ease.

That tense two hours had bathed us all in perspiration. The troops had
broken from their drill to look longingly in the direction of the
battle which was raging 50 miles away. Not even the distant rumble of
a gun reached us on the transports. A little calculation showed that
the _Sydney_ must have steamed nearly 70 miles in the three and a half
hours before she dispatched her quarry. The victory seemed to draw us
all closer together. A kind of general thaw set in. That night at mess,
besides the toast of "The King," General Bridges proposed "The Navy,
coupled with the name of the _Sydney_." Need it be related how it was
honoured by soldiers?

Now that it was known that the other enemy ship was but a collier,
there was no need for the other cruisers to remain in fighting trim.
But before I saw the fighting flags stowed away on the Japanese cruiser
there was yet another instance of the fine spirit which animated
our Ally. From the captain of the _Melbourne_ she sought permission
a second time to enter the fight and join the _Sydney_, with the
request, "I wish go." Indeed, at one time she started like a bloodhound
straining at the leash towards the south, believing that her services
were needed, when Captain Silver reluctantly signalled, "Sorry,
permission cannot be given; we have to rest content in the knowledge
that by remaining we are doing our duty." So in accordance with that
duty she doubled slowly, and it seemed reluctantly, back, and went,
unbinding her hammocks and sandbags, to her former post. Now, early in
the morning there had come the same message sent from Cocos Island from
the _Osaki_, a sister ship of the _Ibuki_, which ship, too, had picked
up the call for help. This led us to the knowledge that a Japanese
squadron was cruising off the coast of Java, a few hundred miles on our
right, as part of that net which was gradually being drawn round the
_Emden_.

It will be realized that amongst the crews of the two warships excluded
from a share in the fight there should be a certain disappointment.
Captain Silver's action showed that high sense of, and devotion to,
duty of which the Navy is justly proud. And feeling for brother
officers, Captain Gordon Smith, as officer in charge of the Convoy,
sent across to the two cruisers the typically facetious naval message:--

"Sorry there was not enough meat to go round."




CHAPTER V

THE FIRST PAGE OF AUSTRALIAN NAVAL HISTORY (_continued_)

II. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE "EMDEN"


It may indeed be considered a happy omen that the first chapter of
Australia's naval history should be written in such glowing colours as
those that surrounded the destruction of the German raider _Emden_,
for whose capture no price was deemed too high to pay. Hearing the
recital of that chapter by Captain Glossop in the cabin of the _Sydney_
two days after the engagement, I consider myself amongst the most
fortunate. In the late afternoon I had come on board the _Sydney_, then
lying in the harbour of Colombo cleaning up (having just twenty-four
hours before handed over the last of her prisoners), from one of the
native caïques, and except for the paint that had peeled from her guns
and the wrecked after fire-control, I saw, at first glance, very little
to suggest an action of the terrific nature she had fought. But as I
walked round the lacerated decks I began to realize more and more the
game fight the _Emden_ had put up and the accuracy of her shooting (she
is alleged to have been the best gunnery ship in the German Fleet). On
the bow side amidships was the yellow stain caused by the explosion of
some lyddite, while just near it was a dent in the armour-plated side
where a shell had struck without bursting. The after control was a
twisted wreck of darkened iron and steel and burnt canvas. There were
holes in the funnels and the engine-room, and a clean-cut hole in an
officer's cabin where a shell had passed through the legs of a desk and
out the cruiser's side without bursting. The hollows scooped out of the
decks were filled with cement as a rough makeshift, while the gun near
by (a shell had burst on it) was chipped and splattered with bullets
and pieces of shell. Up in the bow was a great cavern in the deck,
where a shell had struck the cruiser squarely, and had ripped up the
decks like matchwood and dived below, where it burst amidst the canvas
hammocks and mess tables, splintering the wood and riddling a notice
board with shot. A fire had been quickly extinguished. Mounting then to
the top of the forward fire-control, I saw where the range-finder had
stood (it had been blown away), and where the petty officer had been
sitting when the shell carried him and the instrument away--a shot,
by the way, which nearly deprived the _Sydney_ of her captain, her
range-finding officer, and three others. Returning to the after deck we
found Captain Glossop himself. He was walking the decks enjoying the
balmy evening, and he went with Captain Bean, the Australian Official
War Correspondent, and myself below to his stateroom, where he told us
in a beautifully clear and simple manner the story of the action. I
saw, too, the chart of the battle reproduced here. After what we then
heard, what we had already seen and learned from the officers at mess
later that evening (they sent us off to the _Orvieto_ in the picket
boat), we hastened back to set down the story of the fight. Perusal of
reports, plans, and data obtained from one source and another leads
me now to alter very little the first impressions I recorded of that
famous encounter, which, I may add, was taken in a spirit of modesty
mingled with a genuine and hearty appreciation of the foe by all the
officers and crew of the _Sydney_.

It is quite beyond the region of doubt to suppose that the _Emden_
knew anything of the approach of the Convoy, or of the presence of
Australian cruisers in Indian waters. What she did believe was that the
warship she saw approaching her so rapidly was either the _Newcastle_
or _Yarmouth_, and right up to the concluding phases of the action she
believed this. On the other hand, the _Emden_ herself had been mistaken
for the _Newcastle_ by the operators at the wireless station on Cocos
Islands when she had put in an appearance on the evening before the
action, 8th November, just at dusk. The coming of the cruiser to the
island at sunset had not excited the suspicions of the people on shore,
for her colour was not distinguishable, and she had apparently four
funnels similar to the _Newcastle_. Having reconnoitred the harbour
and seen all was safe, the _Emden_ had lain off all night, and next
morning before dawn had steamed into the harbour and dropped anchor
close inshore. Still the people at the station were unsuspicious
until by some mischance (I have heard also, by orders) the astonished
islanders saw one of the funnels wobble and shake, and then fall to
the deck in a heap. It was the painted dummy canvas funnel. Meanwhile
the _Emden_ had sent off a landing party, and there was just time for
the operators to rush to their posts and send through the message by
wireless which the Convoy had received, and which the _Melbourne_ and
_Sydney_ had heard: "Strange cruiser at entrance to harbour" and the
S.O.S. call. At the same time the cable operator was busy sending over
the cable message after message, which was being registered in London,
of the approach of the landing party, ending with the dramatic: "They
are entering the door"--and silence.

This revelation of the identity of the vessel at once explained to the
operators where the German wireless signals, that had been choking the
air overnight, had been emanating from. The endeavour of the cruiser
to drown the calls for assistance by her high-pitched Telefunken waves
was frustrated, and, as I have said, the arrival of the landing party
put a stop to further messages. Still, the call had gone forth and was
picked up at 6.30 a.m. by the Convoy, with the result that the _Sydney_
went into action steaming considerably over 20 knots an hour, and at
each revolution of the propeller gaining speed until she was tearing
through the water, cutting it with her sharp prow like a knife. It was
not long before the lookout on the cruiser saw lights ahead from the
island and the tops of palm-trees, and almost at the same moment the
top of the masts of the "strange warship." Quickly the funnels rose
over the horizon, and by the time the whole ship came into view there
was very little doubt that it was the _Emden_. Yet the enemy showed no
signs of attempting to escape and make a long chase of it (which she
might have done, being a ship with a speed of 25 knots) and a dash for
liberty, although the _Sydney's_ smoke she must have seen come up over
the rim of the seas, probably long before she saw the ship itself.
Even with the knowledge that her guns were of smaller calibre than her
antagonist, she dashed straight at the _Sydney_ and tried to close.

The _Emden_ opened fire at 9.40 at the extreme range of her guns,
slightly under 10,000 yards. She let loose a whole broadside, but
while this was in the air our guns had been trained on her and had
fired too--the port-side batteries coming into action. With a shriek
the German shells went over the heads of the men and the masts of the
_Sydney_, while it was seen that the _Sydney's_ shots had also carried
over the chase by about 400 yards. The next broadsides from both ships
fell short, and the water was sent into the air like columns of crystal
before the eyes of the gunners. Within the next few salvos both ships
found the range, halving the first ranges, and hit the target. The air
was filled with the sickening swish of the shells and the loud, dull
explosions. As the German opened fire an exclamation of surprise broke
from the lips of the officer in charge of the _Sydney's_ range-finder.
That a cruiser with such light guns was able to open and engage a
cruiser carrying 6-in. guns at such extreme range was disquieting. With
the next shell his cap was almost raised from his head as it whistled
past between him and his assistant and carried away the range-finder
that was immediately behind him in the centre of the control. The
man seated there was instantly killed, while the captain and another
officer, a few feet away, were flung back against the sides of the
control station. Lucky it was that this shell, the blast of which
had scorched the men, passed through the starboard side of the lofty
station and, without exploding, over the side of the ship. It was
shells from this salvo, or ones following hard on it--for the Germans
were firing at a furious rate, and three of their shells would be in
the air at one time--that made the most telling hits on the _Sydney_.
A shell had searched the after control and gouged a cavity the size
of a man's body along the wall nearest the after funnel, and passed
on without exploding there, but it struck the deck, scooping out a
huge mass of iron before it ricochetted into the water. The five men
had been thrown to the floor of the control, wounded in the legs, and
while still stunned by the impact another shell tore its way through,
completely wrecking the control and bursting inside as it struck the
opposite wall. As the enemy's guns were firing at extreme range the
angle of descent was steep, and therefore the impact not so great, for
the _Sydney_, with a superior range of fire, kept edging off from
the _Emden_, still trying to close. Again the enemy scored, and the
next minute a shell blew two holes in the steam-pipe beside the funnel
and exploded behind the second starboard gun, killing two of the gun
crew and wounding others, while it ignited a quantity of guncotton
and charges lying on deck. That, due to the remarkable coolness of a
gunner, was at once thrown overboard and the fire extinguished. Great
gashes were made in the deck where the bits of the shell (it was high
explosive) had struck, and the gear of the gun itself was chipped all
over, while one of the breech pins was blown away. At the time the gun
was not in action, and when the _Sydney_ doubled, as she soon did,
conforming with the move by the _Emden_, the gun was ready again for
firing, worked by the port-side crew. Meanwhile shells had hulled the
cruiser, and there had been a shudder through the vessel as a shell
burst through the deck just below the forward control and wrecked the
mess deck. But so intent on the enemy were the gunners that none I have
talked to, seemed to have noticed the shells very much.

 [Illustration: _PLAN OF THE SYDNEY-EMDEN FIGHT at Cocos Islands 9^{th}
 November 1914 as prepared by Gunnery Observing Officer HMAS Sydney._]

But what of the _Emden_? The greater power of our guns and the
appalling accuracy of our fire had, in that first half-hour--when the
air was thick with shot and shell and the stench of lyddite fumes
filled the nostrils, when faces were blackened by the smoke from the
guns and funnels--wrought fearful havoc in the enemy's ship. The
_Sydney_ was not firing so rapidly as her opponent, but her fire
was surer, and the shells went swifter, because more directly, to
their mark. It was, I believe, the third or fourth salvo when the
fore funnel of the _Emden_ went with a terrific crash over the side,
dragging with it stays and rigging. Each of our salvos meant five
guns aimed, and each of these appeared to be finding the mark. The
water round the cruiser was alive with shell that sent the spray over
her decks. In another few minutes a whole broadside hit the stern by
the after port-holes. The shells--there must have been fully three
of them--exploded in the interior of the ship, blowing and bulging
up the deck, and twisting the iron plates as if they had been so
much cardboard instead of toughened steel. Fires broke out from all
points astern, and it has been learned since that this salvo wrecked
the steering gear and communication system. After this the _Emden's_
speed appreciably diminished and she was compelled to steer by her
propellers. In this manner were the whole of the after guns put out of
action, and, indeed, one of the gun's crew was blown into the water
by the shock of the impact and the blast of the arriving shells. The
ship trembled in her course, and shuddered over her whole length. In
between decks the fires were gaining, licking up the woodwork and the
clothing of the crew. Smoke enveloped at this time the whole of the
stern. It gushed from the hatches and the rents in the side, smothering
the wounded that lay about the decks. The iron plates became white hot,
and the crew were forced further and further forward as other fires
broke out. Then, too, the after funnel came crashing down, cut off
near the deck, and the inner funnel fell out and dragged in the water.
Already the after control had gone by the board, and another salvo
shot the foremast completely away, wrecking the whole of the forward
control and bringing the rigging, iron plates, sandbags, and hammocks
tumbling down to the decks on the crew below, mangling them in an
indistinguishable, horrible heap.

By this time the _Emden's_ fire had slackened considerably, as the
guns were blown out of action. In the first quarter of an hour the
Germans had been firing broadside after broadside as rapidly as the
shells could be crammed into the breeches of the guns. The ship had
doubled like a hare, bringing alternate broadsides into action, but
the _Sydney_, unscathed as to her speed, and her engines working
magnificently (thanks to the work of the chief engineer), at one time
topped 27 knots, and was easily able to keep off at over 6,000 yards
and, taking the greater or outside circle, steam round her victim. On
the second time of doubling, when the fire from the _Emden_ had died
down to an intermittent gun fire, the _Sydney_ ran in to close range
(4,000 yards) and fired a torpedo. The direction was good, but it never
reached its mark. It was seen that the enemy was beaten and must soon
sink. A fresh burst of fire had greeted the Australian cruiser, which
continued to pour salvo after salvo into her foe, sweeping the decks
and riddling her sides until she crawled with a list. Early in the
action a lucky shot had flooded the _Emden's_ torpedo chamber, and in
this regard she was powerless. Fires now burst from her decks at all
points, and smoke indeed covered her from stem to stern. For one period
she was obscured from view by a very light yellow smoke that seemed
to the _Sydney's_ gunners as if the ship had disappeared, as she had
stopped firing. The gunners ceased fire.

"She's gone, sir--she's gone!" shouted the men, their pent-up feelings
for the first time bursting forth. "Man the lifeboats!" Cheers filled
the air, but the next minute the _Emden_ emerged from the cloud,
fired, and the men returned to serve their guns. It was then that the
third and last remaining funnel went by the board. It was the centre
one of the three, and it came toppling down, and lay across the third
and after funnel, which had fallen over to port. The fires had driven
the crew into the bows, which were practically undamaged, but the
ship was in flames. The decks were unbearably hot. The German shells
were falling very short, the guns no longer accurate. The _Sydney_
had ceased to fire salvos, and for the last half-hour individual gun
fire had been ordered. The end came when the _Emden_, already headed
for the shores of the north Keeling Island, struck on the reef and
remained with her bows firmly embedded in the coral. It was just 11.20,
and while the _Emden's_ flag was still flying Captain Glossop decided
to give the foe two more salvos, and these found a target below the
waterline. Still the German ensign flew at the after mast-head.

In the meantime the enemy's collier, ignorant of the fray, had come up
(it was arranged that the _Emden_ should coal at Cocos at 1 o'clock),
and soon showed herself bent in some way or other on assisting the
cruiser. The _Sydney_ kept guns trained on her, and now, when there
was breathing space after an action lasting an hour and forty minutes,
she gave chase, and at ten minutes past twelve caught up with the
collier and fired a shell across her bows. At the mast-head was flown
the international code signal to stop. This the Germans proceeded to
do, first having taken measures to scuttle the ship by removing the
sea-cock, and to make doubly sure they destroyed it. An armed crew
put off from the _Sydney_ to the collier, which was now found to be
the captured British merchantman s.s. _Buresk_. They finding it now
impossible to save the ship, her crew were brought off, offering no
resistance. There were eighteen Chinamen aboard, an English steward, a
Norwegian cook, and a prize crew from the _Emden_ consisting of three
officers, one warrant officer, and twelve men. When these had been
taken in tow by the _Sydney's_ boats, the cruiser fired four shells
into the collier, and she quickly subsided beneath the waves.

Turning south again, the _Sydney_ proceeded back to the _Emden_ and
picked up some survivors of the battle who were struggling in the
water. They were men from the after guns who had been blown into
the water when the salvo had struck the _Emden_, doing such fearful
execution to her stern. These men had been in the water from ten
o'clock, and were almost exhausted. As the waters hereabouts are shark
infested, their rescue seemed all the more remarkable. Arriving now
back before her quarry at 4.30, the _Sydney_ found the _Emden_ had
still her colours flying. For some time she steamed back and forth,
signalling in the international code for surrender, but without
obtaining any answer. As the German flag still fluttered at the mast,
there was nothing to do but to fire further broadsides, and these, with
deadly accuracy, again found the target. It was only when the German
captain hauled down his ensign with the Iron Cross in the middle and
the German Jack in the corner and hoisted a white flag that the firing
ceased. As it was after five o'clock, the _Sydney_ immediately steamed
back to pick up the boats of the _Buresk_ before it grew dusk, and
returning again, rescued two more German sailors on the way. A boat
was sent off, manned by the German prize crew from the collier with
an officer. Captain Müller was on board, and he was informed that
the _Sydney_ would return next morning to render what assistance was
possible. To attempt rescue work that night was impossible for one
reason above all others--that the _Königsberg_ might still have been at
large and coming to the scene. The German cruiser was an absolute wreck
on the southern shores of the island, and the surf beat so furiously
that it would have been dangerous for boats to have approached in the
dusk. The island itself was quite deserted.

Leaving these unfortunate men of war, let me turn to a section of the
chapter which is really a story within a story. For, as the _Sydney_
approached the cable station on Direction Island, the largest of
the Cocos Group, she learned for the first time that much had been
happening on shore. The Germans had at daybreak that eventful morning
landed a crew, consisting of three officers (Lieutenants Schmidt,
Kieslinger, and Capt.-Lieutenant Von Möcke) and fifty men, including
ten stokers, with four maxims, in charge of the first officer of the
_Emden_, for the purpose of taking possession of the cable station and
wireless plant. The majority of the men were the best gunners from the
cruiser. Not having met with any resistance, as the population of the
island is in all not more than thirty-eight whites (it belongs to the
Marconi Company), the Germans proceeded leisurely with their work until
they found the _Emden_ signalling furiously to them. They had no time
to get away to their ship in the heavy boat before she up-anchored and
steamed out to meet the smoke that was soon to resolve itself into the
_Sydney_.

With the other people on the station the Germans then proceeded to
the roof of the largest of the cable buildings, where they watched
the fight from beginning to end. With absolute confidence they seemed
to have anticipated a victory for the _Emden_, and it was not till
the broadsides from the _Sydney_ carried away the funnel that the
inhabitants were hurried below and placed under a guard. With what
feelings the gunners must have seen their cruiser literally blown to
pieces under their eyes can but be imagined. They hardly waited until
the _Sydney_ went off after the collier before they seized a schooner
lying in the harbour. She proved to be the _Ayesia_, of 70 tons burden
only. She had no auxiliary engine, so that if the raiders were to
escape, which they had now determined to attempt, their time was very
limited. The party, on landing, at first had proceeded to put out of
action the cable and wireless instruments, which they smashed, while
they managed to cut one of the cables. Fortunately, a spare set of
instruments had been buried after the experience of a station in the
Pacific, raided some weeks before by the German Pacific Squadron. Beds
were next requisitioned, and supplies taken for a three months' cruise.
Water was taken on board, and the schooner was loaded, so that just
before dusk she slipped out and round the southern end of the island
at what time the _Sydney_ was again approaching from the north after
her last shots at the _Emden_. In fact, had not the _Sydney_ stopped
to pick up another German sailor struggling in the water, she in all
probability would have sighted the escaping schooner, which was later
to land this party of Germans on the coast of Arabia. Having learned of
the situation, the _Sydney_ was unable to land any men on the island,
as it was imperative that she should lie off and be ready for any
emergency, such as I have already hinted. This prohibited her going
to the aid of the Germans on the vanquished _Emden_. All night she
cruised slowly and her crew cleared away the wreckage, while the doctor
tended to the wounded and made what arrangements were possible for the
reception of the prisoners and wounded next day. The space on a cruiser
is always cut to a minimum, so not much could be done. Fortunately, her
own casualties had been slight for such an action. There were three
killed, five seriously wounded (one of whom subsequently died), four
wounded, and four slightly wounded.

Early next morning the _Sydney_ once again steamed back to the _Emden_.
The task before her was as difficult as it was awful. The ship was a
shambles and the decks too appalling to bear description. The Germans
lent what assistance they could, but the whole ship was in the most
shocking condition. The men who remained alive on board were either
half-mad with thirst or so stunned and stupefied with the detonation of
the guns that they did not comprehend anything at all, or were unable
to appreciate their position. They had all been without water for
almost two days, as the _Sydney's_ salvos had wrecked the water-tanks.
The fires had to burn themselves out, and though the decks were now
cooled, the charred bodies that lay around showed only too plainly what
an inferno the vessel must have been when she ran ashore. "At 11.10
a.m.," writes an officer, "we arrived off the _Emden_ again in one of
the cutters. Luckily, her stern was sticking out beyond where the surf
broke, so that with a rope from the stern of the ship one could ride
close under one quarter with the boat's bow to seaward. The rollers
were very big and surging to and fro, and made getting aboard fairly
difficult. However, the Germans standing aft gave me a hand up, and I
was received by the captain of the _Emden_." Nevertheless, it was a
work of the utmost difficulty getting the wounded (there were fifteen
bad cases), and even those who were only slightly injured, into the
boats. Water was what the men wanted most, and a cask was hauled on
board and eagerly drunk. The boarding party found the stern of the
cruiser a twisted mass of steel, and her decks up to the bows were rent
and torn in all directions, while plates had buckled, bolts had sprung,
and the vessel was falling to pieces in some parts. Nearly every gun
had been put out of action, and whole gun's crews had been incinerated
inside the armoured shield. Our lyddite had done appalling, even
revolting, execution. The aim of the gunners was deadly in the extreme.
As one prisoner quite frankly admitted to an officer, "Your artillery
was magnificent."

The last man was rescued from the ship at 5 p.m. The captain and a
nephew of the Kaiser, Prince Joseph of Hohenzollern, who was torpedo
officer and just twenty years of age, were amongst those who had
not sustained any injuries. During the absence of the _Sydney_ a party
of twenty Germans had managed in some way to get ashore to the island.
Either they had scrambled from the bows of the wrecked cruiser on to
the reef and taken their chance in the surf or they had been washed
ashore. It was, at any rate, too late that evening to rescue these men,
and it was not till the next morning that a cutter and some stretchers
were put off and ran up on the westward side of the island on a sandy
beach, just at 5 a.m. The Germans on shore were in a terrible state.
They had been too dazed to attempt even to get the coco-nuts for food
and drink. The ship's doctor, through the strain, had insisted on
drinking sea-water, and had gone mad and had died the previous night.
In the meantime the _Sydney_ had returned overnight to Direction Island
and brought another doctor to tend the wounded. She was back again off
Keeling Island by ten o'clock, and the remaining wounded and prisoners
embarked at 10.35 and the _Sydney_ started to steam for Colombo.

 [Illustration: PRISONERS FROM THE "EMDEN" ON THE FLAGSHIP GUARDED BY
 SENTRY AS THEY TAKE EXERCISE ON DECK.

The group, from the left, is the German Doctor Captain Finklestein,
Captain Debussy (in charge of prisoners), the Prince of Hohenzollern,
Captain Gordon Smith, who is talking to Captain Müller, hidden behind
sentry.]

 [Illustration: THE DIRK OF PRINCE FRANCIS JOSEPH OF HOHENZOLLERN.

It was beautifully embossed but greatly damaged by the fire on the
"Emden."

  To face p. 56.]

On the _Sydney's_ decks the men were laid out side by side and their
wounds attended to as far as possible. The worst cases were given
accommodation below, the doctor of the _Sydney_ with the German surgeon
working day and night to relieve the men of their pain. The heat from
the ship and from the tropical sun made the conditions dreadful. The
prisoners had in most cases nothing but the clothes they stood up
in. One man, who had received a gash in his chest, had tied a kimono
in a knot and plugged the wound with it by tying round a piece of
cord. Otherwise he was naked. The death-roll on the cruiser had been
appalling. There were 12 officers killed and 119 men. The wounded taken
on board numbered 56, while there were 115 prisoners, including 11
officers. Many of the wounded subsequently died of their wounds. The
prisoners were placed in the bows, with a small guard over them. The
cruiser, at no time meant to carry extra men, was horribly congested.
The less seriously wounded were removed to the _Empress of Russia_,
which had passed the Convoy, hastily summoned from Colombo, about 60
hours' steam from that port, and this gave some relief.

It was only after close inspection that I realized the full extent
of the _Sydney's_ scars, which her crew point to now with such pride.
A casual glance would hardly have detected a hole, about as big as
a saucer, on the port side. This was the result of one of the high
trajectory shots that had made a curious passage for itself, as I
described earlier. This tracing of the course of the shells was
most interesting. I saw where the paint had been scorched off the
fire-control station, and where the hammocks that were used to protect
the men from flying splinters had been burned brown, or black, or dyed
crimson with blood. I saw, too, the shape of a man's leg on a canvas
screen where it had fallen. Looking in at the door of one of the petty
officers' mess-rooms below, I was told I was just in the same position
as one of the crew who had been standing there when a shell struck the
side of the ship opposite him and tried to pierce the armoured plate,
though he himself had not waited long enough to see the great blister
it raised, almost as large as a football, before it fell back spent
into the sea. The men were below, writing home, when I went through
to the bows to see the damage done by the shells that had torn up
the decks. They laughed as they pointed to places now filled up with
cement, and laughed at the notice board and draught-flue, riddled
with holes. So far as the interior of the ship was concerned, there
was nothing else to suggest the stress she had been through. The only
knowledge the engineers had of the action was a distant rumbling of the
guns and a small fragment of shell that tumbled down a companion-way
into the engine-room. And I wonder if too great praise can be bestowed
on the engineers for their work in this crisis. From 9.20 a.m., which
was when the cruiser sighted the _Emden_, until noon, when she left
the _Emden_ a wreck, the _Sydney_ steamed 68 miles at speeds varying
between 13 and 27 knots.

As I grew accustomed to look for the chips off the portions of the
ship, I marked places where shells must have just grazed the decks and
fittings. All the holes had been filled with cement till the cruiser
could get to Malta to refit. Stays had been repaired and the damaged
steam-pipe was working again. The only break had been a temporary
stoppage of the refrigerating machinery, owing to a shell cutting the
pipe. So I went round while the officers accounted for fourteen bad
hits. I wondered how many times the _Emden_ had been holed and belted.
Our gunners had fired about 650 rounds of ordinary shell, the starboard
guns firing more than the port guns. The German cruiser had expended
1,500 rounds, and had practically exhausted all the ammunition she
carried.

I am unwilling to leave the story of the battle without reference to
the action of a petty officer who was in the after fire-control when it
was wrecked, at the beginning of the fight. It will be recalled that
there were two shells that got home on this control, and the five men
stationed there were injured, in some extraordinary way, not seriously.
The wounds were nearly all about the legs, and the men were unable to
walk. Yet they knew their only chance for their lives was to leave this
place as soon as possible. Shells were streaming past, the ship was
trembling under the discharge of the guns. Less badly damaged than his
mates, a petty officer managed to stand, and though in intense pain,
half-fell, half-lowered himself from the control station to the deck,
about 5 feet below. The remainder of the group had simply to throw
themselves to the deck, breaking their fall by clinging to the twisted
stays as best they might. All five of them pulled themselves across the
deck, wriggling on their stomachs until they reached the companion-way.
They were all making up their minds to fall down this as well, as
being the only means of getting below, when the gallant petty officer
struggled to his feet and carried his mates down the companion-way
one by one. As a feat alone this was no mean task, but executed under
the conditions it was, it became a magnificent action of devotion and
sacrifice.

Before concluding this account, let me say that Major-General Bridges
was anxious that the _Sydney_ should be suitably welcomed as she
steamed past the Convoy on her way to Colombo, and sent a request to
Captain Glossop asking that she might steam near the fleet. The answer
was: "Thank you for your invitation. In view of wounded would request
no cheering. Will steam between 1st and 2nd Divisions." The same
request to have no cheering was signalled to Colombo, and it touched
the captain of the _Emden_ deeply, as he afterwards told us. But the
Convoy were denied the inspiring sight, for it was just 4.30 in the
morning and barely dawn when the _Sydney_ and the _Empress of Russia_,
huge and overpowering by comparison with the slim, dark-lined warship,
whose funnels looked like spars sticking from the water, sped past in
the distance. Once in port, however, when any boats from the fleet
approached the _Sydney_, hearty, ringing cheers came unchecked to the
lips of all Australasians.




CHAPTER VI

UP THE RED SEA


At Colombo the Australian troops found the sight of quaint junks, and
mosquito craft, and naked natives, ready to dive to the bottom for a
_sou_, very fascinating after coming from more prosaic Southern climes.
Colombo Harbour itself was choked with shipping and warships of the
Allied Powers. There was the cruiser _Sydney_, little the worse for
wear, and also several British cruisers. There was the five-funnelled
_Askold_, which curiously enough turned up here just after the _Emden_
had gone--the two vessels, according to report, had fought one another
to the death at the very beginning of the war in the China seas. There
was a Chinese gunboat lying not far from the immense Empress liners,
towering out of the water. The Japanese ensign fluttered from the
_Ibuki_ (now having a washing day), her masts hung with fluttering
white duck. There were transports from Bombay and Calcutta and
Singapore, with ships bringing Territorials from England, to which now
were added the transports from Australasia. Most of these latter were
lying outside the breakwater and harbour, which could contain only a
portion of that mass of shipping.

So after two days' delay the great Convoy, having taken in coal and
water, steamed on, and a section waited by the scorched shores of Aden
for a time before linking up again with the whole.

On the evening of the 27-28th November the destination of the Convoy,
which was then in the Red Sea, was changed. A marconigram arrived at
midnight for Major-General Bridges, and soon the whole of the Staff
was roused out and a conference held. It had been then definitely
announced from the War Office that the troops were to disembark in
Egypt, both the Australians and New Zealanders, the purpose being,
according to official statements, "to complete their training and for
war purposes." The message said it was unforeseen circumstances, but at
Aden I have no doubt a very good idea was obtained that Egypt was to
be our destination, owing to the declaration of war on Turkey, while
it seems quite probable that the G.O.C. knew at Albany that this land
of the Nile was most likely to be the training-ground for the troops.
The message further announced that Lieut.-General Sir William Birdwood
would command. He was in India at the time.

That the voyage was going to end far sooner than had been expected
brought some excitement to the troops, though most had been looking
forward to visiting England. None at this time believed that the stay
in Egypt would be long. It was recognized that the climatic conditions
would be enormously in the army's favour, which afterwards was given
out as one of the chief reasons for the dropping down like a bolt
from the blue of this army of 30,000 men, near enough to the Canal to
be of service if required. There, too, they might repel any invasion
of Egypt, such as was now declared by the Turks to be their main
objective, and which Germany, even as early as October, had decided to
be their means of striking a blow at England--her only real vulnerable
point.

But I hasten too fast and far. Arrangements, of course, had at
once to be made for the distribution of the ships and the order of
their procedure through the Canal (Alexandria was to be the port of
disembarkation owing to lack of wharf accommodation at Suez). At the
last church parade on Sunday the troops began to appear in boots and
rather crumpled jackets that had been stowed away in lockers, and the
tramp of booted feet on deck, with the bands playing, made a huge
din. But the troops were looking marvellously fit--such magnificent
types of men. The Flagship hurried on, and was at Suez a day before
the remainder of the Convoy, so as to disembark some of the Staff, who
were to go on to Cairo to make arrangements for the detraining and
the camp, which of course was already set out by the G.O.C. in Egypt,
General Sir John Maxwell. On 30th November, in the early morning, the
_Orvieto_ anchored at Suez, and during the afternoon the rest of the
ships began to come in, mostly New Zealanders first, and by three
o'clock our ship started through the Canal. By reason of the nearness
of the enemy an armed party was posted on deck with forty rounds each
in their belts, for it was just possible that there might be raiding
parties approaching at some point as we went slowly through, our great
searchlight in the bows lighting up the bank. Before it was dusk,
however, we had a chance of seeing some of the preparations for the
protection of the Canal and Egypt, including the fortified posts and
trenches, which are best described in detail when I come to deal with
them separately when discussing the Canal attack.

 [Illustration: THE FIRST TENTS IN THE MENA DESERT CAMP ON 4TH DECEMBER,
 1915.]

 [Illustration: VIEW OF MENA CAMP (COMPLETED) LOOKING ACROSS THE
 ENGINEER TO THE ARTILLERY LINES.

  To face p. 62.]

A general impression I shall give, though, indicative of the feelings
of many Australians travelling for the first time this great waterway.
Not half a mile from the entrance to the Canal, with the town of Suez
lying squat and white on the left, is the quarantine station of Shat.
It was surrounded by deep trenches, out of which now rose up Indian
troops, Sikhs and Gurkhas, and they came running across the sand to
the banks of the Canal, where they greeted us with cheers and cries,
answered by the troops, who had crowded into the rigging and were
sitting on the ships' rails and deckhouses. Close beside the station
was a regular, strong redoubt, with high parapets and loopholes and
trenches running along the banks of the Canal, connected up with
outer posts. About 20 miles farther on we came across a big redoubt,
with some thousands of men camped on either side of the Canal. They
belonged to the 128th Regiment, so an officer told us, as he shouted
from a punt moored alongside the bank. It was just growing dusk as the
transport reached this spot. The hills that formed a barrier about 15
miles from the Canal were fading into a deep vermilion in the rays of
the departing sun that sank down behind a purple ridge, clear cut, on
the southern side of the Canal outside of the town of Suez. Between
it and the Canal was a luxurious pasturage and long lines of waving
palm-trees. It was deathly still and calm, and the voices broke sharply
on the air. "Where are you bound for?" asked an officer, shouting
through his hands to our lads.

"We're Australians, going to Cairo," chorused the men eagerly, proud of
their nationality.

"Good God!" commented the officer; and he seemed to be appalled or
amazed, I could not tell which, at the prospect.

Then there came riding along the banks a man apparently from a Canal
station. A dog followed his ambling ass. "Get any rabbits?" shouted the
Australian bushmen, and the man with the gun laughed and shouted "Good
luck!"

The desert sands were turning from gold into bronze, and soon nothing
but the fierce glare of the searchlights lit up the banks. The bagpipes
were playing, and this seemed to rouse the instincts of some of the
Indian tribesmen, whom we saw dancing, capering, and shouting on the
parapet of trenches as we swept slowly and majestically on. The troops
on shore cheered, and our troops cheered back, always telling they were
Australians, and, in particular, Victorians. We came across a sentinel
post manned by Yorkshiremen, who spoke with a very broad accent. One
such post, I remember, had rigged up a dummy sentry, and a very good
imitation it was too. Out in the desert were hummocks of sand which
had been set up as range marks for the warships and armed cruisers
which we began now to pass anchored in the lakes. We asked one of the
men on the Canal banks, who came down to cheer us, were they expecting
the Turks soon to attack across the desert, and the answer was in the
affirmative, and that they had been waiting for them for nights now
and they had never come. Various passenger steamers we passed, and the
Convoy, which closely was following the Flagship (almost a continuous
line it was, for the next twenty hours), and they cheered us as we went
on to Port Said, reached just after dawn.

In those days Port Said was tremendously busy; for there were a number
of warships there, including the French ships the _Montcalm_, _Desaix_,
and _Duplex_. The strip of desert lying immediately to the north of
the entrance to the Canal, where there had been great saltworks, had
been flooded to the extent of some 100 square miles as a safeguard
from any enemy advancing from the north by the shore caravan route.
Beside which protection there were patrol and picket boats, which we
now saw constantly going up and down the coast and dashing in and out
of the Canal entrance. On the 1st December I watched the transports
as they tied up on either side, leaving a clear passage-way for the
late arriving ships that anchored further down towards the entrance
to the Canal, near the great statue of De Lesseps that stands by the
breakwater overlooking the Mediterranean. Amongst the transports were
the warships, and a few ordinary passenger steamers outward bound to
India. I remember that they were landing hydroplanes from a French
"parent" ship, and we could see three or four being lifted on to a
lighter, while others were tugged, resting on their floats, up to the
hangar established at the eastern end of the wharves. Coaling was an
operation that took a day, and gave the troops plenty to occupy their
time, watching the antics of the Arabs and causing endless confusion by
throwing coins amongst them, much to the distress of the chief gangers,
who beat the unruly lumpers until they relinquished their searchings.

The _Desaix_ and _Requiem_ were lying just opposite to the _Orvieto_,
and also an aeroplane ship, so M. Guillaux, a famous French aviator,
who was on board, told me. It carried only light guns, but had stalls
for camels on the forward deck and a workshop amidships. It was
altogether a most curious-looking vessel. The _Swiftsure_ was a little
further down, and one of the "P" class of naval patrol boats, with
Captain Hardy, of the Naval Depôt, Williamstown, curiously enough, in
charge. As I went on shore to post some letters, for the first time
I saw at the Indian Post Office written "The Army of Occupation in
Egypt," and proclamations about martial law and other military orders,
rather stern to men coming from the outskirts of Empire, where such
things were unnecessary as part and parcel of dread war. I heard here
rumours of the approach of the Turkish Army to the Canal, and it was in
this spirit, and amidst thoughts of a possible immediate fight, that
the troops looked forward to disembarking.

It is impossible, almost, to describe the excitement amongst the
troops on board (steadily growing and being fomented during the 1st
and 2nd December) as the transports came past one another close enough
for friends to exchange greetings. Each ship saluted with a blare of
trumpets, and then the bands broke into a clatter. Never shall I, for
one, forget the departure for Alexandria, twelve hours' steam away.

The men, to add to their spirits, had received a few letters, one
or two scattered throughout the platoons, and, as soldiers will in
barrack life in India, these few were passed round and news read out
for the general company. On the afternoon of the 2nd December the
Flagship drew out and passed down between lines of troopships. Bugles
challenged bugles in "salutes"; the bands played "Rule Britannia," the
National Anthem, and the Russian Hymn, while the characteristic short,
sharp cheers came from the French and British tars on the warships,
in appreciation. We must have passed eight or ten ships before the
entrance was cleared. The men, so soon as the salute had been duly
given, rushed cheering to the sides to greet their comrades and
friends, from whom now they had been separated some seven weeks.

Early next morning the Flagship reached Alexandria Harbour, and by the
tortuous channel passed the shattered forts (that British guns had
smashed nearly forty years before), and at length, at eight o'clock,
the long voyage came to an end. The men, their kitbags already packed
and their equipment on, rapidly began to entrain in the waiting troop
trains. It was the 5th--I call them the Pioneer 5th Battalion, under
Lieut.-Colonel Wanliss, who landed first, while at adjacent wharves the
_Euripides_ disgorged New South Wales Battalions and the New Zealand
transports landed their regiments. Thus I saw three troop trains away
into the desert before, with the officers of the 5th, I boarded one for
the camp at Cairo.




CHAPTER VII

THE CAMPS AROUND CAIRO


Mena Camp, when I saw it at daybreak on the morning of 4th December,
consisted of a score of tents scattered about in a square mile of
desert, and perhaps a thousand men lying in their great-coats, asleep
in the sand, their heads resting on their packs. The men of the 5th
Battalion--those that are left of them--are not likely to forget that
march out from Cairo on the night of the 3rd-4th, and the subsequent
days of settling down to camp, and the greetings they gave to regiment
after regiment as they came crowding into the camp. On the night the
first troop trains came into Abbu Ella station, near Cairo, which was
the siding on the southern side of the city, it was cold and sharp,
but a bright moon came up towards midnight. Outside the sprinkling of
Staff officers present to meet the train was a line of dusky faces
and a jabbering crowd of natives. Electric trams buzzed along outside
the station yard, and after the men had been formed up and detrained,
they had a few minutes to get, from a temporary coffee-stall, some hot
coffee and a roll, which, after the journey, was very much appreciated.
It was nine o'clock. Guides were ready waiting. Territorials they were,
who had been in Cairo for some time, and they led the men out on a long
10-mile march to Mena Camp. Baggage was to go by special tram, and it
went out, under guard, later.

Less a company of the 5th which had been sent forward as an advance
party from Port Said, the battalion set out, pipes and bands playing,
through the dimly seen minaretted city. These Australians will remember
the long, hearty cheers they got as they tramped past the Kasr El
Nil Barracks, situated on the banks of the River Nile, where the
Manchester Territorials turned out to do honour to the new army in
Egypt. Across the long Nile bridge and through Gezirah, down a long
avenue of lebbock-trees, out on the main road to the Pyramids, the
troops marched, singing, chipping, smoking, their packs getting a wee
bit heavier at each step. Life on board ship had not made them as
hard as they believed, and by the time they left the gem-studded city
behind and turned on to the road that ran between irrigated fields they
began to grow more silent. Overhead, the trees met in a vast arabesque
design, showing only now and then the stars and the moon. The shadows
on the path were deep, dispersed for a few seconds only by the passing
electric trams, which the men cheered. Then they began, as the early
hours of the morning drew on, to see something of the desert in front
of them and the blurred outline of the Pyramids standing there, solemn
sentinels, exactly as they had stood for over six thousand years.
They grew in hugeness until the troops came right to the foot of the
slope which led up to their base. Their thoughts were distracted from
the sight by the advance party of their own battalion coming to meet
them and conduct them through a eucalyptus grove (what memories of a
fragrant bush!) along a great new-made white road, and through the sand
for the last quarter of a mile to their camp lines. Was it any wonder,
therefore, in the face of this, that when at dawn next morning I came
amongst the troops they were still lying sleeping, and not even the
struggling rays of the sun roused them from their slumber?

How cheery all the officers were! Gathered in one tent, sitting on
their baggage, they ate the "twenty-niners," as they called the
biscuits ("forty-threes" they had been called in South Africa), with
a bit of cheese and jam and bully beef. There was the Padre, Captain
Dexter, and the Doctor, Captain Lind, Captain Flockart, Major Saker,
Captain Stewart, Lieutenant Derham, and Lieutenant "Billy" Mangar,
and scores of others, alas! now separated by the horror of war. That
morning their spirits were high, and as soon as possible most of the
regiments set out on what might be called an exploration expedition
to the ridges of hills that ran along the eastern side of the camp,
and above which peeped the Pyramids in small triangles. That day, I
must say, little effort was made to settle down to camp, and the
5th, pioneers that they were, was the first Australian regiment to
scramble over the ancient holy ground of Mena, the City of the Dead and
burial-place of the forgotten monarchs of ancient Egypt. But what could
be done? Tents had not yet arrived, and it was, indeed, weeks before
all the troops were under canvas, though in the meantime they made
humpies and dugouts for themselves in the sand with the help of native
matting.

 [Illustration: AUSTRALIANS COMING INTO CAIRO FROM THE CAMPS.

  To face p. 68.]

I turned back from the hill, dotted with whooping Australians, to watch
another battalion march into camp, one of the New South Wales regiments
of Colonel M'Laurin, and saw the wheeled transport drawn by mules (the
horses, of course, being yet unfit for use after so long a sea voyage)
almost stick in the sand, until shoulders were put to the wheel and
they got the heavy vehicles to the lines. The whole camp had been laid
out by the engineers on the Staff of the General Officer Commanding
(General Sir John Maxwell) the week before. It must be remembered that
barely a week's notice was given of the landing of the great overseas
force, and it was one of the happy features of the troops' arrival in
Egypt that they found arrangements so far advanced as they were. I
remember walking along the white road, which a couple of steam-rollers
were flattening, into the desert. The stone was being brought on a
string of camels from quarries in the hills. Lines of small white
stones marked where the road was going to lead right through the centre
of the camp. It was a rectangle at that time, branching off from the
Mena road through an orchard belonging to the Mena House Hotel, where
the main road ended abruptly at the foot of the Pyramids; hard it was,
too, as any cement, and each day lengthening, with cross sections
sprouting out further into the desert. A loop of the electric tramway
was being run along by one side of it, a water-pipe by the other, to
reservoirs being constructed in the hills. Nevertheless, I cannot help
commenting that the site of the camp lay in a hollow between, as I have
said, two rows of hills running south into the desert and starting from
a marsh in the swampy irrigation fields. Later on, the follies of such
a site were borne out by the diseases that struck down far too high a
percentage of the troops during their four months' residence there.

Day after day, enthralled, I watched this encampment growing and
spreading out on either side of the road, creeping up the sides of the
hills, stretching out across the desert, until the furthermost tents
looked like tiny white-peaked triangles set in the yellow sand. The
battalions filed into their places coming from the seaboard, where
twelve ships at a time were discharging their human cargoes; while each
day ten trains brought the troops up 130 miles to the desert camps.
After the men came the gear, the wagons, the guns, the horses. For this
was the divisional camp, the first divisional camp Australia had ever
assembled. It was, also, the first time that Major-General Bridges
had seen his command mustered together. With his Staff he took up his
headquarters in a section of Mena House for use as offices, with their
living tents pitched close by. This was the chance to organize and
dovetail one unit into another, work brigade in with brigade, artillery
with the infantry, the Light Horse regiments as protecting screens and
scouts. The Army Service Corps, Signallers, Post Office, all came into
being as part of a larger unit for the first time. The troops became
part of a big military machine, units, cogs in the wheel. They began to
apply what had been learnt in sections, and thus duties once thought
unnecessary began to be adjusted and to have a new significance.

Of course, it could not all be expected to work smoothly at first. For
some six weeks the horses were not available for transport work, and so
the electric tramway carried the stores the 10 miles from the city, and
brought the army's rations and corn and chaff for the animals. Donkeys,
mules, and camels were all to be seen crowding along the Pyramid road
day and night, drawing and carrying their queer, ungainly loads.

Besides Mena Camp, two other sites had been selected as training
areas for the army corps, which, as I have said, was commanded now by
Lieut.-General (afterwards Sir William) Birdwood, D.S.O. One of these
was at Zeitoun, or Heliopolis, some 6 miles from Cairo, on directly
the opposite side of the town--that is, the south--to the Mena Camp;
while the other was situated close to an oasis settlement, or model
irrigation town, at Maadi, and lying just parallel with Mena Camp, but
on the other (eastern) side of the river, and some 12 miles distant
from it. Zeitoun was the site of the old Roman battlefields, and later
of an English victory over an Arab host. In mythology it is recorded as
the site of the Sun City. The troops found it just desert, of rather
coarser sand than at Mena, and on it the remains of an aerodrome,
where two years before a great flying meeting had been held. For
the first month, only New Zealanders occupied this site, both their
infantry and mounted rifles, and then, as the 2nd Australian and New
Zealand Division was formed, Colonel Monash's 4th Brigade (the Second
Contingent) came and camped on an adjacent site, at the same time as
Colonel Chauvel's Light Horse Brigade linked up, riding across from
Maadi. Then into the latter camp Colonel Ryrie led the 3rd Light Horse
Brigade.

As sightseers I am satisfied that the Australians beat the Yankee in
three ways. They get further, they see more, and they pay nothing for
it. Perhaps it was because they were soldiers, and Egypt, with its
mixed population, had laid itself out to entertain the troops right
royally. It must not be thought I want to give the impression that the
Australian soldier, the highest paid of any troops fighting in the
war, saved his money and was stingy. On the contrary, he was liberal,
generous, and spoiled the native by the openness of his purse. Some
believe that it was an evil that the troops had so much funds at
their disposal. It was, I believe, under the circumstances--peculiar
circumstances--that reflects no credit on the higher commands, and to
be explained anon. It would be out of place just at the moment to bring
any dark shadow across the bright, fiery path of reckless revelry that
the troops embarked on during the week preceding and the week following
Christmas. It was an orgy of pleasure, which only a free and, at that
time, unrestrained city such as Cairo could provide. Those men with
£10 to £20 in their pockets, after being kept on board ship for two
months, suddenly to be turned loose on an Eastern town--healthy, keen,
spirited, and adventurous men--it would have been a strong hand that
could have checked them in their pleasures, innocent as they were for
the most part.

In all the camps 20 per cent. leave was granted. That meant that some
6,000 soldiers were free to go whither they wished from afternoon till
9.30 p.m., when leave was supposed to end in the city. Now, owing to
lax discipline, the leave was more like 40 per cent., and ended with
the dawn. Each night--soft, silky Egyptian nights--when the subtle
cloak of an unsuspected winter hung a mantle of fog round the city and
the camps--10,000 men must have invaded the city nightly, to which
number must be added the 2,000 Territorial troops garrisoning Cairo at
the time that were free, and the Indian troops, numbering about 1,000.
The majority of the men came from Mena and from the New Zealand camp
at Zeitoun. The Pyramids Camp was linked to the city by a fine highway
(built at the time of the opening of the Canal as one of the freaks
of the Empress Eugénie), along the side of which now runs an electric
tramway. Imagine officials with only a single line available being
faced with the problem of the transport of 10,000 troops nightly to and
from the camps! No wonder it was inadequate. No wonder each tram was
not only packed inside, but covered outside with khaki figures. Scores
sat on the roofs or clung to the rails. Generally at three o'clock
the exodus began from the camps. What an exodus! What spirits! What
choruses and shouting and linking up of parties! Here was Australia at
the Pyramids. Men from every State, every district, every village and
hamlet, throughout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth, were
encamped, to the number of 20,000, in a square mile. An army gains in
weight and fighting prowess as it gains in every day efficiency by
the unitedness of the whole. Now, the true meaning of camaraderie is
understood by Australians, and is with them, I believe, an instinct,
due to the isolated nature of their home lives and the freedom of their
native land. When the troops overflowed from the trams, they linked up
into parties and hired motor-cars, the owners of which were not slow to
appreciate the situation. They tumbled ten or twelve into these cars,
and went, irrespective of speed limits, hooting and whirring towards
the twinkling city. And when the motors gave out, there was a long line
of gharries (_arabehs_), which are open victorias, very comfortable,
and with a spanking pair of Arab steeds, travelling the 10 miles to the
city.

 [Illustration: GENERAL HAMILTON RETURNS THE SALUTE OF THE 4TH
 AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY BRIGADE AT ZEITOUN.

 Brigadier-General Monash immediately on the left of the
 Commander-in-Chief.]

Imagine, therefore, this Pyramid road arched with lebbock-trees that
made a tunnel of dark living branches and green leaves. By five o'clock
night had fallen, coming so suddenly that its mantle was on before one
realized the sun had sunk behind the irrigated fields, the canals, and
the waving sugar-canes. Imagine these men of the South, the warm blood
tingling in their veins (and sovereigns jingling in their pockets),
invading the city like an avalanche!

So much was novel, so much strange and entrancing in this city of
Arabian fables. Cairo presents the paradox of the Eastern mind, and
the reverse nature of events and incidents amused and excited the
imaginations of the Australians.

By midnight had commenced in earnest the return of the troops along
that great highway, an exodus starting each night at nine o'clock.
Again was the tram service inadequate, nor could the motors and
gharries cope with the rush of the men back to the lines before leave
expired. Donkey-men filled the breach with their obstinate asses, and
the main streets were crowded with wild, shouting troops as a drove of
twenty or thirty donkeys went clattering past, whooping Australians on
their backs, urging on their speed to a delicate canter. But it was
hard work riding these donkeys, and a 10-mile ride brought resolutions
not to again overstay leave or, at least, to make adequate arrangements
for return by more sober and comfortable means. The main highway such
nights became a stream of flickering fire. The motors picked their way
at frantic speed through the traffic, past the burdened camels and
loaded carts of rations and fodder for the camp. No speed was too high;
the limit of the engines was the only brake. By great good fortune no
disaster occurred: minor accidents were regarded as part and parcel of
the revels.

Whatever may have been the attitude of the military authorities when
the troops landed and up till Christmas week, the very first day of the
New Year saw a vast change in the discipline of the camp. It was really
a comparatively easy matter, had a proper grip been taken of the men,
to have restrained the overstaying and breaking of leave that occurred
up till New Year's Day. Mena Camp, situated 10 miles from the city in
the desert, with only one avenue of practicable approach, required but
few guards; but those guards needed to be vigilant and strong. True,
I have watched men making great detours through the cotton-fields
and desert in order to come into the camp from some remote angle,
but they agreed that the trouble was not worth while. Once, however,
the guards were placed at the bridge across the Canal that lay at
right angles to the road and formed a sort of moat round the south of
the camp, and examined carefully passes and checked any men without
authority, leave was difficult to break. From 20 it was reduced to 10
per cent. of the force. General Birdwood's arrival resulted in the
tightening up of duties considerably, while the visit of Sir George
Reid (High Commissioner for the Commonwealth in London) and his
inspiring addresses urging the troops to cast out the "wrong uns" from
their midst, at the same time bringing to their mind the duty to their
Country and their King that lay before them still undone, settled the
army to its hard training. He, so well known a figure in Australia, of
all men could give to the troops a feeling that across the seas their
interests were being closely and critically watched. After a few
weeks of the hard work involved in the completion of their military
training, even the toughening sinews of the Australians and their love
of pleasure and the fun of Cairo were not strong enough to make them
wish to go far, joy-riding.




CHAPTER VIII

RUMOURS OF THE TURKS' ATTACK


News in Egypt travels like wildfire. Consequently, during the end of
January, just prior to the first attack on the Canal and attempted
invasion of Egypt by the Turks, Cairo was "thick," or, as the troops
said, "stiff," with rumours, and the bazaars, I found from conversation
with Egyptian journalists, were filled with murmurs of sedition. It
was said hundreds of thousands of Turks were about to cross the Canal
and enter Egypt. The Young Turk party, no doubt, were responsible for
originating these stories, aided by the fertile imagination of the Arab
and fellaheen. So were passed on from lip to lip the scanty phrases of
news that came direct from the banks of the Canal, where at one time
rather a panic set in amongst the Arab population.

Naturally these rumours percolated to the camps, and, with certain
orders to brigades of the 1st Division and the New Zealanders to get
equipped and stores to be got in as quickly as possible, it was no
wonder that the troops were eagerly anticipating their marching orders.
They would at this time, too, have given a lot to have escaped from
the relentless training that was getting them fit: the monotony of the
desert had begun to pall.

At any rate, on 3rd January the 3rd Company of Engineers, under Major
Clogstoun, had gone down to the Canal to assist the Royal Engineers,
already at work on trenches, entanglements, and pontoon bridges. To
their work I shall refer in detail later on, when I come to deal with
the invasion. In the first week of February the 7th Battalion, under
Lieut.-Colonel Elliott, and 8th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Bolton,
V.D., and the whole of the New Zealand Brigade of Infantry were hastily
dispatched to the Canal, and were camped side by side at the Ismailia
station. Meanwhile the New Zealand Artillery had already been sent to
take up positions on the Canal banks.

During January the Buccaneer Camel Corps, under Lieutenant Chope, met,
during reconnoitring and patrol duty, a strong party of Arabs, Turks,
and Bedouins, to the number of 300, and he gallantly engaged them
and carried on a running fight in the desert for miles, successfully
putting to flight the enemy and capturing some of their number, while
they left dead and wounded on the sand. For this Lieutenant Chope was
decorated with the D.S.O.

Fresh rumours began now to float into Cairo as to the estimate of the
Turkish force and the number of Germans likely to be in it. Djemal
Pasha was known to be in command, but it was said that he was under the
German General Von der Goltz, who had stiffened the force with about
300 of his barbarians, mostly non-commissioned officers and officers.
The Turkish force, which was certainly a very mixed host, was declared
to number about 80,000, which was more than four times the number that
actually made the raid on the Canal, though I have no reason to doubt
that there were that number on the borders of Egypt, ready to follow up
the attack were it successful. Some dissent existed amongst the Turkish
force, and was faithfully reported to the War Office in Cairo, and many
Arabs and some Indians captured on the Canal told how they had been
forced into the service and compelled to bear arms. Serious trouble
had occurred with a party of Bedouins in Arabia, who brought camels
to the order of the Turkish Government, and who found their animals
commandeered and no money given in payment. On this occasion a fight
occurred, and the Bedouins promptly returned to their desert homes.

Summing up the opinion in Egypt at that time, it appeared tolerably
certain, in the middle of January, that the Turkish attack was to be
made. In what strength it was not quite known, but it seemed unlikely
to be in the nature of a great invasion, as the transport troubles and
the difficulties of the water supply were too great. One day the Turks
would be said to have crossed the Canal, another that the Canal was
blocked by the sinking of ships (from the very outset of the war one
of the main objects of the invaders, using mines as their device). I
suppose that British, Indian, and Egyptian troops (for the Egyptian
mounted gun battery was encamped on the Canal) must have numbered over
80,000, not including the force of 40,000 Australians held as a reserve
in Cairo, together with a Division of Territorials.

If ever troops longed for a chance to meet the enemy, it was these
Australians. The Engineers had been down on the Canal, as I have said,
since January, and it was rumoured every day towards the end of January
that there was to be at least a brigade of Australians sent down to the
Canal. Imagine the thrill that went through the camp, the rumours and
contradictions as to which brigade it should be. Finally, on the 3rd
February the 7th and 8th Battalions, under Colonel M'Cay, Brigadier
of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, were dispatched, and encamped outside of
Ismailia. I saw these troops go from the camp. They were enormously
pleased that they had been told off for the job, not that other
battalions did not believe they would soon follow. As they marched
out of the Mena lines (and from the desert, for they had to go at a
moment's notice right from drill, with barely time to pack their kits)
they were cheered lustily by their comrades, who deemed them "lucky
dogs" to get out of the "blasted sand." However, they were going to far
worse, and no tents; but then there was before them the Canal and a
possible fight, and, anyway, the blue sea and a change of aspect from
the "everlasting Pyramids." They entrained in ordinary trucks and got
into bivouac somewhere about midnight. They found the New Zealanders
there, two battalions of them. On the way down they passed a large
Indian encampment, which I subsequently saw, where thousands of camels
had been collected, ready to go out to meet the invaders or follow
them up in the event of their hasty retreat. The camp lay sprawled out
over miles of desert, and, just on the horizon, about 4 miles from the
Canal, was an aeroplane hangar. I used to watch the aeroplanes going
and coming on their reconnaissances out over the desert to the Turkish
outposts and concentration camps. The Territorial guns, 15-pounders,
were already in position round, or rather to the east of, Ismailia.

On the 2nd February the attack began to develop. It was important
enough, rather for its significance than its strength or result, to be
treated at length.




CHAPTER IX

FIRST SUEZ CANAL BATTLE


The Turkish Army, gathered under the direction of General Liman von
Sanders, the German Military Governor of Turkey, was composed of Turks,
Bedouins, Arabs, refugees from Asia Minor, and a few Germans. About
20,000 men in all, under the command of Djemal Pasha, they crossed
the peninsula, dashed themselves vainly against the defences of the
Canal, and fell back broken into Turkey again. Very briefly, or as
concisely as is consistent with accuracy, let me review the Canal and
the approaches to the waterway, and the troops that the Turks had
available. Small as was the operation in actual degree of numbers, its
purpose, likely to be repeated again, was to dislocate the machinery of
the British Empire. The link that narrow waterway, 76 feet wide, means
to Australia, is something more than a sea route. It was, therefore,
not inappropriate that Australians should have taken part in its
defence then, as well as later.

One day, talking to a British officer who knew well the character of
the Sinai Peninsula, he remarked, "This is a race to water for water."
He was not sanguine of any success attending an attack, though he
remembered the crossing of the desert by 10,000 men under the Egyptian
General Ibraham, and without a railway line near the frontier at
the end of his journey. But I do not want to convey the idea that
the desert tract of 150 miles which lies between the Suez Canal and
the borderland of Turkey is waterless, or that it is level. On the
contrary. During January and February, when the chief rainfall occurs,
there are "wadis," or gorges, where the water runs away in raging
torrents until at length it disappears into the sand. So it comes about
there are any number of wells, some good, some rather bad; but if
carefully guarded, protected, and additional bores put down, the wells
would make a sufficient water supply for any invading host, even up
to as many as 40,000 men. Now this figure was, I believe, about the
actual number of the army that took part in the attempt to pierce the
line of the Canal. It was a quarter of the army stationed in Syria,
and contained some of the finest, as it did some of the poorest, of
the Turkish troops at that time under arms. It was impossible for the
Turkish military authorities to draw away from the coast-line of the
Mediterranean all of the army that had to be kept there in anticipation
of a British landing at such spots as Gaza and Adana, where the railway
to Constantinople runs close to the coast. Nor was the army well
trained or well equipped. On the contrary, scouting parties that were
captured, were in tattered garments and often without boots. Throughout
the army the commissariat was bad in comparison with what it was when
the Gallipoli campaign started.

Now, the Canal is approached by caravan routes from three points, a
northern, southern, and central zone. Gaza might be said to be the
starting-point of the northern route, and it runs just out of artillery
range along the coast until El Arisch is reached. It was along this
sea route that Napoleon took his 10,000 men in retreat from Egypt.
From this last town the route branches south towards El Kantara. The
intervening space between that important crossing and Port Said is
marshy, and is occupied with saltworks. In order to make Port Said
impregnable these were flooded, giving a lake of some 300 miles in area
and about 4 feet or 5 feet deep. Kantara therefore remained the most
vital northerly spot at which the Canal could be pierced, and next to
that, Ismailia. The northern route lies along almost level desert. But
the further one gets south, the loftier become the curious sandstone
and limestone ridges that, opposite Lake Timsah, can be seen, 12 or 14
miles from the Canal, rising up to 800 feet in height. Southwards from
this point there lies a chain of hills running parallel to the Canal,
with spurs running towards the central portion of the peninsula, where
the ranges boast mountain peaks of 6,000 and 7,000 feet in height.
There are gullies and ravines of an almost impassable nature, and the
route winds round the sides of mountains, which features made the
armies on the march hard to detect, as I learned our aviators reported.

Maan may be described as the jumping-off point for the starting of any
expedition against the central and southern portions of the Canal.
To Maan leads a railway, and it runs beyond down past the Gulf of
Akaba, parallel with the Red Sea. From Maan the caravan would go to
Moufrak, and from thence to Nekhl, high up in the hills and ranges of
the desert. Nekhl is not a large settlement, but, like most Arab and
Bedouin villages, just a few mud huts and some wells, with a few palms
and sycamore-trees round them. But when the end of January came there
were 300 Khurdish cavalry there and a great many infantry troops.
Nekhl is exactly half way on the direct route to Suez, but the force
that was to attack the Canal branched northward from this point until
it came over the hills by devious routes to Moiya Harah, and over the
last range that in the evening is to be seen from the Canal--a purply
range, with the pink and golden desert stretching miles between. Just
out of gun range, therefore, was the camp which the Turkish force made.
I am led from various official reports I have read to estimate that
Turkish force here at nearly 18,000. A certain number of troops, 3,000
perhaps, came by the northern route, and linked up on a given date with
the forces that were destined for the attack on Ismailia, Serapeum,
and Suez. That is to say, half the army was making feint attacks and
maintaining lines of communication, while the remainder, 20,000 men,
were available to be launched against the chosen point as it turned
out, Toussoum and Serapeum. But one must remember that, small as that
force was, the Turkish leader undoubtedly reckoned on the revolt of the
Moslems in Egypt, as every endeavour had been tried (and failed) to
stir up a holy war; and that at Jerusalem there must have been an army
of 100,000 men ready to maintain the territory won, should it be won,
even if they were not at a closer camp.

Therefore, the Turks overcame the water difficulty by elaborating the
wells and carrying supplies with them on the march, and they got the
support of artillery by attaching caterpillar wheels to get 6-in. and
other guns through the sand towards the Canal (I am not inclined to
believe the statements that the guns were buried in the desert years
before by the Germans, and had been unearthed for the occasion), and
for the actual crossing they brought up thirty or forty pontoons,
which had been carried on wagons up to the hills, and then across the
last level plain on the shoulders of the men. It was in very truth the
burning of their boats in the attack if it failed. They had no railway,
such as they had built in the later part of 1915, but relied on the
camels for their provision trains. The rainfall in January, the wet
season, was the best that had been experienced for many years, and so
far as the climatic conditions were concerned, everything favoured the
attack.

This brings us down to the end of January 1915. For the whole of the
month there had been parties of Turkish snipers approaching the Canal,
and in consequence, the mail boats and cargo steamers, as well as
transports, had had to protect their bridges with sandbags, while the
passengers kept out of sight as far as possible. On all troopships an
armed guard with fifty rounds per man was mounted on the deck facing
the desert. It was anticipated that the Turkish plan of attack would
include the dropping of mines into the Canal (which plan they actually
succeeded in), and thus block the Canal by sinking a ship in the
fairway.

Skirmishes and conflicts with outposts occurred first at the northern
end of the Canal defences, opposite to Kantara. The Intelligence Branch
of the General Staff was kept well supplied with information from
the refugees, Frenchmen, Armenians, and Arabs, who escaped from Asia
Minor. They told of the manner in which all equipment and supplies
were commandeered, together with camels. This did not point to very
enthusiastic interest or belief in the invasion. By the third week
in January the Turkish patrols could be seen along the slopes of the
hills, and aeroplanes reported large bodies of troops moving up from
Nekhl.

On 26th January the first brush occurred. It was a prelude to the real
attack. A small force opened fire on Kantara post, which was regarded
as a very vital point in the Canal line. The Turks brought up mountain
guns and fired on the patrols. At four o'clock on the 28th, a Thursday
morning, the attacks developed.

The British-Indian outpost line waited purely on the defensive, and
with small losses to either side, the enemy withdrew. Minor engagements
occurred from this time on till the attack which synchronized with
the main attack--40 miles away--on 3rd February. Reinforcements were
observed entrenched behind the sand dunes. Now, that night the Indian
outposts successfully laid a trap for the Turks by changing the
direction of the telegraph line and the road that led into Kantara.
They led the Turks, when they eventually did come on, into an ambush.
At this post was stationed the 1st Australian Clearing Hospital, and
very fine work was performed by it. Sergeant Syme, though contrary to
orders, drove a motor ambulance out under fire and brought in a number
of wounded.

Never have new troops won quicker appreciation from their officers than
did the companies of Australian Engineers, under Major H. O. Clogstoun,
who began in January to build up the defences of the Canal. They were
a happy, hard-working unit, and showed rare skill and adaptability in
making a series of bridges at Ismailia. You would see a large load of
them going up the Canal perhaps to improve trenches, and they began
a friendship (that Anzac cemented) with the Indian troops, which I
doubt if time will do anything but strengthen. There were seventeen to
twenty pontoons, or rowing boats, which they applied to the purpose,
constructed, while the materials for other floating bridges were
obtained from iron casks. In, I believe, eleven minutes these bridges
could be thrown across the width of the Canal. Tugs were available
to tow the sections to whatever point they might be required. As the
traffic of shipping was heavy, the bridges were constantly being joined
and detached again. Bathing in the Canal was a great luxury, and the
men at the time, and the infantry later on, took full advantage of
it. Before passing on, let me give the comment of Colonel Wright,
the Engineer officer on General Maxwell's Staff, on a suggestion of
removing these Engineers back to Cairo after having completed the
bridges:--

 I sincerely hope that you are not going to take this company from me
 until the present strife is over. They are simply invaluable, both
 officers and men, and have thoroughly earned the excellent reputation
 they have already acquired everywhere they have been. They have worked
 up till 2.30 by moonlight. Their work has been excellent. The men
 have been delighted with the work, and they have been exemplary in
 their conduct. Even if you can produce other companies as good, I
 should be rather in a hole if No. 3 were to be taken away.

Thus we arrive at the day before the main attack was delivered. It
was intended by the Turkish and German leaders that there should be
feints all along the 70 miles of fightable front, and that between
Toussoum and Serapeum the main body would be thrown in and across the
Canal. Plans were formulated to deceive the defenders as to the exact
point of the attack, troops marching diagonally across the front (an
operation which had brought disaster to the German Army at the Marne),
and changing position during the days preceding the main venture; but,
nevertheless, this manoeuvre was limited to a 20-mile section, with
Ismailia as the central point.

The Turks commenced on the afternoon of Tuesday, 2nd February, to
engage our artillery at a point some miles north of Ismailia, called
El Ferdan, but there was little force in the attack. Really it seemed
only designed to cover the movement of bodies of troops which had
been massed at Kateb el Kheil, and which were now with camel trains
proceeding south and taking up position for the attack. A party of
British and Indian troops moved out to locate, and silence if possible,
the artillery, but a sandstorm of great violence compelled both the
Indian and Turkish forces to retire within their camps.

 [Illustration: AUSTRALIANS MANNING A COMMUNICATION TRENCH LEADING TO
 ISMAILIA FERRY POST.]

 [Illustration: TURKISH PRISONERS IN CAIRO.

  To face p. 82.]

On the morning of the 3rd the main attack was delivered. I was enabled
to visit the defences at Ismailia, and was taken through the Ismailia
ferry post round through the long length of communication trenches that
led to the forward positions and back to the banks of the Canal, many
hundred yards farther north. I saw the extraordinary pits that had
been dug by the Gurkhas, in the centre of which had been placed spiked
iron rails, on which many of the enemy subsequently became impaled.
There were flares and trip wires round the lines, making, even on the
darkest night, a surprise attack an impossibility. Ismailia post, like,
for that matter, all the posts I saw along the Canal, was exceedingly
strong. The trenches were 10 feet deep, and many of them protected
with overhead cover, with iron and wood and sandbags. Extreme care
had been taken to conceal the exact contour of the trenches, and from
two or three hundred yards away out in the desert I would never have
suspected that there was a post bristling with machine guns on the edge
of the yellow desert dunes behind which lay the blue waters of the
Canal. For at this place, like so many spots along the Canal, the banks
are as much as 80 feet high, which, while they serve as a protection,
do not always enable the warships to fire over the banks. Gaps,
however, were to be found, and the Bitter Lakes presented suitable
stations for the battleships that took part in the battle, as I shall
indicate.

Before dawn on the 3rd, therefore, between Toussoum and Serapeum, at
each of which places there were posts held by Indian troops, the main
attempt was delivered and failed, though it was pressed home against
a weak spot with some force. In choosing this point to drive in their
wedge the Turks had borne in mind that the Suez-Cairo Railway was
within a few miles of the Canal, and that one of the branches of the
great Freshwater Canal, that supplies the whole of the length of the
Canal settlements, lay not a mile away. Weather conditions favoured the
Turks. It was cloudy and overcast. One would not say that the defenders
were unprepared, for there had been too much quite apparent preparation
by the enemy on the previous days. What was not known was the exact
point of launching the attack. No doubt Djemal Pasha, who was present
in person, gained much information from his spies, but he seems to
have been rather wrongly informed. An early move of this adroit leader
was an attempted bluff some days before the attack, when a letter was
received by General Sir John Maxwell suggesting that, as the Canal was
a neutral zone, and that shipping should not be interrupted, the fight
should take place on ground to be selected on the Egyptian or western
side of the Canal. One can picture the Turkish General, tongue in his
cheek, writing the note.

As regards the defence works: at the point of attack there was a post
at Toussoum, which lies not 3 miles from the southern extremity of
Lake Timsah and about 6 or 8 miles from Ismailia. A series of trenches
had been dug on the east bank of the Canal. They were complete and
strong, practically intended as a guard for the Canal Company's station
of Toussoum, on the west bank. A ferry was in the vicinity, close to
the station on the side next to the lake. A mile south was Serapeum,
another post on the east bank, with trenches on the western bank and a
camp. At Serapeum proper was a fine hospital.

 [Illustration: _Plan of the attempted Crossing of the Suez Canal at
 Toussoum & Serapeum by a TURKISH FORCE on 3^{rd} Feb ·1915·_]

The alarm was sounded at 3.25, when sentries noticed blurred
figures moving along the Canal bank not 100 yards distant from the
Toussoum post. It was soon reported that the enemy were coming up in
considerable strength on the south side (see point marked 47, on map)
of the post. Therefore it may be taken that the enemy approach was
carried out very quietly and silently, for two pontoons were already
in the water when they were fired on from the groups of Indian troops
entrenched on the western bank, and were sunk. This was the signal
for launching the great effort, and immediately firing broke out in
tremendous volume from Toussoum post. Artillery firing soon opened
from both sides; the air was noisy with shell. Curiously, though the
Turkish gunners had at first the range, they soon lengthened it,
evidently in the belief that they would cut off reinforcements; their
shells went high and little damage was done. The Toussoum guard-house
escaped with a few hits only, and bullets riddled posts and rafters.
Vainly about 1,000 Turks endeavoured to seize Toussoum post, while
three times that number launched the pontoons, which had been carried
on the shoulders of thirty men across the soft sand to the bank. There
were places here suitable for the launching, for V-shaped dips or
gullies enabled the enemy to approach, protected on either flank,
though exposed to a murderous frontal fire from the opposite Canal
bank, which apparently they had not expected. At the distance-post
at 47/2 the first launching was attempted, but almost simultaneously
came the launching for an attack at 47/6. Shouts of "Allah!" were now
started by the enemy south of the Toussoum post. At once machine guns
came into action and the shouting of "Allah!" died away. By this time
the Turks got their machine guns into action, and were ripping belts of
lead into the British post, making any attempt at a flanking movement
impossible. This was, however, unnecessary to foil the main plan; for
the pontoons that had been carried with such terrible difficulty across
the desert were being sunk almost as they were launched. A few reached
midstream--the rowers were riddled with bullets, the sides of the
pontoons ripped, and they sank almost immediately with their freight.
Two only reached the opposite bank. One was sunk there immediately
and the Turks killed. From the other the men scrambled and entrenched
themselves, digging up the soft mud in their desperation with their
hands. Next morning they capitulated. Four men alone reached the upper
portion of the shore and escaped, only to be captured a few days later
in the villages.

An hour after the first shot was fired, the 5th Battery Egyptian
Mounted Artillery came into action from the opposite bank, and the
Turkish position and head of the wedge being definitely determined,
companies from the 62nd Punjabis from the reserve at Serapeum opened
fire from midway between the two stations on the west Egyptian bank.
The noise of rifles and the intense popping of machine guns resounded
up and down the banks of the Canal between the two posts. The ground
across which the Turks had made their final dash was tussocky,
and behind these tussocks they gained some shelter and entrenched
themselves, once the crossing had so dismally failed.

It is estimated that some eighteen pontoons were launched. Some were
dropped in the water over a low rubble wall that had been left close
to the water's edge, others were brought down part of the bank less
steep, and which offered easy access. Four boatloads of the enemy were
sunk in midstream, the boats riddled with bullets, either from the
shore batteries or from a torpedo-boat destroyer that came down from
Serapeum at a quarter to eight. As daylight came, the Turks who still
were in the water or struggling up the banks were shot down, while some
few, as related, managed to dig themselves in on the west bank. The
remainder of the attackers (killed, wounded, and prisoners numbered
nearly 3,000), about 3,000, retired some hundred yards. As far as those
in command at Toussoum and Serapeum can estimate it, after reading
Turkish captured orders, a whole brigade of Syrians, Armenians, and
Turkish troops, some the flower of the Army, took part in the attack;
but for some reason not explainable the main body, about 12,000 men,
never came into action. The initial attack failed to push back the
resistance offered, and the Turks, one supposes, became disheartened,
though actually the troops guarding those posts were barely 2,000. Boat
after boat the enemy had hurried up till daylight broke, but often the
bearers were shot down as they reached the Canal bank and pinned under
their own pontoons. Dawn, no doubt, brought realization to the enemy
that the attack had signally failed. All their boats were gone. They
had lost eggs and baskets as well. New Zealand infantry companies were
in the trenches on the west bank, and they kept up a withering fire
directly opposite on the entrenched foe. In the meantime the _Hardinge_
and the _d'Entrecasteaux_ opened fire with 5-and 8-inch guns, and soon
silenced the 6-inch battery which the Turks had dug in, some 5 miles
from the Canal, between Toussoum and Ismailia. But, entrenching, the
Turks continued to fight all through the morning and afternoon of the
3rd. The British received reinforcements shortly after noon and the
position was safe. But the last phase of the attack was not ended
quickly.

At twenty minutes to nine that morning five lines of the enemy
were seen advancing on Serapeum post, with a field battery of four
15-pounder guns in support. Their objective was evidently a frontal
attack on Serapeum. Our Indian reinforcements crossed the Canal at that
post, and the 92nd Punjabis moved out from the post and were ordered to
clear up the small parties of Turks believed to be still amongst the
dunes on the banks. About the same time a number of the Turkish troops
amongst the hummocks commenced to retire. It was evidently done with a
view to massing their forces; at the same time the enemy deployed two
brigades in two lines some 3 miles from Serapeum, west and facing that
post. The Punjabis met this attack. As supports there had been sent the
Gurkha Rifles. The Punjabis occupied a ridge about 500 yards from the
Serapeum post in a south-easterly line. An hour later three battalions
of the enemy seemed to be advancing on the post in close order, with
wide intervals between each battalion. That attack was never pressed
home.

A mile north, on the Toussoum flank, the battle still raged.
Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Glover, just before noon, led a force of 92nd
Punjabis in an attempt to dislodge the enemy from our day trenches,
which they had occupied to the east of Toussoum post. At noon seven
battalions of the enemy, with numerous field guns, could be seen about
3,500 yards away. Curiously enough, these units were halted. So the
Indian troops' work of clearing the day trenches, continued, the Turks
sending no reinforcements to their doomed comrades. It was here that
occurred an incident which was thought to be treachery, but which
perhaps may have been a misunderstanding on the part of the men in the
trench. As it was related officially it is stated: "The enemy in the
trenches made signs of surrender several times, but would not lay down
their arms. Finally, some men of the left counter-attack got within 20
yards of the enemy's trench, and one machine gun took up a position
enfilading it at point-blank range. The enemy's commander came across
and made signs that they would surrender. He then returned to his own
trench, seized a rifle, fixed a bayonet, and fired a shot at our men.
Several of the enemy aimed at our troops. The machine gun opened fire
at once, killing the commander, and the remainder of the enemy laid
down their arms and were taken prisoners. Many prisoners were wounded,
and fifty dead were counted by this post, where some pontoons were also
found."

Thus late in the afternoon the trenches near Toussoum were free; all
pontoons in the vicinity had been destroyed; there remained but the
enemy opposite the Serapeum position to deal with. Fresh British
reinforcements began to arrive at dusk, including the 27th Punjabis.
It was cold and raining, and during the night the enemy showed no
disposition to renew the attack, though an intermittent fire was kept
up. The enemy still held a small point on the east bank at 47/8,
which seemed to indicate a fresh attempt to cross. None was made, and
evidently the party was sacrificed while preparations were made for
flight of the main army and orders could be circulated over the 90-mile
front.

At daylight on the morning of the 4th the enemy could be seen still
digging themselves in opposite the ridge near Serapeum, occupied by
the 92nd Punjabis. Successful steps were immediately taken to capture
the few enemy remaining in the trenches on the east bank, and Captain
Cohran in charge, with two companies, moved up in extended formation.
Progress was slow. The enemy was very scattered, and the sand dunes
uncertain. Again there were signs of treachery on the part of the enemy
intimating surrender. Considerable British reinforcements had been sent
up, and Major MacLachlan, who had taken over command, at once ordered
a charge at a moment when the enemy commenced to stand up, apparently
about to charge themselves. Fire was directed immediately against them,
and they quickly got down again into the trenches. Shortly after this
six officers and 120 men surrendered.

Little more remains to be told. At the height of the engagement a
Prussian officer, Major von den Hagen, was shot, and a cross marks the
place of his burial, and can be seen to-day from passing steamers on
the top of the Canal bank. On him was found a white flag folded in a
khaki bag. It was some 2 feet square, and, while it might have been
merely a night signalling flag, it is more probable that it was carried
for the purpose of trickery.

The enemy lost some 600 killed and about 3,000 wounded or taken
prisoner. The British losses were comparatively light, about 50 killed
and 200 wounded.

Once the main Turkish Army started to retire they fled hurriedly,
retreating precipitately to the south-east, while the main body
withdrew into the hills. Many people have wondered since that the
opportunity of trapping the Turkish Army by a rapid pursuit, when all
the cavalry was available, and when camel trains were ready to move off
in support, was not seized. As a matter of fact, orders were issued
for a pursuing force to leave on the evening of the 4th, but early
in the morning of the 5th countermanding orders came through. As the
Australian troops and New Zealanders I referred to as being in reserve
near Ismailia station were to form a part of the pursuing force, it was
to them a keen blow. I rather suspect that the countermanding came from
the War Office and Lord Kitchener, who understood the Moslem mind so
clearly. For I have it from the lips of the officer, Lieut.-Colonel
Howard, who was out on many reconnaissances to the eastern hills, that
it was probably a good thing that the counter-attack had not been
persisted in, for the Turks, on the evening of the 4th, when the whole
of the main body so unexpectedly withdrew to the ridges, took up a
thoroughly well entrenched position, which he thought it was reasonable
to regard as an ambush. Patrols subsequently went into the hills and
destroyed some of the wells that had been sunk, cleared up many points
of doubt about the attack, and captured camel trains and provisions. By
the end of the week not a Turk was within 60 miles of the Canal.




PART II

_THE ANZAC CAMPAIGN_




CHAPTER X

THE PLAN OF ATTACK


The first bombardment of the Turkish forts at the entrance to the
Dardanelles by British and French squadrons started at 8 a.m. on 19th
February 1915, and at dusk the warships had to be withdrawn, with the
Turkish Kum Kale batteries still firing. On the 25th operations were
resumed with the _Queen Elizabeth_, _Agamemnon_, and _Irresistible_
in the fight. By 4th March the outer forts had been silenced, and
the way lay clear to the inner ring of forts in the vicinity of
Dardanus. Meanwhile, the Turks had brought down howitzer batteries,
which they carefully entrenched amongst the hills round the shores of
Erenkeui Bay, and peppered the warships. For the next week there was a
systematic bombardment from the ships inside the Straits, with indirect
fire from the _Queen Elizabeth's_ 15-in. guns, and the _Agamemnon_ and
_Ocean_, from the Gulf of Saros near Gaba Tepe, across the peninsula.
Though the Turkish forts (9-in. and 10-in. guns) at Seddul Bahr,
Morto Bay, and Kum Kale had been destroyed, the Turks had entrenched
themselves round the ruins of the forts, and no landing was possible.

Now, about this time there arose what will probably be recorded in
after years as the great conflict of opinion between Admiral Carden and
Admiral De Robeck as to the advisability of forcing the Dardanelles
with the ships now assembled. To this conference of Admirals came
General Sir Ian Hamilton, having travelled by the swift destroyer
_Phaeton_ to the Dardanelles, arriving on 17th March at Tenedos, the
headquarters of the fleet at that time. There he was met by General
D'Amade, who had also arrived with 20,000 French troops to join the
Army Expedition. One may picture that council of three Admirals and
two army leaders. Admiral Carden the same day resigned for "health
reasons." He did not favour the direct attack, and Admiral De Robeck,
who did, took command. General D'Amade had sided with the retiring
Admiral, while General Hamilton and the French Admiral, Guepratte, were
in favour of the immediate strong attack.

 [Illustration: THE 29TH DIVISION ON THE RAMLEH ROAD REVIEWED BY GENERAL
 HAMILTON AND GENERAL D'AMADE ON 6TH APRIL, 1915.]

 [Illustration: PRESENTATION OF COLOURS TO FRENCH COLONIAL TROOPS PRIOR
 TO THEIR EMBARKATION FOR THE DARDANELLES.

  To face p. 92.]

Consequently, the following day this operation was launched. General
Hamilton saw it from the decks of a destroyer, on which he went into
the thick of the fray. Later I heard his description of that fight, and
the manner in which the _Bouvet_ had steamed to her doom in two minutes
as she left the firing line, while the British ships _Irresistible_ and
_Ocean_ sank more slowly and their crews were rescued.

Close as had the ships crept to the towering forts of Point Kephez,
there was no silencing the forts, and the attempt was given up--a
failure. The _Gaulois_ and _Inflexible_ had both been badly damaged,
and sought refuge near Rabbit Islands.

It was not till after the campaign that the Turks were prepared to
admit that a little more force and the forts would have fallen--a
little greater sacrifice of ships; yet I learned from General
Hamilton's Staff that the Allies expected, and were prepared, to lose
twelve ships.

So under such inauspicious circumstances the military operation
began: yet not immediately. With all speed General Hamilton returned
to Alexandria, having found in the meantime--I have, no doubt, to
his chagrin and disgust--that the ships ready to embark troops
contained certainly the equipment and gear, but all wrongly packed. A
rearrangement was essential. This delay caused a revision of the whole
of the plans of the Allies. Instead of there being a force immediately
available to support the action of the ships which had battered the
forts and crushed down the Turks, an intermittent bombardment, as
the weather permitted, had to be kept up for a month, to prevent the
Turks repairing effectively their destroyed forts, while the whole of
the army was properly arranged and the transports collected. General
Hamilton's army, therefore, became an invading host instead of a
supporting force, landed to hold what the fleet had won. It was very
patent to the War Council that now to force the Dardanelles by sending
ships forward alone (even with the mine fields cleared) was impossible,
and, committed to a campaign, resort had to be made to a landing.

The Turks during the month's respite, in March-April, commenced
thoroughly to entrench the Gallipoli Peninsula against the execution
of the Allies' plans. These plans, speaking broadly, may be thus
briefly described, leaving the story of the landing to explain the
details: The peninsula, regarded from its topographical aspect, was
naturally fortified by stern hills, which reduced the number of places
of possible landings. So in the very nature of things it was necessary
for the leader of such an expedition to attack at as many landings as
possible and to push home only those which were most vital. This would
prevent the enemy from being able to anticipate the point where the
attack was to be delivered and concentrate troops there. During April
the army was assembled at Lemnos--British, Australian, French, and
Indian troops, drawn from Egypt. To the British was assigned the task
of taking the toe of the peninsula; to the French the feint on the Kum
Kale forts and the landing along the Asia Minor coast. The Australians
were to thrust a "thorn" into the side of the Turks at Gaba Tepe, which
was opposite Maidos, the narrowest portion of the peninsula. Certain
other troops, mostly Australians, were to make a feint at the Bulair
lines, while feints were also planned by warships at Enos and Smyrna.
Two attacks only were to be pushed home--the Australians at Gaba Tepe
and the British (afterwards to be supported by the French) at Cape
Helles, at the toe of the peninsula.

Officers of all the forces inspected the coast-lines in the various
sections allotted them, from the decks of the warships bombarding the
entrenchments and fortifications, which it was only too apparent that
the Turks had effected in the months of warning and interval that had
been given them. It looked, as it was, a desperate venture. Everything
certainly hung on the successful linking up of the two landed armies
round the foot of the great Kelid Bahr position, that lay like another
rock of Gibraltar, protecting the Turkish Asiatic batteries at Chanak
and Nagara from direct fire from the warships hammering at the entrance
to the Straits and from the Gulf of Saros. But once the communications
to this fortified hill were broken, it was regarded as certain that the
Narrows would be won, and once field guns began to play directly on the
rear of the forts at Kelid Bahr, unable to reply behind them up the
peninsula, that the position would be gained.

Anxious not to miss the scene of the landing, I had made plans
with my friend Mr. W. T. Massey, the correspondent of the _Daily
Telegraph_, to reach an island nearest to the entrance to the
Dardanelles--Imbros. It was while trying to make these plans that
one day we saw General Hamilton, from whom we had already received
courteous replies to letters asking for permission to witness the
landing. The Commander-in-Chief told us it was outside his power to
grant this request. What he told us later is worthy of record. The
same wiry leader, energetic, yet calm, his voice highly pitched, as I
had remembered it during many trips with him as the Inspector-General
of the Oversea Forces, round the camps of Victoria, he now greeted
me cordially and spoke of his regret at being unable to offer us his
help. As he spoke he paced up and down the bare room, with just a
writing-desk in it, in a building situated in the centre of the town
of Alexandria, which was the first base of the great Mediterranean
Expedition.

"I believe that the Press should have representatives with the
forces," he began, "to tell the people what is being done. If the war
is to succeed, you must interest the democracy first, for it is the
democracy's war. By all means have censorship, but let your articles
be written by a journalist, and not literary men who think they are
journalists. The trained man who knows how to interest people in things
that cannot matter to the army is the fellow needed. However, it has
been decreed otherwise, and I can do nothing. You are free British
subjects, nevertheless, and can always take a ticket to the nearest
railway-station. If it is possible, I shall do all I can to help you."

We wished the General success and left him, receiving then, as always,
the greatest courtesy in all our dealings with the General Staff. It
was an encouraging attitude, we felt, and for this reason we decided
to land on Imbros and wait an opportunity to reach the mainland after
the troops had advanced. I may say here that General Hamilton, true
to his promise, did make a great exception for me later, and I was
enabled to spend July and August on the peninsula itself. For the
present, on a Greek steamer of uncertain tonnage, carrying a mixed
cargo that included onions, garlic, and much oil and fish, I left for
the islands lying round the entrance to the Dardanelles. I quitted the
vessel at Castro, the capital of Lemnos Island (if a wretched little
township with a decayed fort dominating it might be called a capital);
and curiously enough, just afterwards that vessel was boarded by a
British destroyer and sent to Malta for carrying flour to Dedeagatch,
a Bulgarian port. Flour had been declared contraband since we had left
Alexandria, for Turkey had obtained enormous supplies, 500,000 tons I
was told it was estimated at, through the agency of King Ferdinand.

My experiences of being in "The War Zone" were only beginning. At
Castro I was arrested on landing, and asked if I did not know that
the island was under the command of the Admiral. This was the British
Admiral, Admiral de Robeck, though I did not know, but might easily
have guessed, for the whole of the assembled fleet of transports, as
well as the Allied battleships, were sheltered at Mudros at this time,
waiting for the day to be determined on for the landing--this event
subject now to the weather. Once already plans had been postponed. It
was not until the 25th it was agreed that it would be possible to have
a sufficiently long and fine spell of calm seas and a favourable phase
of the moon to make the attempt. I had already experienced something of
the storms of the Mediterranean on my journey north. For two days the
sea had been running high and we were tossed about like a cockleshell.
What, then, of small destroyers and landing-barges! By the time,
however, we had passed the Dardanelles on our way to Lemnos the sea had
grown perfectly calm again, and in the distance I could hear the boom
of the guns--a solemn, stately knell it seemed at that time, as of a
Nation knocking at the door of another Nation, a kind of threat, behind
which I knew lay the power of the army.

 [Illustration: MARCHING ORDERS FOR THE FRONT.

 Men of the 3rd Brigade leaving Mena Camp in March for Mudros Harbour.]

 [Illustration: LEADERS AT THE LANDING.

 Brigadier-General M'Cay (commanding 2nd Brigade) having a final chat
 with Brigadier-General Sinclair-Maclagan (commanding 3rd Brigade), on
 the right.

  To face p. 96.]

I managed at Castro to assuage the worst fears of the British
officer, that I was a spy, and to assure him that I had a friend in
General Hamilton, and that I had merely come for a "look round." Yes,
I was told, I might go to Mudros Harbour, since I seemed to know the
fleets were there, but I should be detained there pending the pleasure
of the authorities, who were to determine when it would be safe to
release me with the news I might obtain. The Greek gendarmes heartily
co-operated in detaining me under observation until the next morning,
and then I was permitted, on giving an undertaking not to visit Mudros,
to set out for the hot springs at Thermia with the object of taking a
bath.

At this spot was a mountain, Mount Elias, and from it I, marvelling at
the sea power of Great Britain, looked down on to the wonderful crowded
harbour of Mudros. I saw the vast fleet lying placidly at anchor. With
powerful glasses I could detect the small boats and the men landing
on the slopes and dashing up the shore for practice. How far the real
from this make-believe! Reluctantly, after hours of watching, I left
this grandstand, having seen trawlers, warships, transports, coming and
going along the tortuous channel to the harbour, which was protected by
skilfully placed nets and guarded by active little patrol-boats.

I found trace of the 3rd Australian Brigade round this charming valley
at the foot of the mountain, for they had visited the springs for the
same purpose that I had done--the luxury of a warm bath--and left a
recommendation with the proprietor, which he treasures to this day, as
to the value of the mineral waters. In the distance I could always hear
the slow booming of the guns at the Dardanelles. I returned to Castro,
satisfied that the time was nearly ripe, and forthwith determined to
leave the island, where, obviously, I was cramped and would find no
means of seeing the landing.

It rained, to make matters more miserable; but my stay was not without
interest. One day the Greek Admiral came ashore in his yacht and was
received by the Governor of the island. From the inhabitants, many of
whom were Turks, who knew all about the peninsula, having tended their
flocks for many years at the Dardanelles shores, I gained my first
knowledge of the fields of battle I was later to visit. These Turks
were mostly taken up with living in the cafés and singing and dancing
to curious rhythmic music, not unpleasantly tuned, but played by some
execrable violinists. Most of the dances showed a distinct Russian
trait.

Let me remark here in passing that the Greek caïques, or sailing-boats,
were all this time leaving this harbour for Bulgarian and Turkish
ports along the coast (one offered to land me on the Gulf of Saros).
The British officer at Castro told me he was there to stop the leakage
of news. I asked if he thought it possible for information to be
smuggled from the island. He replied in the negative; but I told him
that I thought he was mistaken; for I had obtained much information
of a general character about the fleet and about other correspondents
interned at Mudros at the time, from various Greeks who had come across
as traders to the capital, and it seemed to me to have been an easy
matter for news to have been taken by the caïques to the Bulgarian
coast. In fact, one man I now suspect of having been a spy (he was
selling wine and came back with me when I left the island). I said so
to the British officer, but he only smiled and advised me to leave
for Salonika, as being the most suitable spot for me in the Ægean. As
a matter of fact, I half-suspect that he had orders to "remove the
correspondent," and that satisfied me that, as the Tommies would say,
"there was something doing." I left for Mitylene, an island close to
the Asia Minor coast, where I had learned that more news was to be
obtained and could be got away. Moreover, it enabled me to write what I
had learned on the undelectable island of Mudros. Long will I remember
those four days.

I knew now, however, that the plans were ripe, that the day was close
at hand for the landing. The whole island knew it, and I have no doubt
(having watched the officers travelling on the warship up and down the
coast of Gallipoli while the bombardment continued, by which means the
leaders learned the nature of their task) that the Turks gained the
same information as well, if, indeed, the actual plans had not been
already betrayed by the Queen of Greece into the hands of her august
and Germanic brother, William.




CHAPTER XI

THE DAWN OF ANZAC--THE LANDING


Anzac! In April--a name unformed, undetermined; June--and the worth
of a Nation and Dominion proved by the five letters--bound together,
by the young army's leader, Lieut.-General Sir W. Birdwood, in the
inspired "Anzac"--Australian, New Zealand Army Corps.

In reality, the first battle of Anzac began when the transports
commenced to steam out of the great harbour of Mudros on Saturday
afternoon, 24th April. All that was needed for the swift commencement
of the deep-laid plan was a perfectly calm sea. This condition General
Sir Ian Hamilton had, as he sent forth, under the care of the Navy and
Rear-Admiral Thursby, his fine army of Australians and New Zealanders.
Already on the evening of the 23rd, the covering force for the British
landing at Cape Helles, which had been entrusted to the 29th Division,
had steamed to Tenedos, where the fleet lay enchained as in the story
of ancient Troy, waiting for the remainder of the ships, which on
the morning of the 24th began to stand off Tenedos. It was as if the
shipping of the Levant had been suddenly diverted to lock the gates of
the waterway leading to the heart of the Turkish Empire, for the sea
was covered with ships--ships one-funnelled, two or four-funnelled;
ships that went creeping along, skulking inshore; ships that were
guarded by giant battleships and destroyers and escorted up to the
land; and tiny little ships--scouts, picket boats, pinnaces, and
trawlers.

The majestic battleships led the lines from the great harbour amidst
the beating of drums and ringing cheers from the crowded French and
British transports that formed a channel down which each Division
steamed from the port. With their minds set to the last task, the very
test of themselves as soldiers, the Australians lay most of the night
on the decks of the transports. On the battleship _Queen_, 1,500 of
the finest men of the 3rd Brigade attended a short service held by the
Padre, and heard the stirring message from the Admiral and the Army.
Then for six hours of ease and smoke and chat with the Navy. Here was
the beginning of the mutual admiration that grew in the hearts of the
two services--in the one for England's mariners of old, in the other
for the spirit of the young, vigorous, and physically great Nation.

By dusk on that April evening, as calm as any spring night, and as cool
as the troops would know it in Melbourne, a long string of transports,
battleships, torpedo boats, pinnaces, and row boats, were slipping
through the waters round the western headland of Imbros Island, where
a lighthouse blinked its warning, towards the mountainous shores of
Gallipoli.

In a bight in the land the ships lay awhile, their numbers increasing
as the hours drifted on. Down on the troopships' decks the men were
quietly singing the sentimental ditties of "Home and Mother," or
chatting in a final talk, yarning of the past--the future, so imminent
now, left to take care of itself--until they were borne within a
distance when silence was essential to success. Then they clenched
their teeth. Leaders, instructed in the plan, knew exactly what their
objectives were to be, though nothing but dark, hazy hills could
they see in the dropping rays of the moon. Again and again they had
rehearsed it, had placed their fingers on the knolls that the enemy
held--just then in what numbers they did not know, but could only
guess--went carefully through each operation of getting the troops from
the ships to the shore and on those hills. Once finally now they went
over it all, calmly, ever so calmly, calculating every step that they
were to advance.

 [Illustration: PORTION OF THE FLEET AND TRANSPORTS IN MUDROS HARBOUR
 JUST BEFORE THE LANDING.]

 [Illustration: BALLOONSHIP "ARK ROYAL" AND TRANSPORTS OFF THE
 DARDANELLES IN MAY.

  To face p. 100.]

Midnight. The moon still hung obstinately above the horizon, tipping
with silver the island mountain peaks towering over the fleet.
The smoke trickled from the funnels of the huge battleships that
surrounded, and mingled between, the transports; it rolled in thick,
snaky coils from the funnels of the low destroyers panting alongside
the ships, ready for their mission. Over the whole of that army,
30,000 men, there hung a lifetime of suspense. Would the moon never
go down! On the battleships, where companies of the 3rd Australian
Brigade--the covering party--were waiting quietly, parting instructions
were given. The voices of the high officers sounded crisp and deathly
calm in the night. Against the grim, grey decks of the warships the
waiting men were as patches of deeper shadow, circled by a ring of
luminous paint. That line separated them into boat loads. Down the
steel sides silently were dropped the rope ladders. So soon as the
moon would descend, so soon would the men go down these into the
destroyers--as elsewhere off that Gallipoli Peninsula, thousands would
go over the sides of other transports on to other destroyers waiting to
dash to the shore.

Three o'clock, and still the moon was above the horizon, but just
above it. It dipped. The opaque light faded from the sky. That intense
darkness which precedes dawn settled on the sea. It blotted out even
the faint line of the hills. The transports steamed forward to their
appointed stations off the coast. The mystery of it! The silent,
terrible power of an organized fighting machine! The wheels set in
motion! Alongside of each ship came the destroyers, and alongside them
in turn drifted the strings of boats into which the troops had to go
on the last stage of their journey. Already the men, fully equipped
with their heavy packs, greatcoats, and weapons of war, were drawn up
on the decks. No unnecessary word was spoken now. I believe that the
troops had so much to think of, that the thought of bullets did not
enter their mind at that time. Those that did not carry a pick, had a
spade; and every man carried a special entrenching tool. All had bags
for filling with sand, wire-cutters, to say nothing of three days'
rations in their haversacks, and their packs besides. They had 200
rounds of ammunition per man. Their rifles they tucked away under their
arms, gripping them with their elbows. This left their hands free. So
down four ladders they dropped over the sides of the battleships and
transports on to the decks of the destroyers. They were crowded there;
no room to move at all. To the unknown hostile strand they went. The
last 2 miles was a race against time, for soon now the Turks would
know of the landing. At least, they knew not at which point it would
come, so they prepared the whole of the beaches. Later I shall tell you
exactly how. It was four o'clock in the morning, and bitterly cold.
The men said they remembered that much, and the last warm breakfast of
coffee and rolls that they had on deck; they remembered little else
than that. They had a rifle and no target that they could see.

Now the Army Corps had, as I have told elsewhere, a covering force
chosen specially and assiduously practised in landing on Mudros
beaches--the 3rd Brigade, under Colonel Maclagan. This daring force was
to blaze the way, or brush aside, in a military sense, any obstruction
of the enemy; barely 3,500 men, on whom the reputation of an army and a
Nation was staked.

To be more exact. At 2.30 a.m. the transports, together with the tows
and the destroyers, steamed in to within 4 miles of the coast. The
moon was sinking slowly, and the silver haze it cast in the heavens,
back of the island of Imbros, may have silhouetted the ships dimly and
served as a warning for the Turks. Probably the ships came undetected,
but no sight of land could be seen, not even a signal light. From the
battleship _Queen_, lying but a mile off the promontory of Gaba Tepe,
all directions were given and the attack commanded.

Six bells and "All's well" still with the adventure. No smoking is
allowed. Fierce oaths rap out at thoughtless soldiers who, by a simple
act, might imperil the lives of all. Has a signal light on shore any
significance? Nothing happens; so all believe it has not. The murmurs
of the men had been lowered to whispers as they had last talks and
confidences and chats over the "game afoot." It was only 12 miles
across from Imbros to the intended point of disembarkation, but at a
slow 4-knot speed, what length those three hours! Suddenly in the midst
of all the whisperings and lapping of the waves on the black fleet, a
ray of light stretches like a gaunt white arm far into the sky, and
begins to sweep round stiffly behind the rugged hill. It rests down
south at the entrance to the Straits, and then, as if satisfied in its
search, roves idly along, until suddenly as it appeared, it vanishes.
Yes, the fleets had escaped detection surely, for the light came from
Chanak Fort, where the restless Turk spent another night in trembling
anticipation. Often after did we see that wandering restless ray, with
others, go streaming down the Straits in search of victims on which to
train the fortress guns. That night, so well planned was the attack, it
found naught of the ships lying concealed behind Tenedos, and which,
so few hours later, were to set forth, British manned, at the time the
Australians were hurling themselves ashore on the narrow cove that goes
down to history named after them--Anzac.

Only a general idea of the shore on which the army corps was to set
foot had been gained by the leaders from the decks of warships. It
revealed to them, just north of Gaba Tepe, a short strip of beach,
little more than a hundred yards in length, with a low plain behind
it, out of which rose up the ridges and foothills, ending in the great
ridge of Sari Bair and culminating in Koja Chemin Tepe (Hill 971), the
objective of the Army Corps. There was to be a descent on this beach,
so it was planned, and a turn north-east up along a plateau or ridge
that rose rapidly to the crowning hill. Gaba Tepe itself was a headland
in which the Turks had concealed batteries of machine guns to enfilade
this landing and other beaches, but which same point had served for
weeks as a good target for the warships. This point was to be stormed
and held.

The 2-1/2-knot current that sweeps along the coast from the mouth of
the Straits, bore the bows of heavily laden but shallow draft lifeboats
and barges down the Gulf farther than was intended, and so the landing
beach was mistaken in the dark. The attack once launched, there was no
withdrawal or remedy, so the troops began to pour ashore a mile farther
along the coast to the north than was intended; not, on landing, to
reach a plain, but to be faced with terrible hills and deep ravines.
But was it so awful an error? Chance had carried in her womb a deeply
significant advantage, for at the original point the beach had been
carefully prepared with barbed-wire, that ran down into the very water.
Trenches lined the shore--making similar obstacles to those the British
troops faced 9 miles away at Helles. So Chance guided the boats into
a natural cove, certainly not very large--just a segment of a circle
some 400 yards long. Never anticipating an attack at the foot of such
a ridge, the Turks had dug but few trenches to protect this spot,
more so as the whole of the beach might be commanded by machine guns,
concealed in certain knolls. Around the northern point of the cove,
however, the breach broadened out again into what, in winter, was a
marsh about 200 yards wide, which eventually, towards Suvla Bay, opened
out into the marshes and plains of Suvla Bay and the valley that leads
up to the Anafarta villages.

Unwittingly, into the cove and around its northern point, Ari Burnu,
the first boats were towed by destroyers and pinnaces until, the water
shallowing, the ropes were cast off and a naval crew of four, with
vigorous strokes, pushed on until a splutter of rifles proclaimed that
the Turks had realized the purpose. The battle opened at 4.17 a.m. The
racket of the rifles reached the ears of the other brigades, locked
still in the transports, while the 3rd Brigade, men of the 9th, 10th,
11th, and 12th Battalions, went ashore to form the screen for the
landing army--the 9th (Queensland) Battalion led by Lieut.-Colonel
Lee, the 10th (South Australian) led by Lieut.-Colonel Weir, the 11th
(West Australian) led by Lieut.-Colonel J. L. Johnston, and the 12th
(from S.A., W.A., and Tasmania) led by Lieut.-Colonel Clarke, D.S.O.
It was a terrible duty, but a proud position, and Colonel Sinclair
Maclagan had command. The men had orders not to fire. They had to judge
for themselves, and leap into the water when they were nearing the
shore. So the men jumped from the boats into the icy Ægean, up to their
armpits sometimes, their rifles held above their heads, and slowly
facing the stream of lead, waded to the shore. Eager to be free of
action, they at once dropped their packs and charged. Some Turks were
running along the beach to oppose them. These were killed or wounded.
At other places round the northern extremity of the cove the boats were
drifting in, and along the broader shore were grounding on the beach,
only to be shattered and the whole parties in them decimated by the
machine guns in Fisherman's Hut and the low hills above this enemy post.

 [Illustration: GABA TEPE AND THE PLANNED LANDING BEACH.

 Picture taken from Tasmania Post looking south on to Achi Baba in the
 far distance.]

 [Illustration: A SHELL BURSTING IN THE VERY HEART OF ANZAC COVE, NEAR
 LIEUT.-GENERAL BIRDWOOD'S DUGOUT AND THE END OF WATSON'S PIER.

  To face p. 104.]

So the Turks found the attack on them before they realized its
proximity and strength. A few companies of the enemy were manning
shallow trenches on the foothills, others were on the ridges
overlooking the beach. Firing spread from end to end of the beaches,
the machine guns spluttering a deadly line. Against this opposition,
with a yell and cheers, the Australians dashed into their first action.
"Impshee,[1] Impshee, Yallah--you black devils!" was the cry that broke
from a thousand throats. Louder and still louder grew the crack of the
rifles, and when the Turks turned, not waiting for the army that now
tumbled on to the beach, and ceased firing, the guns from behind the
ridge and from Gaba Tepe point, took up the tale. Shrapnel soon began
to burst over the beach, flicking to foam the waters between the now
dimly visible transports and the water's edge. It was fortunate the
Turkish gun fire went high in that first hour's fighting, and only fell
harmlessly into the water, the men ashore escaping hurt as they swiftly
advanced through the bushes, routing the Turks on the beach. Then,
faced by almost perpendicular cliffs, these fearless fighters turned
half-right (they had bayoneted the few Turks that remained) and went up
the side of a high ridge--Maclagan's Ridge, 200 feet high--and paused
only for want of breath. On they went a moment later, the officers
leading what squads of men they could gather up, on to a plateau, known
afterwards as "Plugge's Plateau," and down into a great ravine or
_dere_--Shrapnel Gully.

[1] Egyptian: "Get out!"

Only men in perfect health and of the physique of these troops could
have accomplished the scaling of those hills and still charge on, their
vigour unabated. That climb had been amongst firs and holly bushes,
over carpets of poppies, anemones, and wild flowers. The troops fired
now from the ridges into the running Turks, whom they could not well
see, but could hear crashing away ahead of them. It was the first step
in a great charge. The Turks had not been numerous, but their position
might well have been called impregnable. I do not suppose more than 500
to 800 Turks composed the force that manned the heights, but they had
trenches, machine guns in positions, and had but to turn their fire on
the water's edge that gently lapped the shore. They knew they had many
thousands in reserve at Maidos, Bogali, and Kojadere, the nearest camp,
but fearful of the landing host, they had turned and gone back to the
gully, where, joined by reserves, they waited the next onslaught. These
enemy lines too, now the gallant 3rd Brigade, spreading out in a thin
line, drove before them. Raked by machine guns from other ridges, the
bullets came whistling through the leaves of the bushes round them. It
was no use to pause in the valley--bullets came from behind, as snipers
waited while the onward rush went over them, and then fired into the
rear of the advancing parties--only to push on and on. Terrible work
this was, crashing through the undergrowth, down, down into a valley,
the bottom of which could not be seen, over broken ground, to reach at
last creeks, and then to climb the hill outlined faintly in irregular
silhouette before the advancing dawn.

As it grew lighter the enemy in great numbers could be seen running
along these ridges, or establishing themselves in hasty entrenchments.
Had they attacked, 4,000 strong as they were, they must have dispersed
our isolated parties, driving them back at least. But the fierceness
of the landing had shaken the nerve of the Turkish army; for the
moment, I believe, the attack was paralysed. For an hour the Turks had
ceased firing--between 5.30 and 6.30. Oh, thrice blessed hour, that
gave the landing army time to gather its strength! The main gully was
intersected by many smaller gullies, and down each of these parties
of shouting Australians went, wherever they could find a leader--a
sergeant, a South African veteran, or officer--to lead them. Some
waited for word to go on, others went on till they were lost to their
comrades for ever in the distant ridges.

In the early hours Major Brand, Brigade-Major of the 3rd Brigade,
directing the right of the line that was working east, led a party
across a crest, and, on the hillside below, saw a redoubt and
earthworks, on which, after opening rapid fire, without delay he
charged. The Turks fled, leaving as a prize to fall into our hands
a three-gun battery of Krupp guns. One cannot overestimate the
gallantry of this small party, who lost no time in spiking the guns
and destroying them as best they could. For already the Turkish first
counter-attack was developing, and it became necessary for Colonel
Maclagan, while waiting for the new regiments, to contract his front.
Major Brand had to retire to the hill crest, and for this deed and
other heroism that morning he obtained the D.S.O.

Hours ere this had fled by, and meanwhile other regiments were pouring
from the transports. Still the darkness hung over the shore. Only with
the faint streaks of dawn could it be definitely learned that the
brigade that had landed had won and held the heights. As one section
of transports, having discharged its human freight, moved out, others
filed in to take their places. The flashes of rifles could be seen on
the cliffs, the error of the landing--that fortunate error--realized
with a gasp of horror, surprise, and fear. All need for silence now
ended, the orders rang out sharp and clear. Torpedo-boats bumped
alongside, swiftly brought to rest, while the troops dropped down on
to their decks, only to find there wounded men who had returned, never
having set foot ashore.

"Hullo, mates, stung!" called some men from the transports to the
wounded men.

"Blasted bad luck!--months of training, and never got a shot at the
blighters, and only twenty minutes of fighting."

Wounded were being lifted gently on board by the slings; others lay on
the torpedo-boats, the time too precious to render anything but first
aid while the task of disembarking still remained unfinished.

How magnificent the attitude of the Navy now that the strain was
lifted, and a silent, stern air had given place to a jaunty assurance.
Boys ran pinnaces up to grim transports and took command of hundreds of
men, fearing death as little as any tried veterans. Reckless of danger,
they never flinched. Let me only tell of one such midshipman hailing a
transport (the skipper told me the story himself later), saying:--

"Admiral's orders, but you will move in to ---- position, closer in
shore."

"Is there any danger?" bellowed back the skipper, thinking of the
safety of his ship and the shells that threw towers of water up over
his decks.

"Danger, sir! What is danger?" came back the piping reply.

And those men a little more senior, commanding the destroyers, the
adventure of it all appealed to their deep-rooted instincts--the
instincts of the Navy.

"Well, where do you want to go to?" asked a destroyer commander of a
young infantry officer with his hundreds of men as he came aboard from
the liner towering above the squat little warship.

"Good God!" exclaimed the officer, and, turning, shouted up to his
commanding officer, still on board the transport, "He does not know
where to take me!"

"That is all right," laughed the naval man. "I went a bit north last
time. I'll try a little higher up." And his engine-room bell tinkled
and they were off.

Amongst the boats and barges and small craft, as the dawn grew bright,
the shells from the Turks fell, and the bullets from the hills raked
them and killed the rowers at the oars.

Major Jackson, in command of a company of the 7th Victorians, related
to me his experience, that, in the words of a soldier, most vividly
tells the adventures of all those regiments landed about six o'clock in
the pale morning light:--

"We had few oars--not enough to get quickly out of the hell fire once
the pinnaces had cast us off, nearly 100 yards from shore. All the men
who could crouched low in the boat, while the others rowed or sat by me
on the gunwale. Then one lad caught a crab, and I commenced to curse
him till, taking one more stroke, he fell dead across his oar, shot
through the head. The bullets were ripping against our sides and the
boat was filling with water. Many of us had to jump out while still
the water was up to our armpits and push the boat inshore; many could
never leave the boat. I formed up all the men I could from my own and
other boats, and was directed up to the hills. But I can tell you that
in many boats few men came out, and others lay at the bottom jammed
beneath their dead comrades, who crushed them down."

 [Illustration: ANZAC COVE, THE ACTUAL LANDING BEACH, SHOWING THE
 TRAVERSES SUBSEQUENTLY ERECTED ON THE PIERS AND BEACH FOR PROTECTION.

 The Beach Casualty Clearing Station was situated behind the boxes.
 Suvla Bay, over Ari Burnu Point, to the north.]

Surely no words can describe the gallantry of troops who, without a
murmur, bore their wounds. They joked while in the boats, talked of
the nearness of the shot and shell, laughed as bullets flicked caps
and jackets. Their attitude to death roused the enthusiasm of the
sailors. "They believe they are still on a picnic!" exclaimed a naval
officer, and as the outline of the cliffs grew more distinct, "Hell!"
he exclaimed. "They are up there! Good on you, Australians!" It was the
beginning of the knowledge to the Navy what fighters the young Nation
had, and they welcomed them, and henceforth anything in their power
was too little to help men who could face death with a cheer and a
smile. Portions of the 5th, under Colonel Wanliss, and 6th Battalion,
under Colonel M'Nicol, came inshore on large lighters that remained
almost stationary off shore, with the shrapnel bursting over them, till
lines were passed to the beach and their comrades hauled them in. Major
Whitham, 12th Battalion, told me when he had called on his men from his
boat, but three had responded--the rest had been shot.

It is impossible to say which battalion landed first of the brigades.
Generally it is conceded that the Queenslanders got ashore first, but
only a few seconds later came the remainder of the troops from every
State of the Commonwealth. The 1st and 2nd Brigades landed at six
o'clock and were on shore by nine. The beach from a distance looked a
surging mass of khaki figures, while the hillsides were covered with
groups of men, who were working like fury, digging holes and tearing
down the bushes. Pinnaces, stranded and sunk, lay along the shore,
barges, too, and boats.

Major Cass (now Colonel Cass, D.S.O.), Brigade-Major of the 2nd
Brigade, commanded by Colonel M'Cay, described to me the landing of the
Victorians, who now followed hard after the clearing party, together
with the 1st Brigade, under Colonel M'Laurin. I will repeat it here as
the testimony of a gallant soldier:--

"The transports moved into position, but they could not get forward,
as warships and T.B.D.'s, with the 3rd Brigade, still occupied the
allotted places. In consequence, the 7th Battalion and portion of the
6th were embarking in boats before the 5th and 8th could get to their
places. The enemy now had light enough to use his field guns from Gaba
Tepe, and shelled the boats heavily. Gaba Tepe was at once engaged
by the _Triumph_ and _Bacchante_, but the guns were so well placed
that they continued in action at intervals during the whole landing.
This shell fire enfiladed the beach and caused many casualties in the
boats. Those casualties caused further delay in the disembarkation,
as wounded men were left in the boats, and even put in the boats from
the beach. When the boats returned to the transports it was necessary
to take the wounded on board, and, as provision had not been made
for this, increasing delays took place with each tow or string of
boats. It was interesting at this stage to watch the demeanour of the
troops. At least 90 per cent. of them had never been under fire before,
and certainly 95 per cent. had not been under shell fire. Yet they
looked at the wounded, questioned them, and then went on with their
disembarkation in a matter-of-fact way, as if they were used to this
sort of thing all their lives. There seemed to be one desire--to get to
grips with the enemy. Quickly and methodically the boats were loaded,
tools handed down and stowed away, and all made ready, as had been
practised at Mudros, and the tows started for the shore. On reaching
the beach there was a certain amount of confusion. Men from all four
battalions of the 2nd Brigade began landing at the one time, to find on
the beach many men from the 3rd Brigade who had gone forward. Because
of the landing being made a little farther north than was anticipated
or intended, the 3rd Brigade had gone to the left flank, and the 2nd
Brigade, after a hurried consultation between the two brigades, moved
to the right flank. The first ridge emphasized the necessity for
discarding the packs, and thus free of their loads, the men moved on.
But practically all semblance of company and battalion formation was
lost."

And here let me write of the praise that all ranks have for the 26th
Indian Mountain Battery that landed with the Victorians and pushed
immediately into the heart of the position. The busy bang, bang
of those terrible relentless little guns did much to stiffen and
strengthen the next twenty-four hours' resistance of the army. "Yes,
there are the guns, men, just behind you," and the officer saw on the
face of the soldier a contented smile. "We're all ---- well right now,
let the ---- come!" and on the soldier went digging. I shall have more
to say of these Indians later.

By midday the whole of the Victorians and the New South Wales Brigades
were landed. Unavoidably, in the stress of battle they had mingled
their battalions with the 3rd Brigade's, now forming a curved line on
the edge of the plateau that lay on the far side of Shrapnel Gully,
from a point about a mile from Gaba Tepe round on to the shoulder
of the main ridge, thus forming an arc of which the beach made the
cord. For, while the Australians had been holding the main ridge with
a line running almost due north and south, the New Zealanders had
landed, and had stormed and captured the ridge that lay almost at
right angles (a last spur of Sari Bair) to the beach, advancing from
the first ridge that had been stormed by the 3rd Brigade and making
good the plateau called--after their leader, Colonel Plugge (Auckland
Battalion)--Plugge's Plateau. Some of the landing parties, I have
related, had got ashore at the point of Ari Burnu, or even farther
north, and were enfiladed from machine guns placed in some fishermen's
huts about 200 yards along the beach. With magnificent gallantry
Captain Cribb, a New Zealand officer, led a party of men to the huts,
which he captured at the point of the bayonet, killing or dispersing
the Turks, who fled into the hills, leaving a quantity of ammunition
and some stores to fall into our hands. Rid of this menace, the beach
here suffered only from a frontal fire from the ridges, as it always
did even in subsequent months.

Later in the afternoon and evening the 4th Infantry Brigade, under
Colonel Monash, that came swiftly up, filled the gap at the head of
Shrapnel Gully and united the Australians and New Zealanders at a point
where the Turks might have easily come and severed our lines, at the
head of what was subsequently called "Monash Gully," near Pope's Hill
and Quinn's Post.

Now the fight for that main ridge was fierce in the extreme. While
the beach and the landing waters were raked with shrapnel that caused
hundreds of casualties, the gullies were also swept by fearful
machine-gun fire. Overhead whizzed and burst the continuous pitiless
shells. "Don't come up here!" yelled an officer to Lieutenant Mangar
as he attempted to lead a platoon of men over a small under feature
that formed a way to the main ridge. "This is riddled with machine-gun
fire!" It was an exclamation often heard as parties of men strove to
link up the firing-line. Early in the afternoon the Turkish first
attack developed. At three o'clock they attempted to pierce our line
in the centre along the main ridge. Already many of the most advanced
parties, that had gone well forward, unsupported on either flank, for
more than a mile farther (nearly three miles from the landing shore),
led by corporals, sergeants, and what officers were available--alas,
whose names must go unrecorded!--had been driven back and back
fighting, even cutting their way out. They saw that to remain would
mean to be slaughtered. The Turks were hurrying up reinforcements. How
many men fell in that retirement I would not like to estimate. Of the
5th Battalion alone, Major Fethers, Major Saker, Major Clements--all
leading groups of men towards the heart of the Turkish position--each
fell, mortally wounded--finest types of soldiers of the army. Hundreds
of men sold their lives in reckless valour, fighting forward, led by
their officers, who believed that while they thus pressed on, the hills
behind them were being made secure. This, indeed, was exactly what did
happen, which always leaves in my mind the thought that it was the very
bravery and zeal of those first lines of men--men from all battalions
of various brigades, who pushed forward--that enabled the position in
rear to be held and made good, though the pity was that sufficient
reserves were not ready at hand to make good the line, farther inland,
on the last ridge that overlooked Boghali and the main Turkish camp--a
ridge some men reached that day, but which the Army Corps never
afterwards gained.

On Lieut.-Colonel M'Nicol, commanding the magnificent 6th Battalion and
a portion of the 7th as well (Lieut.-Colonel Elliott, their leader,
having been wounded), the main fighting fell in that first attack made
on the right of the main ridge. Between him and the next battalion on
his flank, the 8th, under Lieut.-Colonel Bolton, was a gap of some
400 yards. It was a desperate time holding these until the arrival of
Lieut.-Colonel Thompson with the 4th Infantry, that effectively filled
the gap, driving back the Turks, though losing their gallant leader in
the charge. No time yet to dig in; the Turks' attack was pressed with
fury. Hand-to-hand fighting resulted in the Turk going down as the
Australian yelled defiance at him in his excitement and frantic despair
at the terrible hail of shrapnel raining from above. There seemed to
be constant streams of men making their way to the dressing-station.
Major Cass told me "four well-defined and partly sheltered tracks
were followed, but even along these tracks men were being killed or
wounded again by shrapnel coming over the firing-line on the ridge.
This continual thinning of the already weakened line for a time seemed
to imply disaster. The shrapnel of the Turks was doing its work with
a deadly thoroughness. The enemy's guns could not be located by the
ships' guns. We had only one mountain battery ashore, and it was seen
and met by a storm of shrapnel, losing half its strength in casualties.
Reinforcements were urgently needed, and so slowly did they come that
they appeared to be drops in the bucket. But with dogged persistence
our troops held the main ridge. In advance of this line were still to
be seen a few small parties of men--the remains of platoons which had
pushed forward and hung on."

 [Illustration: ANZAC POSITION ON MAY 19TH, 1915.

  To face p. 112.]

As night fell, the line, though not continuous, was linked in two
sides of a triangle round the position, with the beach as a base. The
4th Brigade had, under Colonel Monash, been dashed up to the central
portion of the line, where the Turks were massing in the greatest
numbers. General Bridges had come ashore and so had Lieut.-General
Birdwood, and sought to gain the true strength of the situation from
the leaders. For a memorable conference had been held between the three
Brigadiers earlier in the day, when roughly the line was divided up,
the 2nd being to the south, then the 3rd, the 1st, and finally the 4th
near the Sari Bair main ridge. It was not as the original plans had
been conceived, but it served well. The line was now desperately in
need, everywhere, of reinforcements.

On the beach the scenes were indescribable. The wounded were pouring
into the temporary dressing station that Colonel Howse, V.C., had
rapidly erected ashore; the boats that brought to the beach the living,
went back to the ships with the wounded and dead. General Bridges would
not permit the guns to be landed--thereby adding to the chaos on the
beach, where stores, equipments, and ammunition came tumbling from the
boats on to the narrow shore, not 10 yards wide--until after dusk, when
the first gun was brought into action, a Victorian gun, under Colonel
Johnston. Some guns of Colonel Rosenthal's Artillery Brigade had come
ashore at noon, but Colonel Hobbs, under orders from the Army Corps,
sent them back. It was, as yet, no place for guns, with the Turks
massing for attack and the situation critical, but it was guns that
were urgently needed.

The cry for reinforcements became more insistent as the night wore
on. Lieut.-General Birdwood was recalled to the _Queen_. Orders were
given to prepare for evacuation, and at midnight the boats were
simply carrying off the wounded in tightly packed boatloads. Delay was
inevitable with such casualties--three or four thousand--yet it was
this delay that made the situation desperate. Would the wounded have to
be abandoned when the position was relinquished and another 3,000 men
lost? Before night had deepened the Turks commenced to counter-attack
again. Charge after charge they made, their shrapnel bursting in front
of them over our lines; but they would never face the lines of bayonets
that waited for them, and well directed volleys sent them back to their
trenches and silenced their shrill cries of "Allah, Allah Din!" Towards
early morning the position became calmer, as the Turks were flung back.
What troops could be spared dug and dug for their lives, exhorted by
their officers. Orders, counter-orders, false commands, came through
from front to rear, from rear to front, from flank to flank. Snipers
fell to blows from the butt of a rifle, prisoners prayed for safety,
never dreaming it would be granted them.

So the crisis came and passed. A determination, long fostered in the
hearts of all, to "stick for Australia," to hang on or die in their
trenches, won the day. Moral, if not very sanguinary support was
given by two 18-pounder guns that opened fire from our own trenches
on the Turkish positions at dawn of the Monday morning. I doubt if
more surprised men ever faced shells than the Turkish leaders when
they realized that in the very firing-line, by the side of the landed
infantry, were field guns, generally in rear of the battle line, and
now firing at point-blank range at the enemy entrenched lines. It was
a feat of no mean importance to drag by lines of men, as the Italian
gunners later did at Gorizia, those great guns to the front of the
battle; it required great grit to keep them there. How the "feet"
cheered the gunners on that morning as they plumped shell after shell
into the disordered Turkish ranks. "There they go! Give it them, the
blighters!" yelled the excited infantrymen; and they poured their rifle
fire into the bodies of Turks that could be seen moving or crawling in
the green bushes which in those days covered the plateau.

So ended the most horrible night ever spent on Anzac, and thus began
the dawn of that famous position.




CHAPTER XII

A TERRIBLE THREE DAYS


Dawn on the 26th came stealing over the hills beyond the Straits and
snow-capped Mount Ida, showing her pink peak above the dark grim
fortifications of Kelid Bahr, and along the Dardanelles Straits.
Dawn awoke to hear the thundering boom of the guns from the fleet in
amongst the valleys and gullies of Anzac, the rattle of muskets and
the rip-rip-rip of machine guns. It spread with an echoing roar to
the beach; it was taken up by the ships that lay one or two miles off
the coast; it was intensified and flung back to shore again by the
monster guns on the deck of the _Queen Elizabeth_. Down to the entrance
of the Straits rolled the sound; and back from the Straits came the
thundering roar as of a million kettledrums, while the fierce attacks
and counter-attacks of the British pushed in on to the fortifications,
and turned the Turks in terror to the foothills of Achi Baba. The enemy
had abandoned their smashed guns; they had evacuated the fortifications
and the village of Seddul Bahr, as the magnificent, imperishable 29th
Division had managed to gain a foothold round the toe of the peninsula.
Word had early been flashed up to Anzac that the landing had been a
success, but had been resisted more fiercely, more terribly than even
the most sanguinary expectations predicted.

It was the naval guns that took the place of the field guns, bursting
shrapnel in the front of the Turkish lines, that held back the enemy
charges, that decimated their men, that enabled the British and the
Australian troops to effect the landing and hang on to the ridges until
their trenches were deep enough, their guns landed, and the lines
organized to withstand any attacks, however violent. It was artillery
fire that the infantry (30,000 infantry) needed most at Anzac, and it
was heavy artillery fire with a vengeance they got. As I watched the
warships pumping in shells on to the hills, saw the Turks answering
with the bluish white, curling clouds of shrapnel that burst over the
sea and the gullies, it gave me an indication of the fury of the battle
of which these were the only visible signs at long range. There was a
balloon observing for the ships. The _Queen Elizabeth_, the _Triumph_,
and the _Bacchante_, and five other warships lay off Anzac. There were
three times as many off Cape Helles, with the French fleet steaming
off Kum Kale. I watched the leaping tongues of fire from the warships'
sides, and heard the muffled report as the smoke blew back over the
decks in a yellow cloud; and before it had vanished (but many seconds
later, as it had whirled miles in the air), the explosion of the shell
bursting on the side of the hills and among the trenches. The wounded
felt that shelling most, as they lay on the cliffs, on the shore, on
the decks of the transports, with the ships firing point-blank at them.
It shook them--it chilled their blood. But the men in the trenches knew
that on the naval gunners depended their lives, depended their success;
it was these protecting screens of fire, of huge shells, that gave them
time to dig, and to settle down into what was fast becoming trench
warfare. The Turks gathered battalions to battalions and flung them
against the parts of our lines where the configuration of the country
made them naturally weakest. The shells from the warships decimated
them.

If Sunday had been the critical night for the Army Corps at Anzac,
Monday and Tuesday were the critical days. Each party of men fought
as a separate, desperate unit. The Turk might throw his complete
reserve battalions against the right, the centre, or the left of our
thinned ranks, but it was only the grit, the determination of the
fighting spirit of the Australians and New Zealanders that enabled
them to hold back the enemy or continue the attacks in small units
led by a corporal or a junior subaltern. Reinforcements were hastily
gathered, such parties as might be found in the valleys going to
join the scattered regiments, or trying to find their comrades of a
battalion. No counter-attack on a large scale could be ordered while
such disorganization prevailed; but each section of the line sought
to advance, as it was found necessary to take and straighten and
strengthen the position on the second ridge, so as to eventually link
up the whole line.

 [Illustration: MACLAGAN'S RIDGE AND ANZAC BEACH ON 26TH AUGUST, SHOWING
 THE HILLSIDE AS YET UNINHABITED.]

 [Illustration: EARLY HOSPITALS ON ANZAC BEACH.]

In this way, then, the firing-line was roughly divided--on the first
morning after landing--into four sections. On the extreme right was
mostly the 2nd Brigade, under Colonel M'Cay, next to him the 3rd
Brigade, under Colonel Maclagan, with battalions of the 1st Brigade,
under Colonel M'Laurin, on his left. The 4th Brigade, under Colonel
Monash, filled the apex of the position, and turning back the flank
to the beach were the New Zealanders, under General Russell. A
rough-and-ready division of the line it was, but it held, and, with
little alteration, was kept as the sections of the position. Units were
terribly mixed, and battalions, irrespective of brigades, were ordered
to defend weakened positions or reinforce where the Turkish attacks
grew most violent. Daylight found the troops still digging for their
lives. Rain fell slightly. The men had some cover now, and found to
their satisfaction and comfort that shrapnel no longer worried them
so long as they kept in their trenches. How true in those days that
the safest part of the position was the firing-line; for the tracks
across the gullies were naked and open to the fire of the snipers'
bullets that came even behind the line where the Turk had crept (for
the gullies had not yet been searched and cleared). One party of
Turks, indeed, endeavoured to get a machine gun through the lines on a
stretcher, roughly covered by a greatcoat, as if they were carrying out
a wounded man. They had not gone far before the trick was discovered,
and these daring men were shot down. They were German non-commissioned
officers in charge of machine guns. Lieutenant Mangar told me how he
lay wounded behind a bush watching these German gunners, not 10 yards
from him, pouring lead into our retreating parties of men. Finally,
they, in turn, were forced to retire, and he crept in, under cover of
darkness, to his own trenches.

The opening round of our guns was the signal for rejoicing, and five
guns were firing throughout the day. A New Zealand battery first came
into action with a roar, and some of Colonel Rosenthal's 3rd Brigade
were landed later in the day. Artillery lanes had been cut round
steeper slopes, over which the gunners and infantrymen dragged them,
once they had been brought along the beach by the gun teams. Desperate
efforts were made by artillery officers to silence the battery of guns
that the Turks had skilfully concealed on Gaba Tepe, and though our
field guns, warships, and destroyers plastered the point, the enemy's
guns still continued to do terrible execution on the landing beach and
amongst the troops entrenching on the right of the position. A landing
party had been repulsed with heavy losses, finding the beach a mass of
barbed-wire entanglements, and machine guns concealed in the cliffs.
Hang on and dig, hang on to the edge of the second plateau, back on to
which they had been forced after the charge across the three ridges
to the last lines of hills that looked down on the green, cultivated
plains stretching almost to the Dardanelles, was all the Australians
could do now. As far as possible the officers were endeavouring to
reorganize their companies and battalions. Brigadiers have explained
to me how for days, as they could, they gathered 50 or 60 men from
this unit and that, and would communicate with the brigadier next
along the line, and a transfer would be effected. It was not possible
to let many men from the firing-line at one time, as the Turks were
furiously making preparations for attack. Practically nothing could be
accomplished on this Monday or Tuesday. In the still all too shallow
trenches the "spotters" for the warships (young lieutenants from
Duntroon College, Australia, had been chosen) telephoned to the beach,
from whence, by means of a wireless signal station, they directed the
ships' fire with telling effect. Officers had but to find targets to
be able to get any number of shells from the _Triumph_ or _Bacchante_,
or the destroyers that nosed close inshore, hurtling in the required
direction.

Throughout the morning of Monday the Turks again began their
counter-attacks, which with brief intervals, it seemed almost without
ceasing, for two days they dashed first at one and then at another
section of the line. A Turkish order may be quoted to show the manner
in which the German leader, Liman von Sanders, endeavoured to inspire
his troops, which now numbered probably 40,000 men, to further
sacrifices. It ran:--

 Attack the enemy with the bayonet and utterly destroy him. We shall
 not retrace one step, for if we do our religion, our country, and our
 nation will perish.

 Soldiers, the world is looking to you. Your only hope of salvation is
 to bring the battle to a successful issue, or gloriously to give up
 your life in the attempt.

It may be added here, too, that after two days' constant attack the
Turkish leaders refused to ask their troops to face the ships' fire
again during the day. For it was the ships' fire (with the _Queen
Elizabeth's_ enormous 15-inch shrapnel pellets--a thousand in a case)
as well as our machine guns and the rifles and the Indian Mountain
Artillery (magnificently served were these guns) that the Turks faced
as they charged.

First on the right of the line the attacks began. The Turks were hurled
back by the 8th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Bolton. The Australians
stood steady, sweeping the enemy's lines, heaping up the dead. The
Turks advanced in the favourite massed German formation. Grimly, with
bayonets fixed, the Australians waited in their unfinished trenches.
At the apex of the line, the head on Monash Gully, the great Turkish
attack of the day developed. Two ridges met here, and formed what was
named at once the "Nek." The Sari Bair ridge ran at right angles to the
beach, beginning with what had been named Walker's Ridge and Russell
Top, and continuing on past Chunak Bair to Hill 971, or Koja Chemin
Tepe. Just above Russell Top the broad plateau (on the edge of which
most of the Australian army now clung desperately) joined the Sari Bair
ridge at the Nek. This main Australian ridge ran in a bow round to Gaba
Tepe. So steep was the head of the gully and so cut up with hills (for
a spur ran out from the very centre of it--Pope's Hill) that it was
not possible to get a continuous line of trenches across to the Nek.
There was no alternative but to dig in here from Russell Top, down
across the gully, and up again on to the knob which struck out into the
gully, dividing its head in two (called subsequently Pope's Hill), and
from this point across to Quinn's Post, so linking up with the rest
of the right of the line. The summit of the arc, as I have described
our position--now for the first time more definitely defined--was the
gully. On the left the New Zealanders held Walker's Ridge, Plugge's
Plateau, and the section of Russell Top, and the trenches leading down
on their left into the valley; with the result that the Turks chose
this point as the best for breaking through our position and coming in
behind our lines. Had they succeeded in their endeavours, which lasted
till Wednesday, it would have meant the cutting of Anzac in two.

The 2nd Battalion, under Colonel Braund, had held the trenches nearest
the Nek until relieved by the New Zealanders on Sunday night. Meanwhile
the 4th Brigade, less many companies, had been flung into the central
position. All the hills were still at this time covered with thick
scrub, and favoured the tactics of the Turks, who crept through it
until they were near enough to make a rush at the trenches. But the
men of the 2nd Battalion and the New Zealanders stood firm. From the
Nek, and what afterwards became the Chessboard trenches, the Turkish
snipers shot down into the gully, which was a veritable death-trap with
this menace above it. No wonder to it clung the name of the "Valley of
the Shadow of Death." It took many days for our sharpshooters from the
high positions we had won to compel the enemy to keep under cover, and
eventually to withdraw their snipers--those who were not shot at their
posts.

Farther along the line M'Cay's Hill and Braund's Hill, in the centre
of the right of the position, were subjected to a furious bombardment
by the Turkish artillery, and their machine guns were playing on these
points until nearly three o'clock, when the attacks of the Turks began
to increase in fury. They sent wave after wave of men against our
lines, and the 8th Battalion were forced to retire to the edge of the
ridge. The enemy now came across from up Happy Valley and other gullies
on the right, and were threatening to break through and get behind our
lines round M'Cay's Hill. It was then that two battalions, the 9th, now
under Major Robertson, and 10th, under Lieut.-Colonel Weir, which had
already suffered under racking fire, and had had to retire from distant
ridges to which they had penetrated in a counter-attack, were brought
up from a gully where they had been held in reserve. They straightway
commenced to retake the lost hill. Three times they charged before
the Turks finally broke, unable to face the reckless bravery of the
Australians, and the hill was finally in our possession. But our losses
were again heavy. This finally settled the possession of the hill,
which enabled the line to be drawn straighter along the right.

Meanwhile General Bridges had completed an inspection of the ground
of the position, and determined that certain portions would have
to be straightened out so that the best advantage might be taken of
the country before them. For this duty the 4th Battalion, or rather
remaining section of it, which had been kept in reserve, were ordered
to advance some hundred yards and occupy the new line. Since the
landing the enemy had crept into our lines as spies, dressed in the
uniforms of fallen men, and had been successful by various ruses in
trapping more than one officer. They had passed false messages down the
line, and had caused men to cease fire for a time, before the fallacy
of the orders had been discovered. On this occasion the 4th, led by
Lieut.-Colonel Thompson, believing that the whole of the line was to
charge, went forward, charging on and on through two valleys to a
distant ridge--Pine Ridge. They passed a small Turkish camp, and were
only stopped at length by a terrible machine-gun fire when still 1,000
yards from the mouth of the enemy's heavy artillery. They had then to
retire, realizing the hopelessness of their position. They fell back.
As they reached what was intended for their objective they entrenched.
But their gallant leader was killed in the charge.

Again and again during Monday night and Tuesday the Turks charged and
counter-attacked along the whole front, but the Australians, confident
of their prowess after twenty-four hours' continuous fighting, grimly
held their ground. They had learned that trenches gave some protection
from shrapnel, and those that were not fighting were burrowing like
rabbits, digging in, while their comrades held the line. The Turks
continued to direct their hardest blows against the centre, but as
fast as they hurried up their reserves so did the Australians come
hurrying up from the beach. The unloading of the shells and supplies
had proceeded rapidly now that it had been determined to hold on. The
Anzacs had come for good, they left no doubt about that, and, with the
guns firing from the very trenches, it was with a cheer that the lads
waited for the Turks. Never would the foe face the last 20 yards and
the glistening line of bayonets. Sometimes a section of our men would
leave the trenches, sufficient indication of what would follow, so
sending the Turks shambling back. They feared the Australian in those
days and the use he made of his bayonet. It even happened that the
fixing of bayonets, the men stopping their digging, halted a Turkish
charge. Not that I wish to suggest that the Turk was not brave, but
he had been badly rattled and shattered with the ships' appalling
fire. But our troops were getting sleepy and tired, for they had been
fighting for three days continuously. They had plenty of munitions
and rations, and with judicious use (a thing that the Australians
taught the English Tommies later on) their water supply held out. But
everything had to be laboriously carried up those hills from the beach.

The casualty lists show the high percentage of officers killed and
wounded, due, I believe, not only to their heroism and example
of leadership, but to the nature of the country. Brigadiers and
battalion commanders exposed themselves, standing among the bushes and
undergrowth, so as to find out where the attack might be coming from,
while a tornado of lead swept past them. There was no cover other than
very rough and very inadequate look outs. The snipers of the Turks
were still playing havoc in our lines; many, indeed, were still behind
the troops, dug into pits, with days' supplies of food and ammunition,
concealed by bushes, and that was why the men as far as possible kept
down in their trenches; it was that which made Shrapnel Valley the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. It was while reconnoitring thus the
Brigadier of the 1st Brigade--a soldier who could ill be spared at such
a time or at any time, Colonel M'Laurin--fell, shot through the heart,
and his Brigade-Major, Major Irvine, was killed standing alongside of
him. This sad loss happened on Tuesday during the afternoon, when the
Brigadier had come out from his dugout close to the firing-line (all
quarters were in those early days, and were little better afterwards,
so far as situation went). Some idea of the fierceness of the fighting
may be gleaned from the casualties the 1st Division suffered. The 3rd
Brigade in the first two days, Sunday and Monday, had 1,900, the 2nd
Brigade 1,700, the 1st Brigade 900 killed and wounded. In the 2nd
Brigade alone 11 officers were killed at the landing, 34 wounded, and 2
missing, afterwards discovered to be killed.

There but remains now to complete the story of this great landing
battle by reference to the part that the 4th Brigade took during the
days till Wednesday, some mention of which has already been made.

 [Illustration: SHRAPNEL BURSTING OVER THE PIERS AT ANZAC FROM SHELLS
 FIRED BY "BEACHY BILL."

 View taken looking towards Hell Spit.]

 [Illustration: BULLY BEEF GULLY, WITH PLUGGE'S PLATEAU ABOVE.

 On the right, along the hillside, was 1st Australian Divisional
 Headquarters. Coral for Turkish prisoners on the left, with water tanks
 for reticulation scheme of Anzac, above.

  To face p. 122.]

Two separate manoeuvres were tried by the Turks to break our line.
They tried them both at once. One was an attempt to drive in our
right flank and get round by the beach to the heart of the position.
This they failed to do, as the knolls were so strongly held (the 2nd
Battalion had been specially thrown on to the extreme right flank to
guard against this); while the fire from the warships, especially
the _Queen Elizabeth_, was far too accurate and bloody, so that the
enemy dared not show themselves on those exposed slopes and in the
gullies, easily raked either by direct or indirect fire from the
warships, officers spotting, as I have said, from the trenches. The
other attempt, a separate and even sterner battle, was the stabs that
the Turks made at the highest point of the arc of our semicircular
position--or at the apex, as it has been termed--near the head of
Monash Gully. Our trenches were down in the gully. They were overlooked
by the Turks. Shrapnel fell over them constantly and for long periods
at a time. On the edges of the main ridge the position grew more and
more perilous. Only for the gallant defence of Quinn's and Pope's Hills
nothing could have stopped the wedge that the Turks sought to make
being driven in. An officer of the 14th Battalion seized the point
known as Quinn's Post, a knoll on the side of the ridge, and held on
like grim death with his gallant men. I venture to say that had the
Turks, rallying their numbers, succeeded in dislodging this little band
of heroes from their position on this knoll, who must then have been
dashed to their doom in the Shrapnel Gully, they would have gained
their purpose and that great and important artery would have been
commanded by Turkish fire. On Wednesday Major Quinn took it over and
held it, and the post from that time on bore his name.

Pope's Hill filled the gap between the heads of Monash Gully. It will
easily be realized from a glance at a map (it was a thousand times
more evident to see) that only for this post and this feature, the
Turks would have wrought havoc in our position. An officer of the 1st
Battalion took Pope's Hill with a body of about 100 men, composed of
various units. In fact, he had under his command men from practically
the whole of the 1st Division, whom he had gathered up as they
wandered up the gullies looking for their units. He held on until the
evening of Sunday, when he was relieved by a composite force, under
Lieut.-Colonel Pope, with whose name this dangerous and vital hill has
been ever since associated. Under his command Lieut.-Colonel Pope had
about a battalion and a half, consisting of a company of the 15th, a
company of the Auckland Battalion, and the 16th Battalion, about 400
men in all. In this first conflict the 4th Brigade won its renown,
and Colonel Pope his name. This gallant officer had been guided up
from the beach by a Staff officer, but the force, small as it was, in
the darkness got divided. Part debouched to the south flank and were
absorbed in the trenches there; the remainder pushed on firmly and
reached the spur, Pope's Hill, and relieved Captain Jacobs, who had all
the day been clinging with his little band of 100 men to this desperate
position.

It was shortly after these relieving troops arrived that a most curious
incident occurred, which showed the cunning tactics of the Turks.
Information, originating no one knew where, was passed along the short
firing-line from the left that Indian troops were in possession of the
ground immediately to the left of the hill at the very head of the
gully. It was clearly advisable that the gap which existed between the
Australian line and these Indian troops should be closed, as it gave
the Turks a free passage-way down the gully, steep as it was, thereby
cutting our position in two. Immediately on receipt of the verbal
message Lieutenant Easton, 16th Battalion, and Private Lussington, who
understood Hindustani, were dispatched, and they soon got in touch with
a party of Indians that were entrenched on the side of the hill. The
Indians stated that a senior officer was required to discuss matters
with their officer, and accordingly Captain R. T. A. M'Donald, the
adjutant, was sent forward. He had not gone far--the whole of our line
to the Turkish trenches at the very head of the gully where the parley
took place was not more than 150 yards--when he called back out of the
darkness that the O.C. alone would do to discuss the position with.
Colonel Pope went at once, and reaching the northern edge of the gully,
found his adjutant and the two men who had been first sent forward
talking with a party of six Indians, who had stood with their bayonets
fixed. One glance was sufficient to convince the O.C. that these men
were not Indians at all. He had suspected that something was wrong when
called, and no sooner had he joined the party than he called out a word
of warning. The Turks--for such these Indians proved themselves to be
in disguise--at once formed round the Australians. Colonel Pope, who
was nearest the edge of the gully, with rare courage, broke through
the ring and leaped down some 12 feet into the gully below. Shots were
fired after him, but he escaped, and, with a severe shaking, reached
his lines. The other three men were taken prisoners at once and sent
to Constantinople. In the possession of the Adjutant were important
documents, plans, and maps, which in this way early fell into the hands
of the Turks.

Colonel Pope lost little time in extending his position across the
hill that he held. His front covered about 300 yards. He had barely
400 men under his command. From this onward, through the night and
succeeding days, every spare moment was spent in improving the trenches
on the hill which sloped down into the gully. It was almost a sheer
drop at the head of it of 80 feet, and the hillside was covered with
loose earth and dense bush. There were snipers on the hill still,
in concealed pits, and snipers, too, firing from the opposite side
of the gully, where there had been a small Turkish camp. At periods
through Monday, on until Tuesday morning, fierce attacks were made
against Pope's Hill, but the Turks were repulsed by the steady fire
of the defenders of the post. Reinforcements had brought the garrison
up to 450 men. But both machine guns of the 16th Battalion were put
out of action during Monday, and it was not till Tuesday that these
were replaced by guns from the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who were
now hurried up as a reserve, as will be explained in a subsequent
chapter. On the 30th the 16th Battalion was relieved by the 15th. So
began in bloody battle the history of this famous post, some of the
still bloodier onslaughts against it remaining to be described, as they
occurred, later. The topography and defences of this post and this
section of the line must form always a separate chapter in the history
of Anzac.

The failure of the Turks to smash the resistance in the first days
determined the success of the Australians. Fit as no troops have been,
fit for fierce fights, from thence onward the invaders had a contempt
for the Turks, and only were anxious that he should attack. In those
few early days it is said that the Turks suffered nearly 50,000
casualties at Anzac and Cape Helles. Ours were over 8,000, and the
British twice as many again. The enemy left thousands of dead on the
battlefield before the trenches. But while they were reorganizing their
great attack on Wednesday there was a lull, a curious solemn quiet that
spread all along the line, which had ceased to spit and splutter except
in a spasmodic way. On Tuesday the commencement of the reorganization
of the Australian army was begun. It was completed by Friday. Anzac,
after four days' fighting, was established. Australians had won their
first battle, had gained, in that first desperate encounter, deathless
fame by deeds that have no parallel in history (not even remembering
the scaling of the heights of Abraham), and which rank in glory with
the imperishable records of the gallant 29th Division and their attack
and capture of the Turkish positions at Cape Helles.




CHAPTER XIII

A BATTLE PANORAMA OF GALLIPOLI


This narrative is devoted to the deeds of the Australians, but on that
account it must not be judged that the scanty reference to the part
played by the British troops indicates that part was but of secondary
importance to the Dardanelles operations and the Gallipoli campaign.
On the contrary, the position may be best summed up by the words of
General Sir Ian Hamilton, who said to me on Imbros one day: "We [the
British] have occupied the end of the peninsula, while the Australians
are a thorn in the side of the Turks. When the time comes we will press
that thorn a little deeper."

Yes, the British had occupied about 4 miles of the toe of the peninsula
in those early days, and were slowly pushing the Turkish line back into
the Krithia village and on to the great Achi Baba Hill; but to do so
the aid of the French had to be called up and the Asia Minor campaign
had to be abandoned.

Now, I was fortunate to have been near enough to watch the French and
British warships bombarding the Turkish position on Sunday morning,
25th April, on either side of the Straits, and to have seen the hosts
of transports creeping from round the shores of the islands. It was
only a little Greek trading steamer that I was on, and it impudently
pushed its nose into the heart of these stupendous operations. I was on
her by design; she was there by accident. The whole of the fleet had
lain for days at their anchorage behind Tenedos. I had seen them there,
their anchors down, on the very ocean bed where the Greek anchors had
rested when they planned their descent on Troy to rescue the beautiful
Helen. It was one of those radiant mornings that are so typical of the
spring months of the Levant. The sea was almost without a ripple on
it. A haze hid the distant headlands as in a shroud and cast a soft,
flimsy mantle round the ships. The smoke of battle hung on the shores
and round the battle-cruisers. Along the Asiatic coast, opposite the
island of Tenedos, was steaming slowly a huge six-funnelled battleship
of the French, its guns darting tongues of flame, three or four or
six every minute. On shore the French troops were fighting their way
inland and pushing back the Turkish field batteries that were answering
the warships and shelling the invaders. Then we went on up towards
the entrance to the Straits amongst the great liners, on which was
more than one high General directing the landing of the finest British
troops that the Homeland had ever produced, the 29th Division. They
had been the last regular Division available, and General Hamilton had
in them the mainstay of his army, the tested stuff, for that difficult
landing on four beaches at the Dardanelles entrance. I watched the
cruisers come steaming by, and then, signalling, steer for the shore
and commence the hurling of shells on the edge of the cliffs and
farther inland, where the Turks were still clinging to the battlements
round the shores of their peninsula. By dawn the British, as well as
the Australian, landing had been effected--at fearful cost certainly,
but nevertheless accomplished--and Fusilier regiments had pushed
inshore and died on the beach in lines. Their comrades had scaled the
cliffs, while the Turks inch by inch, one can write, were driven from
their forts, their guns broken by the weeks of bombardment.

Round the toe of the peninsula the troops landed. All day the desperate
fighters of the 29th Division clung to their terrible task, completing
it under cover of darkness on the Sunday evening. From V beach to Morto
Bay, 2 miles away, near which inlet, under the fortress of Seddul Bahr,
the _River Clyde_, crammed with 2,500 men, had steamed in and been
run ashore (or as near shore as reefs had permitted), the fighting
continued. From the bows of this transport (an Iron Horse indeed!)
a dozen machine guns were spitting darting tongues of red as still
against her iron sides rattled the hail of Turkish bullets or burst the
shells from the guns of the forts. It is not in my story to describe
the landing from that ship--alas! now blown into fragments. It was not
till some months after she had run aground that I was aboard her.
In the last days of April she was the object to which all turned their
eyes in recognition of a gallant undertaking, magnificently carried out
by Captain Unwin, who was in charge of her. For his work this brave
officer was awarded the V.C.

 [Illustration: ARMY SERVICE WAGONS AT CAPE HELLES ON THE WAY TO
 THE LANCASHIRE LANDING FOR RATIONS, THE ONLY HORSED VEHICLES THE
 AUSTRALIANS LANDED AT GALLIPOLI.]

 [Illustration: THE "RIVER CLYDE" IN SEDDUL BAHR BAY.

 French lines in foreground. Kum Kale Fort across the Straits in the
 distance.

  To face p. 128.]

Now the Australians faced sheer cliffs; they rushed down into gullies
and up on to farther ridges. The British troops scaled cliffs or found
stretches of sandy beach, defended with almost impenetrable barbed wire
entanglements; but beyond was a garden of loveliness--almost level
fields still bearing ripening crops, and trees laden with fruits;
poppies, anemones, and the hundred smaller wild flowers of the Levant
carpeted the soil. Those were the shores strewn with the bodies of the
most gallant men that ever fought, who had never flinched as they faced
murderous fire from far fiercer guns than any that opposed the first
rush of the Australians up that narrow section of the Anzac hills. Yet
the Turks fell back. The warships, with their protective armour, moved
in and wrought havoc on the enemy as they were driven back and back.
Behind steamed the transports. Amongst all this mixed fleet thickly
dropped the shells, splashing the water in great fountains over the
decks, casting it 50, 100 feet into the air.

Fifteen miles away Anzac was stormed and won. The Australians held with
the same bulldog grit that gave the British their footing ashore. How
did the French come to Helles? It was a few days afterwards, when the
reinforcements for the British force were so urgently needed that it
became necessary to evacuate the Kum Kale position, on the southern
entrance to the Straits, and transfer the entire French army to the
right flank of the Cape Helles position. That was the way the French
troops came with their wonderful 75's, that later in the week were so
accurately finding out the Turkish trenches, throwing a curtain of fire
before the Allied lines.

I do not believe in the history of any war (and one remembers
particularly the storming of the heights of Quebec in this regard)
has there been any battle panorama so truly magnificent, so amazingly
impressive, as that 20 miles of beaches and the entrance to the
Dardanelles as seen from the hilltops of the islands scattered round
the entrance to the Straits. Rabbit Islands may not be marked on
maps--they are only little dotted rocks on charts--but they have a
light on them to guide the mariner to the entrance to the Dardanelles,
which is about a mile and a half away. From them and the shelter of a
single farmhouse you might look right up almost to the Chanak forts,
certainly up to Kephez Bay, where the warships, screened by destroyers
and mine-sweepers, were pressing their attack on the Narrows. They
commanded a view of the beaches, round which transports had gathered
with lighters, tugs, trawlers, pinnaces, and barges, disgorging
materials and men for the great fight progressing now over the flowered
fields above from the tops of the cliffs. The white hospital ships
loomed like aluminium-painted craft in the fierce sun, and their yellow
funnels seemed fairer still by the side of the darkened smoke-stacks
of the panting destroyers, the smoke belching from their short stacks
as they raced back and forth amidst them, dragging barges here, nosing
in between warships there--warships from whose grim grey sides sprang
red-tipped tongues and sheets of flame and rolled clouds of smoke. High
into the air tore the screaming shells, which in their parabola passed
over the defenceless shipping and the troops bayoneting the Turks on
shore, to destroy the main Turkish position. Battleships, standing
farther off still, sent shells 5, 6, 8 miles up on to the enemy forts
that barked and snapped still in the Narrows.

That was one picture. Take, then, the broader view from the hills of
Imbros, 9 miles away. The whole peninsula was sprawled out in all
its irregularity, with its still green slopes ending abruptly at the
dark cliffs. In the centre were the masses of gathered hills (Kelid
Bahr position), crowned with forts, invisible even at the closest
observation except from aeroplane above; and beyond, across the
slender rim of blue of the Narrows, the towering white of Mount Ida.
I remember looking right down into the Narrows from a certain hill
on this salubrious island. How intensely blue its waters were, on
which I saw quickly pass a transport and a cruiser. I wondered that
the yellow balloon looking down on to the Straits, signalling to the
Allied warships, did not sink them with those shells which long-range
guns dropped right across the 7,000 yards of the narrow neck on to the
town of Maidos and Turkish transports lying at the wharves there. At
Nagara there was a lighthouse that was an easy landmark to pick out,
and not far distant white barracks and hospitals. Then, passing down
towards the entrance, the huge citadel of the Straits, Kelid Bahr,
blocked the view of the opposite shore and of the fortress Chanak, and
yet lower down still, where the peninsula fell away, I could see across
the narrow channel the white scarps of Dardanus and the town called
Whitecliffs. These towns in the afternoon looked like miniature cities
on the side of a vivid, wonderful landscape; they were a mass of white
domes and towers. The sun glinted on the windows of the houses, and
a thousand scintillating lights darted like the fire of rifles from
the dwellings. Blue, beyond, the hills round Troy stood back from the
raging battle being fought on the point of the peninsula. An aeroplane
swung out of the distance and flew up and down the Straits, its
observer prying into the secrets of the forts.

Achi Baba was the dominating feature of the lower end of the peninsula,
yet it seemed very flat beside the greater feature of Kelid Bahr and
the hills of Anzac. From the angle at which I was observing the village
of Krithia was just visible, snuggling between two shoulders of low
hills, tucked away, it seemed, from the guns. Yet I was destined to
see that village reduced to crumbling ruins by the battering guns, and
watch the burning fires covering the peninsula with grey smoke. At
night how they glowed and smouldered dully!

Far more terrible was the fire that broke out at Maidos on the
afternoon of the 29th April, when the shells from the warships
destroyed the barracks, the wharves, the granaries, the arsenal, and
set fire to the town. The smoke rose in a huge black column, and then,
reaching a higher current of air, was carried down to the very entrance
of the Straits, until in the oblique rays of the setting sun it became
a dirty brown smudge above the peninsula. Next day the fires were
burning still; at night the reflection lit the sky and silhouetted the
hills beyond. For days afterwards the smoke was shielding from view the
waters of the Narrows.

I take the following extract from my diary, written at the time from
the Imbros hills:--

  2 p.m. Discovered four tents Cape Tekel. Balloon observing over Straits.

  2.15 Turkish guns observed in wood on the left of Tree Hill (Achi Baba).

  2.30 Smoke rising over Straits north of Kelid Bahr.

  2.35 Aeroplane flying up the Dardanelles over Turkish forts.

  2.40 Ships dropping shells on village of Everden (Turkish headquarters).

  3.0  Smoke rising south of Maidos.

  3.15 Considerable activity amongst warships.

  3.20 Dense smoke 100 yards long, 400 feet high, believe to be Cham Kalesi.

  4.0  Certain smoke from village Maidos, rising now 2,000 feet high--still
       burning. Bombardment ceased for last ten minutes.

  4.30 Firing at Gaba Tepe, warships plastering cliffs.

  4.45 Intense fire from the fleet.

  4.50 Maidos still burning. Balloon observing north Tree Hill (Achi
       Baba).

  6.30 _Queen Elizabeth_ and balloon observing ship _Ark Royal_ going
       towards entrance to the Straits. All quiet. Maidos burning
       fiercely. Turkish guns silent.

And so it was day after day.

What of Anzac! It was 9 miles away, but with powerful field-glasses the
boats near to the beach could be seen. The glinting rays of heliographs
shone from the cliffs. An aeroplane came rapidly from over the crests
of the hills and dropped down beside the parent ship and was hauled
on board. Four, five, or six times a day would the "Baby" observation
balloon ascend and remain with its line of flags below, motionless in
the air for hours. The destroyers, those rats of the seas as they have
been called, scampered over the blue water. Their guns thumped the
flanks of the Australian position close to Gaba Tepe, near which point
always there lay some battleship, generally the _Queen Elizabeth_,
while at Suvla Bay, close inshore, the warships closed in to throw
shells on to the Sari Bair ridge and Battleship Hill, a flat peak
that just showed a bald top above the ridge. Anzac itself was wrapped
in impenetrable mists for those first three days. From the gullies
darted flashes of the guns--our own guns, almost in the infantry
trenches--while the Turkish woolly balls of shrapnel came tumbling
above the beaches, above the tops of the hills where the troops were
digging--digging for their lives. Our own shrapnel I could see bursting
far inland and on the point of Gaba Tepe, where hidden enemy guns
were silenced. It was awe inspiring to watch the mass of earth thrown
skyward by the striking of the _Queen Elizabeth's_ shells on Mal Tepe,
a feature which dominated the alluring plain, crowned with olive groves
and guarded solely by the batteries at Gaba Tepe. How entrancingly
green those plains looked with their few scattered vineyards and
olives! I remember wondering what would have been the result if the
troops had been advancing across them just in the same way as I was
watching the British advancing from the shores up the peninsula.

There came the morning--29th April--when on the end of the peninsula,
near Cape Tekel, white-topped tents appeared, and horses could be
seen in lines. They were hidden from the Turkish view by the cliffs,
but none the less shells fell among them occasionally. It denoted the
British were firmly established. The press of shipping had increased.
At a hundred I lost count of the ships. At Anzac there was not less
than half that number, all transports, waiting--waiting as if to remove
the landed army. I could find no other reason for their being there,
idly changing position, while from their sides constant strings of
boats came and went; but in them, I learned later, were the wounded.
The transports became floating hospital wards. Up and down the shore
from Anzac to Helles patrolled the cruisers, bombarding the red road
open to view, where the Turkish columns were moving. From the very
midst of the merchant fleet the warships' guns thundered with their
"b-brum-brum-m-m," two guns together, and the faint, dull shell
explosions sounded on land along the road to Krithia, where wide sheets
of riven flame rolled along the ground, and a sickly yellow cloud
enveloped horses, men, and guns in its toils as the Turks retreated.

Then there dawned the day when the Royal Naval Air Service armoured
motor-cars dashed into action, grappling wire entanglements, and sped
back, with the Turkish shells bursting after them from the guns on Achi
Baba as they retired.

Unforgettable will remain the memory of the panorama: the calm of the
sea, the havoc on shore, the placidness of the shipping, the activity
of the fleet. Down below me in the mountain glens, where trickled
sparkling brooks, patient Greek shepherds called on Pan pipes for their
flocks, and took no more notice of the distant roar of battle--the
crackle of rifles and machine guns could be heard--than of the
murmuring of the sea on the seashore; and like it, unceasingly, day and
night for weeks, was a horrible deadly accompaniment of one's dreams.




CHAPTER XIV

AN UNFULFILLED ARMY ORDER


It is impossible to contemplate the position at Anzac on Wednesday,
28th April, when the fighting for a foothold on the peninsula had
finished and the Turks had been crushed back, without feeling that
the battlefields of France and Flanders had not taught the lessons
that were only too startlingly obvious--that success was only won by
adequate reserves being ready to hurl against the enemy _in extremis_.
Granted that two or three days--Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday--were
necessary for the reorganization of the Australian lines, bent but
not broken, and full of fighting vigour, and eager to fulfil the task
that was set them of breaking across the peninsula at this, almost
its narrowest neck, there seems to be no explanation why there was
such a miscalculation by experienced Generals of Turkish strength,
and lack of reserves, which left the Turks the same three days to
lick their wounds and bandage them, and return, greatly reinforced,
to the fray. It becomes more inexplicable still when it is found that
certain Army Corps orders were issued for a general advance, and that
a chance word alone was the means of that advance being altered to a
mere straightening of a portion of the strongly entrenched line. I do
not think it was because we feared the Turks: that would be to pay
him more credit than his actions warranted. It was, to put it quite
plainly, faulty Staff work. Events are too near to attempt to place the
blame; for assuredly there was some one blameable for the great wasted
opportunity to crush the Turkish army of Liman von Sanders.

Behind the apparent chaos of Anzac Cove and the fighting force on the
hills during the first three days there was, nevertheless, the great
purpose that mattered. Every one was doing his utmost to reduce the
lines of communication, the stores on the beach, and the army itself
to their proper and normal state. Those days from Tuesday onward may
be regarded as showing some of the finest Staff organizing work that
has been done in the campaign. By Friday the position was completely
reorganized. Units had been rested and linked up; trenches had been
straightened, strengthened, and defended against attack. Water,
ammunition, food, were trickling in regular streams up the gullies;
guns were in position, and fresh troops had been landed to relieve the
strain and hurry matters forward. Unfortunately, it seems, they were
not in sufficient numbers apparently to justify a general offensive
immediately. The 1st Light Horse Brigade, under Brigadier-General
Chauvel, and the Royal Marine Light Infantry, those young troops that
had seen their first service in the defence of Antwerp, were put into
the trenches to relieve the men who had won their first fight and fame
in a three days' battle. For seventy-two hours these heroes had been
without sleep; they were dropping in their tracks from fatigue. They
had had water and biscuits and bully beef, but until Wednesday nothing
warm to eat or drink. All day and night small parties of perhaps as
many as 50, perhaps only 10 men, were to be seen going from one section
of the line to another; men who had been collected a mile away from
their original unit, who had got separated in the wild rushes over
the hills, who had gone into the firing-line at the nearest point at
which they found themselves to it. It was essential that commanders
should have their own men before any move forward could be attempted on
a large scale. In digging alone, the men suffered terrible hardships
after their advances, strategical retreats, and the endless fatigues
for water, food, and munitions.

In order, therefore, that the battalions could be reformed and
rearrangements made in the commands of the companies, units were
withdrawn at various points from the firing-line, as they could be
spared, and placed in reserve gullies, where the men obtained good
sleep and rest, a hot meal, and, generally, a swim down on the beach.

Now, in this 1st Division reorganization work no officer took a
greater or finer part than Colonel C. B. B. White, the Chief of
General Staff to General Bridges, ably supported by Major Glasfurd.
He seemed indefatigable, never perturbed, always ready to remedy a
defect. Major Blamey, who was Intelligence Officer, carried out daring
reconnaissance work towards Maidos, leaving our lines under cover of
darkness and penetrating to a distant ridge and determining much of
the enemy's position on the right. Meanwhile, complete field telephone
communication had been established under most awful conditions,
directed by Major Mackworth, D.S.O., whose gravest difficulty was the
constant breaking of the lines, through men stumbling over them in
the saps and shrapnel fire, that led to the beach and the Army Corps
headquarters, not usually a matter for much worry, as being distant
many miles from the firing-line, in an ordinary battlefield.

On 28th and 29th April a comparative calm stole over Anzac. Gradually
the Turks had ceased their intense bombardments of the gullies. Their
waste of ammunition had been enormous, 600 shells falling often in the
course of a few hours in one small gully; yet the damage on the beach
was almost negligible. Their shelling of the cove was now regulated to
odd times, and never lasted for more than half an hour or an hour. The
Australians had orders not to waste their rifle fire in blazing away
into the darkness to no purpose, and scarcely fired a shot except at
periods throughout the night when fierce bursts foreshadowed an enemy
counter-attack. Anzac of the first days and Anzac of this second period
was a contrast as of a raging ocean to a placid sea.

By 30th April all initial difficulties had been overcome. It was on
that day occurred the incident, already briefly mentioned, that had
such far-reaching effects on the destinies of the Australians, and,
I venture to say, on the whole of the Gallipoli operations. I refer
to the formulation of an order for a general advance that was never
executed. Many officers will recall that the leaders of the armies
were, on the evening of the 30th April, summoned to conferences, the
1st Division under Major General Bridges, and the 2nd Division under
Major-General Godley. Now, Major-General Godley had already been
informed of the serious and vital nature of the centre of the line,
the apex of the position, which was blunted, for the Turks still held
trenches at the head of Monash Gully which commanded portions of it. He
had not visited General Monash's positions and had hinted that there
would be a forward movement when all units would be "out of it," and
meanwhile "Cling on" was the order the 4th Brigade received.

It is with this latter conference we are mostly concerned. General
Godley was very seriously talking with Generals Russell and Johnston
(New Zealand officers) when Brigadier-General Monash, commanding the
4th Infantry Brigade, arrived from the firing-line. Outside the dugouts
there were many Staff officers. The "pow-wow" was held to disclose the
plans for a general attack, ordered from Army Corps headquarters, to
take place on the following evening. It was to commence at 7 o'clock.

The plan disclosed that the 1st Australian Division (now roughly
holding the main ridge that ran in a south-easterly direction) was
to advance due east--that was, across Mule Gully on to Pine Ridge
and towards the villages of Kojadere and Bogali, lying beyond; while
the 2nd Australian and New Zealand Division was to advance due north
beyond Chunak Bair up the back of the great Sari Bair ridge, of which
we already held the spur, known as "Russell's Top." This position lay
just south of the point where the ridge occupied by the Australasian
Division at Pope's Hill and Quinn's Post joined the Sari Bair crest.

General Monash, on hearing General Birdwood's orders, immediately
pointed out that if such an advance were made the gap that already
existed in the line at the head of Monash Gully, between the left flank
of the 4th Brigade and the right of the New Zealand troops, would be
widened. Now a very unfortunate circumstance prevented this discussion
being continued to its conclusion, for a telephone message had come
from that section of the line held by General Monash's troops that
the R.M.L.I. (who had been holding the trenches) had been driven out
by the Turks, who were pouring in at the head of the gully. There was
no alternative under the circumstances but for the General to return
to his headquarters, situated in Shrapnel Valley, more than a mile
away, to supervise the regaining of the lost trenches. But before he
hurried away General Monash was told by General Godley that the gap
would be remembered when making out the divisional order that night. At
any rate, it was the business of General Monash to see that touch was
maintained with the New Zealanders in the coming fight. The divisional
orders duly arrived next morning, in which the 4th Brigade was ordered
to keep touch with the New Zealanders on the left. It was very apparent
to General Monash that if the advance was persisted in, the centre,
which he was responsible for, would be the weakest section of the whole
line, and would, as the advance continued, grow weaker and weaker as
the armies advanced to their separate objective, the gap widening all
the time. It would fall to the already much reduced 4th Brigade alone
to extend its flanks and to keep in touch. Two new battalions would be
needed to make good the gap.

Consequently, on Monday morning General Monash met Brigadier-General
Walker, who was commanding the 1st Infantry Brigade (Colonel M'Laurin
having been killed in the circumstances related), and very forcibly
pointed out, not on the map, but on the actual ground itself from an
overlooking point, what exactly would be the result of the execution
of the new plan. General Walker agreed. "It cannot be done," he said.
Soon afterwards General Bridges arrived, and, after a conference,
strode over to the telephone without comment--in his usual silent way.
It could be seen he was convinced, and in the next few minutes the
statements he made while waiting at the telephone left no doubt about
the matter. He called up General Birdwood, who was reported to be on
the battleship _Queen_, then lying off the position. General Bridges
turned and said: "I take it on myself; the Australian Division will not
attack. You [addressing General Monash] may tell General Godley so from
me."

General Godley, on being informed of this message by telephone a
little later by General Monash himself, announced his determination
of carrying out the attack. "Very well," he said, "the New Zealand
Division will carry out orders and attack." General Monash then asked
that a Staff officer should be sent up to reconnoitre the position.
This was done, and he, after visiting Quinn's Post and the position in
the vicinity, reported that the manoeuvre was highly impracticable,
with the troops detailed, with the result that General Godley too
cancelled his section of the orders.

Yet the Army Corps order remained uncancelled, as it remained
unfulfilled. One can only conclude that it was drawn up without a
proper reconnaissance of the country having been made. That there
should have been a general advance is recognized on all hands, and
there is no doubt in the minds of many Generals with whom I have spoken
that it would have been possible that day, had proper provision been
made in the original orders for the filling of the very vital gap in
the centre of our line. The whole lamentable incident must be put down
as indicative of bad Staff work--for thus it was that the whole future
of Anzac was changed by a chance meeting of three senior officers on
the main ridge and General Bridges' firm decision.

Two days later an attempt, that may only be termed half-successful,
was made to effectively seal the head of Monash Gully against Turkish
advance. The attack was begun with great gallantry, some of the Naval
Brigade penetrating through many Turkish lines, but the increasing
battle-front as the plateau of the ridge broadened out, and the
strength of the Turks (left unchallenged from the right of the line
opposite the Australian position) enabled them to concentrate their
attention on the centre. The troops were compelled bit by bit to
withdraw to the edge of the plateau, where they clung on and remained
clinging on for the rest of the period that Anzac was held.

On 2nd May, exactly a week after the landing, the Australians and New
Zealanders were charged with the task of capturing the head of Shrapnel
Gully and the plateau beyond that led up to the Baby 700, a rounded
feature, the first step in the ridge, of which Chunak Bair was the
second, and highest, point. The Australian line stretched across the
gully, with Pope's Hill held in the centre. On the right were Quinn's
and Courtney's Posts, with the Bloody Angle, one head of the gully
between, held by the enemy. On the left from Pope's Hill the line went
down into the main head of the gully, up the eastern slope of the hill
on to the summit, where the New Zealanders were holding on Russell Top.
Practically the whole of the 2nd New Zealand and Australian Brigade
were to take part in the operations, supported by Royal Marine Light
Infantry troops.

Lieut.-Colonel Pope was to advance up the head of Monash Gully and then
storm the heights on the right of the gully, while the Otago Battalion,
under Lieut.-Colonel McDonald, was to advance up the gully and take
the left slopes, which was the sector afterwards called the Turkish
Chessboard trenches. The 13th Battalion was to support the 16th, and
was, on reaching the high ground, to link up the two battalions by
turning to the left. This manoeuvre meant that a line was to be drawn
in front of Pope's Hill and that the 15th Battalion, which held that
post, was to make a sortie. The attack was timed for seven o'clock.

An intense bombardment opened the battle. Warships and the guns
available on shore commenced to prepare the position by blowing up the
Turks. The battalions were moving up the gullies and were waiting for
the ceasing of the firing to attack. At 7.15 the bombardment ceased as
suddenly as it began, and the men, cheering and singing snatches of
"Tipperary" and their new Australian song, "Australia will be there,"
commenced to charge. Against them came a torrent of lead from rifles
and machine guns, for the Turks had occupied the week in fortifying the
plateau, of which we only yet held just small pieces of the outer edge.

A reconnaissance had been made during the day and the leaders knew just
where their objectives lay. By 8 a.m. a ridge--a sort of false crest
immediately in front of Pope's Hill and to the left of Quinn's Post and
covering the south-easterly front of the general position--had been
captured at the point of the bayonet. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting
had occurred in places before the troops got a footing and routed the
Turks from the line of trenches. The enemy counter-attacked almost as
soon as we had gained their position, but they failed to dislodge the
Australians.

Meanwhile, on the left flank the Otago Battalion, who had had to make
a detour round the mountain ridge from their position, had arrived
late for the battle, having found the communication-ways blocked
with wounded. They did not reach their point of concentration till a
quarter to eight, and it was only an hour later that they charged the
position, which had been partially held for them by an extension of the
13th Battalion's line. This Australian battalion, led by Lieut.-Colonel
Burnage, had stormed the ridge on which the Turkish entrenchments
had been dug, just immediately in front of Pope's Hill, and the
Turks, though they counter-attacked, were unable here also to regain
possession of those trenches.

The Nelson Battalion of the Naval Brigade now sent up a company under
Major Primrose, and, with a company of the 14th Battalion, the position
of the 16th was rendered a little more secure. In the darkness touch
had not been kept on the left, their flank was in the air, and the
13th Battalion had not linked up as it should. The Turkish fire was
smashing down the resistance of the men on the left, and the position
was fast becoming untenable as the dawn broke. At 4 a.m. the Portsmouth
Battalion was ordered up to support the 16th and to strengthen its
left flank. Through some misunderstanding of orders valuable time was
lost by the leader of the Marine Battalion, who was unwilling to enter
the firing-line when orders had only been given him to form a support.
The Commanding Officer would take no responsibility for going into
the firing-line. While the position was still in doubt, the situation
became utterly untenable owing to shells that commenced to burst in the
16th Battalion trenches, which subsequently it was found came from the
destroyers, who mistook the target--so close were the trenches--and
before this ghastly error could be rectified, the battalion was forced
to retire on this left flank.

To make matters worse a stampede ensued in the rank and file of the
Portsmouth Battalion, who were congregated in the gully below. It
was only by the presence of mind and great personal effort of Major
Tilney, second in command of the 16th Battalion, and Major Festian,
Brigade-Major of the R.M.L.I., that the stampede was checked. Efforts
were made to direct gun fire on what at first were believed to be the
Turkish artillery. Horrible confusion prevailed. Daylight was breaking.
Some of the Portsmouth Battalion occupied a ridge on the left of the
gully, on to which the Turks were firing a deadly enfilade and almost
rear fire from their centre position. Until ten o'clock in the morning
the 13th and 16th clung to the trenches (some of their trenches were
blown away into the gully by gun fire), but, exposed to a withering
fire, had at length to withdraw. At one o'clock the gully and captured
trenches were abandoned.

The Otago Battalion meanwhile, on the extreme left, joining with the
13th Battalion, had faced a terrible fire, but reached almost to the
point of its objective in line with the remainder of the line there,
well in advance of Pope's Hill. There they stuck desperately, waiting
for reinforcements, which were to come under cover of darkness from the
Canterbury Battalion. This succour was found impracticable, as it had
been found on the right that an advance was not possible. Shells began
to destroy the trenches dug overnight, with the result that the left
flank of the New Zealanders was driven back. There remained but the
13th Battalion and a party from the Otago Battalion clinging on to the
sharp ridge in front of Pope's Hill. They were digging hard throughout
the day, while the Turks, too, were digging so close to them that it
was almost impossible to say which trenches belonged to which. But the
Turks, also, were working round behind the position, and at dusk there
was nothing for it but that the gallant 13th should retire from their
position, now being enfiladed from both flanks. The Otago Battalion,
which was more or less isolated, clung on desperately to the position
it had won until two days later, when it had to cut its way out.

The one object accomplished by the attack was the checking of any enemy
offensive against the posts which were undoubtedly the weakest portion
of the whole line. But the main objective, to straighten out the line,
or rather to bring the line to a culminating point at the head of the
gully, and gain a footing on the plateau where the main ridge linked up
with the ridge running away to the south-east, was not accomplished. It
was the greatest of the many attacks about this time planned for this
purpose. All along this section of the ridge fierce fighting went on
during the next weeks, sorties being made from various posts to prevent
the Turk pushing our line from the edge of the ridge which they had so
desperately won, until in the great May attack the Australians gained
the upper hand and the mastery of the Turkish fire. Always a dangerous
and nervy part of the line, it was only declared "safe" after the
Turkish offensive on 19th May.




CHAPTER XV

VICTORIANS' CHARGE AT KRITHIA


While the Australians' position at Anzac was being made secure,
preparations were pushed forward at Cape Helles for the storming of
the loaf-shaped hill of Achi Baba, on which the Turks had, after the
fortnight's fighting, been forced to take up a defensive position.
There they had strongly entrenched themselves behind line after line of
trenches. Their actual first resisting line, however, was by this about
3 miles from the toe of the peninsula on the right, at a point near De
Tots battery, the taking of which the French eventually accomplished
with great gallantry. Later the Gurkhas on the opposite (the left)
flank performed a magnificent feat in reaching a point south-west of
Krithia village by storming and obtaining a footing on the slopes of
the Great Dere, while the British line swung round before the southern
angle of the Krithia village. The fresh "shove" was meant to take the
village at the point of the bayonet and capture the slopes of Achi
Baba. Whatever that fortress position may have become later (and the
German officers captured boasted that it was a position that would
never be taken by frontal assault), at that time there seemed every
prospect of it falling into the hands of bold, determined troops. It
was for this reason, to give impetus to the attack, to strengthen the
British troops that held the central portion of the line, that the 2nd
Australian Brigade, under Colonel (later Brigadier-General) M'Cay,
were, on the night of 5th May, silently removed from the beach at
Anzac, and, 3,000 strong, were landed at Cape Helles at six o'clock
in the morning. Though this brigade had been through the thick of the
landing and attack on Anzac, it had, perhaps, suffered least of all
the brigades, and was now chosen suddenly for this fresh assault. The
New Zealand Infantry Brigade, under Colonel F. E. Johnston, was also
landed, and took up a position on the left flank of the Australians;
their left flank in turn in touch with troops on the coast.

So much for the general situation. The embarkation orders for the
brigade came suddenly, while the troops were resting after a week's
fight. At 9 p.m. the brigade was assembled on the beach. Here the
men suffered a bitter experience, exposed to considerable fire, for
insufficient transports had been provided. Eventually they embarked
from six wharves and slipped silently away. Twenty casualties had been
suffered from what were called spent bullets, the Anzac firing-line
being over 1,000 yards away. The men left the shore in rowing-boats
and went out to the trawlers, and then to the destroyers and on to
transports. They knew naught of their destination. A very few hours'
steaming and they arrived off the British position. All disembarked
at 6 a.m. at Seddul Bahr (near the _River Clyde_) under a heavy shell
fire from the Asiatic batteries, where the wandering, disappearing
gun, "Asiatic Algy," began to pour shells on the brigade. The jetties
at this time were only of the roughest wood, joining barges moored
alongside one another.

One is never likely to forget one's sensations upon landing on the end
of the peninsula in the track of the victorious British armies. Thick
masses of tangled Turkish barbed wire (wire so thick that ordinary
shears would not sever it) were rolled round deserted trenches, guns
lay dismounted from their concrete bases, houses had been torn down and
lay shattered, with hardly a wall standing. There were 30,000 French
troops now on the British right flank. All manner of stores, including
great casks of their ration wine, had been landed, and lay piled in the
sandy cove that stretched between two headlands, Seddul Bahr on the
right, Helles fort on the left. The menacing walls of Seddul Bahr rose
above it round the cliff, but no longer a fortress of the Turks. The
village, in ruins, was buried behind.

 [Illustration: MAJOR STEVENSON COMMANDING BATTERY 18-POUNDER GUNS AT
 CAPE HELLES.

 Dugouts of the 29th Division on the sides of the Great Dere.]

 [Illustration: THE GREAT DERE, UP WHICH THE GURKHAS MADE SO BOLD AN
 ADVANCE.

  To face p. 144.]

After a steep pull up a ridge (on which stood two haystacks) from
this beach, the brigade advanced across country to the Krithia road.
What country it was to look down on, after the bushy hills and
gullies of Anzac! Here was a flowering heath and meadows of corn and
poppies and wild flowers. There were orchards and aged olive-trees
and some farmers' huts and houses in the distance; while cattle
grazed in sheltered hollows. It was undulating country, resembling
a hollow plain, of miles in extent, and especially flat-looking to
the Australians, fresh from Anzac's rugged hills. Grim, but not
very forbidding, stood the smoothly rounded hill of Achi Baba--Tree
Hill--barring the advance up the peninsula, a long arm stretching down
to each shore. Shells from the warships were plastering the face of it
as the brigade advanced. Dense clouds of white shrapnel were bursting
over the Turkish trenches which lay round the long, rolling slopes that
ended at the village of Krithia on the left (the west), and which ran
out to the Dardanelles on the east, falling away into steep gullies on
the seashore.

The bivouac chosen for the brigade was about a mile from the landing
and on the west of the road that led direct into the distant village.
Here, as in every line, the troops might rest in some comfort, though
not safety; for besides the shells from Achi Baba batteries there were
guns firing from the Asiatic shore. Nothing remained but to again
dig and dig in for one's life. However, here a new difficulty was
encountered, for water was struck when the trenches were sunk about
18 inches, and that is why in so many trenches there were such high
parapets. It was the only means of getting sufficient protection. If
one thing at this time and under the particularly trying conditions
heartened the troops more than another, it was to hear, and watch, the
French "75" batteries sending fourteen shells to the minute to the
Turkish trenches. Moreover, Australian batteries--a whole brigade, in
fact, under Colonel Christian--were discovered entrenched beside the
French guns in the very centre of the peninsula, and the troops knew
that, in any attack, they would have their own guns to support them.
No sooner had they halted than they started to prepare their meal, and
were laughing, singing, and joking. They felt a certain security even
in the face of the foe.

That afternoon, the 6th May, the Brigadier (Colonel M'Cay) and his
Brigade Staff (Major Cass and Captain Walstab) moved forward to a stony
rise, occupied by the gunners as an observation station, and from
there they looked down over the whole of the ground undulating away
to Achi Baba, 4 miles distant. The country was, I have said, flat. It
was not a plain, strictly speaking, for there were small depressions
and dry creek beds that would be sufficient to protect a great number
of troops when the time came for advance. The southern slopes of the
big hill were intersected by many ravines, which in wet weather formed
the head-waters of the three _deres_ or gullies that flowed south down
the peninsula--the Kereves Dere (the great gully) and Maltepe Dere and
Kanli Dere. This divided the peninsula into three ridges, which ran
parallel with one another in a northerly and southerly direction. On
the eastern slopes, facing the Straits, these _deres_ were particularly
rugged and often precipitous. There still remained portions of a
telegraph line across a ridge on the right going north-east from Seddul
Bahr; it had been the scene of heavy fighting, in which the French
made many gallant charges to take what has been called the "Haricot,"
a formidable redoubt placed on the crest of a hill, and which had held
up the French advance for many previous days and cost many lives to
finally capture.

To realize how any advance across such open country could be
accomplished, it is necessary to explain that the guns on the peninsula
were placed in a great semicircle, starting from the northern slopes
of Morto Bay, where the French guns, hidden behind the grape-vines and
clustered corn and hedges, lay. In the valley, between the low hills
through which the Krithia road runs, were some British 60-pounders, and
on the southern slopes of a hill in the centre of the peninsula British
and Australian 18-pounders were firing. Hidden amongst some trees was a
heavy British battery, and in the Kanli Valley were other guns.

The French firing-line extended along in front of their batteries
for about 1,000 yards, and adjoining them on the left was the Naval
Division. Next to their left flank was the 29th Division. It was the
New Zealand and Australian Brigade and General Cox's Indian Brigade
that formed a composite Division held in reserve to the 29th.

It must be here explained of this composite Division that in the first
day's fighting the Australians took no part. The New Zealanders
were called into action to support the 29th Division, and suffered
heavy casualties. But to give the true significance to the share of
the Australians in the grand offensive during the early days in May,
the early stages of the battle that began on the morning of the 6th
at eleven o'clock and continued for three days, need describing.
The artillery duels of those days were terrific in the extreme, and
the whole of the battle lines were violently swept with shell. The
configuration of the country was such that the hills on the extreme
end of the peninsula gave a grand-stand view, and the Staffs of the
Army Corps operating could be seen on these points watching the armies
moving forward into action. It has been described as "a Melton Prior
battlefield," where you saw each unit going into action. Such an
offensive was only possible on account of the comparative weakness of
the Turkish trenches, a defect which they lost no time in rectifying
later on, when a period of sullenness set in. For the Turk has, in
this campaign at least, proved himself to be a most industrious, even
colossal, digger of trenches and a fine trench fighter, however poor he
shows himself to be in open combat.

A general advance was the order on the 6th. The French "75" batteries,
with their sharp bark, began fiercely to smash the enemy trenches,
concentrating fire on the "Haricot" and the Kereves Dere, and the
valleys beyond that contained Turkish supports. The Krithia village
was shelled by the heavy British guns, aeroplanes spotting. French
and British battleships had moved up on the flanks and were pouring a
terrible enfilade fire on the Turks and covering the slopes of Achi
Baba with sheets of flame as the shells burst along the position. It
was in vain that the Turkish batteries, prodigal with their ammunition,
tried to silence our guns, carefully concealed, and in the absence of
aeroplanes, which the Turks did not seem to possess at that time or
were afraid to send into the air, the British and French gunners went
on without interruption, except for chance disabling shots which put a
gun or two out of action.

As the French and British lines advanced there came the roar of
musketry and the rattle of machine guns to add to the already terrific
din. The British maintained their advance, though the machine guns
in the thick scrub could not be located, while the French swept on,
gaining the "Haricot," then losing it. All this battle panorama was
rapidly passing before the eyes of the leaders of the Australian
troops, who were waiting their turn to charge and take their part in
the battle. Soon the French were forced to retire to the trenches
they had lately left, much to the chagrin of all, though the British
troops held their gain of about 1,000 yards, while the Naval Division
had gone forward about 700 yards in the centre. The 29th also advanced
nearly 1,000 yards on the left, near the Ægean shore. This line they
entrenched during the night. It was a very bent line, with the French
farthest in the rear. The Turks were too exhausted to attempt any
counter-attack, and so the line stood till the morning of the 7th.
Then a further advance was made at 10.30, the guns blazing the way and
plastering the slopes of Achi Baba for the infantry to advance. As on
the previous day, the Australian officers watched the fighting from a
position which overlooked the battle-front of 4 miles, subjected only
to an occasional whizzing bullet and a stray shell.

This was a curious battlefield for modern warfare, where most of the
fighting is underground. Imagine an area of about 5 square miles. The
valley road was the main transport route, despite the fact that the
enemy overlooked and commanded it. On the west side were the red and
pink farms, hidden by a copse of fir-trees. The French at this time
had placed their headquarters in one of these houses. With a start of
surprise one saw their Staff moving along, with orderlies, mounted
messengers, and signallers, all beautifully mounted, riding right up
to within half a mile of the firing-line down this valley, through the
shot and shell. Along the road rumbled the French ammunition-wagons,
the caissons, turning east to Morto Bay, bearing supplies to the
batteries there. The French gunners got their supplies by day and the
British, who were more exposed, by night; and so the traffic on the
roads was regulated, otherwise the congestion would have been terrible.
A motor-cyclist, with the latest word from the battlefield, would ride
at breakneck speed through the traffic, and, once past the mules,
plodding stolidly along, would travel at 50 or 60 miles an hour for the
short stretch until he dipped out of sight behind the last ridge on
the peninsula. Dust rose constantly in dense clouds. I remember looking
at these clouds as the armoured cars on another occasion swept forward,
and wondered that the Turks did not shell them, which eventually
they did; but during these days they directed all their energies to
searching for the guns and plastering the slopes of the Seddul Bahr
ridges and the clumps of trees scattered over the peninsula, where it
seemed obvious our artillery might be concealed.

 [Illustration: ARTILLERY WATER-CARRIERS FROM THE SPRINGS AT CAPE
 HELLES.]

 [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS 1ST AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY BRIGADE.

 Dining-room cellar on the left, ten feet deep, and protected by iron
 and sandbags. Firing-line 600 yards distant.

  To face p. 148.]

It was not till the third day that the Australians went into the fight.
This Saturday, 8th, had opened much as the other two days had done with
intense bombardments, and then an advance by the infantry in short
rushes, always driving the Turks before them, pressing them back to
the village of Krithia and the foot slopes of Achi Baba. But by this
time on the flanks the Turks had concealed a great many machine guns in
the fir woods, and built redoubts, and such advances became terribly
expensive. On the 7th the New Zealanders had moved away to the support
of the 29th Division, and they lost heavily from these guns. At 10.30
on this morning they were ordered to go through the British lines and
try to take the trenches on the left front of Krithia--now a village
wrecked and shattered by the shells that burst in it and smouldering
with fires that the artillery had started. Once I had seen it, a pretty
little hamlet with white- and red-roofed dwellings snuggling down in
the hollow of a hill, with the stern, flat-topped Achi Baba mound lying
just to the east. On a ridge stood sentinel windmills, their long arms
stark and bare, waving from the side of a curious round stone store,
like a silo. They were the Turkish granaries, and made fine observation
posts. The Wellington Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel W. G. Malone,
was on the left, the Auckland, under Lieut.-Colonel A. Plugge, in the
centre, and Canterbury, under Lieut.-Colonel D. M. Stewart, on the
right. The Otago, under Lieut.-Colonel T. W. McDonald, was in reserve.
On the flanks the battalions, facing an awful fire, slowly moved up
about 300 yards, but the centre battalion, a dense copse in front
concealing a strong force of the enemy, were unable to go ahead. By
2.30 there was nothing left for the gallant New Zealand battalions to
do but to dig in. The Otagos had been called to support and repair the
fearful losses, but the advance was checked. However, it was determined
that the New Zealanders should again attack just at dusk. Later on this
order was changed to a general attack by the whole line. With but a few
minutes' notice the Australians, till then in reserve, were ordered to
prepare to form the front, or rather centre front, of the advancing
line.

It had been bright and crisp all the morning, and the troops were
in high fettle. At midday, General Paris, commanding the composite
Division, had ordered the Australians to move up in support of the
British centre, which they did, advancing due north about a mile. Their
new position was in a broad _dere_ (gully), and as fairly a protected
and comfortable spot as such places go so near the firing-line. Colonel
M'Cay, to reach it, had deployed his troops on lines best calculated
to avoid searching shrapnel fire, moving them up in platoon columns,
that is, in small bodies placed some 200 yards' distance from one
another, which had the effect of almost neutralizing the shelling of
the Turks. The 6th Battalion was in the lead, followed by the 7th, 5th,
and 8th. The Turks, for some reason, did not open fire as the troops
moved across the valley, though it was fully expected they would, and
so they arrived at a position where there were trenches--some British,
some Turkish--already dug, while the _dere_ itself offered further
cover. The men began to deepen and widen these trenches for their
comfort. The 6th, under Lieut.-Colonel M'Nicol, was bivouacked on the
steep sides of the stream; and opposite them on the left was the 8th,
under Lieut.-Colonel Bolton. About 30 yards in rear of the 6th was
brigade headquarters, just in line with Colonel Cox's Indian Brigade.
Lieut.-Colonel Garside, commanding the 7th, was behind the 8th, and
headquarters and the 5th, under Lieut.-Colonel Wanliss, behind the 8th.
In the midst of taking in reinforcements and entrenching, the plan for
the general attack was communicated to the Australian leaders.

Just a few minutes after five o'clock Colonel M'Cay received by
telephone from General Paris orders to advance without delay. It was
now definitely known that the French had been held up at the "Haricot"
for two days, and that they had now been ordered to make a general
advance (which they did with colours flying and bands playing, an
extraordinary and inspiriting sight, white and black troops fighting
side by side). At all costs the Turks had to go. So sudden had been
the decision for the general advance that there was no time to issue
written orders, a dilemma in which the Brigadier (Colonel M'Cay) found
himself. However, by 5.15 the troops were on the move, the Brigade
Staff giving the directions and the orders verbally. So, one may write,
there began an offensive which in detail and execution was like the
battles of half a century ago, when generals, calling on their men,
dashed into the thick of the fray.

No man will ever be able to do justice to the events of the next half
hour or fifty minutes. As might have the finest regulars in the world,
those Victorians moved from their bivouac, into which they had yet
scarcely settled. The 7th were to occupy about 500 yards of front on
the right, and the 6th Battalion on the left with a similar frontage.
The general direction of the attack was the north-east, and striking
point just on the east of the village of Krithia. The flanks rested,
therefore, on two valleys: on the right Mai Tepe Dere, and Kanli Dere
on the left. The 5th Battalion was supporting the right flank, and the
8th the left. Seeing the preparations for the new attack, the Turkish
guns turned from the first line of British troops, already in position
some 500 yards away ahead, and directed a veritable hell-fire of
shrapnel and bullets against the supports, which they rightly judged
must be moving up about this time.

The whole Allied front was barely 4 miles, swept by a terrible inferno
of shells. The air was filled with the white, woolly clouds that the
Anzac men--old soldiers now--knew meant a hail of lead. The ground was
torn and ripped up as the shells fell; little parties of men were swept
away, killed outright. Overhead whined and whistled the shells; ours on
their way to the Turkish trenches, theirs coming on to our advancing
line. Overhead might have been a whirling shield of armour.

Rapidly the Australians scrambled over the Indian trenches which were
in their path, the 7th doubling forward so as to continue the line
of the 6th, and together with the other two regiments (in support),
the whole mass of 3,000 men started to move forward rapidly towards
the front trenches occupied by the Naval Division. Pictures of the
ground will show its openness; they do not show the first slight slope
up which the Australians charged in a 1,000 yards advance, of which
that was the first sector. At the top of the slope--it was hardly
appreciable to the casual glance--were the Naval Division trenches.
Beyond these the ground sloped away down into a broad depression, that
only began to rise again a little to the south of the Krithia village
and Achi Baba. Once it had been cultivated ground. Over this the
Australians charged. The right flank was resting now on the Krithia
road. The troops were heavily laden; for besides their packs, many
carried shovels, entrenching tools, and picks; they had to dig in when
they had advanced. They stumbled or fell into the British trenches,
where they lay for a while panting. Many lads were unable to reach the
security of the trenches (for they were strongly held and crowded), and
so they lay in whatever depressions were available behind the parados,
while the lead streamed over them--whizz--swing--whizz--swing--little
singing messages of death. You heard them close to your ear even above
the din of the booming shells.

With bayonets fixed the Australians left the trenches. Colonel
M'Cay--surely his life was charmed that day--walked along the parapet
swinging his stick, as was his custom, and looking down into the
trenches, called: "Come on, Australians!" The Brigade-Major, Major
Cass, was in another sector doing the same. No second call was needed
to rouse the troops. They would follow those brave officers to the
very jaws of death. They scrambled to the parapets, and crouching low,
began to advance, 50, 60, 70 yards at a rush, and then, as exhaustion
overcame them, a short respite lying flattened to the ground. But the
line never wavered, though thinned at every step, going on and on with
the officers rallying the men as they panted forward.

God! the marvel of it! The ground was quite bare, except for isolated
bushes of green shrub, through which the bullets sang and tore. Intense
masses of rifles and machine guns poured down lead on to the advancing
Australian lines. The British had cheered these heroes as they left
the trenches--now they stood watching and wondering. Rushing downhill,
the troops were in a regular shallow basin, like a huge plate. The
Turkish trenches lay scarcely 800 yards ahead. That was the only
information that the Australians got as to their objective: that was
all they wanted; anyway, no enemy could be seen now in the battle smoke
and dust. No reconnaissance had been possible, except in a general sort
of way, and it was for this reason that Colonel M'Cay led his men and
allotted sections of the line to the rest of his Brigade Staff. For the
rest he trusted to the spirit of his men.

 [Illustration: THE ROAD INTO KRITHIA ON WHICH THE RIGHT FLANK OF THE
 AUSTRALIANS RESTED IN THE ADVANCE.

 Achi Baba in the distance on the extreme right. Krithia village is
 about a mile along the road. The firing-line crosses the road some
 1,500 yards away.]

The Turks, well entrenched and concealed, waited for the Australian
charge. No use for the attackers to fling themselves down and fire;
they had no target. On again they went, panting, lying down, advancing
in short rushes of 50 yards, or less, as the men grew more and more
tired. The line thinned. The slopes were covered with dead and
wounded. Darkness was falling. A constant stream of disabled men were
toiling slowly back to the shelter of the gullies. Stretcher-bearers,
regardless of the stream of lead, were going forward and dragging
back to the naval trenches those men whom they found badly wounded.
Sometimes a British soldier leaped out to help in a comrade.

Then, after a charge of 400 yards, across the Krithia road was seen the
low parapet of a Turkish trench, and the 7th Battalion opened fire as
the Turks commenced to fly before the unbroken Australian line; but it
was only a short halt, for the 6th Battalion was still advancing, so
as to get to close quarters with the bayonet. "Bayonet them" had been
the orders, and the steel the Turks were to get if they waited. On went
the 7th, the reserve battalions now coming up into the firing-line.
Losses got more and more terrible. They reached the parapet of a now
deserted enemy trench, yet still the Turkish fire came in a steady
stream from the front and the left, where machine guns were rattling
from a copse that had before broken the New Zealand ranks. On the right
it had become silent. Major Cass, leading there, found it strangely
so, and for the moment, could not account for the pause, as according
to the plan the French were to have charged and advanced. What had
happened he learned very shortly. Again the French had been checked.
But 400 yards' advance had been made by the Australians and New
Zealanders. The extreme left of the line was brought to a standstill,
the British-Indian force unable to press farther on. Australians,
and alongside them New Zealanders, were entrenching for their lives.
The Turkish trenches had been stormed, and the first objective taken,
though Krithia was still unstormed, 800 yards away. But, in this moment
of success, a horrible fresh danger made itself manifest.

The French had not taken the "Haricot." While the Australians' right
still pushed on the Frenchmen were not advancing. A gap of many hundred
yards yawned between the right of the Australian line and the left of
the French. Into this breach the Turks were not slow to hurl their men.
They began working down a gully. The manner in which the discovery of
this attempt to pierce the line was made is dramatic in the extreme.
Major Cass, who had been leading the right of the Australian line, had
fallen wounded, shot through the shoulder (it broke his collar-bone),
and as he lay behind a slight mound that had been dug for him by some
of his devoted men, there came from the left, almost at right angles
to him, a bullet that smashed his other shoulder. Although suffering
from shock, his arms helplessly hanging by his side, he managed,
nevertheless, to get his pocket-book out, and began to write. As a
soldier the truth had quickly flashed in his mind: the Turks were
between the Allied lines, and very soon they would be in the rear as
well. The peril of the situation demanded instant action. Hastily
he scribbled a note in triplicate, explaining the position to the
Commander of the Naval Brigade, holding the trenches in the rear,
through which the Australians in their charge had advanced. Major
Cass sent these notes back by Private H. Wilson, Headquarters Staff,
who returned with an answer after what, to the wounded man, seemed an
interminable time. The shrapnel still screamed overhead and the bushes
were cut by the descending bullets, that made a spluttering sound as
they swept the valley. Another verbal message was sent by Lieutenant
Stewart to the Brigadier. At last the reassuring reply came back from
the Naval Brigade that the breach would be filled. The Drake Battalion
advanced with the 5th Australian Battalion, under Colonel Wanliss,
until the distance between--some 300 yards--was filled. So was the
Turkish flanking movement hindered and pressed back. Five hours later
Major Cass, in the early hours of the morning, reached the beach and a
hospital ship. The devotion of the messenger who carried the message
and then wished to take his officer from the firing-line was duly
rewarded, while Major Cass received the D.S.O.

Meanwhile it happened that the reserve battalions had come up into the
firing-line almost at the same moment as that line came to a halt,
exhausted. Entrenching tools and sandbags were carried, and at once the
whole line commenced to dig in. It was dusk. During the whole of that
night the Turks kept up a continuous fire, with the idea, no doubt,
of preventing reinforcements being brought up by us under cover of
darkness. Nevertheless, further drafts of reinforcements were hurried
into the firing-line, and the new trenches were secured. Not a single
yard of trench was retaken by the Turks. From that day on till the
final evacuation of the peninsula was accomplished, visiting officers
would be shown the "Australian" trenches, which marked the point of
their magnificent charge of 1,000 yards--a sheer gain of some 400
yards, made in a few minutes. The brigade held the trenches until the
following Tuesday morning, when they were relieved by the 29th Division.

The Australian losses had been appallingly heavy, partly on account
of the open ground over which the advance was made, and partly from
the fact that the Turks had a concealed and well fortified position.
The whole of the Brigade Staff was wounded, and the casualties amongst
the officers were very severe indeed. The Brigadier, Colonel M'Cay,
was wounded about nine o'clock as he was returning from the trenches,
having lived a charmed life for many hours as he superintended the men
digging the new trenches. Lieut.-Colonel Garside, who was commanding
the 7th Battalion, was killed almost at the side of Major Wells,
both fine soldiers, who had showed magnificent courage. It was in
this charge, too, that Lieut.-Colonel M'Nicol, of the 6th, received
machine-gun wounds which nearly cost him his life. For his magnificent
work he received the D.S.O. Probably half the brigade was either killed
or wounded, and the Brigadier estimated his loss at 1,800, thereby
reducing his command by half.

Till Monday night the removal of the wounded proceeded. Progress to the
beach, 2 miles away, was painfully slow. Never, so a wounded officer
told me, shall he forget the calls of the men for "water," for "help"
as the stretcher-bearers and doctors, working with unsurpassed heroism,
passed to and from the first dressing-station, 2 miles in the rear.
Here the wounded could be placed on rough general service wagons and
taken over the fearful rutted roads to the beach. Two further transfers
had to take place before the men reached the hospital ship. The bitter
cold of the night added to the intensity of the suffering of the men.
Yet so long as they knew that they would be found the men bore their
wounds and pain patiently and stoically, content in the news from the
front that they had won and the Turks had fled.

On the 12th, the brigade--all that was left of it--was withdrawn from
the firing-line, and on the 15th reached Anzac again, to the tired
troops almost like a homecoming. They came back to a new fight, but one
in which the Turks attacked, were broken, and repulsed.




CHAPTER XVI

TURKISH MAY ATTACK AND ARMISTICE


The Turks' strongest attack of the campaign was made in the middle of
May, when they attempted an assault all along the Anzac line. Both
sides had had time to reorganize, and both had received reinforcements.
The Turks probably had 35,000 men in their trenches at this time, while
the Australians had 30,000. During the first fortnight of the month
the enemy had brought up guns of bigger calibre, and had placed in the
Olive Grove, from which they could enfilade the beach from the east, a
six-gun battery which even the warships and the Australian gunners were
unable to completely silence. The Allies had aeroplanes and captive
balloons spotting for them, and yet the Turkish batteries, skilfully
concealed, managed to continue shelling the beach and the incoming
barges. Very little notice was taken by the Navy of this shelling, and
very soon, too, the troops regarded it as the natural thing. What they
would have felt like, these Australians, had they been fighting in
France, where, for certain periods, they would be relieved and taken
from under constant shell fire, it is not easy to say. The strain wore
them down certainly, but it never affected the army nerves or its heart
or its determination.

Nevertheless, May was a sad month for the troops, though it also
brought later a chance of the Turks being taught a lesson. On Saturday,
15th May, Major-General Bridges, the leader of the 1st Division, fell
mortally wounded. It had often been remarked by the troops at Anzac
that their General was absolutely careless of his own safety. He
was daily round the trenches, a rather glum, silent man, but keenly
observant, and quickly able to draw from his officers all the points of
information he required. Often he recklessly exposed himself to gain a
view of the Turkish positions, despite the remonstrances of his Staff.
As time wore on he took heed, and on the morning when he fell had been
more than usually careful. General Bridges had left Anzac Headquarters,
near the beach, at about 9.30, and was going up Shrapnel Gully, and at
this time that terrible gully had no secret sap through which one might
pass with comparative safety from snipers' bullets coming from the head
of the gully. It was a matter of running, from sandbag traverse to
sandbag traverse, a gauntlet of lead, up the bed of the dry gully.

General Bridges had just passed a dressing-station dug into the side
of the hill, and had received a warning from the stretcher-bearers
standing round the entrance. "You had better run across here,
sir," they told him, "as the Turks are pretty lively to-day." He
did, and reached a further traverse, where he stood near another
dressing-station smoking a cigarette. "Well," he said to his Staff
officer, after a few minutes, "we must make another run for it." He ran
round the corner of the traverse and through the thick scrub. Before
he could reach the next cover, not many yards away, he was struck by
a bullet and lay prone. It is believed that the sniper at the head
of the gully was waiting and watching that morning, and had already
inflicted a number of casualties. Medical attention was immediately
available. A doctor at the adjacent dressing-station found that the
femoral artery in the thigh had been severed. The bullet, instead of
merely piercing the leg, had entered sideways and torn a way through.
Only for the fact that skilled attention was so prompt, General Bridges
must have died within a few minutes. The wound was plugged. Taken to
the dressing-station, the General's first words were, "Don't carry me
down; I don't want any of your fellows to run into danger." Seeing the
stretcher case, the Turks did not fire on the party that now made its
way to the beach, all traffic being stopped along the track. The dying
leader was immediately taken off to a hospital ship, but his condition
was critical. Before the ship left his beloved Anzac, his last words to
an officer, who had been with him from the first, were, "Anyhow, I have
commanded an Australian Division for nine months."

General Bridges died four days later on his way to Alexandria. It
was very typical, that last sentence of the man. His whole heart and
soul and energies had been devoted to planning the efficiency of the
1st Division. A born organizer, a fine tactician, he was a lone, stern
figure that inspired a great confidence in his men. His judgment in the
field had proved almost unfailing. Unsparing to himself, he demanded,
and obtained, the best in those he commanded. He was one of the finest
leaders on Gallipoli, and in him General Hamilton and Lieut.-General
Birdwood reposed the highest confidence.

General Birdwood, cabling from Army Corps headquarters to the
Governor-General of Australia, said:--

 It is with the deepest regret that I have to announce the death on
 19th May of General Bridges, who has proved himself the most gallant
 of soldiers and best of commanders. I am quite unable to express what
 his loss means to the Australian Division, which can never pay the
 debt it owes him for his untiring and unselfish labours, which are
 responsible for the high state of organization to which the Division
 has been brought in every detail. The high ideals placed before the
 boys trained at Duntroon, and which he succeeded in attaining as far
 as my knowledge of those now serving with the Australian forces in the
 field is concerned, will, I hope, go down to the honour of his name as
 long as the military history of Australia lasts.

The Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Ian Hamilton, cabled on 20th May:--

 General Bridges died on the passage to Alexandria. The whole force
 mourns his irreparable loss, which was avenged yesterday in a
 brilliant action by his own troops, who inflicted a loss of 7,000 on
 the enemy at a cost of less than 500 to themselves.

It is this Turkish attack that I now shall describe, and the nature of
the revenge. Brigadier-General Walker, who had been commanding the 1st
Infantry Brigade since the death of Colonel McLaurin, succeeded to the
immediate command of the Division.

The new Turkish batteries employed at this time contained some 6-inch
guns, and it is believed that the _Goeben_ or one of the cruisers
belonging to the Turks had come down from Constantinople and was
stationed, just parallel to Bogali, in the Straits. Enemy warships, it
is believed, were able to throw shells accurately into the heart of
our position, searching for the guns. By the 18th May the Turks had an
11-in. gun, some 8-in., and a number of 4·7-in. guns trained on Anzac.
With the support of these, and with the small mountain and field
pieces that they had been using before, it has been since learned, they
felt that they could safely attack. Their offensive was fixed for the
19th May. Preliminary bombardments began on the evening before, 18th,
and were the fiercest that had yet been experienced. The hills echoed
with the chaotic explosions of the bursting of heavy shells. One of the
Australian 18-pounders was knocked out completely, and other shells
reached the gun-pits; but the gunners stuck to their posts and replied
effectively to this Turkish bombardment. It was reported that evening
from aeroplane reconnaissances that the Turks had been seen landing a
new Division at the Straits, and that they were marching to the support
of the Anzac troops. Headquarters were located at Bogali. At once
the warships commenced a bombardment of the main road leading along
the side of the hills to Krithia village, where troops could be seen
moving. They followed them up and shelled the general Turkish Staff out
of a village midway between Kelid Bahr and Krithia.

Attacks at Anzac were always determined by the time at which the moon
sank. I can remember on one occasion waiting night after night in the
trenches, when the Turks were supposed to be about to attack, until
the moon would sink. We would rouse-up and watch its departing sickly
yellow circle dip behind the hills of Troy, and then turn towards the
Turkish trenches, which we could see occasionally spitting fire, and
wait for the general fusillade to open. Now, on the 18th the moon
dipped down at a little before midnight, and just as the midnight
hours passed, from the centre of the line round Quinn's Post arose
the clatter of Turkish bombs. In the closely wedged trenches the
Australians answered this attack with similar missiles, and for a while
a little "bomb party," as it was called by the troops, began. From
an intermittent rifle fire the sound of the sharp crackle of rifles
intensified and extended from end to end of the Turkish lines. It was
as if thousands of typewriters, the noise of their working increased
a thousandfold, had begun to work. Every second the racket grew; in
less than two minutes the gullies were torrents of singing lead, while
the bullets could be heard everywhere whizzing through the bushes.
The rapid beat of the machine guns began, their pellets thudding
against the sandbag parapets. Bombs, bursting like the roar of water
that had broken the banks of dams, drowned the general clatter. Immense
"football bombs" (as the troops termed them) they were, that wrought
awful havoc and formed huge craters. For half an hour the fury lasted.
Then it died down, much as violent storms do, arising suddenly, and
departing by fading away in a curiously short, sharp burst of firing.
Again the sudden rapid fire arose and then again the splutter of
ceasing shots. Bombing had stopped.

 [Illustration:

 THE TURKISH EMISSARY BEING LED FROM ANZAC COVE AFTER ARRANGING THE
 DETAILS OF THE ARMISTICE, AT THE CONFERENCE ON 23RD MAY, 1915. HE IS
 PRECEDED BY A STAFF OFFICER.

  To face p. 160.]

It is hard to know what the reason of the Turk was for this "bluff,"
for it was such, for no attack followed. It was not exactly an unusual
incident in itself, but, nevertheless, always had the effect of rousing
up the line and the troops manning the trenches. Probably the Turks
calculated that we would be led to believe that the whole show was over
for that night, and consequently without further bombardment they began
a few hours later their extended attack.

Just in the hour preceding dawn--about 3.30 the time is given--the
Turks began silently and stealthily to approach the trenches. Without
a sound they came, in large and small bodies, up the gullies, working
by the help of a marching tape that would keep them together. They
approached to within, in some cases, 30 or 40 yards of our trenches.
At that time coloured rocket shells were not so much used as they
were later; no coloured green and red lights that would burn for some
minutes, lit up any section of the line. But the sentries on the
parapets suddenly began to detect, even in the blackness of the night
preceding dawn, crawling figures. The Turk was always a good scout, and
would get right under the parapets of our trenches almost undetected.
But when he came to facing the Australian bayonet and jumping down into
the trenches it was a different matter altogether. Now, it was just at
the centre of the right of the position, at the point where the 1st
Brigade and the 1st Battalion of that brigade held the line, that the
alarm first was given. The sentries shot down the advancing figures.
Immediately others rose up quickly and rushed silently at the trenches.
A few managed to jump across the parapets and down into the trenches.
It is a brave man indeed who will do such an act.

The attack was launched. Right down the Australian line now spread the
order for rapid fire, for the Turks could be seen and heard calling
"Allah! Allah!" They came in great numbers, dashing forward in the
already coming dawn, for in the sky behind them the sun would rise,
and now already its faintest streaks were appearing, casting an opaque
tinge in the heavens. Gallantly as the Turks charged, the Australians
stood magnificently steady, and fired steadily into the masses of
moving silhouetted figures. It was "terrible, cold-blooded murder,"
as one of the defenders described it to me later. "They were plucky
enough, but they never had a dog's chance."

Now in a few places the Turks did reach our trenches, but they
found themselves trapped, and the few who escaped with their lives,
surrendered. Across the Poppyfield the Turks had pressed hardest, but
they were thrust back and back. Next morning, when the dawn came, their
bodies could be seen lying in heaps on the slopes. It was as if the men
had been mown down in lines.

While the attacks were developing against the centre of the right of
the line--company after company and battalion after battalion were
sent on by the Turks in their endeavours to push the Australians off
the peninsula--there began fierce fighting on the extreme right, on
the left, and at the apex of the position at the head of Monash Gully.
It was a desperate enough position, for the Turks were not more than
10 or 20 yards away in places. Our machine guns ripped along their
parapets; when one gun ceased, to fix in its jaws a new belt, another
took on the fire; so the noise was insistent, and the Turks, yelling
"Allah! Allah!" stumbled forward a few paces and were mown down, but
never were able to advance to the trenches. Far into the morning the
attacks continued. Mostly they were short rushes, opposed by terrific
bursts of fire, bombs hurled into the advancing mass; a check and then
a pause. As the enemy were still advancing, only at isolated points
could their machine guns reply or rifles be fired. That there were some
enemy bullets did not affect the troops, who regarded it as too good an
opportunity to miss. The Australians' sporting instincts were roused,
and at many points the men could be seen sitting on the parapets of
the trenches, calmly picking off the Turks as they came up, working
their bolts, loading, furiously. This was the way in which the few
casualties that did occur (100 killed and 500 wounded) were sustained.
It was a bloodless victory, if ever there has been one.

Once a German Albatross aeroplane had come sailing over the position
at a very high altitude, the Turks must have known that their chances
of success were gone. They commenced to shell the shipping off the
beaches, in the hope that any reinforcements that might be arriving
might be sunk, but they were not even successful in this. Our artillery
had the range to a few yards, and as the Turks left their trenches
(though only so short a distance away) the shrapnel swept along their
parapets, and they were shot down in rows. It is calculated that 3,000
Turks perished in that attack. Some make the estimate higher, and there
is reason to believe that they may be right. The wounded numbered
nearly 15,000. It was their one and only general attack. It failed
hopelessly. It was never repeated.

So horrible had the battlefield become, strewn with Turkish dead, that
the enemy sued for an armistice. On the day succeeding the engagement
and the repulse of the Turks, towards dusk white flags and the red
crescents began to be hoisted all along the line. Now of the Turks and
their flags of truce something had already been learned down on the
banks of the Canal. On the other hand, in the evacuation of wounded
from Gaba Tepe, when the attacking parties had failed to get a foothold
on the narrow beach, and had been forced to retire leaving their
wounded still on the shore, those soldiers were tended by the Turkish
doctors. Their subsequent evacuation by the Navy under the Red Cross
flag was accurately observed by the enemy. But that did not prevent
this "new move" being regarded with some caution. It was between five
and six o'clock that in the centre of the right of the line a Turkish
Staff officer, two medical officers, and a company commander came out
of their trenches--all firing having ceased, and by arrangement through
an interpreter who had called across from our own to the enemy trenches
during the day--and met Major-General H. B. Walker, who was commanding
the 1st Division, on the neutral ground between the trenches. It was
stated by the Staff officer that he had been instructed to arrange a
suspension of arms in order that the dead between the lines might be
buried and the wounded tended and removed. The position was, to say
the least, a delicate one. The officer carried no written credentials.
General Hamilton's dispatches convey the subsequent proceedings as they
were viewed at the time by most of the leaders at Anzac:--

 He [the Turkish Staff officer] was informed (writes the
 Commander-in-Chief) that neither he nor the General Officer Commanding
 Australian Division had the power to arrange such a suspension of
 arms, but that at 8 p.m. an opportunity would be given of exchanging
 letters on the subject, and that meanwhile hostilities would
 recommence after ten minutes' grace. At this time some stretcher
 parties on both sides were collecting wounded, and the Turkish
 trenches opposite ours were packed with men standing shoulder to
 shoulder two deep. Matters were less regular in front of other
 sections, where men with white flags came out to collect wounded (some
 attempted to dig trenches that were not meant for graves). Meanwhile
 it was observed that columns were on the march in the valley up which
 the Turks were accustomed to bring their reinforcements (Legge and
 Mule Valleys).

 On hearing of these movements, General Sir W. R. Birdwood, commanding
 Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, ordered his trenches to be
 manned against a possible attack. As the evening drew in the enemy's
 concentration continued, and everything pointed to their intention
 of making use of the last of the daylight to get their troops into
 position without being shelled by our artillery. A message was
 therefore sent across to say that no clearing of dead or wounded
 could be allowed during the night, and that any negotiations for such
 purpose should be opened up through the proper channel and initiated
 before noon on the following day.

 Stretcher parties and others fell back, and immediately fire broke
 out. In front of our right section masses of men advanced behind lines
 of unarmed men holding up their hands. Firing became general all along
 the line, accompanied by a heavy bombardment of the whole position, so
 that evidently this attack must have been pre-arranged. Musketry and
 machine-gun fire continued without interruption till after dark, and
 from then up till about 4 a.m. the next day.

 Except for a half-hearted attack in front of Courtney's Post, no
 assault was made until 1.20 a.m., when the enemy left their trenches
 and advanced on Quinn's Post. Our guns drove the Turks back to their
 trenches and beat back all other attempts at assault. By 4.30 a.m. on
 21st May musketry fire had died down to normal dimensions.

Negotiations were again opened up by the Turks during the morning of
the 22nd. It must be recollected that by now the battlefields had
been three weeks fought over, and many Australians as well as Turks
who had perished in those first awful days, still lay unburied where
they had fallen. The stench of decaying flesh threatened terrible
calamity to both armies. For two days the Turkish dead in thousands
lay rotting in the sun, their swollen corpses in some places on our
very parapets. General Hamilton accordingly dispatched his Chief of
Staff, Major-General W. P. Braithwaite, during the morning of the 22nd,
to assist General Birdwood in coming to terms with an envoy that was
to be sent by Essad Pasha, commanding at that time a section of the
Turkish forces. Accordingly, on the afternoon of the 22nd an officer
rode in from the extreme right of their line, across the plain that
dipped down to the sea between the headland of Gaba Tepe and the last
knoll of our position. He carried a white flag of truce. It was an
impressive moment. He was beautifully mounted, and his uniform was a
mass of gold lace. He was met by Staff officers from the Australian
Army Corps. Now, coming to the wire entanglements that had been made
across the beach--the visiting officer had already been blindfolded--it
was a matter of doubt for a moment how he was to be taken across within
the Anzac lines. A solution was gained when four Australians stripped
off their uniforms and, placing the officer on a stretcher, bore the
Turk round through the water to the other side. There he remounted his
horse, and was escorted along the beach to the prepared dugout, where
he met in consultation General Braithwaite and representatives of the
Australian and New Zealand Corps, with interpreters. It took two days
to arrange the details of the armistice, and eventually the terms were
satisfactorily agreed on, written, and signed in duplicate by both army
leaders.

 [Illustration: TROOPS GOING INTO THE FIRING-LINE ON THE FIRST DAY OF
 LANDING.]

 [Illustration: THE BEACH CLEARING STATION (LIEUT.-COLONEL GIBLIN) IN
 THE EARLY DAYS OF ANZAC.

  To face p. 164.]

On the 24th May--Empire Day, as Australians know it--the armistice
was begun at eight o'clock, and lasted till five o'clock in the
evening. Some of its features are interesting, gruesome as the object
was. Burial parties were selected from each side. Groups of selected
officers left the trenches and started to define with white flags the
lines of demarcation. It had been decided there should be a central
zone where the men from the two sides might work together--a narrow
strip it was, too. The Turks were not to venture into what might be
termed "our territory," that varied in width according to the distances
the trenches were apart, and the Australians were not to venture
into the enemy's. Orders were issued that there was to be no firing
anywhere along the line. Arms were to be collected and handed over to
the respective armies to which they belonged, minus the rifle bolts.
No field-glasses were to be used, and the men were to keep down in the
trenches and not look over the parapets.

Now one of the disadvantages of the armistice, from the Australians'
point of view, was that the topographical features of the position
enabled any of the Turks who might approach within a certain distance
to look down into the heart of the Anzac position (that was, into their
own gullies), but also into gullies that now contained the Australians'
reserve trenches and bivouacs, and where the troops were sheltered
and stores placed. It seems very probable that the enemy realized
this advantage, however slight. I do not think they were able to gain
much. Nevertheless, in the interests of the health of all at Anzac, it
was essential that the armistice should be arranged. So the party of
the armistice went carefully round the 2-mile front of the position,
moving the flags a little nearer the Turkish lines here, there, nearer
the Australian. Following these slowly worked the burial parties, all
wearing white armlets--doctors and padres.

Under guise of a sergeant of the Red Crescent walked General Liman
von Sanders, the German leader against Anzac, and he mixed with the
burial parties. It was a misty and wet morning, and every one wore
greatcoats and helmets that were sufficient cloak to any identity. All
day the parties worked, collecting the identity discs of many gallant
lads whose fate had been uncertain, men whose mouldering bodies had
been seen lying between the trenches. They were buried in huge open
trenches, often alongside their fallen foe, as often it was impossible,
owing to the condition of the bodies, to remove them to the Turkish
burial-grounds. Once some firing began on the right, where it was
alleged some parties were digging firing trenches, but it was hushed,
and I have never been able to find an exact and official statement of
this.

Some of the Turks who were directing operations mingled with our men;
they spoke perfect English. By judicious handing out of cigarettes
they sought to discover as much as they dared or as much as they might
be told. Brigadier-General G. J. Johnston (Artillery officer) told
me an amusing interview he had with a Turkish officer who asked him
about the number of men Australia was sending to the war. The Gunner
replied, "Five times as many thousands as had been already landed,
while hundreds of thousands more were ready." Another conversation
shows very clearly the absence of bitterness on one side or the other.
It concerned the meeting of two men who exchanged cards, while the Turk
told (one suspects with a cynical smile) of many haunts of pleasure and
amusement in Constantinople where the Australian could amuse himself
when he came. I do not wish to convey that the Turks believed that they
would be beaten, but they were not hated enemies of the Australians,
and on this, as on other occasions, they played the game. Over 3,000
of their dead were buried that day. They lay in heaps; they sprawled,
swelled and stark, in rows, linked together by the guiding ropes which
they had clung to. Many were lying just above the Turkish parapets,
where our machine guns had mowed them down as they left their trenches.
And these the Turks themselves just barely covered, as was their custom
in burying their dead.

Chaplains Merrington and Dexter both held short services over the
graves of the fallen in the few hollows near Quinn's Post and other
points farther south. A cairn of stones was left to mark the spot on
which some day a greater memorial may be raised; down in the gullies
rough wooden crosses mark other graves.

Gradually, after 3 p.m., the parties withdrew from their solemn task,
and as the last white flag was struck and the parties retreated into
their own trenches, the snip, snip, zip, zip, and crack of the bullets
and boom of the bombs began again, and never ceased till the last shot
was fired on the peninsula.




CHAPTER XVII

ANZAC COVE


The evolution of Anzac was as the growth of a mining settlement.
Little had been done by the Turks in their defensive preparations to
disturb the natural growth that spread from the crest of Maclagan's
Ridge almost down to the water's edge--a growth of holly bush, a kind
of furze, and an abundant carpet of grasses, wild flowers, poppies,
and anemones. Round Ari Burnu their line of shallow trenches had run
along to the Fishermen's Huts, but there were no tracks, other than
the sheep or goat track round the base of the cliffs that the farmers
might have used coming from Anafarta on to the plains below Kelid Bair
and across to the olive-groves, on the way to Maidos and the villages
along the peninsula road to Cape Helles. Anzac Beach--"Z" Beach in the
scheme of operations--was covered with coarse pebbles, occasionally
a patch of sand. Barely 20 yards wide, and 600 yards long, the hills
and cliffs began to rise steeply from it. The shore was cleft in the
centre by a gully--Bully Beef Gully--which opened into the Cove. It
was no more than a sharp ravine, very narrow, and in the days of April
and in November very moist, and wet, and sticky. It took very little
time after the dawn of day on that April Sunday morning for the point
of concentration to be fixed on in this Cove. The whole of the stores,
equipment, as well as the troops, were landed from end to end of the
beach. Somehow there was a feeling of greater security in this Cove,
but in fact it was so shallow, so accurately plotted in the enemy's
maps, that the Turks had little difficulty in bursting the shells from
one end of it to the other at their will. Luckily, the water was fairly
deep almost up to the shore. Twenty yards out one found 15 feet of
water and a stony bottom, which enabled the picket boats and pinnaces
to come close in, as it allowed barges to be drawn well up to the
beach, so that the stores could be tumbled out. Photographs, better
than word pictures, describe that beach in those first days and weeks.
Ordnance officers of both Divisions, as well as of the Army Corps,
wrestled with the problem of making order out of chaos. Once the army
was to stick, it had to stick "By God!" and not be allowed to starve,
or want for ammunition or entrenching tools.

A small stone jetty was the first work of the Engineers, and this was
rapidly followed by a jetty that the signallers, under Captain Watson
(for the Engineers had vastly more important duties that called them
away up to the gullies and the firing-line), constructed. But that
was done after the second week. The Army Medical Corps worked in a
dressing-station, just a tent with a Red Cross flying overhead. Yet it
could not be said that the Turks wilfully shelled this station, though
necessarily they must have dropped their shells round its canvas doors,
while inside it came the bullets, because of the stores that lay about,
blocking, choking the beach. Many were the experiments that were made
to distribute the supplies. Colonel Austin, Ordnance officer, 1st
Division, with his staff-sergeant, Tuckett, had attempted to erect the
piles of boxes of biscuits, as well as picks and shovels and ammunition
around Hell Spit. Promptly the Turks dropped shells right into the
middle of them, scattering the whole and killing several men. There was
nothing for it but to move back along the Cove, dig into the sides of
the cliffs, and pile the reserve stores up the main gully. On the beach
cases were stacked in the form of traverses, round which the men might
take such shelter as was afforded when the guns--Beachy Bill, from
Olive Grove, and Anafarta, from the village near Suvla--commenced their
"hates."

This beach and the cliffs overlooking it might be best described as
"The Heart of Anzac." At the foot of the gully was camped General Sir
William Birdwood--the "Soul of Anzac"--and his whole Staff in dugouts
no different from the holes the men built in the hills. A hundred feet
up the slopes on the south side was General Bridges and his Staff, and
on the other hand General Godley with the 2nd A. and N.Z. Division.
Those first quarters were only slightly varied in after-months.
General Birdwood remained always on the beach, almost at the foot
of the jetty. Here it was that one found the living pulse of the
position--the throb of life that meant the successful holding of the
acres so gallantly won, the strength that held back the Turks, while
road arteries cut into the hillsides and formed the channels down which
the best blood of the Australians and New Zealanders flowed. One cannot
help recording that constantly shells burst round the leader's dugout.
Thus it happened that his Staff officer, Captain Onslow, met his death
under tragic circumstances in July. It was a particularly hot night,
and this popular officer said he would sleep on the top of his dugout
as being cooler. The Turks commenced to shell the beach (probably in
the belief that we were that night landing men and stores, which we
were not). Captain Onslow retired within the poor and partial shelter,
emerging again after about a quarter of an hour, when he fancied the
guns had stopped. Unfortunately, it was only a lull, and the next shell
burst right on the dugout, killing him instantly.

"It is only a question of time," was a phrase current on the beach
amongst the working parties. It meant one had only to be there long
enough and the inevitable shell-burst would find its victims. Yet
considering the traffic--that the whole army of 30,000, increasing to
50,000 in July and August, as the zealous Australian Light Horsemen
(dismounted) came into action, were fed from that 600 yards strip of
beach--it was astonishing that the casualties were as low as they
were. Twenty men were killed at a shell-burst once--that was the most
horrible incident. Thousands of the heaviest shells fell harmlessly
into the water. Six hundred shells a day, at one period, fell along the
shore and around the pinnaces and lighters or amongst the slowly moving
transports. No large ships were sunk. "The beach"--and those two words
were used to include the thousands that inhabited it and the adjacent
hillsides--watched the vessels chased from anchorage to anchorage. The
army blessed their lives they were ashore; while those afloat wondered
how any were left alive after the "hottings" the beach got. But the
casualties from both Turkish enfilading batteries were never reckoned
in all at 2,000--big enough, but very little result for the molestation
that the Turks hoped to throw down on the heroes who toiled there day
and night. For most of the work was done at night, in the small hours
of the morning, when the transports under a darkened sky--the moon had
to be studied studiously on Gallipoli--could come close inshore with
100-gallon tanks, thousands of Egyptian water-tins, millions of rounds
of ammunition, and thousands of rounds of shells, scores of tons of
beef and biscuits. Bread and the little fresh meat that came ashore
were landed from the regular trawler service that arrived from Imbros
by day, via Helles.

Once a great steam pumping engine was landed. One heard it afterwards
puffing away on the beach, sending the water from the barges (filled
with water from the Nile and anchored by the pier) up to the tank
reservoirs on the side of the ridge, where began a reticulation scheme
all over Anzac to the foot of the hills, thereby certainly saving the
energy of the army expended on fatigues. How the troops blessed it!
None of that "luxury," however, in the early days; only the monotonous
grind up and down the slopes with water-cans.

You come on the Telephone Exchange of Anzac (to which led what appeared
an impossible tangle of wires) and the Post Office, on either side of
the entrance to Bully Beef Gully, opposite Watson's Landing. It is
possible to talk all over the position from here. Three or four men
are working constantly at the switches. Farther along the beach on the
right and you find the clearing stations, under Colonel Howse, V.C.,
wedged in between the hillside and the screen of boxes on the beach.
You come to Hell Spit, round which you might be chased by a machine gun
from Gaba Tepe; and beyond, the graveyard, open to shell fire. Burials
mostly have to be carried out at night, when the shelling is not so
dangerous. There was a chaplain who, with his little band of devoted
stretcher-bearers and the comrades of the fallen, was performing the
last rites at this spot, when, to his dismay, the Turks commenced
the shelling again. "Dust unto dust," repeated the chaplain, and the
bursting shell flung the newly exposed earth over the party. "Oh,
hell!" said the padre. "This is too ho-at for me! I'm aff!" And he
went. So was the spirit of war bred in the souls of the men. It was
sheer madness, the risks the troops would take on the beach when the
Turks had fired old Beachy Bill from the Olive Grove--bathing under
shell fire. But if needs must they always faced those shellings,
anxious to get back to their job--to get supplies ashore before they
were sunk, to get comrades away to comfort on the hospital ships. No
amount of shelling interrupted the daily swim for long.

So you walk north back along the beach, pondering, looking up at the
heights above Ari Burnu Point. You wonder at the men of the 3rd Brigade
who stormed it and the ridge on your right. The idealness of the Point
for machine guns to repel any landing, seems only too evident. You
pass the Army Corps headquarters--a line of dugouts, well shielded
from the sun with canvas and blankets. Above is the wireless station,
with its widespread aerials on a bare hill--deserted except for a few
casual men who had burrowed deep and took their chance--and immense
searchlights for signalling in a cavern in the hill. Near at hand,
too, is the Army Post Office, in a low wooden building, one of the
few at Anzac. Tinkerings and hammerings arise from the bomb factory,
next door almost, where the finishing touches are put to the jam-tin
bombs, originally constructed in Egypt, and to the Turkish shell cases,
converted into "surprise packets" by diligent sappers, who work day and
night to keep pace with the demand for twice any number that the Turks
might throw. Up farther on this bared hill is the corral built for the
reception of Turkish prisoners. You meet them, tired-looking, sullen
men, being marched down through the gully to the pier. Hereabouts is an
incinerator, always smoking and exploding cartridges that have fallen
into it.

You come to two more gullies before you reach the northern point of
the Cove. Up one is the New Zealand Headquarters, bunched--huddled,
in fact--on the side of the ravine, with the terrace in front, on
which the leaders sit and yarn in the spare moments, watching the
shells burst on the beach, the warships racing about from harbour to
harbour, destroyers nosing slowly into the flanks of the position,
aeroplanes skimming away to the Turkish lines. In the next and last
gully there are many scores of placid mules, munching away, waiting
for their work at sunset. You reach the Point (Ari Burnu), a flat,
rounded, rather sharp bend, and you find yourself amongst a great many
mule-wagons, standing in the sand, and before you a 2-mile sweep of
yellow beach (Ocean Beach) that bends round to Suvla Bay. There rises
up from the shore a mass of knolls and hills, the under features of
the Sari Bair ridge, with the Salt Lake (the salt sparkles in the sun)
drying at their base. Immediately in the foreground, and to the left,
are the abrupt terminations of the Sari Bair ridge: Sphinx Rock and the
brown, clayey, bare slopes of Plugge's Plateau, the whole hillside so
mouldered away with the lashing of the Mediterranean storms, that the
shells which burst on it bring tumbling to the gullies below vast falls
of earth, until it appears that the whole hill could easily be blown
away. Away up higher, beyond, is the battle-line; its spent bullets
come flopping about you, splashing up the water, flicking up the sand.
They are never so spent that they won't penetrate your flesh or bones
and stick.

 [Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL MONASH'S HEADQUARTERS, REST GULLY.]

 [Illustration: SPHINX ROCK AND THE ENTRANCE TO REST GULLY.

  To face p. 172.]

Hastily you turn into a sap, and all that wonderful broad expanse of
beach and hills is lost. For by day the Ocean Beach is impracticable,
and at night, only by taking a risk, which the Indian muleteers do,
can the nearest portion of it be used, thus relieving the pressure of
traffic in the great communication-way. What a task to dig this sap
miles out into the enemy's territory, the only link with the strong,
but isolated, posts (beyond Fishermen's Huts) held in turn by parties
of New Zealanders, Maoris, and Light Horsemen, under Lieut.-Colonel
Bauchop! It is deep, broad--7 feet broad--hot, dusty, but safe. You may
leave it just as you reach the Ari Burnu Point, and, passing through
a gap in the hills and down a gully, regain the Cove. Just round the
Point you may look in at the Ordnance Stores, indicated by a dirty
blue-and-white flag, ragged and torn with shot and shell. That flag was
brought ashore by Colonel Austin, and was the only army flag ever flown
at Anzac.

Surely there is a smithy? A clanging sound of blows on an anvil makes
cheerful noise after the frenzied burst of shells. The workshops are
protected with huge thicknesses of stores; guns of all descriptions are
being made and remade here. Farther along are the medical stores, and
you find a spacious dugout, lined with lints and ointments, bandages,
splints, stretchers, and disinfectants. Hospital supplies were never
short at Anzac. Gurkha, Maori, Englishman, Australian, New Zealander
passes you on the beach. You may meet them all together, talking. You
may see them only in their respective groups with their own kin. It all
reminds you of an anthill. There are men--not hurrying, but going in
all directions--stopping to talk every dozen paces, and then going on
or turning back, apparently without motive, without reason. There are
some that march alone and never halt. But the whole trend of traffic
is from the hills and to the hills. Outward they go loaded, and return
empty-handed for more.

There came a time, not infrequent, when placid twilights fell on Anzac,
when even the intermittent crack of rifles or the occasional burst of
a bomb passed almost unnoticed. The wicked "psing" of bullets passing
overhead on their way to the water went unheeded. A solemn stillness
filled the air. Yes, quiet as a mining camp on the seashore, far away
from war's turmoil, the beach nearly always rested with the sinking of
the sun behind the massed hills of Samothrace--the island refuge of
ancient oracles; its departing rays lit the sky in golden shadows, that
mingled with blue the orange and green tints in the sky. Deeper shades
darkened the island of Imbros and cast into silhouette the warships,
waiting and watching till the aeroplanes sailing overhead should
transmit their observations, which meant targets, for the bombardment
of new enemy positions. The warships lay, like inert monsters, on a
shimmering sea. Sunsets on Gallipoli took away the sting of battle. The
shore parties, their most arduous labours still to come, watched the
twilight in a state of suspended animation. Five o'clock was the hour
for the commencement of bathing. It usually was, too, the signal for a
Turkish "hate" of ten minutes or more, to banish the bathers. Any who
could be spared stripped off their remaining few clothes, clambered
aboard barges, or dived from the end of the pier, and washed off the
sweat of a sweltering day in the clear waters; for Anzac was for five
months as warm a corner as any in the Ægean. Generals, orderlies,
intelligence officers, men who had been toiling round the firing-line
from dewy dawn, plunged in, spluttering an interchange of scraps of
gossip of this position and that, and news from the outside world
that seemed almost lost to those on this battlefield. You carefully
placed your clothes, ready to dodge along the pier back to comparative
safety, behind high stacks of stores, as the first shrieking shell came
hurtling over from Olive Grove. "Old Beachy Bill snarling again," was
the only comment, and once the little "hate" had ceased, back again for
the last dive.

Then sometimes out of the stillness would sound a gong--a beaten
shell-case--bidding the officers to an evening meal; or the
high-pitched voice of Captain Chaytor, the naval officer in command on
the beach--as brave a fellow as ever stepped. The Navy took no more
notice of shells than they did of Army orders--they were under "the
Admiral." Still the co-operation between the two services was never
marred by serious obstructions.

"Last boat for Imbros," announced the naval officer. He might have said
"Last boat for the shore." Gripping handbags or kitbags, there was
usually a party waiting, and they dodged out now from behind shelters
or from dugouts. They were off to one or other of the bases on duty,
and the trawler or destroyer was waiting offshore for the pinnace to
come alongside.

"Picket boat ahoy! Where are you from?" Again the naval officer is
speaking.

The voice of a midshipman, suitably pitched and full-throated, replies,
"_London_, sir."

"I did not ask where you were born. Where are you from?"

"_London_, sir."

Then the naval officer remembers his evening aboard the battleship
_London_, and orders the panting craft alongside. The shells begin to
fall. He gives sharp orders through his megaphone, and pinnaces begin
backing out from the shore, scattering in all directions till they are
half a mile from the beach, and have become almost impossible targets
for any gunners. The Turks desist. On the beach bathing is promptly
resumed.

General Birdwood rarely ever missed his evening dip. He bathed amongst
his men, shedding off rank with his uniform, which led more than once
to amusing incidents. One day the canvas pipe of the water-barge fell
from the pier into the sea, and an irate man on the barge, seeing some
one near it, cursed him, and asked him if he would "---- well lend a
fellow a ---- hand to get the ---- thing up." General Birdwood--for
it was he--delights to relate the story himself, and how he hastily
commenced to pull the pipe into place, when a sergeant dashed up and
offered to relieve him, in the midst of abusive directions from the
bargee, who, unconscious of the signals from the sergeant and of the
vacant staring of all around, urged on his General to more strenuous
and more successful efforts. Did it endear the General less to the men?
Rather not. A quiet, very firm, but very friendly man was this leader
of the Australians, who understood their character admirably.

On another occasion, when returning to his dugout over the top of
the hill where rested the bomb factory, he accidentally stood on the
roof of a dugout, and stones and earth began to fall on the occupant
beneath. "Quick, quick!" said General Birdwood, knowing his men; "let
me get away from this! I would rather face half a dozen Turks than that
Australian when he comes out!"

There is a "beach" story, too--all stories originated on the beach--far
too characteristic to go unrecorded, of an Australian "pinching" extra
water from the water barge one very still evening, when he was caught
by the naval officer on duty, who, in the pure English of the Navy,
demanded, "What are you doing thar, sir?" and up to the dugouts on the
hillside floated the prompt reply, "Getting some ---- wart-ar, sir."

But night has fallen and the beach wakens to its greatest degree of
activity. Long since have efforts to load and land stores, to take
ammunition to the firing-line, been abandoned by day. The Turkish
observation at Gaba Tepe stopped that. All the hillside glows with
twinkling lights; the sound of laughter or stern commands floats down
from the higher steppes of the hills on to the beach. There is a fine
dust rising from the strand as the traffic increases and becomes an
endless stream of men, of mules, of wagons. Somewhere offshore--you
know that it must be about 400 yards--there come voices across the
waters as the barges are loaded and the steam pinnaces tug them to
the shore. They are lashed to the narrow piers, where the waves lap
their sides. Parties quickly board them to unload the food that is the
life of the army, and the munitions which are its strength. There are
heavier goods, too, to bring ashore, sometimes needing large parties to
handle. There are rifles and machine guns, there are picks and shovels,
iron plates for loopholes. Wood, too, forms not the least strain placed
on the transport.

So it goes on night after night, this constant stream of material to
keep the army efficient, ready for any attack, ready, too, for any
offensive. The trawlers have sneaked close into the Cove. The Turkish
gunners, as if seeing this, begin to shell the beach. The work in the
Cove stops abruptly. Men come scrambling from the pier and the boats to
seek the shelter of dugouts and the great piles of stores. The shells
fall harmlessly in the water (unless they destroy a barge of flour).
When the bombardment ceases the routine is resumed. From Gaba Tepe the
Turks could not see into the heart of Anzac, but their guns easily
reached the distance, measured exactly. Opposite the pier-heads the men
congregate. You find it difficult to push your way amongst the Indian
mule-carts, to reach the canvas water-sheet and the tanks from which
the men are getting supplies. The traffic divides. One section goes
north to the No. 2 and No. 3 outposts, 2 miles away, out through the
long sap: the dust from the shore is almost choking as you reach the
sap, for the strings of mules pass and repass almost endlessly. The
other branch of the traffic goes south (along the beach too) in front
of the hospitals round Hell Spit, and then, striking one of many paths,
is diverted along the right flank of the firing-line. No long line of
sap to protect you here, and always a chance of a dropping bullet.

Only when the moon rises above the horizon and the pine ridges and
then above the battle front is it time for the beach to rest. Higher
and higher it mounts, until at midnight it is slanting towards the
entrance to the Dardanelles. One by one the lights have gone out and
cooks' fires have ceased to flicker. On either flank two long arms of
light, that broaden as they reach the hill, start from the sides of
the destroyers. They were staring into the Turkish hills and gullies.
Behind them the gunners watch all night for movements in the enemy's
ranks, and the guns boom at the slightest stir. After the alarms of the
night and the bursts of rapid fire, the dawn brings another lull over
Anzac, when the constant rattle of muskets in the firing-line a mile
away over the ridges and the swish and t-tzing of the little messengers
of death as they pass out to sea, are like to be forgotten or accepted
as part of the curious life of Anzac. But the work never quite ceases,
and morning finds tired officers giving the last directions before they
turn into their dugouts and escape the morning "hate" that the Turks
with the first flush of dawn begin to throw over the beach and amongst
the lingering, dawdling trawlers and transports that have drifted
inshore. The shells follow the ships till they regain the circle of
safety, some 2 miles from land. "Keep your distance, and we won't worry
you," say the Turks.

It is exciting to watch the steamers dodging the shells just as the sun
first casts a glitter on the blue Ægean. But they have accomplished
all they need, and till the arrival of the daily trawlers from Imbros,
Mudros, and Cape Helles, there is no need for worry. So the workers
take a morning dip and turn in, while the men on the pinnaces are
rocked to sleep as they lie wallowing offshore, and the pump begins its
monotonous clanking.

On rugged cliffs and amongst bristling bush the heart of Anzac began to
palpitate with power and life. With roads and terraces was the hillside
cut in May and stripped of its bush. The throb of the heart was the
pulse of the army, its storehouse and its life; but the shore of the
Cove was dyed to the murmuring waters' edge with the blood of the men
that made it.




CHAPTER XVIII

THROUGH THE FIRING-LINES


Anzac was divided into two parts by Shrapnel Gully, which ran from Hell
Spit right up to the very apex of the position, at the junction of the
ridge that the army held and the main ridge of Sari Bair. Thousands
of men lost their lives in this great broad valley during the early
days of the fighting, when the Turkish artillery burst shrapnel over
it. That was how it got its name. It was there that General Bridges
met his death, in this Valley of the Shadow of Death. In its upper
course it merged into Monash Gully, called after the Brigadier of the
4th Brigade, that had held its steep sides at Pope's Hill--which was a
knuckle--at Quinn's Post, and between the two the sharp depression on
the edge of the ridge--"The Bloody Angle." A daring sniper might always
reach the very head of the gully and shoot down the long Valley. Only,
in time, the superiority and alertness of our sharpshooters overcame
that menace. Few Turkish snipers that played that game returned alive.

I went without a guide round Anzac, because the paths were well worn
when I trod them, though there were many twisted roads, but all leading
upwards to the trenches winding round the edge of the ridge. One could
not miss one's way very well by keeping on the path that led southward
from the heart of Anzac round to the first point--Hell Spit (beyond,
a machine gun played and chased any who approached, unless the Turks
happened to be off duty, as they sometimes were), and there you found
the broad, open mouth of the gully. Usually a party of men were coming
up from bathing. They were sun-burned right down to their waists (for
they never wore shirts if they could possibly avoid it, and looked more
like Turks than the Turks themselves), and you found them squatting
in a sap, the mouth of which gaped on to the beach, secure behind the
angle of a hill. By their side were large Egyptian water-tins. The
"coves" up above in the trenches were drinking this ration of water
for their evening meal, but there was always time to have a chat with
a comrade or mate from the northern side of Anzac, or with men who
lived in the heart of the position. For the troops knew only their own
section of the line, and had seen nothing of famed posts and positions
captured and held. In fact, it was a sort of mutual understanding
that these fatigue parties always stopped for the purpose of swapping
stories about adventures with Turks.

"Had much fighting, Fred, down your way?" one would drawl.

"Bit of an attack, but the blighters would not face the ---- bayonet."

"Was out doing a bit of scouting the other night from Russell Top,"
spoke another fine-featured man, "and only for a thunderstorm would
have captured a bit of a ridge, but a blooming interpreter chap got the
shivers, and we just got back without being nabbed."

It would make a book in itself to record all the conversations one
dropped amongst, of scraps of fighting, of one section of the line and
another. The men flattened themselves against the side of the sap to
let a stretcher case pass, always asking, if the wounded man showed any
signs of life, about the wound and his regiment. About July, in the
saps one met men carrying large quantities of sheet-iron and beams of
wood to form the terraces up along the sides of the hills. One sheet of
iron could make a dugout magnificent, even luxurious; two was a home
fit for a general. This sap wound backwards and forwards up the gully,
just giving glimpses of the tops of the ridge, over which bullets came
whizzing and embedding themselves against the hillside. That was the
reason of the sap. The little graveyard you passed was full of these
spent bullets: shells whined away over it to the beach.

 [Illustration: SHRAPNEL GULLY, LOOKING NORTH INTO MONASH GULLY FROM
 NEAR THE JUNCTION OF WANLISS GULLY.

 The white cross in the centre of the hills represents the small section
 of Turkish trenches on the Nek that overlooked the Gully. On the left
 is Russell Top.]

 [Illustration:

 A MAP COMPILED FROM AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE OF THE TURKISH AND OUR
 TRENCHES ON THE NEK, POPE'S HILL, QUINN'S POST, COURTNEY'S POST, AND
 GERMAN OFFICER'S TRENCH.

 On either flank of Pope's Hill are the heads of Monash Gully, the
 Bloody Angle between Pope's and Quinn's.

  To face p. 180.]

You came out into the open again where the gully broadened out. Looking
round, there were three or four wells visible, where the engineers
were busily erecting pumps. Iron tanks, too, were being brought into
use, part of the great reticulation scheme of Anzac, and round
them were grouped the men who had come down from the hilltops. That
water, blessed though it was, was thrice blessed by the men who once
carried it on their shoulders, grown sore under the weight. Some men
with 18-pounder shells tucked under their arms passed. "Heavy, lads?"
"Too blooming heavy altogether; one's about enough up them hills!"
Thus, by a stream of munition-carriers, was the artillery kept supplied
with its ammunition. Shells were not too plentiful in those days, but
the gunners were busy laying in supplies for the great artillery duel
that all knew one day would be fought. Ammunition, it may be recorded,
went by the beach at night, and so up to the very highest point of the
gullies possible, on mules.

Just at this broadening of Shrapnel Gully on the right (south) was
the Indian encampment. A mass of rags and tatters it looked, for it
was exposed to the fierce sun, and when gay coloured blankets were
not shielding the inmates of the dugouts, the newly washed turbans
of the Sikhs and Mohamedans were always floating in the idle breeze.
Their camp was always busy. They never ceased to cook. Though the
wiry Indians could speak little English, they got on well with the
Australians, who loved poking about amongst their camps hunting for
curios, while the Indians collected what trophies they could from the
Australians.

If you looked intently hereabouts, you might make out, smothered away
in the shadow of a hill, the dark muzzle of a gun in a pit, with the
gunners' camp beside it. He would have been a keen observer in an
aeroplane who could have detected those guns and marked them on his
maps. Sufficient proof of this might be found in the fact that nearly
all these guns were brought away at the evacuation. One or two that I
saw in the firing-line, or just behind it, had been battered.

Three ways lay open to you, now that you had crossed the broad bottom
of the gully. You might turn to the right and continue on up the main
gully till it joined with Monash Gully, and so go on a visit to the
apex of the position. You might turn off slightly to the left and
reach, by a rather tortuous track, the centre of the left flank (or
by this route travel behind the firing-line along the western slopes
of the hills to Lone Pine, and then reach the extreme left). A far
shorter, and the third way, was to go round the Indian encampment,
and either up White Gully or through a gap in another spur of the main
ridge, and come out on to Shell Green. This patch of once cultivated
land was a small plateau--the only cleared space on Anzac. The Turkish
shells passed over it on their way to the beach from the olive-grove
guns concealed 2 miles away. Sometimes, also, they dropped on it.
You crossed at the northern end of it, and reached the artillery
headquarters of Colonel Rosenthal's 3rd Brigade dug into the side of
the hill. It was across the gully facing the southern edge of this
green that the big 6-in. field gun, fired for the first time in August,
was placed. I remember watching the huge pit that was dug for it, and
the widening of the artillery roads that enabled it to be dragged into
position. Directly above Shell Green--a very dirty patch of earth after
very few weeks--was Artillery Lane, which was a track that had been cut
in the side of the hill, and which also served as a terrace. Dugouts
were easily accessible along this road, though it was subject to some
shell fire, so lower down the hillside was preferable, even if the
climb was steeper and the promenade more restricted. Brigadier-General
Ryrie, commanding 2nd Light Horse Brigade, had his headquarters at
this spot, and also the 3rd Infantry Brigade, under Brigadier-General
Maclagan. Lieut.-Colonel Long too, with the Divisional Light Horsemen,
also made his camp there. All of which troops were holding, in July,
the section of the line that reached down to the sea on the extreme
left.

It was a complicated position, for a series of small crests had had
to be won before Chatham's Post was established and an uninterrupted
view obtained of the Turkish huts along Pine Ridge and the plain where
the olive-groves were. Down on the beach that led round from Gaba
Tepe--the beach where the troops should have landed--were barbed-wire
entanglements and a series of posts manned only at night. Along that
beach a little way, the commander of the post, a Light Horseman,
pointed out to me a broken boat. It was a snipers' nest, he explained,
where the Turks sometimes lurked and waited. We now stood out in a
cutting looking down on Gaba Tepe at the Turkish trenches that ran in
parallel lines along the hills, till a bracket of bullets suggested
the wisdom of drawing back to cover. Along a very deep sap (so narrow
that in some places one had to squeeze one's way through) and down a
hill brought one up to Chatham's Post, called so after a Queenslander,
who captured it, of that name. Right on the crown of this knoll and
along its western slope were a series of machine gun positions,
striking at the heart of the left of the Turkish lines.

I was asked, "Like to see an old Turk we have been laying for, for
some time?--a sergeant he is. The beggar doesn't care a jot for our
shooting." Several rifles cracked as the observer made way for me to
put my eye to a telescope. Very clearly I saw a fine big Turk moving
along one of the enemy's communication-ways; it was apparent he was
supervising and directing. He bore a sort of charmed life, that man.
Eventually (some days later) he was shot. His name? Why, Abdul, of
course--they all were. Our telescope was withdrawn just in time, and
the iron flap dropped over the loophole as bullets splashed against it
and the sandbag parapets above.

"Damn them and their snipers!" said a young bush-man, and began again
his observation from another point. Up and down and through a long
tunnel and we came back again to the rear of the main hill. When I saw
where I had walked, set out on a map, it seemed very short after the
miles of winding trenches that disappeared in all directions over and
through the hill. Yet the troopers were still digging. Their troubles!

Brigadier-General Maclagan had a birthday--or he said it was about time
he had--one day when I came in, and he celebrated it by cutting a new
cake which his Brigade-Major, Major Ross, had obtained through the post.

"Luxury," began the Brigadier, with his mouth full of currants, "is
only a matter of comparison. Look at my couch and my pigeon-holes, my
secret earthen safes, and--bring another pannikin of tea."

Yes, it was comparison. "Ross, you will show the trenches--fine fellow,
Ross," and the Brigadier cut another piece of cake.

Other officers dropped in and the cake slowly vanished. I wondered what
Ross thought. "No use," he said to me later. "Better eat it now. Might
not be here to eat it to-night. What about these trenches, now? You
have a periscope? Right." As we started I felt his position was like
that of the officer who, having received a hamper with some fine old
whisky, found himself suddenly grown popular and received a great many
visitors in one night. News spread quickly at Anzac!

It was the middle section of the right of the line that I was visiting,
adjacent to the Light Horse position, just described. The Turks
started shelling before we had fairly started, and I watched the
shells bursting on Shell Green--harmlessly enough, but very thick.
The Brigade-Major left word at the telephone switchboard where he
was going, and, choosing one of three ways, dived into a sap on the
hillside that was reached by a flight of steps. One had not gone far
to be struck by the scrupulous cleanliness of this underground line.
No tins, papers, or broken earthworks: everything spick and span. I
was being told how the wheatfield had been taken at the time just as
we were passing across it--through a sap and working up under cover on
to the outer ridge. That day I seemed to do nothing else but grip hard
brown hands and meet new faces. That splendid Staff officer had a word
for all his men.

"Wish the beggars would only attack. We have everything nicely prepared
for them," he began to explain as we walked through a tunnel and halted
on the side of a hill. We stood behind some bushes in a machine-gun
pit. "Never been fired," said the officer, and then smiled in a curious
way. "Got four more all along the top of the gully in two tiers. We
expect--that is our hope--the Turks will come up here to try and cut
off that hill which we have taken. Let 'em."

It was the first time I had seen a real trap. God help any foe that
entered that valley!

Did I want to see all the position? I did. It took two hours--two of
the shortest, most amazing hours I spent at Anzac.

"We are going now to see the gallery trenches. Always believe in making
things roomy below ground," the Major explained, "so that the men do
not get any suggestion of being cramped." So we entered a fine, high,
and broad gallery, lit by the holes that were opened at intervals along
it and used as firing-steps. My guide chuckled as he came to a point
where it was rather dark. He stopped before more manholes filled with
barbed wire. On the firing-step a soldier was carefully handling his
tin of stew. This was a mantrap--a small hole and a thin crust of earth
and wide pit--prepared against the rushing of the position, one of
dozens that were all round the front as a protecting screen.

It was rather a difficult matter getting round the galleries as the
afternoon wore on, for the men had commenced their meals. They gathered
in small groups, some one always on guard for his comrades. Rifles
were ready, standing by the wall. It was not exactly a solemn meal,
for plenty of curses accompanied the passing of some "clumsy devil"
that knocked down earth into a tin of tea. The trenches were remarkably
sweet. The Major drew one's attention to the fact with justifiable
pride.

Of the Turks that were entrenched on the other side of the ridge one
saw nothing. Through a periscope you could make out their earthworks.
One stumbles on adventure in the firing-line. I was without my guide,
proceeding along a trench, when I was advised it was not worth while.
Quite recently it cut a Turkish trench, and now only a sandbag parapet
divided the two lines. It really was not worth occupying, except when
there was a fight on. It was too deadly a position for either side to
remain long in!

How the line twisted! Turning back along an angle, I found we had
got back again into the gully--the Valley of Despair I have heard it
called--only much higher up. There was an interesting little group
of men round a shaft. Major Ross explained: "Trying to get their own
water supply. Down about 80 feet. Yes, all old miners. The Tasmanians
have done most of this tunnelling work: must have dug out thousands
of tons of earth. Perfectly wonderful chaps they are. Dug themselves
to a shadow, and still fought like hell. Me thin? Oh, it does me good
walking about these hills; I can't sit in a dugout." A messenger came
up from the signal office. "You must excuse me. I have to go back to B.
11" (a junction of a trench and sap), and he dived into the trenches
again.

Imagine, now, you have begun walking back along the firing-line, going
from the extreme right to the left. Already two sections have been
passed. Had you continued along from the last gallery trenches, you
would have come out into the section opposite the Lone Pine trenches
of the Turks. The enemy here was a more discreet distance of 80 to
200 yards away across a broad plateau. The ridge was higher at this
point, and one might look back through a periscope (with great care)
from certain sharp-angled look-out posts, raised slightly, according
to the conformation of the ground, above the level of the ordinary
trenches, down the back of the ridge, and on to the positions one
had just left. They call this spot "The Pimple." Some of the posts
were the observation posts for artillery, others for special sentry
posts. As Lone Pine will form the subject of a separate chapter, the
trenches will not be elaborated here. Sufficient to say that here,
too, were gallery trenches, but lower and darker and less roomy; but,
nevertheless, absolutely effective either for defensive or offensive
purposes. You reached them by climbing to the end of Artillery Lane up
through Browne's Dip.

It was on the second day that along this roadway the guns were dragged
into the firing-line, when Major Bessell-Browne had a battery right
on the crest of the ridge almost in the firing-line (the guns were
actually in the infantry trenches for a time), until the Turks made
it too warm for them. Now, this hilltop, which lay just behind the
position held by the 1st Infantry Brigade and to the south-east of
White Gully, was bare of any infantry trenches. It was, moreover,
covered with furze and holly bushes. The trenches had been advanced
to the edge of the plateau, on the other side of which the Turkish
lines ran. With Colonel Johnston, Brigadier of the Victorian Artillery
Brigade, I had climbed up here one morning to see the gun positions.
One passed from Artillery Lane into an extremely narrow trench right
amongst some bushes, and found oneself in a snug little position,
completely concealed from observation. Out of the midst of these
earthworks a gun pointed to the Turkish positions on Pine Ridge,
Battleship Hill, and Scrubby Knoll. There was a telescope carefully
laid through a loophole, the iron flap of which was discreetly dropped.
It swept the Turkish ridges closely. A sergeant was in a "possy" (the
soldier's term for his position in the firing-line and dugout) watching
a party of Turks digging. He could just see their spades come up in
the air. It was believed that they were making emplacements for new
guns. Colonel Johnston let the enemy nearly finish and then blew them
and their earthworks to pieces. It was what he called "stirring up a
stunt," for not long after, sure enough, as he anticipated, the Turks
commenced to reply, and shells began dropping in front of and over
this post as the Turks searched for our guns. These little artillery
duels lasted about half an hour, and when ammunition was plentiful
(the daily limit was fixed for many weeks at two shells a day unless
anything special occurred) two or three "stunts" might occur during a
day. Sometimes word would come down from the infantry trenches that
Turks were passing in certain gullies or could be seen working up on
to Battleship Hill or up the side of Baby 700, and the guns would be
laid accordingly. It would be difficult to estimate the number of
targets that had been registered by the active artillerymen. They
had them all tabulated, and could train their guns on to any spot
during a night alarm in a moment. For from some point or other good
views could be obtained of the Turkish positions: not in detail, of
course, but sufficient, with the knowledge that aeroplane sketches and
reconnaissance provided (Major Myles was one of the most successful of
the artillery officers who went observing from the hangars at Tenedos),
to cause great havoc amongst the Turkish supports and reserves.

But such shelling, whatever damage was done, never prevented the
Turks from digging new firing-lines and communication and reserve
trenches. Their industry in this respect was even greater than the
Australians', who moved whole hills or honeycombed them with galleries
until you might expect that a real heavy burst of shells or a downpour
of rain would cause them to collapse. The Turks had mobilized digging
battalions, units in which men who had conscientious objections to
bear arms (many of them farmers) used to work. This was how Pine Ridge
became such a huge mass of enemy trenches. Why, there were secret
saps and ways all along from Kojadere right to Gaba Tepe Point. But
sometimes the Turks were caught napping, as when the Australians
captured an advanced spur or knoll on the plateau that gave a glimpse
down a gully (for the other side of the plateau that sloped away down
to Kojadere was just as cut by ravines as was the Anzac side), and
after a few days' quiet preparations--the Turks being ignorant of our
new advantage--our machine guns swept backwards and forwards along
it, while the artillery drove the Turks into this hail of lead with
shrapnel and high explosives.

With Colonel Johnston I went farther back towards the seashore along
the back of one of the spurs, and round Majors Phillips', Caddy's,
Burgess's guns, well dug into deep pits protected by solid banks of
earth, covered with natural growth of bushes. It seemed to me unless
a direct hit was obtained there was little chance of their being
destroyed. Space was conserved in every way so as to leave as little
opening as possible; magazines were dug into the cliff and dugouts as
well. Yet several guns were knocked out. There was one gun crew amongst
whom a shell had burst. Two men had been killed outright, and others
badly wounded. When the stretcher-bearers rushed into the gun-pit they
found a dying man trying to open the breech of the gun to load. His
strength failed, and he fell back dead in a comrade's arms. Those men
thought only of the gun and their mates after that explosion.

Little gaps occurred in the Anzac front where two gullies met on the
razor-back crest of the hill. One was at the head of Wanliss Gully,
between the 4th Battalion of the 1st Brigade and the 5th Battalion,
holding the section opposite the German Officers' Trench. Here the
crest of the hill had been so worn away, and the head of the gully was
so steep, that no trenches could be connected. As a result, all the
protection that could be given was to bend back the trenches on either
side down the hill, and establish strong posts and make entanglements
from side to side of the gully. It was a source of intense anxiety to
Colonel Wanliss (commanding 5th Battalion), who was early responsible
for its protection.

The 2nd Infantry Brigade held the section of trenches going to Quinn's
Post during the greater part of four months: held them sometimes
lightly, sometimes in great strength. Opposite were the Turks' most
elaborate works, designated "German Officers' Trench" and "Johnston's
Jolly." These series of Turkish trenches varied from 20 to 80 yards
from the Australian lines. The origin of their names is interesting.
German officers had been seen in the trench that bears their name,
which offered sufficient reason, as there were not a great number of
Hun officers on the peninsula. The other series of trenches had
presented to Colonel Johnston's mind a good target, on which he always
said he would have a "jolly good time" if his guns had only been
howitzers and able to reach them, which, with his 18-pounders, he could
not. The Turks had used huge beams many feet in thickness to fortify
these trenches along this sector of the line. Probably it was because
it led directly to the heart of the enemy's position (Mule Gully was
beyond and Kojadere) that such measures were taken. No artillery
bombardment had had much effect on these trenches. One day--it
illustrates the spirit of the Turkish army--a Turkish officer was seen
directing the erection of some overhead cover down a communication
trench behind this position. A burst of shell had warned him that he
was observed, and bullets from machine guns played round him. He paid
little attention, and went on with the directing of his job. When
complete it was blown down, and continued to be blown down as fast as
it was constructed, until the Turks had to give it up in despair. That
brave officer directing the operations, was killed.

 [Illustration: CHAPLAIN DEXTER (5TH INFANTRY BATTALION) LEARNING THE
 WORKING OF A TRENCH MORTAR.

 Turkish firing-line thirty yards beyond the parapet.]

 [Illustration: SHELL GREEN, THE ONLY LEVEL AND CULTIVATED SPOT ON
 ANZAC: GUN EMPLACEMENT AND LIMBERS IN THE FOREGROUND.

 This position was subsequently used as an aeroplane signalling station.]

Opposite the left front of "German Officers' Trench" came Steel's Post,
and next to Steel's, Courtney's Post, both called after officers of
the 4th Infantry Brigade, whose regiments had held the positions in
the first awful fortnight's fighting. Really they might be more aptly
termed by the number of the regiment--14th Battalion--and the fine men
who composed it. The Turks' line drew very close at this point. A gully
cut into the plateau from the Anzac side and formed the "Bloody Angle."
On the north of it was Pope's Hill, and on the south was Quinn's--the
famous post cleft in the hillside--a concave position, at the heart of
which the Turkish rifles pointed from the north and south, for it was
from the night of the landing a savage thorn pressed in their side. But
the history of these posts needs a special chapter. By them Anzac held
or fell.

Early I said Anzac was divided into two halves by Shrapnel Gully--the
southern has just been travelled over. There remains to describe only
those trenches that lay north of Shrapnel and Monash Gully, on the
Nek, and back along Russell Top, the northern section of the famous
position. It was mostly a New Zealand position; for New Zealanders and
Maoris were largely responsible for its defence till the 3rd Light
Horse Brigade, under General Hughes, took it over. Approached from
the beach, the cliffs of Russell Top rise almost precipitously. The
New Zealanders, mounted and dismounted troops, had had to set to work
to cut a road up the face of this cliff to the top of the ridge. It
was the isolated nature of the position--until a way was cut down the
slopes into Monash Gully to the very foot of the hill--that caused so
much difficulty in moving troops, and was responsible for more than
one delay in getting men to required posts at given times. Russell's
Top might be best described as the end of the main Sari Bair ridge.
Southward from the ridge, and almost at right angles to it, ran the
spur commencing with Plugge's Plateau, that formed the first ridge
(Maclagan's ridge) stormed by the Australians. It overhung Anzac Cove.
Incidentally it was the second line of our defence, the triangle within
the triangle, and on it were the hastily formed trenches that the
Australians had dug during the 25th, 26th, and 27th April, lest the
Turkish attempts to "drive them into the sea" proved successful. Guns
were hauled up these ridges by hundreds of men, just as the Italians
were doing on the Gorizia front. Had this last position been carried
the guns could never have been got away. They might certainly have been
tumbled down into the gullies below and spiked.

Russell Top itself was a short section or series of trenches grouped
on either side of the ridge, and ending at the Nek. They faced roughly
north and south. They commanded Anzac position to the south, and all
the series of our works described in the early part of the chapter.
On the north they dominated (the impossibility of getting very heavy
artillery right along the ridge, owing to its precipitous and exposed
nature, limited severely that command) all the series of foothills that
led up to Chunak Bair and Koja Chemin Tepe. In this direction short,
sharp spurs, covered with dense bushes and undergrowth, branched out
from the Sari Bair ridge. To name them, starting from the beach: The
first in our possession was Walker's Ridge, and then Happy Valley, then
Turks' Point, then Snipers' Nest, where the Turks had command of the
beach to good effect, and from which it was found impossible, though
many stealthy attacks were made and the destroyers plastered the spur
with shell, to dislodge them. Beyond, stern above all these crooked
steep hilltops, was Rhododendron Ridge. Now, just after Turks' Point
the ridge narrowed and formed the Nek. I do not think it was more than
160 yards wide at the utmost, just a thin strip of land, with sheer
gullies protecting it on either flank. From here, too, the Sari Bair
ridge began to slope up, rising rapidly to Baby 700, Battleship Hill,
Chunak Bair. Immediately in front of the Nek, adjacent to the head of
Monash Gully, were the terrible Chessboard Trenches, so named because
the newly dug exposed earth where the trenches ran, lay in almost exact
squares across the ridge from one side to the other, like a chessboard.

The New Zealand trenches (afterwards manned by Australian Light
Horse) were about 80 yards from the enemy's lines, though the Turks
occupied somewhat higher ground, and consequently looked down on to
our trenches. But such was the superiority of fire that our troops had
obtained, that the enemy were never able to take full advantage of this
position. To hold these few acres of ground against fearful attacks
cost hundreds of lives. The trenches were mostly sandbagged, the earth
being too crumbling to hold against the searching fire of "75's" which
the Turks (they had captured them in the Balkan War from the Serbians)
had, together with Krupp artillery. Our machine guns commanded Snipers'
Nest and the angle of Rhododendron Ridge where it joined the main
ridge. Traverses, therefore, became nothing but huge pillars of sand.
The work entailed in keeping them clear and intact was very heavy
indeed. A number of trench mortars concealed round the crown of Russell
Top strengthened our position; while on the north flank many trenches
existed amongst the undergrowth which the Turks were ignorant of.
Still, through the possession of this ridge we had been able to fling
out outpost stations along the beach towards Suvla Bay, and dig the
sap which eventually was the connecting link with Anzac in the great
operations at Suvla Bay on 7th August. But the Nek itself the Turks had
mined and we had countermined, till beneath the narrow space between
the trenches, was a series of mine tunnels with gaping craters above.

Only once had the Turks attempted an attack across this Nek, as I
have described, but they so strengthened their position (and it was
comparatively easy, owing to the configuration of the ground) that
they were here probably more, what the Australians called "uppish
and cheeky" than in any other part of the line. One day, while I was
standing talking with General Hughes, a message weighted with a stone
was flung at our feet from the enemy's line. It looked like a pamphlet.
It was written in Turkish, and when taken to the interpreter's
quarters and transcribed, proved to be Turkish boasts published in
Constantinople.

Round the flank of our trenches was a favourite way for deserters to
come in, which they did on many occasions. Once on a dark night the
sentries were startled to hear a voice speaking even more perfect
English, and certainly more correct, than one was accustomed to hear in
the trenches, saying: "Will you please tell your men to cease firing,
as I want to surrender?" Of course, the situation was rather difficult,
as the Turks were fond of ruses, but eventually an Armenian officer
jumped over the parapet and gave himself up. And very useful he proved,
with the information he brought and gave during subsequent operations.
But most difficult problem of all on this high plateau-top was the
maintenance of supplies; not only of food and water, but of munitions.
It was forty minutes' terrible climb to the top from the beach--a climb
that needed every muscle strong to accomplish, even lightly laden. To
fortify the position as it had been, was a magnificent achievement, and
could only have been done by troops with the hearts of lions and the
spirit of the Norsemen of old.

It might have been thought in the face of such difficulties, with the
fevers of the Mediterranean eating into their bodies, that the spirit
of the army would have failed. On the contrary, the Australasians
accepted the position just as it was, bad as it was: the sweltering
heat and the short rations of water; the terrible fatigues, absent
from campaigns in other theatres of the war zone; and, above all, the
constant exposure to shell fire and rifle fire week after week and
month after month. But the spirit of the trenches was buoyant and
reflective without becoming pessimistic. The men were heartily sick
of inaction. They rejoiced in the prospects of a battle. It was the
inertia that killed.




CHAPTER XIX

LIFE AT QUINN'S AND POPE'S


It is doubtful if the true history of Quinn's and Pope's positions
will ever be collated. But any soldier will tell you that these two
posts made Anzac, for it was on the holding of these precarious and
well-nigh impossible positions in the early days of occupation that
the whole Australian line depended. The names will be for ever bound
up with the gallant officers who defended them, though it will be only
meet that their subsequent commanders should have their names inscribed
on the roll of the bravest of brave men that clung to the edges of
the hillsides at the head of Monash Gully. There was, till the last
days, always some fighting going on round Quinn's and Pope's, where
the Turkish trenches approached to within a few yards of ours. Sorties
by one side or the other were frequently made there; always bombing,
alarms, mines, and countermines. I would never have been surprised if
at any time the whole of Pope's and Quinn's had collapsed, blown to
atoms by some vast network of mines, or wrecked by shell fire. The
two places were a mass of trenches, burrows, secret tunnels, and deep
shafts. They bristled with machine guns. My greatest difficulty is to
adequately convey some detailed idea of the positions as I saw them--a
few of the desperate conflicts have been already recorded, and I hope
that what will follow will enable the nature of the fighting to be
better realized.

Quinn's! The famous post was soon after the landing known throughout
the Eastern Mediterranean, and its history, or a portion of it, reached
England and Australia early in the accounts of Anzac. That it "held,"
the Turk found to his cost. He tried to overwhelm it; he was driven
back into his trenches, not once, but scores and scores of times.

In the first weeks of the fighting, the Turk came on against Quinn's
with cries of "Allah! Allah!" and retired amidst weepings and
moanings, leaving men dead and dying before the Post. From that
day it became a desperate position, but when I examined it the men
(they were Canterbury men from New Zealand and some of our own lads)
under Lieut.-Colonel Malone, a magnificent stamp of leader, were
quite cheery, and the whole tone of the Post was one of confidence,
notwithstanding any attack the enemy might make. "We are waiting for
him, and wish he would come," were the words of the commanding officer.
"Brother Turk has learnt his lesson; so he sits still and flings
bombs--he gets two back for every one he throws." That was the spirit
which enabled Quinn's to be successfully held.

Once, in the early days, the way to Quinn's was through a hail of
bullets up Shrapnel Gully, dodging from traverse to traverse, till you
came to the foot of a ridge that ran almost perpendicularly up 200
feet. On the top and sides clung Quinn's. The ridge was bent here,
where one of the heads of the great gully had eaten into the plateau.
That was what made the hillside so steep. Quinn's helped to form one
side of the ravine called the "Bloody Angle." Yes, in the early history
of Quinn's and Pope's, just across the gully, not 100 yards away, had
flowed down those hillsides the best blood of the Australian army.
For the enemy peered down into the hollow--then not afraid, as he was
later, to expose his head and shoulders to take deliberate aim. The
moral ascendancy of our sharpshooters was the first step in the victory
of Quinn's.

After June it was no longer a matter of the same extreme peril coming
up the broad valley, for there was a secret sap most of the way along
Shrapnel Gully. Once you turned north, half way up the gully, you
lost the view of the sea behind the hills, and you found yourself
among a variety of Army Service Corps units--among water-tanks and
water-carriers. You heard the clatter of pumps and the rattle of
mess-tins as the men stood out in long lines from the cooks' fires that
gleamed at half a dozen points. There was only a space of a few feet
on either side of the path that contained the dugouts; the rest of
the hillside was still covered with prickly undergrowth and shooting
grasses. The sound of a mouth-organ resounded up the valley; bullets
sped past very high overhead, and shells dropped very occasionally at
this point among the inner hills behind the ridge. From the gully I
turned on my left into a sap that wound about and shut off all views
except that of Quinn's and Pope's. I came out of the sap again into
the gully to a place where sandbags were piled thick and high to stop
the bullets, for here it was not so comfortable, as far as the enemy's
rifles were concerned. You went into a perfect fortress of low-lying
squat huts, to which you found an entrance after some difficulty. I had
to squeeze through a narrow, deep trench to reach it.

That was the headquarters of Brigadier-General Chauvel, who commanded
the central section of the line that I could see all along the edge
of the ridge about 150 yards away--almost on top of us--Pope's on the
left, the isolated hilltop; then Quinn's, Courtney's, and Steel's.
They were a group of danger points--a constant source of anxiety and
despair to the General who commanded them. It was delightfully cool
inside those caves in the gully after the heat of the sap. I was told
by Major Farr and Major Williams, who were talking to the commanders
of the posts by telephone, that I could not lose my way. "Keep on
following the narrow path, and if you are lucky you will be in time for
a battle." Each hung up the receiver and gave a curt order for some
further boxes of bombs to be dispatched.

Battles on Quinn's were no mild engagements, for usually the hillside
was covered with bursting shells and bombs that the Turks hurled over
in amazing numbers. Fortunately, these "stab" attacks were brief. As I
pushed on towards the narrow sap that ran into the side of the hill, I
could see by the excavated earth how it zigzagged up the side of the
ridge.

I passed great quantities of stores, and, under the lee of a small
knoll, cooks' lines for the men holding the Post above, which was
still obscured from view. All one could see was a section of the
Turkish trench just where it ended 20 yards from our lines, and the
barbed-wire entanglements that had been thrown out as a screen. The
air was filled with the appetizing odour of sizzling bacon, onions,
and potatoes, while shells whizzed across the valley. I was glad to be
safely walking between high sandbag parapets.

Soon the path became so steep that steps had been made in the
hill--steps made by branches interlaced and pegged to the ground. It
was a climb, one ascending several feet in every stride. Sandbags
were propped up here and there in pillars to protect us from the
sight of the enemy on our left. One's view was confined to the wire
entanglements on the skyline and the steep, exposed slope of the hill
on the right. Behind lay the valley, full of shadows and points of
light from dugouts and fires. They were quite safe down there, but you
were almost on the edge of a volcano that might break out above you
at any moment. You passed various sandbagged huts, until quite near
the crest of the hill trenches began to run in various directions,
and you saw the rounded top of the hill chipped away and bared under
the constant rifle and bomb attacks. What had appeared ledges in the
distance resolved themselves into a series of terraces, where the men
found protection and, as busy as bees, were preparing for tea.

Lieut.-Colonel Malone was my guide. He was an Irishman, and keen about
the Post and just the man to hold it. His great motto was "that war
in the first place meant the cultivation of domestic virtues," and
he practised it. He brought me up a gently inclined track towards a
point at which barbed wire could be seen across a gully which ended
in a sharp fork. That was the "Bloody Angle." Then we turned around
and looked back down the gully. In the distance, 100 yards away on the
right, along the top of the ridge, were two distinct lines of trenches,
with ground between which you at once knew was "dead" ground. The
hill doubled back, which almost left Quinn's open to fire from the
rear. "That is our position--Courtney's Post and Steel's to the east,"
said my guide, "and those opposite are the Turkish trenches. We call
them the 'German Officers' Trenches,' because we suspect that German
officers were there at one time. Now we have given them a sporting
chance to snipe us; let us retire. I always give a visitor that
thrill." It was only the first of several such episodes which vividly
brought home to one's mind the desperate encounters that had been waged
around this famous station. The men who held on here had a disregard of
death. They were faced with it constantly, continuously.

There were four rows of terraces up the side of the hill. Once the
men had just lived in holes, dug as best they could, with a maze of
irregular paths. That was in the period when the fighting was so fierce
that no time could be spared to elaborate the trenches not actually in
the firing-line. Afterwards, when the garrison was increased to 800 and
material came ashore--wooden beams and sheet-iron--conditions underwent
a change. Four or five terraces were built and long sheds constructed
along the ledges and into the side of the hill. These had sandbag cover
which bullets and bombs could not penetrate. Just over the edge of the
hill, not 30 yards away, were our own lines, and the Turkish trenches
4 to 25 yards beyond again. When the shells came tearing overhead from
our guns down in the gully the whole hillside shook with the concussion
of the burst. No wonder the terraces collapsed one day! I was standing
talking to Lieut.-Colonel Malone and saw about 100 of the men who were
in reserve leaning against the back of the shed that belonged to a
terrace lower down. They were all looking up at an aeroplane, a German
Taube, skimming overhead. A huge bomb burst in the trenches on the top
of the hill, and the men, involuntarily, swayed back. That extra weight
broke away the terrace, and it collapsed with a roar. Fortunately, the
damage done was small, though about eight men were injured.

To go through Quinn's was like visiting a miniature fortress. The
whole extent of the front was not more than 200 yards. One dived down
innumerable tunnels that ran 10 or 20 feet in the clay under the
enemy trenches, and contained mines, ready set, to be blown up at the
first sign of an enemy attack in mass. A certain amount of protection
had been gained at Quinn's from the deluge of bombs that the enemy
accurately threw, by a screen of wire-netting that caught the bombs so
they burst on the parapets. But such protection was no use against the
heavy football bomb. Loopholes were all of iron plating, and in most
cases of double thickness, and even thus they were almost pierced by
the hail of bullets from the Turkish machine guns. The Turks did not
occupy their forward trenches by day. Only at night they crept up into
them in large numbers. Several craters formed a sort of danger-point
between the lines where mines had been exploded, and into these it was
the endeavour of some Turks to steal at night on their way to an attack.

Now, one of the stories about Quinn's--alas! how many tales of
gallantry must go unrecorded--is that the enemy's troops became so
demoralized by the nearness of the trenches and the constant vigilance
of our men that, in order to properly man their trenches in this
sector, the Turks had to give non-commissioned rank to all the men
there posted. Our own garrison in June and July were changed every
eight days. Lieut.-Colonel Malone, however, remained in charge, having
under him mixed forces of New Zealanders and Australians. One day
I went with him into one series of tunnel trenches that wound back
and forth and that opened up unexpectedly into a strongly fortified
emplacement either for a machine gun or an observation post. Lying all
along the tunnels, either on the ground, pressed close to the walls,
or in a niche, or ledge, were the garrison. It was difficult not to
tread on them. We came to a point where, pegged to the earthen walls,
were any number of pictures--of Sydney beach, of St. Kilda foreshore,
of bush homes and haunts, of the latest beauty actresses, and--most
treasured possession--some of Kirchner's drawings and coloured work
from French papers.

They were a happy family at Quinn's. Once orders had been given that
conversations could be carried on only in whispers, so close was the
enemy. For the most part, however, that was not necessary, but there
were certain places where we had machine-gun emplacements--traps
they were really, and the guns had never been fired. They were to be
surprises for "Johnny Turk" when he should attack again in force. Here
certainly it would not have been wise to discuss the position, for the
enemy, some few yards distant, might have heard and understood. One had
only to show a periscope above the trenches at Quinn's to bring down a
hail of bullets, and three periscopes was the signal for the turning
of a machine gun on the sandbag parapets, with a broken glass in the
periscope the only result.

 [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF THE 5TH INFANTRY BATTALION LOOKING
 TOWARDS POPE'S HILL.

 The terraces dug out of the side of the hill can be traced. The
 firing-line is forty yards over the crest.

  To face p. 198.]

The shells from our guns in the valley just skimmed the tops of the
trenches, clearing them about 12 feet and bursting in the enemy's
lines. It was a very sensational experience until one got used to the
sound and could detect which way the shells were travelling. It is
told of this Post that two men were sitting in the trench talking in
whispers when a shell came whining and roaring towards them. It burst.
They did not rise to see where, but it was near. Said the new arrival
to his mate, "Is that ours?"

"No," came the hissed reply, "theirs!"

"The----!" was the only vouchsafed and typically Anzac comment.

Yes, the Post was undoubtedly strong, for it could enfilade any attack
from German Officers' Trench on the right, and the Turks knew that
and attempted none. What was most amazing about the position were the
series of gun-pits, dug out of the centre of a shoulder of the hill
which ran down the right side of the position on the flank of the
gully nearest to Courtney's. I went up through a winding passage-way,
where blue-bottle flies kept up a drowsy humming. Every half-dozen
yards there were small concealed openings in the side of the tunnel,
through which I looked out on to the terraces and towards Pope's. When
I reached the summit and found a series of three chambers each with
ledges ready for machine guns, Lieut.-Colonel Malone explained. "This,"
he said, "is the place to which we might retire if the Turks did break
through the Post and come down the gully side. We would catch them
here. They cannot detect the guns, for they are hidden by this thick
scrub. We are now on the side of that hill you saw on to which the
Turks, from in front of Pope's and the Bloody Angle, can fire. We could
reach them, but the Staff will not give me the machine guns. The reason
is we have not enough, as it is, on the Post--not as many as I would
like. I would like a dozen--we have seven. The enemy would never get us
out of here till we starved." I no longer ceased to wonder why Quinn's
was declared "perfectly safe."

To get across to Pope's you had to go down into the gully again by the
steep way you had come, and travel another 200 yards up towards its
head until you came to an almost bare and precipitous hillside, which
you climbed the best way you could, picking a path in and out amongst
the dugouts. If you had a load of stores, you could go to a part where
a rope hung down from the crown of the hill, about 100 feet up, and by
it you might haul yourself to the top. Pope's was even more exposed
than Quinn's when you entered it. The Commander's dugouts were perched
on the back of the hill, facing the gully, and bullets and shells burst
round his cave entrances. Lieut.-Colonel Rowell, of the 3rd Regiment of
Light Horse, was in charge the day I went over every section of it. The
Light Horsemen were desperately proud of their holding this dangerous
and all-important knoll that blocked the entrance to the gully.

Here, again, there were tunnels connecting up the front and support
trenches. They twisted about and wound in and out, conforming to the
shape of the top of the hill. But they were not connected on either
flank. It was just an isolated post. There were positions for machine
guns that by a device were made disappearing guns. They were hauled up
rapidly by a pulley and rope and then lowered out of sight again. It
was a rough-and-ready makeshift, but the only means of keeping secret
positions (on a hill that did not offer much scope for selection)
for the guns. Iron loopholes were absolutely essential; an iron flap
fell across them as soon as the rifle had been withdrawn. I remember
standing opposite one of these till I was warned to move, and, sure
enough, just afterwards some bullets went clean through and thumped
against the back of the trench. Many men had been shot through the
loopholes, so close were the enemy's snipers.

Down on the right flank of the post, just facing the head of Monash
Gully and the Nek and Chessboard Trenches, was a remarkable series of
sharpshooters' posts. They were reached through a tunnel which had
been bored into the side of the hill. The bushes that grew on the edge
had not been disturbed, and the Turks could know nothing of them. It
was through these our crack rifle-shots fired on the Turks when they
attempted, on various occasions, to come down through the head of
Monash Gully from their trenches on the Chessboard and round the flank
of Pope's Hill. Maps show the nearness of the Turks' line to ours,
scarcely more than 15 yards away in places: what they do not show is
the mining and countermining beneath the surface. Constantly sections
of trenches were being blown up by the diligent sappers, and in July,
Pope's Hill had become almost an artificial hill, held together,
one might say, by the sandbags that kept the saps and trenches
intact. Words fail to convey the heartbreaking work of keeping the
communications free and the trenches complete, for every Turkish shell
that burst did damage of some sort, and nearly every morning early
some portion of the post had to be rebuilt. Looking here across the
intervening space--it was very narrow--to the right and left I could
see the Turkish strong overhead cover on their trenches, made of wooden
beams and pine logs. Between was no man's land.

What tragedy lay in this fearful neutral zone! The immediate foreground
was littered with old jam-tins, some of which were unexploded "bombs."
There was a rifle, covered with dust, and a heap of rags. My attention
was called to the red collar of the upper portion of what had been a
Turkish jacket, and gradually I made out the frame of the soldier, who
had mouldered away, inside it. It was a pitiful sight. There were four
other unburied men from the enemy's ranks. Nearer still was a boot and
the skeleton leg of a Turk, lying as he had fallen in a crumpled heap.
I gathered all this from the peeps I had through the periscope.

Such is an outline of what the posts that Lieut.-Colonel Pope and Major
Quinn won and established, had developed into after months of fighting.
Something has already been told of the early battles round them. It is
impossible to chronicle all the attacks and counter-attacks. It must
here suffice to continue the history already begun in other chapters
by referring briefly to the sortie on 9th May, the third Sunday after
landing.

Quinn's was still a precarious position. On both sides the engineers
had been sapping forward, and the trenches were so close that the men
shouted across to one another. Near midnight on the 9th, the 15th
Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Cannan, with two companies of the
16th in support, about 900 men in all, attacked the Turkish trenches
in front of Quinn's. They issued forth in three separate bodies,
and after a fierce struggle routed the Turks. Rapidly communication
trenches were dug connecting up the forward with the rear trenches,
which meant that two island patches of ground were formed. Then it was
found that all three parties had not linked up, and the Turks held an
intervening section of the line. An attempt by companies of the 15th
and 16th Battalions failed to gain the Turkish parapets in the face of
a terrible fire. When dawn broke the whole of the captured trenches
became the centre of concentrated Turkish fire from two flanks, and
our gallant men were compelled to make their way back along their new
communication trenches to their own lines again. This, therefore,
left the Turkish trenches and our own connected by three saps. It was
an amazing position. Sandbag parapets had been hastily erected, and
on either side of these the troops stood and bombed one another. The
infantry called in Arabic they had learnt in Egypt, believing that
the Turks would understand, "Saida" (which is "Good day") and other
phrases. They threw across bully-beef tins or bombs, indiscriminately.
It was what the troops called "good sport."

So the positions remained for five days until Friday, 14th May, when
a Light Horse squadron of the 2nd Light Horse--C Squadron, under
Major D. P. Graham--was chosen to attack the Turks and rout them from
this unpleasantly close proximity to our line. The communication
sap had first to be cleared. Two parties of men, 30 in each, with
bayonets fixed, dashed from the trenches at 1.45 a.m. In the face of a
tremendous machine-gun and musketry fire from the enemy they charged
for the parapets, so short a distance away. The troops dropped rapidly.
Major Graham, seeing his men melt away, endeavoured to rally those
that remained. But the Turkish fire was too fierce, and the few that
survived were compelled to jump into the communication sap, and thus
make their way back to their lines. Major Graham himself, with the
utmost coolness, brought in some of the wounded after the attack had
failed, but at length he fell, mortally wounded. So ended the first May
attack.

Desperate endeavours were made by the Turks, in their grand attack
on 19th May, to enter our trenches, but the line was held safely
under Major Quinn's command until Saturday, 29th May, when, after
exploding a mine under part of our forward position, a strong body of
Turks managed to penetrate, during the early morning, to our second
line. The Post was at that moment in a desperate position. Major Quinn
himself, at the head of the gallant 15th Battalion, commenced to lead a
counter-attack. The din of battle was terrific. Few fiercer conflicts
had raged round the famous posts than on this cool, clear morning. The
Turks were routed and driven back to their lines, but the brave leader,
Major Quinn, fell, riddled with bullets, across the very trenches
which his men had dug. So fierce had been the charge that a certain
section of trench held by the enemy had been run over by our troops.
In that the Turks clung. They were caught in between cross-fires, but
held desperately the communication trenches. After various attempts
to dislodge them it was suddenly thought that they might surrender,
which solution, on being signalled to them, they willingly agreed to.
The post was immediately strengthened, and the dangerous communication
trenches were effectively blocked and held by machine guns.

Lieut.-Colonel Pope, after desperate fighting on the hill that bore
his name, still survived to lead his battalion in the great August
attacks. The brigade, and, indeed, the whole Division, mourned the loss
of so gallant an officer and so fearless a leader as Major Quinn. They
honour his name no less than that of the dauntless Pope.




CHAPTER XX

JUNE AND JULY PREPARATIONS


There is no doubt that operations in May convinced General Sir Ian
Hamilton that neither at the southern nor in the northern positions
on the peninsula was his force strong enough to push back the Turks,
though he held what he had won strongly enough. Consequently he cabled
to the War Office, urging that reinforcements should be sent. But in
the middle of May the withdrawal of the Russians from the Gallipoli
campaign was declared from Petrograd, and the Commander-in-Chief found
it necessary to increase his estimate of the force he would require to
force his way across to the Narrows. His new demand was two additional
army corps. Already the Lowland Division (52nd) had been dispatched,
but this was but 20,000 men; four times as many were required to press
home the offensive. The abatement of the Russian attacks had released
about 100,000 of the finest Turkish troops, and these reinforcements
began to arrive on the peninsula in June. General Hamilton writes in
his last dispatch: "During June your Lordship became persuaded of the
bearing of these facts, and I was promised three regular Divisions,
plus the infantry of two Territorial Divisions. The advance guard of
these troops was due to reach Mudros by 10th July; by 10th August their
concentration was to be complete."

So thus before the end of May the Commander-in-Chief had in mind the
larger plan, beginning a new phase of the campaign, to be carried out
in July, or at the latest August. Therefore, it may be truly said, the
June-July Anzac battles were fought as preparatory actions (in the
absence of sufficiently strong forces) to clear and pave the way for
the great August offensive. The grip on the Turks was tightened.

Fighting round Quinn's Post, as already related, had been taking place
during the greater part of May. Sometimes the Australians attacked,
and, more seldom, the Turks counter-attacked. It was at any time a
desperately held position. It continued so till the end of the chapter.

Now, while the Anzac troops could not yet advance, they could help any
direct assault on Achi Baba, such as had been once tried in May with
but partial success. So it happened on the 28th June the Anzac troops
were ordered to make demonstrations to allow the pushing home by the
English and French of attacks that had commenced on 8th May, when the
Australians had taken so prominent a part in the advance on Krithia
village. In this 28th June action the Gurkhas were ordered, and did
advance, up the Great Dere, and flung the British flank round the
west of that village. It was a fine gain of some 800 yards. However,
the Turks had plenty of troops available, and they lost no time in
organizing terrific counter-attacks. Owing to the offensive taken at
Anzac the Australians were able to draw off a portion from this attack,
which tactics at the same time both puzzled and harassed the Turks. The
details I will briefly relate.

In June the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, under Brigadier-General Ryrie,
held the southerly portion of the line at Tasman's Post, that
overlooked Blamey's Meadow. Next them, holding the line, were the 3rd
Infantry Brigade, under Brigadier-General Maclagan, reinforced now
with new troops, though with still a proportion of the men that had
taken part in the landing. Except for patrol work and various small
excursions and alarms against the Turks, there had been no big attack
made yet. They were keen for battle.

All the night of the 27th-28th and during the morning masses of shells
could be seen bursting on the hills round Krithia, and sheets of flame
rolled along the slopes of the hills as the warships and the guns
ashore bombarded the Turkish trenches. Early on the 28th news had been
received that all efforts of the Turks to drive back the British had
failed. The troops at Anzac revelled in that great artillery struggle.
At midday their turn came.

For the first time, a day attack was planned. The Light Horse were
to leave their trenches at one o'clock. Destroyers moved close in to
Gaba Tepe and to the north of the Australian position, and began an
intense shelling of the exposed Turkish trenches, that in some places
were open to enfilade fire. Soon the artillery ashore began, and
added further havoc. In front of the southern part of our line, near
Harris Ridge, about 600 yards away, was a strong Turkish position on a
rise--one of the many spurs of the main ridge. This was the objective
of the attacking troops. All Queenslanders, Light Horse, and infantry,
had been selected--a squadron and two companies, about 500 men, who
were to lead the charge. They were to be led by Lieut.-Colonel H.
Harris. The Western Australian Infantry, about 300 in all, were chosen
to support the Queensland (9th) Infantry, led by Major Walsh; and New
South Wales (7th) Light Horse Regiment, to support the Queensland (5th)
dismounted squadron.

Just after one o'clock the guns ceased, and the storming parties
of Queenslanders dashed forward from their trenches, and, with
comparatively few casualties, gained a footing on the nearest slope
of the ridge, that was covered with thick brush. They found certain
protection, and there they commenced to entrench. Just over the ridge
was a plateau of cultivated ground, called "The Wheatfield," and across
this the Turks had dug trenches at right angles to the ridge. From the
trenches that the Light Horsemen had left, rifle fire could be kept up
on these trenches. Beyond, the strong Turkish positions on Wineglass
Ridge and Pine Ridge were being shelled by the destroyers and the New
Zealand artillery. However, it did not take the Turks long to bring gun
fire on these advanced troops, and high-explosive shell burst in the
shallow trenches. The brown and red earth was flung up in dense clouds,
but the troops held to their position. They went on digging. It was as
fine an example of courage as one might wish to see--these splendid
men calmly entrenching amidst the craters the shells left round them.
Soon, however, the very object of the offensive was disclosed to the
Australians themselves, for they could see Turkish reinforcements being
hurried up in the distant gullies (they had come from the village of
Eski Keui, half-way down the peninsula to Krithia). Turkish leaders
could be seen in the fierce sunlight signalling to their troops to keep
low, as they could be observed by our forces; and no doubt the Turks
with their white fezzes and skull-caps made excellent targets, as they
soon found, to their consternation and cost, by the accuracy of our
gun fire. These enemy reinforcements were scattered, and, in disorder,
sought what shelter they could in the gullies.

Having held the ridge and accomplished the diversion, the Light
Horse gradually retired and regained their own trenches. By 4.30 in
the afternoon the infantry too had been withdrawn from the advanced
position. So not only had the attack been successful in drawing up
Turks who would otherwise have gone to the assistance of their comrades
hard pressed around Krithia, but they were, through bad leadership,
brought up into positions in gullies which our guns had registered, and
terrible casualties resulted. Both the Queensland units--Light Horse as
well as infantry--had shown fine gallantry, and they were dashingly led
by Lieut.-Colonel Harris.

Once having stirred the Turk, it behoved the Australians to be ready
for a counter-attack. But Tuesday, 29th, remained still and quiet;
only the occasional bursting of a bomb round Quinn's and Pope's Posts
and the intermittent crack of rifles, broke the calm of a perfect
summer day. To the enemy there had been every indication that a serious
advance was contemplated from Anzac. During the afternoon, growing
nervous of the close approach of some of our mine tunnels under
their trenches, the Turks exploded their countermines, which would
effectively seal any advance from underground and through craters.
Just afterwards a summer storm arose, which enveloped the Turkish
lines in clouds of dust. What better opportunity could have presented
itself for our attack? No sooner had the wind driven the dust over the
trenches than the enemy commenced a fierce fire, which they maintained
without ceasing for two hours. The stream of lead that passed over our
trenches was terrific. Only when the storm abated did the Turkish rifle
and machine gun fire die away. All of this the enemy did to check an
anticipated advance which we had no intention of making. Millions of
rounds of Turkish ammunition had been wasted.

But the Turks now determined to turn the situation to their own
purpose, which apparently was to draw attention to their lines in this
southern section, while they prepared to launch, unexpectedly, an
attack from another quarter. The Australian leaders were already aware
of this method of surprise, and had come to look on it as part of the
Turkish "bluff"; for the enemy had tried it before, when they had blown
bugles and shouted orders and given loud commands in their trenches,
and nothing had happened--not at that spot. Now the firing ceased just
before midnight.

An hour and a half later the enemy began a violent attack on the
Nek, with new troops belonging to the 18th Regiment of the enemy's
6th Division. They had come recently from Asia Minor, and were some
of the best troops of the Turkish Regular Army. Enver Pasha himself,
the Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish forces, had ordered the attack
so that the Australians might, once and for all, be "pushed into
the sea." In this way began an attempt to rush our trenches at the
head of Monash Gully. The line was here held by New Zealanders and
Light Horse. On this left flank considerable rearrangement from the
earlier days had taken place. The Maories held the extreme left down
to the shore. On Russell Top were the New Zealand Mounted Rifles,
under Brigadier-General Russell, and the 3rd Light Horse, under
Brigadier-General Hughes. These fine men held the trenches opposite
the mass of Turkish lines, the Chessboard Trenches. Brigadier General
Chauvel's Light Horse Brigade was in the trenches at Quinn's and
Pope's, together with some New Zealand infantry regiments. Thus was the
gap at the head of Monash Gully up as far as Steel's Post, held.

From midnight till 1.30 an intense fire of musketry and guns was poured
on to our trenches on Russell's Top. It was still bright moonlight
when, in a series of lines, the Turks commenced to attack at 1.30.
They came shambling on, shouting "Allah! Allah!" towards the parapets
of our trenches, less than 100 yards across the Nek. At this spot the
Light Horsemen had been digging out two saps towards the enemy, and
it was into these some of the enemy charged, our troops dividing to
allow them to enter. Then the Australians fell on them from either
side with bombs, and none escaped. For it was the habit of the Turk
when he attacked, not to jump into the trench and come to hand-to-hand
encounters if he could help it, but to lie on top of the parapet and
fire down into the trench. Very few of the enemy, in these three
charges that came and faded away, reached our lines. When the first
charge had been so blankly stopped not many yards after it began, the
Turks tried to work along the northern edge of the ridge, where the
ground fell away steeply into the gullies below, and on the southern
side of the Nek, where the ground was no less difficult, but not as
deep, sloping down to the head of Monash Gully. Our machine guns
wrought fearful havoc, and 400 Turks at least perished in the charges.
Then the destroyers sent the rays of their searchlights farther up
the hill towards the rounded top of Baby 700, and revealed the enemy
reserves advancing. Gun fire destroyed these.

Meanwhile, a further attack was developing down the heads of the
gullies on either side of Pope's Hill, the hill that guarded the
entrance to the gully, and the centre of the position. I have already
told how from the sides of this hill machine guns were trained down
into the gully; and how the line of concealed sharp-shooters' posts
we had established, gave absolute command, and at the same time
protection, to the holders of the gully. The bright rays of the moon
aided the defenders, and they could easily detect the stealthily moving
figures. Towards one o'clock the Turks commenced to work down this
gully. It is related of that fight--an incident typical, no doubt, of
many--that a Light Horseman, seeing a Turk silhouetted on the edge of
the ridge, rushed at him with his bayonet, and the two men slipped over
the edge of the cliff, down through the bush and loose earth, till
they both were brought up almost face to face on a ledge. They crossed
bayonets--one pictures the two figures in the indefinite light of the
moon standing there motionless for a fraction of a minute--till the
Australian, realizing that he had in his magazine a cartridge, pulled
the trigger. When his comrades came to his assistance, dashing through
the undergrowth, they found him with the dead Turk, smiling.

Now, it was evident the Turks had meant to stay in that attack. The
few men that did reach the trenches on Russell's Top, and were killed
there, must have been men of the second or third lines. They carried
large numbers of bombs and digging implements. They had quantities of
provisions--figs, dates, and olives--and water-bottles filled. They
were evidently intended to be the holding party. As daylight came, some
of the enemy still lurked in the head of the gully on either flank of
Pope's Hill. Just before dawn a further line of 300 men attempted to
rush the head of the gully. They reached the edge of the cliff, and
then broke into small parties running this way and that, under the fire
of our machine guns, which played on them from the Light Horse lines
on Russell's Top (the main charge by this having faded away) and from
the side of Pope's Hill. At the same time a few of the enemy left their
trenches at Quinn's to rush our post on the side of the hill. None got
more than a few yards. All the men of that last desperate attack were
killed or wounded. A few were taken prisoners.

The scene next morning was ghastly. In the saps on the Nek twenty and
thirty dead Turks lay piled in a row. Before Pope's Hill, never very
strongly threatened that night, there were scores of dead. The total
loss must have been nearly 600 killed and 2,000 casualties. It is
historically important as the last Turkish attack against Anzac proper.
The Turks showed a desperate courage; for this attack on the Nek was
but sending troops to certain destruction; yet the men never flinched,
and they were soon to show the same valour again, in attacks on the
higher slopes of the Sari Bair ridge.

Throughout July it was always expected that the enemy's superstition
would lead him to make a bold effort in the season of Ramazan--the
end of July. Warnings had reached Anzac to this effect. Prisoners had
anticipated it, probably due to the orders of Enver Pasha to dislodge
at all costs the Australian forces. The enemy had been bringing up new
regiments. All through July the Turks showed a nervous disposition to
burst out into heavy fusillades all along the line. At night they sent
coloured lights over the gullies and our position. Our gunners did
the same, at the time when the moon dropped behind the hills of Troy,
between midnight and 3 a.m. The troops stood to arms at moonset. Our
trenches were then always fully manned. The reserves slept in the saps.

 [Illustration: THE GREAT SAP LEADING FROM NO. 2 OUTPOST INTO ANZAC
 ROUND ARI BURNU POINT.

 Fishermen's huts were situated half-way along the beach (Ocean Beach).
 Russell Top and Plugge's Plateau in the distance.]

 [Illustration: TURKISH PRISONERS DIGGING NEW DUGOUTS FOR GENERAL GODLEY
 NEAR NO. 2 POST, AFTER THE FIRST AUGUST OFFENSIVE.

  To face p. 218.]

Ramazan passed; and still the Turks clung to the protection of their
trenches. The June battles had completely disheartened them. Their
ammunition was running short. Certainly ours had been none too
plentiful, and orders had been given since May to conserve it as
far as possible. Two rounds per gun a day was the limit, except under
special circumstances. As General Hamilton himself admitted, "Working
out my ammunition allowance, I found I would accumulate just enough
high-explosive shell to enable me to deliver one serious attack each
period of three weeks." It was exceedingly exasperating to the gunners,
this shortage. There came times when, owing to the necessity of getting
permission from headquarters, the gunners grew impatient, as they saw
targets escaping into the folds of the hills. A General told me on one
occasion how a column could be seen moving about 4 miles away, but
owing to the delay of hours in getting the necessary permission to
loose off some twenty rounds of shell, the column escaped. He had fired
his allowance per gun, as was his invariable custom, just to remind
"Abdul" he was awake, early in the morning.

It was not, however, Sir Ian Hamilton's plan to draw much attention
to Anzac just at present. He wanted the Turkish mind focused on Cape
Helles, which was one reason for the period of quiet that occurred in
July at Anzac, though care was taken that the moral ascendancy that had
been gained over the Turks by the Australians was never lost, and not
one whit less was given to the Turks now than had been given before
in vigilant sniping and bombing. But the effect on the spirits of the
Turks was noticeable, and at the end of July, long before the official
information leaked out to the troops, there appeared in the trenches
opposite Quinn's Post a notice-board, on which was printed in irregular
letters, "Warsaw is fallin." The result of which little enemy joke was
that thousands of rifle bullets shattered the notice. Notes began to be
thrown over stating that the Australians would be well treated if they
surrendered. In spite of which, Turkish deserters still continued to
come into our lines, all of whom told of the growing fear of the Turks
at the length of the campaign, and the disheartening of their troops.
Incidentally, I may say, prisoners all believed they were going to be
killed. I remember Major Martyn telling me how one party, on coming
through a communication trench to our lines, had tried to kiss his
hands in gratitude at being spared.

So, chafing under the delayed advance, the Australians waited for
their chance to teach "Abdul" a lasting lesson.




PART III

_THE GREAT ADVENTURE_




CHAPTER XXI

THE AUGUST PHASE AND NEW LANDING


It will have been gathered from the fighting that followed the
terrible May attack of the Turks, when they lost so heavily in trying
to dislodge the Australians from Anzac and British from Helles, that
nothing would have satisfied our commanders better than for a Turkish
attack to develop during the end of July. This, I feel certain in
saying, would have been repulsed, as others had been repulsed, and
would have left the Turkish army weak, just at the moment when General
Sir Ian Hamilton had completed all his plans for the continuing
of the Great Adventure begun in April. The rumours of a projected
Turkish attack at Anzac proved groundless. The Australians were left
unmolested, while the Turks, conceiving that the British still intended
to attempt the assault of Achi Baba, had gathered on the end of the
peninsula great reserve forces. General Hamilton's strategy had had
much to do with this (the great sacrifices of the attacks on Krithia
would not then have seemed so vain had the full plan succeeded),
for in his mind was just the reverse idea--that Anzac should be the
turning-point, the pivot of all operations, as it had been intended
from the first. It was to become the centre of an unlinked battle
front, of which Cape Helles was the right flank and Suvla Bay was to
be the left. An attack launched from this left--a new and an entirely
unexpected left--would leave a way for the centre to push forward. Then
automatically would the right have advanced.

This strategy was really an elaboration of the early plan of the
Commander-in-Chief, aimed at the cutting of the Turkish communications
to the great dominating fortress of Kelid Bahr, which afterwards could
be reduced at leisure with the co-operation of the Navy. It has been
often asked what advantage would have accrued from the Australians and
the new British troops reaching Maidos and holding the heights of Koja
Chemen Tepe. None less than the forcing of the Turkish communication
from Europe into Asia, and that they should be compelled to undertake
the very hazardous and doubtful operation of keeping intact the
Gibraltar of the peninsula--the Kelid Bahr fortress--by supplying it
across the Narrows from Chanak and the badly railwayed coast of Asia
Minor.

But there were alternative plans open to General Hamilton, and such
will always give opportunity to military strategists to debate the
one adopted. What General Hamilton knew in May was that he would have
200,000 new British troops by August at his command, with 20,000
Australian reinforcements on their way and due to arrive about the
middle of the same month. His army, as he commanded it then, was about
150,000 strong (including the French Expedition), and its strength
might easily be diminished to 100,000 by August owing to normal
wastage, Turkish offensives, and sickness that began to make itself
evident. Two hundred thousand men to attack an Empire! In the days of
its Byzantine glory, in the times of the early struggles for Balkan
supremacy, such an army would have been considered noble. Now, though
British, it was not enough. Apparently the situation on the Western
front did not warrant another 100,000 men that General Hamilton had
asked for more than once, to give him a safe margin, being granted
him. The Turks, released from their toils against Russia on the east
in the Caucasus--the Mesopotamian front not seriously threatened and
the attack on the Canal being impossible--found ample men at their
disposal. On the other hand, they had a long and vulnerable coast-line
to guard, but the 900,000 men of that German organized and commanded
army, made a powerful fighting force. Nearly 400,000 troops were
apportioned for service on the peninsula. I am not asserting that that
number of men were facing the landed armies, but they were available,
some perhaps as far away as Adrianople or the Gulf of Enos. If General
Hamilton's problem was a difficult one, Enver Pasha's way was not
exactly smooth. He was harassed by lack of heavy ammunition, the
populace were wavering, while above all hung the terrible threat of
another landing on the European or Asiatic shores.

But one factor the British leader had to ponder deeply was the
submarine menace that had been threatening the very existence of the
already landed armies. Two fine warships, the _Triumph_ and _Majestic_,
had been sunk in May while shelling and guarding the positions ashore,
and the fleet had been compelled to seek shelter in the harbour of
Mudros. Even though monitors, with 14-in. guns, were soon available to
maintain the invaluable support that the battleships had previously
given to the army, there was not the weight of artillery of a highly
mobile nature, ready for any emergency, without the Admiralty were
prepared to hazard a great loss. Transportation of troops and stores
was dangerous and subject to irritating, and even dangerous, delays.
General Hamilton sums up the situation in a masterly fashion in his
final dispatch:--

 Eliminating the impracticable, I had already narrowed down the methods
 of employing these fresh forces to one of the following four:--

  (_a_) Every man to be thrown on to the southern sector of the peninsula,
  to force a way forward to the Narrows.

  (_b_) Disembarkation on the Asiatic side of the Straits, followed by a
  march on Chanak.

  (_c_) A landing at Enos or Ibrije for the purpose of seizing the neck of
  the Isthmus at Bulair.

  (_d_) Reinforcement of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps,
  combined with a landing in Suvla Bay. Then with one strong
  push to capture Hill 305 [971], and, working from that dominating
  point, to grip the waist of the peninsula.

 As to (_a_) I rejected that course--

  1. Because there were limits to the numbers which could be landed
  and deployed in one confined area.

  2. Because the capture of Krithia could no longer be counted upon
  to give us Achi Baba, an entirely new system of works having
  lately appeared upon the slopes of that mountain--works so
  planned that even if the enemy's western flank was turned and
  driven back from the coast, the central and eastern portions of the
  mountain could still be maintained as a bastion to Kelid Bahr.

  3. Because if I tried to disengage myself both from Krithia and Achi
  Baba by landing due west of Kelid Bahr my troops would be
  exposed to artillery fire from Achi Baba, the Olive Grove, and
  Kelid Bahr itself; the enemy's large reserves were too handy;
  there were not fair chances of success.

 As to (_b_), although much of the Asiatic coast had now been wired and
 entrenched, the project was still attractive. Thereby the Turkish
 forces on the peninsula would be weakened; our beaches at Cape Helles
 would be freed from Asiatic shells; the threat to the enemy's sea
 communications was obvious. But when I descended into detail I found
 that the expected reinforcements would not run to a double operation.
 I mean that, unless I could make a thorough, whole-hearted attack on
 the enemy in the peninsula I should reap no advantage in that theatre
 from the transference of the Turkish peninsular troops to reinforce
 Asia, whereas, if the British forces landed in Asia were not strong
 enough in themselves seriously to threaten Chanak, the Turks for their
 part would not seriously relax their grip upon the peninsula.

 To cut the land communications of the whole of the Turkish peninsular
 army, as in (_c_), was a better scheme on paper than on the spot.
 The naval objections appeared to my coadjutor, Vice-Admiral Robeck,
 well-nigh insurmountable. Already, owing to submarine dangers, all
 reinforcements, ammunition, and supplies had to be brought up from
 Mudros to Helles or Anzac by night in fleet sweepers and trawlers.
 A new landing near Bulair would have added another 50 miles to the
 course such small craft must cover, thus placing too severe a strain
 upon the capacities of the flotilla.

 The landing promised special hazards, owing to the difficulty of
 securing the transports and covering ships from submarine attack.
 Ibrije has a bad beach, and the distance to Enos, the only point
 suitable to a disembarkation on a large scale, was so great that the
 enemy would have had time to organize a formidable opposition from
 his garrisons in Thrace. Four divisions at least would be required
 to overcome such opposition. These might now be found; but, even so,
 and presupposing every other obstacle overcome, it was by no manner
 of means certain that the Turkish army on the peninsula would thereby
 be brought to sue for terms, or that the Narrows would thereby be
 opened to the fleet. The enemy would still be able to work supplies
 across the Straits from Chanak. The swiftness of the current, the
 shallow draft of the Turkish lighters, the guns of the forts, made it
 too difficult even for our dauntless submarine commanders to paralyse
 movement across these land-locked waters. To achieve that purpose
 I must bring my artillery fire to bear both on the land and water
 communications of the enemy.

 This brings me to (_d_), the storming of that dominating height, Hill
 305 [971], with the capture of Maidos and Gaba Tepe as its sequel.

 From the very first I had hoped that by landing a force under the
 heights of Sari Bair we should be able to strangle the Turkish
 communications to the southwards, whether by land or sea, and so clear
 the Narrows for the fleet. Owing to the enemy's superiority, both in
 numbers and in position; owing to underestimates of the strength of
 the original entrenchments prepared and sited under German direction;
 owing to the constant dwindling of the units of my force through
 wastage; owing also to the intricacy and difficulty of the terrain,
 these hopes had not hitherto borne fruit. But they were well founded.
 So much at least had clearly enough been demonstrated by the desperate
 and costly nature of the Turkish attacks. The Australians and New
 Zealanders had rooted themselves in very near to the vitals of the
 enemy. By their tenacity and courage they still held open the doorway
 from which one strong thrust forward might give us command of the
 Narrows.

 From the naval point of view the auspices were also favourable.
 Suvla Bay was but one mile further from Mudros than Anzac, and its
 possession would ensure us a submarine-proof base, and a harbour
 good against gales, excepting those from the south-west. There were,
 as might be expected, some special difficulties to be overcome. The
 broken, intricate country--the lack of water--the consequent anxious
 supply questions. Of these it can only be said that a bad country is
 better than an entrenched country, and that supply and water problems
 may be countered by careful preparation.

It has been pointed out before what need there was for studying the
moon at Anzac. In the fixing of the date for the new landing the
Commander-in-Chief had to find a means of "eliminating" the moon. That
is, he had to find the night which would give him the longest hours
of darkness, after the arrival of his forces. He found that on 7th
August the moon would rise at 2 p.m. The weather might be depended
on to be perfect, so that before the light would be fully cast over
the movements of the troops ashore it would be almost dawn. General
Hamilton would have liked the operations to have commenced a month
earlier, he says, but the troops were not available. He had to fill
in the time by keeping the enemy occupied and wearing them down with
feints. To have waited for another month till the whole of his command
had actually arrived on the adjacent islands of Mudros and Imbros,
where their concentration had been planned, would have been to come too
close to the approaching bad season and increase the element of risk of
the Turks discovering the plans. So the die was cast.

Early in July, I was in Alexandria--the main base of the army. Even
there the general opinion seemed to be that surely soon there must be
an attack, for such vast quantities of stores were being sent to the
peninsula. Never could one forget the sight of the wharves at that
seaport, burdened to their utmost capacity with cases that contained
not only the staple food of the army--beef and biscuits--but butter,
cheese, jams, and vast quantities of entrenching weapons. The whole
of Egypt was scoured for the last man that could be spared. Whole
companies of Australians were organized from the men who had been left
on guard duty--men who were keen to get away, but had been compelled to
stay. Reinforcements were hurried forward to complete their training,
even in the rear of the firing-line of Anzac. Hospital ships were
prepared, hospitals were cleared in anticipation of the thousands of
returning wounded.

 [Illustration: GALLIPOLI PENINSULA AND THE OUTSTANDING FEATURES OF THE
 AUSTRALIAN AND BRITISH POSITIONS. THE SHADED PORTION REPRESENTS THE
 ORIGINAL ANZAC LINE.]

At Mudros Harbour camps and bivouacs were scattered all round the
harbour front. I saw a whole brigade of British troops disembarked from
the massive _Mauretania_ and bivouacked under the open sky. Immensely
cheery bodies of men they were, waiting for the weeks to slip by
till the appointed day. This island of Lemnos lay 40 miles from the
firing-line. Closer by 30 miles to the firing-line was Imbros, where
thousands of other troops were gathered as far as the capacities of
the island (the water supply was the problem; a ship was moored close
inshore and pumped water all day into long lines of tanks) permitted.
In order to refresh the men already in the fighting-line they were
rested at Imbros in battalions, the only relief they had had, since
they landed, from the roar of the shells. But there came a day when
this had to cease, for the resources of the naval and trawling services
were strained to the utmost collecting stores and bringing forward
fresh troops.

Kephalos Bay, at Imbros, was not much of an anchorage, but a boom and
protecting nets kept out the submarines, and good weather favoured
the operations. Gurkhas, Maoris, New Zealanders, Australians, and
British troops were on the island, camped amongst the vineyards, that
were just ripening. General Hamilton's headquarters were on the most
southern promontory of the island, and near by were the aeroplane
hangars, from which, morning and evening, patrols rose, sweeping up the
Straits. Never out of sight of the land, never out of the sound of the
guns, one viewed from this point the vast panorama of the peninsula.
General Hamilton guided the operations from that spot, as being the
most central and giving rapid access to any one of his three fighting
fronts. Wharves had been built by parties of Egyptian engineers, who
had been brought up specially from Cairo. The presence of Turkish
prisoners in camp in a hollow and the native Greeks in their loose,
slovenly garments, completed the extraordinary concourse of nations
that were represented on this picturesque and salubrious island.

In the harbour were anchored some of the weirdest craft that the Navy
possessed--the new heavy monitors that had been of such service already
along the Belgian coast and the baby monitors that had been down the
African coast and up the Tigris River. Four large and two small of
these shallow-draught craft there were, whose main attribute was their
unsinkableness. In the same category must be ranged the converted
cruisers of old and antiquated patterns--for naval ships--from whose
sides bulged a false armour-shield which was calculated to destroy
the torpedo before it reached or could injure the inner shell of the
vessel. And, lastly, to this extraordinary fleet must be added the
armoured landing-punts, that sometimes drifted, sometimes steamed about
the harbour, crammed with a thousand troops each. The motive-power was
an oil-engine that gave them a speed of just 5 miles an hour. From the
front there hung a huge platform that could be let down as required:
across it the troops, emerging from the hold, where they were packed
behind bullet-proof screens, might dash ashore. As all the weight of
the craft was at the stern, its blunted prow would rest on the shore.
From these strange vessels the troops destined for service at Suvla Bay
practised landing assiduously.

Finally, there were the preparations on the peninsula itself. Terraces
and trenches had to be prepared for the new army that was to be
secretly conveyed at night to the Anzac and from which they would issue
forth to the support of the Australians and form the link with the
British armies to operate on the left flank at Suvla Bay. I suppose
the observers in the German aeroplanes that were chased from above
our lines might well have wondered why the ledges were being dug in
the sides of the small valleys--that is, if they could detect them at
all. What they certainly would not see would be the huge quantities of
ammunition, millions and millions of rounds, that for days was being
taken out through the long sap to our No. 2 outpost on the north,
already strengthened with reinforcements from the Light Horse and New
Zealand Rifle regiments. Both at Imbros and at Anzac there were vast
numbers of Egyptian water-cans and ordinary tins (which probably once
had contained honey or biscuits), ready filled with water for the
landing troops. Down at the wells in the valleys pumps had increased
the capacity of the daily supply, and the tanks in the gullies were
kept full--except when the wretched steam-engine employed at Anzac,
broke down. Why so poor a thing should have been obtained it is
difficult to conceive, when more up-to-date plant might easily have
been found.

But the greatest feat of all was the landing of guns, both at Helles
and at Anzac. At the end of July there were at Cape Helles one hundred
and twenty-four guns, composed of the following units:--

VIIIth Army Corps, comprising the artillery of 29th Division, 42nd
Division, 52nd Division, and Royal Naval Division. Attached were 1st
Australian Brigade (Colonel Christian): 6th Australian Battery (Major
Stevenson), 3rd New Zealand Battery.

At Anzac there were over seventy guns, under Brigadier-General Cunliffe
Owen, when the great offensive began, from 10-pounder mountain
batteries to a 6-in. battery of field guns, howitzers, and a 9-in gun.
There were guns on every available ridge and in every hollow; they
were along the great northern sap, firing over it on to the northern
slopes of the Sari Bair ridge, until they gradually were dragged out
along the beach to the new ground won by the Australian and New Zealand
Division. Owing to the closeness of the enemy positions, the small
space available at Anzac, and the height of the hills, the guns were
firing across one another's fronts.

In all this magnificently conceived plan of General Hamilton's, one
thing that stands out above all others is the manner in which the Turks
were deceived. This in some measure may be attributed to the way in
which the Turkish and German observing aeroplanes were chased from the
skies, for the French and British aviators had the upper hand. On a few
occasions the enemy did venture forth, but only at great altitudes;
invariably very swiftly they were compelled to return to their lines
by the Allied aviators. The enemy's hangars behind the forts at Chanak
were destroyed during one air raid, organized by Flight-Commander
Sampson, from Tenedos. Now, General Hamilton determined on certain main
ruses, and left the formulation of any plans to help the Anzac position
to Lieut.-General Birdwood, which I shall mention in their place. As
for the general scheme, the Commander-in-Chief writes:--

 Once the date was decided, a certain amount of ingenuity had to be
 called into play so as to divert the attention of the enemy from
 my main strategical conception. This--I repeat for the sake of
 clearness--was:--

  1. To break out with a rush from Anzac and cut off the bulk of the
  Turkish army from land communication with Constantinople.

  2. To gain such a command for my artillery as to cut off the bulk of
  the Turkish army from sea traffic, whether with Constantinople or
  with Asia.

  3. Incidentally to secure Suvla Bay as a winter base for Anzac and all
  the troops operating in the northern theatre.

 My schemes for hoodwinking the Turks fell under two heads:--

  _First_, strategical diversions meant to draw away enemy reserves not yet
  committed to the peninsula.

  _Second_, tactical diversions meant to hold up enemy reserves already on
  the peninsula.

 Under the first heading came a surprise landing by a force of 300 men
 on the northern shore of the Gulf of Saros; demonstrations by French
 ships opposite Mitylene along the Syrian coast; concentration at
 Mitylene; inspections at Mitylene by the Admiral and myself; making
 to order of a whole set of maps of Asia, in Egypt, as well as secret
 service work, most of which bore fruit.

 Amongst the tactical diversions were a big containing attack at
 Helles. Soundings, registration of guns, etc., by monitors between
 Gaba Tepe and Kum Tepe. An attack to be carried out by Anzac on Lone
 Pine trenches, which lay in front of their right wing, and as far
 distant as the local terrain would admit from the scene of the real
 battle. Thanks entirely to the reality and vigour which the Navy and
 the troops threw into them, each one of these ruses was, it so turned
 out, entirely successful, with the result that the Turks, despite
 their excellent spy system, were caught completely off their guard at
 dawn on the 7th August.

Therefore, if I may be pardoned the term, the 1st Australian Division
was to be, in this huge offensive, the "bait" that was to be flung to
the Turks, to keep them in their trenches massed before Anzac, while
their attention was distracted at Cape Helles by the offensive planned
there. Thus there would be left a clear road round the left flank from
Suvla Bay across the Salt Lake, through Bijak Anafarta, and so on to
the northern slopes of the great crowning position of this, the central
portion of the peninsula, Koja Chemen Tepe, or Hill 971, to give it its
more familiar name. But once the Turks were trapped, as they surely
would have been, the way was clear for the long-desired advance of the
Australian and New Zealand Divisions on to Pine Ridge, to Battleship
Hill, advancing and attacking from both its slopes up to the Sari Bair
ridge, and so to possession of the plains that stretched to Maidos.

And in this carefully prepared scheme the 1st Australian Infantry
Brigade, under Brigadier-General Smyth, were to make the first
move--how vital a trust for a young army!--by an attack on Lone Pine
trenches on 6th August.




CHAPTER XXII

LONE PINE


Lone Pine was the first big attack that the 1st Brigade had taken part
in since the landing. Indeed, it was the first battle these New South
Welshmen had as a separate and complete operation. It was, perhaps, the
freshest and strongest infantry brigade of the four at Anzac, though
barely 2,000 strong. The men had been in the trenches (except for a few
battalions that had been rested at Imbros) since April. They were ripe
for a fight; they were tired of the monotony of sniping at a few Turks
and digging and tunnelling.

It is necessary first to go back a few days prior to this attack, to
the night of the 31st July, when there had been rather a brilliant
minor operation carried out by the Western Australian troops of the
11th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel J. L. Johnston, who had issued
forth from Tasmania Post. The Turks had largely brought this attack on
themselves by having tunnelled forward to a crest that lay not very
many yards distant from our position. We had been unable to see what
their preparations consisted of, though it was known they were "up to
mischief," as Major Ross told me. Exactly what this amounted to was
revealed one day, when they broke down the top of their tunnels and
there appeared on the crest of the small ridge a line of trenches about
100 yards in extent. The enemy had come within easy bombing distance,
but it was difficult for them to locate our sharpshooters and machine
guns, that were so well concealed behind the growing bush.

To overcome this the Turks would creep up near to our lines--they were
very skilled scouts indeed--and would throw some article of clothing
or equipment near where the rifles were spitting. Next morning these
garments served as an indication (that is, if we had not removed them)
for the directing of fire.

On the night of 31st July at 10.15 the attack began. The Turkish
trenches were heavily bombarded, and mines which had rapidly been
tunnelled under their trenches were exploded, with excellent results.
Four assaulting columns, each of 50 men, led by the gallant Major
Leane, then dashed forward from the trenches, crossing our barbed-wire
entanglements on planks that had been laid by the engineers. The men
had left the trenches before the debris from our two flanking mines
had descended, and it took them very few seconds to reach the enemy's
line, which was fully manned with excited and perturbed Turks, who,
immediately the mines had exploded, set up a fearful chattering. The
Australians fired down into the enemy's ranks, and then, having made
a way, jumped into the trenches and began to drive the Turks back on
either side.

On the extreme right a curious and dangerous situation arose. The Turks
had retired some distance down a communication trench, but before our
lads could build up a protecting screen and block the trench, the enemy
attacked with great numbers of bombs. While the men were tearing down
the Turkish parapets to form this barricade a veritable inferno raged
round them as the bombs exploded. Our supplies were limited, and were,
indeed, soon exhausted. The parapet still remained incomplete. Urgent
messages had been sent back for reinforcements, and the position looked
desperate. By a mere chance it was saved. An ammunition box was spied
on the ground between the lines. This was dragged in under terrible
fire, and found to contain bombs. Very soon the Australians then gained
the upper hand. The parapet was completed, and this entrance of the
Turks, as well as their exit, blocked.

But in the charge a short length of the Turkish trenches (they wound
about in an extraordinary fashion) had remained uncaptured, and this
line, in which there were still some 80 Turks fighting, was jammed in
between the Australian lines. The enemy were obviously unconscious that
some of their trenches that ran back on either flank of this trench,
had been captured. Scouts were sent out by Major Leane, and these
men, after creeping up behind the enemy's line, that still continued
to fire furiously, cleared up any remaining doubt that it was still
a party of the enemy. A charge was organized, but was driven back.
Then a further charge from the original lines was made direct at the
trench. The Turks turned and fled down their own communication trench,
but, as we held either flank, were caught by bombs and rifle fire, and
killed. The Turkish dead in this attack were estimated at 100. The
enemy soon turned their guns on the position, and under high-explosive
shell fire all night, our troops worked with the sapper parties, under
Major Clogstoun (3rd Field Company), deepening the captured trenches
and transferring the parapets, which faced our lines, to the westerly
side, facing the Turks. Their own trenches had been wretchedly shallow,
barely 3 feet deep. By dawn our troops had ample protection. But
unfortunately their brave leader, Major Leane, fell mortally wounded.
Ever after the trenches were known as Leane's Trenches--one of the
many men to leave an honoured name on Anzac. Machine guns shattered a
Turkish attack that was being formed in a gully on the right. The Turks
never attempted to retake the trench during the next days immediately
preceding Lone Pine. General Hamilton regarded the action as most
opportune.

Now, while the higher commands realized the scope of the pending
operations, the troops knew very little. "The 1st Brigade is for it
to-morrow" was the only word that spread along the line, very rapidly,
on the evening of the 5th. That it was to be the commencement of a
great coup was only guessed at from various local indications. So
far as was definitely known, it was to be a purely local attack. By
our leaders it was rather hoped, however, the Turks would be led to
believe it was but preliminary to a flanking movement from this point
out towards Maidos and the plains of the Olive Grove. That was the
situation on the morning of the 6th August--a bright, rather crisp
morning, when the waters of the gulf were a little disturbed by the
wind, and barges rocked about violently in Anzac Cove. Perhaps the
arrival of the old comrade to the Australians, the _Bacchante_, that
had been so good a friend to the troops during the early stages, might
have been taken as a signal of hard fighting. She replaced the monitor
_Humber_, that had been at work shelling the guns on the Olive Grove
Plains and on Pine Ridge, 800 yards or more in front of our right
flank, for some weeks.

On the morning of the 6th the heart of Anzac was wearing rather a
deserted appearance, for the Divisional Headquarters of the 1st
Division had been moved up to just behind the firing-line at the head
of White Gully, so as to be nearer the scene of action and shorten
the line of communications. Major-General H. B. Walker was commanding
the Division, and was responsible for the details for this attack.
The New Zealanders also had left Anzac, and Major-General Godley had
established his headquarters on the extreme left, at No. 2 post, where
he would be in the centre of the attacks on the left. On the beach, I
remember, there were parties of Gurkhas still carrying ammunition and
water-tins on their heads out through the saps. Ammunition seemed to be
the dominant note of the beach. Other traffic was normal, even quiet.

Now the Lone Pine entrenchment was an enormously strong Turkish work
that the enemy, while they always felt a little nervous about it,
rather boasted of. It was a strong _point d'appui_ on the south-western
end of Plateau 400, about the centre of the right flank of the
position. At the nearest point the Turkish trenches approached to
within 70 yards of ours, and receded at various places to about 130
yards. This section of our trenches, from the fact that there was a
bulge in our line, had been called "The Pimple." Their entrenchments
connected across a dip, "Owen's Gully," on the north with Johnston's
Jolly and German Officers' Trench, all equally strongly fortified
positions, with overhead cover of massive pine beams, railway sleepers,
and often cemented parapets. The Turks had seen to it when constructing
these trenches that the various positions could be commanded on either
side by their own machine-gun fire.

[Illustration: AUSTRALIAN AND TURKISH TRENCHES AT LONE PINE.]

Why was it called Lone Pine? Because behind it, on the Turkish ridge,
seamed with brown trenches and _mia mias_[2] of pine-needles, there
remained standing a solitary pine-tree amongst the green holly-bushes.
Once there had been a forest of green pines on the ridge. The others
had gradually been cut down for wood and defensive purposes. Singular
to relate, on the morning of the attack the Turks felled this last
pine-tree.

[2] Aboriginal word for a shelter made of gum leaves, branches, and
bark.

Immediately in the rear of our trenches was "Browne's Dip," and
it was here that the reserves were concealed in deep dugouts.
Brigadier-General Smyth had his headquarters there, not 80 yards
from the firing-line, and barely 150 from the Turkish trenches. It
was at the head of the gully that dipped sharply down to the coast.
The position was quite exposed to the Turkish artillery fire, but by
digging deep and the use of enormous sandbag ramparts some little
protection was obtained, though nothing stood against the rain of
shells that fell on this area--not 400 yards square--in the course of
the attacks and counter-attacks.

To properly understand and realize the nature of the Lone Pine
achievement it must be explained that our trenches consisted of two
lines. There was the actual firing-line, which the Turks could see, and
the false firing-line, which was a series of gallery trenches that ran
parallel to our first line beneath the ground, and of which the enemy
had little cognizance. These two lines were separated by from 10 to 40
yards. The false line was reached through five tunnels. It was one of
the most elaborately prepared positions on an intricate front. Three
main tunnels from these gallery trenches ran out towards the Turkish
line. In each of these, on the morning of the 6th, a large charge of
ammonel was set by the engineers, ready to explode at the beginning
of the attack. Now, the idea of the gallery trenches had been, in the
first place, defensive. The ground had been broken through, but no
parapets had been erected on the surface, as the enemy did not know
exactly the direction of this forward firing-line. At night these holes
in the ground gave the men a chance to place machine guns in position,
in anticipation of a Turkish offensive. Later, however, they were
blocked with barbed-wire entanglements, while _cheveaux de frise_ were
placed outside them, much, it may be stated, to the disgust of the
engineers, who had prepared this little trap for the enemy with keen
satisfaction.

Before the attack all this barbed wire was removed, and it was decided
that while one line of men should dash from the parapets, another
line should rise up out of the ground before the astonished eyes
of the Turks, and charge for the second line of the Turkish works,
leaving the men from the actual firing-line to capture the Turkish
first works. All that was needed for the success of this plan was the
careful synchronizing of watches, and an officer stationed at every
cross-section of trenches and tunnels to give the signal.

Lifeless the beach and the old headquarters may have been, but
there was no mistaking the spirits of the men as I went along those
firing-line trenches at three o'clock on this beautiful, placid
afternoon. Lying so long without fighting, there now rose up the old
spirit of the landing and fight within them. "It's Impshee Turks
now!" said the men of the 4th, as they moved along the communication
trench from the centre of the position to the point of attack. Silence
was enjoined on the men; isolated whispered conversations only were
carried on. The seasoned troops knew the cost of attack on a strongly
entrenched position. Most of the others (reinforcements) had heard
vivid enough descriptions from their mates, and had seen little
engagements along the line.

I was moving slowly along the trenches. The men carried their
entrenching tools and shovels. At various points their comrades from
other battalions, who watched the line of heroes who were "for it,"
dashed out to shake some comrade by the hand. There was a warmth about
these handgrips that no words can describe. It was the silence that
made the scene of the long files of men such an impressive one. It
was a significant silence that was necessary, so that the Turks in
their trenches, not more perhaps at that point than 100 yards away,
might gain no inkling of the exact point from which the attack was to
be made. As the men went on through trench after trench, they came at
length into the firing-line--the Pimple--where already other battalions
had been gathered. There were men coming in the opposite direction,
struggling past somehow, with the packs and waterproof sheets and
impedimenta that made it a tight squeeze to get past. Messages kept
passing back and forth for officers certain minor details of the attack.

Our trenches before the Lone Pine position were only thinly manned by
the 5th Battalion, who were to remain behind and hold them in case of
failure. These men had crept into their "possies," or crevices in the
wall, and tucked their toes out of the way. Some were eating their
evening meal. Other parties were just leaving for the usual supply of
water to be drawn down in the gullies and brought up by "fatigues" to
the trenches. So into the midst of all this routine, marched the new
men of the 1st Brigade, who were going out from this old firing-line to
form a new line, to blaze the path, to capture the enemy's strongest
post. They went in good spirits, resigned, as only soldiers can be, to
the inevitable, their jaws set, a look in their faces which made one
realize that they knew their moment of destiny had come; for the sake
of the regiment, for the men who were around them, they must bear their
share. It was strange to still hear muttered arguments about everyday
affairs, to hear the lightly spoken words, "Off to Constantinople."

As I got closer to the vital section of trenches (some 200 yards in
length), they were becoming more congested. It was not only now the
battalions that were to make the charge, but other men had to be ready
for any emergency. They were filing in to take their place and make
sure of holding what we already had. Sections got mixed with sections
in the sharp traverses. It wanted, too, but a few minutes to the hour,
but not the inevitable moment. There was a solemn silence over the
hills, in the middle of that dazzling bright afternoon, before our guns
burst forth, precisely at half-past four. Reserves were drawn up behind
the trenches in convenient spots, their officers chatting in groups.
Rapidly the shells began to increase in number, and the anger of their
explosions grew more intense as the volume of fire increased. Amidst
the sharp report of our howitzers amongst the hills, and the field
guns, came the prolonged, rumbling boom of the ships' fire.

There was no mistaking the earnestness of the _Bacchante's_ fire. Yet,
distributed over the whole of the lines, it did not seem that the
bombardment was as intense as one expected. In fact, there came a time
when I believed that it was finished before its time. One was glad for
the break, for it stopped the fearful ear-splitting vibrations that
were shaking one's whole body. Yet as the black smoke came over the top
of the trenches and drifted down into the valleys behind, it gladdened
the waiting men, knowing that each explosion meant, probably, so much
less resistance of the enemy's trenches to break down. But to those
waiting lines of troops the bombardment seemed interminably long, and
yet not long enough. What if the Turks had known how our trenches were
filled with men! But, then, what if they really knew the exact point
and moment where and when the attack was to be made! So that while
in one sense the shelling gave the Turks some idea of the attack, it
actually told them very little. Such bombardments were not uncommon.
Their gun fire had died down to a mere spitting of rifles here and
there along a line, and an occasional rapid burst of machine-gun fire.
A few, comparatively very few, shells as yet came over to our trenches
and burst about the crests of the hills where our line extended.

It was ordered that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Battalions should form
the first line, and the 1st Battalion the brigade reserve. The
1st Battalion was under Lieut.-Colonel Dobbin, the second under
Lieut.-Colonel Scobie, the third under Lieut.-Colonel Brown, and the
fourth under Lieut.-Colonel Macnaghton.

We were committed. At 5.30 came the avalanche. The artillery ceased. A
whistle sharply blown was the signal prearranged. A score or more of
other whistles sounded almost simultaneously. The officers, crouching
each with his command under the parapets, were up then, and with
some words like "Come, lads, now for the trenches!" were over our
parapets, and in a long, more or less regular line the heavily-laden
men commenced the dash across the dead ground between. They ran under
the protection of the intense fire from our rifles and from our machine
guns that swept their outer flanks; but it was impossible to fire
or attempt any shooting over our advancing lines. The sun was still
high enough to be in the eyes of the Turks, but they were ready to
open rifle fire on the advancing line of khaki. With their machine
guns, fortunately, they were less ready. They had the range for the
parapet trenches, but not the intermediate line between, from which
the first line of troops, 150 men about--50 from each of the three
battalions--sped across the intervening space without very serious
loss, the Turkish machine guns on this, as on most occasions, firing
low.

 [Illustration: LOOKING FROM THE PIMPLE DOWN INTO OWEN'S GULLY:
 JOHNSTON'S JOLLY AND BATTLESHIP HILL ON THE EXTREME LEFT, AND LONE PINE
 TRENCHES ON THE RIGHT; PINE RIDGE IN THE DISTANCE.

  To face p. 228]

The 2nd Battalion were on the extreme right, the 3rd in the centre,
and the 4th Battalion occupied the left flank, adjacent to Owen's
Gully. The men ran at full speed, so far as their equipment permitted,
some stumbling, tripping over wires and unevennesses in the ground;
others stumbling, hit with the bullets. A thousand dashes of brown
earth, where the bullets struck, were flicked up right across that
narrow patch. There was no cheer, just the steady advancing, unchecked
line, till the men threw themselves on the first and second trenches.
Barely a minute and they were across.

It must have been with a feeling akin to dismay that the gallant
line found the Turks' overhead cover on their trenches was undamaged
and extremely difficult to pierce. The first line, according to the
arranged plan, ran right over the top of the first enemy trenches, and,
reaching the second line, began to fire down on the bewildered Turks,
regardless of the fact that enemy machine guns were playing on them all
the time. This was how so many fell in the early charge. A very few
managed at once to drop down into the trench. I know with what relief
those watching saw them gain, after that stunning check, a footing. But
the greater number could be seen lying on the face of the trench, or
immediately beneath the sandbags under the loopholes. Like this they
remained for a few minutes, searching for the openings that our guns
must have made. Gradually, sliding down feet foremost into the trench,
they melted away. Each man, besides the white arm-bands on his jacket,
had a white square on his back. This badge was worn throughout the
attacks during the first two days, as a distinguishing mark from the
enemy in the dark; a very necessary precaution where so many different
types of troops were engaged. This made the advancing line more
conspicuous on a bare landscape. Men could be seen feverishly seeking
a way into the trenches. One man rendered the most valuable service by
working along the front of the Turkish trenches beneath the parapet,
tearing down the loopholes that were made of clay and straw with his
bayonet.

It was still only barely five minutes since the attack had commenced,
yet the Turkish artillery had found our trenches, both the firing-line
and the crest of the hill behind, and down into the gully. The whole
hill shook under the terrific blows of the shells. Our replying
artillery, six, eight, or more guns, firing in rapid succession over
the heads of the men, and passing where the enemy's shells were
bursting in the air, made in a brief five minutes an inferno that it
seemed a matter of madness to suppose any one would escape.

Following hard on the heels of the first men from our trenches went
a second line, those on the left suffering worse than on the right.
Again some did not wait at the first trench, but rushed on to the
second Turkish trench. Soon there appeared a little signal arm sending
back some urgent call. It turned out to be for reinforcements. It
was not evident at the time they were needed, but they went. Our
firing-trenches were emptying rapidly now, and only an ordinary
holding-line remained.

The Turkish guns lowered their range, and shrapnel burst over the
intervening ground, across which troops, in spite, and in the face of
it, must pass. Signallers ran lines of wires back and forth, only to
have them cut and broken, and all their work to be done again. Five
times they drew the reel across from the trench where the troops were
fighting. You could gain little idea of what actually was happening
in Lone Pine. Occasionally butts of rifles were uplifted. On the left
flank, round the edge of the trenches on Johnston's Jolly, for a few
minutes the Turkish bayonets glistened in the sun as men went along
their trench, but whether they were hurrying to support their harried
comrades or were the men our troops had turned in panic we could not
see.

Then the wounded commenced to come back. They came back across the
plateau, dripping with blood, minus all their equipment and their
arms. Some fell as they came, only to be rescued hours afterwards.
News was filtering back slowly. In a quarter of an hour we had won
three trenches; at 6.30 we held them strongly after an hour of bloody
fighting. Further reinforcements were dashing forward, taking advantage
of what might seem a lull, but suffering far worse than their comrades.
Shouted orders even could not be heard in the din; whistles would not
penetrate.

In the midst of the whole attack one prayed that something would
stop the vibrations that seemed to shake every one and everything
in the vicinity. Our trenches were rent, torn, and flattened, and
sandbags and debris piled up, blocking entrances and exits. Men worked
heroically, clearing a way where they could. Doctors were in the
trenches doing mighty work. Captain J. W. Bean went calmly hither and
thither until wounded. Major Fullerton had gone with the first rush,
had tripped, and fell. He was thought to be wounded, but went on and
reached safely the Turkish trenches, where, for six hours, he was the
only doctor on the spot.

Wounded men came pouring back to the dressing-station behind the hill
in "Browne's Dip," where friends directed them down the hill. It
seemed horrible to ask the men to go farther. The stretcher-bearers
were carrying cases down. I saw them hit, and compelled to hand over
stretchers to willing volunteers, who sprang up out of the earth. They
were men waiting their turn to go forward. The ground was covered each
minute with a dozen bursting shells within the small area I could
see. The dirt, powdered, fell on our shoulders. The shrapnel, luckily
bursting badly, searched harmlessly the slopes of a hill 40 yards away.

The great 6-inch howitzers of the enemy tore up the gully and hillside,
sending stones and dirt up in lumps, any one of which would inflict
a blow, if not a wound. They ripped an old graveyard to pieces. They
tore round the dressing-station. We watched them on the hill amongst
the trenches. Would our turn be next? No one knew. You could not hear
except in a distant kind of way, for our guns fired at point-blank
range, and their noise was even worse than the bursting shells. Yet
when the call came, there rose from their dugouts another company of
men of the 1st Battalion, and formed up and dashed for the comparative
cover of a high bank of earth prior to moving off. The men went with
their heads down, as they might in a shower of rain. A foul stench
filled the air from explosives.

"Orderly, find Captain Coltman [machine-gun officer]!" called Major
King, Brigade-Major. Away into the firing-line or towards it would go
the messenger. "Orderly, Orderly!" and again a message would be sent
to some section of the line. The officer giving these directions was a
young man (he had already been wounded in the campaign). His face was
deadly white and his orders crisp and clear. He dived into his office,
only to come out again with a fresh message in his hand (ammunition was
wanted) and dash off himself into the firing-line. He was back again
in a few minutes to meet his Brigadier. They stood there in the lee,
if one may so call it, of some sandbags (the office had been blown
down) asking in terse sentences of the progress of the battle. "I
think it is all right. They say they can hold on all right. They want
reinforcements." I saw the signallers creeping over the hill, feeling
for the ends of broken wires, trying to link up some of the broken
threads, so that information could be quickly sought and obtained.
Doctors I saw treating men as they passed, halting with a case of
bandages; men past all help lay in a heap across the path leading into
the sap. It was, after all, just a question of luck. You kept close
into a bank, and with the shells tearing up the earth round you, hoped
that you might escape. After a time there was so much else to think of,
especially for the men fighting, that it was no time to think of the
shells. They arrived with a swish and sickening explosion and a thud.
Where the next was coming, except it was sure to be in the vicinity,
was a matter for the Turks and Kismet. Men ran like rabbits and half
fell, half tumbled into the dugouts. Somehow the whole thing reminded
me of people coming in out of a particularly violent storm. Once in the
firing-line, the shells were going overhead, and curiously enough one
felt safe, even in the midst of the dead and dying.

To look with a periscope for a minute over the top of the parapet.
The machine guns were traversing backwards and forwards, not one, but
five or six of them. I was with Captain Coltman. He went from end
to end of the line, inspecting our machine guns. Some were firing,
others were cooling, waiting a target, or refitting, rectifying some
temporary trouble caused by a bullet or a shell. Men were watching with
periscopes at the trenches. It was exactly an hour since the battle had
begun, and the Turkish trenches, now ours, were almost obscured by the
battle smoke and the coming night. Yet I could just see the men rushing
on. The 1st Battalion reinforcement launched out at 6.20 to consolidate
the position and strengthen the shattered garrison. They disappeared
into the trenches. In some cases the best entrance had been gained by
tearing away the sandbags and getting in under the overhead cover. I
was down a tunnel that led to our advanced firing-line when I faintly
heard the men calling, "There goes another batch of men!" I could hear
a more wicked burst of fire from the enemy's machine guns, and then the
firing died down, only to be renewed again in a few minutes. In the
captured trenches a terrible bomb battle was being fought. Gradually
the Turks were forced back down their own communication trenches, which
we blocked with sandbags. By 6.30 the message came back, "Everything
O.K.," and a little later, "Have 70 prisoners." These men were caught
in a tunnel before they could even enter the battle.

 [Illustration: COOKS' LINES IN BROWN'S DIP JUST BEHIND LONE PINE
 TRENCHES.]

 [Illustration: AUSTRALIAN AND TURKISH DEAD LYING ON THE PARAPETS OF THE
 CAPTURED LONE PINE TRENCHES.

 All the Australian troops in the August offensive wore a white armlet
 and white square cloth on their backs as a distinguishing mark.

  To face p. 232.]

Cheerful seems hardly the right word to use at such a grim time, yet
the men who were behind the machine guns, ready to pop them above
the trenches for a moment and then drop them again before the enemy
could blow them to pieces, never were depressed, except when their gun
was out of action. Soon they got others to replace them. They were
watching--so were the men round them, with bayonets fixed, in case the
Turks drove us back from Lone Pine. As we made our way along the old
firing-line, it meant bobbing there while the bullets welted against
the sandbags and the earth behind you. You were covered every few yards
with debris from bursting shells. The light was fading rapidly. The
sun had not quite set. The last departing rays lit up the smoke of the
shells like a furnace, adding to the grim horribleness of the situation.

Of the inner fighting of those first two hours in the Turkish trenches
little can be written till all the stories are gathered up and tangled
threads untied, if ever that is possible. But certain facts have
been revealed. Major Stevens, who was second in command of the 2nd
Battalion, was charging down a Turkish trench when he saw a Turk about
2 yards from him in a dugout. He called over his shoulder to the men
following him to pass up a bomb, and this was thrown and the Turk
killed. Then Major Stevens came face to face with a German officer
at the mouth of the tunnel. In this tunnel were some 70 Turks. The
Australian was fired at point-blank by the German, but the shot missed
its mark and the officer was shot dead by a man following Stevens.
The Turks in the tunnel surrendered. They had gone there on the
commencement of the bombardment, as was their custom, and had not had
time to man the trenches before the Australians were on them. The first
warning that had been given, it was learned from a captured officer,
was when the sentries on duty called, "Here come the English!"

Farther down the trench a party of Australians were advancing against
the Turks, who were shielded by a traverse. The first Australian
that had run down, with his bayonet pointed, had come face to face
with five of the enemy. Instinctively he had taken protection behind
the traverse. He had called on his mates, and then ensued one of the
scores of incidents of that terrible trench fight when the men slew one
another in mortal combat. Their dead bodies were found in piles.

Captain Pain, 2nd Battalion, with a party of three men, each holding
the leg of a machine gun, propped himself up in the middle of one
trench and fired down on to the Turks, massed for a charge, till
suddenly a bullet killed one of the party, wounded Pain, and the whole
gun collapsed.

The Turks had in one case a machine gun firing down the trench, so
that it was impossible for us to occupy it. By using one of the many
communication trenches that the Turks had dug a party managed to work
up close enough to bomb the Turks from the flank, compelling them to
retire. Every man and every officer can repeat stories like these of
deeds that won the Australians the day; but, alas! many of those brave
men died in the trenches which they had captured at the bayonet's point.

At seven o'clock, when the first clash of arms had passed, the enemy
made their first violent and concerted effort to regain their lost
trenches. It was a furious onslaught, carried on up the communication
trenches by a veritable hail of bombs. In some places we gave way, in
others we drove back the enemy farther along his trenches. From the
north and the south the enemy dashed forward with fixed bayonets. They
melted away before our machine guns and our steady salvos of bombs.
The Australians stuck to their posts in the face of overwhelming
numbers--four to one: they fought right through the night, and as they
fought, strove to build up cover of whatever material came nearest to
hand. Thousands of sandbags were used in making good that position.
Companies of the 12th Battalion were hurried up towards midnight to
strengthen the lines, rapidly diminishing under the fury of the Turkish
attack. But these men found a communication-way open to them to reach
the maze of the enemy's position.

Our mines, that had been exploded at the head of the three tunnels
mentioned earlier, had formed craters, from which the sappers, under
Colonel Elliott and Major Martyn, began to dig their way through to
the captured positions. Only two of these tunnels were opened up that
night, just six hours after the trenches had been won. The parties dug
from each end: they toiled incessantly, working in shifts, with almost
incredible speed. It was the only way to get relief for the wounded;
to go across the open, as many of the gallant stretcher-bearers,
signallers, and sappers did, was to face death a thousand times from
the Turkish shrapnel. So part tunnel, part trench, the 80 yards was
sapped and the wounded commenced to be brought in in a steady stream.

It took days to clear the captured trenches. Australians and Turks lay
dead, one on top of the other, three or four deep. All it was possible
to do was to fill these trenches in. That night down the tunnel on
the right kept passing ammunition, bombs--some 3,000 were used in the
course of the first few hours--water, food, rum for the fighters,
picks, shovels, and machine guns. Every half-hour the Turks came on
again, shouting "Allah!" and were beaten back. The resistance was
stubborn. It broke eventually the heart of the Turks.

Officers and men in that first horrible night performed stirring deeds
meriting the highest honour. The names of many will go unrecorded
except as part of that glorious garrison. It was a night of supreme
sacrifice, and the brigade made it, to their everlasting honour and
renown.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE HEROIC LIGHT HORSE CHARGE


So far as the 1st Australian Division was concerned, their offensive
in the great battle of August began with the capture of Lone Pine,
late on the afternoon of the 6th August, and ended with the desperate,
heroic charge of the 8th and 10th Light Horse Regiments on the early
morning of the 7th. Lone Pine had started the whole of the operations,
and the Australian Division throughout the night was to carry them on
by a series of offensives from their trenches right along the line.
All this fighting, as has been explained, was to cover the main object
of the plan, the landing of the new British force at Suvla Bay and the
seizing of a base for winter operations; and, further, the capture of
the crest of the main ridge, Chunak Bair and Koja Chemen Tepe, or Hill
971. So naturally the operations fall into sections. From what has
been subsequently learned, the Turks, immediately after their crushing
defeat at Lone Pine, hurried up reinforcements from Bogali and diverted
others that were on their way to Cape Helles. It did not stay their
attack at Cape Helles, however, which had been planned, by some curious
chance, to take place almost at the identical hour that the British, on
the 7th, were to attack the Turkish lines, which was the reason for the
British being hurled back after desperate fighting.

But if there was a success for the Turk at Cape Helles, it was nothing
to the blow they suffered by the loss of their declared impregnable
Lone Pine trenches and the successfully accomplished landing at Suvla
Bay. But in between these two operations were the long hours of the
night, when the captured trenches at Lone Pine were subjected to
fearful bombing attacks, and successive Turkish regiments were hurled
against the closed breach, operations which lasted over all for four
days. Two Divisions at least were massed by the Turks against the Anzac
forces by midnight of the 6th. The enemy's trenches positively bristled
with bayonets. Our green and red rocket shells showed them up; we could
see them moving along the gullies and over the hills in the early dawn.
The Light Horsemen on the Nek knew that the enemy were waiting to meet
the charge they were in duty bound to make at grey dawn.

To retrace in detail the events of that night. On the Lone Pine section
of the line the Turkish bombardment began to ease at eight o'clock,
and the Turks, for a time, gave up searching the valleys of Anzac for
our reserves and for the guns. Every available piece of artillery must
have been trained on the position. Then the warships and our Australian
and New Zealand howitzers kept up a regular, almost incessant fire. A
gun banged each minute on various sections of the line. It had been
determined by Major-General Walker that there should be an offensive by
the men of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, occupying the trenches opposite
German Officers' Trench. Our lines were but thinly held, as there had
been a gradual easing off to the right towards the Lone Pine trenches,
that had swallowed up the whole of the 1st Brigade, so that now the 2nd
Brigade only was left to hold the position.

Lieut.-Colonel Bennett with the 6th Battalion was charged with the
task of taking the almost impregnable German Officers' Trenches.
Crowned with massive beams, bristling with machine guns, it had been
demonstrated on more than one occasion what the Turks intended should
be the fate of any men who dared attack these trenches. At eleven
o'clock on the night of the 6th, the sappers exploded the first mine
underneath the Turkish trenches immediately in front of them. Another
charge was fired at 11.30, and two at 11.40. The battalion then began
to occupy the forward gallery positions that had been prepared.
Unfortunately, the guns did not do the damage that was anticipated. On
the contrary, they did nothing but warn the already thoroughly roused
enemy of an impending assault.

The first attack was planned for twelve o'clock. At that time the
bombardment of the section of the Turkish trenches ceased. From the
tunnel trenches the men scrambled up, a few only from each hole, as
there was little space. The enemy's machine guns raged and raked our
ranks from end to end. Few of the men got more than a yard or two. The
tunnels became choked with dead and dying. The attack withered at its
birth. What else could be expected under such conditions? Yet a second
attempt was made at 3.55 a.m., but with no better result. A score or
more of machine guns firing at various angles, with the range set to a
nicety, swept down the attackers almost before they had time to leave
their trenches. The position was desperate. Had the whole of the attack
to be sacrificed because this line of men failed to do their duty? But
did they fail? They charged twice, and were preparing to go a third
time, on the determination of General Walker (but against the judgment
of Brigadier-General Forsyth, who saw the hopelessness of it all),
when, realizing that the object had already been served, as news came
through of the successful landing at Suvla Bay, the third charge was
cancelled at the last moment.

Dawn was beginning to steal into the sky behind the Turkish position. A
thin, waning moon shed but little light over the terrible battlefields.
From a forward observation station I noted the battle line spitting red
tongues of flame all along to the Nek, while at Quinn's Post occurred
every few minutes, terrible explosions of shell and bombs from either
side. A gun a minute was booming constantly--booming from the heart of
Anzac. The destroyers, the rays of their searchlights cast up on to
the hill, swept the top of the Sari Bair ridge with the high-explosive
shell from their 6-inch guns. Fearful as had been the night, the dawn
was more horrible still, as an intense bombardment commenced on the
Chessboard Trenches on the Nek. Howitzers and high-explosive shells
fell thickly round those masses of Turkish trenches, so often and
accurately registered in the weeks of waiting. The surmise that the
Turks had brought up reinforcements had indeed proved correct, for they
were waiting now in the trenches on the Nek--confidently, we learn,
waiting any "English" attack, which now seemed inevitable. It was
inevitable.

 [Illustration:

 _Approximate Scale 1 inch = 50 yds._

 _OPPOSING TRENCHES ON THE NEK_]

At this time the 3rd Light Horse Brigade, under Brigadier-General
Hughes, held the Nek. I have already described this position. It was
barely 120 yards wide. The Turkish trenches were scarcely 80 yards
away from our line. They sloped backward slightly up the ridge to the
sides of Baby 700 and Chunak Bair. On the right of this narrow causeway
was the head of Monash Gully, a steep drop into a ravine, and across
it, Pope's Hill and Quinn's Post. On the left the sheer precipices
fell away down into the foothills of the Sari Bair ridge. Row after
row one could see of the enemy trenches--Chessboard Trenches; the name
significant of their formation.

It fell to the 8th and 10th Light Horse Regiments to storm these enemy
redoubts. They were to charge at 4.30 in the morning--the morning after
the bloody battle of Lone Pine, after, as I heard Colonel Antill,
Brigade-Major of that Light Horse Brigade, say, we had gone along the
whole of our battle front "ringing a bell." Then, when that had tolled
and sounded, were the Light Horse to face their certain death. The
story is simply told. It is very brief. The attack was to be made in
four lines. The 8th Light Horse (Victorians) were to supply the first
two lines, 150 men in each. Besides scaling ladders that had been
specially made to enable men to get into the trenches, these Light
Horsemen each carried two empty sandbags. They had food supplies,
and plenty of ammunition. But they were not to fire a shot. They had
to do their work with the cold steel of the bayonet. Following them
was a third line of 150 men of the 10th Regiment, and yet another
line--the last--ready with picks and shovels and bombs--any quantity of
bombs--and reserves of water and ammunition. They were to help to make
good the trenches when they were won.

Against the sandbags of our lines thumped the bullets as the Turkish
machine guns traversed from end to end of the short line. A hard
purring and the whistle of bullets, then a few minutes' pause. Still
the bombardment continued furiously, smashing, it was thought, the
Turkish trenches to atoms. But while the communication-ways were
blocked and heavy casualties were inflicted, the front Turkish
trenches remained practically unharmed. In three lines of trenches,
their bayonets fixed, standing one above the other to get better
shooting, resting on steps or sitting on the parados of the trenches,
the Turks waited the coming of the Light Horsemen. The trenches were
smothered in a yellow smoke and dust from the bursting lyddite from
the ships, that almost obscured from our view the enemy's position.
It was a bombardment the intensity of which had never been seen yet
on Gallipoli; the hill was plastered with awful death-dealing shells.
Just at 4.25 the bombardment slackened significantly. Immediately there
began to pour a sheet of lead from the Turkish trenches. Musketry and
machine guns fired incessantly. Could anything live for a minute in it?
At the end of three minutes our guns ceased.

Lieut.-Colonel A. White elected to lead the men he loved. He made a
brief farewell to his brother officers. He shook them by the hand
and went into the firing-line. He stood waiting with his watch in
hand. "Men," he said, "you have ten minutes to live." And those Light
Horsemen of his regiment, recruited from the heart of Victoria, knew
what he said was true. They waited, listening to the terrible deluge
that rained against the parapets of their trenches. "Three minutes,
men," and the word came down from the far end of the line, did the
order still hold good? It was a sergeant who sent it, and by the time
he had received the reply passed back along the waiting line, the
whistle for the charge sounded. With an oath, "---- him!" he leaped to
the parapet of the trench; he fell back on his comrade waiting below
him--dead.

The whole line went. Each man knew that to leave those trenches was
to face certain, almost immediate death. They knew it no less than
the glorious Light Brigade at Balaclava. There is surely a comparison
between the two deeds, and shall not the last make the young Nation
more honoured! Those troops, with all the knowledge, after months of
waiting, of what trench warfare meant, of what they might now expect,
never flinched, never presented a braver front.

  Theirs not to reason why; theirs but to do--and die.

They charged.

Lieut.-Colonel White had not gone ten paces when he fell dead, riddled
with bullets. The first line of 150 men melted away ere they had gone
half the distance to the trenches, and yet the second line, waiting
and watching, followed them. One small knoll alone gave a little
protection for a few dozen paces to the advancing line from the Turkish
machine guns, that rattled from a dozen different points along that
narrow front, and swept from the right flank across from the enemy
trenches opposite Quinn's Post. Adding to the terror of it all came
the swish of the shells from the French "75" guns that the Turks had
captured from the Servians, and which were now firing ten shells a
minute on to the Nek. The parapets were covered with dead and dying.
Stretcher-bearers rescued men where they could from just above the
parapets, and dragged them down into the trenches, while over the same
parapets went other men, doomed like their magnificent comrades.

Just a handful of men--how many will hardly ever be known, probably it
was not ten--managed to reach the section of the Turkish line facing
the extreme right of our position. At other places some few others had
pitched forward and fallen dead into the Turkish trenches. But those
few men that won through raised a little yellow and red flag, the
prearranged signal, the signal for the second part of the attack to
develop. It were better that those gallant men had never reached that
position. The third line were ordered to advance, and went over the
parapets. There was nothing else to do. Comrades could not be left to
die unsupported. At the same time from Bully Beef Sap (that was the
trench that ran down into Monash Gully from the Nek) the Royal Welsh
Fusiliers attacked up the head of the gully. Their first two lines,
so soon as they came under fire, fell, crumpled; at which moment the
third line--Western Australian Light Horse--had gone forward from the
Nek. But before the whole of the 150 men could rush to their certain
destruction, Brigadier General Hughes stopped the attack. So it
happened that a small party of 40 on the left managed to crawl back
into the trenches. The remainder fell alongside their brave Victorian
brothers who had charged and died.

For the flag in the enemy's trench soon disappeared, and the fate of
the brave men who erected it was never told. Late the next night a
private named McGarry crawled back from beneath the parapet of the
Turkish trenches, where he had feigned dead all day. He told of the
forest of Turkish steel that stood in the series of three trenches,
ranged one behind the other. Another man, Lieutenant Stuart, 8th Light
Horse, who, after going 15 yards, fell wounded, and managed to crawl
into the crater of a shell-burst, where he lay until the signal was
given to retire, returned from amongst the dead and dying lying under
the pale morning light on no man's ground between the trenches.

Thus in a brief fifteen minutes did regiments perish. Only an incident
it was of the greatest battle ever fought in the Levant, but an
imperishable record to Australia's glory. Nine officers were killed, 11
missing, 13 wounded; 50 men killed, 170 wounded, and 182 missing: and
those missing never will return to answer the roll call--435 casualties
in all.

What did the brigade do but its duty?--duty in the face of overwhelming
odds, in the face of certain death; and the men went because their
leaders led them, and they were men. What more can be said? No one may
ask if the price was not too great. The main object had been achieved.
The Turks were held there. It was learned that many of the enemy in the
trenches had their full kits on, either just arrived or bidden remain
(as they might be about to depart). And so right along the line were
the enemy tied to their trenches, crowded together as they could be,
packed, waiting to be bayoneted where they stood or disperse the foe.
Above all, the Australians had kept the way clear for the great British
flanking movement already begun. For all this, will the spot remain
sacred in the memory of every Australian of this generation and the
generations to come.

Now, while the 3rd Light Horse Brigade was charging from the Nek there
was also a charge from round Quinn's Post by the 1st Brigade, under
Brigadier-General Chauvel, who held this sector of the line. The 2nd
Regiment attacked the Turkish position opposite Quinn's Post in four
lines. Fifty men went in each. Major T. J. Logan led one section of
the first line. Led! It was only fifteen or twenty paces to the enemy,
yet few of the men managed to crawl up over the parapet. They were
shot down as soon as they began to show themselves, and fell back into
their own trenches. Major Bourne led the other party. Both gallant
leaders fell dead before they or any of their troops could reach the
Turkish lines. One man only, who returned unwounded, declares that he
escaped by simply watching the stream of bullets from the enemy's
machine guns striking the parapets of our trenches and leaping over
it; for as usual, the Turkish guns were searching low. And as this
assault was launched the 1st Regiment, led by Major T. W. Glasgow,
charged from Pope's Hill, on the left of Quinn's. There was in front
the small ridge--Deadman's Ridge--which had been attacked on the 2nd
May, and won in parts by the 4th Infantry Brigade. It was covered with
trenches, dug one above the other. From all three the Light Horsemen
drove the Turks. In the forward line the men for a few minutes had the
awful experience of being bombed by the Turks in front and their own
men behind, until the mistake was suddenly recognized by Major Glasgow,
who immediately charged with his men over the parapets to the third
trench, and joined up the whole of the regiment. But the Turks held
the higher ground above, and from their trenches it was an easy mark
to throw bombs down on to the Light Horsemen in the trenches lower on
the ridge. Our bomb supplies had all to be brought forward from Pope's
position under machine-gun fire. The valiant men who still clung to
the trenches they had gained, suffered cruel loss from bombs that the
Turks hurled overhead and along the communication trenches. After two
hours' desperate fighting, at 7.30 a.m. the order was reluctantly given
to retire. Then only the right section of our line ever got back, and
with them the gallant commander, without a scratch. Major Reed and
Lieutenant Nettleton both died in those trenches. Twenty-one men were
killed and 51 were missing after the attack.

So in the course of a terrible hour the Light Horse Brigades, National
Guardsmen of Australia, won deathless glory by noble sacrifice and
devotion to duty, and formed the traditions on which the splendour of
the young army is still being built.




CHAPTER XXIV

THE BATTLE OF SARI BAIR--FIRST PHASE


It must be recognized that except for the 4th Infantry Brigade the
offensive of the Australians was completed on the morning of the 7th.
Part had succeeded--part had failed. Their further advance rested
entirely on the success of the second phase of the great scheme, the
assault of the Sari Bair ridge. This terrible task fell mostly on the
New Zealanders, but partly, too, on the new British army and the Indian
brigades. The Australians were the connecting link between this greater
Anzac and Suvla Bay landing. When the time came, they joined in the
general offensive on the crest of the Sari Bair ridge and the attempt
to take Hill 971--Koja Chemen Tepe. As my story mainly rests with
the Australians, if more details necessarily are given of their part
in this action, it must not be considered as a slur on the brilliant
achievements of the New Zealanders and Britishers. What fighting I did
not see at close fighting quarters I learned from the officers of those
splendid battalions, later.

The vital movement to extend the Anzac position, connecting it with
Suvla Bay, enveloping and taking of the summit of the mass of hills
that dominated the central part of the peninsula and the Narrows, was
entrusted to the care of General Sir William Birdwood. He had prefaced
it with the offensive from Anzac proper. Now, under Major-General Sir
Alexander Godley, the attempt to sweep up the northern slopes was to be
carried out by a mixed force of Australians, New Zealanders, British,
and Indians, numbering in all some 12,000 men.

The complete capture of the Sari Bair ridge would have brought into
action again the 1st Australian Division, whose left wing at Anzac
might have been relied on to advance over Baby 700 and up to Battleship
Hill. What is too often overlooked, or forgotten, is that the capture
of the great Hill 971 was a separate operation, though a natural
corollary to the holding of the ridge, as a deep ravine separated
this peak from the Sari Bair ridge. From Hill 971 the northern slopes
(called the Abdel Rahman Bair), ran back within a mile to the Bijuk
Anafarta village. It was separated from the foothills that fell away
to the sea by the Asma Dere. Therefore a column, it was hoped (of the
British troops and the 4th Australian Brigade), would make good this
ridge and advance alongside it to the main peak. The operations, owing
to the nature of the ground, fell into two stages. The first was the
advance over the foothills to the Sari Bair ridge, the landing at Suvla
Bay and first advance. The second stage was the united effort to take
the hill and main ridge. To foretell the conclusion--now alas, passed
into history as a splendid failure--the second stage was only partly
possible, because on the right, from the direction of Suvla Bay, the
British attack never developed; that is to say, it never reached even
the foot of the Abdel Rahman Bair.

I have been in the heart of all that mass and tangle of hills and
ravines. The country resembled, on a less grand scale, that of the
Buffalo Ranges of Victoria, or the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. It
might be ideal bushranging country, but the worst possible for an
army fighting its way forward to the heights; gullies and precipices
barred the way. Even with expert guides, and maps compiled by the
Turks themselves, which we captured and had copied, there were many
battalions that lost their way, and only by dogged perseverance and
extraordinary pluck did they extricate themselves and reach points of
vantage from which they could link up their positions. I say this of
all forces engaged, because I know that many miscalculations occurred
even after three days of fighting as to the exact gullies in which the
troops were that had linked up with the units holding "The Farm" and
Rhododendron Ridge. Gullies were cut by creeks, hills divided by spurs.
Into this tangle was first hurled an army of 12,000 men--mostly fine
bushmen, it is true, used either to the gum forest of Australia and its
wide expanses, or to the jungles of the tropics.

General Hamilton had accepted General Birdwood's plans, that there
should be two covering columns to reach the two ridges that met at the
Hill 971, almost at right angles (Sari Bair, running from west to east,
and Abdel Rahman Bair, running nearly due north and south), and two
assaulting columns to capture the positions.

General Hamilton sets forth the plan thus:--

 The right covering force was to seize Table Top, as well as all other
 enemy positions commanding the foothills between the Chailak Dere and
 the Sazli Beit Dere ravines. If this enterprise succeeded, it would
 open up, at the same time interposing between, the right flank of the
 left covering force and the enemy holding the Sari Bair main ridge.
 This column was under Brigadier-General A. H. Russell, who had the New
 Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, the Otago Mounted Rifles Regiment,
 Colonel A. Bauchop; the Maori Contingent and New Zealand Field Troop.

 The left covering force was to march northwards along the beach to
 seize a hill called Damakjelik Bair, some 1,400 yards north of Table
 Top. If successful, it would be able to hold out a hand to the 9th
 Corps as it landed south of Nibrunesi Point, whilst at the same time
 protecting the left flank of the left assaulting column against enemy
 troops from the Anafarta Valley during its climb up the Aghyl Dere
 ravine. Brigadier-General J. H. Travers commanded the column which
 consisted of headquarters 40th Brigade, half the 72nd Field Company,
 4th Battalion South Wales Borderers, and 5th Battalion Wiltshire
 Regiment.

 The right assaulting column was to move up the Chailak Dere and Sazli
 Beit Dere ravines to the storm of the ridge of Chunuk Bair.

 The column was under Brigadier-General F. E. Johnston, commanding New
 Zealand Infantry Brigade, Indian Mountain Battery (less one section),
 one company New Zealand Engineers.

 The left assaulting column was to work up the Aghyl Dere and
 prolong the line of the right assaulting column by storming Hill
 305 (Koja Chemen Tepe), the summit of the whole range of hills.
 Brigadier-General (now Major-General) H. V. Cox was in command of
 the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade, 4th Australian Infantry Brigade;
 Brigadier-General Monash, Indian Mounted Battery (less one section),
 one company New Zealand Engineers.

It may be roughly estimated that there were 3,000 troops with each
column. A divisional reserve was formed from the 6th Battalion South
Lancashire Regiment and 8th Battalion Welsh Regiment (Pioneers),
mustered at Chailak Dere, and the 39th Infantry Brigade and half 72nd
Field Company at Aghyl Dere.

 The two assaulting columns (writes Sir Ian Hamilton) which were to
 work up three ravines to the storm of the high ridge were to be
 preceded by two covering columns. One of these was to capture the
 enemy's positions commanding the foothills, first to open the mouths
 of the ravines, secondly to cover the right flank of another covering
 force whilst it marched along the beach. The other covering column was
 to strike far out to the north, until, from a hill called Damakjelik
 Bair, it could at the same time facilitate the landing of the 9th
 Corps at Nibrunesi Point (Suvla Bay) and guard the left flank of the
 column assaulting Sari Bair from any forces of the enemy which might
 be assembled in the Anafarta Valley.

Old No. 3 Post was the first objective of that right covering force
which General Birdwood had prepared, and No. 2 Post was its jumping-off
place. You reached this outpost, either day or night, by travelling
along the great sap that for two miles wound out from the heart of
Anzac. All the troops that were to take part in this new attack had
come from Anzac. That night they had marched out under the cloak of
darkness across the broad open flats that reached from the foothills to
the water's edge. At the post they found its garrison ready to move.
Major-General Godley had his headquarters there already. Here, too, had
been marshalled all available water-cans and ammunition supplies.

So the first dash into what was practically the unknown was to
commence at 9.30 p.m. Just in front of No. 2 Post was Old No. 3 Post,
a steep-sided position which the Turks had captured from us on 30th
May. They had since strengthened it by massive woodworks, protecting
the avenues of advance by great stretches of thick barbed-wire. Behind
the post again was Table Top, very flat on the summit, and about 400
feet high. On either flank of these hills ran a gully. On the left
Sazli Beit Dere, and on the right the Chailak Dere. Both entrances
through the valleys so formed to the inner hills were dominated by Old
No. 3 Post, a veritable fortress with its revetted earthworks and its
naturally steep sides.

General Birdwood had planned a ruse to take this hill. Every night,
just at the same time, the destroyer _Colne_ bombarded the post.
Earlier in the evening her rays had gone wandering round the hills,
but always at 9 p.m. there was a steady streak of light fixed on Old
No. 3 Post, and the 6-in. guns belted the position for ten minutes.
There was then a pause, and the beams disappeared, only to reappear
again with the shells at 9.20. The bombardment continued till 9.30 p.m.
For weeks this operation had continued. The Turks, it was learned
from deserters, had got into the habit of retiring to their tunnels
and never worrying much about the bombardment. After it was all over
the New Zealanders used to hear an old Turk (they saw him once and
christened him "Achmet"), a wire-mender, who came along the front of
the line to repair the damage. They would not shoot him, though an
attempt was made to trap him one night.

On the evening of the 6th August the bombardment continued, as it had
every night for weeks, but under the noise of it, the Auckland Mounted
Rifles Regiment, under Lieut.-Colonel Mackesy, stole from the trenches
down into the gully and up to the lip of the Turkish trenches on the
outpost. As the bombardment ceased, they rushed into the trenches
without firing a shot, and bayoneted or bombed the astonished enemy.
Many of the Turks were found to have removed their boots and coats
and were resting. Seventy were captured. It took several hours in the
darkness to clear the hill and the trenches that ran down into the
gullies; the Turks gathered in small parties, resisting.

Meanwhile the attack on the left had been launched under the gallant
leadership of Lieut.-Colonel Bauchop against the hill that bore
his name. It had fallen to the Otagos to clear this hill and the
Chailak Dere. By one o'clock Bauchop's Hill had been stormed and
won. The enemy, surprised, made a stout resistance, and it was some
time before the machine guns, cunningly concealed in this hill, were
located. Colonel Bauchop fell mortally wounded in this assault. The
New Zealanders worked with the bayonet round and over the hill, never
firing a shot until they found their further progress barred by a
terrible wire entanglement and trench that the Turks had placed across
the mouth of the gully, which effectively sealed it. It was a party of
New Zealand Engineers, under Captain Shera, with Maories in support,
who broke a way through and left the path clear for the assaulting
columns, by this time following.

Simultaneously, to the east, on the right of this attacking party, a
violent, almost silent struggle for the possession of Table Top was
also in progress. The destroyers had been bombarding the hill, which
had now to be carried at the point of the bayonet by the dismounted
mounted brigades of General Russell. The Canterbury men led the attack
with bayonet and bomb. Their magazines were empty, under orders. For
the first hours of this hill-fight all was silence. In the gullies and
amongst the wooded spurs of the hills, parties of Turkish patrols were
bayoneted and gave no alarm. Then from the north echoed the cheers
of the Maories as they took Bauchop's Hill. It was caught up by the
Canterbury men, now on Table Top. It was flung up to the lower slopes
of the Rhododendron ridge, where the Turks still were. It was the
battle-cry for the assaulting columns, which were advancing now through
these protecting screens to the attack on the main ridge and on 971.

The 4th Australian Brigade, under General Monash, formed the head
of the assaulting column that went out from the left, followed by
General Cox's Indian Brigade--the whole command under General Cox.
Already the way here had been blazed by the left covering force, under
Brigadier-General Travers, consisting of South Wales Borderers and
Wiltshires, who had marched out swiftly to the Damakjelik Bair--a
hill that guarded the entrance to the Aghyl Dere, up which the left
assaulting column of General Cox had to turn. The Turks at eleven
o'clock still kept up a flanking fire from the northern slopes of
Bauchop's Hill, but gradually they were driven off, and when the new
columns arrived at this point--late, it is true--it was only to find
isolated and terrified parties of Turks sniping from different points
as they were driven back and back. The full story of this advance may
be briefly told.

It was while the attention of the Turks was riveted on the fall of
their trenches along the plateau at Anzac, that the Australian 4th
Infantry Brigade had left Rest Gully, below the Sphinx Rock, just on
the left of Anzac (where it had been for the past ten weeks), and in
silence made for the seashore, actually traversing under a torrent of
shell fire part of the same ground and foreshore where the troops had
landed first on the peninsula. It was a start warranted to depress more
seasoned troops than these browned Australians, for shrapnel fell over
them, while shells skimmed above their heads on their way to the beach.
But they pushed steadily on. Fortunately the casualties were light. In
the far distance, from the hills on their right, came the sound of
the clatter of rifles. That was the attack on No. 3 Post, for, as the
troops watched the three beams of the destroyers' searchlights playing
on the ridges, they saw one suddenly turned up into the sky and the
noise of the ship's guns died away. The beam was the signal for attack.

 [Illustration: TURKISH MIA MIAS OCCUPIED BY THE 4TH INFANTRY BRIGADE IN
 THE AGYHIL DERE ON 8TH AUGUST.]

 [Illustration: SOLVING THE WATER PROBLEM.

 Tanks in the gullies into which water was pumped from Anzac.

  To face p. 250.]

Immediately the taking of the foothills by the New Zealanders was
assured, the way was clear for the 4th Infantry Brigade, under
Brigadier-General Monash, to advance from the outskirts of our
furthermost outpost line. It was hardly a week since I had been to
the edge of our flank and looked across the flats and ploughed lands,
over which then it would have been instant death to have advanced.
Now that the Turks had been to some extent cleared from the hills on
the right, the column, with one flank exposed to the hills and the
other on the seashore, set out, in close formation, from under cover
of our outposts. The column worked in towards some raised land that
made a sort of road running round the foot of the hills, and met with
no resistance. But there was a considerable amount of shrapnel being
thrown over the column, and the ranks were thinned. A mile from our
outposts the brigade swung round into a gully called the Aghyl Dere,
and was at once met by a hot rifle fire from the Turks, who had taken
up positions behind hastily thrown-up ramparts in the gully. The nature
of the country made it easy to defend the valley. General Monash found
it necessary to spread out a screen. It was composed of the 15th
Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Cannan. The advance was constantly
checked by the narrowness of the defiles through which the troops had
to pass. At the head of the column was a Greek, and also a Turkish
interpreter.

There were evidences of considerable occupation at some time by the
Turks, for a series of _mia mias_ were found in the gully. But the
enemy were hastily fleeing before the advancing Australian Brigade.
At the junction of the gully with a branch that ran east towards
the slopes of the main ridge, there came a serious halt. Already
the leading battalion, the 13th, had deployed and was scouring a
grassy plain out to the left--that is, the north. It was by this time
eleven o'clock, and absence of any idea of the numbers of the enemy,
now at bay, rendered the position critical. General Cox, with the
Indian troops, had deployed to the right and was making as rapidly
as possible for the slopes of the main ridge on the sector allotted
to them. At this confluence of the two streams it was decided by
General Monash that the 13th and 14th Battalions of the 4th Brigade,
under Lieut.-Colonel Burnage and Major Rankine respectively, should
be turned to the north to join up with the British force, who were
holding the hills overlooking the Chocolate Hills and Anafarta Valley,
the line being extended as the battalions advanced and covered a wider
front. With the 15th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Cannan, and the
16th, under Lieut.-Colonel Pope, General Monash pushed on. It was
soon evident that the opposition here met was the screen the Turks
had placed to enable them to get away two field guns (they were the
"75's" which had given so much trouble), for the emplacements were
soon discovered. The advance had been a series of rushes rather than a
steady march forward.

I have seen no country that more resembled the Australian bush. The
bushes grew very tall in the creek-bed. The whole battle was a running
fight right up to the head of the _dere_, where, rather than lose touch
with the British on his left, General Monash halted his troops. Dawn
was just appearing in the sky, and as the men reached the fringe of the
foothills there lay between them and the main ridge only a broad valley
and a series of smaller knolls. On this ridge, above the Asma Dere,
they therefore entrenched. Knowing that their lives depended on their
speed, the men dug rapidly, and when I met the brigade, just after ten
o'clock on the 7th, the reports came back that the fire-trenches were
completed and, except for shrapnel and sniping, the enemy had shown no
signs of a counter-attack.

It is now necessary to trace the events on the right, where the New
Zealand Infantry, at midnight, had started on the second great phase
of this night's venture--the storming of the Chunak Bair ridge. From
the Table Top to the Rhododendron spur ran a thin razor-back ridge
and a communication trench. The Turks had fled along this. The cheers
of the army forging its way into the hills, had roused the Turks.
Our infantry, in four columns, were advancing to the assault. General
Monash's progress I have already described. The Indian troops of the
29th Brigade (Sikhs and Gurkhas) were on his right, having turned east
where the Aghyl Dere forked, and now were approaching the foot of the
main ridge, making for the hills called "Q." This point, in the Sari
Bair ridge, was immediately to the south of the dominating peak--Koja
Chemen Tepe. They held a ridge at dawn just west of "the Farm" that
nestled in a shoulder of the main ridge immediately below Chunak Bair
summit.

On the right the Otago and Canterbury Infantry Battalions were forcing
their way up to the Rhododendron ridge. They had fought up the thickly
wooded valley of the Sazli Beit, deploying men to the right and left
to clear Turks from knolls, where they gathered to impede the progress
of the army. Shrapnel now began to burst over the advancing companies
as the enemy gained knowledge of the assault. The din of battle grew
more awful as the morning came. From Anzac there resounded the fearful
crashing of the bombardment of the Turkish trenches on Battleship
Hill and the eastern slopes of the main ridge and the bomb battle at
Lone Pine. The Light Horse at 4.30 had charged across the Nek and
perished. Two battalions of New Zealanders met on the northern slopes
of the Rhododendron ridge, and gathered in a depression quite well
distinguishable from the No. 2 Post, and which was promptly termed the
"Mustard Plaster." It was the one cramped position that the Turkish
guns could not reach, where the troops were now digging in along the
edge of the offshoot of the main ridge. Shrapnel, in white woolly
balls, began to burst over the halted column. The 10th Gurkhas had
advanced to within 300 yards of the crest of the ridge, about the
vicinity of the Farm, while the 5th and 6th Gurkhas had fought their
way on to the ridge farther to the north. There they had linked up with
the 14th Sikhs on the right, who were in touch with the Australians,
now brought to a standstill on the ridge above the Asma Dere.

Amongst the hills, the New Zealanders cleared the Turks from their
bivouacs. Either they were bayoneted, or fled, or else surrendered. The
Otagos had taken 250 prisoners before dawn. It was a curious incident,
for the Turks piled their arms, cheered, and willingly left the fight.
They were captured on Destroyer Hill, which was one of the knolls
that had been passed in the first onward rush and left uncleared. The
Canterbury Battalion, advancing up a southern gully, and the Otago
Battalion, in the northern direction, swept the few remaining Turks
before them, and met on the Rhododendron spur at seven o'clock. Above
them lay the rugged line of Chunak Bair, 850 feet high, and just 200
feet higher than the position they held, and still some 400 yards away.
This Rhododendron spur cut into the main ridge along a narrow neck.
Turkish machine guns and enemy trenches, dug along the top of the crest
of Sari Bair, commanded that spot. The New Zealanders were compelled
to dig their trenches just below the edge of the Rhododendron spur. In
support they had some light mountain batteries and machine guns, under
Major Wallingford.

Having reached so near to victory early on this first morning (the
7th), they were ordered to advance again, first at 9.30 a.m. and then
again at eleven o'clock, when a general assault by all the forces along
the ridge took place. It was in vain that efforts were made to advance
up the slopes of those terrible hills. But the Auckland Battalion
gallantly charged across the bridge of land that linked the spur with
the main ridge below, and to the south of Chunak Bair. It was only a
narrow neck of some 30 yards wide. It was raked by Turkish fire. Up the
bushy slope scrambled the gallant New Zealanders. They were checked at
noon 200 yards from the crest of the ridge by a fearful musketry fire.
They dug in.

At dawn, from the hills, I watched the Suvla Bay Landing spread out in
a magnificent panorama before me. I saw the sea, usually just specked
with a few small trawlers and a monitor or destroyer, covered with
warships and transports and craft of all descriptions. I discerned
through the pale morning light the barges and boats, close inshore,
discharging troops round the Suvla Bay and Nebrunesi Point. As the sun
mounted over the crest of Hill 971, the rays caught the rigging and
masts and brasswork of the ships, and they shone and reflected lights
towards the fleeing Turks. I saw, too, the British troops pouring over
the hills immediately surrounding the Salt Lake. The warships were
firing steadily, and, when there was light enough, the observation
balloon rose steadily, and stayed in the sky, until attacked by a
hostile aeroplane. But, as if anticipating this event, our aeroplanes
darted up, and the Taube fled precipitously, and descended in a
terrific volplane down behind the high hills. The sea was alive with
small pinnaces and boats from the ships. Hospital ships lay in a long
line from Gaba Tepe to Suvla Bay. I counted six of them, and they were
coming and going all day.

So during the rest of the day the two assaulting columns clung to
what they had won--a great gain of 2 miles on the left of Anzac--and
the new base at Suvla Bay was secured. But, while the first part of
the British 9th Army Corps plans had been successful, and the Navy
had achieved another magnificent feat in landing the troops, stores,
water, and munitions round the shores of Suvla Bay, the newly landed
army under Lieut.-General Stopford were held back all that long day
on the very fringe of Salt Lake. I remember how anxiously from the
various commanding positions we had gained we watched for the signs of
the advance of that British column. Our line bent back sharply to the
Damakjelik Hills, that had been captured early the previous night. I
am not in a position to explain the delays that occurred on the beach
round Nebrunesi Point. Turkish officers have stated how the first
reports from their outposts at Suvla Bay, believed the landing to be
only a feint. Also how two regiments of gendarmes had held back, with
some few machine guns, the British Divisions advancing towards the
Chocolate Hills (the first of the series of hills that ran right into
Buyak Anafarta), the capture of which was so urgently needed by us to
control the attack on the Abdel Rahman Bair ridge, and to protect and
support the attack on the main peak, Hill 971.

The great offensive had been auspiciously launched; it had gone well
till dawn, in spite of the terrible difficulties of the maze of hills
that clustered beneath the Sari Bair ridge. The new expedition had been
landed, and had been left an open door to pass through (if it had but
had the "punch") into the heart of the Turkish main positions. It is
not too much to say that the Turks were thoroughly alarmed, surprised,
and bewildered; they knew not now at which spot the great attack was
to come. They had massed all their main forces at Cape Helles for an
offensive there. Their supports had been hurried up to Anzac. Their
reserves were still only on their way up the peninsula, coming from
Gallipoli to Suvla Bay. Ignorant of the impending landing, the enemy
dashed battalion after battalion against the captured Lone Pine; they
recoiled before the stubborn and gallant resistance of its garrison.
But by the next dawn they had recovered from the shock, and their
resistance had grown powerful. Even then it was not too late. General
Hamilton anxiously hastened the final assault.




CHAPTER XXV

THE BATTLE OF SARI BAIR--THE CAPTURE OF THE RIDGE AND ITS LOSS


As night fell on the 7th August, death and destruction was spread
around the hills by the guns of the warships. It began on the farther
deep-tinted purple mountain ridges overlooking Suvla Bay; it continued
in a series of white shell-bursts on to the Sari Bair ridge. Grass
fires lit the sky and smudged the landscape in the valley of the Salt
Lake. After midnight the assault of the highest peaks was to commence.
New columns had been organized. The New Zealanders, supported by
British troops, were to press home their advantage on Chunak Bair.
The Gurkhas were to take "Q" Hill; the Australians and Sikhs were to
attack the Abdel Rahman ridge, and advance due east along its crest and
capture the crowning hill, Koja Chemen Tepe. Monitors, battleships, and
destroyers covered the hills of these positions with high-explosive
shell, the searchlights blazing white patches on the ridges from 3.30
a.m. till 4.15. Under this cover of screaming steel the attacks were
commenced.

At a conference between the Brigadier of the 4th Brigade and General
Russell it was decided to storm the slopes of Abdel Rahman Bair.
Sufficient time had elapsed to enable an inspection to be made of the
country immediately in front of the ridge, but not time to reconnoitre
the best route through difficult, unknown country. At 3 a.m. the
brigade moved from the trenches. It was perfectly dark, and the first
country crossed was the narrow crest of the bush-covered hills they
held. It was barely 30 yards. Then the men slid down into the gully
below, for the reverse slope was an almost precipitous sandstone
ridge. Once down into the dip the brigade moved in column quietly,
and swung on toward Anafarta over the crest of a low hill and down
into a cornfield. The troops, lest the rustling through the corn, not
yet harvested, might warn the enemy, were kept to the gully until a
hedge of furze and holly, that ran east in the direction required, was
reached. Following this closely, so as to pass unseen, the Australians
reached a stubble field. The 15th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel
Cannan, had spread out as a screen in front, but before this again a
platoon was deployed to pick off the scouts of the enemy. The distance
covered must have been nearly half a mile, and, except for a stray shot
or two on the right, where the outposts of the enemy were encountered,
no opposition had been offered.

The ridge of Abdel Rahman Bair was now just at right angles to the
course of the advancing column as set by the guides, some 150 yards
away. It rose, a black obstacle in their path. Along the back of this
they were to push their way up towards the main heights, or as far
as was possible with the troops at the disposal of the commander. In
this general assault it was the 4th Brigade that was this time to be
the decoy, or covering brigade, for the advance which the Indians
simultaneously were making direct on the main ridge of Sari Bair.

To screen the troops from observation in the advance across the cropped
field (it was not yet four o'clock), the column kept close to the edge
of the scrubby land. No sooner had the right of the protecting screen
touched the slopes of the densely scrubby hills than, at short range,
there came from every nook of the hill, rising in tier after tier, a
murderous fire from machine guns and rifles. At once the troops were
hurried to the right. They swept back the Turks there, who retreated,
under the fire of their own guns, still higher up the ridge.

But it was essential that our left flank, that faced Anafarta, should
be protected. Again the platoons had to advance amidst a terrible
fire from machine guns. Meanwhile the 16th and 14th Battalions,
under Lieut.-Colonel Pope and Major Rankine respectively, advanced
in extended platoons, trying to force a passage up the ridge. The
men attacked bravely, but it was one continuous roar of musketry and
machine guns they faced. Our own machine gunners in the now coming
dawn, managed to locate the Turkish guns. Two were soon put out of
action, but still the hills seemed alive with these terrible weapons,
and the bullets tore gaps in our ranks.

At five o'clock it was apparent, unless reinforcements were brought up,
the ridge could not be taken. Soon the order for withdrawal was given.
It was skilfully carried out under a covering fire from our machine
guns, splendidly handled by Captain Rose, which undoubtedly saved many
lives by momentarily silencing the enemy's fire, and enabling our
troops to get back to the protection of our trenches. By 9 a.m. on
the 8th, the withdrawal had been completed, and every man, including
the wounded, was within the protection of the well-prepared trenches,
left but a few hours before. It will be apparent that, great as this
sacrifice was, it had necessitated a large force of the enemy being
drawn away from the main objective, and gave the chance, which the New
Zealanders so gallantly seized, of taking the crest of the hill; and it
also enabled the Indian troops to work their way on to the uppermost
slopes of the great ridge. The 15th Battalion suffered most severely,
and came to closest grips with the enemy. Many hand-to-hand encounters
took place, and ghastly bayonet wounds were received, but the Turks
suffered quite as heavily as our lines. Looking across the valley I
could see, days later, the hill covered with their dead. The brigade
lost in the two days' fighting nearly 1,000 men.

In the half light of the early morning the attack began on the Sari
Bair ridge. For the storming of Chunak Bair the Wellington Battalion
and Auckland Mounted Rifles had been chosen, together with the
Maoris--all that remained of that band--and Gloucester Battalion. The
force was led by Lieut.-Colonel Malone, the gallant defender of Quinn's
Post in the past months. At the head of the Wellingtons Lieut.-Colonel
Malone led his men up through the long Turkish communication trench,
which was perfectly visible from our outposts, to the summit of the
hill. The Turks had retired during the night from this section of the
ridge, leaving only a machine gun and a few men, who had come from
Achi Baba, to defend the crest. The Gloucesters at the same time, in
the face of heavy fire, gained a footing on an adjacent section of
the ridge, and held on. It was a magnificent achievement, and only
the grim determination of the troops engaged could have scaled that
shell-swept slope--covered but thinly with bushes--and held it in poor
shallow trenches, with short supplies, on the third day of a great
battle.

Meanwhile the Gurkhas, supported by battalions of the 13th Division,
pushed up the slopes of "Q" Hill, and reached a point within 150
yards of the top. But no sooner had these positions been won than the
Turks directed a terrific fire on the ridge. The Wellingtons' ranks
thinned rapidly, but the Auckland Mounted Rifles managed to reach the
firing-line in time to reinforce it, before the enemy commenced to
attack in force. The Turks poured up the reverse side of the ridge,
where our Anzac guns decimated them. Colonel Malone, seeing that the
Turkish plan had been carefully laid and the trenches marked for
destruction, ordered the troops to dig a new trench 15 yards in the
rear--a perilous operation under the shrapnel fire that was pouring on
to the attackers. Yet that shallow trench was dug and held against the
Turks. Bombs and water were running low. It was two and a half miles
back down through the gullies to the beach. The heat of the sun was
terrific, and under it the men had been fighting for nearly three days.
They were bloodstained and parched. I never have seen such appalling
sights as the men who came in wounded during those days. Nevertheless
there, on the top of the ridge, fluttered the small yellow and red
flags, marking a section, barely 300 yards long, which had been won and
held, the first foot set on the desired ridge.

A shell-burst killed Colonel Malone during that afternoon in the
trenches, which he and his men had so gallantly won. Colonel Moore, who
succeeded him, was wounded before midnight. Shell fire destroyed the
whole of a section of the front line of the trenches. The men rebuilt
them and still fought on. The next morning the remaining section of the
hill "Q" was to be charged by the Gurkhas and the South Lancashires.

 [Illustration: THE OVERHEAD COVER OF PINE LOGS IN THE CAPTURED LONE
 PINE TRENCHES.]

 [Illustration: A SAP LEADING UP THE SIDE OF A HILL SWEPT BY TURKISH
 SHELLS AND MACHINE GUNS, ON THE EXTREME RIGHT OF THE ANZAC POSITION.

 The bushy nature of the ground makes a striking comparison with the
 bared slopes where the shrubs and roots have been used for firewood,
 and covered with dugouts.

  To face p. 260.]

So dawned the third morning of this fearful fight to dislodge the
Turks from the ridge. The support that was expected from the British
armies landed at Suvla Bay had failed, as now the Turks had brought up
reinforcements, and all idea of a swift advance from this quarter was
impossible. But General Hamilton realized that even yet there was
time to snatch a victory. The chance lay in smashing a way through at
the highest and most distant points gained on the crest of the ridge.
So for this undertaking he flung forward a complete new column under
Brigadier-General Baldwin, two battalions each from the 38th Infantry
and 29th Brigades, and one from the 40th Brigade.

There began at 4.30 p.m. on the 9th, as a prelude to this supreme
effort, the shelling of the whole of the Sari Bair ridge--north of the
position held by the New Zealanders. The destroyers' fire was terribly
accurate. From Anzac the howitzers and field guns tore up the ridge
from the east where the Turkish reserves had been massing. It was as
if the hill was in eruption; smoke and flame rolled from its sides. At
the "Mustard Plaster" it was intended that the assaulting column of
General Baldwin should wait, and from there debouch up the hillside,
prolonging to the north the crest-line held by the New Zealanders.
But in the darkness the valleys and gullies of those chaotic hills,
baffled even the guides. The column, advancing up the Chailak Dere to
the support of the men on the hill, lost its way. The tragic result
will be apparent when it is stated that already the 6th Gurkhas, led by
Major C. G. L. Allanson, crept as rapidly as the steepness of the hill
and the density of the undergrowth would permit to the very summit of
the great ridge--and gained it--at a point midway between "Q" Hill and
the Chunak Bair summit. It was, after all, only a handful of sturdy
men who had to face whole battalions of the Turkish army. Still, the
advantage gained was enough to stiffen the sinews of any leader and his
army. There before them, at their feet one might write, lay the whole
of the enemy's main position, and the road leading down the peninsula
into Bogali. Beyond, glittering in tantalizing fashion, were the placid
waters of the Dardanelles, on which the first light of the rising sun
began to pour, outlining the score of ships bringing supplies to the
armies.

Into the ranks of the astonished and panic-stricken lines of Turks,
the Gurkhas and the South Lancashire Regiment began to pour a torrent
of lead, sweeping down the reverse slopes of the ridge. But in the
very hour of their wonderful success came the first horrible check.
Mistaking the target, the destroyers dropped 6-in. high-explosive
shells amongst the Indian troops. The havoc was appalling. No course
was open but to retire to a point of safety down the side of the ridge.
The Turks were not slow to grasp the situation, and by the time that
the mistake had been rectified, the Turks charged again and reoccupied
the trenches they had so hastily evacuated. In spite of which disaster,
even yet victory was imminent, had but General Baldwin's troops been
at the moment (according to prearranged plans) swarming over the very
crowning summit of the Chunak Bair position. Instead, they were still
only on the sides of the ridge just above the Farm, advancing steadily,
pressing up in line. But the Turks had launched their blow. They came
pouring over the crest of the hill, and fired down from the commanding
position into the ranks of the storming columns. A small battery placed
on the very top of the summit of Chunak Bair compelled General Baldwin
to withdraw his troops to below the Farm, while the enemy turned the
full force of their blow on to the New Zealanders and British troops,
who still stood their ground. Till night fell the Turks attacked. Our
regiments clung on exhausted, desperate. They were then relieved by the
6th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, and the 5th Wiltshire Regiment.
Worn with the three days' fight, almost famished, but in good heart,
buoyed by the feat of arms they had achieved, never have men deserved
more the honours that have been paid them, than those New Zealanders.

Through no fault of theirs, they left to the new garrison trenches that
were not deep--they were not even well placed. The Turkish fire had
left little chance of that. The crest remained dead ground. Even while
the line was being reformed by Lieut.-Colonel Levinge, the fiercest of
the Turkish counter-attacks began. To the enemy the possession of the
ridge by the foe was like a pistol pointed at the very heart of their
army. Unfortunately, only half our new troops were dug in when that
counter-attack came (the Wiltshires finding constant checks in the
gullies and hills through and up which they had marched to reach the
firing-line).

It is estimated that the attacking force which the Turks launched
against that garrison of 1,000 men, was a division and a regiment
and three battalions. Probably 30,000 men swarmed over the crest of
the hill on the 10th. In one huge effort the Turks were staking all.
The German leaders found no obstacle in the loss of life. As these
masses of enemy, line after line of closely formed men, came up on to
the crests, the warships opened fire from Ocean Beach, while on the
reverse slope the Anzac guns caught the Turks as they advanced along
the communication trenches and on to the hill. From the beach our newly
placed guns, near No. 2 Post, drenched the hillside with shells. The
British were overwhelmed certainly. At a fearful cost did the enemy
accomplish it.

Watching the commencement of the bombardment from a distance of 2,000
yards, I was more than ever convinced the Turk was a brave soldier.
For thirty hours now he had been working under an intermittent fire
to gain a footing on Rhododendron spur. From a range of 1,700 yards
he was attacked by a group of machine guns from our position on
Snipers' Nest west of the Nek, and driven from his hasty trenches by
the lyddite shells that sent tons of earth and stones into the air at
each explosion and cast for a moment a haze over the hill. The Turk, as
he crawled away or went at a shuffle back over the ridge, was caught
by the machine-gun fire. His plight was desperate. The shells fell at
the rate of about ten a minute for an hour and a half, and recommenced
for two hours more in the afternoon. Those shells dropped from one
end of the ridge to the other, only a matter of 300 yards, and then,
lowering the range, the gunners hurled shells into the hollow, drove
out the Turks, and followed them as they fled back up the side of the
hill. Turk after Turk came from those broken trenches, some wounded and
without equipment, some still with rifles and packs. Some were moving
slowly and painfully, while others were running low and quickly across
the sky-lines. I watched them struggling from newly made trenches down
the slope of the hill, which the gunners on the ships could see equally
well with the artillery observing officers directing the field guns on
the beach. I have never seen such accurate or persistent fire.

As the 8-in. or 10-in. shells from the warships struck the hillside,
above the dust and dirt, one could see, almost with every shot, men
blown into the air. Once three Turks went skywards, and four men, whom
a minute before I had seen crawling amongst the scattered bushes,
disappeared. The striking of the shells on the hill was seen before the
double thunder of the guns was heard. Sometimes shrapnel, bursting just
over the crest, laid low men who had escaped the larger shells. The
guns of the 1st Australian Division were playing on that side as well.
The Turk was caught between two fires. For hours I watched the enemy
crawling out of that gully over the hill. It was appalling. The slopes
were thick with their dead. Never had a hill been so dearly lost, so
dearly won, and now lost again, to become, as it was for days, no man's
ground; for with the continued bombardment that night and the machine
gun battery playing along the ridges next morning (11th), the Turks
were content to hold the trenches behind the crest on the eastern side.

But for the rat-a-tat-tat of our machine guns on this morning--the
sixth day of the battle--all was perfectly still along the now extended
battle front.

And all through those appalling five days of the fiercest fighting that
had ever been fought on the peninsula, never for a moment did the Turks
relinquish their idea of recapturing the cherished Lone Pine trenches.
In the first day's fighting the Australian casualties had been nearly
1,000. By the end of the fourth day they had doubled. It was one huge
bomb battle, with short respites. As the fight continued, overhead
cover was erected by the sappers to prevent the Turks firing down the
length of trenches. I saw men tired--so tired that they could not even
stand. Yet they clung on. Colonel Macnaghten handed over his gallant
4th to Colonel Cass, only because he could not stay awake to once again
refuse to relinquish his post. Relief was given to his battalion for a
few hours by Light Horse regiments and infantry battalions drawn from
other sections of the line. Thus the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 12th Battalions
and squadrons of the 2nd Light Horse Brigade all played their share in
repelling the Turks in that unforgettable four-day bomb battle. But so
terrible was the position that men were only kept for short periods
in the trenches. Through these rapid changes was the sting gradually
drawn from the Turkish attacks. But it took five days to extract, and
in that time many deeds of priceless heroism, devotion, and sacrifice
were performed by men whose names will ever be associated with that
fighting. I can name but a few of them.

There was Captain Shout, 1st Battalion, who could throw two bombs,
and even three, in quick succession. Having charged down one of the
innumerable Turkish trenches, he endeavoured to dislodge the enemy from
the other end of a sap. Reckless of his life, he hurled the missiles as
if they had been so many cricket balls. He killed eight Turks before he
was himself killed by a bomb.

Lieutenant Symons led a charge and retook a portion of an isolated
sap that the Turks had occupied. It happened at 5 a.m. on the morning
of the 9th. Six officers of ours had been killed or wounded in that
trench. With an extraordinary courage, Lieutenant Symons led a small
party down the sap and dislodged the Turks, himself killing many. He
then built a sandbag barricade under the very nose of the enemy. A
somewhat similar charge was made by Lieutenant Tubb, of the 7th, backed
by Corporal Burton and Corporal Dunstan, two of his men. All of these
men received the Victoria Cross for their bravery.

Never before in any hundred square yards of ground have so many honours
been won and such wonderful gallantry shown. Men and officers fighting
in that inferno seemed to be inspired with unparalleled courage.
Private Keysor (1st Battalion) threw back enemy bombs into their own
trenches, and, though twice wounded, continued till the end of the
engagement to act as bomb-thrower wherever there was need. Private
Hamilton (1st Battalion) on the 9th sat calmly on the parados, thereby
getting fire to bear on the enemy. He rallied his comrades, and they
drove back the enemy.

Major Sasse (1st Battalion) won distinction by charging at the head
of a small body of men down a Turkish sap, and then directing a bomb
attack from the parados of the captured trenches. One has only to turn
to the stories of the Military Crosses gained, to find how attack was
met by counter-attack; how trenches were taken at the bayonet's point
during the four days that battle lasted.

The men who sold their lives in these herculean efforts to shake off
the Turks, numbered nearly 800. Officers made noble examples for their
troops. Colonel Scobie, 2nd Battalion, was leading back a small section
of his command from an ugly sap from which they were being bombed, when
he was killed by a bomb. Colonel Brown, passing the head of one of the
many dangerous saps that led to the Turkish position on the other side
of the plateau, was shot through the breast and fell dead at the feet
of his men.

Lone Pine on that second day, when I was through it, presented a
spectacle of horror. The dead Australians and Turks lay deep in the
trenches. Parapets had partly buried them.

It was at the entrance to a tunnel that I saw our lads sitting with
fixed bayonets and chatting calmly to one another. There was a horrible
odour in the trenches that compelled one to use the smoke helmet for
some little relief. At the end of this tunnel, 40 yards away, so one
of the men told me, were 30 dead Turks. In through a shell hole that
had broken open a Turkish tunnel, and over these dead bodies, a wounded
sapper had crawled on the day after the battle from the battlefield
above, thereby saving himself from exposure and probable death. How
these men had died none exactly knew. A shell may have broken through
the tunnel--probably had--and those who had not been killed outright
had died of suffocation from the shell fumes. It became necessary now
to fill in the end of the tunnel, to prevent any entry by the enemy as
much as to safeguard the health of our men. The thousands of rifles,
broken belts, scattered cartridges, clothing of all descriptions that
were to be seen belonging to either side were being collected in order
to make the way clear. One realized that there must be days before the
trenches could become normal again. For all the time, simultaneously
with the relief of the wounded, existed the need for the protection of
the fighting troops, the changing over of the parapets, the filling
of sandbags to pile up the traverses, the erection of the overhead
cover. All that involved a horrible waste of men--the ruin of scores
of lives--in the accomplishment. Yet never must it be forgotten that
the enemy was driven from what might well have been considered an
impregnable position, had been shaken, had lost five to every one of
our troops.

As I walked down the trenches it was impossible to avoid the fallen men
lying all around. They lay on the parapets and their blackened hands
hung down over our path. While this bombing continued it was no use
trying to clear the way. Amidst the horribleness of the dead, the men
fought and lived. They fought, too, knowing that behind the ramparts
that protected them, must lie their comrades.

It was the most touching sight in the world to see units that had won
the fight being withdrawn on the second day. Perhaps only a few hundred
came back. They were covered with blood; they were unrecognizable in
the dirt that had been scattered over them; they were lean and haggard
from want of sleep. But they bore themselves without the least touch
of fatigue as they passed by British troops working behind the lines.
They had in their demeanour that which showed a confidence in something
accomplished and a pride in a victory won. They acknowledged modestly
the tribute of those who had known the fury of battle--who had seen the
charge. As they came out of the tunnel which led from the firing-line
there were comrades who waited to grip their hands. For news travels in
a curious manner from trench to trench of a comrade hit, wounded, or
one whose life has gone. You hear it soon even down on the beach.

And amidst these brave men and those waiting to take their turn at
defending, the dead bodies of the enemy were drawn, to be buried in a
great pile on a hill slope. The tracks of the canvas shroud showed in
the loose earth, the air polluted by the stench of the passing corpse.
Not far away was a heap of Turkish equipment, 30 feet high, piled up,
waiting sorting, which had been taken from the trenches. Of Turkish
rifles we had enough for a battalion. Already I had seen a party of our
men in the trenches handling with a certain satisfaction, and no little
rapidity, the captured machine guns, which, with the ammunition also
captured, gave us a splendid opportunity of turning the enemy's weapons
on himself. The spoils of victory were very sweet to these men.

I have referred more than once to the bravery of the Turkish soldier.
The fight he put up on these Lone Pine trenches would be enough
to establish that reputation for him were there not other deeds to
his credit. Not that that diminishes one degree the glory of the
achievement of our arms. The fury of the fire of shot and shell was
enough to have dismayed any troops. The Australians went through that
with heads bent, like men going through a fierce pelting rain.

Taken all round, the Turks are by no means an army of poor physique.
They may not be as well clad as our troops, but they looked healthy and
well fed. A sergeant, a fine-built man, standing nearly 6 feet, who
had served in the Balkan War and also the gendarmerie, when captured,
accepted his fate, but showed no signs of relief that he was to be
led away captive. If anything, his tone suggested that he would have
liked to have gone on fighting. In this attitude he was different from
the large majority of the prisoners. He never expected an attack,
and the first thing that was known in the enemy trenches was a shout
from the look-out. He had at once rushed to get his men out of the
tunnel to line the fire-trenches, but before he could reach a position
the "English," as the sergeant persisted in calling our troops, had
arrived, and were jumping down on top of them. He believed that all his
officers had been killed. It was Kismet, the will of Allah, that he
should be taken.

After the constant boom of the guns, the tearing whistle of the shells
overhead day and night, distant and near, the cracking of rifles for
five days and nights, the morning of the sixth day broke so calm
that the bursting of a shell on the beach broke a kind of peaceful
meditation. The troops began to ask one another what had happened or
was happening. If you listened very carefully the soft patter of a
machine gun came from the distant hills across at Suvla Bay. The battle
was evidently not ended there.

That evening (12th August) the quiet of the lines was broken by the
appearance, in close proximity to our observation balloon over the
shipping in Suvla Bay, of a German aeroplane. As it sailed overhead I
could just hear the throbbing of the engine. It was heading south, when
from the direction of the Narrows came one of our airmen. He was flying
a little lower than the enemy. At first he apparently did not see the
hostile machine. There was no mistaking the two types--the enemy,
dark in colour, grey, with black crosses painted on the wings, and
ours yellow, with red eyes on the wings. Suddenly the British turned
directly towards the enemy, which promptly veered and fled towards
the Turkish lines at Bogali, dropping behind the ridges. The Turkish
aviator thus robbed us of the chance of witnessing a battle in the air.

What days of quiet followed the digging of new trenches on the Chunak
Bair slopes, after the crest had been won and lost!

To complete this battle scene, there remains but to be told the
position gained by the 4th Australian Brigade. Its line was spread
along the crest of the range of hills practically where I first
described them. Along the Asma Dere by hard digging they had secured
a position, and from it I had an excellent view of Buyik Anafarta in
flames. The warship shells had set it alight. From the extreme right
on the plains round Suvla Bay grass fires were burning harmlessly.
I watched, too, ambulances drawn by six-horse teams bringing in the
British wounded across the dried Salt Lake. The headquarters of the
Australian Brigade was on the side of a long, broad gully, which
recently had been under cultivation. On my way there I had to pass up
the bed of a creek filled with dead mules, which the Turkish shrapnel
had slaughtered. I passed New Zealand engineers successfully sinking
wells, and line after line of water-carriers. Ahead was a string of ten
mules bringing ammunition and supplies. On my left, at the edge of a
few acres of cropped land, was a German officers' camp. A well-built
hut of branches and mud was concealed from the view of aircraft under
the shady branches of a grove of olive-trees. There were several
huts like this, with a slit for a window that faced out to the sea.
Immediately behind was a hill, on the slope of which were tents and a
number of well-made dugouts and tracks, the remains of a considerable
Turkish encampment.

I followed the telephone line, hung from bush to bush, and then came
to some tall scrub, in which the brigade was camped, like a party of
railway surveyors in the bush, protected from the sun by bush huts and
from bullets by timber taken from the enemy's shelters. As I talked to
General Monash bullets pattered against the earth walls, and he opened
his case and showed me the collection he was making of the "visitors"
that dropped round him as he wrote and directed the working of his
command. He was justly proud of the way his men had fought; of the
running fight they had won; of their march of miles through unknown
country, and the way they had established themselves in the heart of
the enemy's stronghold.

In the trenches the men showed no sign of fatigue now, having rested
for a few days. A much reduced brigade it was, but the men were
watching the Turks digging on the hills and waiting their opportunity.
Every few minutes would come the clatter of the machine gun from
somewhere along the front. The firing-line was only a few hundred yards
away, so the Staff was in the midst of the attacks. The firing of our
artillery from the hills behind and the presence of our aeroplanes
overhead made the men keen and zealous. They were then still ripe for
any advance.

In the face of such achievements, was it to be wondered that General
Hamilton, Lieut.-General Birdwood, Major-General Godley, all wrote of
the men who fought these battles in terms of the highest admiration?
"Whatever happens," were General Hamilton's words to General Birdwood,
"you and your brave army corps have covered yourselves with glory.
Make good the crest, and the achievement will rank with Quebec." Yes,
it ranked alongside any of the fighting in history. It had been in
turn trench fighting, bayonet charges, and fighting in the open, and
everywhere the overseas troops had won. But at what cost! At Lone Pine
the casualties were 2,300 killed and wounded men. From the captured
trenches there were dragged 1,000 killed, Australians and Turks. They
were buried in the cemetery on the side of the hill in Brown's Dip. The
Army Corps in four days had lost 12,000 men killed and wounded. The
British casualties on the Anzac section were 6,000 out of 10,000 troops
engaged. In all 18,000 casualties for a gain of 2 miles and a position
on, but not the crest of, the ridge. I have omitted the casualties of
the fighting at Suvla Bay.

And the Turks! Their losses? It must be one of the satisfactions of the
splendid failure that they lost nearly three to our one. Over 1,000 of
the enemy perished at Lone Pine. On the 10th I saw them lying in heaps
of hundreds on the bloody slopes of Chunak Bair. We had captured in
all about 700 prisoners, and much material and equipment. Thousands of
Turkish rifles were removed from Lone Pine, and hundreds of thousands
rounds of ammunition. We took seven of their machine guns and belts of
ammunition, and turned them against their own army. One hundred and
thirty prisoners were taken in that section. General Monash captured
over a hundred prisoners, including officers, great quantities of
big gun ammunition (including fifty cases of "75" ammunition, near
where the Turks had their French gun), thousands of rounds of rifle
ammunition, quantities of stores. The New Zealanders took in the first
attack on Old No. 3 Post 125 prisoners and some machine guns, and also
a nordenfeldt. As the fighting extended to the left, further plants of
ammunition were discovered in the valley.

Anzac was enlarged from barely 300 acres to about 8 square miles. A
base for twenty operations was gained at Suvla Bay, and though the
passage along the beach to Anzac was still a hazardous one, to the joy
of many Australian dispatch riders, it provided a race through a hail
of bullets along that zone. If devotion and heroism could make success,
then the Army Corps had indeed covered itself with glory. But it had
very substantial deeds to its credit as well. It had fought, adding
fresh laurels to those won in its first fight at the landing. Weakened,
worn, but by no means disheartened, it was strengthened after 20th
August by the arrival of the 2nd Australian Division from Egypt, under
Major-General Legge, which enabled respite from trench warfare to be
enjoyed by the veteran brigades. Except for the fighting on the extreme
left of our Army Corps line, where the Australians linked with the
Suvla Bay forces across the Chocolate Hills, the weeks after the great
battles at Anzac were calm. It was only a calm that precedes a storm.




CHAPTER XXVI

HILL 60, GALLIPOLI


In the days immediately following the halting of the 4th Infantry
Brigade in the Asma Dere, it would have been possible to have walked on
to the top of the steep knoll marked "Hill 60" on the maps. From the
ridge that the Australians then occupied there was only a small ridge
in between, and a cornfield joining a valley not many yards across.
Then came the hill--not, perhaps, as famous as Hill 60 in France, nor
even as bloodstained, but one that cost over 1,000 men to take--that
commanded the broad plain spread inland to the town of Bujik Anafarta.
A mile and a half to the north across the plain were the "W." hills,
the end spur of which, nearest the sea, Chocolate Hills, the British
by this time held. Hill 60 was necessary to our plans in order to link
up securely the position and give us command of the plain, on which
were a number of fine wells. On the 21st August, when the first attack
was made, the hill and the ridge which joined it, were strongly held
by the enemy. A day attack had been determined on, following a fierce
bombardment. Owing to a sudden change of plans to a general attack,
the bombardment failed; it was not as intense as was intended, and in
consequence the preparation for the attacking lines was inadequate.
At two o'clock the guns commenced, not only to shell Hill 60, but all
along the Turkish front on the plain. For an hour scores of guns shook
the earth with the concussion of the shells. Then the British advance
began--yeomanry and the imperishable 29th Division.

 [Illustration: _REFERENCE_

 _Communication Trench dug by 4th Brigade on night of 21 August_

 _HILL 60 GALLIPOLI_

 _FINALLY CAPTURED ON 28th August 1915_]

Now, in this larger plan, Hill 60 was only an incident, but an
important one for the Australians. General Birdwood had placed
Major-General Cox in command of a force consisting of two battalions
of New Zealand Mounted Rifles, two battalions of the 29th Irish
Brigade, the 4th South Wales Borderers, the 29th Indian Infantry
Brigade, and the 4th Australian Infantry Brigade. The Indians seized
the well, Kabak Kuyu, after some stiff fighting on the plain. This left
the way for the Maoris and Connaught Rangers and the battalions of the
New Zealand Mounted Rifles to storm the hill from the west and the
south-west, while the 4th Australian Brigade (reduced now to scarcely
1,500 men) was to advance from the southern section of the ridge,
which it held. Between the trenches from which the New Zealanders and
Connaught Rangers had to advance was a small spur, an offshoot of the
main ridge. Over this the force had to charge before they dipped down
again into a gully that led round the foot of the redoubt. As the men
swept over this hill (or round the flank of it) they came under the
fire of the Turkish machine guns. Very few men reached the foot of the
redoubt, where they found protection, by reason of the very steepness
of the ground, from the stream of lead from the enemy trenches circling
this Hill 60. Some of the New Zealanders worked round the end of the
spur, charged across the 100 yards of open ground to the foot of the
knoll also, and so into the communication trenches of the Turks. Trench
fighting of desperate character continued till nightfall. The second
lines that were sent to support the attacking force, faced the rapid
volleys from the Turkish guns on the ridge, firing down into the valley.

The 13th Battalion, under Major Herring, and the 14th, under Major
Dare, not 500 men in all, had been reduced to not more than 300 men by
the time they had advanced a short distance up the slope and taken the
first line of Turkish trenches. To them there was only one consolation:
they could not be fired on where they were, tucked under the side of
the Turks' own hill. But they could not get word back or find a means
of communication, other than over the fearful bullet-swept slope that
lay behind them. Messengers indeed were sent. One managed to dodge
up the many folds in the hillside, chased by the machine guns. As he
reached the skyline and our trench, he cried "I have a mess--" but he
got no further: a Turkish bullet struck him, and he fell, dead, into
the trench amongst his comrades. Snipers rendered the situation worse.
A bush fire broke out amongst the holly-bushes on the hillside, covered
with the dead and wounded. No reinforcements came through till ten
o'clock next morning, when a communication trench had been dug down
from the ridge, which the 4th Brigade held, prolonging the line to the
north.

That night was one of horror for the Australians and New Zealanders
clinging to the base of the knoll. The dying men on the exposed slope
of the hill were heard calling to their comrades. Many were the
brave deeds performed in bringing men to safety. Captain Loughran,
the medical officer of the 14th Battalion, brought in with his
stretcher-bearers eight men. Yet the following morning, wounded still
lay amongst the bushes, and as the fire swept up the hill, they crept
out, only to be killed by Turkish bullets. One man was seen working his
way on his back up a depression, the bullets flicking the earth round
him, and--delirious probably--as they missed, so he slowly waved his
hand back and forth. Finally the Turks turned a machine gun on him, and
he lay still. The padre of the 14th Battalion, Chaplain A. Gillison,
sacrificed his life in bringing the wounded from off that horrible
hill. He was waiting to read the burial service over some men that had
been brought in to be buried. Suddenly came a cry from over the hill,
and with two stretcher-bearers--noble heroes always--he went out,
creeping towards the British soldier, who was being worried by ants.
Just as he had started to drag the wounded man back to safety he was
shot through the spine. He died at the beach clearing station. Chaplain
Grant, with the New Zealand forces, also went in search of a wounded
man along a trench on the hillside. In the maze of trenches at the foot
of the redoubt he took the wrong turning. As the brave chaplain turned
an angle (voices had been heard ahead) a Turkish bullet struck him and
he fell forward.

Thus, on the 22nd, the main Australian position was still 150 yards
away down the back of the ridge to the north, while the New Zealanders
held a small section of the trenches on the western side of the knoll.
The Indians had been linked up with the British Suvla Bay army by
the 18th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel A. E. Chapman, the first
of the new Australian battalions of the 2nd Division to go into the
fight. That battalion was set the task, on the morning of the 22nd, of
charging a section of the trenches on the upper slopes of the knoll,
so as to relieve the desperate position of the New Zealanders clinging
to the trenches on the side of the hill. But when they had swept clear
a Turkish communication trench, they found themselves enfiladed by
the enemy's rifles. A strong bomb attack at 10 a.m. shattered their
ranks and drove them to the New Zealand line, where they stuck. So the
position was only slightly improved to what it had been the previous
evening, for there was now a linked line round the base of Kaijak
Aghala, Hill 60. The Australasians had won about 150 yards of trench,
while the 4th Brigade, still occupying the upper slopes, had already
inflicted severe losses on the enemy, who were feverishly entrenching
the top of the hill, turning it into a strong redoubt, and opening up
new communication trenches. In all the operations at and round this
hill the Australians had been able to terribly harass the Turks, and
machine guns had caught the enemy in the open when they were attempting
to dig out into the plain. The gunners let the Turks go forward with
their picks and shovels and entrenching tools, and then commenced to
"stir them up," and, as they returned, played a machine gun on them.

But the enemy made good progress in strengthening the redoubt on
this knoll in the four days that elapsed before the hill was finally
carried. There was no question that the first bombardment had failed
to smash the trenches. General Cox, in spite of the first failure to
attain the intended objective, still favoured a day attack, following
on an intense bombardment. And in the closing days of August he had his
way, and then began the second battle for possession of the important
Hill 60. Major-General Cox was given by General Birdwood detachments
of the 4th and 5th Australian Brigades, the New Zealand Mounted Rifle
Brigade, and the 5th Connaught Rangers. The advance was to take place
at 5 p.m. on the 27th. While the 4th Brigade was reduced to about 1,200
men, the 5th Brigade, just landed, was still some 3,500 strong, but
only 1,000 men could be spared for the attack. The remainder of the
command must have numbered over 2,000 men; in all, perhaps, 3,000 men.

Never, it has been declared, was there such a bombardment witnessed at
Anzac as that concentrated on the Turkish position from four o'clock on
the afternoon of the 27th till an hour later, when the attack began.
It could be seen that the trenches were smashed and levelled, and many
of the Turks slunk away, but were caught by our snipers and machine
gunners from the right of the position, where the crest of the ridges
commanded the communication to the hill. The main attack developed
on the trench that led up the ridge to the crest on the south-east.
The Auckland and Canterbury Mounted Rifles formed the first line of
attack, Otago and Wellington the second, and the 16th Battalion, under
Lieut.-Colonel Chapman, the third. The right was still left to the 4th
Brigade. On the left, adjoining the plain, were the Connaught Rangers.
The attack was the most gallant affair. It was all over in very few
minutes. The Turks were stunned and paralysed by the terribleness of
the bombardment, and the New Zealanders, though they met with severe
fire, rapidly reached the trenches with a cheer and bayoneted the enemy
that remained. They found sufficient evidence here of the effect of the
high-explosive shells, for the trenches were choked with dead.

On the extreme left the Connaughts had, with remarkable dash, gained
a footing in the trenches from which the 18th Battalion had been
driven with such heavy loss on the 22nd. But in the bomb battle that
ensued till midnight they were pushed back, and the Turks retained
their wedge. The 9th Light Horse at eleven o'clock, led by Colonel
Reynell, charged gallantly on to the top of the hill into the heart
of the Turkish position, in an endeavour to reach their communication
trench, but failed to gain their objective. The Colonel was killed, and
his men were bombed back until they were forced on to the New Zealand
lines. Nevertheless, the hill was for the most part in our hands; there
remained but the Turkish wedge driven in, with Australian and British
troops on either side of the hill.

The 4th Brigade meanwhile had launched 300 men, with some of the 17th
Battalion, against the trench running back along the spur, as these
other violent attacks succeeded. Captain Connolly led the first of that
line. He, with all other officers in the charge, was wounded, and his
men were once more forced back to a line of trenches which continued
the New Zealand flank round the north-east of the hill, just on the
crest. All next day the Turks made desperate efforts to dislodge the
New Zealand line, but without effect. At 1 o'clock on the morning of
the 29th, the 10th Light Horse--part of the regiment that had stormed
the Nek at dawn on the 7th August--took the remaining sector of the
trenches in one gallant dash and cut the Turkish wedge. They entered
the redoubt in the crown of the hill. It was filled with the Turkish
dead, who had bravely sold their lives in its last defence.

In this way was the famous Gallipoli Hill 60 captured by Britons
and Australasians. It was the last of the great offensives planned
at Anzac. Over 1,000 men were killed or wounded in the engagement.
But the Turks lost five times that number. Our gain was an important
strategic point, whereby we could command the plain and the enemy lines
of communications. Three machine guns and some prisoners were taken,
together with 300 rifles and ammunition and bombs. The line with the
Suvla Bay army was straightened, and more ground added to the land
that the gallant Anzac troops had won early in the month. But by now
the old army was weakening with disease. Dysentery had reduced the
numbers in the last weeks even more than the fighting. So the whole
of the 1st Australian Division was withdrawn, and the 2nd Division
filled their places. It was not a swift movement, but one carried out
gradually, battalion by battalion (200 or 300 men only in each) leaving
the firing-line to their new and zealous comrades. At length the New
Zealand and Australian Division was relieved, and the whole of these
brave men--but how small a proportion of the original Army Corps!--who
had never left the fighting zone since the day they landed, found
themselves at Mudros, free from the nervous strain of watching for
bombs, bullets, and shells. They were tended and properly fed. They
were praised for their glorious deeds and feats of arms.

 [Illustration: A GERMAN OFFICER'S DUGOUT FOUND BELOW THE RIDGE HELD BY
 THE 4TH INFANTRY BRIGADE ON 7TH AUGUST.

The advance had just come to a standstill when the photograph was
taken, and the troops were still digging on the crest of the hill.
Headquarters Staff assembled at the foot of the olive-tree. Much
shell and valuable papers were discovered here.]




CHAPTER XXVII

THE EVACUATION OF THE PENINSULA


While the days dragged slowly by on the Anzac front, and the armies had
been brought to a standstill at Suvla Bay, events at the seat of the
Allies' War Council were moving rapidly. After the last fight and the
failure of the great adventure, General Hamilton estimated his force at
95,000 men. He was 45,000 men below his normal strength for the units
he held. Sickness was wasting his army at an alarming rate. He cabled
to the War Office for more reinforcements, pointing out that the enemy
against him was 110,000. They were all fine fighters, brought up from
the best regiments that had been employed against the Russians. General
Hamilton writes:--

 I urged that if the campaign was to be brought to a quick victorious
 decision larger reinforcements must at once be sent out. Autumn,
 I pointed out, was already upon us, and there was not a moment to
 be lost. At that time (16th August), my British Divisions alone
 were 45,000 under establishment, and some of my fine battalions
 had dwindled down so far that I had to withdraw them from the
 fighting-line. Our most vital need was the replenishment of these
 sadly depleted ranks. When that was done I wanted 50,000 fresh
 rifles. From what I knew of the Turkish situation, both in its local
 and general aspect, it seemed, humanly speaking, a certainty that
 if this help could be sent me at once, we could clear a passage
 for our fleet to Constantinople. It may be judged, then, how deep
 was my disappointment when I learnt that the essential drafts,
 reinforcements, and munitions could not be sent me, the reason given
 being one which prevented me from any further insistence.

What could the Commander-in-Chief do under such circumstances? He
might have resigned; that was not his temperament. He would fight to a
finish. What troops remained in Egypt were reorganized, and the attack,
as soon as possible, began again on the Suvla Bay front.

All was in vain. By September the whole Gallipoli front had settled
down to trench warfare, and a winter campaign seemed inevitable.
Meanwhile events on the Balkan frontier were hastening the Turkish
plans. Additional troops were available for service on the peninsula
with the Bulgarian frontier free, and that nation joined to the Central
Powers. The failure of the Allies to save Serbia was of enormous
significance to Turkey. It meant the prolongation of her sickness,
for it left the way free from Germany to Constantinople. Big-gun
ammunition, which the Turks had undoubtedly always conserved, began
to flow in freely from Austrian and German works, across the Danube
through Bulgaria. Then the Turks, finding, too, that the attacks on
Achi Baba were never likely to be renewed in any great force, and that
the Allied forces left there were comparatively weak, removed numbers
of their heavy artillery batteries to the Anzac position and began
again with renewed fury to enfilade the beach. The Olive Grove guns
and the batteries from Mai Tepe thundered their shells on the Anzac
slopes; at Suvla Bay the plain was swept with Turkish shrapnel. Though
the weather remained fine and the Allies continued to land stores and
munitions with ease, the Navy let it be understood that after the 28th
October they would guarantee no further regular communications. All
September was wasted by the British Cabinet deliberating on the wisdom
of continuing the Gallipoli campaign, a far longer time than it had
taken to embark on the enterprise at the very beginning of the year.
During that month sickness further wasted the army. By the 11th October
the Cabinet came to a decision. They asked General Hamilton the cost
of lives that would be involved in withdrawing from Gallipoli. Fine
soldier that he is, the Commander-in-Chief refused to entertain the
idea; whereupon he was recalled to London for the official reason "that
a fresh and unbiased opinion from a responsible commander might be
given upon an early evacuation."

General Hamilton's departure was a matter of the keenest regret to the
Australian troops. They had often met him in the saps at Anzac, and his
tall, commanding figure was well known by all on the beach. It had
been the custom for various battalions and regiments to supply guards
for his headquarters, situated at Imbros on the south of Kephalos Bay,
and on many occasions he had inspected and complimented them on their
bearing. His farewell order to the troops, and, later, the concluding
words of his last report, show the affection he held for his men whom
he has described as "magnificent." He left the Dardanelles on the 17th
October on a warship bound for Marseilles.

General Sir Charles Monro, one of the ablest of the new British
leaders, and a man who had come to the front since the beginning of
the war, was chosen to succeed General Hamilton. It must be presumed
that even his unbiased report evidently left the matter in doubt.
The casualties of evacuation were put down at probably 20 per cent.
of the force, or even higher--20,000 men. Thereupon Lord Kitchener
himself determined to visit the Levant and thoroughly investigate the
situation. There were more reasons than the approach of winter and the
drain on the reserves of the army, the munitions, and maintenance of
lines of communication, that necessitated some very vital alteration in
the action and attitude of the Allies in the Levant and Mesopotamia.
Greece was wavering. There was distinctly a pro-German feeling amongst
the Greek population and a widespread German propaganda on lines that
ended so successfully with Bulgaria a few months before. The Serbian
Army was shattered before the landing of the Allies at Salonika could
prevent the free passage to Turkey of everything that the sorely
harassed and depleted Ottoman Army needed.

In Egypt, British prestige was at a low ebb. There were already
signs of revolt on the western frontier, where the Senussi had been
organized by Enver Pasha's brother. A further attack on the Canal
was threatening, while the campaign in Mesopotamia looked far from
reassuring. Egypt was a vast arsenal and rapidly becoming an armed
camp. The strain on the transport service and lines of communication
was rapidly growing acute--in fact, the position that faced the Allies
was that by some means or other their energies would have to be
narrowed. Anzac, Helles, Salonika, Egypt, and Mesopotamia all needed
regular supplies throughout the severe winter months, and these had to
be transported by sea. Yet the submarine peril had grown more menacing,
three or four ships being sunk daily, despite the greatest vigilance of
the fleet. Even the Greeks were engaged in helping these under-water
craft in their endeavours to starve out the armies of the Allies.
It seemed obvious one or several of the fronts had to be abandoned,
or else the Gallipoli offensive completed rapidly. For Egypt had to
be kept safe at all costs: so had the army in Mesopotamia, guarding
the Persian oilfields. To release a grip on the Eastern theatre of
Europe at Salonika would mean perhaps that the Greeks would go over
to the Central Powers. There was no alternative, once the necessary
forces were denied to General Hamilton to end the task which I have
endeavoured to show was so near successful completion, but that the
work of evacuating Gallipoli should be attempted. It was a hazardous
undertaking.

Lord Kitchener's visit to the Anzac battlefields was regarded as a
great compliment by the troops. So bad had become the Turkish shelling
of the Anzac Cove that it was not without the greatest anxiety that
the leaders watched the landing of the Minister for War. Accompanying
him were General Maxwell from Egypt and General Birdwood. Though the
time of arrival had been kept as secret as possible, the news spread
like lightning over Anzac. Lord Kitchener went straight to Russell's
Top, a climb of twenty minutes up a roughly hewn artillery road, from
which he could overlook the whole of the Anzac position, across the
mass of huddled foothills at Suvla Bay. He chatted to the many men
and officers. "The King has asked me," he said to various parties he
met, "to tell you how splendidly he thinks you have done. You have
indeed done excellently well; better even than I thought you would."
He was astonished at the positions won. Lord Kitchener went right
through the trenches on the Nek; he saw every important position and
over thirty leaders. As he returned to the beach the troops cheered
lustily. The hillside had suddenly, on this wild afternoon of November,
grown animated. On the beach--it was only three hours later--he turned
to Colonel Howse, as he had turned to others, and asked if he wanted
anything done. Colonel Howse promptly brought a number of matters
regarding the medical arrangements forward. "I think I can promise you
your first and your second request," the great War Lord assured him,
"and we will see about the third." It is curious to note that not a
shell was fired at the departing launch or the destroyer as it steamed
swiftly away.

Lord Kitchener left no one long in doubt of his impressions of the
Australasians and the position they had made. A man not prone to
superlatives, he spoke then, and since, in the highest terms of the
valour of the deeds that won those Anzac heights. In a special Army
Corps order General Birdwood wrote:--

 Zealand Army Corps a message which he was specially entrusted by the
 King to bring to our army corps. His Majesty commanded Lord Kitchener
 to express his high appreciation of the gallant and unflinching
 conduct of our men throughout the fighting, which has been as hard
 as any yet seen during the war, and wishes to express his complete
 confidence in the determination and fighting qualities of our men to
 assist in carrying this war to an entirely successful termination.

The order proceeds:--

 Lord Kitchener has ordered me to express to all the very great
 pleasure it gave him to have the opportunity, which he considered
 a privilege, of visiting "Anzac," to see for himself some of the
 wonderfully good work which has been done by the officers and men of
 our army corps, as it was not until he had himself seen the positions
 we captured and held that he was able to fully realize the magnitude
 of the work which has been accomplished. Lord Kitchener much regretted
 that time did not permit of his seeing the whole corps, but he was
 very pleased to see a considerable proportion of officers and men, and
 to find all in such good heart and so confidently imbued with that
 grand spirit which has carried them through all their trials and many
 dangerous feats of arms--a spirit which he is quite confident they
 will maintain until they have taken their full share in completely
 overthrowing their enemies.

"Boys," General Birdwood adds in his characteristic way, "we may all
well be proud to receive such a message, and it is up to all of us to
live up to it and prove its truth."

The story of the last three months at Anzac may be swiftly told. It
was a struggle during September and October to prepare for the coming
winter months. Quantities of wooden beams, and sheet-iron, and winter
equipment began to pour into Anzac. Preparations were made for the
removal of the hospitals and clearing stations from the beach and
from the beds of the creeks, to higher ground. For the weather could
no longer be depended on, and the narrowness of the beach rendered it
imperative that all the stores should be moved, as the waves would
lash against the foot of the cliffs in the sudden storms that arise
in the Ægean--storms that are the mariner's constant anxiety. Then at
the end of October the activity suddenly was modified. The question
of evacuation had brought a new commander and Lord Kitchener to this
front. A winter campaign was in abeyance.

Engineers used to tell me that they did not see where the wood was
coming from to shore up the trenches against the rains, and that they
would all be washed down into the gullies at the first storm. The
Australians had only a few days' experience of wet weather, and not
very heavy showers at that, in April, when they had landed; but Turkish
farmers captured told what might be expected. Ever ingenious, the
troops commenced collecting tins, and anything that would keep their
"possies" and dugouts dry. In some places great caverns were dug into
the side of hills by the battalions of the 2nd Division, where they
might be protected from the storms and from the severest shelling.
General Monash had planned for the 4th Brigade a huge barracks on the
side of Cheshire Ridge--a wonderful piece of engineering. The weather,
though still fine, had become decidedly colder. At night the wind was
biting, and rain early in November, gave a taste of what the conditions
were to be like at Christmas-time. Saps were running with water; the
soft, clayey mud clung in clods to the men's boots. The 1st Division
and the Australian and New Zealand Divisions came back gradually from
the rest camp at Mudros--the men fit again now, but the battalions
still below strength in point of numbers.

Hostilities had been confined almost entirely to mining operations
along the whole of the front. Mines and countermines were exploded. In
some places--particularly at Quinn's Post--the tunnels had met, and an
underground battle had ensued. Once we had reconnoitred a whole Turkish
gallery, and found the sentries nodding at their posts with the guard
in a tunnel, arguing and chattering away in a rapid, unintelligible
tongue. These operations were not always accomplished without loss
and severe casualties. Fumes overcame a large party near Lone Pine,
and many lives were lost, some in the efforts to rescue those who had
been suffocated in the mine tunnel. In one instance the Turks exploded
a mine that trapped some sappers in a tunnel. After three days the men
dug themselves out, and appeared before their astonished and delighted
friends over the parapets of our trenches.

From one end of the position to the other, right in the heart of
the Turkish hills below the famous Sari Bair ridge, infantry and
engineers dug down under the Turkish trenches. I remember talking to
Lieut.-Colonel Martyn, of the Divisional Engineers, about his plans.
He was considering the possibility of going down 40 feet, tunnelling
right through the hill at German Officers' Trench, and in one great
effort breaking through in the rear of the Turkish position. If they
went deep enough there seemed little likelihood of the Turks hearing
the picking and tapping. Whatever may have been the eventual plan, the
end of November and the first week of December saw most of the energies
of the men engaged in making storm shelters for themselves. That period
was one fraught with misfortune for the troops.

Whether the Turkish reconnaissance on the 27th November was intended
as a mere bluff, or whether the Turks were anxious to discover if an
offensive was in preparation by us, they attacked in thin lines all
along the Anzac position. They were driven back with severe loss, and
hardly a man reached our parapets.

On the 29th November the Turks commenced a terrible bombardment with
heavy howitzers--8, 9, and 10-in. pieces--of the Lone Pine trenches,
which were pounded and flattened. A series of mines were exploded under
them, and we had to evacuate portions of this dearly held post. But the
Turks dared make no fresh attack. Our casualties were heavy.

The day previously a snowstorm had swept down on the north wind that
wrought havoc with the shipping in the Cove. Pinnaces broke from
their moorings and barges went ashore and were smashed. How wonderful
the hills on the morning of the 29th, covered with a snow mantle,
which astonished the Australians, the great majority of whom were
experiencing their first snowstorm! Icicles hung from the trenches--the
sentries stamped up and down. The wind howled down the gullies, that
were soon turned into morasses; the trenches were ankle-deep in mud.
For three days the frost continued, but the troops were in good spirits
and fairly comfortable. Many of the men suffered frost-bite, but on the
third day of December the sun shone and the conditions had materially
improved.

And now, in this strange eventful story comes the last stage of all.
Though the decision for the evacuation was taken in November, the
troops guessed nothing of it even up to a week before it took place.
They had no realization that the series of very quiet evenings, when
scarcely a shot was fired along the whole of the 5-mile front that
Anzac now comprised, had in them any definite end. It was all part
of the plan conceived by General Birdwood (now commanding the whole
Gallipoli forces in place of General Monro) for beginning the education
of the Turks to our leaving. But the main proposition to be faced was
how to remove 200 guns and hundreds of tons of stores, equipment,
and munitions and men, and keep up a semblance of normal activity of
throwing supplies into Anzac. Cloudy skies and a first-phase moon
helped at night, when the guns were stealthily drawn from their covered
pits. There was no unusual gathering of transports by day, though the
waters at night might resemble the days of the early landing, when the
pinnaces and trawlers had crowded inshore with tows. The tows they
removed now contained arms and munitions. More often they contained men
declared not absolutely fit.

It was often remarked in the trenches, as December began, that it
was an easy matter now to get a spell. The very slightest sickness
was sufficient excuse to send men to the beach, from whence all the
serious cases had long ago been removed, and so to the transports or
hospital ships, as the case might be. Yet during the day, when Turkish
aeroplanes hung menacingly over the position, observers might have seen
bodies of men marching up the tortuous sap to the trenches. There was
more indication of permanency, even of attack, than of evacuation.

So on the 10th December there was left at Anzac barely 20,000
men--very fit, very sound, and very determined men. It wanted nine
days to the day of evacuation. Still there was no hint that any
unusual step was anticipated. Some regiments were removed for special
duty--they anticipated another fight, even a new landing. They left
by night. They arrived at dawn at Mudros, safe from the firing-line
and Anzac for ever. The greater part of the army service, engineer,
and hospital units had left with their equipment. They came down the
deep saps from the south and from the north, right from under those
hills from the crest of which the Turks could look down almost to
the heart of our position. No longer could we hope to make a firm
resistance to the Turkish attack, which it had been hoped would
develop in November. Rearguard actions were contemplated and evolved,
to resist any onslaught. On the beach the heavy ammunition was being
loaded on to lighters. All except nine worn guns had gone. Two were
left still, almost in the firing-line, where they had been from the
first. Quantities of stores and equipment were destroyed on the 16th
and 17th rather than they should fall into the hands of the Turks. The
"archives" of the brigades and divisions had been removed too, for
some time. The administrative dugouts were bare of books, typewriters,
and correspondence. Final orders had been issued. It was now only a
question of supervision and Staff work to get the men away. And what
Staff work it was on the part of General Birdwood to remove that whole
army of 40,000 men (I include those troops brought out of the trenches
early in December) from such a perilous position! One may write in
terms of the highest praise of the demeanour and discipline of the men
in those last days, but it is to the leaders that must fall inevitably
the greatest praise--the leaders of the army and the leaders of the
men: men such as Brigadier-General White, the Chief of Staff to General
Birdwood, Brigadier-Generals Antill, Monash, Johnston, Forsyth, and
Holmes, who worked on the beach till the very last.

Thousands of men were removed from Anzac during the night of the 18th.
They came down rapidly through the gullies, silently, and with empty
magazines. They embarked swiftly, according to a carefully adjusted
timetable. By morning the sea was calm and passive. A sudden storm
was the one thing now which might yet cause havoc to the plans. It was
during this last day that the situation was so tense. Turkish observers
might, one thought, have easily detected the thinly held lines and the
diminished stores on shore. The enemy remained in utter ignorance.
They would have seen--as the gunners surely saw from their observation
positions on Gaba Tepe and Kelid Bahr--parties of Australians ("smoking
parties," as they were called) idling about in saps and on exposed
hills, meant to attract the fire of the Turkish guns; for "Beachy
Bill" could never resist what the troops called "a smile" at parties
on the beach. The destruction of stores continued. To the enemy, Anzac
firing-line was normal that day.

At dusk on the 19th began the final phase of this delicate and
extraordinary operation. A force of 6,000 men were holding back 50,000
Turkish troops. The communications at Anzac were like a fan: they all
led out from the little Cove in the very centre of the position. They
went as far as 3 miles on the left (the north), and half that distance
to Chatham's Post on the right (the south), almost to Gaba Tepe. In the
centre they were short and very steep. They led up to the Nek and to
Russell's Top and to Quinn's Post. From these points the Turks could
have looked down into the heart of our position. If that heart were
to pulse on steadily until suddenly it stopped altogether, it must be
protected till the last. Therefore the flanks of the position were
evacuated first.

From the Nek to the beach it was a descent of some 500 yards--a descent
that might be accomplished in ten minutes. It was the head of our
second line of defence that had been so hastily drawn up in the early
days. There was now the last stand to be made.

Three columns, A, B, and C, held the Anzac line; 2,000 picked men
in each, and the whole unit chosen men from infantry battalions and
regiments of Light Horse. The last were the "die hards." Darkness
spread rapidly after five o'clock over the front hills, wrapping them
in gloom. The sea was still calm. Clouds drifted across the face of
the moon, half-hidden in mist. Already men were leaving the outskirts
of our line. They would take hours to reach the beach, there joining
up with other units come from the centre, and closer positions to the
shore. They marched with magazines empty: they had not even bayonets
fixed. They might not smoke or speak. They filed away, Indian fashion,
through the hills into the big sap, on to the northern piers on Ocean
Beach. Their moving forms were clearly distinguishable in the glimmer
from the crescent moon. The hills looked sullen and black. No beacon
lights from dugouts burned. That first column began to leave Anzac
shore at eight o'clock on the transports that were swiftly gliding
from the shore. Another two hours and some thousands of men had gone.
Parties of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade had left Destroyer Hill; most
of the 1st Light Horse had evacuated No. 1 Post, the 4th Australian
Brigade the line on Cheshire Ridge, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles,
Yeomanry, and Maoris the famous Hill 60, position.

But still small detachments, 150 to 170 in each, belonging to these
seasoned regiments and brigades remained at their post, holding quietly
the Anzac line.

Midnight. The head of the second column reached the Cove and the piers
so often shelled. Those on the beach knew that only 2,000 lone men were
holding back the enemy along the front. They were in isolated groups:
the New Zealand Infantry on the Sari Bair ridge, the 20th Infantry
at the Nek, the 17th Infantry at Quinn's, the 23rd and 24th Infantry
at Lone Pine, the 6th Light Horse Regiment at Chatham's Post, on the
extreme right, down by the shore. On the beach there was no confusion.
Units concentrated at fixed points in the gullies. They left at a
certain time. They arrived just to the moment, marching hard. They
found the Navy ready to clear them to the transports. There must be no
hitch: there was none. On either flank could be heard a feeble rifle
fire. Overhead came the answering "psing-psing" of the Turkish bullets.

At 1.30 began the withdrawal of the "die hards" from the points they
were holding with such a terrible peril hanging over them. A bomb burst
at "the Apex," on the slopes of Chunak Bair, with a resonant thud, with
the rapid answer following from the Turkish rifles. But nothing else
happened. What could happen? The New Zealand garrison had gone from
this dearly-won ridge, with a parting message left under a stone for
the Turks. By two o'clock the small parties of the 19th Infantry at
Pope's, the 18th Infantry at Courtney's Post, and the 17th Infantry
at Quinn's Post, were still further reduced. A few hundred desperate
fighters were hurrying in from the outposts of the line on the left
and the right, each firing a shot as they left. The right stole away
at 2.30 from Chatham's Post, men of the 6th Light Horse. Still there
were "die hards" of the 1st Brigade, and the 7th Battalion next them,
in Leane's Trench up to Lone Pine, held by the 23rd and 24th Infantry
of the 2nd Division. Here the Turks in their trenches were within 15
feet of them. There were a few score of determined men left at Quinn's
Post, a strong party on the Nek, but yet not 800 men in all holding the
whole front. Yet our line from end to end was spluttering. Ah! that
was through a device whereby the running sand from an emptying bucket,
fired an Australian rifle.

Swiftly the fate of Anzac was being decided now. All the trenches at
Lone Pine were deserted by 3.15 a.m. The garrisons at Quinn's and
Pope's Hill--the ever-impregnable post of our centre--were silently,
swiftly moving down Monash Gully into Shrapnel Gully, through the
sap, and towards the longed-for beach. The Anzac line was contracting
rapidly. The moon slid behind some clouds as the party passed the
deserted walls and tanks. Empty dugouts gaped like bottomless pits
on either side of their path. Suddenly behind on the heights, like
a thunderclap, there was a roar, as a vivid flash lit the sky, and
tongues of flame rolled along the hills. The whole of the Nek was
thus blown up by an immense series of mines. Three and a half tons of
Amenol, placed there by the 5th Company of Australian Engineers, were
used to throw a barrier across this entrance. The sight, awful in its
meaning to the army now embarked, lent speed to the steps of those
brave rearguards. From off that same Nek the Australians were rushing
down the track to the boats waiting by the piers. The Turkish fire
broke forth, growing, swelling in volume, as if a door were suddenly
opened on a raging battle. Guns from the warships began to pound the
hills. It was not yet four o'clock, but the dawn was creeping in, and
with it the Turks to our trenches. Fearful of a trap, they began their
exploration of Anzac as the guns of the Navy completed the destruction
of our few guns on the beach (that had fired till the end) and on the
piers, and swept the ranks of the advancing enemy.

Suvla Bay was also evacuated on the same evening, and with the same
success, for, as the news broke on an astonished world, it was
reported--and will be recorded--as one of the most extraordinary feats
of naval and military history, that only three men at Anzac and two at
Suvla Bay had been wounded in this astonishing masterpiece of strategy.

Before the closing days of the year, the English and French positions
at Cape Helles had been abandoned also, and the Gallipoli campaign was
brought to a sudden but very deliberate close. I have suggested that
there were strong enough reasons for its commencement, and others for
its conclusion. As to the failure, it can but be attributed to the
lack of men, the lack of reinforcements, the lack of munitions. When
and where these armies and reinforcements should have been landed, the
campaign shows significantly enough. But in the contemplation of this
failure there comes a not unpleasant feeling of achievement, the full
significance of which has not yet been recognized, and will not be
fully understood till the Turks lay down their arms and sue for peace.
The exhaustion of the Turkish nation and its army during that Gallipoli
campaign was great, and how near to collapse historians will discover.
The new Russian offensive in the Caucasus found it ill prepared to
resist. Over 250,000 casualties were suffered by the Turks in the
Dardanelles; a great mass of the Turkish mercantile fleet was lost.
And still their coast lies as open as ever to invasion, so that large
armies are compelled to be kept along it.

No one can regard the evacuation (whatever relief it gave to the army)
without a tinge of sadness and bitterness at relinquishing positions
that had been so dearly won, to the troops engaged most of all. But it
stands to the credit of the Australians that they took the situation
calmly as it developed. The army made a masterly retreat, after
suffering 40,000 casualties, of whom 8,000 had been killed. But the
Commonwealth and the Dominion of New Zealand offered fresh battalions
to the Motherland as the only sign on the changing of the tide of
battle.

In one day--25th April--Australia attained Nationhood by the heroism
of her noble sons. "Anzac" will ever form the front page in her
history, and a unique and vivid chapter in the annals of the Empire.
The very vigour of their manhood, the impetuosity of their courage,
carried slopes that afterwards in cold blood, seemed impregnable.
And they held what they won, and proved themselves an army fit to
rank alongside any that a World Empire has produced. But yet in all
their fighting there was no bitterness--not against the Turks--but a
terrible, earnest fearlessness that boded ill for lurking enemies. They
found a staunch and worthy foe, who, whatever their treatment of the
people within their own borders was, abstained from the brutalities of
the Germans.

Above all, the young army won its way into the hearts and confidence of
the British Navy and the Indians from so near their own shores. They
gained a respect for themselves and for discipline. They formed for the
generations of new armies yet unborn on Australian soil, traditions
worthy of the hardy, freeborn race living under the cloudless skies
of the Southern Cross. Open-hearted, ever generous, true as gold, and
hard as steel, Australia's first great volunteer army, and its valorous
deeds, will live in history while the world lasts.




APPENDIX I

DISTINCTIONS FOR GALLANTRY AND SERVICES IN THE FIELD


The following awards for services rendered in connection with military
operations in the field were made by His Majesty the King to members of
the Australian Imperial Force.


THE VICTORIA CROSS

Captain Alfred John Shout, 1st Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(New South Wales).

 For most conspicuous bravery at Lone Pine trenches, in the Gallipoli
 Peninsula. On the morning of 9th August 1915, with a very small party,
 Captain Shout charged down trenches strongly occupied by the enemy,
 and personally threw four bombs among them, killing eight and routing
 the remainder. In the afternoon of the same day, from the position
 gained in the morning, he captured a further length of trench under
 similar conditions, and continued personally to bomb the enemy at
 close range under very heavy fire, until he was severely wounded,
 losing his right hand and left eye. This most gallant officer has
 since succumbed to his injuries.

Lieutenant William John Symons, 7th Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (Victoria).

 For most conspicuous bravery on the night of 8th-9th August 1915, at
 Lone Pine trenches, in the Gallipoli Peninsula. He was in command
 of the right section of the newly captured trenches held by his
 battalion, and repelled several counter-attacks with great coolness.
 At about 5 a.m. on 9th August a series of determined attacks were
 made by the enemy on an isolated sap, and six officers were in
 succession killed or severely wounded, a portion of the sap being
 lost. Lieutenant Symons then led a charge and retook the lost sap,
 shooting two Turks with his revolver. The sap was under hostile fire
 from three sides, and Lieutenant Symons withdrew some 15 yards to a
 spot where some overhead cover could be obtained, and in the face of
 heavy fire built up a sand barricade. The enemy succeeded in setting
 fire to the fascines and woodwork of the head-cover, but Lieutenant
 Symons extinguished the fire and rebuilt the barricade. His coolness
 and determination finally compelled the enemy to discontinue their
 attacks.

Lieutenant Frederick Harold Tubb, 7th Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (Victoria).

 For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty at Lone Pine
 trenches, in the Gallipoli Peninsula, on 9th August 1915. In the
 early morning the enemy made a determined counter-attack on the centre
 of the newly captured trench held by Lieutenant Tubb. They advanced
 up a sap and blew in a sandbag barricade, leaving only one foot of it
 standing; but Lieutenant Tubb led his men back, repulsed the enemy,
 and rebuilt the barricade. Supported by strong bombing parties, the
 enemy succeeded in twice again blowing in the barricade, but on each
 occasion Lieutenant Tubb, although wounded in the head and arm, held
 his ground with the greatest coolness and rebuilt it, and finally
 succeeded in maintaining his position under very heavy bomb fire.

Second Lieutenant Hugo Vivian Hope Throssell, 10th Light Horse
Regiment, Australian Imperial Force (Western Australia).

 For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty during operations
 on the Kaiakij Aghala (Hill 60), in the Gallipoli Peninsula, on 29th
 and 30th August 1915. Although severely wounded in several places
 during a counter-attack, he refused to leave his post or to obtain
 medical assistance till all danger was past, when he had his wounds
 dressed and returned to the firing-line until ordered out of action by
 the medical officer. By his personal courage and example he kept up
 the spirits of his party and was largely instrumental in saving the
 situation at a critical period.

No. 384 Corporal Alexander Stewart Burton, 7th Battalion, Australian
Imperial Force, and

No. 2130 Corporal William Dunstan, 7th Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (Victoria).

 For most conspicuous bravery at Lone Pine trenches, in the Gallipoli
 Peninsula, on 9th August 1915. In the early morning the enemy made a
 determined counter-attack on the centre of the newly captured trench
 held by Lieutenant Tubb, Corporals Burton and Dunstan, and a few men.
 They advanced up a sap and blew in a sandbag barricade, leaving only
 one foot of it standing; but Lieutenant Tubb, with the two corporals,
 repulsed the enemy and rebuilt the barricade. Supported by strong
 bombing parties, the enemy twice again succeeded in blowing in the
 barricade, but on each occasion they were repulsed and the barricade
 rebuilt, although Lieutenant Tubb was wounded in the head and arm, and
 Corporal Burton was killed by a bomb while most gallantly building up
 the parapet under a hail of bombs.

No. 943 Private John Hamilton, 1st Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(New South Wales).

 For most conspicuous bravery on 9th August 1915, in the Gallipoli
 Peninsula. During a heavy bomb attack by the enemy on the newly
 captured position at Lone Pine, Private Hamilton, with utter disregard
 to personal safety, exposed himself under heavy fire on the parados,
 in order to secure a better fire position against the enemy's
 bomb-throwers. His coolness and daring example had an immediate
 effect. The defence was encouraged and the enemy driven off with heavy
 loss.

No. 465 Lance-Corporal Albert Jacka, 14th Battalion Australian Imperial
Force (Victoria).

 For most conspicuous bravery on the night of the 19th-20th May 1915,
 at "Courtney's Post," Gallipoli Peninsula. Lance-Corporal Jacka, while
 holding a portion of our trench with four other men, was heavily
 attacked. When all except himself were killed or wounded, the trench
 was rushed and occupied by seven Turks. Lance-Corporal Jacka at once
 most gallantly attacked them single-handed, and killed the whole
 party, five by rifle fire and two with the bayonet.

No. 958 Private Leonard Keysor, 1st Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (New South Wales).

 For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty at Lone Pine
 trenches, in the Gallipoli Peninsula. On 7th August 1915 he was in a
 trench which was being heavily bombed by the enemy. He picked up two
 live bombs and threw them back at the enemy at great risk to his own
 life, and continued throwing bombs, although himself wounded, thereby
 saving a portion of the trench which it was most important to hold.
 On 8th August, at the same place, Private Keysor successfully 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. He continued to bomb
 the enemy till the situation was relieved.


THE MOST HONOURABLE ORDER OF THE BATH

_To be a Knight Commander._

Major-General William Throsby Bridges, _C.M.G._, General Officer
Commanding 1st Australian Division (since died of wounds).


_To be Additional Members of the Military Division of the Third Class,
or Companions._

Colonel (temporary Major-General) H. G. Chauvel, _C.M.G._, Commanding
Australian Mounted Division.

Colonel (temporary Surgeon-General) Neville Reginald Howse, _V.C._,
Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Staff.

Colonel (temporary Brigadier-General) the Honourable James Whiteside
McCay, 2nd Infantry Brigade.

Colonel (temporary Brigadier-General) F. C. Hughes, commanding 3rd
Light Horse Brigade.

Colonel (temporary Brigadier-General) John Monash, 4th Infantry Brigade.

Colonel (temporary Brigadier-General) Joseph John Talbot Hobbs,
Commanding Divisional Artillery.

Colonel (temporary Brigadier-General) C. B. B. White, _D.S.O._, Chief
of Staff, 1st Australian Army Corps.

Lieut.-Colonel Harold Pope, 16th Battalion (South and Western
Australia).

Lieut.-Colonel Richard Edmond Courtney, 14th Battalion (Victoria).

Lieut.-Colonel George Jamieson Johnston, 2nd Field Artillery Brigade.

Lieut.-Colonel James Harold Cannan, 15th Battalion (Queensland and
Tasmania).

Lieut.-Colonel Charles Rosenthal, 3rd Field Artillery Brigade.

Lieut.-Colonel Granville John Burnage, 13th Battalion (New South Wales).

Lieut.-Colonel Ernest Hillier Smith, 12th Battalion (South Australia,
Western Australia, Tasmania).


THE MOST DISTINGUISHED ORDER OF SAINT MICHAEL AND SAINT GEORGE

_To be Additional Members of the Third Class, or Companions._

Colonel the Honourable Joseph Livesley Beeston, Army Medical Corps.

Colonel (temporary Brigadier-General) G. de L. Ryrie, Commanding 2nd
Light Horse Brigade (New South Wales).

Lieut.-Colonel Alfred Joshua Bennett, D.S.O., 1st Battalion (New South
Wales).

Lieut.-Colonel Henry Gordon Bennett, 6th Battalion (Victoria).

Lieut.-Colonel W. E. H. Cass, Commanding 2nd Infantry Battalion.

Lieut.-Colonel Sydney Ernest Christian, 1st Field Artillery Brigade.

Lieut.-Colonel C. M. Macnaghten, Commanding 4th Infantry Battalion (New
South Wales).

Lieut.-Colonel Jeremy Taylor Marsh, Divisional Train, Army Service
Corps.

Lieut.-Colonel T. M. Martin, Commanding 2nd Australian General Hospital.

Lieut.-Colonel Robert Heylock Owen, 3rd Infantry Battalion (New South
Wales).

Lieut.-Colonel David Sydney Wanliss, 5th Infantry Battalion (Victoria).

Major (temporary Lieut.-Colonel) D. M. McConaghy, Commanding 3rd
Battalion (New South Wales).

Major (temporary Lieut.-Colonel) James Campbell Robertson, 9th
Battalion (Queensland).

Major Alfred Joseph Bessell-Browne, D.S.O., 3rd Field Artillery Brigade.

Major Edmund Alfred Drake Brockman, 11th Battalion (Western Australia).

Major Giffard Hamilton Macarthur King, 1st Field Artillery Brigade.

Major Reginald Lee Rex Rabett, 1st Field Artillery Brigade.

Major George Ingram Stevenson, 2nd Field Artillery Brigade.

Major J. L. Whitham, Second in Command, of 12th Battalion (South and
Western Australia and Tasmania).


THE DISTINGUISHED SERVICE ORDER

_To be Companions._

Rev. W. E. Dexter (Chaplain 4th Class), 2nd Infantry Brigade (Victoria).

Rev. J. Fahey (Chaplain 4th Class), 3rd Infantry Brigade (Queensland,
South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania).

Lieut.-Colonel Walter Ramsay McNicoll, 6th Australian Infantry
Battalion (Victoria).

 On the night of 25th-26th April 1915, during operations near Gaba
 Tepe, for repeatedly exhibiting great gallantry and skill in the
 command of his battalion.

Lieut.-Colonel Cyril Brudenell Bingham White, Royal Australian Garrison
Artillery, Staff.

 During the operations near Gaba Tepe on 25th April, 1915, and
 subsequently for his distinguished service co-ordinating Staff work,
 and in reorganization after the inevitable dislocation and confusion
 arising from the first landing operations. He displayed exceptional
 ability.

Major Charles Henry Brand, 3rd Infantry Brigade (Australian Forces).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations in the neighbourhood of Gaba
 Tepe, for conspicuous gallantry and ability in organizing stragglers
 under heavy fire, and for organizing and leading an attack resulting
 in the disablement of three of the enemy's guns. Major Brand himself
 conveyed messages on many occasions under fire during emergencies.

Major W. L. H. Burgess, 3rd Field Artillery Brigade.

Major James Samuel Denton, 11th Australian Infantry Battalion (Western
Australia).

 During the operations in the neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe on the 25th
 April 1915, for valuable services in obtaining and transmitting
 information to ships' guns and mountain batteries, and subsequently
 for holding a trench, with about 20 men, for over six days, repulsing
 several determined attacks.

Major Gus Eberling, 8th Battalion (Victoria).

Major James Heane, 4th Australian Infantry Battalion (New South Wales).

 On 1st May 1915, during the operations near Gaba Tepe, for displaying
 conspicuous gallantry in leading his company to the support of a
 small force which, in an isolated trench, was without means of
 reinforcement, replenishment, or retreat. He attained his object at a
 heavy sacrifice.

Major Herbert William Lloyd, 1st Field Artillery Brigade.

Major Francis Maxwell de Frayer Lorenzo, 10th Battalion (South
Australia).

Major William Owen Mansbridge, 16th Australian Infantry Battalion
(Western Australia).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for exceptional
 gallantry and resource during the first assault, and again on the 2nd
 and 3rd May during an assault on a difficult position.

Major (temporary Lieut.-Colonel) A. M. Martyn, Commanding Officer
Engineers, First Australian Division.

Major Robert Rankine, 14th Australian Infantry Battalion (Victoria).

 On the night of 26th-27th April 1915, during operations in the
 neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe, for gallantly leading an assault resulting
 in the capture of a most important post, and subsequently for holding
 that position against repeated attacks for five days without relief.

Major Arthur Borlase Stevens, 2nd Battalion (New South Wales).

Major (temporary Lieut.-Colonel) Leslie Edward Tilney, 16th Battalion
(South Australia, Western Australia).

Captain Arthur Graham Butler, Australian Army Medical Corps (attached
9th Australian Infantry Battalion).

 During operations in the neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe on 25th April 1915
 and subsequent dates, for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty
 in attending wounded under heavy fire, continuously displaying courage
 of high order.

Captain Cecil Arthur Callaghan, 2nd Battery, Australian Field
Artillery, Australian Imperial Force (New South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry and ability on 12th July 1915, during an
 action on the Gallipoli Peninsula. As forward observing officer, he
 advanced with the first line of infantry and established telephone
 communication with his battery from the captured hostile trenches.
 During the day he continued to advance under heavy fire, sending back
 accurate reports, valuable not only to the guns, but also to the corps
 staff.

Captain Cecil Duncan Sasse, 1st Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(New South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry and determination during the attack on Lone
 Pine, Gallipoli Peninsula, on 6th-7th August 1915, when he led several
 bayonet charges on trenches occupied by the enemy, resulting in
 substantial gains. Captain Sasse was wounded three times, but remained
 on duty.

Captain (temporary Major) Alan Humphrey Scott, 4th Battalion,
Australian Imperial Force (New South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry in the attack on Lone Pine, Gallipoli
 Peninsula, on 6th-7th August 1915. He held on to a very exposed
 position till all the wounded had been removed. Later, after a heavy
 bombarding attack in superior force had compelled him to retire, he
 led a bayonet charge which re-took and held a position, in face of
 the enemy's enfilading machine-gun fire. This position was of great
 importance, as linking up the positions captured on either flank.


THE MILITARY CROSS

Major J. T. M'Coll.

Captain J. S. S. Anderson, Staff, 1st Infantry Brigade.

Captain M. H. Cleeve, 4th Infantry Brigade.

Captain G. Cooper, 14th Infantry Battalion (Victoria).

Captain J. E. Dods, Medical Officer, 5th Light Horse (Queensland).

Captain J. Hill, 15th Infantry Battalion (Queensland and Tasmania).

Captain Owen Glendower Howell-Price, 3rd Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (New South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry on 7th August 1915, in the attack on Lone
 Pine, Gallipoli Peninsula. He showed the greatest bravery in leading
 an attack against the Turkish trenches, frequently rallying his men
 under heavy fire, and restoring order at critical moments. He killed
 three Turks with his own hands.

Captain (temporary Major) R. L. Leane, 11th Infantry Battalion (Western
Australia).

Captain G. McLaughlin, 1st Field Artillery Brigade (New South Wales).

Captain Jasper Kenneth Gordon Magee, 4th Australian Infantry Battalion
(New South Wales).

 On 25th April 1915 and subsequent dates, during operations in the
 neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe, for gallantry in leading his men, and
 exhibiting sound judgment and ability on several occasions, under a
 constant and harassing fire.

Captain J. H. F. Pain, 2nd Infantry Battalion (New South Wales).

Captain Clifford Russell Richardson, 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion
(New South Wales).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for displaying
 great coolness and courage, and leading a charge against superior
 numbers under a heavy cross fire, resulting in the flight of the enemy
 in disorder.

Captain James William Albert Simpson, 13th Australian Infantry
Battalion (New South Wales).

 On 2nd May 1915, during an attack in the neighbourhood of Gaba
 Tepe, for showing conspicuous bravery and skill in directing the
 battalion through unreconnoitred scrub. He was conspicuously active in
 consolidating the position gained under heavy fire.

Captain W. C. N. Waite, 3rd Field Artillery Brigade (Composite).

Lieutenant (temporary Captain) Heinrich Bächtold, 1st Field Company,
Australian Engineers.

Lieutenant G. N. Croker, Divisional Engineers.

Lieutenant Alfred Plumley Derham, 5th Australian Infantry Battalion
(Victoria).

 On 25th April 1915, and subsequently during operations in the
 neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe, for acting with great bravery and ability,
 and continuing to do duty until 30th April, although shot through the
 thigh on 25th April.

Lieutenant Charles Fortescue, 9th Australian Infantry Battalion
(Queensland).

 From 25th to 29th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for
 conspicuous gallantry. He twice led charges against the enemy, and
 rendered good service in collecting reinforcements and organizing
 stragglers.

Lieutenant R. G. Hamilton, Signal Company.

Lieutenant (temporary Captain) G. H. L. Harris, 1st Light Horse
Regiment (New South Wales).

Lieutenant (temporary Captain) H. James, 11th Infantry Battalion
(Western Australia).

Lieutenant (temporary Captain) J. E. Lee, 13th Infantry Battalion (New
South Wales).

Lieutenant Reginald George Legge, 13th Australian Infantry Battalion
(New South Wales).

 On 1st and 2nd May 1915, during operations in the neighbourhood of
 Gaba Tepe, for conspicuous ability and courage in the successful
 handling of his machine gun section. On several occasions he inflicted
 severe losses on the enemy, and was himself severely wounded in the
 neck.

Lieutenant Eric Edwin Longfield Lloyd, 1st Battalion, Australian
Imperial Force (New South Wales).

 For exceptionally gallant conduct on 5th June 1915, during the
 operations in the Gallipoli Peninsula, in personally leading a party
 of 100 men to take a trench from which an enemy machine gun was
 severely harassing his position. Although unable to remove the machine
 gun owing to the heavy head cover, he destroyed it with rifle fire. He
 personally shot two Turks with his own pistol, and, with his party,
 inflicted severe losses on the enemy.

Lieutenant Terence Patrick McSharry, 2nd Australian Light Horse
Regiment (Queensland).

 For exceptional bravery and resource on many occasions since 25th
 April 1915, especially on night of 28th-29th May, during operations
 in the neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe, Dardanelles, in organizing
 several assaults, and at great personal risk making several valuable
 reconnaissances. He was again brought to notice for gallant conduct on
 the night, 4th-5th June.

Lieutenant N. Marshall, 5th Infantry Battalion (Victoria).

Lieutenant J. H. Mirams, 2nd Field Company, Engineers.

Lieutenant (temporary Captain) Uvedale Edward Parry-Okeden, 1st
Australian Divisional Ammunition Park.

Lieutenant Percy John Ross, 7th Battery, Australian Imperial Force
(Queensland).

 For conspicuous gallantry in the attack on Lone Pine on 6th and 7th
 August, 1915, when he kept his gun in action for forty-eight hours,
 although continuously attacked at close quarters by superior gun fire.
 His gun emplacement was several times almost completely demolished,
 and he himself was finally wounded. Lieutenant Ross rendered very
 valuable assistance to the infantry in the attack through his
 determination to keep his gun in action at all costs.

Lieutenant Alfred John Shout, 1st Australian Infantry Battalion (New
South Wales).

 On 27th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for showing
 conspicuous courage and ability in organizing and leading his men in
 a thick, bushy country, under very heavy fire. He frequently had to
 expose himself to locate the enemy, and led a bayonet charge at a
 critical moment.

Lieutenant S. E. Sinclair, 1st Field Artillery Brigade (New South
Wales).

Second Lieutenant E. T. Bazeley, 22nd Battalion (Victoria).

Second Lieutenant W. A. Moncur, 7th Infantry Battalion (Victoria).

Second Lieutenant R. I. Moore, 3rd Infantry Battalion (New South Wales).

Second Lieutenant R. T. Ramsay, 9th Field Ambulance.

No. 96 Sergeant-Major D. Smith, 5th Battalion, 2nd Australian Brigade
(Victoria).

 On 8th May 1915, during operations south of Krithia, for conspicuous
 gallantry and good services in rallying and leading men forward to the
 attack. Although wounded in both arms, he continued to direct his men,
 setting a valuable example of devotion to duty.


THE DISTINGUISHED CONDUCT MEDAL

Second Lieutenant R. R. Chapman.

Second Lieutenant W. C. McCutcheon.

Lieutenant (temporary Captain) W. W. Meligan.

No. 6 Sergeant A. Anderson, 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion (New
South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry on 25th April 1915 and subsequent dates,
 during the operations near Gaba Tepe, in assisting to reorganize small
 parties of various battalions under heavy fire, and placing them in
 the firing line.

No. 74 Private T. Arnott, 1st Australian Infantry Battalion (New South
Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry on 30th May 1915, in the neighbourhood of
 Gaba Tepe, whilst serving in a machine gun section. Although engaged
 by two hostile machine guns which demolished the emplacement, Private
 Arnott served his gun whilst exposed to the enemy's fire until badly
 wounded. One hostile machine gun was destroyed.

No. 189 Sergeant W. Ayling, 11th Australian Infantry Battalion (Western
Australia).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for gallantry
 in commanding his platoon after his officer had been wounded. When
 compelled to retire he carried the wounded officer with him, and on
 obtaining reinforcements again led his platoon to the attack.

Corporal G. Ball.

No. 43 Lance-Corporal H. A. Barker, 7th Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (Victoria).

 For conspicuous gallantry, ability, and resource on the 25th and 26th
 April, 1915, near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). During the operations on
 these two days, the officer, sergeant, and corporal of his machine gun
 section, having been wounded, Corporal Barker assumed the command,
 and continued working the guns under a heavy shell fire. At one time
 the enemy actually succeeded in getting into the machine gun trench,
 but were all killed. One after another the machine guns were rendered
 useless by shell fire, but he collected portions of useless guns,
 and built them up anew. Finally he was working with two guns only,
 composed of parts of at least seven other guns.

Bombardier C. W. Baxter.

Private A. Bell.

No. 874 Sergeant C. E. Benson, 9th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Queensland).

 For gallant conduct and ability on the 25th April 1915, at Gaba Tepe
 (Dardanelles). With great courage and presence of mind he, on two
 occasions, rallied and led forward again into the firing-line men
 whose officers had all been killed or wounded, and who had suffered
 very heavy losses. His fine example and devotion to duty were
 conspicuous.

No. 695 Private W. J. Birrell, C Company, 7th Battalion, 2nd Australian
Brigade (Victoria).

 On 8th May 1915, during operations near Krithia, for distinguished
 conduct in collecting and organizing men who had become detached, and
 leading them to a weak flank of the firing-line.

No. 170 Lance-Corporal P. Black, 16th Australian Infantry Battalion
(South Australia, Western Australia).

 On the night of 2nd-3rd May 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe,
 for exceptional gallantry. After all his comrades in his machine gun
 section had been killed or wounded, and although surrounded by the
 enemy, he fired all available ammunition and finally brought his gun
 out of action.

Corporal H. Brennan.

No. 997 Private L. W. Burnett, Australian Army Medical Corps.

 From 25th April to 5th May 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for
 exceptionally gallant work and devotion to duty under heavy fire.

No. 1250 Private D. H. Campigli, 8th Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (Victoria).

 For gallant conduct on the 25th and 26th April 1915, near Gaba Tepe
 (Dardanelles), when, with a small detachment, which was retiring on
 the main body, he, on two occasions, carried in a wounded man under
 heavy fire.

No. 119 Lance-Corporal F. R. Cawley, 15th Battalion, Australian
Imperial Force (Queensland, Tasmania).

 For conspicuous gallantry on the night of the 9th-10th May 1915,
 near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). During a sortie from Quinn's Post,
 Lance-Corporal Cawley, accompanied by another non-commissioned
 officer, advanced with great coolness and courage past the first line
 of the enemy's trenches to a tent some distance in the rear. They
 killed all the occupants, and cut the telephone wires which connected
 it with the fire-trenches, thus preventing communication from the rear.

No. 66 Lance-Corporal V. Cawley, No. 2 Field Ambulance, 1st Australian
Division.

 For conspicuous gallantry on 25th April 1915, and subsequently during
 landing operations in the neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe. He advanced
 under heavy rifle and shrapnel fire and spent the day attending to
 wounded men. He repeatedly, during the following days, brought wounded
 men in over ground swept by the enemy's fire.

No. 182 Sergeant W. A. Connell, 12th Australian Infantry Battalion
(Western Australia).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for gallantly
 attacking an entrenched position and an enemy's machine gun.

No. 94 Staff Sergeant-Major M. E. E. Corbett, 15th Australian Infantry
Battalion (Queensland).

 On 3rd May 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for exceptional
 gallantry in serving his machine gun after he had been wounded, until
 it was put out of action, and again for rallying men and leading them
 to a second attack, retrieving a difficult situation.

No. 1403 Private M. D. Cowtan, 1st Australian Casualty Clearing
Hospital.

 For conspicuous good work on 25th April 1915, and subsequently during
 the landing operations in the neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe. He was
 indefatigable during the first four days in giving aid and carrying
 water to the wounded, and his unswerving courage under fire was
 invaluable in its effect.

No. 733 Lance-Corporal J. Craven, 15th Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (Queensland, Tasmania).

 For conspicuous gallantry on the 27th April 1915, near Gaba Tepe
 (Dardanelles), when, under a heavy shell and machine-gun fire, he
 carried water and food to the men in the front trenches. He also
 assisted four wounded men into shelter, and, later on, he exhibited
 the greatest coolness and courage in voluntarily carrying messages
 under heavy fire and at great personal risk.

Sergeant R. C. Crawford.

No. 712 Sergeant N. A. Cross, 13th Australian Infantry Battalion (New
South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry on 9th May 1915, during operations near
 Gaba Tepe, in taking an enemy's trench. Out of a party of 40 men to
 which he belonged, only 12 reached their objective. On the officer
 in command being wounded, he endeavoured to assist him back, but the
 officer was again shot and killed. Sergeant Cross then immediately
 returned to the forward position.

Lance-Corporal F. P. Curran.

No. 457 Lance-Corporal C. Davis, 1st Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (New South Wales).

 For great gallantry on the 5th June 1915, during the operations near
 Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). He was one of a small party who, led by an
 officer, and under a heavy fire, made a direct attack on a machine
 gun, which was destroyed.

-- Driver G. Dean, Australian Divisional Signal Company.

 On 8th May 1915, during operations near Krithia, for distinguished
 gallantry. Was detailed to accompany four officers to the firing-line
 to lay telephone wire. Owing to the heavy fire only one officer
 reached the position. Driver Dean kept up constant communication with
 brigade headquarters until 3 a.m. on 9th May, when the remaining
 officer was wounded. Alone, he assisted this officer back and attended
 other wounded men, but never neglected his duties on the telephone.

No. 926 Private S. Diamond, 6th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Victoria).

 For conspicuous gallantry and ability on the 25th and 26th April
 1915, near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). When, on one occasion during the
 operations, most of the officers having been killed or wounded, and
 part of the line having commenced to retire, Private Diamond showed
 the greatest courage and decision of character in assisting to stop
 the retirement, and in leading the men forward again under a heavy
 fire. He also frequently carried messages over open ground swept by a
 heavy fire, and exhibited a splendid example of devotion to duty.

No. 744 Private H. Edelsten, 15th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Queensland, Tasmania).

 For conspicuous gallantry on the 25th April 1915, near Gaba Tepe
 (Dardanelles). After the landing, he passed frequently from the
 supports to the firing-line under a very heavy fire to keep the
 communications open. Later on, he showed great bravery on three
 occasions in carrying wounded men to a place of safety.

Sergeant A. G. Edwards.

Driver L. Farlow.

No. 325 Private A. Farmer, 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion (New South
Wales).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for gallantry in
 repeatedly carrying messages and twice going back for ammunition under
 severe rifle and machine-gun fire; and again on 27th April, when his
 officer was wounded, for organizing a party of three men who carried
 the wounded officer to the rear. Private Farmer exposed himself
 fearlessly, and it was owing to his coolness and initiative that the
 party succeeded. He was himself wounded.

No. 151 Lance-Corporal G. C. Farnham, 3rd Field Ambulance, Australian
Imperial Force (Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia,
Tasmania).

 For great gallantry on the 25th April 1915, and throughout the
 landing operations near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). In attending to the
 wounded under a heavy fire he showed the greatest zeal and disregard
 of danger, and at all times gave a fine exhibition of coolness and
 devotion to duty.

No. 261 Gunner G. G. Finlay, 2nd Battery, 1st Australian Field
Artillery Brigade (New South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry on 8th June 1915, south-west of Krithia,
 Gallipoli Peninsula. When a company of infantry had been forced
 by enfilade fire to vacate a trench, it was reported that one of
 their wounded had been left in the trench, which was now absolutely
 commanded by the enemy's fire. Gunner Finlay, with another man,
 volunteered to bring him in, and succeeded in doing so. It was a most
 gallant adventure and showed a fine spirit of self-sacrifice.

No. 851 Lance-Corporal W. Francis, 13th Australian Infantry Battalion
(New South Wales).

 On 3rd May 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for great bravery
 in removing wounded from the trenches to a dressing station over
 ground swept by machine-gun fire.

No. 764 Lance-Corporal H. W. Freame, 1st Australian Infantry Battalion
(New South Wales).

 On 25th April 1915, and subsequently during the operations near Gaba
 Tepe, for displaying the utmost gallantry in taking water to the
 firing-line although twice hit by snipers.

No. 499 Lance-Corporal R. V. Gay, 6th Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (Victoria).

 For conspicuous gallantry and ability on the 25th and 26th April
 1915, near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). When, on one occasion during the
 operations, most of the officers having been killed or wounded, and
 part of the line having commenced to retire, Corporal Gay showed great
 courage and decision of character in assisting to stop the retirement,
 and in leading the men forward again under a heavy fire. He also
 frequently carried messages over open ground swept by a heavy fire,
 and exhibited a splendid example of devotion to duty.

No. 918 Private F. Godfrey, 12th Australian Infantry Battalion (Western
Australia).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for
 exceptionally gallant conduct in personally capturing an enemy
 officer, and going out single-handed and shooting five enemy snipers.

Corporal R. L. Graham.

No. 122 Private C. P. Green, 10th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(South Australia).

 For conspicuous gallantry on the 25th April 1915, during the landing
 at Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). He had reached shelter on the beach, when
 he saw a wounded man struggling in the surf, which was under heavy
 fire. Without hesitation, he turned back, reached the man in the
 water, and brought him successfully to shore, and subsequently to a
 place of shelter.

No. 611 Private J. V. F. Gregg-Macgregor, 1st Field Ambulance,
Australian Imperial Force (New South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty on the 25th April 1915,
 and subsequent days, after the landing at Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). In
 company with another man, Private Gregg-Macgregor showed the greatest
 bravery and resource in attending to the wounded. Totally regardless
 of danger, he was for three consecutive days under a continuous and
 heavy shell and rifle fire, dressing and collecting the wounded from
 the most exposed positions. He allowed no personal risk or fatigue to
 interfere with the performance of his duties, and his gallant conduct
 and devotion offered a splendid example to all ranks.

No. 582 Lance-Corporal C. Grimson, 1st Australian Light Horse Regiment
(New South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry on the night of the 28th-29th May 1915,
 near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). Owing to the explosion of a mine, which
 destroyed a portion of our parapet, the enemy was enabled to occupy a
 portion of our trenches, thus dividing the defending force into two.
 Lance-Corporal Grimson crawled over the broken ground towards the
 enemy, capturing successively three Turks. He then, with the greatest
 courage, entered the remaining portion of the trench held by the
 enemy, about 12 in number, and compelled them all to surrender, thus
 enabling the defending force to re-unite.

No. 2 Staff-Sergeant C. V. Heath, Australian Flying Corps.

 For conspicuous pluck and determination in Mesopotamia on the 1st
 August 1915. He assisted to pole a "bellum" (long flat-bottomed boat)
 28 miles in twelve hours in intense heat, in order to rescue aviators
 who had been forced to descend in the enemy's country.

No. 493 Private C. R. Heaton, 9th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Queensland).

 For great bravery on the 25th April 1915, near Gaba Tepe
 (Dardanelles), when he rescued and brought into shelter, under a very
 heavy shell and rifle fire, a wounded man.

Sergeant W. J. Henderson.

No. 371 Private E. P. Hitchcock, Australian Army Medical Corps
(attached 6th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force) (Victoria).

 For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty on the 8th May 1915,
 and following days, north of Cape Helles (Dardanelles). In assisting
 the wounded under constant heavy fire, Private Hitchcock exhibited
 a heroism beyond praise. Absolutely regardless of danger, he, in
 company with another man, attended to the wounded, leading up the
 stretcher-bearers, and dressing the severe cases in the fire-trenches,
 even before they were completed. Not only was he instrumental in
 saving many lives, but, by his coolness and courage, he set a splendid
 example of devotion to duty, and gave the greatest encouragement to
 all ranks.

No. 556 Sergeant V. Horswill, 11th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Western Australia).

 For great gallantry and devotion to duty near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles).
 After two ammunition-carriers had been wounded, he rendered invaluable
 service in assisting to carry up and distribute ammunition under a
 heavy shell and rifle fire.

No. 1293 Private R. Humberston, 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion (New
South Wales).

 On 25th April 1915, and subsequently during operations near Gaba Tepe,
 for conspicuous coolness and bravery in volunteering on many occasions
 for dangerous missions and for judgment in carrying them out.

No. 1065 Staff-Sergeant H. Jackson, Australian Army Medical Corps.

 From 25th April until 5th May 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe,
 for exceptionally gallant work and devotion to duty under heavy fire.

No. 518 Private W. S. James, 15th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Queensland, Tasmania).

 For conspicuous bravery on the night of the 3rd-4th May 1915, during
 the operations near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). During an attack by the
 enemy he frequently picked up and threw back their own hand-grenades,
 exhibiting the greatest coolness and courage at a critical time. Later
 on he assisted in carrying food and water to the firing-line under a
 very heavy and continuous shell and machine-gun fire.

Private W. P. Kedley.

Private W. Kelly.

Private W. J. Kelly.

No. 75 Lance-Corporal T. Kennedy, 1st Australian Infantry Battalion
(New South Wales).

 On 25th April 1915, and subsequent dates, during operations near Gaba
 Tepe, for displaying the greatest coolness and pluck in running round
 under heavy fire and collecting stragglers, whom he formed and led
 into the firing-line. This he did time after time, with excellent
 results.

No. 741 Lance-Corporal J. Kenyon, 9th Australian Infantry Battalion
(Queensland).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for conspicuous
 courage and initiative in returning from the firing-line under heavy
 fire, collecting reinforcements, and assisting in leading a successful
 bayonet charge to the top of a hill, which was eventually held against
 great odds.

No. 323 Private A. M. Kirkwood, 6th Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (Victoria).

 For conspicuous gallantry and ability on the 8th May 1915, during the
 operations north of Cape Helles (Dardanelles). During an advance, when
 the officers and non-commissioned officers had been killed or wounded,
 Private Kirkwood assumed the command, taking charge of the men in his
 immediate neighbourhood, directing their fire and, by his coolness
 and courage, rendering valuable assistance in steadying all ranks at a
 critical moment. He led each advance in his section of the line, and,
 finally, performed most valuable service in consolidating the position
 gained.

Private J. H. Kruger.

Gunner A. G. McAllister.

No. 697 Sergeant J. M. McCleery, 11th Battalion, Australian Imperial
Force (Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania).

 For conspicuous gallantry and ability on the 25th April 1915. After
 the landing at Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles), he led an attack on a strongly
 held position, and by his bravery and the ability with which he
 handled his force, he succeeded in gaining the position.

Private W. M'Crae.

No. 1156 Corporal R. McGregor, 3rd Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(New South Wales).

 For great bravery on the 27th April 1915, subsequent to the landing
 at Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). Ammunition in the firing-trench having
 run short, and efforts to obtain supplies having failed, owing to
 the ammunition-carriers having been killed, he volunteered to return
 to the support trench in the rear and obtain further supplies. This
 he succeeded in doing, although both in going and returning he was
 exposed to a very heavy shell fire.

No. 99 Sapper G. F. McKenzie, 3rd Field Company, Australian Engineers.

 On 4th May 1915, during a landing and an attack on the enemy's redoubt
 near Gaba Tepe, for conspicuous gallantry in rescuing a wounded sapper
 and carrying him back to the boat under heavy fire. Having pushed
 the boat off, he himself returned to the beach and was subsequently
 wounded.

No. 577 Gunner A. McKinlay, 3rd Battery, 1st Australian Field Artillery
Brigade (New South Wales).

 For conspicuous gallantry on the 8th June 1915, south-west of Krithia,
 Gallipoli Peninsula. When a company of infantry had been forced
 by enfilade fire to vacate a trench, it was reported that one of
 their wounded had been left in the trench, which was now absolutely
 commanded by the enemy's fire. Gunner McKinlay, with another man,
 volunteered to bring him in, and succeeded in doing so. It was a most
 gallant adventure, and showed a fine spirit of self-sacrifice.

Corporal H. M. MacNee.

Private F. O. McRae.

No. 1357 Lance-Corporal J. T. Maher, 15th Battalion, Australian
Imperial Force (Queensland, Tasmania).

 For gallant conduct and resource on several occasions during the
 operations at Quinn's Post (Dardanelles). Corporal Maher particularly
 distinguished himself as a brave and expert bomb-thrower, and always
 exhibited the highest courage and devotion to duty.

No. 852 Private H. C. Martyr, 8th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Victoria).

 For conspicuous bravery on the 26th April 1915, near Gaba Tepe
 (Dardanelles), when he went out and carried a wounded man over 50
 yards of open ground, swept by a heavy shell and rifle fire, to
 shelter. He exhibited great courage and coolness, and gave a fine
 example of devotion to duty.

No. 927 Sergeant G. F. Mason, 11th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Western Australia).

 For conspicuous gallantry and ability on the 25th April 1915, and the
 three following days at Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). During these days of
 continuous fighting, Sergeant Mason showed great courage and resource
 in holding his men together under constant fire, and when isolated
 parties which had advanced too far had to be withdrawn, he covered
 their retirement with conspicuous skill and bravery.

No. 322 Corporal R. A. Mason, 3rd Australian Light Horse Regiment
(South Australia, Tasmania).

 For conspicuous gallantry and resource between the 26th May and the
 28th June 1915, near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles), during the mining
 operations. He invariably performed exceptionally good work, and
 exhibited a complete disregard of danger. He took a leading part in
 loading and tamping numerous mines, and was always ready to undertake
 any work, however hazardous. He gave a splendid example of courage and
 devotion to duty.

No. 280 Private A. C. B. Merrin, 5th Australian Infantry Battalion, 2nd
Australian Brigade (Victoria).

 On 25th April 1915, and subsequently during operations on the
 Gallipoli Peninsula, for exhibiting on many occasions the greatest
 courage and coolness in carrying messages, helping wounded, and
 bringing up food and water under heavy fire.

No. 1151 Corporal R. I. Moore, 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion (New
South Wales).

 From 25th until 29th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe.
 Commanded his section under heavy and continuous fire from snipers who
 were within 30 yards of his trench. He displayed exceptional courage
 in twice advancing alone about 20 yards, and on the second occasion he
 accounted for five of the enemy.

No. 370 Private A. A. Morath, Australian Army Medical Corps (attached
6th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force) (Victoria).

 For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty on the 8th May 1915,
 and following days, north of Cape Helles (Dardanelles). In assisting
 the wounded under constant heavy fire, Private Morath exhibited
 a heroism beyond praise. Absolutely regardless of danger, he, in
 company with another man, attended to the wounded, leading up the
 stretcher-bearers, and dressing the severe cases in the fire-trenches,
 even before they were completed. Not only was he instrumental in
 saving many lives, but by his coolness and courage he set a splendid
 example of devotion to duty, and gave the greatest encouragement to
 all ranks.

Lance-Corporal C. R. Murfitt.

No. 315 Lance-Corporal H. Murray, 16th Australian Infantry Battalion
(South Australia).

 For distinguished service on several occasions from 9th to 31st May
 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, when attached to the machine
 gun section. During this period he exhibited exceptional courage,
 energy, and skill, and inflicted severe losses on the enemy, he
 himself being twice wounded.

No. 305 Private G. Pappas, 13th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(New South Wales).

 For great gallantry on the 4th May 1915, near Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles).
 He volunteered to go out and bring in a wounded man, under heavy
 machine-gun fire, and succeeded in carrying him to a place of safety.

Private G. L. Peel.

Sapper C. R. Rankin.

No. 543 Private S. Ricketson, 5th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Victoria).

 For gallant conduct and great bravery on the 25th May 1915, at Gaba
 Tepe (Dardanelles). When all his officers and non-commissioned
 officers had been killed or wounded, he showed great coolness and
 courage in rallying men under a very heavy fire, and his example
 and devotion to duty exercised the greatest influence over the men,
 and kept them steady under trying conditions. He also exhibited
 conspicuous bravery in digging in the open, and under a heavy fire, a
 shelter for a wounded officer.

No. 530 Private G. Robey, 9th Australian Infantry Battalion
(Queensland).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for conspicuous
 gallantry in swimming to a boat and bringing back into safety a
 wounded comrade who was the only occupant. This was done under heavy
 fire.

No. 1088 Corporal E. Robson, 4th Australian Infantry Battalion (New
South Wales).

 On 1st May 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for distinguished
 conduct in the command of a platoon, guiding and controlling the men
 after the officer commanding the platoon had been wounded. Although
 in an exposed position he personally carried up ammunition and freely
 exposed himself.

No. 178 Private C. H. G. Rosser, 3rd Field Ambulance, Australian
Imperial Force (Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia,
Tasmania).

 For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty on the 25th April 1915
 and subsequent days, after the landing at Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles).
 In company with another man, Private Rosser showed the greatest
 bravery and resource in attending to the wounded. Totally regardless
 of danger, he was for three consecutive days under a continuous and
 heavy shell and rifle fire, dressing and collecting the wounded from
 the most exposed positions. He allowed no personal risk or fatigue to
 interfere with the performance of his duties, and his gallant conduct
 and devotion offered a splendid example to all ranks.

Sergeant P. F. Ryan.

Corporal A. Sheppard.

Private W. E. Sing.

Corporal P. Smith.

Private T. B. Stanley.

No. 41 Staff Sergeant-Major A. Steele, 9th Australian Infantry
Battalion (Queensland).

 From 25th to 29th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for
 distinguished conduct in manning and maintaining his machine gun,
 which he continued to work after the remainder of his section had been
 killed or wounded.

Sergeant R. G. Stone.

Lance-Corporal J. Tallon.

No. 204 Corporal R. Tickner, 15th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Queensland, Tasmania).

 For conspicuous gallantry on the night of the 9th-10th May 1915, near
 Gaba Tepe (Dardanelles). During a sortie from Quinn's Post, Corporal
 Tickner, accompanied by another non-commissioned officer, advanced
 with great coolness and courage past the first line of the enemy's
 trenches to a tent some distance in the rear. They killed all the
 occupants, and cut the telephone wires which connected it with the
 first trenches, thus preventing communication from the rear.

No. 791 Private W. Upton, 13th Australian Infantry Battalion (New South
Wales).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for great
 bravery in bringing wounded into shelter, and again on 2nd May, after
 being shot through the foot, in continuing to defend his trench until
 again wounded.

Private J. C. Vaughan.

Private A. J. Vines.

Sergeant A. J. Wallish.

No. 456 Private J. C. Weatherill, 10th Australian Infantry Battalion
(South Australia).

 On 25th April 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for
 exceptionally good work in scouting and in an attack resulting in the
 capture of two of the enemy's guns.

Corporal H. Webb.

No. 974 Sergeant M. Wilder, 9th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force
(Queensland).

 For conspicuous gallantry on the 26th April 1915, near Gaba Tepe
 (Dardanelles). Assisted by another non-commissioned officer, who was
 subsequently killed, he carried a wounded man into a place of safety
 under a very heavy fire. Later on, he was instrumental in collecting
 stragglers, whom he led back into the firing-line.

Corporal J. Williams.

Corporal E. D. Wood.

No. 213 Private A. Wright, 15th Australian Infantry Battalion
(Queensland).

 On the night of 2nd-3rd May 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe,
 for repeated instances of gallantry when acting as a scout and guide
 to his unit.

Private E. Yazley.




APPENDIX II

MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES


DIVISIONAL ARTILLERY

  Brigadier-General J. J. T. Hobbs, Western Australia.
  Brigadier-General G. de L. Ryrie, M.P., 2nd Light Horse Brigade
    (New South Wales).
  Brigadier-General A. H. Russell, New Zealand.


INFANTRY BRIGADE

  Lieut.-Colonel Esson, New Zealand.
  Major C. H. Foot, D.A.Q.M.G., Australian Engineers.
  Major E. J. H. Nicholson, G.S.O. (3).
  Major Griffiths, Military Secretary.
  Captain W. Smith, Provost-Marshal.
  Sergeant R. Pennea, Military Police.
  Corporal G. Little, Military Police.
  Corporal W. Elliott, Military Police.
  Corporal M. Hoy, Military Police.
  Private G. Roach, Australian Field Artillery.


AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY

  Colonel G. J. Johnston, Brigadier 2nd Artillery Brigade (Victoria).
  Colonel C. Rosenthal, 1st Artillery Brigade (Queensland).
  Colonel S. Christian, 3rd Artillery Brigade (New South Wales).
  Major A. Bessell-Browne, 8th Battery.
  Major W. Burgess, 9th Battery.
  Major O. Phillips, 4th Battery (Victoria).
  Major G. H. M. King, 3rd Battery (New South Wales).
  Major G. I. Stevenson, 6th Battery (Victoria).
  Captain H. Lloyd, 1st Artillery Brigade.
  Captain U. E. Parry-Okeden, Divisional Train.
  Captain W. Hodgson, 5th Battery.
  Lieutenant C. Clowes, 2nd Battery.
  Lieutenant T. Playfair, 1st Battery.
  Sergeant J. Braidwood.
  Sergeant W. Wallis.
  Corporal E. Coleman.
  Corporal R. Gammon.
  Bombardier N. M'Farlane.
  Bombardier J. Benson.
  Gunner E. Batnes.
  Gunner H. Wilson.
  Gunner E. Day.


AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERS

  Major H. O. Clogstoun, R.E.
  Captain H. Bachtold.
  Lieutenant R. G. Hamilton (New South Wales).
  Driver W. J. Davis.
  Sappers G. Chisholm, H. Eggleton, S. Garrett, and
      N. Hartbridge.


AUSTRALIAN LIGHT HORSE

~First Regiment (N.S.W.).~

  Major H. V. Vernon.
  Lieutenant G. H. L. Harris.
  Trooper W. Varley.

~Third Regiment (S.A. and Tasmania).~

  Lieut.-Colonel Rowell.

~Sixth Regiment (N.S.W.).~

  Lieutenant G. Ferguson.
  Sergeant S. Tooth.
  Trooper R. Foster.
  Trooper C. Fenner.

~Eighth Regiment (Victoria).~

  Lieut.-Colonel A. H. White.
  Sergeant Grenfell.
  Trooper Sanderson.

~Ninth Regiment (Victoria and S.A.).~

  Lieut.-Colonel Miell.
  Lieut.-Colonel Reynell.
  Sergeant H. Sullivan.
  Sergeant Ashburner.

~Tenth Regiment (W.A.).~

  Lieutenant Kidd.
  Lieutenant Hugo Throssell, V.C.
  Sergeant W. Henderson.
  Lance-Corporal M'Gee.
  Trooper T. Stanley.


INFANTRY.

~First Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Lieut.-Colonel A. J. Bennett.
  Major W. Davidson.
  Captain H. Jacobs.
  Captain G. F. Wootten.
  Lieutenant Buchanan.
  Lieutenant Howell-Price.
  Sergeant Barber.
  Corporal Bint.
  Lance-Corporal Davis.
  Privates R. Cumming and C. Sharpe.

~Second Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Major Stevens.
  Major Tebbuth.
  Captain Concanon.
  Privates S. Carpenter and E.
      Roberts.

~Third Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Lieut.-Colonel R. H. Owen.
  Captain Leer.
  Captain Wilson.
  Sergeant C. White.
  Corporal J. Scott.
  Privates Blackburn, Mulcahy,
      Owens, and Hutton.

~Fourth Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Captain S. Milson.
  Lieutenant Anderson.
  Lieutenant Stacey.
  Lieutenant Fanning.
  Sergeant Steber.
  Privates Kirby, Deacon, R. Mackenzie,
      and Benson.

~Fifth Battalion (Victoria).~

  Colonel D. S. Wanliss.
  Lieutenant G. H. Capes.
  Captain R. M. F. Hooper.
  Sergeant-Major Marshall.
  Sergeant Nesbit.
  Privates Ricketson and M'Donnell.

~Sixth Battalion (Victoria).~

  Lieut.-Colonel H. G. Bennett.
  Major F. V. Hogan.
  Privates Morath and Hitchcock.

~Seventh Battalion (Victoria).~

  Captain S. M. de Ravin.
  Captain S. Grills.

~Eighth Battalion (Victoria).~

  Major G. Eberling.
  Captain Sergeant.

~Ninth Battalion (Queensland).~

  Lieut.-Colonel J. C. Robertson.
  Sergeant Scrivener.
  Privates Henry, Bailey, A. Campbell,
      and Bruns.

~Tenth Battalion (S.A.).~

  Major F. W. Hurcombe.
  Major F. M. Lorenzo.
  Captain C. Rumball.
  Sergeant-Major Sawyer.
  Sergeant-Major Henderson.
  Sergeant Leane.

~Eleventh Battalion (W.A.).~

  Major Drake Brockman.
  Major J. H. Peck.
  Captain A. E. J. Croly.
  Captain Rockliff.
  Captain S. H. Jackson.
  Sergeant Pugsley.
  Lance-Sergeant Wright.
  Corporals Pride and Skuse.
  Privates J. F. Wilson and M'Jannett.

~Twelfth Battalion (S.A., W.A., and Tasmania).~

  Lieut.-Colonel E. H. Smith.
  Lieutenant Patterson.
  Sergeant Pearson.
  Corporal Marshall.
  Lance-Corporal Hart.
  Privates C. Thomson and Turner.

~Thirteenth Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Private Currie.

~Fourteenth Battalion (Victoria).~

  Lieut.-Colonel R. E. Courtney.

~Fifteenth Battalion (Queensland and Tasmania).~

  Lieut.-Colonel J. H. Cannon.
  Private Slack.

~Sixteenth Battalion (S.A. and W.A.).~

  Lieut.-Colonel L. E. Tilney.
  Sergeant Carr.
  Lance-Corporal Davies.


AUSTRALIAN DIVISIONAL TRAIN

  Lieut.-Colonel J. T. Marsh.
  Lieutenant D. G. M'Hattie (New South Wales).


AUSTRALIAN ARMY MEDICAL CORPS

  Colonel J. L. Beeston, 4th Field Ambulance.
  Lieut.-Colonel H. W. Bryant, 1st Australian Stationary Hospital
    (Victoria).
  Captain R. W. Chambers (Victoria).
  Captain H. K. Fry.
  Sergeants Bryce, W. Gunn, and Hookway.
  Corporal Faulkner.
  Lance-Corporals Goode and G. Hill.
  Privates Collis, M'Rae, Peel, Sawyer, Simpson, Vines, and Watts.


CHAPLAINS

  Rev. F. W. Wray (Anglican), 4th Infantry Brigade.
  Rev. Luxford.


MENTIONED IN GENERAL HAMILTON'S FINAL DISPATCH

STAFF

  Lieut.-General Sir William Birdwood, Commanding Army Corps.
  Major-General Sir J. H. Godley, Australian and New Zealand Division.
  Brigadier-General H. G. Chauvel, C.M.G., 1st Light Horse Brigade.
  Colonel Walker, 1st Australian Division.
  Colonel Smyth, 1st Australian Infantry Brigade.
  Brigadier-General F. Hughes, 2nd Australian Light Horse Brigade.
  Brigadier-General J. Monash, 4th Australian Infantry Brigade.
  Colonel Cunliffe-Owen, Army Corps Artillery.
  Colonel J. J. T. Hobbs, V.D., 1st Australian Divisional Artillery.
  Colonel J. M. Antill, C.B., Brigade-Major (after Commanding),
    2nd Australian Light Horse Brigade.
  Captain Powles.
  Captain J. S. Anderson.
  Captain G. A. Farr.
  Captain C. Thomas.
  Captain C. Cook.
  Captain W. E. Henderson.
  Captain Rose.
  Lieutenant A. Rhodes.
  Lieutenant Hindley.
  Sergeant-Major Wann.


BRIDGING TRAIN

  Lieut.-Commander Bracegirdle.
  Lieut.-Commander Bond.
  Warrant Officer Shepherd.
  Petty Officer Beton.
  Petty Officer Pender.
  Seaman Harvey.
  Seaman M'Carron.


1st DIVISIONAL ARTILLERY

  Major O. F. Phillips.
  Major U. L. H. Burgess.
  Captain C. A. Callaghan.
  Captain W. C. N. Waite.
  Captain G. M'Laughlin.
  Captain A. H. K. Jopp.
  Lieutenant P. J. Ross, D.S.O.
  Lieutenant S. E. Sinclair.
  Sergeant-Major Stamens.
  Corporal Cook.
  Corporal Miller.
  Corporal East.
  Bombardier Mackinnon.
  Bombardier Baynes.
  Bombardier Dingwall.
  Gunner Medihurst.
  Gunner Hillbeck.
  Gunner Carr.
  Gunner J. Reid.
  Gunner Brew.
  Driver Younger.


ENGINEER COMPANIES

  Major J. M. C. Corlette.
  Major A. M. Martyn.
  Captain R. J. Dyer.
  Lieutenant J. H. Mirams.
  Lieutenant G. G. S. Gordon.
  Lieutenant R. G. Hamilton.
  Second-Lieutenant H. Greenway.
  Second-Lieutenant G. N. Croker.
  Sergeant Graham.
  Corporal Sheppard.
  Corporal Ewart.
  Corporal Wilson.
  Corporal Elliott.
  Corporal Lobb.
  Corporal Jordon.
  Corporal Climpson.
  Sapper Townshend.
  Sapper Vincent.
  Sapper Batchelor.
  Sapper Allison.
  Sapper Kelly.
  Private Jonas.


AUSTRALIAN LIGHT HORSE

~First Regiment (N.S.W.).~

  Lieutenant G. Harris.
  Corporal Collett.
  Corporal Keys.
  Privates Tancred, Barrow, Little,
  A. Thompson, and Barnes.

~Second Regiment (Queensland).~

  Major T. W. Glasgow, D.S.O.

~Fourth Regiment (Victoria).~

  Corporal Forsyth.
  Trooper Kerr.

~Fifth Regiment (Queensland).~

  Major S. Midgley, D.S.O.
  Private Sing.

~Sixth Regiment (N.S.W.).~

  Captain G. C. Somerville.
  Sergeant Ryan.
  Trooper Paul.

~Seventh Regiment (N.S.W.).~

  Corporal Curran.

~Eighth Regiment (Victoria).~

  Lieutenant Wilson.
  Corporal J. Anderson.
  Trumpeter Lawry.
  Trooper A'Beckett.

~Ninth Regiment (Victoria and S.A.).~

  Lieutenant M'Donald.
  Privates Morrison and Howell.

~Tenth Regiment (W.A.).~

  Major Scott.
  Captain Fry.
  Sergeant Gollan.
  Sergeant Foss.
  Corporal M'Cleary.
  Corporal Hamphire.
  Trooper Roberts.
  Trooper Firns.
  Trooper M'Mahon.
  Sergeant Howard.
  Corporal Ketterer.
  Corporal Benporath.
  Privates Howland, G. Brown,
  Foster and Anear.


INFANTRY

~First Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Captain C. D. Sasse, D.S.O.
  Lieutenant P. S. Woodforde.
  Lieutenant G. Steen.
  Lieutenant H. Wells.
  Lieutenant R. T. Ramsay.
  Sergeant-Major Norris.
  Sergeant Sparkes.
  Sergeant Wicks.
  Privates Kelly, Allen, Ramsay, and
  Judd.


~Second Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Lieut.-Colonel R. Scobie.
  Major W. E. H. Cass.
  Major L. J. Morshead.
  Captain J. H. F. Pain.
  Captain G. S. Cook.
  Lieutenant C. A. Whyte.
  Sergeant-Major Lowans.
  Sergeant Host.
  Corporal M'Elloy.
  Privates A. Robertson, Townsend,
  Nichol, Montgomery, and Gannemy.


~Third Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Lieut.-Colonel Brown.
  Major D. M. M'Conaughy.
  Major Austin.
  Captain O. G. Howell-Price, D.S.O.
  Captain B. T. Moore.
  Lieutenant M'Leod.
  Lieutenant V. E. Smythe.
  Lieutenant R. W. Woods.
  Lieutenant R. Moore.
  Sergeant-Major Coldenstedt.
  Sergeant Clark.
  Sergeant Edwards.
  Corporal M'Grath.
  Corporal Graham.
  Corporal Thomas.
  Corporal Powell.
  Privates Green, Morgan, and Horan.


~Fourth Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Lieut.-Colonel C. M. Macnaghten.
  Major I. G. Mackay.
  Captain E. A. Lloyd.
  Captain C. S. Coltman.
  Lieutenant I. J. A. Massie.
  Lieutenant M'Donald.
  Lieutenant C. W. Foster.
  Lieutenant J. D. Osborne.
  Sergeant-Major M'Alpine.
  Sergeant-Major Johnstone.
  Sergeant M'Mapon.
  Sergeant Crawford.
  Sergeant Claydon.
  Corporal Stone.
  Privates M'Neill, Hurley, Lynn, and Hewitt.


~Fifth Battalion (Victoria).~

  Lieutenant N. Marshall.
  Sergeant Ross.
  Corporal Williams.
  Corporal Wood.


~Sixth Battalion (Victoria).~

  Lieutenant P. D. Moncur.
  Privates Callaghan, Thorning, and George.


~Seventh Battalion (Victoria).~

  Lieut.-Colonel H. Elliott.
  Lieutenant D. B. Ross.
  Corporal Dunstan.
  Corporal Burton.
  Corporal Wright.
  Corporal Keating.
  Privates Ellis, Ball, and Wadeson.


~Eighth Battalion (Victoria).~

  Lieutenant J. C. M. Traill.
  Sergeant Goodwin.
  Corporal M'Kinnon.
  Privates Young, Green, and Hicks.


~Ninth Battalion (Queensland).~

  Corporal Page.


~Tenth Battalion (S.A.).~

  Lieutenant F. H. Hancock.
  Lieutenant F. H. G. N. Heritage.
  Corporal Hill.
  Private M'Donald.


~Eleventh Battalion (W.A.).~

  Major S. R. Roberts.
  Captain R. L. Leane.
  Lieutenant H. James.
  Lieutenant G. Potter.
  Lieutenant Prockter.
  Lieutenant Frankly.
  Sergeant Wallish.
  Sergeant Hallahan.
  Corporal Taylor.
  Corporal F. Smith.
  Privates Johns, Morrison, Roper,
  W. Smith, Whitbread, and Retchford.


~Twelfth Battalion (S.A., W.A., and Tasmania).~

  Major J. L. Whitham.
  Sergeant Will.
  Sergeant Keen.
  Privates Yaxley, C. Smith, Ward, M'Kendrick, Jarvis, Johnston, Thomas,
    and Reade.


~Thirteenth Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Major S. C. E. Herring.
  Captain C. B. Hopkins.
  Captain J. E. Lee.
  Captain W. J. M. Locke.
  Lieutenant H. C. Ford.
  Lieutenant Annoni.
  Privates Duncan, Doig, Round, and Kenbury.


~Fourteenth Battalion (Victoria).~

  Major C. M. M. Dare.
  Captain Cooper.


~Fifteenth Battalion (Queensland and Tasmania).~

  Captain Moran.
  Captain J. Hill.
  Private Barrett.


~Sixteenth Battalion (S.A. and W.A.).~

  Captain Heming.


~Eighteenth Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Captain S. P. Goodsell.
  Sergeant Fidge.
  Corporal Dryden.
  Corporal Hooper.
  Privates Mahoney, Workman, Martin, and Collins.


~Twentieth Battalion (N.S.W.).~

  Corporal Brennan.


~Twenty-third Battalion (Victoria).~

  Private Bell.


DIVISIONAL TRAIN.

  Captain M. H. Cleeve.
  Sergeant F. Smith.


ARMY MEDICAL CORPS.

  Lieut.-Colonel Garner.
  Lieut.-Colonel H. W. Bryant.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. H. Sturdee.
  Major H. A. Powell.
  Captain L. W. Dunlop.
  Captain E. T. Brennan.
  Captain J. Bentley.
  Captain J. E. Dods.
  Captain C. Thompson.
  Captain A. L. Dawson.
  Captain H. V. P. Conrick.
  Captain L. St. V. Welch.
  Captain Fullerton.
  Captain Stack.
  Quartermaster Boddam.
  Sergeant-Major Wheeler.
  Sergeant Barber.
  Sergeant Hood.
  Sergeant Sargent.
  Sergeant Henderson.
  Sergeant Nixon.
  Corporal Bosgard.
  Corporal G. Smith.
  Privates Priestman, Lilingen, Cruickshanck, Brighton, Spooner, and
    Foster.


CHAPLAINS.

  Rev. W. E. Dexter, 2nd Infantry Brigade.
  Rev. Father J. Fahey, 3rd Infantry Brigade.
  Rev. T. S. Power, 4th Infantry Brigade.
  Rev. Gillison, 4th Infantry Brigade.




INDEX


  Abbu Ella, Troop trains at, 67

  Abdel Rahman Bair, 246
    Attack on, 255, 257, 259

  Achi Baba, 127
    Advances on, 149
    Attack on, 215
    Description of, 131
    Futility of assaulting, 265
    Guns on, 214
    May attack on, 145

  Adana, 79

  Admiralty, Delay of message from, 16

  Adrianople, Turkish forces at, 213

  Aeroplanes--
    Enemy, 268
    German over Quinn's, 197
    Taube driven down, 255

  _Agamemnon_, H.M.S., 82

  _Age, Melbourne_, Correspondent of, 10

  Aghyl Dere, 247
    4th Brigade capture, 251

  Akaba, Gulf of, 80

  Albany--
    Convoy rendezvous at, 74
    Description of harbour, 30
    Final scenes, 34
    King's visit to, 30
    Traditions of, 28
    Transport fleet at, 31

  Albatross, German aeroplane, 163

  Alexandria, 62, 96
    Aspect in July, 216
    Convoy reaches, 66

  "Allah," Turks call, 162

  Allanson, Major C. G., 261

  Allies' War Council, 279

  Amenol, Use of, 290

  Ammunition--
    For "Great Adventure," 224
    Hamilton's admissions about, 211
    Mule transport of, 181
    Turks receive, 280
    Want of, 291

  Anafarta, Bujik, 169, 220, 246, 269
    Advance in Valley of, 252

  Antill, Brigadier-General, 240, 287

  Anzac--
    Administration leave, 287
    Army Corps, return of, 284
    Artillery position at, 181
    Bomb factory at, 172
    Calm days at, 136
    Casualties, total, 291
    Closing scenes at, 283 _seq_.
    Compared to Helles, 144
    Complete capture of, 114
    Contemplating plans, 96
    Covering party, 104
    Dawn of, 99
    Dispatch riders at, 271
    Dysentery at, 278
    Evacuation contemplated, 280
    Evacuation commences, 286
    Extending, 245
    First Division return to, 284
    General attack abandoned, 139
    Guns in August, 219
    "Heart of," 169
    Hospital ships off, 255
    Hospital supplies, 174
    Hospital, winter, 283
    June-July at, 204
    Kitchener, Earl, visits, 282
    Last picture of, 290
    Life at, 180 _seq._
    Maxwell, General, visits, 282
    Moon and operations at, 216
    New attack from, 137
    N.Z.'s on flank of, 117
    N.Z.'s leave, 144
    Nights, 176
    Origin of, 99
    Partition of, 119
    Post Office, 171
    Reinforcements at, 157
    Reorganization, 135
    Reticulation scheme, 171
    R.M.L.I. land at, 135
    Second Brigade leave, 143
    Shrapnel Gully divides, 179
    Sikhs at, 181
    Snowstorms, 285
    "Soul of" (General Birdwood), 169
    Telephone Exchange, 171
    Transports leave for, 100
    Trawlers, 177
    Turkish charge on Nek, 210
    Turkish counter-attacks, 121
    Turkish May attack, 160
    Turkish regulars at, 208
    Turks enter, 290
    Winter camps prepared, 283
    Winter storms, 285

  Anzac Beach--
    Gurkhas on, 224
    Nature of, 168
    Ordnance store, 169
    Red Cross at, 169
    Turkish fire on, 280

  Anzac Cove, 103
    Stores landed, 168
    Work at, 135

  Arabia--
    Germans land in, 55

  Arabs, 75
    Information from, 81

  _Aragon_, H.M.S., 9

  Ari Burnu, 104, 172

  _Ark Royal_ balloon ship, 132

  Armenians--
    In Turkish army, 88
    Refugee, 81
    Surrender, 92

  Armistice--
    Empire Day, 165
    General Birdwood on, 164
    General Hamilton on, 164
    Turks seek, 163

  Armoured motor-cars, 133

  Army--
    Anzac Corps, 214
    Corps orders unfulfilled, 134
    General Hamilton's, 213

  Army Corps--
    First withdrawal of, 278
    Return, 284

  Army Service Corps, 194

  Artillery--
    Ammunition shortage, 211
    Anzac, 219
    Capture of Krupp, 106
    Duels at Helles, 147
    Egyptian Mounted, 86
    First landing, 113
    French 75 cm., 129, 145
    "Hates," 169
    Helles, 219
    Indian Mountain Battery, 110
    Landing 3rd Brigade, 117
    Lane, 182, 186
    Need at Anzac, 115
    N.Z., at Helles, 219
    Positions on Anzac, 181
    Sixth Australian Battery, 219
    Turkish (_see also under_ Turkish), 280
    Turkish Anzac, 159
    Turkish Olive Grove, 157

  Asia Minor, Refugees from, 78

  "Asiatic Algy," 144

  _Askold_, Russian cruiser, 61

  Asma Dere, 252
    Ridge, attack on, 253

  Auckland--
    Battalion at Helles, 149
    Landing of Battalion, 111
    Mounted Rifles, 259

  Austin, Colonel, 169
    Flag of, 173

  Australia--
    Citizen Army, 17
    Excitement over war, 16
    First Contingent leaves, 31
    First Expeditionary Force, 20
    German hopes for revolt in, 18
    Mobilization of Army in, 17

  _Australia_, H.M.A.S., 16-18
    Germans fear, 26

  Australian Army--
    Army Service Corps, 194
    Assembly at Lemnos, 94
    Casualties, total of, 291
    Citizen forces with, 19
    Commencement of landing, 100
    Departure of First, 23
    Engineers on Canal, 82
    Landing casualties of, 126
    Light Horse at Anzac, 170
    Line held by, 139
    Number of First, 8
    Offer of, 18
    Reorganizing units, 134
    Units of--
      1st Division, 8, 20, 23, 28, 31, 61, 136, 220, 245, 264
        At Mena, 70, 72
        Composition, 19
        Egypt, training of, 70
        Final departure, 290
        New Commander of, 159
        Return of, 284
        Withdrawal of, 278
      2nd A. and N.Z. Division, 71, 136, 275, 278, 284
        Arrival of, 271
        Last stand, 290
      1st Infantry Brigade, 117, 138, 219, 220
        Landing, 109
        Lone Pine, 221-7
      2nd Infantry Brigade, 77, 109, 117, 188, 237
        At Helles, 143, 150
      3rd Infantry Brigade, 100, 105, 117, 182
        At Thermia, 97
        Landing, 104, 109
        Landing casualties, 122
      4th Infantry Brigade, 71, 111, 117, 122, 137, 138, 244, 257, 269,
          272, 273, 276
        Advance, 245, 250 _seq._
        Evacuation, 289
        Subterranean barracks, 284
      5th Infantry Brigade, 276
      1st Light Horse Brigade, 71, 135
      2nd Light Horse Brigade, 182, 205, 264
      3rd Light Horse Brigade, 71, 238, 289
      Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 182, 145
      Engineers, 3rd Field Company, 223;
        5th Field Company, 290
    Victorians charge at Krithia, 150

  Australians--
    Amusements of, 73
    Attitude of wounded, 107
    Birdwood's, General, appreciation of, 270, 283
    Character of, 8
    Descriptions of, 74
    Dispatch riders, 271
    General Hamilton's praise of, 9, 270
    Hatred of trench warfare, 221
    King's message to, 282, 283
    On Canal, 76, 77
    Rest at Mudros, 217
    Sight-seeing, 71
    Suffer frost-bite, 286
    The "Die Hard," 289
    Turkish opinion of, 183
    Use of bayonet, 161

  Autumn Campaign, question of, 279

  Aviators, Ascendancy of British, 219

  _Ayesia_, 55


  "Baby 700," 139, 187, 240
    Searchlights on, 209

  _Bacchante_, H.M.S., 109, 116, 118, 223, 227

  Baldwin, Brigadier-General, 261, 262

  Balloon, Observation, 130

  Barbed wire entanglements, 182

  Base, Suvla as winter, 220

  Bathing under fire, 179

  Battenberg, H.R.H. Prince Louis of, 16

  Battle, noise of, 228

  Battleship Hill, 186
    Advance against, 246
    Bombardment, 253

  Bauchop, Colonel A., 173, 247
    Death of, 249

  Bauchop's Hill, 249

  Bayonet, Australians' use of, 161

  Beach, Turkish fire on, 170

  "Beachy Bill," 169, 175, 288

  Bean, Captain C. E. W., 10-47

  Bean, Captain J. W., 231

  Bedouin, Troubles amongst, 76

  Bennett, Lieut.-Colonel, 237

  Bessell-Browne, Major, 186

  Birdwood, Lieut.-General Sir W., 62, 99, 245, 248, 286
    Admiration for Australians, 270, 283
    Advance, order by, 137
    Appreciation by General Bridges, 158
    Anecdote of, 7
    August plans, 219
    Bathing story, 157
    Command of, 70
    Help from, 9
    Landing of, 113
    On Armistice, 164
    On H.M.S. _Queen_, 138
    Plans against Sari Bair, 247
    Recall to H.M.S. _Queen_, 113
    "Soul of Anzac," 169
    Staff work of, 287
    Stories of, 176

  Bitter Lakes, Battleships on, 84

  Blamey, Major, 136

  Blamey's Meadow, Fight near, 205

  "Bloody Angle," The, 139-79

  Bogali, 105, 137

  Bolton, Lieut.-Colonel, 75, 112, 150

  Bombardment of Nek, 241

  Bombing at Lone Pine, 221, 235

  Bombs--
    Anzac factory, 172
    At Apex, 289
    Beef tins as, 202

  Bourne, Major, Death of, 243

  _Bouvet_, Sinking of warship, 93

  Braithwaite, Major-General, 165

  Brand, Major, 106

  Braund, Colonel, 120

  Braund's Hill, 120

  _Breslau_, Turkish interest in, 28

  Bridges, Major-General Sir W. T., 61, 136, 169
    Appointment, 19
    At Ismailia, 82
    Death of, 158
    Divisional Command, 139
    Energy of, 157
    Landing of, 113
    Orders advance, 120

  British--
    At Malta Bay, 128
    At Suvla Bay, 236, 255

  British Army--
    New divisions wanted, 204
    July strength of, 213
    Units of:--
      9th Army Corps, 247, 255
      13th Division, 260
      29th Division, 10, 99, 126, 128, 146
      29th Division Artillery, 115, 219
      52nd Division, 219
      29th Infantry Brigade, 261, 273
      38th Infantry Brigade, 261
      39th Infantry Brigade, 247
      40th Infantry Brigade, 247, 261
      4th South Wales Borderers, 247, 273
      5th Connaught Rangers, 273, 276
      5th Wiltshire Regiment, 247, 262
      6th South Lancs Regiment, 247, 260
      6th Royal North Lancs Regiment, 262
      8th Welsh Regiment, 247
      72nd Field Company, 247
      Artillery, De Tot's Battery, 143
      Fusilier Regiments, Landing of, 128
      Gloucesters attack Sari Bair, 259
      Indian Mountain Battery (26th), 110
      Praise of, 10
      Royal Naval Division, 135, 148, 219
        Armoured cars of, 143
        Nelson Battalion, 141
        Portsmouth Battalion, 141

  British casualties at Anzac, 270

  British prestige in Egypt, 281

  Brown, Lieut.-Colonel, 228
    Death of, 266

  Browne's Dip, 186, 225, 270

  Buccaneer Camel Corps, 76

  Bujik Anafarta, 220, 246

  Bulair Lines, Feint attack on, 94

  Bulgarian aid to Turkey, 280

  Bully Beef Sap, 168, 171, 242

  _Buresk_, s.s., 53

  Burgess, Major, 188

  Burnage, Lieut.-Colonel, 141, 252

  Burton, Corporal, 265


  Caddy, Major, 188

  Caiques, Greek, in Dardanelles, 98

  Cairo, 63
    Australian pastimes in, 73
    Paradox of, 73
    Troops leave for, 66
    Young Turk Party in, 75

  Cannan, Lieut.-Colonel, 201, 251, 258

  Cape Helles offensive, 220

  Carden, Admiral, 93

  Cass, Lieut.-Colonel, 109, 145, 264
    Saves situation, 154
    Version of landing, 42

  Castro, 96

  Casualties--
    Landing, 126
    Total Anzac, 291
    Total Turkish, 291
    Turkish May attack, 163

  Caucasus, Turks in, 213

  Censor, Attitude of Australian, 41

  Chailak Dere, 261

  Cham Kalesi, 132

  Chanak, Forts at, 130, 213

  Channel, Brigadier-General, 71, 135, 195, 243

  Chapman, Lieut.-Colonel A. E., 275, 276

  Chatham's Post, 182, 288
    Evacuation of, 290

  Chaytor, Captain, 175

  Cheshire Ridge, barracks in, 284

  Chessboard Trenches, 200
    Attack on, 140, 238, 242
    Casualties at, 243
    Description of, 191

  China Squadron, Flagship of, 16

  Chocolate Hills, 252, 271
    Advance, 255

  Chope, Lieutenant, 76

  Christian, Colonel, 145, 219

  Chunak Bair, 119, 137, 190, 236
    Bombs on, 289
    Dead Turks on, 270
    Gaining summit of, 261
    Second attack, 257
    Storming of, 252
    Topography of, 253
    Turkish attacks on, 262

  Churchill, Hon. W. S., 16

  Clarke, D.S.O., Lieut.-Colonel, 104

  Clemens, Major, 112

  Clogstoun, Major H. O., 75, 82, 223

  Cocos Islands, 75
    Convoy passes, 38
    German landing, 54
    Plan of battle, 51

  Cohran, Captain, 90

  Collman, Captain, 231

  _Colne_, H.M.S., Bombardment by, 248

  Colombo--
    Convoy at, 61
    Route of Convoy to, 35
    _Sydney_, H.M.A.S., at, 46
      Leaves Cocos for, 57

  Connolly, Captain, 277

  Constantinople, 167, 279
    British Ambassador, 27
    Canal route to, 79

  Convoy--
    Commanding officer of, 30, 33
    Departure of _Orvieto_ and, 25
    Destination changed, 61
    Details of, 32
    Disposition of, 30
    Enters Red Sea, 61
    Final Departure, 31
    First Division at Albany, 24
    Japanese Java Squadron, 35
    Names of ships, 32
    New Zealand ships, 33
    _Orvieto_, flagship of, 8
    Precaution against _Emden_, 37, 39, 41
    Proximity of _Emden_, 41
    Reaches Alexandria, 66
      Colombo, 61
      Port Said, 64
    Route to Colombo, 35
    _Southern_, details of, 35, 36
    Speed of, 35
    Start of N.Z. force with, 26
    Through Suez Canal, 63

  Cook, Mr. Joseph, 16

  Courtney's Post, 139, 195

  Cove of Anzac (_see_ Anzac Cove), 103

  Cover, Turkish use of overhead, 189

  Cox, Major-General H. V., 146, 247, 272
    Attack by, 250
    Day operations by, 276

  Cribb, Captain, 111

  Cunliffe-Owen, Brigadier-General, 219


  _Daily Telegraph_ correspondent, 95

  D'Amade, General, 92

  Damakjelik Hill, 247
    British capture, 250

  Dardanelles--
    Current from, 103
    First bombardment, 92
    Panorama, 129
    _Phaeton_, H.M.S., at, 92
    _Queen Elizabeth_ bombards, 92
    Turkish casualties, 291
    Warships' losses, 93

  Dare, Major, 274

  Darwin, Importance of Port, 18

  Deadman's Ridge, 244

  Dedeagatch, 96

  Deia Garcia Islands, 35

  Democracy, General Hamilton on the, 95

  _D'Entrecasteaux_, 88

  _Desaix_, battleship, 64

  Despair, Valley of, 185

  Destroyers--
    Mistake at Chunak Bair, 262
    Searchlights, 209

  Destroyer Hill--
    Capture of, 254
    Evacuation of, 289

  De Tot's Battery, 143

  Dexter, Chaplain, 68, 167

  "Die Hards," Last Australian, 289

  Direction Island, Cable on, 54

  Discipline, Australians learn, 74

  Division--
    29th, in May attack, 146 (_see under_ British Army)
    1st Australian, 20 (_see under_ Australian Army)
    New Zealand and Australian, 71 (_see under_ Australian Army)

  Djemal Pasha, 76, 78
    Bluff of, 84

  Dobbin, Lieut.-Colonel, 228

  Doctors at Lone Pine, 232

  Dugouts, Descriptions of, 170, 180

  Dunstan, Captain, 265

  Duntroon Military College, 19

  _Duplex_, 64

  Dysentery at Anzac, 278


  Easton, Lieutenant, Capture of, 124

  Egypt--
    Army in, 77
    British prestige in, 281
    Convoy sent to, 62
    G.O.C., 62
    German menace in, 62
    Secret service work in, 220
    Turkish plots in, 80

  Egyptian--
    Engineers at Imbros, 217
    Mounted Artillery, 77, 86
    Water-tins, 171

  El Arisch, 79

  El Ferdan, 83

  Elias, Mount, View from, 97

  Elliott, Lieut.-Colonel, 75, 112, 235

  _Emden_--
    Beaching, 53
    Casualties on, 57
    Challenges _Sydney_, 48
    Course against _Sydney_, 51
    Destruction of, 40
    Dummy funnel, 48
    Germans watch fight, 54
    Hits on, 50
    Indian Gulf raids, 27
    Nearness to Convoy, 41
    Precaution against, 37
    Shells fired by, 59
    Wreck of, 56

  Empire Day, Armistice on, 165

  _Empress of Russia_, H.M.S., 57

  _Encounter_, H.M.A.S., 26

  Enemy messages, 192

  Engineering, Anzac schemes of, 285

  Engineers--
    At Lone Pine, 235
    Egyptian, 217
    General Maxwell's appreciation of, 83
    New Zealand, 247
    Third Australian Company, 75, 82

  Enos, Gulf of, 213
    Landing at, 214

  Entanglements at Gaba Tepe, 182

  Enver Pasha--
    Brother of, 27
    Difficulties of, 281
    Orders by, 208

  Erenkeui Bay, 92

  Eski Keui, 206

  Eucalyptus trees, 68

  _Euripides_, transport, 34

  Evacuation, Gallipoli--
    Administrative Staff, 287
    Attitude of Dominions to, 291
    Casualties at Anzac, 291
    Casualties at Helles, 291
    Casualties at Suvla Bay, 291
    Chatham's Post, 290
    Estimated casualties in, 281
    Explosion on Nek, 290
    General Hamilton refuses, 280
    Helles, 291
    Last Anzac scenes, 290
    Method of, 288
    Officers responsible for, 287
    Part of Navy, 289
    Plans for, 286
    Questions raised, 280
    Reasons for, 281 _seq._
    Staff work at, 287
    Stores destroyed at, 287
    Three columns in, 288
    Units in, 288 _seq._

  Everden, 132

  Expeditionary Force--
    Australian attitude to, 20
    Delay in departure, 27
    March in Melbourne, 23

  Eye-witness, 8


  Falkland Islands, Battle of, 18

  "Farm, The," Capture of, 246, 253, 262

  Farr, Major, 195

  Ferdinand, King, and Turkey, 96

  Ferguson, Sir Ronald Munro, 15

  Festian, Major, 141

  Fethers, Major, 112

  Fever, Mediterranean, 192

  Fisherman's Huts, 168
    Capture of, 111

  Flag, Colonel Austin's Anzac, 173

  Flockart, Captain, 68

  Flour, Bulgaria gets, 96

  Forsyth, Brigadier-General J., 238, 287

  French Army--
    A charge by, 147
    Artillery at Helles, 145
    At Lemnos, 95
    Fail at "Haricot," 154
    Infantry at Helles, 144
    Landing, 128
    Leader, 73
    Numbers of, 213

  French 75 cm. guns, use by Turks, 191

  French Navy at Dardanelles, 220

  Frost-bite, Australians suffer, 286

  Fullerton, Major, 231

  Fusilier Regiments landing, 128


  Gaba Tepe, 92, 119, 163
    Bombardment of, 109, 205
    Plans for landing, 94, 215
    Snipers, 182
    Transports off, 102
    Turkish guns on, 118

  Gallery trenches, 184

  Gallipoli--
    (_See also_ Anzac and Helles)
    Causes of campaign failure, 291
    Night of landing on, 100
    Reason for evacuation of, 281 _seq_.
    Sunsets, 171
    Turkish plans at, 280
    Turkish losses, 291
    Wild flowers, 168

  Garside, Lieut.-Colonel, 150
    Death of, 155

  _Gaulois_, damaging of, 93

  Gaza, 79

  German--
    Aeroplane at Anzac, 268
    Albatross machine, 163
    Attack methods, 119
    Belief about Australia, 18
    Cocos landing party, 54
    N.C.O.'s with Turks, 117
    Officers at Anzac, 188
    Officers' camp, 169
    Officers' Trench, 118, 119, 224, 237
    Officers with Turks, 213
    Sailors on Keeling Island, 56
    Telefunken Code, 24
    Von den Hagen, Major, 90

  Germany--
    Menaces Egypt, 62
    New Guinea base, 18
    Pacific Squadron, 18

  Gezirah, 68

  Gharry, Australians' use of, 73

  Gillison, Chaplain A., Death of, 375

  Glasfurd, Major, 136

  Glasgow, Major T. W., 244

  Glossop, Captain, 46, 53

  Glover, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas, 89

  _Gneisenau_, German cruiser, 18

  Godley, Major-General Sir A., 9, 136, 169, 224, 245

  _Goeben_--
    Guns from, 159
    Turkish interest in, 28

  Goltz, Von der, 76

  _Good Hope_, H.M.S., 40

  Gordon-Smith, Captain, 36
    Message to Fleet, 45

  Gorizia, Italian gunners at, 114

  Graham, Major D. P., 202

  Granaries, Turkish, 149

  Grant, Chaplain, 295

  Great Adventure, The, 10
    Deception of Turks in, 219
    General Hamilton sums up, 214
    Plans of, 212

  Great Dere, 205

  Great Sap, the, 173

  Greece--
    Attitude of, 281
    Queen of, 98

  Greek--
    Interpreter, 251
    Islands' food, 9
    Music, 98
    Natives on Imbros, 133, 217
    Voyage on steamer, 96

  Gunners, Heroic Anzac, 188

  Guns, handling of, 190

  Gurkhas (_see also_ Indian Army), 83, 88, 143, 253, 205


  Hagen, Major Von den, 90

  Hamilton, General Sir Ian--
    Appreciation of Major-General Bridges, 158
    Asks for reinforcements, 279
    Author's help from, 9
    Departure from Anzac, 281
    Estimate of ammunition supply, 211
    First sight of Dardanelles, 92
    Headquarters, 9, 217
    Interview with, 95
    Landing plans, 93
    Needs more troops, 104
    Plan of "Great Adventure," 212 _seq._
    Plan of Sari Bair battle, 247 _seq._
    Praise of Australians, 9, 270
    Questioned on evacuation, 280
    Recall to London, 280
    Strategy of, 220
    Sums up Anzac landing, 127
    Sums up his army, 279
    Sums up July position, 214
    Views on Armistice, 164

  Hamilton, Private, 265

  Hangars at Tenedos, 187

  Happy Valley, 120, 190

  _Hardinge_, H.M.S., 88

  Hardy, Captain, 65

  "Haricot" redoubt, 146
    French repulse at, 150, 154

  Harris Ridge, attack on, 206

  "Hates," Artillery, 169

  "Heart of Anzac," 169

  Heliopolis, Camp at, 70

  Hell Spit, 177
    Danger at, 171
    Machine guns at, 179

  Helles, Cape, 94
    Auckland Battalion at, 149
    Battleship support, 147
    British landing, 99, 126
    Cass saves situation at, 154
    Colonel M'Cay's dilemma at, 151
    Compared with Anzac, 144
    Country at, 144
    Evacuation, 291
    Guns at, 219
    Main Turkish force at, 256
    May attacks, 143, 145
    Offensive at, 220
    Otago Battalion at, 149
    Second attack, 147
    Supplies at, 148
    Turks hoodwinked at, 211
    Turkish success at, 236
    29th Division at, 126
    Victorian charge at, 150
    Wellington Battalion at, 149

  Herring, Major, 274

  Hill 971, 103, 119, 190, 236
    Storming of, 215
    Topography of, 246

  Hill Q, Storming of, 253

  Hill 60, 272
    Capture, 277
    Casualties, 277
    Evacuation, 289
    Final attack on, 276
    First failure at, 274
    Ninth lighthouse at, 277
    Plans of attack, 272
    Stretcher-bearers, 274
    Tenth lighthouse at, 277

  Hindustani, Turkish ruse, 124

  Hobbs, Colonel, 113

  Holmes, Brigadier-General, 287

  Horses landed at Helles, 133

  Hospital ships off Anzac, 255

  Hospital supplies at Anzac, 174

  Hospitals--
    Anzac winter, 284
    British ambulances, Suvla Bay, 269
    Colonel Howse's Beach, 113, 171

  Howard, Lieut.-Colonel, 91

  Howitzer heavy guns, 285

  Howse, V.C., Surgeon-General, 113, 171, 282

  Hughes, Brigadier-General F. G., 190, 192, 238

  Huts, Turkish, 182

  Hydroplane, French, 65


  Ibraham, General, 78

  _Ibuki_--
    Clears for action, 43
    Japanese Naval Escort, 29

  Ida, Mount, 115

  Imbros Island, 9
    Anzac viewed from, 131
    Australians at, 217
    General Hamilton's headquarters, 217
    Viewed from Anzac, 174

  Indian Army--
    Attack by Brigade, 250
    Brigades at Helles, 146, 150
    Gurkhas attack Hill Q, 260
    Gurkhas at Helles, 143
    Mingles with Australians, 181
    Suvla Bay, 275
    5th Gurkhas, 253
    6th Gurkhas, 253, 261
    10th Gurkhas, 253
    14th Sikhs, 253
    62nd Punjabis, 86
    92nd Punjabis, 89
    Mountain Batteries, 119, 247
    26th Mountain Battery, 110

  Indian Ocean, Convoy in, 38

  Indian troops, Turks disguised as, 124

  Infantry, Australian--
    1st Battalion, 123, 228, 265
    2nd Battalion, 120, 228, 266
    3rd Battalion, 228
    4th Battalion, 112, 121, 228, 264
    5th Battalion, 8, 66, 109, 150, 226, 264
    6th Battalion, 109, 112, 150, 237, 264, 289
    7th Battalion, 75, 112, 150, 264, 265
    8th Battalion, 75, 112, 120, 150
    9th Battalion, 104, 120, 206
    10th Battalion, 104, 120
    11th Battalion, 104, 221
    12th Battalion, 104, 109, 235, 264
    13th Battalion, 141, 252, 274
    14th Battalion, 141, 258, 275
    15th Battalion, 124, 201, 252, 258
    16th Battalion, 124, 141, 201, 252, 276, 288
    17th Battalion, 277, 289
    18th Battalion, 277
    20th Battalion, 289
    23rd Battalion, 289
    24th Battalion, 289

  _Inflexible_, H.M.S., Damage to, 93

  Interpreters, Greek, 251

  _Irresistible_, H.M.S., Sinking of, 93

  Irvine, Major, Death of, 122

  Ismailia, 79
    Defences of, 83
    Pontoon bridges at, 82


  Jacobs, Captain, 124

  Japanese Fleet, 18
    _Ibuki_ and _Emden_, 43
    Java Squadron, 35
    _Osaki_ near _Emden_, 45

  Java, Japanese ships off, 45

  Jerusalem, 80

  Johnston, Brigadier-General G., 113, 137, 166, 186, 247, 287

  Johnston, Lieut.-Colonel J. L., 104, 221, 224

  Johnston's Jolly, 224
    Name of, 188

  Joseph of Hohenzollern, H.I.H., 56

  Journalists, General Hamilton on, 95


  Kabak Kuya Well, 273

  Kaijak Aghala (Hill 60), 275

  Kaiser, Nephew of, 56

  Kanli, Valley, 146
    Artillery in, 146

  Kantara, 79, 81
    Road to, 82

  Kasr-el-Nil Barracks, 67

  Kateb-el-Kheil, 83

  Keeling Island--
    _Emden_ at, 42, 53
    _Sydney_ leaves, 57

  Kelid Bahr, Fortifications of, 94, 115, 130, 214, 288

  Kelid Bair, 168

  Kephalos Bay, 9
    Anchorage at, 217
    Mine-sweepers at, 130

  Keveres Dere, 146

  Keysor, Private, 265

  Kiddle, Captain, of _Minotaur_, 36

  Kieslinger, Lieutenant, 54

  King Ferdinand, 96

  King George's Sound--
    Convoy assemble at, 24
    Traditions of, 28

  King, His Majesty the, Message from, 282

  King, Major, 231

  Kitchener, Earl, 90, 281
    At Russell Top, 282
    Delivers King's message, 283
    Message to Australasians, 283
    Visit to Anzac, 282

  Koja Chemen Tepe (_see also_ Hill 971), 103, 116, 190, 220

  Kojadere, 137
    Turkish camp at, 105
    Turkish trenches to, 187

  _Königsberg_, Sinking of, 40
    H.M.A.S. _Sydney_, and, 54

  Krithia, 127
    Country round, 144
    May attack on, 143, 149
    Plans to capture, 205, 214
    Road into, 153

  Krupp guns captured, 106

  Kum Kale Fort--
    Attack on, 220
    Bombardment of, 92, 94

  Kurdish Cavalry, 80


  Lakes, Bitter, 84

  Landing, Australian--
    Anzac covering force, 104
    Country faced at, 106
    Crisis, 113, 116
    Details of, 102 _seq._
    Effect of current on, 103
    Fourth Brigade in, 112
    Navy's part in, 107
    Need of artillery at, 115
    New Zealand part in, 117
    Plans for, 96
    Queensland first, 109
    Reinforcements at, 112
    Third Brigade, 102
    Turkish opposition at, 105

  Landing--
    French at Kum Kale, 128
    Fusilier Regiments at Helles, 128
    Nine Army Corps, 247
    Suvla Bay failure, 214, 254, 260

  Leane, Major, 222
    Death of, 223

  Lee, Lieut.-Colonel, 104

  Legge, Major-General, 9, 271

  Legge Valley, 164

  Lemnos, Island of, 217
    Transports, 94

  Levant, The--
    Earl Kitchener visits, 281
    Flowers of, 129
    Ships in, 99

  Levinge, Lieut.-Colonel, 262

  Life at Anzac, 180

  Light Horse--
    Anzac attack, 205
    Attacks on the Nek, 243
    Gallantry, 207
    Landing of, 170

  Light Horse Units:--
    1st Regiment, 208, 244
    2nd Regiment, 202
    3rd Regiment, 200
    5th Regiment, 206
    7th Regiment, 206
    8th Regiment, 236, 240
    9th Regiment, 277
    10th Regiment, 236, 277

  Lind, Captain, 68

  Logan, Major T. J., Death of, 243

  _London_, H.M.S., Anecdote of, 175

  Lone Pine, 224
    After bomb attacks, 266
    Artillery at, 227
    Attacks at, 221, 222
    Author at, 10
    Bombing at, 221, 236, 255, 285
    Capture, 229, 270
    Casualties, 270
    Charges, 228, 229
    Details of trenches, 224
    Engineers at, 235
    Evacuation, 289
    Machine guns at, 232
    Military Crosses won at, 265
    Mining operations, 285
    Plans for, 223
    Signallers at, 230
    Tunnel trenches, 225
    Turkish overhead cover, 229
    Turkish version of, 268
    Victoria Crosses won at, 265

  Loughran, Major, 274

  Lussington, Private, 124


  Maadi, Light Horse at, 70

  Maan Railway, 80

  M'Cay, Brigadier-General, 77, 109, 117, 143, 150, 151
    Wounded at Helles, 155

  M'Cay's Hill, 120

  McDonald, Lieut.-Colonel, 140, 149

  McDonald, Captain, R.T.A., Capture of 124

  McGarry, Private, 242

  Machine guns--
    Captured Turkish, 267
    Hell Spit, 179
    Lone Pine, 232
    Noise of, 115
    On the Nek, 240
    Quinn's, 199

  Mackesy, Lieut.-Colonel, 249

  Mackworth, D.S.O., Major, 136

  MacLachlan, Major, 90

  Maclagan, Brigadier-General Sinclair, 102, 117, 182, 183, 205

  Maclagan's Ridge, 105, 168

  McLaurin, Colonel, 69, 109, 117
    Death of, 122

  Macnaghten, Colonel, 228, 264

  McNicol, Lieut.-Colonel, 109, 112, 150
    Wounded at Helles, 155

  Maidos, 94, 105, 213, 215
    Destruction of, 131
    Reconnaissance of, 136
    Shells dropping on, 130

  _Majestic_, Sinking of, 211

  Mallet, Sir Louis, 27

  Malone, Lieut.-Colonel W. C., 149, 259
    At Quinn's, 196
    Death of, 260

  Malta, 96

  Mal Tepe, 132, 280
    Dere, 146

  Manchester Territorials, 67

  Mangar, Lieut., 68, 111, 117

  Maoris, 173, 247, 273
    At Russell Top, 208
    Table Top attack, 249

  Marshall Islands, 18

  Martyn, Lieut.-Colonel, 211, 235, 285

  Massey, W. T., 8, 95

  _Mauretania_, Troops on, 217

  Maxwell, General--
    Anzac visit, 282
    Canal attack, 84

  May attack--
    At Helles, 145
    Turkish, 160

  Mediterranean, Submarines in, 214

  Meekes, Major, 29

  _Melbourne_, H.M.A.S., 29, 42

  Mena--
    Camp at, 67, 70
    Roads at, 69

  Menace, Submarine, 214

  Merrington, Chaplain, 167

  Mesopotamian Campaign, 213, 281

  _Mia mias_, 251

  Military Crosses, 265

  Millen, E. D., Admiralty message to, 16

  Miltiades, 30

  Miners, Tasmanian, 185

  Mining--
    Anzac, 237
    Lone Pine, 285
    Of the Nek, 290
    Operations in November, 284
    Quinn's, 193
    Turkish, 191

  _Minotaur_, H.M.S., 16, 26, 40

  Mitylene, Island of, 9, 98, 220

  Mocke, Captain von, 54

  Moiya Harah, 80

  Monash, Brigadier-General J., 71, 111, 117, 137, 247, 251, 269, 271

  Monash Gully, 111, 119, 200, 290
    Fierce fighting at, 162

  Mongrak, 180

  Monitors, 214, 218

  Monro, General Sir Charles, 281, 286

  _Montcalm_, H.M.S., 64

  Moore, Colonel, 260

  Morto Bay, 92, 128, 146

  Moslems, Attempt to embroil, 80

  Mudros, 7, 97
    Camps at, 217
    First Army Corps rest at, 278
    Fleet at, 96
    Permission to visit, 97
    Ships shelter at, 214
    Troops reach, 287

  Mule Gully, 137, 164, 189

  Mules, Ammunition, 181

  Müller, Captain, Surrender of, 54

  "Mustard Plaster, The," 253
    Attack on, 261

  Myles, Major, 187


  Naval Australian Unit, 16

  Naval Division at Helles, 147

  Navy--
    Air Service, 133
    At evacuation of Anzac, 289
    First Australian action, 40
    German Pacific Squadron, 18
    Part in landing, 107
    Speed of _Sydney_, 45
    Spirit of, 107
    Transportation of supplies, 280

  Nagara Lighthouse, 131

  Narrows, 130, 214, 268

  Napoleon, Egyptian Campaign, 79

  Nebrunesi Point, 247, 254

  Nekhl, 80, 81

  Nelson Battalion at Quinn's, 141

  "Nek, The," 119, 288, 289
    Bombs on, 241
    Casualties, 243
    Final mine on, 290
    Light Horse charge, 237
    Light Horse repulse, 242
    Mining on, 191
    Nearness of trenches on, 200
    Significance of attacks, 243
    Turkish machine guns on, 210, 240

  Nettleton, Lieutenant, death of, 244

  _Newcastle_, H.M.S., 47

  New Guinea--
    Codes captured at, 24
    German, 18

  New Zealand Army, Units of--
    Artillery, 219
    Engineers, 247, 249
    Infantry, 88
      Auckland Battalion, 111, 149, 254
      Canterbury Battalion, 149, 194, 253
      Otago Battalion, 140, 142
      Wellington Battalion, 149
    Mounted Rifles, 249, 273, 276, 289

  New Zealand Convoy, 26, 27, 33

  New Zealanders--
    Attack on Sari Bair, 245, 247
    Charge at Helles, 149
    Hold Chunak Bair, 254
    Infantry in Canal, 77
    Infantry leave Anzac, 144
    Line held by, 139
    On Russell Top, 139, 190
    Storm Chunak Bair, 252

  Ninth Army Corps, 255

  No. 2 Outpost, 177, 218, 224, 248, 254, 263

  No. 3 Outpost, 248, 271

  No Man's Land, 201


  Observation post, Turkish, 149

  Ocean Beach, 173, 263, 289

  _Ocean_, H.M.S., 92
    Sinking of, 93

  Olive Grove Battery, 157, 214, 280

  Onslow, Captain, Death of, 170

  Ordnance stores, Anzac, 169, 173

  _Orvieto_, H.M.T., 8
    Departure of, 25

  _Osaki_, Japanese cruiser, 45

  Osboldstone & Co., 10

  Otago Battalion, 142, 149, 247, 253
    Captures Bauchop's Hill, 249

  Ottoman Empire--
    Help for, 281
    Exhaustion of, 291

  Outposts, 173

  Outpost No. 1, 289

  Outpost No. 2, 177, 263
    Attack from, 248
    Observation from, 254
    Strengthening of, 218
    Troops move to, 224

  Outpost No. 3--
    Attack on, 248
    Prisoners taken at, 271

  Overhead cover, Turkish, 189

  Owen, Cunliffe-, Brigadier-General, 219

  Owen's Gully, 224


  Padre, A, under shell fire, 172

  Pain, Captain, 234

  Papua, German base, 18

  Paris, General, 150

  Parker, Mr., 43

  Parnell, Colonel, 19

  Passport, Press, 9

  Pearce, 10

  _Pegasus_, H.M.A.S., 26

  Periscope, Use of, 185, 198

  Persian Gulf Campaign, 27

  _Phaeton_, H.M.S., 92

  Phillips, Major, 188

  Pimple, The, 186, 224

  Pine Ridge, 106, 121, 137, 182, 186, 187, 220

  _Pioneer_, H.M.A.S., 26, 34

  Plugge, Lieut.-Colonel, 111, 149

  Plugge's Plateau, 105, 119, 173

  Pontoon bridges, Canal, 82

  Pope, Lieut.-Colonel, 252, 258
    Advance by, 140
    Escape from capture, 124
    First command, 124

  Pope's Hill, 119, 137, 179, 208, 240
    Attacks from, 142, 244
    Capture of, 123, 124
    Evacuation, 290
    History, 200 _seq._
    Life at, 200
    Nearness of trenches on, 201
    Occupation, 111

  Poppyfield, 162

  Port Said--
    Flooding of, 79
    Warships at, 64

  Portsmouth Battalion at Quinn's, 141

  Post Office, Anzac, 171

  "Possy," Description of a, 186

  Primrose, Major, 141

  Pyramids, 68, 72


  "Q" Hill, 257
    Taking of, 261

  Quebec, 129
    Sari Bair compared to, 270

  _Queen_, H.M.S., 100, 138
    General Birdwood's recall to, 113

  _Queen Elizabeth_, H.M.S., 92, 109, 115, 116, 132
    Shrapnel, 119
    Spotters for, 122

  Queensland Infantry first ashore, 109

  Queensland Light Horse, Gallantry of, 207

  Quinn, Major, 123, 201
    Death of, 203

  Quinn's Post, 119, 137, 208, 240, 242, 288
    Attack fails, 140
    Bombing at, 160
    Early history, 194
    Evacuation, 290
    Life at, 195
    Machine guns at, 199
    Mining at, 193, 284
    Occupation, 111
    Periscopes, use of, 198
    Tunnel trenches, 193, 197
    Turkish notices at, 211


  Rabbit Island, 93, 130

  Ramazan, Turkish attack at, 210

  Rankine, Lieut.-Colonel, 252, 258

  Rearguard action, Anzac, 287

  Red Crescent, Turkish, 166

  Red Cross--
    Beach Station, 169
    Use of flag, 163

  Red Sea, Convoy in, 61

  Redoubt, "Haricot," 146

  Reed, Major, Death of, 244

  Reid, Sir George, 74

  Reinforcements--
    Anzac, 291
    Need of, 213

  Renwick, George, 8

  _Requiem_, cruiser, 65

  Rest Gully, 250

  Reticulation scheme, Anzac, 171

  Reynell, Colonel, 277

  Rhododendron Ridge, 191, 263
    Capture of, 253
    Topography, 246

  _River Clyde_, 144
    Grounding of, 128

  Robeck, Vice-Admiral de, 92, 96, 215

  Robertson, Major, 120

  Rose, Captain, 259

  Rosenthal, Colonel, 113, 182

  Ross, Major, 183, 221

  Rowell, Lieut.-Colonel, 200

  Royal Marine Light Infantry, 135, 137, 141

  Royal Naval Air Service, 133

  Ruses, Australian, 219

  Russell Top, 119, 137, 190
    Attack on, 209
    Kitchener at, 282
    New Zealand work on, 139, 190
    Supplies, 192

  Russell, Brigadier-General A. H., 137, 247, 249, 257

  Russian, Greek music and, 98


  Saker, Major, 112

  Salonica, 98, 281

  Salt Lake, 173, 220
    Ambulances at, 269
    British at, 254
    Grass fires at, 257

  Samothrace, Island of, 174

  Sampson, Flight-Commander, 219

  Sanders, General Liman von, 78, 134
    Army Order by, 118
    Use of Red Crescent, 166

  Sap, The Great, 173

  Sap, The Secret, 187

  Sapping at Lone Pine, 235

  Sari Bair Ridge, 103, 113, 119, 173
    Battle of, 257, 264
    Columns attacking, 245, 247
    Machine guns on, 254
    Plans against, 137, 215, 246, 258
    Shelling of, 132

  Saros Gulf, 92, 98
    Warships in, 95

  Sasse, Major, 265

  Sazli Beit Dere, 247
    Capture of, 253

  _Scharnhorst_, 18

  Schmidt, Lieutenant, 54

  Scobie, Lieut.-Colonel, 228
    Death of, 266

  Scrubby Knoll, Guns against, 186

  Searchlights, Destroyers', 209
    Use of, 238

  Seddul Bahr, 128
    Forts at, 92
    French at, 144
    Ruins, 144
    Turkish shelling of, 149
    Village, 115

  Serapeum, 80, 83

  Serbian Army, 281

  Shell Green, 182, 184

  Shells, Star, Turkish, 161

  Shera, Captain, 249

  Shout, V.C., Captain, 265

  Shrapnel, Effects of, 116

  Shrapnel Gully, 105, 194
    Anzac divided by, 179, 189
    Indian camp in, 181
    Snipers in, 122

  Signallers at Lone Pine, 230

  Sikhs Infantry, 181, 253

  Silver, Captain, 38, 41, 42, 45

  Sinai, Water on, 78

  Smith, Captain Gordon, 30

  Smyth, Brigadier-General, 210

  Snipers at Gaba Tepe, 182

  Snipers, Turkish, 122
    Surrender of, 192

  Snipers' Nest, 190
    Machine guns at, 191, 263

  Snowfall at Anzac, 285

  "Soul of Anzac" (_see also_ General Birdwood) 169

  _Southern_, H.M.T., 30, 35, 36

  Speary, Rear-Admiral, 30

  Sphinx Rock, 173, 250

  Spy suspicions at Castro, 96

  Stanley, Sir Arthur, 23

  Star shell, Turkish use of, 161

  Steel's Post, 189, 208

  Stevens, G., 9

  Stevens, Major, 233

  Stevenson, Major, 219

  Stewart, Captain J. C., 68

  Stewart, Lieut.-Colonel D. M., 149

  Stewart, Lieutenant, 154

  Stopford, General, 255

  Stores, Anzac, 287

  Storm--
    Anzac, 285
    Mediterranean, 173

  Strategy, General Hamilton's, 220

  Stretcher-bearers, 188
    At Lone Pine, 231
    At Hill 60, 274

  Submarines, 214, 215

  Supplies--
    Navy transport of, 280
    Helles, 148
    Russell Top, 192

  Suvla Bay, 169, 173
    Base established, 255, 271
    British ambulances at, 255, 269
    British position, 255
    Evacuation, 291
    Failure, 260
    Landing, 204, 214, 236, 254
    Stalemate, 279
    Turkish forces, 255
    Warships in, 132

  _Swiftsure_, H.M.S., 65

  Suez, 62

  Suez Canal--
    Australian Engineers on, 82
    Australians on, 77
    Convoy in, 63
    Desert round, 78
    Guarding, 64
    Mountains near, 79

  Suez Canal, Battle of--
    Kitchener's hand in, 90
    New Zealand Infantry at, 88
    Turkish attack, 85, 88
    Turks captured in, 86
    White flag in, 90

  Suez-Cairo Railway, 84

  _Sydney_, H.M.A.S., 29, 46, 52
    Attacks _Emden_, 44
    Attacks s.s. _Buresk_, 54
    Casualties on, 57
    Course against _Emden_, 51
    Fire on, 52
    Hits on, 46, 49, 58
    Range-finder of, 49
    Shells fired by, 59
    Speed of, 45, 58

  Syme, Geoffrey, 10

  Syme, Sergeant, 82

  Symons, V.C., Lieutenant, 265

  Syrian coast, French ships off, 220


  Table Top position, 247, 249

  Tasman Post, 205, 221

  Tasmanian miners, 185

  Taube--
    At Anzac, 255
    Over Quinn's, 197

  Tekel, Tents at Cape, 131

  Telefunken Code, 24

  Telephone Exchange, Anzac, 171

  Tenedos, Island of, 92
    Fleet at, 99, 127
    Hangars at, 187, 219

  "The Bloody Angle," 194

  "The Wheatfield," 206

  Thermia, Australians at, 97

  Thompson, Lieut.-Colonel, 112

  Thursby, Admiral, 99

  Tilney, Major, 141

  Timsah, Lake, 79

  Toussoum, 83, 89
    Defences at, 85

  Transports--
    Exercise on, 36
    Hospital, 133
    Routine on, 37

  Transport services, strain on, 281

  Travers, Brigadier-General J. H., 247, 250

  Trawlers at Anzac, 177

  Trenches--
    Enemy, 189
    Gallery, 184
    German Officers', 188
    Lone Pine, 224
    Quinn's, 195, 197
    Tunnel, 197

  _Triumph_, H.M.S., 109, 116, 118, 214

  Troy, Hills of, 99, 131

  Tubb, Lieutenant, 265

  Tuckett, Sergeant, 169

  Tunnels--
    At Lone Pine, 225
    At Quinn's, 193, 197

  Turkey--
    Australia's interest in, 27
    Governor of, 78
    King Ferdinand and, 96
    War with, 27, 62

  Turkish Army--
    Ammunition supplies, 280
    Artillery, 118, 144, 149, 157, 159, 169
    Attack Chessboard, 140
    Attack Harris Ridge, 207
    Attack Quinn's, 208
    Attack Russell Top, 209
    Bewilderment of, 256
    Canal attack, 76, 80, 85
    Casualties, 126, 163, 270, 291
    Checking attacks by, 142
    Counter-attacks, 119, 121, 125
    Defence of Sari Bair, 260
    Escape of column, 211
    Failure at Canal, 88
    Failure at Nek, 210
    Flight from Sari Bair, 261
    Fortifications on Nek, 244
    "Haricot" position, 146
    Headquarters, 132
    Heroism, 263
    Huts, 182
    Lone Pine defeat, 233 _seq_.
    Machine guns, 254
    Main forces, 256
    May attacks, 160
    Opposition at Anzac, 105, 288
    Opposition at Suvla, 255
    Pine Ridge trenches, 187
    Plans, 280
    Prisoners, 211
    Reconnaissances, 285
    Reinforcements, 206
    Regular troops, 208
    Reserves, 105, 256
    Shells on beach, 170
    Spirit, 189
    Strength of snipers in, 213, 279, 122
    Use of Germans in, 117
    Use of overhead cover, 229
    Wiles of, 124

  Turk's Point, 190

  Turks--
    Australians' opinion of, 183
    Deceptions of, 219
    Sedition in Egypt, 80
    Surrender of, 192
    "Uppishness" of, 192
    Use 75 cm. guns, 191
    Use overhead cover, 189, 229
    Young, in Cairo, 75


  Unwin, Captain, 129


  Victoria--
    First Army quota, 21
    Training Expeditionary Force, 22

  Victoria Barracks, 15

  Victoria Crosses, 265

  Victorian Brigade, Landing, 111

  Victorian Infantry at Helles, 143, 150

  Victorian Light Horse, Heroic charge, 236 _seq._

  Von den Hagen, Major, 90

  Von Mocke, Captain, 54


  Walker, Major-General, 138, 159, 163, 237

  Walker's Ridge, 119, 190

  Wallace, Colonel, 23

  Wallingford, Major, 254

  Walsh, Major, 206

  Walstab, Captain, 145

  Wanliss, Lieut.-Colonel, 8, 66, 109, 150, 154

  Wanliss Gully, 188

  War--
    Attitude of Australia in, 15
    Correspondents, General Hamilton and, 95
    Council and Gallipoli, 94
    General Hamilton on, 95
    Office, 279
    Outbreak of, 16
    Zone experiences, 96

  Warsaw, 211

  Warships--
    In Bitter Lakes, 84
    Shatter Turks, 290
    Shelling by, 116
    Support at Helles, 147

  Water--
    Anzac supply, 171
    Carriers, 194
    Problems at Anzac, 218
    Tanks, 194
    Tasmanians dig for, 185

  Watson, Captain, 169

  Watson, J. R., 10

  Watson's Pier, 169

  Weir, Lieut.-Colonel, 104, 120

  Wellington Battalion, 149, 259, 276

  Wells, Tasmanians sink, 185

  "Wheatfield, The," 206

  "W" Hills, 272

  White, Lieut.-Colonel A., Death of, 241

  White, Brigadier-General, C.B.B., 8, 136, 287

  Whitecliffs, Town of, 131

  White flag, Turkish use of, 90, 163

  White Gully, 182, 186

  Wild flowers, Gallipoli, 168

  Williams, Major, 195

  Wilson, Major, 21

  Wilson, Private H., 154

  Wineglass Ridge, 206

  Winter base, Suvla Bay as, 220

  Winter campaign, Plans for, 283

  Wireless--
    Cocos message, 48
    Emden's use of, 48
    Transports and, 38

  Witham, Major, 109


  _Yarmouth_, H.M.S., 47

  Yeomanry, 289


  Zeitoun, Camp at, 70

  Zone, Correspondents in the, 9


             _Printed in Great Britain by_
 UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON


       *       *       *       *       *




TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES


 Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

 Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text with ~tildes~.

 The List of Illustrations do not match the captions in three cases:
 The illustration "Facing p. 82" is listed as
   "AUSTRALIANS AT THE SUEZ CANAL", but the actual caption is
   "AUSTRALIANS MANNING A COMMUNICATION TRENCH LEADING TO ISMAILIA FERRY
    POST."
 Similarly, the illustrations "Facing p. 96" are given as
   "AUSTRALIANS LEAVING FOR THE FRONT" and
   "BRIGADIER-GENERALS M'CAY AND MACLAGAN", but the captions are
   "MARCHING ORDERS FOR THE FRONT" and "LEADERS AT THE LANDING."

 Illustrations which are opposite p. 210 in the original are marked as
 "To face p. 218."

 Variable spelling of proper names has been retained as in the original.





End of Project Gutenberg's Australia in Arms, by Phillip F.E. Schuler