Authors: D. P. Macbeth
Rumors surfaced that a terrible toll had taken place on that May 19. Word filtered down the line, whispered by the officers in earshot of the infantrymen that over 40,000 Turks had been assembled for the battle. The Turkish officers, who had accepted the Anzac's help clearing the field, confirmed this. In their shock at the enormous size of the opposing army, nearly three times the number of the Anzac forces, the Australian commanders spent considerable time trying to determine why the Turks failed to overwhelm their defenses. Months later, when the Gallipoli Campaign was officially abandoned, it would be learned that the Turks did not have sufficient ammunition, either artillery or bullets, to counter the superior firepower of the Anzacs. A calculated risk had been taken. Throw as many men into the fray as possible until the enemy's supply lines could no longer cope. Then leap across the defensive lines and use shear numbers to massacre the smaller army hand to hand. Due in large part to the New Zealander's experience brought from the Boer War, much attention had been paid to securing the Anzac supply lines. This attention to detail, later analysis would say, saved the Anzac army from annihilation.
That same analysis turned in precise numbers. Of the forty two thousand Turks thrown into wave after futile wave on May 19, 1915, thirteen thousand were felled by Anzac defensive fire, three thousand dead on the field. Anzac casualties numbered under two hundred killed and five hundred wounded. Despite the lopsided result, no one on the Anzac side counted this battle a victory. No ground was gained nor lost. Neither army capitulated. And, for Aaron and his fellow soldiers a new national image was born. The British tether was broken, replaced by a small, but soon to grow, flame of Australian pride and self-determination.
Each nightfall, a group of soldiers gathered close to the position that Aaron had staked out as his personal space. There, they opened tins of food, chatting as they ate.
Some of the men were somber like Aaron, disillusioned at the fate they had found so unlike the glory they expected. Talk inevitably revolved around the battle that had just ended. Most of the soldiers had fired their weapons all throughout that long day not knowing if they had killed. Aaron knew he had and those few soldiers, who occupied the line closest to him, knew it, too. There was no pride in this fact, but he had their respect for the cool skill he had shown. In this big man they recognized someone who could be trusted to keep his head when others might not. Those closest to him also knew of his occasional slips into odd shakes. They did not know what to make of these episodes as they watched him try to hide his quivering hands. Still, they had never seen this unnatural behavior manifest in the heat of battle. Hence, their confidence in him was unshaken.
There was another reason why the men gathered close to Aaron. They implored him to sing his songs, songs that none of them had ever heard before, but filled their ears with sweet and beautiful melodies. He gladly complied, finding peace in the notes he had been taught by his mother. Songs that had been with him from birth, ascribed to the father he never knew.
As the nights went on a strange ritual emerged whenever his voice rang out. Up and down the line those within earshot added their voices to a harmony that could be heard far beyond the trenches. In the distance, the Turks, too, could hear the Anzac chorus. At first, the enemy soldiers merely listened, but in time they added their voices in a low hum that resonated across no man's land. During these moments all animosity between the two armies was transcended. The sentries on both sides still remained at their posts, rifles loaded and ready, but no one felt threatened. They let their fingers slip from the triggers, listening not for the sound of potential danger, but to the serenity of the soft voices bridging the battle divide.
One night, a young Australian, frustrated with the unappealing tins of beef he had been forced to consume for weeks, took two from his sack and heaved them with all his strength, at the enemy trenches across no man's land. The Turkish soldier who suddenly found a tin in his lap, soon delighted in the salty protein inside. When he gathered his compatriots to give them each a taste hurrahs of pleasure went up. One of the Turks gathered handfuls of dates and other sweets and threw them in the direction of the Australians. From these two gestures a small phenomenon ensued. The two armies began to trade rations with one another each night for weeks through early summer. In the years that followed, Aaron would remember only one event from his time in Gallipoli, this odd trade of food across the killing field.
Away from Anzac Cove, at the southern tip of Gallipoli, where the British forces had landed at Helles Beach, repeated attempts to gain ground were thrown back by the better-positioned Turkish defenders. One final offensive was undertaken on July 12 at Achi Baba Nullah, ending unsuccessfully when casualties climbed to thirty percent. From that day forward the area became known as Bloody Valley. All further attempts to find victory on the peninsula were shifted north to Anzac Cove.
The final allied offensive that would come to define the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign was launched on the night of August 6. The Turks, who had repeatedly won the high ground wherever the allies attempted to meet them, were to be finally driven off the hilltops so that the allied armies could break through to the inland plains at last. Three actions were planned for simultaneous execution, designed to catch the Turks off guard, confuse their understanding and draw them into a trap.
Diversionary assaults commenced at Helles and Anzac Cove, intended to mask the landing of two British divisions at Suvla Bay, five miles north of Anzac Cove. A speedy rush inland was expected to enable the two armies to link. Aaron's division was ordered from its subterranean safety and out into the open landscape known as Lone Pine, now bereft of its namesake trees. The orders were simple, take the Turkish trenches and silence their guns once and for all. But for this assault the New Zealanders were held back. No one knew why, but the Australians, forced into battle without their reliable comrades, had their misgivings.
At Suvla Bay the British landing met little Turkish resistance, but the commanding general took too much time to organize his divisions for the march inland. Soon they lost the scramble for the high ground, allowing the speedier Turks to climb to the tops of the small peaks ringing the bay and position their guns. There, despite being outnumbered, the superior positioning of the Turkish lines pinned the Brits on the beach.
Meanwhile, in a rare victory, the Australians advanced across Lone Pine, driving the Turks from their trenches and back into the hills. As the surprisingly quick battle died down, Aaron spied the New Zealand infantry move out of their trenches and sprint ahead of his position. The Kiwis gradually picked up speed, running in a long line toward the hills where the Turks had retreated. The highest peak in the center, called Chunuk Bair, lit up with gunfire and flares, displaying the hasty Turkish retreat. As he watched the New Zealanders advance, other orders were shouted from the perimeter, diverting his Australian assault wide of Chunuk Bair toward another hill later called 971. This hill, far in the distance, was invisible in the black night.
As he rushed forward, Aaron perceived the strategy. The main Turkish force now held Chunuk Bair tenuously and in retreat. The battle plan assumed that would happen if the Anzac advance succeeded. The New Zealand brigade had been held back in order to throw a fresh force against the peak and drive the Turks down into the small valley at the base of Hill 971 on the other side. This, he reasoned, meant that his Australian force was to climb Hill 971 and fire down upon the Turks who would be caught in a crossfire.
The plan depended upon speed, but the Australian commanders, using incomplete maps, were unfamiliar with the rough terrain. While the trees that once covered Lone Pine had been all but annihilated, the land beyond was thick with growth. Miles of thicket soon bogged down the advance. Platoons became separated from one another, unable to see or communicate with their leaders who surged ahead.
Aaron's eyes could not penetrate the darkness. In less than an hour the awareness of others anywhere near grew blank. Trees and shrubs blocked his path in every direction and the only sound came from the distant New Zealander's assault on Chunuk Bair. He thought to shout in hopes of finding any of his fellow soldiers, but he was afraid to break the silence for fear of the enemy. The surreal state of his predicament, lost and alone in a foreign landscape, seeking a destination that he could not see, brought terror to his imagination. He conjured a list of fears from death at the hands of an unexpected Turkish bullet, to a similar fate at the hands of his own comrades who might mistake him for the enemy. Where were the officers? Why had they cast their men into the darkness with no direction, no leadership to guide them? Should he trudge on unsure of where he was going? Should he stay put and let the dawn show him the way? What would happen if he turned back and followed the only sound he could hear? Could he join the New Zealanders, help their fight for Chunuk Bair? Would that be desertion? Do they execute a
man for that? No, that could not be desertion. He was ready to fight. His own leaders would understand if his only choice was to find his way back to the only battle he could find. In a desperate fit of resolve, he raised his rifle, gripped it tightly in both hands, turned and thrust it outward in front of his chest to form a barrier against the thicket. Then he stepped slowly, one foot in front of the other, back from where he came, back to the distant peak and the only sounds he could hear, the only lights he could see.
Within an hour, he reached the edge of Lone Pine. The slopes of Chunuk Bair were visible to his right, giving off flickers as shells exploded amidst the hillsides. Realization came quickly that the assault was failing. Somehow, the Turks had regained the initiative from the summit to which they had retreated. It had to be enemy fire pouring down the hillside. Were the New Zealanders trapped? He quickened his pace. The base of Chunuk Bair was not far.
When he cleared the open terrain he stopped at the foot of the trail, dropped to his knees and looked upward. The explosions were louder, but he thought he could hear the shouts of men far up the hillside. He concentrated on the shouts, checking his rifle to be certain that it was ready to fire. Then he entered the trail and began to climb. Soon, he heard the whistle of Turkish shells as they made their descent upon the terrain above. Then their brutal explosions burst among the trees, momentarily lighting the night. His breath came harder, fatigue and fear setting in as he climbed. In minutes, he came upon a mangled torso, ripped to pieces by a Turkish shell. Then he stumbled over others, littering the pathway and filling pits dug into the sides of the trail by horrific explosions. Arms, legs, headless bodies and skulls were scattered everywhere. Nausea took hold as he forced his eyes to look away. Whatever happened here before he arrived had been terrifying. Those up ahead continued to suffer, the survivors of this part of the fight, but perhaps, the more unlucky ones, forced to endure the continuing slaughter.
Eager to escape the blood-strewn horror, Aaron rushed onward. He remained frightened, but there was no other choice but to join the fight ahead, likely to die. He hoped it would be quick. A vision of his mother flashed into his mind, her face the last fleeting recognition of anything familiar from his life before the shell that exploded nearby. He was already unconscious as his body flew through the air, broken by the concussion.
Aaron Whitehurst was found eleven hours later, lying close to a shattered tree at the edge of the trail. A medic attached to the Wellington Battalion that finally seized the summit of Chunuk Bair that morning was called to determine if he was alive. The medic was puzzled to find an Aussie uniform. He could see that both an arm and a leg had been fractured. The contorted arm was particularly severe and blood oozed from the break just above the elbow. The broken bone likely pierced the skin under the sleeve. As he ran his hands along the unconscious man's face, he held two fingers beneath his nostrils, making certain that some semblance of breath was still being drawn. There was some, but not much. The head wound worried the medic because it appeared that shrapnel had passed through the right side of the soldier's skull. The hole, just above the eyebrow, was small, less than an eighth of a centimeter, but the small bit of metal penetrated all the way through, exiting behind the ear. He raised his arm and shouted for a stretcher. There were plenty available. No other survivor had yet been found among the hundreds lying all around.
The Wellington Battalion held the summit of Chunuk Bair for only two days before a ferocious Turkish counterattack drove them off. Many of the New Zealanders never had a chance to escape in retreat and only a small fraction made their way down to safety. Aaron's Australian 4th Infantry, so lost in the dark night trying to reach Hill 971, never made it. Later attempts to attack Hill 971 were easily repulsed. The Gallipoli Campaign, despite the heroics of the Anzacs, was a failure. One final attempt to mount an offensive in late August 1915 failed. When Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, all further efforts to take the Gallipoli Peninsula ended. A precarious evacuation, buffeted by heavy rain and a subsequent blizzard, was finally completed in late December 1915.
Of the more than thirty-five thousand Anzac troops who entered the futile campaign, seventy percent became casualties and one third lost their lives. The dismal failure wrecked the careers of many British political and military leaders. Winston Churchill, the leading proponent of the Gallipoli strategy, lost his post as First Lord of the Admiralty, subsequently seeing his influence over British political and military initiatives slip. Only a second, more devastating European war would resurrect his reputation twenty years later.
Yet, to Australia, Gallipoli signaled a watershed of national pride and independent identity. When the soldiers returned home they were hailed as heroes all across the continent. The most obscure details of each battle were dissected endlessly for every bit of action marking the gallantry of the Australians involved. A national holiday was established to commemorate the campaign. Much money was spent to ensure that the returning soldiers found work. Those who served found themselves feted with reverence for the rest of their lives. Although loyalty to the British Commonwealth of Nations remained steadfast, Australia, for the first time, saw itself as a unique and independent people.