Australasia Triumphant!: With the Australians and New Zealanders in the Great War on Land and Sea

by Arthur St. John Adcock

Since the 28th April the French and British troops pushing in from Hellas have hurled themselves again and again against the hills and defences before the grim mountain of Achi Baba, whose great spurs, stretching from Saros Gulf across to the Dardanelles, command the whole southern section of the Peninsula; and again and again, after performing prodigies of valour, strewing the soil with the enemy's dead and capturing trenches over wide stretches of hard-fought ground, they have been forced by the avalanche of shell and machine gun fire from the mountain heights and the furious counter-attacks of irresistible numbers to relinquish their winnings and fall back stubbornly to their own positions.

AUSTRALIA'S SPLENDID CORPS OF MOUNTED AMBULANCE MEN.
A wounded man about to be transferred from an emergency blanket sling to the regulation stretcher.

THE DARDANELLES–MEN BATHING AFTER RETURNING FROM AN ATTACK.

Between the 6th and 12th May a series of desperate attacks on the powerful, scientifically prepared fortifications before Achi Baba were repelled, but certain strategical points and some hundreds of yards of front were taken and successfully held. One such attack, which saw some of the most Homeric fighting that has been done even on this terrible peninsula, lasted almost continuously for three days ending on 8th May. The French and British forces all took part in it, and among the latter were the 2nd Australian and the New Zealand Infantry Brigades. These were at first kept in reserve, but on the evening of the 6th the Lancashire Fusiliers, who had been trapped in a wood on the left wing of the advance and suffered heavy losses from concealed machine guns, were transferred to the base, and the New Zealand Brigade was sent to replace them, with orders to go forward in the morning through the line held during the night by the 88th Brigade, and develop the attack towards Krithia.

On the 7th, Sir Ian Hamilton reports, "at 10.15 a.m. heavy fire from ships and batteries was opened on the whole front, and at 10.30 a.m. the New Zealand Brigade began to move, meeting with strenuous opposition from the enemy, who had received his reinforcements." They advanced beyond the wood, or clump of fir trees, in which the Lancashires had suffered so badly, and by 1.30 had gained about 200 yards beyond the most advanced trenches that had been occupied by the 88th Brigade. Then the French reported that they could not advance up the spur they were to storm on the right till the British had made further progress. So at 4 p.m. Sir Ian gave orders that "the whole line, reinforced by the 2nd Australian Brigade, would fix bayonets, slope arms, and move on Krithia precisely at 5.30." After a quarter of an hour of effective bombardment by the heavy artillery and the guns of the ships, the movement was promptly and vigorously carried out. It was characteristic of the alert, self-reliant spirit of all the Australasians that "some of the companies of the New Zealand regiments did not get their orders in time, but, acting on their own initiative, they pushed on as soon as the heavy howitzers ceased firing, thus making the whole advance simultaneous." Then the French swept forward and stormed the first Turkish redoubt on the ridge that faced them with a wonderful élan that was not to be baulked of its object. Decimated by shrapnel and machine guns, they were driven back, but rallied and returned to the charge with redoubled fury, were beaten back, and re-formed and dashed ahead once more, and as the darkness fell "a small supporting column of French soldiers was seen silhouetted against the sky as they charged upwards along the crest of the ridge of the Kereves Dere." Then the night closed down, and all the battlefield and whatever was doing on it were hidden in blackest darkness.

"Not until next morning did any reliable detail come to hand of what had happened. The New Zealanders' firing line had marched over the cunningly concealed enemy's machine guns without seeing them, and these, reopening on our supports as they came up, caused them heavy losses. But the first line pressed on and arrived within a few yards of the Turkish trenches which had been holding up our advance beyond the fir wood. There they dug themselves in. The Australian Brigade had advanced through the Composite Brigade and, in spite of heavy losses from shrapnel, machine gun, and rifle fire, had progressed from 300 to 400 yards."

The result of those three days of stubborn fighting was a net gain of 600 yards on the British right, and 400 on the left and centre; and the French had captured the redoubt they had fought for so heroically as well as a considerable area of ground. In the next two days the Turks made repeated and costly efforts, harried on by their German leaders, to regain their losses; but their prodigal cannonading and reckless hand-to-hand combats were unavailing and they were everywhere repulsed. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps "strengthened their grip on Turkish soil," and on the whole, says Sir Ian, "now for the first time I felt that we had planted a fairly firm foothold upon the point of the Gallipoli Peninsula.

"The determined valour shown by these two brigades," he notes in concluding this phase of his dispatch, "the New Zealand Brigade under Brigadier-General F. E. Johnston, and the 2nd Australian Infantry Brigade under Brigadier-General the Hon. J. W. McCay, are worthy of particular praise. Their losses were correspondingly heavy, but, in spite of fierce counter-attacks by numerous fresh troops, they stuck to what they had won with admirable tenacity."