It may be assumed that the German captain received information by wireless of the probable approach of colliers or other vessels, as he was so very much on the spot; in any case, he was a courageous and enterprising man, and a good sportsman; but we wanted very badly to catch him. There are so many holes and corners in that part of the world, where a vessel may lie for a time with little chance of detection, and the Emden's speed would have enabled her to reach some such refuge very quickly.

The last act in the drama of the Emden took place off the Cocos-Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean....

It was to this desolate spot in the Indian Ocean that Captain Von Muller brought his ship, in the early days of November; with him was one of his captures, the Buresk, which was full of coal. The object of this visit of the Emden was the destruction of the important wireless station that is established on the islands, and on the morning of November 9th, the officials were unpleasantly surprised by the landing of an armed boat's crew from a cruiser, which had come to an anchor, and which they first imagined to be H.M.S. Minotaur. They were quickly undeceived by the German officer in charge of the party, who informed them that their operations from the wireless station had greatly hampered the movements of the cruiser. One detachment of the Germans then rounded up all the officials and their servants, placing them under a strict guard, while a second party prepared to blow up the wireless installation and to smash the instrument rooms of the cable office. This they did most thoroughly, but the officials seem to have kept their heads in the most praiseworthy manner, as, just as soon as they discovered that the enemy was upon them, they sent out distress signals by wireless, and warned adjacent stations by cable that they were about to be smashed up.

The landing party now blew up the wireless mast and the store in which spare cable and cable gear was kept; a third explosion wrecked the wireless hut, and completed the destruction of the installation. The dynamo rooms and workshops were destroyed with flogging hammers and axes, everything breakable, including clocks, being smashed to atoms. Their next proceeding was to cut the shore ends of the submarine cables, and this was done in full view of the prisoners. There are three cables from the Cocos—to Perth, to Batavia, and to Rodriguez—and the pleasure of the prisoners can be imagined when they saw the Germans spend much hard labour in destroying a dummy cable. Eventually the Perth cable and the dummy were cut, the others being left, presumably because the Germans did not know that they existed.

The party from the Emden had landed at 7.30 a.m., and by 9.20 their mission of destruction was accomplished. At this time a signal was blown on the siren from the ship; the officer in command collected his men, marched them down to the beach, and re-embarked. The telegraphists report that they were fairly and courteously treated. On arrival the Emden was still using her now famous fourth funnel, a dummy, and this it was that caused the telegraphists to mistake her in the first instance for the Minotaur, which is a four-funnelled armoured cruiser. As she steamed away in the bright light of the tropic morning for what was so shortly to prove her last cruise, the Emden hauled down, and stowed away, her dummy.

The action that ensued between the Sydney and the Emden is here given in the official despatch of Captain Glossop, dated from Colombo on November 15th:

I have the honour to report that whilst on escort duty with the convoy under the charge of Captain Silver, H.M.A.S. Melbourne, at 6.30 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 9th, a wireless message from Cocos was heard reporting that a foreign warship was off the entrance. I was ordered to raise steam for full speed at 7.0 a.m. and proceeded thither. I worked up to twenty knots, and at 9.15 a.m. sighted land ahead and almost immediately the smoke of a ship, which proved to be the H.I.G.M.S. Emden coming out towards me at a great rate. At 9.40 a.m. fire was opened, she firing the first shot. I kept my distance as much as possible to obtain the advantage of my guns. Her fire was very accurate and rapid to begin with, but seemed to slacken very quickly, all casualties occurring in this ship almost immediately. First, the foremost funnel of her went, secondly the foremast, and she was badly on fire aft, then the second funnel went, and lastly the third funnel, and I saw she was making for the beach on North Keeling Island, where she grounded at 11.20 a.m. I gave her two more broadsides and left her, to pursue a merchant ship which had come up during the action.

2. Although I had guns on this merchant ship at odd times during the action, I had not fired, and as she was making off fast, I pursued and overtook her at 12.10, firing a gun across her bows and hoisting International Code Signal to stop, which she did. I sent an armed boat, and found her to be the ss. Buresk, a captured British collier, with 18 Chinese crew, 1 English steward, 1 Norwegian cook, and a German prize crew of 3 officers, 1 warrant officer, and 12 men. The ship unfortunately was sinking, so I took all on board, fired four shells into her, and returned to Emden, passing men swimming in the water, for whom I left two boats I was towing from Buresk.

3. On arriving again off Emden, she still had her colours up at mainmast head. I inquired by signal, International Code, "Will you surrender?" and received a reply in Morse, "What signal? No signal books." I then made in Morse, "Do you surrender?" and subsequently, "Have you received my signal?" to neither of which did I get an answer. The German officers on board gave me to understand that the captain would never surrender, and therefore, though very reluctantly, I again fired at her at 4.30 p.m., ceasing at 4.35, as she showed white flags and hauled down her ensign by sending a man aloft.

4. I then left Emden and returned and picked up the Buresk's two boats, rescuing two sailors (5.0 p.m.) who had been in the water all day. I returned and sent in one boat to Emden, manned by her own prize crew from Buresk and one officer, and stating I would return to their assistance next morning.

5. I lay on and off all night, and communicated with Direction Island at 8.0 a.m., November 10th, to find that the Emden's party, consisting of three officers and forty men, one launch and two cutters, had seized and provisioned a 70-ton schooner (the Ayesha), having four Maxims with two belts to each. They left the previous night at six o'clock. The wireless station was entirely destroyed, one cable cut, one damaged, and one intact. I borrowed a doctor and two assistants, and proceeded as fast as possible to Emden's assistance.

6. I sent an officer on board to see the captain, and in view of the large number of prisoners and wounded, and lack of accommodation, etc., in this ship, and the absolute impossibility of leaving them there, he agreed that if I received his officers and men and all wounded, "then as for such time as they remained in Sydney they would cause no interference with ship or fittings, and would be amenable to the ship's discipline." I therefore set to work at once to tranship them—a most difficult operation, the ship being on weather side of island, and the send alongside very heavy. The conditions in the Emden were indescribable. I received the last from her at 5.0 p.m., then had to go round to the lee side to pick up 20 more men who had managed to get ashore from the ship.

7. Darkness came on before this could be accomplished, and the ship again stood off and on all night, resuming operations at 5.0 a.m., on November 11th, a cutter's crew having to land with stretchers to bring wounded round to embarking point. A German officer, a doctor, died ashore the previous day. The ship in the meantime ran over to Direction Island to return their doctor and assistants, send cables, and was back again at 10 a.m., embarked the remainder of wounded, and proceeded for Colombo by 10.35 a.m., Wednesday, November 11th.

8. Total casualties in Sydney: killed, 3; severely wounded (since dead), 1; severely wounded, 4; wounded, 4; slightly wounded, 4. In the Emden I can only approximately state the killed at 7 officers and 108 men from captain's statement. I had on board 11 officers, 9 warrant officers and 191 men, of whom 3 officers and 53 men were wounded, and of this number 1 officer and 3 men have since died of wounds.

9. The damage to Sydney's hull and fittings was surprisingly small; in all about ten hits seem to have been made. The engine and boiler rooms and funnels escaped entirely.

10. I have great pleasure in stating that the behaviour of the ship's company was excellent in every way, and with such a large number of young hands and people under training it is all the more gratifying.

It will be seen from Captain Glossop's despatch that he was on escort duty with the convoy under the charge of Captain Silver of H.M.A.S. Melbourne. This convoy was carrying Australian and New Zealand troops to the scene of the great conflict in Europe. The act of self-denial on the part of Captain Silver in sending the Sydney to engage the Emden, instead of taking that duty upon himself, certainly deserves to be noted. This officer denied to himself and to the officers and men under his command, the privilege of dealing with the notorious raider, and in so doing he was actuated solely by his high sense of duty and the responsibility that he owed to his country. In his judgment the Sydney was the more suitable ship, so she was sent, and the Melbourne remained with her convoy until the affair was concluded.



LANDING ON GALLIPOLI

Source.—-Dispatch from a special Correspondent at the Dardanelles printed in The Times, 7 May 1915

Soon after the commencement of the war Turkey joined the Central Powers, and consequently the Australian Imperial Forces, having experienced a rigorous training in Egypt, were used to assist the Navy and other Allied troops in an attempt to force the Dardanelles.

VIEWED FROM A BATTLESHIP

Slowly through the night of April 24th our squadron, which was to land the covering forces of the Australian contingent just north of Gaba Tepe, steamed towards its destination....

At 1 a.m. the ships arrived off their appointed rendezvous, five miles from the landing-place, and stopped. The soldiers were aroused from their slumbers, and were served with a last hot meal. A visit to the mess decks showed these Australians, the majority of whom were about to go into action for the first time under the most trying circumstances, possessed at 1 o'clock in the morning courage to be cheerful, quiet, and confident....

At 1.20 a.m. the signal was given from the flagship to lower the boats, which had been left swinging from the davits throughout the night. Our steam pinnaces were also lowered to take them in tow....

On the quarter-deck, backed by the great 12 in. guns, this splendid body of colonial troops were drawn up in serried ranks, fully equipped, and receiving their last instructions from their officers, who, six months ago, like their men, were leading a peaceful civilian life in Australia and New Zealand, 5,000 miles away....

At 2.5 a.m. the signal was given for the troops to embark in the boats which were lying alongside, and this was carried out with great rapidity, in absolute silence, and without a hitch or an accident of any kind....

The whole operation had been timed to allow the pinnaces and boats to reach the beach just before daylight, so that the Turks, if they had been forewarned, would not be able to see to fire before the Australians had obtained a firm footing and, it was hoped, good cover on the foreshore....

At 4.53 a.m. there suddenly came a very sharp burst of rifle fire from the beach, and we knew our men were at last at grips with the enemy. This fire lasted only for a few minutes, and then was drowned by a faint British cheer wafted to us over the waters....

The first authentic news we received came with the return of our boats. A steam pinnace came alongside with two recumbent forms on her deck and a small figure, pale, but cheerful, and waving his hand astern. They were one of our midshipmen, just sixteen years of age, shot through the stomach, but regarding his injury more as a fitting consummation to a glorious holiday ashore than a wound; and a chief stoker, and petty officer, all three wounded by that first burst of musketry, which caused many casualties in the boats just as they reached the beach.

From them we learned what had happened in those first wild moments. All the tows had almost reached the beach, when a party of Turks, entrenched almost on the shore, opened up a terrible fusillade from rifles and also from a Maxim. Fortunately most of the bullets went high, but, nevertheless, many men were hit as they sat huddled together forty or fifty in a boat.

It was a trying moment, but the Australian volunteers rose as a man to the occasion. They waited neither for orders, nor for the boats to reach the beach, but, springing out into the sea, they waded ashore, and, forming some sort of a rough line, rushed straight on the flashes of the enemy's rifles. Their magazines were not charged, so they just went in with cold steel, and I believe I am right in saying that the first Ottoman Turk since the last Crusade received an Anglo-Saxon bayonet in him at 5 minutes after 5 a.m. on April 25th. It was over in a minute. The Turks in this first trench were bayoneted or ran away, and a Maxim gun was captured.

Then the Australians found themselves facing an almost perpendicular cliff of loose sandstone, covered with thick shrubbery, and somewhere half-way up the enemy had a second trench strongly held, from which they poured a terrible fire on the troops below, and the boats pulling back to the destroyers for the second landing party.

Here was a tough proposition to tackle in the darkness, but these Colonials are practical above all else, and they went about it in a practical way. They stopped a few moments to pull themselves together, and to get rid of their packs which no troops could carry in an attack, and then charged their magazines. Then this race of athletes proceeded to scale the cliffs without responding to the enemy's fire. They lost some men but did not worry, and in less than a quarter of an hour the Turks were out of their second position, either bayoneted or in full flight.

This ridge under which the landing was made, stretches due north from Gaba Tepe, and culminates in the height of Coja Chemen, which rises 950 feet above the sea level. The whole forms part of a confused triangle of hills, valleys, ridges, and bluffs which stretches right across the Gallipoli Peninsula to the Bay of Bassi Liman, above the Narrows. The triangle is cut in two by the valley through which flows the stream known as Bokali Deresi....

In the early part of the day very heavy casualties were suffered in the boats which conveyed the troops from the destroyers, tugs, and transports to the beach. As soon as it became light, the enemy's sharpshooters, hidden everywhere, simply concentrated their fire on the boats....

Throughout the whole of April 25th the landing of troops, stores, and munitions had to be carried out under these conditions, but the gallant sailors never failed their equally gallant comrades ashore. Every one, from the youngest midshipman straight from Dartmouth and under fire for the first time, to the senior officers in charge, did their duty nobly....

When the sun was fully risen and the haze had disappeared, we could see that the Australians had actually established themselves on the top of the ridge, and were evidently trying to work their way northwards along it....

The fighting was so confused, and took place amongst such broken ground that it is extremely difficult to follow exactly what did happen throughout the morning and afternoon of April the 25th. The role assigned to the covering force was splendidly carried out up to a certain point, and a firm footing was obtained on the crest of the ridge which allowed the disembarkation of the remainder of the force to go on uninterruptedly except for the never-ceasing sniping.

But then the Australians, whose blood was up, instead of entrenching themselves and waiting developments, pushed northward and eastward inland, in search of fresh enemies to tackle with the bayonet. The ground is so broken and ill-defined that it was very difficult to select a position to entrench, especially as after the troops imagined they had cleared a section, they were continually being sniped from all sides. Therefore they preferred to continue the advance.... The Turks only had a comparatively weak force actually holding the beach, and they seemed to have relied on the difficult nature of the ground, and their scattered snipers, to delay the advance until they could bring up reinforcements from the interior.

Some of the Australians who had pushed inland were counter-attacked and almost outflanked by these oncoming reserves, and had to fall back after suffering very heavy casualties.

It was then the turn of the Turks to counter-attack, and this they continued to do throughout the afternoon, but the Australians never yielded a foot of ground on the main ridge, and reinforcements were continually poured up from the beach as fresh troops were disembarked from the transports. The enemy's artillery fire, however, presented a very difficult problem. As soon as the light became good, the Turks enfiladed the beach with two field guns from Gaba Tepe, and with two others from the north.... In vain did the warships endeavour to put them out of action with their secondary armament. For some hours they could not be accurately located, or else were so well protected that our shells failed to do them any harm....

Later in the day the two guns to the north were silenced ... and a cruiser moving in close to the shore, so plastered Gaba Tepe with a hail of shell that the guns there were also silenced and have not attempted to reply since.

As the enemy brought up reinforcements, towards dusk his attacks became more and more vigorous, and he was supported by a powerful artillery inland, which the ships' guns were powerless to deal with. The pressure on the Australians and New Zealanders became heavier, and the line they were occupying had to be contracted for the night. General Birdwood and his staff went ashore in the afternoon, and devoted all their energies to securing the position, so as to hold firmly to it until the following morning, when it was hoped to get some field guns in position to deal with the enemy's artillery.

Some idea of the difficulty to be faced may be gathered when it is remembered that every round of ammunition, all water, and all supplies had to be landed on a narrow beach and then carried up pathless hills, valleys, and bluffs, several hundred feet high, to the firing line. The whole of this mass of troops, concentrated on a very small area, and unable to reply, were exposed to a relentless and incessant shrapnel fire, which swept every yard of the ground, although, fortunately, a great deal of it was badly aimed or burst too high. The reserves were engaged in road-making and carrying supplies to the crest, and in answering the calls for more ammunition.

A serious problem was getting away the wounded from the shore, where it was impossible to keep them. All those who were unable to hobble to the beach had to be carried down to the hills on stretchers, then hastily dressed and carried to the boats. The boat and beach parties never stopped working throughout the entire day and night.

The courage displayed by these wounded Australians will never be forgotten. Hastily dressed and placed in trawlers, lighters, and ships' boats they were towed to the ships.... I have, in fact, never seen the like of those wounded Australians in war before, for as they were towed amongst the ships, whilst accommodation was being found for them, although many were shot to bits, and without hope of recovery, their cheers resounded through the night, and you could just see, amidst a mass of suffering humanity, arms being waved in greeting to the crews of the warships. They were happy because they had been tried for the first time in the war and had not been found wanting. They had been told to occupy the heights and hold on, and this they had done for fifteen mortal hours, under an incessant shell fire, without the moral and material support of a single gun ashore, and subjected the whole time to the violent counter-attacks of a brave enemy, led by skilled leaders, whilst his snipers, hidden in caves and thickets and amongst the dense scrub, made a deliberate practice of picking off every officer who endeavoured to give a word of command or lead his men forward.

No finer feat of arms has been performed during the war than this sudden landing in the dark, the storming of the heights, and above all, the holding on to the position thus won whilst reinforcements were being poured from the transports. These raw Colonial troops in those desperate hours proved themselves worthy to fight side by side with the heroes of Mons and the Aisne, Ypres, and Neuve Chapelle.



WHAT ANZAC MEANS

By Senator Pearce (Minister of State for Defence)

Source.—The Melbourne Argus, 25 April 1916

In an army a knowledge of its past achievements is a mighty factor in its future success. Before this war Australia had practically no army traditions, and it is to the meaning of the Gallipoli campaign in this connection that I would direct attention to-day, twelve months after the historic landing.

To the peoples of Europe the thought of war was ever present in the popular mind; but to the Australian, born and bred in an atmosphere untainted by war, living amid peaceful surroundings and desirous of remaining on terms of friendship with the rest of mankind the word itself has a jarring sound. Yet the German challenge to the Mother Country finds 233,720 of her Australian sons who have voluntarily wrenched themselves from their parents, wives, and friends, and from comfortable and cheerful homes, to answer the call of their country to fight the Empire's battles on distant shores.

Nor has the thunder of the cannon been necessary to inspire Australians with a conception of their duty; and the explanation of it all is that we have inherited to the full that spirit of our forebears which enabled them, not so long ago, to tear themselves from homeland firesides to shape careers in this great island continent, and to overcome with indomitable pluck the awful hardships of a pioneering life.

For generations to come the story of the entry of the Australian troops to the European battlefield will ring in the ears of English-speaking nations. The chronicler of the future will provide many thrilling pages of history, magnificent material for the moulding of the youthful Australian character.

A distinguished military officer told us before the war that Australians would require to be in the majority of two to one in meeting a foreign foe on our own shores; but the furious onslaught that accompanied the landing at Gallipoli, the bitter fighting and terrible trials of the occupation, and the wonderful skill that made possible the bloodless evacuation have shown us that the Australians carried out a feat of arms not excelled by the most highly-trained regulars of any nation of the world. The following messages are eloquent in their tribute to Australian bravery:

"I heartily congratulate you upon the splendid conduct and bravery displayed by the Australian troops in the operations at the Dardanelles, who have indeed proved themselves worthy sons of the Empire."—His Majesty the King, April 1915.

"The capture of the positions we hold will go down to history as a magnificent feat of the Australians and New Zealanders."—General Sir William Birdwood, November 1915.

"Happen what may, the Australians who have fought at Gallipoli will bequeath a heritage of honour to their children's children."—General Sir Ian Hamilton, November 1915.

These are examples of the praise which that feat of arms has won, and such is the standing of military bearing which the improvised army of Australian citizens has set up for the citizen army of Australia—a standard which, we may rest assured, has not failed to impress our enemies in computing the military value of our forces.

Every unit of the citizen army will now have its tradition. Every soldier of the Australian army will have that inspiring example of the Anzac heroes to live up to in his military work, and we can regard the future with a calm confidence in the military prowess of our soldiers.

The Allied troops evacuated the Gallipoli Peninsula in December 1915, and the majority of the Australian Imperial Force was then transferred to the Western Front in France, where on fiercely fought fields such as Pozieres, Messines, Cambrai, Amiens, and others too numerous to detail here, they won imperishable fame.

THE END



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