WITH THE WOODEN CROSSES

Evening Star, Issue 18160, 28 December 1922, Page 3

WITH THE WOODEN CROSSES

NEWS OF GALLIPOLI GRAVES. PEACE IN ANZAC. [By Allan Box in tho Sydney ' Sun.’] 'Plie afternoon sun glows golden on tho shores of Gallipoli. There is peace in Ansae. Seven years have passed, and there are still instances in_ plenty of the mighty struggle in tho ravines and shelltorn ridges. Nature lags tardy with her reconstruction in this dry country. Wild game are less timid. The whirr of partridges in Koja Dcre by day, tho lone call of tho jackal in Legge Valley by night, only emphasise Uie loneliness of tho scone, There is action enough around Chanak, where a painfully thin British lino is digging in for its life before the advance of Mustapha Komal. But, steaming away past Tmbros, with tho hills of the famous Peninsula fading in tho purple distances of this mystic land, one’s first thought is of tho thousands of Australians and New Zealanders, the very flower of Australasia, resting tliere so impressively under their very white crosses.

Of all tho battlefields Anzac impresses most. The sloping Plain of Holies is seamed and tom- with tho obb and flow of battle. To me Hellos always looked a forlorn hope. Inland tho natural fortress of Achi Baba, to seaward tho frowning plateau of Kilid Bahr, look impossible. The Plain of Suvla shows few traces of that brief blasting of high hopes. But Anzao —its mountain ridges men into fantastic shapes, its dark, _ tortuous ravines, its precipitous cliffs lifting sheer from the beaches —seems always as though Nature in her last convulsion had planned a battleground for heroes. Who knows what heroes of antiquity have fought on these tangled Hills f I know of one stone sarcophagus that might have belonged to a legionary of Zenophon. It now selves as a cattle-trough. For the Turk is no respecter of persons. And in these very surroundings rest the bodies of those Australians and New Zealanders who in a night’s venture made their countries’ names ring throughout tho world. PERMANENT RESTORATION. Fittingly, the permanent restoration and memorialisation of the graves of these men was placed in the hands of their comrades. I remember well the genesis of this work. The Imperial War Graves Commission jvas charged with the work of restoring and keeping all British graves throughout the several theatres of wap. Soon after 1 the surrender of tho Turks in 1918 an Australian mission had landed on the Peninsula to report on the state of the graves. This report, cabled to London and placed before the Commission, left no doubt that action was necessary, and that urgently. Three years had passed since the evacuation. Fearful of another landing, the Turks had left nothing undone to make the Peninsula impregnable. New trenches had been dug and old trenches had been converted. At Anzao, at any rate, part of the old trench system had been obliterated. At Suvla, at Helles, the scattered farmers had returned. There are bitter winters in the Dardanelles; there is little firewood. The Turk is'a casual person. Most of the wooden crosses previously erected under fire had disappeared. Many were buried on the beaches, where drifting sand soon obliterated the marks. Identification looked impossible. Tho preliminary work of of graves had been entrusted by the War Office to unsympathetic and careless hands. The graves registration sections apparently never left the beaches. Anything would do so long as some kind l of a report was made. What was to bo done? The Australian authorities in London pressed insistently for action. Action required a man to lead. Him and his helpers Australia offered to find, if the control of the work on the Peninsula (both British and overseas) were left entirely to Australia. And as ever the occasion provided a leader who' not only embodied the youthful spirit of thd Anzac Corps, but brought to bear on his task the technical efficiency and rare energy for which they are so famous. Lieutenant-colonel Oyril'Hughcs, A.1.F., is a likeable man. His people own broad acres in Northern Tasmania-. He is a typical Lightliorseman; he had fought at Anzac, and had been in Palestine with the desert column. Only a man of his extraordinary optimism and cheerfulness could have successfully tackled the job. At his first meeting with the War Office “Brass Hats” Hughes routed all opposition with his close, detailed grip of tho situation and its requirements. He knew the work that had to bo done. He had ready replies as to how ho was to do it. He was not a man to stand interference. The chairman of the War Office Committee w-as Sir Alfred Mond, then First Commissioner of Works, certainly one of London’s richest men, and reputedly one of her best business brains. Five minutes with Hughes satisfied Mond. The tall Australian walked into the War Office a lieutenant—he walked out an hour later a lieutenant-colonel.

The conditions were not easy. Hughes and his men had first of all to establish a base whore there was not even a jetty. They had to procure and improvise machinery in a country where such resources were almost unobtainable. They had to secure labor where tho whole population was practically hostile. They had to train that labor to be workers of stone, constructors of roads, masons, carpenters, engineers, and so forth. In the compound you get the most weird polyglot of men. Turk rubs shoulders with Greek; Russian and Albanian are common tongues. But everybody works at Kelia. Australians have a short method with the Bolshevik.

Tho work of search is daily continued in the remote hills beyond Suvla. Every day even now remote graves, and even unburied bodies, are discovered. Often a disc, or even a, shoulder strap, gives the clue to an identity which has been sought for years. Pl-aoent, unexciting work this, but carried out with a thoroughness for which Australian soldiers are famous. It is impossible to leave these bodies where they are in this wild and largely untamed country. A moment’s reflection on the spot convinces that if they are to he looted after at all they must bo concentrated in the cemeteries which have been estabi lished throughout 'the battlefields as near as possible to tho farnqiLs, positions whoso names are now household words in British history. So it is that, ns you go round tho lonely cliffs, you find all the old trench names retained—“V Beach,” “Lancashire Landing,” “Pink Farm,” “Shell Green,” “ Shrapnel Valloy,” “Lone Pine,” “ Johnson’s Jolly,” “Baby 400,” “Laia Baba,” “Scimitar Hill”—to name a -few. All have their plots, commemorating in excellent and indestructible stonework not only the burial places of the men who fell, hut also the glorious exploits of British and Australian troops on tho historic Peninsula. IMPRESSIONS OF TURRET. The methods of treatment dictated by actual considerations of ground, climate, and locality are undoubtedly wise. The first consideration was permanence. Throughout the lands of Turkey one reflection above all strikes you—crumbling mosques, desecrated graveyards, broken-down walls. If anything fall, let it stay—it is the will of Allah. Nothing, therefore, could bo left to chance in dealing with; the memorial works. They must bo of such permanence as to withstand not merely the dessicating influence of time and weather. Tint also the rank carelessness 1 of the Turkish inhabitants. For it is too much to hope that you can have people living permanently at Helles, Suvla, or Anzao who could give adequate attention to tho scores of small ravine cemeteries. { Considerations of expense alone would render that impossible. So the work had to be of such durability and permanence as to render the graves and cemeteries practically indestructible. The second consideration was expense. No Australian soldier would ask for an unpractical expenditure on the treatment of his comrades’ graves. The whole attitude of the Anzao Corps surely would jkvor simplicity pi treatment jvith tba

best materials that lay to band. Simple these graves undoubtedly are, but their very simplicity and severity of outline make them all the more noticeable and striking in a country which substituted ■harsh sky lines for rounded curves, .and which reflects with pitiless severity every .nark and feature of the landscape. So it came about that local stone only could bo used for the construction of stout retaining walls surrounded by deep ditches completely enclosing each plot. In each of these bits of Australian ground every sleeper has his stone—no gorgeous, gillded headstone, but a simple block of concrete lifted 2ft clear of the green couch grass and bearing recessed on its bevel _ face the name, the rank, and the description of him who, after days of incredible struggle, has surely earned safe lodging and quiet repose at last. Australian trees should grow on Gallipoli. They will bo freely planted round the cemeteries, and if fortune favovs them •the graceful fronds of the acacia will relieve the darkness of the stately cypress, which from time immemorial has marked the rrraves of the heroes of the Hellespont. The work is being well done. It is well on tho way to completion. Another year should see tho greater pari finished. The pilgrim from Australasia approaching the famous entrance to tho Dardanelles will turn his eyes from the “plains of windy Troy ” to tho great British memorial which lifts itself from the sea at frowning Helles. It will be at once a guide post and a landmark for all who pass by, and not least will it remind tho races of the_ Final of that North Sea people who so curiously are the greatest power in the Mahometan world. And, away to the north, lifting itself like, a. white pencil from the dark ridge of Sari Bair will shine the tall shaft of the Australian memorial at Lone Pine, recalling the deeds of a race of men unknown before, hut now remembered with profound respect and a lively appreciation by every Turk.