At twilight the repeated assaults increased in violence. Under the rising moon, line after line of Turks advanced, at some points reaching the trenches before they were cut down. Sir Ian mentions a pony led right through the trenches with a machine-gun on his back, and an eye-witness saw a German officer killed by a blow from a shovel as, with grenade in hand, he called upon a trench to surrender. All night the savage conflict continued, the Turks charging with religious courage, our men driving them back with the bayonet when the rifles became foul and choked with dirt. But just before daylight the shrapnel terrifically increased, the Turks swarmed round in irresistible crowds, the centre of the K.O.S.B. trenches was rushed, and the men driven headlong down the gorge. Only those who know the nature of the ground, the cliffs some 200 feet high, and the depth of the ravine, half hidden by thick and prickly scrub, can realise the horror of that scene, or the superb devotion of those who still remained to hold the summit while the wounded were being carried on waterproof sheets (without stretchers) down to the beach. More than half the officers and nearly half the men were killed or wounded. By morning it had become impossible to cling any longer to the position. Protected by a small and heroic rearguard, and by the heavy fire of the ships Goliath, Talbot, Dublin, Sapphire, and Amethyst, the wounded, the stores, and the survivors of the two battalions and the S.W. Borderers company were taken off by the boats and returned in the early afternoon on the warships to the southern end of the Peninsula. In spite of the heroism displayed, and in spite of the service in holding up a large Turkish force for the critical twenty-four hours, the effort at Y Beach failed, and the failure was serious.
About nine miles from Y Beach farther north along the coast, the snub-nosed promontory of Gaba Tepe suddenly projects. It is of no great height—just under 100 feet—but deep water washes the foot of the steep and rugged cliffs, its caves and artificial tunnels concealed guns which no shell could touch, and from those caves and tunnels nearly the whole coast north and south could be enfiladed. North, the coast falls into an open, gently sloping shore of quiet meadows and scattered olive groves, crossed by a track to the Old Village (Eski Keui) in the centre of the Peninsula, and so to Maidos on the strait. Next to Bulair, this is the shortest way over, for it measures less than five miles in a straight line. But on the right stands the threatening plateau of Kilid Bahr, strongly held, and forming a central base for the enemy’s army, and on the left rise the heights of Sari Bair, intersected by inextricable entanglements of gully and ravine. At the northern end of that gentle slope, rising like the fields around a Lowland loch, just where the cliffs begin again, the main landing of the Anzac corps was intended. Remembering the V and W Beaches, no one can call any position impregnable to such men as ours; but the spot was thickly wired from the water’s edge; it was fully exposed to the guns hidden on Gaba Tepe, in an olive grove farther inland, and on Kilid Bahr plateau itself; to advance over the gradual slope would have meant advancing up an unsheltered glacis crossed by almost impenetrable obstacles, in the face of entrenched and invisible machine-guns and rifles. It was fortunate that man’s proposals here went astray.
THE ANZAC ORDERS
The object of the Anzac landing was to detain the Turkish forces on Kilid Bahr plateau, to check the reinforcement of the southern Peninsula by them or by other troops from the Bulair district, and to threaten the Turkish line of retreat. The enemy’s forces in these central regions were vaguely estimated at about 20,000; but reconnaissance had been impossible, the country was unknown, except in so far as it can be surveyed from the sea, and hitherto the Staff had no maps even fairly trustworthy, as the maps afterwards found on the bodies of Turkish officers were. The landing was officially called Z Beach, but was always known as “Anzac,” and so history will know it. As already stated, the covering force consisted of the 3rd Australian Brigade under Colonel Sinclair Maclagan. It was conveyed in four transports, but the first landing-party (about 1500 men) had been transferred at Mudros to the warships Queen (Admiral Thursby’s flagship), the London, and the Prince of Wales. Twelve tows were provided, each consisting of a steam pinnace and a trail of four cutters or “lifeboats,” and carrying about 125 men.[92] As soon as the first party had started in the tows, the remainder of the covering party was to tranship from the transports into eight destroyers, and to follow slowly towards shore until taken off by the returning tows, three tows being allotted to each pair of destroyers. When the covering brigade had made sure of the landing, the transports of the whole army corps were to close in to shore and disembark. The Triumph, the Majestic, and the cruiser Bacchante were to cover the landing by gun-fire. As throughout the expedition, the entire organisation on the water was directed by the navy, and the boats were commanded by boy midshipmen, whose imperturbable calm in moments of extreme peril was, from beginning to end, and at every crisis, only rivalled by the dogged heroism of their crews.
POSITION AT ANZAC IN THE WEEKS FOLLOWING LANDING
The whole force assembled at a point about half-way between Imbros and the intended landing. It was 1.30 a.m. of the 25th. The smoke rising against the westering moon probably betrayed their presence, but they waited till the moon set behind the jagged mountains of Imbros soon after three. As directed, the first tows were then manned, and the three warships moved abreast slowly towards the shore, followed by the trailing boats. At 4.10 a.m. they stopped, within about one and a quarter mile of shore, and the tows moved slowly forward, the destroyers following them at about half an hour’s interval. Probably it was in that interval that the salutary mistake occurred. Whether misled by ignorance of the coast and by the starlit darkness, or carried unconsciously by a current which sets along shore towards the Gulf of Xeros, the tows approached land rather more than a mile north of the appointed landing. The beach to which they made is a shallow arc of sand stretching for about half a mile between two small projections in the coast-line—Ari Burnu to the north, and what the Australians called Hell Spit to the south. One deep ravine, starting from an almost precipitous cliff (to be known as “Plugge’s Plateau”) divides the arc near the northern extremity at right angles to the shore; but confusedly broken and steep, though not absolutely precipitous, ground rises all around the cove—“Anzac Cove”—to a general height of over 200 feet. Wherever the ground—a mixture of soft sandstone and marl—was not too steep for vegetation, it was then covered with thick green or blackish scrub, chiefly prickly oak, difficult to penetrate, and in places six feet high. In later months the scrub served as a danger signal, for the spots where it remained were exposed to rifle or shell-fire. Everywhere else it disappeared, leaving the yellow surface bare.
THE ANZAC LANDING
The tows approached the beach in absolute silence. Trusting to the cliffs, the Turks had neglected defence at this point, but for two slight trenches—one close to the water’s edge, the second a little up the height. Even these seem to have been left unmanned, for about a battalion of Turks was dimly perceived running along the shore, no doubt hurried up from the open ground where our landing had been intended. Just before 5 a.m. they opened fire, and many of the soldiers and crews were struck in the boats. The Australians made no answer, but before the keels grated, leapt into water up to their chests, and surged ashore. Throwing off their packs, they dashed straight with the bayonet upon the enemy wherever they could see him. The two trenches were carried with a rush, and still the men charged on. They began to struggle up the gully and the steep ascent on its right (afterwards called Maclagan’s Ridge). The tows returned for the remainder of the brigade on the destroyers, and these men joined in the rush and scramble. Some of the tows crossed each other, and added to the excited confusion. Some, either for want of space or yielding to the current, passed north of Ari Burnu and attempted a landing on the broad and open beach beside fishermen’s huts, standing almost in front of the perpendicular and strangely shaped cliff afterwards called “The Sphinx.” Here they suffered terrible loss from rifles and machine-guns; for this beach, gradually broadening out till it merges into the open, marshy plain at the mouth of Anafarta Biyuk valley, extends to Suvla and the Salt Lake, and the Turks were here prepared to oppose a landing. A few of the boats went adrift, having no men left to control them. One at least swayed with the current, full of dead. Several had to be left for some days aground against the beach, full also of dead.
THE ANZAC ADVANCE