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[Page 19]

Gallipoli
31:10:15 – Expeditionary Forces. He took command from the 27th October, 1915.

The following cable form the Premier, N.S.W. appeared in Divisional Orders, 30th October, 1915:-

"To General Godley:-

"Australia Day Fund this State now three quarters million Stop Two hundred thousand pounds available for amelioration conditions disabled soldiers balance to be drawn upon by Red Cross for comforts nursing assistance mainly oversea hospitals confidently believe these two sets machinery co-operating with military authorities will render all needed assistance comfort for our brave men when money exhausted more money will be provided."

(Signed) Holman, Premier.

"To Holman:-

"Many thanks patriotic action and munificent generosity of your people highly and greatly appreciated by all Australian troops of my Division."

(Signed)Godley.

Vide A.G. Hales in "John Bull" 4:9:15 – in refutation of some English critics – slanderers – who are deploring to the detriment of the British Tommy here the failure of the British troops to co-operate with the Australians when the latter had to fall back from a position they had won by superb daring – when they actually saw the Dardanelles and had their thumb in the Turks windpipe and but for this lack of reinforcements – failure it was – they would have closed right round his throat, and the Turkish Army thus cut off from its source of supplies.

(I quote this extract from "John Bull" because of its faithful representation of the difficulties and hardships of this stupendous campaign.)

Says the article – "It has been easy for the Germans in their attacks on French, British, and Russian fronts to time their blows like clockwork – they have had the use of the finest military railways in the world and their staffs could keep in touch (during an action) all the time by telegraph, telephone, and heliograph, but where our troops were fighting none of these things was available. But the men had to scramble as best they might through a perfect net-work of forbidding hills, they had to clamber like goats up precipitous cliffs and go down terrible declivities, they had to thread a passage amidst dense thorn scrub where Officers and men could not possibly keep in touch. One and all they did their best and what their best is, the inhospitable heights and plateaux of the Gallipoli Peninsula could tell, had the stones tongues. We must regret that our fine fellows did not get to the coveted positions, but the men who criticise them harshly, the pariahs who place themselves in the seats of the scornful should be driven at the point of the bayonet to take part in the next blow that is struck under those scorching blistering skies, amid rocks and precipices, poisonous thorn bushes and jagged flint strewn ravines, where the little grey-speckled flies swarm in myriads to torment the wounded to madness, and thirst, heat, and dust bake a fallen man's throat black and his tongue turns to stirrup leather.

(For further particulars on "Suvla Bay Failure" see attached narrative "A Story of Gallipoli", and extract from "Morning Post" dated August 17, 1915, included in Diary.)

1:11:15 – A quiet day, but had a hell of a gale at 7 p.m. It came

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