With the Zionists in Gallipoli
J. H. PATTERSON
[Illustration]
WITH THE ZIONISTS IN GALLIPOLI
LIEUT. COL. J. H. PATTERSON, D.S.O.
[Illustration: THE HOLLOWED HAND GIVES A VERY GOOD IDEA OF THE
APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY]
WITH THE ZIONISTS IN GALLIPOLI
BY
LIEUT. COL. J. H. PATTERSON, D.S.O.
AUTHOR OF "THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO,"
"IN THE GRIP OF THE NYIKA," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1916,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
The narrative of the Zionists in Gallipoli has been written during the
enforced idleness of the past month--a month which has been spent in
endeavouring to recover sufficient health and strength to enable me to
take a further, and, I trust, a more useful, hand in the Great Drama now
approaching its climax.
In the following pages I have "set down nought in malice," neither have
I given a word of praise where praise is not due--and more than due. My
relations with those with whom I came into contact were excellent, and
on the very rare occasions when they were otherwise, it was not due to
any seeking of mine, but, unfortunately, my temperament is not such that
I can suffer fools gladly.
My story is one of actual happenings, told just as I saw them with some
suggestions thrown in, and if from these a hint is taken here and there
by those in the "Seats of the Mighty," then so much the better for our
Cause.
My chief object in writing this book is to interest the Hebrew nation in
the fortunes of the Zionists and show them of what their Russian
brothers are capable, even under the command of an alien in race and
religion. Those who have the patience to follow me through these pages
will, of course, see that I am not by any means an alien in sympathy and
admiration for the people who have given to the world some of its
greatest men, not to mention The Man who has so profoundly changed the
world's outlook.
LONDON, 1916.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I INTRODUCTION 17
II GENERAL POLICY OF THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN 32
III STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN 37
IV FORMATION OF THE ZION MULE CORPS 46
V ARRIVAL AT LEMNOS 62
VI A STRENUOUS NIGHT 72
VII DESCRIPTION OF SOUTHERN GALLIPOLI 85
VIII A HOMERIC CONFLICT 89
IX THE ZION MULE CORPS LAND IN GALLIPOLI 106
X A NIGHT UP THE GULLY RAVINE 120
XI HOW ZION MULES UPSET TURKISH PLANS 127
XII LIFE IN OUR NEW CAMP 136
XIII A MAY BATTLE 147
XIV GENERAL D'AMADE AND THE CORPS EXPÉDITIONNAIRE D'ORIENT 154
XV VARIOUS BOMBARDMENTS 159
XVI THE COMING OF THE GERMAN SUBMARINES 166
XVII TRENCH WARFARE IN GALLIPOLI 170
XVIII GUNS AND STAFF 182
XIX VISITS TO THE TRENCHES 188
XX FLIES, DUST AND BATTLE 195
XXI WORK OF THE ZION MULE CORPS 203
XXII THE AUSTRALIANS AND NEW ZEALANDERS 210
XXIII VOYAGE TO EGYPT 222
XXIV RECRUITING IN EGYPT 228
XXV LIFE IN EGYPT 234
XXVI RETURN TO GALLIPOLI 244
XXVII BEELZEBUB 252
XXVIII A FEAT IN GUNNERY 259
XXIX THE FINDING OF THE SHIELD OF DAVID 269
XXX BACK TO ENGLAND 277
XXXI THE EVACUATION 291
APPENDIX 297
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE HOLLOWED HAND GIVES A VERY GOOD IDEA OF
THE APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY _Frontispiece_
PAGE
THE DARDANELLES, SEA OF MARMORA AND BOSPHORUS 17
BADGE OF THE ZION MULE CORPS (THE SHIELD OF DAVID) 270
WITH THE ZIONISTS IN GALLIPOLI
[Illustration: THE DARDANELLES SEA OF MARMORA AND BOSPHORUS]
WITH THE ZIONISTS IN GALLIPOLI
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
I propose in the following pages to have something to say on the general
policy of the Gallipoli campaign, and also upon the operations of war in
execution of that policy. Now, in the discussion of these questions, I
shall have some criticisms to make, so it may not be altogether
inappropriate to give the reader some little idea of a few at least of
my qualifications for such a rôle; otherwise he might well be tempted to
say: "A fig for this fellow and his criticisms. What is he but a mere
muleteer?"
Perhaps I may remark, to begin with, that when I took over the command
of the Zion Mule Corps, I knew a great deal about soldiering and the art
of war, but very little about the muleteer or the artful mule. But
that's just "a way we have in the Army!"
From my boyhood I have either been a soldier or taken the keenest
interest in soldiering, not only in England but in all parts of the
world. My military experiences extend through home, India and South
Africa, and have been by no means of a sketchy character. I spent the
best part of three years in South Africa, where I commanded a Yeomanry
regiment, and at times Regular troops of all arms, during the Boer War.
Those were glorious days--days when one could thoroughly enjoy
warfare--a wild gallop over the veldt, a good fight in the open, and the
day won by the best men.
In these days war is robbed of all its glory and romance. It is now but
a dyke-maker's job, and a dirty one at that; but much as the soldier may
dislike this method of warfare, it has come to stay, and we must make
the best of a bad job, adapt ourselves to the new conditions, and by
sticking it out, as we have always done, wear down the foe.
In addition to practical experience of soldiers and soldiering in
England, India, and South Africa, I have watched our troops at work and
play in many out-of-the-way parts of the Empire--the King's African
Rifles in East Africa and Uganda; the Cape Mounted Rifles in South
Africa; the "Waffs" in West Africa; the "Gippies" in Egypt, and the
North-West mounted men of Canada away in the wilds of the Klondyke.
Nor have I confined my attention to the Empire's soldiers only.
In my various visits to America, I looked very keenly into the training
and organisation of the American Army. I was especially fortunate in
being able to do this, as I had the privilege of being Colonel Theodore
Roosevelt's guest at the White House, while he was President, and his
letters of introduction made me a welcome visitor everywhere. I saw
something of the Cavalry and Artillery both East and West. I watched
their Infantry amidst the snows of Alaska. I also noted what excellent
game preservers the Cavalry troopers made in the Yellowstone Park--that
wonderful National Reserve, crammed with nature's wonders and denizens
of the wild, where a half-tamed bear gave me the run of my life!
Whenever I was with American soldiers, their methods were so like our
own that I never could feel I was with strangers.
There is only one fault to find with America's Army, and that is that
there is not enough of it; for its size, I should say that it is one of
the finest in the world. Never have I seen more efficiency anywhere,
more keenness among officers and N. C. O.'s; and certainly never in any
army have I eaten such delicious food as is supplied to the American
private soldier; the soldiers' bread, such as I tasted at Fort Riley,
baked in military ovens, cannot be surpassed at the "Ritz," "Savoy" or
"Plaza."
It is incomprehensible to me why the average American should have such a
strong prejudice against the Army. He seems to imagine that it is some
vague kind of monster which, if he does not do everything in his power
to strangle and chain up, will one day turn and rend him, and take all
his liberties away.
To give some little idea of the feeling of Americans towards soldiers or
soldiering, I will relate a little conversation which I overheard at
Davenport, a town away out in the State of Iowa. I had had a very
strenuous morning in the hot sun, watching the 7th Cavalry at squadron
training and other work, and had got back to the hotel, thoroughly tired
out after my arduous day. In the afternoon I was sitting on the shady
side of the hotel which was on the main street; at a table near me were
seated three Americans whose remarks I could not help overhearing; they
were travellers in various small articles, one of them being a
specialist in neckties; while they were talking two men of the 7th
Cavalry walked past; my friend, the necktie man, looked after them,
shook his head, and in most contemptuous tones said: "I suppose we must
pay the lazy, useless brutes just for the look of the thing." The
speaker was a pasty-faced, greasy, fat hybrid, about twenty-eight years
old. I am afraid he was a type of which there are many in America; their
God is the almighty dollar, an idol the blind worship of which will one
day surely bring its own punishment.
Of course I do not, for a moment, wish it to be thought that people of
this type predominate in America. I am happy to state that among her
citizens I have met some of the most charming, hospitable, intellectual,
unselfish and noble people to be found on the face of the globe.
America holds many interests for me, and I never fail to pay our cousins
a visit when the opportunity occurs. Perhaps the chief of her
attractions, so far as I am concerned, centre in and around the State of
Virginia, that beautiful piece of country where most of the great
battles of the Civil War were fought.
All my life I have made a point of studying military history and the
campaigns of the great Captains of the past. Indeed, I have tramped over
many battlefields in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, not at all with
the idea that the knowledge would ever prove of value from a military
point of view, but solely because I was deeply interested in soldierly
matters.
In Spain and Flanders I have followed the footsteps of both Napoleon and
Wellington.
In Canada I have sailed up the stately St. Lawrence, and with Wolfe in
imagination again stormed the Heights of Abraham. When I stood on those
heights some one hundred and fifty years after the great victory which
added Canada to the Empire, I was able to realise, more fully than I had
ever been able to do from books, the magnitude of the task which General
Wolfe had before him when, on that fateful night of the 13th September,
1759, he led his troops up that precipitous road to victory.
In the United States I have, on horseback and on foot, followed
Stonewall Jackson up and down the Shenandoah Valley, from Harper's Ferry
(over the Potomac) to the Wilderness, where he was seized with such
strange inertia, and on to that fatal Chancellorsville where an unlucky
bullet, fired from his own lines, put an end to his life and all chances
of victory for the South.
When I was at Washington, General Wotherspoon, the Chief of the War
College there, very kindly supplied me with maps and notes which he had
himself made of the battlefield of Gettysburg, and I am convinced that,
if General Longstreet had arrived on the field in time, victory would
have rested with the South; and I am equally convinced that, if
Stonewall Jackson had been alive, Longstreet would have been in his
proper place at the right time.
What a pity we have no Stonewall Jackson with us in these days. How
noble is the epitaph on the monument of this great soldier. I only quote
the words from memory, but they are something like this:
"When the Almighty in His Omnipotence saw fit to give victory to
the North over the South, He found that it was first necessary
to take to Himself Stonewall Jackson."
It was a great pleasure to me to see his wife, Mrs. Stonewall Jackson,
when I was at Washington, but unfortunately I did not have the chance
of speaking to her.
I was delighted to meet Miss Mary Lee several times, the daughter of the
best loved General that ever led an Army--Robert E. Lee, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate Forces. Miss Lee gave me much
pleasure by recounting many anecdotes about her famous father. Among
other interesting reminiscences she told me that when the war broke out
her youngest brother was a mere boy still at school, but the stirring
accounts of the great fights in which his father commanded and his older
brothers took part, so fired his ardour that one day he disappeared from
school, and was not heard of by any of his family for the best part of a
year. During this time he served as a soldier in a battery of Artillery.
One day, while a furious battle was raging and the fortunes of war
swayed first to the South and then to the North, General Lee observed
some of his guns rapidly retiring from a particularly hot position. He
galloped up to them himself and ordered them back into the fight. The
Commander-in-Chief was somewhat surprised when a powder-blackened,
mud-grimed young soldier, in a blood-stained shirt, said to him: "What,
Dad, back into that hell again?"--and back into that hell the General
sternly sent them at a gallop, and by so doing won the day for the
South. Luckily, his boy came out of the battle unscathed and is alive to
this day.
A few years ago I received an invitation from the German General Staff
to visit Berlin. What I saw then, and on subsequent visits, impressed me
very much with the thoroughness of the German nation, not only from a
military, but also from a civil point of view.
A captain on the Staff was detailed to be my "bear-leader," while I was
in Berlin. As we were strolling down Unter den Linden one day,
discussing the youthfulness of senior officers of the British Army, as
compared with those of the German Army, he confided to me that when he
was ordered to conduct an English Colonel, he fully expected to see an
old and grizzled veteran, whereas to his astonishment, he found me
younger than himself, who was only a Captain. I shall never forget how,
when I laughingly told him that I had jumped from Lieutenant to
Lieutenant Colonel in about eight months during the South African War,
he stopped short in the middle of the pavement, saluted me gravely and
said: "You are Napoleon!" Of course, in these days, this meteoric
flight is quite an everyday occurrence in our Army!
Among many other interesting things that the Prussian Captain showed me
was their Hall of Glory, the walls of which are covered with pictures of
famous battles and generals. While we were there I saw little parties of
Prussian recruits being taken from picture to picture, guided by
veterans. With straightened shoulders and glowing eye the old soldiers
kindled the enthusiasm of the coming warriors by recounting to them the
glorious and daring deeds performed by their forefathers on many a
well-fought field.
This, no doubt, is only one of the numerous carefully thought out
schemes of the General Staff to instil into the German nation the spirit
of military pride and glory.
I paid another visit to Germany shortly before the present war broke
out, and, soon after my return, I happened to meet in London the German
Military Attaché, Major Renner, who seemed most anxious to hear from me
what my impressions were. I suppose he wondered if I had seen much of
the vast preparations, which were even then being made, for the great
war into which Germany has plunged the world. Of all my observations
the only things I confided to him (which he noted down as if they were
of great importance!) were that I considered the abominable type used in
German newspapers and books responsible for the be-spectacled German;
that although their railway stations were wonderfully clean, yet they
were without a decent platform, and my insular modesty had been shocked
on many occasions by the amount of German leg I saw when the ladies
clambered into and out of the carriages; and lastly, that I thought the
long and handsome cloak worn by the officers might be greatly improved
by making a slit at the side, so that the hilt of the sword might be
outside, instead of inside the cloak, where not only did it make an
unsightly lump, but was hard to get at in case of urgent need.
A day or two after war was declared, I happened to be dining in London
with Mr. and Mrs. Walrond. Among the other guests was a Staff Officer
from the War Office, Major R., who is now a general. Hearing that I had
been recently in Germany, he asked me what I thought of their chances. I
told him that I felt sure that Germany would have tremendous victories
to begin with, and that I believed her armies would get to the gates of
Paris, but did not think they would capture Paris this time; and that,
although it would take us time, we would beat them eventually, for so
long as we held command of the sea, we were bound to win in the end.
Some of the guests at this dinner party have since complimented me on
the accuracy of the first part of my prophecy, and I feel absolutely
convinced that the remainder of my forecast will, in spite of all
bungling, prove equally true, always provided the Navy is given a free
hand, and allowed to do its work in its own way.
In poor, brave little Belgium also I had every opportunity given to me
by the General Staff to see their Cavalry at work; and while I was in
Brussels, Colonel Fourcault, commanding the 2nd Guides, gave me the
freedom of the barracks, where I could come and go as I liked. I became
very good friends with the officers of the regiment, and we had
discussions about Cavalry, its equipment and fighting value. On being
asked for my opinion on the relative value of the rifle as compared with
the lance and sabre, I unhesitatingly backed the rifle. I saw that the
Belgian Cavalry were armed with a small, toylike carbine and a heavy
sabre, and in the discussions which we had, I told them that in my
humble opinion they would be well advised to scrap both and adopt the
infantry rifle and a lighter thrusting sword--but above all I impressed
upon them to be sure about the rifle, as the occasions for the use of
the _arme blanche_ in future would be rare, with all due deference to
General von Bernhardi.
I was, of course, looked upon as a Cavalry leper for expressing such
heretical opinions in a Cavalry mess, but I had my revenge later on,
when Captain Donnay de Casteau of the 2nd Guides called on me at my club
during his stay in London after poor little Belgium had been crushed. He
came especially to tell me that those who were left of the regiment
often talked of the unorthodox views I had so strongly expressed and he
said: "We all had to agree that every word you told us has proved
absolutely true."
While I was in Belgium I went down to the now famous Mons, and was the
guest of the 7th Chasseurs à Cheval, where I got a thorough insight into
the interior economy of the regiment.
It has always been a profound mystery to me that our Intelligence did
not give Field-Marshal French earlier information while he was at Mons
of the fact that large German forces were marching upon him from the
direction of Tournai. Some strange and fatal inertia must have fallen
both on the French Intelligence and our own, otherwise it would have
been impossible for a large German army to have got into this
threatening position without information having been sent to the
Commander-in-Chief.
When in Spain I was privileged, owing to the courtesy of the Madrid War
Office, to see something of the Spanish Army. I cannot say that I was
deeply impressed; there was too much "_Mañana_" about it, or in other
words, "Wait and see!" From what I observed I was not at all surprised
to find it crumple up before the Americans in Cuba. It would, however,
be a glorious thing to be a colonel in the Spanish Army, as they seemed
to be able to do what was right in their own eyes.
But this was some years ago, and I understand that the Spanish Army, now
that it has got a brand-new General Staff, is to be completely
reorganised and made into a really efficient fighting force.
Of course I have many times seen the French and Italian armies at work
and play--so that altogether my knowledge of soldiers and soldiering is
somewhat catholic, and I may therefore claim to have some little right
to criticise the policy, the strategy, and the tactics of the Gallipoli
campaign.