CHAPTER IX
THE PAUSE IN JULY
While dwelling upon prominent actions in our efforts to advance, such as those of June 4, June 21, and June 28 and the following days, one must always realise that the fighting in various parts of the front lines was in fact continuous by day and night. On both sides local attempts were repeatedly made to capture or destroy some section of the opposing trenches. It frequently happened that different parts of the same trench would be held by the enemy and our companies. At the turn of an angle, or the mouth of a communication trench, the men on either side would suddenly find themselves face to face with the enemy, and a combat, waged for bare life with bombs, bayonets, and revolvers, ensued. Sandbag barriers were quickly erected across entrances, but sometimes, while one section was at rest or engaged in cooking, a sentry would give warning that a party of about fifty men in blue-grey uniforms had crept over the parapets to right or left, cleared out the section there, and threatened to enfilade. At such moments the safety of a line depended upon the alert resource of some junior officer and the steady nerves of the platoon under his command. No history will ever record the deeds of silent self-sacrifice which ennobled these daily struggles, and passed almost unnoticed at the time, except by the men who witnessed them and were themselves too often afterwards obliterated with their memories.
Nor must it be forgotten that the Turkish bombardment was daily repeated at intervals in so-called “hates.” Though the front lines both at Helles and Anzac were too close together to be shelled with safety to their own men, all the beaches, except Gully Beach, were exposed; and though the effect of the fire could not be seen on Anzac Cove and Lancashire Landing, the range on both was accurately registered, and no one there was safe, whether disembarking stores, or dressing wounds, or just coming to land, or at rest, or bathing, or engaged in workshops and signalling offices, plump into which at Helles I saw a large shell fall on August 1 with terrible results in deaths and wounds.137 But, certainly, V Beach, beside the River Clyde, was most openly exposed. The French depôt there constantly suffered, especially after the Turks late in June placed four heavy batteries on the opposite shore in a hidden position between Erenkeui and the Trojan plain. Nor were communications safe. On July 4 a large transport, the Carthage, a British ship but used by the French, was torpedoed by a submarine just off W Beach. Fortunately, she was empty.
Every day and night at the end of June and beginning of July was marked by minor attacks from the Turkish lines. But the attack on July 2 was evidently intended to be more than minor. It began with a violent bombardment of our extreme left, to which our guns, for mere want of ammunition, could make no efficient reply. At 6 p.m. the Turks came swarming down from the upper reaches of the Gully Ravine. Checked by machine-guns and the fire of the destroyer Scorpion, they renewed the bombardment, and immediately afterwards two battalions were seen advancing in regular order, shoulder to shoulder, across the open, their officers waving their swords, and running bravely forward to encourage their men. To machine-guns the shrapnel of the 10th Battery, R.F.A., was now added, and the Gurkhas were sent up to reinforce. No one could stand against our fire. The surviving Turks ran back into the ravine in disorder. Two clearly marked lines of dead showed the limit of the advance.
A similar attack on a grand scale was tried only two days later (the night of July 4–5). Anzac was heavily bombarded, a Turkish battleship in the Narrows near Chanak throwing at least twenty 11·2-inch shells into the lines there, right across the Peninsula, to say nothing of the guns in the Olive Grove and on the Anafarta Hills. At Helles, every gun on Achi Baba and the Asiatic shore was brought to bear. On W Beach alone, 700 big shells from Asia fell. At least 5000 shells exploded on our lines and beaches. At 7.30 a.m. the Turkish infantry attempted to storm, rightly choosing the junction of the Royal Naval Division with the French as our weakest point. A few yards of front line were entered, but in fifteen minutes cleared again. A similar attempt to cut in between the 42nd Division and the 29th entirely failed, and again the Turks were driven to the shelter of the upper Ravine. The General Staff estimated the enemy’s losses during the preceding week at over 5000 killed and 15,000 wounded. So encumbered was their position with the dead rotting in the intense heat that on July 10 a request for five hours’ armistice to bury them came from the German Commandant, signing himself “Weber Pasha.”138 Unwillingly, and only in justice to his own men, Sir Ian refused. For it was known that Turks, even more than most troops, were reluctant to charge over their dead comrades, whose bodies thus became for us an extra barrier of defence, equal to a barbed-wire hedge.
As the enemy’s loss was so heavy, the advantage in their repeated counter-attacks would have rested with us, had it not become evident that they could draw upon large reinforcements. Early in July five fresh Nizam divisions arrived on the Peninsula. They were perhaps partly released by the disappearance of danger from Russia; but, as most of them came from Adrianople, their presence was more probably due to the growing understanding between the Central Powers and Bulgaria—an understanding believed to have developed into a secret Treaty about the middle of July. The arrival of these fresh troops rendered the enemy’s attacks more serious and more frequent. Only by strong counter-attack could our position at Helles be maintained and the initiative remain with us. Accordingly, a formal assault, similar to those in June, was ordered for July 12. This time the main attack devolved upon our right and right-centre, the French and the 52nd (Lowland) Division being chiefly engaged. After the customary bombardment, supported by heavy naval guns, the infantry rushed forward and gained the first two lines, but the French and Scots (155th Brigade) lost touch, the 4th K.O.S.B., parties of whom actually reached the slopes of Achi Baba, came under gun-fire, and nothing further was possible till the afternoon. Then, after another bombardment, the 157th Brigade pushed on and captured a strong redoubt on the edge of the Kereves Dere. Soon after dawn on the 13th, however, this Brigade was attacked by bombers, and a portion of its right was driven back. It was speedily rallied, and three battalions of the R.N.D. were sent up to reinforce and advance the position.139 A certain advance was also made on their left, while on the extreme right the French succeeded in reaching the mouth of the Kereves Dere itself. Nearly 500 prisoners were taken, and but for inefficient Staff work, considerable advantage might have been secured. But little advance was thus effected towards the summit of the elaborately entrenched and fortified hill, the base of which was protected by great redoubts and sprinkled with concealed guns beyond the maze of trenches. After this action our supply of shell was so much reduced, the reserve so dangerously encroached upon, that further attack became for the present impossible without heavy risk. Even such bombardment as was sanctioned for those two days could only be effected by borrowing French guns—about six batteries of “75’s” and a few howitzers.
Under the strain of these successive days and nights of fighting Major-General Egerton, as already mentioned, was ordered to hospital for twenty-four hours’ rest, and the command of the 52nd Division was entrusted to Major-General F. C. Shaw, recently arrived to command the 13th Division (“Kitchener’s” or New Army) now coming in. General Egerton resumed his command next day, and retained it till mid-September, when he was appointed Base-Commandant at Alexandria, and was succeeded by Major-General Lawrence. But in mid-July the army suffered a still more serious loss in Major-General Hunter-Weston, the experienced Officer Commanding the famous 29th Division in the earlier battles, and subsequently the VIIIth Army Corps. For three months, without cessation by day or night, this General, who certainly never spared his troops, had himself endured all the perils, anxieties, and sorrows of an officer directing a series of desperate actions, or rather one continuous desperate action, which, as the price of an unparalleled achievement, had deprived him of nearly all his most trusted subordinates, devastated devoted troops with irreparable loss, and stretched his mind on the rack of ceaseless apprehension how best to encounter imminent dangers with insufficient means. Burning sun, dust storms, and repeated incalculable crises of peril may wear down the bravest physical nature, and in high fever he was compelled to seek refuge first in the Admiral’s Triad, and then in a hospital ship leaving the scene of his great exploits. Such consolation as is possible for a man so placed he might derive from the eulogy justly bestowed upon “the incomparable 29th Division” by the Commander-in-Chief when the brigades were withdrawn in turn for a brief rest at Imbros after the battle of late June. For, after speaking of their recent deeds, Sir Ian concluded:
“Therefore it is that Sir Ian Hamilton is confident he carries with him all ranks of his force when he congratulates Generals Hunter-Weston and De Lisle, the Staff, and each officer, N.C.O., and man in this Division, whose sustained efforts have added fresh lustre to British arms all the world over.”
The command of the VIIIth Army Corps was temporarily taken over by Lieut.-General Sir Frederick Stopford, who had arrived at Imbros with his Staff on July 11. He was thus given an opportunity of experience in the kind of fighting required of his forces when he commanded the IXth Army Corps, then gradually concentrating for a new enterprise. Major-General Douglas (42nd Division) next took command for a time. For the permanent command, perhaps, Sir Bruce Hamilton might have been appointed but for his deafness. Ultimately Lieut.-General Sir F. J. Davies, who had seen much service of every kind since entering the Grenadier Guards in 1884, was sent out. He arrived from France on August 5, took over the command on August 8, and commanded the VIIIth Army Corps to the end.
On the part of the French, the losses during the first half of July were also heavy. Of individual losses, the most serious were caused in the early morning of July 12 by a heavy shell which destroyed the 1st Division command-post, killing Major Romieux, Chief of Staff, and mortally wounding General Masnou, commanding the 1st Division. He was succeeded by General Brulard, who had seen much service in Morocco. Lieut.-Colonel Vernhol was his Chief of Staff.
Some idea of the habitual life in the fighting lines during the next two or three weeks of comparative quiet may be gathered from notes which I wrote hurriedly at the time. Towards the end of July I was staying on the wreck of the River Clyde, daily visiting one section or other of the British lines (the French being “out of bounds,” though in later months I found all French officers and men anxious to welcome us). One day when I had been chiefly with the 42nd Division and the 38th Brigade (13th Division) temporarily attached to them for training, I made the following notes among others:
“Starting from W Beach, you struggle through dust clouds, ‘left shoulder up,’ till you find one of the dusty white tracks by which Krithia villagers used to visit the town of Seddel Bahr. One passes through what was lately a garden of wild flowers, fields, vineyards, and scattered olive trees, but is now the desolation which people make and call war. It is a wilderness of mounds and pits and trenches, of heaped-up stores and rows of horses stabled in the open, of tarpaulin dressing-stations behind embankments, of carts and wagons continually on the move, of Indian muleteers continually striving to inculcate human reason into mules. Except for a few surviving trees, hardly a green thing remains. Over all this wilderness a cloud of dust sweeps perpetually, and on the results of war flies multiply with a prosperity unknown to them before.
“Shaded by the largest remaining trees lay the headquarters of the Royal Naval Division, always near the front, always engaged, and hardly enough recognised. Being neither army nor navy, they share the common danger of nondescripts, and people at home do not forget the untrained condition in which they were rushed out to Antwerp. Now war has given them the sternest training, and here they stand, always ready to take a foremost place in the fighting line, singularly clean in dug-out and trench, singularly free from all the common ailments of a war in sun and flying dirt.
“I went on to the 42nd Division, and passing the Divisional Headquarters entered a shallow nullah, rather safer than the track; for the whole of the open ground right away from Cape Helles is exposed to shell-fire. The peculiarity of this watercourse is that there is visible water in it—a trickle of filthy greenish water unfit for washing or drinking; but still the men wash where it has settled down in the large holes made by ‘Jack Johnsons’ or ‘Black Marias’ which have pitched in its bed.
“One point where the watercourse divides is inevitably called ‘Clapham Junction.’ But Lancashire names have been given to the main trenches and ‘dumps.’ Burnley, Warrington, and Accrington have given names to the narrow clefts which are the homes of the Lancashire men, and a long communication trench, constructed by the Turks with extraordinary ingenuity, has now become Wigan Road. Like all this part of our position, that trench was captured in the fighting of June 4–6, relics of which, in the shape of the dead who cannot be reached for burial, still lie exposed in certain places among our own lines, so keen is the watch of the Turkish sniper.
“The 38th Brigade is all Lancastrian too. In its headquarters, General Baldwin was giving a discourse to his officers. A young Captain Chadwick, of the machine-guns, showed the way round the trenches. Through periscopes, or by raising the eyes for a few seconds above the parapet (for I found it hard to judge distances through a periscope), one could see the Turkish black and white sandbags only forty or fifty yards from our front, and follow the long lines and mazes of trenchwork round the base of Achi Baba. Holes through the tops of the periscopes proved the vigilance of the Turkish outlook, and in passing certain points everybody has to run.
“The rifle-fire was not very frequent. Shells kept flying over our heads, but only to burst far away upon the wilderness, or on W Beach. Except during an attack, the firing line is not the most dangerous part of the Peninsula. In the midday heat, the men who were not ‘standing to,’ were quietly engaged in cooking or eating their dinner. They cooked on little wood fires lighted in holes scooped out in the trench side, and their tin ‘canteens’ served for cooking pots and plates.
“So there these sons of Lancashire stood, almost naked in the blaze of sun, jammed between high walls of white and parching marl; some were cooking, some having their dinner from the pans, some crouching in any corner of shade that could be found, some engaged upon war’s invariable occupation of picking lice off the inside of their clothes. I don’t know what work they had done before—weaving, spinning, mining, smelting, I don’t know what—but they were at an unaccustomed sort of work now, and yet how quickly they have adapted themselves to so strange a life in so strange a land!”
The food thus cooked was abundant but monotonous. The chief luxury was the ration of apricot jam—welcome for a time, but always apricot. Officials naturally find monotony the easiest form of supply, and forget that variety is essential in human food. The case of “bully beef” was worse. Certain kinds of it (South American) were so salt that it ought to have been stewed or boiled before issued. Salt meat, unvaried week after week under a burning sun and in stifling trenches where water is limited to teacupfuls, is not attractive. To troops afflicted with violent diarrhœa it is uneatable and dangerous. When the Anzac men threw over tins of meat to the Turks in exchange for packets of cigarettes, it was a cheap gift, and the enemy returned the message, “Bully Beef Non. Envoyez milk.” Salt, hard and distasteful food, in persistent monotony, increased the prevalent disease until the demand for castor oil (which was considered the most soothing remedy) far exceeded the calculated supply, and at Anzac General Birdwood was obliged to issue orders against excessive indulgence, lest castor oil should become Australia’s national drink. Appeals for a canteen where variety could be purchased remained unheeded till much later in the campaign. At Imbros, a few Greeks were licensed to erect stalls where fruit, cigarettes, “Turkish Delight” (lakoumi), candles, and various tinned goods could be purchased by the brigades mustering there, or withdrawn there for rest. Greek sailing-boats anchored along K Beach, the main landing-place on that island, also did a similar trade, especially in fruit. At Helles, on W Beach, stood a canteen shed, nearly always empty. Late in August or in September a canteen ship at last reached Anzac, but the supply was so small that the representative purchaser from each battalion was not allowed more than a sixth of what he asked and had money to pay for. Yet whenever the simplest alteration in rations was possible, such as the issue of rice, cocoa, raisins, or even a different jam, the health of the men improved.
The water supply was a perpetual anxiety, especially at Anzac. Water could be found in a few places by digging, especially near the shore, where, however, it soon became brackish. At Helles there were a few springs and a few old wells. At the extreme left or north of the Anzac position (near the hill known as Fort 3), Colonel Bauchop, then in command there, showed me in July an excellent spring of pure water, said to have been discovered by a “diviner,” Sapper Stephen Kelly, of Melbourne, with a hazel twig. As it was close to the sea, at the mouth of one of the largest watercourses that drain the range of Sari Bair, though dry on the surface in summer, it might have been possible to divine the presence of water beneath the surface without supernatural aid; but the source was soon fitted up with pumps and cisterns, supplying that district well. For the centre of Anzac and the outlying trenches along the heights, most of the water was brought from the Nile in lighters and pumped into iron reservoirs upon the Cove beach in front of General Headquarters. A larger one containing 30,000 gallons was also constructed on a platform up the cliff, but without great success, owing to the breakdown of the pumping-engine. The water was carefully rationed out into water-bottles or tins—so carefully that a man was fortunate to get a mugful for washing and shaving. “Having a good clean up?” said General Birdwood, in his friendly way, to an Australian thus engaged. “Yes, sir,” the man replied, “and I only wish I was a bloody canary!”
From notes written down by myself in the middle of that July, I take the following description:
“So here the Anzacs live, practising the whole art of war. Amid dust and innumerable flies, from the mouths of little caves cut in the face of the cliffs, they look over miles of sea to the precipitous peaks of Samothrace and the grey mountains of Imbros. Up and down the steep and narrow paths, the Colonials arduously toil, like ants which bear the burdens of their race. Uniforms are seldom of the regulation type. Usually they consist of bare skin dyed to a deep reddish copper by the sun, tattooed decorations (a girl, a ship, a dragon), and a covering that can hardly be described even as ‘shorts,’ being much shorter. Every kind of store and arm has to be dragged or ‘humped’ up these ant-hills of cliff, and deposited at the proper hole or gallery. Food, water, cartridges, shells, building timber, guns, medical stores—up the tracks all must go, and down them the wounded come.
“So the practice of the simple life proceeds, with greater simplicity than any Garden Suburb can boast, and the domestic virtues which constitute the whole art of war are exercised with a fortitude rarely maintained upon the domestic hearth.”
July 23 was the anniversary of the “constitution” proclaimed by the Young Turks in 1908, and it was expected that the enemy would celebrate the dawn by another attack. Being then at Anzac, I made the following notes, which are here included as giving some idea of usual daily life upon the outer lines:
“Reinforcements were known to be arriving, or perhaps arrived, across the Narrows—100,000 men, as reported. It was Ramazan, and the sacred moon, three-quarters full, gave light for climbing the precipitous yellow cliffs. By eleven I was at the highest point. Through deeply cut saps and ‘communications,’ the work of Australian miners, the way runs in winding labyrinth. Though the depth of our three-mile position measures no more than three-quarters of a mile from the shore to the farthest point inland (not counting by the measurement of cliff and valley surface, but straight through the air), the length of sap and trench runs to much over a hundred miles. The point I reached had served as a machine-gun emplacement, but that evening it was watched by a Sikh sentry who stood in the shadow, silent as the shadow. Mounted on the firing-step I looked over the sandbag parapet upon a peculiar scene.
“Far on my right lay the sea, white with the pathway of the setting moon. Up from the shore ran the lines of our position. Close outside the lines, north, south, and east, the Turks stood hidden in their trenches—25,000 to 35,000 of them, as estimates say. All the time they kept up a casual rifle-fire. Some six miles away, in the centre of the Peninsula south, I could see the long and steep position of Kilid Bahr plateau, where the Turks drill new troops daily, and three or four miles farther still away rose the dangerously gentle slopes and low, flat summit of Achi Baba. Beyond it gleamed the sudden flashes of Turkish and British guns defending or assaulting the sand-blown point of land between Krithia and Cape Helles. Sometimes, too, a warship’s searchlight shot a brilliant ray across the view.
“At one o’clock the moon set in a deep red haze over the sea. But nothing happened. The enemy merely kept up a casual fire upon our sandbags, shaking the sand down upon my face as I lay on a kind of shelf beside the parapet. Then suddenly, just on the stroke of two (about midnight in London), an amazing disturbance arose.
“Every Turk who held a rifle or commanded a machine-gun began to fire as fast as he could. From every point in their lines arose such a din of rifle-fire as I have seldom heard even at the crisis of a great engagement. It was one continuous blaze and rattle. From a gap in the parapet I could see the sharp tongues of flame flashing all along the edges, like a belt of jewels. Minute followed minute, and still the incalculable din continued. Now and again one of our guns flung up a shell which burst like a firework into brilliant stars, as though to ask, ‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ Now and again another gun threw a larger shell which came lumbering up Shrapnel Gully with a leisurely note, to burst crashing among the enemy’s trenches. And still the roar of rifles and machine-guns went on incessantly, and still nothing occurred. Suddenly, after just a quarter of an hour, the tumult ceased, with as little reason as it had begun.
“What was the origin of it all, no one who knows the Turk would guess. A salutation to the dawn of Constitution Day; panic at the imaginary appearance of ghostly bayonets fixed for the charge; the instinct which impels a man to fire a rifle when another fires? In lately captured orders, the Turks were seriously warned against wasting ammunition, and now, in a quarter of an hour, they had expended thousands of rounds upon sandbags; one man killed and two slightly wounded. I afterwards learnt that the Anzacs fired off only two belts (500 rounds) of machine-gun, and 74 rounds of rifle.
“When the storm subsided, we and the Turkish snipers settled down again to normal relations, and all was star-lit peace. At half-past three the phantom of false dawn died into daylight, and the men who had been ‘standing to’ all night sank to sleep at the bottom of the trenches. Picking my way over their splendid forms, I climbed down the cliffs again to my cavern beside the sea. I was told that, as an attack was expected that night (spies so reported), not a single man in the Anzac force had gone sick.”
That was a special occasion, but no matter where one slept at Anzac, the air overhead wailed ceaselessly with bullets, and from time to time shrapnel burst or heavy shell exploded, especially around headquarters close to the beach in the centre of Anzac Cove. There, up a short flight of steps, General Birdwood had his dug-out, and there during the night of July 27, Lieutenant B. W. Onslow (11th K.E.O. Lancers), the General’s A.D.C., an excellent soldier, sleeping on the top of his dug-out owing to the intense heat, was killed instantly as he slept.
At the advanced base in Mudros harbour (the third vital point in the expedition at this time), an important change in command was effected in the middle of this month. Throughout the first weeks of fighting and organisation, this base was left destitute of an Inspector-General of Communications. The heavy and complicated work involved, especially in the transhipment of all drafts and supplies and ammunition from the ordinary transports to trawlers and small craft after the danger of submarines was reported, fell upon the Principal Naval Transport Officer (Admiral Phillimore) and the Quartermaster-General (Brigadier-General S. H. Winter). In June, Major-General Wallace was appointed to the office, but his long experience as an executive officer in India had not specially qualified him for a peculiarly difficult piece of administrative work, and complaints arose of the confusion and delay on board the s.s. Aragon, assigned to him as headquarters. Hitherto this liner (hired at great cost from the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company) had served as offices for the Principal Naval Transport Officer, and as the General Post Office. The new Staff of enormous size was now added, and the ship also became a kind of clearing-house or depôt for officers passing to and fro. She acquired an evil name owing to frequent loss of parcels from home for officers and men upon the Peninsula. Unhappily, there was no question about the losses; but this unpardonable crime against the fighting men, who were literally dying for want of variety and small pleasures in food, may have been committed at other points of the postal service. More definite, though less serious, was the charge of luxury on board. Certainly, to any one coming fresh from the dug-outs, dust storms, monotonous rations, and perpetual risks of the Peninsula, the Aragon was like an Enchanted Isle. All who have campaigned in a desert land know the first physical delight of getting on board a well-equipped vessel—the plenty and variety of food, the clean cooking, the iced drinks, tablecloths for dinner, sheets in the bunks, a good chance of washing, and baths. To the campaigning soldier, those are comforts beyond the dreams of luxury, but in ordinary life the most ascetic of saints does not renounce them all as necessarily sinful. Perhaps it was the arbitrary exclusion of many passing officers from the delights of a real dinner and other pleasurable contrasts to life at the front which made the Aragon a byword, as though she were “a sink of iniquity”; and from the same contrasts arose the report that at the end of the campaign she was discovered to be aground upon empty bottles, as upon a coral reef. This appears unlikely, since the harbour took battleships with ease, to say nothing of the Aquitania and the largest liners afloat.140
In the first half of July, Major-General Altham (Royal Scots), a Christ Church, Oxford, man, who served as Chief Intelligence Officer under Sir George White in Ladysmith, succeeded as Inspector-General of Communications, and he also made his headquarters in the Aragon. The expense of maintaining the ship was estimated at £300 a day, and proposals were made for removing the headquarters to land in order to save money. But on the east side of the harbour stood the dusty and unwholesome town or village of Mudros, together with various camps, and the western shore and rising slopes behind it were covered with hospitals, Australian, Irish-Canadian (run by women), and others, besides rest-camps beyond. It was also thought necessary to remain on the water in order to keep touch with the naval organisation under direction of the flagship Europa (Admiral Wemyss), and this, together with the absence of deep-water piers and wharves, was probably the decisive reason. And as to expense, the saving of some £9000 a month has, unfortunately, never been regarded as particularly praiseworthy in this war. The Minnetonka (Atlantic Transport Company) served as headquarters of the Ordnance Services and depôt for the supply of engineering implements, tools, and ammunition, which, however, was not usually unloaded from the smaller craft. Brigadier-General R. W. M. Jackson, Director of Ordnance Services, worked sometimes at Mudros, sometimes at the base in Alexandria. Brigadier-General F. W. B. Koe, Director of Supplies and Transports, did the same.
In spite of the lamentable experiences at the first landings, the arrangements for the removal of the wounded from the Peninsula were still inadequate. The four original hospital ships were present—two military and two lent by the navy—each adapted to receive about 500 men. The remainder of the wounded had to be put on transports not specially prepared, and not protected by The Hague Convention from attack. Before new hospital ships arrived (about fifty at the end), this lack of accommodation caused many deaths and much suffering after a battle on the Peninsula. A particular instance, much spoken of and strongly condemned at the time, was the case of the transport Saturnia, which appeared at Mudros after the attack of June 28 with about 700 on board, crowded haphazard into any corner, in much confusion, and so neglected that their wounds were in many cases putrefying and full of maggots. The transport, having been used for horses and mules, was also in a filthy and stinking condition. Naval and military surgeons were ordered to assist. Among the foremost was Staff-Surgeon Levick of the cruiser Bacchante (Captain Boyle), who had accompanied Captain Scott on the Antarctic expedition, and was the author of an excellent scientific monograph on penguins. Supported by Surgeon Lorrimer of the same ship, and a priest, Father Barry, he remained on board four days and nights, constantly operating. But, for want of adequate assistance, and owing to the lack of bandages, dressings, and instruments, comparatively little could be effected, and many died who might have recovered with proper care.
Such incidents were but further evidences of the general confusion due to an unexpected war, and of the secondary position assigned to the Dardanelles in the Cabinet’s strategy. Prompted, perhaps, by the depressing reports which had lately reached them, the “Dardanelles Committee” of the Cabinet, as the former “War Council” was called after June,141 resolved to institute an inquiry for themselves. On the Peninsula it was widely rumoured that Mr. Winston Churchill was coming, and variegated opinions were expressed. Perhaps it would have been well if he had come; for he, at all events, realised the vital importance of the expedition in relation to the war as a whole. Ultimately, Colonel Maurice Hankey, Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence since 1912, came alone—a man of high reputation for intelligence and capacity. He arrived in the last week of July, and stayed till August 20, but before his arrival the Cabinet had already resolved upon sending out such reinforcements as they considered sufficient to comply with Sir Ian’s demands.
On July 13 a new and strange type of warship, called a “Monitor,” arrived at Kephalos, and next day began bombarding the guns on the Asiatic coast. The monitors were originally constructed for operations in another sphere. They were, in fact, large floating platforms or flat-bottomed forts, supporting, some two 12-inch, and others two 14-inch, guns of American make, without further armament. Their tonnage was about 6000, and their chief peculiarity a broad, flat shelf or platform extending from the hull just below the water-line; so broad and flat that numbers of men could walk upon it while bathing, so that they appeared to be walking upon the water. The shape of the vessels rendered them difficult to steer, and so slow in motion that their progress against such a current as ran in the Narrows would have been very gradual. About the same time, smaller “monitors” arrived. They were nicknamed “Whippets,” and were marked by numbers only. Four “blister ships” (cruisers protected against torpedoes by bulging protuberances along both sides) also came. The “blisters” reduced their speed by about three knots, but, being safe at anchor, they served especially as marking points for survey and “registration.” All these ships played an important part in the coming operations; and in the later months of the campaign, when cross-observation from De Tott’s Battery point and Cape Helles had been established, the large “monitors” stationed off Rabbit Island did invaluable service by suppressing the heavy guns on the Asiatic side.
Almost equally surprising was the appearance of several motor-lighters, inevitably called “Beetles.” Originally constructed for the same proposal as the monitors, they were long, iron barges moving under their own oil power, and built to transport 500 men or 50 horses apiece. From the prow projected a swinging platform or drawbridge, which, hanging elevated as the lighter moved, had the look of a beetle’s forceps and antennæ. The iron deck and sides gave absolute protection against rifle-fire or shrapnel, and if the lighters had been sent out for the first landings, hundreds of lives might have been saved and the history of the war transformed, but only few were ready before May or June.
As to military reinforcement, its necessity was obvious, since by the end of July the casualties amounted to nearly 50,000; in round numbers, 8000 killed, 30,000 wounded (many, of course, returned to service), and 11,000 missing (many killed).142 The 29th Division was the best supplied with drafts, but on the last day of July it counted only 219 officers and 8424 men. As we have seen, the brigades of the 13th (Western) Division, under Major-General F. C. Shaw, began to arrive in the first half of July, and were stationed with the divisions at Helles to gain experience, which served them well.143 The 11th (Northern) Division, under Major-General Frederick Hammersley, began to arrive early in the second half of July, two brigades being stationed at Imbros, and one (the 33rd) sent to Helles for a brief experience.144 The 10th (Irish) Division, under Lieutenant-General Sir Bryan Mahon, arrived towards the end of July, and half of it was stationed at Mitylene (Lesbos) on the inlet of Iero (about 6 miles from the town of Mitylene), guarded by the old battleship Canopus (Captain Grant).145 These three Divisions belonged to the New (so-called Kitchener’s) Army. The infantry of two Territorial Divisions were also promised—the 53rd (Welsh) and 54th (East Anglian)—but they did not begin to arrive till August 10. They were about half below their nominal strength, and had no guns.146
As to aeroplanes, compared with subsequent developments the service was necessarily rather primitive. The six or eight seaplanes attached to the Ark Royal were unable to rise to any great height—not over 2000 feet. Commander Charles Samson established an aerodrome at Tenedos early in the campaign for British and French planes,147 and there was an emergency landing-place at Helles. In June, Tenedos was left to the French, and Colonel Frederick Sykes, R.N.A.S., took command over the two British wings (Commander Samson and Lieut.-Colonel Gerard) stationed at Imbros. At the end of July about 30 planes of different types were in action, doing excellent service in observation and photography. But none of them were “fighting machines,” and, as no anti-aircraft guns were supplied till just at the end of the campaign, the Turkish “Fokker” planes from Chanak were able to continue bombing our lines on the Peninsula and the General Headquarters at Imbros. On the sandy cliff beside the headquarters a large shed was erected for a few small airships, cigar-shaped, with silvery balloons (they were known as “Silver Babies”), which were used to scout over the channel between Imbros and the Peninsula on the watch for submarines. The late autumn gales tore the green canvas covering off the shed, and ultimately it was removed to Mudros.
By the beginning of August, Sir Ian Hamilton had the following military forces under his command: VIIIth Army Corps (29th, 42nd, and 52nd Divisions); IXth Army Corps (10th, 11th, and 13th Divisions); Anzac Army Corps (Australian and New-Zealand-and-Australian Divisions); French Corps Expéditionnaire d’Orient (1st and 2nd Divisions); General Headquarter Troops (Royal Naval Division), together with the infantry of the 53rd and 54th Divisions then on their way out. Eleven divisions present and two more coming represented a nominal force of about 240,000 to 250,000. The actually available forces amounted to less than half those numbers (about 120,000 rifles), always short of howitzers, guns, shells, trench-mortars, and bombs. The Turkish forces on the Peninsula at the same time were estimated at about 61,000, with 39,000 in reserve.148
The reinforcements by land and sea rendered a change of strategy possible. They were, in fact, supplied for this purpose. It had now become evident that the Achi Baba lines were too strong for direct assault. Its gradual slopes, free from dead ground, made the hill an ideal position for defence, and this natural advantage had been so increased by a complicated system of frontal and communication trenches, by barbed wire, machine-guns, scattered batteries, and a series of powerful redoubts, that an almost impregnable fortress by this time checked further advance. In fact, the army at Helles was like a besieged garrison, being continually threatened with assault from the front, and by the Asiatic guns on its right flank and rear. The sea remained open, but that outlet for communication, already exposed to the enemy’s submarines and heavy artillery, would soon be imperilled by autumnal storms. The Army Corps at Anzac was similarly besieged, except that the dead ground sheltered by precipitous cliffs reduced the danger to life in rear of the firing trenches. To break down the siege a sortie in force had become essential. The only alternative was to cling to the positions in the hope of a diversion from Russia or Bulgaria. But during July the great Russian retreat from Galicia and Poland continued almost uninterrupted, and on August 4, Warsaw fell. As to Bulgaria, the Russian disasters confirmed Tsar Ferdinand’s confidence in the ultimate victory of his German compatriots, and a resolute people’s ancestral detestation of the Serbs gave him the support of their passionate desire to recover the lands lost to them in the second Balkan War.
The design of breaking down the siege and freeing the Narrows for the fleet, by cutting the neck of the Peninsula at Bulair, by a landing at Enos, or by a direct attack, was obvious and tempting. As before, its weakness was that the occupation of Bulair would neither have cut the enemy’s communications nor freed the Narrows. In spite of the daring resource of our submarines in penetrating into the Sea of Marmora, and even shelling the trains and destroying the culverts on the railway which runs from Scutari along the north coast of the Gulf of Ismid, the main Turkish supplies and drafts still came to the Peninsula by sea. Some crossed to the Asiatic side from Constantinople; some came up by train from Smyrna to Panderma; in either case, the transports edged along the coast by stages at night till they reached the Straits and crossed at Gallipoli, Galata, or Maidos, always keeping beyond the range or vision of any guns on Bulair. A landing at Enos would have lengthened the journey from Mudros by about 50 miles. An attempt at Bulair would have implied a landing against lines long reputed impregnable, and lately developed even more carefully than the April defences at Helles. The attempt also would have contained no element of surprise; for an attack at that point would be the merest amateur’s first expectation.
An advance in Asia, as from Adramyti Bay opposite Mitylene, with a view to reaching the Smyrna-Panderma railway, might have looked more promising. It was much favoured by British authorities in Mitylene. The arrival of half the 10th Division appeared to point that way, and Mr. Compton Mackenzie was sent there to encourage the false report, for the benefit of Turkish spies. The French, harassed by the Asiatic guns, were probably anxious for some movement along that coast. But Sir Ian was perhaps still bound by Lord Kitchener’s express orders not to entangle himself in Asia. At all events, he refused to dissipate his comparatively small forces at such distances apart. Committed to the Peninsula, he felt that there or nowhere lay his hope of victory. Already in June, with the full concurrence of Generals Gouraud and Birdwood, he had laid his plan. Anzac, instead of remaining subsidiary as “a thorn in the side,” was now to become the main base of attack. The first objective was to be the Sari Bair range; the ultimate object an advance across the five miles to Maidos. A new frontal attack was to detain the enemy at Achi Baba. A surprise landing at Suvla Bay was to protect the Anzac left flank, occupy the heights threatening that flank with artillery, and assist the assault upon the central mountains of Sari Bair range—Koja Chemen Tepe (Hill 971) and Chunuk Bair. When once those heights were gained, the Turkish communications would indeed be cut in two; the positions on Achi Baba and Kilid Bahr plateau would be turned and taken in rear; the very gate of the Narrows would be exposed to our guns. It was a high hope. The battle for its realisation is generally known as Suvla, but more accurately as Sari Bair. In the first week of August it began.