ARTILLERY WATER-CARRIERSARTILLERY WATER-CARRIERS FROM THE SPRINGS AT CAPE HELLES.
ARTILLERY WATER-CARRIERS FROM THE SPRINGS AT CAPE HELLES.
ARTILLERY WATER-CARRIERS FROM THE SPRINGS AT CAPE HELLES.
HEADQUARTERS 1ST AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY BRIGADEHEADQUARTERS 1ST AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY BRIGADE.Dining-room cellar on the left, ten feet deep, and protected by iron and sandbags. Firing-line 600 yards distant.To face p. 148.
HEADQUARTERS 1ST AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY BRIGADE.Dining-room cellar on the left, ten feet deep, and protected by iron and sandbags. Firing-line 600 yards distant.To face p. 148.
HEADQUARTERS 1ST AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY BRIGADE.
Dining-room cellar on the left, ten feet deep, and protected by iron and sandbags. Firing-line 600 yards distant.
To face p. 148.
It was not till the third day that the Australians went into the fight. This Saturday, 8th, had opened much as the other two days had done with intense bombardments, and then an advance by the infantry in short rushes, always driving the Turks before them, pressing them back to the village of Krithia and the foot slopes of Achi Baba. But by this time on the flanks the Turks had concealed a great many machine guns in the fir woods, and built redoubts, and such advances became terribly expensive. On the 7th the New Zealanders had moved away to the support of the 29th Division, and they lost heavily from these guns. At 10.30 on this morning they were ordered to go through the British lines and try to take the trenches on the left front of Krithia—now a village wrecked and shattered by the shells that burst in it and smouldering with fires that the artillery had started. Once I had seen it, a pretty little hamlet with white- and red-roofed dwellings snuggling down in the hollow of a hill, with the stern, flat-topped Achi Baba mound lying just to the east. On a ridge stood sentinel windmills, their long arms stark and bare, waving from the side of a curious round stone store, like a silo. They were the Turkish granaries, and made fine observation posts. The Wellington Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel W. G. Malone, was on the left, the Auckland, under Lieut.-Colonel A. Plugge, in the centre, and Canterbury, under Lieut.-Colonel D. M. Stewart, on the right. The Otago, under Lieut.-Colonel T. W. McDonald, was in reserve. On the flanks the battalions, facing an awful fire, slowly moved up about 300 yards, but the centre battalion, a dense copse in front concealing a strong force of the enemy, were unable to go ahead. By 2.30 there was nothing left for the gallant New Zealand battalions to do but to dig in. The Otagos had been called to support and repair the fearful losses, but the advance was checked.However, it was determined that the New Zealanders should again attack just at dusk. Later on this order was changed to a general attack by the whole line. With but a few minutes' notice the Australians, till then in reserve, were ordered to prepare to form the front, or rather centre front, of the advancing line.
It had been bright and crisp all the morning, and the troops were in high fettle. At midday, General Paris, commanding the composite Division, had ordered the Australians to move up in support of the British centre, which they did, advancing due north about a mile. Their new position was in a broaddere(gully), and as fairly a protected and comfortable spot as such places go so near the firing-line. Colonel M'Cay, to reach it, had deployed his troops on lines best calculated to avoid searching shrapnel fire, moving them up in platoon columns, that is, in small bodies placed some 200 yards' distance from one another, which had the effect of almost neutralizing the shelling of the Turks. The 6th Battalion was in the lead, followed by the 7th, 5th, and 8th. The Turks, for some reason, did not open fire as the troops moved across the valley, though it was fully expected they would, and so they arrived at a position where there were trenches—some British, some Turkish—already dug, while thedereitself offered further cover. The men began to deepen and widen these trenches for their comfort. The 6th, under Lieut.-Colonel M'Nicol, was bivouacked on the steep sides of the stream; and opposite them on the left was the 8th, under Lieut.-Colonel Bolton. About 30 yards in rear of the 6th was brigade headquarters, just in line with Colonel Cox's Indian Brigade. Lieut.-Colonel Garside, commanding the 7th, was behind the 8th, and headquarters and the 5th, under Lieut.-Colonel Wanliss, behind the 8th. In the midst of taking in reinforcements and entrenching, the plan for the general attack was communicated to the Australian leaders.
Just a few minutes after five o'clock Colonel M'Cay received by telephone from General Paris orders to advance without delay. It was now definitely known that the French had been held up at the "Haricot" for two days, and that they had now been ordered to make a general advance (which they did with colours flying and bands playing, an extraordinary and inspiriting sight,white and black troops fighting side by side). At all costs the Turks had to go. So sudden had been the decision for the general advance that there was no time to issue written orders, a dilemma in which the Brigadier (Colonel M'Cay) found himself. However, by 5.15 the troops were on the move, the Brigade Staff giving the directions and the orders verbally. So, one may write, there began an offensive which in detail and execution was like the battles of half a century ago, when generals, calling on their men, dashed into the thick of the fray.
No man will ever be able to do justice to the events of the next half hour or fifty minutes. As might have the finest regulars in the world, those Victorians moved from their bivouac, into which they had yet scarcely settled. The 7th were to occupy about 500 yards of front on the right, and the 6th Battalion on the left with a similar frontage. The general direction of the attack was the north-east, and striking point just on the east of the village of Krithia. The flanks rested, therefore, on two valleys: on the right Mai Tepe Dere, and Kanli Dere on the left. The 5th Battalion was supporting the right flank, and the 8th the left. Seeing the preparations for the new attack, the Turkish guns turned from the first line of British troops, already in position some 500 yards away ahead, and directed a veritable hell-fire of shrapnel and bullets against the supports, which they rightly judged must be moving up about this time.
The whole Allied front was barely 4 miles, swept by a terrible inferno of shells. The air was filled with the white, woolly clouds that the Anzac men—old soldiers now—knew meant a hail of lead. The ground was torn and ripped up as the shells fell; little parties of men were swept away, killed outright. Overhead whined and whistled the shells; ours on their way to the Turkish trenches, theirs coming on to our advancing line. Overhead might have been a whirling shield of armour.
Rapidly the Australians scrambled over the Indian trenches which were in their path, the 7th doubling forward so as to continue the line of the 6th, and together with the other two regiments (in support), the whole mass of 3,000 men started to move forward rapidly towards the front trenches occupied by the Naval Division. Pictures of the ground will show its openness; theydo not show the first slight slope up which the Australians charged in a 1,000 yards advance, of which that was the first sector. At the top of the slope—it was hardly appreciable to the casual glance—were the Naval Division trenches. Beyond these the ground sloped away down into a broad depression, that only began to rise again a little to the south of the Krithia village and Achi Baba. Once it had been cultivated ground. Over this the Australians charged. The right flank was resting now on the Krithia road. The troops were heavily laden; for besides their packs, many carried shovels, entrenching tools, and picks; they had to dig in when they had advanced. They stumbled or fell into the British trenches, where they lay for a while panting. Many lads were unable to reach the security of the trenches (for they were strongly held and crowded), and so they lay in whatever depressions were available behind the parados, while the lead streamed over them—whizz—swing—whizz—swing—little singing messages of death. You heard them close to your ear even above the din of the booming shells.
With bayonets fixed the Australians left the trenches. Colonel M'Cay—surely his life was charmed that day—walked along the parapet swinging his stick, as was his custom, and looking down into the trenches, called: "Come on, Australians!" The Brigade-Major, Major Cass, was in another sector doing the same. No second call was needed to rouse the troops. They would follow those brave officers to the very jaws of death. They scrambled to the parapets, and crouching low, began to advance, 50, 60, 70 yards at a rush, and then, as exhaustion overcame them, a short respite lying flattened to the ground. But the line never wavered, though thinned at every step, going on and on with the officers rallying the men as they panted forward.
God! the marvel of it! The ground was quite bare, except for isolated bushes of green shrub, through which the bullets sang and tore. Intense masses of rifles and machine guns poured down lead on to the advancing Australian lines. The British had cheered these heroes as they left the trenches—now they stood watching and wondering. Rushing downhill, the troops were in a regular shallow basin, like a huge plate. The Turkish trenches lay scarcely 800 yards ahead. That was theonly information that the Australians got as to their objective: that was all they wanted; anyway, no enemy could be seen now in the battle smoke and dust. No reconnaissance had been possible, except in a general sort of way, and it was for this reason that Colonel M'Cay led his men and allotted sections of the line to the rest of his Brigade Staff. For the rest he trusted to the spirit of his men.
THE ROAD INTO KRITHIATHE ROAD INTO KRITHIA ON WHICH THE RIGHT FLANK OF THE AUSTRALIANS RESTED IN THE ADVANCE.Achi Baba in the distance on the extreme right. Krithia village is about a mile along the road. The firing-line crosses the road some 1,500 yards away.
THE ROAD INTO KRITHIA ON WHICH THE RIGHT FLANK OF THE AUSTRALIANS RESTED IN THE ADVANCE.Achi Baba in the distance on the extreme right. Krithia village is about a mile along the road. The firing-line crosses the road some 1,500 yards away.
THE ROAD INTO KRITHIA ON WHICH THE RIGHT FLANK OF THE AUSTRALIANS RESTED IN THE ADVANCE.
Achi Baba in the distance on the extreme right. Krithia village is about a mile along the road. The firing-line crosses the road some 1,500 yards away.
The Turks, well entrenched and concealed, waited for the Australian charge. No use for the attackers to fling themselves down and fire; they had no target. On again they went, panting, lying down, advancing in short rushes of 50 yards, or less, as the men grew more and more tired. The line thinned. The slopes were covered with dead and wounded. Darkness was falling. A constant stream of disabled men were toiling slowly back to the shelter of the gullies. Stretcher-bearers, regardless of the stream of lead, were going forward and dragging back to the naval trenches those men whom they found badly wounded. Sometimes a British soldier leaped out to help in a comrade.
Then, after a charge of 400 yards, across the Krithia road was seen the low parapet of a Turkish trench, and the 7th Battalion opened fire as the Turks commenced to fly before the unbroken Australian line; but it was only a short halt, for the 6th Battalion was still advancing, so as to get to close quarters with the bayonet. "Bayonet them" had been the orders, and the steel the Turks were to get if they waited. On went the 7th, the reserve battalions now coming up into the firing-line. Losses got more and more terrible. They reached the parapet of a now deserted enemy trench, yet still the Turkish fire came in a steady stream from the front and the left, where machine guns were rattling from a copse that had before broken the New Zealand ranks. On the right it had become silent. Major Cass, leading there, found it strangely so, and for the moment, could not account for the pause, as according to the plan the French were to have charged and advanced. What had happened he learned very shortly. Again the French had been checked. But 400 yards' advance had been made by the Australians and New Zealanders. The extreme left of the line was brought to a standstill, the British-Indian force unable to press farther on.Australians, and alongside them New Zealanders, were entrenching for their lives. The Turkish trenches had been stormed, and the first objective taken, though Krithia was still unstormed, 800 yards away. But, in this moment of success, a horrible fresh danger made itself manifest.
The French had not taken the "Haricot." While the Australians' right still pushed on the Frenchmen were not advancing. A gap of many hundred yards yawned between the right of the Australian line and the left of the French. Into this breach the Turks were not slow to hurl their men. They began working down a gully. The manner in which the discovery of this attempt to pierce the line was made is dramatic in the extreme. Major Cass, who had been leading the right of the Australian line, had fallen wounded, shot through the shoulder (it broke his collar-bone), and as he lay behind a slight mound that had been dug for him by some of his devoted men, there came from the left, almost at right angles to him, a bullet that smashed his other shoulder. Although suffering from shock, his arms helplessly hanging by his side, he managed, nevertheless, to get his pocket-book out, and began to write. As a soldier the truth had quickly flashed in his mind: the Turks were between the Allied lines, and very soon they would be in the rear as well. The peril of the situation demanded instant action. Hastily he scribbled a note in triplicate, explaining the position to the Commander of the Naval Brigade, holding the trenches in the rear, through which the Australians in their charge had advanced. Major Cass sent these notes back by Private H. Wilson, Headquarters Staff, who returned with an answer after what, to the wounded man, seemed an interminable time. The shrapnel still screamed overhead and the bushes were cut by the descending bullets, that made a spluttering sound as they swept the valley. Another verbal message was sent by Lieutenant Stewart to the Brigadier. At last the reassuring reply came back from the Naval Brigade that the breach would be filled. The Drake Battalion advanced with the 5th Australian Battalion, under Colonel Wanliss, until the distance between—some 300 yards—was filled. So was the Turkish flanking movement hindered and pressed back. Five hours later Major Cass, in the early hours of themorning, reached the beach and a hospital ship. The devotion of the messenger who carried the message and then wished to take his officer from the firing-line was duly rewarded, while Major Cass received the D.S.O.
Meanwhile it happened that the reserve battalions had come up into the firing-line almost at the same moment as that line came to a halt, exhausted. Entrenching tools and sandbags were carried, and at once the whole line commenced to dig in. It was dusk. During the whole of that night the Turks kept up a continuous fire, with the idea, no doubt, of preventing reinforcements being brought up by us under cover of darkness. Nevertheless, further drafts of reinforcements were hurried into the firing-line, and the new trenches were secured. Not a single yard of trench was retaken by the Turks. From that day on till the final evacuation of the peninsula was accomplished, visiting officers would be shown the "Australian" trenches, which marked the point of their magnificent charge of 1,000 yards—a sheer gain of some 400 yards, made in a few minutes. The brigade held the trenches until the following Tuesday morning, when they were relieved by the 29th Division.
The Australian losses had been appallingly heavy, partly on account of the open ground over which the advance was made, and partly from the fact that the Turks had a concealed and well fortified position. The whole of the Brigade Staff was wounded, and the casualties amongst the officers were very severe indeed. The Brigadier, Colonel M'Cay, was wounded about nine o'clock as he was returning from the trenches, having lived a charmed life for many hours as he superintended the men digging the new trenches. Lieut.-Colonel Garside, who was commanding the 7th Battalion, was killed almost at the side of Major Wells, both fine soldiers, who had showed magnificent courage. It was in this charge, too, that Lieut.-Colonel M'Nicol, of the 6th, received machine-gun wounds which nearly cost him his life. For his magnificent work he received the D.S.O. Probably half the brigade was either killed or wounded, and the Brigadier estimated his loss at 1,800, thereby reducing his command by half.
Till Monday night the removal of the wounded proceeded. Progress to the beach, 2 miles away, was painfully slow. Never, so a wounded officer told me, shall he forget the calls of the men for "water," for "help" asthe stretcher-bearers and doctors, working with unsurpassed heroism, passed to and from the first dressing-station, 2 miles in the rear. Here the wounded could be placed on rough general service wagons and taken over the fearful rutted roads to the beach. Two further transfers had to take place before the men reached the hospital ship. The bitter cold of the night added to the intensity of the suffering of the men. Yet so long as they knew that they would be found the men bore their wounds and pain patiently and stoically, content in the news from the front that they had won and the Turks had fled.
On the 12th, the brigade—all that was left of it—was withdrawn from the firing-line, and on the 15th reached Anzac again, to the tired troops almost like a homecoming. They came back to a new fight, but one in which the Turks attacked, were broken, and repulsed.
The Turks' strongest attack of the campaign was made in the middle of May, when they attempted an assault all along the Anzac line. Both sides had had time to reorganize, and both had received reinforcements. The Turks probably had 35,000 men in their trenches at this time, while the Australians had 30,000. During the first fortnight of the month the enemy had brought up guns of bigger calibre, and had placed in the Olive Grove, from which they could enfilade the beach from the east, a six-gun battery which even the warships and the Australian gunners were unable to completely silence. The Allies had aeroplanes and captive balloons spotting for them, and yet the Turkish batteries, skilfully concealed, managed to continue shelling the beach and the incoming barges. Very little notice was taken by the Navy of this shelling, and very soon, too, the troops regarded it as the natural thing. What they would have felt like, these Australians, had they been fighting in France, where, for certain periods, they would be relieved and taken from under constant shell fire, it is not easy to say. The strain wore them down certainly, but it never affected the army nerves or its heart or its determination.
Nevertheless, May was a sad month for the troops, though it also brought later a chance of the Turks being taught a lesson. On Saturday, 15th May, Major-General Bridges, the leader of the 1st Division, fell mortally wounded. It had often been remarked by the troops at Anzac that their General was absolutely careless of his own safety. He was daily round the trenches, a rather glum, silent man, but keenly observant, and quickly able to draw from his officers all the points of information he required. Often he recklessly exposed himself to gain a view of the Turkish positions, despite the remonstrancesof his Staff. As time wore on he took heed, and on the morning when he fell had been more than usually careful. General Bridges had left Anzac Headquarters, near the beach, at about 9.30, and was going up Shrapnel Gully, and at this time that terrible gully had no secret sap through which one might pass with comparative safety from snipers' bullets coming from the head of the gully. It was a matter of running, from sandbag traverse to sandbag traverse, a gauntlet of lead, up the bed of the dry gully.
General Bridges had just passed a dressing-station dug into the side of the hill, and had received a warning from the stretcher-bearers standing round the entrance. "You had better run across here, sir," they told him, "as the Turks are pretty lively to-day." He did, and reached a further traverse, where he stood near another dressing-station smoking a cigarette. "Well," he said to his Staff officer, after a few minutes, "we must make another run for it." He ran round the corner of the traverse and through the thick scrub. Before he could reach the next cover, not many yards away, he was struck by a bullet and lay prone. It is believed that the sniper at the head of the gully was waiting and watching that morning, and had already inflicted a number of casualties. Medical attention was immediately available. A doctor at the adjacent dressing-station found that the femoral artery in the thigh had been severed. The bullet, instead of merely piercing the leg, had entered sideways and torn a way through. Only for the fact that skilled attention was so prompt, General Bridges must have died within a few minutes. The wound was plugged. Taken to the dressing-station, the General's first words were, "Don't carry me down; I don't want any of your fellows to run into danger." Seeing the stretcher case, the Turks did not fire on the party that now made its way to the beach, all traffic being stopped along the track. The dying leader was immediately taken off to a hospital ship, but his condition was critical. Before the ship left his beloved Anzac, his last words to an officer, who had been with him from the first, were, "Anyhow, I have commanded an Australian Division for nine months."
General Bridges died four days later on his way to Alexandria. It was very typical, that last sentence ofthe man. His whole heart and soul and energies had been devoted to planning the efficiency of the 1st Division. A born organizer, a fine tactician, he was a lone, stern figure that inspired a great confidence in his men. His judgment in the field had proved almost unfailing. Unsparing to himself, he demanded, and obtained, the best in those he commanded. He was one of the finest leaders on Gallipoli, and in him General Hamilton and Lieut.-General Birdwood reposed the highest confidence.
General Birdwood, cabling from Army Corps headquarters to the Governor-General of Australia, said:—
It is with the deepest regret that I have to announce the death on 19th May of General Bridges, who has proved himself the most gallant of soldiers and best of commanders. I am quite unable to express what his loss means to the Australian Division, which can never pay the debt it owes him for his untiring and unselfish labours, which are responsible for the high state of organization to which the Division has been brought in every detail. The high ideals placed before the boys trained at Duntroon, and which he succeeded in attaining as far as my knowledge of those now serving with the Australian forces in the field is concerned, will, I hope, go down to the honour of his name as long as the military history of Australia lasts.
It is with the deepest regret that I have to announce the death on 19th May of General Bridges, who has proved himself the most gallant of soldiers and best of commanders. I am quite unable to express what his loss means to the Australian Division, which can never pay the debt it owes him for his untiring and unselfish labours, which are responsible for the high state of organization to which the Division has been brought in every detail. The high ideals placed before the boys trained at Duntroon, and which he succeeded in attaining as far as my knowledge of those now serving with the Australian forces in the field is concerned, will, I hope, go down to the honour of his name as long as the military history of Australia lasts.
The Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Ian Hamilton, cabled on 20th May:—
General Bridges died on the passage to Alexandria. The whole force mourns his irreparable loss, which was avenged yesterday in a brilliant action by his own troops, who inflicted a loss of 7,000 on the enemy at a cost of less than 500 to themselves.
General Bridges died on the passage to Alexandria. The whole force mourns his irreparable loss, which was avenged yesterday in a brilliant action by his own troops, who inflicted a loss of 7,000 on the enemy at a cost of less than 500 to themselves.
It is this Turkish attack that I now shall describe, and the nature of the revenge. Brigadier-General Walker, who had been commanding the 1st Infantry Brigade since the death of Colonel McLaurin, succeeded to the immediate command of the Division.
The new Turkish batteries employed at this time contained some 6-inch guns, and it is believed that theGoebenor one of the cruisers belonging to the Turks had come down from Constantinople and was stationed, just parallel to Bogali, in the Straits. Enemy warships, it is believed, were able to throw shells accurately into the heart of our position, searching for the guns. By the 18th May the Turks had an 11-in. gun, some 8-in., and a number of 4·7-in. guns trained on Anzac. With the support of these, and with the small mountain and fieldpieces that they had been using before, it has been since learned, they felt that they could safely attack. Their offensive was fixed for the 19th May. Preliminary bombardments began on the evening before, 18th, and were the fiercest that had yet been experienced. The hills echoed with the chaotic explosions of the bursting of heavy shells. One of the Australian 18-pounders was knocked out completely, and other shells reached the gun-pits; but the gunners stuck to their posts and replied effectively to this Turkish bombardment. It was reported that evening from aeroplane reconnaissances that the Turks had been seen landing a new Division at the Straits, and that they were marching to the support of the Anzac troops. Headquarters were located at Bogali. At once the warships commenced a bombardment of the main road leading along the side of the hills to Krithia village, where troops could be seen moving. They followed them up and shelled the general Turkish Staff out of a village midway between Kelid Bahr and Krithia.
Attacks at Anzac were always determined by the time at which the moon sank. I can remember on one occasion waiting night after night in the trenches, when the Turks were supposed to be about to attack, until the moon would sink. We would rouse-up and watch its departing sickly yellow circle dip behind the hills of Troy, and then turn towards the Turkish trenches, which we could see occasionally spitting fire, and wait for the general fusillade to open. Now, on the 18th the moon dipped down at a little before midnight, and just as the midnight hours passed, from the centre of the line round Quinn's Post arose the clatter of Turkish bombs. In the closely wedged trenches the Australians answered this attack with similar missiles, and for a while a little "bomb party," as it was called by the troops, began. From an intermittent rifle fire the sound of the sharp crackle of rifles intensified and extended from end to end of the Turkish lines. It was as if thousands of typewriters, the noise of their working increased a thousandfold, had begun to work. Every second the racket grew; in less than two minutes the gullies were torrents of singing lead, while the bullets could be heard everywhere whizzing through the bushes. The rapid beat of the machine guns began, their pellets thuddingagainst the sandbag parapets. Bombs, bursting like the roar of water that had broken the banks of dams, drowned the general clatter. Immense "football bombs" (as the troops termed them) they were, that wrought awful havoc and formed huge craters. For half an hour the fury lasted. Then it died down, much as violent storms do, arising suddenly, and departing by fading away in a curiously short, sharp burst of firing. Again the sudden rapid fire arose and then again the splutter of ceasing shots. Bombing had stopped.
THE ROAD INTO KRITHIATHE TURKISH EMISSARY BEING LED FROM ANZAC COVE AFTER ARRANGING THE DETAILS OF THE ARMISTICE, AT THE CONFERENCE ON 23RD MAY, 1915. HE IS PRECEDED BY A STAFF OFFICER.To face p. 160.
THE TURKISH EMISSARY BEING LED FROM ANZAC COVE AFTER ARRANGING THE DETAILS OF THE ARMISTICE, AT THE CONFERENCE ON 23RD MAY, 1915. HE IS PRECEDED BY A STAFF OFFICER.To face p. 160.
THE TURKISH EMISSARY BEING LED FROM ANZAC COVE AFTER ARRANGING THE DETAILS OF THE ARMISTICE, AT THE CONFERENCE ON 23RD MAY, 1915. HE IS PRECEDED BY A STAFF OFFICER.
To face p. 160.
It is hard to know what the reason of the Turk was for this "bluff," for it was such, for no attack followed. It was not exactly an unusual incident in itself, but, nevertheless, always had the effect of rousing up the line and the troops manning the trenches. Probably the Turks calculated that we would be led to believe that the whole show was over for that night, and consequently without further bombardment they began a few hours later their extended attack.
Just in the hour preceding dawn—about 3.30 the time is given—the Turks began silently and stealthily to approach the trenches. Without a sound they came, in large and small bodies, up the gullies, working by the help of a marching tape that would keep them together. They approached to within, in some cases, 30 or 40 yards of our trenches. At that time coloured rocket shells were not so much used as they were later; no coloured green and red lights that would burn for some minutes, lit up any section of the line. But the sentries on the parapets suddenly began to detect, even in the blackness of the night preceding dawn, crawling figures. The Turk was always a good scout, and would get right under the parapets of our trenches almost undetected. But when he came to facing the Australian bayonet and jumping down into the trenches it was a different matter altogether. Now, it was just at the centre of the right of the position, at the point where the 1st Brigade and the 1st Battalion of that brigade held the line, that the alarm first was given. The sentries shot down the advancing figures. Immediately others rose up quickly and rushed silently at the trenches. A few managed to jump across the parapets and down into the trenches. It is a brave man indeed who will do such an act.
The attack was launched. Right down the Australianline now spread the order for rapid fire, for the Turks could be seen and heard calling "Allah! Allah!" They came in great numbers, dashing forward in the already coming dawn, for in the sky behind them the sun would rise, and now already its faintest streaks were appearing, casting an opaque tinge in the heavens. Gallantly as the Turks charged, the Australians stood magnificently steady, and fired steadily into the masses of moving silhouetted figures. It was "terrible, cold-blooded murder," as one of the defenders described it to me later. "They were plucky enough, but they never had a dog's chance."
Now in a few places the Turks did reach our trenches, but they found themselves trapped, and the few who escaped with their lives, surrendered. Across the Poppyfield the Turks had pressed hardest, but they were thrust back and back. Next morning, when the dawn came, their bodies could be seen lying in heaps on the slopes. It was as if the men had been mown down in lines.
While the attacks were developing against the centre of the right of the line—company after company and battalion after battalion were sent on by the Turks in their endeavours to push the Australians off the peninsula—there began fierce fighting on the extreme right, on the left, and at the apex of the position at the head of Monash Gully. It was a desperate enough position, for the Turks were not more than 10 or 20 yards away in places. Our machine guns ripped along their parapets; when one gun ceased, to fix in its jaws a new belt, another took on the fire; so the noise was insistent, and the Turks, yelling "Allah! Allah!" stumbled forward a few paces and were mown down, but never were able to advance to the trenches. Far into the morning the attacks continued. Mostly they were short rushes, opposed by terrific bursts of fire, bombs hurled into the advancing mass; a check and then a pause. As the enemy were still advancing, only at isolated points could their machine guns reply or rifles be fired. That there were some enemy bullets did not affect the troops, who regarded it as too good an opportunity to miss. The Australians' sporting instincts were roused, and at many points the men could be seen sitting on the parapets of the trenches, calmly picking off the Turks as they came up, working their bolts, loading, furiously. This was the way in which the few casualties that did occur (100 killed and 500wounded) were sustained. It was a bloodless victory, if ever there has been one.
Once a German Albatross aeroplane had come sailing over the position at a very high altitude, the Turks must have known that their chances of success were gone. They commenced to shell the shipping off the beaches, in the hope that any reinforcements that might be arriving might be sunk, but they were not even successful in this. Our artillery had the range to a few yards, and as the Turks left their trenches (though only so short a distance away) the shrapnel swept along their parapets, and they were shot down in rows. It is calculated that 3,000 Turks perished in that attack. Some make the estimate higher, and there is reason to believe that they may be right. The wounded numbered nearly 15,000. It was their one and only general attack. It failed hopelessly. It was never repeated.
So horrible had the battlefield become, strewn with Turkish dead, that the enemy sued for an armistice. On the day succeeding the engagement and the repulse of the Turks, towards dusk white flags and the red crescents began to be hoisted all along the line. Now of the Turks and their flags of truce something had already been learned down on the banks of the Canal. On the other hand, in the evacuation of wounded from Gaba Tepe, when the attacking parties had failed to get a foothold on the narrow beach, and had been forced to retire leaving their wounded still on the shore, those soldiers were tended by the Turkish doctors. Their subsequent evacuation by the Navy under the Red Cross flag was accurately observed by the enemy. But that did not prevent this "new move" being regarded with some caution. It was between five and six o'clock that in the centre of the right of the line a Turkish Staff officer, two medical officers, and a company commander came out of their trenches—all firing having ceased, and by arrangement through an interpreter who had called across from our own to the enemy trenches during the day—and met Major-General H. B. Walker, who was commanding the 1st Division, on the neutral ground between the trenches. It was stated by the Staff officer that he had been instructed to arrange a suspension of arms in order that the dead between the lines might be buried and the wounded tended and removed. The position was, to say the least, a delicateone. The officer carried no written credentials. General Hamilton's dispatches convey the subsequent proceedings as they were viewed at the time by most of the leaders at Anzac:—
He [the Turkish Staff officer] was informed (writes the Commander-in-Chief) that neither he nor the General Officer Commanding Australian Division had the power to arrange such a suspension of arms, but that at 8 p.m. an opportunity would be given of exchanging letters on the subject, and that meanwhile hostilities would recommence after ten minutes' grace. At this time some stretcher parties on both sides were collecting wounded, and the Turkish trenches opposite ours were packed with men standing shoulder to shoulder two deep. Matters were less regular in front of other sections, where men with white flags came out to collect wounded (some attempted to dig trenches that were not meant for graves). Meanwhile it was observed that columns were on the march in the valley up which the Turks were accustomed to bring their reinforcements (Legge and Mule Valleys).On hearing of these movements, General Sir W. R. Birdwood, commanding Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, ordered his trenches to be manned against a possible attack. As the evening drew in the enemy's concentration continued, and everything pointed to their intention of making use of the last of the daylight to get their troops into position without being shelled by our artillery. A message was therefore sent across to say that no clearing of dead or wounded could be allowed during the night, and that any negotiations for such purpose should be opened up through the proper channel and initiated before noon on the following day.Stretcher parties and others fell back, and immediately fire broke out. In front of our right section masses of men advanced behind lines of unarmed men holding up their hands. Firing became general all along the line, accompanied by a heavy bombardment of the whole position, so that evidently this attack must have been pre-arranged. Musketry and machine-gun fire continued without interruption till after dark, and from then up till about 4 a.m. the next day.Except for a half-hearted attack in front of Courtney's Post, no assault was made until 1.20 a.m., when the enemy left their trenches and advanced on Quinn's Post. Our guns drove the Turks back to their trenches and beat back all other attempts at assault. By 4.30 a.m. on 21st May musketry fire had died down to normal dimensions.
He [the Turkish Staff officer] was informed (writes the Commander-in-Chief) that neither he nor the General Officer Commanding Australian Division had the power to arrange such a suspension of arms, but that at 8 p.m. an opportunity would be given of exchanging letters on the subject, and that meanwhile hostilities would recommence after ten minutes' grace. At this time some stretcher parties on both sides were collecting wounded, and the Turkish trenches opposite ours were packed with men standing shoulder to shoulder two deep. Matters were less regular in front of other sections, where men with white flags came out to collect wounded (some attempted to dig trenches that were not meant for graves). Meanwhile it was observed that columns were on the march in the valley up which the Turks were accustomed to bring their reinforcements (Legge and Mule Valleys).
On hearing of these movements, General Sir W. R. Birdwood, commanding Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, ordered his trenches to be manned against a possible attack. As the evening drew in the enemy's concentration continued, and everything pointed to their intention of making use of the last of the daylight to get their troops into position without being shelled by our artillery. A message was therefore sent across to say that no clearing of dead or wounded could be allowed during the night, and that any negotiations for such purpose should be opened up through the proper channel and initiated before noon on the following day.
Stretcher parties and others fell back, and immediately fire broke out. In front of our right section masses of men advanced behind lines of unarmed men holding up their hands. Firing became general all along the line, accompanied by a heavy bombardment of the whole position, so that evidently this attack must have been pre-arranged. Musketry and machine-gun fire continued without interruption till after dark, and from then up till about 4 a.m. the next day.
Except for a half-hearted attack in front of Courtney's Post, no assault was made until 1.20 a.m., when the enemy left their trenches and advanced on Quinn's Post. Our guns drove the Turks back to their trenches and beat back all other attempts at assault. By 4.30 a.m. on 21st May musketry fire had died down to normal dimensions.
Negotiations were again opened up by the Turks during the morning of the 22nd. It must be recollected that by now the battlefields had been three weeks fought over, and many Australians as well as Turks who had perished in those first awful days, still lay unburied where they had fallen. The stench of decaying flesh threatened terrible calamity to both armies. For two days the Turkish dead in thousands lay rotting in the sun, their swollen corpses in some places on our very parapets.General Hamilton accordingly dispatched his Chief of Staff, Major-General W. P. Braithwaite, during the morning of the 22nd, to assist General Birdwood in coming to terms with an envoy that was to be sent by Essad Pasha, commanding at that time a section of the Turkish forces. Accordingly, on the afternoon of the 22nd an officer rode in from the extreme right of their line, across the plain that dipped down to the sea between the headland of Gaba Tepe and the last knoll of our position. He carried a white flag of truce. It was an impressive moment. He was beautifully mounted, and his uniform was a mass of gold lace. He was met by Staff officers from the Australian Army Corps. Now, coming to the wire entanglements that had been made across the beach—the visiting officer had already been blindfolded—it was a matter of doubt for a moment how he was to be taken across within the Anzac lines. A solution was gained when four Australians stripped off their uniforms and, placing the officer on a stretcher, bore the Turk round through the water to the other side. There he remounted his horse, and was escorted along the beach to the prepared dugout, where he met in consultation General Braithwaite and representatives of the Australian and New Zealand Corps, with interpreters. It took two days to arrange the details of the armistice, and eventually the terms were satisfactorily agreed on, written, and signed in duplicate by both army leaders.
TROOPS GOING INTO THE FIRING-LINETROOPS GOING INTO THE FIRING-LINE ON THE FIRST DAY OF LANDING.
TROOPS GOING INTO THE FIRING-LINE ON THE FIRST DAY OF LANDING.
TROOPS GOING INTO THE FIRING-LINE ON THE FIRST DAY OF LANDING.
THE BEACH CLEARING STATIONTHE BEACH CLEARING STATION (LIEUT.-COLONEL GIBLIN) IN THE EARLY DAYS OF ANZAC.To face p. 164.
THE BEACH CLEARING STATION (LIEUT.-COLONEL GIBLIN) IN THE EARLY DAYS OF ANZAC.To face p. 164.
THE BEACH CLEARING STATION (LIEUT.-COLONEL GIBLIN) IN THE EARLY DAYS OF ANZAC.
To face p. 164.
On the 24th May—Empire Day, as Australians know it—the armistice was begun at eight o'clock, and lasted till five o'clock in the evening. Some of its features are interesting, gruesome as the object was. Burial parties were selected from each side. Groups of selected officers left the trenches and started to define with white flags the lines of demarcation. It had been decided there should be a central zone where the men from the two sides might work together—a narrow strip it was, too. The Turks were not to venture into what might be termed "our territory," that varied in width according to the distances the trenches were apart, and the Australians were not to venture into the enemy's. Orders were issued that there was to be no firing anywhere along the line. Arms were to be collected and handed over to the respective armies to which they belonged, minus the rifle bolts. No field-glasses were to be used,and the men were to keep down in the trenches and not look over the parapets.
Now one of the disadvantages of the armistice, from the Australians' point of view, was that the topographical features of the position enabled any of the Turks who might approach within a certain distance to look down into the heart of the Anzac position (that was, into their own gullies), but also into gullies that now contained the Australians' reserve trenches and bivouacs, and where the troops were sheltered and stores placed. It seems very probable that the enemy realized this advantage, however slight. I do not think they were able to gain much. Nevertheless, in the interests of the health of all at Anzac, it was essential that the armistice should be arranged. So the party of the armistice went carefully round the 2-mile front of the position, moving the flags a little nearer the Turkish lines here, there, nearer the Australian. Following these slowly worked the burial parties, all wearing white armlets—doctors and padres.
Under guise of a sergeant of the Red Crescent walked General Liman von Sanders, the German leader against Anzac, and he mixed with the burial parties. It was a misty and wet morning, and every one wore greatcoats and helmets that were sufficient cloak to any identity. All day the parties worked, collecting the identity discs of many gallant lads whose fate had been uncertain, men whose mouldering bodies had been seen lying between the trenches. They were buried in huge open trenches, often alongside their fallen foe, as often it was impossible, owing to the condition of the bodies, to remove them to the Turkish burial-grounds. Once some firing began on the right, where it was alleged some parties were digging firing trenches, but it was hushed, and I have never been able to find an exact and official statement of this.
Some of the Turks who were directing operations mingled with our men; they spoke perfect English. By judicious handing out of cigarettes they sought to discover as much as they dared or as much as they might be told. Brigadier-General G. J. Johnston (Artillery officer) told me an amusing interview he had with a Turkish officer who asked him about the number of men Australia was sending to thewar. The Gunner replied, "Five times as many thousands as had been already landed, while hundreds of thousands more were ready." Another conversation shows very clearly the absence of bitterness on one side or the other. It concerned the meeting of two men who exchanged cards, while the Turk told (one suspects with a cynical smile) of many haunts of pleasure and amusement in Constantinople where the Australian could amuse himself when he came. I do not wish to convey that the Turks believed that they would be beaten, but they were not hated enemies of the Australians, and on this, as on other occasions, they played the game. Over 3,000 of their dead were buried that day. They lay in heaps; they sprawled, swelled and stark, in rows, linked together by the guiding ropes which they had clung to. Many were lying just above the Turkish parapets, where our machine guns had mowed them down as they left their trenches. And these the Turks themselves just barely covered, as was their custom in burying their dead.
Chaplains Merrington and Dexter both held short services over the graves of the fallen in the few hollows near Quinn's Post and other points farther south. A cairn of stones was left to mark the spot on which some day a greater memorial may be raised; down in the gullies rough wooden crosses mark other graves.
Gradually, after 3 p.m., the parties withdrew from their solemn task, and as the last white flag was struck and the parties retreated into their own trenches, the snip, snip, zip, zip, and crack of the bullets and boom of the bombs began again, and never ceased till the last shot was fired on the peninsula.
The evolution of Anzac was as the growth of a mining settlement. Little had been done by the Turks in their defensive preparations to disturb the natural growth that spread from the crest of Maclagan's Ridge almost down to the water's edge—a growth of holly bush, a kind of furze, and an abundant carpet of grasses, wild flowers, poppies, and anemones. Round Ari Burnu their line of shallow trenches had run along to the Fishermen's Huts, but there were no tracks, other than the sheep or goat track round the base of the cliffs that the farmers might have used coming from Anafarta on to the plains below Kelid Bair and across to the olive-groves, on the way to Maidos and the villages along the peninsula road to Cape Helles. Anzac Beach—"Z" Beach in the scheme of operations—was covered with coarse pebbles, occasionally a patch of sand. Barely 20 yards wide, and 600 yards long, the hills and cliffs began to rise steeply from it. The shore was cleft in the centre by a gully—Bully Beef Gully—which opened into the Cove. It was no more than a sharp ravine, very narrow, and in the days of April and in November very moist, and wet, and sticky. It took very little time after the dawn of day on that April Sunday morning for the point of concentration to be fixed on in this Cove. The whole of the stores, equipment, as well as the troops, were landed from end to end of the beach. Somehow there was a feeling of greater security in this Cove, but in fact it was so shallow, so accurately plotted in the enemy's maps, that the Turks had little difficulty in bursting the shells from one end of it to the other at their will. Luckily, the water was fairly deep almost up to the shore. Twenty yards out one found 15 feet of water and a stony bottom, which enabled the picketboats and pinnaces to come close in, as it allowed barges to be drawn well up to the beach, so that the stores could be tumbled out. Photographs, better than word pictures, describe that beach in those first days and weeks. Ordnance officers of both Divisions, as well as of the Army Corps, wrestled with the problem of making order out of chaos. Once the army was to stick, it had to stick "By God!" and not be allowed to starve, or want for ammunition or entrenching tools.
A small stone jetty was the first work of the Engineers, and this was rapidly followed by a jetty that the signallers, under Captain Watson (for the Engineers had vastly more important duties that called them away up to the gullies and the firing-line), constructed. But that was done after the second week. The Army Medical Corps worked in a dressing-station, just a tent with a Red Cross flying overhead. Yet it could not be said that the Turks wilfully shelled this station, though necessarily they must have dropped their shells round its canvas doors, while inside it came the bullets, because of the stores that lay about, blocking, choking the beach. Many were the experiments that were made to distribute the supplies. Colonel Austin, Ordnance officer, 1st Division, with his staff-sergeant, Tuckett, had attempted to erect the piles of boxes of biscuits, as well as picks and shovels and ammunition around Hell Spit. Promptly the Turks dropped shells right into the middle of them, scattering the whole and killing several men. There was nothing for it but to move back along the Cove, dig into the sides of the cliffs, and pile the reserve stores up the main gully. On the beach cases were stacked in the form of traverses, round which the men might take such shelter as was afforded when the guns—Beachy Bill, from Olive Grove, and Anafarta, from the village near Suvla—commenced their "hates."
This beach and the cliffs overlooking it might be best described as "The Heart of Anzac." At the foot of the gully was camped General Sir William Birdwood—the "Soul of Anzac"—and his whole Staff in dugouts no different from the holes the men built in the hills. A hundred feet up the slopes on the south side was General Bridges and his Staff, and on the other hand General Godley with the 2nd A. and N.Z. Division. Those first quarters were only slightly varied in after-months.General Birdwood remained always on the beach, almost at the foot of the jetty. Here it was that one found the living pulse of the position—the throb of life that meant the successful holding of the acres so gallantly won, the strength that held back the Turks, while road arteries cut into the hillsides and formed the channels down which the best blood of the Australians and New Zealanders flowed. One cannot help recording that constantly shells burst round the leader's dugout. Thus it happened that his Staff officer, Captain Onslow, met his death under tragic circumstances in July. It was a particularly hot night, and this popular officer said he would sleep on the top of his dugout as being cooler. The Turks commenced to shell the beach (probably in the belief that we were that night landing men and stores, which we were not). Captain Onslow retired within the poor and partial shelter, emerging again after about a quarter of an hour, when he fancied the guns had stopped. Unfortunately, it was only a lull, and the next shell burst right on the dugout, killing him instantly.
"It is only a question of time," was a phrase current on the beach amongst the working parties. It meant one had only to be there long enough and the inevitable shell-burst would find its victims. Yet considering the traffic—that the whole army of 30,000, increasing to 50,000 in July and August, as the zealous Australian Light Horsemen (dismounted) came into action, were fed from that 600 yards strip of beach—it was astonishing that the casualties were as low as they were. Twenty men were killed at a shell-burst once—that was the most horrible incident. Thousands of the heaviest shells fell harmlessly into the water. Six hundred shells a day, at one period, fell along the shore and around the pinnaces and lighters or amongst the slowly moving transports. No large ships were sunk. "The beach"—and those two words were used to include the thousands that inhabited it and the adjacent hillsides—watched the vessels chased from anchorage to anchorage. The army blessed their lives they were ashore; while those afloat wondered how any were left alive after the "hottings" the beach got. But the casualties from both Turkish enfilading batteries were never reckoned in all at 2,000—big enough,but very little result for the molestation that the Turks hoped to throw down on the heroes who toiled there day and night. For most of the work was done at night, in the small hours of the morning, when the transports under a darkened sky—the moon had to be studied studiously on Gallipoli—could come close inshore with 100-gallon tanks, thousands of Egyptian water-tins, millions of rounds of ammunition, and thousands of rounds of shells, scores of tons of beef and biscuits. Bread and the little fresh meat that came ashore were landed from the regular trawler service that arrived from Imbros by day, via Helles.
Once a great steam pumping engine was landed. One heard it afterwards puffing away on the beach, sending the water from the barges (filled with water from the Nile and anchored by the pier) up to the tank reservoirs on the side of the ridge, where began a reticulation scheme all over Anzac to the foot of the hills, thereby certainly saving the energy of the army expended on fatigues. How the troops blessed it! None of that "luxury," however, in the early days; only the monotonous grind up and down the slopes with water-cans.
You come on the Telephone Exchange of Anzac (to which led what appeared an impossible tangle of wires) and the Post Office, on either side of the entrance to Bully Beef Gully, opposite Watson's Landing. It is possible to talk all over the position from here. Three or four men are working constantly at the switches. Farther along the beach on the right and you find the clearing stations, under Colonel Howse, V.C., wedged in between the hillside and the screen of boxes on the beach. You come to Hell Spit, round which you might be chased by a machine gun from Gaba Tepe; and beyond, the graveyard, open to shell fire. Burials mostly have to be carried out at night, when the shelling is not so dangerous. There was a chaplain who, with his little band of devoted stretcher-bearers and the comrades of the fallen, was performing the last rites at this spot, when, to his dismay, the Turks commenced the shelling again. "Dust unto dust," repeated the chaplain, and the bursting shell flung the newly exposed earth over the party. "Oh, hell!" said the padre. "This is too ho-at for me! I'm aff!" And he went. So was the spirit of war bred in the souls of the men.It was sheer madness, the risks the troops would take on the beach when the Turks had fired old Beachy Bill from the Olive Grove—bathing under shell fire. But if needs must they always faced those shellings, anxious to get back to their job—to get supplies ashore before they were sunk, to get comrades away to comfort on the hospital ships. No amount of shelling interrupted the daily swim for long.
So you walk north back along the beach, pondering, looking up at the heights above Ari Burnu Point. You wonder at the men of the 3rd Brigade who stormed it and the ridge on your right. The idealness of the Point for machine guns to repel any landing, seems only too evident. You pass the Army Corps headquarters—a line of dugouts, well shielded from the sun with canvas and blankets. Above is the wireless station, with its widespread aerials on a bare hill—deserted except for a few casual men who had burrowed deep and took their chance—and immense searchlights for signalling in a cavern in the hill. Near at hand, too, is the Army Post Office, in a low wooden building, one of the few at Anzac. Tinkerings and hammerings arise from the bomb factory, next door almost, where the finishing touches are put to the jam-tin bombs, originally constructed in Egypt, and to the Turkish shell cases, converted into "surprise packets" by diligent sappers, who work day and night to keep pace with the demand for twice any number that the Turks might throw. Up farther on this bared hill is the corral built for the reception of Turkish prisoners. You meet them, tired-looking, sullen men, being marched down through the gully to the pier. Hereabouts is an incinerator, always smoking and exploding cartridges that have fallen into it.
You come to two more gullies before you reach the northern point of the Cove. Up one is the New Zealand Headquarters, bunched—huddled, in fact—on the side of the ravine, with the terrace in front, on which the leaders sit and yarn in the spare moments, watching the shells burst on the beach, the warships racing about from harbour to harbour, destroyers nosing slowly into the flanks of the position, aeroplanes skimming away to the Turkish lines. In the next and last gully there are many scores of placid mules, munching away, waiting for their work at sunset. You reach the Point (AriBurnu), a flat, rounded, rather sharp bend, and you find yourself amongst a great many mule-wagons, standing in the sand, and before you a 2-mile sweep of yellow beach (Ocean Beach) that bends round to Suvla Bay. There rises up from the shore a mass of knolls and hills, the under features of the Sari Bair ridge, with the Salt Lake (the salt sparkles in the sun) drying at their base. Immediately in the foreground, and to the left, are the abrupt terminations of the Sari Bair ridge: Sphinx Rock and the brown, clayey, bare slopes of Plugge's Plateau, the whole hillside so mouldered away with the lashing of the Mediterranean storms, that the shells which burst on it bring tumbling to the gullies below vast falls of earth, until it appears that the whole hill could easily be blown away. Away up higher, beyond, is the battle-line; its spent bullets come flopping about you, splashing up the water, flicking up the sand. They are never so spent that they won't penetrate your flesh or bones and stick.