John Antill (general)
| John Macquarie Antill | |
|---|---|
Colonel Antill on Rhododendron Spur during the Gallipoli Campaign.
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| Nickname(s) | "Bull", "Bullant" |
| Born |
26 January 1866 Jarvisfield, Picton, New South Wales |
| Died | 1 March 1937 (aged 71) |
| Allegiance | Australian Army |
| Years of service | 1887–1924 |
| Rank | Major general |
| Commands held |
3rd Light Horse Brigade Commandant of 5th Military District |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards |
Companion of the Order of the Bath Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George Mentioned in Despatches (6) |
| Other work | Co-authored play The Emancipist |
Major General John Macquarie Antill, Jr. CB, CMG (26 January 1866 – 1 March 1937) was a senior Australian Army officer in the New South Wales Mounted Rifles serving in the Second Boer War, and an Australian Army general in World War I. He retired from the army in 1924 as an honorary major general. In retirement he co-authored a play with his daughter about the life of William Redfern, called The Emancipist.
Mainly due to Peter Weir's 1981 film Gallipoli, Antill is best known for not stopping the waves of suicidal charges on the Turkish lines at The Nek in the Gallipoli Campaign; there are a variety of interpretations of the command circumstances, including much criticism of the story portrayed in the film. However, there is no doubt that all four waves of the charges barely got "over the top" before being cut down by Turkish fire. The ANZAC forces suffered a 60% casualty rate, most having been cut down en masse just feet from their own trenches.
To quote Rex Clark in the Australian Dictionary of Biography:
Tall, spare and wiry, brusque in manner and speech, Antill was recognized throughout his career as a courageous soldier, an able leader, a stern disciplinarian and a shrewd judge of men, with a flair for moulding those under his command to his ideal of what a soldier should be. This ideal was in the traditional British pattern.
However, to quote Ross Mallett's excellent "General Officers of the First AIF":
Brusque of manner and speech, Antill was a courageous soldier, an able leader and above all a stern disciplinarian. Many British officers considered him the very model of what a soldier should be. But in Australia he never escaped his role in those terrible hours at the Nek that became a byword for senseless self-sacrifice and probably never will.
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