The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli

by Bryan Cooper

The summer of 1915 in Flanders had been a comparatively quiet one, since there had been a lull in the fighting after the second battle of Ypres. The Regular Battalions of the Irish Regiments serving there had made comparatively small demands on their Reserve Battalions for reinforcements, and consequently large and good drafts were sent out to the 10th Division. This consideration, however, did not apply to the Inniskilling, Munster and Dublin Fusiliers, whose 1st Battalions were serving in Gallipoli with the 29th Division and had sustained terrible losses. Unfortunately, the officers who accompanied the first drafts were not those who had been trained with the units of the division, and had been left behind as surplus to establishment, but were drawn, as a general rule, from Scotch regiments. They were excellent fellows and showed no lack of keenness or courage, but officers who had had some previous knowledge of the units in which they were serving would have been more useful, and in addition, from the sentimental point of view, it was felt that an influx of trews and glengarries tended to remove the Irish character of the Division. However, with the later drafts received, a number of Irish officers did arrive.

It was not entirely an easy matter to assimilate these reinforcements. As a rule, a draft is a comparatively small body of men which easily adopts the character of the unit in which it is merged. In Gallipoli, however, units had been so much reduced in strength that in some cases the draft was stronger than the battalion that it joined, while it almost invariably increased the strength of what was left of the original unit by half as much again. As a result after two or three drafts had arrived, the old battalion had been swamped. For many reasons this was unfortunate. It took a considerable time for the officers and N.C.O.’s even to learn the names of the newcomers, still more to acquire that insight into their characters necessary for the smooth working of a company or platoon. The shortage of good and experienced N.C.O.’s, too, had the result of throwing rather too much influence into the hands of bad characters. In every large body of soldiers there are bound to be men who dislike danger and do their best to avoid it. As a rule these undesirables are known and are unable to do much harm; but among an influx of young soldiers a few men of this stamp, posing as experienced veterans, may do a considerable amount of mischief, till they are discovered and dealt with.

It was unfortunately impossible to adopt the most favourable method of assimilating the new men. To teach men to act together, to recognise and obey the voice of their officer or sergeant there is nothing like drill, and particularly drill in close order. Only from drill can be obtained the surrender of individuality in order to achieve a common purpose which is the foundation of military discipline. It is on the barrack square that a platoon or company first “gets together” and realises its corporate entity; it is “on the square” that an officer first begins to distinguish his men and to discriminate between their characters, and it is “on the square” that men first begin to know their officer. Barrack square drill is not, as it was in the Eighteenth Century, the end-all and be-all of military training, but it is an indispensable foundation for it, and no effective substitute has ever yet been found to take its place.

Unfortunately, in Gallipoli, drill was out of the question. When on the move, men straggled along in single file without thought of step, while the duties of trench-manning, road-making, or onion-carrying, did not encourage smartness. While off duty the men were scattered round a rabbit warren of dug-outs, and any gathering for parade purposes was at once dispersed by hostile shrapnel. All that could be done was to practise bombing in disused Turkish trenches and carry out the usual inspections of rifles, ammunition and iron rations. The severity of the handicap thus imposed upon battalions will be best appreciated by those who have served in France. There units periodically go behind the line to rest, and during the rest-period are able by drill and discipline to learn to know and assimilate their new men.

Among other matters that had to be faced was the training of specialists. Most battalions had lost the bulk of their machine-gunners and signallers and it was extraordinarily rare to find a unit in which both the signalling and machine-gun officer survived. If they did the Adjutant probably did not, and one of them had been promoted to fill his place. In any case, fresh officers and men had to be trained for the duty. It proved to be unfortunate that very few of the officers who joined with drafts had had any training in either of these branches. A reserve battalion, if well-organized, should be a kind of military university in which an energetic officer can pick up some knowledge of every branch of infantry work since he can never tell what he may not be required to do when posted to a battalion on active service. The power to command a platoon is only the foundation, not the climax, of a subaltern’s training. Fortunately, in addition to the second-lieutenants who accompanied drafts, a certain number of officers and men rejoined from hospital. These had mostly been wounded or gone sick during the fighting at the beginning of August, and they formed a very welcome reinforcement, since they were both experienced and seasoned to the climate.

Unfortunately, as much could not be said for the new drafts, who suffered very badly from dysentery. It was a common experience for a company commander to congratulate himself on having discovered a good sergeant-major or platoon-sergeant only to hear on the following day that he had been invalided. The men who had been wounded in France seemed to be peculiarly liable to dysentery.

While steps were being taken to reorganize the shattered units, rumours began to spread that the Division was to leave the Peninsula to rest. By this time most people had begun to discredit all rumours, but it appeared possible that there might be something in this. It was known that both the 29th Division and what was left of the original Australians had been removed to Mudros for a change of ten days or so, and from a military point of view it was eminently desirable to give the Division a chance of training its new drafts in a spot free from shell fire.

It was, however, very uncertain when and where we were to go. The place varied between Mudros and Imbros, while the time suggested was always “next week.” Finally, the 29th Brigade received orders on September 28th to prepare to move on the following evening, not to either of the places anticipated but to Suvla. For a moment people thought that an attack was in prospect since a day or two earlier “The Peninsula Press” had announced great victories in France. Since units of the Division had been paraded at Mudros in July and ordered to cheer for the impending fall of Bagdad, most people were a little distrustful of official bulletins, but if it really was true, and the German line was broken both at Loos and in Champagne, then, of course, we should push the enemy as hard as possible wherever we could. All these speculations were shattered, however, early on the 29th, by the cancellation of the orders to proceed to Suvla, and the receipt of instructions to embark at Anzac for Mudros on the same evening.

Somehow one was not as glad to be leaving Gallipoli as one had anticipated. To be sure it was all to the good to be out of the shelling for a time and the Turks took steps to intensify the pleasure caused by this prospect by firing on the bivouacs of the 29th Brigade on their last day with unusual vigour. One shell fell immediately outside the guard room of the Connaught Rangers, but fortunately failed to explode. Another burst in the camp of the Royal Irish Rifles and wounded Lieutenant Elliot. This officer was the last survivor except for the Quartermaster and Doctor, of the officers of the battalion who had landed at Anzac on August 6th, and was unlucky in being hit on the last day. Even the prospect of immunity from bombardment could not however disguise the fact that one was sorry to leave.