WAR ON GALLIPOLI.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 April 1922, Page 5

WAR ON GALLIPOLI.

'TT WAS NO MISTAKE." LESSONS FOR TO-DAY. A service appropriate to the commemoration of Anzac Day was held at St. Mary’s Church last night. In the course of an address, the Ven. Archdeacon Evans asked his congregation to try to picture the landing of the troops in barges, most of them men who were unused to war, yet with one great thought burning in their hearts —namely, to do their duty, to do it manfully, and to do it so well that the echo would reach their home land. No one knew how hard it was for untried men, the endurance they showed or the cheerfulness they displayed. Often it was said that the campaign was a sacrifice in vain, and a profound blunder, But it was no mistake. It would be a horrible thing for parents to feel that they gave their sons for nothing. First of all, the boys had proved they were of British stock, and the campaign showed that they were able to take their places beside the best of troops. No wonder their fathers and mothers were proud of their memory. They broke the pride of the Turks, who were told by the Germans that the defences were invincible. He believed that the first feeling that entered into the hearts of the Turkish Government that they had allied themselves with the wrong people was when our boys with others equally as noble obtained a hold on Gallipoli. The Gallipoli campaign accounted for nearly 300,000 Turkish troops, including the flower of the army; they failed to send help to their allies in the other theatres of war, and thus the end of the struggle was brought appreciably nearer.

“Are we going to do our duty, day by day, as cheerfully as they did?” the archdeacon asked. “We have a duty to our country, and to the people who are living around us, to make it a better one, and to be more unselfish. If we do that we shall feel, as the Anzac Days come and go, that this country is a better one, and more happy for the people because of these 17,000 men who will never come back.”

In announcing that the offerings at the service would be given to the war memorial funds the vicar (the Rev. F. G. Harvie) said that though they had a memorial tablet and flag in the church it was hoped to have something bigger later, and the funds were still open.