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WITHDRAWAL FROM ANZAC COVE
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This Christmas we remember the Gallipoli Evacuation from Anzac Cove; the ANZAC evacuation concluded just before Christmas on 20 December 1915.
On 19 December, as he waited to go, the Company Quarter Master 14th Battalion, Sergeant A.L. Guppy from Benalla, Victoria confided his feelings in verse to his diary. His words probably spoke for them all:
Not only muffled is our tread
To cheat the foe,
We fear to rouse our honoured dead
To hear us go.
Sleep sound, old friends- the keenest smart
Which, more than failure, wounds the heart,
Is thus to leave you- thus to part,
Comrades, farewell!
To cheat the foe,
We fear to rouse our honoured dead
To hear us go.
Sleep sound, old friends- the keenest smart
Which, more than failure, wounds the heart,
Is thus to leave you- thus to part,
Comrades, farewell!
The withdrawal from Anzac Cove remains one of the most renowned actions of the Gallipoli campaign. It involved large scale diversionary tactics and even a false bombardment designed to distract the Turks.
By 4.00 am, 20 December 1915, just a handful of men were left at North Beach. Among these was the commander of the ‘Rear Party’, Colonel J Paton, from Waratah, Sydney. At 4.10 am, Paton, having waited ten minutes for any last Anzac straggler, declared the evacuation complete and sailed off. The Anzacs had successfully left Gallipoli without a casualty.
