To face p. 144.
After a steep pull up a ridge (on which stood two haystacks) from this beach, the brigade advanced across country to the Krithia road. What country it was to look down on, after the bushy hills and gullies of Anzac! Here was a flowering heath and meadows of corn and poppies and wild flowers. There were orchards and aged olive-trees and some farmers' huts and houses in the distance; while cattle grazed in sheltered hollows. It was undulating country, resembling a hollow plain, of miles in extent, and especially flat-looking to the Australians, fresh from Anzac's rugged hills. Grim, but not very forbidding, stood the smoothly rounded hill of Achi Baba—Tree Hill—barring the advance up the peninsula, a long arm stretching down to each shore. Shells from the warships were plastering the face of it as the brigade advanced. Dense clouds of white shrapnel were bursting over the Turkish trenches which lay round the long, rolling slopes that ended at the village of Krithia on the left (the west), and which ran out to the Dardanelles on the east, falling away into steep gullies on the seashore.
The bivouac chosen for the brigade was about a mile from the landing and on the west of the road that led direct into the distant village. Here, as in every line, the troops might rest in some comfort, though not safety; for besides the shells from Achi Baba batteries there were guns firing from the Asiatic shore. Nothing remained but to again dig and dig in for one's life. However, here a new difficulty was encountered, for water was struck when the trenches were sunk about 18 inches, and that is why in so many trenches there were such high parapets. It was the only means of getting sufficient protection. If one thing at this time and under the particularly trying conditions heartened the troops more than another, it was to hear, and watch, the French "75" batteries sending fourteen shells to the minute to the Turkish trenches. Moreover, Australian batteries—a whole brigade, in fact, under Colonel Christian—were discovered entrenched beside the French guns in the very centre of the peninsula, and the troops knew that, in any attack, they would have their own guns to support them. No sooner had they halted than they started to prepare their meal, and were laughing, singing, and joking. They felt a certain security even in the face of the foe.
That afternoon, the 6th May, the Brigadier (Colonel M'Cay) and his Brigade Staff (Major Cass and Captain Walstab) moved forward to a stony rise, occupied by the gunners as an observation station, and from there they looked down over the whole of the ground undulating away to Achi Baba, 4 miles distant. The country was, I have said, flat. It was not a plain, strictly speaking, for there were small depressions and dry creek beds that would be sufficient to protect a great number of troops when the time came for advance. The southern slopes of the big hill were intersected by many ravines, which in wet weather formed the head-waters of the three deres or gullies that flowed south down the peninsula—the Kereves Dere (the great gully) and Maltepe Dere and Kanli Dere. This divided the peninsula into three ridges, which ran parallel with one another in a northerly and southerly direction. On the eastern slopes, facing the Straits, these deres were particularly rugged and often precipitous. There still remained portions of a telegraph line across a ridge on the right going north-east from Seddul Bahr; it had been the scene of heavy fighting, in which the French made many gallant charges to take what has been called the "Haricot," a formidable redoubt placed on the crest of a hill, and which had held up the French advance for many previous days and cost many lives to finally capture.
To realize how any advance across such open country could be accomplished, it is necessary to explain that the guns on the peninsula were placed in a great semicircle, starting from the northern slopes of Morto Bay, where the French guns, hidden behind the grape-vines and clustered corn and hedges, lay. In the valley, between the low hills through which the Krithia road runs, were some British 60-pounders, and on the southern slopes of a hill in the centre of the peninsula British and Australian 18-pounders were firing. Hidden amongst some trees was a heavy British battery, and in the Kanli Valley were other guns.
The French firing-line extended along in front of their batteries for about 1,000 yards, and adjoining them on the left was the Naval Division. Next to their left flank was the 29th Division. It was the New Zealand and Australian Brigade and General Cox's Indian Brigade that formed a composite Division held in reserve to the 29th.
It must be here explained of this composite Division that in the first day's fighting the Australians took no part. The New Zealanders were called into action to support the 29th Division, and suffered heavy casualties. But to give the true significance to the share of the Australians in the grand offensive during the early days in May, the early stages of the battle that began on the morning of the 6th at eleven o'clock and continued for three days, need describing. The artillery duels of those days were terrific in the extreme, and the whole of the battle lines were violently swept with shell. The configuration of the country was such that the hills on the extreme end of the peninsula gave a grand-stand view, and the Staffs of the Army Corps operating could be seen on these points watching the armies moving forward into action. It has been described as "a Melton Prior battlefield," where you saw each unit going into action. Such an offensive was only possible on account of the comparative weakness of the Turkish trenches, a defect which they lost no time in rectifying later on, when a period of sullenness set in. For the Turk has, in this campaign at least, proved himself to be a most industrious, even colossal, digger of trenches and a fine trench fighter, however poor he shows himself to be in open combat.
A general advance was the order on the 6th. The French "75" batteries, with their sharp bark, began fiercely to smash the enemy trenches, concentrating fire on the "Haricot" and the Kereves Dere, and the valleys beyond that contained Turkish supports. The Krithia village was shelled by the heavy British guns, aeroplanes spotting. French and British battleships had moved up on the flanks and were pouring a terrible enfilade fire on the Turks and covering the slopes of Achi Baba with sheets of flame as the shells burst along the position. It was in vain that the Turkish batteries, prodigal with their ammunition, tried to silence our guns, carefully concealed, and in the absence of aeroplanes, which the Turks did not seem to possess at that time or were afraid to send into the air, the British and French gunners went on without interruption, except for chance disabling shots which put a gun or two out of action.
As the French and British lines advanced there came the roar of musketry and the rattle of machine guns to add to the already terrific din. The British maintained their advance, though the machine guns in the thick scrub could not be located, while the French swept on, gaining the "Haricot," then losing it. All this battle panorama was rapidly passing before the eyes of the leaders of the Australian troops, who were waiting their turn to charge and take their part in the battle. Soon the French were forced to retire to the trenches they had lately left, much to the chagrin of all, though the British troops held their gain of about 1,000 yards, while the Naval Division had gone forward about 700 yards in the centre. The 29th also advanced nearly 1,000 yards on the left, near the Ægean shore. This line they entrenched during the night. It was a very bent line, with the French farthest in the rear. The Turks were too exhausted to attempt any counter-attack, and so the line stood till the morning of the 7th. Then a further advance was made at 10.30, the guns blazing the way and plastering the slopes of Achi Baba for the infantry to advance. As on the previous day, the Australian officers watched the fighting from a position which overlooked the battle-front of 4 miles, subjected only to an occasional whizzing bullet and a stray shell.
This was a curious battlefield for modern warfare, where most of the fighting is underground. Imagine an area of about 5 square miles. The valley road was the main transport route, despite the fact that the enemy overlooked and commanded it. On the west side were the red and pink farms, hidden by a copse of fir-trees. The French at this time had placed their headquarters in one of these houses. With a start of surprise one saw their Staff moving along, with orderlies, mounted messengers, and signallers, all beautifully mounted, riding right up to within half a mile of the firing-line down this valley, through the shot and shell. Along the road rumbled the French ammunition-wagons, the caissons, turning east to Morto Bay, bearing supplies to the batteries there. The French gunners got their supplies by day and the British, who were more exposed, by night; and so the traffic on the roads was regulated, otherwise the congestion would have been terrible. A motor-cyclist, with the latest word from the battlefield, would ride at breakneck speed through the traffic, and, once past the mules, plodding stolidly along, would travel at 50 or 60 miles an hour for the short stretch until he dipped out of sight behind the last ridge on the peninsula. Dust rose constantly in dense clouds. I remember looking at these clouds as the armoured cars on another occasion swept forward, and wondered that the Turks did not shell them, which eventually they did; but during these days they directed all their energies to searching for the guns and plastering the slopes of the Seddul Bahr ridges and the clumps of trees scattered over the peninsula, where it seemed obvious our artillery might be concealed.