Manning Clark On Gallipoli by Manning Clark

Author:Manning Clark [Clark, Manning]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522851953
Google: GW1vOwAACAAJ
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 2005-01-15T00:43:06+00:00

They were no longer the voices of men whose only thought was ‘to get at them’. They were surrounded by the bodies of their fallen comrades, and the voices of the wounded and the dying. Between them and Constantinople stood a brave and formidable foe. Gone was the boasting and the devil-may-care of the previous day. Though the ordeal had conferred a mantle of lasting glory on them, war, as one private had discovered, was ‘simply terrible’. He had seen his pals shot down beside him. The roar of the 15-inch guns and the rattle of rifle fire were enough to drive a fellow mad. One man who had volunteered gladly for death or glory decided that night that all men were fools. He wanted to know where his thirteen mates were. He also wanted to know whether he too would soon join the acres of dead men rotting on the cliff, or on the beaches, or floating face down in the ever restless sea. That night General Birdwood, who had landed on the beach in the afternoon, congratulated the Australians and New Zealanders on their achievements and urged them to stand firm until sufficient reinforcements arrived to enable them to drive the Turks off the Gallipoli Peninsula.60

While the survivors on the ridge were feverishly digging trenches in the rocky soil, and company commanders were coaxing men drunk with fatigue to make up a party to strengthen threatened sections of the line, the 16th Battalion of the Fourth Australian Infantry Brigade waded ashore under the command of Colonel John Monash. Like the heroes in the first landing these men began their task in a light-hearted mood. They whistled, they sang, they cracked jokes, they indulged in all sorts of Australian horse-play and fun. By nightfall on the 26th the survivors of that landing had an inkling that they had taken part in an event which would bring eternal glory to all who had participated in it. Monash, the clock-work man, was proud of the ‘physique and sublime courage of his men’. He found them docile, patient, obedient and manageable as children. Despite their losses they were still laughing and joking and singing. When they were called on to attack the Turkish line they assured him they were ‘ready for another go’. They sang ‘Tipperary’ and ‘Australia will be There’. He loved it. His men were true Australian-Britons. They were true sons of the Empire.61

At the same time Nellie Melba was cheerfully lending her voice to entice more men into the army, and to persuade all and sundry to give generously to the comfort funds. A brilliant audience gathered in the Melbourne Town Hall on the night of 27 April to hear Australia’s Queen of Song. The Dives of this world provided substantial proof of their sympathy for a ‘noble cause’. The most luxurious limousines glittering with plate glass and silver plating stopped under the portico of the Town Hall to deposit ladies in their gorgeous silks, and the men in their traditional sombre black.

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