Free Our Darkest Day by Patrick Lindsay

defending the high ground around Aubers Ridge learned their lessons well from their shock loss of Neuve Chapelle. They increased their troops from two divisions to three in the front line and redoubled their efforts at improving their defences. The new troops in the German line, the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division, took over the sector in front of Fromelles. They had been rushed across from Lille during the early stages of the Neuve Chapelle attacks. Official Australian World War I historian, C.E.W. Bean described the unit as having been
raised immediately after the outbreak of war from untrained men under or over military age, with a proportion of fully trained but elderly reservists.
    While they may have been inexperienced ‘trench’ troops rather than crack infantrymen, the Bavarians soon adapted superbly to defensive trench warfare. They built an extensive network of interlinked breastworks, incorporating reinforced machine-gun pits, introduced pumps to drain their positions and created massive blockhouses and concealed concrete-reinforced strong-points in farms, churches and other buildings. Their defences extended kilometres back from the front lines. The second line of troops held the strong-points and blockhouses perhaps a kilometre behind the front line and a third line looked down from the Aubers ridgeline. Some of their massive concrete strongholds even had electricity for their pumps and lighting. Reserve units were sprinkled around the surrounding villages, ready for deployment to plug any holes and to counter-attack. It was an imposing and cleverly interwoven defensive system giving maximum protection to its troops and allowing lethal firepower to be brought to bear on attackers.

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    THE ANZACS’ JOURNEY

    I don’t care for war, there’s far too much luck in it for my liking.
    N APOLEON III, 1859
    In November 1914 Ottoman Turkey had thrown its hand in with Germany on the side known as the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria – so named because they fell between Russia on the east and France and Britain to the west). The Allies (or the Entente Powers) were France, Britain and her Dominions, Belgium and Russia. Many other nations, including Italy, Japan and the United States, joined the Allied side as the war progressed.
    Turkey’s entry into the war changed the initial equation. As early as 2 August 1914, the Young Turks, led by Enver Pasha and bypassing their Cabinet, had concluded a secret alliance with Germany. Enver saw the possibility of a new Turkic Empire and succumbed to Germany’s bribes and the pretence of the sale of two German warships. He declared a jihad against Russia and the Allies and called on his countrymen to join the battle for ‘victory, martyrdom and paradise’.
    Responding to German requests to distract the Russians, the Turkish fleet harried the Russian Black Sea ports and Enver personally led an attack against the Russians at Sarikamis, an Anatolian town the Turks had lost to the Russians in 1878. Enver set out in December 1914 but he and his troops were trapped as winter intervened and more than 25,000 froze to death before they even made contact with the Russians. Although the Turks made some inroads with their remaining troops, the Russians counter-attacked and drove them back through Armenia. Enver and the Turks blamed Armenians serving with the Russians for the defeat. They enforced a mass deportation of Armenians in a deadly exodus to Syria (then Turkish territory) which saw some 800,000 die.

    Australians from all walks of life joined the growing number of recruitment marches from inland towns to join up. After Gallipoli, the average monthly enlistments jumped from around 6000 to 36,000. ( KNYVETT PHOTO )
    The Russians called on their Allies to relieve the pressure on them by launching an offensive against Turkey. The response would be the genesis of the Gallipoli campaign.
    Meanwhile, the Russians were locked in an increasingly costly