Where those fatal shells came from was at the time, and still remains, a cause of bitter controversy. All on the summit believed them British. This may have been a mistake. It is a common error for an advance line to suppose it is being shelled by its own side. But probably the shells were British. Outside the navy, nearly every one at the time believed them to be naval,169 and though the range must have been some four or five miles, the accuracy of the naval shooting at a visible mark had been proved by that morning’s bombardment, over the same distance. But the general belief may have been founded on a mere suspicion constantly repeated. It has long appeared to me that two sentences in Sir Ian’s dispatch suggest a more probable explanation. As quoted above, he says the orders were for the bombardment to be switched on to the flanks and reverse slopes of the heights at 5.16 a.m. He further says that the Gurkhas and South Lancashires, after reaching the crest, “began to attack down the far side of it,” i.e. down the reverse slopes of the hill. It would be natural for our gunners to wait some minutes before bombarding the reverse slope, so as to catch the enemy retreating or reinforcements coming up. In any case, they were under orders to bombard the reverse slope, and they obeyed. But what guns could bombard a reverse slope? As was proved throughout the campaign, the trajectory of naval guns was so flat that either they hit the top of the mountain (as they almost invariably did) or their shells skimmed across the top to burst miles away in Asia. A reverse slope would be exactly the thing they could never hit. For a reverse slope, mortars or howitzers are wanted. There were howitzers near No. 2 Post and along the flats beside the shore, and their orders were to bombard the reverse slope after 5.16 a.m. This explanation is suggested, but the controversy will be forgotten before settled.

Whatever the cause, the effect was disaster irretrievable—disaster leaving its lamentable mark upon the world’s history. Amid the scattered limbs and shattered bodies of their comrades, the exultant pursuers stopped aghast. They began to stumble back. They scrambled to the crest and over it. Major Allanson with a small group stood firm, taking one last look upon that scene of dazzling hope. But the Turkish officers with the supports had observed the check. Seizing the moment, they urged their fresh companies upward, in turn pursuing. Against the gathering crowd a handful could not stand. Wounded and isolated, Major Allanson withdrew the last of his men. Down the face of the mountain they came upon the little trench from which they had adventurously started less than half an hour before. They alone had witnessed and shared the crisis. They alone had watched the moment when the campaign swung upon the fateful hinge. No soldier in our army was ever to behold that triumphant prospect again.170

Why the troops who were a little lower down the slope, in support, did not at once push up to the assistance of the Gurkhas and Lancastrians on the summit has not been explained. They belonged to the New Army, and were rushed into a most difficult and terrible conflict. It was Monday morning, and they had been given little sleep since Saturday, and little if any food or water except in the rations and water-bottles (1½ pint) which they brought with them. No doubt they were exhausted. But every one was exhausted, and others had been out longer in the assaulting column. One might have supposed that here their great opportunity had come. Why they did not take it, we are not informed.

It was in vain now that General Baldwin’s brigade, arriving at the Farm at the very crisis of frustrated design, began to push up the steep with the 10th Hants and two companies of the 6th East Lancashires. They appear to have attempted a spur nearer the Farm than the point where the Gurkhas climbed, which was half a mile away to the left. But they made little progress. The Turks, crowding the summit, now exultant in their turn, poured down such storms of fire that the new advance was checked, and General Baldwin was compelled to order re-concentration at the Farm, where the brigade remained.

The Turks in their triumph, though not daring as yet to advance far over the crest, turned in exultant assault upon the exhausted body of New Zealanders and Gloucesters still lying exposed near the summit of the Chunuk Bair shoulder, just to the right of the Nek on Rhododendron Ridge, up which Baldwin’s brigade ought to have advanced at dawn. About 800 men still clung to the shallow and hastily constructed trenches there. They lay unprotected by wire, and below the sky-line, so that when the enemy came swarming over the summit with bayonet or bomb, our rifles had only some twenty or thirty yards’ interval in which to mow them down. This mistake in position was thought at the time to spring from a memory of old South African tactics, in which the sky-line was always avoided. But we have seen the reasons why Colonel Malone had been compelled twice to remove the trenches a few yards farther from the top.

Through the heat of the day and afternoon the men lay there resisting repeated onset. Late on that Monday evening, they were at last withdrawn and relieved. The New Zealanders had been fighting continuously and under extreme strain since Friday night; the Gloucesters since Saturday. The noblest endurance could stand no more. The 6th Loyal North Lancashires (38th Brigade) and the 5th Wilts (40th Brigade) were sent up to occupy the extreme position which had been so steadfastly retained.

From the evening of August 9 to the evening of August 10.

No more than these two battalions were ordered because, in Sir Ian’s words, “General Sir William Birdwood is emphatic on the point that the nature of the ground was such that there was no room on the crest for more than this body of 800 to 1000 rifles.” Had Major Allanson been able to hold his splendidly won position to the right of “Hill Q,” the whole crest of Chunuk Bair would have been free for our occupation. Had the expected advance from Suvla been pushed forward with vigour between August 7 and 9, the Turks could not have concentrated forces for the fatal counter-attack upon Chunuk Bair on the 10th. Those two failures combined to frustrate the admirably designed movement of August, and ultimately involved the whole campaign in failure.

As it was, the 6th Loyal Lancashires passed up the Rhododendron Ridge in good time during the night, and duly occupied the trenches near the summit as the New Zealanders and Gloucesters were withdrawn. Their commandant, Lieut.-Colonel H. G. Levinge, even attempted to improve the position by throwing out observation posts to the sky-line, so as to command the reverse slope. The 5th Wiltshire (Lieut.-Colonel J. Carden), delayed by the difficulties of the steep and encumbered ascent, did not arrive till 4 a.m., just as dawn was breaking, and lay down in a position believed to be covered but really exposed.

Hardly had they settled down when every available Turkish gun was turned upon the two weak and harassed battalions. The bombardment was endured for about an hour, and then, at 5.30 a.m., the Turks under German leaders directed an overwhelming counter-attack upon the devoted New Army men. For this attack they were able to employ a full Division and three extra battalions, certainly not less than 12,000 men, probably more. Crouching in their unfortunate positions, our two battalions were engulfed or swept away, as by an irresistible tide. They were driven from their shallow and hurriedly constructed trenches. Both their Colonels were killed. The Wiltshires were “literally almost annihilated.”171

Recognising the significance of the summit’s reoccupation, and triumphant as never before, the Turks swarmed over the edge down into the deep gullies on the right or south of Rhododendron Ridge, probably with the design of cutting our assaulting columns off from the base at Anzac and encircling them to destruction. This threatening movement was checked partly by the battalions in support upon the Ridge itself, but mainly by the naval guns (now secure of a visible target), the New Zealand, Australian, and Indian guns, and the 69th Brigade R.F.A. The service of a ten machine-gun battery, part of the New Zealand Machine-gun Section organised and commanded by Major J. Wallingford (Auckland Battalion),172 was the subject of great eulogy at the time. This battery “played upon their serried ranks at close range until the barrels were red-hot. Enormous losses were inflicted, especially by these ten machine-guns.”173 Reinforcements hurrying along the sky-line from Battleship Hill were similarly exposed to the larger guns. Brave as the Turks showed themselves in this their hour of apparent triumph, they could make no progress against so violent a storm of destruction. The attack melted away. Few struggled back into safety over the summit, and the right flank of our columns was secured.

Simultaneously with the onset which overwhelmed our two battalions on the summit, the Turks appearing in similar massed lines along the sky-line of Chunuk Bair itself and the saddle between that and “Hill Q,” began to pour down the face of the range. They must have swept over the thin defences which had sheltered the 6th Gurkhas. They broke through the outposts of General Baldwin’s central column. They broke through our line at various points. They reached the Farm. Some of our companies were driven in confusion down the tangled spurs and ravines. Near the foot of the mountain they were finely rallied by Staff-Captain Street, who was looking after the supply of food and water. By sheer force of personality, he led them unhesitatingly back into the thick of the intense conflict upon that conspicuous stubble-field. In Sir Ian’s words:

Here fell General Baldwin, whom I had known first as a Captain in the 1st Manchesters on Cæsar’s Hill in Ladysmith, and later in the lines at Helles. As in some medieval battle, all his Staff fell with him. Lieut.-Colonel M. H. Nunn, 9th Worcesters, was killed. The Worcesters were left that day without a single officer. So were the Warwicks. So, as we have seen, were the Gloucesters. At the Farm also Brigadier-General Cooper (29th Brigade) was severely wounded. Brigadier-General Cayley (39th Brigade) was mentioned for distinguished courage. The Farm, though recovered that day, was ultimately abandoned to the Turks, who drove an enormous trench across the stubble-field, and entangled the whole front with wire. But to the end the shrunken relics of the dead who fell that morning remained in lines and heaps upon the ground.

Hearing of the violent and almost successful counter-attack, General Birdwood hurried up the last two battalions of his Corps Reserve—the 5th Connaught Rangers (29th Brigade) being one.174 But by 10 a.m. the immediate danger was over. The force of the attack was spent. The few surviving Turks began to scramble back over the summit. As Captain Bean wrote at the time:

The Turks cleared the dead from the summit by dropping them over the edge at the highest point of Chunuk Bair, and letting them slide down that precipitous ravine or “chimney” which was mentioned above. To the end of the campaign that chimney was black with corpses and uniforms, weathered and wasting between the rocky sides.

Far away to the left, on the low but deeply intersected hills and ridges overlooking the Asma Dere, General Monash’s 4th Australian Brigade and the 4th South Wales Borderers were also compelled on the morning and afternoon of the same day (August 10) to resist violent counter-attacks coming across from the Abdel Rahman spur. They held their position, but the South Wales Borderers lost their commandant, the excellent soldier, Lieut.-Colonel Gillespie, who left his name on part of the district he had helped to win.

The total casualties in General Birdwood’s Army Corps from the Friday night to the Tuesday night amounted to 12,000,175 by far the greater proportion of whom were lost in General Godley’s two divisions allotted for the main attack on Sari Bair. The gallantry and skill of divisions cannot be estimated by losses. But still it is noticeable that the New Army Division (13th, under Major-General Shaw) lost more than 50 per cent. (6000 out of 10,500), and 10 commanding officers out of 13. The proportion of officers killed and wounded was, indeed, unusually high in all brigades. As to the troops in general, perhaps only those who are well acquainted with the extreme complexity of the country, and with the strain of night marches into the heart of an enemy’s positions, followed by assaults upon strongly held mountain heights at dawn, can fully appreciate the true significance of the last paragraph in General Godley’s report, as quoted in Sir Ian’s dispatch:

In his dispatch, Sir Ian mentions that at times he thought of throwing his reserves (the 53rd and 54th Divisions, coming up through Mudros) into this central battle. He thinks they probably would have turned the scale. The Corps and Divisional Commanders assured him there was no room for additional troops. But it was the water difficulty, he says, which made him give up the idea. The thirst of the troops in this part of the general attack was such that when the mules with the water “pakhals” arrived at the front, the men rushed up to them just to lick the moisture oozing through the canvas bags. Thirst is the most terrible of physical sufferings, and no one who has known it will wonder at Sir Ian’s decision. Still the want of water was almost equally cruel at Suvla, whither the Reserve Divisions were ultimately sent. There they arrived after the decisive days were passed, and fell under the curse of an inert spirit, very different from the spirit of the Sari Bair assault. If their presence at Anzac would indeed have turned the scale, it is part of the Dardanelles tragedy that the Commander-in-Chief, unable to foresee the Suvla conditions, or still hoping too much from the new landing there, did not venture upon the risk, however dangerous.

For in spite of all the gallantry and endurance (which Napoleon counted a more essential quality in a soldier than courage), and in spite of all the careful organisation of supply and medical care, the main attack had failed by sunset of Tuesday, August 10. A large extent of ground had been occupied. From Rhododendron Ridge on the right to Asma Dere on the left, and all between those two points and the sea, the country was now in our possession. Anzac was enlarged from barely 300 acres to about 8 square miles.176 It was possible now to walk or ride from Anzac to Suvla Bay, though snipers always endangered the route. Yet the attack had failed. The summits of Sari Bair were not held. The Straits were still closed; Constantinople still distant. Mistakes, no doubt, had been made, but mistakes could have been retrieved. The ultimate cause of failure was simply this: our attacking forces were outnumbered and checked by an enemy holding positions of enormous natural strength, and the task of diverting and reducing the enemy’s force from Suvla, or of actually contributing new troops thence to the central movement, was not fulfilled.