HEADQUARTERS OF THE 5TH INFANTRY BATTALIONHEADQUARTERS OF THE 5TH INFANTRY BATTALION LOOKING TOWARDS POPE'S HILL.The terraces dug out of the side of the hill can be traced. The firing-line is forty yards over the crest.To face p. 198.
HEADQUARTERS OF THE 5TH INFANTRY BATTALION LOOKING TOWARDS POPE'S HILL.The terraces dug out of the side of the hill can be traced. The firing-line is forty yards over the crest.To face p. 198.
HEADQUARTERS OF THE 5TH INFANTRY BATTALION LOOKING TOWARDS POPE'S HILL.
The terraces dug out of the side of the hill can be traced. The firing-line is forty yards over the crest.
To face p. 198.
The shells from our guns in the valley just skimmed the tops of the trenches, clearing them about 12 feet and bursting in the enemy's lines. It was a very sensational experience until one got used to the sound and could detect which way the shells were travelling. It is told of this Post that two men were sitting in the trench talking in whispers when a shell came whining and roaring towards them. It burst. They did not rise to see where, but it was near. Said the new arrival to his mate, "Is that ours?"
"No," came the hissed reply, "theirs!"
"The——!" was the only vouchsafed and typically Anzac comment.
Yes, the Post was undoubtedly strong, for it could enfilade any attack from German Officers' Trench on the right, and the Turks knew that and attempted none. What was most amazing about the position were the series of gun-pits, dug out of the centre of a shoulder of the hill which ran down the right side of the position on the flank of the gully nearest to Courtney's. I went up through a winding passage-way, where blue-bottle flies kept up a drowsy humming. Every half-dozen yards there were small concealed openings in the side of the tunnel, through which I looked out on to the terraces and towards Pope's. When I reached the summit and found a series of three chambers each with ledges ready for machine guns, Lieut.-Colonel Malone explained. "This," he said, "is the place to which we might retire if the Turks did break through the Post and come down the gully side. We would catch them here. They cannot detect the guns, for they are hidden by this thick scrub. We are now on the side of that hill you saw on to which the Turks, from in front of Pope's and the Bloody Angle, can fire. We could reach them, but the Staff will not give me the machine guns. The reason is we have not enough, as it is, on the Post—not as many as I would like. I would like a dozen—we have seven. The enemy would never get us out of here till we starved." I no longer ceased to wonder why Quinn's was declared "perfectly safe."
To get across to Pope's you had to go down into the gully again by the steep way you had come, and travelanother 200 yards up towards its head until you came to an almost bare and precipitous hillside, which you climbed the best way you could, picking a path in and out amongst the dugouts. If you had a load of stores, you could go to a part where a rope hung down from the crown of the hill, about 100 feet up, and by it you might haul yourself to the top. Pope's was even more exposed than Quinn's when you entered it. The Commander's dugouts were perched on the back of the hill, facing the gully, and bullets and shells burst round his cave entrances. Lieut.-Colonel Rowell, of the 3rd Regiment of Light Horse, was in charge the day I went over every section of it. The Light Horsemen were desperately proud of their holding this dangerous and all-important knoll that blocked the entrance to the gully.
Here, again, there were tunnels connecting up the front and support trenches. They twisted about and wound in and out, conforming to the shape of the top of the hill. But they were not connected on either flank. It was just an isolated post. There were positions for machine guns that by a device were made disappearing guns. They were hauled up rapidly by a pulley and rope and then lowered out of sight again. It was a rough-and-ready makeshift, but the only means of keeping secret positions (on a hill that did not offer much scope for selection) for the guns. Iron loopholes were absolutely essential; an iron flap fell across them as soon as the rifle had been withdrawn. I remember standing opposite one of these till I was warned to move, and, sure enough, just afterwards some bullets went clean through and thumped against the back of the trench. Many men had been shot through the loopholes, so close were the enemy's snipers.
Down on the right flank of the post, just facing the head of Monash Gully and the Nek and Chessboard Trenches, was a remarkable series of sharpshooters' posts. They were reached through a tunnel which had been bored into the side of the hill. The bushes that grew on the edge had not been disturbed, and the Turks could know nothing of them. It was through these our crack rifle-shots fired on the Turks when they attempted, on various occasions, to come down through the head of Monash Gully from their trenches on the Chessboard and round the flank of Pope's Hill. Maps show the nearnessof the Turks' line to ours, scarcely more than 15 yards away in places: what they do not show is the mining and countermining beneath the surface. Constantly sections of trenches were being blown up by the diligent sappers, and in July, Pope's Hill had become almost an artificial hill, held together, one might say, by the sandbags that kept the saps and trenches intact. Words fail to convey the heartbreaking work of keeping the communications free and the trenches complete, for every Turkish shell that burst did damage of some sort, and nearly every morning early some portion of the post had to be rebuilt. Looking here across the intervening space—it was very narrow—to the right and left I could see the Turkish strong overhead cover on their trenches, made of wooden beams and pine logs. Between was no man's land.
What tragedy lay in this fearful neutral zone! The immediate foreground was littered with old jam-tins, some of which were unexploded "bombs." There was a rifle, covered with dust, and a heap of rags. My attention was called to the red collar of the upper portion of what had been a Turkish jacket, and gradually I made out the frame of the soldier, who had mouldered away, inside it. It was a pitiful sight. There were four other unburied men from the enemy's ranks. Nearer still was a boot and the skeleton leg of a Turk, lying as he had fallen in a crumpled heap. I gathered all this from the peeps I had through the periscope.
Such is an outline of what the posts that Lieut.-Colonel Pope and Major Quinn won and established, had developed into after months of fighting. Something has already been told of the early battles round them. It is impossible to chronicle all the attacks and counter-attacks. It must here suffice to continue the history already begun in other chapters by referring briefly to the sortie on 9th May, the third Sunday after landing.
Quinn's was still a precarious position. On both sides the engineers had been sapping forward, and the trenches were so close that the men shouted across to one another. Near midnight on the 9th, the 15th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Cannan, with two companies of the 16th in support, about 900 men in all, attacked the Turkish trenches in front of Quinn's. They issued forth in three separate bodies, and after a fierce struggle routed theTurks. Rapidly communication trenches were dug connecting up the forward with the rear trenches, which meant that two island patches of ground were formed. Then it was found that all three parties had not linked up, and the Turks held an intervening section of the line. An attempt by companies of the 15th and 16th Battalions failed to gain the Turkish parapets in the face of a terrible fire. When dawn broke the whole of the captured trenches became the centre of concentrated Turkish fire from two flanks, and our gallant men were compelled to make their way back along their new communication trenches to their own lines again. This, therefore, left the Turkish trenches and our own connected by three saps. It was an amazing position. Sandbag parapets had been hastily erected, and on either side of these the troops stood and bombed one another. The infantry called in Arabic they had learnt in Egypt, believing that the Turks would understand, "Saida" (which is "Good day") and other phrases. They threw across bully-beef tins or bombs, indiscriminately. It was what the troops called "good sport."
So the positions remained for five days until Friday, 14th May, when a Light Horse squadron of the 2nd Light Horse—C Squadron, under Major D. P. Graham—was chosen to attack the Turks and rout them from this unpleasantly close proximity to our line. The communication sap had first to be cleared. Two parties of men, 30 in each, with bayonets fixed, dashed from the trenches at 1.45 a.m. In the face of a tremendous machine-gun and musketry fire from the enemy they charged for the parapets, so short a distance away. The troops dropped rapidly. Major Graham, seeing his men melt away, endeavoured to rally those that remained. But the Turkish fire was too fierce, and the few that survived were compelled to jump into the communication sap, and thus make their way back to their lines. Major Graham himself, with the utmost coolness, brought in some of the wounded after the attack had failed, but at length he fell, mortally wounded. So ended the first May attack.
Desperate endeavours were made by the Turks, in their grand attack on 19th May, to enter our trenches, but the line was held safely under Major Quinn's command until Saturday, 29th May, when, after exploding a mine underpart of our forward position, a strong body of Turks managed to penetrate, during the early morning, to our second line. The Post was at that moment in a desperate position. Major Quinn himself, at the head of the gallant 15th Battalion, commenced to lead a counter-attack. The din of battle was terrific. Few fiercer conflicts had raged round the famous posts than on this cool, clear morning. The Turks were routed and driven back to their lines, but the brave leader, Major Quinn, fell, riddled with bullets, across the very trenches which his men had dug. So fierce had been the charge that a certain section of trench held by the enemy had been run over by our troops. In that the Turks clung. They were caught in between cross-fires, but held desperately the communication trenches. After various attempts to dislodge them it was suddenly thought that they might surrender, which solution, on being signalled to them, they willingly agreed to. The post was immediately strengthened, and the dangerous communication trenches were effectively blocked and held by machine guns.
Lieut.-Colonel Pope, after desperate fighting on the hill that bore his name, still survived to lead his battalion in the great August attacks. The brigade, and, indeed, the whole Division, mourned the loss of so gallant an officer and so fearless a leader as Major Quinn. They honour his name no less than that of the dauntless Pope.
There is no doubt that operations in May convinced General Sir Ian Hamilton that neither at the southern nor in the northern positions on the peninsula was his force strong enough to push back the Turks, though he held what he had won strongly enough. Consequently he cabled to the War Office, urging that reinforcements should be sent. But in the middle of May the withdrawal of the Russians from the Gallipoli campaign was declared from Petrograd, and the Commander-in-Chief found it necessary to increase his estimate of the force he would require to force his way across to the Narrows. His new demand was two additional army corps. Already the Lowland Division (52nd) had been dispatched, but this was but 20,000 men; four times as many were required to press home the offensive. The abatement of the Russian attacks had released about 100,000 of the finest Turkish troops, and these reinforcements began to arrive on the peninsula in June. General Hamilton writes in his last dispatch: "During June your Lordship became persuaded of the bearing of these facts, and I was promised three regular Divisions, plus the infantry of two Territorial Divisions. The advance guard of these troops was due to reach Mudros by 10th July; by 10th August their concentration was to be complete."
So thus before the end of May the Commander-in-Chief had in mind the larger plan, beginning a new phase of the campaign, to be carried out in July, or at the latest August. Therefore, it may be truly said, the June-July Anzac battles were fought as preparatory actions (in the absence of sufficiently strong forces) to clear and pave the way for the great August offensive. The grip on the Turks was tightened.
Fighting round Quinn's Post, as already related, hadbeen taking place during the greater part of May. Sometimes the Australians attacked, and, more seldom, the Turks counter-attacked. It was at any time a desperately held position. It continued so till the end of the chapter.
Now, while the Anzac troops could not yet advance, they could help any direct assault on Achi Baba, such as had been once tried in May with but partial success. So it happened on the 28th June the Anzac troops were ordered to make demonstrations to allow the pushing home by the English and French of attacks that had commenced on 8th May, when the Australians had taken so prominent a part in the advance on Krithia village. In this 28th June action the Gurkhas were ordered, and did advance, up the Great Dere, and flung the British flank round the west of that village. It was a fine gain of some 800 yards. However, the Turks had plenty of troops available, and they lost no time in organizing terrific counter-attacks. Owing to the offensive taken at Anzac the Australians were able to draw off a portion from this attack, which tactics at the same time both puzzled and harassed the Turks. The details I will briefly relate.
In June the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, under Brigadier-General Ryrie, held the southerly portion of the line at Tasman's Post, that overlooked Blamey's Meadow. Next them, holding the line, were the 3rd Infantry Brigade, under Brigadier-General Maclagan, reinforced now with new troops, though with still a proportion of the men that had taken part in the landing. Except for patrol work and various small excursions and alarms against the Turks, there had been no big attack made yet. They were keen for battle.
All the night of the 27th-28th and during the morning masses of shells could be seen bursting on the hills round Krithia, and sheets of flame rolled along the slopes of the hills as the warships and the guns ashore bombarded the Turkish trenches. Early on the 28th news had been received that all efforts of the Turks to drive back the British had failed. The troops at Anzac revelled in that great artillery struggle. At midday their turn came.
For the first time, a day attack was planned. The Light Horse were to leave their trenches at one o'clock. Destroyers moved close in to Gaba Tepe and to the north of the Australian position, and began an intense shelling of the exposed Turkish trenches, that in some places wereopen to enfilade fire. Soon the artillery ashore began, and added further havoc. In front of the southern part of our line, near Harris Ridge, about 600 yards away, was a strong Turkish position on a rise—one of the many spurs of the main ridge. This was the objective of the attacking troops. All Queenslanders, Light Horse, and infantry, had been selected—a squadron and two companies, about 500 men, who were to lead the charge. They were to be led by Lieut.-Colonel H. Harris. The Western Australian Infantry, about 300 in all, were chosen to support the Queensland (9th) Infantry, led by Major Walsh; and New South Wales (7th) Light Horse Regiment, to support the Queensland (5th) dismounted squadron.
Just after one o'clock the guns ceased, and the storming parties of Queenslanders dashed forward from their trenches, and, with comparatively few casualties, gained a footing on the nearest slope of the ridge, that was covered with thick brush. They found certain protection, and there they commenced to entrench. Just over the ridge was a plateau of cultivated ground, called "The Wheatfield," and across this the Turks had dug trenches at right angles to the ridge. From the trenches that the Light Horsemen had left, rifle fire could be kept up on these trenches. Beyond, the strong Turkish positions on Wineglass Ridge and Pine Ridge were being shelled by the destroyers and the New Zealand artillery. However, it did not take the Turks long to bring gun fire on these advanced troops, and high-explosive shell burst in the shallow trenches. The brown and red earth was flung up in dense clouds, but the troops held to their position. They went on digging. It was as fine an example of courage as one might wish to see—these splendid men calmly entrenching amidst the craters the shells left round them. Soon, however, the very object of the offensive was disclosed to the Australians themselves, for they could see Turkish reinforcements being hurried up in the distant gullies (they had come from the village of Eski Keui, half-way down the peninsula to Krithia). Turkish leaders could be seen in the fierce sunlight signalling to their troops to keep low, as they could be observed by our forces; and no doubt the Turks with their white fezzes and skull-caps made excellent targets, as they soon found, to their consternation andcost, by the accuracy of our gun fire. These enemy reinforcements were scattered, and, in disorder, sought what shelter they could in the gullies.
Having held the ridge and accomplished the diversion, the Light Horse gradually retired and regained their own trenches. By 4.30 in the afternoon the infantry too had been withdrawn from the advanced position. So not only had the attack been successful in drawing up Turks who would otherwise have gone to the assistance of their comrades hard pressed around Krithia, but they were, through bad leadership, brought up into positions in gullies which our guns had registered, and terrible casualties resulted. Both the Queensland units—Light Horse as well as infantry—had shown fine gallantry, and they were dashingly led by Lieut.-Colonel Harris.
Once having stirred the Turk, it behoved the Australians to be ready for a counter-attack. But Tuesday, 29th, remained still and quiet; only the occasional bursting of a bomb round Quinn's and Pope's Posts and the intermittent crack of rifles, broke the calm of a perfect summer day. To the enemy there had been every indication that a serious advance was contemplated from Anzac. During the afternoon, growing nervous of the close approach of some of our mine tunnels under their trenches, the Turks exploded their countermines, which would effectively seal any advance from underground and through craters. Just afterwards a summer storm arose, which enveloped the Turkish lines in clouds of dust. What better opportunity could have presented itself for our attack? No sooner had the wind driven the dust over the trenches than the enemy commenced a fierce fire, which they maintained without ceasing for two hours. The stream of lead that passed over our trenches was terrific. Only when the storm abated did the Turkish rifle and machine gun fire die away. All of this the enemy did to check an anticipated advance which we had no intention of making. Millions of rounds of Turkish ammunition had been wasted.
But the Turks now determined to turn the situation to their own purpose, which apparently was to draw attention to their lines in this southern section, while they prepared to launch, unexpectedly, an attack from another quarter. The Australian leaders were already aware of this method of surprise, and had come tolook on it as part of the Turkish "bluff"; for the enemy had tried it before, when they had blown bugles and shouted orders and given loud commands in their trenches, and nothing had happened—not at that spot. Now the firing ceased just before midnight.
An hour and a half later the enemy began a violent attack on the Nek, with new troops belonging to the 18th Regiment of the enemy's 6th Division. They had come recently from Asia Minor, and were some of the best troops of the Turkish Regular Army. Enver Pasha himself, the Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish forces, had ordered the attack so that the Australians might, once and for all, be "pushed into the sea." In this way began an attempt to rush our trenches at the head of Monash Gully. The line was here held by New Zealanders and Light Horse. On this left flank considerable rearrangement from the earlier days had taken place. The Maories held the extreme left down to the shore. On Russell Top were the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, under Brigadier-General Russell, and the 3rd Light Horse, under Brigadier-General Hughes. These fine men held the trenches opposite the mass of Turkish lines, the Chessboard Trenches. Brigadier General Chauvel's Light Horse Brigade was in the trenches at Quinn's and Pope's, together with some New Zealand infantry regiments. Thus was the gap at the head of Monash Gully up as far as Steel's Post, held.
From midnight till 1.30 an intense fire of musketry and guns was poured on to our trenches on Russell's Top. It was still bright moonlight when, in a series of lines, the Turks commenced to attack at 1.30. They came shambling on, shouting "Allah! Allah!" towards the parapets of our trenches, less than 100 yards across the Nek. At this spot the Light Horsemen had been digging out two saps towards the enemy, and it was into these some of the enemy charged, our troops dividing to allow them to enter. Then the Australians fell on them from either side with bombs, and none escaped. For it was the habit of the Turk when he attacked, not to jump into the trench and come to hand-to-hand encounters if he could help it, but to lie on top of the parapet and fire down into the trench. Very few of the enemy, in these three charges that came and faded away, reached our lines. When the first chargehad been so blankly stopped not many yards after it began, the Turks tried to work along the northern edge of the ridge, where the ground fell away steeply into the gullies below, and on the southern side of the Nek, where the ground was no less difficult, but not as deep, sloping down to the head of Monash Gully. Our machine guns wrought fearful havoc, and 400 Turks at least perished in the charges. Then the destroyers sent the rays of their searchlights farther up the hill towards the rounded top of Baby 700, and revealed the enemy reserves advancing. Gun fire destroyed these.
Meanwhile, a further attack was developing down the heads of the gullies on either side of Pope's Hill, the hill that guarded the entrance to the gully, and the centre of the position. I have already told how from the sides of this hill machine guns were trained down into the gully; and how the line of concealed sharp-shooters' posts we had established, gave absolute command, and at the same time protection, to the holders of the gully. The bright rays of the moon aided the defenders, and they could easily detect the stealthily moving figures. Towards one o'clock the Turks commenced to work down this gully. It is related of that fight—an incident typical, no doubt, of many—that a Light Horseman, seeing a Turk silhouetted on the edge of the ridge, rushed at him with his bayonet, and the two men slipped over the edge of the cliff, down through the bush and loose earth, till they both were brought up almost face to face on a ledge. They crossed bayonets—one pictures the two figures in the indefinite light of the moon standing there motionless for a fraction of a minute—till the Australian, realizing that he had in his magazine a cartridge, pulled the trigger. When his comrades came to his assistance, dashing through the undergrowth, they found him with the dead Turk, smiling.
Now, it was evident the Turks had meant to stay in that attack. The few men that did reach the trenches on Russell's Top, and were killed there, must have been men of the second or third lines. They carried large numbers of bombs and digging implements. They had quantities of provisions—figs, dates, and olives—and water-bottles filled. They were evidently intended to be the holding party. As daylight came, some of the enemy still lurked in the head of the gully on eitherflank of Pope's Hill. Just before dawn a further line of 300 men attempted to rush the head of the gully. They reached the edge of the cliff, and then broke into small parties running this way and that, under the fire of our machine guns, which played on them from the Light Horse lines on Russell's Top (the main charge by this having faded away) and from the side of Pope's Hill. At the same time a few of the enemy left their trenches at Quinn's to rush our post on the side of the hill. None got more than a few yards. All the men of that last desperate attack were killed or wounded. A few were taken prisoners.
The scene next morning was ghastly. In the saps on the Nek twenty and thirty dead Turks lay piled in a row. Before Pope's Hill, never very strongly threatened that night, there were scores of dead. The total loss must have been nearly 600 killed and 2,000 casualties. It is historically important as the last Turkish attack against Anzac proper. The Turks showed a desperate courage; for this attack on the Nek was but sending troops to certain destruction; yet the men never flinched, and they were soon to show the same valour again, in attacks on the higher slopes of the Sari Bair ridge.
Throughout July it was always expected that the enemy's superstition would lead him to make a bold effort in the season of Ramazan—the end of July. Warnings had reached Anzac to this effect. Prisoners had anticipated it, probably due to the orders of Enver Pasha to dislodge at all costs the Australian forces. The enemy had been bringing up new regiments. All through July the Turks showed a nervous disposition to burst out into heavy fusillades all along the line. At night they sent coloured lights over the gullies and our position. Our gunners did the same, at the time when the moon dropped behind the hills of Troy, between midnight and 3 a.m. The troops stood to arms at moonset. Our trenches were then always fully manned. The reserves slept in the saps.
THE GREAT SAPTHE GREAT SAP LEADING FROM NO. 2 OUTPOST INTO ANZAC ROUND ARI BURNU POINT.Fishermen's huts were situated half-way along the beach (Ocean Beach). Russell Top and Plugge's Plateau in the distance.
THE GREAT SAP LEADING FROM NO. 2 OUTPOST INTO ANZAC ROUND ARI BURNU POINT.Fishermen's huts were situated half-way along the beach (Ocean Beach). Russell Top and Plugge's Plateau in the distance.
THE GREAT SAP LEADING FROM NO. 2 OUTPOST INTO ANZAC ROUND ARI BURNU POINT.
Fishermen's huts were situated half-way along the beach (Ocean Beach). Russell Top and Plugge's Plateau in the distance.
TURKISH PRISONERS DIGGING NEW DUGOUTSTURKISH PRISONERS DIGGING NEW DUGOUTS FOR GENERAL GODLEY NEAR NO. 2 POST, AFTER THE FIRST AUGUST OFFENSIVE.To face p. 218.
TURKISH PRISONERS DIGGING NEW DUGOUTS FOR GENERAL GODLEY NEAR NO. 2 POST, AFTER THE FIRST AUGUST OFFENSIVE.To face p. 218.
TURKISH PRISONERS DIGGING NEW DUGOUTS FOR GENERAL GODLEY NEAR NO. 2 POST, AFTER THE FIRST AUGUST OFFENSIVE.
To face p. 218.
Ramazan passed; and still the Turks clung to the protection of their trenches. The June battles had completely disheartened them. Their ammunition was running short. Certainly ours had been none too plentiful, and orders had been given since May to conserve it as far as possible. Two rounds per guna day was the limit, except under special circumstances. As General Hamilton himself admitted, "Working out my ammunition allowance, I found I would accumulate just enough high-explosive shell to enable me to deliver one serious attack each period of three weeks." It was exceedingly exasperating to the gunners, this shortage. There came times when, owing to the necessity of getting permission from headquarters, the gunners grew impatient, as they saw targets escaping into the folds of the hills. A General told me on one occasion how a column could be seen moving about 4 miles away, but owing to the delay of hours in getting the necessary permission to loose off some twenty rounds of shell, the column escaped. He had fired his allowance per gun, as was his invariable custom, just to remind "Abdul" he was awake, early in the morning.
It was not, however, Sir Ian Hamilton's plan to draw much attention to Anzac just at present. He wanted the Turkish mind focused on Cape Helles, which was one reason for the period of quiet that occurred in July at Anzac, though care was taken that the moral ascendancy that had been gained over the Turks by the Australians was never lost, and not one whit less was given to the Turks now than had been given before in vigilant sniping and bombing. But the effect on the spirits of the Turks was noticeable, and at the end of July, long before the official information leaked out to the troops, there appeared in the trenches opposite Quinn's Post a notice-board, on which was printed in irregular letters, "Warsaw is fallin." The result of which little enemy joke was that thousands of rifle bullets shattered the notice. Notes began to be thrown over stating that the Australians would be well treated if they surrendered. In spite of which, Turkish deserters still continued to come into our lines, all of whom told of the growing fear of the Turks at the length of the campaign, and the disheartening of their troops. Incidentally, I may say, prisoners all believed they were going to be killed. I remember Major Martyn telling me how one party, on coming through a communication trench to our lines, had tried to kiss his hands in gratitude at being spared.
So, chafing under the delayed advance, the Australians waited for their chance to teach "Abdul" a lasting lesson.
It will have been gathered from the fighting that followed the terrible May attack of the Turks, when they lost so heavily in trying to dislodge the Australians from Anzac and British from Helles, that nothing would have satisfied our commanders better than for a Turkish attack to develop during the end of July. This, I feel certain in saying, would have been repulsed, as others had been repulsed, and would have left the Turkish army weak, just at the moment when General Sir Ian Hamilton had completed all his plans for the continuing of the Great Adventure begun in April. The rumours of a projected Turkish attack at Anzac proved groundless. The Australians were left unmolested, while the Turks, conceiving that the British still intended to attempt the assault of Achi Baba, had gathered on the end of the peninsula great reserve forces. General Hamilton's strategy had had much to do with this (the great sacrifices of the attacks on Krithia would not then have seemed so vain had the full plan succeeded), for in his mind was just the reverse idea—that Anzac should be the turning-point, the pivot of all operations, as it had been intended from the first. It was to become the centre of an unlinked battle front, of which Cape Helles was the right flank and Suvla Bay was to be the left. An attack launched from this left—a new and an entirely unexpected left—would leave a way for the centre to push forward. Then automatically would the right have advanced.
This strategy was really an elaboration of the early plan of the Commander-in-Chief, aimed at the cutting of the Turkish communications to the great dominatingfortress of Kelid Bahr, which afterwards could be reduced at leisure with the co-operation of the Navy. It has been often asked what advantage would have accrued from the Australians and the new British troops reaching Maidos and holding the heights of Koja Chemen Tepe. None less than the forcing of the Turkish communication from Europe into Asia, and that they should be compelled to undertake the very hazardous and doubtful operation of keeping intact the Gibraltar of the peninsula—the Kelid Bahr fortress—by supplying it across the Narrows from Chanak and the badly railwayed coast of Asia Minor.
But there were alternative plans open to General Hamilton, and such will always give opportunity to military strategists to debate the one adopted. What General Hamilton knew in May was that he would have 200,000 new British troops by August at his command, with 20,000 Australian reinforcements on their way and due to arrive about the middle of the same month. His army, as he commanded it then, was about 150,000 strong (including the French Expedition), and its strength might easily be diminished to 100,000 by August owing to normal wastage, Turkish offensives, and sickness that began to make itself evident. Two hundred thousand men to attack an Empire! In the days of its Byzantine glory, in the times of the early struggles for Balkan supremacy, such an army would have been considered noble. Now, though British, it was not enough. Apparently the situation on the Western front did not warrant another 100,000 men that General Hamilton had asked for more than once, to give him a safe margin, being granted him. The Turks, released from their toils against Russia on the east in the Caucasus—the Mesopotamian front not seriously threatened and the attack on the Canal being impossible—found ample men at their disposal. On the other hand, they had a long and vulnerable coast-line to guard, but the 900,000 men of that German organized and commanded army, made a powerful fighting force. Nearly 400,000 troops were apportioned for service on the peninsula. I am not asserting that that number of men were facing the landed armies, but they were available, some perhaps as far away as Adrianople or the Gulf of Enos. If General Hamilton's problem was a difficult one, Enver Pasha's way was notexactly smooth. He was harassed by lack of heavy ammunition, the populace were wavering, while above all hung the terrible threat of another landing on the European or Asiatic shores.
But one factor the British leader had to ponder deeply was the submarine menace that had been threatening the very existence of the already landed armies. Two fine warships, theTriumphandMajestic, had been sunk in May while shelling and guarding the positions ashore, and the fleet had been compelled to seek shelter in the harbour of Mudros. Even though monitors, with 14-in. guns, were soon available to maintain the invaluable support that the battleships had previously given to the army, there was not the weight of artillery of a highly mobile nature, ready for any emergency, without the Admiralty were prepared to hazard a great loss. Transportation of troops and stores was dangerous and subject to irritating, and even dangerous, delays. General Hamilton sums up the situation in a masterly fashion in his final dispatch:—
Eliminating the impracticable, I had already narrowed down the methods of employing these fresh forces to one of the following four:—(a) Every man to be thrown on to the southern sector of the peninsula,to force a way forward to the Narrows.(b) Disembarkation on the Asiatic side of the Straits, followed by amarch on Chanak.(c) A landing at Enos or Ibrije for the purpose of seizing the neck ofthe Isthmus at Bulair.(d) Reinforcement of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps,combined with a landing in Suvla Bay. Then with one strongpush to capture Hill 305 [971], and, working from that dominatingpoint, to grip the waist of the peninsula.As to (a) I rejected that course—1. Because there were limits to the numbers which could be landedand deployed in one confined area.2. Because the capture of Krithia could no longer be counted uponto give us Achi Baba, an entirely new system of works havinglately appeared upon the slopes of that mountain—works soplanned that even if the enemy's western flank was turned anddriven back from the coast, the central and eastern portions of themountain could still be maintained as a bastion to Kelid Bahr.3. Because if I tried to disengage myself both from Krithia and AchiBaba by landing due west of Kelid Bahr my troops would beexposed to artillery fire from Achi Baba, the Olive Grove, andKelid Bahr itself; the enemy's large reserves were too handy;there were not fair chances of success.As to (b), although much of the Asiatic coast had now been wired and entrenched, the project was still attractive. Thereby the Turkish forces onthe peninsula would be weakened; our beaches at Cape Helles would be freed from Asiatic shells; the threat to the enemy's sea communications was obvious. But when I descended into detail I found that the expected reinforcements would not run to a double operation. I mean that, unless I could make a thorough, whole-hearted attack on the enemy in the peninsula I should reap no advantage in that theatre from the transference of the Turkish peninsular troops to reinforce Asia, whereas, if the British forces landed in Asia were not strong enough in themselves seriously to threaten Chanak, the Turks for their part would not seriously relax their grip upon the peninsula.To cut the land communications of the whole of the Turkish peninsular army, as in (c), was a better scheme on paper than on the spot. The naval objections appeared to my coadjutor, Vice-Admiral Robeck, well-nigh insurmountable. Already, owing to submarine dangers, all reinforcements, ammunition, and supplies had to be brought up from Mudros to Helles or Anzac by night in fleet sweepers and trawlers. A new landing near Bulair would have added another 50 miles to the course such small craft must cover, thus placing too severe a strain upon the capacities of the flotilla.The landing promised special hazards, owing to the difficulty of securing the transports and covering ships from submarine attack. Ibrije has a bad beach, and the distance to Enos, the only point suitable to a disembarkation on a large scale, was so great that the enemy would have had time to organize a formidable opposition from his garrisons in Thrace. Four divisions at least would be required to overcome such opposition. These might now be found; but, even so, and presupposing every other obstacle overcome, it was by no manner of means certain that the Turkish army on the peninsula would thereby be brought to sue for terms, or that the Narrows would thereby be opened to the fleet. The enemy would still be able to work supplies across the Straits from Chanak. The swiftness of the current, the shallow draft of the Turkish lighters, the guns of the forts, made it too difficult even for our dauntless submarine commanders to paralyse movement across these land-locked waters. To achieve that purpose I must bring my artillery fire to bear both on the land and water communications of the enemy.This brings me to (d), the storming of that dominating height, Hill 305 [971], with the capture of Maidos and Gaba Tepe as its sequel.From the very first I had hoped that by landing a force under the heights of Sari Bair we should be able to strangle the Turkish communications to the southwards, whether by land or sea, and so clear the Narrows for the fleet. Owing to the enemy's superiority, both in numbers and in position; owing to underestimates of the strength of the original entrenchments prepared and sited under German direction; owing to the constant dwindling of the units of my force through wastage; owing also to the intricacy and difficulty of the terrain, these hopes had not hitherto borne fruit. But they were well founded. So much at least had clearly enough been demonstrated by the desperate and costly nature of the Turkish attacks. The Australians and New Zealanders had rooted themselves in very near to the vitals of the enemy. By their tenacity and courage they still held open the doorway from which one strong thrust forward might give us command of the Narrows.From the naval point of view the auspices were also favourable. Suvla Bay was but one mile further from Mudros than Anzac, and its possessionwould ensure us a submarine-proof base, and a harbour good against gales, excepting those from the south-west. There were, as might be expected, some special difficulties to be overcome. The broken, intricate country—the lack of water—the consequent anxious supply questions. Of these it can only be said that a bad country is better than an entrenched country, and that supply and water problems may be countered by careful preparation.
Eliminating the impracticable, I had already narrowed down the methods of employing these fresh forces to one of the following four:—
As to (a) I rejected that course—
As to (b), although much of the Asiatic coast had now been wired and entrenched, the project was still attractive. Thereby the Turkish forces onthe peninsula would be weakened; our beaches at Cape Helles would be freed from Asiatic shells; the threat to the enemy's sea communications was obvious. But when I descended into detail I found that the expected reinforcements would not run to a double operation. I mean that, unless I could make a thorough, whole-hearted attack on the enemy in the peninsula I should reap no advantage in that theatre from the transference of the Turkish peninsular troops to reinforce Asia, whereas, if the British forces landed in Asia were not strong enough in themselves seriously to threaten Chanak, the Turks for their part would not seriously relax their grip upon the peninsula.
To cut the land communications of the whole of the Turkish peninsular army, as in (c), was a better scheme on paper than on the spot. The naval objections appeared to my coadjutor, Vice-Admiral Robeck, well-nigh insurmountable. Already, owing to submarine dangers, all reinforcements, ammunition, and supplies had to be brought up from Mudros to Helles or Anzac by night in fleet sweepers and trawlers. A new landing near Bulair would have added another 50 miles to the course such small craft must cover, thus placing too severe a strain upon the capacities of the flotilla.
The landing promised special hazards, owing to the difficulty of securing the transports and covering ships from submarine attack. Ibrije has a bad beach, and the distance to Enos, the only point suitable to a disembarkation on a large scale, was so great that the enemy would have had time to organize a formidable opposition from his garrisons in Thrace. Four divisions at least would be required to overcome such opposition. These might now be found; but, even so, and presupposing every other obstacle overcome, it was by no manner of means certain that the Turkish army on the peninsula would thereby be brought to sue for terms, or that the Narrows would thereby be opened to the fleet. The enemy would still be able to work supplies across the Straits from Chanak. The swiftness of the current, the shallow draft of the Turkish lighters, the guns of the forts, made it too difficult even for our dauntless submarine commanders to paralyse movement across these land-locked waters. To achieve that purpose I must bring my artillery fire to bear both on the land and water communications of the enemy.
This brings me to (d), the storming of that dominating height, Hill 305 [971], with the capture of Maidos and Gaba Tepe as its sequel.
From the very first I had hoped that by landing a force under the heights of Sari Bair we should be able to strangle the Turkish communications to the southwards, whether by land or sea, and so clear the Narrows for the fleet. Owing to the enemy's superiority, both in numbers and in position; owing to underestimates of the strength of the original entrenchments prepared and sited under German direction; owing to the constant dwindling of the units of my force through wastage; owing also to the intricacy and difficulty of the terrain, these hopes had not hitherto borne fruit. But they were well founded. So much at least had clearly enough been demonstrated by the desperate and costly nature of the Turkish attacks. The Australians and New Zealanders had rooted themselves in very near to the vitals of the enemy. By their tenacity and courage they still held open the doorway from which one strong thrust forward might give us command of the Narrows.
From the naval point of view the auspices were also favourable. Suvla Bay was but one mile further from Mudros than Anzac, and its possessionwould ensure us a submarine-proof base, and a harbour good against gales, excepting those from the south-west. There were, as might be expected, some special difficulties to be overcome. The broken, intricate country—the lack of water—the consequent anxious supply questions. Of these it can only be said that a bad country is better than an entrenched country, and that supply and water problems may be countered by careful preparation.
It has been pointed out before what need there was for studying the moon at Anzac. In the fixing of the date for the new landing the Commander-in-Chief had to find a means of "eliminating" the moon. That is, he had to find the night which would give him the longest hours of darkness, after the arrival of his forces. He found that on 7th August the moon would rise at 2 p.m. The weather might be depended on to be perfect, so that before the light would be fully cast over the movements of the troops ashore it would be almost dawn. General Hamilton would have liked the operations to have commenced a month earlier, he says, but the troops were not available. He had to fill in the time by keeping the enemy occupied and wearing them down with feints. To have waited for another month till the whole of his command had actually arrived on the adjacent islands of Mudros and Imbros, where their concentration had been planned, would have been to come too close to the approaching bad season and increase the element of risk of the Turks discovering the plans. So the die was cast.
Early in July, I was in Alexandria—the main base of the army. Even there the general opinion seemed to be that surely soon there must be an attack, for such vast quantities of stores were being sent to the peninsula. Never could one forget the sight of the wharves at that seaport, burdened to their utmost capacity with cases that contained not only the staple food of the army—beef and biscuits—but butter, cheese, jams, and vast quantities of entrenching weapons. The whole of Egypt was scoured for the last man that could be spared. Whole companies of Australians were organized from the men who had been left on guard duty—men who were keen to get away, but had been compelled to stay. Reinforcements were hurried forward to complete their training, even in the rear of the firing-line of Anzac. Hospital ships were prepared, hospitals were cleared in anticipation of the thousands of returning wounded.
GALLIPOLI PENINSULAGALLIPOLI PENINSULA AND THE OUTSTANDING FEATURES OF THE AUSTRALIAN AND BRITISH POSITIONS. THE SHADED PORTION REPRESENTS THE ORIGINAL ANZAC LINE.
GALLIPOLI PENINSULA AND THE OUTSTANDING FEATURES OF THE AUSTRALIAN AND BRITISH POSITIONS. THE SHADED PORTION REPRESENTS THE ORIGINAL ANZAC LINE.
GALLIPOLI PENINSULA AND THE OUTSTANDING FEATURES OF THE AUSTRALIAN AND BRITISH POSITIONS. THE SHADED PORTION REPRESENTS THE ORIGINAL ANZAC LINE.
At Mudros Harbour camps and bivouacs were scattered all round the harbour front. I saw a whole brigade of British troops disembarked from the massiveMauretaniaand bivouacked under the open sky. Immensely cheery bodies of men they were, waiting for the weeks to slip by till the appointed day. This island of Lemnos lay 40 miles from the firing-line. Closer by 30 miles to the firing-line was Imbros, where thousands of other troops were gathered as far as the capacities of the island (the water supply was the problem; a ship was moored close inshore and pumped water all day into long lines of tanks) permitted. In order to refresh the men already in the fighting-line they were rested at Imbros in battalions, the only relief they had had, since they landed, from the roar of the shells. But there came a day when this had to cease, for the resources of the naval and trawling services were strained to the utmost collecting stores and bringing forward fresh troops.
Kephalos Bay, at Imbros, was not much of an anchorage, but a boom and protecting nets kept out the submarines, and good weather favoured the operations. Gurkhas, Maoris, New Zealanders, Australians, and British troops were on the island, camped amongst the vineyards, that were just ripening. General Hamilton's headquarters were on the most southern promontory of the island, and near by were the aeroplane hangars, from which, morning and evening, patrols rose, sweeping up the Straits. Never out of sight of the land, never out of the sound of the guns, one viewed from this point the vast panorama of the peninsula. General Hamilton guided the operations from that spot, as being the most central and giving rapid access to any one of his three fighting fronts. Wharves had been built by parties of Egyptian engineers, who had been brought up specially from Cairo. The presence of Turkish prisoners in camp in a hollow and the native Greeks in their loose, slovenly garments, completed the extraordinary concourse of nations that were represented on this picturesque and salubrious island.
In the harbour were anchored some of the weirdest craft that the Navy possessed—the new heavy monitors that had been of such service already along the Belgian coast and the baby monitors that had been down the African coast and up the Tigris River. Four large andtwo small of these shallow-draught craft there were, whose main attribute was their unsinkableness. In the same category must be ranged the converted cruisers of old and antiquated patterns—for naval ships—from whose sides bulged a false armour-shield which was calculated to destroy the torpedo before it reached or could injure the inner shell of the vessel. And, lastly, to this extraordinary fleet must be added the armoured landing-punts, that sometimes drifted, sometimes steamed about the harbour, crammed with a thousand troops each. The motive-power was an oil-engine that gave them a speed of just 5 miles an hour. From the front there hung a huge platform that could be let down as required: across it the troops, emerging from the hold, where they were packed behind bullet-proof screens, might dash ashore. As all the weight of the craft was at the stern, its blunted prow would rest on the shore. From these strange vessels the troops destined for service at Suvla Bay practised landing assiduously.
Finally, there were the preparations on the peninsula itself. Terraces and trenches had to be prepared for the new army that was to be secretly conveyed at night to the Anzac and from which they would issue forth to the support of the Australians and form the link with the British armies to operate on the left flank at Suvla Bay. I suppose the observers in the German aeroplanes that were chased from above our lines might well have wondered why the ledges were being dug in the sides of the small valleys—that is, if they could detect them at all. What they certainly would not see would be the huge quantities of ammunition, millions and millions of rounds, that for days was being taken out through the long sap to our No. 2 outpost on the north, already strengthened with reinforcements from the Light Horse and New Zealand Rifle regiments. Both at Imbros and at Anzac there were vast numbers of Egyptian water-cans and ordinary tins (which probably once had contained honey or biscuits), ready filled with water for the landing troops. Down at the wells in the valleys pumps had increased the capacity of the daily supply, and the tanks in the gullies were kept full—except when the wretched steam-engine employed at Anzac, broke down. Why so poor a thing should have been obtained it is difficult to conceive,when more up-to-date plant might easily have been found.
But the greatest feat of all was the landing of guns, both at Helles and at Anzac. At the end of July there were at Cape Helles one hundred and twenty-four guns, composed of the following units:—
VIIIth Army Corps, comprising the artillery of 29th Division, 42nd Division, 52nd Division, and Royal Naval Division. Attached were 1st Australian Brigade (Colonel Christian): 6th Australian Battery (Major Stevenson), 3rd New Zealand Battery.
At Anzac there were over seventy guns, under Brigadier-General Cunliffe Owen, when the great offensive began, from 10-pounder mountain batteries to a 6-in. battery of field guns, howitzers, and a 9-in gun. There were guns on every available ridge and in every hollow; they were along the great northern sap, firing over it on to the northern slopes of the Sari Bair ridge, until they gradually were dragged out along the beach to the new ground won by the Australian and New Zealand Division. Owing to the closeness of the enemy positions, the small space available at Anzac, and the height of the hills, the guns were firing across one another's fronts.
In all this magnificently conceived plan of General Hamilton's, one thing that stands out above all others is the manner in which the Turks were deceived. This in some measure may be attributed to the way in which the Turkish and German observing aeroplanes were chased from the skies, for the French and British aviators had the upper hand. On a few occasions the enemy did venture forth, but only at great altitudes; invariably very swiftly they were compelled to return to their lines by the Allied aviators. The enemy's hangars behind the forts at Chanak were destroyed during one air raid, organized by Flight-Commander Sampson, from Tenedos. Now, General Hamilton determined on certain main ruses, and left the formulation of any plans to help the Anzac position to Lieut.-General Birdwood, which I shall mention in their place. As for the general scheme, the Commander-in-Chief writes:—