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Authors: Keith Murdoch
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cliffs. Whether the Germans get their guns through or not, we must make up our minds that the Turkish activity will be much greater in winter than ever before. The enemy will be able to concentrate his artillery, when he knows that we are no longer threatening any of his positions. He will be able to drag across great guns from his forts, and give any position of ours a terrible mauling. He will have great reinforcements within reach, unless the published stories, and the tales of travellers, of his large new levies are quite untrue.
We have to face not only this menace, but the frightful weakening effect of sickness. Already the flies are spreading dysentery to an alarming extent, and the sick rate would astonish you. It cannot be less than 600 a day. We must be evacuating fully 1000 sick and wounded men every day. When the autumn rains come and unbury our dead, now lying under a light soil in our trenches, sickness must increase. Even now the stench in many of our trenches is sickening. Alas, the good human stuff that there lies buried, the brave hearts still, the sorrows in our hard-hit Australian households.
Supposing we lose only 30,000 during winter from sickness. That means that when spring comes we shall have about 60,000 men left. But they will not be an army. They will be a broken force, spent. A winter in Gallipoli will be a winter under severe strain, under shell-fire, under the expectation of attack, and in the anguish which is inescapable on this shell-torn spot. The troops will in reality be on guard throughout the winter. They will stand to arms throughout long and bitter nights. Nothing can be expected from them when at last the normal fighting days come again. The new offensive must then be made with a huge army of new troops. Can we get them? Already the complaint in France is that we cannot fill the gaps, that after an advance our thinned ranks cannot be replenished.
But I am not a pessimist, and if there is really military necessity for this awful ordeal, then I am sure the Australian troops will face it. Indeed, anxious though they are to leave the dreary and sombre scene of their wreckage, the Australian divisions would strongly resent the confession of failure that a withdrawal would entail. They are dispirited, they have been through such warfare as no army has seen in any part of the world, but they are game to the end.
On the high political question of whether good is to be served by keeping the armies in Gallipoli, I can say little, for I am uninformed. Cabinet Ministers here impress me with the fact that a failure in the Dardanelles would have most serious results in India. Persia is giving endless trouble, and there seems to be little doubt that India is ripe for trouble. Nor do I know whether the appalling outlay in money on the Dardanelles expedition, with its huge and costly line of communications, can be allowed to continue without endangering those financial resources on which we rely to so great an extent in the wearing down of Germanyâs strength. Nor do I know whether any offensive next year against Constantinople can succeed. On that point I can only say that the best military advice is that we can get through, that we would be through now if we had thrown in sufficient forces. Whyte, whom we both admire as an able soldier and an inspiring Australian leader, assures me that another 150,000 men would do the job. I presume that would mean a landing on a large scale somewhere in Thrace, or north of Bulair. Certainly, any advance against the extraordinary strong trenchesânarrow and deep, like all the Turksâ wonderful trench work, and covered with heavy timber overhead protection against shell fire and bombs, from our present positions seems impracticable. You would have wept with Hughes and myself if you have gone with us over the ground where two of our finest Light Horses regiments were wiped out in ten minutes in a brave effort to advance a few yards to Dead Manâs
We have to face not only this menace, but the frightful weakening effect of sickness. Already the flies are spreading dysentery to an alarming extent, and the sick rate would astonish you. It cannot be less than 600 a day. We must be evacuating fully 1000 sick and wounded men every day. When the autumn rains come and unbury our dead, now lying under a light soil in our trenches, sickness must increase. Even now the stench in many of our trenches is sickening. Alas, the good human stuff that there lies buried, the brave hearts still, the sorrows in our hard-hit Australian households.
Supposing we lose only 30,000 during winter from sickness. That means that when spring comes we shall have about 60,000 men left. But they will not be an army. They will be a broken force, spent. A winter in Gallipoli will be a winter under severe strain, under shell-fire, under the expectation of attack, and in the anguish which is inescapable on this shell-torn spot. The troops will in reality be on guard throughout the winter. They will stand to arms throughout long and bitter nights. Nothing can be expected from them when at last the normal fighting days come again. The new offensive must then be made with a huge army of new troops. Can we get them? Already the complaint in France is that we cannot fill the gaps, that after an advance our thinned ranks cannot be replenished.
But I am not a pessimist, and if there is really military necessity for this awful ordeal, then I am sure the Australian troops will face it. Indeed, anxious though they are to leave the dreary and sombre scene of their wreckage, the Australian divisions would strongly resent the confession of failure that a withdrawal would entail. They are dispirited, they have been through such warfare as no army has seen in any part of the world, but they are game to the end.
On the high political question of whether good is to be served by keeping the armies in Gallipoli, I can say little, for I am uninformed. Cabinet Ministers here impress me with the fact that a failure in the Dardanelles would have most serious results in India. Persia is giving endless trouble, and there seems to be little doubt that India is ripe for trouble. Nor do I know whether the appalling outlay in money on the Dardanelles expedition, with its huge and costly line of communications, can be allowed to continue without endangering those financial resources on which we rely to so great an extent in the wearing down of Germanyâs strength. Nor do I know whether any offensive next year against Constantinople can succeed. On that point I can only say that the best military advice is that we can get through, that we would be through now if we had thrown in sufficient forces. Whyte, whom we both admire as an able soldier and an inspiring Australian leader, assures me that another 150,000 men would do the job. I presume that would mean a landing on a large scale somewhere in Thrace, or north of Bulair. Certainly, any advance against the extraordinary strong trenchesânarrow and deep, like all the Turksâ wonderful trench work, and covered with heavy timber overhead protection against shell fire and bombs, from our present positions seems impracticable. You would have wept with Hughes and myself if you have gone with us over the ground where two of our finest Light Horses regiments were wiped out in ten minutes in a brave effort to advance a few yards to Dead Manâs
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