Gallipoli (6 page)

He is answered by tumultuous cheering from his fellow parliamentarians on both sides of the chamber. Britain will honour its obligations.

In a Europe now choked by ultimatums and refusals, overwhelmed by the sound of marching feet, of clanking artillery moving into position, of weeping women and children farewelling their soldiers as they leave, Grey adds his own ultimatum, one he knows to be entirely useless. Germany must respect Belgian neutrality and stand down from its mobilisation or Great Britain will declare war.

German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg's response is effectively delivered that same afternoon, when he tells the Reichstag that while the German invasions of Belgium are
technically
in violation of international law, the fact is that, ‘
Meine Herren … wir sind jetzt in der Notwehr, und Not kennt kein Gebot!
– Gentlemen, now we are in a state of self-defence, such distress does not know any rules.'
²⁷

He is met with cheering and applause so powerful that, as the newspaper
Berliner Tageblatt
notes, ‘hardly anyone of Bismarck's successors had received the like before'.
²⁸

Germany is not the only country that can hand over polite notes. For that evening at 7 pm, the British Ambassador to Germany, Sir Edward Goschen, passes the same to the German Secretary of State, Gottlieb von Jagow, informing him of His Majesty's Government's demands that Germany make a commitment by midnight German time to go no further with violating Belgian neutrality. The Ambassador does so even though he knows that, by now, over one and a half million German soldiers massed along that country's western frontier have begun to pour across the Belgian border and, despite fierce resistance, are heading towards northern France, on their way to Paris – they think.

At the same time, Russian soldiers are now flooding west towards Germany, even as the Austrian Army is moving on Serbia.

Whatever final hope Sir Edward has is extinguished an hour later, when, in a private dinner with Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, the German leader confesses to the British Ambassador, in tears, his astonishment that Britain would indeed go to war with Germany over ‘
einen Fetzen Papier
– a scrap of paper', represented by the 1839 treaty guaranteeing Belgian neutrality. Sir Edward Goschen carefully explains that because that scrap of paper bears England's signature, her honour is at stake. The two take their leave of each other, most unhappily.

In London, the crowds begin to gather outside Whitehall and Buckingham Palace, in Trafalgar Square and in the Mall. By the evening, with still no word that Germany has backed down, those crowds have turned into cheering masses. They are mostly the common people, but wending their way among them are many men and women in evening dress, wanting to be a part of it, as field guns and ammunition wagons rumble by to great cheering. Men dressed in khaki receive the same acclaim. Our
boys
!

By 6.30 pm, the Victoria Memorial before Buckingham Palace at the centre of Queen's Gardens is simply
black
with people, singing and cheering and hoping for an appearance by the King.

And there he is!

A massive cheer goes up from the crowd as, at 7 pm, King George V and Queen Mary appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and Princess Mary. They are regaled with a mass throaty rendition of ‘God Save the King' and ‘For He's a Jolly Good Fellow'. The same scene is repeated at 9.30 pm, as the crowd gets still bigger, and
again
at 11 pm, though by now Princess Mary has gone to bed.

So it is that, after Big Ben has tolled 11 times, for thee, and for hundreds of millions of people across Europe now at war with each other, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey and Home Secretary Reginald McKenna sit in complete and morose silence for a full ten minutes contemplating the catastrophic consequences of what has occurred. The three brass chandeliers that provide dim illumination to the men add to the sense of gloom.

Suddenly, a flurry of activity outside, as the First Lord of the Admiralty arrives …

‘Winston dashed into the room radiant,' Lloyd George would recall, ‘his face bright, his manner keen and he told us, one word pouring out on the other how he was going to send telegrams to the Mediterranean, the North Sea and God knows where. You could see he was a really happy man. I wondered if this was the state of mind to be in at the opening of such a fearful war as this …'
²⁹

Outside, as midnight approaches (the crowd unaware of the time difference), there is a change in the air. ‘A profound silence fell upon the crowd,'
The Times
would report the next day. ‘Then as the first strokes rang out from the Clock Tower, a vast cheer burst out and echoed and re-echoed for nearly 20 minutes. The National Anthem was then sung with an emotion and solemnity which manifested the gravity and sense of responsibility with which the people regard the great issues before them.'
³⁰

7.45 AM, 5 AUGUST 1914, MELBOURNE, THE FIRST SHOT FIRED

Aboard the German cargo ship SS
Pfalz
– a 6557-ton steamer – anchored at Port Melbourne's Victoria Dock, the captain gives the order to the engine room: ‘
Langsame Fahrt
. – Slow ahead.'

Slowly now, if a little nervously, given the news out of Europe overnight, the ship heads south out of Port Melbourne and down Port Phillip Bay – ostensibly to head to Sydney, but truly to dash to a South American port. The ship is under the temporary direction of Captain Michael Robinson of the Port Phillip Pilot Service, who remains calm in the growing tension.

Just 30 minutes later,
Pfalz
has crossed the bay to Portsea, where the small pilot boat
Alvina
pulls alongside and an officer from the Examination Service climbs aboard to give a final check of the ship's papers and ensure that all is in order for it to depart Australian waters. All seems fine, and with that flourish of the pen that officers of the Examination Service so often reserve for their signatures on unimportant documents, the papers are signed and
Pfalz
is allowed to proceed.

The officer climbs back down into his boat, and Captain Robinson is suddenly aware of odd scenes of jubilation all around, as the young German skipper, Kapitän Kuhiken – who has just taken over his first command – engages in rounds of handshakes and back-slapping with his senior officers and some equally jubilant German consular officials
³¹
who have mysteriously emerged from below decks. Odd. In any case, his own pilot boat will soon be here to take him off, once he has got
Pfalz
through the heads.

Only minutes later, the commander of the heads forts, Lieutenant-Colonel Augustus Sandford, is at Fort Queenscliff when he receives a phone call from Major Eric Harrison, the Commanding Officer at 3rd District Headquarters, Victoria Barracks, St Kilda Road.
³²

Great Britain is at war with Germany.

Australia is therefore at war with Germany.

The German ship is trying to get away and must be stopped!

Or
sunk.

Sandford passes on the word to Major Cox-Taylor, in charge of the Battery Observation and Command Post at Eagles Nest. It is an order the Battery has been half-expecting, given the British ultimatum to Germany. But what their precise move is to be, nobody is quite sure. A warning shot? Or a shot at
Pfalz
's bridge?

Immediately, Sandford calls up the ranks, all the way to the Defence Minister in his parliamentary offices. With the minister engaged in a meeting with the Attorney-General, the head of the department is left to look up an old, obscure book on what, precisely, protocol dictates their next move should be. He finally finds it: a ‘heave-to' shot.

The order is relayed back to Sandford and on to Cox-Taylor.

Crisply, Cox-Taylor gives his orders to Captain Moreton Williams, who barks his own commands in turn. In an effort to do this peacefully, Sandford hoists the signal ‘STOP INSTANTLY' – a yellow and black quartered flag – on the signal staff atop the fort, even while below his feverish gunners are carefully, oh so carefully, loading a 100-pound projectile into the firing chamber of one of their two six-inch Mk VII guns.

Closely now, the course and speed of
Pfalz
is watched. Will she slow? Will she turn?

Neither! She is heading full steam ahead for the open sea!

And then it happens.

The single roar of the big gun rolls like a ball of dirty thunder over
Pfalz
, followed an instant later by the shriek of an –
INCOMMMMING!
– shell, which crosses the bows of the German ship and hits the water just 50 yards off its starboard quarter, landing with a massive, towering spout of water.

First stupefied, then horrified, those on the bridge turn in the direction from which the shot has come and now see, for the first time, the signal atop Fort Nepean. And yet, for two men, that signal means different things.

For the pilot, Captain Robinson, it means the ship must be instantly turned around – and he in fact gives the order on the engine-room telegraph of ‘Full speed astern' – while, for Kapitän Kuhiken, it means
Volle Fahrt voraus!
Full speed ahead!

Briefly, the two men struggle for control of the engine-room telegraph, as they shout at each other. Finally, though, it is Robinson – and, more importantly, the thought of what the next shell amidships might do to them – that wins over Kapitän Kuhiken, and he ceases the struggle.

It is with great satisfaction to those in Fort Nepean that
Pfalz
now turns and moves towards Queenscliff before returning to the examination anchorage, where a naval boarding party arrive. The vessel returns to Williamstown under guard and it remains under watch for the night before the ship is officially interned. Meanwhile, its crew are placed under arrest … essentially for being German.

Of course, not all foreigners in Melbourne town are treated so grimly on this auspicious day. For, see there! There is that well-known operatic singer M. Eugene Ossipoff. Laughing, joking, two men lift his –
heaaave!
– hefty form onto their shoulders and march down the street with him as a crowd of a thousand swells around. Compliments to
La France
! We're all in this together and must stick together!

There are cheers for the King and for the government, and then everyone sings the national anthem.

When they get to Flinders Street, however, M. Ossipoff begs off, shouting, ‘I think you are mistaken. You are calling me a Frenchman; I am a Russian.'
³³

Close enough!

Early in the afternoon of this same day, 5 August 1914, Lieutenant-Commander Dacre Stoker is just settling down to lunch in the Garden Island Officers' Mess when a high-ranking fellow officer walks in and announces, ‘Gentlemen, war was declared on Germany at midnight, English time.'
³⁴

In the stunned silence that follows, the officer rises to the occasion and fills the void with a very suave, ‘Waiter, a gin and bitters, please.'
³⁵

Stoker is gutted, completely gutted. A war. A
war
? Great Britain is at war, and here he is, stuck on the other side of the world, in Australia? Why, oh why, has he, as a polo-playing Irishman, been so bone-headed as to accept a commission in Australia to command one of their two new, state-of-the art submarines manufactured at the Vickers Armstrong works in Lancashire –
AE1
and
AE2
– when something like this could happen? It is so unfair!

When he had arrived here in Sydney ten weeks earlier, there had been no
clue
that a war could break out, and in the company of the Commander of the
AE1
, Lieutenant Thomas Besant – a softly spoken and highly educated man, beloved by his men – he had had fun.

Back in England, there had been a view abroad, at least in certain sections, that submarines are ‘underhanded, underwater and damned un-English',
³⁶
but no such view is apparent in Australia, where they and their 35-man crews, about half of whom are Australian, had been loved from the first.

But now, his comeuppance – they are stuck in Australia, while the war has broken out in Europe. ‘The prospect of our ever getting a chance at the enemy seemed utterly remote,' Stoker would record, ‘whilst our brethren in the North Sea would, in our imagination, be banging their torpedoes into Dreadnoughts and things every odd hour of the day. We cursed the moment in which we had been lent to the Australian navy. Our self-pity was extreme.'
³⁷

In fact, however, Stoker appears to be one of the few people in Australia not absolutely delighted with the news. From that very morning, even before war had been declared, so many men had been laying siege to military establishments such as Victoria Barracks in Sydney and Victoria Barracks in Melbourne – seeking to join up, so as not to miss out – that special staff had had to be put on to take down their names.

Many of the volunteers are members of the South African Soldiers' Association – veterans of the Boer War – eager to give it another go and relive the glory days of charging across the veldt. Others are mere striplings, who do not want to miss out on the fun. A few are family men with steady jobs, who nevertheless feel it is their patriotic duty to sign up. Between them all, the river of men flowing to the recruitment depots soon turns into a flood.

It is with a great deal of pride that Governor-General Munro Ferguson cables London: