THE BATTLE OF BRIGHTON BEACH
Four months in camp under the passionless gaze of the great Sphinx
had shaken the men into a thoroughly fit and efficient army. It had
also wearied them into an ardent desire to be up and doing. Each day
brought them news of the fierce fighting in Belgium and Northern
France. Their cousins and friendly rivals from Canada had already won
undying glory, and the Australasians chafed at the monotonous round
of hard work and military discipline that seemed to lead to nothing.
Not for this had they come half-way across the world; they yearned to
be in the thick of it, and show how they could fight for the Empire
they were so proud to serve.
The glad excitement that followed the announcement that they were
detailed for active and immediate service can well be imagined; and
additional joy was displayed when it became known that they were to
serve on the classic battleground that borders the Dardanelles. And
indeed, there is something of the miraculous in the dispatch of this
composite army from two nations that dwell where a century and a half
ago no white man existed to the scene of the first great adventure
recorded in written history: the quest of the Golden Fleece.
Their land of the Golden Fleece lay thousands of miles away, still
unscarred by any war, whatever the future may hold for it. Many of
them, until they embarked on this momentous expedition, had never
seen any other lands than their own. They had read of the adventures
of Homer's heroes, but the scene of those exploits might as well
have been laid in some other planet, for all the conception they
could form of it. They knew that Alexander the Great had crossed the
Dardanelles with a force no greater than their own, and had returned
as Conqueror of Asia. For thousands of years the possession of those
few miles of narrow sea passage had been the subject of contention
among nations that had passed away for ever. Now they, the first real
army of the newest nations, came to dispute its possession with an
old and decadent race, which for hundreds of years had terrorized
Eastern Europe.
Yes, these sheep-farmers and fruit-growers, these land agents and
miners and city clerks, were the new Argonauts. They had left
the Golden Fleece behind them, and the peaceful sunlit plains of
Australia. They had deserted the wind-swept heights of New Zealand,
where the salt breeze fans the cheek, and the snow-clad summits
of the mountains are mirrored in the placid bosoms of lakes more
beautiful than any the Old World has ever seen. Their quest was
honour for themselves and the young races they represented; they went
to fight for justice, for the unity of the Empire, for the cause of
the weak and small nations of Europe. Surely their dispatch to the
Dardanelles ranks with the greatest of great adventures.
The whole of the Dardanelles Expedition was commanded by General Sir
Ian Hamilton, a familiar name and figure to Australasians, since he
was instrumental, by his report on the state of the Australasian
defence forces, and by his recommendations, in the establishment
of the system of compulsory military training in vogue throughout
Australasia. Sir Ian Hamilton's plans provided for a number of
separate but simultaneous landings on the peninsula of Gallipoli;
and, as a blind, a landing by the French troops which formed a
component part of the force at his disposal, on the Asiatic shore
of the Dardanelles. Owing to the strong fortifications and defences
which had been contrived by the Turks upon plans of German origin,
the task of effecting a landing was an extremely difficult one; von
der Goltz, the German general who had designed the defences, boasted
that it was impossible of accomplishment. His boast, like that of the
_Emden's_ captain, was soon to be proved an empty and vainglorious
one.
The place chosen for the landing of the Australasians was Gaba Tepe,
a high point on the Gulf of Saros, opposite the town of Maidos on the
Straits. It should be pointed out here that the landing of troops at
this point was of the highest strategical importance, as the presence
of a hostile force there would be a continual menace to the Turkish
communications. A successful advance of such a force would drive a
wedge between the strong forts at the Narrows, on which the attack of
the Allies was concentrated, and the Turkish base at Constantinople.
The actual landing party was the Third Australian Brigade, a mixed
body of men from Queensland, South Australia and West Australia,
commanded by Colonel Sinclair Maclagan, D.S.O. These men 1,500 in
number, embarked at Mudros Bay on April 24 on British battleships,
and set out for Gaba Tepe. Following them were men of the 1st
and 2nd Brigades, a covering force of 2,500. These were conveyed
to the landing place in transports. The reason of embarking the
actual landing force in warships was fairly obvious. It was hoped
that a landing on the rough and inaccessible spot chosen for the
Australasians might be effected unopposed; and it was argued that the
Turks, who might have been alarmed at the sight of transports and so
have time to prepare an opposing force, would accept the presence of
warships as merely the prelude to one of the bombardments to which
they were now accustomed.
[Illustration: Transports bearing the Australasians to Anzac Cove.]
As a matter of fact, the British plans were not hidden from the
enemy, for the place actually chosen for the landing was afterwards
discovered to have been elaborately prepared for resistance. Barbed
wire was entangled under the water, and the beach was enfiladed
with machine guns. The cliff was honeycombed with hiding places for
snipers, and only a fortunate accident saved the Australians from a
much hotter reception than the very warm one accorded them by the
Turks.
The landing force arrived opposite Gaba Tepe at 1.30 a.m., and the
men were transferred in absolute silence to their boats. At the same
time the covering force was transhipped from the transports to six
destroyers; and all made for a point about four miles off the coast.
The dying moon rose as they steamed to this place, and the outlines
of the ships were visible to the Turks, who were watching from
the shore. At half-past three the landing force was ordered to go
forward, and the tows made for the land with all dispatch.
Now occurred the happy accident to which allusion has already been
made. The tows got off the line they had intended to take, and
reached the beach about a mile north of the spot actually selected
for the landing. A description of the landing place, which will go
down to history as Brighton Beach, is given by Sir Ian Hamilton in
his first official dispatch of the operations at the Dardanelles.
"The beach on which the landing was actually effected is a very
narrow strip of sand, about 1,000 yards in length, bounded on the
north and the south by two small promontories. At its southern
extremity a deep ravine, with exceedingly steep, scrub-clad sides,
runs inland in a north-easterly direction. Near the northern end of
the beach a small but steep gully runs up into the hills at right
angles to the shore.
"Between the ravine and the gully the whole of the beach is backed by
the seaward face of the spur which forms the north-western side of
the ravine. From the top of the spur the ground falls almost sheer,
except near the southern limit of the beach, where gentler slopes
give access to the mouth of the ravine behind. Further inland lie in
a tangled knot the under-features of Sari Bair, separated by deep
ravines, which take a most confusing diversity of direction. Sharp
spurs, covered with dense scrub, and falling away in many places in
precipitous sandy cliffs, radiate from the principal mass of the
mountain, from which they run north-west, west, south-west, and south
to the coast."
Obeying orders to the letter, the Australians sat as quiet as mice in
the boats as the tows neared the land; on the edge of the cliffs they
could see the Turks scampering along at breakneck speed, to be in
the right place to receive them. And now the boats were nearing the
shore, and a new sensation was provided for the men of Australia.
"You know one of those hot days when a storm blows up in Australia,"
said one of the party, in describing it. "The air seems heavy, as if
there was lead in it. Then, splash! All around you on the pavement
appear big drops, that hit the asphalt with a welt. Well, all of a
sudden something began to hit the water all round us just like that.
We knew from the rattle on the shore what it was. Bullets! A man two
places away from me sank quietly on the bottom of the boat; something
touched my hat and ruffled my hair. We were under hot fire for a
start."
As the boats reached the shallow water the Australians jumped in up
to the waist, and made for the sand; some of them died in the moment
their feet first touched Europe. "Like lightning," writes General Sir
Ian Hamilton, in his official dispatch, describing the landing, "the
Australians leapt ashore, and each man as he did so went straight
as his bayonet at the enemy. So vigorous was the onslaught that the
Turks made no attempt to withstand it, and fled from ridge to ridge
pursued by the Australian infantry."
It must be remembered that the cliff up which this bayonet charge
was made was from 30 to 50 feet high, and as described by Sir Ian
Hamilton, was "almost sheer." At each end of the strip of beach was
a higher knoll, about a hundred feet in height. On each of these were
posted scores of sharpshooters, who were firing as rapidly as they
could at the men scrambling up these cliffs; the Turks at the top
could not even fire at them, the cliffs were so steep.
As the men sprang from the boats they set off in groups of five or
six, acting on their own initiative. They had empty magazines, all
the work being left to the cold steel. In that terrible scramble
up the cliffside they fell by dozens, but the rest pressed on to
the trenches at the top. The Turks who waited for them there had to
encounter infuriated giants. One Australian still bears the name of
"The Haymaker," for his way of picking Turk after Turk on the end of
his bayonet and throwing them one after another over his shoulder
and over the edge of the cliff behind. Two or three more great men
preferred to use the butt, smashing down everything human that dared
to resist them. In a few moments the Turks had abandoned their
trenches and were flying up the foothills to another trench they had
prepared on the top of a ridge.
[Illustration: The Landing at Anzac Cove on Sunday, April 25, 1915.]
Fast as they ran, the Australians ran faster. The cries of "Come
on, Australians," rang through the ravines, and warned the Turks
ahead of their coming. The first ridge was occupied, and a second;
finally they reached a third nearly two miles inland. It must be
understood that they had waited for no orders and had not tarried
for any formation. Men of different battalions and from different
States swept forward together, all acting on their own initiative,
and all prepared to sacrifice themselves for the main object, which
was to clear the clifftops so as to permit of a safe landing for the
main body of the troops. These watched the fighting in the lightening
morning from the decks of the ships, while waiting their turn to land.
They could see on one ridge after another the gaunt figures of their
comrades appear, only to disappear over the crest, presently to
become visible yet farther inland. How they cheered as the pioneers
swept the Turks off the coast and drove them into the thick scrub
that skirted the more distant ranges of hills! The audacity of that
landing has no superior in history, and Australian soldiers will ever
be remembered for their initiative, resource, and daring. Where men
less used to acting on their own responsibility would have formed
bravely, and waited for orders from some superior, these men from the
South dashed off in little groups, all working efficiently, as if by
some tacit understanding.
So the 3rd Brigade cleared the way for the 1st and 2nd Brigades, so
that 12,000 infantry and two batteries of Indian mountain guns were
landed by two o'clock--smart work on such a difficult coast, in ten
hours. For this splendid record the greatest credit is due to the
Navy men, of whom the Australasians all speak as they would of the
greatest heroes on earth. Their coolness, their unassuming courage,
and their steadfast adherence to the object in view are topics of
which Australians who were there will never tire of talking. And the
men of the Navy have an equally high opinion of those law bushmen
whom they set down on that narrow strip of bullet-swept beach.
For it must not be supposed that the clearance of the trenches
opposite the landing place made the task of landing in any way a
safe one. All day long batteries posted in the hills, which had the
range of the beach quite accurately, continued to spray the landing
with shrapnel. One sandy point was christened by the Australians
Hellfire Spit, and will go down to history by that name. Their name
for the landing place was Brighton Beach, which name it now bears on
the official maps. British people must not suppose that this name
has any reference to the seaside town which is sometimes called
London-by-the-Sea. The Australians had in mind another Brighton,
12,000 miles away, where the cliffs rise abruptly from a sandy
beach, and where the eye rests on slopes covered with a thick growth
of scrubby ti-tree, of which the scrub on the hillsides at Gaba
Tepe reminded the men of Australia. So it is Brighton Beach near
Melbourne, and not Brighton Beach in Sussex, that gave its name to
the landing place at Gaba Tepe.
There were also guns on each of the two knolls which terminated
Brighton Beach, and from them and from machine guns very cleverly
placed on high points a cruel enfilading fire was directed upon the
beach. The guns on the knolls were one by one put out of action by
the warships, and three were captured by the infantry, but some of
the machine guns, as well as innumerable snipers, continued to fire
on the boats and on the landed men throughout the day. Many a brave
Australasian met a bullet before ever he set foot on the soil of
Europe, and the sailors suffered heavily but doggedly as they rowed
their boats to and fro between the ships and the landing place.
It is now necessary to follow the fortunes of the little bands of
the gallant 3rd Brigade, whose rush had carried them over three
successive ridges on to a high tableland, where the backs of the
retreating Turks were still visible. "Where's the Light Horse?" the
men shouted as they rushed on in pursuit. The Light Horse was then
eating out its heart somewhere in Egypt, wishing that such an animal
as the horse had never been created, and that they might be with
their comrades of the infantry, fighting in Australasia's first great
battle. Of course they could never have got cavalry up on to that
plateau, though mounted men would have been very useful when the
first Australian soldiers crossed the ridges, and reached its wide,
scrubby slopes.
These devoted little bands found more than stragglers on that
high plateau. Soon the advance guard of the main Turkish defence
force arrived on the scene, and then it went very badly with these
bold spirits. The fate of many of those little groups of brave,
resourceful soldiers is yet to be learned; most of them appear on
the sheets as "Missing." Those behind them were thrown back by sheer
force of numbers, as the main body of the Turks pressed on, and
fighting gallantly, fell back on the second line.
By nightfall the main body of the Australians, all mixed up just as
they had landed, and without regard to battalions or anything else,
was dug in on the clifftop, and fighting desperately to prevent the
Turks from dislodging them.
"The troops had had no rest on the night of the 24th-25th," writes
the General, "they had been fighting hard all day over most difficult
country, and they had been subjected to heavy shrapnel fire in the
open. Their casualties had been deplorably heavy. But despite their
losses and in spite of their fatigue, the morning of the 26th found
them still in good heart, and as full of fight as ever."
[Illustration: Shrapnel bursting over Anzac Cove.
This is one of the most remarkable photographs taken of the
Dardanelles fighting, since it shows the water on the right of the
picture pitted by the spray of shrapnel bullets.]
Such is the story of the battle of Brighton Beach, ending with our
boys "in good heart, and full of fight as ever." The wounded and
dying men were also in good heart. Mr. Ashmead Bartlett describes
the arrival of the first batch of Australian wounded back to the
ships in a passage that will stir every Australian's pulse till the
very end of time.
"I have never seen the like of these wounded Australians in war
before, for as they were towed among the ships while accommodation
was being found for them, although many of them were shot to bits
and without hope of recovery, their cheers resounded through the
night, and you could just see amid a mass of suffering humanity arms
being waved in greeting to the crews of the warships. They were happy
because they knew they had been tried for the first time in the war,
and had not been found wanting. They had been told to occupy the
heights and hold on, and this they had done for fifteen mortal hours
under an incessant shell fire without the moral and material support
of a single gun ashore, and subjected the whole time to the violent
counter-attacks of a brave enemy led by skilful leaders, while his
snipers, hidden in caves, thickets, and among the dense scrub, made a
deliberate practice of picking off every officer who endeavoured to
give a word of command or to lead his men forward.
"No finer feat of arms has been performed during the war than this
sudden landing in the dark, this storming of the heights, and, above
all, the holding on to the points thus won while reinforcements were
being poured from the transports. These raw Colonial troops in those
desperate hours proved themselves worthy to fight side by side with
the heroes of Mons and the Aisne, Ypres and Neuve Chapelle."
OCCUPYING THE LAND