A GLORY FOR EVER.

Franklin Times, Volume XVII, Issue 73, 29 June 1927, Page 2

A GLORY FOR EVER.

MEMORY OF THE ANZACS. I .1 SACRIFICE NOT IN VAIN. 1 Twelve years have passed since that day of storm at Suvla and Cape Relies (savs the London Times, in an anniversary memoir). Anzac remains. a perpetual problem and an aching iegret, yet, when all is said and done, in the presence of those white rows, upon rows of gravestones on the shore; and the slopes that are now so still at the entrance to the Dardanelles, it is pride, it is thankfulness that must pievail. There have been long reflections and bitter controversies on what might have been. If only they had won through, if only, from that height of Chunuk Bair, which was the peak of the advance and where the New Zealand monument stands now, they would have fought their way down to the Narrows that they saw and. opened the way to Constantinople for the ships and then, for the Army, how different all these long years might have been! The Turkish resistance broken, a clear course for the Allies to the Black bea, an abundant supply of munitions to the •Russian army at the most critical moment, a limitation, perhaps a speedy ending, of the war—and, at any rate, no Russian, collapse, w T ith 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- fell just short of 'the triumph that might have saved the lives of millions? Builders of Empire. “Those brave, light-hearted young men from the Southern Seas—and their comrades-in-arms from Great Britain —did everything, reserved noy thing. They fought for something that was very deep down in their hearts, something it would have been absurd to. talk'about —for who talks of such things? They grumbled about the flies in the jarii and the perpetual sniping of the Turk when, they were clinging to the! shore in the sultry summer; days or bringing from the ships the water and the provisions upon which they depended. But their fathers and: grandfathers were 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 the 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 al>vays 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 in their children, for whom 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 men came back across the seas in their thousands to light for something they knew and for something greater than they knew. It fell to the men of the new British lands in the Pacific to fight 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 France, and Egypt to tight again, many, in. their turn, to die. The war is over. The Anzacs who survived are at home again in their Southern lands, with a new 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 the King’s son and his wife, on the eve of changes to which that sacrifice at Anzac has itself contributed. In New Zealand the day when her sons endured the worst for the Empire’s sake is commemorated by yet another effort to keep the Empire 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 tile British peoples are striving. And the memory of the valour of the Anzacs is a glory for ever.

I Valour Without Victory. “There are deeds which, never grow old and can never be forgotten,” says the Daily Mail. “&nd among these is the landing of the British and Arizac troops at Gallipoli twelve years ago. By keeping green the memory of that date and of the soldiers of the Empire who made it so glorious, the British nation is rendering fresh homage to its valiant dead of the Dardanelles. Their bravery was not crowned with victory; they fought with no visible | triumph: and yet their efforts and the losses which they inflicted had'without question a great part in securing the collapse of the Turkish armies in 101 R. i “The Mother Country has always taken a solemn pride in the splendid valour of the Anzac volunteers, who , on so many fields won such deserved I fame. But it should be remembered i that on the Gallipoli Peninsula to-day, upon the memorial which rises at Gape Ilelles. are engraved the names of 19,000 British sailors and the soldiers who fell on those stern, shores and whose burial place is known only to God. The war cemeteries which the piety of Britain and the Anzacs has created are already and will continue to be centres of pilgrimage. They stand walled in with stone that comes j from the quarries whence the ram- j parts of Troy were probably built three j thousand years ago.” j