The General feels better to-day, and by lunch time looked as if things were going well at the Front. However, the French have a most difficult piece of work before them, namely, the capture of Kereves Dere, which has blocked their way since April 28. This gully runs in a S.E. direction from the foot of Achi Baba to the Dardanelles, is flat at the bottom, and about 400 yards wide, with steep perpendicular cliffs on both sides, nearly 200 feet high. At the bottom each side holds a trench facing the other, while there are others half-way up wherever there are slopes. In a spot or two the French are said to have pushed through before, and for a time held a piece of the other side, but the difficulty is to get the Turk entirely out and the position consolidated.
The enemy submarines would like to do some mischief to-day, could they find something worth a torpedo, but all our shipping has gone, except three hospital ships and the torpedo craft. Within the last fifteen minutes a destroyer has given a long blast on her whistle, followed by two short, the signal that a submarine has been sighted. Three destroyers are at the present moment grouped together evidently having a conference.
6.15 p.m.—The battle has raged the whole day, but less violently from 11 to 4, but at the latter hour, a warship, lying close in, with all our field guns, raised a great roar, and a solid mass of smoke and dust rose high in the air enveloping the whole of the Turkish lines from the west of Krithia to the Dardanelles. The Turks have replied all day, but feebly in comparison.
Most of the day I had been watching the battlefield from the Observation Hill, then at 5 went to tea in the mess where I was alone. General Hunter-Weston entered in a few minutes, and sitting opposite me said, "What an extraordinary thing war is". The progress of the day had greatly satisfied him I could see, and he was in great glee. "Yes," I said, "but I wish to goodness it was all over." "My dear sir," he replied, "we'll have years of it yet." I asked if he thought there was any possibility of its ending this year. "Absolutely none; I think there may be trouble in Germany over the food supply by the beginning of next harvest and, if so, there will be a chance of its ending in twelve months, but it is more likely to take two years." I was afterwards speaking to Major —— about this, and I have always agreed with his remark, "It is all damned nonsense to talk about starving Germany".
After tea I returned to the Hill where several of the Staff were collected. We watched a body of Turks, about 200 in number, leave their own lines and come towards ours with a large white flag. Within three seconds after their forming into a body five of our shells landed among them, and there was nothing to be seen when the smoke cleared off. But in a few minutes those remaining gathered into a body again, and immediately two more shells exploded in their midst. The few remaining could now be seen coming out of the smoke and tearing down a slope to a nullah a short way off, and they were not seen again. Major —— was here called away to interpret to three Turkish prisoners who had come in, but I have heard no particulars of their examination.... I hear from one of the orderlies that a prisoner complained that their own guns opened on them as soon as a body formed up to surrender. (This is what actually happened, Turkish shells, not ours, fell among them, a lesson to others what would happen if they surrendered.)
We seem to have made a great advance in front of our Naval Division. It is more difficult to say what the French have done, their line is more hidden from here, owing to the contour of the ground. It will be dark by 8, and now at 6.45 it is high time we were straightening up our line, otherwise the forward positions will be enfiladed by night.
I heard our Artillery Staff-General being asked at the Observation Hill if he was satisfied with the day's work, and he replied, "Quite, on the whole, quite, quite".
I was interested to find that none of our Generals left H.Q. to-day; everything is worked from there by telephone. Each was at his own post and spent little time on the Observation Hill—much less than I did myself.
July 13th.—Rumours after a battle are always plentiful, but at H.Q. one has an opportunity of sifting these, in fact I could always get the exact truth by asking members of the Staff, but I feel as a non-combatant that I have no right to openly poke my nose into purely military matters. Rumour said we had taken 700 prisoners yesterday; another rumour puts the number at 2000. I heard at dinner that eighty had come in. Mention was laughingly made of "the lost regiment". I could not imagine at the time that we had lost a regiment and thought it was a joke of the General's, but to-day I find that a whole battalion of K.O.S.B.'s are amissing. Those must be prisoners in the hands of the Turks. They had lost so heavily before that they could not have been at anything like full strength. The curious thing is the officers are said to have turned up, and can give no account of what happened. I expect this is not the exact truth. They are said to have pushed too far forward, which is the usual cause of our worst disasters.
Three violent counter-attacks were made last night. Fighting had never ceased the whole night, and I hear we had to retire all along the line. The extent of our falling back I do not know, but the news is most depressing.