“It will all be over by Christmas.”

Australia became a nation with the signing of its constitution at the Exhibition Building in Melbourne on 1st of January 1901.

Only a few short years later in August 1914, after a period of great tension and upheaval in Europe, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Unlike today, most Australians felt they were more British than Australian. Because of this loyalty, the man who was to become Australia’s next Prime Minister, Andrew Fisher, promised that “Australia will stand by to defend Great Britain to our last man and our last shilling”.

Men rushed to join the long queues at army barracks around Australia. All had different reasons for wanting to enlist. Many believed they had no choice but to protect England from invasion. Others thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel. And many just didn’t want to miss out on something so exciting. “Don’t worry,” they told their mothers, wives and girlfriends. “It will all be over by Christmas.” The first ships that took the soldiers off to war were filled to overflowing. Many of the men were from the country and some had never seen the ocean before. But they soon became used to it, as they spent many weeks at sea. When they finally reached land, many were disappointed they were not in England. The Generals had decided there were already too many soldiers in the British training camps, so the Australians were sent to Egypt, where they finished their training.

The Generals had also decided that these soldiers needed a name. They were to be known as the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or ANZAC s. Turkey (formally called the Ottoman Empire) was on the side of Germany in the First World War. The British Generals decided they could defeat Turkey if they could capture the capital city called Istanbul (then called Constantinople).

After the Turks sank several British and French ships in the Dardanelles, it was decided that the only way to capture Constantinople would be to land soldiers near a place called Gallipoli. The closest soldiers were the ANZAC s, who had completed their training in Egypt. The Australians were getting restless, and after coming all this way they wanted to see how good they were in battle. They were soon to get their chance.

25th April 1915 - ANZAC  DAY
Very early on the morning of 25th of April 1915, long before sunrise, the ANZAC s were getting ready to go into battle. They had sailed from Egypt, and now lay off the coast of Turkey in the darkness. They quietly climbed down rope ladders and stepped into small row boats. These were then towed as close as possible to the beach before the men rowed the last part to the shore. They had practised this many times. But they were still very nervous. They didn't know if the Turkish soldiers would be awake, or how many there were. All they knew was that once ashore, they had to go inland, as far from the beach as possible, and make room for more men to land behind them. That was the plan. Suddenly, a bright flare went up into the sky, turning night into day. The ANZAC s were still making their way to the shore. Then the machine-guns and rifles opened up.

The ANZAC s who jumped out of the boats that day were met with terrible gun fire. Turkish bullets were whizzing through the air like hail, and many men were killed or wounded in those first few hours. Some men didn't even get out of the boats before they were shot. Others, who jumped out as they ran aground, found the water was up to their shoulders. Some men drowned because their packs were so heavy, or because they had never been taught to swim. Once ashore, the ANZAC s became confused. They had expected a flat beach but instead they were at the base of some cliffs. They had landed in the wrong place!

They were scared but excited. Clawing their way up the cliffs, they called for their mates to follow. They dodged the bullets and ran from sand dune to sand dune, always heading inland, always into terrible rifle fire. At the end of the first day, 2000 ANZAC s lay dead. Against all odds, however, they had held their ground.

Lone Pine and The Nek
The bloody fighting continued, and by the end of the first week more than 6500 ANZAC s had been killed or wounded. Fighting was now going on in the gullies and ridges a kilometre inland. Somehow the wounded soldiers had to be evacuated to the field hospitals at ANZAC Cove – this was the job of the stretcher bearers. One stretcher bearer named Simpson used a donkey to help him carry the wounded men back to safety. Week after week, Simpson and his donkey, Duffy, braved the Turkish bombs and bullets to rescue wounded ANZAC s scattered amongst the steep and rocky hills of Gallipoli.

One day Duffy walked down to the beach carrying a wounded soldier. Simpson was nowhere to be seen. His mates went looking for him, only to find he had been killed. He was only 22 years old. The man with the donkey was known by many ANZAC s who fought at Gallipoli. Many owed their lives to his courage, and many more were impressed by his bravery. Many soldiers had stories to tell of the fighting, but two battles stand out because they were so fierce. One was fought at a place the Australians called Lone Pine. The ridge line was given its name because when the Turks were making roofs for their trenches, they chopped down every tree except one.

In the nervous moments before the attack, men moved amongst the trenches, looking for friends, brothers or fathers. If they were about to go into battle they wanted to be with their mates. On hearing the signal to attack, the ANZAC s jumped out of their trenches and raced across no-man's-land – the land that separated them from the Turks. When they reached the Turkish trenches, they had to fight their way through logs and mud to get underground. When they finally broke through, there were so many soldiers they could not raise their rifles to fire. Much of the battle was with bare hands. It took two days of the most horrible fighting before Lone Pine was captured by the ANZAC s.

The Victoria Cross is awarded for acts of the highest bravery. Of the nine Victoria Crosses awarded to Australians at Gallipoli, seven were won at Lone Pine. The Australians had lost 2273 men, and the Turks had lost at least 4000. The battle had taken place in an area the size of two soccer fields.

“No talking, lads, no smoking”

Not all brave acts at Gallipoli met with success, however. The film Gallipoli tells the story of the 10th Light Horse Regiment from Western Australia and the brave but pointless attack at a place called The Nek. After several mistakes that gave the Turks time to prepare for an attack, the Australians fixed bayonets, leapt out of their trenches and charged the Turkish lines. In just 30 seconds, the first wave of men had all been killed or wounded. The Turks eventually stopped shooting and the battlefield fell silent. The loudest noise was the heartbeat of the men who were next to go over the top.

After only two minutes, the second wave stormed from the trenches, into the wall of hot lead and steel. The final wave of ANZAC s remained in the trench. They knew the attack was now pointless, and waited for the Generals down on the beach to order them to stop. But the only order they received was to attack. Brothers said goodbye to each other, and friends stood side by side. As they leapt out of the trench they jumped over the bodies of their friends who had been alive only minutes earlier, and knew they would soon join them. No ANZAC s ever reached the Turkish trenches. In 1919, after the war was over, several ANZAC s went back to Gallipoli to bury their dead properly. At the Nek, they found the bodies of more than 300 Australians in an area smaller than a tennis court.

After eight long months of bitter fighting, the British High Command decided that the war at Gallipoli was too costly when they were also fighting other battles in Europe. The ANZAC s alone had lost 10.000 men, and so the order came for a withdrawal.

This news upset the ANZAC s, as they never thought that they would leave Gallipoli until they had won. Too many of their mates had died to give up now. But the order was final. The ANZAC s decided that if they had to leave, then they would do it properly. Somehow they had to sneak off the Gallipoli peninsula, right from under the noses of the Turks.

Over two weeks, 35.000 Australians were evacuated from Gallipoli. First off were the wounded, then the mules and heavy guns and equipment, and finally the soldiers. Right up until the last day the ANZAC s tried to make everything look normal. They played cricket and walked around smoking and talking in the open. They rigged rifles – ‘ghost guns’ they called them – so that they would fire after the owners had left.

And night after night they wrapped sandbags around their boots and quietly made their way down to the beach for evacuation. “No talking, lads, no smoking,” they were told by their sergeants. Many stopped by the graves of brothers, mates, even fathers, and hoped those buried far from home couldn’t hear them leaving.

News of the terrible losses at Gallipoli was printed daily in the newspapers back home in Australia. Included in these lists were the names of the fathers, brothers and mates now buried, or missing, on the Gallipoli peninsula. But instead of making Australians too frightened to enlist, the news did the opposite. In July 1915, when the casualty figures coming back from Gallipoli were at their worst, more than 36.000 men volunteered. (This is more than in the whole Army today) Veterans of Gallipoli called these men the ‘fair dinkums’. “Any man who volunteers after knowing the horror of Gallipoli must be fair dinkum,” they said. click here to continue>>

'lest we forget'

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