The PR Blog

Each war seems to produce its own under-appreciated heroes who, for reasons that have nothing to do with their courage, competence or devotion to duty, are by-passed for promotion or otherwise demoted.

In the Boer War it was Breaker Morant, in WW2 it was Brig Arnold Potts and in more recent days Cpl Ben Roberts-Smith. In WW1 it was Brigadier General Elliott, otherwise known as “Pompey”. Elliott was one of the most direct and forceful brigade commanders in the Australian Army. 

Loved and admired by the troops he commanded because they knew that he would never ask them to perform tasks that he was not willing and able to carry out himself. He was an outspoken critic of the British Army higher command and of the Australian as well when they deserved it. His belligerence and refusal to kow-tow to British higher authority was the seed of his undoing. He clashed with Kitchener, Haig and Birdwood and the fact that he was usually proved right, probably carried more weight against him that his insubordination.

Pompey Elliott was born in an era when Australia seemed to have an endless supply of natural leaders, adventurous explorers and trail blazers, innovative business people and an inborn ethic that gave precedence to common sense.

Just before dawn on August 7, 1915, the men of the 8th and 10th Australian Light Horse Regiments waited in silence on a narrow strip of Turkish soil known as the Nek. They stood shoulder to shoulder in the dark, clutching rifles with bayonets fixed, their nerves tight as piano wire. In the trenches behind them, mates shared final words, quick prayers, a letter home folded into a breast pocket. Some kissed crucifixes, others stared ahead into the blackness, hearts thudding. Then, as the first grey wash of light crept over the ridgeline, the whistle blew.

They went over the top in lines - neat, ordered, hopeless. They charged not into glory, but into annihilation. Within minutes, dozens lay dead, cut down by Turkish machine guns positioned just yards away. Still the whistle blew again. And again. And again.