Having held the ridge and accomplished the diversion, the Light Horse gradually retired and regained their own trenches. By 4.30 in the afternoon the infantry too had been withdrawn from the advanced position. So not only had the attack been successful in drawing up Turks who would otherwise have gone to the assistance of their comrades hard pressed around Krithia, but they were, through bad leadership, brought up into positions in gullies which our guns had registered, and terrible casualties resulted. Both the Queensland units—Light Horse as well as infantry—had shown fine gallantry, and they were dashingly led by Lieut.-Colonel Harris.
Once having stirred the Turk, it behoved the Australians to be ready for a counter-attack. But Tuesday, 29th, remained still and quiet; only the occasional bursting of a bomb round Quinn's and Pope's Posts and the intermittent crack of rifles, broke the calm of a perfect summer day. To the enemy there had been every indication that a serious advance was contemplated from Anzac. During the afternoon, growing nervous of the close approach of some of our mine tunnels under their trenches, the Turks exploded their countermines, which would effectively seal any advance from underground and through craters. Just afterwards a summer storm arose, which enveloped the Turkish lines in clouds of dust. What better opportunity could have presented itself for our attack? No sooner had the wind driven the dust over the trenches than the enemy commenced a fierce fire, which they maintained without ceasing for two hours. The stream of lead that passed over our trenches was terrific. Only when the storm abated did the Turkish rifle and machine gun fire die away. All of this the enemy did to check an anticipated advance which we had no intention of making. Millions of rounds of Turkish ammunition had been wasted.
But the Turks now determined to turn the situation to their own purpose, which apparently was to draw attention to their lines in this southern section, while they prepared to launch, unexpectedly, an attack from another quarter. The Australian leaders were already aware of this method of surprise, and had come to look on it as part of the Turkish "bluff"; for the enemy had tried it before, when they had blown bugles and shouted orders and given loud commands in their trenches, and nothing had happened—not at that spot. Now the firing ceased just before midnight.
An hour and a half later the enemy began a violent attack on the Nek, with new troops belonging to the 18th Regiment of the enemy's 6th Division. They had come recently from Asia Minor, and were some of the best troops of the Turkish Regular Army. Enver Pasha himself, the Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish forces, had ordered the attack so that the Australians might, once and for all, be "pushed into the sea." In this way began an attempt to rush our trenches at the head of Monash Gully. The line was here held by New Zealanders and Light Horse. On this left flank considerable rearrangement from the earlier days had taken place. The Maories held the extreme left down to the shore. On Russell Top were the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, under Brigadier-General Russell, and the 3rd Light Horse, under Brigadier-General Hughes. These fine men held the trenches opposite the mass of Turkish lines, the Chessboard Trenches. Brigadier General Chauvel's Light Horse Brigade was in the trenches at Quinn's and Pope's, together with some New Zealand infantry regiments. Thus was the gap at the head of Monash Gully up as far as Steel's Post, held.
From midnight till 1.30 an intense fire of musketry and guns was poured on to our trenches on Russell's Top. It was still bright moonlight when, in a series of lines, the Turks commenced to attack at 1.30. They came shambling on, shouting "Allah! Allah!" towards the parapets of our trenches, less than 100 yards across the Nek. At this spot the Light Horsemen had been digging out two saps towards the enemy, and it was into these some of the enemy charged, our troops dividing to allow them to enter. Then the Australians fell on them from either side with bombs, and none escaped. For it was the habit of the Turk when he attacked, not to jump into the trench and come to hand-to-hand encounters if he could help it, but to lie on top of the parapet and fire down into the trench. Very few of the enemy, in these three charges that came and faded away, reached our lines. When the first charge had been so blankly stopped not many yards after it began, the Turks tried to work along the northern edge of the ridge, where the ground fell away steeply into the gullies below, and on the southern side of the Nek, where the ground was no less difficult, but not as deep, sloping down to the head of Monash Gully. Our machine guns wrought fearful havoc, and 400 Turks at least perished in the charges. Then the destroyers sent the rays of their searchlights farther up the hill towards the rounded top of Baby 700, and revealed the enemy reserves advancing. Gun fire destroyed these.
Meanwhile, a further attack was developing down the heads of the gullies on either side of Pope's Hill, the hill that guarded the entrance to the gully, and the centre of the position. I have already told how from the sides of this hill machine guns were trained down into the gully; and how the line of concealed sharp-shooters' posts we had established, gave absolute command, and at the same time protection, to the holders of the gully. The bright rays of the moon aided the defenders, and they could easily detect the stealthily moving figures. Towards one o'clock the Turks commenced to work down this gully. It is related of that fight—an incident typical, no doubt, of many—that a Light Horseman, seeing a Turk silhouetted on the edge of the ridge, rushed at him with his bayonet, and the two men slipped over the edge of the cliff, down through the bush and loose earth, till they both were brought up almost face to face on a ledge. They crossed bayonets—one pictures the two figures in the indefinite light of the moon standing there motionless for a fraction of a minute—till the Australian, realizing that he had in his magazine a cartridge, pulled the trigger. When his comrades came to his assistance, dashing through the undergrowth, they found him with the dead Turk, smiling.
Now, it was evident the Turks had meant to stay in that attack. The few men that did reach the trenches on Russell's Top, and were killed there, must have been men of the second or third lines. They carried large numbers of bombs and digging implements. They had quantities of provisions—figs, dates, and olives—and water-bottles filled. They were evidently intended to be the holding party. As daylight came, some of the enemy still lurked in the head of the gully on either flank of Pope's Hill. Just before dawn a further line of 300 men attempted to rush the head of the gully. They reached the edge of the cliff, and then broke into small parties running this way and that, under the fire of our machine guns, which played on them from the Light Horse lines on Russell's Top (the main charge by this having faded away) and from the side of Pope's Hill. At the same time a few of the enemy left their trenches at Quinn's to rush our post on the side of the hill. None got more than a few yards. All the men of that last desperate attack were killed or wounded. A few were taken prisoners.
The scene next morning was ghastly. In the saps on the Nek twenty and thirty dead Turks lay piled in a row. Before Pope's Hill, never very strongly threatened that night, there were scores of dead. The total loss must have been nearly 600 killed and 2,000 casualties. It is historically important as the last Turkish attack against Anzac proper. The Turks showed a desperate courage; for this attack on the Nek was but sending troops to certain destruction; yet the men never flinched, and they were soon to show the same valour again, in attacks on the higher slopes of the Sari Bair ridge.
Throughout July it was always expected that the enemy's superstition would lead him to make a bold effort in the season of Ramazan—the end of July. Warnings had reached Anzac to this effect. Prisoners had anticipated it, probably due to the orders of Enver Pasha to dislodge at all costs the Australian forces. The enemy had been bringing up new regiments. All through July the Turks showed a nervous disposition to burst out into heavy fusillades all along the line. At night they sent coloured lights over the gullies and our position. Our gunners did the same, at the time when the moon dropped behind the hills of Troy, between midnight and 3 a.m. The troops stood to arms at moonset. Our trenches were then always fully manned. The reserves slept in the saps.