Suvla Bay

DESCRIPTION: "In an old Australian homestead With roses 'round the door, A girl received a letter 'Twas a message from the war... He played his part that April day, And now he lies in Suvla Bay." The grieving girl turns away suitors and joins the Red Cross
AUTHOR: Jack Spode (source: Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver)
EARLIEST DATE: 1987 (Meredith/Covell/Brown-FolkSongsOfAustraliaVol2)
KEYWORDS: Australia battle death mourning
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1915 - The Dardanelles campaign. British forces attack Gallipoli; the Australians and New Zealanders form the spearhead of the second phase of the attack, at Suvla Bay. All the attacks are bloody failures
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Meredith/Covell/Brown-FolkSongsOfAustraliaVol2, pp. 206-207, "Suvla Bay" (1 text, 1 tune)
Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver, p.101, "Suvla Bay" (1 text)
Page-KissMeGoodnightSergeantMajor, p. 89, "Suda Bay" (1 text, tune referenced)
Palmer-WhatALovelyWar, p. 101, "Suvla Bay" (1 text); p. 77, "It Was In an Austrian Lager" (1 short text, a derivative of this song)
Roud #5350
NOTES [255 words]: It has been said that the Australian participation in the Dardanelles campaign is what made Australia a nation. Certainly it etched itself deeply in the Australian consciousness. It would be amazing if there were no traditional songs about it. This song (like the later "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda") seems not to be of actual folk origin, but it seems to have become part of Australian tradition.
The tragedy of Suvla Bay was not so much its failure (World War I was, after all, a war consisting of very little except failure) as its *needless* failure. When the troops went ashore in 1915, they encountered no resistance -- but their commander sat there and did nothing until the Turks could build a defensive position. From then on, it was a case of the ANZACs being slaughtered for nothing. - RBW
The "Suda Bay" version in Page-KissMeGoodnightSergeantMajor is a World War II update, concerning the German amphibious assault on Crete in 1941 (Souda Bay is on the north coast of that island). It is clearly a rewrite of the original, but the words are so close that I can't see splitting the songs. There is even a certain psychological similarity: The British were defending Crete rather than assaulting it, but they still ended up losing, and the battle for Crete was a close enough thing that with a little better management the British might have thrown back the Germans.
Palmer-WhatALovelyWar's "It Was in an Austrian Lager" is a little more distinct, but it's so short that I've kept it with the parent song. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: MCB206

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