The Gallipoli Letter Read Online Free Page A

turn to you as a friend for guidance in this matter and I want you to know that I have always felt that I could joyfully perform any task you set me in the service of my country.’ Murdoch recognised that the London job was important but he wrote that he knew that the war would not be won by cables but by as many men as possible in the firing line. The prime minister did not mince words in reply. He stated that Murdoch could perform a much better service for his country in London than in the trenches and he did not think army life would suit Murdoch. But there was more to it than that: Murdoch could be a voice for Australia in London, he believed, and could ensure that Australians would be informed about the progress of the war at the battlefronts and about the thinking of the politicians and decision-makers in London. It was one thing to have an official correspondent in the trenches, Fisher implied, but it was equally important that Australian political leaders knew what was happening in London. On your way to London, Fisher proposed, you might well visit the battlefield at Gallipoli to report back to me. Just as Chris Watson had reported on what was happening in London, Fisher believed he needed to hear a firsthand account of the situation at the Dardanelles. Officially, Murdoch’s task was to report on the organisation of mail from Australia to the soldiers at Gallipoli, and on the management of the Australian hospitals in Cairo and elsewhere, both matters which had become issues of contention at home and among the troops.
    â€˜If you could picture Anzac as I have seen it’
    Fisher no doubt wanted a trusted and alert intimate to give him an understanding of the campaign beyond whatever anodyne reports he was now receiving from the generals and from London. The Australian prime minister’s main source of information on the Gallipoli campaign still remained the censored news reports that Charles Bean and British journalists were sending back for publication in the Australian newspapers. It was a remarkable situation which Fisher could only barely tolerate. He wanted to know if the campaign could be won; if Australian lives were being recklessly wasted for little gain; if General Sir Ian Hamilton’s overall direction of the campaign was sound and likely to produce victory. He wanted to know about the morale of the Australian troops at Gallipoli and if they had all that they needed for success. The Australian prime minister, in other words, wanted the facts, straight and unfiltered, that he had every right to expect. And he knew that Keith Murdoch would give the facts to him straight.
    Andrew Fisher’s biographer, David Day, suggests that the prime minister had another objective in sending Murdoch to Gallipoli, that Fisher wanted Murdoch to see the frontline fighting for himself to convince himself, once and for all, that he could do better work for Australia in London than in the AIF. Murdoch was still wrestling with questions of his duty to his family and his country. Fisher wanted to keep Murdoch out of the army, writes David Day, and hoped firsthand experience of the war might well be the decisive influence in shaping Murdoch’s thinking. Day’s theory suggests an even closer relationship between Fisher and Murdoch, even a somewhat paternal concern on the part of the prime minister. Murdoch accepted the prime minister’s commission and prepared to make his way to Anzac and to London.
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    Keith Murdoch stopped first in Cairo in August 1915, waiting for permission from General Sir Ian Hamilton, the overall commander, to visit Gallipoli. While he waited Murdoch visited soldiers in hospital wards, and began to hear rumours about the campaign. Murdoch had arrived in Egypt in late August, just a few weeks after a massive land offensive at Gallipoli. The offensive had been Hamilton’s last throw of the dice—an attempt to capture and hold the high ground, vital if the Dardanelles