Gallipoli

“ For these reasons, and perhaps because the very names—Gallipoli, Dardanelles, Constantinople—sounded so romantic and full of adventure, I determined to revive an old, if egotistic, hobby of mine—the keeping of a diary. Throughout the Gallipoli campaign, therefore, almost religiously every day and with very few exceptions I recorded, as I have done in the past, the daily happenings of my life and the impressions such happenings made on me, and the thoughts that they created. ”

“ What we frequently distrust in the way of tucker holds no terrors for the Gallipoli flies; they delight in taking risks if only to impress us with their fearlessness. Stepping boldly on the edge of a syrup-covered biscuit, they immediately get their feet entangled; but they will not retreat—that would be against all their traditions. Instead, they will struggle their way towards the centre, where they gladly give up the contest and die. ”

“ The news spread through the ship like wildfire, and the cheer which rose above and below almost drowned the welcome notes of the warning trumpet, as it blew "boot and saddle"—a sound we had not heard since the day we marched from Maidstone.
"Gentlemen, welcome to Gallipoli!" said the staff officer, as he clattered into the cabin, with his steel scabbard and spurs, and proceeded forthwith to regale himself with a long glass of Seltzer, dashed with brandy, for the morning breeze was chilly as it swept across the Hellespont.
"It's a queer-looking place, this Gallipoli," said Beverley. ”

“ When morning came we only felt sorry that nature had made Gallipoli, a desirable place for us to land at. The tricolor was floating right and left, and the blue coats of the French were well marked on shore, the long lines of bullock-carts stealing along the strand towards their camp making it evident that they were taking care of themselves. ”

“ It was not till late in April that he could send her his impressions of Gallipoli.
"Take the dilapidated out-houses of a real old English farmyard, add to them every seedy, cracked, ricketty, wooden structure to be found in our slums, with a sprinkling of Thames-side huts, and tumble them all down higgledy-piggledy on a bare round hill sloping to the sea, scatter about a few slender white minarets, and you have the town--a place without shade, without water, without food. ”

“ Eighteen thousand British troops were now in Gallipoli, which, from being a quiet little den of Oriental dirt and Oriental indolence, Moslem filth and fatuity, became instinct with European life and bustle, by the presence of the soldiers of the allied armies. Those who landed with no other ideas of the Orient than such as were inspired by the "Arabian Nights," and Byron's poetry, were somewhat disappointed on beholding the dingy rows of queer and quaint wooden, rickety and dilapidated booths which composed the streets of this ancient Greek episcopal city of Gallipoli. ”

“ And those not taken thus would be under the ground, sweating in the trench, carrying sandbags up the sap, dodging death and danger, without rest or food or drink, in the blazing sun or the frost of the Gallipoli night, till death seemed relaxation and a wound a luxury. ”

“ The spectator who selects a high point of land on the undulating country round Brighton, and looks across the valley below, might form a tolerable idea of the terrain around Gallipoli. Crossing the hills in all directions, and piercing the ravines between them, the dark masses of French infantry advancing from their numerous encampments might at the period referred to be seen formed for miles around on every sloping plateau. ”

“ Not to Australians and New Zealanders alone, but to men of every race throughout the British Empire, the Peninsula of Gallipoli will for ever be sacred ground because of the brave men who lie buried there. ”

“ A night or two before I left Gallipoli we had a sudden downpour of rain which made the trenches raging torrents, and turned the dug-outs into diving baths; but still our men remained cheery throughout it all; nothing can depress them. ”

“ We all lunch together, and then roam round the village, buy a few things, and take photographs.
After tea, Duff goes on to Castra, by the sea on the other side of the island, and Munro and I go back to camp. It is beautiful riding back through the hills in the late afternoon. Perfect day and colouring gorgeous. Nearing camp we get a fine view of Gallipoli. All is so peaceful where we are, but just over that narrow strip of sea, war rules in its most horrible form. ”

“ We drew close to Gallipoli, and I thought of heroes more modern, lying there in graves that were not old, who had done deeds needing more courage than that of Ulysses and his men, and who had faced monsters of human machine guns more dreadful than dragons and many-headed dogs, and the Medusa head. The trenches were plainly visible—British and Turkish—and the old gun-emplacements, and the Lone Tree, and the barren slopes of Achi Baba where the flower of Australian and New Zealand youth had fallen, and many Irish and English boys. ”

“ The launch came up to Gallipoli wharf in the night and not long after daylight we were shaken out of our blankets to receive the call of the mutessarif, or local governor, a big, slow, saturnine man in semi-riding-clothes, with the red fez and a riding-whip in his hand, who spoke only Turkish and limited himself to few words of that. He was accompanied by a sort of secretary or political director—a plump little man, with glasses and a vague, slightly smiling, preoccupied manner, who acted as interpreter. ”

“ SUVLA BAY AND CHOCOLATE HILL
“Death is nothing; but to live vanquished and without
glory is to die every day.”—Napoleon. If you sail up the western coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula, soon after passing Anzac Cove, you will notice that the hills which have fringed the shore all the way from Cape Helles begin to run further inland, and that a gradually widening strip of level ground becomes visible between the cliffs and the sea. ”

“ There are others like them in various hospitals in England and Egypt; and also in a shady, tree-dotted ravine on the Peninsula of Gallipoli there is a row of graves, where also are my friends of the First Newfoundland Regiment.
The men our regiment lost, although they gladly fought a hopeless fight, have not died in vain. Constantinople has not been taken, and the Gallipoli campaign is fast becoming a memory, but things our men did there will not soon be forgotten. The foremost advance on the Suvla Bay front is Donnelly's Post on Caribou Ridge, made by the Newfoundlanders. ”

“ He lost his keenness, his cheerfulness, and his health. Once a man starts on that path, his past history finds him out, like an old wound. Some men take to drink and are disgraced. In Harry's case it was Gallipoli. No man who had a bad time in that place ever 'got over' it in body or soul. And when France or some other campaign began to work upon them, it was seen that there was something missing in their resisting power; they broke out with old diseases and old fears ... the legacies of Gallipoli. ”

“ Soldiers up in the Gallipoli hills, the captain on the bridge, a stevedore working on a lighter in the blaze of noon with the winch engines squealing round him—you turn round to find a man, busy the moment before, standing like a statue, hands folded in front of him, facing the east. ”

“ By this I knew that in all probability the Division was destined to play a most romantic part in the Great War. I had visions of trekking up the Gallipoli Peninsula with the Navy bombarding a way for us up the Straits and along the coast-line of the Sea of Marmora, [6] until after a brief campaign we entered triumphantly Constantinople, there to meet the Russian Army, which would link up with ourselves to form part of a great chain encircling and throttling the Central Empires. ”

“ They are now thoroughly familiar with the strange rough country of Gallipoli, of which one of them writes:—
"The world seems to have been built up on end, and the high cliffs are accessible only by the spurs and valleys. The place is very different now—roads have been cut and built, and steep as they [142] are, mules can reach the top fairly easily. It is very exasperating to look out on the peaceful flat country just a few miles away with peaceful homesteads in places. Our chief pastime in life is smashing Turkish periscopes, of which they don't possess very many. ”

“ It was with eleven hundred eager spirits that I lined up on a Sunday evening early in August, 1915, on the deck of a troopship, in Mudros Harbor, which is the center of the historic island of Lemnos, about fifty miles from Gallipoli. Around us lay all sorts of ships, from ocean leviathans to tiny launches and rowboats. There were gray and black-painted troopers, their rails lined with soldiers, immense four-funneled men-o'-war, and brightly lighted, white hospital ships, with their red crosses outlined in electric lights. The landing officer left us in a little motor boat. ”

“ The Division had been exceptionally fortunate in its chaplains. The robust cheerfulness of Father Murphy, the recondite knowledge of Father Stafford, Father O’Farrell’s boyish keenness, and the straightforward charm that made Father O’Connor such a good sportsman and such a good friend, were coupled with a fearlessness and devotion to duty common to all, that made them beloved by their own flock and liked and respected by those of other creeds. There was but little colour in Gallipoli ”

“ The extremity of Gallipoli Peninsula is as it were an imperial estate, and every day a round of work goes on at Helles, at Greenhill, at Suvla, and the rest. With the coming of summer the ships are coming with the marble, and the stone slabs will climb the hills where once our fellows struggled upward. It is a fine undertaking. No ranks are distinguished in the gravestones, and all are equal in sacrifice. ”

“ Every Turk on the southern portion of Gallipoli must inevitably have fallen into our hands within a few days, for it was well known that they were but ill supplied with ammunition and food. There was no chance of escape for them, for our Fleet commanded all the waters round Gallipoli up to the very Narrows themselves, and nothing could possibly have gained the Asiatic shore; while anything attempting to cross at the Narrows would have been inevitably sunk by the artillery which we would have mounted on the dominating heights of the Peninsula. ”

“ The Collect was probably being read thus softly at a number of tiny services dotted about the hills of Helles and Suvla. Never shall I hear it again without thinking of the last pages of the Gallipoli story, and of that Advent Sunday of big decisions. "O Lord, raise up thy power, and come among us ... that, whereas we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, Thy bountiful mercy may speedily help and deliver us." ”

“ The troops wild with enthusiasm and tremendously cheering especially as they passed the warships of our Allies.
Nunc Dimittis, O Lord of Hosts! Not a man but knows he is making for the jaws of death. They know, these men do, they are being asked to prove their enemies to have lied when they swore a landing on Gallipoli's shore could never make good. They know that lie must pass for truth until they have become targets to guns, machine guns and rifles—huddled together in boats, helpless, plain to the enemy's sight. ”

“ His study of Gallipoli is absent—that long, straight flight of writing which preserves forever still another crowd of bright and deathless figures on the beaches near Troy. One recalls fugitive other pieces. ”

“ Nothing stops him; no one seems to see him; he stands invisible in the visible world—in a world apart, 'indeed, to which the curious, self-conscious Westerner is not admitted, where, doubtless, he is no more than the dust which the other shakes from his feet before he is fit to address his God.
The Marmora narrowed, we passed Gallipoli on the European side, where the English and French hostages had had their curious adventure the week before, and on into the Dardanelles proper and the zone of war. ”

“ The 4th Australian Infantry Brigade was held in reserve.
In the dark, the eager groups made ready to carry out their hazardous task. It is a strange impulse that prompts thoughtful men to face death so eagerly. But up there in the gloom of the dark Gallipoli night, at the very salient of the Anzac line, only twenty yards from a stubborn foe, these daring young infantrymen carefully examined their rifles and hand-grenades, finally adjusting their equipment, and peered at their wristlet watches slowly ticking off the leaden-footed minutes. ”

“ The events of that day of death and glory have been sung, and painted, and told, and require but brief reference here. ‘No army in history,’ says the poet who wrote a prose-epic called Gallipoli [34] , ‘has been set such a task. No other troops in the world would have made [55] good those beaches,’ and it is heartening to recall that troops from the West Riding of Yorkshire were included in this unique band.
“MODERN MODEL OF TROJAN WOODEN HORSE.”
For five months, from April till September, our Field Company of Royal Engineers remained on the Gallipoli Peninsula. ”

“ We do know the truth of Gallipoli here. Man likes to know what he is up against. Seven Divisions at the start would have fixed this job, no ships would have been lost, and our little friend Bulgaria would have thought twice of coming in against us. All night outside we hear the crack-crack-crack of the rifles in the trenches. Worcesters did a good bit of work the other night, capturing a sniper’s post three hundred [263] yards in front. Only two casualties over that little job; they expected more. Turks in front of the 29th have fairly “got the wind up.” We bomb and shell their nerves away. ”