The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25. ANZAC ANNIVERSARY.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 April 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25. ANZAC ANNIVERSARY.

To-day ia the second anniversary of the landing of the Australians and New Zoalanders, with the Imperial and Indian troops, upon the inhospitable and 6trongly-fortified shores of Gallipoli. This year the anniversary was observed on Monday because of the local bodies' elections taking place on Wednesday. It was, in our view, an unwise decision on the part of the Government, for the observance of "Anzac Day" would in no tay have affected the elections. Bather the reverse, for more people would be about to vote. If we are to have, an "Anzac Day" then let it give way not even to municipal polities. It is a day that, should be held sacred as long as the race endures, for, above everything else, it was a manifestation of a new —no, latent—spirit, that the Colonials could' figH and die for a great ideal,

tlicMi'fore giving tliu lii> to the often

expressed view that, as a result of a life of comparative ease and comfort, they had become indifferent To the high. <r attributes, and had deteriorated from tiu> standard set by their forbears, the founders of our great Empire. They were asked to do the impossible, and they succeeded. From the day of the kyiding whatever chances they had 01 winning through were spoilt by the muddling and bungling of the authorities. We are too near the events, however, to say whether tlie (.'rent Adventure was successful or nol. hi one way it was a failure—wo did not achieve our main object; in'another way we were successful; we were able to hold the flower of the Turkish Army, and punish it severely, thereby relieving (lie pressure on other fronts. Whatever tlie verdist of the future historian may be, Uieftt will be no questioning one fact—that the boys of the colonies in the Southern Seas gave us a new insight into the meaning of devotion, duty and sacrifice. What they achieved showed that tlie martial qualities and unconquerable spirit of that portion of the race transplanted to the congenial environment and favorable conditions of the Antipodes had not deteriorated, hut, if anything, had improved by the process. It was a most desperate military undertaking, perhaps the most desperate ever attempted. "The Turks aitj Germans knew," to quote John Masofield, "what few and narrow landing places were possible to our men; they had more than two mouths of time, in which to make those landing places fatal to any enemy within.a mile of them, yet our men came from three thousand miles away, passed that mile of massacre, landed and held with all their guns, stores, animals and appliances, in spite of the Turk and his ally, who outnumbered them at every point. No army in history has male l a more heroic attack; no army in history has been set such a task. No other body of men in any modern war has been called on to land over mined and wired wafers under the cross fire of machine-guns. Our men achieved a feat without parallel in war, and no other troops in the world (not even the Japanese and Ghazis, in the hope of heaven) would have made good those beaches on the 25th of April," This is Masefleld's summary, of the difficulties the men had to face: "Many armies have been landed from boats fronr the. time of Pharaoh's invasion of Punt until the present; but no men, not oven Caeser's army of invasion in Britain, have had to land in an enemy's country with such a prospect of difficulty before them, They were going to land on a foodless cliff, five hundred miles from a store, in a place and at a season in which the sea's rising might, cut them from supply. They had to take with them all things—munitions, guns, entrenching tools, sandbags, provisions, clothing, medical stores, hospital equipment, mules, horses, fodder, even water to drink, for the land produced not even that." Our losses in killed, wounded and missing were 115,000, and in sick about 100,000, or in all more than two and a half times more than the army which made the landing. The Turkish losses from all causes were far greater, losing in kill' ed. alone at the fivo battles of the landings as many as were killed on our side during the whole campaign. They had always a superior force to ours on the Peninsula. In all we disabled not less that 400,000 Turks, that is, a very large army of men who might have been used elsewhere, with disastrous advantage, in the Caucasus, when Russia was hard pressed, as they were used later in Mesopotamia. We did not win, and some day we will know why. Until then, our enemies can (in the words of Masefield) say this:—

"They did not win, hut they came across three thousand miles of sea, a little army without reserves and short of munitions, a band of brothers, not half of them half-trained, and nearly all of them new to war. They came to what we said was an impregnable fort, on which our veterans of war and massacre had labored for two months, and by sheer naked manhood, they beat us, and drove u9 out of it. Then rallying, but without reserves, they beat us again, and drove us farther. Then rallying oneo more, but still without reserves, they beat . us again, this time to our knees. Then, had they had reserves, they would have conquered, but by God's pity they had none. Then, after a lapse of time, when we were men again, they had reserves, and they hit us a staggering blow, which needed but a push to end us, but Cod was indeed pitiful, for England made no further thrust, and they went away."

"Even so was wisdom proven blind, So courage failed, so strength was chained; Even so the gods, whose seeing mind Is not as ours, ordained.'