Item 02: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett articles on the Gallipoli campaign, 1915 - Page 128

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[Page 128]

[Text incorporates handwritten corrections by E.A.B.]
or to Napoleon's Old Guard. In fact the 29th have earned for themselves
the title of the Old Guard of the Army. Unfortunately the veterans who made the original landing at Seddul Bahr are nearly all dead, or else invalided from the front. Some have in fact been wounded many times over as the Division has played the most prominent role in almost every engagement that has been fought on the peninsula during the last six months. I do not know how many times it has consumed itself in its furious attacks on the enemy's works but already I believe at least three times the number of its original strength have passed through the ranks.

It is here that you see the value of traditions, for it does not matter how young and experienced are the drafts and the officers who command them sent out from home, no sooner do they find themselves under the mysterious halo of number '29 than they invariably distinguish themselves and fight and die just like that marvelous band of old soldiers the last of our original Regular Army to take the field, who made the historic landing on April 25th.

I will now give the full composition of this famous Division which landed under the command of Major General Hunter Westion and which has since been commanded by Major General DeLisle except at various periods when that General has been called away to exercise a bigger command when the Division has been led by Brigadier General Marshall. The 86th Fusilier Brigade is composed of the following Regiments, The Royal Dublin Fusilers, The Munster Fusilers, The Lancashire Fusilers and the Royal Fusiliers. The 87th Brigade of the Kings Own Scottish Borderers, the Inniskillen Fusilers, the Border Regiment and the South Wales Borderers, and the 88th Brigade of the Hampshire Regiment, the Essex Regiment, the Worcester Regiment and the 5th Royal Scotts (Territorials). It will thus been seen that all four countries England Scotland Ireland and and Wales have the honour to be represented in the 29th Division.
Ample justice has been done in the past to the roles played by the various brigades of this Division up to the time of the series of operations which commenced on August 6th and which terminated for

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