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Audio transcript
Redoubt Cemetery, 2 kilometres south of Alçitepe and 400 metres in from the road between the village and Seddülbahir, lies at the heart of a significant Australian battlefield. In early May 1915, the Victorians of the 2nd Brigade AIF (5th–8th Battalions) and the New Zealand Infantry Brigade were brought from Anzac to Helles to form part of an attempted British advance towards Alçitepe. For both Australia and New Zealand it was a disastrous action officially called the Second Battle of Krithia.
The painting depicts an incident during the Australian advance at Krithia (Alçitepe) on 8 May 1915, when the commanding officer of the 2nd Australian Infantry Brigade, Brigadier General James McCay, urged his men on with the words, ‘Now then Australians! Which of you men are Australian? Come on, Australians!
British and French attacks on 6 and 7 May had made little progress towards seizing the important ridge behind Alçitepe, known to the British as Achi Baba. On the morning of 8 May, the New Zealanders went in but gained little ground. Late in the afternoon, when they were camping and cooking a meal, the Australians were called forward to attack across what was described as a ‘wide, dry, level, grassland’. The trees which surround Redoubt Cemetery today were not there, and the Australians came forward into intense Turkish artillery and small arms fire. ‘The heavily loaded brigade’, wrote Charles Bean, ‘hurried straight on, heads down, as if into fierce rain, some men holding their shovels before their faces like umbrellas in a thunderstorm’. During one hour the Australians advanced about 900 metres, but the houses of Alçitepe were still far off and the Turkish line had not been reached. More than 1000 Australians were killed or wounded in this sadly ineffectual attack and some of them lie among the many unidentified graves in Redoubt Cemetery.
Buried just to the right inside the gate at Redoubt is Lieutenant Colonel Robert Gartside, aged 52, who on 8 May 1915 was temporarily in charge of the 7th Battalion (Victoria) AIF. Gartside was supposedly the first man buried in this large cemetery of 2027 graves, less than 20 per cent of which are identified. He died hereabouts during the Australian advance, struck in the stomach by machine-gun bullets as he rose to lead another charge –‘Come on, boys, I know it’s deadly but we must go on’.