[175] Phillip Schuler put them at 18,000 (Australia in Arms, p. 270).
[176] Australia in Arms, p. 271.
[177] Sir Ian’s dispatch twice mentions these batteries as the sole land artillery. All three belonged to the 11th Division. Other batteries of field-guns and howitzers arrived later, but we are speaking of the Suvla first landing—the really critical time.
[178] Sir Ian in his dispatch reckons twelve 18-pounder guns and eight mountain-guns as starting. Only the mountain-guns and four of the 18-pounders were in action by August 8, but the 59th Brigade, R.F.A., and the 4th Highland Mountain Brigade, R.G.A., were attached to the 11th Division. On the 9th, two field batteries were on Lala Baba. On August 13 to 15 the 58th Brigade also arrived at Suvla, and was attached to the 10th Division. On the 19th a battery of the 4th Howitzer Lowland Brigade, R.F.A., was placed in position on Lala Baba.
[179] Sir Ian’s dispatch gives a full account of the warships, lighters, and trawlers sent with the landing-force, together with details about the water-supply provided. He does not mention the large transport Minneapolis, which I think must have taken the place of the sloop Aster, for we certainly had batteries of mountain-guns with their teams on board. She was a liner, taken over with all her staff; and as instances of petrifying routine I remember that, as I hoped to land at 4 a.m., I asked if one could get a cup of tea then, and was haughtily informed, “On this ship breakfast is always at 8.30”; and later in the morning, when the fighting was at crisis, the “stewards” were sweeping out the gangways with vacuum-cleaners as they had swept for years. Habits of routine were, however, fatally disturbed in the following spring when the Minneapolis was torpedoed between Egypt and Salonika.
[180] The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli, p. 142.
[181] These fires appear to have arisen near the true Hill 10, which was taken about this time by a mixed force of Northumberland Fusiliers, Dorsets, and West Yorks, after a severe struggle against a redoubt there.
[182] Sir Ian’s dispatch says the naval authorities were unwilling to land them at A Beach “for some reason not specified.” Considering what misfortune had already happened there, the above explanation appears to me at least sufficient. But A East and A West had been discovered by the navy before the unfortunate landing at B Beach began.
[183] The Tenth (Irish) Division at Gallipoli, pp. 125 and 140.
[184] So Major Bryan Cooper in The Tenth (Irish) Division, p. 129. My impression at the time was of no rush, but a calm though laborious trudge. Major Cooper, however, continues: “The 7th Dublins in particular were much encouraged by the example of their Colonel.... While every one else was dashing swiftly across the neck, or keeping close under cover, it is recorded that Colonel Downing—a man of unusual height and girth—stood in the centre of the bullet-swept zone, quietly twisting his stick.” “Dashing swiftly across” that sand would, I think, be impossible under any impulse, and cover did not exist; at least I never found it, though I toiled over that spit many dozen times, and it always remained exposed to shell-fire from W Hill.