Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Gallipoli Review: Episode 3 - "A Man Alone"



SPOILERS AHEAD




Episode 3 opens in the aftermath of the truce that saw the Australians and Turks fraternising in No Man’s Land as bodies from both sides were cleared away. Tolly and his friends talk about the condition of the food, and the latrines. Men are hesitant to go there, because of the disease and the flies, and because – as noted in many books about the campaign – the Turks liked to snipe at men in the throes of diarrhoea and even drop artillery shells into the latrines. 

The men discuss their changed perception of the Turks since the truce. There’s grudging respect now for the men on the other side of No Man’s Land. This gels with factual accounts of the campaign. The Aussies, to that point, had believed the outrageous anti-Turk propaganda, believing their enemy to be savages. Conversely, the Turks believed what their German allies told them, and thought the Australians were, amongst other things, cannibals.

Soon thereafter, Tolly is called to a meeting with his commanding officer, and, despite his hesitance, is promoted over the heads of his brother and their friends. He protests, but is basically reminded that the Army isn’t a democracy, and so he becomes a reluctant lance corporal.

In the aftermath of being promoted, Tolly runs into Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, the famed British journalist who is covering his seventh war at the tender age of 34, and the two men talk about the situation the Australians and New Zealanders find themselves in. Bartlett, unbeknownst to Tolly, is a fierce critic of the campaign, and therefore is something of a thorn in the side of the British headquarters staff.

Presumably the next morning, the men are back in the front line, and are continuing the never-ending process of digging trenches, when a Turkish sniper fires a bullet through one of the shovels. This precipitates a duel between both sides, target practice using shovels. It’s a scene reminiscent of other Gallipoli-themed movies and television shows, substituting slouch hats for shovels. I think it might’ve been a scene from A Fortunate Life, if I recall correctly.

Tolly and his men are involved in a fierce bombing duel with the Turks – I assume they are meant to be at Quinn’s Post, where bombing was carried out by both sides almost without pause for the entire campaign. Cliff, the group’s larrikin, likens to a game of cricket. The men also find time for a swim, and are shot at by the Turks in the water, another scene reminiscent of Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, without a man getting shot. I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Meanwhile, Ashmead-Bartlett leaves Gallipoli and, to the consternation of Sir Ian Hamilton, returns to London, where he is granted an audience with Lord Kitchener (a barely-recognisable Lachy Hulme) and, after telling Kitchener some hard truths about the campaign, suggests an alternative mission to break open the Dardanelles and capture Constantinople, doing so via Bulair.

Kitchener is confused, and labels Ashmead-Bartlett simply “a journalist”, implying that he is no military tactician. Perhaps not, but he seems to have more of a grasp of the realities of Gallipoli than most on Hamilton’s staff. 

Upon his return to the Mediterranean, Ashmead-Bartlett is intercepted on Lemnos by Hamilton’s prickly chief of staff, and basically slapped over the wrists. He is barred from visiting Gallipoli. The journalist pointedly wonders aloud how he will ever cover a campaign in Turkey from a Greek island, and leans that he will receive briefings from Braithwaite. 

At a gathering of journalists later, Ashmead-Bartlett reveals his displeasure, and is berated by another journalist, a Boer War veteran named Henry Nevinson, who believes that Ashmead-Bartlett is interfering in the campaign rather than just reporting on it.

Back on Gallipoli, the newly-promoted Tolly and his friends are involved in a night attack on a Turkish trench. Things don’t go to plan, and in the darkened confusion, Tolly is shot, and left for dead in No Man’s Land.

Just when you think that maybe the show has pulled a stunner, in killing off it’s main character, the episode ends with Tolly laying on a stretcher by the beach, clearly wounded and presumably about to be evacuated.

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