So, in the face of all objections, the preparations for an assault upon the Peninsula began. The immediate difficulty was a question of transport. Besides 5000 Australians from Egypt, the Royal Naval Division (less three battalions) had already arrived at Mudros, and their twelve transports were anchored in the great harbour. But it was found that the ships were indeed well enough packed for peace conditions, but the freight had not been arranged with a view to launching separate units complete upon the field of action. Men were divided from their ammunition, guns from their carriages, carts from their horses. Perhaps, for a long voyage, it is impossible to load transports so as to make each unit self-supporting. At all events, it was not done, and on the desert shores of the Mudros inlet it was impossible to unload and sort out and repack. Unless incalculable time was to be lost, such a confused piece of work could not be undertaken apart from wharves and cranes and docks. Wharves and cranes and docks were to be found at Alexandria, but no nearer; and to Alexandria the transports were ordered to return. That historic city thus became the main base—Mudros harbour, which had previously been selected, now serving as intermediate or advanced base.[79] Lord Kitchener approved the return and repacking of the transports, and certain advantages in the matter of drill and organisation were gained by the delay, to say nothing of the inestimable advantage of more settled weather. But the enemy also gained advantages, and in the extra month allowed them they increased their defensive works with laborious anxiety.
THE FORCES IN EGYPT
On March 25 (a calendar month before the great landing) Sir Ian Hamilton followed the transports to Egypt and remained there till April 7. While he was there his Administrative Staff arrived (April 1). It had been appointed after he left England, and until its arrival the administrative work had been, with much extra exertion, carried on by his Chief of Staff, General Braithwaite, and the rest of the General Staff. Sir Ian took the opportunity of his presence in Egypt to inspect the 29th Division (under Major-General Hunter-Weston), which began to arrive in Alexandria on March 28 and was encamped at Mex outside the city while its transports were being reloaded for the landing. He also inspected the Royal Naval Division (under Major-General Paris) at Port Said, and the French Division (under Général d’Amade) near Alexandria, where their transports also were being reloaded. At least equally significant, when viewed from what was then the future, was his inspection of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or “Anzacs,” as they came to be called. The corps was commanded by Lieut.-General Sir W. R. Birdwood: the Australian Division under Major-General W. T. Bridges, the mixed New Zealand and Australian Division under Major-General Sir Alexander Godley. The Australian Division was encamped at Mena, near the Pyramids; the mixed Division at Heliopolis on the other side of Cairo. Sir Ian also inspected the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division (under Major-General W. Douglas, the first Territorials to volunteer for foreign service), although they were not as yet part of his own force, but stood under command of Major-General Sir John Maxwell for the defence of Egypt. Beside these fighting Divisions, since so renowned, there remained the Assyrian Jewish Refugee Mule Corps (better known as “the Zionists”), organised only a few days before out of Jewish refugees from Syria and Palestine, chiefly Russian subjects, who had sought safety in Egypt. Colonel J. H. Patterson had been commissioned to select a body of about 500, with 750 transport mules. Orders were given in Hebrew and partly in English; the men were armed with rifles taken from the Turks in the battle of the Canal; and the regimental badge was the Shield of David. Probably this was the first purely Jewish fighting corps that went into action since Jerusalem fell to the Roman armies under Titus.[80]
THE ANZACS IN EGYPT
The fortunate presence of the “Anzacs” in Egypt was due to Lord Kitchener’s constant apprehension of a Turkish attack upon the Suez Canal and the main country, in which it was natural to suppose that a nationalist and religious feeling would rally a large part of the inhabitants to the enemy’s side. At the outbreak of war with Germany thousands of the youth in Australia and New Zealand (including large numbers of Maoris) had eagerly volunteered, moved by love of adventure and a racial affection for the mother-country. After nearly three months’ preparation—a difficult task, persistently effected in Australia by Major-General Bridges, who for three years had been commandant of Duntroon Military College—the whole force assembled at King George Sound on October 31, 1914, and set sail next day (the day of Turkey’s entrance into the war as the Central Powers’ Ally). Thirty-eight transports carried the army corps, and they were convoyed by cruisers, one of which (the Sydney, under Captain Glossop) gained the distinction upon the route of destroying the active raider Emden at Cocos Island, and taking her gallant and resourceful captain, Karl von Müller, prisoner (November 9). Having reached Egypt on December 3, the “Anzacs” went into camps at points near Cairo for further training, and some selected battalions took part in the repulse of Djemal Pasha’s attack upon the Canal near Ismailia in the first week of February 1915.
A finer set of men than the “Anzacs” after their three months’ training upon the desert sands could hardly be found in any country. With the aid of open-air life, sufficient food, and freedom from grinding poverty, Australia and New Zealand had bred them as though to display the physical excellence of which the British type is capable when released from manufacturing squalor or agricultural subjection. Equally distinguished in feature and in figure—the eyes rather deep-set and looking level to the front, the nose straight and rather prominent, shoulders loose and broad, moving easily above the slim waist and lengthy thighs, the chest, it is true, rather broad than deep, owing to Australia’s clear and sunny air—they walked the earth with careless and dare-devil self-confidence. Gifted with the intelligence that comes of freedom and healthy physique, they were educated rather to resourceful energy in the face of nature than to scientific knowledge and the arts. Since they sprang from every Colonial class, and had grown up accustomed to natural equality, military discipline at first appeared to them an irritating and absurd superfluity, and they could be counted upon to face death but hardly to salute an officer. Indeed, their general conception of discipline was rather reasonable than regular, and their language, habitually violent, continued unrestrained in the presence of superiors; so to the natural irony of our race was added a Colonial independence.
Except in action, the control of such men was inevitably difficult. Released from a long voyage, exposed to the unnatural conditions of warfare, and beguiled by the curious amenities of an Oriental city, now for the first time experienced, many availed themselves of Cairo’s opportunity for enjoyment beyond the strict limit of regulations. The most demure of English tourists upon the Continent, having escaped from the trammels of identity, have been known in former times to behave as they would not behave in their own provincial towns; much more might unrestrained behaviour be expected in men whose sense of personal responsibility in a foreign city had been further reduced by uniform, and who were encouraged to excess by the easy standard of military tradition, and by the foreknowledge that, to get beforehand with death, the interval for pleasure might be short. It was no wonder, therefore, that, while twenty per cent. of the Colonial forces (later ten per cent.) poured into Cairo daily upon any animal or conveyance which could move, the beautiful city became a scene of frequent turmoil.[81]
Upon his journey back to the advanced base, there were many thoughts to divide and even oppress the mind of the most sanguine Commander-in-Chief. The fateful decision had now to be made—a decision upon which the future destiny of the war, and, indeed, of his country, so largely depended. The burden of responsibility lay upon his head alone. To his single judgment were entrusted, not only the lives of many thousand devoted men, but the highest interests of an Alliance in the justice of whose cause he whole-heartedly believed. As the inevitable hour approached, the difficulties of the appointed task were recognised as greater even than foreseen. The strongest nerve might well hesitate to confront them. Even at this crisis of decision, the chief among his commanding Generals were inclined to turn aside from the Peninsula as from impossibility. One advocated an attack upon Asia Minor, with a view to diverting the enemy’s main force, and so clearing a passage for the fleet. Another favoured further delay and continuous training, in hope of some more propitious opportunity. A third, while offering no alternative, considered the attempt too desperate to be tried. Upon a sensitive and imaginative nature the risk, the sacrifice of lives, the difficulties of a small force too rapidly organised, insufficiently equipped with modern ammunition, and unsupported by reinforcements, weighed heavily. To these were added the discouraging representations of friendly, trusted, and experienced officers, upon whose diligent co-operation the success of the whole design entirely depended. In such hours as those, deep searchings of mind and heart are the unenviable lot of the man whose word decides.
ATTACK THROUGH BULAIR CONSIDERED
But Sir Ian’s decision was already taken, and subsequent conference with the Admirals de Robeck and Wemyss only confirmed it. On their arrival at Mudros, his Generals also agreed, and the General whose objections to landing on any condition had been the most serious, became enthusiastic for the scheme, if landing was attempted. Various lines of attack were possible, and each was carefully considered. To the lay mind, an assault upon the neck of the Peninsula at Bulair appeared so obvious that, from the very outset of operations, Sir Ian was blamed for not attempting it. The neck is narrow—not more than three miles across. If it were cut, the enemy on the main Peninsula might be expected to surrender for want of supplies; the Straits would then be free from obstacle on the European side, and the Asiatic side could be commanded by big guns on Achi Baba and the Kilid Bahr plateau opposite Chanak. The main objection to this obvious strategy was the disconcerting truth that the enemy’s chief line of communication did not run through Bulair, but across the strait itself, chiefly from the Asiatic coast to the town of Gallipoli, and even if Bulair were occupied, the supply of the Turkish army on the Peninsula could be maintained; while an Allied force advancing from Bulair towards the Narrows (which was the objective of the whole expedition) would be perpetually threatened from the rear. Bulair itself was also a formidable obstacle. The famous lines, originally fortified by the Allies in the Crimean War, and renewed to resist Russian, Bulgarian, and Greek attacks from the north, had been incalculably strengthened in the preceding weeks under German direction. On his first survey (March 18) Sir Ian had observed the labyrinth of white lines marking the newly-constructed trenches upon which thousands of Turks had already been long at work. The gleam of wire was apparent around the only two possible points of landing, both difficult, and unsuited for naval co-operation. An assault upon Bulair would have involved immense losses, and, even if successful, could not have advanced the solution of the problem—the problem of the Narrows—without further dubious and speculative fighting, front and rear.