The Dardanelles campaign

by Henry Woodd Nevinson

BIRDWOOD COMMANDS ON PENINSULA

While at Mudros, Lord Kitchener ordered General Monro to assume command of all British forces in the Mediterranean east of Malta, excluding Egypt. General Monro naturally divided these forces into the “Salonika Army,” under command of Lieut.-General Sir Bryan Mahon, and the “Dardanelles Army,” under command of Lieut.-General Sir William Birdwood. Part of the original Headquarters Staff of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force was now transferred from Imbros to the Aragon in Mudros harbour, where Sir Charles Monro himself fixed his headquarters. For there he could keep closely in touch with General Altham, Inspector-General, Line of Communications, whose energy and accurate organisation continued to confront the perpetual or increasing difficulties caused by weather, submarines, and the absence of wharves and piers for transferring all ordnance and engineering stores from one ship to another. General Birdwood henceforward to the last retained command upon the Peninsula, and to him the main credit for the unexpected issue of the following weeks is due. He and his Staff occupied the newly constructed headquarters at the foot of the hills rather more than a mile from the chief landing-stage at Imbros, handing over his command at Anzac to General Godley, as has been mentioned.

Few events varied the monotony of trench warfare. The mine-sweeper Hythe was sunk in collision on October 28 and 155 men lost, including two military officers. The submarine E20 was sunk in the Sea of Marmora early in November, Lieut.-Commander Clyfford and nine others being rescued and made prisoner. On November 15 part of the 156th Brigade (52nd Division) captured nearly 300 yards of Turkish trench between the Vineyard and the Gully Ravine. Once or twice the Turks attempted half-hearted attacks both at Helles and Anzac, but were easily repulsed. For the rest, little was done, except bombing, mining, and preparing for the winter. Wooden beams and sheets of plate iron arrived in some quantity, and were especially needed at Anzac. The beaches were, as far as possible, cleared. Stores which had been piled up in the gullies were removed to higher positions. On the left, among the Anzac foothills, Brigadier-General Monash ordered vast caverns to be excavated as sheltered barracks for his 4th Brigade. Up at the “Apex,” long subterranean galleries were dug clean through the crest of Rhododendron Ridge, so as to command the deep ravines between it and Battleship Hill. On one occasion the fumes in an exploded mine tunnel caused several deaths. On another, an Anzac party was cut off in a gallery exploded by a Turkish mine, but dug themselves out and reappeared over the parapet after three days’ burial.[231]

GREAT STORM OF NOVEMBER

To the end of November the weather remained fairly fine, except for heavy showers and occasional mists and frosts. The dust was laid, even at Helles and Suvla; flies almost disappeared, and the prevailing sickness was much reduced. But on November 27 and the following four days a natural disaster as deadly as a serious engagement befell the Peninsula. A heavy south-westerly gale brought with it a thunderstorm accompanied with torrents of rain, which poured down upon the Ægean and the Peninsula for nearly twenty-four hours. In half an hour the wind rose to a hurricane, lashing the sea to tempest. At Kephalos one of the ships forming a breakwater was sunk, and all the craft inside the little harbour were driven ashore. At Helles and Suvla the light piers and landing-stages were destroyed, and the shores strewn with wreck. A destroyer was driven ashore in Suvla Bay. At Anzac the trenches were filled with water, and streams roared down the gullies. The fate of Suvla was more terrible. Across a long and deep ravine leading obliquely down from the “whale-back” ridge of Kiretch Tepe Sirt, high parapets had been constructed by Turks and British alike. Against these parapets the water was dammed up, as in a reservoir. They gave way, as when a reservoir’s embankment bursts, and the weight of accumulated water swept down the ravine into the valley, and from the valley into the Salt Lake and the shore, bearing with it stores and equipment, and mule-carts and mules and the drowning bodies of Turks and Britons, united in vain struggles against the overwhelming power of nature. Along the other sections of the lines, the men stood miserably in the trenches, soaked to the skin, and in places up to their waists in water.

Then, of a sudden, the wind swung round to the north and fell upon the wrecked and inundated scene with icy blast. For nearly two days and nights snow descended in whirling blizzards, and two days and nights of bitter frost succeeded the snow. The surface of the pools and trenches froze thick. The men’s greatcoats, being soaked through with the rain, froze stiff upon them. Men staggered down from the lines numbed and bemused with the intensity of cold. They could neither hear nor speak, but stared about them like bewildered bullocks. The sentries and outposts in the advanced trenches could not pull the triggers of their rifles for cold. They saw the Turks standing up on their firing steps and gazing at them over the parapets, and still they did not fire. It was reported at the time that the General, knowing that the condition of the enemy was probably worse than ours, desired a general attack. But movement was hardly possible. Overcome by the common affliction, our men also stood up and gazed back at the Turks. Few can realise the suffering of those four days.

ANZAC IN SNOW

EFFECT OF THE BLIZZARD

As though to test their power of endurance up to the very last, the full weight of misery fell upon the 29th Division, detained at Suvla since their final battle of August 21. Of that Division’s celebrated battalions, the 2nd Royal Fusiliers (86th Brigade) suffered most, their sentries standing immovable at their posts until they froze to death, and being found afterwards watching from the parapet, rifle in hand. The dead in the IXth Army Corps alone numbered over 200. From the Peninsula about 10,000 sick had to be removed. Many were “frost-bitten”; many lost their limbs; some, their reason. It is probable that the Turks suffered even worse; for prisoners said their men had no blankets, no covering at all except their thin uniforms and frozen greatcoats. But an enemy’s suffering is small consolation for one’s own; nor throughout the campaign was the element of vengeful hatred of the Turk ever one of the impelling motives among our fighting men, whether British, Irish, Anzac, or Hindu.[232]