CHAPTER V.
GALLIPOLI.
At this stage it is necessary, in order that the future environment may be fully understood, to give some account of the Gallipoli Peninsula and of the events of the 25th April, 1915, and later.
The Peninsula forms the European side to the Straits of the Dardanelles and is about 53 miles in length. On the north-western side it is washed by the waters of the Gulf of Xeros and on the western side by the Aegean Sea. Near its northern end, at Bulair, it is only two and a half miles across. At Suvla Burnu[G] it broadens out to about 12 miles, but narrows again between Gaba Tepe[H] and Maidos to a bare four miles. Gaba Tepe is about eight miles south of Suvla Burnu and Helles Burnu—the southern end of the Peninsula—13 miles further. Cliffs of marl or sand, rising very abruptly and varying in height from 100 to 300 feet, mark the greater length of the shore. These are broken here and there by the gullies which bring away from the interior the waters of the heavy autumn and winter rains. From Gaba Tepe northwards to Suvla Bay there is an almost uninterrupted stretch of beach from which, opposite the latter feature, a somewhat marshy plain runs back to the foothills of Tekke Tepe.
Groups of hills are marked features of the interior, the most prominent being known as Sari Bair[I] which rises to a height of 971 feet at Koja Chemin Tepe and is the one most familiar to the Australians. These hills possess very steep—even precipitous—slopes which are much excoriated by wind, rain, and frost, and broken into an amazing tangle of gullies and hollows. Firs and stunted oaks, brushwood, oleanders or rhododendrons, and other shrubs are thick wherever they can hold, and form no inconsiderable obstacle—two to four feet high—to anyone's passage.
Before the war a very small part of the land was under cultivation. A few miniature olive and currant orchards, attempts at vineyards, and trifling patches of beans and grain, represented the sole efforts at tillage. There were no railways, and the few roads in existence were in poor condition. In or near what afterwards became the British zone, the only communities were those grouped around the fortifications near Helles and the villages of Krithia, Kurija Dere, Biyuk Anafarta, and Anafarta Sagir. On the side nearer Asia, Maidos, Galata, and Gallipoli boasted the status of towns. Between these last-named points and into the Sea of Marmara the communication and trade were mostly carried on by means of boats.
