THE LANDINGS
The wind, which had continued to blow hard on April 22, abated next
day, and in the afternoon the transports bearing the covering force of
the 29th Division began very slowly to move out from Mudros harbour. In
that land-locked inlet, the water was now still, and singularly blue.
“The black ships,” as the navy called the transports owing to their
fresh coat of black paint, wound their way in and out among others
still lying at anchor. They passed the battleships and cruisers of
our own fleet; they passed the Anzac transports, which were to follow
them next day; they passed the battleships and transports of the
French contingents, and the five-funnelled Russian cruiser _Askold_,
lying nearer the little islands which protect the entrance of the
far-extended haven; and as they passed, the pellucid air which still
illuminates the realms of ancient Greece rang with the cheers of races
whose habitation the Greeks had not imagined. Perhaps it is in Greek
history that we find the nearest parallel to such a scene of heroic
joy, the preface to heroic disaster. For when the bright troops of
Athenians started for the conquest of Sicily, we read that nearly the
whole population of the city accompanied their five-mile march down
the Piræus; that there, in sacred silence, libation to the gods was
made; and issuing in line ahead from the harbour, the transport galleys
raced, in pure exhilaration of heart, to the pointed island of Ægina,
fifteen miles away, while far in the air bystanders heard the cries of
invisible spirits, like the wailings of women upon the Phœnician shore
lamenting the beauty of Adonis yearly wounded.[84]
[Sidenote: THE FORCE LEAVING MUDROS]
The British covering force consisted mainly of the 86th Brigade (29th
Division), under Brigadier-General S. W. Hare, but two battalions
of the 87th Brigade and half a battalion of the 88th were attached
to it, beside the Plymouth Battalion of the Royal Naval Division,
as the General’s own reserve, and the Anson Battalion, detailed for
beach duties. Their three transports were escorted by the _Euryalus_
(flagship of Admiral Wemyss, commanding the first and fourth of the
seven squadrons into which the fleet was divided), the _Implacable_,
and the _Cornwallis_, and their station was Tenedos. The next afternoon
(Saturday, April 24) they were followed from Mudros harbour by the
_Queen Elizabeth_ (flagship of Admiral de Robeck), with Sir Ian
Hamilton and the General Headquarter Staff on board, leading the
other battleships in line ahead. After them went the Anzac covering
force, consisting of the 3rd Brigade under Colonel Sinclair Maclagan
(the Queensland, South Australian, West Australian, and a mixed
Australian and Tasmanian battalion). The remainder of the Anzac army
corps followed, escorted by the _Queen_ (flagship of Admiral Thursby,
commanding the second squadron), the _London_, and the _Prince of
Wales_. Their destination was a point off Imbros, near Cape Kephalos,
where they were to wait during the night till the moon went down. The
covering force occupied four transports, beside the 1500 men of the
brigade placed upon the _Queen_. General Birdwood’s headquarters were
on the _Minnewaska_, and about thirty transports carried the remainder
of his corps. As they passed out of harbour, leaving the Lemnian shore
with which many, by practised landings, had become familiar, they
too were greeted with tumultuous cheering by the ships which had not
started yet, and tumultuously they replied. Moved onward irresistibly
into imminent death, knowing that by the morrow’s afternoon at least
one in ten of their numbers would have fallen in all the splendour
of youthful vitality, still they cheered like schoolboys bound for a
football match or a holiday by the sea. Excitement, comradeship, the
infectious joy of confronting a dangerous enterprise side by side, made
them cheer. Never before had those men known what battle means, but
the sinking dread of the unknown, which all men feel as the shadow of
extreme peril approaches, was allayed by the renunciation of self, and
the clear belief that, whoever else was wrong in the world, it was not
they.
The night was very still. The three-quarter moon set soon after 3 a.m.,
and there was total darkness over sea and mountains until a cold and
windless dawn gradually appeared. The water was smooth as a mirror,
and a thin veil of mist covered the shore. Just before the sun rose
in a blaze of gold, four of the battleships and four cruisers opened
fire upon the defences at the main landing-places round Cape Helles,
and continued a heavy bombardment. At the same time, the landing of
the covering parties at the five selected points around the end of the
Peninsula began, and account of them may here be given in succession
from the extreme right flank at S to the extreme left at Y.
[Sidenote: LANDING AT DE TOTT’S]
On the evening of the 24th, about 750 of the 2nd South Wales Borderers
under Colonel Casson had come on board the _Cornwallis_ in four
trawlers from their transport. Just before sunrise they put off in the
trawlers again, each trawler towing six boats, and proceeded up the
strait for about 2½ miles to the point called Eski Hissarlik or De
Tott’s Battery, on the north-east end of Morto Bay. The _Cornwallis_
followed, with the _Lord Nelson_ as covering ship, but, being delayed
by the _Agamemnon_ and some French mine-sweepers coming across her
course, she did not reach the point till the men had approached the
shore, rowing the boats as best they could, though unaccustomed to
the water, and encumbered with their packs, rifles, and trenching
tools. Almost before the boats grounded, they leapt into the sea, and
struggled to shore, under a heavy rifle fire which immediately opened
from the Turkish trenches.
In perfect order, but at great speed, these veteran troops made for the
height, some scrambling up the cliff, some approaching by a gradual
slope on the west side. They were already nearing the summit when a
mixed naval party of about 100 marines and sailors put to shore, and
were of great assistance in taking two lines of trenches and working
side by side with the South Wales Borderers, who were already driving
the Turks down the farther slope of the ridge. Guns from the Asiatic
side opened fire upon the beach, but most of the shells, striking
the mud at the water’s edge, did not burst, and the _Cornwallis_,
firing by signal from shore, silenced the battery about 10 a.m.
Being urgently summoned from W Beach, and seeing that the soldiers
now held the position firmly, Captain Davidson then withdrew the
naval party, and steamed to his second position down the strait.[85]
Colonel Casson’s battalion clung to the point they had gained for the
critical forty-eight hours of the landing, thus preventing Turkish
reinforcements from coming down to Seddel Bahr, and protecting the
right flank of our possible advance. The post was then taken over by
the French, who held it throughout the campaign, though much exposed
to the Asiatic guns. This successful enterprise cost about sixty
casualties, including Major Margesson, who was killed.
[Sidenote: SEDDEL BAHR]
Walking along the coast south-west from De Tott’s Battery, one rounds
the two-mile arc of Morto Bay, near the middle of which the combined
“Deres” or watercourses of the Krithia region run out into the strait.
Across the valley, nearly a mile inland, a few lofty piles of an
ancient, perhaps Byzantine, aqueduct then stood, probably at one time
carrying water to a more ancient town than Seddel Bahr. Later in
the campaign they were destroyed, but for some months they formed a
conspicuous landmark. Along the rest of the bay the land slopes gently
down to the beach, and had been laid out in gardens cypress-fringed,
such as Islam loves. The gardens were now entrenched and thickly
netted with barbed wire; but the bay would have afforded the finest
landing-place upon the southern Peninsula, had it not been fully
commanded by guns across the strait. Upon the south-west point of the
bay, the old Turkish castle and fortress of Seddel Bahr, projecting
boldly into the sea, guards the entrance to the strait, and, as already
described, at the foot of its towers and curtain-walls are still heaped
the huge round stones which the Turks once deemed sufficient to hurl at
intruders beating up against the current. Behind the castle was huddled
a grey stone village or small town, of the usual Turkish character,
with narrow and winding alleys between secretive houses, and just
beyond the point there projected a low reef of rocks round which the
deep-blue water, hurrying out to the open sea, perpetually eddied.
[Sidenote: THE RIVER CLYDE AT V BEACH]
From the Seddel Bahr point the coast falls back a little into the
shallow arc of a bay barely over a quarter of a mile long if one
follows the sandy beach. Around the curve, the ground rises rather
steeply, almost exactly in the form of a classic theatre, to which the
beach would serve as orchestra and the sea as stage. This little bay,
to be renowned as V Beach, ends on the western side in precipitous
cliffs, round the foot of which it is possible to clamber over masses
of fallen rocks, but no path leads. On the top of the cliff stood one
of the most powerful of the entrance forts destroyed by the naval
attack on February 19. The beach itself is narrow--about 10 yards
across--and was edged by a small but perpendicular bank, not over
4 or 5 feet in height. The slopes of the theatre were at that time
covered with grass, to be changed later on for dust and heavy sand. The
slope measures about 200 yards from beach to summit. Along the edge
of the beach ran an entanglement of the peculiarly strong barbed wire
used by the Turks; a second entanglement ran round the curving slope
two-thirds of the way up, and a third joined the two at right angles
at the eastern end of the bay. The upper part of the semicircle was
strongly entrenched and armed with pom-poms, while in the ruins of the
old fortress, in the village, and in a shattered barrack on the top
of the western summit, machine-guns and a multitude of snipers were
concealed. Nature and man’s invention had converted the little bay into
a defensive engine of manifold destruction.
[Illustration: THE _RIVER CLYDE_, “V” BEACH, AND SEDDEL BAHR, ABOUT TWO
MONTHS AFTER LANDING]
At daybreak the _Albion_ opened a heavy bombardment. There was no
answer. The little semicircle remained still as an empty theatre, and
sanguine spirits hoped that defence had been abandoned. Transhipping
rapidly from a fleet-sweeper, three companies of the 1st Dublin
Fusiliers and a party of the Anson Battalion, Royal Naval Division,
arranged themselves in six tows, each made up of a pinnace and four
cutters, and carrying 125 men apiece. In line abreast the tows started
for the shore over the glassy water, pale with morning. Except for the
continuous crash of our bursting shells, not a sound came from the
shore. On the right of the main party of tows loomed a large collier,
called the _River Clyde_, but known to the classical as the “Trojan
Horse,” and to the unlearned as the “Dun Cow.” She carried the 1st
Munster Fusiliers, half the 2nd Hampshire Regiment, one company of the
Dublin Fusiliers, and details of sappers, signallers, field ambulance,
and an Anson beach-party. Commander Edward Unwin, R.N., was in charge
of her, a man of eagle features and impetuous but noble personality,
inclined to pour imprecations upon “the Army” while he assisted them
with untiring ingenuity and a courage conspicuous even on that heroic
day. His orders were to run his ship hard aground after the tows had
landed their first party. A hopper alongside the collier was then to
proceed under her own steam and momentum, towing a string of lighters
so as to form a pontoon for the troops, who were to issue from square
iron doors opening close up to the ship’s bow on the port and starboard
sides. But the tow-rope attaching the lighters to the hopper fouled;
the current drove the _River Clyde_ ashore 30 yards west of the spot
designed; and tows and ship touched ground almost at the same moment.
The hopper ran forward with the lighters, which were secured after a
short delay. The gangways dropped. Shoving each other eagerly forward,
the Munster Fusiliers rushed from the opened ports.
[Sidenote: THE V BEACH LANDING]
Hardly had the first man set foot on the gangways, when the invisible
enemy broke the silence with an overwhelming outburst of rifle fire,
pom-poms, and machine-guns. The Munster Fusiliers of the first company
fell so thick that many were suffocated or crushed by the sheer weight
of the dead dropping upon them. Few if any of those eager Irishmen
struggled across the lighters to the beach unwounded. In the tows,
the boats were riddled with holes, and the greater number destroyed.
The Dublin Fusiliers and the crews supplied by the navy were shot
down either in the boats or as they leapt into the shallow water and
attempted to rush across the narrow beach. A few succeeded in reaching
the low and perpendicular bank of sand, and lay under its uncertain
cover, unable to show a head above the top without death. The Turks had
carefully marked the ranges of every point along the shore with stakes,
and they fired in security from dug-outs and deep trenches, against
which no naval bombardment availed.
Inspired by a courage which baffles reason with amazement (for what
reasonable motive had these men--these Irishmen--to spring into the
face of instant death?), the second company of Munster Fusiliers
crowded upon the gangway, and rushed along the lighters over the dead
bodies of their friends. As they ran, the end of the pontoon nearest
the shore was torn loose by the rip of the current, and drifted off
into deep water. The men fell in masses, and many, either to escape
the torrent of bullets or in passionate eagerness to reach the shore,
attempted to swim to land, but were dragged down by the weight of
their equipment, and lay visible upon the sand below. With unwavering
decision, the sailors laboured to restore the pontoon. Commander Unwin
ran down the gangway and, plunging into the sea, worked beside the
men. Midshipman Malleson and Midshipman Drewry (in honour of whom
the French afterwards named the jetty which they built on the spot)
swam out, carrying ropes to and from the drifting lighters under the
ceaseless splash of bullets and shells. The names of all these have
become celebrated, and they won the most envied of all our country’s
distinctions, but it is almost invidious to select even such names as
theirs among the men and boys of every rank, and of both services,
whose self-devotion made that day and place so memorable.[86]
By such devoted efforts, a reserve lighter was brought into position,
and the pontoon again completed. A third company of the Munster
Fusiliers dashed along it, with similar heroism, towards the shore,
suffering terrible loss from accurate and low-firing shrapnel, now
added to the other missiles of death. The survivors joined the
survivors under shelter of the low bank of sand. There was a brief
pause in the attempt to land, but when it began again, the pontoon
was again carried adrift by the current, bearing upon it a number of
Hampshire men, together with Brigadier-General Napier, commanding
the 88th Brigade, and his Brigade-Major, Captain Costeker. They lay
down flat upon the lighters, but nearly all were killed as they lay,
including these two officers of distinguished military name. Connection
with the shore was thus severed. Nearly all the boats in the tows had
been destroyed, and some were idly drifting, manned only by the dead.
The dead lay upon the lighters, and below the water, and awash upon the
edge of the beach. The ripple of the tormented sea broke red against
the sand.
One of the tows had taken half a company of the Dublin Fusiliers to a
point called the “Camber Beach,” just north-east of the Seddel Bahr
castle. Perhaps they were intended to threaten the enemy’s position
from his left flank by creeping round the castle and attacking the
village streets. This they proceeded to do, and, as the Turks had not
entrenched this position, the Irishmen with great skill crawled from
cover to cover till they reached the village windmills and the entrance
to the houses. There they were overwhelmed by the crowd of snipers.
Many were killed, some cut off, only twenty-five returned. The wounded
had to be left. One who afterwards saw the dead in a room said the
bodies were charred, and the base of a 6-in. shell lay there. Probably
hence arose reports of mutilation.[87]
[Sidenote: THE NIGHT ON V BEACH]
Before noon, any further attempt to effect a landing was abandoned,
and the main body of troops which was to have followed close upon
the covering party was diverted to W Beach. The mixed survivors of
Dublin and Munster Fusiliers, and of the Hampshire companies, remained
crouching behind the low parapet of the bank, with no food or water
beyond such small quantities as they had brought with them. There they
lay, exposed to the full blaze of sun, and only just sheltered from
the incessant rain of bullets and shells. But for some machine-guns
mounted on the bows of the _River Clyde_ and protected by sandbags, the
Turks would have found little difficulty in exterminating their whole
number. With them were two officers of the General Staff--Colonel
Doughty-Wylie, our humane and gallant military consul at Konia during
the Adana massacres in 1909, and Colonel W. de L. Williams (Hampshire
Regiment), who did their utmost to hearten the men during the remaining
hours of that terrible day and through the night. As the Turks had no
big guns on the spot, and the fire of the Asiatic guns was to some
extent checked by the fleet, the remainder of the party on board the
_River Clyde_ were comparatively secure. The heavy loss in officers
included the General of the 88th Brigade, as we have seen, and Colonel
Carrington Smith, commanding that brigade’s Hampshire Regiment,
both killed. During the afternoon and evening the naval boats were
constantly engaged in removing the wounded from the _River Clyde_ and
other points where they could be reached. In this duty Commander Unwin
again distinguished himself, going along the shore in a lifeboat and
rescuing the wounded lying in shallow water, under persistent fire from
the semicircular heights. Throughout the day and far into the moonlit
night the _Queen Elizabeth_, _Cornwallis_, and _Albion_ and other ships
maintained a heavy bombardment, which restrained the furious Turkish
attempts at counter-attack, and assisted the remainder of the covering
party in landing from the _River Clyde_ under the comparative darkness.
But later in the night the noise of battle was renewed. Outbursts of
rifle and machine-gun fire, varied by shells thrown over from W Beach
by two of our own field guns, allowed the wearied men no rest; and at
dawn the _Albion_ turned on her 12-in. shells, like trains rushing
headlong down a tunnel to the crash of collision.
[Sidenote: W BEACH LANDING]
At V Beach, in spite of the incalculable courage and skill of the Irish
Regulars and the sailors combined, the landing on the 25th had failed.
At W Beach, not much more than half a mile north-west, over the cliff
of Cape Helles where the lighthouse and Fort I had stood, the English
covering party displayed equal heroism and gained greater success. W
Beach is a shallower but longer arc of sandy shore, curving between
Cape Helles and Cape Tekke, the two extreme points of the Peninsula.
Between the two inaccessible cliffs and the fallen rocks which the
sea washes, a gully has been cut by a short watercourse, draining the
extremity of the high and slightly undulating plateau in which the
Peninsula ends. Except after heavy rains, the gully is dry, but its
occasional stream, working upon the sandstone formation, and aided by
the north-east wind blowing dust over the plateau’s surface, has piled
up low heaps of sand dune, at that time covered with bent-grass, spring
flowers, and the aromatic herbs which flourish upon the dry seacoasts
of the Near East. Along its gentle curve the actual beach is rather
more than a quarter of a mile in length, and its broadest part, where
the gully runs out, is some 40 yards across. Hidden in the shallows
a strong wire entanglement had been laid, and another protected the
whole length of the beach from end to end at the water’s edge. To check
communication with V Beach, two redoubts had been constructed upon the
plateau south-east, and from them thick entanglements ran down to the
cliffs edge at Cape Helles. Other entanglements on the north-west
cut off communication with the more distant X Beach. The top rows, as
it were, of the theatre, broken near the centre of the gully, were
strongly entrenched; machine-guns, commanding the beach by converging
fire, were lodged in caves upon the cliffs on both sides; and the land
and sea were planted with mines. In his dispatch, Sir Ian Hamilton
justly says:
“So strong, in fact, were the defences of W Beach that the Turks may
well have considered them impregnable, and it is my firm conviction
that no finer feat of arms has ever been achieved by the British
soldier--or any other soldier--than the storming of these trenches
from open boats.”[88]
These unsurpassed soldiers were men of the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers
(86th Brigade), and, in their honour, W Beach was afterwards generally
known as “Lancashire Landing.” The _Euryalus_ was the guardian ship
of this covering party, and after half an hour’s naval bombardment,
to which no answer came, eight picket boats in line abreast, towing
four cutters apiece, steamed toward the shore till they reached the
shallows, and the tows were cast off to row to land. As at V Beach,
the Turks maintained their silence till the boats grated. Then, in an
instant, a storm of lead and iron swept down upon the Lancashire men.
Some leapt into the water, and were caught by the hidden entanglement
there. The foremost hurled themselves ashore, and struggled with the
terrible wire, compared with which our British barbed wire is as cotton
to rope. In vain the first line hacked and tore. Machines and rifles
mowed them flat as with a scythe. Witnesses eagerly watching from the
distant ships asked each other, “What are they resting for?” But they
were dead.
[Sidenote: THE LANDING EFFECTED]
Fortunately two of the tows, carrying a company, with which was
General S. W. Hare, C.O. of this 86th Brigade, put to shore a little
to the left of the central beach, and found shelter under a ledge
of rock at the foot of Cape Tekke cliff. Here they escaped the
cross-fire, and were able partly to enfilade the enemy’s trenches.
The Brigadier-General was severely wounded, either at this time or a
little later, but part of the company succeeded in scrambling up the
rocks in front of them to the summit, and a party from three tows to
the right of the beach were equally successful upon the Cape Helles
side.[89] Meanwhile the covering warships had moved close in to bombard
the trenches along the edge of the summit, and the beach entanglements
were at last broken. The companies, re-formed under cover of the cliffs
on both sides of the beach, chiefly to the left, and supported by the
arrival of further tows, began the assault on the highest point of the
plateau above the bay (known as Hill 138, about the spot where the
military cemetery was afterwards laid out). In the centre the assault
was made with bayonets only, the rifles being clogged with sand. By
11.30 three trenches had been taken--in spite of the explosion of many
land mines--the point was occupied, and communication established with
the landing-party at X Beach, to be afterwards described.[90]
Similarly, a small party of Lancashire Fusiliers succeeded in
scrambling to the summit of the cliff on the right above Cape Helles,
but were there held up by the redoubts and entanglements, and there
they lost Major Frankland, Brigade-Major of the 86th. No further
advance could be made till 2 p.m., when, owing to the positions held
by the companies on the left, the landing had become fairly secure.
Colonel Woolly-Dod, of the Divisional General Staff, then took
the place of General Hare in command, and the Worcester and Essex
Regiments were sent to reinforce the covering party. Following a
heavy naval bombardment they advanced, the Essex leading, cut passages
through the entanglements, and after two hours’ contest captured the
redoubt, though with heavy loss.
An attempt was then made to relieve the terrible situation at V Beach
by advancing along the top of the headland north-east. Lancashire and
Royal Fusiliers from W and X Beaches came over in small parties to
assist the Worcesters. The distance to V Beach was not great--barely
half a mile--and if it could have been covered, the enemy must have
abandoned their V Beach trenches. Wire-cutters fearlessly advanced.
From headquarters on the _Queen Elizabeth_ they could be watched,
clipping the powerful entanglements as though pruning a garden at home.
But the rows of wire were too thick, the fire from the ruins of No.
1 Fort too deadly. Exhausted by a sleepless night and the hot day’s
fighting, these bravest of men abandoned the attempt, and sought rest
in the trenches along the summit of the cliffs now deserted by the
enemy. Violent counter-attacks were repeated through the night. Except
the Anson Battalion beach-party and a company of sappers, there were
no available reserves. But the lines defending W Beach were held, and
the landing of stores, rations, and water in kerosine tins (for the
Divisional supply of which General Hunter-Weston’s Staff had provided)
began without interruption. Part of the remainder of the division also
disembarked, and the sappers set to work at constructing the road which
afterwards wound up the dusty ascent from the beach to the plateau.
[Sidenote: LANDING AT X BEACH]
If one could scramble round the foot of Cape Tekke till the face of the
cliff looking westward towards the Ægean and Gulf of Xeros was reached,
rather over half a mile along the sea-washed rocks, one would come to
a narrow strip of sand about 200 yards long. The cliff above it is
lower and less steep, the surface soft and crumbling. This is X Beach,
to be known afterwards as “Implacable Landing,” owing to the fine
service of the guardian battleship _Implacable_ (15,000 tons, 1901;
Captain Lockyer). Here half the battalion of the 2nd Royal Fusiliers
was disembarked from the _Implacable_ in four tows of six boats each,
the battleship advancing in the centre of them with anchor hanging over
the bows to six fathoms, when it dragged. Captain Lockyer opened fire
upon the slope and summit of the cliffs at very short range with every
available gun, and under this protection the half-battalion landed with
small loss. Using the same tows as they returned empty, the second
half-battalion followed from two mine-sweepers. But the advanced party
were already swarming up the face of the cliffs under Lieut.-Colonel
Newenham (C.O., 2nd Royal Fusiliers). At the summit the fire from
rifles, machine-guns, and shrapnel was very heavy. Securing his left
with one company, and the front with part of another, and leaving one
company to bring up ammunition and water, Colonel Newenham proceeded
to effect communication with the Lancashire Fusiliers on W Beach. This
was accomplished by a violent bayonet attack up the height on the top
of Cape Tekke (Hill 114). In this attack the remainder of the battalion
was engaged, encouraged by cheers from the _Implacable_, so close
to shore had the ship put in. After heavy loss, the summit was taken
about noon, and Royal Fusiliers shared with the W Beach troops in the
endeavour to relieve V Beach. But meantime the centre above X Beach was
severely threatened; Colonel Newenham was wounded; and the situation
was only saved by the arrival of the 1st Borderers and the 1st
Inniskilling Fusiliers of the 87th Brigade, whose Brigadier, General
Marshall, had also been wounded.[91]
[Sidenote: Y2 AND Y BEACHES]
Rather less than a mile farther up the coast from X Beach one comes
to a wide opening in the cliffs, known at that time as Y2, and later
as Gully Beach. Along the shore it could be reached by climbing over
rocks, but there was then no path. Along the summit it was easily
reached by the usual Turkish tracks from the high ground at Cape Helles
and Cape Tekke, but these tracks, like the rest of the Peninsula
inland, were hidden from the sea by the slope of the ground from the
edge towards the centre. The opening is caused partly by a short gully
running from the summit almost at right angles to the beach, but
especially by a long, deep gully, or “cañon,” coming down from the
Krithia direction, and running for about three miles almost parallel
with the sea, from which its existence is entirely concealed. In dry
weather it shows a trickle of water in some places; after rain it
becomes the bed of a torrent or a channel of liquid mud. Owing to our
want of trustworthy maps, its course was at that time unknown, but it
came to be called the Gully Ravine, or the Gully simply (in Turkish,
Saghir Dere). Its depth might conceal an army in ambush, and its
issue upon the shore forms a broad, flat beach, commanded by heights
in a semicircle fronting the sea. Here the Turks had massed large
forces of infantry, deeply entrenched, and supported by machine and
Hotchkiss guns. Formidable as the position was, it could hardly have
been stronger than V or W Beach, and one may conclude it was refused by
the General in command mainly for want of men to storm another point
at which the enemy would naturally expect attack. Perhaps also he
considered the position not far enough removed from Helles to turn the
defences there and threaten the line of retreat.
About two miles farther up the coast there is another beach known to
the end of the campaign as Y. The navy put it at 7000 yards from Cape
Tekke. So small is it, and the cleft or dry waterfall which forms it
so steep and narrow, that the Turks had neglected the position as
unassailable. Nevertheless, lying south-west from Krithia village, and
about four miles from Cape Helles, it was chosen as a protection to our
left flank and a threat to the enemy’s line of communication, or of
retreat in the event of his withdrawal from the end of the Peninsula.
It was intended to serve the same purpose as De Tott’s Battery (Eski
Hissarlik) upon our extreme right, and, if it were securely held, its
value was obvious.
The 1st King’s Own Scottish Borderers and one company of the
South Wales Borderers had been detailed for this service, but the
Commander-in-Chief added the Plymouth (Marine) Battalion, R.N.D.,
on account of the importance of the position, or because the
landing-party was beyond reach of reinforcement. The _Goliath_,
_Sapphire_, and _Amethyst_ were the conducting ships, and at the first
light the troops were put ashore by trawlers with four tows. They had
to leap out into deep water owing to reefs, but reached the shore
without opposition, and at once climbed the precipitous watercourse and
cliffs on each side. The battleship _Goliath_ shelled only the reported
emplacements near X Beach, hoping to delude. But Turkish snipers
immediately set to work, and the fire became more and more searching
as the day went on. Still there was no organised attack, and the men
dug shallow and far-extended trenches along the summit on both sides
of the deep ravine, the Marine Battalion on the left, the K.O.S.B.
in the centre, the S.W. Borderers on the right. Colonel Matthews of
the Plymouth Battalion was in command throughout, but his second in
command, Colonel Koe (K.O.S.B.), was mortally wounded early in the day.
It was impossible to fulfil Staff orders by gaining touch with X Beach,
because communication was shut off by the powerful Turkish force at
Y2--a misfortune which might have been foreseen. During the afternoon,
the sniping developed into assault. Turks were seen swarming out from
Krithia, and others probably came up from Y2 along the Gully Ravine
(Saghir Dere), which at this point is only a short distance away, and
was hitherto unknown to our men.
[Sidenote: THE FAILURE AT Y BEACH]
At twilight the repeated assaults increased in violence. Under the
rising moon, line after line of Turks advanced, at some points reaching
the trenches before they were cut down. Sir Ian mentions a pony led
right through the trenches with a machine-gun on his back, and an
eye-witness saw a German officer killed by a blow from a shovel as,
with grenade in hand, he called upon a trench to surrender. All night
the savage conflict continued, the Turks charging with religious
courage, our men driving them back with the bayonet when the rifles
became foul and choked with dirt. But just before daylight the shrapnel
terrifically increased, the Turks swarmed round in irresistible
crowds, the centre of the K.O.S.B. trenches was rushed, and the men
driven headlong down the gorge. Only those who know the nature of the
ground, the cliffs some 200 feet high, and the depth of the ravine,
half hidden by thick and prickly scrub, can realise the horror of that
scene, or the superb devotion of those who still remained to hold
the summit while the wounded were being carried on waterproof sheets
(without stretchers) down to the beach. More than half the officers and
nearly half the men were killed or wounded. By morning it had become
impossible to cling any longer to the position. Protected by a small
and heroic rearguard, and by the heavy fire of the ships _Goliath_,
_Talbot_, _Dublin_, _Sapphire_, and _Amethyst_, the wounded, the
stores, and the survivors of the two battalions and the S.W. Borderers
company were taken off by the boats and returned in the early afternoon
on the warships to the southern end of the Peninsula. In spite of the
heroism displayed, and in spite of the service in holding up a large
Turkish force for the critical twenty-four hours, the effort at Y Beach
failed, and the failure was serious.
About nine miles from Y Beach farther north along the coast, the
snub-nosed promontory of Gaba Tepe suddenly projects. It is of no
great height--just under 100 feet--but deep water washes the foot of
the steep and rugged cliffs, its caves and artificial tunnels concealed
guns which no shell could touch, and from those caves and tunnels
nearly the whole coast north and south could be enfiladed. North,
the coast falls into an open, gently sloping shore of quiet meadows
and scattered olive groves, crossed by a track to the Old Village
(Eski Keui) in the centre of the Peninsula, and so to Maidos on the
strait. Next to Bulair, this is the shortest way over, for it measures
less than five miles in a straight line. But on the right stands the
threatening plateau of Kilid Bahr, strongly held, and forming a central
base for the enemy’s army, and on the left rise the heights of Sari
Bair, intersected by inextricable entanglements of gully and ravine. At
the northern end of that gentle slope, rising like the fields around a
Lowland loch, just where the cliffs begin again, the main landing of
the Anzac corps was intended. Remembering the V and W Beaches, no one
can call any position impregnable to such men as ours; but the spot
was thickly wired from the water’s edge; it was fully exposed to the
guns hidden on Gaba Tepe, in an olive grove farther inland, and on
Kilid Bahr plateau itself; to advance over the gradual slope would have
meant advancing up an unsheltered glacis crossed by almost impenetrable
obstacles, in the face of entrenched and invisible machine-guns and
rifles. It was fortunate that man’s proposals here went astray.
[Sidenote: THE ANZAC ORDERS]
The object of the Anzac landing was to detain the Turkish forces
on Kilid Bahr plateau, to check the reinforcement of the southern
Peninsula by them or by other troops from the Bulair district,
and to threaten the Turkish line of retreat. The enemy’s forces in
these central regions were vaguely estimated at about 20,000; but
reconnaissance had been impossible, the country was unknown, except
in so far as it can be surveyed from the sea, and hitherto the Staff
had no maps even fairly trustworthy, as the maps afterwards found
on the bodies of Turkish officers were. The landing was officially
called Z Beach, but was always known as “Anzac,” and so history will
know it. As already stated, the covering force consisted of the 3rd
Australian Brigade under Colonel Sinclair Maclagan. It was conveyed
in four transports, but the first landing-party (about 1500 men) had
been transferred at Mudros to the warships _Queen_ (Admiral Thursby’s
flagship), the _London_, and the _Prince of Wales_. Twelve tows were
provided, each consisting of a steam pinnace and a trail of four
cutters or “lifeboats,” and carrying about 125 men.[92] As soon as the
first party had started in the tows, the remainder of the covering
party was to tranship from the transports into eight destroyers, and
to follow slowly towards shore until taken off by the returning tows,
three tows being allotted to each pair of destroyers. When the covering
brigade had made sure of the landing, the transports of the whole army
corps were to close in to shore and disembark. The _Triumph_, the
_Majestic_, and the cruiser _Bacchante_ were to cover the landing by
gun-fire. As throughout the expedition, the entire organisation on the
water was directed by the navy, and the boats were commanded by boy
midshipmen, whose imperturbable calm in moments of extreme peril was,
from beginning to end, and at every crisis, only rivalled by the dogged
heroism of their crews.
[Illustration: POSITION AT ANZAC IN THE WEEKS FOLLOWING LANDING]
The whole force assembled at a point about half-way between Imbros and
the intended landing. It was 1.30 a.m. of the 25th. The smoke rising
against the westering moon probably betrayed their presence, but
they waited till the moon set behind the jagged mountains of Imbros
soon after three. As directed, the first tows were then manned, and
the three warships moved abreast slowly towards the shore, followed
by the trailing boats. At 4.10 a.m. they stopped, within about one
and a quarter mile of shore, and the tows moved slowly forward, the
destroyers following them at about half an hour’s interval. Probably it
was in that interval that the salutary mistake occurred. Whether misled
by ignorance of the coast and by the starlit darkness, or carried
unconsciously by a current which sets along shore towards the Gulf of
Xeros, the tows approached land rather more than a mile north of the
appointed landing. The beach to which they made is a shallow arc of
sand stretching for about half a mile between two small projections
in the coast-line--Ari Burnu to the north, and what the Australians
called Hell Spit to the south. One deep ravine, starting from an
almost precipitous cliff (to be known as “Plugge’s Plateau”) divides
the arc near the northern extremity at right angles to the shore; but
confusedly broken and steep, though not absolutely precipitous, ground
rises all around the cove--“Anzac Cove”--to a general height of over
200 feet. Wherever the ground--a mixture of soft sandstone and
marl--was not too steep for vegetation, it was then covered with thick
green or blackish scrub, chiefly prickly oak, difficult to penetrate,
and in places six feet high. In later months the scrub served as a
danger signal, for the spots where it remained were exposed to rifle or
shell-fire. Everywhere else it disappeared, leaving the yellow surface
bare.
[Sidenote: THE ANZAC LANDING]
The tows approached the beach in absolute silence. Trusting to the
cliffs, the Turks had neglected defence at this point, but for two
slight trenches--one close to the water’s edge, the second a little
up the height. Even these seem to have been left unmanned, for about
a battalion of Turks was dimly perceived running along the shore,
no doubt hurried up from the open ground where our landing had been
intended. Just before 5 a.m. they opened fire, and many of the soldiers
and crews were struck in the boats. The Australians made no answer,
but before the keels grated, leapt into water up to their chests, and
surged ashore. Throwing off their packs, they dashed straight with the
bayonet upon the enemy wherever they could see him. The two trenches
were carried with a rush, and still the men charged on. They began to
struggle up the gully and the steep ascent on its right (afterwards
called Maclagan’s Ridge). The tows returned for the remainder of
the brigade on the destroyers, and these men joined in the rush and
scramble. Some of the tows crossed each other, and added to the excited
confusion. Some, either for want of space or yielding to the current,
passed north of Ari Burnu and attempted a landing on the broad and
open beach beside fishermen’s huts, standing almost in front of
the perpendicular and strangely shaped cliff afterwards called “The
Sphinx.” Here they suffered terrible loss from rifles and machine-guns;
for this beach, gradually broadening out till it merges into the
open, marshy plain at the mouth of Anafarta Biyuk valley, extends to
Suvla and the Salt Lake, and the Turks were here prepared to oppose a
landing. A few of the boats went adrift, having no men left to control
them. One at least swayed with the current, full of dead. Several had
to be left for some days aground against the beach, full also of dead.
[Sidenote: THE ANZAC ADVANCE]
Crossing the top of Maclagan’s Ridge, the scattered groups of the 3rd
Brigade suddenly looked down into a deep valley running right across
their advance. It was the hidden valley afterwards known as Shrapnel
Gully. From its issue upon the beach just south of Hell Spit, it runs
up north-east for something over a mile through the very heart of the
subsequent position. Many gullies and small watercourses (all dry
except after heavy rain) lead into it, and it afterwards became the
chief means of communication with the outposts along the centre of
the Anzac lines. Down into this valley the 3rd Brigade plunged. The
thick bushes and devious watercourses split them up. Battalions and
companies lost touch in haphazard advance. Shrapnel from the opposite
height and both flanks swept the valley in bursting storms. From the
rear and every side, hidden snipers picked the isolated men off as they
struggled forward. Officers fell. Orders ceased. In separate knots,
without leading or control, the men ran, and leapt, and stumbled on.
Right across the valley they struggled, shouting their battle-song,
“Australia will be there,” bayoneting all Turks they caught, and
cursing as they fell. Up the opposing heights they climbed--heights so
steep on the face that, later in the campaign, steps had to be cut for
paths, and supplies were hauled up by pullies. Over the top of that
steep ridge the groups charged on. Many got farther than Anzacs were
ever to go again. Some looked down into the valleys where the nearest
Turkish camps of Koja Dere and Boghali stood. Many disappeared for ever
into the unknown wilderness. “They refused to surrender,” the Turks
said at the armistice of a month later--“they refused to surrender, so
we had to kill them all.”
In a contest of such confusion, the thought of time is lost, and it
becomes impossible to trace the course of consecutive events. But
early in the morning--some say at 5.30, others about 9.30--there was
a pause in the firing for about an hour. The Turks appear to have
been overwhelmed by the dash and violence of an assault such as that
leisurely and dreamy race had never imagined. It seems to have been
about this time that Major Brand (Brigade-Major of the 3rd Brigade)
with a party of the 9th (Queensland) and 10th (South Australian)
battalions, standing on one of the sharp crests, and seeing a redoubt
and earthworks upon a hillside below, charged down the valley and
captured a battery of three Krupp guns. The Turks, after the pause,
were then advancing to their first counter-attack, and the Australians
were compelled to spike and destroy the guns instead of getting them
away. But it was a serviceable deed.
[Sidenote: THE ANZAC POSITIONS]
So soon as it was light, the guns hidden on Gaba Tepe and hidden
guns on some hill to the north poured converging shrapnel upon the
boats coming to shore, and upon the beach itself, although it was
to some extent protected by Hell Spit and Ari Burnu. The _Triumph_
and _Bacchante_ succeeded in keeping down the fire from Gaba Tepe
at intervals, but it repeatedly burst out again with fury. Under
this recurrent storm of shell, the 1st (New South Wales) and the
2nd (Victoria) Brigades, closely followed by two brigades of the
New Zealand and Australian Division (the New Zealand and the 4th
Australian), put to shore. All had landed soon after midday, and two
batteries of Indian mountain guns came into action. But the losses were
severe, and the shelling so heavy that the remaining artillery could
not be landed. In the extremity of peril and excitement, battalions
and brigades became hopelessly mixed up, and many groups lost touch
with units and officers. But for the most part, the 2nd Brigade
appears to have climbed to the right of the 3rd or covering brigade,
to have crossed the long (Shrapnel) gully nearer its mouth, and to
have advanced up the continuation of the farther ridge towards the
point afterwards called M‘Laurin Hill (Colonel M‘Laurin being C.O. of
the Victorians). The 1st Brigade appears to have supported the 3rd,
and held a position on its left, probably near “Pope’s Hill.” The
extreme left of the whole position, which gradually took the shape of
an irregular semicircle or triangle, was later occupied and held by
the joint Division of New Zealanders and Australians. Near the centre
the Auckland Battalion under Colonel Plugge held “Plugge’s Plateau,”
overlooking the beach. To the left, the New Zealanders stormed the
steep ridge afterwards known as “Walker’s,” from Brigadier-General
H. B. Walker, of the General Staff. Just beyond “The Sphinx” it rises
steeply from the beach to a height which faces the sea in a sheer
precipice of 150 feet, and its long summit became the main line of
defence on the north and north-east. Moving still farther left, over a
broad beach (“Ocean Beach”) and fairly open ground, afterwards crossed
by the “Great Sap,” Captain Cribb with a party of New Zealanders rushed
a strong redoubt and store at the “Fishermen’s Huts” and established
the outlying position of “No. 1 Post.”
In the afternoon and early evening, the 4th Australian Brigade (2nd
Division) under Colonel Monash, apparently advancing from the beach
straight across the central ridge, filled in the dangerous gaps
between the Australian brigades on the right and the New Zealanders
on the left. The upper end of “Shrapnel Gully,” leading up to “Pope’s
Hill” between “Walker’s Ridge” and the steep farthest line of defence
afterwards held by “Quinn’s Post,” “Courtney’s” and “Steel’s,” was
accordingly known as “Monash Gully.”
By the evening the Anzac position, which varied little for the next
three months, was thus roughly drawn, and the names of the officers who
had seized the various points were vaguely attached to them. The whole
position was hardly more than three-quarters of a mile deep by a mile
and a half long, not counting the outpost by Fishermen’s Huts. In fact,
on the first day hardly more than a mile in length was gained. But to
the end it was almost impossible to realise how small the area was,
so steep are its heights and so entangling its valleys and ravines.
Entangled in those ravines, exhausted by scaling the heights, and lost
in the deep scrub of that unknown country, the Anzacs fought till dark
to maintain their plot of ground against repeated counter-attacks.
There was no time to dig in. From Koja Dere, Boghali, and Kilid Bahr
plateau, the Turks rolled up waves of reinforcement. It was estimated
that 20,000 came clashing against the 3rd Brigade and the left of the
2nd in the middle morning. The attack was renewed at 3 p.m. and again
at 5. Groups of Australians were driven back from the most advanced
positions; many were cut off and shot down. Only along the edge of the
heights beyond Shrapnel Valley a thin line held, growing hourly thinner.
In the afternoon, General Birdwood came ashore with the Divisional
Generals. The beach was a scene of wild and perilous confusion. Men,
stores, ammunition, and watercans were being dumped on the sand as
the boats brought them in. Parties loaded up with rations, water,
and cartridges were climbing out to supply the firing lines. In long
streams the wounded were staggering or being carried down to lie on the
beach till boats could take them off, at first to hospital ships, and
afterwards to any kind of ship which the navy could allot. For here, as
elsewhere, the casualties had been greatly underestimated. Originally
only two hospital ships had been provided for the whole attack, and
though the navy lent two more, the supply was not nearly adequate. On
the small beach, Colonel N. R. Howse (Assistant Director of Medical
Service to the Corps) hurriedly erected a dressing-station; but the
wounded, however heroic in their suffering, suffered much. And over the
whole scene, shrapnel crashed and shrieked perpetually, while the air
was filled with the tearing wail of bullets passing in thousands across
the beach from the cliffs above, and dropping like hail-stones upon
the boats and sea. At nightfall the Turks, shouting their battle-cry
of “Allah, Allah Din!” renewed the attack with intensified violence.
Appeals for reinforcement came pouring in. It seemed impossible to
hold on. Orders to prepare for evacuation were whispered from group to
group.[93]
[Sidenote: THE FEINT OFF BULAIR]
Still farther up the coast, at the head of the Gulf of Xeros, the Royal
Naval Division (less the Plymouth Battalion detailed for Y Beach) was
engaged upon a feint, as though a landing were intended either north of
the Bulair lines, or at Karachali on the opposite coast. Accompanied
by destroyers and the battleship _Canopus_ (Captain Grant) of Admiral
Thursby’s squadron, the division proceeded in its own transports.
The destroyers opened fire at Karachali and other points along the
shore. Towards nightfall the _Canopus_ bombarded the Bulair lines, and
preparations as though for a landing were ostensibly made. There was no
answer from the enemy, but silence never proved that their trenches
were not manned, and their guns ready. Later in the campaign one heard
rumours of a landing having been effected here without opposition by a
party of Marines, but the only man who went ashore was Lieut.-Commander
Bernard Freyberg of the Hood Battalion. Painted brown and thickly
oiled, he was dropped from a destroyer into a boat at 10 p.m. on the
24th and from the boat swam ashore, about two miles, carrying four
Homi flares and three oil flares. Landing at midnight, he crawled 400
yards up to a trench, and there heard talking, which proved that the
trenches were occupied. Crawling back, he lit three lots of flares a
quarter of a mile apart, along the shore in the direction of Bulair.
Two of the destroyers at once opened fire, and the Turks fired back.
Lieut.-Commander Freyberg then swam out, and was picked up an hour
later.
During the night the _Canopus_ was recalled to Anzac to support the
dubious contest there.
[Sidenote: THE FRENCH FEINT AT KUM KALI]
Another feint, on a much larger scale, was made by the French Division
upon the Asiatic entrance to the Straits. The object was partly to
hold a Turkish force, partly to check the fire from the Asiatic side
upon the S and V landings. For this purpose, General D’Amade selected
the 6th Regiment (Lieut.-Colonel Noguès), mixed Senegalese and Lyons
men, of the Brigade Coloniale, supported by the _Jeanne d’Arc_ and
the Russian cruiser _Askold_ (called the “Woodbines,” because she has
five thin funnels close together, like the five cigarettes in a penny
“Woodbine” packet). At the same time, the remainder of the French
squadron was ordered to Besika Bay, five or six miles south of the
point. Landing from the boats of their own transports, the infantry
captured Kum Kali and Yenishehr villages after severe fighting, taking
about 600 prisoners. In spite of violent counter-attacks, they held on
through that night and the following day, not advancing farther along
the coast than the mouth of the Mendere, but drawing the fire of the
Asiatic guns, and thus defending both our transports and landings.
The action was in every respect successful, but the regiment was
re-embarked after nightfall on the 26th in accordance with pre-arranged
plans, since Lord Kitchener had forbidden Asiatic adventures. The
French lost 167 killed, 459 wounded, and 116 missing. They put the
Turkish casualties at 2000, apart from prisoners.[94]
When night came, the small force at De Tott’s Battery (Eski Hissarlik)
was fairly secure; the landing at V Beach had failed, and the few
survivors ashore were barely sheltered from extreme peril by the low
bank of sand; W Beach was held, but the partially entrenched troops on
the plateau which protected it were exposed to repeated attack; X Beach
was comparatively safe, owing to dead ground and the _Implacable’s_
guns, and connection with W had been established; in shallow trenches
above the ravine on Y Beach the diminishing companies desperately clung
to the ground, but were exposed to irresistible numbers; at Z Beach
(Anzac) the cove and a rough triangle of unexplored cliffs and ravines
were barely held against persistent onsets; near Bulair the feint was
probably successful in holding a certain number of Turkish troops, and
Captain Freyberg was lighting his flares, a daring and lonely figure;
at Kum Kali the French were fulfilling their task, but under orders to
withdraw. Of the three Brigadier-Generals in the 29th Division, one had
been killed and the other two wounded. Upon those scenes of anguish and
death, of scarcely endurable anxiety and a self-devotion unsurpassed in
any annals, the Sabbath evening closed, but scarcely for one moment did
the tumult of battle cease.