The Drover Who Went to War
Today in Australia it is ANZAC day.
ANZAC day is probably Australia's most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as ANZACs, and the pride they soon took in that name endures to this day.
In 1915 Australian and New Zealand soldiers formed part of the allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula to open the way to the Black Sea for the allied navies. The plan was to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire and an ally of Germany. They landed at Gallipoli on 25 April, meeting fierce resistance from the Turkish defenders. What had been planned as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. At the end of 1915 the allied forces were evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships. Over 8,000 Australian soldiers were killed. News of the landing at Gallipoli made a profound impact on Australians at home and 25 April quickly became the day on which Australians remembered the sacrifice of those who had died in war.
My grandfather was one of those men who went to Gallipoli. Today I thought it apt to tell what I know of his story:
He was a man born in the Outback. The smell of gidgee would have been as familiar to him as billy tea, the creak of saddle leather and smell of horseflesh. Raised in the heat and dust, inured to the flies and coming from a resilient, determined family, Stanley Edward Walters grew to be a man. He lived in a land where a man could breathe and the full majesty of the southern stars are not dimmed by bright city lights. He grew up in an era still heavily influenced by Victorian morality and ethics. It is no surprise therefore that when the call to arms was sounded Stan responded accordingly.
Family hearsay says he was working at Miranda Station when he decided to go to war and rode his horse to Eulo to enlist, and then took his horse with him to war. The official documents show he enlisted at Cunnamulla. The same official records show he embarked on the ship HMAT Borda on 2 June 1915 at Brisbane, Queensland as part of the 11th Lighthorse Regiment. For many years I had in my possession a copy of the New Testament given to him at the time of his enlistment and inscribed on the fly leaf with the words, ‘Keep your faith’, and signed by his mother, Jessie.
I wonder if she knew that he might need those words in the months ahead of him. For Stan was headed ultimately for the shores of Gallipoli, that fearsome place that claimed so many young lives during the First World War. She gave him more than this though - she gave him the resilience of the Australian with convict heritage. As with the convicts that landed on our shores so long ago, so too did the Diggers who landed on the shores of Gallipoli face daunting odds.
In fact, Stan’s bush life had prepared him in nearly every way to face what was ahead of him. In Settlers and Convicts, first published in 1847, Alexander Harris wrote of the relationship between male pastoral workers in the early days of Australian history:
“... working together in the otherwise solitary bush; habits of mutual helpfulness arise, and these elicit gratitude, and that leads on to regard. Men under these circumstances often stand by one another through thick and thin; in fact it is a universal feeling that a man ought to be able to trust his own mate in anything.”
The Australian Government’s Cultural Portal elaborates further on the conditions at Gallipoli,
“Facing small chance of success, forbidding terrain, and constant fire from well established defences; surrounded by death, short of water and food, living in the most primitive conditions, they displayed phenomenal endurance, discipline and courage. Such qualities came to be known as the ANZAC spirit.”
Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia says:
Light horse were like mounted infantry in that they usually fought dismounted, using their horses as transport to the battlefield and as a means of swift disengagement when retreating or retiring. A famous exception to this rule though was the charge of the 4th and 12th Light Horse Regiments at Beersheba on 31 October 1917. In 1918 some light horse regiments were equipped with sabres, enabling them to fight in a conventional cavalry role during the advance on Damascus. However, unlike mounted infantry, the light horse also performed certain roles, such as scouting and screening, while mounted.
… Each regiment had a troop of two Maxim guns. At Gallipoli, where the light horse served dismounted, this was increased to four guns. In 1916, these were consolidated into light horse machine gun squadrons, each with 12 Vickers machine guns. In turn, the troops received the Hotchkiss M1909 Benet-Mercie machine gun.
The Australian War Memorial website tells us more:
The formation of the 4th Light Horse Brigade, and the 11th Light Horse Regiment as part of it, was announced on 11 February 1915. Two squadrons of the 11th Light Horse were subsequently formed in Queensland, and a third in South Australia. The regiment was united for the first time at Fraser’s Paddock Camp, outside Brisbane, on 2 May 1915.
… The regiment was...in Egypt on 23 July 1915 and began training as infantry, having been ordered to leave its horses in Australia. A month later it deployed to Gallipoli. The regiment was again split up, to reinforce three light horse regiments already ashore - A Squadron went to the 2nd Light Horse Regiment, B Squadron to the 5th, and C Squadron to the 9th.
The Battle of Gallipoli resonates loudly throughout history. It is a story of courage, sacrifice in the face of severe hardships, and utter foolishness on the part of the commanding officers. Sometimes when one reads about what happened at Gallipoli (and indeed throughout many wars) one cannot help but wonder if perhaps the reason why it had all begun was somehow forgotten in the desire to win at all costs, resulting in the mêlée that it became.
Again, Wikipedia helps us set the scene:
It all began because of a desire to open an effective supply route to Russia. By late 1914, the Western Front, in France and Belgium, had effectively become fixed. A new front was desperately needed. Also, the Allies hoped that an attack on the Ottomans would draw Bulgaria and Greece into the war on the Allied side.
… Later in November, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill put forward his first plans for a naval attack on the Dardanelles, based at least in part on what turned out to be erroneous reports regarding Turkish troop strength, as prepared by Lieut. T. E. Lawrence. He reasoned that the Royal Navy had a large number of obsolete battleships which could not be used against the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea, but which might well be made useful in another theatre. Initially, the attack was to be made by the Royal Navy alone, with only token forces from the army being required for routine occupation tasks.
… After the failure of the naval attacks, it was decided that ground forces were necessary to eliminate the Turkish mobile artillery.
… There was a delay of over six weeks before many of the troops arrived from Britain. This gave the Turkish forces time to prepare for a land assault. There was little security or secrecy in Egypt, and the intended destination of [the] force was widely known. The Turks quickly replenished their stocks of ammunition and other supplies.
… The invasion plan of 25 April 1915 was for the 29th Division to land at Helles on the tip of the peninsula and then advance upon the forts at Kilitbahir. The Anzacs were to land north of Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast from where they could advance across the peninsula and prevent retreat from or reinforcement of Kilitbahir.
The main landings were made at V Beach, beneath the old Seddülbahir fortress, and at W Beach, a short distance to the west on the other side of the Helles headland.
At V Beach the covering force from the Royal Munster Fusiliers and Royal Hampshires was landed from a converted collier, SS River Clyde, which was run aground beneath the fortress so that the troops could disembark directly via ramps to the shore. The Royal Dublin Fusiliers would land at V Beach from open boats. At W Beach the Lancashire Fusiliers also landed in open boats on a small beach overlooked by dunes and obstructed with barbed wire. On both beaches the Turkish defenders were in a position to inflict appalling casualties on the landing infantry. The troops emerging one by one from the sally ports on the River Clyde presented perfect targets to the machine guns in the Seddülbahir fort. Out of the first 200 soldiers to disembark, only 21 men made it onto the beach.
Thus began eight months of misinformation, hardship, loss and sheer drudgery for the allied troops. Attacks and counter-attacks were launched throughout April, May and June. When these failed a huge offensive began in August called the Battle of Sari Bair. Throughout it all the conditions endured by both sides was abominable:
In the Summer the heat was reportedly atrocious, and in conjunction with bad sanitation it led to flies flourishing, to the extent that eating became extremely difficult. Corpses left in the open became bloated and caused a tremendous stench. The precarious bases upon which the Allies were situated also caused supply and shelter problems. A dysentery epidemic spread through the Allied trenches in both Anzac and Helles. Though the onset of Winter and Autumn brought relief from the heat, it also led to gales, flooding and several cases of frostbite.
… In addition to the killed, those who died of wounds and wounded listed in the table, many soldiers became sick in the insanitary environment of the peninsula, mainly from enteric fever, dysentery and diarrhoea. It is estimated that a further 145,000 British soldiers became casualties from illness during the campaign.
Amongst the dead of the battle was the brilliant young physicist Henry Moseley. Also the poet Rupert Brooke, serving with the Royal Naval Division, died shortly before the invasion from a septic mosquito bite.
He died from a mosquito bite - a simple thing like a mosquito bite.
Fortunately, the failure of the August offensive was followed by a hiatus while the future of the campaign was discussed. The prospect of evacuation was raised on 11 October 1915 but General Sir Ian Hamilton (who had so far led the debacle) resisted the suggestion, fearing the damage to British prestige. He was dismissed as commander shortly afterwards and replaced by Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Monro. Having reviewed the state of his command, Monro recommended evacuation. However, Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (that same disreputable man of the Breaker Morant legend) disliked the notion of evacuating the peninsula and made a personal visit to consult with the commanders before the decision to withdraw was finally made.
Evacuation of 14 divisions in winter in proximity to the enemy would be difficult and heavy losses were expected. The untenable nature of the Allied position was made apparent when a heavy storm struck on 27 November 1915 and lasted for three days. There followed a blizzard at Suvla in early December. The rain flooded trenches, drowning soldiers and washing unburied corpses into the lines. The following snow killed more men from exposure.
Ironically the evacuation was the greatest Allied success of the campaign. Suvla and Anzac were to be evacuated in late December, the last troops leaving before dawn on 20 December 1915.
While researching the Gallipoli campaign I saw photos of conditions at Gallipoli and could not help but ponder life in the foetid trenches. I wonder how Stan, that man from the open plains used to breathing clear, crisp Outback air, coped with it all. Did he lean upon the ship’s rail when they finally departed heartily glad to see the end of that little peninsula of land? How many mates did he leave behind? Did he understand how incredibly lucky he was that he did leave, and not stay there with the over 44,000 allied troops who would never again breath the fresh sea air as he as doing then?
Where to for him then? Official records say the 11th Light Horse returned to Egypt where, returning to their mounted role, they joined forces defending the Suez Canal on 20 July 1916 where they conducted patrols and participated in several forays out into the Sinai Desert. Mum always used to tell me that he was gassed in the trenches and this is why he died young, although 74 is not such a young age to die. The records claim there was no chemical warfare at Gallipoli and as He was discharged from the Army on the 13 December 1916 there is an assumption he was wounded or injured in some way. An Internet search regarding the use of gas in the trenches at Gallipoli resulted in this information:
Gas in tunnels at Gallipoli was not uncommon; it formed there as the result of mines being fired and either not breaking into the enemy's underground works or through to the surface. Several Australian soldiers, including two officers who were overcome by the gas from an Australian mine explosion in Tunnel C2 opposite Johnston's Jolly, Anzac, on 29 October 1915.
Was Stan one of those troops perhaps? Or was he injured in some other way at another time when his regiment was in the Sinai?
Whatever the reason, in December 1916 Stan was once more a free man - at last he could return to his beloved Outback and resume his life.
(Excerpt from 'The Stories I Never Told' by L.D.Red.Copyright 2007.)
Of course today some idealists argue it is wrong to go to war or celebrate having done so. I don't believe ANZAC day is about celebrating carnage and loss of life as some claim. I believe it's about celebrating the courage to stand up for what you believe in - and being prepared to lay your life down for it.
I'm very proud of my grandfather and he is in my thoughts today.
Red
ANZAC day is probably Australia's most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as ANZACs, and the pride they soon took in that name endures to this day.
In 1915 Australian and New Zealand soldiers formed part of the allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula to open the way to the Black Sea for the allied navies. The plan was to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire and an ally of Germany. They landed at Gallipoli on 25 April, meeting fierce resistance from the Turkish defenders. What had been planned as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. At the end of 1915 the allied forces were evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships. Over 8,000 Australian soldiers were killed. News of the landing at Gallipoli made a profound impact on Australians at home and 25 April quickly became the day on which Australians remembered the sacrifice of those who had died in war.
My grandfather was one of those men who went to Gallipoli. Today I thought it apt to tell what I know of his story:
He was a man born in the Outback. The smell of gidgee would have been as familiar to him as billy tea, the creak of saddle leather and smell of horseflesh. Raised in the heat and dust, inured to the flies and coming from a resilient, determined family, Stanley Edward Walters grew to be a man. He lived in a land where a man could breathe and the full majesty of the southern stars are not dimmed by bright city lights. He grew up in an era still heavily influenced by Victorian morality and ethics. It is no surprise therefore that when the call to arms was sounded Stan responded accordingly.
Family hearsay says he was working at Miranda Station when he decided to go to war and rode his horse to Eulo to enlist, and then took his horse with him to war. The official documents show he enlisted at Cunnamulla. The same official records show he embarked on the ship HMAT Borda on 2 June 1915 at Brisbane, Queensland as part of the 11th Lighthorse Regiment. For many years I had in my possession a copy of the New Testament given to him at the time of his enlistment and inscribed on the fly leaf with the words, ‘Keep your faith’, and signed by his mother, Jessie.
I wonder if she knew that he might need those words in the months ahead of him. For Stan was headed ultimately for the shores of Gallipoli, that fearsome place that claimed so many young lives during the First World War. She gave him more than this though - she gave him the resilience of the Australian with convict heritage. As with the convicts that landed on our shores so long ago, so too did the Diggers who landed on the shores of Gallipoli face daunting odds.
In fact, Stan’s bush life had prepared him in nearly every way to face what was ahead of him. In Settlers and Convicts, first published in 1847, Alexander Harris wrote of the relationship between male pastoral workers in the early days of Australian history:
“... working together in the otherwise solitary bush; habits of mutual helpfulness arise, and these elicit gratitude, and that leads on to regard. Men under these circumstances often stand by one another through thick and thin; in fact it is a universal feeling that a man ought to be able to trust his own mate in anything.”
The Australian Government’s Cultural Portal elaborates further on the conditions at Gallipoli,
“Facing small chance of success, forbidding terrain, and constant fire from well established defences; surrounded by death, short of water and food, living in the most primitive conditions, they displayed phenomenal endurance, discipline and courage. Such qualities came to be known as the ANZAC spirit.”
Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia says:
Light horse were like mounted infantry in that they usually fought dismounted, using their horses as transport to the battlefield and as a means of swift disengagement when retreating or retiring. A famous exception to this rule though was the charge of the 4th and 12th Light Horse Regiments at Beersheba on 31 October 1917. In 1918 some light horse regiments were equipped with sabres, enabling them to fight in a conventional cavalry role during the advance on Damascus. However, unlike mounted infantry, the light horse also performed certain roles, such as scouting and screening, while mounted.
… Each regiment had a troop of two Maxim guns. At Gallipoli, where the light horse served dismounted, this was increased to four guns. In 1916, these were consolidated into light horse machine gun squadrons, each with 12 Vickers machine guns. In turn, the troops received the Hotchkiss M1909 Benet-Mercie machine gun.
The Australian War Memorial website tells us more:
The formation of the 4th Light Horse Brigade, and the 11th Light Horse Regiment as part of it, was announced on 11 February 1915. Two squadrons of the 11th Light Horse were subsequently formed in Queensland, and a third in South Australia. The regiment was united for the first time at Fraser’s Paddock Camp, outside Brisbane, on 2 May 1915.
… The regiment was...in Egypt on 23 July 1915 and began training as infantry, having been ordered to leave its horses in Australia. A month later it deployed to Gallipoli. The regiment was again split up, to reinforce three light horse regiments already ashore - A Squadron went to the 2nd Light Horse Regiment, B Squadron to the 5th, and C Squadron to the 9th.
The Battle of Gallipoli resonates loudly throughout history. It is a story of courage, sacrifice in the face of severe hardships, and utter foolishness on the part of the commanding officers. Sometimes when one reads about what happened at Gallipoli (and indeed throughout many wars) one cannot help but wonder if perhaps the reason why it had all begun was somehow forgotten in the desire to win at all costs, resulting in the mêlée that it became.
Again, Wikipedia helps us set the scene:
It all began because of a desire to open an effective supply route to Russia. By late 1914, the Western Front, in France and Belgium, had effectively become fixed. A new front was desperately needed. Also, the Allies hoped that an attack on the Ottomans would draw Bulgaria and Greece into the war on the Allied side.
… Later in November, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill put forward his first plans for a naval attack on the Dardanelles, based at least in part on what turned out to be erroneous reports regarding Turkish troop strength, as prepared by Lieut. T. E. Lawrence. He reasoned that the Royal Navy had a large number of obsolete battleships which could not be used against the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea, but which might well be made useful in another theatre. Initially, the attack was to be made by the Royal Navy alone, with only token forces from the army being required for routine occupation tasks.
… After the failure of the naval attacks, it was decided that ground forces were necessary to eliminate the Turkish mobile artillery.
… There was a delay of over six weeks before many of the troops arrived from Britain. This gave the Turkish forces time to prepare for a land assault. There was little security or secrecy in Egypt, and the intended destination of [the] force was widely known. The Turks quickly replenished their stocks of ammunition and other supplies.
… The invasion plan of 25 April 1915 was for the 29th Division to land at Helles on the tip of the peninsula and then advance upon the forts at Kilitbahir. The Anzacs were to land north of Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast from where they could advance across the peninsula and prevent retreat from or reinforcement of Kilitbahir.
The main landings were made at V Beach, beneath the old Seddülbahir fortress, and at W Beach, a short distance to the west on the other side of the Helles headland.
At V Beach the covering force from the Royal Munster Fusiliers and Royal Hampshires was landed from a converted collier, SS River Clyde, which was run aground beneath the fortress so that the troops could disembark directly via ramps to the shore. The Royal Dublin Fusiliers would land at V Beach from open boats. At W Beach the Lancashire Fusiliers also landed in open boats on a small beach overlooked by dunes and obstructed with barbed wire. On both beaches the Turkish defenders were in a position to inflict appalling casualties on the landing infantry. The troops emerging one by one from the sally ports on the River Clyde presented perfect targets to the machine guns in the Seddülbahir fort. Out of the first 200 soldiers to disembark, only 21 men made it onto the beach.
Thus began eight months of misinformation, hardship, loss and sheer drudgery for the allied troops. Attacks and counter-attacks were launched throughout April, May and June. When these failed a huge offensive began in August called the Battle of Sari Bair. Throughout it all the conditions endured by both sides was abominable:
In the Summer the heat was reportedly atrocious, and in conjunction with bad sanitation it led to flies flourishing, to the extent that eating became extremely difficult. Corpses left in the open became bloated and caused a tremendous stench. The precarious bases upon which the Allies were situated also caused supply and shelter problems. A dysentery epidemic spread through the Allied trenches in both Anzac and Helles. Though the onset of Winter and Autumn brought relief from the heat, it also led to gales, flooding and several cases of frostbite.
… In addition to the killed, those who died of wounds and wounded listed in the table, many soldiers became sick in the insanitary environment of the peninsula, mainly from enteric fever, dysentery and diarrhoea. It is estimated that a further 145,000 British soldiers became casualties from illness during the campaign.
Amongst the dead of the battle was the brilliant young physicist Henry Moseley. Also the poet Rupert Brooke, serving with the Royal Naval Division, died shortly before the invasion from a septic mosquito bite.
He died from a mosquito bite - a simple thing like a mosquito bite.
Fortunately, the failure of the August offensive was followed by a hiatus while the future of the campaign was discussed. The prospect of evacuation was raised on 11 October 1915 but General Sir Ian Hamilton (who had so far led the debacle) resisted the suggestion, fearing the damage to British prestige. He was dismissed as commander shortly afterwards and replaced by Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Monro. Having reviewed the state of his command, Monro recommended evacuation. However, Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (that same disreputable man of the Breaker Morant legend) disliked the notion of evacuating the peninsula and made a personal visit to consult with the commanders before the decision to withdraw was finally made.
Evacuation of 14 divisions in winter in proximity to the enemy would be difficult and heavy losses were expected. The untenable nature of the Allied position was made apparent when a heavy storm struck on 27 November 1915 and lasted for three days. There followed a blizzard at Suvla in early December. The rain flooded trenches, drowning soldiers and washing unburied corpses into the lines. The following snow killed more men from exposure.
Ironically the evacuation was the greatest Allied success of the campaign. Suvla and Anzac were to be evacuated in late December, the last troops leaving before dawn on 20 December 1915.
While researching the Gallipoli campaign I saw photos of conditions at Gallipoli and could not help but ponder life in the foetid trenches. I wonder how Stan, that man from the open plains used to breathing clear, crisp Outback air, coped with it all. Did he lean upon the ship’s rail when they finally departed heartily glad to see the end of that little peninsula of land? How many mates did he leave behind? Did he understand how incredibly lucky he was that he did leave, and not stay there with the over 44,000 allied troops who would never again breath the fresh sea air as he as doing then?
Where to for him then? Official records say the 11th Light Horse returned to Egypt where, returning to their mounted role, they joined forces defending the Suez Canal on 20 July 1916 where they conducted patrols and participated in several forays out into the Sinai Desert. Mum always used to tell me that he was gassed in the trenches and this is why he died young, although 74 is not such a young age to die. The records claim there was no chemical warfare at Gallipoli and as He was discharged from the Army on the 13 December 1916 there is an assumption he was wounded or injured in some way. An Internet search regarding the use of gas in the trenches at Gallipoli resulted in this information:
Gas in tunnels at Gallipoli was not uncommon; it formed there as the result of mines being fired and either not breaking into the enemy's underground works or through to the surface. Several Australian soldiers, including two officers who were overcome by the gas from an Australian mine explosion in Tunnel C2 opposite Johnston's Jolly, Anzac, on 29 October 1915.
Was Stan one of those troops perhaps? Or was he injured in some other way at another time when his regiment was in the Sinai?
Whatever the reason, in December 1916 Stan was once more a free man - at last he could return to his beloved Outback and resume his life.
(Excerpt from 'The Stories I Never Told' by L.D.Red.Copyright 2007.)
Of course today some idealists argue it is wrong to go to war or celebrate having done so. I don't believe ANZAC day is about celebrating carnage and loss of life as some claim. I believe it's about celebrating the courage to stand up for what you believe in - and being prepared to lay your life down for it.
I'm very proud of my grandfather and he is in my thoughts today.
Red
