THE ANZACS AND GALLIPOLI

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 171, 10 October 1927, Page 8

THE ANZACS AND GALLIPOLI

THAT someone should have aspersed the conduct of the Australians and New Zealanders at Gallipoli is not at all to he wondered at; for there are odd folk here and there whose malicious propensities are so irrepressible that they must ever be slandering somebody. They are just born that way. The wonder is that any serious heed should be given such persons. The authoritative statement of thb high official in charge of the publication the advance proofs of which were said to have referred to Australians on Anzac Beach as “a disorganised rabble,” utterly denies that there was anything resembling such a statement written for the official history. There is no trace of the reference “quoted,” and a Melbourne newspaper, whieh has of late years displayed a marked flair for the sensational, is alleged by Sir lan Hamilton to have been responsible for “a mare’s nest.”

If there is anything in the history of the Anzaes at which honest men could cavil, it was the sending of advance proofs of the history to the senior participating Australian officers, “to see if they contained anything objectionable or disagreeable.” If there was anything “disagreeable,” it is to be hoped it was left in, if true; for war is not a pleasant play and history is supposed to be truthful—indeed truth should be its first essential. But the fact is that Mr. C. E, W. Bean, the trusted official historian for the Commonwealth, says the draft copy of the English history of the Gallipoli venture was “fine, frank and clear,” and that any amendments he could suggest would be too small to be worthy of notice. There is no need for comments on the silly canard about the Anzaes, excepting to say that it must have emanated from a very mean-souled slanderer. He is answered sufficiently by the following from the London “Times”: — “The prowess of the Australian and New Zealand troops in the Great War won them everlasting fame, but it was at Gallipoli, above the beach bearing their name, that their first laurels were gained. It was there they set up a standard of bravery, tenacity and resource which furnished an example for all who followed them. . . . These two divisions were the flower of Australian and New Zealand manhood. All who saw them in the early days of the campaign agree that they were probably as fine a body of men as ever stood to arms.”