THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1919. ANZAC DAY, 1919.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17144, 25 April 1919, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1919. ANZAC DAY, 1919.

We celebrate to-day the first victorious anniversary of th« Landing. The Crescent no longer floats over Gallipoli. The German-drilled Turks have accepted the terms dictated by a British admiral, and the White Ensign passes freely through the strait. In Constantinople is an allied garrison and on the narrow beaches and rough hillsides of Gaba Tepe the graves of the Anzacs who fell four years ago are to-day tended by the kindly hands of comrades. Always a spiritual victory, the Landing has proved, as time carries it to its proper perspective, a military victory also. War must not be judged by its episodes. The | Russian advance in East Prussia in the autumn of 1914 was a failure, but ii gave the French a momentary breathing space to prepare for the Marne. The allied retreats in the spring of last year were reverses, but they prepared the way for the master-stroke with which Foch won the war. The attempt made in 1915 to reach Constantinople by way of Gallipoli failed, but it sealed the doom of Turkey. It consumed the flower of the Turkish army and sowed the seeds of success which was garnered in othe'r fields. The Russians in the Caucasus, Maude and Marshall in Mesopotamia, and Allenby in Palestine routed the Turks time and again, but they did not encounter the best of the Ottoman forces. These were sacrificed to the necessity of holding GaUipoli against an invading army that landed on impregnable coasts and clung to impossible positions. The Gallipoli campaign did not win the Turkish capital, but it ruined an army Turkey was never able to replace and led by successive stages to the capitulation of October 30, 1918, which waß followed four days later by that of Austria, and eight days later by that of the Prussian arch-enemy.

It is with proud sorrow we celebrate Anzac Day. For this generation it haß a pang; for all generations it will have a glory which cannot fade, as long as there is consciousness of race, as long as fearlessness and devot'on to duty move the hearts of men. In enshrining Anzac Day as our great national anniversary we do not trust our own judgment alone. All who are competent to assess it agree that the Landing was unique. Sir lan HamilI ton has stated that it involved diffij culties for which no precedent was forthcoming in military history. Sir Charles Monro, who visited the peninsula towards the closing stages of the campaign, wrote, '' 1 found the position of the allied troops to j be one unique in history, possessing as it did every possible military defect." Mr. John Buchan says in his history.: "There have been landings, fiercely-contested landings, in our history, but none on a scale like this." It is but elementary truth I to say that the Landing was a feat ; of arms which thrilled the world. j The attack war, against a formidable ' shore held by a watchful enemy greatly superior in numbers and supported by the latest modern artillery. The Anzacs had no chance to strike until they could come near enough to use their bayonets, and . between the transports and that ; point what immeasurable perils lay! ! The surface of the sea was lashed by , shot and shell. Boats sank ; others ; were damaged. None but had its : quota of dead and dying. Australian ! soldiers, impatient for the land, leapt into the water waist deep and were shot as they waded. At length some reached the shore and without a moment's hesitation charged. The Turks turned arid fled from ridge to ridge, pursued by the Australians, with the New Zoalanders hot on their heels. Up heights swept by fin and through undergrowth thick ; with Turkish sharpshooters the i Anzacs forced their amazing adi vance, and what they took they , held—hold it with fast diminishing I I

forces against heavy enemy reinforcements, held it when relief and retreat were alike impossible, held it when water was scarce and food was scanty, held it through blistering heat and plagues of venomous insects, and through numbing cold, held it for eight months and then vanished into the ocean from which they had come. That is the wonder story of Gallipoli. This Landing remains the Thermopylae of New Zealand and Australian soldiers. All the glory of Gallipoli was not theirs, nor is their illustrious record confined to the peninsula. But the Landing was their first and their epic battle, the proof of their spirit and of the fibre of the nations which sent them forth to fight In a special sense the reputation of our army rested with the men of the Main Body. Of thousands of eager volunteers they were the chosen. Hundreds who sought to go with them were rejected for slight physical defects, which soon ceased to be a disqualification for the training camps, but the Main Body men wore physically perfect. They were worthy representatives of the manhood of the nation, and of their ability to stand any ordinary test there was no doubt. But this was not an ordinary teat. It wan a trial from which veterans might have Cinched, an occasion calling for the highest military and morn qualities. That these should have been found in untried troops with only a few months' training, most of whom had never seen a shot fired in anger, surprised friends and foes alike, and it revealed to those who could see clearly enough the ultimate issue of the war. If volunteers could fight like this, what hope was there for the levies of Prussia, swollen by un-! willing aliens? If free men could indeed put to flight regulars under German officers what would be the prospects of Germany when the millions Britain was arming were ready to take the field? History has given the answer, and the world is free to-day because the sacred flame of Anzao has illuminated the dark and bitter path even to the inevitable end.