ANZAC day

[Vagabond]

When I first visited Queensland, back in 1988, we went to an early morning market in a little village called Eumundi - just down the road from my in-laws.

 

The village street was lined with trees. About forty of them.

 

Closer inspection revealed that each tree had an engraved plaque next to it - commemorating an Australian soldier who had lost his life in WW1

 

"Gallipoli" featured on many of the plaques.

 

What struck me as very poignant was the fact that many groups of plaques were inscribed with the same surname.

 

A man had died - so had his sons, brothers nephews and cousins.

 

Devastating for the family - remember this is only a very small village now and was even smaller then. The men that died must have originally formed the majority of the adult males in the village. There must have been many such villages and towns throughout Australia.

 

The trees, plaques and surrounding grass were immaculately kept.

 

Never mind the apologists and politicians. These were men who thought it right, for whatever reason, to fight for their King, Country and Mother Country.

 

On ANZAC day, I remember the words of my friend Fred Taylor - "I fought beside Aussies in the Western Desert, and I won't hear a word against them"

 

I remember my friends in Australia and New Zealand, - and the trees beside the village street in Eumundi.........

 

[ 25. April 2005, 07:41 AM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

[Peter Waller]

We should not forget. History shows their loss to be oh so questionable, and they fought for a cause that was not theirs, not of their country, just of their King. How values have changed.

[chesters1]

besides the human issues i read that only one horse got home an officer paid for it to be transported back

[Alan Stubbs]

I have friends who play in the ACT pipe band. We were talking in 2001 and he said that the last survivor of Gallipoli had recently died, and it had had a profound effect upon many Austrailians, and certainly makes me think with renewed appreciation of those we recall on our own Rememberance Day.

 

Years ago when I used to sing and play a bit, I used to sing an Eric Bogle song 'The band Played Waltzing Matilda' about a man who 'survived' Gallipoli - and wished he hadn't. The best version of this song is by June Tabor and sung a capella. The lyrics are poignant without resorting to the maudlin, and well worth reproducing here:

 

Now when I was a young man I carried me pack

And I lived the free life of the rover.

From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback,

Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.

Then in 1915, my country said, "Son,

It's time you stop ramblin', there's work to be done."

So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun,

And they marched me away to the war.

 

And the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"

As the ship pulled away from the quay,

And amidst all the cheers, the flag waving, and tears,

We sailed off for Gallipoli.

And how well I remember that terrible day,

How our blood stained the sand and the water;

And of how in that hell that they call Suvla Bay

We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.

Johnny Turk, he was waitin', he primed himself well;

He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shell --

And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell,

Nearly blew us right back to Australia.

But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"

When we stopped to bury our slain,

Well, we buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,

Then we started all over again.

And those that were left, well, we tried to survive

In that mad world of blood, death and fire.

And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive

Though around me the corpses piled higher.

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,

And when I woke up in me hospital bed

And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead --

Never knew there was worse things than dying.

For I'll go no more "Waltzing Matilda,"

All around the green bush far and free --

To hump tents and pegs, a man needs both legs,

No more "Waltzing Matilda" for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed,

And they shipped us back home to Australia.

The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane,

Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.

And as our ship sailed into Circular Quay,

I looked at the place where me legs used to be,

And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,

To grieve, to mourn and to pity.

But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"

As they carried us down the gangway,

But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,

Then they turned all their faces away.

And so now every April, I sit on my porch

And I watch the parade pass before me.

And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,

Reviving old dreams of past glory,

And the old men march slowly, all bones stiff and sore,

They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war

And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"

And I ask meself the same question.

But the band plays "Waltzing Matilda,"

And the old men still answer the call,

But as year follows year, more old men disappear

Someday, no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda.

Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong,

Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

[Gerbil0154]

I'm a big Eric Bogle fan and for a Scotsman he captured the Anzac feeling so well in his songs that they made him a freeman of Australia.

 

To link both your reply and Chesters, Eric also wrote a song about the soldiers having to shoot each other horses the day before they left to return to Australia as someone had decided it was too expensive to ship them back. They did not want them to end up as food as soon as they left. Dont remember the exact title of the song but its about a soldiers horse called Banjo.

 

It would bring a tear to a glass eye as they say but it really makes you think about perceptions of duty and honour. I think they were braver than I could ever aspire to.

[Alan Stubbs]

Gerbil0154:

I'm a big Eric Bogle fan and for a Scotsman he captured the Anzac feeling so well in his songs that they made him a freeman of Australia.

 

To link both your reply and Chesters, Eric also wrote a song about the soldiers having to shoot each other horses the day before they left to return to Australia as someone had decided it was too expensive to ship them back. They did not want them to end up as food as soon as they left. Dont remember the exact title of the song but its about a soldiers horse called Banjo.

 

It would bring a tear to a glass eye as they say but it really makes you think about perceptions of duty and honour. I think they were braver than I could ever aspire to.

The song is called 'As if he knows'

 

It’s as if he knows, he’s standing close to me,

His breath warm my my sleeve, his head hung low.

It’s as if he knows what the dawn will bring,

The end of everything for my old Banjo.

And all along the picket lines beneath the desert sky,

The Light Horsemen move amongst their mates to say one last goodbye.

And the horses stand so quietly row on silent row,

It’s as if they know.

Time after time, we rode through shot and shell

We rode in and out of hell on their strong backs.

Time after time, they brought us safely through

By their swish or hooves, and their brave hearts.

Tomorrow we will form up ranks and march down to the quay,

And sail back to our loved ones in that dear land across the sea,

While our loyal and true companions who asked so little and gave to much,

Will lie dead in the dust.

For the orders came: No horses to return

We were to abandon them to be slaves.

After all we’d shared, and all that we’d been through,

A nation’s gratitude was a dusty grave.

For we can’t leave to the people here, we’d rather see them dead,

So each man will take his best mate’s horse with a bullet through the head,

For the people here are like their men, wild and cruel and hard,

So Banjo, here’s your reward.

It’s as if he knows, he standing close to me,

His breath warm on my sleeve, his head hung low.

As he if he knew.

 

[ 25. April 2005, 12:23 PM: Message edited by: Alan Stubbs ]

[chevin]

Alan Stubbs:

I have friends who play in the ACT pipe band. We were talking in 2001 and he said that the last survivor of Gallipoli had recently died, and it had had a profound effect upon many Austrailians, and certainly makes me think with renewed appreciation of those we recall on our own Rememberance Day.

Yes too many forget at these times. However I feel different emotions at the rememberences of the two wars. The reasons for WW II were obvious, it was a war that had to be won for the freedom of the world. I am not sure to this day why 20,000,000 people had to die in WW I though and two years into the conflict the beligerents - when asked why they were fighting - gave reasons that didn't exist at the beginning of the war! What a stupid waste of life the whole thing was. All wars are of course, but none more than that one!

[Gerbil0154]

Your a spooky man Mr Stubbs. Not only do you have good taste in music but I note from another post that we share a common birthday.

 

Thanks for the lyrics and a happy birthday on May 1st

 

Gerry

[Jim Roper]

This is something I collected on the Dorset Yeomanry(Queen's Own)

 

 

The Queens Own Dorset Yeomanry.

Two Glorious and Famous Charges.

 

Last, but by no means least, I must mention the doings of a Dorset regiment peculiarly “redolent of the soil”-the Queens own Dorset Yeomanry. Lineal descendants of the Dorset Rangers, raised in 1794 by Viscount Milton (afterwards the Earl of Dorchester), with Major, afterwards Colonel, James Frampton, of Moreton, as his second in command, our Yeomanry have always maintained their original characteristics of being mostly yeoman and tenant farmers and their sons, sturdy fellows, hard riders and good shots, and commanded by noblemen and gentlemen, the cream of the county in blood and spirit. Well may we say of them, “Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh.”

The supreme achievement of the Dorset Yeomanry in this war may be summed up in two great charges, both destined to be historic, one dismounted in Gallipoli, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel E.G. Troyte-Bullock, the other when, astride their familiar steeds once more, and with Colonel Souter gallantly leading, they swept like a tornado through the ranks of Senussi Arabs at Agagia, in Western Egypt.

 

The “Two Hills” in Gallipoli.

 

Many descriptions have been written of the dismounted advance of the Dorset Yeomanry, with their comrades of the Bucks and Berks Yeomanry, forming together the 2nd South Midland Mounted Brigade, against the Turkish positions on chocolate Hill and Hill 70 on August 21st, 1915-- a date which will forever be fraught with poignant memories for the Dorset Yeomanry. But I select one written with rare restraint and as void of all attempts at “purple patches” by the Rev. A.G. Parham, Chaplain to the Brigade, who witnessed the charge and was awarded the Military Cross for his gallantry in tending the wounded and dying under fire. The account was given simply enough, in the sermon he preached at the memorable service of commemoration held in Sherborne Abbey on August 21st. 1916- the first anniversary of “the day”. He said:-

“I well remember we all lay on the beach below the cliffs at Lala Baba on the morning of August 21st. We had marched from the ridge above the bay at Suvla during the night, and at dawn descended the cliffs to the shores of a little cove where we awaited our orders while the navel bombardment proceeded. About two o’clock we climbed up the broken sloping sides of the Lala Baba cliff again and paraded on the top.

Then followed the advance of the 2nd Mounted Division across the bare and exposed Anafarta Plain under the blazing sun in full view of the enemy upon the surrounding hills; an advance by untried troops, and, moreover by cavalry, acting for the first time as infantry, and advanced in drill order as though on parade, to the wonder and admiration of all who saw it ; an advance straight and unwavering into and through the Turkish curtain of fire, as on some moorland one may walk into an approaching rainstorm ; an advance of reserves behind our existing lines, without any of the thrill and excitement of attack ; and no single man hesitated or turned back as the gusts of shrapnel swept through their ranks, because, whatever they may in their hearts have thought of it and the strategy which dictated it, the advance had been ordered ; an advance which, in any other way than this, when the vastness of the whole scale obscures what was after all a minor operation, would, like the Dorsets’ charge at Agagia, be immortal, and which will still be recalled whenever men refer to the part played by the yeomanry in the Great War.

 

Arrived at Chocolate Hill, our Brigade of Berks, Bucks and Dorsets, which had suffered less than some other brigades, halted for a time, and then Lord Longford received orders to storm and take the Turkish position known as Hill 70. They rounded the left side of Chocolate Hill and through the wooded country which lay behind the existing lines of British trenches at the foot of hill 70.

As evening fell they stormed the hill and carried the Turkish trenches according to orders, but at frightful cost. The Brigadier and all but eight of the combatant officers with the Brigade were killed or wounded, and about 60 per cent. of other ranks. The position which they had been ordered to take was an unattainable one, enfiladed by the Turks ; and in the course of the night the remnants of the Brigade fell back on Chocolate Hill. There, as day broke, the situation appeared sufficiently serious, with the Turks pressing their counter-attack upon our lines north and south of Chocolate Hill. Yet, when volunteers were required to assist in conveying some of the wounded from Chocolate Hill to the casualty clearing station, whence ambulance wagons could take them on to the coast and awaiting hospital ships, it was over eighty of these yeomen, and there would have been double the number had they been needed, who, worn and exhausted as they were by the night’s fighting, voluntarily left the comparative shelter of the dug-outs on the hill, and, acting as stretcher-bearers, did yeoman service indeed in clearing the wounded.

It does not, perhaps, fall within my scope to talk of the terrible fortnight of inaction and constant shellfire on Chocolate Hill which followed, nor of the patience, the endurance, and the quiet heroism of the weeks that followed in the trenches under unimaginable discomforts. Nor am I willing to make any reference to individual acts of bravery and self-sacrifice, for the half of them will never be known save to God and His Angels, who take count of the deeds of men. But I hope I have said enough to enable you to realise how proud and thankful we should be for the conduct of the Yeomanry and of Dorset men that day.”

In the Gallipoli charge the Dorset Yeomanry’s losses were :- Killed and missing, five officers and forty-four non-commissioned officers and men ; wounded three officers and twenty-one non-commissioned officers and men. Among those whose death was deplored was Sir Thomas Lees, Bart., of Lychett Minster, who, while attempting to save a wounded trooper under heavy fire, had both his legs carried off by a shell, and was buried at sea.

 

“Agagia”

“ O the Wild Charge They Made.”

 

Worthy to rank with the most famous cavalry charges of history- with those of the Heavy and the Light Brigades at Balaclava, and the 9th Lancers and the 18th Hussars at Doubon- is the renowned charge delivered by the Dorset Yeomanry against the Senussi Arabs and their machine guns at Agagia, Western Egypt, on February 26th 1916- a charge with drawn swords in the good old style, right across a wide open valley against a ridge a mile and a half away. As an officer who rode in the charge wrote, with a glow of victorious enthusiasm, “ It really was a great show. . . .Colonel Souter led us splendidly in front of the whole regiment, and the regiment rode behind him in a line like a general’s inspection. The men were grand all through. We charged with a yell over the crest of the little hill and into a wide valley full of the enemy running like mad. In a flash we were among them sticking and slashing. The men went at it like furies. Most of our casualties happened then. Colonel Souter had his horse shot under him, and Second-Lieutenant Blakesley two horses, and in both cases deadly bullets were deflected by striking their field glasses hanging in front of them. A wonderful stroke of luck which befell the Colonel was that when his horse went down it was just in front of the enemies commander, Gaafer Pasha, who surrendered to him and Blakesley and Private W. Brown, whose horse had also been brought down. Nuri Bey (brother of Enver Bey) was slain. Colonel Souter was awarded the D.S.O., Second-Lieutenant Blakesley the Military Cross, and Private Brown the D.C.M.”

 

Of the hundreds of gallant Dorsetmen who rendered devoted and distinguished service in other corps than those of county denominations, space fails me here to speak. Of the deeds of valour, endurance, and self-sacrifice done by Dorset men in this vast welter of war the tithe has not been told. What I have mentioned is sample of a great bulk. May a worthy history of “ The Dorsets in the Great War” be written hereafter, to the honour of these single-hearted “unaffeared” fighters and of the beloved county that bred them. And may the highest consolation be that thousands of homes, stately and humble, to which the war has brought bereavement. Two Past-Presidents of the Society of Dorset Men in London, the late Colonel J. Mount Batten, H.M. Lieutenant for Dorset, and Colonel Sir Robert Williams, Bart., V.D., M.P., lost each his eldest son and heir- Captain J. Strode Batten of The King’s Liverpool Regiment, and Private J. Nathaniel Williams, of the Aukland Battalion, New Zealanders, shot while heroically leading in the landing at Gaba Tepe, Gallipoli on April 25th, 1915; while of the ten sons of that esteemed Vice-President, Mr Alfred Pope, 1st Welsh Regiment, barrister at law, lost his life in the assault on the “ Little Willie” trench of the Hohenzollern Redoubt, October 2nd-4th 1915.

“Dulce et decorum est pro Dorsetià mori !”

 

> Finis <

 

 

The Dorsets have the motto Primus in Indus, and they are proud of it. But what they may be equally proud of is that the Dorset Territorials was the first Territorial regiment to go to India at the beginning of the war. Another tribute, surely, to the old county ever formost in our hour of need.

 

And What of Gallipoli?

And what of Gallipoli? Well may one ask the question. Here Dorset men in scores have laid down their lives. In forty-eight hours three-quarters of the strength of a Dorset regiment fell in defending a patch of conquered soil. A little gang of heroes in a territory they new nothing of, just holding on by the skin of their teeth because they were men of Dorset and wouldn’t let go. My friends, it’s a great story you Dorset men have heard, as I have heard, of what the Yeomanry, for instance have done out there. I picture the death of our soil-kinsman, Sir Thomas Lees, and I say it is a story for our sons. He went out to save a wounded trooper in the face of the most hellish shellfire. He picked up his man, when a shell dropped and blew off both his legs. They took him, still living, to a boat that should carry him afar to some hospital beyond the reach of the passions of war. And his first duty was to write a letter to the relatives of the man who he had tried to save and who had died of his wounds, telling them what a hero he was. He made no mention of himself, and he died of his wounds at sea. That is not courage so much as sheer love of Dorset, a heroism greater, more loveable, because behind it all was the love of his county.

But the Dorset regiment has yielded us many such stories in the present war. It has given us a text-book to heroism. “Dorset,” as Sir Frederick Treves said, “has never failed.” Certainly it has never failed in this war. And we at home who have watched our kinsmen afar may well exclaim, “I am thankful that, by the grace of God, I am a man of Dorset.”

[Jim Roper]

Sorry about the length of the last post. I have a lot more if anybody is interested!

 

Quite a few mentions of the ANZACs.

 

[ 25. April 2005, 04:01 PM: Message edited by: Jim Roper ]