Gallipoli and the Anzacs

Lone Pine and the Nek

The Charge of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade at the Nek (Detail)

Why was this image chosen?

Peter Weir's film Gallipoli, which was first shown in 1982, is undoubtedly the best known portrayal of the Australian Gallipoli experience for a modern audience. Its finale – the charge of the Australian light horsemen on 7 August 1915 – has become THE image associated with the seemingly wasteful slaughter on Anzac.

Years earlier, Charles Bean had realised, long before the era of the modern feature film, that this charge was one of the defining moments of Australian courage illustrating the willingness of the men to go forward into what was almost certain death. In 1919, he instructed George Lambert to create a large war painting of this incident for hanging in what Bean saw as Australia’s new war museum. This museum eventually became the Australian War Memorial and Lambert's The Charge of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade at the Nek, 7 August 1915 is among the Memorial’s most treasured items. Once again, part of the agenda for this panel was that there should be somewhere on Gallipoli where these images were available to the public in the surroundings where the charge took place.

The Nek lies on Russell’s Top not far from where Walker’s Ridge runs out on to the top of the Sari Bair range above North Beach. Bean and Lambert walked all around the area while Lambert did sketches for his painting. In Gallipoli Mission Bean described Lambert’s work on the painting:

‘Descriptions are all too true,’ wrote Lambert to his wife. ‘Evidence grins coldly at us non-combatants … from the point of view of the artist-historian the Nek is a wonderful setting to the tragedy’. The grim, rather beautiful landscape of distant ridge-tops surrounding this upland would be his background, his foreground the patch of level scrub with the line of charging men shown at the moment when, a few yards out from their trench, the full force of the Turk’s rifle-fire struck them. As he says, he regarded himself in these works as the artist-historian, and he purposed in this picture to show the reaction of different types of Australian to this shocking experience. There was to be the larrikin; and the gently-bred type; the fair-haired Scandinavian Anzac; the lean countryman, and so on. You see them all in the picture which he painted some years afterwards in Australia from the landscape studies begun that morning on Plugge’s Plateau and The Nek.

[Charles Bean, Gallipoli Mission, Canberra, 1948, p109]

Lone Pine and the Nek

There is hell waiting here.

C.A. McAnulty
Australian soldier killed in action at Lone Pine, 7–12 August 1915

Aware of the need to seize the initiative, the British planned a new offensive for early August. There would be a British landing at Suvla Bay (Suvla Koyu) and a major assault to the north of the Anzac position to capture the high ground leading to Chunuk Bair and Hill 971.

Supporting attacks were planned at Lone Pine and along a narrow ridge known as the Nek.

On the afternoon of 6 August at Lone Pine the Australians attacked and occupied Turkish frontline positions against determined Turkish counter-attacks. Most of this desperate fighting took place at close quarters in the Turkish trenches. On the morning of 7 August at the Nek, four waves of Australians were cut down before they reached the enemy line.

The Australian official historian, referring to these light horsemen, later wrote: "The flower of the youth of Victoria and Western Australia fell in that attempt."

The Charge of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade at the Nek, 7 August 1915 (detail) by George Lambert. (Australian War Memorial)

YALNIZ ÇAM VE NEK

Burada bizi cehennem bekliyor.

C.A. McAnulty, Yalniz Çam’da harekat sirasinda ölen Avustralya askeri,
7—12 Agustos 1915

Insiyatifi ele geçirme zorunlulugunun bilincinde olan Ingilizler Agustos baslarinda yeni bir saldiri planladilar. Ingilizler Suvla Koyu’na çikacaklar ve Anzak mevzilerinden kuzeye dogru, Conk Bayirina giden tepelik alani ele geçirmek için, büyük bir saldiriya giriseceklerdi. Yalniz Çam’a ve Nek olarak bilinen dar bir serite karsi destek saldirilari düzenlenecekti.

6 Agustos ögleden sonra, Avustralyalilar Yalniz Çam’daki Türk ileri mevzilerine saldirdilar ve Türklerin azimli karsi saldirilarina ragmen burayi ele geçirmeyi basardilar. Bu çarpismalarin büyük bölümü Türk siperleri içerisinde gögüs gögüse gerçeklestirildi. Dört dalga halinde gelen Avustralya askerleri, 7 Agustos sabahi, düsman hatlarina ulasamadan kiliçtan geçirildi. Avustralya resmi tarihçileri, sonralari bu hafif süvariler hakkinda, "Viktorya ve Bati Avustralya gençliginin goncalari bu saldiri sirasinda düstüler" diye yazacakti.

3üncü Hafif Süvari Bölügünün Nek saldirisi, 7 Agustos 1915
(Foto George Lambert ) (Avustralya Savas Aniti)

Original Art