Pope's Hill filled the gap between the heads of Monash Gully. It will easily be realized from a glance at a map (it was a thousand times more evident to see) that only for this post and this feature, the Turks would have wrought havoc in our position. An officer of the 1st Battalion took Pope's Hill with a body of about 100 men, composed of various units. In fact, he had under his command men from practically the whole of the 1st Division, whom he had gathered up as they wandered up the gullies looking for their units. He held on until the evening of Sunday, when he was relieved by a composite force, under Lieut.-Colonel Pope, with whose name this dangerous and vital hill has been ever since associated. Under his command Lieut.-Colonel Pope had about a battalion and a half, consisting of a company of the 15th, a company of the Auckland Battalion, and the 16th Battalion, about 400 men in all. In this first conflict the 4th Brigade won its renown, and Colonel Pope his name. This gallant officer had been guided up from the beach by a Staff officer, but the force, small as it was, in the darkness got divided. Part debouched to the south flank and were absorbed in the trenches there; the remainder pushed on firmly and reached the spur, Pope's Hill, and relieved Captain Jacobs, who had all the day been clinging with his little band of 100 men to this desperate position.
It was shortly after these relieving troops arrived that a most curious incident occurred, which showed the cunning tactics of the Turks. Information, originating no one knew where, was passed along the short firing-line from the left that Indian troops were in possession of the ground immediately to the left of the hill at the very head of the gully. It was clearly advisable that the gap which existed between the Australian line and these Indian troops should be closed, as it gave the Turks a free passage-way down the gully, steep as it was, thereby cutting our position in two. Immediately on receipt of the verbal message Lieutenant Easton, 16th Battalion, and Private Lussington, who understood Hindustani, were dispatched, and they soon got in touch with a party of Indians that were entrenched on the side of the hill. The Indians stated that a senior officer was required to discuss matters with their officer, and accordingly Captain R. T. A. M'Donald, the adjutant, was sent forward. He had not gone far—the whole of our line to the Turkish trenches at the very head of the gully where the parley took place was not more than 150 yards—when he called back out of the darkness that the O.C. alone would do to discuss the position with. Colonel Pope went at once, and reaching the northern edge of the gully, found his adjutant and the two men who had been first sent forward talking with a party of six Indians, who had stood with their bayonets fixed. One glance was sufficient to convince the O.C. that these men were not Indians at all. He had suspected that something was wrong when called, and no sooner had he joined the party than he called out a word of warning. The Turks—for such these Indians proved themselves to be in disguise—at once formed round the Australians. Colonel Pope, who was nearest the edge of the gully, with rare courage, broke through the ring and leaped down some 12 feet into the gully below. Shots were fired after him, but he escaped, and, with a severe shaking, reached his lines. The other three men were taken prisoners at once and sent to Constantinople. In the possession of the Adjutant were important documents, plans, and maps, which in this way early fell into the hands of the Turks.
Colonel Pope lost little time in extending his position across the hill that he held. His front covered about 300 yards. He had barely 400 men under his command. From this onward, through the night and succeeding days, every spare moment was spent in improving the trenches on the hill which sloped down into the gully. It was almost a sheer drop at the head of it of 80 feet, and the hillside was covered with loose earth and dense bush. There were snipers on the hill still, in concealed pits, and snipers, too, firing from the opposite side of the gully, where there had been a small Turkish camp. At periods through Monday, on until Tuesday morning, fierce attacks were made against Pope's Hill, but the Turks were repulsed by the steady fire of the defenders of the post. Reinforcements had brought the garrison up to 450 men. But both machine guns of the 16th Battalion were put out of action during Monday, and it was not till Tuesday that these were replaced by guns from the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who were now hurried up as a reserve, as will be explained in a subsequent chapter. On the 30th the 16th Battalion was relieved by the 15th. So began in bloody battle the history of this famous post, some of the still bloodier onslaughts against it remaining to be described, as they occurred, later. The topography and defences of this post and this section of the line must form always a separate chapter in the history of Anzac.
The failure of the Turks to smash the resistance in the first days determined the success of the Australians. Fit as no troops have been, fit for fierce fights, from thence onward the invaders had a contempt for the Turks, and only were anxious that he should attack. In those few early days it is said that the Turks suffered nearly 50,000 casualties at Anzac and Cape Helles. Ours were over 8,000, and the British twice as many again. The enemy left thousands of dead on the battlefield before the trenches. But while they were reorganizing their great attack on Wednesday there was a lull, a curious solemn quiet that spread all along the line, which had ceased to spit and splutter except in a spasmodic way. On Tuesday the commencement of the reorganization of the Australian army was begun. It was completed by Friday. Anzac, after four days' fighting, was established. Australians had won their first battle, had gained, in that first desperate encounter, deathless fame by deeds that have no parallel in history (not even remembering the scaling of the heights of Abraham), and which rank in glory with the imperishable records of the gallant 29th Division and their attack and capture of the Turkish positions at Cape Helles.
CHAPTER XIII
A BATTLE PANORAMA OF GALLIPOLI
This narrative is devoted to the deeds of the Australians, but on that account it must not be judged that the scanty reference to the part played by the British troops indicates that part was but of secondary importance to the Dardanelles operations and the Gallipoli campaign. On the contrary, the position may be best summed up by the words of General Sir Ian Hamilton, who said to me on Imbros one day: "We [the British] have occupied the end of the peninsula, while the Australians are a thorn in the side of the Turks. When the time comes we will press that thorn a little deeper."
Yes, the British had occupied about 4 miles of the toe of the peninsula in those early days, and were slowly pushing the Turkish line back into the Krithia village and on to the great Achi Baba Hill; but to do so the aid of the French had to be called up and the Asia Minor campaign had to be abandoned.
Now, I was fortunate to have been near enough to watch the French and British warships bombarding the Turkish position on Sunday morning, 25th April, on either side of the Straits, and to have seen the hosts of transports creeping from round the shores of the islands. It was only a little Greek trading steamer that I was on, and it impudently pushed its nose into the heart of these stupendous operations. I was on her by design; she was there by accident. The whole of the fleet had lain for days at their anchorage behind Tenedos. I had seen them there, their anchors down, on the very ocean bed where the Greek anchors had rested when they planned their descent on Troy to rescue the beautiful Helen. It was one of those radiant mornings that are so typical of the spring months of the Levant. The sea was almost without a ripple on it. A haze hid the distant headlands as in a shroud and cast a soft, flimsy mantle round the ships. The smoke of battle hung on the shores and round the battle-cruisers. Along the Asiatic coast, opposite the island of Tenedos, was steaming slowly a huge six-funnelled battleship of the French, its guns darting tongues of flame, three or four or six every minute. On shore the French troops were fighting their way inland and pushing back the Turkish field batteries that were answering the warships and shelling the invaders. Then we went on up towards the entrance to the Straits amongst the great liners, on which was more than one high General directing the landing of the finest British troops that the Homeland had ever produced, the 29th Division. They had been the last regular Division available, and General Hamilton had in them the mainstay of his army, the tested stuff, for that difficult landing on four beaches at the Dardanelles entrance. I watched the cruisers come steaming by, and then, signalling, steer for the shore and commence the hurling of shells on the edge of the cliffs and farther inland, where the Turks were still clinging to the battlements round the shores of their peninsula. By dawn the British, as well as the Australian, landing had been effected—at fearful cost certainly, but nevertheless accomplished—and Fusilier regiments had pushed inshore and died on the beach in lines. Their comrades had scaled the cliffs, while the Turks inch by inch, one can write, were driven from their forts, their guns broken by the weeks of bombardment.