TURKISH MAY ATTACK AND ARMISTICE
The Turks' strongest attack of the campaign was made in the middle of
May, when they attempted an assault all along the Anzac line. Both
sides had had time to reorganize, and both had received reinforcements.
The Turks probably had 35,000 men in their trenches at this time, while
the Australians had 30,000. During the first fortnight of the month
the enemy had brought up guns of bigger calibre, and had placed in the
Olive Grove, from which they could enfilade the beach from the east, a
six-gun battery which even the warships and the Australian gunners were
unable to completely silence. The Allies had aeroplanes and captive
balloons spotting for them, and yet the Turkish batteries, skilfully
concealed, managed to continue shelling the beach and the incoming
barges. Very little notice was taken by the Navy of this shelling, and
very soon, too, the troops regarded it as the natural thing. What they
would have felt like, these Australians, had they been fighting in
France, where, for certain periods, they would be relieved and taken
from under constant shell fire, it is not easy to say. The strain wore
them down certainly, but it never affected the army nerves or its heart
or its determination.
Nevertheless, May was a sad month for the troops, though it also
brought later a chance of the Turks being taught a lesson. On Saturday,
15th May, Major-General Bridges, the leader of the 1st Division, fell
mortally wounded. It had often been remarked by the troops at Anzac
that their General was absolutely careless of his own safety. He
was daily round the trenches, a rather glum, silent man, but keenly
observant, and quickly able to draw from his officers all the points of
information he required. Often he recklessly exposed himself to gain a
view of the Turkish positions, despite the remonstrances of his Staff.
As time wore on he took heed, and on the morning when he fell had been
more than usually careful. General Bridges had left Anzac Headquarters,
near the beach, at about 9.30, and was going up Shrapnel Gully, and at
this time that terrible gully had no secret sap through which one might
pass with comparative safety from snipers' bullets coming from the head
of the gully. It was a matter of running, from sandbag traverse to
sandbag traverse, a gauntlet of lead, up the bed of the dry gully.
General Bridges had just passed a dressing-station dug into the side
of the hill, and had received a warning from the stretcher-bearers
standing round the entrance. "You had better run across here,
sir," they told him, "as the Turks are pretty lively to-day." He
did, and reached a further traverse, where he stood near another
dressing-station smoking a cigarette. "Well," he said to his Staff
officer, after a few minutes, "we must make another run for it." He ran
round the corner of the traverse and through the thick scrub. Before
he could reach the next cover, not many yards away, he was struck by
a bullet and lay prone. It is believed that the sniper at the head
of the gully was waiting and watching that morning, and had already
inflicted a number of casualties. Medical attention was immediately
available. A doctor at the adjacent dressing-station found that the
femoral artery in the thigh had been severed. The bullet, instead of
merely piercing the leg, had entered sideways and torn a way through.
Only for the fact that skilled attention was so prompt, General Bridges
must have died within a few minutes. The wound was plugged. Taken to
the dressing-station, the General's first words were, "Don't carry me
down; I don't want any of your fellows to run into danger." Seeing the
stretcher case, the Turks did not fire on the party that now made its
way to the beach, all traffic being stopped along the track. The dying
leader was immediately taken off to a hospital ship, but his condition
was critical. Before the ship left his beloved Anzac, his last words to
an officer, who had been with him from the first, were, "Anyhow, I have
commanded an Australian Division for nine months."
General Bridges died four days later on his way to Alexandria. It
was very typical, that last sentence of the man. His whole heart and
soul and energies had been devoted to planning the efficiency of the
1st Division. A born organizer, a fine tactician, he was a lone, stern
figure that inspired a great confidence in his men. His judgment in the
field had proved almost unfailing. Unsparing to himself, he demanded,
and obtained, the best in those he commanded. He was one of the finest
leaders on Gallipoli, and in him General Hamilton and Lieut.-General
Birdwood reposed the highest confidence.
General Birdwood, cabling from Army Corps headquarters to the
Governor-General of Australia, said:--
It is with the deepest regret that I have to announce the death on
19th May of General Bridges, who has proved himself the most gallant
of soldiers and best of commanders. I am quite unable to express what
his loss means to the Australian Division, which can never pay the
debt it owes him for his untiring and unselfish labours, which are
responsible for the high state of organization to which the Division
has been brought in every detail. The high ideals placed before the
boys trained at Duntroon, and which he succeeded in attaining as far
as my knowledge of those now serving with the Australian forces in the
field is concerned, will, I hope, go down to the honour of his name as
long as the military history of Australia lasts.
The Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Ian Hamilton, cabled on 20th May:--
General Bridges died on the passage to Alexandria. The whole force
mourns his irreparable loss, which was avenged yesterday in a
brilliant action by his own troops, who inflicted a loss of 7,000 on
the enemy at a cost of less than 500 to themselves.
It is this Turkish attack that I now shall describe, and the nature of
the revenge. Brigadier-General Walker, who had been commanding the 1st
Infantry Brigade since the death of Colonel McLaurin, succeeded to the
immediate command of the Division.
The new Turkish batteries employed at this time contained some 6-inch
guns, and it is believed that the _Goeben_ or one of the cruisers
belonging to the Turks had come down from Constantinople and was
stationed, just parallel to Bogali, in the Straits. Enemy warships, it
is believed, were able to throw shells accurately into the heart of
our position, searching for the guns. By the 18th May the Turks had an
11-in. gun, some 8-in., and a number of 4·7-in. guns trained on Anzac.
With the support of these, and with the small mountain and field
pieces that they had been using before, it has been since learned, they
felt that they could safely attack. Their offensive was fixed for the
19th May. Preliminary bombardments began on the evening before, 18th,
and were the fiercest that had yet been experienced. The hills echoed
with the chaotic explosions of the bursting of heavy shells. One of the
Australian 18-pounders was knocked out completely, and other shells
reached the gun-pits; but the gunners stuck to their posts and replied
effectively to this Turkish bombardment. It was reported that evening
from aeroplane reconnaissances that the Turks had been seen landing a
new Division at the Straits, and that they were marching to the support
of the Anzac troops. Headquarters were located at Bogali. At once
the warships commenced a bombardment of the main road leading along
the side of the hills to Krithia village, where troops could be seen
moving. They followed them up and shelled the general Turkish Staff out
of a village midway between Kelid Bahr and Krithia.
Attacks at Anzac were always determined by the time at which the moon
sank. I can remember on one occasion waiting night after night in the
trenches, when the Turks were supposed to be about to attack, until
the moon would sink. We would rouse-up and watch its departing sickly
yellow circle dip behind the hills of Troy, and then turn towards the
Turkish trenches, which we could see occasionally spitting fire, and
wait for the general fusillade to open. Now, on the 18th the moon
dipped down at a little before midnight, and just as the midnight
hours passed, from the centre of the line round Quinn's Post arose
the clatter of Turkish bombs. In the closely wedged trenches the
Australians answered this attack with similar missiles, and for a while
a little "bomb party," as it was called by the troops, began. From
an intermittent rifle fire the sound of the sharp crackle of rifles
intensified and extended from end to end of the Turkish lines. It was
as if thousands of typewriters, the noise of their working increased
a thousandfold, had begun to work. Every second the racket grew; in
less than two minutes the gullies were torrents of singing lead, while
the bullets could be heard everywhere whizzing through the bushes.
The rapid beat of the machine guns began, their pellets thudding
against the sandbag parapets. Bombs, bursting like the roar of water
that had broken the banks of dams, drowned the general clatter. Immense
"football bombs" (as the troops termed them) they were, that wrought
awful havoc and formed huge craters. For half an hour the fury lasted.
Then it died down, much as violent storms do, arising suddenly, and
departing by fading away in a curiously short, sharp burst of firing.
Again the sudden rapid fire arose and then again the splutter of
ceasing shots. Bombing had stopped.
[Illustration:
THE TURKISH EMISSARY BEING LED FROM ANZAC COVE AFTER ARRANGING THE
DETAILS OF THE ARMISTICE, AT THE CONFERENCE ON 23RD MAY, 1915. HE IS
PRECEDED BY A STAFF OFFICER.
To face p. 160.]
It is hard to know what the reason of the Turk was for this "bluff,"
for it was such, for no attack followed. It was not exactly an unusual
incident in itself, but, nevertheless, always had the effect of rousing
up the line and the troops manning the trenches. Probably the Turks
calculated that we would be led to believe that the whole show was over
for that night, and consequently without further bombardment they began
a few hours later their extended attack.
Just in the hour preceding dawn--about 3.30 the time is given--the
Turks began silently and stealthily to approach the trenches. Without
a sound they came, in large and small bodies, up the gullies, working
by the help of a marching tape that would keep them together. They
approached to within, in some cases, 30 or 40 yards of our trenches.
At that time coloured rocket shells were not so much used as they
were later; no coloured green and red lights that would burn for some
minutes, lit up any section of the line. But the sentries on the
parapets suddenly began to detect, even in the blackness of the night
preceding dawn, crawling figures. The Turk was always a good scout, and
would get right under the parapets of our trenches almost undetected.
But when he came to facing the Australian bayonet and jumping down into
the trenches it was a different matter altogether. Now, it was just at
the centre of the right of the position, at the point where the 1st
Brigade and the 1st Battalion of that brigade held the line, that the
alarm first was given. The sentries shot down the advancing figures.
Immediately others rose up quickly and rushed silently at the trenches.
A few managed to jump across the parapets and down into the trenches.
It is a brave man indeed who will do such an act.
The attack was launched. Right down the Australian line now spread the
order for rapid fire, for the Turks could be seen and heard calling
"Allah! Allah!" They came in great numbers, dashing forward in the
already coming dawn, for in the sky behind them the sun would rise,
and now already its faintest streaks were appearing, casting an opaque
tinge in the heavens. Gallantly as the Turks charged, the Australians
stood magnificently steady, and fired steadily into the masses of
moving silhouetted figures. It was "terrible, cold-blooded murder,"
as one of the defenders described it to me later. "They were plucky
enough, but they never had a dog's chance."
Now in a few places the Turks did reach our trenches, but they
found themselves trapped, and the few who escaped with their lives,
surrendered. Across the Poppyfield the Turks had pressed hardest, but
they were thrust back and back. Next morning, when the dawn came, their
bodies could be seen lying in heaps on the slopes. It was as if the men
had been mown down in lines.
While the attacks were developing against the centre of the right of
the line--company after company and battalion after battalion were
sent on by the Turks in their endeavours to push the Australians off
the peninsula--there began fierce fighting on the extreme right, on
the left, and at the apex of the position at the head of Monash Gully.
It was a desperate enough position, for the Turks were not more than
10 or 20 yards away in places. Our machine guns ripped along their
parapets; when one gun ceased, to fix in its jaws a new belt, another
took on the fire; so the noise was insistent, and the Turks, yelling
"Allah! Allah!" stumbled forward a few paces and were mown down, but
never were able to advance to the trenches. Far into the morning the
attacks continued. Mostly they were short rushes, opposed by terrific
bursts of fire, bombs hurled into the advancing mass; a check and then
a pause. As the enemy were still advancing, only at isolated points
could their machine guns reply or rifles be fired. That there were some
enemy bullets did not affect the troops, who regarded it as too good an
opportunity to miss. The Australians' sporting instincts were roused,
and at many points the men could be seen sitting on the parapets of
the trenches, calmly picking off the Turks as they came up, working
their bolts, loading, furiously. This was the way in which the few
casualties that did occur (100 killed and 500 wounded) were sustained.
It was a bloodless victory, if ever there has been one.
Once a German Albatross aeroplane had come sailing over the position
at a very high altitude, the Turks must have known that their chances
of success were gone. They commenced to shell the shipping off the
beaches, in the hope that any reinforcements that might be arriving
might be sunk, but they were not even successful in this. Our artillery
had the range to a few yards, and as the Turks left their trenches
(though only so short a distance away) the shrapnel swept along their
parapets, and they were shot down in rows. It is calculated that 3,000
Turks perished in that attack. Some make the estimate higher, and there
is reason to believe that they may be right. The wounded numbered
nearly 15,000. It was their one and only general attack. It failed
hopelessly. It was never repeated.
So horrible had the battlefield become, strewn with Turkish dead, that
the enemy sued for an armistice. On the day succeeding the engagement
and the repulse of the Turks, towards dusk white flags and the red
crescents began to be hoisted all along the line. Now of the Turks and
their flags of truce something had already been learned down on the
banks of the Canal. On the other hand, in the evacuation of wounded
from Gaba Tepe, when the attacking parties had failed to get a foothold
on the narrow beach, and had been forced to retire leaving their
wounded still on the shore, those soldiers were tended by the Turkish
doctors. Their subsequent evacuation by the Navy under the Red Cross
flag was accurately observed by the enemy. But that did not prevent
this "new move" being regarded with some caution. It was between five
and six o'clock that in the centre of the right of the line a Turkish
Staff officer, two medical officers, and a company commander came out
of their trenches--all firing having ceased, and by arrangement through
an interpreter who had called across from our own to the enemy trenches
during the day--and met Major-General H. B. Walker, who was commanding
the 1st Division, on the neutral ground between the trenches. It was
stated by the Staff officer that he had been instructed to arrange a
suspension of arms in order that the dead between the lines might be
buried and the wounded tended and removed. The position was, to say
the least, a delicate one. The officer carried no written credentials.
General Hamilton's dispatches convey the subsequent proceedings as they
were viewed at the time by most of the leaders at Anzac:--
He [the Turkish Staff officer] was informed (writes the
Commander-in-Chief) that neither he nor the General Officer Commanding
Australian Division had the power to arrange such a suspension of
arms, but that at 8 p.m. an opportunity would be given of exchanging
letters on the subject, and that meanwhile hostilities would
recommence after ten minutes' grace. At this time some stretcher
parties on both sides were collecting wounded, and the Turkish
trenches opposite ours were packed with men standing shoulder to
shoulder two deep. Matters were less regular in front of other
sections, where men with white flags came out to collect wounded (some
attempted to dig trenches that were not meant for graves). Meanwhile
it was observed that columns were on the march in the valley up which
the Turks were accustomed to bring their reinforcements (Legge and
Mule Valleys).
On hearing of these movements, General Sir W. R. Birdwood, commanding
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, ordered his trenches to be
manned against a possible attack. As the evening drew in the enemy's
concentration continued, and everything pointed to their intention
of making use of the last of the daylight to get their troops into
position without being shelled by our artillery. A message was
therefore sent across to say that no clearing of dead or wounded
could be allowed during the night, and that any negotiations for such
purpose should be opened up through the proper channel and initiated
before noon on the following day.
Stretcher parties and others fell back, and immediately fire broke
out. In front of our right section masses of men advanced behind lines
of unarmed men holding up their hands. Firing became general all along
the line, accompanied by a heavy bombardment of the whole position, so
that evidently this attack must have been pre-arranged. Musketry and
machine-gun fire continued without interruption till after dark, and
from then up till about 4 a.m. the next day.
Except for a half-hearted attack in front of Courtney's Post, no
assault was made until 1.20 a.m., when the enemy left their trenches
and advanced on Quinn's Post. Our guns drove the Turks back to their
trenches and beat back all other attempts at assault. By 4.30 a.m. on
21st May musketry fire had died down to normal dimensions.
Negotiations were again opened up by the Turks during the morning of
the 22nd. It must be recollected that by now the battlefields had
been three weeks fought over, and many Australians as well as Turks
who had perished in those first awful days, still lay unburied where
they had fallen. The stench of decaying flesh threatened terrible
calamity to both armies. For two days the Turkish dead in thousands
lay rotting in the sun, their swollen corpses in some places on our
very parapets. General Hamilton accordingly dispatched his Chief of
Staff, Major-General W. P. Braithwaite, during the morning of the 22nd,
to assist General Birdwood in coming to terms with an envoy that was
to be sent by Essad Pasha, commanding at that time a section of the
Turkish forces. Accordingly, on the afternoon of the 22nd an officer
rode in from the extreme right of their line, across the plain that
dipped down to the sea between the headland of Gaba Tepe and the last
knoll of our position. He carried a white flag of truce. It was an
impressive moment. He was beautifully mounted, and his uniform was a
mass of gold lace. He was met by Staff officers from the Australian
Army Corps. Now, coming to the wire entanglements that had been made
across the beach--the visiting officer had already been blindfolded--it
was a matter of doubt for a moment how he was to be taken across within
the Anzac lines. A solution was gained when four Australians stripped
off their uniforms and, placing the officer on a stretcher, bore the
Turk round through the water to the other side. There he remounted his
horse, and was escorted along the beach to the prepared dugout, where
he met in consultation General Braithwaite and representatives of the
Australian and New Zealand Corps, with interpreters. It took two days
to arrange the details of the armistice, and eventually the terms were
satisfactorily agreed on, written, and signed in duplicate by both army
leaders.
[Illustration: TROOPS GOING INTO THE FIRING-LINE ON THE FIRST DAY OF
LANDING.]
[Illustration: THE BEACH CLEARING STATION (LIEUT.-COLONEL GIBLIN) IN
THE EARLY DAYS OF ANZAC.
To face p. 164.]
On the 24th May--Empire Day, as Australians know it--the armistice
was begun at eight o'clock, and lasted till five o'clock in the
evening. Some of its features are interesting, gruesome as the object
was. Burial parties were selected from each side. Groups of selected
officers left the trenches and started to define with white flags the
lines of demarcation. It had been decided there should be a central
zone where the men from the two sides might work together--a narrow
strip it was, too. The Turks were not to venture into what might be
termed "our territory," that varied in width according to the distances
the trenches were apart, and the Australians were not to venture
into the enemy's. Orders were issued that there was to be no firing
anywhere along the line. Arms were to be collected and handed over to
the respective armies to which they belonged, minus the rifle bolts.
No field-glasses were to be used, and the men were to keep down in the
trenches and not look over the parapets.
Now one of the disadvantages of the armistice, from the Australians'
point of view, was that the topographical features of the position
enabled any of the Turks who might approach within a certain distance
to look down into the heart of the Anzac position (that was, into their
own gullies), but also into gullies that now contained the Australians'
reserve trenches and bivouacs, and where the troops were sheltered
and stores placed. It seems very probable that the enemy realized
this advantage, however slight. I do not think they were able to gain
much. Nevertheless, in the interests of the health of all at Anzac, it
was essential that the armistice should be arranged. So the party of
the armistice went carefully round the 2-mile front of the position,
moving the flags a little nearer the Turkish lines here, there, nearer
the Australian. Following these slowly worked the burial parties, all
wearing white armlets--doctors and padres.
Under guise of a sergeant of the Red Crescent walked General Liman
von Sanders, the German leader against Anzac, and he mixed with the
burial parties. It was a misty and wet morning, and every one wore
greatcoats and helmets that were sufficient cloak to any identity. All
day the parties worked, collecting the identity discs of many gallant
lads whose fate had been uncertain, men whose mouldering bodies had
been seen lying between the trenches. They were buried in huge open
trenches, often alongside their fallen foe, as often it was impossible,
owing to the condition of the bodies, to remove them to the Turkish
burial-grounds. Once some firing began on the right, where it was
alleged some parties were digging firing trenches, but it was hushed,
and I have never been able to find an exact and official statement of
this.
Some of the Turks who were directing operations mingled with our men;
they spoke perfect English. By judicious handing out of cigarettes
they sought to discover as much as they dared or as much as they might
be told. Brigadier-General G. J. Johnston (Artillery officer) told
me an amusing interview he had with a Turkish officer who asked him
about the number of men Australia was sending to the war. The Gunner
replied, "Five times as many thousands as had been already landed,
while hundreds of thousands more were ready." Another conversation
shows very clearly the absence of bitterness on one side or the other.
It concerned the meeting of two men who exchanged cards, while the Turk
told (one suspects with a cynical smile) of many haunts of pleasure and
amusement in Constantinople where the Australian could amuse himself
when he came. I do not wish to convey that the Turks believed that they
would be beaten, but they were not hated enemies of the Australians,
and on this, as on other occasions, they played the game. Over 3,000
of their dead were buried that day. They lay in heaps; they sprawled,
swelled and stark, in rows, linked together by the guiding ropes which
they had clung to. Many were lying just above the Turkish parapets,
where our machine guns had mowed them down as they left their trenches.
And these the Turks themselves just barely covered, as was their custom
in burying their dead.
Chaplains Merrington and Dexter both held short services over the
graves of the fallen in the few hollows near Quinn's Post and other
points farther south. A cairn of stones was left to mark the spot on
which some day a greater memorial may be raised; down in the gullies
rough wooden crosses mark other graves.
Gradually, after 3 p.m., the parties withdrew from their solemn task,
and as the last white flag was struck and the parties retreated into
their own trenches, the snip, snip, zip, zip, and crack of the bullets
and boom of the bombs began again, and never ceased till the last shot
was fired on the peninsula.