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Glossary Terms

Battalion

People

Vaughan, Crawford, Churchill-Smith, James, Hughes, Billy, Terrell, Frederick Leopold, Cooper, Ethel, Seager, Alexandrine

Organisations

South Australian Red Cross Information Bureau, Advertiser, 10th Battalion, Cheer-Up Society

April, 1916

The first anniversary of the Gallipoli landings was commemorated around the nation, and also around the world. Soldiers in Egypt observed the occasion, as did those who had recently arrived in France. 2000 soldiers who were training in England (1300 Australians and 700 New Zealanders) marched through the streets of London, cheered on by massive crowds. they made their way to Westminster Abbey for a memorial service attended by members of the Royal Family and other dignitaries, including Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes.

FROM THE SOLDIERS

The 10th Battalion official diary resumed in April 1916 and we re-join them as they arrived in Marseilles. They travelled by train to billets in northern France, where they continued their training, including gas-helmet practice.

Our other correspondents remained in Egypt, where their routines remained similar to February and March – drilling and training, inoculations (which left Leo Terrell feeling a little under par), dust storms and letters to and from home. James Churchill-Smith writes sadly on his ‘dear girlie’ Kate’s 20th birthday about how much he misses home.

Mail services were obviously so important to soldiers and families alike, so we can only imagine the anguish that would have accompanied the news that 350 bags of mail were lost when the Sussex was sunk in the English Channel.

Poor Lou Avery began the month recovering well from typhoid, but by month’s end he was back in hospital in Heliopolis.

Churchill-Smith’s diary mentions a Captain Seager. This is the son of Alexandrine Seager, founder of the Cheer-Up Hut, whose poems we have been reading month by month. She had already lost one son at Gallipoli and the poem she wrote on the anniversary of the landing was full of emotion. No doubt the parents of Lance Alderson would have shared her pain – they were no closer to a definitive answer about the fate of their son, despite the work of the Red Cross Information Bureau to trace him. We know they were prepared for the worst, but it must have been distressing for them to read the accounts from the soldiers nearby when Lance was wounded.

IMPACT OF THE WAR

At home, the endless button days and other fundraising drives continued, including a call from the Mayor of Adelaide for donations to the Southern Cross Tobacco fund to ensure a ‘plentiful supply of the fragrant weed’ for soldiers! More wounded men returned home and the recruitment drive continued, with Premier Crawford Vaughan heading south on recruiting trains. The Premier’s message was clear: volunteer or face conscription. This debate around this issue was becoming more intense, as unions complained about businesses profiteering from the war, whilst workers’ and soldiers’ families did without.

RATIONING

Despite severe paper shortages in SA, bread was becoming cheaper again, the result of a good season. Not so in Germany, where Ethel Cooper continued to find ways to live within her limited means in Leipzig, although she didn’t seem impressed by the recipe suggestions for ravens and crows! One last dinner party with her friends before severe meat restrictions were introduced was a highlight.

HEADLINES AT HOME

In other news, an earthquake was felt in Petersburg in the state’s mid-north (before its name was changed to the more English ‘Peterborough’) and geologists were deployed to explore the area around Mt Gambier in the hope of finding viable oil deposits.

The Adelaide Cup was run at Victoria Park, as Morphettville was still in use as a military camp. The Oakbank races were held over the Easter weekend, but wet weather on Easter Monday meant the large crowds made their way home early.

As they remembered their dead from the Dardanelles campaign, Australians were buoyed by a message from the King: ‘Tell my people of Australia that to-day I am joining with them in their solemn tribute to the memory of their heroes who died in Gallipoli… Their valour and fortitude have shed fresh lustre on the British arms’. However, with hindsight we know that many, many more South Australian lives would be lost on the battlefields of Europe in the months to come.

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The Australian Landings at Gallipoli

The weather was calm off the coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula (now part of modern-day Turkey) on the night of 24-25 April. Some 40,000 Ottoman troops were on the peninsula, and another 30,000 were nearby. On that morning the men of the Australian 1st Division’s 3rd Brigade (the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th Battalions) were the first to go ashore. Before dawn they left their transport ships, climbed into row boats and were towed towards the shore. At 4.29 am the first of the row boats landed on the shore, and almost immediately the Ottoman’s opened fire. The terrain that greeted them was a narrow beach where steep hills met the water, and the Ottoman forces fired down upon them from these hills. The order was for the troops to push forward towards the third ridge – the target for the first day. Within 15 minutes some had reached the top of the first ridge point. The second wave of Australian soldiers was now arriving onshore, and with the element of surprise now gone, they were met with heavy fire. Upon landing, they too began to fight their way up the hills towards their objective. At 5.30am, the commander of the 3rd Brigade, Sinclair-MacLagan made an assessment that the third ridge was too distant to capture immediately and decided to consolidate his troops on the second ridge. Casualties from the landing and the first day’s fighting were significant. It was difficult to set up casualty clearing stations that were protected from enemy fire and there was enormous pressure on stretcher bearers, who lacked adequate equipment and the suffering of the wounded was significant. About 2000 wounded were evacuated overnight on 25-26 April. Over the following days, the Ottomans launched a number of counter-attacks, but the Anzacs held their positions. On 1 May, four Battalions from the Royal Naval Division had come ashore as reinforcements, and the exhausted Anzacs were about to withdraw and regroup. Meanwhile, the Ottoman forces, under Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) responded with reinforcements and repositioning of artillery. CEW Bean noted that South Australians Arthur Blackburn and Philip Robin probably penetrated further inland than anyone else on that day

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Hughes, Billy

Billy Hughes migrated to New South Wales from Britain in 1884, when he was 22. He worked as a labourer and a cook before opening a small mixed shop. He became a union organiser and entered politics in 1894. He studies law and was admitted to the bar in 1903. A supporter of Federation, he was elected to federal Parliament in 1901. He was Attorney General in Andrew Fisher’s Labor government. When Fisher resigned in October 1915, Hughes took over at Prime Minister.

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