[1915 | The First World War: Continuance of Subject]
“May, 1915: With ANZAC Cove believed to be secure, the warriors were assigned to attack Helles. Under artillery fire from Ottoman outposts, the attack was ceased, to begin again the next day, when reinforcements resumed the battle. Here, the warriors advanced approximately six hundred metres; four hundred short of their objective, with one thousand casualties.
“Following this, a brief period of consolidation occurred on both sides of the battle. The Ottomon Empire relieved its troops, and the ANZACs were low on ammunition. Small attacks did continue during this time, resulting in a number of Australians being killed due to sniping.
“On 19 May, the Ottomon Empire launched an attack. A total of forty-two thousand Ottomon warriors launched this attack, in an attempt to push the 17,000 ANZACs back to the sea. The Ottomans failed: Only one hundred and sixty ANZACs were killed with four hundred and sixty-eight wounded, compared to three thousand dead Ottomans, with another ten thousand injured.
“Five days later, the Ottomans surrendered to the ANZACs. An offer of armistice was made, to enable the Ottomans to bury their many lost warriors. Please listen to the following statement from Private Victor Laidlaw. Please note that as Private Laidlaw is from the continent previously known as Australia, consent was sought from your parents for this part of the lesson. Your father provided written consent on 19 April, 2235. Please also note that the audio quality of this statement has been enhanced, however, due to the age of the recording, please note this does not meet with modern audio standards.”
The voice changes from Nanny’s eerie almost-but-not quite human voice, to that of a man from centuries ago. “‘The armistice was declared from 8:30 a.m. this morning till 4:30 p.m. It is wonderful, things are unnaturally quiet and I felt like getting up and making a row myself, the rifle fire is quiet, no shell fire. The stench round the trenches where the dead had been lying for weeks was awful, some of the bodies were mere skeletons, it seems so very different to see each side near each other’s trenches burying their dead, each man taking part in this ceremony is called a pioneer and wears two white bands on his arms, everybody is taking advantage of the armistice to do anything they want to do out of cover and a large number are down bathing and you would think today was Cup Day down at one of our seaside beaches.’”
The ancient human’s voice is replaced with Nanny’s once more. “August, 1915: Following failures by the allies to make any progress at Hilles, two attacks were planned on 6 August from the Nek by Australians, and on the Chunuk Bair Summit by the New Zealand forces. Both of these failed. The next day, the ANZAC attempts continued. Where the Australian forces failed due to attacking too soon, alerting the Ottomans to their presence, the New Zealand forces easily held onto Chunuk Bair.
“December, 1915: ANZAC warriors were withdrawn from Gallipoli over the course of the month. One evacuation was discovered by Ottoman troops, who were killed by the ANZACs, discouraging the Ottomans from looking further.
“This concludes the first part of the lesson. Do you have any questions, Alexa?”
“No, can we just get on with this?”
“Very well,” Nanny replies. “We will now proceed to World War II and the Vietnam War.”
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