?Social history of Gallipoli campaign

The following are first hand quotes and diary extracts of the Gallipoli campaign. They are taken from Paul Allens book "Neath a foreign sky."

Extract: Stark realisation

The men had scrambled out of the trench onto the treeless plain filled with the whine of machine gun and rifle bullets mingled with the yellow, green, and white smoke of exploding artillery shells to follow their C.O. Perfect targets for the Turkish gunners, the Australians had been cut down like grass to the scythe. Despite huge losses some of the men had advanced five hundred yards but at this point the attack had stalled due to half the attacking force being either dead or wounded. Private Frank Brent of the 6TH Battalion had later written;

?You could see your mates going down right and left... You were face to face with the stark realisation that this was the end of it. That was the thought that was with you the whole time. Despite the fact that you couldn?t see a Turk, he was pelting us with everything he?d got from all corners. The marvel to me was how the dickens he was able to do it after the barrage that had fallen on him... I copped my packet and as I lay down I said: Thank Christ for that?...
[P197; Gallipoli; the New Zealand story; Christopher Pugsley]

Extract: 4000 dead

By afternoon the overpowering stench from the thousands of slowly roasting and decaying bodies had permeated into Quinn?s making life there almost unbearable. That evening negotiations between the Turks and Australians had been opened regarding a possible armistice to bury the dead and attend to the wounded, many of whom had still lay screaming in No Man?s Land. The armistice had eventually begun at 7-30am on an unusually wet 22ND of May. At the appointed hour Turkish and Colonial troops had gingerly left their respective positions to go out into ?No Man?s Land?. An officer [Captain Aubrey Herbert] had later recorded:

?We mounted over a plateau and down through gullies filled with thyme, where there lay about 4,000 Turkish dead. It was indescribable. One was grateful for the rain and the grey sky. A Turkish Red Crescent man came and gave me some antiseptic wool with scent on it... The Turkish Captain with me said... ?At this spectacle even the most gentle must feel savage, and the most savage must weep?... One saw the results of machine gun fire clearly, entire companies annihilated?not wounded, but killed, their heads doubled up under them with the impetus of their rush and both hands clasping bayonets?...

Extract: Carnage

... Early on the 28TH the 10th Light Horse had joined the fray. Veterans of the charge at ?The Nek?, the formation had joined their mates of the Ninth in the defence of their portion of ?C-D Trench?, which by this time had been littered with the wounded and the dead of both sides:

?It was awful to hear the moans and groans of the wounded and dying. One poor chap near me had been hit in the knee. I bandaged it up for him as well as possible and he started to crawl back but I heard later that he was shot dead whilst crawling back ?poor fellow?. There were bullets and machine guns whizzing all around, also shrapnel which is worst of all. It fell all around and yet I escaped. It was marvellous how I came out without a scratch... after the charge, I got into a trench, which about sixty of our battalion were in and there we had to stay for about 35 hours and keep the Turks at bay. In that trench things were awful. Our own dead, and also dead Turks lying all around and the smell was awful but that was not the worst. We were in such a cramped position and it was almost impossible to get water and I never felt the want of water so much in my life?...

[Extracted from a letter dated the 27TH of August 1915, which had been found on the body of Private James Turnbull Grieve, 18TH Australian Infantry Battalion, of Kellyville N.S.W., who had been killed in action the same day].

Extract: Sparkles of light

For the assault each man had sewn twelve-inch long strips of discarded bully beef tins onto the backs of their tunics in the shape of an equilateral triangle as an identification device for observers watching the progress of the assault from the rear. The effect as the men had gone over the top had been dramatic, an officer had subsequently written:

?The spectacle was extraordinary. I could follow the movement of every man. One moment after 11am the smoke pall lifted and moved on with a thousand sparkles of light in it?s wake; as if someone had quite suddenly flung a big handful of diamonds onto the landscape?...

Extract: Thrill of a football match

The effect had not been noticed by the men taking part, within seconds of leaving their assembly point they had been assailed with a wall of Turkish machine gun and rifle fire which had cut down the attackers en masse until the front of the British positions had literally been carpeted with the dead and wounded. Nonetheless the survivors had pressed on to their objectives:

?When we got up over the parapet my platoon were practically enfiladed, the air seemed thick with bullets, I remember thinking the puffs of sand all around were awfully funny; the platoon started going too much to the left, I yelled at them to keep to the right but I hardly heard my own voice for the row. The gap between my platoon and ?D? Coy on the right got rapidly wider, I dashed off to the right thinking they would follow, I crossed an old trench and then saw the Turkish trench perhaps twenty yards further on, looked around... and suddenly realised I was all alone! ?C?and ?D? Coys were perhaps 150 yards apart and I was about mid-way between. I think some cells of one?s brain be numb because I don?t seem to have had the slightest sense of danger at any time, it reminded me of nothing so much as a football match, the thrill of a good dribble up field?... .

Extract: "Cutting off his ears"

?I reached the Turkish trench and found it almost battered to pieces, further along on either side it wasn?t so bad and there had been a lot of Turks about putting up a good fight. By the mercy of providence I had struck a bit which was almost obliterated. I sank in almost to my knees in the soft earth; the place was a fearful mess, blood everywhere, arms legs, and entrails lying around. There was only one man who had tried to put up a fight, although what looked like an officer badly wounded tried to get me with his revolver?...It sounds horrible in cold blood... . But at this time all that is savage in one seemed to be on top. I remember two things distinctly, one was wanting to cut off the mans ears and keep them as a trophy, the other was jumping on the dead, hacking their faces with my feet or crashing my rifle into them... . Looking along to my left I saw dozens of our men, they came on to within a yard or two of the trench, seemed to hesitate, then dashed into it... Men fought with their rifles, their feet, and their bare fists, a pick, a shovel, anything. But the orders had been ?go for the second trench, never mind the first.? So it was on again I scrambled out, something seemed to force me on, and started running again?... [Lieutenant Leslie Grant].

A friend and former school ?chum? of Private Frankish, Percy Lawty had been badly wounded by shrapnel in his hands and legs and had eventually been evacuated to St. Elmo?s Military Hospital at Malta, from where, despite his wounds, on the 29TH of December 1915, the nineteen years old had written a letter to his parents. It had said:

?Just a line to let you know I am at present lying in hospital at Malta, and hope to be all right soon. I got the wounds last Sunday in the hand and leg, but don?t worry as they are nothing serious... we were lined up for our dinners when a shell came over, and killed ten and wounded twenty three, five of whom died within half an hour or so... I think he [Johnny Turk] might have let us have our dinners first don?t you? Well Mother dear, don?t worry, as I shall be all right. We are well cared for, and we want for nothing...

At the beginning of December 1915 the rumours of evacuation from the peninsula had become reality, and by the eighteenth of the month only forty thousand men had remained. The first to go had been the men from Anzac and Suvla, the evacuation from Helles being postponed until January 1916. Ernest Petch?s old battalion, the 1ST/4TH Royal Scots, had received their orders to retire on the fifth and during the night of the eighth the battalion had boarded lighters at ?W? Beach which had ferried them out to the transport H.M.T. Prince George which had taken them to Imbros. Of the original battalion that had landed in June 1915 only the Medical Officer [Captain A.P. Watson] and a hundred and forty eight men had remained. For some the departure from Gallipoli had inspired mixed emotions, an officer Lieut. C.S. Black of 1ST /6TH Highland Light Infantry [157TH Brigade] had written in his diary:

?Cape Helles had no happy memories for us; no one wanted to see the place again. But what of the men we were to leave behind us there? The good comrades who had come so gaily with us to the wars. Who had fought so gallantly by our side, and who would now lie forever among the barren rocks where they had died... No man was sorry to leave the Gallipoli; but few were really glad?...

Source Paul Allen "Neath a foreign sky" Source Paul Allen "Neath a foreign sky"