THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 292, 13 July 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN.

WHAT IT COST IN BLOOD AND MONEY. The fighting at the Dardanelles was of the fiercest; the casualties were extraordinarily heavy (.writes H. W. Wilson in the London Dally Mail). Down to December 11, 1915, a few days before the. close of the expedition, they were officially stated thus: Killed 25,270 Wounded 75,191 Missing (really killed > 12,451 112,912 Add sick 96,684 k 209,596 The French loss is not stated, but' •was perhaps one-third or one-fourth that of the British, in which case the logs of the expedition in battle was nearly 150,000. In the Franco-German war of 1870 the total German loss In battle was only 129,700 men. It was smaller than at Gallipoli. In the Russo-Jap-anese war the loss of the Japanese (excluding cases of sickness) was 195,319, so that the casualties at the Dardanelles were only a few thousands less than Japan's in IS months of fearless battles. The men whose lives were sacrificed ot Gallipoli wore among tho pick of our race, the flower of Australia and New Zealand fell on that blood-ctained coast. The conditions, too, were so appalling that the health of all the survivors suffered. Towards the close of the expedition 1000 men a dav were being invalided through dyftentory, and the great storm of November 28-29, 1915, Ik said by a friendly critic, yr. ftjasefleld, to have frozen 200 men to death on the spot, permanently invalided 10.000 more?and affected yet nffoither 30.000 men severely. "In fact, if the expedition had not been withdrawn, weather and disease would have wiped It. cut.

' The following battleships were sunk: — Crew Nationality. Tons. Drowned. Pouvet .. French 12.000 600 Irresistible British 15.000 200* Ocean .. British 13,000 Goliath .. British 13.000 500 Triumph. . British 12,000 240 Majestic British 15,000 SO SO,OOO 1590 * Estimate for Irresistible and Ocean. .Though they were all old vessels, they were of value l'or many operations. To them must be added seven submarines and an indefinite number of lighters, barges, and boats. These were destroyed in the work of landing on the open surf-swept beaches which were the only bases that this unhappy force possessed. For whole days when the weather was bad, it was impossible tc land anything at all, and thoro were moments when the pesition of the force, marooneJ on a. little strip of desert, waterless coast, seemed desperate. About a million tons of merchant shipping were latterly rcnuired for the service of the expedition, at a cost which was immense because of the dearness of freights. . All this shipping had to be carefully protected against enemy submarines. The actual losses in ships were not heavy owing to the energy of the navy, but amonu: them was the Royal Edward, sunk with 1000 trocps on board.

Xo figures of the cost in money have been published, hut as from first to last 300,000 men were enEased in the expedition, with a large fleet of warships and merchantmen, and as the wastaee of supplies was great owing to difficulties of landing and storing, it seems prcbable that £300.000,000. or one and a-half times the total indemnity paid by France to Germany in 1871, was expended.