The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli

by Bryan Cooper

The ages slow brought gain.

They vanished in a night:

Ourselves alone remain.”

were forced to admit that pleasure and happiness had not completely vanished from the world.

While the first comers were becoming hardened to the discomforts of the Island, the remainder of the Division began to arrive. They had called at Alexandria, the base of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, and had left there the details allotted to the base and the bulk of their kit, wagons and water-carts. The artillery had also been ordered to remain in Egypt till further orders. The rest of the 29th Brigade, with their Brigade Headquarters, arrived between the 23rd and 29th of July, and they were followed by the rest of the Pioneer Battalion, the Field Companies of the Royal Engineers, the Signal Company, who found their motor-cycles more hindrance than help on the roadless Island, the Cyclists, and the Field Ambulances. These last no sooner arrived than they were called on to receive patients, for the prevalent malady had already knocked some men out. It was a severe test, but the doctors and orderlies rose to it splendidly, providing for their patients from their own private stores when Government supplies were not available.

The newly-arrived units were for the most part employed on fatigues. Everything needed on the Peninsula had to be carried up to camp: everything else, including the base kits of the units who had not called at Alexandria, had to be carried back again to the beach, where a dump was being formed inside a barbed wire fence. Officers were ordered to lighten their valises, so that they could be carried with ease by one man, and there was much cogitation as to what should be taken and what left behind. As a matter of fact, we saw so little of our valises after landing in the Peninsula that the careful distinction established between essentials (bedding, spare socks and shirt) and non-essentials (spare coat and breeches and boots) was wasted. Most of us determined to rely on our packs, which we stuffed with a mackintosh, razor, soap, sponge, and (in my own case) a couple of books. From this packing, however, the 29th Brigade were distracted by Brigade night operations, which took the form of an attack on a hill five miles away. The march in the dark over broken and stony ground proved very trying to the men, who had not recovered the condition which they had lost on the voyage, and many of them dropped off to sleep as soon as they halted. It became clear to us that our task was likely to be an arduous one.

Meanwhile, we began to wonder as to the whereabouts of the remainder of the Division, since half of the 30th Brigade and the entire 31st had not landed. The transports conveying them had reached Mudros, but owing to the shortage of water it had been decided not to land them there, but to send them to Mitylene. The fact that it was found impossible to concentrate three divisions at Mudros simultaneously, illustrates the enormous increase that has taken place in the numbers employed in modern war. The most famous military expedition of ancient history had its rendezvous and base at Lemnos before it proceeded to attack Troy, and it would appear probable that Mudros Bay, the largest and best harbour on the Island, was the one used by the fleet of Agamemnon. There seems no reason to suppose that the water supply there has diminished, and it is certain that as the time needed for the voyage was longer, the sailing ships and oared galleys in which the Greek host made their way to the Trojan plain, must have been furnished with a copious supply of drinking-water before they set sail. Homer does not record the fact that they suffered from thirst, and so it is clear that the whole army was able to subsist on what proved insufficient for less than 50,000 British soldiers. The theory of Professor Delbrück[2] that the numbers taking part in ancient battles were grossly exaggerated, seems to rest on some foundation.

In some respects the units that went to Mitylene were more fortunate than the rest of the Division. They did not disembark, but remained on board the liners which had brought them out from England, thus securing good food and immunity from dust and flies. Mitylene, moreover, is far more beautiful than Mudros, and its smiling farms set in the midst of fruit trees and olive groves, were more welcome to the eye than the bare stony hills of Lemnos. There was, too, a larger and more friendly Greek population. Boats from the shore came out loaded with melons, grapes, and other varieties of fruit, so that those men who were possessed of money could get a change of diet. The worst that the 31st Brigade and 6th and 7th Dublin Fusiliers had to complain of, was dullness. Except for bathing and an occasional route march on shore, there was but little to break the monotony of shipboard life; and after a week or so in harbour, everyone was beginning to be a little “fed-up.”

They disliked, too, the fact that they appeared to have lost the rest of the Division, and had no information about their future movements; but they were no worse off in that respect than the rest of us. All that we knew was, that we were part of the 9th Corps, commanded by Lieut.-General Sir F. Stopford. We knew little of him, but we knew that he was an Irishman and were prepared to take him on trust. Battalion commanders had been issued with sets of maps which, when put together, covered the whole of the Gallipoli Peninsula and part of the Asiatic coast; but possibly this was only a “blind.” Rumours, of course, were plentiful and very varied: a strong favourite was one which may conceivably have been encouraged by those in authority, and which suggested that we were intended to make a descent on Smyrna. The fact that the remainder of the Division were known to be at Mitylene tended to confirm this, though there were sceptics who flouted this view and declared that we were to land near Enos in order to co-operate with the Bulgarian Army.