THE GREAT NIGHT MARCH
It is now time to follow the fortunes of the 4th Brigade of
Australian Infantry who, under General Monash, had massed at Outpost
No. 2 on the night of August 6. Their mission was to cross the two
gullies up which the New Zealanders had charged to the capture of
Chunuk Bair, and to storm a third and more northerly gully, known as
the Aghyl Dere. The upper portion of this gully leads to the slopes
of the height of Koja Chemen, the highest point of the mountain mass
of Sari Bair. Its crest is 971 feet above sea level, and is marked on
the maps as Hill 971.
Their line of march lay north-east, through unknown country that
was badly broken by gullies and steep hills. It took them over
part of the open plain which lay between Sari Bair and Suvla Bay,
an agricultural plain comparatively flat and clear, where the
Australasians had watched the Turkish peasants getting in their crops
through the month of July.
It was the individual resource and confidence of each unit of
these Colonial troops which permitted this difficult night march
to be accomplished successfully. The task of co-operation set to
the newly landed troops at Suvla Bay was by no means so difficult.
Without intending any disparagement of these forces, it has to be
said that if they had displayed the initiative and resource of their
more seasoned Colonial comrades, a more successful outcome of these
operations could surely have been recorded.
The plan adopted by the Australians was beautiful in its simplicity,
and in the full reliance placed upon each individual man. The
officers showed the non-commissioned men their maps of the unknown
country through which the night march was to be made; and the
non-coms, in their turn explained to each man the object of the
march, and the nature of the chief obstacles marked on the maps.
When the word to advance was given, the men simply melted away into
the darkness, and without any noise made their way towards the goal.
Sometimes two or three pressed forward silently together; more often
the fellows made their way alone. The most impressive part of that
advance was its noiselessness. Now and then the enemy would turn
their guns down the gullies up which the advance was being made,
and then each man found cover as best he could, and waited until he
thought it safe to pursue his onward way.
The net result of these tactics was that a surprisingly large
percentage of the men reached their objective unharmed. Where
opposition had to be overcome, the men massed silently in the
darkness, and charged at the word of their officers. The terror
inspired among the Turks by these midnight charges, coming suddenly
out of the silent darkness, has been testified by the prisoners taken.
Thus the 4th Brigade reached its first objective after the wonderful
night march; but the expected supports were not forthcoming. During
the day that followed, the enemy appeared in great force, and there
was some stiff fighting. The 13th Battalion captured the emplacement
of a 75-gun, which had worked great havoc during the preceding six
weeks in the Australasian trenches. The 15th Battalion saw the gun
disappearing round one long bend of a valley, as they emerged from
the scrub at the elbow below. A few shots were fired at it, but the
chance was lost, by at most two minutes.
The 14th Battalion captured a Turkish bakery, and a Turkish major
in charge of it; also a telephone exchange and a very sullen German
lieutenant. Later in the day the 16th Battalion encountered a strong
force of the enemy, very skilfully posted, and suffered very severe
losses.
On August 7 a fresh advance was made from the Aghyl Dere to a gully
still further north; the Asmak Dere. As they advanced they drove
the enemy back, and got into touch with a regiment of Sikhs from
Suvla Bay. So reinforced they made an attack upon the big hill, but
found that by this time the Turks had come up from further south. The
effect of the frontal attacks from the old Anzac line had expended
itself, and the enemy had moved north in force. It is worthy of
mention that the official estimate of the total number of Turks
mustered to the defence of Sari Bair places it at 75,000. They were
certainly strong enough to check the attack on Hill 971 without much
difficulty.
In the evening of the same day (August 7) the 4th Brigade attacked
the height of Abduo Rahman Bair, running out from Koja Chemen to the
north, and met a perfect hell of machine-gun fire. In less than an
hour's fighting they lost 1,000 men, and were nearly surrounded. They
managed to withdraw to their original positions, and spent the night
resisting a series of vicious attacks from the intrepid enemy. In
this fighting they inflicted severe loss, without budging one foot
from the line they had taken up.
From this point, slightly south of the hill known as Kaiajik Aghala,
or Hill 60, they saw the loss of the crest of Chunuk Bair, and the
great slaughter of Turks that followed. And there they remained for
the next fortnight, while the line across the valley which led to the
village of Biyuk Anafarta was being strengthened. On August 21 it
was deemed that the time had come for an attack upon Hill 60 itself,
and in this the 4th Brigade participated.
They were joined by General Russell and his New Zealanders, and by
the 18th Battalion of Australian Infantry, who had landed on the
preceding day as the advance guard of the Second Division of the
A.I.F. The fighting was desperate and the newcomers suffered most
severely in their baptism of fire. In the end the capture of Hill 60
had to be postponed.
But on August 27 the attack was renewed, this time with success. The
operations are clearly told in the official dispatch:--
"The conduct of the attack was again entrusted to Major-General
Cox, at whose disposal were placed detachments from the 4th and 5th
Australian Brigades, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, and
the 5th Connaught Rangers. The advance was timed to take place at
5 p.m. on August 27, after the heaviest artillery bombardment we
could afford. This bombardment seemed effective; but the moment the
assailants broke cover they were greeted by an exceeding hot fire
from the enemy field-guns, rifles, and machine-guns, followed after
a brief interval by a shower of heavy shell, some of which, most
happily, pitched into the trenches of the Turks. On the right the
detachment from the 4th and 5th Australian Brigades could make no
headway against a battery of machine-guns which confronted them.
In the centre the New Zealanders made a most determined onslaught,
and carried one side of the topmost knoll. Hand-to-hand fighting
continued here till 9.30 p.m., when it was reported that nine-tenths
of the summit had been gained.
"On the left the 250 men of the 5th Connaught Rangers excited
the admiration of all beholders by the swiftness and cohesion of
their charge. In five minutes they had carried their objective,
the northern Turkish communications, when they at once set to and
began a lively bomb-fight along the trenches against strong parties
which came hurrying up from the enemy supports and afterwards from
their reserves. At midnight fresh troops were to have strengthened
our grip upon the hill, but before that hour the Irishmen had been
out-bombed, and the 9th Australian Light Horse, who had made a most
plucky attempt to recapture the lost communication trench, had
been repulsed. Luckily, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles refused to
recognize that they were worsted. Nothing would shift them. All that
night and all next day, through bombing, bayonet charges, musketry,
shrapnel, and heavy shell, they hung on to their 150 yards of trench.
At 1 a.m. on August 29 the 10th Light Horse made another attack
on the lost communication trenches to the left, carried them, and
finally held them. This gave us complete command of the underfeature,
an outlook over the Anafarta Sagir valley, and safer lateral
communications between Anzac and Suvla Bay.
"Our casualties in this hotly contested affair amounted to 1,000.
The Turks lost out of all proportion more. Their line of retreat
was commanded from our Kaiajik Dere trenches, whence our observers
were able to direct artillery fire equally upon their fugitives and
their reinforcements. The same observers estimated that the Turkish
casualties as no less than 5,000. Three Turkish machine-guns and
forty-six prisoners were taken, as well as three trench mortars, 300
Turkish rifles, 60,000 rounds of ammunition, and 500 bombs. Four
hundred acres were added to the territories of Anzac. Major-General
Cox showed his usual forethought and wisdom. Brigadier-General
Russell fought his men splendidly."
This was the last great offensive movement made by the Anzacs on
the Gallipoli peninsula. Shortly afterwards the whole of the Second
Australian Division was landed, a step which permitted the temporary
withdrawal of the veteran brigades to Lemnos for a much-needed spell.
Then operations at Anzac dragged on until the entry of Bulgaria
into the war established easy communication between Berlin and
Constantinople, and made the evacuation of Gallipoli an imperative
necessity.
The story of those last months at Anzac, and the final act of
withdrawal, will be found in the two concluding chapters of this
book. The position occupied by the Anzacs at the point now reached
was summarized by Lord Kitchener in the House of Lords on September
15 in the following terms:--
"The attack from Anzac, after a series of hotly contested actions,
was carried to the summit of Sari Bair and Chunuk Bair, which are
the dominating positions in this area. The arrival of the transports
and the disembarkation of the troops in Suvla Bay were designed to
enable the troops to support this attack. Unfortunately, however,
the advance from Suvla was not developed quickly enough and the
movement forward was brought to a standstill after an advance of
about 2½ miles. The result was that the troops from Anzac were
unable to retain their position on the crest of the hills, and after
being repeatedly counter-attacked they were ordered to withdraw to
positions lower down.
"These positions, however, have been effectively consolidated, and
now, joining with the line occupied by the Suvla Bay force, form a
connected front of more than twelve miles. From the latter position
a further attack on the Turkish entrenchment was delivered on August
21, but after several hours of sharp fighting it was not found
possible to gain the summit of the hills occupied by the enemy, and
the intervening space being unsuitable for defence the troops were
withdrawn to their original position.
"Since then comparative quiet has prevailed and a much-needed rest
has been given to our troops. In the course of these operations the
gallantry and resourcefulness of the Australian and New Zealand
troops have frequently formed a subject for eulogy in Sir Ian
Hamilton's reports. General Birdwood and his staff have greatly
distinguished themselves both in planning and conducting the
operations of the Australian and New Zealand Corps, whose activities
have been marked by constant success. Their determination to overcome
apparently insuperable difficulties has been no less admirable than
their courage in hand-to-hand fighting with the enemy.
"It is not easy to appreciate at their full value the enormous
difficulties which have attended the operations in the Dardanelles
or the fine temper with which our troops have met them. There is now
abundant evidence of a process of demoralization having set in among
the German-led (or rather the German-driven) Turks due, no doubt, to
their extremely heavy losses and to the progressive failure of their
resources. It is only fair to acknowledge that, judged from a humane
point of view, the methods of warfare pursued by the Turks are vastly
superior to those which disgraced their German masters."
THE STORY OF THE _SOUTHLAND_