BATTERING AT THE BARRIERS.
The Gallipoli campaign was a diversion that did not succeed—a side-show that failed. I shall not, therefore, describe the progress of the fighting in full detail. The story is rather a footnote to the history of the Great War than part of the text. We may divide the story—as Cæsar did Gaul—into three parts. Part I. deals with the fighting from the day of the landing on 25th April down to 13th July, and tells how we battered at the Achi Baba barrier while the Anzacs strove to carry the high and rugged hills on their front. Part II. carries on the story to the middle fortnight of August, when, with the aid of five new divisions, we made a big effort to break through at Suvla and Anzac; and Part III. describes the long period of waiting until those December and January days when we "came off" the peninsula without the loss of a single life. In this chapter I shall give you very briefly Part I. of the story.
On the night of 27th April the Allies lay on a line running across the peninsula about three miles north of Cape Tekke. Next day, at eight in the morning, an advance was made on the village of Krithia; and though the Turks strongly opposed us, the 87th Brigade, on the left, advanced two miles, while the French, on the right, pushed forward a mile. By the evening of the 27th we securely held the tip of the peninsula. During the fighting the Queen Elizabeth, far out at sea, observed 250 of the enemy preparing to make an attack from a point where they could not be seen by the troops on shore. Immediately she dropped a shrapnel shell amongst them. It weighed 1,800 pounds, and contained 13,000 bullets. When the smoke cleared away it was discovered that the attacking party had been completely wiped out.
On 1st May, after we had been reinforced, the Turks made a fierce counter-attack, and what is known as the First Battle of Krithia began.[48] All day their big guns roared, and at night, when the moon rose, their infantry darted forward. On the right, where the shelling had been heaviest, the Turks opened a gap in our lines, but it was promptly filled up by the 5th Royal Scots, who with the bayonet cleared the Turks out of the trenches which they had occupied. All night the battle raged, and we only held on to our position with the greatest difficulty. At dawn the next day we counter-attacked, and the whole line moved forward five hundred yards. Had the French not been held up on the right by barbed wire and concealed machine guns, we should have carried Achi Baba that day. Severe fighting went on during the 4th and the 5th, and our casualties were very heavy. Between the day of the landing and 6th May we lost 14,000 men, 3,593 of whom had been cut off in the difficult country and made prisoners.
The Second Battle of Krithia, which began on 6th May, lasted for three days. Our left and centre strove to carry Krithia ridge, while the French attempted to get across the small river beyond Morto Bay which you see on the map. The French 75's and the guns of the warships opened fire, and prepared the way for the advance. Again, however, our Allies were held up by concealed Turkish trenches; but they struggled on, and by the close of the day, at the cost of many lives, pushed across the river. During the night they held their ground, in spite of a strong counter-attack. Next day the warships shelled the Turkish right, and we carried the front Turkish trenches, but could go no farther. On the right the French advanced, but, caught by shrapnel, wavered and fled. The lost ground, however, was recovered. So the fight went on, every inch being bought at a heavy price. At the close of the three days' struggle we had won a thousand yards, but had not touched the enemy's main position, which was terribly strong. We now knew that it could not be rushed.
While these battles were going on, the Anzacs were slowly gaining ground at Gaba Tepe. On the night of 18th May fresh bodies of Turks were flung against their trenches; but the cool and steady shooting of the men from "down under" kept them at bay. On that red day the Turks lost some 7,000 men, while the Australians lost but 500. The Turkish trenches were in some places less than two hundred yards away from those of the Anzacs, and the ground between was carpeted with dead. You will read on a later page how Lance-Corporal Jacka won the Victoria Cross by capturing a trench single-handed.
The third great attempt upon Krithia and Achi Baba was made on 4th June; but though our men fought like heroes, and the East Lancashire Territorial Division on the right centre made a splendid advance, we only gained some five hundred yards on a front of three miles. After five weeks' desperate struggle we had not touched the outer Turkish position. The German engineers had made it almost as formidable as the Labyrinth in Artois. It was clear that without large reinforcements we could make no headway. Already we had lost 38,636 men—more than the whole casualty list for three years of the South African War.
The British and French fleets had taken part in every attack, and so far had been almost unmolested. Now German submarines began to appear; but before they got to work a Turkish destroyer managed to sink the old British battleship Goliath by means of a torpedo. On 26th May a German submarine launched a torpedo which tore through the nets of the Triumph, and sank her in nine minutes. Next day the Majestic, when steaming close to the shore, was sunk in the same manner. It was now evident that our ships could no longer take part in the bombardment and escape the submarines, so most of them were sent home, and the Allied naval strength was reduced to a few of the older battleships and cruisers, together with destroyers and one of the monitors which had checked the shoreward march of the Germans on the Flemish coast. Other new monitors arrived later, and, being submarine-proof, were able to do excellent work.
By midsummer we knew, more than ever, how necessary it was that a right of way should be forced through the Dardanelles. We shall learn in a later chapter that the Russians had been forced back, and were terribly hard pressed. Without an open sea-road by which they could be supplied with munitions, it seemed likely that they would be put out of action for months to come, and that the Germans would be able to spare large bodies of troops to reinforce the Western front. We therefore determined to push on in the peninsula with renewed vigour. Reinforcements had now been landed, and it was necessary that we should strike, and strike hard at once.
During the first fortnight of June the enemy made many attempts to thrust us from the positions which we had won, and during the fighting many notable deeds of heroism were done by our men. A very determined attack by the Turks on 18th June carried some of our trenches; but they were won back by a brilliant charge of the 5th Royal Scots and a company of the 4th Worcesters. You will remember that the 5th Royal Scots had already distinguished themselves on 1st May. They formed part of what Sir Ian Hamilton calls "the incomparable 29th Division."
On 21st June we began the work of straightening out our line, which then formed an awkward salient in the centre. After a heavy bombardment the French infantry rushed two lines of Turkish trenches. Most desperate fighting followed, in which every gun that could be brought to bear was turned on the enemy. Six hundred yards were won, and the whole Allied right wing was well beyond the little river already mentioned. Though many of the French were little more than boys, they fought with the utmost dash and contempt of death.
The right wing having advanced, an attempt was now made to bring up the left. The movement began on the morning of 28th June with a fierce bombardment. When it ceased at 10.45 our infantry leaped forward, and within half an hour had won three lines of trenches between a ravine and the sea. East of the ravine the 7th Royal Scots made good progress, but the right met with a heavy fire, and could gain but little ground. A second attack which began at 11.30 was magnificently made. The men dashed forward without wavering, and before long our left wing was less than a mile west of Krithia. The whole of the ravine, which was littered with dead, rifles, bayonets, boxes of ammunition, soldiers' packs, firewood, etc., was in our hands. Much booty and about 200 prisoners were taken, and our losses were not more than 1,750.
On the last day of June there was fighting all round the peninsula. In the Anzac territory, about midnight, Enver Pasha came specially from Constantinople to see his army drive the Australians and New Zealanders into the sea. Heavy firing began, to which the Anzacs replied with cheers. At 1.30 in the morning a strong column of Turks advanced, but it was broken to atoms by the rifles and machine guns of the 7th and 8th Light Horse. Other attacks melted away before the swift and deadly fire of the defenders, and Enver Pasha returned to Constantinople a disappointed man.
Early on the morning of the same day the French had a success. They carried by storm a network of trenches at the head of the river along which they had been fighting so long, and held on to the ground which they had won. Sir Ian Hamilton thought that the Turkish losses during the five days following 28th June were over 20,000; yet all this sacrifice had availed them nothing.
The July fighting was of the same nature as that of June. On 4th July an enemy warship fired on the Australian lines, and aeroplanes tried to drop bombs on our trenches. This was followed by an infantry attack which was successful at first, but, later on, the Turks were forced to retire with great loss. We were now up against the main strength of the Achi Baba fortress, and on 12th July we made a resolute attempt to capture it.
The bombardment began at dawn, and the first attack was made by the French and the Scottish Lowland Division on the right and right centre. The Scots reached the third line of Turkish trenches, but they lost touch with the French on their right and could not hold their gains. Another and even fiercer cannonade began at four in the afternoon, and the Scots, surging forward against a great Turkish redoubt overlooking a ravine, carried it at the point of the bayonet. By dusk some 400 yards of ground had been gained. Through the night the Turks came on again and again with bombs, and the wearied Scots were obliged to give up two lines of trenches. Next day these positions were recaptured, and there we stuck. We had reached the limit of our advance from the south. We were very near to Krithia, but the heights of Achi Baba were as far off as ever.
The following officers and men won the Victoria Cross during the May, June, and July fighting.
Lance-Corporal Albert Jacka, 14th Battalion Australian Imperial forces.
A private of Lance-Corporal Jacka's regiment thus describes the deed which won his chum the V.C.: "There were four Bendigo boys, all mates, in the 14th, and Bert Jacka and I were two of them. The 14th was stationed at Courtney's Post, which shared with Quinn's Post[49] and Pope's Hill all the worst of the fighting during the month of May. On the night of 18th May and the morning of the next day the Turks tried to drive us into the sea, and left eight acres of dead between Quinn's and Courtney's. In the middle of the scrap a wounded man crawled to our trench, and said the Turks had rushed a communication trench, and there was only one man keeping them back. There was a call for volunteers, and I was one of them. When we got near we saw Bert guarding the end of the trench with his bayonet. He looked like a mad thing. When he saw us coming, he let out a roar like a bull and rushed into the trench. I made after him, but I received two bullets, one in the side and the other in the hand. Well, down I went, and before the others got into the trench Bert had done it on his own. Five shot and two killed with the bayonet! He came to see me that night in the dug-out, and I said to him, 'Well, Bert, you've done a big thing;' all he replied was, 'I think I lost my head.'" For this most gallant deed Jacka received not only the coveted cross, but a sum of £500 and a gold medal promised by Mr. John Wren of Melbourne to the first Australian who should win the great distinction.
Second Lieutenant George Dallas Moor, 3rd Battalion Hampshire Regiment.
This young officer was not nineteen when by his splendid bravery and presence of mind he saved a dangerous situation. On 5th June a detachment of a battalion on his left which had lost all its officers was rapidly retiring before a heavy Turkish attack. Second Lieutenant Moor grasped the peril in which the rest of the line was thus placed, and, racing back for some two hundred yards, he stemmed the rout, led back the leaderless, and at their head recaptured the lost trench. In September 1914 he was a schoolboy at Cheltenham; nine months later he had proved himself a born leader of men, and had won the proudest badge of honour that a soldier can wear.
Second Lieutenant Herbert James, 4th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment.
Two fine deeds of outstanding valour stand to the credit of Lieutenant James. On 28th June he rallied a retiring party belonging to a neighbouring unit and led it forward under heavy shell and rifle fire. He then returned, gathered together another party, and once more advanced, thus putting new life into the attack. On 3rd July he headed a party of bomb throwers who pushed up a Turkish communication trench, and after nearly all of his comrades had been killed or wounded, remained alone at the head of the trench, exposed to a murderous fire, but beating back the enemy single-handed till a barrier had been built behind him and the trench secured. Lieutenant James was a Birmingham man, who enlisted in the 21st Lancers in 1908. He was of a studious disposition and had won several prizes for languages. On the outbreak of war he was granted a commission and joined the famous Worcestershires.
Captain Gerald O'Sullivan, 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
This gallant Irishman threw himself into the breach to the south-west of Krithia during a critical moment on the night of the 1st-2nd July. He volunteered to lead a party of bomb throwers against a British trench which the Turks had captured. Advancing in the open under very heavy fire, he climbed on to the parapet and hurled his bombs into the crowd of men below. Of course, he was wounded, but not before his example had inspired his men to such efforts that they recaptured the lost trench. Strange to say, the day after his honour was announced he was reported missing.
Sergeant James Somers, 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
On the same night that Captain O'Sullivan so distinguished himself, Sergeant Somers of the same regiment pushed into an enemy trench and bombed the Turks with great effect. Later on he advanced into the open, under heavy fire, and held back the enemy by throwing bombs until a barricade had been erected. Frequently, he ran back to his own trench for a fresh supply of bombs. Thanks to his gallantry and coolness the lost portion of a British trench was recovered. On his return to his native village the people of North Tipperary gave him a great reception, and presented him with an illuminated address and war stock to the value of £240.