Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War

by E. C. Buley

Many a time had the men of Anzac peered through their periscopes at that neck, and shaken their heads over the probable fate of any bold fellows who might venture to assault it. At dawn on August 7 the time had come for this arduous operation to be attempted, and the 8th and 10th Light Horse were selected for the experiment.

I am told that a previous bombardment of the position by the warships had been ordered, but men who took part in the charge are positive that nothing of the sort took place. Like the 2nd Brigade before the German Officers' Trench they were under no misconception of what was before them. Colonel White, who led the 8th, shook hands with Colonel Antill and said good-bye before the signal was given. He knew he was going to his death.

Twenty yards separated them from the enemy trench at the centre of the position and about fifty at the wings. No man crossed that twenty yards alive. One man of the 8th, it is said, reached the enemy parapet and sheltered under it, afterwards to crawl back unobserved to safety.

The 10th were hot on the heels of the 8th. This is a crack regiment raised by Major Todd of Western Australia, a fine soldier who had won his D.S.O. in the African War. Every man provided his own horse, and among them were some of the finest horsemen and athletes of their State.

They passed over a ground strewn with the bodies of their comrades. Some of them, taking advantage of slight depressions in the ground, threw themselves down to shelter from the tornado of bullets that met them. One little group, consisting of a lieutenant and half a dozen men, found themselves sheltered by a little hillock. They knew it was certain death to go on; without orders they would not retire.

As they lay as close to the ground as they could squeeze, the lieutenant made a suggestion. "Boys, a shilling in, and the winner shouts." (Shout is the Australian word for treating.) The suggestion was eagerly accepted, and the men chose their numbers, and proceeded to "sell a pony" after a time-honoured Australian custom. But before the lottery was decided they heard the "retire" whistle blow. "And so," said the narrator of the incident mournfully, "we never knew who ought to stand the drinks."

Men who can so behave in the very shadow of death are beyond any comment of mine.

The survivors returned to their trench, and made occasional dashes out to assist single wounded men, who were crawling painfully back to shelter. The whole affair was very soon over, and any one curious to know what it cost may turn up the casualty list of the 3rd Brigade of Light Horse for that date. But the enemy, who had packed their effects to turn on the landing force at Suvla, and on the New Zealanders who were now attacking Chunuk Bair, were held to the spot, so that the sacrifice of the Light Horse was not made in vain.

Almost simultaneously with the charge of the 3rd Brigade of Light Horse across the Neck to the Baby 700 trenches, the 1st Brigade (1st, 2nd and 3rd Regiments) made an equally desperate charge across the corner known as the Bloody Angle, the objective being the Turkish trenches at the foot of Dead Man's Ridge.

The 2nd Regiment (Queensland), under command of Major Logan, were supposed to charge from Quinn's Post, while the 1st Regiment (New South Wales) charged from the trenches at the foot of Pope's Hill. The first line of the Second left Quinn's Post at the signal, and as they crossed the parapet most of them crumpled up under a steady stream of machine-gun bullets. The remainder of the fifty men were all killed or wounded, with the exception of one man, before they had covered the twenty-five yards which separated the two lines. That one man, who came back unscathed, is said to have jumped high in the air at the place where he imagined the stream of bullets to be pouring across the line of charge, and so escaped even a scratch.