Visit Gallipoli

At night, from the positions north of Walker’s Ridge stretching through the ranges to Hill 60, mule columns looked after by men of the Indian Mule Cart Corps brought material for evacuation to Williams’ Pier. Once on flat ground and heading south for North Beach, these columns passed a stretch of coast opposite the Sniper’s Nest where they could undoubtedly be heard by Turkish patrols. However, as the mules were constantly going up the line with supplies, there was nothing to tell the enemy that they were now returning, equally heavily laden. Moreover, so skilled were the Indian handlers that hardly any noise was made. Encountering a column, an Australian confided to his diary:

	At once I thought–‘My goodness, if the Turks don’t see all this as it goes along they must be blind’. But as I went along behind them I began to notice how silently these mules behaved. They had big loads, but they were perfectly quiet. They made no sound at all as they walked except for the slight jingle of a chain now and then … . I doubt if you could have heard the slightest noise … . I doubt if at 1,000 yards [915 metres] you could see them at all-possibly just a black serpentine streak.
	[Quoted in C E W Bean, The Story of Anzac, Sydney, 1924, Vol II, p.866]

Although much equipment was removed from Anzac, a great deal, especially foodstuffs, was left behind or destroyed.

So well were the objectives of the first two stages kept secret from all but those who needed to know, that it was not until the second week in December that the ordinary soldiers realised that a full-scale evacuation was in progress. Charles Bean felt that everyone knew by 13 December. Men’s reactions varied, but a common sorrow was the thought of leaving behind their dead comrades. Bean noted how many now spent time in the small Anzac cemeteries tidying up the graves.

On the nights of 18-19 and 19-20 December the final 20 000 Anzacs were taken off. On 19 December, the British cruiser HMS Grafton lay in off North Beach ready to take the soldiers on board and, if necessary, to open fire on any enemy attempt to hinder this final withdrawal. An observer on the Grafton noted:

It is about 9 o'clock. An ideal night for the job. No ships (only a few lights) visible at Suvla. One ship about a mile on our port beam. Barely a wrinkle on the water. Soft air from the north. Moon at present quite invisible. The wash of the destroyer has been lapping against our sides like wavelets at the edge of a pond. 10.00 pm- Three ships just gone in … 10.35 pm- Five trawlers coming out with cutters in tow.

On 19 December just 10 000 men held the lines of trenches from Bolton’s Ridge in the south to Hill 60 in the north. The day was spent in constant activity aimed at convincing their watchful enemy that things were proceeding as normal. At 2.15 pm the British started a feint attack at Helles to distract the Turks. At dusk the rear guard began leaving for the beach until finally there were but 1500 left in all those miles of dark trench. Company Sergeant Major Joe Gasparich, Auckland Infantry Battalion, was among the last to depart in the early hours of 20 December:

	I came down - I got off my perch (the firing step) [and] I walked through the trench and the floor of the trench was frozen hard … and when I brought my feet down they echoed right through the trench, down the gully, right down, and you could hear this echo running ahead … Talk about empty, I didn’t see a soul … It was a lonely feeling.
	[Gasparich, quoted in C Pugsley, Gallipoli – The New Zealand Story, London, 1984, p.343]

By 4.00 am, 20 December 1915, 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 with hardly a casualty.

On 19 December, as he waited to go, Company Quarter Master Sergeant A L Guppy, 14th Battalion, of 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!
	[Guppy, quoted in B Gammage, The Broken Years – Australian Soldiers in the Great War, Penguin Books, 1975, p.110]