The vital movement to extend the Anzac position, connecting it with Suvla Bay, enveloping and taking of the summit of the mass of hills that dominated the central part of the peninsula and the Narrows, was entrusted to the care of General Sir William Birdwood. He had prefaced it with the offensive from Anzac proper. Now, under Major-General Sir Alexander Godley, the attempt to sweep up the northern slopes was to be carried out by a mixed force of Australians, New Zealanders, British, and Indians, numbering in all some 12,000 men.
The complete capture of the Sari Bair ridge would have brought into action again the 1st Australian Division, whose left wing at Anzac might have been relied on to advance over Baby 700 and up to Battleship Hill. What is too often overlooked, or forgotten, is that the capture of the great Hill 971 was a separate operation, though a natural corollary to the holding of the ridge, as a deep ravine separated this peak from the Sari Bair ridge. From Hill 971 the northern slopes (called the Abdel Rahman Bair), ran back within a mile to the Bijuk Anafarta village. It was separated from the foothills that fell away to the sea by the Asma Dere. Therefore a column, it was hoped (of the British troops and the 4th Australian Brigade), would make good this ridge and advance alongside it to the main peak. The operations, owing to the nature of the ground, fell into two stages. The first was the advance over the foothills to the Sari Bair ridge, the landing at Suvla Bay and first advance. The second stage was the united effort to take the hill and main ridge. To foretell the conclusion—now alas, passed into history as a splendid failure—the second stage was only partly possible, because on the right, from the direction of Suvla Bay, the British attack never developed; that is to say, it never reached even the foot of the Abdel Rahman Bair.
I have been in the heart of all that mass and tangle of hills and ravines. The country resembled, on a less grand scale, that of the Buffalo Ranges of Victoria, or the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. It might be ideal bushranging country, but the worst possible for an army fighting its way forward to the heights; gullies and precipices barred the way. Even with expert guides, and maps compiled by the Turks themselves, which we captured and had copied, there were many battalions that lost their way, and only by dogged perseverance and extraordinary pluck did they extricate themselves and reach points of vantage from which they could link up their positions. I say this of all forces engaged, because I know that many miscalculations occurred even after three days of fighting as to the exact gullies in which the troops were that had linked up with the units holding "The Farm" and Rhododendron Ridge. Gullies were cut by creeks, hills divided by spurs. Into this tangle was first hurled an army of 12,000 men—mostly fine bushmen, it is true, used either to the gum forest of Australia and its wide expanses, or to the jungles of the tropics.
General Hamilton had accepted General Birdwood's plans, that there should be two covering columns to reach the two ridges that met at the Hill 971, almost at right angles (Sari Bair, running from west to east, and Abdel Rahman Bair, running nearly due north and south), and two assaulting columns to capture the positions.
General Hamilton sets forth the plan thus:—
The right covering force was to seize Table Top, as well as all other enemy positions commanding the foothills between the Chailak Dere and the Sazli Beit Dere ravines. If this enterprise succeeded, it would open up, at the same time interposing between, the right flank of the left covering force and the enemy holding the Sari Bair main ridge. This column was under Brigadier-General A. H. Russell, who had the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, the Otago Mounted Rifles Regiment, Colonel A. Bauchop; the Maori Contingent and New Zealand Field Troop.
The left covering force was to march northwards along the beach to seize a hill called Damakjelik Bair, some 1,400 yards north of Table Top. If successful, it would be able to hold out a hand to the 9th Corps as it landed south of Nibrunesi Point, whilst at the same time protecting the left flank of the left assaulting column against enemy troops from the Anafarta Valley during its climb up the Aghyl Dere ravine. Brigadier-General J. H. Travers commanded the column which consisted of headquarters 40th Brigade, half the 72nd Field Company, 4th Battalion South Wales Borderers, and 5th Battalion Wiltshire Regiment.
The right assaulting column was to move up the Chailak Dere and Sazli Beit Dere ravines to the storm of the ridge of Chunuk Bair.
The column was under Brigadier-General F. E. Johnston, commanding New Zealand Infantry Brigade, Indian Mountain Battery (less one section), one company New Zealand Engineers.