The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1916 GALLIPOLI.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 98, 22 November 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1916 GALLIPOLI.

The story of Gallipoli as told by Mr John Masefield in Ids latest book is an inspiring one though there is much that is deeply saddening in it. Ho tells as a trained observer of the heroic deeds of the, splendid men engaged in that ill-fated campaign and in ins marvellous word pictures makes plain points it has been difficult to understand. Ho speaks of the Australian and New Zealand Contingents as “tlie finest body of young men ever brought together in modern times.” Mr 'Masefield describes the sailing of the Gallipoli Army from its subsidiary base at Lemnos with wonderful effect, and in his vivid story of the dreadful landing, tells us of the Anzacs that “there, was no thought of surrender in those marvellous young men; they were the flower of this world’s manhood, and died as they had lived, owning no master on this earth.” The description of the tragic and terrible advance in which French, British, Australians, and New Zealanders alike participated, thus concludes: “It was their thirteenth day of continual battle, and who will over write the story of even one halfhour of that thirteenth day? Who will ever know one-hundredth part of the deeds of heroism done in them i by platoons and sections and private { soldiers, who offered their lives with- ! out a thought to help some other j part of the line, who went out to cut ■ wire, or brought up water and ammunition, or cheered on some blccd--1 ing remnant of a regiment, nailing ! on”that hill of death, and kept their | faces to the shrapnel and the neverf ceasing nelt of bullets as long as thej / fiad strength to go anti light to

*zrs*r*~**. xseo? They brought the line forward from a quarter of mile to COO yards further into the Peninsula ; they dug in after dark in the line they had won, and for the next thirty-six hours they stood to arms to beat back the charges of the Turks, who felt themselves threatened at the heart. Our army had won their hold upon the Peninsula. On the body of a dead Turk officer was a letter written the night before to his wife, a tender letter, filled mostly with personal matters. In it was the phrase, ‘Those. British are the finest fighters in the world. Wo have chosen the wrong friends.’ ” “Tn this campaign.” says Mr Masefield, “we wore to taste and he upon the brink of vie-' tory in every battle, yet have the prize dashed from us. by some failure 1 elsewhere each time.” There is much more well worth quoting, hut nothing greater than Mr Masefield’s final word. “Still,” our enemies say, ‘yon did not win the Peninsula.’ We did not; and some day, when truth will walk clear-eyed, it will be known whyj we did not. Until then, let our enemies say this: ‘They did not win, hut they came across three thousand miles of sea, a little army without re-j serves and short of munitions, a] band of brothers, not half of them i half-trained, and nearly all of them, new to war. They came to what we said was an impregnable fort, on. which our veterans of war, and massacre had laboured for two months,] and by sheer naked manhood they heat ns, and drove ns out of it. Then, rallying, hut without reserves, they heat us again and drove us further. Then, rallying once more, but still without reserves, they heat us again, this time to our knees. Then had they had reserves, they would have conquered, hut by God’s pity they had none. Then, after a lapse of time, when wo were men again, they had reserves, and they hit ns a staggering blow, which needed hut a push to end ns, but God again had pity. After that our God was indeed pitiful, for England made no further thrust, and they went away.