Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2

by Ian Hamilton

On 29th May I left G.H.Q. on appointment as Brigadier-General to command all the artillery at Cape Helles, in which capacity I served till September, i.e. through all the big attacks and counter-attacks of June, July and August. In this capacity I was brought face to face with all the deficiencies in artillery matériel and ammunition, of which the following were the most important.

Although there was only one Battery of 4.5 and one Battery of 6-in. howitzers at Helles there was always an extreme deficiency of howitzer H.E. ammunition. So great was the shortage that immediately on taking up my command I found it necessary to issue a most stringent order that no howitzer on Cape Helles was ever to fire H.E. without my personal authority. When the Turks attacked, 18-prs. and 15-prs. were to support the Infantry with shrapnel; howitzers were only to be used with my personal permission and then were only to fire shrapnel. All howitzer H.E. was to be used exclusively for supporting British attacks by bombarding the Turkish trenches before and during such activities. Throughout the above months, constant appeals were made to me by Infantry Commanders to bombard the Turkish trenches with H.E. in order to retaliate for the loss our men had suffered from the Turkish guns using H.E. Such requests I had invariably to refuse.

There were fifty-six 18-prs. at Helles, when I assumed command on the 29th May, and subsequently they were increased to seventy-two at the end of July. Except for 640 rounds of H.E., which was fired off during the 4th June battle, no more H.E. arrived till the end of July.

Never during my command did the total number of rounds of 18-pr. ammunition at Helles ever reach 25,000. Before one of our attacks, with very careful previous husbanding, the total used perhaps to reach 19,000 to 23,000. The total amount I could therefore allot justifiably for the artillery preparation before an attack of our four British Infantry Divisions never exceeded 12,000 rounds; as from 6,000 to 7,000 must necessarily be kept in reserve to assist in beating off the determined hostile counter-attacks. As I remarked at the beginning of this paper, artillery ammunition was a constant anxiety to the higher commanders on the Western Front also, but never, I believe, had Infantry to attack with so little artillery support as the above. My position in France did not give me any inside knowledge of the details of artillery supply, but in one action at St. Eloi (near Ypres) on 14th or 15th February, in which only 27th Division was concerned, the artillery of this Division (so the C.R.A. informed me) alone fired 10,000 18-pr. rounds in one night. At a similar action at the same place by the same division about a month later the divisional artillery fired, I believe, a slightly larger amount. Again, at Neuve Chapelle, in February, 1915, each Division had its own divisional artillery and the ammunition expenditure worked out to 150 rounds per 18-pr. gun. These official figures were shown me a few days after the battle by the G.O.C., 2nd Army.

In comparing the ammunition expenditure of France in 1915 and in the Dardanelles, the enormous discrepancy in the number of 18-prs. per Division must be taken into account. Reckoning on the scale of the number of 18-prs. allotted to a British Division in France, we had at Helles little more than sufficient 18-prs. for one Division, yet with this number we had to give artillery support to four Divisions. As to the French artillery at Helles, they could always reckon on being able to expend 40,000 to 45,000 rounds when their two Divisions attacked.

The complete absence of H.E. was severely felt, as shrapnel were of little use for destroying trenches, machine gun emplacements, etc. Therefore, in each and every British attack, success was jeopardized and our infantry exposed to cruel losses, because, firstly, there was not sufficient ammunition to prepare their attack, and, secondly, there was no H.E. (except for howitzers) to destroy the machine guns in their emplacements. The latter, therefore, inflicted great losses on our Infantry in their advance.

Our unfortunate position did not escape the notice of the French, who used at times generously to place under my command some of their field guns and howitzers, but in the latter they were also lamentably deficient, and in ammunition they were, themselves, during May and early June, none too well provided, although towards July their reserves grew more sufficient. The British deficiency in ammunition, however, was so great, and created so much merriment among the French that they christened the British Artillery, "Un coup par pièce"; with which term of endearment I was always personally greeted by the French Artillery General and his Staff, with all of whom I was great friends.

At the battle of 28th June the French were unable to spare us the howitzers or ammunition we begged of them. The failure of the gallant 156th Brigade of the 52nd Division to take the H.12 trenches was essentially due to lack of artillery ammunition, especially of H.E. Allowing for losses that must have been suffered under any condition, I believe that some 700 or 800 Scottish casualties were due to this cause. Before the action the Corps Commander sent for me to say that he did not consider that enough guns and ammunition had been allotted to this portion of the Turkish trenches. I replied that I agreed, but that there were no more available and that to reduce the bombardment of the hostile trenches on the left of our front would gravely prejudice the success of the 29th Division in that quarter and that I understood success there was more vital than on our right flank. After consultation with the G.O.C. 29th Division, the Corps Commander agreed with my allotment of the artillery. We then did our utmost to obtain the loan of more guns, howitzers or ammunition from the French without success and with the result that the attack was beaten off.

So successful had been the attack on our left with its capture of five successive lines of Turkish trenches that we had actually some ammunition to spare. In the afternoon it was agreed that there should be another attack on H.12, preceded by a very short but very intense bombardment from every gun and howitzer we possessed. All artillery arrangements for this were completed before 2.30 p.m., from which hour all the guns waited alert and ready for the Infantry to inform us of the hour they wished us to commence fire. I was in direct telephonic communication with the commander of the 52nd Division, having had a private wire laid on to his Headquarters the previous day. Suddenly, to my horror, I received a telephone message from my Artillery Group Commander, Colonel Stockdale, saying the Infantry were making the assault and that he had no time to do more than fire half a dozen shots!

In the attacks of 12th and 13th July, the French placed some thirty or forty guns and howitzers under British command, and on account of the shortage of British ammunition their guns undertook the whole of the artillery preparation, our artillery confining itself to covering fire during and after the Infantry advance. The counter-attacks were so violent and the calls for artillery support were so incessant that towards the afternoon of the 13th July the British gun ammunition began to get alarmingly low, until finally only about 5,000 rounds of 18-pr. ammunition, including all rounds in Battery charge, remained at Helles. The French were reluctant to supply further artillery support, fearing further attacks on themselves. This was the most anxious night I spent on the Peninsula—all but a limited number of rounds were withdrawn from most Batteries and were placed in horsed ammunition wagons, which perambulated from one side of the British position to the other according to where it seemed most likely the next Turkish attack would take place. These measures were successful and no Battery actually was left without one round at a critical moment, but the position throughout that night was a most dangerous one. Every hour a wire was sent to G.H.Q. giving expression to our crying needs, but there was next to nothing at Mudros, while desperate fighting still went on without a minute's respite. At 11 p.m. that night a trawler did, to the joy of every gunner, reach Helles with 3,000 rounds of 18-pr., but on the arrival of my Staff Officer to unload it, it was found that the fuses were of a new pattern never issued before and that the existing fuse keys would not adjust the fuses. As no new pattern fuse keys had been sent from home the Batteries had to manufacture their own, which was successfully accomplished after two days' delay.