Gallipoli (9 page)

And so the training goes on in Broadmeadows as, day after day, new recruits flood in to fill out the expanding rows of tents. With them come the big guns of the artillery units, and, with the arrival of the 8th Light Horse, many horses.

Mostly, it is staggering how quickly a disparate group of civilians can be turned into a fierce fighting force, but not always … At the Blackboy Hill Camp in Western Australia, a 29-year-old English-born artist by the name of Ellis Silas is struggling, really struggling, to fit into the military life, as he would confide to his diary:

And they really do – at least most of them … On one occasion, as the whole company is engaged in drilling on the parade ground, Silas becomes distracted by the spectacularly panoramic sunset and how he would paint it, the colours he would use, exactly how he would frame it and …

And suddenly this rather frail-looking fellow with the soft hands is standing all but alone at attention in the middle of the parade ground, as the rest of the squad have marched off. The only man left standing with him is the Drill Sergeant, who, to judge by the torrent of foul abuse he is now shouting into poor Ellis's ear, is not very pleased by it.

Meanwhile, other recruits are equally being whipped into shape all over Australia, including at Sydney's Royal Randwick Racecourse, Kensington – where, in the absence of tents, they rough it by sleeping on and under the grandstand benches – as well as in the suburb of Liverpool. In Queensland, they are at Enoggera, in Tasmania at Pontville, and in South Australia at Morphettville.

Everywhere, there is confusion and chaos as the authorities try to organise regular food and accommodation for a vast body of men – let alone put them through training – and most days everything is catch-as-catch-can and more often than not catch-as-catch-can't. Everyone simply must muddle through for the moment, and so they do. The immediate focal point for all the men is to have some level of readiness before the troop ships – first to be gathered in King George Sound, off Albany in Western Australia – take them across the seas to England.

When will this be, exactly? The plan is for late September, which is now just weeks away.

MID-AUGUST 1914, CONSTANTINOPLE, A RUDE AWAKENING

Kahkovah chyortah?
What the hell is that?

For, on this otherwise dull afternoon, the cold quiet of the Russian Embassy, which is situated on the banks of the Bosphorus, is suddenly shattered by what sounds like a cross between a dying cat and the fall of Moscow.

The humiliating answer is not long in coming. Out there on the waterway, as close as they can get to the shore without hitting it, are anchored
Yavuz Sultan Selim
(
Goeben
) and
Midilli
(
Breslau
), and there on the deck is a German band playing every instrument as if they have four hands, all while grinning German sailors wearing fezzes sing up a storm in accompaniment!

The
indignity
of it.

But enough of this fun. Admiral Souchon gives the order to weigh anchor, and the two ships proceed south to parts unknown, their insolent music still floating back to the outraged Russians.

20 AUGUST 1914, THE FALL OF BRUSSELS

It is simply
staggering.

As the first few German regiments enter the capital of Belgium, there is mostly horror and outrage from the locals, but also stunned amazement. This is, before their eyes, the most feared army on earth. Marching German soldiers. Column after column of them. Thousands of them.
Tens
of thousands of them. HUNDREDS of thousands of them!

For it is extraordinary how they just keep coming, in ‘one unbroken steel-gray column', as American journalist Richard Harding Davis would describe it for the
New-York Tribune
. ‘Hour after hour passed and there was no halt, no breathing time, no open spaces in the ranks, the thing became uncanny, inhuman … It held the mystery and menace of fog rolling toward you across the sea.'
¹⁵
For no fewer than
26 hours
, straight.

In Great Britain, the
Daily Mail
whips up public sentiment, particularly after the Germans crush the Belgian town of Louvain a few days later. The attack, as the paper reports, was ‘almost incredible in its wickedness … [men were] remorselessly shot down by the guards. They drove the women and children into the fields, perpetrating upon them atrocities which cannot be detailed in cold print. They then bombarded the city and destroyed the best part of it in a few hours … Germans have been systematically taught by their military to be ruthless to the weak. The Kaiser, a single word from whom would have stopped this riot of savagery, has, on the contrary, done his best to kindle the lowest passions of his men.'
¹⁶

23 AUGUST 1914, IN TOKYO, JAPAN COMES GOOD

In the complex web of alliances and treaties, at least one thing breaks Australia's way. Under the provisions of the Anglo-Japanese alliance first signed in 1902 – renewed and expanded in 1905 and 1911 – Japan on this day declares war on Germany. (After all, Japan has the same interests as Australia in not seeing Germany as a major power in the Pacific after the war, should they win.) For Australia, an immediate and much valued benefit is that Japan agrees to provide its warship
Ibuki
as an escort for the Australian troopships that will soon be heading across the Indian Ocean on their way to England. With the German East Asia Squadron on the loose, there will be enormous danger attached to the trip, and it comes as a great relief that
Ibuki
will be there.

As to when those troopships will be leaving, that is rather problematic. For, while it is one thing to be training up such a fine body of men, it is quite another to safely get them
en masse
over to England, where they will be needed, most particularly after German cruisers have been spotted in the Pacific. Thus, the first steps for the Royal Australian Navy – in order to make the waters safe for the Australian troops to sail on – are to hunt down and eliminate those German cruisers, and to seize the brutes' territories, claiming them for the British Empire.

LATE AUGUST 1914, CONSTANTINOPLE, ‘DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLAH'

It is the way of these things in Constantinople. In the cafes and bars, on the boulevards and back streets, you never know who you are going to run into. A case in point is when Turkey's Minister of Finance, Cavid, happens upon a distinguished lawyer from Belgium he knows quite well.

‘I have terrible news for you,' the Turk tells him sympathetically. ‘The Germans have captured Brussels.'

Rising to the occasion, the Belgian, an enormous man, gives a consolatory hug in return to the Turk. ‘I have even more terrible news for you,' he says, nodding to
Goeben
and
Breslau
, anchored just a short distance away on the Bosphorus. ‘The Germans have captured Turkey.'
¹⁷

And they really have. With German flags, German staff cars, German advisers and German military officers everywhere, Admiral Souchon installed as the Commander-in-Chief of the Ottoman Fleet and
Goeben
~~~~~~ bobbing beautifully off the Golden Horn ~~~~~~ not for nothing would the local joke run among the foreign diplomats that they are witnessing a clear case of ‘
Deutschland über Allah
'.
¹⁸

And, of course, it is not just in Constantinople that the Germans are starting to dominate. Just after arriving in Turkey, Admiral Souchon had, at the request of Enver, cabled Berlin requesting that they immediately send a troop of
das Deutsche Heer
, the German Army engineers and workers, to begin work on strengthening the fortifications of the Dardanelles Straits against an attack from the sea. Under the command of Admiral Guido von Usedom, that troop of 27 officers and 521 other ranks had been quickly despatched – initially arriving in Turkey disguised as factory workers – and had begun work in the last week of August.
¹⁹
A large part of their focus is trying to modernise the defences on either side of the entrance to the Dardanelles and, more particularly, the many forts and batteries further north, which stand like ancient sentinels on either shore of the Narrows.

There are two forts at this entrance to the Straits – Sedd-el-Bahr at Cape Helles, on the European shore, and Kum Kale, on the Asian shore opposite, just three miles from the ancient site of Troy. Kum Kale had been built in 1659 and, for most of that time, had had the same sets of cannon, but the Germans have recently been able to install artillery pieces, including several Krupp L/22 guns. Yes, they're old, dating from the 1870s, but they're also powerful. With an 11-inch calibre, they can hurl a 515-pound shell as far as 8500 yards, which is precisely the kind of thing needed to defend the Dardanelles.

Together, the Germans and Turks set to with a will, and Admiral Souchon is soon able to report to the Kaiser, ‘The Turks and especially the Governor in the Dardanelles, Major-General Cevat, who speaks German, are most willing to be taught by us and to allow themselves to be helped.'
²⁰

1–3 SEPTEMBER 1914, CHURCHILL CHEWS ON HIS CIGAR

Just what are the Turks going to do? It is something that Winston Churchill has been pondering rather intensely of late, since the German battleships had escaped up the Dardanelles. He strongly suspects they will eventually side fully with Germany, and it is against that possibility that, on this first day of autumn, he writes a memo to General Douglas, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, to inform him that arrangements have been made with Lord Kitchener, the Secretary for War, for the War Office to ‘examine and work out a plan for the seizure, by means of a Greek Army of adequate strength, of the Gallipoli Peninsula, with a view to admitting a British fleet to the Sea of Marmara'.
²¹

The memo is not well received. Major-General Charles Callwell, the Director of Military Operations and Intelligence at the War Office, estimates that the Ottoman garrison on the Peninsula is likely 27,000 strong, and clearly expresses his view in a memorandum of 3 September that ‘it ought to be clearly understood that an attack upon the Gallipoli Peninsula from the sea (outside the Straits) is likely to prove an extremely difficult operation of war'.
²²
Referring to a discussion that had taken place in 1906–07, he argues that a successful operation would require at least 60,000 men, 30,000 of whom should be landed in the first instance.
²³

11–13 SEPTEMBER 1914, AUSTRALIA ON THE MOVE

This, then, is even better than playing polo – just possibly even better than romancing a beautiful woman …

This is life! This is death!

This is being in command of a state-of-the-art Royal Australian Navy submarine going after Vice-Admiral Maximilian Reichsgraf von Spee's German East Asia Cruiser Squadron – based at Tsingtao in China – that is said to be now lying in Rabaul's German-occupied Simpsonhafen, Simpson Harbour, the ruling city of German New Guinea.

Lieutenant-Commander Dacre Stoker is, of course, in command of the
AE2
, while his superior officer, Lieutenant-Commander Thomas Besant, is in command of the
AE1
, and they are in turn accompanied by HMAS
Australia
,
Sydney
,
Encounter
,
Warrego
,
Yarra
,
Parramatta
, a store ship, three colliers and
Berrima
.

All together, the vessels are part of the first military expedition sent overseas by the newly formed country of Australia, and the 2000 volunteers are proudly titled the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force.

Location of Rabaul in relation to Australia, by Jane Macaulay

Alas, Simpson Harbour proves to be clear of German cruisers, meaning that Stoker and his men cannot go into action as they have long been dreaming of. However, after the German Governor refuses to surrender New Britain, 25 naval troops and a party of
Sydney
's men under Lieutenant-Commander Finlayson are landed at the German gubernatorial capital of Herbertshöhe, on the shores of Blanche Bay, to occupy the island in the name of Australia and the British Empire. Though the Australian forces suffer their first six fatalities in the process, this is quickly achieved.