Gallipoli Diaries: the Anzacs’ own story, day by day

Scribe Publications

GALLIPOLI DIARIES

Award-winning historian Dr Jonathan King has been producing books and films about World War I since 1994. He leads battlefield tours to Gallipoli and the Western Front, and is a regular television and radio commentator, as well as a writer for newspapers. After lecturing at the University of Melbourne for many years, he has written more than 30 books and produced 20 documentaries. He is based in Sydney with his fellow adventurer and wife, Jane. They have four daughters and seven grandchildren.

Scribe Publications

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First published by Kangaroo Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster (Australia), 2003

This revised edition published by Scribe 2014

Copyright © Jonathan King 2003, 2014

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication data

King, Jonathan, 1942- author.

Gallipoli Diaries: the Anzacs’ own story day by day / Jonathan King.

New and updated edition.

9781922070913 (Australian edition)

9781922247896 (UK edition)

9781925113150 (e-book)

1. Australia. Army. Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. 2. Soldiers–Australia–Diaries. 3. Soldiers–New Zealand–Diaries. 4. World War, 1914-1918–Campaigns–Turkey–Gallipoli Peninsula–Personal narratives, Australian. 5. Gallipoli Peninsula (Turkey)–History.

940.426

scribepublications.com.au

scribepublications.co.uk

Contents

Maps

Preface: The Eyewitnesses Reinstate Truth — That First Casualty of War

Introduction: Listening to the Anzacs

Prologue: 24 April 1915 — Anzac Eve

CHAPTER 1: The Landing — 25 April

CHAPTER 2: The Morning After — 26–30 April

CHAPTER 3: Burying the Dead — May

CHAPTER 4: All Hell Breaks Loose at Helles — June

CHAPTER 5: Talk of Mutiny — July

CHAPTER 6: Sending Lambs to Slaughter at Lone Pine & the Nek — August

CHAPTER 7: Murdoch Exposes the Disaster — September

CHAPTER 8: Trading Tucker with the Turks — October

CHAPTER 9: Lord Kitchener Calls on the Boys — November

CHAPTER 10: Retreating with Honour — December

Appendix 1: Army Ranks, Abbreviations, and Glossary

Appendix 2: Gallipoli Timeline

Appendix 3: Who Was Who

Appendix 4: The Roll of Honour

References

Acknowledgements

‘… if there is really military necessity for this awful ordeal, then I am sure the Australian troops will face it. Indeed, anxious though they are to leave the dreary and sombre scene of their wreckage, the Australian divisions would strongly resent the confession of failure that a withdrawal would entail. They are dispirited, they have been through such warfare as no army has seen in any part of the world, but they are game to the end.’

KEITH MURDOCH, JOURNALIST, LETTER TO AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER ANDREW FISHER, 23 SEPTEMBER 1915

‘At the landing, and here ever since.’

After eight months on the beach some of the Diggers had become real characters, with the most celebrated being those who had been there from day one. (Initially drawn at Gallipoli for the Anzac Book, 1916.)

To the Anzacs:

Those 8,709 brave Australian ‘diggers’ who died fighting at Gallipoli

and

their 2,701 Kiwi ‘cobbers’,

not to mention

the Brits and their Allies

who were killed in that bold but hopeless campaign.

And

not to forget the poor old Turks

who lost more than anybody else — an estimated 86,692 —

defending their homeland.

The Anzac area, showing the main territory occupied by Anzac forces by December 1915, following their landing at Anzac Cove.

The Gallipoli peninsula, 1915, showing the three main landing locations.

PREFACE

The Eyewitnesses Reinstate Truth — That First Casualty of War

‘Nothing can alter what happened now. Anzac stood and still stands for reckless valour in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship and endurance that will never admit defeat.’

CHARLES BEAN, COMMONWEALTH WAR CORRESPONDENT, WORLD WAR I

Gallipoli, for the average Australian, is the most famous battle our soldiers ever fought.

From the start of the 100th anniversary commemorations, its legendary status grew larger than ever, dwarfing any other battles fought by Australians over that century, no matter how decisive they were. The national effort and expense put into the popular 2015 centennial program at Gallipoli only confirmed its overwhelming popularity in the public’s eye. Although Gallipoli was a crushing defeat, it is celebrated like a victory.

Right: As head of the British Admiralty, Winston Churchill (right) exerted a lot of influence in the 1915 decision to land British and Allied troops at Gallipoli. AWM H12243

It may have only lasted eight months after the 25 April 1915 landing, and it was only Australia’s opening campaign of World War I, yet Gallipoli has lodged in the nation’s psyche like no other battle. This is despite the fact that Australians not only lost that battle, but also the lives of 8,709 young men who were killed for no territorial gain. In fact, they were so badly knocked around by Turkish defenders that they were forced to retreat from the unscaleable cliffs in December 1915, with their tails between their legs. It was an ignominious withdrawal, but they had no alternative.

Had they stayed, they may have been decimated by the increasingly determined Turks, who were defending their homeland with heavier artillery and ever more effective reinforcements. The winter rain and storms hitting the windswept beach would also have washed away many of their shelters, dugouts, and foxholes. Even worse, the running waters would have increased the spreading of germs from the remains of thousands of unburied soldiers, and the open-pit toilets, which was already claiming hundreds of lives.

In short, the whole affair was a shocking indictment of the incompetent British war cabinet and its Australian equivalent, both blindly following imperial orders into a battle that cost nearly 50,000 Allied lives, all for nothing. Australia lost at least 8,709 lives; New Zealand, 2,701; Britain, 21,255; France, 12,000; India, 1,558; and Canada (from the province of Newfoundland), 49. Meanwhile, the Turks lost 86,692 lives defending their homeland.

A censored letter from ‘Galipolie’ (sic) to his mother, the author was 16–year­–old Alec Campbell, who became the world’s last surviving Gallipoli veteran.

Why then do we revere Gallipoli as if it was one of the defining moments in Australian history?

The answer lies in the way this dreadful disaster was and is sold to the Australian people — as a glorious achievement for the Empire. Just as the failed Charge of the Light Horse Brigade in the 1853–56 Crimean War had, despite its high death toll, been sold to the British public as a heroic achievement, the landing at Gallipoli was sold as a heroic achievement despite also failing to achieve its objectives.

Army officers ordered the official Commonwealth war correspondent, Charles Bean, to paint a rosy picture, and censored his stories. So he exaggerated the brave exploits, played down casualties, and hid defeats in battle, thereby boosting the morale of readers back home, inspiring more young men to enlist, and creating the Anzac legend. British poet John Masefield helped set the scene:

‘They were … the finest body of young men ever brought together in modern times. For physical beauty and nobility of bearing they surpassed any men I have ever seen; they walked and looked like the kings in old poems, and reminded me of the line in Shakespeare, Baited like eagles having lately bathed.’

But the first and most influential report actually came from British journalist Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett. ‘They stopped for a few minutes to pull themselves together,’ he wrote, ‘got rid of their packs and charged the magazines of their rifles. Then this race of athletes proceeded to scale the cliffs, without responding to the enemy’s fire.’ There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity, but of course the Anzacs were brave, incredibly brave, and great fighters — though for a lost cause, as both generals and journalists should have known they never had a hope.

Once again, truth was the first casualty of war. When the British landed the Anzacs on the wrong beach, at Ari Burnu, they were only opposed by a small number of Turkish defenders who had expected them to land further south, at Gaba Tepe, where they had erected formidable defences. Very few of these first Anzacs reached the highest cliffs — and those who did were driven back towards the beach by Turkish reinforcements. Hundreds were killed or wounded on that first bloody day. In fact, on the beach, the Anzac commander, Lieutenant–General Sir William Birdwood, recommended they retreat immediately back to the ships, telling Bean he feared defeat because of the impossibly steep terrain. Out at sea, General Sir Ian Hamilton, commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, refused. Of this, Bean said nothing. The outside world would have no idea what a catastrophic disaster Gallipoli had been from the start.

It was not until September 1915, when Australian journalist Keith Murdoch (father of media entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch) visited Gallipoli, that the truth was told — if not to the public, at least to then Australian prime minister Andrew Fisher, who had earlier promised Britain support ‘to the last man and the last shilling’. After reaching London, the uncensored Murdoch wrote, ‘It is undoubtedly one of the most terrible chapters in our history.’ Blaming a ‘series of disastrous underestimations’ by the British, he claimed, ‘the work of the general staff in Gallipoli has been deplorable’; incompetent generals had mismanaged most of the battles and could not deliver adequate food, water, or clothing to the Anzacs, let alone cope with casualties. Murdoch, claiming the troops had been unable to advance much more than one kilometre inland, warned that an advance up the cliffs would be impossible. He recommended immediate withdrawal because of the ‘frightful weakening effect of sickness’ from dysentery, typhus, and other diseases in the filthy trenches, causing the evacuation of ‘fully 1000 sick or wounded every day’, and because winter storms would destroy Anzac shelters, further enabling the Turks to drive them off the peninsula. Although that explosive letter inspired the evacuation, it was nevertheless hushed up, so the public never knew the terrible truth.

Left: Apart from singing the praises of the Anzacs, The Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Charles Bean, who covered Gallipoli from start to finish, became one of the great champions of the AIF. He covered the fighting until the end of the war, then helped establish the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. AWM GO1561

Right: The eccentric British journalist Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett covered Gallipoli for a range of Fleet Street newspapers, and helped start the legend of the fearless Anzacs with his colourful stories.

This is why I have written Gallipoli Diaries — to set the record straight, to recount the truth as told by eyewitnesses down in the trenches. The ten veterans, who I initially interviewed in the late 1990s for the television documentary Gallipoli: Last Anzacs Tell All, and who are profiled in the introduction, spoke their minds — as did the writers of the diaries and letters in this book — with ernest intensity. This book attempts to overturn a century of misinformation on behalf of the Diggers who fought, died, or were wounded in those dreadful trenches. We owe it to them. They wrote their diaries in private, yes, but these Diggers wanted the awful truth behind Gallipoli to be known. The veterans also hoped the lessons learned from the failed Gallipoli campaign would stop us fighting any more irrelevant wars on far-flung shores, under foreign powers, as we would go on to do in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The 100th anniversary should be remembered as the time when the Anzac’s true story was finally revealed.

It is also time to switch the spotlight to the overshadowed Western Front, which has never received the attention it deserved because the Gallipoli legend took root so quickly in the Australian psyche, as our first achievement on the world stage. With Australia having only become a nation 14 years earlier, by the time the Anzacs reached the main WWI battlefields in Belgium and France in 1916 there was little space in our national mind to accommodate this puzzling new theatre. Yet the Western Front (the term used to describe the conflicts fought along Germany’s western front) was five times greater than Gallipoli. There were five times more Australians fighting there; they fought five times longer, fought five times more battles, won five times as many Victoria Crosses, and, instead of being defeated, they fought in the victorious battles that ended World War I, punching well above their weight in doing so.

Although they only constituted 10 per cent of Allied forces — five of 50 divisions — Australian army corps commander Major-General John Monash reported that the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) captured approximately 25 per cent of territory, as well as prisoners of war, and arms and ammunition. Mind you, these victories also cost 46,000 Australian lives (more than five times as many as Gallipoli), making it a very bloody killing field indeed. Although some of my forbears were killed at Gallipoli, like those of many readers, I lost many more on the Western Front.

The Australian presence at Gallipoli was solely to aid Britain with its war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, and Turkey, which started on 4 August 1914. Enthusiastic Australians — many born in Britain or with British parents — joined the AIF, the only all-volunteer army in World War I. En route in Egypt, they formed a new unit called the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps — the Anzacs — fighting under the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, along with French and Anglo-French colonial soldiers. No fewer than 50,000 Australians served in the eight-month campaign at Gallipoli.

Brisbane’s Bert White, who could not see any reason to remove his ‘fag’ for an official pre-war portrait with a mate, was typical of the irreverent larrikin who volunteered to fight at Gallipoli.

This book focuses on the Australians who landed on the western shore at what became known as Anzac Cove. Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, had planned for the Anzacs to land on the western shore of the Gallipoli peninsula, with the Anglo-French forces landing on the same morning at the southern tip. After overpowering defences, they would combine on the eastern side to march on Constantinople (Istanbul). Once Turkey had been conquered, they would release Allied Russian ships trapped in the Black Sea. From there, these combined Allied forces would march west to invade Germany from her eastern front.

The terrain at Gallipoli may have looked alright on outdated British maps but, having camped on the beach and walked these battlefields — encompassing a large geographic area kilometres across — many times while leading tours and researching this book, I know this jumbled mess of hills and gullies rising up from Anzac Cove would have proved incredibly difficult to climb with a heavy pack and against enemy fire.

Churchill also underestimated Turkish divisional commander Mustafa Kemal’s determined defences, strengthened by German officers and arms. The slow-learning British war cabinet should have realised the Turks were unbeatable after they defeated an Anglo-French fleet during its assault on the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915, sinking Allied ships and killing hundreds of sailors. That was Churchill’s Plan A. His Plan B was the Gallipoli invasion, which turned out to be even worse.

Yet, failure or no failure, the commemorations started the following year, on 25 April 1916, with Anzac Day parades in Cairo and Australia growing to become the nation’s biggest day of remembrance. The fact that the landing also took place on a beach may also have helped foster sympathy among many beach-loving Australians. Celebrating his 1983 America’s Cup win, Australia II owner Alan Bond made matters worse when he told world media, ‘This is the greatest victory since Gallipoli.’

Certainly by the centenary thousands were visiting the battlefield every year — and more than 40,000 people applied for the 8,000 seats allocated to Australians for the 2015 Dawn Service. To me, as a centennial tour group leader, it appears the Gallipoli ‘industry’ has become an unstoppable commercial juggernaut featuring sporting contests, surf-boat races, pop stars, concerts, and black-tie balls, with luxury cruise liners competing for anchorage off the same beach where ‘our boys’ were killed 100 years earlier. Fuelled by easy tourist profits, and carrying an ill-informed public along for the ride with highly-priced ‘standing room only’ tickets, it feels more like a Gallipoli Grand Final than a memorial service for the fallen.

These Queenslanders, many of whom said they were just looking for ‘a bit of fun’, were typical of the raw recruits who enlisted in the AIF in 1914 and were trained in time for Gallipoli.

So now, to achieve some sort of balance, we need to hear from the Anzacs who were actually there. Fortunately Gallipoli Diaries can provide a full account: I have been able to find an entry for every one of the 240 days of the eight-month campaign, and even identify the actual days of the week. This is the first time this has been done. Even in the trenches, a weekday was different to a Saturday or a Sunday — being reserved for church services, letter writing, bathing, delousing old clothes, visiting a hospital tent, or resting.

Lying in wait for the Anzacs to land at Gallipoli was one of the great soldiers of World War I, Mustafa Kemal (aka Ataturk), fourth from left, who defended the peninsula with these officers of the Anafarta force, which he commanded. AWM P01141.001

As the book was compiled with the aim of giving voice to the Anzacs, it is based on their letters and diaries describing everyday life during the campaign. It also honours the dying wishes of many soldiers who feared death, writing — sometimes just before they were killed — that they prayed they would be remembered by people back home. These Australians, of exceptional calibre and good cheer, each wrote for different reasons, although many made light of the hardships: for therapy, to share their fears, to keep sane, to tell folks back home the truth about the horrors of battle.

Many Aussies were known as cheerful jokers. On 31 August, Trooper I.L. Idriess, 5th Australian Light Horse Regiment, who went on to become a successful writer, wrote, ‘I did not know Gus Gaunt was such a sprinter before. To see him running naked from the beach with a bucket of water in his hand and a Turk bullet whistling merrily just overhead was very amusing.’

Foremost, though, their writings reveal the desire to prove themselves; to show that they were pulling their weight. In fact, many went to Gallipoli as loyal, unquestioning soldiers of the British Empire, but returned as highly critical, independently minded Australians. Gallipoli had been, for them, a rite of passage. Yet these words are just from ordinary men writing about everyday things in plain English, complete with misspellings and grammatical mistakes.

To make it more accessible to the lay reader, the appendices include army ranks, abbreviations, a glossary, timelines, a who-was-who and, for the first time in a Gallipoli book, a roll of honour listing both Australian and New Zealanders who died at Gallipoli — as a centennial tribute.

I am hoping readers will listen to the famous last words of the ‘last man standing’ from the 25 April landing, Ted Matthews, who I interviewed just before he died in 1997: ‘The whole thing was a terrible mistake, so for God’s sake, when we’re all gone, don’t glorify Gallipoli.’

So now, let us allow Matthews and his comrades to take up the story.

Left: The German officer in charge of the Turkish forces resisting the Anzacs’ landing at Gallipoli was the former cavalry leader, General Otto Liman von Sanders. Right: The youngest person to be caught up in the enthusiasm to volunteer for war was 14-year-old James Martin from Melbourne, posing here with his sister Millie before sailing off for Gallipoli where he died before his 15th birthday.

INTRODUCTION

Listening to the Anzacs

As the introduction for Gallipoli Diaries should really have been written by those soldiers who fought at Gallipoli, I would like to pass on the words of wisdom of the last ten veterans of that terrible campaign. I had the privilege to spend time from the mid-1990s to 2002 with these last ten, sadly watching them pass away, one by one, until there was just Alec Campbell, the last survivor, who died in 2002. This Introduction belongs to these last ten men, as what they had to say was so important and, after all, they were the ones who inspired me to collect the stories of other Anzacs for this book.

I was fascinated by these old warriors as vital last witnesses to one of the nation’s most important stories. That was why I filmed my interviews with them for the documentary Gallipoli: Last Anzacs Tell All. They might have all been over 100 years of age but to a man they all still wanted to pass on one message — Gallipoli had been a great mistake and they would never have volunteered to fight there if they had their time over. Of course they had hindsight but each had an especially memorable message that is worth repeating as a foundation for this book.

Les Leach

Les Leach, a New Zealander who carried water at Gallipoli and moved to Sydney when he returned, died in November 1997. He said, ‘Nobody really knew what was going on at Gallipoli and the British authorities seemed to be just as confused as us privates in the trenches’.

Ted Matthews

Ted Matthews, from Sydney, who was a corporal in signals, was the last man to die who had landed on that first Anzac Day, 25 April 1915. He died in 1997, aged 101. Before leaving this planet, he said, ‘Stop glorifying Gallipoli — from the mistaken landing onwards, the British mucked the whole thing up and we should never had followed them. But if they had had an Australian in charge we could have won the battle at Gallipoli.’

Doug Dibley

Before he died, Doug Dibley, from New Zealand, who served as stretcher-bearer at Gallipoli alongside ‘Simpson and his donkey’ said, ‘the slaughter was so bad there we had to shoot men to stop some of the more terrified from deserting’.

Jack Buntine (seated right)

Jack Buntine, from Melbourne, a great fighter and ‘crack shot’ who was a sniper at Gallipoli and won a military medal in the war, said before he died in December 1998, ‘Australians were the only all-volunteer army so we were keen to fight. But even though there were no better fighters than Australians we could never have won at Gallipoli because the odds were too great — but even so Australia learnt nothing at all from Gallipoli — nothing at all.’

Fred Kelly

Fred Kelly, from Sydney, who had been an infantryman, also died in December 1998. To him, Gallipoli was ‘a terrible experience’, and he detested the place: ‘It was ridiculous to even attempt to land on the beach because it was so narrow let alone to climb the ridges as they were never ending and exposed to enemy fire.’

Len Hall

Len Hall, from Perth, who died in February 1999, threatened to swap sides. His military career was the stuff of a colourful feature film. He landed at Gallipoli, fought with the Light Horse at the bloody battle of the Nek, rode in the charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba under General Harry Chauvel, and rode to liberate Damascus with Lawrence of Arabia. But at the end of his life he said, ‘Next time I would fight for the Turks against the invading Australians as they are such good people and it was their land not ours.’

Frank Isaacs

Frank Isaacs, of Perth, who fought as an infantryman and died in April 1999, said, ‘Australians paid the highest price of all per capita with more deaths in proportion to population than any other nation because all the other nations let Australians down when it came to fighting as the French kept deserting and the British had no stomach for tough battles. We were suckers.’

All of the last three, who had survived into the new millennium, and were celebrated on commemorative postage stamps, warned Australians against idealising Gallipoli.

Walter Parker

Walter Parker, a water carrier at Gallipoli who died in January 2000 at 104, became a pacifist who opposed all wars. He begged his son not to fight in World War II, only to see him killed. He said, ‘Gallipoli achieved nothing and just showed war is not a means of settling disputes — all those deaths of young Australians to no purpose.’

Roy Longmore

Roy Longmore, of Melbourne, who had been a tunneller at Gallipoli, and died in June 2001, aged 106, emphasised all the mistakes: ‘We landed on the wrong beach, tried to attack impossible positions, were badly equipped and not even prepared for winter — shocking leadership’.

Alec Campbell

The last man standing was Alec Campbell, of Hobart, who died, aged 103, just after Anzac Day 2002. He was the nation’s last living link with Gallipoli, and so had the last word about the battle. Having enlisted at 16 and served as a water carrier at Gallipoli, and seen so many of his comrades killed as he moved around the trenches at Anzac Cove, he warned, ‘I was a foolish young man to have gone off to that war and I would never do it again. Never go to war with a foreign power again to fight in far-off shores if it has nothing to do with Australia’. Campbell, who was also opposed to Australians fighting in modern wars alongside the USA, said, ‘We had no time for the British whatsoever, and it was a mistake for Australians to blindly follow another foreign power into war, so we should not repeat that mistake. We should only go to war to defend our shores from attack.’

As these last living voices had so much to say about what really went on at Gallipoli, I decided to find many more voices to tell the big story from the ordinary soldier’s point of view. After casting the net around Australia, I was able to unearth a wide enough sample to tell the story more fully. Now, instead of the words of ten Anzacs, Gallipoli Diaries gives voice to over two hundred soldiers who were there through extracts from their diaries and letters. Their words reinforce the urgent message of those last ten Gallipoli Anzacs. Even though these writers of 1915 did not have the advantage of hindsight, they knew something was wrong.

A NOTE ON SOURCES

There were 50,000 Australians fighting in Gallipoli, and so these extracts present only a small part of what is available. There were many different types of soldiers doing very different jobs including sniping, defending trenches, shooting or capturing enemy soldiers, carrying water, and so on. There were also many different categories of soldiers, such as ambulancemen, doctors, machine-gunners, Light Horsemen, generals, and privates.

Consequently, the soldiers have different points of view and interests. Some get things right and others get things wrong. They did not have much information, since there was strict censorship. Also, many soldiers received misleading information and listened to rumours on the ‘bush telegraph’, and some did not know what battles were taking place, while others did not know where they were or which army units, leaders, or soldiers were fighting what battles. It would have been hard to find out the true facts in that military settlement at Gallipoli. Having visited Gallipoli numerous times, I can confirm what a confusing collection of hills, dry creek beds, gullies, and plateaus the landscape presents. I also sympathise with the soldiers who could not spell. They abbreviated many items, got senior officers’ titles wrong, as well as ranks and army units, and generally used their own personal shorthand in writing. Their extracts are reprinted here more or less as they were written, warts and all.

But all of their thoughts and feelings were accurate as they came from the heart, and so give the reader an understanding of the daily routine of the campaign. It was a miracle these men bothered to write as much as they did. Our thanks to the ordinary Australians who preserved these diaries and letters, and the Australian War Memorial that cares for most of them. The nation now has an important record of this event. I hope the soldiers who wrote the letters and diaries would be pleased to see them published.

The source for each soldier’s extract is recorded in the References at the end of the book, chapter by chapter. The references are listed in the order in which the extracts appear in the text. The reference for each extract is only mentioned once per chapter.

Having been inspired by those last ten Gallipoli veterans to tell the story from the words of the men in the trenches, let us hear from these voices, which have been silent for too long.

PROLOGUE

24 April 1915

ANZAC EVE

‘As this may be the last opportunity I have of talking to you, I want to say briefly that, in the event of my going out, you are to believe that I do so with only one regret, which is, the grief that this will bring to you and Bert and Mat. For myself, I am prepared to take my chance. While, on the one hand, to win through safely would mean honour and achievement, on the other hand to fall would mean an honourable end.’

COLONEL JOHN MONASH, LETTER TO WIFE, 24 APRIL 1915

En route to Gallipoli, the AIF trained at Mena Camp, Egypt, below the pyramids. AWM P01436.007

After dark, on 24 April, the bulk of the troops in the Australian Imperial Force’s special Australian New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) were transported, along with their New Zealand comrades, across the Mediterranean Sea by a fleet of 200 ships. The troops were heading for the Gallipoli peninsula ready, willing, and able to land on those fatal shores. The months of training at places like Mena Camp at Giza, Egypt, were over. Now ready for combat, the Anzacs were moving inexorably towards their historic rendezvous. Thousands of soldiers from the AIF’s special Australian New Zealand Army Corps were on the eve of their first action on a beach on the coast of Turkey. The British commanders believed the landing would take place on a wide beach just north of Gaba Tepe, which was meant to be an entrance to fairly flat fields over which the Anzacs could march. Nobody knew that logistical error would mean the troops landed much further north at a narrow beach perched under steep cliffs, which became known as Anzac Cove. The medical corps estimated they would have to evacuate 3,000 of the Anzacs, who would be too badly wounded to fight. No arrangements were made for burials. For some, this mistaken landing would be a baptism of fire that would change their lives forever, and for others, it meant death.

At the same time, British and French troops were getting ready to land at the southern tip of the Gallipoli peninsula at Cape Helles as part of a combined campaign to capture the Dardanelles. The British 29th Division planned to land at five different beaches in the south. Although the Anglo-French action was equally important, this book is concerned with the Australians who landed on the beaches at Anzac Cove (with New Zealand comrades beside them). Months later, the British would also land to the north of Anzac Cove at Suvla Bay. Over time the three major assaults on the peninsula would come to be known under one generic heading — ‘Gallipoli’.

It was a tense moment made even more tense because of the extra waiting. The landing had been put back from Thursday 23 April for 48 hours because of severe weather. Now the men hoped they would be lucky second time around. Only the senior officers knew what was happening, and the atmosphere aboard ship was one of acute apprehension that night before the landing. As the ships approached their destination, the tension among the troops mounted to a fever pitch. Some of them knew they were approaching the Turkish coast, some also realised this was the western coast of the Gallipoli peninsula, and a handful knew it was the beach near Gaba Tepe.

Officers in charge of the landing had read the special order from Lieutenant-General Sir William Birdwood, commander of the Anzacs, which made it clear that: ‘In conjunction with the Navy we are about to undertake one of the most difficult tasks any soldier can be called on to perform ... that we shall succeed I have no doubt, simply because I know your full determination to do so. Lord Kitchener has told us that he lays special stress on the role the army has to play in this particular operation, the success of which will be a very severe blow to the enemy — indeed as severe as any he could receive in France. It will go down in history to the glory of the soldiers of Australia and New Zealand.’

After asking all soldiers to ‘listen attentively’, Birdwood admitted: ‘we are going to have a real hard and rough time of it, until at all events, we have turned the enemy out of our first objective’.

Claiming that ‘Hard, rough times none of us mind’, Birdwood warned, ‘the country wither we are bound is very difficult ... we may not be able to get our wagons anywhere near us for days so men must not think their wants have been neglected if they do not get all they want. On landing it will be necessary for every individual to carry with him all his requirements in food and clothing for three days.’ Finally Birdwood cautioned them ‘to take the very greatest care not only of food but ammunition the replenishment of which will be very difficult’. He urged them, ‘make an effort to try and refrain from starting on your water bottle until quite late in the day. Once you start drinking you cannot stop, and a water bottle is very soon emptied.’ Also, he warned, ‘You must not waste ammunition by firing away indiscriminately at no target ... [wait until we] find the enemy in well entrenched positions when all our ammunition will be required to turn them out.’

That night, the 4,000 soldiers of the 3rd Brigade of the First Australian Division were ‘lying in wait’ thinking and feeling differently about the coming battle. They would be the first to lead the charge. Waiting, also, were three men who wrote down their thoughts on that night — a lieutenant, a lieutenant-general, and a war correspondent.

It was while training in Egypt that the bonds of friendship started forming. Such bonds would later translate into the legendary ‘mateship’ among Gallipoli soldiers, who teamed up in pairs to look after each other.

24 April 1915

Lieutenant Richards from the 1st Battalion Australian Imperial Force summed up the feelings of soldiers when he wrote: ‘To-morrow is the all-eventful day. We have our bully beef and biscuits with a full water bottle for two days or more. There is no water on the Gallipoli landing place at all, so we have to take great care of our water and fill ourselves up to the neck before landing.

‘At 3.30 a.m. the first landing parties comprising the 1st Brigade will face the music which will probably be poured out to them from the trenches only a few hundred yards from the open beach, but it is just possible that the fleet will have cleared the Turks back from their advanced positions.

‘At 8 a.m. the Engineers and 1st Field Ambulance go ashore in small barges [and] rowing boats. Of course, our landing will be free from rifle fire but there are two forts 800 ft. and 600 ft. high back 2 miles with a clear range on to the landing place. The fleet which includes the Queen Elizabeth, London and Prince of Wales may hold these forts up and keep them busy. Let’s hope!

‘I listened to Maj. Croxton speaking from the bridge deck this afternoon. He gave particulars of the numbers and the battalions landing and what was expected of them. His speech was full of fine humour, dealing chiefly with our funky condition and likely fear. It was hardly the kind of speech one would expect on the eve of big doings, as there was plenty of ridicule, nonsense, but no hard facts or detailed information. It seemed more as though we were preparing for a pantomime instead of grim warfare. I don’t mean for one moment that he would have made us melancholy and miserable but he would have given us something like an idea of what to expect.

‘Later — Now, however, that I have gone over the sketch plan of the whole country over which our action is to take place, I am more satisfied and prepared for the scene of our work tomorrow. These two fortified points are our