1915: The Battle of Chunuk Bair

August 10, 2021

By AHNZ

Doesn’t this just sound like Act 1 from ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ more than a bit?

“War! There is no conception more inspiring, no condition nobler, no call that rings more grandly in the ears.”– NZ Herald, 8 August 1914

Exactly one year later this harmful garbage had become obvious to recognise. At least, it was for our men at Galllipoli but the people at home would catch on after a propaganda-created lag.

Today in history was the day it all came undone. The last effort to actually win this thing, the last hope that it wasn’t all some horrible joke on us, the last possibility that our best and brightest died for a cause.

“Of the estimated 8500 New Zealanders who fought in the eight-month Gallipoli campaign against the Ottoman empire, 2721 were killed, and many of those died in just four days, during the “August OIffensive” that included the push for Chunuk Bair.” – How Chunuk Bair changed us forever, Stuff (2015)

Whence came this cone?
From the trench of Malone
On the heights of Chunuk Bair
His courageous band
Held that land
But too many remained –
Buried there
– Ref. Chunuk Bair pine cone, nzhistory.govt.nz

The Battle of Chunuk Bair, concluded 10 August, 1915, delivered the verdict: New Zealand’s ANZACs were cannon fodder in a no-win situation. We had been misled.

New Zealand entered World War 1 in Slave Culture mode and this is what it had gotten them. And this is what it took to awaken the Honour Culture we became. Very expensive.

—

Image ref. NEIL BOND / FAIRFAX NZ (2015)

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