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All the world was now talking about the blockade of the Dardanelles. The boats that furrowed the Mediterranean, merchant vessels as well as battleships, were furthering the great military operation that was developing opposite Gallipoli. The name of the long, narrow maritime pass which separates Europe and Asia was in every mouth.
Australian blood has sanctified much of that soil, and Australian bravery has monopolized some of its names. As surely as Gallipoli will Pozières and Thiepval and Bapaume be associated with the name and achievement of Australians in the minds of readers of the history of the great war.
From their connection with the 29th Division, in the previous September, there had been borne upon them from friendly contact with brother Battalions, the subtle esprit de corps permeating a Division who had won fame at Gallipoli, who inspired when transferred to France a fear of their arms in the Hun mind, and won from the recalcitrant foe eulogy in the form of "The Iron Division."
The people of that house were still living in it, with our trenches wandering through their orchard. In Gallipoli there were brigade headquarters in the actual fire trenches. From the headquarters of the division or the corps you could reach the line by ten minutes' hard walking, any time.
That is to say the exact day decided upon was kept a secret from all except the highest officers. For it was not possible to keep from the Turks entirely the knowledge of a complete withdrawal from the Gallipoli Peninsula of the allied troops. Too much publicity had been given to the whole discussion in France and England for that.
An immense force of warships and dynamite cruisers swarmed between Gallipoli and the Golden Horn. Twenty air-ships and forty-five war-balloons lay outside Constantinople, ready to take the air at a moment's notice. The conqueror of Northern Africa and Southern Asia had only a very general idea as to what had really happened in Europe.
Our arrangements in the Crimean War illustrate the point exactly. Our troops were sent out at first to land at Gallipoli in a friendly territory, and to act within that territory as an army of observation. It was not a true combined expedition, and the transports were given no covering squadron.
The wind blows from the north, and it is cold, and the Marmora gray; it blows from the south, and all at once the world is warm and sea and sky are blue so soft, so blue, so alive with lifting radiance that one does not wonder the Turk is content with a cup of coffee and a view. Nothing ever happens in Gallipoli then the war came, and everything happened at once.
Gaza had, as I have said, been turned into a fortress with a mass of field works, in places of considerable natural strength. If our force had been on the defensive at Gaza the Germans would not have attacked without an army of at least three times our strength. It is doubtful if the Turks put as much material in use on Gallipoli as they did here.
In addition to the assistance of air photography to reconnaissance, the war gave it great impetus as the handmaid of survey and mapping. It was, in fact, the only means of mapping or correcting the maps of country held by the enemy, which in certain cases, as at Gallipoli and in Palestine, were very inaccurate.
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