Thus, within five or six weeks of the first landing, the situation had become serious. At home, the originator of the campaign had ceased to hold important office; its opponents were encouraged by despondent criticism; and the Government, which had hitherto controlled it, was transformed. On the Continent, the retirement of the Russian armies in Galicia and Poland cancelled the expectation of a Russian force to co-operate from the Black Sea, and rendered the position of Bulgaria dubious. On the Peninsula, the only lines of communication were threatened by submarines; such assistance as naval guns could supply to the flanks was greatly diminished; the lack of guns and ammunition, specially of howitzers and H.E. shells, was severely felt; the new drafts were unacquainted with their officers, and the officers with each other; at Helles and Anzac the positions were fairly secured, but the men were much worn by almost continuous struggle, and harassed by repeated and random shelling. From this, indeed, the dead ground below the cliffs at Anzac offered protection, but hardly any point at Helles was safe, or even sheltered, whether the enemy’s guns fired from Achi Baba or the Asiatic coast. As reinforcement, Sir Ian had received the 42nd Division and already had been promised the 52nd (Lowland Territorial); but this did not begin to arrive till the middle of June, and he was now compelled to ask Lord Kitchener for two complete army corps in addition. Yet the expedition had justified itself in that, but for its presence in the Dardanelles, the whole of the Near East would have fallen to the enemy’s influence, the Russian left flank would have hung in air without hope of succour, and an overwhelming attack upon the Suez Canal would almost certainly have been attempted.

It was now essential to gain more room at Helles, and by repeated assaults to push the enemy’s lines farther away from the landing beaches. Accordingly, Sir Ian issued orders for another general attack on June 4. It was a Friday, the day after Przemysl had fallen into the enemy’s hands once more. At early morning Sir Ian and the Headquarter Staff crossed to Helles, and were there joined by General Gouraud. They stationed themselves on the high ground of the command-post above Cape Tekke, whence a prospect of the slightly hollow plain and opposite slopes of Krithia and Achi Baba could be obtained, although, under the northerly breeze, a violent dust storm blew. As before, the British VIIIth Corps (consisting of the remains of the 29th Division, together with Sikhs and Gurkhas of the Indian Brigade, the 42nd Division, and the R.N.D., in that order from left to right) held the left and centre of the line, while the French and Colonial Corps of two Divisions held the right. The Ægean and the Straits protected either flank, but, as was inevitable on the Peninsula, this very protection rendered flank movements in attack impossible, and every advance was necessarily made straight against the enemy’s front. The British front of about three and a half miles was occupied by 17,000 infantry, with 7000 in reserve.

The attack was preceded by a longer bombardment than usual, probably because the French General had generously lent the British two groups of “75’s” (six batteries of four guns apiece) with H.E. shell. The guns from sea and land opened fire at 8 a.m. and continued till midday, with short intervals. During the latest interval a feint was practised in the hope of inducing the Turks to fill up their first line of trenches, which were thinly held. Our men fixed bayonets, and waved them above the parapets, as though about to advance. The Turks swarmed down the communication trenches to their front line, and were caught by a sudden renewal of our bombardment. At noon the guns lengthened their range, and, protected by their “barrage,” as the manœuvre came to be called later in the war, the infantry advanced in earnest. For the first half-hour the advance was rapid, especially in the centre, and hope of decisive victory rose high.

This success was chiefly due to the extraordinary dash of the Manchester (42nd Division) and the 2nd Naval (R.N.D.) Brigades. Under young and high-spirited leaders such as few troops possessed,122 the so-called “amateurs” of the Anson, Hood, and Howe Battalions rushed forward through the bushes and small ravines of the neutral ground, stormed the first trench, and captured the southern face of a projecting Turkish redoubt. It was done in a quarter of an hour, and in five-and-twenty minutes their consolidating parties were at work upon the positions gained. The Manchester Brigade (always a model of what Lord Haldane’s Territorials could become) swept forward with even greater success. In five minutes they were over the first line; in half an hour they had captured the second, and it was believed that no defences lay between them and Achi Baba. The belief was probably too sanguine, but at all events they had won a third of a mile, and the working parties began reversing the aspect of the excellently constructed Turkish trenches.

Farther to the left, the 88th Brigade (29th Division), though exposed to heavy fire from front and left flank, and met with the bayonet by Turks who courageously awaited their assault, succeeded in capturing the first line of trenches, the Worcesters especially distinguishing themselves. But the farther advance of the division was checked because the 14th Sikhs on their left were held up by barbed wire at the first trench, remaining undamaged by the bombardment. For the same reason, the 6th Gurkhas, who had skilfully advanced along the extreme edge of the cliffs, were compelled to withdraw, and reinforcements were hurried up from the reserve. But even the new battalions were unable to advance against the heavy rifle-fire, and the left of the British line was thus kept in check, unable to conform with the victorious advance in the centre.

With the French upon our right, all seemed at first to go well. The 1st Division carried the first trenches. The 2nd or new Division, with characteristic élan, at last rushed the formidable redoubt which commanded the approach to the southern slope leading up to the crest above Kereves Dere, and had barred the French advance almost since the first advance. From its bulging crescent shape, the French called it the “Haricot.” Unfortunately, here again, as before, the Senegalese and Colonial troops were found unable to retain positions which they had won. Within an hour of the first infantry advance, the Turks projected an overwhelming counter-attack upon the “Haricot,” shelling it heavily and pouring masses of reinforcements down the deep communication trenches. A fatal gap was thus opened between the French and British lines. The right flank of the 2nd Naval Brigade became dangerously exposed. The fortune of the battle turned.

In less than half an hour from their great success, the Howe, Hood, and Anson Battalions were thus subjected to intense enfilading fire. The lately arrived Collingwood Battalion came to their support, but in this their first battle they were almost exterminated, losing over 600 men and their commanding officer, Commander Spearman, R.N., killed.123 Compelled to retire across the open ground over which they had charged, and exposed to a torrential rain of bullets from machine-guns and rifles, this brigade of the unfortunate but invariably noble division suffered the losses of massacre. Even worse followed. The retirement and partial destruction of the Naval Brigade left the right flank of the Manchesters “in air” upon a very advanced position. Their Brigadier, General Noel Lee, an excellent leader of men, and in civil life partner in a well-known Lancashire shipping and cotton firm, was wounded; many of their officers killed. Yet the men declared they would for ever hold the ground they had so rapidly won; they only asked for help upon their right. To check the enfilading fire their right flank was thrown back to face it, and in the midst of tangled scrub and enemy trenches the brigade fought on two fronts at right angles to each other. It was an impossible position, but still the men clung on. Our reinforcements had already been almost exhausted in drafts to the extreme left, where the advance was held up, as described.

At 6.30, General Hunter-Weston, commanding the VIIIth Corps, after consultation with Sir Ian, was constrained to “pull out” the Manchesters from their exposed and untenable salient. With almost mutinous reluctance the troops withdrew into the first line of Turkish trenches, taken in the first rush, and the remainder of the Division conformed. In spite of an endeavour made by the Royal Fusiliers at 4 p.m. to establish themselves beyond this first line, the 29th Division and the Indians had been unable to advance farther upon the left, and the gain so confidently expected, especially in the centre, was now reduced to an advance of 200 yards in some places and 400 yards in others. The prisoners amounted to 400, including 11 officers, among whom were 5 Germans, the relics of a machine-gun detachment from the Goeben.124

During the night an excellent piece of work was accomplished by the Nelson Battalion, R.N.D. (Colonel Evelegh).125 They were sent up to establish touch between the right of the 42nd Division and the left of the R.N.D. This task involved digging forward a “switch trench” under very heavy fire, but the connection between the exposed flanks was thus made good.

Late in the afternoon of the battle, Major-General De Lisle, famous as a dashing leader of mounted troops in the South African War, and now coming fresh from command of the 1st Cavalry Division in France, arrived at Helles to take over the command of the 29th Division. The news that met him there, illustrated by the streams of wounded passing down to W Beach, was not encouraging. As had happened before in this campaign, and was to happen more than once in the future, the hope of victory had been dashed at the moment when victory appeared most certain, and it had been frustrated by failure at one single point. The losses were unusually heavy—estimated at 5000 at the time—and large numbers of the best remaining officers in the 29th Division and the R.N.D., not to mention the Manchester Brigade, had fallen.126 Owing to the retirement of the line from the positions they had taken, some of the wounded were of necessity left on the neutral ground together with the dead, and uniforms, hanging loosely upon the shrunken corpses, were long visible at exposed points, whence nothing could be reclaimed. By Sir Ian’s personal orders attempts were made to recover the dead and wounded under the white flag, but they failed.127 The fact was that when small parties went out under a white flag they were fired upon. This frequently happened at the termination of a severe battle, though the Turks appear to have fired rather as a warning than with immediate intent to kill. But for this hostile attitude it is possible that a formal armistice might have been arranged, such as Sir Ian tacitly granted to the Turks at Helles on May 2, and by negotiation at Anzac on May 24.

Heavy fighting was renewed before dawn on the 6th, and continued at intervals for two days and nights, the Turks repeating their counter-attacks, especially down the upper reach of the Gully Ravine. Here the Royal Fusiliers (86th Brigade) suffered terrible loss. Major Brandreth, a singularly fine officer, then in command of the battalion, wounded on the day of landing, was now killed. Many of the new officers who had lately arrived with the drafts were killed also, including Captain Jenkinson of Oxford, one of the greatest authorities on embryology. By June 8 only one officer, the former Sergeant-Major, was left of those who had originally come out, besides the Quartermaster. Of the original regiment only 140 remained. All the ten officers who had recently joined were lost. Their places were taken by a new Captain from the Dublins, in command, and about fifteen other officers, collected from various regiments, and all strange to each other and the men. The Hampshires (88th Brigade) had fared still worse, having only about 100 of the original men left, and no officers at all.128 Thus, under the stress of frontal attacks upon entrenched and commanding positions, manned by Turks, and assaulted without suitable or adequate artillery, battalions dwindled to companies, brigades to battalions, divisions to brigades, and an army corps to a division. Amid losses so overwhelming it seemed impossible to retain a regimental spirit. Yet such is the power of a name endowed with traditional honour that in a week or two the new arrivals, both of officers and men, as they came drifting in, became inspired with a resolve to carry forward the inherited reputation maintained by so many deaths.

For the next fortnight repeated small assaults and counter-attacks continued to reduce the numbers, while holding the Turks in check and preserving the activity and confidence of the men. On June 21 the French Divisions captured the “Haricot” Redoubt. The attack began at dawn, and by noon the 2nd Division had occupied the position. But the 1st Division, after taking a line of trenches, was driven out in a counter-attack, and exposed to victorious troops on their left, as so often happened in the French engagements at Helles. In the afternoon General Gouraud called upon his right flank for a renewed effort, and at 6 p.m. the lines were taken again and held. The possession of these lines and the “Haricot” gave the French a partial command of the Kereves Dere, reduced the salient of our centre by bringing up their forces on the right, and generally shortened and straightened out our line across the Peninsula. The French loss was estimated at 2500,129 the Turkish at nearly three times that amount. But this estimate of “over 7000” is probably an exaggeration, though one of the Turkish trenches, 200 yards long and 10 feet deep, was described as brimming over with the dead,130 and 50 prisoners were taken.

By this time two brigades of the 52nd Division had arrived, and the third was nearly due. It was a Territorial Division (the “Lowland”), commanded for the first few months by Major-General G. G. A. Egerton. After the fighting of July 12 and 13, he was ordered to a hospital ship owing to natural fatigue; but returning next day, he retained command till mid-September, when he was succeeded by Major-General H. A. Lawrence, son of the great Lord Lawrence of the Indian Mutiny.131 It was a fairly homogeneous and steady division, and, though rapidly reduced in strength, its improvement after the first month or six weeks was much remarked.

It was not long before one of the newly arrived brigades was called into action. The artillery, even with French help, was now insufficient for another general advance. The shells were running out; few H.E. shells were left; the howitzers numbered eight, or two to a division (four others which arrived later had seen service at Omdurman in 1898); whereas, even at the beginning of the war, eighteen howitzers went to each division in France. Among the field-guns were batteries of old 15-pounders, which had established their futility in the Boer War (one Vickers gun was reported to have come from a well-known museum); but such things were thought good enough for the Dardanelles. Except the 29th and the Anzacs, the Divisions had no other field-guns, and the R.N.D. had no guns at all. It was, therefore, essential to limit the thrust, and General Hunter-Weston formed a scheme for pushing forward on the left, so as to clear the obstacles which had hitherto checked our advance along the coast, and to reduce the salient in the centre, as the French had reduced it by seizing the “Haricot.” While the centre remained steady about a mile from the sea, the left was to swing forward upon it as upon a pivot, covering less ground as the pivotal point was approached. Thus five Turkish lines had to be captured by the 29th Division on the extreme left, and two by the 156th Brigade (52nd Division), which had been inserted on their right.

The battle began on June 28 with a severe but brief bombardment, limited to the Turkish trenches on our front nearest the coast. The batteries were assisted from the sea by the light cruiser Talbot (5600 tons, 1896) and the destroyers Wolverine and Scorpion, which were able to enfilade such positions as remained visible. But, for want of ammunition, the land bombardment was limited in extent, and lasted only twenty minutes. The 87th Brigade (Major-General W. R. Marshall),132 supplied with the new drafts which had been gradually coming in, at once advanced on both sides of the Gully Ravine (Saghir Dere). Their part in the attack was to clear a further lap of this long and deep ravine or cañon, which forms one of the most surprising features of the southern Peninsula. Advance along the bottom was impossible. Near the entrance from the sea the cliffs on both sides rise 200 feet. The slope upwards along the Gully is very gradual, and the sides nearly up to the very end remain steep, in parts bare sandy cliff, in parts covered with bush. The ravine curves frequently, twice turning for a short distance almost at right angles. Here and there, along the middle and upper reaches, the bottom was dangerously exposed to snipers creeping down and hiding among the bushes. Up to the last, even after it became the main line of communication with our positions on the left, it was constantly shelled, and beyond a point about two-thirds up its length no horses were allowed to proceed. In spite of screens and sandbag barriers, shrapnel and unaimed or dropping rifle-fire frequently inflicted loss upon the drafts, reliefs, and supply parties continually passing to and fro. There was the greater danger because, under the stress of thirst and extreme heat, men and animals gathered round the water which was in places discovered, especially at one clear and cold spring rising from the foot of a precipitous cliff upon the right. About half-way up, the Turks had barred the valley with a complicated entanglement reaching from side to side, and other entanglements existed farther on. The only possibility of clearing such a ravine was to clear the rough and bush-covered plateau on both sides.

Upon the left, after the brief bombardment, three battalions of the 87th Brigade (South Wales Borderers, K.O.S.B., and Inniskilling Fusiliers) advanced along the strip of land between the sea and the ravine, already the scene of gallantry and loss. By eleven o’clock, forty minutes after the opening of the gun-fire, they had rushed the first three trenches. They were at once followed by the 86th Brigade, which pushed right through them, over the three captured trenches. Led by the 2nd Royal Fusiliers, and keeping their formations in spite of the scrub and a searching rifle-fire, this renowned Fusilier Brigade stormed onward till two more trenches were taken, and the task of the 29th Division completed. At the same time, the Gurkhas had worked forward along the edge of the sea cliffs, and secured a green knoll projecting from the end of a spur which marked our farthest advance. A few nights after (July 2), the Gurkhas were driven out here, but the position was retaken by the Inniskilling Fusiliers, though with great loss, only two officers being left. On the seacoast west of the ravine our objective was gained, and in honour of the achievement the extreme point won was always known as Fusilier Bluff.

On the right of the Gully the remaining battalion of the 87th Brigade (1st Borderers) within five minutes stormed a redoubt overhanging the ravine, and called the Boomerang from its curved shape. Advancing rapidly, they next carried a stronger redoubt, known as the Turkey Trot, perhaps from the speed of the enemy in abandoning it, though the trenches right up to the redoubt remained in Turkish possession, separated by a sandbag wall. These rapid successes were mainly due to two trench-mortars, lent by General Gouraud and dropping bombs containing some 30 lb., some 70 lb., of melinite, vertically into the trenches at short range. The British force at this time possessed a few Japanese trench-mortars—very effective, but numbering only six, and these short of ammunition. We had no others of any kind. Yet, in the scarcity of howitzers, trench-mortars were more needed than any gun. Our hand-grenades were improvised out of jam-pots.

To the right of the Borderers, the 156th Brigade of the newly arrived 52nd Division came into action for the first time. The 4th and 7th Royal Scots quickly gained the two trenches allotted to them, but the rest of the brigade (7th and 8th Scottish Rifles), owing to severe losses (22 officers and 509 men killed) could hardly advance, and an attempt upon the trenches in front of Krithia that afternoon also failed. Nevertheless, the morning’s work was a victory. It marked the most decisive advance upon the Peninsula hitherto. Three-quarters of a mile along the coast, and about half a mile up the Gully Ravine were won, and the Gully’s lower reaches and beach rendered more secure. Large quantities of stores and ammunition were taken, together with about 100 prisoners. The Gully was for some distance cleaned of the dangerous filth and rubbish characteristic of Turkish lines—the more dangerous owing to the unimaginable hosts of flies which now added to the discomfort of life on the Peninsula, and probably diffused the malignant type of diarrhœa with which almost every one was afflicted. Our casualties for the day were 1750, the Royal, Lancashire, and Dublin Fusiliers suffering most. The losses of the 156th Brigade included their Brigadier, General Scott-Moncrieff, who was killed on “Worcester Flat.”

The Turks lost more heavily, especially in their determined counter-attacks during the next few nights, when they attempted to recover the lost trenches by rushing upon them with bayonet and bombs, their supply of which was plentiful. All these attempts were vain, and the useless loss of life severe.133 They seem to have been prompted by Enver Pasha, in opposition to his German advisers, and the Turkish troops were specially stimulated to the sacrifice by the following divisional order, discovered upon a wounded officer. The trenches referred to were the five captured by the 29th Division on June 28:

To this order a regimental commander added the following note:

Two days before the battle, a Turkish aeroplane scattered copies of a long proclamation intended to shake the discipline of the Mohammedan Indian troops. It called upon Mussulmans to ask themselves why they were sacrificing their lives for English people, who had grabbed their country, made them slaves, and now ruled them by tyranny, sucking their blood by taxes, taking their wealth to London, and regarding them as more contemptible than English dogs. It further dwelt upon the desperate position of the Allies, the triumphs of Germany in Belgium, France, Russia, and by submarines on the sea. It said that in Singapore and Ceylon the native armies had killed all the English and occupied the forts. It asserted that many more submarines were coming, and the British communications on the Peninsula would be entirely cut off. Therefore, it called upon the Indian soldiers to slay their tyrant enemies, or at least to join their fellow-Moslems in the Turkish army, where they would be treated as brothers. It concluded by offering a grim dilemma:

The Sikh and Gurkha troops, however, preferred to risk the latter alternative.134

To both the main battles at Helles during this month (June 4 and 28) the Anzac corps rendered valuable support. Their task was to retain in position the large Turkish forces which hemmed them round in their triangle of cliff and ravine. By repeated threatenings and attacks they continually remained “a thorn in the side” of the enemy’s defence, always endangering his communications and delaying his reinforcement. The chief share of the service naturally fell to the troops allotted in “shifts” to maintain the apex of the triangle at the farthest end of Monash Gully, the continuation of the main ravine or valley called “Shrapnel.” This position was mainly guarded by Pope’s Hill, throughout commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Harold Pope, 16th Battalion (South and Western Australia), and by Quinn’s, Courtney’s, and Steel’s Posts, stationed at short intervals along the edge of the steep ridge on the right, slightly in advance of “Pope’s.” By the digging of narrow and complicated trenches and subterranean passages, all these points had been converted into small forts; but the proximity of the enemy’s counterworks exposed them to continuous danger; for the lines of trench approached each other in places within 15 yards, and even within five. It was easy to lob bombs and grenades over from one side to the other, and to converse with taunts or ironic compliments in such languages as Colonials and Turks could master in common.

But perilous as the whole position was, “Quinn’s,” hanging on the summit of its almost precipitous ascent, was regarded as the point of greatest danger and highest honour. Here Major Quinn, 15th (Queensland and Tasmania) Battalion, was killed on May 29 in repelling a violent and almost successful Turkish assault, preceded by a mine explosion, which obliterated part of his carefully dug defences. After this severe loss, the position was commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Malone, Wellington (New Zealand) Battalion, for a little over two months, until he fell in the great assault upon Sari Bair in August. Though not a professional soldier, being a solicitor in civil life, he was, none the less, an Irish officer of the finest type. Never tired of impressing upon myself and other friends the true and serviceable paradox that “the whole art of war lies in the exercise of the domestic virtues,” he maintained his exposed position by the unflinching practice of the cleanliness, punctuality, courage, and humorous endurance of perpetual provocation in which the domestic virtues consist.

From this Post a sortie was made on the night of June 4 to destroy an enemy’s trench close in front. The trench was taken, but the small party was bombed out of it in the early morning. Next night a somewhat larger party (100 men and 2 officers, 1st Australian Infantry Brigade) assaulted the strong position to the right from Quinn’s, known as “German Officers’ Trenches” from the appearance of German officers there during the armistice. Here a special party of ten men, under Lieutenant E. E. L. Lloyd, 1st Battalion (New South Wales), was told off to destroy a dangerous machine-gun. It was a difficult task, for, like most Turkish trenches in this quarter, the trench was protected by heavy overhead beams. But one of the ten discharged a few rounds into the gun through holes at 5-foot range, and the remainder of the sortie party destroyed some of the trench. These sorties cost 116 casualties—a heavy loss in proportion to the numbers engaged; but the Turkish loss was reported considerably greater.

Fighting of some sort was continuous day and night along that ridge of Posts. Bombs, rifles, machine-guns, and artillery were incessantly at work. At night especially the Turks would sometimes be seized with a kind of frenzy, and pour out streams of bullets, most of which went wailing and whining overhead to fall in showers upon the sea. But on the 29th they made another genuine night attack under orders from Enver, who again called upon them to chase the Infidel from the soil of Islam. It was further provoked by a sortie the previous afternoon from the southern end of the Anzac position. About half a battalion of Queenslanders (1st Australian Light Horse Brigade, of course unmounted) and some of the Queensland Infantry (9th Battalion, 3rd Australian Brigade), led by Lieut.-Colonel H. Harris, rushed from the trenches near the so-called “Wheat Field,” where the farthest Anzac ridge falls gradually towards the coast, and dashed upon a strongly held Turkish position opposite. The object seems to have been to divert Turkish reinforcements making for Krithia, and in this the movement was successful. Large numbers of Turks were seen coming up from Eski Keui, supposing the Australian outburst to be a serious assault, and when they were entangled in the scrub and gullies, exposed to various fire from Anzac and from destroyers close off shore, the Queenslanders withdrew.

Next day was fairly quiet until afternoon, when the Turks were seized by one of the frenzies above mentioned. It died away, but at midnight, after various feints, they made a violent assault up the Nek, or apex of the triangle. It began with heavy firing for an hour and a half, and then in the moonlight swarms of Turks were seen trotting forward across the narrow Nek against our trenches, hardly more than 100 yards away, and shouting “Allah! Allah!” as their religious manner was. They were Nizam troops—18th Regiment, 6th Division—fresh arrivals from Asia. As they came on, they encountered an overwhelming fire from the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade (Brigadier-General Russell, one of the most distinguished of N.Z. officers), together with some South Australian Light Horse under Brigadier-General F. G. Hughes, destined to win still higher reputation upon the same scene. These were stationed on Russell Top, commanding the Nek and the complicated Turkish position known as the Chessboard, close beyond it. Three times the Turks ran forward, but rifles and machine-guns shattered them as they came, and the shadowy forms ceased to move. Others tried to work round the Nek on each side, down Monash Gully on their left, and by the precipitous front of Walker’s Ridge on their right. Both attempts failed. Few survived. Next morning the Nek and defiles were littered with the dead. At least 600 were counted. It was the last Turkish attack upon the heights of Anzac.135

So the midsummer month drew to an end. There was a sense of victory in the air. Officers and men grew elated by confidence in superiority. All felt the Turks were beaten, if only Helles and Anzac could maintain the pressure. Drafts came dribbling in, a hundred or so at a time. But, though nominally in sufficient numbers to fill up the gaps reported when they left England or Egypt, they arrived only to find the gaps had meantime increased, and their numbers never filled them. Since the landing, two Divisions (Territorials) had now arrived. Three more (New Army or “Kitchener’s”) had been promised, but were delayed for another month, and few soldiers can retain the elation of victory at high pitch through weeks of inaction. “You cannot bottle up enthusiasm for future use, as you do pickled herrings,” said Goethe. Guns were short; ammunition was worse than short; the lack of it was perilous; trench-mortars and hand-grenades hardly existed. Heat, dust, flies, want of water, and the restriction of large forces to narrow limits of ground increased sickness and wastage in the trenches and dug-outs of both Helles and Anzac landings. On the whole, the French retained health and vigour best, their rations being less monotonous, and themselves more fastidious in cookery. But on the last day of the month the French, and, indeed, the whole army, suffered an almost irreparable blow. General Gouraud, commanding the French Army Corps, was visiting the wounded on V Beach when an 8-inch shell from Asia burst within six yards. As though by miracle, the fragments missed him, but the explosive force flung him over a six-foot wall and into a fig tree, which perhaps lessened the shock. His thigh, ankle, and arm were broken, and he was compelled to surrender the command, though ultimately he recovered, and won further fame at Châlons and in command at Rheims. General Bailloud, that volatile and high-spirited veteran, succeeded to the command till he was transferred to Salonika in October, and was succeeded by General Brulard, of the 1st Division.

Upon the Russian front, of which the Dardanelles should always have been regarded as an essential strategic part, the course of war continued disastrous for the Allies. As noticed above, Przemysl was retaken by German-Austrian armies on June 3. The fall of Lemberg followed on June 22; nearly the whole of Galicia was reoccupied; Warsaw was threatened; and at various points, north and south, the Russian frontier was crossed. So far as Turkey was concerned, the Russian armies were withdrawn from the war, and Sir Ian’s mixed and mainly inexperienced forces, insufficient in numbers, ill supplied with guns, worse supplied with ammunition, dependent upon long and hazardous communications, were left to confront the full strength of the Turkish Empire alone.136

During the month, the Italians crossed the Isonzo, but against Turkey no declaration of war had yet been made. Both sides in the European struggle still looked to Bulgaria as a vital point. Each was still trying to outbid the other by offers of territorial advantage, and both were equally confident of a successful bargain with that tough and secretive, but, in point of territorial ambitions, typically Balkan race.