For seven hours these counter-attacks continued. All this time consolidation was being attempted, although the presence of so many Turkish prisoners hampered movement and constituted an actual danger. In beating off these desperate counter-attacks very heavy casualties were suffered by the Australians. Part of the 12th Battalion, the reserve of the 3rd Brigade, had therefore to be thrown into the mêlée.
Twelve hours later, on the 7th, another effort was made by the enemy, being resumed at midnight and proceeding intermittently till dawn. At an early period of this last counter-attack the 4th Battalion were forced by bombs to relinquish a portion of a trench, but later on, led by their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel McNaghten, they killed every Turk who had got in.
At 5 A.M. on August 9, the enemy made a sudden attempt to storm from the east and south-east after a feint of fire attack from the north. The 7th Battalion bore the brunt of the shock, and handled the attack so vigorously that by 7.45 A.M. there were clear signs of demoralisation in the enemy’s ranks. But although this marked the end of counter-attacks on the large scale, the bombing and sniping continued, though in less volume, throughout this day and night, and lasted till August 12, when it at last became manifest that we had gained complete ascendancy.
Thus was Lone Pine taken and held. The Turks were in great force and very full of fight, yet one weak Australian brigade, numbering at the outset but 2,000 rifles, and supported only by two weak battalions, carried the work under the eyes of a whole enemy division. The irresistible dash and daring of officers and men in the initial charge were a glory to Australia. In one corner eight Turks and six Australians were found lying as they had bayoneted one another. To make room for the fighting men, the dead were ranged in rows on either side of the gangway. After the first violence of the counter-attacks had abated, 1,000 corpses—our own and Turkish—were dragged out from the trenches.
The Lone Pine attack drew all the local enemy reserves towards it, and may be held, more than any other cause, to have been the reason that the Suvla Bay landing was so lightly opposed. Our captures in this feat of arms amounted to 134 prisoners, seven machine-guns, and a large quantity of ammunition and equipment.
The Nek, Baby 700 and German Officer’s Trench Attacked
Other frontal attacks from the existing Anzac positions were not so fortunate. They included an attack upon the work known as German Officer’s Trench, on the extreme right of our line, at midnight on August 6-7, also assaults on the Nek and Baby 700 trenches opposite the centre of our line, delivered at 4.30 A.M. on the 7th. The 2nd Australian Brigade did all that men could do; the Light Horse only accepted their repulse after losing three-fourths of that devoted band who so bravely sallied forth. All that day, as the result of these most gallant attacks, Turkish reserves on Battleship Hill were being held back to meet any dangerous development along the front of the old Anzac line, and so were not available to meet our main enterprise, which I will now endeavour to describe.
The Main Push