"Over There" with the AustraliansKnyvett, R. Hugh (Reginald Hugh)
History
"Over There" with the Australians
Knyvett, R. Hugh (Reginald Hugh)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
The whole nation brooded over these young men, guardians of Australia's
honor, and waited anxiously for them to wipe out this slur. That
explains Australia's pride in "Anzac." It meant for us not merely our
baptism in blood--it was more even than a victory--for there, with the
fierce search-light of every nation turned upon it, our representative
manhood showed no faltering--but proved it was of the true British
breed, having nevertheless a bearing in battle that was uniquely its
own. In this age of bravest men the Australian has an abandon in fight
which on every battlefield marks him as different from any other
soldier.
There is an insidious German propaganda suggesting that the Australians
are very sore at the failure on Gallipoli and that we blame the British
Government and staff for having sent us to perish in an impossible
task. I want to say, that while in the Australian army, as private, N.
C. O. and officer, I never heard a single criticism of the government
for the Gallipoli business. There is no man who was on the Peninsula
who does not admire General Sir Ian Hamilton, and most of the officers
believe that Britain has never produced a more brilliant general. That
the expedition failed was not the fault of the commander-in-chief nor
of the troops. And, anyway, we Australians are good enough sports to
realize that there must be blunders here and there, and we're quite
ready to bear our share of the occasional inevitable disaster.
But Gallipoli was not the failure many people think. Some people seem
to have the idea that a hundred thousand troops were intended to beat a
couple of million, and take one of the strongest cities in the world.
There never was a time when the Turks did not outnumber us five to one,
when they did not have an enormous reserve, in men, equipment, and
munitions, immediately at their back, while our base was five hundred
miles away in Egypt. The Turks had a Krupp factory at Constantinople
within a few hours of them, turning out more ammunition per day than
they were using, while ours had to come thousands of miles from
England. Of course, we were never intended to take Constantinople.
The expedition was a purely naval one, and we were a small military
force, auxiliary to the navy, that was to seize the Narrows and enable
the ships to get within range of Constantinople, and so compel its
surrender. We failed, in this final objective, but we accomplished a
great deal, nevertheless. We held back probably a million Turks from
the Russians, and we left, in actual counted dead Turkish bodies, more
than double our own casualties (killed, wounded, and missing). But,
above all, we definitely impressed the German mind with the fact that
Great Britain did not only mean the British Isles but the equally loyal
and brave fighters from Britain overseas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account