Chapter 50 – John

Roland Perry describes John Monash’s experiences of the first few days after the landing to 28 April 1915 in his biography Monash: The Outsider Who Won a War . (pp. 176-188). The following details are included:

p. 77 – “Order allowed Monash to work towards his concept of a perfectly operating fighting machine. Chaos was his mortal enemy.”

p. 155 – Monash admitted that he had lost his ‘war on obesity’. He and Chief of Staff McGlinn each weighed 100 kilograms.

p. 181 – Monash landed at 8:05am on 26 April 1915. His first aim was to gather his (4th) brigade, but his men were scattered and he heard a rumour that 150 men of the 15th Battalion had been cut down while coming ashore.

p. 183 – Monash located his headquarters in the upper reaches of the main valley, with the New Zealanders to his left and Australian 1st Division to his right.

p. 184 – Monash’s 4th Brigade held the most vital mission of all the Anzacs – to hold the line at the head of Monash Valley.

p. 184-185 – on 27 April, Monash was with men of his 14th Battalion, on the way from the beach up the valley to reinforce Quinn’s. “When digging in, a machine gun fired into them. Two hundred men, including twelve officers, were mowed down in a massacre.” Monash satisfied himself that the fire had come from the Turks.

p. 186 – 1:00pm on 27 April, Monash attended a conference with division and brigade commanders to sort out boundaries between their sectors. After the conference, Colonel MacLauren, commander of the 1st Brigade, and his brigade Major Irvine, were both shot near Steele’s Post surveying for snipers, despite warnings from the men. Monash was frustrated by the pointless waste.

p. 186-187 – The incident of the call from General Godley is described. Monash crouched next to sandbags ten paces away, smoking a cigarette, when the field telephone rang and was answered by Monash’s brigade clerk who was shot dead. Men of the 14th Battalion were fortifying Monash’s headquarters with sandbags. Monash helped a stretcher bearer gather the clerk’s body and a staff sergeant picked up the telephone, but was shot in the arm. John reached for the phone himself, but was shoved out of the way by another member of his staff and a bullet thudded into a sandbag.

p. 188 – On 29 April, Monash relieved pressure on Quinn’s post with machine guns that could provide overlapping cover fire from Pope’s Hill and Courtney’s Post. Charles Bean gave little praise to Monash, but described this defence as “an object lesson in covering fire”.

p. 188-189 – Monash held a conference with his commanding officers of the 4th Brigade, with 16 agenda items, including rosters, machine gun placement, trenching and tunnelling, encampment areas, access roads, sanitation and monitoring of casualties.

Charles Bean describes in Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18 , vol I, how the main valley became known as “Shrapnel Gully” within three days of landing (p. 278). Bean also states that “When the features of the locality came to be named during the weeks following the landing, this upper portion of Shrapnel Gully was called, after the brigadier whose headquarters were situated in it, “Monash Valley.” ” (p. 284). Map 22 (opposite p. 548) shows “4 A.I. Bde HQ” to be around 200 yards from the firing line, with the closest point being at Courtney’s Post.

John Monash describes the location of his headquarters at “within a hundred yards of the firing line” in a letter to his wife dated 14 May 1915, preserved in War Letters of General Monash (p. 38).

Peter Pederson, in Monash as a Military Commander , describes how during the time soon after the landing, Monash learned a lesson that remained with him until the end of the war, that “after any operation, immediate reorganisation was fundamental.” Monash later used the post landing period to illustrate the consequences of ignoring this principle, stating “if you get disorganised, you cease to exist. You cease to have a command. There is no use issuing orders if you do not know where to find your men.” (p. 64). Events of the first few days are detailed (pp. 58-68). Pederson also describes Monash’s experience and expertise in Cartography, stating that “His practical knowledge of map-making was crucial to Monash’s style of command for it endowed him with the ability to visualise ground instantly by studying the map on which it was depicted.” Monash had lectured on map production at Intelligence in 1909 and 1912, and insisted that officers should be familiar with the theory (p. 23-24).