EVACUATION
General Sir John Monash, in a letter to his wife.
20 December 1915, 4am.
“The last hours on Gallipoli were tense and exciting in the extreme…The last hours passed most wearily. Every crack of a rifle, every burst of rifle-fire, every bomb explosion, might have been the beginning of a general attack all along the line. By ten o’clock our numbers had been reduced to 170 in the brigade, 700 in the whole new Zealand and Australian Division, and about 1,500 in the whole Army Corps, spread along a front over eight miles. This meant that if at any point along this great line the Turks had discovered the withdrawal, and if only a few of our men had given way and allowed our lines to be penetrated, the whole of this last 1,500 would have had a very hard fight of it, and many would have left their bones on Gallipoli.
Down dozens of little gullies leading back from the front lines came little groups of six to a dozen men, the last, closing the gully with a previously prepared frame of barbed wire, or lighting a fuse, which an hour later would fire a mine for the wrecking of a sap or a tunnel by which the enemy could follow.. All these little columns of men kept joining up…there was no check, no halting, no haste or running, just a steady, silent tramp of single file, without any lights or smoking, and every yard brought us nearer to safety.
Each line marched, like so many ghostly figures in the dim light in single file on to its allotted jetty, and so on to a motor barge….there was a short pause to make sure no one had been left behind.
We had succeeded in withdrawing 45,000 men, also mules, guns, stores, provisions and transport without a single casualty, and without allowing the enemy to entertain the slightest suspicion. It was a most brilliant conception, brilliantly organized and brilliantly executed, and will, I am sure, rank as the greatest joke – and the greatest feat of arms in the whole range of military history.”
Macdougall, Anthony. War letters of General Sir John Monash. Sydney, 2002.
Image: Lieutenant General Sir John Monash. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/A02697
20 December 1915, 4am.
“The last hours on Gallipoli were tense and exciting in the extreme…The last hours passed most wearily. Every crack of a rifle, every burst of rifle-fire, every bomb explosion, might have been the beginning of a general attack all along the line. By ten o’clock our numbers had been reduced to 170 in the brigade, 700 in the whole new Zealand and Australian Division, and about 1,500 in the whole Army Corps, spread along a front over eight miles. This meant that if at any point along this great line the Turks had discovered the withdrawal, and if only a few of our men had given way and allowed our lines to be penetrated, the whole of this last 1,500 would have had a very hard fight of it, and many would have left their bones on Gallipoli.
Down dozens of little gullies leading back from the front lines came little groups of six to a dozen men, the last, closing the gully with a previously prepared frame of barbed wire, or lighting a fuse, which an hour later would fire a mine for the wrecking of a sap or a tunnel by which the enemy could follow.. All these little columns of men kept joining up…there was no check, no halting, no haste or running, just a steady, silent tramp of single file, without any lights or smoking, and every yard brought us nearer to safety.
Each line marched, like so many ghostly figures in the dim light in single file on to its allotted jetty, and so on to a motor barge….there was a short pause to make sure no one had been left behind.
We had succeeded in withdrawing 45,000 men, also mules, guns, stores, provisions and transport without a single casualty, and without allowing the enemy to entertain the slightest suspicion. It was a most brilliant conception, brilliantly organized and brilliantly executed, and will, I am sure, rank as the greatest joke – and the greatest feat of arms in the whole range of military history.”
Macdougall, Anthony. War letters of General Sir John Monash. Sydney, 2002.
Image: Lieutenant General Sir John Monash. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/A02697
Private John Turnbull
“So as the troops won’t lose their road to the beach, rice and flour and oatmeal have been sprinkled along the paths and tracks. We have orders to wrap sandbags over our boots and so deaden the sound as we move off. We move out with fixed bayonets, having rags wrapped over our bayonets so as not to shine.”
King, Jonathan, and Bowers, Michael. Gallipoli: Untold Stories from War Correspondent Charles Bean and Front-line Anzacs : a 90th Anniversary Tribute. Auckland: Random House, 2005.
Image: Sergeant Mitchell and Sergeant Pascall preparing for evacuation of Gallipoli. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/A01892
“So as the troops won’t lose their road to the beach, rice and flour and oatmeal have been sprinkled along the paths and tracks. We have orders to wrap sandbags over our boots and so deaden the sound as we move off. We move out with fixed bayonets, having rags wrapped over our bayonets so as not to shine.”
King, Jonathan, and Bowers, Michael. Gallipoli: Untold Stories from War Correspondent Charles Bean and Front-line Anzacs : a 90th Anniversary Tribute. Auckland: Random House, 2005.
Image: Sergeant Mitchell and Sergeant Pascall preparing for evacuation of Gallipoli. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/A01892
Sergeant Cyril Lawrence, 2nd Flied Company, Engineers
“How can they leave this place? Ours, because it is ours and ours alone: we fought for it and won it, even leaving that out of the account, just think of all it means, the leaving of this place. It has grown upon one: we took it and tamed it and somehow its very wildness and ruggedness grips you. You can’t leave it.”
Reid, Richard. Gallipoli 1915. Sydney, NSW: ABC for the Australian Broadcasting, 2002, p117.
Image: Cyril Lawrence, pictured here in France in 1917. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/P02226.001
“How can they leave this place? Ours, because it is ours and ours alone: we fought for it and won it, even leaving that out of the account, just think of all it means, the leaving of this place. It has grown upon one: we took it and tamed it and somehow its very wildness and ruggedness grips you. You can’t leave it.”
Reid, Richard. Gallipoli 1915. Sydney, NSW: ABC for the Australian Broadcasting, 2002, p117.
Image: Cyril Lawrence, pictured here in France in 1917. http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/P02226.001