A GLORY FOR EVER

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 143, 21 June 1927, Page 15

A GLORY FOR EVER

MEMORY OF THE ANZACS

SACRIFICE NOT IX VAIN

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 4th May.

Twelve years have passed since that day of storm at Suvla and Cape Helles (says "The Times," in an anniversary memoir). Auzac remains .1 perpetual problem and an .idling regret, yet, when all is said mid done, in the presence of those white rows upon rows of gravestones on the shore and the slopes that arc now so still at the entrance to the Dardanelles, it is pride, it is thankfulness that must prevail. There have boon long reflections and bitter controversies on what might have been. If only they had ivon through, if only, from that height of Chunuk Bair, which w;is the peak of tho advance and where" the New Zealand monument stands now, (hoy wouFd have fought their way down to tho Narrows that they saw and opened tho way to Constantinople for the ships and then for the Army, how different all these long yours might havo been! Tho 'Turkish rosistanco broken, a clear courso for tjie Allies to.the Black Sea, an abundant supply of munitions to the Russian army at tho most critical moment, a limitation, perhaps a speedy ending, of tho war—ami, at any rate, no Russian collapse, with those enduring consequences that still endanger the peace in the end so hardly won —that is what might have been, and who can explain certainly even now why such a splendid effort foil just short of the triumph that, might havo saved tho lives of millions?

BUILDERS OF EMPIRE,

"Those brave, light-hearted young men frpm the .Southern Seas—and their comrades in arms from Great Britain — did everything, reserved nothing. They fought for something that was very deep down in their hearts, something it would have been iibsurd to talk.~a.bout — for who talks of such things? They grumbled about tho flies in the jam and tho. perpetual sniping of the Turk when they were clinging to the shore in the sultry summer days or bringing from ±he ships the water and the provisions upon which they depended. But their fathers and grandfathers wore pioneers of Empire. They had sailed out to the Antipodes to open up lands that a hundred years ago, in the days of George IV. and of a Europe weary of tho long wars at the turn of that century, were vague and dim and hardly known. They had built up a new Britain in the South, free from the old cares. Their achievement was something won for- England. That they always knew, and they were proud in the growth of a world-wide British Empire that they themselves had helped to build.

A DEEPER IMPERIAL NOTE,

"The tradition lived dn their children, for^vhom the far-off land of their fathers was simply 'Home.' The call went out that the Empire was in danger and needed help, and the young niciKCnnie back across the seas in their thousands to fight for something they knew and for something greater than they know. It fell to tho men of the new British lands in the Pacific to light near the scenes of the Iliad against the Turk of whom they had hardly heard. They found him a brave and stubborn foe, and they themselves, from those blinding days when they secured a footing at such a cost, and all through the months of unceasing trial, were never once found wanting. Thirty thousand of them laid down their lives in that great, endeavour. The rest went to Franco and Egypt to fight again, many, in their turn, to die. The war is over.. The Anzacs who survived arc at home again in their Southern lands, with a now knowledge, a new sadness, and a new pride. The sacrifice was not in vain. In Australia it is being recalled now in the presence of tho King's son and his wife, on tho eve of changes to which that sacrifice at Anzac has itself contributed. In New Zealand the day when her sons endured tho worst for tho Empire's sake is commemorated by yet another effort to keep tho Empiro secure. It is hard even yet to count the gains^and the losses. All that happened at Anzac brought a deeper note into Imperial relationships; that sacrifice made more real than ever the goal of still distant achievement towards which the British peoples arc striving. And the memory of the valour of the Anzacs is a glory for ever.

VALOUR WITHOUT VICTORY.

"There aro deeds which never grow old and can never be forgotten," says the "Daily Mail," "and among thoso is tho landing of tho British and Anzac troops at Gallipoli twelve years ago yesterday: By keeping green the memory of that date and of the soldiers of tho Empire who made it so glorious, the British nation is rendering fresh homage to its valiant doad of tho Dardanelles. Their bravery was not crowned with victory; they fought with no visible triumph; and yet thoir efforts and tho losses which they inflicted had without qnestion a great part in socuring the collapse of the Turkish armies in 1918.

"The Mother Country has always taken a solemn prid« in the splendid valour of the Aiizae volunteers, who on so many fields won such deserved fame. But it should bo remembered that on tho GallipoH Peninsula to-day, upon tho memorial which rises at Capo Holies arc graved the names of 19,000 British sailors and tho soldiers who fell on thoso stern shores and whoso burial place is known only to God. The war cemeteries which tho piety of Britain and tho Anzacs has created aro already and will continue to bo centres of pilgrimage. They stand walled in with stone that comes from tho quarries whence the ramparts of Troy were probably built thrco thousand years ago."