ARMY SERVICE WAGONS AT CAPE HELLESARMY SERVICE WAGONS AT CAPE HELLES ON THE WAY TO THE LANCASHIRE LANDING FOR RATIONS, THE ONLY HORSED VEHICLES THE AUSTRALIANS LANDED AT GALLIPOLI.
ARMY SERVICE WAGONS AT CAPE HELLES ON THE WAY TO THE LANCASHIRE LANDING FOR RATIONS, THE ONLY HORSED VEHICLES THE AUSTRALIANS LANDED AT GALLIPOLI.
ARMY SERVICE WAGONS AT CAPE HELLES ON THE WAY TO THE LANCASHIRE LANDING FOR RATIONS, THE ONLY HORSED VEHICLES THE AUSTRALIANS LANDED AT GALLIPOLI.
THE RIVER CLYDETHE "RIVER CLYDE" IN SEDDUL BAHR BAY.French lines in foreground. Kum Kale Fort across the Straits in the distance.To face p. 128.
THE "RIVER CLYDE" IN SEDDUL BAHR BAY.French lines in foreground. Kum Kale Fort across the Straits in the distance.To face p. 128.
THE "RIVER CLYDE" IN SEDDUL BAHR BAY.
French lines in foreground. Kum Kale Fort across the Straits in the distance.
To face p. 128.
Now the Australians faced sheer cliffs; they rushed down into gullies and up on to farther ridges. The British troops scaled cliffs or found stretches of sandy beach, defended with almost impenetrable barbed wire entanglements; but beyond was a garden of loveliness—almost level fields still bearing ripening crops, and trees laden with fruits; poppies, anemones, and the hundred smaller wild flowers of the Levant carpeted the soil. Those were the shores strewn with the bodies of the most gallant men that ever fought, who had never flinched as they faced murderous fire from far fiercer guns than any that opposed the first rush of the Australians up that narrow section of the Anzac hills. Yet the Turks fell back. The warships, with their protective armour, moved in and wrought havoc on the enemy as they were driven back and back. Behind steamed the transports. Amongst all this mixed fleet thickly dropped the shells, splashing the water in great fountains over the decks, casting it 50, 100 feet into the air.
Fifteen miles away Anzac was stormed and won. The Australians held with the same bulldog grit that gave the British their footing ashore. How did the French come to Helles? It was a few days afterwards, when the reinforcements for the British force were so urgently needed that it became necessary to evacuate the Kum Kale position, on the southern entrance to the Straits, and transfer the entire French army to the right flank of the Cape Helles position. That was the way the French troops came with their wonderful 75's, that later in the week were so accurately finding out the Turkish trenches, throwing a curtain of fire before the Allied lines.
I do not believe in the history of any war (and one remembers particularly the storming of the heights of Quebec in this regard) has there been any battle panorama so truly magnificent, so amazingly impressive, as that 20 miles of beaches and the entrance to the Dardanelles as seen from the hilltops of the islands scattered round the entrance to the Straits. Rabbit Islands maynot be marked on maps—they are only little dotted rocks on charts—but they have a light on them to guide the mariner to the entrance to the Dardanelles, which is about a mile and a half away. From them and the shelter of a single farmhouse you might look right up almost to the Chanak forts, certainly up to Kephez Bay, where the warships, screened by destroyers and mine-sweepers, were pressing their attack on the Narrows. They commanded a view of the beaches, round which transports had gathered with lighters, tugs, trawlers, pinnaces, and barges, disgorging materials and men for the great fight progressing now over the flowered fields above from the tops of the cliffs. The white hospital ships loomed like aluminium-painted craft in the fierce sun, and their yellow funnels seemed fairer still by the side of the darkened smoke-stacks of the panting destroyers, the smoke belching from their short stacks as they raced back and forth amidst them, dragging barges here, nosing in between warships there—warships from whose grim grey sides sprang red-tipped tongues and sheets of flame and rolled clouds of smoke. High into the air tore the screaming shells, which in their parabola passed over the defenceless shipping and the troops bayoneting the Turks on shore, to destroy the main Turkish position. Battleships, standing farther off still, sent shells 5, 6, 8 miles up on to the enemy forts that barked and snapped still in the Narrows.
That was one picture. Take, then, the broader view from the hills of Imbros, 9 miles away. The whole peninsula was sprawled out in all its irregularity, with its still green slopes ending abruptly at the dark cliffs. In the centre were the masses of gathered hills (Kelid Bahr position), crowned with forts, invisible even at the closest observation except from aeroplane above; and beyond, across the slender rim of blue of the Narrows, the towering white of Mount Ida. I remember looking right down into the Narrows from a certain hill on this salubrious island. How intensely blue its waters were, on which I saw quickly pass a transport and a cruiser. I wondered that the yellow balloon looking down on to the Straits, signalling to the Allied warships, did not sink them with those shells which long-range guns dropped right across the 7,000 yards of the narrow neck on to the town of Maidos and Turkish transports lying at the wharves there.At Nagara there was a lighthouse that was an easy landmark to pick out, and not far distant white barracks and hospitals. Then, passing down towards the entrance, the huge citadel of the Straits, Kelid Bahr, blocked the view of the opposite shore and of the fortress Chanak, and yet lower down still, where the peninsula fell away, I could see across the narrow channel the white scarps of Dardanus and the town called Whitecliffs. These towns in the afternoon looked like miniature cities on the side of a vivid, wonderful landscape; they were a mass of white domes and towers. The sun glinted on the windows of the houses, and a thousand scintillating lights darted like the fire of rifles from the dwellings. Blue, beyond, the hills round Troy stood back from the raging battle being fought on the point of the peninsula. An aeroplane swung out of the distance and flew up and down the Straits, its observer prying into the secrets of the forts.
Achi Baba was the dominating feature of the lower end of the peninsula, yet it seemed very flat beside the greater feature of Kelid Bahr and the hills of Anzac. From the angle at which I was observing the village of Krithia was just visible, snuggling between two shoulders of low hills, tucked away, it seemed, from the guns. Yet I was destined to see that village reduced to crumbling ruins by the battering guns, and watch the burning fires covering the peninsula with grey smoke. At night how they glowed and smouldered dully!
Far more terrible was the fire that broke out at Maidos on the afternoon of the 29th April, when the shells from the warships destroyed the barracks, the wharves, the granaries, the arsenal, and set fire to the town. The smoke rose in a huge black column, and then, reaching a higher current of air, was carried down to the very entrance of the Straits, until in the oblique rays of the setting sun it became a dirty brown smudge above the peninsula. Next day the fires were burning still; at night the reflection lit the sky and silhouetted the hills beyond. For days afterwards the smoke was shielding from view the waters of the Narrows.
I take the following extract from my diary, written at the time from the Imbros hills:—
And so it was day after day.
What of Anzac! It was 9 miles away, but with powerful field-glasses the boats near to the beach could be seen. The glinting rays of heliographs shone from the cliffs. An aeroplane came rapidly from over the crests of the hills and dropped down beside the parent ship and was hauled on board. Four, five, or six times a day would the "Baby" observation balloon ascend and remain with its line of flags below, motionless in the air for hours. The destroyers, those rats of the seas as they have been called, scampered over the blue water. Their guns thumped the flanks of the Australian position close to Gaba Tepe, near which point always there lay some battleship, generally theQueen Elizabeth, while at Suvla Bay, close inshore, the warships closed in to throw shells on to the Sari Bair ridge and Battleship Hill, a flat peak that just showed a bald top above the ridge. Anzac itself was wrapped in impenetrable mists for those first three days. From the gullies darted flashes of the guns—our own guns, almost in the infantry trenches—while the Turkish woolly balls of shrapnel came tumbling above the beaches, above the tops of the hills where the troops were digging—digging for their lives. Our own shrapnel I could see bursting far inland and on the point of Gaba Tepe, where hidden enemy guns were silenced. It was awe inspiring to watch the mass of earth thrown skyward by the striking of theQueen Elizabeth'sshells on Mal Tepe, a feature which dominated the alluring plain, crowned with olive groves and guarded solely by the batteries at Gaba Tepe. How entrancingly green those plains looked with their few scattered vineyardsand olives! I remember wondering what would have been the result if the troops had been advancing across them just in the same way as I was watching the British advancing from the shores up the peninsula.
There came the morning—29th April—when on the end of the peninsula, near Cape Tekel, white-topped tents appeared, and horses could be seen in lines. They were hidden from the Turkish view by the cliffs, but none the less shells fell among them occasionally. It denoted the British were firmly established. The press of shipping had increased. At a hundred I lost count of the ships. At Anzac there was not less than half that number, all transports, waiting—waiting as if to remove the landed army. I could find no other reason for their being there, idly changing position, while from their sides constant strings of boats came and went; but in them, I learned later, were the wounded. The transports became floating hospital wards. Up and down the shore from Anzac to Helles patrolled the cruisers, bombarding the red road open to view, where the Turkish columns were moving. From the very midst of the merchant fleet the warships' guns thundered with their "b-brum-brum-m-m," two guns together, and the faint, dull shell explosions sounded on land along the road to Krithia, where wide sheets of riven flame rolled along the ground, and a sickly yellow cloud enveloped horses, men, and guns in its toils as the Turks retreated.
Then there dawned the day when the Royal Naval Air Service armoured motor-cars dashed into action, grappling wire entanglements, and sped back, with the Turkish shells bursting after them from the guns on Achi Baba as they retired.
Unforgettable will remain the memory of the panorama: the calm of the sea, the havoc on shore, the placidness of the shipping, the activity of the fleet. Down below me in the mountain glens, where trickled sparkling brooks, patient Greek shepherds called on Pan pipes for their flocks, and took no more notice of the distant roar of battle—the crackle of rifles and machine guns could be heard—than of the murmuring of the sea on the seashore; and like it, unceasingly, day and night for weeks, was a horrible deadly accompaniment of one's dreams.
It is impossible to contemplate the position at Anzac on Wednesday, 28th April, when the fighting for a foothold on the peninsula had finished and the Turks had been crushed back, without feeling that the battlefields of France and Flanders had not taught the lessons that were only too startlingly obvious—that success was only won by adequate reserves being ready to hurl against the enemyin extremis. Granted that two or three days—Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday—were necessary for the reorganization of the Australian lines, bent but not broken, and full of fighting vigour, and eager to fulfil the task that was set them of breaking across the peninsula at this, almost its narrowest neck, there seems to be no explanation why there was such a miscalculation by experienced Generals of Turkish strength, and lack of reserves, which left the Turks the same three days to lick their wounds and bandage them, and return, greatly reinforced, to the fray. It becomes more inexplicable still when it is found that certain Army Corps orders were issued for a general advance, and that a chance word alone was the means of that advance being altered to a mere straightening of a portion of the strongly entrenched line. I do not think it was because we feared the Turks: that would be to pay him more credit than his actions warranted. It was, to put it quite plainly, faulty Staff work. Events are too near to attempt to place the blame; for assuredly there was some one blameable for the great wasted opportunity to crush the Turkish army of Liman von Sanders.
Behind the apparent chaos of Anzac Cove and the fighting force on the hills during the first three days there was, nevertheless, the great purpose that mattered.Every one was doing his utmost to reduce the lines of communication, the stores on the beach, and the army itself to their proper and normal state. Those days from Tuesday onward may be regarded as showing some of the finest Staff organizing work that has been done in the campaign. By Friday the position was completely reorganized. Units had been rested and linked up; trenches had been straightened, strengthened, and defended against attack. Water, ammunition, food, were trickling in regular streams up the gullies; guns were in position, and fresh troops had been landed to relieve the strain and hurry matters forward. Unfortunately, it seems, they were not in sufficient numbers apparently to justify a general offensive immediately. The 1st Light Horse Brigade, under Brigadier-General Chauvel, and the Royal Marine Light Infantry, those young troops that had seen their first service in the defence of Antwerp, were put into the trenches to relieve the men who had won their first fight and fame in a three days' battle. For seventy-two hours these heroes had been without sleep; they were dropping in their tracks from fatigue. They had had water and biscuits and bully beef, but until Wednesday nothing warm to eat or drink. All day and night small parties of perhaps as many as 50, perhaps only 10 men, were to be seen going from one section of the line to another; men who had been collected a mile away from their original unit, who had got separated in the wild rushes over the hills, who had gone into the firing-line at the nearest point at which they found themselves to it. It was essential that commanders should have their own men before any move forward could be attempted on a large scale. In digging alone, the men suffered terrible hardships after their advances, strategical retreats, and the endless fatigues for water, food, and munitions.
In order, therefore, that the battalions could be reformed and rearrangements made in the commands of the companies, units were withdrawn at various points from the firing-line, as they could be spared, and placed in reserve gullies, where the men obtained good sleep and rest, a hot meal, and, generally, a swim down on the beach.
Now, in this 1st Division reorganization work no officer took a greater or finer part than Colonel C. B. B.White, the Chief of General Staff to General Bridges, ably supported by Major Glasfurd. He seemed indefatigable, never perturbed, always ready to remedy a defect. Major Blamey, who was Intelligence Officer, carried out daring reconnaissance work towards Maidos, leaving our lines under cover of darkness and penetrating to a distant ridge and determining much of the enemy's position on the right. Meanwhile, complete field telephone communication had been established under most awful conditions, directed by Major Mackworth, D.S.O., whose gravest difficulty was the constant breaking of the lines, through men stumbling over them in the saps and shrapnel fire, that led to the beach and the Army Corps headquarters, not usually a matter for much worry, as being distant many miles from the firing-line, in an ordinary battlefield.
On 28th and 29th April a comparative calm stole over Anzac. Gradually the Turks had ceased their intense bombardments of the gullies. Their waste of ammunition had been enormous, 600 shells falling often in the course of a few hours in one small gully; yet the damage on the beach was almost negligible. Their shelling of the cove was now regulated to odd times, and never lasted for more than half an hour or an hour. The Australians had orders not to waste their rifle fire in blazing away into the darkness to no purpose, and scarcely fired a shot except at periods throughout the night when fierce bursts foreshadowed an enemy counter-attack. Anzac of the first days and Anzac of this second period was a contrast as of a raging ocean to a placid sea.
By 30th April all initial difficulties had been overcome. It was on that day occurred the incident, already briefly mentioned, that had such far-reaching effects on the destinies of the Australians, and, I venture to say, on the whole of the Gallipoli operations. I refer to the formulation of an order for a general advance that was never executed. Many officers will recall that the leaders of the armies were, on the evening of the 30th April, summoned to conferences, the 1st Division under Major General Bridges, and the 2nd Division under Major-General Godley. Now, Major-General Godley had already been informed of the serious and vital nature of the centre of the line, the apex of the position, whichwas blunted, for the Turks still held trenches at the head of Monash Gully which commanded portions of it. He had not visited General Monash's positions and had hinted that there would be a forward movement when all units would be "out of it," and meanwhile "Cling on" was the order the 4th Brigade received.
It is with this latter conference we are mostly concerned. General Godley was very seriously talking with Generals Russell and Johnston (New Zealand officers) when Brigadier-General Monash, commanding the 4th Infantry Brigade, arrived from the firing-line. Outside the dugouts there were many Staff officers. The "pow-wow" was held to disclose the plans for a general attack, ordered from Army Corps headquarters, to take place on the following evening. It was to commence at 7 o'clock.
The plan disclosed that the 1st Australian Division (now roughly holding the main ridge that ran in a south-easterly direction) was to advance due east—that was, across Mule Gully on to Pine Ridge and towards the villages of Kojadere and Bogali, lying beyond; while the 2nd Australian and New Zealand Division was to advance due north beyond Chunak Bair up the back of the great Sari Bair ridge, of which we already held the spur, known as "Russell's Top." This position lay just south of the point where the ridge occupied by the Australasian Division at Pope's Hill and Quinn's Post joined the Sari Bair crest.
General Monash, on hearing General Birdwood's orders, immediately pointed out that if such an advance were made the gap that already existed in the line at the head of Monash Gully, between the left flank of the 4th Brigade and the right of the New Zealand troops, would be widened. Now a very unfortunate circumstance prevented this discussion being continued to its conclusion, for a telephone message had come from that section of the line held by General Monash's troops that the R.M.L.I. (who had been holding the trenches) had been driven out by the Turks, who were pouring in at the head of the gully. There was no alternative under the circumstances but for the General to return to his headquarters, situated in Shrapnel Valley, more than a mile away, to supervise the regaining of the lost trenches. But before he hurriedaway General Monash was told by General Godley that the gap would be remembered when making out the divisional order that night. At any rate, it was the business of General Monash to see that touch was maintained with the New Zealanders in the coming fight. The divisional orders duly arrived next morning, in which the 4th Brigade was ordered to keep touch with the New Zealanders on the left. It was very apparent to General Monash that if the advance was persisted in, the centre, which he was responsible for, would be the weakest section of the whole line, and would, as the advance continued, grow weaker and weaker as the armies advanced to their separate objective, the gap widening all the time. It would fall to the already much reduced 4th Brigade alone to extend its flanks and to keep in touch. Two new battalions would be needed to make good the gap.
Consequently, on Monday morning General Monash met Brigadier-General Walker, who was commanding the 1st Infantry Brigade (Colonel M'Laurin having been killed in the circumstances related), and very forcibly pointed out, not on the map, but on the actual ground itself from an overlooking point, what exactly would be the result of the execution of the new plan. General Walker agreed. "It cannot be done," he said. Soon afterwards General Bridges arrived, and, after a conference, strode over to the telephone without comment—in his usual silent way. It could be seen he was convinced, and in the next few minutes the statements he made while waiting at the telephone left no doubt about the matter. He called up General Birdwood, who was reported to be on the battleshipQueen, then lying off the position. General Bridges turned and said: "I take it on myself; the Australian Division will not attack. You [addressing General Monash] may tell General Godley so from me."
General Godley, on being informed of this message by telephone a little later by General Monash himself, announced his determination of carrying out the attack. "Very well," he said, "the New Zealand Division will carry out orders and attack." General Monash then asked that a Staff officer should be sent up to reconnoitre the position. This was done, and he, after visiting Quinn's Post and the position in the vicinity,reported that the manœuvre was highly impracticable, with the troops detailed, with the result that General Godley too cancelled his section of the orders.
Yet the Army Corps order remained uncancelled, as it remained unfulfilled. One can only conclude that it was drawn up without a proper reconnaissance of the country having been made. That there should have been a general advance is recognized on all hands, and there is no doubt in the minds of many Generals with whom I have spoken that it would have been possible that day, had proper provision been made in the original orders for the filling of the very vital gap in the centre of our line. The whole lamentable incident must be put down as indicative of bad Staff work—for thus it was that the whole future of Anzac was changed by a chance meeting of three senior officers on the main ridge and General Bridges' firm decision.
Two days later an attempt, that may only be termed half-successful, was made to effectively seal the head of Monash Gully against Turkish advance. The attack was begun with great gallantry, some of the Naval Brigade penetrating through many Turkish lines, but the increasing battle-front as the plateau of the ridge broadened out, and the strength of the Turks (left unchallenged from the right of the line opposite the Australian position) enabled them to concentrate their attention on the centre. The troops were compelled bit by bit to withdraw to the edge of the plateau, where they clung on and remained clinging on for the rest of the period that Anzac was held.
On 2nd May, exactly a week after the landing, the Australians and New Zealanders were charged with the task of capturing the head of Shrapnel Gully and the plateau beyond that led up to the Baby 700, a rounded feature, the first step in the ridge, of which Chunak Bair was the second, and highest, point. The Australian line stretched across the gully, with Pope's Hill held in the centre. On the right were Quinn's and Courtney's Posts, with the Bloody Angle, one head of the gully between, held by the enemy. On the left from Pope's Hill the line went down into the main head of the gully, up the eastern slope of the hill on to the summit, where the New Zealanders were holding on Russell Top. Practically the whole of the 2nd New Zealand and Australian Brigadewere to take part in the operations, supported by Royal Marine Light Infantry troops.
Lieut.-Colonel Pope was to advance up the head of Monash Gully and then storm the heights on the right of the gully, while the Otago Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel McDonald, was to advance up the gully and take the left slopes, which was the sector afterwards called the Turkish Chessboard trenches. The 13th Battalion was to support the 16th, and was, on reaching the high ground, to link up the two battalions by turning to the left. This manœuvre meant that a line was to be drawn in front of Pope's Hill and that the 15th Battalion, which held that post, was to make a sortie. The attack was timed for seven o'clock.
An intense bombardment opened the battle. Warships and the guns available on shore commenced to prepare the position by blowing up the Turks. The battalions were moving up the gullies and were waiting for the ceasing of the firing to attack. At 7.15 the bombardment ceased as suddenly as it began, and the men, cheering and singing snatches of "Tipperary" and their new Australian song, "Australia will be there," commenced to charge. Against them came a torrent of lead from rifles and machine guns, for the Turks had occupied the week in fortifying the plateau, of which we only yet held just small pieces of the outer edge.
A reconnaissance had been made during the day and the leaders knew just where their objectives lay. By 8 a.m. a ridge—a sort of false crest immediately in front of Pope's Hill and to the left of Quinn's Post and covering the south-easterly front of the general position—had been captured at the point of the bayonet. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting had occurred in places before the troops got a footing and routed the Turks from the line of trenches. The enemy counter-attacked almost as soon as we had gained their position, but they failed to dislodge the Australians.
Meanwhile, on the left flank the Otago Battalion, who had had to make a detour round the mountain ridge from their position, had arrived late for the battle, having found the communication-ways blocked with wounded. They did not reach their point of concentration till a quarter to eight, and it was only an hour later that they charged the position, which had beenpartially held for them by an extension of the 13th Battalion's line. This Australian battalion, led by Lieut.-Colonel Burnage, had stormed the ridge on which the Turkish entrenchments had been dug, just immediately in front of Pope's Hill, and the Turks, though they counter-attacked, were unable here also to regain possession of those trenches.
The Nelson Battalion of the Naval Brigade now sent up a company under Major Primrose, and, with a company of the 14th Battalion, the position of the 16th was rendered a little more secure. In the darkness touch had not been kept on the left, their flank was in the air, and the 13th Battalion had not linked up as it should. The Turkish fire was smashing down the resistance of the men on the left, and the position was fast becoming untenable as the dawn broke. At 4 a.m. the Portsmouth Battalion was ordered up to support the 16th and to strengthen its left flank. Through some misunderstanding of orders valuable time was lost by the leader of the Marine Battalion, who was unwilling to enter the firing-line when orders had only been given him to form a support. The Commanding Officer would take no responsibility for going into the firing-line. While the position was still in doubt, the situation became utterly untenable owing to shells that commenced to burst in the 16th Battalion trenches, which subsequently it was found came from the destroyers, who mistook the target—so close were the trenches—and before this ghastly error could be rectified, the battalion was forced to retire on this left flank.
To make matters worse a stampede ensued in the rank and file of the Portsmouth Battalion, who were congregated in the gully below. It was only by the presence of mind and great personal effort of Major Tilney, second in command of the 16th Battalion, and Major Festian, Brigade-Major of the R.M.L.I., that the stampede was checked. Efforts were made to direct gun fire on what at first were believed to be the Turkish artillery. Horrible confusion prevailed. Daylight was breaking. Some of the Portsmouth Battalion occupied a ridge on the left of the gully, on to which the Turks were firing a deadly enfilade and almost rear fire from their centre position. Until ten o'clock in the morning the 13th and 16th clung to the trenches (some of their trenches were blown away into the gully by gun fire),but, exposed to a withering fire, had at length to withdraw. At one o'clock the gully and captured trenches were abandoned.
The Otago Battalion meanwhile, on the extreme left, joining with the 13th Battalion, had faced a terrible fire, but reached almost to the point of its objective in line with the remainder of the line there, well in advance of Pope's Hill. There they stuck desperately, waiting for reinforcements, which were to come under cover of darkness from the Canterbury Battalion. This succour was found impracticable, as it had been found on the right that an advance was not possible. Shells began to destroy the trenches dug overnight, with the result that the left flank of the New Zealanders was driven back. There remained but the 13th Battalion and a party from the Otago Battalion clinging on to the sharp ridge in front of Pope's Hill. They were digging hard throughout the day, while the Turks, too, were digging so close to them that it was almost impossible to say which trenches belonged to which. But the Turks, also, were working round behind the position, and at dusk there was nothing for it but that the gallant 13th should retire from their position, now being enfiladed from both flanks. The Otago Battalion, which was more or less isolated, clung on desperately to the position it had won until two days later, when it had to cut its way out.
The one object accomplished by the attack was the checking of any enemy offensive against the posts which were undoubtedly the weakest portion of the whole line. But the main objective, to straighten out the line, or rather to bring the line to a culminating point at the head of the gully, and gain a footing on the plateau where the main ridge linked up with the ridge running away to the south-east, was not accomplished. It was the greatest of the many attacks about this time planned for this purpose. All along this section of the ridge fierce fighting went on during the next weeks, sorties being made from various posts to prevent the Turk pushing our line from the edge of the ridge which they had so desperately won, until in the great May attack the Australians gained the upper hand and the mastery of the Turkish fire. Always a dangerous and nervy part of the line, it was only declared "safe" after the Turkish offensive on 19th May.
While the Australians' position at Anzac was being made secure, preparations were pushed forward at Cape Helles for the storming of the loaf-shaped hill of Achi Baba, on which the Turks had, after the fortnight's fighting, been forced to take up a defensive position. There they had strongly entrenched themselves behind line after line of trenches. Their actual first resisting line, however, was by this about 3 miles from the toe of the peninsula on the right, at a point near De Tots battery, the taking of which the French eventually accomplished with great gallantry. Later the Gurkhas on the opposite (the left) flank performed a magnificent feat in reaching a point south-west of Krithia village by storming and obtaining a footing on the slopes of the Great Dere, while the British line swung round before the southern angle of the Krithia village. The fresh "shove" was meant to take the village at the point of the bayonet and capture the slopes of Achi Baba. Whatever that fortress position may have become later (and the German officers captured boasted that it was a position that would never be taken by frontal assault), at that time there seemed every prospect of it falling into the hands of bold, determined troops. It was for this reason, to give impetus to the attack, to strengthen the British troops that held the central portion of the line, that the 2nd Australian Brigade, under Colonel (later Brigadier-General) M'Cay, were, on the night of 5th May, silently removed from the beach at Anzac, and, 3,000 strong, were landed at Cape Helles at six o'clock in the morning. Though this brigade had been through the thick of the landing and attack on Anzac, it had, perhaps, suffered least of all the brigades, and was now chosen suddenly for this fresh assault. The New Zealand InfantryBrigade, under Colonel F. E. Johnston, was also landed, and took up a position on the left flank of the Australians; their left flank in turn in touch with troops on the coast.
So much for the general situation. The embarkation orders for the brigade came suddenly, while the troops were resting after a week's fight. At 9 p.m. the brigade was assembled on the beach. Here the men suffered a bitter experience, exposed to considerable fire, for insufficient transports had been provided. Eventually they embarked from six wharves and slipped silently away. Twenty casualties had been suffered from what were called spent bullets, the Anzac firing-line being over 1,000 yards away. The men left the shore in rowing-boats and went out to the trawlers, and then to the destroyers and on to transports. They knew naught of their destination. A very few hours' steaming and they arrived off the British position. All disembarked at 6 a.m. at Seddul Bahr (near theRiver Clyde) under a heavy shell fire from the Asiatic batteries, where the wandering, disappearing gun, "Asiatic Algy," began to pour shells on the brigade. The jetties at this time were only of the roughest wood, joining barges moored alongside one another.
One is never likely to forget one's sensations upon landing on the end of the peninsula in the track of the victorious British armies. Thick masses of tangled Turkish barbed wire (wire so thick that ordinary shears would not sever it) were rolled round deserted trenches, guns lay dismounted from their concrete bases, houses had been torn down and lay shattered, with hardly a wall standing. There were 30,000 French troops now on the British right flank. All manner of stores, including great casks of their ration wine, had been landed, and lay piled in the sandy cove that stretched between two headlands, Seddul Bahr on the right, Helles fort on the left. The menacing walls of Seddul Bahr rose above it round the cliff, but no longer a fortress of the Turks. The village, in ruins, was buried behind.
MAJOR STEVENSON COMMANDING BATTERYMAJOR STEVENSON COMMANDING BATTERY 18-POUNDER GUNS AT CAPE HELLES.Dugouts of the 29th Division on the sides of the Great Dere.
MAJOR STEVENSON COMMANDING BATTERY 18-POUNDER GUNS AT CAPE HELLES.Dugouts of the 29th Division on the sides of the Great Dere.
MAJOR STEVENSON COMMANDING BATTERY 18-POUNDER GUNS AT CAPE HELLES.
Dugouts of the 29th Division on the sides of the Great Dere.
THE GREAT DERETHE GREAT DERE, UP WHICH THE GURKHAS MADE SO BOLD AN ADVANCE.To face p. 144.
THE GREAT DERE, UP WHICH THE GURKHAS MADE SO BOLD AN ADVANCE.To face p. 144.
THE GREAT DERE, UP WHICH THE GURKHAS MADE SO BOLD AN ADVANCE.
To face p. 144.
After a steep pull up a ridge (on which stood two haystacks) from this beach, the brigade advanced across country to the Krithia road. What country it was to look down on, after the bushy hills and gullies of Anzac! Here was a flowering heath and meadows of corn and poppies and wild flowers. There were orchards and agedolive-trees and some farmers' huts and houses in the distance; while cattle grazed in sheltered hollows. It was undulating country, resembling a hollow plain, of miles in extent, and especially flat-looking to the Australians, fresh from Anzac's rugged hills. Grim, but not very forbidding, stood the smoothly rounded hill of Achi Baba—Tree Hill—barring the advance up the peninsula, a long arm stretching down to each shore. Shells from the warships were plastering the face of it as the brigade advanced. Dense clouds of white shrapnel were bursting over the Turkish trenches which lay round the long, rolling slopes that ended at the village of Krithia on the left (the west), and which ran out to the Dardanelles on the east, falling away into steep gullies on the seashore.
The bivouac chosen for the brigade was about a mile from the landing and on the west of the road that led direct into the distant village. Here, as in every line, the troops might rest in some comfort, though not safety; for besides the shells from Achi Baba batteries there were guns firing from the Asiatic shore. Nothing remained but to again dig and dig in for one's life. However, here a new difficulty was encountered, for water was struck when the trenches were sunk about 18 inches, and that is why in so many trenches there were such high parapets. It was the only means of getting sufficient protection. If one thing at this time and under the particularly trying conditions heartened the troops more than another, it was to hear, and watch, the French "75" batteries sending fourteen shells to the minute to the Turkish trenches. Moreover, Australian batteries—a whole brigade, in fact, under Colonel Christian—were discovered entrenched beside the French guns in the very centre of the peninsula, and the troops knew that, in any attack, they would have their own guns to support them. No sooner had they halted than they started to prepare their meal, and were laughing, singing, and joking. They felt a certain security even in the face of the foe.
That afternoon, the 6th May, the Brigadier (Colonel M'Cay) and his Brigade Staff (Major Cass and Captain Walstab) moved forward to a stony rise, occupied by the gunners as an observation station, and from there they looked down over the whole of the ground undulatingaway to Achi Baba, 4 miles distant. The country was, I have said, flat. It was not a plain, strictly speaking, for there were small depressions and dry creek beds that would be sufficient to protect a great number of troops when the time came for advance. The southern slopes of the big hill were intersected by many ravines, which in wet weather formed the head-waters of the threederesor gullies that flowed south down the peninsula—the Kereves Dere (the great gully) and Maltepe Dere and Kanli Dere. This divided the peninsula into three ridges, which ran parallel with one another in a northerly and southerly direction. On the eastern slopes, facing the Straits, thesedereswere particularly rugged and often precipitous. There still remained portions of a telegraph line across a ridge on the right going north-east from Seddul Bahr; it had been the scene of heavy fighting, in which the French made many gallant charges to take what has been called the "Haricot," a formidable redoubt placed on the crest of a hill, and which had held up the French advance for many previous days and cost many lives to finally capture.
To realize how any advance across such open country could be accomplished, it is necessary to explain that the guns on the peninsula were placed in a great semicircle, starting from the northern slopes of Morto Bay, where the French guns, hidden behind the grape-vines and clustered corn and hedges, lay. In the valley, between the low hills through which the Krithia road runs, were some British 60-pounders, and on the southern slopes of a hill in the centre of the peninsula British and Australian 18-pounders were firing. Hidden amongst some trees was a heavy British battery, and in the Kanli Valley were other guns.
The French firing-line extended along in front of their batteries for about 1,000 yards, and adjoining them on the left was the Naval Division. Next to their left flank was the 29th Division. It was the New Zealand and Australian Brigade and General Cox's Indian Brigade that formed a composite Division held in reserve to the 29th.
It must be here explained of this composite Division that in the first day's fighting the Australians took no part. The New Zealanders were called into action tosupport the 29th Division, and suffered heavy casualties. But to give the true significance to the share of the Australians in the grand offensive during the early days in May, the early stages of the battle that began on the morning of the 6th at eleven o'clock and continued for three days, need describing. The artillery duels of those days were terrific in the extreme, and the whole of the battle lines were violently swept with shell. The configuration of the country was such that the hills on the extreme end of the peninsula gave a grand-stand view, and the Staffs of the Army Corps operating could be seen on these points watching the armies moving forward into action. It has been described as "a Melton Prior battlefield," where you saw each unit going into action. Such an offensive was only possible on account of the comparative weakness of the Turkish trenches, a defect which they lost no time in rectifying later on, when a period of sullenness set in. For the Turk has, in this campaign at least, proved himself to be a most industrious, even colossal, digger of trenches and a fine trench fighter, however poor he shows himself to be in open combat.
A general advance was the order on the 6th. The French "75" batteries, with their sharp bark, began fiercely to smash the enemy trenches, concentrating fire on the "Haricot" and the Kereves Dere, and the valleys beyond that contained Turkish supports. The Krithia village was shelled by the heavy British guns, aeroplanes spotting. French and British battleships had moved up on the flanks and were pouring a terrible enfilade fire on the Turks and covering the slopes of Achi Baba with sheets of flame as the shells burst along the position. It was in vain that the Turkish batteries, prodigal with their ammunition, tried to silence our guns, carefully concealed, and in the absence of aeroplanes, which the Turks did not seem to possess at that time or were afraid to send into the air, the British and French gunners went on without interruption, except for chance disabling shots which put a gun or two out of action.
As the French and British lines advanced there came the roar of musketry and the rattle of machine guns to add to the already terrific din. The British maintained their advance, though the machine guns in the thick scrub could not be located, while the French swept on,gaining the "Haricot," then losing it. All this battle panorama was rapidly passing before the eyes of the leaders of the Australian troops, who were waiting their turn to charge and take their part in the battle. Soon the French were forced to retire to the trenches they had lately left, much to the chagrin of all, though the British troops held their gain of about 1,000 yards, while the Naval Division had gone forward about 700 yards in the centre. The 29th also advanced nearly 1,000 yards on the left, near the Ægean shore. This line they entrenched during the night. It was a very bent line, with the French farthest in the rear. The Turks were too exhausted to attempt any counter-attack, and so the line stood till the morning of the 7th. Then a further advance was made at 10.30, the guns blazing the way and plastering the slopes of Achi Baba for the infantry to advance. As on the previous day, the Australian officers watched the fighting from a position which overlooked the battle-front of 4 miles, subjected only to an occasional whizzing bullet and a stray shell.
This was a curious battlefield for modern warfare, where most of the fighting is underground. Imagine an area of about 5 square miles. The valley road was the main transport route, despite the fact that the enemy overlooked and commanded it. On the west side were the red and pink farms, hidden by a copse of fir-trees. The French at this time had placed their headquarters in one of these houses. With a start of surprise one saw their Staff moving along, with orderlies, mounted messengers, and signallers, all beautifully mounted, riding right up to within half a mile of the firing-line down this valley, through the shot and shell. Along the road rumbled the French ammunition-wagons, the caissons, turning east to Morto Bay, bearing supplies to the batteries there. The French gunners got their supplies by day and the British, who were more exposed, by night; and so the traffic on the roads was regulated, otherwise the congestion would have been terrible. A motor-cyclist, with the latest word from the battlefield, would ride at breakneck speed through the traffic, and, once past the mules, plodding stolidly along, would travel at 50 or 60 miles an hour for the short stretch until he dipped out of sight behind the last ridge on the peninsula. Dust rose constantly in denseclouds. I remember looking at these clouds as the armoured cars on another occasion swept forward, and wondered that the Turks did not shell them, which eventually they did; but during these days they directed all their energies to searching for the guns and plastering the slopes of the Seddul Bahr ridges and the clumps of trees scattered over the peninsula, where it seemed obvious our artillery might be concealed.