Australia in Arms. Phillip F. E. Schuler
it was better to be safe than sorry, and the delayed Australian Convoy was released in the third week of October and the ships commenced to gather at the appointed rendezvous.
Yet I am loath to think that this alone was the reason for the delay. One can read now into events happening at the heart of Empire a very significant cause for hesitancy to send this Australian Contingent to England for service in France. For matters in Turkey were already unsatisfactory. On 25th September messages had reached London of the preparations of the Turks on the Sinai Peninsula and the activity of the Germans in the Ottoman Empire, led by that extraordinary personality Enver Pasha. It was certain that every effort was being made by Great Britain to preserve peace with the Turks, but the Porte was taking a high hand, and it appeared that war would become inevitable. How far the Australian Government was taken into the confidence of the Foreign Office one can only guess. It must be supposed that Major-General Bridges, the Prime Minister, and Minister of Defence, together with the Governor-General of the Commonwealth, were in possession of the main points of the diplomatic relations between Great Britain and Turkey. Matters, too, in the Persian Gulf were very unsatisfactory in the beginning of October, and by the time that the last ship of the Convoy had left port it was certain from the attitude of Turkey, as reflected in the reports of Sir Louis Mallet, British Ambassador at Constantinople, that war would be declared. Military preparations pointed to an attack on the Suez Canal being pushed forward with all speed, and it was therefore necessary to have a large defending force available to draw on. So far as it is possible to read the inner history of events, this was the actual reason for the holding up (strange paradox as it may sound) of the Convoy until the destination of the 30,000 men should be determined. For it must be conceded that, with the Cape route open, not very much longer and far safer, with the venomous Emden raiding Indian waters and the German Pacific Fleet ready to dart out from the Northern islands, it was more feasible than using the Suez Canal with such a vast convoy of ships. As a matter of fact, this was the route chosen. True enough, when the time came, the landing of this army in Egypt for training "and war purposes" must have carried great significance to the Turks; and the plea of the badness of the English climate at the time preventing training in England, served as good an excuse as did the German cruiser menace in New Zealand waters. For while there may have been a lingering suspicion in Lord Kitchener's mind that perhaps the camps at Salisbury might not be ready, it was a trump card to have a body of 30,000 troops ready to divert either at once or in the near future to a strategic point against Turkey. Be all this as it may, the combined Convoys did not leave Australian shores until 1st November, and on the 30th October Sir L. Mallet had been told to ask for his passports within twelve hours unless the Turkish Government dismissed the German crews of the Goeben and Breslau from Constantinople. So actually when leaving the last port the Convoy were directed against Turkey. Yet I suppose no one for a moment read in all the portents of the future even a remote possibility of the landing of the Australian troops in Turkey. Later it was admitted that while training they would simply defend Egypt—to German plotting the one vital point to strike at the British Empire.
Let us return, however, with an apology for the digression, to the gathering up of the Convoy. King George's Sound, the chosen rendezvous of the fleet, is a magnificent harbour, steeped already in historical associations. It offered as fine an anchorage as could be wished for the forty transports and escorting warships. The harbour might have easily held three or four times the number of ships. Yet was this host of forty leviathians sufficient to find no parallel in history! True, the Athenians in ancient times, and even the Turks in the sixteenth century, had sent a fleet of greater size against the Order of St. John at Malta, had entered on marauding expeditions, but hardly so great an army had they embarked and sent across the Mediterranean. Here was a fleet crossing three seas, still disputed—though feebly enough, it is true.
ANCHORAGE OF AUSTRALIAN
AND
NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORTS
IN
KING GEORGE SOUND
ALBANY, OCTOBER 31st 1916
Of many thrilling scenes it needs no great effort of memory to recall that Albany Harbour as those on the flagship saw it first through the thick grey mists of the early morning of 26th October. Almost the last of the Australian ships to enter port, the wind drove the waves over her bows and cast the spray on the decks. Most of the Divisional Staff, barely daylight as it was, were on deck, peering through the mists to catch the first glimpse of the host that they knew now lay at anchor in the harbour. First it was a visionary, fleeting glimpse of masts and funnels, and then, as the coast closed in darker on either bow and the beacons from the lighthouses at the entrance flashed, I could see ships gradually resolving themselves into definite shape, much in the way a conjurer brings from the gloom of a darkened chamber strange realities. The troops were astir and crowded to the ships' sides. They stood to attention as the liner glided down the lines of anchored transports, for the mass of shipping was anchored in ordered lines. The bugles rang out sharp and clear the assembly notes, flags dipped in salute to the General's flag at the mast-head. It was calm now inside this refuge. A large warship was creeping under the dark protection of a cliff like a lobster seeking to hide itself in the background of rocks, and the men learned with some surprise it was a Japanese cruiser, the Abuki. She remained there a few days and then steamed out, lost in a cloud of dense black smoke, while in her place came the two Australian cruisers, the Melbourne and Sydney. Each night the troops watched one or others of these scouts put to sea, stealing at dusk to patrol, and not alone, the entrance to the harbour wherein lay the precious Convoy.
On the morning of the 28th the New Zealand Convoy, consisting of ten ships, arrived, and anchored just inside the entrance of the harbour. From shore the sight was truly wonderful. Three regular lines of steamers, each crammed with troops and horses, were lying in an almost forgotten and certainly neglected harbour. What signs of habitation there were on shore were limited to a whaling station on the west and a few pretty red-roofed bungalows on the east; while the entrance to an inner harbour, the selected spot for a destroyer base of the Australian Navy, suggested as snug a little cove as one might wish. Opposite the main entrance behind the anchored Convoy was the narrow channel leading to the port where the warships anchored, protected from outer view behind high cliffs from which frowned the guns of the forts. It was from these forts, commanded then by Major Meekes, that I looked down on to the ships—that was after nearly being arrested as a spy by a suspicious vigilant guard. Each day three ships entered the port to coal, until the bunkers of the whole fleet were filled to overflowing, to carry them across the Indian Ocean. All was in readiness. It only needed the signal from the Admiralty to the Convoy and its escort and the army of 30,000 would move finally from Australian shores. This was the mustering of a complete Division for the first time in the history of the young Dominion. It had not as yet even been operating as an army in the field, but here it lay, taking thirty ships to transport (with ten more ships for the Maorilanders), in the same historical harbour where as early as 1780 a British frigate had put in for refuge from a storm and for water. It was this port, too, that two Princes of royal blood had visited; while later, at the beginning of the present century and a new era for Australia—the Commonwealth era—the King of England, then the Duke of York, had come. His visit was as unavoidable as certainly it was unexpected, for he had sought refuge, like the ancient British frigate from a violent storm; but, liking the spot, the King decided to stay, and festivities were transferred to Albany in haste. In 1907 the American Atlantic Squadron, under Rear-Admiral Speary, during its visit to Austral shores, had anchored in the broad bay. Thus had tradition, in which this assembly of the First Australian Expeditionary Force marked so deep a score, already begun to be formed round the beautiful harbour.
It will not be out of place to quote here the disposition of the troops and the ships bearing the men of the Contingent. It was the largest of any convoy during the war, steaming over 6,000 leagues. The records need no comment beyond pointing out that the indicated speeds of the ships show how the speed of the Convoy had to be regulated by the speed of the slowest ship—the Southern—and that the arrangement of the three divisions of transports was based on the pace of each, the object of which is apparent