Читать книгу Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War - Buley Ernest Charles - Страница 8

"I heartily congratulate you on the splendid conduct and bravery displayed by the Australian troops in the operations at the Dardanelles. They have indeed proved themselves worthy sons of the Empire."

When this message, graciously sent by his Majesty King George to the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, emerged from the fog of war, there was widespread gratification and pride throughout a continent of 3,000,000 square miles. Nobody knew what the Australians had done, for though more than a week had passed since the Third Brigade made its famous rush up the cliffs at Gaba Tepe, the Censor still nursed the secret of their bravery, lest the waiting nations of the South might communicate it to the powers of darkness in Berlin. The gracious message of the King was the first intimation that Australians were even at the scene of action, and the avidity with which Australasia waited for further details may well be imagined.

Meantime the soldiers of Australasia were fighting hard, and incurring enormous losses to make good their position. Their first important offensive operation, after the actual landing was established, was made against the knoll which now bears the name of Pope's Hill. This position, described by Sir Ian Hamilton as a commanding knoll in front of the centre of the line, was attacked on the night of May 2. Behind it was the head of the deep ravine called Monash Gully, down which the Turks directed a rifle fire so continuous that its outlet on the beach was named Death Valley. The enemy continually sought to extend their advantage to a point which would allow them to direct their fire on the Australians from the other side of the hill also.

The importance of the position can therefore be estimated. It was a sort of no-man's-land, but its possession would give the occupants a great advantage; it certainly would free the Australian lines from a continuous and harassing fire from whole hosts of snipers.

The German officers who directed the Turkish operations had themselves fully seized the value of the post to the invading force, and had posted a number of machine guns with deadly science, covering the whole slope approaching the knoll. When the attack opened on the night of May 2, the attacking force was not long in discovering the arrangements made for its reception. Line after line charged into a perfect hail of bullets from the destructive machine guns, and no less than 800 men were lost before the attackers desisted.

One incident of that terrible day was narrated to the writer by a private of the 15th Battalion who took part in the attack. Early in the morning part of his company was detailed to take a Turkish trench on the slope of the hill. The men crouched in cover about forty yards from the trench waiting a lead. It was given by Lieutenant Kerr, a young South Australian officer, who sprang forward calling on the men to follow. No sooner had he assumed an upright position than he fell dead, with a bullet through his forehead. With a yell of rage the men rushed forward and occupied the trench, bayoneting all the Turks who awaited their coming.

In this operation but few men were lost, though they deeply lamented the death of the brave young officer who had pointed the way to them. But the position soon became a most difficult one to maintain. The Turks appeared in front and to either side of them in overwhelming force, and swept the ground behind them with machine guns, so that none could come to their aid. They maintained a stout defence, until they found to their dismay that their ammunition was running short. Volunteers were quickly forthcoming to go to the rear for fresh supplies, but they could see them fall one after another, within a few yards of the trench.

They eagerly sought the cartridges still in the belts of the dead and wounded, passing them from hand to hand along the trench, one clip for each man. But this source was soon exhausted, and they were confronted with the fact that they were defenceless and practically cut off. How complete was their isolation they only realized when they saw two machine gun sections of marines attempting to advance up the hill to their assistance. Every man in both sections fell by the side of the guns under the withering fire directed upon them as they climbed upwards.

In this extremity the officer in command, whose name the narrator of the affair could not ascertain, determined to try to reach the communication trench in his immediate rear. He told his men of his resolve, and said he would do all in his power to cover their subsequent retreat, if he succeeded in reaching safety himself. The signal for their retirement would be the hoisting of an entrenching tool in the communication trench.

Having made this arrangement, the officer leaped from the trench and made a dash down the hill. Apparently he took the enemy by surprise, for he reached a safe place without a shot being fired. Then the shovel was hoisted, and the men prepared to run the gauntlet. One after another eight men bolted from the trench, not one of them going ten yards before being cut off. The ninth was the narrator of this experience.

"I knew it was death to stay," he said "and I knew it was almost as surely death to go. I grit my teeth and made a dash for it. I doubled like a hare; I checked and turned and twisted as I ran; the bullets whizzed around me and cut my tunic to rags. Within two yards of safety, and as I was preparing for the last leap into the trench I was struck in the thigh, and the force of the bullet rolled me over among my comrades."

Over two hundred men were lost in the futile attempt to hold that trench alone. For many weeks Pope's Hill remained neutral territory, a menace to the safety of the whole Australasian position at Gaba Tepe. In the end the Australasians, after capturing and losing it many times, made good their title to the position. Its importance was at once demonstrated by the control it gave them of the high ridge beyond, which they christened Dead Man's Ridge. Before the capture of Pope's Hill the enemy continually shot down Monash Valley, and caused serious casualties every day. Afterwards they were soon cleared from this commanding ridge, and the whole Australasian position was rendered comparatively safe. But this development was deferred for nearly three months after the attack of the second of May.

Another point of vantage is the hill of Gaba Tepe, which is situated on the very seaboard, at the extreme right of the Australasian line. This knoll is only 120 feet high, but the batteries upon it, until they were silenced by the guns of the warships, did an immense amount of damage to landing parties coming and going in the bay. On May 4 an attack was made upon this knoll, but proved unsuccessful, because, to quote the official dispatch of Sir Ian Hamilton, "the barbed wire was something beyond belief." Three months later Gaba Tepe still remained in the hands of the Turks.

The actual losses in these first days of fighting were excessively heavy, and the little force of Australasians, now facing a ring of 25,000 Turks, counted the missing ones ruefully, not only in grief for their dead and wounded comrades, but because the strain placed upon the survivors was by so much the heavier.

The Second Brigade, composed of Victorians led by General McCay, had landed with 4,300 men. After the unsuccessful attack on Gaba Tepe, nine days later, the roll-call showed 2,600 remaining. A week later the same brigade was engaged in a glorious charge at Krithia, and returned with only 1,600 men. In a little over a fortnight that Brigade had lost over 60 per cent. of its effectives, a heavy toll indeed.

The experience of those early days had already taught the adaptable Australasians many new things about bush fighting. They had learned, for instance, how to deal with the snipers who had infested the hillsides; and in a very short time put an end to them. This was highly necessary, for in the first two or three days' fighting the toll in officers had been intolerable, owing to the efforts of these sharpshooters, whose mission was to pick off the leaders of the men.

The Australian method of stalking them called for a considerable amount of hardihood on the part of those practising it. Two of them would go out after one sniper, having roughly marked down the spot where he lay by the sound of his rifle. They separated as they crawled near him, so that one could approach him from either side. Stealthily they crawled through the olive bush, waiting sometimes for long half hours for the crack of his rifle to assist in locating him. At last the exact thicket that sheltered him would be located; then, at a given signal, both would rush on him with fixed bayonets. Usually he was alert enough to account for one of them, but the other invariably got him. Those snipers were ready to surrender when caught and held at bay, and the self-control of an Australasian who could spare the enemy who had just shot down his comrade is hard to estimate.

Another new employment was the throwing of bombs, home-made for the greater part. An empty jam tin, with some fuse and explosive, were materials from which the handy bushmen constructed very serviceable bombs, which were employed at that part of the line between Quinn's Post and Courtney's Post, where the trenches approached very closely together.

One team of bomb throwers achieved fame as the Test team, because the sergeant always distributed the ammunition in his own way. He made the distribution a "catching" practice, the bomb forming the cricket ball. The record of no catches missed was well sustained; exactly what might have happened had one been dropped had better be left to the imagination.

It was at this period of their occupation of Gallipoli that the word by which they have since become famous was coined. Every case of ammunition and every parcel of stores landed on their beaches bore the initials of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, thus: A N Z A C, and the little cove where they were landed was quickly christened Anzac Cove. But the real popularity of the word dated from the time when an interpreter pointed out that this was really a Turkish word, meaning "wholly just."

It was at once adopted as a name for the area they occupied, and was avidly seized upon by the British and Australasian Press as a handy and expressive substitute for Australasian, a cumbrous title that has always offended those who have had to use it most frequently. So the Australasians became the Anzacs, a title under which they have won fame and will live for ever in the history of warfare.

During the whole of this time they had heard and seen nothing of their British comrades, who had landed on the southern point of the peninsula of Gallipoli at the same moment as they were scaling the cliffs above Brighton Beach. The German spies who did so much to confuse the initial operations were continually passing word to detached bands to cease firing, as the British, or the French, were immediately in front of them. Little attention was paid to these false statements, except that a vigorous search was made for the originators, and summary justice meted out to them when found. For the Australians were well informed of the movements of the other detachments of the Allied forces.

Between these and the Australasian post at Gaba Tepe towered a range of hills, rising to its highest point at Achi Baba, the Gibraltar of Gallipoli peninsula. The means of communication between the two holdings was limited to the sea, for the Turks were strongly posted, right down to the coast, in the intermediate territory.

By means of the sea, communication was established on May 6 between the two forces; and 4,000 Australasians were detached for the time being to help in the operations of the main body of the Allied armies before the village of Krithia. The men chosen were the Second Brigade of Australians, and the New Zealand infantry. They were taken off on small boats, transferred to trawlers, and carried to the major scene of operations, where they distinguished themselves after a fashion now to be described.