The Maori at Gallipoli
"...For the first time in history, the hills and dales of Gallipoli resounded to the ancient war-song of the Maori tribesmen."
From: 1915 C.E. To: 1915 C.E.
Location: Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“The Ground We Won,” from Light and Shade in War by Malcolm Ross, 1916.
Gallipoli,
August 16, 1915
It is after the fight. The battle has spent itself as a breaker on a rock-bound shore. The backwash is gathering itself slowly together to form another wave. It is a good opportunity to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of our dead: to see the ground so dearly won. There is still desultory firing from the guns on the cruisers and destroyers in the Gulf of Saros, the waters of which lave our curving sandy beach opposite Imbros and that other rugged isle where St. Paul sailed.
The crack of an enemy maxim resounds from the hillside, and the stream of bullets hits up the sand on the beach. At intervals long enough to suggest a scarcity of high explosives a shell from a big Turkish gun bursts in the sand or the sea. Sometimes, too tired to fight, it doesn't even burst. A sniper, who is more than a good shot, amuses himself potting from long range at some Indians digging a grave.
We turn our backs on all this and enter a trench on our left. The sap bends round on to a little flat and leads into the mouth of a narrow valley, up which winds a path flanked by scrub-covered low ridges. At first the grade is easy. On the left the sad grey of olive trees contrasts with the green of the ilex the prickly dwarf oak that covers this rugged country. How our men fought through here in the darkness is a marvel. The prickly scrub tore their hands and bare knees till there was not an inch of skin unscarified.
For three terrible days they continued fighting, and then sores that had become septic gave the doctors much work. Wandering a little way into the scrub at the risk of being sniped you note the evidences of the advance bits of torn garments, a puttee that had become loosened and torn from the leg, a helmet lost in the darkness, a sock telling the tale of a wounded foot, other garments blood-stained, clips of cartridges, a broken rifle, and first field dressings torn from arm or leg by the unyielding branches of the sturdy prickly ilex. In some of the most beautiful spots the stench of an unburied body fouls the hot air. On the left is an old Turkish well, the coping blown off by some shell. It is deep and narrow, and lined with stone. Most likely there is a body at the bottom of it.
On the left, also, is a barbed-wire entanglement, with which the enemy hoped to block the progress up the valley. The troops went at it under fire in the darkness. With clippers they cut the wire, and, this being too slow a process, by main strength they tore up the stakes. Not a man was killed! The bullets went flying over their heads with one continuous screech.
"I think we all get killed at that wire,” said one Maori. "The bullets come ping! ping! ping! over our heads all the time; but the Turk he fire too high. Py gorry! I think we have the lucky escape that time!"
Later in the night the Maoris had still more serious work to do. In silence, with empty magazines and fixed bayonets they attacked the Turk in trench and dug-out, helping to clear the scrub-covered foothills for the main attack on Chunuk Bair. They were supposed to do all this in silence, but, after the first brush, the blood was up, and, for the first time in history, the hills and dales of Gallipoli resounded to the ancient war-song of the Maori tribesmen
Ka mate, ka mate!
Ka ora, ka ora!
Ka mate, ka mate!
Ka ora, ka ora!
Tene te tangata puhuruhuru,
Nana te tangata puhuruhuru,
Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra,
Upane, kaupene, upane kaupane;
Whiti te ra!
followed by British cheering. No one could see what was taking place, but we on the hills below, listening, and watching the flashes of the Turkish guns, could picture the scene. A few minutes of deathly silence, then a burst of cheering and the "Ka mate, ka mate!" again. Then silence once more and renewed cheering and the war-song, as the warriors dashed forward bayoneting right and left, or clubbing as with the "taiaha" of the olden time.
In this way trench after trench was cleared. Above the rattle of the Turkish musketry and cries of "Allah! Allah!" the shouts of victory in the darkness made a thrilling prelude to the main battle that was to begin at dawn. But these brave warriors did not escape scatheless themselves, for many a Maori of noble lineage lay dead that night amidst the ilex shrubbery on the slopes above the Gulf of Saros.
Shot through the body, one young brave fell on a path at the bottom of the ravine. He blocked the way for the stretcher-bearers and the ammunition and water-carriers. So they rolled the body some few yards up the hillside. "Poor old Hori," they said, "he's finished," and they left him and pressed on. But Hori took it into his head to come to life again, and, after the first few dazed minutes, he got up and walked down to the dressing-station!
At one spot on our upward journey the track is overlooked by the Turkish trenches. We can see them quite clearly on the slopes of Chunuk Bair, and there are snipers who have come down into the scrub to take pot-shots at men passing up and down the valley. It becomes necessary to run. Sandbags are piled high at intervals, and we dash from one barricade to another in fifty and hundred-yard sprints. Cowering under the first wall of sandbags, very much out of breath, we look at each other and laugh. My sprinting days are almost over, and in such a grilling heat one would almost prefer the risk of being shot. My companion a famous English war correspondent having regained his wind, remarks, "I'm not very fond of bullets, but I do hate running."
Then we make another dash up to the next lot of sandbags, and fling ourselves at their base. It is really too ridiculous, and we look at each other and laugh louder than before. Here there are half a dozen "Tommies" who are in the middle of the same performance. One points to a stone almost touching my foot. "He got one on to that stone just now," he said in a Lancashire dialect.
I drew in my leg quickly I am brave only when I am fairly safe, or when enthusiasm or necessity unlatches the door of discretion!
“Three sergeants were talking to one another at that bend this morning, and every one was hit," said another man. He seemed to regard this as a joke. If one only had been hit that would have been an ordinary occurrence, and not worth mention. But a bag of three! that was too funny for words. While we had been doing the last sprint it had occurred to each of us that we would walk the next stage, but we now resolved to run harder than ever! After four or five successive sprints of this kind we were glad to moisten our parched throats with some precious water at a field dressing-station of the 13th Division that we ran into round a bend of the track higher up.
The steep spurs and precipitous sides of "Table Top" were now on our right, and one marvelled how our men had got up there in the darkness. The Turks had bolted from Table Top! Half a dozen could have held the position against our men coming up in single file. But we had another bit of luck here. No sooner had our men gained the position than 150 Turks, driven out of one of their forward positions by the New Zealanders, attempted to scale the heights. Other New Zealanders were on them in an instant, and recognizing their position was well-nigh hopeless, they all laid down their arms and surrendered. Our men took 158 Turkish prisoners here.
Ross, Malcolm. Light and Shade in War. Longmans, 1916.
About TOTA
TOTA.world provides cultural information and sharing across the world to help you explore your Family’s Cultural History and create deep connections with the lives and cultures of your ancestors.
