TRENCH WARFARE BEGUN
It had now become evident that victory by open movement upon the surface could scarcely be hoped for. As in France and Flanders, the two modern instruments of barbed wire and machine-guns had so strengthened the power of defence that open assault would always cost many lives, and was rendered impossible without a “barrage” of shells such as the Dardanelles force was incapable of affording. Indeed, the very word “barrage” was then hardly known to British troops. The opposing lines were brought almost to a standstill, and advance became possible only by trench and sap, as in an old-fashioned siege, varied by almost continuous attacks and separate exploits, designed partly to save our own men from the rot of inactivity, but chiefly to prevent the enemy from concentrating his efforts to drive us off the land. The line was, accordingly, organised into four permanent sections from left to right—the 29th Division (with the Indian Brigade), the 42nd Division (one brigade of which, the East Lancashire, was split up to gain experience with the 29th Division),[116] the Royal Naval Division, and the French Expeditionary Corps, now counting two divisions. In the middle of May (the 14th) the French Commandant, General d’Amade, a soldier with unusual knowledge of foreign affairs, who knew the Far East well, was French Attaché in the South African War, and served with distinction in Morocco, retired from the Peninsula, having found the prolonged strain too great for nerves impoverished by illness. He was sent on a special mission to Russia, and was succeeded by General Gouraud, a cool, solid, and imperturbable soldier of the best French type, who had won high reputation in the Argonne.
At Anzac, although deprived for a few days (till May 15) of the two brigades withdrawn to Helles, the Australasians continued to strengthen their hold upon the perilous edges of their rough triangle. But in the middle of the month (May 15), just as the two brigades were returning, General Bridges, commanding the 1st Australian Division, was mortally wounded. In crossing the mouth of Shrapnel Valley, where the protecting parapets had not yet been completed, he was struck in the thigh by a sniper hidden somewhere in the bushes beyond Pope’s Hill. His last words on leaving Anzac in a hospital ship were, “Anyhow, I have commanded an Australian Division for nine months.”[117] Before Alexandria was reached, he died: a stern, outwardly cold, and lonely man, pitiless to apathy, capable of organisation, and inspiring the confidence always felt in unyielding and unselfish capacity. The command of the 1st Division was at once taken over by Major-General H. B. Walker, a resolute and gallant leader, who had served in the British Army in the Soudan campaigns, the N.-W. Frontier, and South Africa. He was among the most determined opponents of evacuation on the night after the Anzac landing. His headquarters were fixed at the top of the “White Valley,” close to the region afterwards famous as Lone Pine.
MAY 19 AT ANZAC
On May 19, three days after the loss of their own General, the Australians, together with the rest of Anzac, were called upon to resist the most violent attempt that the Turks ever made to drive them off the cliffs. The enemy had now largely increased their artillery, which included at least one 11-inch gun, some 8-inch, and several 4·7-inch, all well posted and concealed. Liman von Sanders had also brought up forces amounting to 30,000 men, believed to include five fresh regiments, and he took command in person. Directly the moon set on the night of the 18th-19th, a tremendous fire of guns and rifles burst from the surrounding Turkish lines. This often happened at Anzac, and now, as usual, the noise died down after about an hour. But at 3.30, crowds of silent figures were detected in the darkness creeping close up to the centre of the Australian trenches. Directly the sentries fired, masses of the enemy in thick lines came rushing forward, yelling their battle-cry to the Prophet’s God. Though most severe along the ridge between Quinn’s and Courtney’s Posts, the assault extended over the whole front, with great violence at the dangerously exposed apex of the triangle. The assailants came on so thick, the ground to be covered was so narrow—in places only a few yards across between the confronting trenches—that the Anzacs had but to fire point-blank into the half-visible darkness before them, and at every shot an enemy fell. Many Australians mounted the parapet, and, sitting astride upon it, fired continuously, as in an enormous drive of game. Morning broke, the sun rose behind the teaming assailants, machine-guns and rifles mowed them down in rows, and piled them up into barriers and parapets of the dead and scarcely living. Still the peasants of Islam, summoned from quiet villages of Thrace and Asia, unconscious of the cause for which they died, except that it was the cause of Islam—still they came on, shouting their battle-cry. Emptying their rifles into trenches manned with equal constancy, rushing wildly up to the sandbag lines, they scrambled over them, only to die of rifles which scorched their skin, or of bayonets dripping blood.
From 3.30 till nearly 11 the conflict raged; but before the sun was at its height the noise and shouting gradually died away. The great assault was finished, and had failed. In heaps and lines, more than 3000 Turks lay dying or already dead. The defence lost only 100 killed, and about 500 wounded. Not a yard of Anzac had been yielded up. The enemy never again attempted an attack upon that scale.
ARMISTICE AT ANZAC
So appalling had the thin strip of neutral ground now become owing to the ghastly heaps of swollen or shrinking bodies piled upon it, so overpowering was the stink of rotting men, that the Turks, waving white flags and red crescents, requested an armistice for burial. After some naturally suspicious hesitation (for the enemy mustered in thick lines, and fighting was frequently renewed) a Turkish officer was brought blindfold into Anzac Cove, four Australian officers carrying him through the sea round the end of the entanglement beyond Hell Spit. Major-General Braithwaite, Chief of Sir Ian’s Staff, met him at General Birdwood’s headquarters, close beside the beach opposite the chief landing-place, called “Watson’s Pier,” because built by Anzac signallers under Captain Watson. An armistice for May 24 was arranged, and duly carried out. It lasted from early morning till late afternoon, and was attended with the usual ironic circumstances. Within certain limits marked by white flags, Australians freely conversed with Turkish officers who spoke faultless English, and were lavish in politeness and cigarettes. It is said that General Liman von Sanders himself, disguised as a Red Crescent sergeant, mixed undetected with the crowd upon that wet and misty morning.[118]
It may have been so, nor was there cause for disguise. It was by his authority as Commandant of the 5th Ottoman Army that Lieutenant-Colonel Fahreddin concluded the armistice, as narrated. The note in which Sir Ian was informed of this authorisation concluded with the words: “J’ai l’honneur d’être avec l’assurance de ma plus haute considération, Liman von Sanders.” So the courteous amenities of slaughter were maintained, and the Turks buried 3000 corpses, all killed since May 18.
Formidable as the Turkish onset had been, a still more serious peril now threatened the expedition. For some days past, rumours of two hostile submarines had reached the Staff. Since all communication was by sea, since the guns were largely furnished by the fleet, and even General Headquarters were afloat, no news more ominous could have arrived. A foretaste of danger was given on May 13, when, in the darkness, a Turkish destroyer slid silently down the strait and torpedoed the battleship Goliath, lying at anchor off Morto Bay to support the French flank. She was a fifteen-year-old ship (12,950 tons), and she sank at once, carrying down her captain, Thomas Shelford, 19 officers, and over 500 men. As they drowned, they were swept by the current past the Cornwallis, lying nearly a mile astern, and their cries for help were pitiful. The Cornwallis boats saved 56, but only 183 were saved in all.[119]