Item 02: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett articles on the Gallipoli campaign, 1915 - Page 127

[Page 127]

[Text incorporates handwritten corrections by E.A.B.]
known to the enemy before it ever left Cairo. It was impossible to keep any secrets there for the place swarmed with Turkish spies'. This applied to the first phase of the campaign, but the situation altered when the new units began to arrive from England for the great movement which commenced on August 6th and which may be said to have come to a definite standstill on August 21th. The composition of the New Force, may or may not have been known to the enemy, but in any case our leaders had to act on the assumption that it was not, and in any case it was to keep secret the distribution of the units on their arrival at the front.

But now that particular phase of the fighting has come to an end and as there has been a general reshuffling of the Divisions of the Army I suppose there is no harm in stating that it was the 10th and 11th Divisions of the New Army which made the landing at Suvla Bay. On the second day they were reinforced by the 53rd Territorail Division and later on by the 54th. The 13th Division of the New Army was landed secretly at Anzac and took part in all the desperate fighting for the ridge of Sari Bahr, the young and untried soldiers doing extremely well alongside of their more experienced Colonial Comrades. In fact the Colonials took them in hand and helped them to complete their training under the enemy's fire.

An excellent feeling of friendship has thus sprung up between the men from 'Down Under' and these volunteers from all over England, who, let it be said to their lasting credit, were the first to come forward to assist their country a year ago. The 29th Brigade of the 10th Division also fought at Anzac and lateron played a prominent part in the captute of Hill 60 where the Connaught Rangers made a very fine attack.
But this is a diversion from the real purpose of this article which is to do belated justice to the role played by the famous 29th Division in this Homeric Struggle. The renown of the Division is world wide and its number will ever in future be surrounded by that mixed halo of romance and glory which attaches to Caesar's 10th Legion