Ion L. Idriess
‘ Jack’ Idriess was born in 1891 and served in the 5th Light Horse in the First World War. He returned to Australia to write The Desert Column, which was published following his huge success with Prospecting for Gold.
He went on to write 56 books and was largely responsible for popularising Australian writing at a time when local publishing was still not considered viable.
A small wiry mild-mannered man, Idriess was a wanderer and adventurer, with a vast pride in Australia, past, present and future.
This edition published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay 2017
ETT IMPRINT
PO Box R1906
Royal Exchange NSW 1225
Australia
First published by Angus & Robertson Publishers Australia 1932. Reprinted 1932,(three times), 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1939 (twice),, 1941 (twice) 1944, 1951 (twice), 1965, 1973, 1982, 1985, 1986. Published by Cornstalk 1986. Published by CollinsAngusandRobertson 1993.
© Idriess Enterprises Pty Ltd, 1932, 2017
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.
Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.
ISBN 978-1-925416-86-2 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-925416-87-9 (paper)
Design by Hanna Gotlieb
FOREWORD
I gladly send a few words of preface to Trooper Idriess’ book on the Campaign in Sinai and Palestine. Not only is it a narrative of personal adventure which is full of interest, but it is, as far as I am aware, the only “soldier’s” book yet written on that campaign. Several books have been written by officers and war-correspondents but in this the campaign is viewed entirely from the private soldier’s point of view. It is of absorbing interest to a leader and should be to the general public.
At the same time there is an accuracy in the descriptions of operations which could only be provided by a singularly observant man. Idriess was, I think, above the average in this respect though I must say that the Australian Light Horseman was generally very quick in summing up a situation for himself. No doubt his early training in the wide spaces of the Australian bush had developed to an extraordinary degree his individuality, self-reliance and power of observation, and the particularly mobile style of fighting he was called upon to take part in suited him and brought out his special qualities far more than any trench warfare would have done.
In addition to giving a vivid description of the campaign as he saw it, Trooper Idriess also shows the interest that was taken in the Holy Land and its previous history. I think that this was not peculiar to the Australians but was common to all British troops, thanks very largely to the padres of all denominations who, intensely interested themselves, made it their business to interest others by lectures and personally conducted tours, etc.
I would commend this book to leaders who took part in the theatre of war with which it deals and also to the general public.
Harry Chauvel.
General Sir Harry Chauvel, G.C.M.G., K.C.B. Commander Desert Mounted Corps
INTRODUCTION
TO THE 100TH
ANNIVERSARY
EDITION
If Ion Idriess’ stories were an American narrative, he would no doubt have inspired a dozen major feature movies. For over four decades he chased down the great yarns that have come to define Australia’s sense of itself, pumping out over 50 books that told his countrymen and the rest of the world a prodigious array of stories that are now part of our national mythology.
Desert Column is one of his earliest books, a diary of his experiences during World War One, as a trooper in the 5th Light Horse Regiment that served first in Gallipoli and then in the Gaza desert. When Lt General Harry Chauvel, the Australian commander of the Desert Mounted Corps, made his desperate decision to order an attack on the town of Beersheba late in the afternoon of 31 October 1917, Trooper Idriess watched on as the Australians wrested victory from imminent catastrophe and seized the town.
It is impossible not to feel the rush of blood as you read Idriess’ thrilling account of that extraordinary day. By this stage of the war any quaint 19th Century notions that modern machine-guns and artillery could be breached by cavalry had been dispelled by the awful realities of the horrors of the Western Front in France and Belgium. Perhaps that is why what happened that day on the outskirts of this Gaza desert town is remembered and immortalised to this day as one of the great feats of the war – precisely because it was such a preposterous decision that took the Turks by surprise.
The Australians and New Zealand soldiers and their horses of the mounted Anzac force were near collapse from lack of water and heat exhaustion and hours of British infantry attacks had failed to seize the town. As Idriess watched on, his mates from the 4th Light Horse began their charge on the town near sunset. His account of the 4th Light Horse’s desperate final charge is breath-taking.
“Then someone shouted, pointing through the sunset ... There, at the steady trot, was regiment after regiment, squadron after squadron coming, coming, coming! It was just half-light, they were distinct yet indistinct. The Turkish guns blazed at those hazy horsemen but they came steadily on.”
Desert Column gives the reader a ringside seat to the realities of service as a mounted Anzac soldier, especially during the last great massed cavalry charge in recent modern history. It is irrepressibly laconic Australian in its prose and dry wit. What Ion Idriess made his career on was the notion that there were distinctively Australian stories that could replace the jingoistic and often nationalistically turgid myths of British Empire. As a writer, Idriess traced the origins of Australia’s sense of itself.
Ross Coulthart
AUTHOR’S
NOTES
The “Desert Column” is more than my diary. It is myself, I began the diary as we crowded the decks off Gallipoli and watched the first shells crash into Turkish soil. Gradually it grew to be a mania: I would whip out the little book and note, immediately, anything exciting that was happening. As the years dragged on, my haversack became full of little note-books. These memories in tabloid form are my sole souvenirs of the War, except of course stray bits of shrapnel, bomb, and high explosive splinters which nearly every soldier collected.
The diary was a very young soldier’s idea. He thought that if he survived shot and shell and sickness, he would like, when he came to be an old man, to be able to read exactly what his feelings were when “things were happening.” Have a private picture show all his own, as it were, to refresh his memory.
Hence, all that has been written in this diary records my thoughts and feelings at that very moment.
Naturally they were many in nearly four years of active war and eventually necessitated the throwing away of my iron rations to find room in the haversack for the little notebooks. What the “Heads” would have said had they found out, goodness only knows.
Despite the fact that brevity had to be a watchword when I wrote, fully twenty thousand words have been cut from the diary in order that it may appear in book for at a reasonable price to the public.
I never thought the diary would appear in book form. But a proud sister, in whose care they were, forwarded the little notebooks to the publishers with the ultimatum that they must be published.
So, here marches again the Desert Column.
ION L. IDRIESS.