On April 25, 1915, a date regarded in the Near East as the most memorable of the Great War, the New Zealand Brigade landed early in the day and fought valiantly on the northern or Suvla side of the Bay. Everything was strange and astonishing to these boys from the green, well-watered islands of the South—the enemy, the precipices, the thirst, the wounds and death around them; but no veterans have ever done better than they did during those first few hours. Then it was that they carried, occupied and held, under steadily-increasing shell and machine-gun fire, what was afterwards known as Plugge's Plateau (from Lieut.-Colonel Plugge, commanding the Auckland Battalion), and Walker's Ridge (from Brigadier-General Walker, General Birdwood's Chief-of-Staff, who commanded the New Zealand Infantry Brigade at the Landing in the absence of Brigadier-General Earl Johnston, sick). These are the prosaic facts of a feat of arms which will endure as long as heroic poetry and history are written or read.
An extract from my diary, dated April 25, H.M.S. "Queen Elizabeth": "They are not charging up into this Sari Bair Ridge for money, or by compulsion. There they are—all the way from the Southern Cross—earning Victoria Crosses, every one of them."
An extract from my diary dated April 26, H.M.S. "Queen Elizabeth": "Passed on the news to Birdwood: I doubt the Turks coming on again—but, in case, the 29th Division's feat of arms will be a tonic."
"I was wrong. At 3 p.m., the enemy made another effort, this time on the left of our line. We shook them badly, and were rewarded by seeing a New Zealand charge. Two battalions racing due north along the coast and foothills with levelled bayonets. Then the tumult died away."
On May 5 I brought the New Zealand Infantry down to Helles. They had been fighting hard at Anzac, making sorties against the Turks, but I could not do without them in the attack I was about to make—a three days' and nights' battle it turned out to be—on Achi Baba. In my diary is this entry:—
"May 7, 1915—At 4.30 I ordered a general assault: the 88th Brigade to be thrown in on the top of the 87th; the New Zealand Brigade in support; the French to conform. Our gunners were to pave the way for the infantry with what they thought they could afford."
In the deadly struggle which ensued, in the night-long conflict, in the supreme effort of the next day, the New Zealanders gained great glory, as was gratefully acknowledged by me to General Godley at the time.
That same month, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade was called in to the Dardanelles. We wanted every New Zealander we could get. The brigade, destined to become so famous, was commanded by Brigadier-General Russell, now Major-General Sir Andrew Russell, K.C.B., K.C.M.G. They came dismounted, torn in two betwixt grief at parting with their horses and a longing to play their part on the Peninsula. They turned up, as is their way, in the nick of time, and were put into the trenches at once.
On one of the first days of July, the Maoris appeared upon the Peninsula. General Godley had informed me that all ranks were anxious to have them, so I cabled to Lord Kitchener, and I have always been thankful that he permitted them to come along. They were received with open arms by their compatriots, and I may say here at once that they proved themselves worthy descendants of the chivalrous warriors of the olden days, and remembered, in the fiercest battles, the last words of Hongi Hika: "Be brave that you may live."