Interviewer
First of all, may I ask you your feelings as you visit the scene of these terrible battles at Gallipoli?
Prime Minister
I have been through so many of the books and details of the battles. It is something that everyone ought to know about. A great concept; that we could have avoided many of the battles on the Western Front which lost us so much life had this one been successful, as we could have taken Turkey and gone round the back.
It was the first big battle that we would call a real big combined operation and for that reason alone required fantastic organisation. Concept brilliant—organisation terrible—and therefore our losses, both ours and those of Australia, New Zealand and France, very bad indeed. [end p1]
It is part of the history of what I learned at school and when Bob Hawke, the Prime Minister of Australia, came to see me in London last June on a bilateral visit he said: “Look! How about both of us going to Gallipoli on this anniversary?” and that really pays tribute to those who sacrificed their lives for us, whether they were British, Australian, New Zealanders or French.
Interviewer
What do you think of the way the Australians see Gallipoli as a sort of symbol of their nationhood?
Prime Minister
Oh indeed, it is celebrated as no other battle! It was, I think, the first time that they were conscious of their contribution as a nation—both of them—and that is why the memory of it is seared deeply into their soul and why we must hold it in especially high regard because they came, as they did in the Second World War, across oceans to fight and we must never forget their sacrifice as well as our own.
Interviewer
Is there not a feeling among many Australians that here were British commanders almost callously sending Australian soldiers to their deaths while they were out of the heat of battle? [end p2]
Prime Minister
They were different times. When you look at the losses in the First World War, far greater than in Europe in the Second World War, I think our commanders had learned so many lessons from that.
Yes, it was a terrible time. Indeed, as you look through the history of it, the one thing we did brilliantly was withdraw and we withdrew without losing a single soldier, quite brilliantly.
You are a journalist. You know there was a great part played in ending this battle by a journalist and that was Rupert Murdoch 's father. He was sent from Australia to report on what was happening to Australians in the field of battle. What he saw when he got there appalled him: supplies not organised, people demoralised, no proper medical attention for those who were wounded in spite of what we had learned years earlier from Florence Nightingale, totally demoralised, no confidence in their generals, in their officers.
He came back to London. He got all of this information on condition that he did not write it without agreement but he put himself under military discipline and he realised, therefore, that he had got one thing that no-one could take away from him if you do that—the right of every person under military discipline to write to his MP. His MP was the Australian Prime Minister and he wrote everything to him of what he had seen but also in London, he went to have lunch with Geoffrey Dawson, then Editor of “The Times” and told him exactly what he had seen, so deeply concerned was he. [end p3]
Dawson immediately got in contact with the Cabinet Office and then said to young Murdoch: “Would you go and say all of this to Prime Minister Asquith and would you also say it to the War Cabinet?” He did. It was as a consequence of that, that they withdrew. It was a case where a journalist had a fundamental role to play in a withdrawal and in saving many lives.
Interviewer
Finally, in reading the accounts of the campaign, are you reminded at all of the kind of hostile territory, the distance from home and the difficulties faced by troops in the Falklands?
Prime Minister
Yes, indeed! When we sent the task force to the Falklands, we were very conscious of the eight thousand miles that separated us, the preparations that the Argentinians had been making on the Falkland Islands and we knew that in the end we had one thing to rely on—sheer professionalism and all of the lessons we had learned from previous battles and also the lesson that we simply must get whatever supplies they need and get them there in time and that no battle decision must ever be held up because the politicians had not given the right orders to get the equipment there. You know the result. I think we had learned all the lessons of Gallipoli.