The Story of the Great War, Volume 3 / History of the European War from Official Sources

by Unknown

Along the rest of the British front the attack of the Turks was not serious. Instead they concentrated on the left of the French line, held by a Senegalese brigade. After several attacks the African troops began to give way. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the two companies of the Worcesters moved across from the British right and saved the day. Some hours later, the extreme French right was hard pressed, and it was necessary to bring up a battalion of the Royal Naval Division from the reserves to strengthen it.

The following morning, the allied troops moved out of their trenches in a counterattack. It at first met with great success. As Sir Ian Hamilton wrote in his dispatch to London: "Had it not been for those inventions of the devil—machine guns and barbed wire—which suit the Turkish character and tactics to perfection, we should not have stopped short of the crest of Achi Baba."

By 7.30 in the morning the British left had advanced more than 500 yards, while the center and the right and the French left had also registered promising advances. The rest of the French line, however, was held up by strong Turkish forces posted along the Kereves Dere and the more advanced sections of the British left came under heavy cross-fire. In the end it was necessary to relinquish all the ground gained and to retire to the original trenches.

Although the Turks made night attacks against the French line on May 2 and 3, 1915, and in the end inflicted such heavy losses that it was necessary to shorten the line held by General d'Amade's troops, it was not until May 6, 1915, that heavy fighting occurred again along the whole line. On May 5 the Lancashire Fusilier Brigade of the East Lancashire Territorial Division, which had been training in Egypt, arrived and was placed in reserve, behind the British left.

At this time it was calculated that the British total losses, killed, wounded and missing since the initial operations of the landing, had been just short of 14,000 men. This of course did not include the sick who must have numbered 10,000 or the French losses, which were not revealed. These were heavy and serious and more than counterbalanced the reenforcements that had arrived.

Sir Ian Hamilton decided to make a fresh attempt against Krithia and Achi Baba on May 6, 1915. This battle was important because it marked the turning point in the character of the campaign carried on by the allied troops in Gallipoli. Although an advance was registered none of the main positions of the Ottoman troops were carried or even reached, and it became apparent that the task of reducing the Dardanelles was not one likely to be solved by rush frontal attacks. Rather, as in other fields of the world war, the problem became one of siege tactics, and from the date of the end of this second battle of Krithia the operations in Gallipoli resolved themselves into variations of the methods that were being forced upon the troops of all the belligerent countries in Europe.

For his grand attack upon Krithia and Achi Baba, Sir Ian Hamilton brought down from Anzac Cove the Second Australian Infantry Brigade and the New Zealand Brigade. With two brigades of the Royal Naval Reserve he formed them into a reserve division. The Twenty-ninth Division held the British line, and was ordered forward about 11 a. m. of May 6, 1915, with orders to go as far as Krithia if possible, but at all events to seize as much of the ground around that point as possible. At the same time the French corps were to attempt to wrest from the Turks the crest above the Kereves Dere.

The advance was extremely slow. At the end of two hours the Twenty-ninth Division had progressed less than three hundred yards and had not yet come into touch with any of the main Turkish positions. Three hours more of desperate fighting showed many fluctuations but no more progress. Finally they were ordered to intrench where they were for the night.

The French had succeeded in reaching the crest aimed at, but found it by no means a comfortable position. They could not go forward and they dared not go back. Yet they were subject to a raking fire that cost them hundreds of casualties. Time and time again the Senegalese troops were sent against the Turkish trenches and machine gun positions, but each time they were beaten back with cruel losses. To make matters even worse, the French could not, in the heavy fire maintained by the Turks, intrench until after nightfall, and they had to spend hours in the exposed position.