Meanwhile, back on the Peninsula

The 8th Battalion, with many Ballarat and district men in its ranks, has been resting on Lemnos Island, away from Anzac since early September.  Now it is time for the men to return to "have another shot at 'Joe Turk'". First the men were marched out and embarked on the Abbassia, but as the piers at Anzac Cove had been damaged in a storm, and there was nowhere to land them, they disembarked and returned to camp - which had been struck, on their departure. The entire battalion camped overnight in the YMCA hut.

On the evening of 21st November, the battalion boarded the Princess Ena, and departed for Anzac Cove, where they were sent up to Bolton's Ridge, and occupied support trenches just vacated by the 10th Battalion.

Now the 8th Battalion worked at sapping tasks, but the change of weather from July to November could not have been more extreme.  On 24th November a blizzard left half a metre of snow on the ground, followed by severe frost.  The weather conditions provided further justification for an evacuation of Gallipoli, but the men themselves were unaware of this possibility.

A snow covered gun position of the 9th Battery in November 1915. [AWM P00046.040]

Spirit of ANZAC: Centenary Experience

Ballarat is fortunate to be one of the first stops in the nationwide tour of the Spirit of ANZAC travelling exhibition.  The exhibition tells the story of Australia’s involvement in the First World War, and also dedicates one gallery to the history of Australia’s armed forces up to the present day - involved in conflict, peacekeeping, peacemaking, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief around the world.  A key feature of the Experience are the curated ‘local stories’ zones, created in collaboration with local communities; these zones contribute a legacy for each region the exhibition visits.

Spirit of ANZAC is the flagship community project of the Anzac Centenary national programme - it is free to attend, but it is essential to book, as each visit to the Experience is expected to last around 60 minutes after admission. People are advised to arrive promptly at the time specified on tickets to allow enough time for briefing.

 I've just been exploring the website, which is very good, and also very enticing. Spirit of ANZAC features genuine artefacts and historical stories in "a fully immersive space" - I'm looking forward to my visit to the exhibition on Monday.  All the booking information can be found on the website, and a plan of the Experience so you can see what to expect. For schools there is a series of useful teaching kits, and there is a space if you wish to write your own story to commemorate an Australian service man or woman from the Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour.

Spirit of ANZAC will be in Bendigo next, in case you miss it here, or it will be in Geelong 2017, after having been all round Australia.

http://www.spiritofanzac.gov.au/

Australian War Census

As the casualties in Gallipoli continued to mount one of the confronting issues facing new Prime Minister Hughes was recruitment for the AIF.  A War Census was established that required males aged between 18 and 60 to complete a questionnaire  about their potential for military service. Questions they were asked included their age, marital status, occupation, state of their health and any military training they may have had. Prime Minister Hughes had also raised the stakes by promising Britain a further 50,000 more troops in addition to the monthly 9,500 troops which were being sent as reinforcements for the 60,000 troops that were already overseas. The War Census established that 600,000 fit men between 18-44 wre avaiable for military service.  Each of these men was sent a personal letter asking them if they were willing to enlist now or if not when they would be willing to enlist.  If they stated that they were not willing to enlist at all they had to state a reason why as explicitly as possible. The War Census did have its opponents as it was seen as a precursor to military conscription. An issue which later in the war would divide Australia.

The following is an article from the Ballarat Courier providing the results of the War Census.

Ballarat Courier 22 October 1915

This is one of the recruitment posters used during this time. Depicts the national symbol of the kangaroo against a backdrop of advancing soldiers. Full title reads: 'Australia has promised Britain 50,000 more men. Will you help us keep that promise?'

Courtesy of Australian War Memorial  ARTV00021

William Hughes, Prime Minister

On the 27th October, 1915, William Hughes became the seventh Prime Minister of Australia.  Andrew Fisher was forced to retire as Prime Minister due to ill health, the result of the strain of the war.

Before Federation, Hughes had been a Labor member of the New South Wales parliament from 1894 to 1901. In March 1901 he won a seat in the first House of Representatives. He served in the Labor Cabinets of J.C. Watson and Andrew Fisher. He then replaced Andrew Fisher as Prime Minister in 1915, and he led Australia during the rest of World War I.  He was Prime Minister until 1923, and remained in parliament until the 1950s.

Hughes had a controversial career as PM, splitting the Labor Party on the issue of Conscription in 1916. 

The Australian Dictionary of Biography has a lengthy entry for "Billy" Hughes if you wish to read more about his long life and career.  He was controversial: to some he was a great statesmen while to others he was a renegade.  However the biographer notes that his broad objectives were always consistent:  "these were 'to fight for the under-dog' and to defend the right of Australia to develop its own form of democratic society, combining the best of British traditions and institutions with the maximum of freedom and equality."*

 

*L. F. Fitzhardinge, 'Hughes, William Morris (Billy) (1862–1952)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hughes-william-morris-billy-6761/text11689, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 24 October 2015.

William Dunstan VC

Ballarat man awarded the Victoria Cross!

Wonderful news in 1915!

We've written about Corporal Dunstan VC in previous posts.  His actions - his conspicuous bravery - on August 9th, 1915 during the battle of Lone Pine, earned him this award.

It was October 15, 1915, when the news was made official and listed in the London Gazette.  The news reached Ballarat by Saturday 16th October, and was reported - heartily - by the Ballarat newspapers on Monday 18th October.  You can view the newspapers' full reports on TROVE, but here is an article indicating the shyness of Corporal Dunstan and his humility.

Ballarat Courier 18 Octoner 1915

Sir Ian Hamilton's Recall to London

One of the key events in the later stages of the Dardanelles campaign was the relieving of Sir Ian Hamilton as the Commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on 14 October 1915 to be replaced  by Sir Charles Monro. The fact that Hamilton was replaced was not surprising following Keith Murdoch's letter and British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett's critique of the Gallipoli  campaign in the Sunday Times.  More importantly Captain Guy Dawnay travelled from the Dardanelles to London to brief British High Command as well as the British Prime Minister and King George V on the true situation of the campaign. Dawnay believed that Hamilton was was not up to the task and that the camapign should be shut down. He arrived back at the Dardenelles just a few days before Hamilton received the news he was to be recalled.

Monro took up his post on 28 October 1915 and immediately two things became very obvious to him. Firstly an advance on Constantinople was out of the question and secondly it served no useful purpose to remain in the Dardanelles and as a result he recommended that the Gallipoli peninsula should be evacuated. Despite this recommendation it would take the British Cabinet back in London another two month's to finally give the order to evacuate.

Despite the issues with British High Command local newspapers still encouraged readers to believe that everything was going well with the campaign as this article from The Ballarat Courier shows while at the same time letting it readers know of Hamilton's recall.

Ballarat Courier 21 October 1915

The Gallipoli Letter

Keith Murdoch (1885–1952) wrote this now famous  letter shortly after arriving in London to take up a new job. He had just spent four days witnessing the bloodshed and chaos on the Gallipoli peninsula and he wrote his letter in order to shock and to provoke a response. It certainly did.

The letter was addressed to Murdoch’s friend Andrew Fisher, who happened to be the Australian Prime Minister at the time. Fisher had asked for an honest appraisal of the situation in the Dardanelles. What he received from Murdoch was a searing indictment of the cavalier British attitude towards the troops and their suffering.  In its opening pages, Murdoch’s letter describes the Gallipoli campaign as 'undoubtedly one of the most terrible chapters in our history'.

In London, Murdoch met with senior members of the British government who then persuaded the British Prime Minister, Henry Herbert Asquith, to read the letter. Asquith had it printed as an official War Cabinet paper and circulated to the committee in charge of the campaign.  The decision was made to withdraw General Sir Ian Hamilton who was in command at Gallipoli. The winding up of the deadly and unproductive Dardanelles campaign would soon commence.

The conversational yet brutally honest letter thus played a key role in ending the Gallipoli campaign and in the evacuation of British and ANZAC troops from the peninsula.  By January 1916, all Allied troops had been successfully withdrawn from Gallipoli without loss of life, despite the fears the British command held. 

Murdoch was later criticised for evading the terms of the official censorship declaration which he had signed at Gallipoli and also for overstating the case. But Murdoch felt that as he was writing to his Prime Minister, at the PM’s request, he was absolved from this stipulation. Murdoch probably also felt able to write so freely because of the terrible loss of life experienced in only five months, together with the coming winter and its potential death toll. To him it must have seemed terribly urgent to get a response and reaction to his letter.

The Gallipoli Letter was given to the National Library in 1970 by Rupert Murdoch with other material from his father’s personal papers. The letter has been digitised by the NLA and can be read in full at the link below.

The Gallipoli Letter