What a terribly expensive business it was all to be! How many brave Australians and New Zealanders—yes, and Englishmen, Frenchmen and Indians—were yet to be sacrificed! It is well that the Great Ruler over all, Who holds us in the hollow of His hands, does not permit poor mortals to see into the future. The "forcing of the Dardanelles"—the words were on the lips of all of us and were printed in newspapers all over the world—it seemed only a matter of a little while, and then——
Great is the British Navy, magnificent are its officers and men, but hellish was the work of "forcing the Dardanelles." You remember how the Goliath and the Irresistible went down. You remember how a great French ship—the Bouvet—was sunk. You remember the mines that came down the waters, and the shore torpedoes, and the strength of the Turkish forts, the power of the Turkish guns, erected and manned by German officers. The Navy could not force the Dardanelles alone! It was necessary to have the co-operation of land forces. Perhaps the operations should never have been begun until the Army was ready to co-operate. I do not know; it is not for me to judge.
General Sir Ian Hamilton first visited the Dardanelles and carried out a reconnaissance on one of the warships and then came to Egypt—a lightning visit—and our forces began to move. Australia, for the first time, was right up against the Hun! South Africa was a picnic to it.
There were spies everywhere. There were spies in the transports, spies amongst the interpreters, spies in the supply depots. The Turks, or rather their German officers, were kept informed of every move the Allies made. They knew exactly the hour of disembarkation and the places of landing. They learned all the Australian bugle calls and used them with telling effect. The French landed and formed up as if on parade, and then, with beautiful precision, marched on and drove the enemy before them. The British, despite the fusillade which greeted them on landing, were steady as veterans and there was no hope of withstanding their landing.
But there was an electric quality about the charge of the Australians that inspired panic in the Turkish trenches. Fiercely angry at the loss of several of their officers, they charged with fixed bayonets, not waiting for supports.
One charge was led by a doctor; another by a priest. Several times they charged so fiercely that they looked like getting out of hand. Scorning cover, they also scorned rifle fire. They scaled the steel-lined heights like demons. It was the bayonet all the time. One huge farmer actually bayoneted a Turk through the chest and pitchforked him over his shoulder. The man who performed this feat was a huge Queenslander—Sergeant Burne, of the 9th Battalion, who was afterwards wounded and returned to his Australian home—a man whose modesty is as great as his size. We smiled at first when we heard the story, and people in England and Australia read of it with amazement. But Sergeant Burne, standing over six feet high, and massively proportioned, looks quite capable of the feat. He himself tells the story in these words: "It is not a case for me to take any credit at all," he said. "I was in the platoon that landed first on the right. Our lieutenant was the first man to get ashore—and as game a man as ever faced fire. I followed him. I was ordered to take in hand a line of Turkish sharpshooters who were causing a lot of trouble. There was also a machine-gun on the hill. Somebody had to stop it. Myself and two lads went up, and we stopped it. That's all. There were ten Turks there. We got the Turks and we got the machine-gun, but I lost my two lads. They were only boys, but let me tell you the Australians are the best fighters in the world. One of the lads 'fixed' the German officer who was working the machine-gun. The Turks were higher up than we were, and I suppose that is how I was able to throw one of them over my shoulder. It's an old trick that is taught in the Guards."
Sergeant Burne once served in the Irish Guards, and he carries a scar on his forehead, the result of a blow from the butt-end of a rifle at Rhenosterkop, during the South African war. He had been living in Australia for about six years when the Great War broke out, and he was one of the first to answer the Empire's call. His stay on Gallipoli was short, for on the same day as that on which he performed the feat of which I have written he received a bullet in the shoulder.
"It was a very short experience," he said, "but I'll be back there again."
And that was, and is, the spirit of them all.
It is sad to think that so many senior officers lost their lives right at the outset of the fighting in the Dardanelles. Australia could ill afford to lose men like Colonel Onslow Thompson, Colonel MacLaurin, Major F. D. Irvine and Colonel Braund. Colonel MacLaurin was in the act of warning soldiers to be certain to keep behind cover when he was shot in the head. He was hurriedly conveyed to the rear, but only lingered half an hour. Curiously enough, he had a presentiment that he would be killed, and mentioned it to one of our Light Horse officers just before leaving for the Dardanelles.