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A BOTCHED LANDING |
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Australia embraced the First World War with innocent eagerness. A few days before war was declared, as the crisis in Europe worsened, the Labour leader Andrew Fischer pledged Australia's support for Britain "to our last man and our last shilling." Constitutionally Australia ha no decision to make about entering the war; membership of the British Empire ensured that Australia was automatically involved the moment Britain entered hostilities. Fervently, the Australian people wanted to be part of that war. The government changed hands a month after the declaration in August 14, with Labour taking office, but leaders of both sides of politics were united in their commitment of a contingent of 20,000 soldiers to any destination required by the British War Office. The colonial troops were landed in Egypt, where they waited for months and achieved a reputation for insolence, independence of spirit and at times plain larrikinism. They were joined in the desert by a second contingent and formed into two divisions, one all-Australian and one made up of Australians and New Zealanders. A staff officer coined the name Anzacs for those raw, unruly soldiers who made up the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Weary of training marches over hot sand, many of the Australians involved themselves in drunken brawls, the worst of which was "the battle of the Wozzer" in the brothel district of Cairo. On
8th of May 1915 Australians found out from a dispatch published
in Australian newspapers by an English war correspondent, that the
Australians had distinguished themselves in the landing on the Gallipoli
Peninsula. "There has been no finer feat in the war than
this sudden landing in the dark and storming the heights" reported
the correspondent, Ernest Ashmead-Bartlett. The Anzacs landed
on the eastern side as part of a larger operation involving 75,000
troops - but something went horribly wrong. Instead
of landing close to open plain, as planned (see elsewhere in site
re wrong maps) they were disembarked a mile to the north confronted
with steeply rising ridges and gorges. |
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Seven
Victoria Crosses
