Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War

by E. C. Buley

In his speech delivered in the House of Lords on September 15, the Minister for War said: "It is only fair to acknowledge that, judged from a humane point of view, the methods of warfare pursued by the Turks are vastly superior to those which disgraced their German masters."

The unanimous testimony of the Australasians supports this statement of Lord Kitchener. The decency and fairness with which the Turk makes war came as a pleasant surprise to the Australasians, who had been led to expect something so entirely different that they landed on Gallipoli with very stern resolves. My own cousin, a private in the 2nd Brigade, has told me that he and all his mates had determined to end their lives, rather than fall into the hands of the Turks as prisoners. A similar resolve was carried out by many an Australasian soldier in the first weeks of the fighting. Yet the testimony of the Australasians who fell into Turkish hands is now to hand and shows that they are treated with remarkable consideration.

The rumours of Turkish atrocities were rapidly dissipated, and the Australasian soldier soon got to respect the Turk as a brave man and fair fighter. The fact that a hospital ship was always moored off Anzac Cove within easy range of the Turkish guns, and was never known to suffer, is prima facie evidence to the Australasians of the honesty of Turkish intentions. The consideration shown to their wounded general, mentioned elsewhere in this book, made a deep impression in the Australasian ranks. The prevailing opinion of the Turk is now a very favourable one; and I will let one of the Australian friends I have made in British hospitals voice it on behalf of his comrades.

"Foreign travel expands the mind," sententiously observed Trooper Billy Clancy, of the Australian Light Horse. "I had to travel in a troopship to Gallipoli to learn that all I thought I knew about the Turk was not so. Many's the time I didn't know anything at all about Turks. I expected to find a lot of jelly-bellies in baggy trousers and turned-up slippers, with gaspipe guns and hooked noses. I thought they'd be cruel cowards, rotten shots, and easy marks. I thought I was going to serve it up hot to the men with the bull's-wool whiskers. And that was just where I was wrong; I know better now.

"To begin with, my friend Bismillah is quite as well equipped as anyone else for modern war. He has a better rifle than we have, if anything. I have two scars on my left forearm that show he knows how to use it. He carries plenty of cartridges, and in his pockets two or three up-to-date bombs guaranteed to hurt the other fellow. Sometimes he paints his face green and lets on that he is a tree. Sometimes he quits his trench and pretends he is a mountain goat, trying for a record in the hill-climbing class. But he's a soldier all the time—a born soldier and a brave one. Fighting for home and country dear is meat and drink to him.

"They used to say the Turks were cruel and tortured the wounded. No Australian believes that at Anzac now. Why, there was a Turk in the trenches opposite us at Russell's Top that we used to call Fatty Burns. Of course, that was not his name, but we called him that because he looked so much like Fatty Burns that kept the Ninety-mile shanty on the road to Winton. He had the same short beard and Roman nose, the same bright black eye and a benevolent expression as much as to say, 'I wouldn't lamb a bushman down.' This Turk was the dead spit of Fatty—like brothers they were.

"He was always sticking up his head and getting fired at. Then he would signal a miss and laugh like one o'clock. You could hear him quite plain, for the trenches were only twenty-five yards apart. At last the fellows gave up shooting at him. 'It's only Fatty Burns,' they used to say. We got to look for his cheerful grin, and sometimes we used to fire just to hear him laugh.

"One morning early, we made a bit of a demonstration, and left two of our boys wounded out on an open space between the trenches. No one could go to them, and there they lay in the burning sun. Presently somebody said, 'Here comes Fatty Burns.' The old chap puts his head and shoulders out of the trench and salaams like a Cairo shopkeeper. We were all struck dumb. Next he climbed out of the trench, which was a bold thing to do, and walked over to our wounded. A dozen rifles were covering him, and I expect he knew it. But Fatty just strolled.

"You could have heard a pin drop, as the saying is. We watched him stroll over to the two men and lift up their heads and give them a drink of water each. He tried to make them comfortable, with us looking on, hardly able to believe our eyes. Then he strolled back quite unconcerned; and we gave him a cheer. That's not all. Just before dusk he came out again, and dragged both men over near a bit of cover, so that we could get them in when dark came. And those are the people that were supposed to be cruel!