Bully Beef for the Diggers

(Source for content below - Taste.com.au)

A hundred years ago our soldiers at Gallipoli knew it as bully beef. It came in cans. Every day it came in cans. For months and months. They had nothing much else but that and tough-as-rocks biscuits they called hard tack. They, too, baulked at its gastronomic worth. Bully beef was the major source of protein for the Anzac troops, and a key part of their daily rations.

The first soldiers landing on the beach on April 25 took with them rations for two days, amounting to the barest 2 lbs (about a kilogram) of bully beef and 2 lbs of biscuits — as well as two emergency rations.

Some soldiers took a few squares of plain chocolate as a standby. Very few took what they considered to be luxuries such as tins of sausages or jam — they weighed down heavy packs even more.

The World War I diet was less than salubrious and varied little — occasionally bacon, jam, onion and a questionable cheese — according to Australia’s official historian Charles Bean, who thought the canned meat particularly lousy.

“Over-salted bully in the heat of the midday or afternoon slipped in its own fat across the platter or mess-tin, swamping stray flies as it went,” he wrote in his diary.

“The cheese, greasy from exposure to the sun, (filled) the dugout with an odour sickeningly reminiscent of that exhaling from the corpses of No-Man’s Land.”

With the larger volume of supplies prepared away from the front lines — and without refrigeration — fresh foods were rare though one photo shows Light Horse troops at an uncovered cookhouse with four animal carcasses hanging from roof beams.

The barest of supplies meant the men became creative bush cooks whenever they had the chance to set up a camp cooker or use a candle to heat their meat in mess tins.

Hard tack biscuits, the loathed, teeth-cracking carb every soldier endured, were often grated into a powder to thicken hot foods.

One soldier sent home a recipe for rissoles made from a tin of bully, biscuit powder, a couple of onions and, for flavour, a little bit of thyme that grew on nearby hills.

Their stews were mostly canned bully, onions, biscuit powder, dried vegetables or potatoes, and water. No salt was needed — the meat was already laden.

More creatively, one story tells of an Anzac soldier throwing a tin of bully beef into the Turkish trenches, perhaps in disgust, maybe thinking it would do more damage than the usual grenades.

But the can was soon thrown back with the note: “Cigarettes yes, bully beef, no.”

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(Source below regarding the location of the cover photo) anzac.com/shrapnel_valley_and_cemetery.html

Shrapnel Valley was the artery of Anzac and road up to the Turkish positions. Soldiers made their way along the Shrapnel Valley and up to steep slopes. This valley became the main road for Allied troops and supplies between the Anzac front line and beach during the Gallipoli Campaign. Turks were able to regularly bombard the valley and area with heavy gunfire. This valley got its name from the heavy shelling it was given by the Turks on 26 April 1915.

On the valley’s south lower reaches there were camps and depots and water obtained here in small quantities. About 1 km away the valley divides into two forks and the left upper part of fork was called Monash Gully after Sir John Monash. Turkish army controlled a crucial position of this valley which was 180m high from sea level and overlooked the length of Monash Valley so during day time Turkish snipers could dominate the valley. While Allied soldiers were carrying supplies to the front line, many of them were killed here. Even Australian officer, Major General Bridges was also fatally wounded in this valley on 15th of May. Because of Turkish artillery, walking along the Shrapnel Valley was always risky.

Today Shrapnel Valley has a cemetery with a huge Judas tree and it is one of the most beautiful lands on peninsula. In the Gallipoli peninsula Shrapnel Valley cemetery is the second largest one after Lone Pine cemetery. Cemetery is located at the lower and of the valley and covers an area of 2836 sq meters. There are 527 Australian burials, 28 British burials and 72 soldiers from unknown troops. As a first cemetery was formed during the Gallipoli campaign but it was enlarged with the addition of the independent graves in 1919. Today there are 683 burials in this cemetery and 598 of them are identified.