As the enemy’s loss was so heavy, the advantage in their repeated counter-attacks would have rested with us, had it not become evident that they could draw upon large reinforcements. Early in July five fresh Nizam divisions arrived on the Peninsula. They were perhaps partly released by the disappearance of danger from Russia; but, as most of them came from Adrianople, their presence was more probably due to the growing understanding between the Central Powers and Bulgaria—an understanding believed to have developed into a secret Treaty about the middle of July. The arrival of these fresh troops rendered the enemy’s attacks more serious and more frequent. Only by strong counter-attack could our position at Helles be maintained and the initiative remain with us. Accordingly, a formal assault, similar to those in June, was ordered for July 12. This time the main attack devolved upon our right and right-centre, the French and the 52nd (Lowland) Division being chiefly engaged. After the customary bombardment, supported by heavy naval guns, the infantry rushed forward and gained the first two lines, but the French and Scots (155th Brigade) lost touch, the 4th K.O.S.B., parties of whom actually reached the slopes of Achi Baba, came under gun-fire, and nothing further was possible till the afternoon. Then, after another bombardment, the 157th Brigade pushed on and captured a strong redoubt on the edge of the Kereves Dere. Soon after dawn on the 13th, however, this Brigade was attacked by bombers, and a portion of its right was driven back. It was speedily rallied, and three battalions of the R.N.D. were sent up to reinforce and advance the position.[139] A certain advance was also made on their left, while on the extreme right the French succeeded in reaching the mouth of the Kereves Dere itself. Nearly 500 prisoners were taken, and but for inefficient Staff work, considerable advantage might have been secured. But little advance was thus effected towards the summit of the elaborately entrenched and fortified hill, the base of which was protected by great redoubts and sprinkled with concealed guns beyond the maze of trenches. After this action our supply of shell was so much reduced, the reserve so dangerously encroached upon, that further attack became for the present impossible without heavy risk. Even such bombardment as was sanctioned for those two days could only be effected by borrowing French guns—about six batteries of “75’s” and a few howitzers.
CHANGES IN COMMANDS
Under the strain of these successive days and nights of fighting Major-General Egerton, as already mentioned, was ordered to hospital for twenty-four hours’ rest, and the command of the 52nd Division was entrusted to Major-General F. C. Shaw, recently arrived to command the 13th Division (“Kitchener’s” or New Army) now coming in. General Egerton resumed his command next day, and retained it till mid-September, when he was appointed Base-Commandant at Alexandria, and was succeeded by Major-General Lawrence. But in mid-July the army suffered a still more serious loss in Major-General Hunter-Weston, the experienced Officer Commanding the famous 29th Division in the earlier battles, and subsequently the VIIIth Army Corps. For three months, without cessation by day or night, this General, who certainly never spared his troops, had himself endured all the perils, anxieties, and sorrows of an officer directing a series of desperate actions, or rather one continuous desperate action, which, as the price of an unparalleled achievement, had deprived him of nearly all his most trusted subordinates, devastated devoted troops with irreparable loss, and stretched his mind on the rack of ceaseless apprehension how best to encounter imminent dangers with insufficient means. Burning sun, dust storms, and repeated incalculable crises of peril may wear down the bravest physical nature, and in high fever he was compelled to seek refuge first in the Admiral’s Triad, and then in a hospital ship leaving the scene of his great exploits. Such consolation as is possible for a man so placed he might derive from the eulogy justly bestowed upon “the incomparable 29th Division” by the Commander-in-Chief when the brigades were withdrawn in turn for a brief rest at Imbros after the battle of late June. For, after speaking of their recent deeds, Sir Ian concluded:
“Therefore it is that Sir Ian Hamilton is confident he carries with him all ranks of his force when he congratulates Generals Hunter-Weston and De Lisle, the Staff, and each officer, N.C.O., and man in this Division, whose sustained efforts have added fresh lustre to British arms all the world over.”
The command of the VIIIth Army Corps was temporarily taken over by Lieut.-General Sir Frederick Stopford, who had arrived at Imbros with his Staff on July 11. He was thus given an opportunity of experience in the kind of fighting required of his forces when he commanded the IXth Army Corps, then gradually concentrating for a new enterprise. Major-General Douglas (42nd Division) next took command for a time. For the permanent command, perhaps, Sir Bruce Hamilton might have been appointed but for his deafness. Ultimately Lieut.-General Sir F. J. Davies, who had seen much service of every kind since entering the Grenadier Guards in 1884, was sent out. He arrived from France on August 5, took over the command on August 8, and commanded the VIIIth Army Corps to the end.
On the part of the French, the losses during the first half of July were also heavy. Of individual losses, the most serious were caused in the early morning of July 12 by a heavy shell which destroyed the 1st Division command-post, killing Major Romieux, Chief of Staff, and mortally wounding General Masnou, commanding the 1st Division. He was succeeded by General Brulard, who had seen much service in Morocco. Lieut.-Colonel Vernhol was his Chief of Staff.
Some idea of the habitual life in the fighting lines during the next two or three weeks of comparative quiet may be gathered from notes which I wrote hurriedly at the time. Towards the end of July I was staying on the wreck of the River Clyde, daily visiting one section or other of the British lines (the French being “out of bounds,” though in later months I found all French officers and men anxious to welcome us). One day when I had been chiefly with the 42nd Division and the 38th Brigade (13th Division) temporarily attached to them for training, I made the following notes among others:
DESCRIPTION OF HELLES
“Starting from W Beach, you struggle through dust clouds, ‘left shoulder up,’ till you find one of the dusty white tracks by which Krithia villagers used to visit the town of Seddel Bahr. One passes through what was lately a garden of wild flowers, fields, vineyards, and scattered olive trees, but is now the desolation which people make and call war. It is a wilderness of mounds and pits and trenches, of heaped-up stores and rows of horses stabled in the open, of tarpaulin dressing-stations behind embankments, of carts and wagons continually on the move, of Indian muleteers continually striving to inculcate human reason into mules. Except for a few surviving trees, hardly a green thing remains. Over all this wilderness a cloud of dust sweeps perpetually, and on the results of war flies multiply with a prosperity unknown to them before.
“Shaded by the largest remaining trees lay the headquarters of the Royal Naval Division, always near the front, always engaged, and hardly enough recognised. Being neither army nor navy, they share the common danger of nondescripts, and people at home do not forget the untrained condition in which they were rushed out to Antwerp. Now war has given them the sternest training, and here they stand, always ready to take a foremost place in the fighting line, singularly clean in dug-out and trench, singularly free from all the common ailments of a war in sun and flying dirt.