[165] Captain Bean, Australian papers, October 25. He adds: “I believe that fifteen men actually managed to reach the Turkish trench on the summit. They never came back.”
[166] Captain Bean’s account in Australian papers, October 25, 1915.
[167] Fortunately for the brigade, the Turks had withdrawn their guns during the night (7th and 8th) owing to the Suvla landing, and had not yet brought them back to W Hill.
[168] Sir Ian’s dispatch quotes the order.
[169] Phillip Schuler definitely says: “Mistaking the target, the destroyers dropped 6-inch high-explosive shells amongst the Indian troops” (Australia in Arms, p. 261). But, accurate though he generally was, I believe he is here mistaken. I never heard the destroyers mentioned at the time, and I doubt if their guns could have shelled a reverse slope. Further on (p. 263) he says that during the Turkish counter-attack next day the Anzac guns shelled “the reverse slope.” If that was possible, another explanation besides the one I suggest above may be considered.
[170] Apparently, it was mainly to this incident that Dr. Stürmer referred in the following passage: “In those September” (he means August) “days I had already had some experience of Turkish politics and their defiance of the laws of humanity, and my sympathies were all for those thousands of fine Colonial troops—such men as one seldom sees—sacrificing their lives in one last colossal attack, which if it had been prolonged even for another hour might have sealed the fate of the Straits and would have meant the first decisive step towards the overthrow of our forces; for the capture of Constantinople would have been the beginning of the end.”—Two War Years in Constantinople, p. 86.
[171] Sir Ian’s dispatch.
[172] The Story of the Anzacs (Messrs. Ingram & Son, Melbourne), p. 87.
[173] Sir Ian’s dispatch.
[174] For a detailed account of the four battalions in the 29th Brigade during this action see The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli, pp. 62–120. Two companies of the 5th Connaught Rangers (Colonel Jourdain) went up to the Farm on the evening of the 10th after the other troops had been withdrawn, and brought in many wounded whom they found lying there in great need of water and attention.