Talk:Battle of the Nek

Location of Harold Rush's grave

Harold Rush's headstone

I think Harold Rush is buried in Walker's Ridge Cemetery, not in the The Nek Cemetery as currently stated. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission thinks so too [1]. I happened to take a photo of his grave and the ones around it when I was there, and the graves to the left [2] and right [3] of his are also listed as being in Walker's Ridge, so it is unlikely to be a mistake on the part of the CWGC. Jll 15:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Turkish losses

In the battle box, it says there were no Turkish casualties. But much later in the article, it states: "The Turkish losses i like chocolat were negligible on this occasion." So were there any actual Turkish losses or not? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kohran (talk • contribs) 18:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

I have changed the number from 0 to neglegible in the infoxbox because 0 is a subset of neglegible. It might depend upon whether the Battle of the Nek was just the suicidal charges, or the bombardment and the charges. Jll 11:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

5.30 start

Is anyone sure of the scheduled start time of the battle? The article says 5.30, but I've always read 4.30 everywhere else. Tarcus 05:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I have changed the time to 4:30, and attached some references to it. Jll 11:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Bad

This article is filled my mistakes, and is very badly written. Also, i highly doubt the Turks suffered 0 casualties, as stated in the box. Needs a massive re-write - Davo —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 121.209.232.76 (talk • contribs) 04:25, 20 October 2007

Thanks for your comment, Davo, but it is not particularly illuminating. Can you please be more specific on the mistakes, and what needs rewriting? If you want to be even more helpful, you could fix the mistakes yourself and rewrite whatever needs rewriting! See above for discussion on Turkish losses. Jll 11:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:LateOttomanFlag.png

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Colonel Andrew Skeen Plan

This is the first I've heard of the Skeen plan.

I saw in a documentary about the Nek massacre that the New Zealand troops were ordered to charge the Turkish trenches at the same time as the light horse but (wisely) the NZ commander refused to attack in daylight. The NZ troops attacked and took their objective in an attack that night.(That should be on record)

The Australian Light Horse may well have suceeded if their bayonet charge had been scheduled for a night attack. The daylight assault proved to be suicidal.

I found these references.

"At The Nek, in the last effort to seize Baby 700 or part of it, four lines of Australians charged successively to practically certain death in order to pin the attention of their opponents to that supposedly vital point, and so give the New Zealand infantry, then climbing the just visible heights of Rhododendron Spur, 1200 yards away, the supreme chance of winning the real goal, Chunuk Bair summit, and with it, possibly, the campaign. Unfortunately the New Zealand leaders, whose tired men by a wonderful effort then had the summit almost within their grasp and practically unoccupied, allowed the chance to slip" [Charles Bean, Gallipoli Mission, Sydney, 1990, p.109]

Other August assaults at Anzac were more successful, although they, too, incurred high casualties. In spite of difficulties that severely slowed the progress of the attack, the New Zealanders held the hill of Chunuk Bair above Anzac Cove for two days from 8 August before succumbing to a counterattack led by the Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Bey. http://www.nla.gov.au/gallipolidespatches/1-13-the_nek.html

The Skeen plan may be on record in the archives. It would be a good addition to this article. There seems to be a lot of half truths and legend told about the Nek.

The article states:

By 4:45 a.m., the ridge was covered with fresh dead and wounded Australian soldiers, most of whom remained where they fell for the duration of the campaign.

How did the Australians recover their wounded? Were they just left to die?

This article is good but could be enlarged. Nnoddy (talk) 02:41, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

A copy of the Skeen plan is in the Australian War Memorial. The bodies were left there, where they lay. When Bean returned in 1919, the Nek battlefield was covered in bones. That is why so many of the dead were not identified. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Australia?

Wasn't Australia still part of the British Empire? So shouldn't the Infobox state British Empire and underneath that Australia? Mztourist (talk) 11:07, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Recent copyedit

Hi Rupert, as discussed I've copyedited for prose and have the following queries:

• On the left of the Australian line, the line sloped away into dead ground where they had established a "ditch without a parapet" that was obscured from view with vegetation and earth. -- I assume "they" means the Aussies but it might benefit from clarification; also is "ditch without a parapet" Carlyon's term?
• Concerns about "attacking unaided" meant that plans were made to co-ordinate the attack with other actions. -- Is "attacking unaided" Bean's phrase?
• Owing to a failure of timing instructions, the field artillery preparation of the forward positions ceased at 04:23... -- What exactly is "a failure of timing instructions"? Does it mean the timing was 'off', or simply that the instructions didn't get to the right people (at the right time)?

That's about it. I haven't checked sources but generally I find it reads well. Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:46, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Ian Rose: Thanks for going through this and picking up those issues. I have made some tweaks to clarify the above points. These are my changes: [4]. Do those help? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 21:29, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Great mate, I just tweaked. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:33, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Ian. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:40, 23 November 2019 (UTC)