Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War

by E. C. Buley

"It has pleased his Majesty the King to confer upon this brigade eleven honours, comprising two Distinguished Service Orders, two Military Crosses, and seven Distinguished Conduct medals. These rewards, earned between the landing of the brigade on April 25 and May 5, are surely a rare and enviable distinction.

"On behalf of the Imperial Government, because of the great services you have rendered to the glory of the Empire—greater services than you probably yourselves realize—I thank you, Colonel Monash, your staff, your commanding officers, and all your personnel from the highest to the lowest, for the work you have done during the past five weeks."

This second contingent, which distinguished itself so remarkably from the time of its landing, was followed by yet a third, also of 10,000 men, led by Colonels Spencer Browne, C.B., V.D.; W. Holmes, D.S.O., V.D.; and Linton. They were of physique equal in every respect to their forerunners, and may be trusted to render an equally good account of themselves.

These supplementary contingents are to be regarded as additions to the first Expeditionary force, for the Australian method of filling the gaps is to send monthly reinforcements, sufficient to replace all men lost in battle. The original estimate was for 3,000 a month, but when the Australian Government grasped the serious nature of the operations in which their men were engaged, and the extent of the casualty lists, they increased this number to 4,000 monthly. These steps were taken before the full accounts of the Gallipoli fighting had reached Australia; they provided merely for what was thought a serious operation bearing a prospect of success at no remote date in the future.

But the full grandeur of Australian patriotism was only to be realized when it was gathered that the whole Turkish army was mustered in defence of the Straits of the Dardanelles, and that Australasia was called upon to bear a very considerable share of a separate war, waged against the full strength of a desperate warrior nation. Then Australasia became one vast recruiting ground; and military enthusiasm reached a pitch which has not yet been realized in the Mother Country.

It would be a salutary lesson to that section of the London Press which persisted in a sour pessimistic view of the whole of the Dardanelles adventure to be made to reprint a few columns of the sane but ardent patriotism with which the Australians were spurred by their worthy Press to shoulder the load apportioned to them. There were none of those hints of possible failure which so appalled the unsophisticated Briton during the summer months of 1915. A nation of 5,000,000 people that prepares to put 250,000 men down on the spot, and back them with its last shilling, cherishes no such unworthy doubts. A more splendid answer to croakers than that given by Australasia could hardly have been devised.

Perhaps, though, the spirit of calm and unshaken resignation with which Australia and New Zealand accepted the tidings of the evacuation of Anzac was even a better answer still. The assurances of the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth and the Dominion that the reverse would but nerve those countries to still greater effort rang through the Empire like a clarion call. Australia decided to increase its quota of 250,000 men to 300,000, and New Zealand made a similar increase, in proportion to population. And throughout the width and breadth of those great Dominions went the call for more men still.

Only cabled accounts of that wave of recruiting energy, which converted Australia into a great armed camp, have yet reached this country. But they make the heart swell with pride at the indomitable courage with which the Southern Nations are preparing to tackle the problem of the Gallipoli Peninsula.

The cost was laid before Parliament and, after consideration, approved without question. An expenditure of £40,000,000 was faced without a murmur. "In three months' time," said a responsible minister, "Australia would be paying more per head for the war than the people in England." The statement was received with cheers. The suggestion of a war tax met with no opposition in the House of Parliament; nor from the mass of the Australian people. The money is to be found without any grumbling.