This early fighting had won for us a landing-place at Suvla and had cleared the ground to the north of the bay for the deployment for the next attack. This was to be a swinging round of two Brigades to the storm of the hills directly to the east of the Salt Lake. These hills are the island-like double-peaked Chocolate Hill (close to the lake) and the much higher and more important hills of Scimitar Hill (or Hill 70) and Ismail Oglu Tepe (Hill 100) behind it. The Brigade chosen for this attack were the 31st (consisting of Irish Regiments) belonging to the 10th Division, and the 32nd (consisting of Yorkshire and North of England Regiments) belonging to the 11th Division. The 32nd had been hotly engaged since the very early morning, the 31st were only just on shore. The storm was to be pushed from the north, and would, if successful, clear the way for the final thrust, the storm of Koja-Chemen Tepe from the northwest.
This thrust from Suvla against Koja Chemen was designed to complete and make decisive the thrust already begun by the Right and Left Attacking Columns. The attack on Chocolate Hill, Scimitar Hill and Ismail Oglu was to make that thrust possible by destroying forever the power of the Turk to parry it. The Turk could only parry it by firing from those hills on the men making it. It was therefore necessary to seize those hills before the Turk could stop us. If the Turks seized those hills before us, or stopped us from seizing them, our troops could not march from Suvla to take part in the storm of Koja Chemen. If we seized them before the Turks, then the Turks could not stop us from crossing the valley to that storm. The first problem at Suvla therefore was not so much to win a battle as to win a race with the Turks for the possession of those hills; the winning of the battle could be arranged later. Our failure to win that race brought with it our loss of the battle. The next chapter in the story of the battle is simply a description of the losing of a race by loss of time.
Now the giving of praise or blame is always easy, but the understanding of anything is difficult. The understanding of anything so vast, so confused, so full of contradiction, so dependent on little things (themselves changing from minute to minute, the coward of a moment ago blazing out into a hero at the next turn) as a modern battle is more than difficult. But some attempt must be made to understand how it came about that time was lost at Suvla, between the landing, at midnight on the 6th-7th August, and the arrival of the Turks upon the hills, at midnight on the 8th-9th.
In the first place it should be said that the beaches of Suvla are not the beaches of seaside resorts, all pleasant smooth sand and shingle. They are called beaches because they cannot well be called cliffs. They slope into the sea with some abruptness, in pentes of rock and tumbles of sand-dune difficult to land upon from boats. From them, one climbs onto sand-dune, into a sand-dune land, which is like nothing so much as a sea-marsh from which the water has receded. Walking on this soft sand is difficult, it is like walking in feathers; working, hauling and carrying upon it is very difficult. Upon this coast and country, roadless, wharfless, beachless and unimproved, nearly 30,000 men landed in the first ten hours of August 7th. At 10 A.M., on that day, when the sun was in his stride, the difficulty of those beaches began to tell on those upon them. There had been sharp fighting on and near the beaches, and shells were still falling here and there in all the ground which we had won. On and near the beaches there was a congestion of a very hindering kind. With men coming ashore, shells bursting among them, mules landing, biting, kicking, shying and stampeding, guns limbering up and trying to get out into position, more men coming ashore or seeking for the rest of their battalion in a crowd where all battalions looked alike, shouts, orders and counter-orders, ammunition boxes being passed along, water carts and transport being started for the firing line, wounded coming down or being helped down, or being loaded into lighters, doctors trying to clear the way for field dressing stations, with every now and then a shell from Ismail sending the sand in clouds over corpses, wounded men and fatigue parties, and a blinding August sun over all to exhaust and to madden, it was not possible to avoid congestion. This congestion was the first, but not the most fatal cause of the loss of time.
Though the congestion was an evil in itself, its first evil effect was that it made it impossible to pass orders quickly from one part of the beach to another. In this first matter of the attack on the hills, the way had been opened for the assault by 10 A.M. at the latest but to get through the confusion along the beaches (among battalions landing, forming and defiling, and the waste of wounded momentarily increasing) to arrange for the assault and to pass the orders to the battalions named for the duty, took a great deal of time. It was nearly 1 P.M. when the 31st moved north from Lala Baba on their march round the head of the Salt Lake into position for the attack. The 32nd Brigade, having fought since dawn at Hill 10, was already to the north of the Salt Lake, but when (at about 3 P.M.) the 31st took position, facing southeast, with its right on the northeast corner of the Salt Lake, the 32nd was not upon its left ready to advance with it. Instead of that guard upon its left the 31st found a vigorous attack of Turks. More time was lost, waiting for support to reach the left, and before it arrived, word came that the attack upon the hills was to be postponed till after 5 P.M. Seeing the danger of delay and that Chocolate Hill at least should be seized at once, the Brigadier General (Hill) telephoned for supports and covering fire, held off the attack on his left with one battalion, and with the rest of his Brigade started at once to take Chocolate Hill, cost what it might. The men went forward and stormed Chocolate Hill, the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers bearing the brunt of the storm.
At some not specified time, perhaps after this storm, in a general retirement of the Turks, Hill 70, or Scimitar Hill, was abandoned to us, and occupied by an English battalion.
During all this day of the 7th of August all our men suffered acutely from the great heat and from thirst. Several men went raving mad from thirst, others assaulted the water guards, pierced the supply hoses, or swam to the lighters to beg for water. Thirst in great heat is a cruel pain, and this (afflicting some regiments more than others) demoralised some and exhausted all. Efforts were made to send up and to find water; but the distribution system, beginning on a cluttered beach and ending in a rough, unknown country full of confused fighting and firing, without anything like a road, and much of it blazing or smouldering from the scrub fires, broke down, and most of the local wells, when discovered, were filled with corpses put there by the Turk garrison. Some unpolluted wells of drinkable, though brackish water, were found, but most of these were guarded by snipers, who shot at men going to them. Many men were killed thus and many more wounded, for the Turk snipers were good shots, cleverly hidden.
All through the day in the Suvla area, thirst, due to the great heat, was another cause of loss of time in the fulfilment of that part of the tactical scheme; but it was not the final and fatal cause.
Chocolate Hill was taken by our men (now utterly exhausted by thirst and heat) just as darkness fell. They were unable to go on against Ismail Oglu Tepe. They made their dispositions for the night on the line they had won, sent back to the beaches for ammunition, food and water, and tried to forget their thirst. They were in bad case, and still two miles from the Australians below Koja Chemen Tepe. Very late that night word reached them that the Turks were massed in a gulley to their front, that no other enemy reserves were anywhere visible, and that the Turks had withdrawn their guns, fearing that they would be taken next morning. Before dawn on the all-important day of the 8th August, our men at Suvla after a night of thirst and sniping, stood to arms to help out the vital thrust of the battle.
Had time not been lost on the 7th, their task on the 8th would have been to cross the valley at dawn, join the Australians and go with them up the spurs to victory, in a strength which the Turks could not oppose. At dawn on the 8th their path to the valley was still barred by the uncaptured Turk fort on Ismail; time had been lost; there could be no crossing the valley till Ismail was taken. There was still time to take it and cross the valley to the storm, but the sands were falling. Up on Chunuk already the battle had begun without them; no time was lost on Chunuk.