A TERRIBLE THREE DAYS
Dawn on the 26th came stealing over the hills beyond the Straits and
snow-capped Mount Ida, showing her pink peak above the dark grim
fortifications of Kelid Bahr, and along the Dardanelles Straits.
Dawn awoke to hear the thundering boom of the guns from the fleet in
amongst the valleys and gullies of Anzac, the rattle of muskets and
the rip-rip-rip of machine guns. It spread with an echoing roar to
the beach; it was taken up by the ships that lay one or two miles off
the coast; it was intensified and flung back to shore again by the
monster guns on the deck of the _Queen Elizabeth_. Down to the entrance
of the Straits rolled the sound; and back from the Straits came the
thundering roar as of a million kettledrums, while the fierce attacks
and counter-attacks of the British pushed in on to the fortifications,
and turned the Turks in terror to the foothills of Achi Baba. The enemy
had abandoned their smashed guns; they had evacuated the fortifications
and the village of Seddul Bahr, as the magnificent, imperishable 29th
Division had managed to gain a foothold round the toe of the peninsula.
Word had early been flashed up to Anzac that the landing had been a
success, but had been resisted more fiercely, more terribly than even
the most sanguinary expectations predicted.
It was the naval guns that took the place of the field guns, bursting
shrapnel in the front of the Turkish lines, that held back the enemy
charges, that decimated their men, that enabled the British and the
Australian troops to effect the landing and hang on to the ridges until
their trenches were deep enough, their guns landed, and the lines
organized to withstand any attacks, however violent. It was artillery
fire that the infantry (30,000 infantry) needed most at Anzac, and it
was heavy artillery fire with a vengeance they got. As I watched the
warships pumping in shells on to the hills, saw the Turks answering
with the bluish white, curling clouds of shrapnel that burst over the
sea and the gullies, it gave me an indication of the fury of the battle
of which these were the only visible signs at long range. There was a
balloon observing for the ships. The _Queen Elizabeth_, the _Triumph_,
and the _Bacchante_, and five other warships lay off Anzac. There were
three times as many off Cape Helles, with the French fleet steaming
off Kum Kale. I watched the leaping tongues of fire from the warships'
sides, and heard the muffled report as the smoke blew back over the
decks in a yellow cloud; and before it had vanished (but many seconds
later, as it had whirled miles in the air), the explosion of the shell
bursting on the side of the hills and among the trenches. The wounded
felt that shelling most, as they lay on the cliffs, on the shore, on
the decks of the transports, with the ships firing point-blank at them.
It shook them--it chilled their blood. But the men in the trenches knew
that on the naval gunners depended their lives, depended their success;
it was these protecting screens of fire, of huge shells, that gave them
time to dig, and to settle down into what was fast becoming trench
warfare. The Turks gathered battalions to battalions and flung them
against the parts of our lines where the configuration of the country
made them naturally weakest. The shells from the warships decimated
them.
If Sunday had been the critical night for the Army Corps at Anzac,
Monday and Tuesday were the critical days. Each party of men fought
as a separate, desperate unit. The Turk might throw his complete
reserve battalions against the right, the centre, or the left of our
thinned ranks, but it was only the grit, the determination of the
fighting spirit of the Australians and New Zealanders that enabled
them to hold back the enemy or continue the attacks in small units
led by a corporal or a junior subaltern. Reinforcements were hastily
gathered, such parties as might be found in the valleys going to
join the scattered regiments, or trying to find their comrades of a
battalion. No counter-attack on a large scale could be ordered while
such disorganization prevailed; but each section of the line sought
to advance, as it was found necessary to take and straighten and
strengthen the position on the second ridge, so as to eventually link
up the whole line.
[Illustration: MACLAGAN'S RIDGE AND ANZAC BEACH ON 26TH AUGUST, SHOWING
THE HILLSIDE AS YET UNINHABITED.]
[Illustration: EARLY HOSPITALS ON ANZAC BEACH.]
In this way, then, the firing-line was roughly divided--on the first
morning after landing--into four sections. On the extreme right was
mostly the 2nd Brigade, under Colonel M'Cay, next to him the 3rd
Brigade, under Colonel Maclagan, with battalions of the 1st Brigade,
under Colonel M'Laurin, on his left. The 4th Brigade, under Colonel
Monash, filled the apex of the position, and turning back the flank
to the beach were the New Zealanders, under General Russell. A
rough-and-ready division of the line it was, but it held, and, with
little alteration, was kept as the sections of the position. Units were
terribly mixed, and battalions, irrespective of brigades, were ordered
to defend weakened positions or reinforce where the Turkish attacks
grew most violent. Daylight found the troops still digging for their
lives. Rain fell slightly. The men had some cover now, and found to
their satisfaction and comfort that shrapnel no longer worried them
so long as they kept in their trenches. How true in those days that
the safest part of the position was the firing-line; for the tracks
across the gullies were naked and open to the fire of the snipers'
bullets that came even behind the line where the Turk had crept (for
the gullies had not yet been searched and cleared). One party of
Turks, indeed, endeavoured to get a machine gun through the lines on a
stretcher, roughly covered by a greatcoat, as if they were carrying out
a wounded man. They had not gone far before the trick was discovered,
and these daring men were shot down. They were German non-commissioned
officers in charge of machine guns. Lieutenant Mangar told me how he
lay wounded behind a bush watching these German gunners, not 10 yards
from him, pouring lead into our retreating parties of men. Finally,
they, in turn, were forced to retire, and he crept in, under cover of
darkness, to his own trenches.
The opening round of our guns was the signal for rejoicing, and five
guns were firing throughout the day. A New Zealand battery first came
into action with a roar, and some of Colonel Rosenthal's 3rd Brigade
were landed later in the day. Artillery lanes had been cut round
steeper slopes, over which the gunners and infantrymen dragged them,
once they had been brought along the beach by the gun teams. Desperate
efforts were made by artillery officers to silence the battery of guns
that the Turks had skilfully concealed on Gaba Tepe, and though our
field guns, warships, and destroyers plastered the point, the enemy's
guns still continued to do terrible execution on the landing beach and
amongst the troops entrenching on the right of the position. A landing
party had been repulsed with heavy losses, finding the beach a mass of
barbed-wire entanglements, and machine guns concealed in the cliffs.
Hang on and dig, hang on to the edge of the second plateau, back on to
which they had been forced after the charge across the three ridges
to the last lines of hills that looked down on the green, cultivated
plains stretching almost to the Dardanelles, was all the Australians
could do now. As far as possible the officers were endeavouring to
reorganize their companies and battalions. Brigadiers have explained
to me how for days, as they could, they gathered 50 or 60 men from
this unit and that, and would communicate with the brigadier next
along the line, and a transfer would be effected. It was not possible
to let many men from the firing-line at one time, as the Turks were
furiously making preparations for attack. Practically nothing could be
accomplished on this Monday or Tuesday. In the still all too shallow
trenches the "spotters" for the warships (young lieutenants from
Duntroon College, Australia, had been chosen) telephoned to the beach,
from whence, by means of a wireless signal station, they directed the
ships' fire with telling effect. Officers had but to find targets to
be able to get any number of shells from the _Triumph_ or _Bacchante_,
or the destroyers that nosed close inshore, hurtling in the required
direction.
Throughout the morning of Monday the Turks again began their
counter-attacks, which with brief intervals, it seemed almost without
ceasing, for two days they dashed first at one and then at another
section of the line. A Turkish order may be quoted to show the manner
in which the German leader, Liman von Sanders, endeavoured to inspire
his troops, which now numbered probably 40,000 men, to further
sacrifices. It ran:--
Attack the enemy with the bayonet and utterly destroy him. We shall
not retrace one step, for if we do our religion, our country, and our
nation will perish.
Soldiers, the world is looking to you. Your only hope of salvation is
to bring the battle to a successful issue, or gloriously to give up
your life in the attempt.
It may be added here, too, that after two days' constant attack the
Turkish leaders refused to ask their troops to face the ships' fire
again during the day. For it was the ships' fire (with the _Queen
Elizabeth's_ enormous 15-inch shrapnel pellets--a thousand in a case)
as well as our machine guns and the rifles and the Indian Mountain
Artillery (magnificently served were these guns) that the Turks faced
as they charged.
First on the right of the line the attacks began. The Turks were hurled
back by the 8th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Bolton. The Australians
stood steady, sweeping the enemy's lines, heaping up the dead. The
Turks advanced in the favourite massed German formation. Grimly, with
bayonets fixed, the Australians waited in their unfinished trenches.
At the apex of the line, the head on Monash Gully, the great Turkish
attack of the day developed. Two ridges met here, and formed what was
named at once the "Nek." The Sari Bair ridge ran at right angles to the
beach, beginning with what had been named Walker's Ridge and Russell
Top, and continuing on past Chunak Bair to Hill 971, or Koja Chemin
Tepe. Just above Russell Top the broad plateau (on the edge of which
most of the Australian army now clung desperately) joined the Sari Bair
ridge at the Nek. This main Australian ridge ran in a bow round to Gaba
Tepe. So steep was the head of the gully and so cut up with hills (for
a spur ran out from the very centre of it--Pope's Hill) that it was
not possible to get a continuous line of trenches across to the Nek.
There was no alternative but to dig in here from Russell Top, down
across the gully, and up again on to the knob which struck out into the
gully, dividing its head in two (called subsequently Pope's Hill), and
from this point across to Quinn's Post, so linking up with the rest
of the right of the line. The summit of the arc, as I have described
our position--now for the first time more definitely defined--was the
gully. On the left the New Zealanders held Walker's Ridge, Plugge's
Plateau, and the section of Russell Top, and the trenches leading down
on their left into the valley; with the result that the Turks chose
this point as the best for breaking through our position and coming in
behind our lines. Had they succeeded in their endeavours, which lasted
till Wednesday, it would have meant the cutting of Anzac in two.
The 2nd Battalion, under Colonel Braund, had held the trenches nearest
the Nek until relieved by the New Zealanders on Sunday night. Meanwhile
the 4th Brigade, less many companies, had been flung into the central
position. All the hills were still at this time covered with thick
scrub, and favoured the tactics of the Turks, who crept through it
until they were near enough to make a rush at the trenches. But the
men of the 2nd Battalion and the New Zealanders stood firm. From the
Nek, and what afterwards became the Chessboard trenches, the Turkish
snipers shot down into the gully, which was a veritable death-trap with
this menace above it. No wonder to it clung the name of the "Valley of
the Shadow of Death." It took many days for our sharpshooters from the
high positions we had won to compel the enemy to keep under cover, and
eventually to withdraw their snipers--those who were not shot at their
posts.
Farther along the line M'Cay's Hill and Braund's Hill, in the centre
of the right of the position, were subjected to a furious bombardment
by the Turkish artillery, and their machine guns were playing on these
points until nearly three o'clock, when the attacks of the Turks began
to increase in fury. They sent wave after wave of men against our
lines, and the 8th Battalion were forced to retire to the edge of the
ridge. The enemy now came across from up Happy Valley and other gullies
on the right, and were threatening to break through and get behind our
lines round M'Cay's Hill. It was then that two battalions, the 9th, now
under Major Robertson, and 10th, under Lieut.-Colonel Weir, which had
already suffered under racking fire, and had had to retire from distant
ridges to which they had penetrated in a counter-attack, were brought
up from a gully where they had been held in reserve. They straightway
commenced to retake the lost hill. Three times they charged before
the Turks finally broke, unable to face the reckless bravery of the
Australians, and the hill was finally in our possession. But our losses
were again heavy. This finally settled the possession of the hill,
which enabled the line to be drawn straighter along the right.
Meanwhile General Bridges had completed an inspection of the ground
of the position, and determined that certain portions would have
to be straightened out so that the best advantage might be taken of
the country before them. For this duty the 4th Battalion, or rather
remaining section of it, which had been kept in reserve, were ordered
to advance some hundred yards and occupy the new line. Since the
landing the enemy had crept into our lines as spies, dressed in the
uniforms of fallen men, and had been successful by various ruses in
trapping more than one officer. They had passed false messages down the
line, and had caused men to cease fire for a time, before the fallacy
of the orders had been discovered. On this occasion the 4th, led by
Lieut.-Colonel Thompson, believing that the whole of the line was to
charge, went forward, charging on and on through two valleys to a
distant ridge--Pine Ridge. They passed a small Turkish camp, and were
only stopped at length by a terrible machine-gun fire when still 1,000
yards from the mouth of the enemy's heavy artillery. They had then to
retire, realizing the hopelessness of their position. They fell back.
As they reached what was intended for their objective they entrenched.
But their gallant leader was killed in the charge.
Again and again during Monday night and Tuesday the Turks charged and
counter-attacked along the whole front, but the Australians, confident
of their prowess after twenty-four hours' continuous fighting, grimly
held their ground. They had learned that trenches gave some protection
from shrapnel, and those that were not fighting were burrowing like
rabbits, digging in, while their comrades held the line. The Turks
continued to direct their hardest blows against the centre, but as
fast as they hurried up their reserves so did the Australians come
hurrying up from the beach. The unloading of the shells and supplies
had proceeded rapidly now that it had been determined to hold on. The
Anzacs had come for good, they left no doubt about that, and, with the
guns firing from the very trenches, it was with a cheer that the lads
waited for the Turks. Never would the foe face the last 20 yards and
the glistening line of bayonets. Sometimes a section of our men would
leave the trenches, sufficient indication of what would follow, so
sending the Turks shambling back. They feared the Australian in those
days and the use he made of his bayonet. It even happened that the
fixing of bayonets, the men stopping their digging, halted a Turkish
charge. Not that I wish to suggest that the Turk was not brave, but
he had been badly rattled and shattered with the ships' appalling
fire. But our troops were getting sleepy and tired, for they had been
fighting for three days continuously. They had plenty of munitions
and rations, and with judicious use (a thing that the Australians
taught the English Tommies later on) their water supply held out. But
everything had to be laboriously carried up those hills from the beach.
The casualty lists show the high percentage of officers killed and
wounded, due, I believe, not only to their heroism and example
of leadership, but to the nature of the country. Brigadiers and
battalion commanders exposed themselves, standing among the bushes and
undergrowth, so as to find out where the attack might be coming from,
while a tornado of lead swept past them. There was no cover other than
very rough and very inadequate look outs. The snipers of the Turks
were still playing havoc in our lines; many, indeed, were still behind
the troops, dug into pits, with days' supplies of food and ammunition,
concealed by bushes, and that was why the men as far as possible kept
down in their trenches; it was that which made Shrapnel Valley the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. It was while reconnoitring thus the
Brigadier of the 1st Brigade--a soldier who could ill be spared at such
a time or at any time, Colonel M'Laurin--fell, shot through the heart,
and his Brigade-Major, Major Irvine, was killed standing alongside of
him. This sad loss happened on Tuesday during the afternoon, when the
Brigadier had come out from his dugout close to the firing-line (all
quarters were in those early days, and were little better afterwards,
so far as situation went). Some idea of the fierceness of the fighting
may be gleaned from the casualties the 1st Division suffered. The 3rd
Brigade in the first two days, Sunday and Monday, had 1,900, the 2nd
Brigade 1,700, the 1st Brigade 900 killed and wounded. In the 2nd
Brigade alone 11 officers were killed at the landing, 34 wounded, and 2
missing, afterwards discovered to be killed.
There but remains now to complete the story of this great landing
battle by reference to the part that the 4th Brigade took during the
days till Wednesday, some mention of which has already been made.
[Illustration: SHRAPNEL BURSTING OVER THE PIERS AT ANZAC FROM SHELLS
FIRED BY "BEACHY BILL."
View taken looking towards Hell Spit.]
[Illustration: BULLY BEEF GULLY, WITH PLUGGE'S PLATEAU ABOVE.
On the right, along the hillside, was 1st Australian Divisional
Headquarters. Coral for Turkish prisoners on the left, with water tanks
for reticulation scheme of Anzac, above.
To face p. 122.]
Two separate manoeuvres were tried by the Turks to break our line.
They tried them both at once. One was an attempt to drive in our
right flank and get round by the beach to the heart of the position.
This they failed to do, as the knolls were so strongly held (the 2nd
Battalion had been specially thrown on to the extreme right flank to
guard against this); while the fire from the warships, especially
the _Queen Elizabeth_, was far too accurate and bloody, so that the
enemy dared not show themselves on those exposed slopes and in the
gullies, easily raked either by direct or indirect fire from the
warships, officers spotting, as I have said, from the trenches. The
other attempt, a separate and even sterner battle, was the stabs that
the Turks made at the highest point of the arc of our semicircular
position--or at the apex, as it has been termed--near the head of
Monash Gully. Our trenches were down in the gully. They were overlooked
by the Turks. Shrapnel fell over them constantly and for long periods
at a time. On the edges of the main ridge the position grew more and
more perilous. Only for the gallant defence of Quinn's and Pope's Hills
nothing could have stopped the wedge that the Turks sought to make
being driven in. An officer of the 14th Battalion seized the point
known as Quinn's Post, a knoll on the side of the ridge, and held on
like grim death with his gallant men. I venture to say that had the
Turks, rallying their numbers, succeeded in dislodging this little band
of heroes from their position on this knoll, who must then have been
dashed to their doom in the Shrapnel Gully, they would have gained
their purpose and that great and important artery would have been
commanded by Turkish fire. On Wednesday Major Quinn took it over and
held it, and the post from that time on bore his name.
Pope's Hill filled the gap between the heads of Monash Gully. It will
easily be realized from a glance at a map (it was a thousand times
more evident to see) that only for this post and this feature, the
Turks would have wrought havoc in our position. An officer of the 1st
Battalion took Pope's Hill with a body of about 100 men, composed of
various units. In fact, he had under his command men from practically
the whole of the 1st Division, whom he had gathered up as they
wandered up the gullies looking for their units. He held on until the
evening of Sunday, when he was relieved by a composite force, under
Lieut.-Colonel Pope, with whose name this dangerous and vital hill has
been ever since associated. Under his command Lieut.-Colonel Pope had
about a battalion and a half, consisting of a company of the 15th, a
company of the Auckland Battalion, and the 16th Battalion, about 400
men in all. In this first conflict the 4th Brigade won its renown,
and Colonel Pope his name. This gallant officer had been guided up
from the beach by a Staff officer, but the force, small as it was, in
the darkness got divided. Part debouched to the south flank and were
absorbed in the trenches there; the remainder pushed on firmly and
reached the spur, Pope's Hill, and relieved Captain Jacobs, who had all
the day been clinging with his little band of 100 men to this desperate
position.
It was shortly after these relieving troops arrived that a most curious
incident occurred, which showed the cunning tactics of the Turks.
Information, originating no one knew where, was passed along the short
firing-line from the left that Indian troops were in possession of the
ground immediately to the left of the hill at the very head of the
gully. It was clearly advisable that the gap which existed between the
Australian line and these Indian troops should be closed, as it gave
the Turks a free passage-way down the gully, steep as it was, thereby
cutting our position in two. Immediately on receipt of the verbal
message Lieutenant Easton, 16th Battalion, and Private Lussington, who
understood Hindustani, were dispatched, and they soon got in touch with
a party of Indians that were entrenched on the side of the hill. The
Indians stated that a senior officer was required to discuss matters
with their officer, and accordingly Captain R. T. A. M'Donald, the
adjutant, was sent forward. He had not gone far--the whole of our line
to the Turkish trenches at the very head of the gully where the parley
took place was not more than 150 yards--when he called back out of the
darkness that the O.C. alone would do to discuss the position with.
Colonel Pope went at once, and reaching the northern edge of the gully,
found his adjutant and the two men who had been first sent forward
talking with a party of six Indians, who had stood with their bayonets
fixed. One glance was sufficient to convince the O.C. that these men
were not Indians at all. He had suspected that something was wrong when
called, and no sooner had he joined the party than he called out a word
of warning. The Turks--for such these Indians proved themselves to be
in disguise--at once formed round the Australians. Colonel Pope, who
was nearest the edge of the gully, with rare courage, broke through
the ring and leaped down some 12 feet into the gully below. Shots were
fired after him, but he escaped, and, with a severe shaking, reached
his lines. The other three men were taken prisoners at once and sent
to Constantinople. In the possession of the Adjutant were important
documents, plans, and maps, which in this way early fell into the hands
of the Turks.
Colonel Pope lost little time in extending his position across the
hill that he held. His front covered about 300 yards. He had barely
400 men under his command. From this onward, through the night and
succeeding days, every spare moment was spent in improving the trenches
on the hill which sloped down into the gully. It was almost a sheer
drop at the head of it of 80 feet, and the hillside was covered with
loose earth and dense bush. There were snipers on the hill still,
in concealed pits, and snipers, too, firing from the opposite side
of the gully, where there had been a small Turkish camp. At periods
through Monday, on until Tuesday morning, fierce attacks were made
against Pope's Hill, but the Turks were repulsed by the steady fire
of the defenders of the post. Reinforcements had brought the garrison
up to 450 men. But both machine guns of the 16th Battalion were put
out of action during Monday, and it was not till Tuesday that these
were replaced by guns from the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who were
now hurried up as a reserve, as will be explained in a subsequent
chapter. On the 30th the 16th Battalion was relieved by the 15th. So
began in bloody battle the history of this famous post, some of the
still bloodier onslaughts against it remaining to be described, as they
occurred, later. The topography and defences of this post and this
section of the line must form always a separate chapter in the history
of Anzac.
The failure of the Turks to smash the resistance in the first days
determined the success of the Australians. Fit as no troops have been,
fit for fierce fights, from thence onward the invaders had a contempt
for the Turks, and only were anxious that he should attack. In those
few early days it is said that the Turks suffered nearly 50,000
casualties at Anzac and Cape Helles. Ours were over 8,000, and the
British twice as many again. The enemy left thousands of dead on the
battlefield before the trenches. But while they were reorganizing their
great attack on Wednesday there was a lull, a curious solemn quiet that
spread all along the line, which had ceased to spit and splutter except
in a spasmodic way. On Tuesday the commencement of the reorganization
of the Australian army was begun. It was completed by Friday. Anzac,
after four days' fighting, was established. Australians had won their
first battle, had gained, in that first desperate encounter, deathless
fame by deeds that have no parallel in history (not even remembering
the scaling of the heights of Abraham), and which rank in glory with
the imperishable records of the gallant 29th Division and their attack
and capture of the Turkish positions at Cape Helles.