On Gallipoli: an epic of Anzac

This epic narrative poem, written in 1931 and published in 1958, is a fictionalised account of the experience of a group of young Australians at Gallipoli. Though there is presumably much autobiographical content (“I was 18… yet I felt tired and old”), many of the scenes take place before the author arrived at Gallipoli. The narrator and central character is Bill, a past pupil of Sydney High School. He describes landing on the beach with his unit and then the various battle scenes that led to the death of several of his friends. The text is accompanied by poignant sketch illiustrations. The narrative concludes with the humiliating evacuation of the beleaguered forces mainly due to the severity of the winter weather.

The author, Richard Graves (born 17 July 1897), was born in Waterford. Following the death of his mother in 1909, his father emigrated to Australia. The author was left in the care of his paternal grandmother and sent to boarding school in Dublin. He left Ireland to join his father in Queensland in 1911. He attended agricultural college before serving with the Kennedy Regiment in northern Queensland. A few weeks after his 18th birthday he volunteered for active service and embarked with reinforcements on 16 August 1915.  He served as a Private in the 25th Battalion of the Australian Infantry and was wounded at Gallipoli on 23 November. He was evacuated to a military hospital in Malta. He joined the 7th Australian Trench Mortar Battery in August 1916 and served with that unit in France for the remainder of the war. On returning to Australia he suffered from shell shock and related claustrophobia. This led him to a love for wilderness and he became an expert in bushcraft, training soldiers in survival techniques for jungle warfare in the Second World War. He wrote several books on bushcraft as well as adventure books for children.

Perhaps the most interesting aspects of the poem are the conversations with enemy soldiers. Bill’s friend Pearce encounters a wounded Turk during a short truce to retrieve dead and wounded from the battlefield:

“Why see… you talk with me and we are friends…

Between us is no feud or enmity…

The intervening war alone offends

The sense of fellowship ‘tween you and me…

What cause is this, which makes us disagree,

Fostering the fears from which we should be free?

It is not you or we who caused this war

But those who rule… not always for our good…

They never see us… wounded, mangled… sore…

They never know the horrors we’ve withstood…

Or how our wives, in dread of widowhood,

Had begged us stay… Praise Allah!... if we could.”

His cigarette had dwindled to an end.

I took it from him his almost nerveless hand…

“Comrade, that was the action of a friend…

But tell me why you come in No-Man’s-Land.

Turk and Australian… side by side you stand…

Has the war done?... I do not understand.”