TRENCH WARFARE ON GALLIPOLI
The routine upon which the Battalion entered at this stage remained
almost unchanged until the evacuation. Our Headquarters, where I slept
when in command of the Battalion during Colonel Canning's various short
spells as acting Brigadier, were usually in some heather-covered gorge,
opening upon a deep blue sea. Essex Ravine was a frequent site. The side
of this ravine which faced the north-east protruded beyond the side
sheltered from the Turkish fire, and was thus forbidden ground. All down
the slope were spread the dismembered remains of hundreds of Turks, who
must have been slaughtered in retreat by guns from our warships in the
AEgean Sea. It was impossible to bury them, owing to the enemy's fire.
The other side, where we slept on a rocky ledge high above the sea, was
still a beautiful glen.
An hour before dawn we went round the lines, while the men "stood to."
We returned for a bathe and breakfast in the open, while the destroyers
used to pass to and fro between Cape Helles and the Gulf of Saros, and a
pearly haze brooded over Imbros. Then back to the trenches, which were
always dusty and fly-pestered, to visit men always under fire, but full
of bravery and patience. Diarrhoea and dysentery were already sending
many of them from the Peninsula. The trenches were often noisome. Only
in the evening, with Imbros growing fainter in the fading day and
Samothrace rising huge and cloudy behind, while the red and green lights
of the hospital ships off Helles shone brightly across the water, was
physical vigour possible. When I acted as Second in Command, as was more
usual, my nights were spent in the centre of the firing line, with
excellent telephonists like Hoyle or Clavering close to me, but the
nights were usually quiet, and indeed it was not until the middle of
September that the Turks showed any symptoms of the offensive spirit.
Our casualties were mainly caused by random shots at night, which
chanced to hit our sentries as they peered into the gloom over the
parapet.
After a fortnight's spell in the trenches, rest bivouacs were welcome as
a change, though the name was a mere mockery. Mining and loading
fatigues were incessant. I admired the humour of a Wigan sergeant, whom
I heard encouraging a gang of perspiring soldiers, while carrying heavy
ammunition boxes up a hill-side one sweltering afternoon, with the
incitement that they must "Remember Belgium."
For a Field Officer one of the most trying experiences of such breaks in
the common routine was the task of presiding over field general
courts-martial. Courts-martial under peace conditions are not without
interest to a lawyer, but these in the field dealt wholly with grave
charges, such as falling asleep while on sentry duty and other offences
almost as dangerous and considerably more heinous morally. It was hard
in many cases to reconcile the exigencies of war with the call of
humanity, and the sense of responsibility was only partially relieved by
the knowledge that a higher authority would give due weight to the
extenuating circumstances that appealed so often to one's compassion.
The introduction of "suspended sentences" by the Army (Suspension of
Sentences) Act 1915, with a view to keep a man's rifle in the firing
line, and to give an offender the chance of retrieving his liberty by
subsequent devotion to duty, was probably the War's best addition to
British Military Law. Nevertheless, the duty of acting as President on
these occasions is found universally distasteful.
There were, however, two great charms in these short intervals in trench
warfare. First, it was delightful to escape to places where you could
move erect and see something besides the brown wilderness of saps and
cuts. A walk to Lancashire Landing along the coast road, between great
rugged cliffs on one side and the rippling sea on the other, took us
past the little colony of the Greek Labour Corps, and past terraces of
new stone huts and sandbag dug-outs, which indicated the presence of
Staff Officers. Looking seaward, we saw the hull of the sunken
_Majestic_, a perpetual sign of the limitations of "sea power." We could
then strike up from the beach and see the A.S.C. stores, admirably
managed by Major (afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel) A. England, and pushing
on to the top of the plateau, the whole area of warfare between
Lancashire Landing and Achi Baba was at our feet.
Even more delightful was the long series of entertainments which we
organised in the Battalion, and which eventually drew large numbers from
the rest of the 42nd Division. These entertainments were opened by
lectures on history. Our men became familiar with the history and
conditions of all the belligerent Powers, and were kept well acquainted
with the developments of the actual military situation in Europe. They
enjoyed these lectures. Education has its uses, after all. Then followed
concerts, which were splendidly arranged by Regimental Sergeant-Major M.
Hartnett, a veteran of Ladysmith and East Africa and a pillar of the
Battalion, now, alas, dead, and by Quartermaster-Sergeant Mort, himself
an adept as an entertainer. These "shows" used to start about 6.45 in
the evening, and the vision of our tired boys scattered in the fast
fading twilight on the slope of some narrow ravine beneath the serene,
starry sky of Turkey will be among our most lasting memories of
Gallipoli. The sentimental song was typical of the Territorial's taste.
Even now I can hear the refrain sung by Company Sergeant-Major J.W.
Woods:
"My heart's far away with the Colleen I adore;
Eileen alannah; Angus asthor."
At the finish, before singing the National Anthem and the no less
popular anthem of the Machine Gun Section, our men always sang: _Keep
the Home Fires Burning_. The soldiers could have no better vesper hymn.
On the 8th September 1915 we went into a new sector of trenches on
either side of what was called Border Barricade. The name was, like
Border Ravine, a relic of the Border Regiment, just as Skinner's Lane,
Watling Street, Essex Ravine and Inniskilling Inch recalled the
activities of other units.
I can claim personal responsibility for placing Burlington Street and
Greenheys Lane upon the map of Gallipoli. They are reminders of our
Headquarters in Manchester.
Border Barricade barred a moorland track which led upwards to higher
ground where the Turks were strongly entrenched. Below it were little
graveyards of Turkish and British dead, and below them the moors
contracted into the narrow defile of Gully Ravine. Here on the 15th
September we lost some casualties in a mine explosion, which the Turks
had carefully timed for our evening's "Stand to." Dense columns of smoke
and earth shot up high into the air, and the rapidly increasing darkness
of the evening added greatly to our difficulties. Most gallant work was
done in digging out buried men, a task of great danger, as the front
trench was completely destroyed, and the Turks, whose trenches at this
point were within ten yards of ours, were bombing heavily. Thirteen men
lost their lives through the explosion. For some days afterwards this
spot and an open space behind it were constantly sniped, and, as an
addition to our troubles, one of our own trench mortars, fired by a
neighbouring unit, landed in error in our lines, killing 3 men and
wounding 4, including Captain Smedley. Later the Turks exploded further
mines in the same area when it was occupied by other units.
Our chief losses, however, were through illness. Captain P.H. Creagh,
whose splendid work was rewarded by a D.S.O., left us at the end of
August for good, and joined his own regiment in Mesopotamia. Before the
end of September, Captain C.H. Williamson, the Brigade's excellent
Signalling Officer (afterwards killed in action); Captain A.H. Tinker,
at that time Machine Gun Officer, but afterwards most admirable of
Company Commanders; Captains H.H. Nidd and J.R. Creagh, most careful of
Company Officers; D. Norbury of the Machine Guns; Pain and Pilgrim,
invaluable Somerset officers attached to us, all left the Battalion with
jaundice. Burn and Bryan left it with dysentery; Morten with a poisoned
hand.
There was little indeed to cheer the men in the trenches. News
percolated through to us of the failure at Suvla and of the hardships
endured in that enterprise. Mails from home arrived all too slowly and
precariously. Death was always present. We regretted the loss of Captain
H.T. Cawley on the night of the 23rd September. He had given up a soft
billet as A.D.C. to a Major General in order to share the lot of his
old regiment, a battalion of the Manchesters, and was killed in a mine
crater near Border Barricade.
The spell in the trenches admitted of few variations. The journey to
them was always burdensome. It is easy to recall the trek, on the 1st
October 1915, of weary, dust-stained, overloaded men some three miles up
the nullah, inches deep in dirty dust and under a broiling sun, to
occupy narrow fire trenches, unprotected as ever by head cover, and
pestilential with smells and flies. Yet once established in the
trenches, life was tolerable enough. As a Field Officer I was fortunate
to be able to escape at times to enjoy the intense luxury of
sea-bathing. Sometimes the evenings were misty, and the fog-horns of our
destroyers and trawlers carried faintly across the AEgean Sea. More often
the sunsets were gorgeous. The day always seemed long. Firing was
frequent but targets were rare. Some men curled themselves up between
the narrow red walls of the trenches, read, dozed, smoked, talked, one
or two in each traverse observing in turns through the periscope across
the arid belt of No Man's Land, where groups of grey-clad Turks, killed
long ago, still lay bleaching and reeking under the torrid sky. Others
foraged behind for fuel, which could only be found with great
difficulty. A little later dozens of fires would be crackling in the
trenches, with dixies upon them full of stew or tea. Flies hovered in
myriads over jam-pots. The sky was cloudless. Heat brooded over all. No
one ever visited the trench except the Battalion Headquarters Staff and
fatigue parties with water-bottles. Many soldiers stripped to the waist,
and wore simply their sun helmets and shorts. Sickness alone drew men
away. The soil was dark red, caked and crumbling. Here and there the
dead were buried into the parados, with such inscriptions as "Sacred to
the Memory of an Unknown Comrade. _R.I.P._"
The Mule Sap connected the trenches with Headquarters. We gathered
curios, Turkish and German, from among its debris. At Headquarters the
telephone, orderly-room and dressing-station alone denoted the presence
of war. They were fixed in a beautiful ravine, looking upon a smooth
sea, warm in the sunlight, with Imbros ten miles across the water. The
meals were of first importance, but sandbags are uncomfortable seats,
and the heat was trying. Pleasant it was in the cool of the evening to
go to sleep with one's Burberry as a pillow. The stars shone kindly
down, as they had shone long ago upon the heroes of the Iliad on the
Plains of Troy, seven miles away across the Dardanelles, upon the
Crusaders and Byzantines. You were asleep in a moment, and hardly
stirred until 5 A.M., when it was time for "Stand to." Daylight moved
quickly across the desolate waste, and by six o'clock another day of war
and waiting had dawned.
The Territorial's thoughts turn to home far more often than do those of
the Regular, for to him the family has always been more important than
the regiment. H.C. Franklin, who took P.H. Creagh's place as our
Adjutant at the end of August, and was an old Regular soldier of the
Manchester Regiment, often said that the week's mail of a Territorial
battalion is as large as six months' mails for a unit of the old Army.
He told, too, a good story, which shows the perceptiveness of Indians.
He was standing near to some Indian muleteers when the Manchester
Territorial Brigade disembarked on Gallipoli. He heard them say in
Hindustani: "Here is another of the regiments of shopkeepers." One
pointed to Captain P.H. Creagh, our Adjutant and only Regular officer.
He said: "But he is a soldier." Another said of Staveacre: "A fine, big
man, but he also is of the shopkeepers."
The story of trench warfare during these months on Gallipoli is
undramatic. A record of their little episodes is almost trivial. Yet
this want of movement and initiative is true to life, and was the common
lot of the three or four British Divisions then responsible for
operations at Cape Helles. The campaign, in fact, came to a standstill
on the failure of the great offensive in August. The objects of the Army
were simply to hold the ground so hardly won in the first two months of
the expedition, and to contain as large as possible a Turkish force on
Gallipoli for the benefit of our Russian Allies in the Caucasus and
elsewhere. The first of these objects was attained in spite of the
thinness of our line, the universal inferiority of our positions to
those of the enemy, and the gradual improvement of their guns and
aircraft. The Nizam--_i.e._ the Regular first-line Turkish troops--had
been practically destroyed. The remainder lacked the offensive spirit
after their heavy losses in August, and perhaps their hearts were not
sufficiently in the struggle to welcome further sacrifice of life, with
time already running in their favour. We heard of one British officer
who had acted as a hostage during a short armistice at Anzac. The Turks
loaded him with presents of fruit, and, pointing to their dead on the
battle-field, said: "So much for your diplomatists and diplomacy!"
Our second object, also, is believed to have been gained, so far as was
possible, having regard to our inadequate numbers and to the limitations
of our technique of the period. Bombing used at this time to be
practised by small sections in each battalion, who occupied dangerous
salients called "bird-cages" in the fire trenches. Here in our
Battalion, G. Ross-Bain and W.H. Barratt among the officers, S. Clough
and T. Hulme among the N.C.O.'s--all valiant men--won a modest measure
of fame. On one occasion Hulme picked up a live bomb thrown by the enemy
and saved his comrades' lives by throwing it over the parapet with
splendid self-devotion. Our British sappers became more proficient in
mining, special corps being formed from among the Wigan colliers of the
Manchesters and the Lowland Scots. The guns were always active, and
their co-operation with the infantry was perfected. Those who remember
passing by night along the winding length of Inniskilling Inch will
recall the red lamp that marked the artillery forward observation
officer's post at the corner of Burlington Street, and the well-hidden
gun emplacement, where Greenheys Lane ran out of the Mule Sap. The
familiar street signs carried men's minds back to Manchester.