HEROES OF APRIL 25
WAITING FOR THE CALL--A RIOT IN CAIRO--MAORIS ON THEIR
DIGNITY--GENERAL BIRDWOOD ARRIVES--WOUNDED AUSTRALIANS--A FRENCH
OFFICER'S TRIBUTE--THE PROBLEM OF THE DARDANELLES--SPIES EVERYWHERE--A
TRICK OF THE OLD GUARDS--LOSS OF GALLANT OFFICERS--BRAVE MEDICOS.
Some of the Australians and New Zealanders had already got the call,
but we of the Light Horse still waited--growing more and more impatient
every day. I have vivid recollections of a captain swearing. I have
still more vivid recollections of a certain private's reminiscences. It
was generally thought that he had spent some time in hell, or Booligal,
so familiarly did he speak of the infernal regions. I remember his
saying--but no, I will not repeat it.
Chiefly do I remember the riot. It seemed that something must be done
to stir the authorities up; and some of the "hot heads" got up a riot
in Cairo. They went into Cairo singing "There'll be a hot time in the
old town to-night"; and sure enough there was. It was not meant to be
quite so hot as it turned out. Things have a way of shaping themselves
sometimes. Nobody could tell afterwards exactly how it all happened;
but before the night was spent some houses had been burned down, some
shots had been fired and some men had been wounded. There were some
Australians, some New Zealanders, some Maoris and a few Territorials
in it. And it all happened so simply. Some publicans and other sinners
presumed to treat the Maoris as "niggers." This was too much for the
New Zealanders, and they began to pull some of the furniture out of a
public-house, and to make a bonfire of it in the street, the while the
Maoris danced a war dance round it.
One or two other bonfires were started. The native police rolled up and
kept the crowd back, one of the police inspectors remarking that it
would be a good thing for Cairo if a few more of the "dens" were burned
down. "I've been wishing for a fire among these rotten tenements for a
long time," he said, "and now the fire-engines are coming, and it looks
as if they'll be saved again!"
The fire-engine came clattering up the street. The soldiers raided it.
In self-defence the firemen repelled the attack with the fire-hose.
The soldiers renewed the attack and, reinforcements having arrived,
captured the hose and turned it on the firemen, completely routing
them. Then they cut the hose up--and the Maoris went on with their
"haka."
But in the end, of course, law and order had to prevail. Other engines
came upon the scene, escorted by a squadron of Territorial Dragoons.
The soldiers cooled down. The fires were put out. There's a lot more
about this battle of the Wazir, but I cannot tell it.
Not creditable, of course. Not quite the sort of thing they had been
sent there for. But human nature is human nature, and a crowd of
soldiers is a crowd of soldiers, and bad grog will make the best of
soldiers bad, especially in Cairo; and the evil that's in men must
come out of them as well as the good. Hence to call the Maoris
"niggers"--well, who can blame the New Zealanders for resenting it,
and who can blame the Australians for siding with the New Zealanders,
or the Territorials for assisting their Oversea brethren, when we have
Mr. Asquith's own word for it that "Who touches them touches us"? Not
creditable!--but human nature--British brotherhood! And high spirits,
and the chafing under the monotony of camp life in Egypt! Trooper
Bluegum, at all events, long ago forgave them. The same men were among
those who were to create for themselves and their country, in the
words of General Ian Hamilton, "An imperishable record of military
virtue." Many of them are no more. Maoris and all have given their
lives cheerfully for their Empire and the sacred cause of Right. Let us
remember their virtues and forget their faults.
There came a day when there was sudden movement in the camp. General
Birdwood had arrived--one of Kitchener's "hard riding" generals, with a
wonderful string of medals and decorations--and there were other "signs
of the zodiac" pointing to our early departure. When at last, at the
"Stadium," Colonel Ryrie announced to us of the 2nd Light Horse that
we were to make ready, you could have heard the cheering miles away.
The residents of Ma'adi, when they heard it, thought peace had been
declared!
It was the arrival of our Australian wounded back from the Dardanelles
that settled it. It was a wrench to leave our horses behind--the dear
old horses that we petted and loved, the horses that were a very part
of us--but it had to be done. When we saw our fellows coming back
with their wounds upon them--when we heard of what they had been
through--when we listened to their story of that wonderful landing on
Gallipoli on April 25, and of the wild charge they made up the frowning
hill--all of us, to a man, begged to be sent to the front as infantry!
We were Light Horsemen, and we hadn't been trained as infantry, but it
didn't matter--we were soldiers of the King!
I saw the Red Crescent train as it steamed in loaded with the wounded,
and I went to the base hospital to see and chat with the men who knew
now what war was--the men who had clamoured so impatiently for so many
weeks to be sent where "the fighting" was, and then came back again to
be nursed in an Egyptian hospital! Yet they were happy. They had "done
their bit." They smoked cigarettes and yarned about their experiences.
I watched the slightly wounded ones marching from the train to the
hospital--an unforgettable sight. Most of them were shot about the arms
or scalp. Their uniforms had dried blood all over them, and were torn
about where the field doctors had ripped off sleeves or other parts to
get at the wounds. As they marched irregularly along, one young fellow
with his arm in a sling and a flesh wound in the leg limped behind and
shouted out: "Hey, you chaps, don't make it a welter!"
Our men were just splendid in the fight. An Imperial officer who
has been all over France and Flanders said that Colonel Maclagan's
Australian Brigade was the finest brigade of infantry in the whole of
the Allied armies. That was praise indeed. And I remember another fine
tribute that was paid to them. "No troops in the whole world could
possibly have done better than those magnificent Australian infantry.
They performed the impossible. In the face of exploding mines and
withering fire from machine guns, shrapnel and rifles, they stormed
the hills and, with bloody bayonets, routed the Turks and Germans."
That was a tribute the more valuable because it was not an Australian
who spoke, neither was it an Englishman, but a Frenchman. It was
the remark of a French naval officer who watched the landing of the
Australian Division on Gallipoli. And when the whole tale was told the
world saw how rightly our boys deserved all that was said of them.
What a terribly expensive business it was all to be! How many brave
Australians and New Zealanders--yes, and Englishmen, Frenchmen and
Indians--were yet to be sacrificed! It is well that the Great Ruler
over all, Who holds us in the hollow of His hands, does not permit poor
mortals to see into the future. The "forcing of the Dardanelles"--the
words were on the lips of all of us and were printed in newspapers all
over the world--it seemed only a matter of a little while, and then----
Great is the British Navy, magnificent are its officers and men, but
hellish was the work of "forcing the Dardanelles." You remember how
the _Goliath_ and the _Irresistible_ went down. You remember how a
great French ship--the _Bouvet_--was sunk. You remember the mines that
came down the waters, and the shore torpedoes, and the strength of
the Turkish forts, the power of the Turkish guns, erected and manned
by German officers. The Navy could not force the Dardanelles alone!
It was necessary to have the co-operation of land forces. Perhaps the
operations should never have been begun until the Army was ready to
co-operate. I do not know; it is not for me to judge.
General Sir Ian Hamilton first visited the Dardanelles and carried
out a reconnaissance on one of the warships and then came to Egypt--a
lightning visit--and our forces began to move. Australia, for the first
time, was right up against the Hun! South Africa was a picnic to it.
There were spies everywhere. There were spies in the transports, spies
amongst the interpreters, spies in the supply depots. The Turks, or
rather their German officers, were kept informed of every move the
Allies made. They knew exactly the hour of disembarkation and the
places of landing. They learned all the Australian bugle calls and used
them with telling effect. The French landed and formed up as if on
parade, and then, with beautiful precision, marched on and drove the
enemy before them. The British, despite the fusillade which greeted
them on landing, were steady as veterans and there was no hope of
withstanding their landing.
But there was an electric quality about the charge of the Australians
that inspired panic in the Turkish trenches. Fiercely angry at the loss
of several of their officers, they charged with fixed bayonets, not
waiting for supports.
One charge was led by a doctor; another by a priest. Several times
they charged so fiercely that they looked like getting out of hand.
Scorning cover, they also scorned rifle fire. They scaled the
steel-lined heights like demons. It was the bayonet all the time.
One huge farmer actually bayoneted a Turk through the chest and
pitchforked him over his shoulder. The man who performed this feat was
a huge Queenslander--Sergeant Burne, of the 9th Battalion, who was
afterwards wounded and returned to his Australian home--a man whose
modesty is as great as his size. We smiled at first when we heard the
story, and people in England and Australia read of it with amazement.
But Sergeant Burne, standing over six feet high, and massively
proportioned, looks quite capable of the feat. He himself tells the
story in these words: "It is not a case for me to take any credit at
all," he said. "I was in the platoon that landed first on the right.
Our lieutenant was the first man to get ashore--and as game a man as
ever faced fire. I followed him. I was ordered to take in hand a line
of Turkish sharpshooters who were causing a lot of trouble. There was
also a machine-gun on the hill. Somebody had to stop it. Myself and
two lads went up, and we stopped it. That's all. There were ten Turks
there. We got the Turks and we got the machine-gun, but I lost my two
lads. They were only boys, but let me tell you the Australians are the
best fighters in the world. One of the lads 'fixed' the German officer
who was working the machine-gun. The Turks were higher up than we were,
and I suppose that is how I was able to throw one of them over my
shoulder. It's an old trick that is taught in the Guards."
Sergeant Burne once served in the Irish Guards, and he carries a scar
on his forehead, the result of a blow from the butt-end of a rifle
at Rhenosterkop, during the South African war. He had been living in
Australia for about six years when the Great War broke out, and he was
one of the first to answer the Empire's call. His stay on Gallipoli was
short, for on the same day as that on which he performed the feat of
which I have written he received a bullet in the shoulder.
"It was a very short experience," he said, "but I'll be back there
again."
And that was, and is, the spirit of them all.
It is sad to think that so many senior officers lost their lives right
at the outset of the fighting in the Dardanelles. Australia could ill
afford to lose men like Colonel Onslow Thompson, Colonel MacLaurin,
Major F. D. Irvine and Colonel Braund. Colonel MacLaurin was in the act
of warning soldiers to be certain to keep behind cover when he was shot
in the head. He was hurriedly conveyed to the rear, but only lingered
half an hour. Curiously enough, he had a presentiment that he would be
killed, and mentioned it to one of our Light Horse officers just before
leaving for the Dardanelles.
[Illustration: 1. Col. McCay, Brigadier 2nd Australian Infantry
Brigade. Wounded.
2. Lt.-Col. C. F. Cox, C.B., Commanding 6th Light Horse Regt.
3. Lt.-Col. Hubert Harris, 5th Light Horse Regt. Killed.
4. Col. M. Laurin, Brigadier 1st Australian Infantry Brigade. Killed.
5. Lt.-Col. Braund, V.D., O.C., 2nd Batt. 1st Infantry Brigade. Killed.
6. Lt.-Col. Onslow-Thompson. Killed.]
It was a wicked trick that resulted in the slaughter of so many
gallant men of the 1st (N.S.W.) Battalion. They had been holding the
line splendidly, despite shrapnel and maxim fire and rifles, and had
repulsed several attacks by the enemy. Then a message was passed down
the line for the battalion to attack and capture the guns in front. Not
doubting the genuineness of the order, the battalion charged, only to
be met with a withering fire, which immediately told them that a trap
had been set.
Their leader, Colonel Onslow Thompson, was killed instantaneously by
a cannon shot which struck him in the head. He was one of the first
to volunteer in Sydney when war broke out. Colonel Arnott knew that
Colonel Onslow Thompson was a splendid Light Horse officer, and begged
of him to wait for a mounted regiment. "No," he replied, "I'm going,
and I'll take the first chance that offers."
The casualties among the officers were tremendous--brave men who led
Australia's soldiers in that awful charge! And among the bravest
of them were the young officers from the Duntroon Military College
that stands amid delightful country surroundings near the capital of
Federated Australia that is now in the making in the Mother State of
New South Wales. These young fellows fought in a way that showed their
native courage and the excellence of their training. Only the year
before, when Sir Ian Hamilton, as Inspector-General of the Oversea
Forces, visited Australia and inspected these lads who were training
for the army at Duntroon, as the representative of the _Sydney Morning
Herald_ I remember seeing them laugh and cheer when Sir Ian Hamilton,
on leaving Duntroon, jokingly wished them "plenty of wars and rapid
promotion." And it seems only a few days since we were dancing and
flirting in a Cairo ballroom. Now many of them lie sorely wounded at
the base hospital, and several will never again hear the réveillé. But
the College will not forget its firstfruits offered up so gladly for
empire. Officers and men, it was all the same--they went to their death
with a cheer for King and Country. I heard an Imperial officer, newly
returned from Flanders, say that the 3rd Australian Infantry Brigade
was the finest brigade of infantry in the whole of the allied armies.
In physique they were far superior to any of the British, French, or
Belgian troops. Whether this be true or not, there is no doubt that
the sturdy Thirds under Colonel Maclagan fought like Trojans on the
Gallipoli Peninsula, and covered themselves with glory. Incidentally,
I might mention, some of them never fired a shot during the fierce
fighting of April 25. They simply trusted to the cold steel, and
flung themselves at the Turkish trenches. The 1st Brigade (Colonel
MacLaurin), the 2nd (Colonel McCay), and the rest of the Australians
and New Zealanders fought with equal valour, but the brunt of the
attack was borne by the Thirds. So many hundred gallant lives was a
heavy price to pay for a footing in Gallipoli, but those impetuous
charges, absolutely irresistible in their fury, would, we knew, bear
rich fruit, for the Turks could never again withstand a bayonet charge
by the Australians.
It was noteworthy that only a few thousand prisoners were taken. I
asked one of the 1st Battalion boys (Lieutenant-Colonel Dobbin's
command) why that was. He replied: "How could 12,000 of us take
prisoners when we were up against 35,000?"
And through it all our Army Medical Corps did yeoman service. Several
stretcher-bearers were shot, for they dashed forward too soon to
succour the wounded. The doctors were right up in the firing-line
all the while. Colonel Ryan and some other doctors were attending to
serious cases on the beach, where the landing was effected, and snipers
shot two orderlies who were assisting, one on each side of the colonel.
I doubt if there was a single branch of the service that did not suffer
and share in the glory of that charge.
General Bridges handled his gallant Australians with consummate skill.
He seemed to anticipate the Turkish attacks. His dispositions for
defence were brilliant. Then General Godley and his New Zealanders
landed and threw themselves into the fray. General Birdwood came and
took charge of the Australian, New Zealand Army Corps ... A.N.Z.A.C.!
From that fateful day, April 25, Anzac has been a name to conjure with.