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Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1929, Page 4

The dea.h of General StopT.ird, following s.i closely on An/.ac jjay, revives ...eiiiories lor a- northern writer, ol one of the 'in..st tragic incidents of the Great War. ror General Stop ford commanded the Lmips thai were landd at ,*->uivi: Bay on Ga.lipoli during .hat fatefni lirst week of August 14 years ag., and on lum was thrown ti.e responsibility of leading them in a .ian„',.i.g at a k against the Turkish pisiti.nis which defended the Dardan- .. lies, while the Anzncs and the British tro ps made a frontal attack upon the heights. For four days, . rum August 6th t> August 16th. the .rental attack was pressed till the '.males and the British battalions had farced their way over almost inc.nioivahle obstacles, and in .sjjito of apod ing slaughter, to the very verge of ihe ridge, and they only needed the promised aid from. Suvia to drive tiie iur .s in hoadl ug lliglit down the bills on the other side towards the limit But 'that liel'p never came. The reasons for this disastrous failure are still obscure llu.han tells us that llui troops at Suvia “were new and lacked that self-reliance and individual initiative which are necessary m open order lighting, in a difficult country, while there was undoubtedly a lack of mirpo.se and resolution in thenleadership. ’’ I would prefer not to comment further upon this, says the

—••'ter. except to add 1 liat- on August loth, only a week after the lending at Suvia Bav. General Stanford was relieved of his command. One know f nothing nvro poignant and pathetic in the whole range of historical litern'nre then Masefield’s account of the terrib'e struggle for Ko;a Chemen and Ihe desperate efforts that Australians -•nd New Zealanders .and Gurkhas and British made to starm those heights "lid IHd their own on the ridge, wnit•lii" for tlm aid that never came from “Tf. as men say, the souls of a race, all the comnanv of a nation’s dead, rally to the living of their probin' :, i time of storm, those fields of belt '■fl'nw T\npi Chemen must have an--M.-orcd w’th a. Minstlv muster of E.ngYisli souls in the afternoon of that r, th. of August. Snrolv our unseen •Vad wo’-c "'n tlmt. field, blowing the horn of Roland, the horn of lmwes in i hc Bo’orons Pass, asking for the lift I ' l ' ''at heroes ask, hilt asking in vain. r f over the oreat, of England cried ‘'wo hevond death to the living they '•"fed then.” But they cried in vain; '■he fatefni moment passed, never to return. Yet those to whom Anz.no is a name linked with an unforgeHnVe -nrruv mav well ""Other comfort from +ho knowledge of the enduring fanm. Mm eternal honour, that was von at such a cost in those terrible nights -nd da vs upon the rugged si pes of Gallipoli.