THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT HORSE
By midnight on August 6 the British forces were landing at Suvla Bay.
It is probable that by that time the Turks were in full possession of
this outstanding fact. The attack delivered successfully on the Lone
Pine position during that afternoon had drawn a large number of the
enemy from positions farther to the north to the defence, and so had
helped to protect the landing. With the same object attacks were made
from the Anzac trenches on strong positions in front of their line
farther north than Lone Pine.
One of the positions so attacked was that mysterious stronghold
known as the German Officers' Trench. It was only a short section
of trench, but had early attracted the attention of the observers
because of the elaborate preparations that were made for its defence.
The interest excited by these preparations was heightened by the
accounts given of it by Turkish prisoners. According to these
accounts no Turk of any degree whatsoever was permitted to enter this
section of trench, access being only granted to the German officers
with the Turkish forces.
Many theories existed among the men of Anzac as to the purpose
for which this trench existed, the most popular one being that it
contained the apparatus for making and projecting poisonous gas.
An opportunity for testing the truth of this conjecture was now
afforded, for the 2nd Brigade was allotted the task of charging the
German Officers' Trench.
The attack was delivered at midnight, while the struggle for Lone
Pine farther to the left was at its height. The 6th Battalion, which
had suffered severely in the charge at Krithia on May 8, but had
since received welcome reinforcements, was sent out to show the way,
after some bombardment from the ships in the bay.
The men knew only too well what was before them. The sixty yards
of plateau that separated them from their objective was clear and
flat, and was swept by well-posted machine-guns, and by rifle fire
from cleverly placed enfilading trenches. They ran for the trench
silently, but their silence was of no avail to them. No sooner had
the first man climbed the parapet of the Anzac trench than the storm
of bullets began. It was, as one of the assailants said, "like rice
at a wedding." Not a man ever reached the trench.
Later another charge was made for this trench, with as little
success. Humanly speaking, the position was an impregnable one, but
it had to be attacked. The men of the 2nd Brigade had a hopeless
task, but their devotion was not all unavailing. Their opponents, who
were badly needed elsewhere to resist the landing at Suvla Bay, were
fixed to the spot, and kept fully occupied in resisting their gallant
and self-sacrificing attacks.
It was not otherwise at Russell's Top, the supreme point of Walker's
Ridge, where the 3rd Brigade of Australian Light Horse were
entrenched. One side of this peak fell a sheer 200 feet to the valley
below, while inland it was joined by a narrow neck to the slope of
the hill called Baby 700. On this neck was concentrated the fire of
more than a score of machine-guns, while the approach to the hill
beyond was scarred by trench after trench, each one enfilading that
before it.
Many a time had the men of Anzac peered through their periscopes at
that neck, and shaken their heads over the probable fate of any bold
fellows who might venture to assault it. At dawn on August 7 the time
had come for this arduous operation to be attempted, and the 8th and
10th Light Horse were selected for the experiment.
I am told that a previous bombardment of the position by the warships
had been ordered, but men who took part in the charge are positive
that nothing of the sort took place. Like the 2nd Brigade before the
German Officers' Trench they were under no misconception of what was
before them. Colonel White, who led the 8th, shook hands with Colonel
Antill and said good-bye before the signal was given. He knew he was
going to his death.
Twenty yards separated them from the enemy trench at the centre
of the position and about fifty at the wings. No man crossed that
twenty yards alive. One man of the 8th, it is said, reached the enemy
parapet and sheltered under it, afterwards to crawl back unobserved
to safety.
The 10th were hot on the heels of the 8th. This is a crack regiment
raised by Major Todd of Western Australia, a fine soldier who had won
his D.S.O. in the African War. Every man provided his own horse, and
among them were some of the finest horsemen and athletes of their
State.
They passed over a ground strewn with the bodies of their comrades.
Some of them, taking advantage of slight depressions in the ground,
threw themselves down to shelter from the tornado of bullets that met
them. One little group, consisting of a lieutenant and half a dozen
men, found themselves sheltered by a little hillock. They knew it was
certain death to go on; without orders they would not retire.
As they lay as close to the ground as they could squeeze, the
lieutenant made a suggestion. "Boys, a shilling in, and the winner
shouts." (Shout is the Australian word for treating.) The suggestion
was eagerly accepted, and the men chose their numbers, and proceeded
to "sell a pony" after a time-honoured Australian custom. But before
the lottery was decided they heard the "retire" whistle blow. "And
so," said the narrator of the incident mournfully, "we never knew who
ought to stand the drinks."
Men who can so behave in the very shadow of death are beyond any
comment of mine.
The survivors returned to their trench, and made occasional dashes
out to assist single wounded men, who were crawling painfully back
to shelter. The whole affair was very soon over, and any one curious
to know what it cost may turn up the casualty list of the 3rd
Brigade of Light Horse for that date. But the enemy, who had packed
their effects to turn on the landing force at Suvla, and on the New
Zealanders who were now attacking Chunuk Bair, were held to the spot,
so that the sacrifice of the Light Horse was not made in vain.
Almost simultaneously with the charge of the 3rd Brigade of Light
Horse across the Neck to the Baby 700 trenches, the 1st Brigade (1st,
2nd and 3rd Regiments) made an equally desperate charge across the
corner known as the Bloody Angle, the objective being the Turkish
trenches at the foot of Dead Man's Ridge.
The 2nd Regiment (Queensland), under command of Major Logan, were
supposed to charge from Quinn's Post, while the 1st Regiment (New
South Wales) charged from the trenches at the foot of Pope's Hill.
The first line of the Second left Quinn's Post at the signal, and
as they crossed the parapet most of them crumpled up under a steady
stream of machine-gun bullets. The remainder of the fifty men were
all killed or wounded, with the exception of one man, before they had
covered the twenty-five yards which separated the two lines. That one
man, who came back unscathed, is said to have jumped high in the air
at the place where he imagined the stream of bullets to be pouring
across the line of charge, and so escaped even a scratch.
The 1st Regiment reached the line of trenches and took five in
succession. These they held for two hours, but the Turks had the
upper ground and counter-attacked with bombs most desperately. The
positions were no use, in any case, and after this fact had been
recognized the First retired, taking their wounded with them. Of 250
men who went out only fifty-seven returned unwounded.
I am indebted to Sergeant-Major Wynn of the 1st Regiment for some
graphic details of that charge from the foot of Pope's Hill.
[Illustration: A Typical Trooper of the Australian Light Horse.]
"While we were preparing on the evening of August 6," he says, "the
scrap down at Lone Pine began. I wish I could tell you what I saw
through my glasses in the odd spare moments (very few, you may
be sure). It was marvellous to see the reserves dash in through the
blazing scrub, without arms, to bring in any of the first or second
line who had gone down. There's not enough bronze to spare to V.C.
those chaps.
"About this time Abdul, facing us, held above the parado of the
trench a board that said Warsaw had fallen. 'Why don't you put
on your white armlets and come across?' it added. As I was just
tearing up the calico to sew on our arms and right shoulders we were
naturally amazed. But we made matchwood of their board; no wonder
they were ready for us later on.
"At sunset the artillery began, and kept it up all night. There
was one gun which drove shells just skimming over our heads in the
trenches up there; I can hear it yet, and the clay and gravel rolling
down where the shells exploded. That night nobody slept, for the
cessation of artillery fire was to be the signal for a charge by A
and B squadrons. I was in B squadron.
"When the signal came A went straight over their parapet and across
the Bloody Angle to the Turkish trenches. We went down the sap to
the foot of a gully at the base of Quinn's, turned to the right, and
were slap into it. We cleared their first trench with practically the
first bombing rush, and crouched down to gather breath for another
rush.
"One of our bomb-throwers had gone down here, and he gave me a poke
and pointed to a little heap of eight or nine grenades, which I was
permitted to carry to the nearest band of throwers. From one I pulled
the safety-pin and passed it forward as a present to the Unspeakable.
"When I returned the boys were all lying flat, and the skipper
nowhere to be seen. He had got it in the first trench, and was taken
out later, so badly wounded that he died at Malta. I started to
shout, and I am glad I opened my mouth pretty wide. A bullet struck
my left cheek, carried all my front teeth and my right ones out
through my right cheek, and never touched my tongue.
"I felt as though I had been hit on the right jaw by the red hot
spike fixed to the cowcatcher of a fast express and I promptly 'took
the count.' When I found myself again, one of Ours was trying to
gather my sagging cheek and lips into the naval shell bandage he had
taken from me, and using the most wonderful language. He was hit in
the head too, but we managed to get back the way we came. And, my
word, the stretcher-bearers were busy.
"That day we lost Major Reid of A Squadron, who should theoretically
have remained behind in the trench to direct operations, but
preferred to lead his own men over the parapet. He went West with
many other good men, but first accounted for a few with his revolver,
I'm told. A great soldier and a gallant gentleman!
"No one had much chance in the charge. Believe me, you'd swear you'd
met a swarm of locusts, the bullets were so thick and the hum of them
so loud, and the very ground seemed to open under your feet. For the
rest of it, it was like any other hustle. When you are in the thick
of it you only think how you are going to get the other fellow. The
waiting was the worst; the silence and the few handclasps exchanged
in the gloom before dusk, when we stood in single file along that
sap, and not a whisper was heard. Yes, that was eerie."
Such were the desperate means by which the men of Anzac sought to
detain the Turkish army before their old lines, while the British
force was being landed at Suvla Bay. These were demonstrations
made with the object of attracting the attention of the enemy and
of leading him to believe that the preparations that had obviously
been made at Anzac were in anticipation of this frontal attack on
the positions between Anzac and Maidos. In the meantime, as already
explained, another body of the Anzacs had slipped silently out into
the country, north of Walker's Ridge, with the object of attacking
the heights of Sari Bair. We shall now see how it fared with them.
THE MIGHTY NEW ZEALANDERS