[Editor: This article, regarding Anzac Day, was published in The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic.), 27 April 1935.]
Twenty years ago
What manner of men were those who stormed the heights of Anzac? It behoves to ask this question, and to answer it to-day, lest we forget what now we cherish — lest in an age of sophisters and calculators our mental vision should become blurred, lest the policy of the poltroon should yet prevail and he that loveth and maketh a lie should gain credence.
The British Army has a magnificent record, but the young army of Anzac can withstand comparison with any British force of the past. It is difficult to overpraise the troops of Anzac. For it is the simple truth to say that in essential qualities no more efficient army was ever put in the field by any country in the world. There is abundant testimony in proof of the statement.
Naturally the first characteristic to strike the eye of British war correspondents, who knew not the Australian, was the splendid physique of our soldiers. The eloquent testimony of Mr. Masefield has been quoted repeatedly. Not so familiar is the comment of Mr. Compton Mackenzie. Mr. Mackenzie, upon landing at Anzac, was amazed to find Sir Ian Hamilton’s military secretary “talking to three Australians, not one of whom was less than six feet four inches tall.” He soon learned that this stature was not the average, but he was moved to enthusiastic praise of the Australians. In his “Gallipoli Memories” we read this:—
Much has been written about the splendid appearance of those Australian troops; but a splendid appearance seems to introduce somehow an atmosphere of the parade-ground. Such litheness and powerful grace did not want the parade-ground; that was to take it from the jungle to the circus. Their beauty, for it really was heroic, should have been celebrated in hexameters, not headlines.
As a child I used to pore for hours over those illustrations of Flaxman for Homer and Virgil which simulated the effect of ancient pottery. There was not one of those glorious young men I saw that day who might not himself have been Ajax or Diomed, Hector or Achilles. Their almost complete nudity, their tallness and majestic simplicity of line, their rose-brown flesh burnt by the sun, and purged of all grossness by the ordeal through which they were passing, all these united to create something as near to absolute beauty as I shall hope ever to see in this world.
The dark, glossy green of the arbutus leaves made an incomparable background for these shapes of heroes, and the very soil here had taken on the same tawny rose as that living flesh; one might have fancied that the dead had stained it to this rich warmth of apricot.
Other and even better characteristics marked our men than those mentioned by Mr. Mackenzie. The Australians formed the best-educated army ever put into the field. Their conception of the cause in which they were fighting was an intelligent conception. They were thrice armed, having a just quarrel and knowing it to be just.
They had their faults, these men of Anzac. It has been said that the young rascals did not always salute their officers. (This was a sore point with some of the officers from Britain, but one of these, a colonel, temporarily in charge of a body of Australians, learned the value and admired the valour of the men, and when a junior officer complained that he had not been saluted, retorted: “Damme, sir, they don’t salute me, but they fight like devils.”)
And they did not always march with precision, but they had learned on the hills of home that bending shoulders enabled them to endure, while head erect and “breast forward” (Browning notwithstanding) hastened fatigue.
They had no reverence for tradition, while unconsciously they were making a new tradition.
Their opinions of their officers were freely expressed, and officers whom they did not salute they most highly esteemed. They formed the most democratic army the world had ever seen. Bank clerk found himself captain over bank manager, and bank manager, addressing his captain as “Jim,” proved an obedient private.
These regrettable faults, these deplorable lapses from convention, must be admitted, and it must be confessed, too, that the rank and file of the Anzacs, while like the Light Brigade ready to do and die, unlike the Light Brigade they reasoned why. They showed initiative; they anticipated orders. They were sometimes wrong; but they were always brave and always clever.
Literature came out of Anzac. The Australians wrote and published a book called “The Anzac Book.” This should be prized above most of the literature of the war. It is not great literature. It is mostly comic. Amid the mud and blood of Anzac came this book of wit and humour, and it is precious because it reveals the spirit of Anzac. What a suggestive fact it is that one of its illustrations is from a picture drawn, and cleverly drawn, in iodine!
There is one poignant departure from the jesting tone of the book, and that is a picture entitled “Hill 60.” It is not a picture of Hill 60. It is a picture of a white-robed girl kneeling in prayer. This, too, has its significance, for the soldier of Anzac, living close to death, had his solemn moments. Disdaining self-pity, he softened at the thoughts of home and of those who prayed each night in anguish and each morning rose in mingled hope and dread to read the list of casualties.
Source:
The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic.), 27 April 1935, p. 3 (Metropolitan Edition)
Editor’s notes:
The text “while like the Light Brigade ready to do and die, unlike the Light Brigade they reasoned why” is a reference to the poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854), written by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), an English poet; the poem included the lines “Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.”
See: 1) Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, Poetry Foundation
2) “The Charge of the Light Brigade (poem)”, Wikipedia
Achilles = in Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero who fought in the Trojan War
Ajax = in Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero who fought in the Trojan War (Ajax is also known as “Ajax the Great”; which distinguishes him from “Ajax the Lesser”, a Greek king who also fought in the Trojan War)
Diomed = (alos spelt: Diomede; Diomedes) a hero of ancient Greece, particularly known for his role in the Trojan War
See: “Diomedes”, Wikipedia
Hector = a hero and prince of ancient Troy, particularly known for his role in the Trojan War
See: “Hector”, Wikipedia
Hill 60 = a hill on the Gallipoli Peninsula, which was the location of the Battle of Hill 60 in 1915, during the Gallipoli Campaign, in the First World War (1914-1918)
“Battle of Hill 60 (Gallipoli)”, Wikipedia
Homer = an author of ancient Greece; believed to be the author of the epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey
See: “Homer”, Wikipedia
iodine = a chemical element which is used in medicine, photography, analytical chemistry, and in the manufacture of dyes; tincture of iodine is commonly used as an antiseptic (to prevent infection)
See: “Iodine”, Wikipedia
Light Brigade = a force of light cavalry units in the British Army, made famous by the poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854), written by the English poet Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
See: 1) “Charge of the Light Brigade: Russian history”, Encyclopaedia Britannica
2) “Charge of the Light Brigade”, Wikipedia
3) “Battle of Balaclava”, Wikipedia
4) “The Charge of the Light Brigade (poem)”, Wikipedia
5) Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, Poetry Foundation
lithe = flexible, limber, supple; graceful; thin, athletic; someone who is young, graceful, healthy-looking, and thin
litheness = the property of being lithe [see: lithe]
loveth = (archaic) loves
maketh = (archaic) makes
poignant = causing, evoking, or having a deep, keen, or sharp sense of regret or sadness (a very emotionally distressing and painful feeling of sadness; a very deep and piercing feeling of sadness); evoking compassion, pity; keen, pertinent, or strong in mental appeal; biting, cutting, penetrating, piercing, sharp; to the point; incisive; eloquent; applicable, relevant
poltroon = an abject coward, a total coward, an utter coward
sophist = someone who uses reasoning in a clever and tricky manner, so as to support an argument which is false and incorrect but which is then made to sound true and correct (can also refer to: a teacher of philosophy and rhetoric in ancient Greece)
sophister = a sophist [see: sophist]
thrice = three times, threefold
Virgil = Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 BC), commonly known as Virgil (also spelt: Vergil), a poet of ancient Rome
See: “Virgil”, Wikipedia
[Editor: The quotation marks within a quotation (placed at the start of each typographical line, as a matter of publishing style) have been removed.]
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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