"At a mile distant their thousand hooves were stuttering thunder, coming at a rate that frightened a man - they were an awe inspiring sight, galloping through the red haze - knee to knee and horse to horse - the dying sun glinting on bayonet points..." Trooper Ion Idriess
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Sunday, 15 March 2009
605th Machine Gun Company War Diary - 8 to 17 May 1916 Topic: Gm - Bk - 605 MGC
German 605th Machine Gun Company (MGC)
War Diary, 8 May to 17 May 1916
605th Machine Gun Company War Diary - 8 to 17 May 1916
The entries
9.V.16:
By 2 p.m. the balance was loaded and at 4.45 the train moved off from Kulek Boghaz to Adana. At 6.30 p.m. we were given tea at the main railway station by the German Colony at Adana. After that we went on to Mamoure. We arrived at 10.30 p.m. and had to spend the night at the railway.
9.V.16:
We pitched camp early this day and in the afternoon part of the company helped to unloaded. The three meals were issued a.m.., noon, and p.m.
10.V.16:
Nothing new today. Breakfast a.m., dinner noon, coffee evening. With the 4d. coming to us the company bought eggs and distributed them to the men.
11.V.16:
For dinner to-day we got fresh mutton from the local L of C depot. Part of the company had to go on guard and another part had to help unload. The three meals were duly received.
12.V.16:
To-day another unloading fatigue party had to be furnished. The field kitchen got mutton for the dinner to-day.
13.V.16:
From to-day onwards dinners were issued in the evening and coffee at noon. To-day the company had to detach two men (L.C. Beuster and Pte. Haake) to Islahije on guard duty.
14.V.16:
No now events to-day. The company furnished a working party.
15.V.16:
No events to-day.
16.V.16:
No events to-day.
17.V.16:
Today we received orders that everything was to be packed up as us are to move off early tomorrow.
The large scale of the Great War often gave people a sense of alienation from the activities of the government and the army. To overcome this, newspapers of the day commenced columns called Query Club or similar names, where ordinary people could clarify their understanding of the complex processes. They also provide us, the historians, an insight into witnessing first hand, the responses of the various bodies to public concerns. The end product is a window into a society now almost out of living memory.
This is the Query Club from the Sydney Mail, 26 May 1915, p. 30.
ADMIRAL JELLICOE
"M.D."
Admiral Jellicoe is a native of Ryde, Isle of Wight. He was born in 1859. His father was Captain John Henry Jellicoe.
HORSES FOR THE WAR
J.A.W.
New South Wales has contributed well in the matter of horses for the Australian troops, but no figures are available.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
"B.T."
The Queen Elizabeth, the principal warship engaged at the Dardanelles, displaces 27,500 tons. She cost over £2,000,000. Her main armament is 15-inch guns.
THE 17-INCH HOWITZER
"F.M."
The exact range of the German monster howitzer is uncertain; but it is known to be over 20 miles. In the case of the shells recently dropped in Dixmude they are said to have come from a battery 23 miles off - believed to be composed of 17-inch howitzers.
ENEMY GUNS
"A.M.P." asks if the guns captured by the Allies can be used by them.
In the cases where guns are abandoned they are rendered useless to those who take them by the removal of important parts. Even where these can be replaced it is necessary to have suitable ammunition. The explosives used in Britain and Germany are different, so that neither, unless it captures a supply, can use the other's guns.
LIGHT HORSE
"Jockey"
If you are unfit for the infantry it is not likely that you will be acceptable for the Light Horse. If you possess all the other necessary qualifications, however, and it is only your light weight that prevents you joining the foot soldiers, you may be able to enlist as a horseman. The fact of your providing your own horse and being a good rider is certainly and important consideration, but nothing will count against unfitness.
AUSTRALIA'S SHARE
"Cremorne"
It was the German-Australian steamer Elsass that damaged the Domain Baths, Sydney, when clearing out of Woolloomooloo Bay on August 4 last, just before Britain entered the war. Australia did not formally declare war on Germany; that was unnecessary. We were not bound by any except moral ties to support the Motherland. If we refused to allow our navy to participate Great Britain would not have forced us.
SEPARATION ALLOWANCE "Mother"
When an Australian soldier leaves for the front the separation allowance that was provided for his wife automatically ceases, but in place of it she is granted three-fifths of her husband's pay. If he cares to give her more he can do so but the authorities insist on a minimum of three-fifths. In most cases this works out better for the wife than receiving the separation allowance.
AMMUNITION MANUFACTURERS "H.G.S."
Quite a number of factories in England that, prior to the war, were engaged in textile and other industries are now manufacturing ammunition. All available men are given employment, the Government controlling the works. We cannot publish the name of any factory. If you are an expert and are prepared to offer your services, you should communicate with the defence authorities here. If you went to England you would have no difficulty getting a situation at the prevailing rate of wages, but as there is a great need for experts in Australia you would be well advised to serve your country at home.
GENERAL FRENCH "Targomindah"
The Major General Sir George Arthur French who at one time was State Commandant of Queensland, and later of New South Wales, belongs to a different family from Field Marshal Sir John French. He was born (1841) in Roscommon (Ireland), whereas Sir John French (born 1852) is a native of Kent (England). After considerable experience in England and Canada Sir George French was appointed to fill the Queensland command in 1883. He held the post till 1891, when he returned to England to take command at Dover. Later he was appointed Chief Instructor at Shoeburyness, the, in 1894, went to India as Brigadier General Royal Artillery, Bombay. Two years later he was appointed Major General commanding the New South Wales forces. He remained here till 1902, when he retired.
The following details were given regarding the capture of a steam tug at the Dead Sea.
Amongst the stuff left behind at the Dead Sea Post when captured, were all the parts of a large steam tug which had been taken to pieces at Haifa and transported overland in sections by the Germans and Turks. It must have taken a large amount of labour and time to do this as every piece had to be brought by road over the steep hills for something like 100 miles. All the parts were there except the engines and these could not be found. These had either not been brought or had been sunk in the water. Divers were sent down to search but no trace could be discovered. The British authorities decided to assemble the boat as all the parts were so conveniently left for them, and internal combustion engines from some of the Tractors were to be installed. Some shipwrights were brought down and the frames and plates of the boat were all riveted up. When we left the Jordan Valley some months afterwards the hull seemed to be all ready for launching but we never heard whether this had ever been done.
Bert Schramm's Diary, 15 March 1919 Topic: Diary - Schramm
Diaries of AIF Servicemen
Bert Schramm
During part of the course of his military service with the AIF, 2823 Private Herbert Leslie Schramm, a farmer from White's River, near Tumby Bay on the Eyre Peninsular, kept a diary of his life. Bert was not a man of letters so this diary was produced with great effort on his behalf. Bert made a promise to his sweetheart, Lucy Solley, that he would do so after he received the blank pocket notebook wherein these entries are found. As a Brigade Scout since September 1918, he took a lead part in the September 1918 breakout by the Allied forces in Palestine. Bert's diary entries are placed alongside those of the 9th Light Horse Regiment to which he belonged and to the 3rd Light Horse Brigade to which the 9th LHR was attached. On this basis we can follow Bert in the context of his formation.
Bert Schramm's Diary, 15 March 1919
Bert Schramm's Handwritten Diary, 12 - 16 March 1919
[Click on page for a larger print version.]
Diaries
Bert Schramm
Saturday, March 15, 1919
Bert Schramm's Location - Moascar, Egypt.
Bert Schramm's Diary - Trouble has begun again in Cairo and all communication between here and Cairo have been cut. Natives attacked a hospital train coming through today and some damage done but haven't heard anything definite. One hundred men were called up out of this Brigade and left this evening. Their destination unknown. Anyhow if this is any serious trouble and we are all called out I guess someone will suffer. What annoys one most is the possibility of us being kept here a few months longer. I think I shall be inclined to desert if we are kept here much longer.
9th Light Horse Regiment War Diary - 0900 General Officer in Command Australian Mounted Division [Ryrie, Brigadier General G de L, CB CMG VD] addressed the 3rd Light Horse Brigade reference discipline.
Captain Parry Regimental Medical Officer proceeded by train to Kantara to embark on HMT Euripides. Information received that inhabitants had attacked a train travelling between Cairo and Kantara. Disturbances at Zagazig extending.
1945 three Officers 50 Other Ranks each from 8th and 10th Light Horse Regiments proceeded by train to Zagazig. Telegraphic communication with Cairo cut.
10th Australian Light Horse Regiment War Diary - Lieutenants Macgregor MC and Doig MC with 50% were sent to Minet Quam out duty.
General Ryrie held a mass parade and addressed the Brigade.
Extract from Vincent, Phoebe, My darling Mick: the life of Granville Ryrie, 1865 - 1937, p. 191 although first appeared in the Brisbane Daily Telegraph 18 April 1927 -
'On 15 March Granville was at Moascar, where a minor incident took place which, if anyone had doubted it, would have been ample proof of the respect his men had for him and for the understanding he had shown them throughout the last five arduous years.
The men of the brigade, exhausted after all the campaigning only just behind them, were thinking of nothing but rest, a ship home, when one day out of the blue a Moascar 'brass hat' popped up and ordered that they perform recruit drill out under the blazing Egyptian sun. The bugle call to fall in after breakfast was ignored by the entire brigade. The order was repeated and the rumblings of complaint began to build until atmosphere in the camp was mutinous. At this point Granville ordered them out on parade. Not a man refused. Out in the heat of the parade ground he addressed them briefly but sympathetically on the subject of discipline, then gave them strict orders, instead of attending recruit drill, to get their towels a 'go for a swimming parade in Lake Timsah'. Having been the only man of his rank in the Australian Army to command the same brigade for the full duration of the war, it could be said with little doubt that no senior officer knew his men better than 'the Old Brigadier'.
Darley
Darley, TH, With the Ninth Light Horse in the Great War, Adelaide, Hassell Press, 1924.
Karawaran, Persia, August 6 to 7, 1918 Topic: BatzO - Karawaran
Karawaran
Persia, 6-7 August 1918
Karawaran, a village in northern Persia (now Iran) about 50 kilometres south of Lake Urmia, was the scene of a desperate rearguard action against Turkish troops and marauding Kurds and Persians fought on 67 August 1918 by members of a special British group known as 'Dunsterforce'. The unit-named after its commander, Major General Lionel Dunsterville - included some 47 officers and non-commissioned officers recruited from the AIF in France and Palestine in its eventual strength of 450, and had been raised for the task of guarding against German penetration of Asia by mobilising and organising resistance by the peoples of the Caucasus region.
Attempts to render support to Christian Assyrians and Armenians who were fighting the Turkish 5th and 6th divisions at Urmia, a city on the western side of the lake, were forestalled when the Turks gained entry to that place on 30 July and put 80,000 of its population to flight. A twenty-strong party of Dunsterforce (half of whom were Australians or New Zealanders) and a squadron of British cavalry, which had been detached to escort a convoy carrying money, machine-guns and ammunition from Bijar, met the mass of refugees on the road on 4 August. The commander of the Dunsterforce party, Captain Stanley Savige (an Australian), rode forward the next day to the rear of the column, which he found under attack from local tribesmen but protected by a small rearguard organised by an American missionary, Dr W.A. Shedd. Obtaining permission from his superiors in the British mission, Savige again rode out on 6 August with a party of eight (two of whom were also Australian) to give what assistance was possible against the raiders.
Finding Shedd with 24 armed refugees at the tail of the withdrawing column, Savige relieved him (but took over his men) before riding further on to find better ground on which to fight. At a village apparently named Karawaran, lying south of the town of Miandoab, the rearguard discovered a force of 'Turkish cavalry engaged in looting. These they drove out, and were also forced to fight off about 100 tribesmen who were riding about the valley in search of plunder, before falling back ten kilometres to spend the night in another village.
The fight began again the next morning, this time against a party of 1 50 mounted Kurds who approached directly while others rode around hilly country on both flanks. Savige's men, with no more than twelve of Shetld's original party, mounted a hasty defence from a hill behind the village which checked the enemy horsemen. Then followed a sustained withdrawal which barely succeeded in keeping the pressing enemy away from the rear of the refugee column. The strength of the defence was slowly reduced by the death of one of the Dunsterforce men, and the desertion of all but two of the volunteers, and after seven hours of relentless fighting the remainder were close to exhaustion.
The rearguard was saved from being overrun by the timely arrival of a dozen British cavalrymen who had been policing the road when they intercepted a message from Savige appealing for reinforcement. A short time later a party of 70 Christian tribesmen also arrived to lend support, at which the Turks and others made off. Although the pursuit of the fleeing refugees was continued until the column's tail-end reached Bijar on 17 August, at no stage did the task of defence again result in such fierce combat. The loss of some 30,000 people in the retreat from Urmia made it perhaps one of the most dreadful episodes of the war.
Extracted from the book produced by Chris Coulthard-Clark, Where Australians Fought - The Encyclopaedia of Australia's Battles, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1998, pp. 149-150.
Additional References cited by Chris Coulthard-Clark:
H.S. Gullett (1944) The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine, Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
S.G. Savige (1919), Stalky's Forlorn Hope, Melbourne: Alexander McCubbin.
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