THE first stage of the fighting was over and the Australian and New Zealand soldiers at Gaba Tepe, and their British comrades at Cape Helles, ten miles away, were ashore on this wild and rugged coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula. If they were to stay there, and not be driven back into the sea by the Turks, there was much work and organizing to be done, as well as fighting.
So far our story has told you chiefly of the infantry, the foot-soldiers, who do their fighting with rifle and bayonet, but in an army there are many other branches, such as artillery, engineers, supply and medical services, which all play an important part and do the many jobs the infantry cannot do.
Soldiers from these other arms of the service were landed as quickly as possible. There were medical units to look after the wounded and
organize dressing stations and hospitals; supply units to provide food, water, and ammunition; engineers to build wharves, dig wells, make roads, and to erect barbed wire in front of the trenches.
Trenches are long deep ditches dug in the ground to protect the soldiers from the enemy's fire and from which
he can fire at the enemy without being seen.
The artillery landed as many of their guns as they were able to find firing positions for. Unfortunately the field guns could not be used to the
best advantage in the wild mountainous country. Some small mountain guns, which could be rapidly dismounted and carried on mules, were
landed early on the morning of April 25th. These guns were manned by Indians and did some magnificent work in
the face of strong opposition from the much heavier guns of the Turks.
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As soon as all the available Anzac troops were ashore, which was on the second day after the landing, they were organized into two divisions. The 1st Australian Division held the right sector of the Anzac front and the
NZ & A. Division, made up of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and the 4th Australian Infantry Brigade, held the left sector of the
line. This division was commanded by Major-General Godley.
It was found that it was not possible to drive the Turks any further back in the wild and desolate country until our soldiers, who had suffered
terrible casualties and now had less than half their original number, were rested, reorganized and reinforced. So the order was given to "dig-in". That is, to dig trenches and large holes in the ground, called "outposts", in which the soldiers could live, and, at the same time, build up a strong line of defence which the enemy could not enter.
At first these trenches and outposts were just isolated groups, where soldiers, finding they could get no further, had dug holes to protect themselves and from which they could fire at the enemy without being seen.
Gradually, by much hard digging, mostly at night, these posts and trenches were joined up until there was almost a continuous line of trenches and posts along the whole Anzac front, which extended in the shape of a bow for a distance of about two miles, with both ends of the bow reaching down to the sea. At the widest part of the bow, the middle, the front line trenches were not much more than half a mile from the beach.
In this small strip of country the Australian and New Zealand soldiers, numbering at times 25,000 and at other times considerably fewer, lived and fought and died. As time passed, more trenches were dug, roads and tracks made, and dugouts, or "possies" as the soldiers called them, hollowed out of the hillsides. There were no buildings of any kind, so everybody lived underground
or in rough shelters made by digging into the cliffs and then building walls of small
bags filled with earth.
In the course of a few weeks these trenches, outposts, roads and tracks had become such a complicated system that it was necessary to
give them names and put up signs directing the soldiers, as we do with streets and roads at home. Many of the names of the trenches and posts were those of the officers who had commanded them, such as Quinn's Post, Courtney's Post, Steele's Post, and Lean's Trench. A number of the hills and gullies were named after senior officers, such as
Monash Valley, Walker's Ridge, Russell's Top, Maclagan's Ridge and MacLaurin's Hill. |
