Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War. Buley Ernest Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ "the barbed wire was something beyond belief." Three months later Gaba Tepe still remained in the hands of the Turks.

      The actual losses in these first days of fighting were excessively heavy, and the little force of Australasians, now facing a ring of 25,000 Turks, counted the missing ones ruefully, not only in grief for their dead and wounded comrades, but because the strain placed upon the survivors was by so much the heavier.

      The Second Brigade, composed of Victorians led by General McCay, had landed with 4,300 men. After the unsuccessful attack on Gaba Tepe, nine days later, the roll-call showed 2,600 remaining. A week later the same brigade was engaged in a glorious charge at Krithia, and returned with only 1,600 men. In a little over a fortnight that Brigade had lost over 60 per cent. of its effectives, a heavy toll indeed.

      The experience of those early days had already taught the adaptable Australasians many new things about bush fighting. They had learned, for instance, how to deal with the snipers who had infested the hillsides; and in a very short time put an end to them. This was highly necessary, for in the first two or three days' fighting the toll in officers had been intolerable, owing to the efforts of these sharpshooters, whose mission was to pick off the leaders of the men.

      The Australian method of stalking them called for a considerable amount of hardihood on the part of those practising it. Two of them would go out after one sniper, having roughly marked down the spot where he lay by the sound of his rifle. They separated as they crawled near him, so that one could approach him from either side. Stealthily they crawled through the olive bush, waiting sometimes for long half hours for the crack of his rifle to assist in locating him. At last the exact thicket that sheltered him would be located; then, at a given signal, both would rush on him with fixed bayonets. Usually he was alert enough to account for one of them, but the other invariably got him. Those snipers were ready to surrender when caught and held at bay, and the self-control of an Australasian who could spare the enemy who had just shot down his comrade is hard to estimate.

      Another new employment was the throwing of bombs, home-made for the greater part. An empty jam tin, with some fuse and explosive, were materials from which the handy bushmen constructed very serviceable bombs, which were employed at that part of the line between Quinn's Post and Courtney's Post, where the trenches approached very closely together.

      One team of bomb throwers achieved fame as the Test team, because the sergeant always distributed the ammunition in his own way. He made the distribution a "catching" practice, the bomb forming the cricket ball. The record of no catches missed was well sustained; exactly what might have happened had one been dropped had better be left to the imagination.

      It was at this period of their occupation of Gallipoli that the word by which they have since become famous was coined. Every case of ammunition and every parcel of stores landed on their beaches bore the initials of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, thus: A N Z A C, and the little cove where they were landed was quickly christened Anzac Cove. But the real popularity of the word dated from the time when an interpreter pointed out that this was really a Turkish word, meaning "wholly just."

      It was at once adopted as a name for the area they occupied, and was avidly seized upon by the British and Australasian Press as a handy and expressive substitute for Australasian, a cumbrous title that has always offended those who have had to use it most frequently. So the Australasians became the Anzacs, a title under which they have won fame and will live for ever in the history of warfare.

      During the whole of this time they had heard and seen nothing of their British comrades, who had landed on the southern point of the peninsula of Gallipoli at the same moment as they were scaling the cliffs above Brighton Beach. The German spies who did so much to confuse the initial operations were continually passing word to detached bands to cease firing, as the British, or the French, were immediately in front of them. Little attention was paid to these false statements, except that a vigorous search was made for the originators, and summary justice meted out to them when found. For the Australians were well informed of the movements of the other detachments of the Allied forces.

      Between these and the Australasian post at Gaba Tepe towered a range of hills, rising to its highest point at Achi Baba, the Gibraltar of Gallipoli peninsula. The means of communication between the two holdings was limited to the sea, for the Turks were strongly posted, right down to the coast, in the intermediate territory.

      By means of the sea, communication was established on May 6 between the two forces; and 4,000 Australasians were detached for the time being to help in the operations of the main body of the Allied armies before the village of Krithia. The men chosen were the Second Brigade of Australians, and the New Zealand infantry. They were taken off on small boats, transferred to trawlers, and carried to the major scene of operations, where they distinguished themselves after a fashion now to be described.

      CHAPTER VII

      THE CHARGE AT KRITHIA

      The men of Anzac were now called upon to take their part in a great concerted attack, made by all the forces commanded by Sir Ian Hamilton on Gallipoli Peninsula. Those familiar with the operations in Gallipoli will remember that, simultaneously with the landing of the Australasians at Gaba Tepe, no less than five landings had been effected by the British and French expeditionary forces further south, on points situated on the extreme southern point of the peninsula.

      A great mountain rampart lay between these forces and the Anzacs, culminating in the summit of Achi Baba, the hardest nut to crack in the whole peninsula. Loftily situated on the slopes of Achi Baba is the village of Krithia, protected by a maze of Turkish trenches, and a wilderness of barbed wire entanglements. Upon this village an attack was directed from as many points as practicable, and in this attack a large proportion of the Australasian troops participated.

      The attack was opened by such a fusillade of shellfire from the warships of the allied fleet as has seldom been seen or heard. From all quarters they rained shell and shrapnel on the slopes of Krithia, searching the ranges one by one in the attempt to dislodge the defenders from their trenches and hiding-places along the scrubby hillsides and precipitous ravines. The enemies' losses from that shellfire were enormous, but the Turks are admirable defensive fighters, and they clung to their trenches, making the most of the shelters that had been constructed in anticipation of such an attack.

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