SHELLS
To-day, the 4th, shells were falling from Asia on both "V" and "W"
Beaches. We have landed aeroplanes on the Peninsula. The Taube has been
bothering us again, but wound up its manoeuvres very decently by
killing some fish for our dinner. Approved an out-spoken cable from my
Ordnance to the War Office. Heaven knows we have been close-fisted with
our meagre stocks, but when the Turks are coming right on to the assault
it is not possible to prevent a spurt of rapid fire from men who feel
the knife at their throat. "Ammunition is becoming a very serious
matter, owing to the ceaseless fighting since April 25th. The _Junia_
has not turned up and has but a small supply when she does. 18 pr. shell
is vital necessity."
_5th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian."_ A wearing, nerve-racking, night-long
fire by the Turks and the French 75's. They, at least, both of them,
seem to have a good supply of shell. To the Jews, God showed Himself
once as a pillar of fire by night; to the French soldier whose God is
the 75 He reveals Himself in just the same way, safeguarding his flimsy
trenches from the impact of the infidel horde. The curse of the method
is its noise--let alone its cost. But last night it came off: no Turks
got through anywhere on the French front and the men had not to stand to
their arms or use their rifles. We British, worse luck, can't dream of
these orgies of explosives. Our batteries last night did not fire a shot
and the men had to drive back the enemy by rifle fire. They did it
easily enough but the process is wearing.
An answer has come to my prayer for 18 pr. stuff: not the answer that
turns away wrath, but the answer that provokes a plaster saint.
"We have under consideration your telegram of yesterday. The ammunition
supply for your force, however, was never calculated on the basis of a
prolonged occupation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, we will have to
reconsider the position if, after the arrival of the reinforcements now
on their way out to you, the enemy cannot be driven back and, in
conjunction with the Fleet, the Forts barring the passage of the
Dardanelles cannot be reduced. It is important to push on."
Now von Donop is a kindly man despite that overbearing "von": yet, he
speaks to us like this! The survivors of our half dead force are to
"push on"; for, "it is important to push on" although Whitehall seems to
have time and to spare to "consider" my cable and to "reconsider the
position." Death first, diagnosis afterwards. Wherever is the use of
reconsidering the position now? The position has taken charge. When a
man has jumped off Westminster Bridge to save a drowning Russian his
position has got beyond reconsideration: there is only one thing to
do--as quickly as you can, as much help as you can--and if it comes to a
choice between the _quick_ and the _much_: hark to your swimmer and hear
him cry "Quick! Quick!! Quick!!!"
The War Office urge me to throw my brave troops yet once more against
machine guns in redoubts; to do it on the cheap; to do it without asking
for the shell that gives the attack a sporting chance. I don't say they
are wrong in so saying; there may be no other way out of it; but I do
say the War Office stand convicted of having gone hopelessly wrong in
their estimates and preparations. For we must have been held up
somewhere, surely; we must have fought _somewhere_. I suppose, even if
we had forced the Straits--even if we had taken Constantinople without
firing a shot, we must have fought somewhere! Otherwise, a child's box
of tin soldiers sent by post would have been just the thing for the
Dardanelles landing! No; it's not the advice that riles me: it's the
fact that people who have made a mistake, and should be sorry, slur over
my appeal for the stuff advances are made of and yet continue to urge us
on as if we were hanging back.
A strong wind blows and Helles is smothered in dust. Hunter-Weston spent
an hour with me this morning and an hour with the G.S. putting the final
touches to the plan of attack discussed by us yesterday. The Lancashire
Brigade of the 42nd Division has landed.
Hunter-Bunter stayed to lunch.
_Later_. In the afternoon went ashore and inspected the Lancashire
Brigade of the East Lancs. Division just landed; and a very fine lot of
Officers and men they are. They are keen and ready for to-morrow. Yes,
to-morrow we attack again: I have men enough now but very, very little
shell. The Turks have given us three bad nights and they ought to be
worn out. With our sea power we can shift a couple of Brigades from Gaba
Tepe to Helles or vice versa quicker than the Turks can march from the
one theatre to the other. So the first question has been whether to
reinforce Gaba Tepe from Helles or vice versa. For reasons too long to
write here I have decided to attack in the South especially as I had a
cable from K. himself yesterday in which he makes the suggestion:--
"I hope," he says, "the 5th" (that's to-day) "will see you strong enough
to press on to Achi Baba anyway, as delay will allow the Turks to bring
up more reinforcements and to make unpleasant preparations for your
reception. The Australians and New Zealanders will have had
reinforcements from Egypt by then, and, if they hold on to their
trenches with the help of the Naval Division, could spare you a good
many men for the advance."
Old K. is as right as rain here but a little bit after the shower. Had
he and Maxwell tumbled to the real situation when I first saw with my
own eyes the lie of the land instead of the lies on their maps; and had
they let me have the Brigade of Gurkhas I asked for by my letters and by
my cable of 24th March, and by word of mouth and telephone up to the
last moment of my leaving Egypt, these homilies about the urgency of
seizing Achi Baba would be beside the mark, seeing we should be sitting
on the top of it.
In the matter of giving K. is built on the model of Pharaoh: nothing
less than the firstborn of the nation will make him suffer his subjects
to depart from Egypt; and Maxwell sees eye to eye with him--that is
natural. No word of the bombs and trench mortars I asked for six weeks
ago, but the "bayonets" are coming in liberally now.
Two of Birdwood's Brigades sail down to-night and join up with a Brigade
from the Naval Division, thus making a new composite Division for the
Southern theatre. The 29th, who have lost so very heavily, are being
strengthened by the new Lancashire Fusilier Brigade, and Cox's Indian
Brigade. By no manner the same thing, this, as getting drafts to fill up
the ranks of the 29th. Always in war there is three times better value
in filling up an old formation than in making up the total by bringing
in a new formation. I have given the French the Naval Brigade; the new,
Naval-Australian Division is to form my general reserve.
So there! To-morrow morning. We have men enough, and good men too, but
we are short of pebbles for Goliath of Achi Baba. These three nights
have made a big hole in our stocks. Hunter-Weston feels that all is in
our favour but the artillery. In Flanders, he says, they would never
attack with empty limbers behind them; they would wait till they were
full up. But the West is not in its essence a time problem; there, they
can wait--next week--next month. If we wait one week the Turks will
have become twice as strong in their numbers, and twice as deep in their
trenches, as they are to-day. Hunter-Weston and d'Amade see that
perfectly. I hold the idea myself that it would be good tactics, seeing
shell shortage is our weakness, to make use of the half hour before dawn
to close with the enemy and then fight it out on their ground. To cross
the danger zone, in fact, by night and overthrow the enemy in the grey
dawn. But Hunter-Weston says that so many regimental officers have been
lost he fears for the Company leading at night:--for that, most
searching of military tests, nothing but the best will do.
Hard up as we are for shell he thinks it best to blaze it away freely
before closing and to trust our bayonets when we get in. He and d'Amade
have both of them their Western experience to guide them. I have agreed,
subject only to the condition that we must keep some munitions in
reserve until we hear for certain that more is on its way.
The enemy had trusted to their shore defences. There was no second line
behind them--not this side of Achi Baba, at least. Now, i.e., ever since
the failure of their grand attempt on the night of the 2nd-3rd May, they
have been hard at work. Already their lines cover quite half the ground
between the Aegean and the Straits; whilst, in rear again, we can see
wired patches which we guess to be enfilading machine gun redoubts. We
must resolutely and at all cost make progress and smash up these new
spiders' webs of steel before they connect into elastic but unbreakable
patterns.
_9th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian."_ Three days on the rack! Since the
morning of the 6th not a word have I written barring one or two letters
and one or two hasty scraps of cables. Now, D.V., there is the best part
of a day at my disposal and it is worth an effort to put that story
down.
First I had better fix the sequence of the munition cables, for upon
them the whole attack has hung--or rather, hung fire.
On the 6th, the evening of the opening day, we received a postscript to
the refusal already chronicled:--
"Until you can submit a return of the amount you have in hand to enable
us to work out the rates of expenditure, it is difficult to decide about
further supplies of ammunition."
When I read this I fell on my knees and prayed God to grant me patience.
Am I to check the number of rounds in the limbers; on the beaches and in
transit during a battle? Two days after my S.O.S. the War Office begin
to think about tables of averages!
I directed my answer to Lord K. himself:--
"With reference to your No. 4432 of 5th inst., please turn to my letter
to you of 30th March,[14] wherein I have laid stress on the essential
difference in the matter of ammunition supply between the Dardanelles
and France. In France, where the factories are within 24 hours' distance
from the firing line, it may be feasible to consider and reconsider
situations, including ammunition supply. Here we are distant a
fortnight. I consider that 4.5 inch, 18 pr. and other ammunition,
especially Mark VII rifle ammunition, should instantly be despatched
here _via_ Marseilles.
"Battle in progress. Advance being held up by stubborn opposition."
Within a few hours K.'s reply came in; he says:--
"It is difficult for me to judge the situation unless you can send me
your expenditure of ammunition for which we have repeatedly asked. The
question is not affected by the other considerations you mention." If
space and time have no bearing on strategy and tactics, then K. is
right. If ships sail over the sea as fast as railways run across the
land; if Helles is nearer Woolwich than Calais; then he is right. I use
the capital K. here impersonally, for I am sure the great man did not
indite the message himself even though it may be headed from him to me.
Late that night came another cable from the Master General of the
Ordnance saying he was sending out "in the next relief ship 10,000
rounds of 18 pr. shrapnel, and 1,000 rounds of 4.5 inch high explosive."
But why the next relief ship? It won't get here for another three weeks
and by that time we should be, by all the laws of nature and of war, in
Davy Jones's locker. True, we don't mean to be, whatever the Ordnance
may do or leave undone but, so far as I can see, that won't be their
fault. Neither I nor my Staff can make head or tail of these cables.
They seem so unlike K.; so unlike all the people. Here we are:--The
Turks in front of us--too close: the deep sea behind us--too close. We
beg them "instantly" to send us 4.5 inch and other ammunition;
"instantly, _via_ Marseilles":--they tell us in reply that they will
send 1,000 rounds of the vital stuff, the 4.5 high explosive, "_in the
next relief ship_"!
Why, even in the South African War, before the siege of Ladysmith, one
battery would fire five hundred rounds in a day. And this 1,000 rounds
in the next relief ship (_via_ Alexandria) will take three weeks to get
to us whereas stress was laid by me upon the Marseilles route.
Now, to-day, (the 9th), I have at last been able to send the Ordnance a
statement (made under extreme difficulty) of our ammunition expenditure;
up to the 5th May; i.e., before the three days' battle began. We were
then nine million small arm still to the good having spent eleven
million. We had shot away 23,000 shrapnel, 18 pr., and had 48,000 in
hand. We had fired off 5,000 of that (most vital) 4.5 howitzer and had
1,800 remaining. A.P.S. has been added saying the amounts shown had been
greatly reduced by the last two days' battle. Actually, they have fallen
to less than half and, as I have said, we had, on the evening of the
7th, only 17,000 rounds of 18 pr. on hand for the whole Peninsula. Out
of this we have fought the battle of the 8th and I believe we have run
down now to under 10,000, some fear as low as 5,000.
Very well. Now for my last night's cable which, in the opinion of my
Officers, summarises general result of lack of shell:--
"For the past three days we have fought our hardest for Achi Baba
winding up with a bayonet charge by the whole force along the entire
front, from sea to sea. Faced by a heavy artillery, machine gun and
rifle fire our troops, French and British alike, made a fine effort; the
French especially got well into the Turks with the bayonet, and all
along, excepting on our extreme left, our line gained ground. I might
represent the battle as a victory, as the enemy's advanced positions
were driven in, but essentially the result has been failure, as the main
object remains unachieved. The fortifications and their machine guns
were too scientific and too strongly held to be rushed, although I had
every available man in to-day. Our troops have done all that flesh and
blood can do against semi-permanent works, and they are not able to
carry them. More and more munitions will be needed to do so. I fear this
is a very unpalatable conclusion, but I see no way out of it.
"I estimate that the Turks had about 40,000 opposed to our 25,000
rifles. There are 20,000 more in front of Australian-New Zealand Army
Corps' 12,000 rifles at Gaba Tepe. By bringing men over from the Asiatic
side and from Adrianople the Turks seem to be able to keep up their
strength. I have only one more brigade of the Lancashire Territorial
Division to come; not enough to make any real effect upon the situation
as regards breaking through."
Hard must be the heart that is not wrung to think of all these brave
boys making their effort; giving their lives; all that they had; it is
too much; almost more than can be borne.
Now to go back and make my notes, day by day, of the battle:--
On the 6th instant we began at 11.30 after half an hour's
bombardment,--we dared not run to more. A strong wind was blowing and it
was hard to land or come aboard. Till 2 p.m. I remained glued to the
telephone on board and then went ashore and saw both Hunter-Weston and
d'Amade in their posts of command. The live long day there were furious
semi-detached fights by Battalions and Brigades, and we butted back the
enemy for some 200 or 300 yards. So far so good. But we did not capture
any of the main Turkish trenches. I still think we might have done as
well at much less cost by creeping up these 200 or 300 yards by night.
However!
At 4.30 we dropped our high-vaulting Achi Baba aspirations and took to
our spades.
The Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division had been roughly handled.
In the hospital clearing tent by the beach I saw and spoke to (amongst
many others) young Asquith, shot through the knee, and Commander
Wedgwood, who had been horribly hurt by shrapnel. Each in his own way
was a calm hero; wrapped in the mantle bequeathed to English soldiers by
Sir Philip Sidney. Coming back in the evening to the ship we watched
the Manchester Brigade disembarking. I have never seen a better looking
lot. The 6th Battalion would serve very well as picked specimens of our
race; not so much in height or physique, but in the impression they gave
of purity of race and distinction. Here are the best the old country can
produce; the hope of the progress of the British ideal in the world; and
half of them are going to swap lives with Turks whose relative value to
the well-being of humanity is to theirs as is a locust to a honey-bee.
That night Bailloud, Commander of the new French Division, came to make
his salaam. He is small, alert, brimful of jokes and of years; seventy
they say, but he neither looks it nor acts it.
The 7th was stormy and the sea dangerously rough. At 10 a.m. the
Lancashire Fusilier Brigade were to lead off on our left. They could not
get a move on, it seemed, although we had hoped that the shelling from
the ships would have swept a clear lane for them.
The thought that "Y" Beach, which was holding up this brigade, was once
in our hands, adds its sting to other reports coming from that part of
the field. In France these reports would have been impersonal messages
arriving from afar. In Asia or Africa I would have been letting off the
steam by galloping to d'Amade or Hunter-Weston. Here I was neither one
thing nor the other:--neither a new fangled Commander sitting cool and
semi-detached in an office; nor an old fashioned Commander taking
personal direction of the show. During so long drawn out a suspense I
tried to ease the tension by dictation. From the carbons I select these
two paragraphs: they occur in a letter fired off to Colonel Clive Wigram
at "11.25 a.m., 7th May, 1915."
"I broke off there because I got a telephone message in from
Hunter-Weston to say his centre was advancing, and that by a pretty
piece of co-operation between Infantry and Artillery, he had driven the
Turks out of one very troublesome trench. He cannot see what is on his
left, or get any message from them. On his left are the Lancashire
Fusiliers (Territorials). They are faced by a horrid redoubt held by
machine guns, and they are to rush it with the bayonet.[15] It is a high
thing to ask of Territorials but against an enemy who is fighting for
his life, and for the existence of his country, we have to call upon
every one for efforts which, under any other conditions, might be
considered beyond their strength.
"Were we still faced by the Divisions which originally held the
Gallipoli Peninsula we would by now, I firmly believe, be in possession
of the Kilid Bahr plateau. But every day a regiment or two dribble into
Gallipoli, either from Asia or from Constantinople, and in the last two
days an entire fresh Division has (we have heard) arrived from
Adrianople, and is fighting against us this morning. The smallest
demonstration on the part of Bulgaria would, I presume, have prevented
this big reinforcement of fresh troops reaching the enemy, but it seems
beyond the resources of diplomacy to get anyone to create a diversion."
At 4.30 I ordered a general assault; the 88th Brigade to be thrown in on
the top of the 87th; the New Zealand Brigade in support; the French to
conform. Our gunners had put more than they could afford into the
bombardment and had very little wherewith to pave the way.
By the 4th instant I had seen danger-point drawing near and now it was
on us. Five hundred more rounds of howitzer 4.5 and aeroplanes to spot
whilst we wiped out the machine guns; that was the burden of my prayer.
Still, we did what we could and for a quarter of an hour the whole of
the Turkish front was wreathed in smoke, but these were naval shells or
18 pr shrapnel; we have no 18 pr high explosive and neither naval shells
nor shrapnel are very much good once the targets have got underground.
On our left no move forward.[16] Elsewhere our wonderful Infantry fought
like fresh formations. In face of a tempest of shot and shell and of a
desperate resistance by the Turks, who stuck it out very bravely to the
last, they carried and held the first line enemy trenches. At night
several counter-attacks were delivered, in every case repulsed with
heavy loss.
We are now on our last legs. The beautiful Battalions of the 25th April
are wasted skeletons now; shadows of what they had been. The thought of
the river of blood, against which I painfully made my way when I met
these multitudes of wounded coming down to the shore, was unnerving. But
every soldier has to fight down these pitiful sensations: the enemy may
be harder hit than he: if we do not push them further back the beaches
will become untenable. To overdrive the willingest troops any General
ever had under his command is a sin--but we must go on fighting
to-morrow!
On Saturday, the 8th, I went ashore and by 9.30 had taken up my quarters
in a little gully between "W" and "X" Beaches within 60 yards of the
Headquarters of the Royal Naval Division. There I was in direct
telephonic touch with both Hunter-Weston and d'Amade. The storm had
abated and the day was fine. Our troops had now been fighting for two
days and two nights but there were messages in from the front telling us
they were keen as ever to get something solid for their efforts. The
Lancashire Fusiliers Brigade had been withdrawn into reserve, and under
my orders the New Zealand Brigade was to advance through the line taken
up during the night by the 88th Brigade and attack Krithia. The 87th
Brigade were to try and gain ground over that wicked piece of moorland
to the West of the great ravine which--since the days when it was in the
hands of the troops who landed at "Y"--has hopelessly held up our left.
Every gun-shot fired gives me a pain in my heart and adds to the deadly
anxiety I feel about our ammunition. We have only one thousand rounds of
4.5 H.E. left and we dare not use any more. The 18 pr shrapnel is
running down, down, down to its terminus, for we _must_ try and keep
10,000 rounds in hand for defence. The French have still got enough to
cover their own attacks. The ships began to fire at 10.15 and after a
quarter of an hour the flower of New Zealand advanced in open order to
the attack. After the most desperate hand to hand fighting, often by
sections or sometimes by groups of half a dozen men, we gained slowly,
very slowly, perhaps a couple of hundred yards. There was an opinion in
some quarters that we had done all we could, but I resolved firmly to
make one more attempt. At 4 o'clock I issued orders that the whole line,
reinforced by the Australians, should on the stroke of 5.30 fix bayonets
and storm Krithia and Achi Baba. At 5.15 the men-of-war went at it hot
and strong with their big guns and fifteen minutes later the hour glass
of eternity dropped a tiny grain labelled 5.30 p.m. 8.5.1915 into the
lap of time.
As that moment befell, the wide plain before us became alive. Bayonets
sparkled all over the wide plain. Under our glasses this vague movement
took form and human shape: men rose, fell, ran, rushed on in waves,
broke, recoiled, crumbled away and disappeared.
At the speed of the minute hand of a watch the left of our line crept
forward.
On the right, at first nothing. Then suddenly, in the twinkling of an
eye, the whole of the Northern slopes of the Kereves Dere Ravine was
covered by bright coloured irregular surging crowds, moving in quite
another way to the khaki-clad figures on their left:--one moment pouring
over the debatable ground like a torrent, anon twisted and turning and
flying like multitudes of dead leaves before the pestilent breath of
the howitzers. No living man has ever seen so strange a vision as this:
in its disarray; in its rushing to and fro; in the martial music, shouts
and evolutions!
My glasses shook as I looked, though I _believe_ I seemed very calm. It
seemed; it truly seemed as if the tide of blue, grey, scarlet specks was
submerging the enemy's strongholds. A thousand of them converged and
rushed the redoubt at the head of the Kereves Dere. A few seconds later
into it--one! two!! three!!! fell from the clouds the Turkish six
inchers. Where the redoubt had been a huge column of smoke arose as from
the crater of a volcano. Then fast and furious the enemy guns opened on
us. For the first time they showed their full force of fire. Again, the
big howitzers led the infernal orchestra pitting the face of no man's
land with jet black blotches. The puppet figures we watched began to
waver; the Senegalese were torn and scattered. Once more these huge
explosions unloading their cargoes of midnight on to the evening gloom.
All along the Zouaves and Senegalese gave way. Another surge forward and
bayonets crossed with the Turks: yet a few moments of tension and back
they fell to their trenches followed by salvo upon salvo of shell
bursts. Night slid down into the smoke. The last thing--against the
skyline--a little column of French soldiers of the line charging back
upwards towards the lost redoubt. After that--darkness!
The battle is over. Both sides have fought with every atom of energy
they possessed. The heat is oppressive. A heavy mail from England. On
shore all quiet. A young wounded Officer of the 29th Division said it
was worth ten years of tennis to see the Australians and New Zealanders
go in. Began writing at daylight and now it is midnight. No word yet of
the naval offer to go through.
Issued a special order to the troops. They deserve everything that
anyone can give them in this world and the next.
GENERAL HEADQUARTERS,
_9th May, 1915._
"Sir Ian Hamilton wishes the troops of the Mediterranean Expeditionary
Force to be informed that in all his past experiences, which include the
hard struggles of the Russo-Japanese campaign, he has never seen more
devoted gallantry displayed than that which has characterised their
efforts during the past three days. He has informed Lord Kitchener by
cable of the bravery and endurance displayed by all ranks here and has
asked that the necessary reinforcements be forthwith dispatched.
Meanwhile, the remainder of the East Lancashire Division is disembarking
and will henceforth be available to help us to make good and improve
upon the positions we have so hardly won."
_10th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian."_ Fell asleep last night thinking of
Admirals, Commodores and men-o'-war and of how they _might_, within the
next forty-eight hours, put another complexion upon our prospects. So it
seemed quite natural when, the first thing in the morning, a cable came
in with the tea asking me whether I have been consulting de Robeck as to
"the future operations that will be necessary." K. adds, "I hope you and
the Admiral will be able to devise some means of clearing a passage."
Have just cabled back "Every day I have consultations with the Admiral":
I cannot say more than this as I am not supposed to know anything about
de Robeck's cable as to the "means of clearing a passage" which went, I
believe, yesterday. No doubt it lay before K. when he wired me. I have
not been shown the cable; I have not been consulted about it, nor, I
believe, has Braithwaite, but I do happen to be aware of its drift.
Without embarking on another endless yarn let me note the fact that
there are two schools amongst our brethren afloat. Roger Keyes and those
of the younger school who sport the executive curl upon their sleeves
are convinced that now, when we have replaced the ramshackle old
trawlers of 18th March by an unprecedented mine-sweeping service of
20-knot destroyers under disciplined crews, the forcing of the Straits
has become as easy ... well; anyway; easier than what we soldiers tried
to do on Saturday. Upon these fire-eaters de Robeck has hitherto thrown
cold water. He thought, as we thought, that the Army would save his
ships. But our last battle has shown him that the Army would only open
the Straits at a cost greater than the loss of ships, and that the time
has come to strike home with the tremendous mechanism of the Fleet. On
that basis he quickly came to terms with the views of his thrusting
lieutenants.
On two reservations, he still insisted: (1) he was not going to deprive
me of the close tactical support of his battleships if there was the
least apprehension we might be "done in" in his absence. (2) He was not
going to risk his ships amongst the mines unless we were sure, if he did
get through, we could follow on after him by land.
On both issues there was, to my thinking, no question:--(1) Although we
cannot push through "under present conditions without more and more
ammunition," _vide_ my cable of yesterday, all the Turks in Asia will
not shift us from where we stand even if we have not one battleship to
back us.
(2) If the ships force the Straits, beyond doubt, we can starve out the
Turks; scupper the Forts and hold the Bulair lines.
We know enough now about the communications and reserves of food and
munitions of the Turks to be positively certain they cannot stick it on
the Peninsula if they are cut off from sea communication with Asia and
with Constantinople. Within a fortnight they will begin to run short; we
are all agreed there.
So now, (i.e., yesterday) the Admiral has cabled offering to go through,
and "now" is the moment of all others to let Lord K. clearly face the
alternative to that proposal. So I have said (in the same cable in which
I answer his question about consultations with the Admiral) "If you
could only spare me two fresh Divisions organized as a Corps I could
push on with great hopes of success both from Helles and Gaba Tepe;
otherwise I am afraid we shall degenerate into trench warfare with its
resultant slowness."
Birdie ran down from Anzac and breakfasted. He brings news of an A.1
affair. Two of his Battalions, the 15th and 16th Australians, stormed
three rows of Turkish trenches with the bayonet, and then sat down in
them. At dawn to-day the enemy counter-attacked in overwhelming
strength. The healthy part of the story lies herein, that our field guns
were standing by in action, and as the enemy came on they let them have
it hot with shrapnel over a space of 300 yards. Terrible as this fire
was, it failed to beat off the Turks. They retook the trenches, but they
have paid far more than their price, for Birdwood assures me that their
corpses lie piled up so thick one on top of the other that our snipers
can take cover behind them.
A curious incident: during the night a Fleet-sweeper tied up alongside,
full of wounded, chiefly Australians. They had been sent off from the
beach; had been hawked about from ship to ship and every ship they
hailed had the same reply--"full up"--until, in the end, they received
orders to return to the shore and disembark their wounded to wait there
until next day. The Officers, amongst them an Australian Brigadier of my
acquaintance, protested; and so, the Fleet-sweeper crew, not knowing
what to do, came and lashed on to us.[17] No one told me anything of
this last night, but the ship's Captain and his Officers and my own
Staff Officers have been up on watches serving out soup, etc., and
tending these wounded to the best of their power. As soon as I heard
what had happened I first signalled the hospital ship _Guildford Castle_
to prepare to take the men in (she had just cast anchor); then I went on
board the Fleet-sweeper myself and told the wounded how sorry I was for
the delay in getting them to bed. They declared one and all they had
been very well done but "the boys" never complain; my A.G. is the
responsible official; I have told him the _band-o-bast_ has been bad;
also that a Court of Enquiry must be called to adjudicate on the whole
matter.
Were an example to be sought of the almighty influence of "Time" none
better could be found than in the fact that, to-day, I have almost
forgotten to chronicle a passage in K.'s cable aforesaid that might well
have been worth the world and the glories thereof only forty-eight short
hours ago. K. says, "More ammunition is being pushed out to you _via_
Marseilles." I am glad. I am deeply grateful. Our anxieties will be
lessened, but _that same message, had it only reached us on Saturday
morning, would have enabled us to fire 5,000 more shrapnel and 500 more
4.5 howitzer H.E. to cover our last assault!_