Gallipoli Diary Volume II Part 10

"De Lisle has at his disposal the Xth Division, less one brigade, the XIth, LIIIrd and LIVth Divisions; total rifles, owing to casualties, under 30,000. The Suvla losses have been too severe considering extent and nature of the fighting that has taken place, and can only be attributed to the inexperience of the troops and their leaders, and the daring way in which the enemy skirmishers presumed upon it in the broken and wooded country. Birdwood has lost about 13,000 since the action began, and has now available some 25,000 rifles. The VIIIth Corps has 23,000 rifles, and the French 17,000 rifles.

"The Turks have continued to be most active in the South, no doubt with the object of preventing us moving troops, but apparently they have now no more than 35,000 in this zone. The majority of the enemy Commander's troops are against Anzac and in reserve in the valley between Hills 305 and 261, his strategic flank.

"In the Northern zone, in the fighting line at Suvla and Anzac and in reserve he may now have in all 75,000, and can either reinforce Hill 305 or issue through the gap between the two Anafartas to oppose any attack on Ismail Oglu Tepe or on the ridge running thence to Anafarta Sagir. He has guns on Hill 305, on Ismail Oglu Tepe, and on the ridge North of Anafarta Sagir from which he can sh.e.l.l landing places at Suvla Bay, but is not holding the latter ridge in strength, nor do I think he has enough troops to enable him to do so.

"The position regarding the Turkish reinforcements from Keshan is not clear. Only small parties have been located by aeroplanes marching South, and it appears that either this information was incorrect or that the enemy's forces had already got as far as the peninsula before fighting began.

"I consider it urgently necessary to seize Ismail Oglu Tepe and Anafarta Sagir at the earliest possible moment, and I have ordered de Lisle to make the attempt at the earliest opportunity. I have also ordered Birdwood to make a fresh attack on Hill 305 as soon as troops are reorganized and the difficulties of water supply solved, but for this he will require drafts and fresh troops. I have great hopes that these attacks may yet be successful, but it is impossible to disguise the fact that owing to the failure of the IXth Corps to take advantage of opportunities and the fact that surprise may now be absent, and that the enemy is prepared and in much greater strength, my difficulties are enormously increased. In any case my cadres will be so depleted as a result of action that I shall need large reinforcements to enable me to bring the operations to a happy conclusion.

"The Turkish losses have been heavier than ours, and the total number of prisoners taken is 702, but I estimate that they have now in the peninsula at least 110,000 rifles to my 95,000 and they have all the advantage of position. They have, apparently, all the ammunition they need and obtain reinforcements as they are wanted. In particular, we have had no news of the arrival of the 45,000 troops reported to be at Keshan, and only one of the Asiatic Divisions has as yet come over. I had hoped that their reinforcements would be of poor quality and not a match for ours but this is not the case, and unfortunately the Turks have temporarily gained the moral ascendency over some of our new troops. If, therefore, this campaign is to be brought to an early and successful conclusion large reinforcements will have to be sent to me--drafts for the formations already here, and new formations with considerably reduced proportion of artillery. It has become a question of who can slog longest and hardest.

"Owing to the difficulty of carrying on a winter campaign, and the lateness of the season, these troops should be sent immediately. My British Divisions are at present 45,000 under establishment, exclusive of about 9,000 promised or on the way. If this deficit were made up, and new formations totalling 50,000 rifles sent out as well, these, with the 60,000 rifles which I estimate I shall have at the time of their arrival, should give me the necessary superiority, unless the absence of other enemies allows the Turks to bring up large additional reinforcements.

"I hope you will realize how nearly this operation was a success complete beyond antic.i.p.ation. The surprise was complete, and the army was thrown ash.o.r.e in record time, practically without loss, and a little more push on the part of the IXth Corps would have relieved the pressure on Anzac, facilitated the retention of Chunuk Bair, secured Suvla Bay as a port, and threatened the enemy's right in a way that should have enabled Anzac to turn a success into a great victory.

"We are up against the Turkish Army which is well commanded and fighting bravely."

After all's said and done the troops at h.e.l.les and Anzac are still perfectly game and we have got nearer our goal. We started forth to:--

(1) Seize Suvla Bay;

(2) Break out of Anzac and join on to Suvla;

(3) Seize Sari Bair crestline;

(4) Hold enough of the hinterland of Suvla Bay to make it a comfortable harbour.

(1) and (2) we have carried through handsomely. We have trebled our holding at Anzac and we have put Suvla Bay in our pocket. (3) we have not done; we are short of it by a couple of hundred yards; (4) we have not done; it is a practicable harbour but subject certainly to annoyance. In honest, gambler's language, we have won a good stake but we have not broke the Ottoman Bank.

De Lisle reports confusion throughout Suvla Bay area. He _must_ have three or four days to pull the troops together before he organizes a fresh offensive. The IXth Corps has been _un corps sans tete_.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: Hankey belonged to the Royal Marine Artillery.--IAN H., 1920.]

[Footnote 10: See Appendix IV containing actual letter of instructions.--IAN H., 1920.]

CHAPTER XVII

THE LAST BATTLE

_18th August, 1915. Imbros._ Freddie and I left in the _Arno_ this morning; Braithwaite and his boy Val came with us. We sailed for Suvla _via_ Anzac and held a meeting which was nearer a Council of War than anything up to date. Dawnay, Deedes and Beadon stood by; so did Generals Skeen, Hammersley and Peyton. Reed, C.G.S., IXth Corps, was also present. The discussion of the steps to be taken within the next two or three days lasted an hour and a half. Every one who spoke had studied the data and the ground and there was no divergence of view, which was a comfort. Our attack will have as its objective the seizure of a foothold on the high ground. Anzacs will co-operate. As I explained to the Generals, we hardly dare hope to make a clean break through till drafts and fresh munitions arrive as the Turks now have had too long to dig in.

But if we can seize and keep a point upon the watershed (however small) from which we can observe the drop of our sh.e.l.l, we can knock out the landing places of the Turks. At the end, I told them I had asked for 95,000 fresh rifles, 50,000 in new formations, 45,000 to bring my skeleton units up to strength, adding, that if I was refused that help then I felt Government had better get someone cleverer than myself to put their Fleet into the Marmora. The Generals seemed satisfied with my demands and sympathetic towards my personal att.i.tude.

As to the coming attack, the tone of the Conference was hopeful. They agreed that the nut was hard for our enfeebled forces to crack, but they seemed to think that if we were once to get the enemy on the run, with the old 29th Division and the new, keen Yeomanry on their heels, we might yet go further than we expected. One Brigade of the 29th Division has been brought round from h.e.l.les to put shape and form into the 53rd Division. Peyton's men are to be attached to the Irish Division. There is a new spirit of energy and hope in the higher ranks but the men have meanwhile been aimlessly marched and counter-marched, muddled, and knocked about so that their spirit has suffered in consequence.

No end of Yeomen on the beaches; the cream of agricultural England. Many of them recognized me from my various home inspections. Would like very much to have had a war inspection, but the enemy gunners are too inquisitive.

De Lisle tells me he has now been round every corner of Suvla and that the want of grip throughout the higher command has been worse than he dared to put on paper. To reorganize will take several weeks; but we have to try and act within two or three days.

Skeen told us that when the Turks stuck up a placard saying Warsaw had fallen, the Australians gave three hearty cheers.

The chief trouble in making plans for the coming attack lies in the want of cover on, and for a mile inland of, the Suvla Bay beaches. The whole stretch of the flat land immediately East and South of the Bay lies open to the Turkish gunners. This is no longer a serious drawback if the men are holding lines of trenches. But when the trench system is not yet in working order, and they want to deploy, then it is so awkward a factor that I would have been prepared to turn the whole battle into a night attack. The others were not for it. They thought that the troops were not highly enough trained and had lost too many officers to be able to find their way over this country in the darkness. They are in immediate touch with the men: I am not.

Lindley asked if he might walk with me to the Beach, and on the way down he told me frankly his Division had gone to pieces and that he did not feel it in himself to pull it together again. Very fine of him to make a clean breast of it, I thought, and said so: also advised him to put what he had told me into writing to de Lisle, when we will relieve him and I promised for my part, to try and fit him with some honourable but less onerous job.

On Hammersley's report, Sitwell, Brigadier of the 34th Brigade, 11th Division, has just been relieved of his command.

_19th August, 1915. Imbros._ Sat sweating here, literally and metaphorically, from morn till dewy eve. King's Messenger left in the evening. Altham came over from Mudros. He stays to-night and we will work together to-morrow when the mails are off my mind.

Hankey dined and left with the King's Messenger by the _Imogene_. He has been a real help. The Staff has never quite cottoned to the chief among us takin' notes, but that is, I think, from a notion that it is not loyal to Lord K. to press the P.M.'s P.S. too closely to their bosom.

From my personal standpoint, it will be worth anything to us if, amidst the flood of false gossip pouring out by this very mail to our Dardanelles Committee, to the Press, to Egypt and to London Drawing Rooms, we have sticking up out of it, even one little rock in the shape of an eye-witness.

A shocking aeroplane smash up within a few yards of us. A brilliant young Officer (Captain Collet of the R.F.C.) killed outright and three men badly hurt.

_20th August, 1915._ Stayed in my tent keeping an eye on to-morrow. Put through a lot with Altham. Am pressing him to hurry up with his canteens at h.e.l.les, Anzac and Suvla. In May I cabled the Q.M.G. begging him either to let me run a canteen on the lines of the South African Field Force Canteen, myself; or, to run it from home, himself; or, to put the business into the hands of some private firm like the Mess and Canteen Company, or Lipton's, or Harrods or anything he liked. In South Africa we could often buy something. In France our troops can buy anything.

Here, had they each the purse of Fortunatus, they could buy nothing. A matter this, I won't say of life and death, but of sickness and health.

Now, after three months without change of diet, the first canteen s.h.i.+p is about due. A mere flea bite of 10,000 worth. I am sending the whole of it to the Anzacs to whom it will hardly be more use than a bun is to a she bear. Only yesterday a letter came in from Birdie telling me that the doctors all say that the sameness of the food is making the men sick. The rations are A.1., but his men now loathe the very look of them after having had nothing else for three months. Birdie says, "If we could only get this wretched canteen s.h.i.+p along, and if, when she comes she contains anything like condiments to let them buy freely from her, I believe it would make all the difference in the world. But the fact remains that at present we cannot count on anything like a big effort from the men who have been here all these months."

De Robeck came over at 4 p.m., by formal appointment, to talk business, and deadly serious business at that! He has heard, by cable I suppose, that the people at home will see him through if he sees his way to strike a blow with the Fleet. He takes this as a pretty strong hint to push through, or, to make some sort of a battles.h.i.+p attack to support us. De Robeck knows that when the Fleet goes in our fighting strength goes up. But he can gauge, as I cannot, the dangers the Fleet will thereby incur. Every personal motive urges me to urge him on. But I have no right to shove my oar in--no right at all--until I can say that we are done unless the Fleet do make an attack. Can I say so? No; if we get the drafts and munitions we can still open the Straits on our own and without calling on the sister Service for further sacrifice. So I fell back on first principles and said he must attack if he thought it right from the naval point of view but that we soldiers did not call for succour or ask him to do anything desperate: "You know how we stand," I said; "do what is right from the naval point of view and as to what _is_ right from that point of view, I am no judge."

The Admiral went away: I have been no help to him but I can't help it.

Hardly had he gone when Braithwaite (who had heard what was in the wind by a side wind) came and besought me to try and induce the Admiral to slip his battles.h.i.+ps at the Straits. All the younger men of war are dying to have a dash, he said. That's as it may be but my mind is clear.

If a sailor on land is a fish out of water, a soldier at sea is like a game c.o.c.k in a duckpond. When de Robeck said on March 22nd he wanted the help of the whole Army that was quite in order. He would not have been in order--at least, I don't think so--had he said in what manner he wanted the Army to act after it had got ash.o.r.e. We are being helped now by the Navy; daily, hourly: we could not exist without the Fleet; but it is not for me to say I think the battles.h.i.+ps should or should not take chances of mines and torpedoes.

Brodrick is quite seedy. We are all afraid he won't be able to stick it out much longer although he is making the most heroic efforts. In the morning I attended the funeral of young Collet, killed yesterday so tragically. A long, slow march through heavy sand all along the beach to Kephalos; then up through some small rocky gullies, frightfully hot, until, at last, we reached a graveyard. The congregation numbered many of the poor boy's comrades who seemed much cut up about his untimely end.

The P.M. has answered my cable to Lord K. asking for 45,000 rifles to fill up and for 50,000 fresh rifles. K. is in France, he says, and I will have my answer when he gets back. The 5th Royal Scots are down to 289 rank and file. I have just cabled about them. Something must be done. Certainly it must be "out" for that particular unit if they don't very soon get some men. The War Office still refer to them as a Battalion!

_21st August, 1915._ Sailed for Suvla about 1 o'clock with Braithwaite, Aspinall, Dawnay, Deedes, Ellison, Pollen and Maitland. The first time I have set forth with such a Staff. Not wis.h.i.+ng to worry de Lisle, I climbed up to the Karakol Dagh, whence I got something like a bird's eye view of the arena which was wrapt from head to foot in a mantle of pearly mist. a.s.suredly the Ancients would have ascribed this phenomenon to the intervention of an Immortal. Nothing like it had ever been seen by us until that day and the cloud--mist--call it what you will--must have had an unfortunate bearing on the battle. On any other afternoon the enemy's trenches would have been sharply and clearly lit up, whilst the enemy's gunners would have been dazzled by the setting sun. But under this strange shadow the tables were completely turned; the outline of the Turkish trenches were blurred and indistinct, whereas troops advancing from the aegean against the Anafartas stood out in relief against a pale, luminous background.

As a result of our instructions; of conferences and of the war council we had got our plan perfectly clear and s.h.i.+p-shape. Everyone understood it. The 10th Division was Corps reserve and was lying down in ma.s.s about the old Hill 10 in the scrub. We had to trust to luck here as they were under the enemy's fire if they were spotted. But very strict orders as to keeping low and motionless had been issued and we had just to hope for the best. The Yeomanry were also Corps reserve at Lala Baba where they were safe. But when they advanced, supposing they had to, they would have to cross a perfectly open plain under sh.e.l.l fire. This was the special blot on the scheme but there was no getting away from it.

There was no room for them in the front line trenches and communication trenches to the front had not yet been dug.

As to the attack:--on the extreme right the Anzacs and Indian Brigade were to push out from Damakjelik Bair towards Hill 60. Next to them in the right centre the 11th Division was to push for the trenches at Hetman Chair. On the left centre the 29th Division were to storm the now heavily entrenched Hill 70. Holding that and Ismail Oglu Tepe we should command the plateau between the two Anafartas; knock out the enemy's guns and observation posts commanding Suvla Bay, and should easily be able thence to work ourselves into a position whence we will enfilade the rear of the Sari Bair Ridge and begin to get a strangle grip over the Turkish communications to the Southwards. From the extreme left on Kiretch Tepe Sirt by the sea, to Sulajik where they joined the 29th Division the 53rd and 54th Divisions were simply holding the line.

Only the broad outline of the fighting was visible through the dim twilight atmosphere and I have not yet got any details. Our bombardment began at 2.30 and lasted till 3 p.m., very inadequate in duration but the most our munitions would run to. Then, to the accompaniment of quick battery salvoes of shrapnel from the enemy and a heavy rattle of musketry, the whole line from about a mile due East of the Easternmost point of the Salt Lake down to Damakjelik Bair, nearly two miles, began to stir and move Eastwards. We had the joy of seeing the Turks begin to clear out of the trenches on Hill 70, and by 3.30 p.m. it seemed as if distinct progress was being made: about that time it was I saw the Yeomen marching in extended order over the open ground to the South of the Salt Lake in the direction of Hetman Chair. The enemy turned a baddish shrapnel fire on to them, and although they bore it most unflinchingly, old experience told me that their nervous fighting energy was being used up all the time. If only these men could have been brought within charging distance, fresh and unbroken by any ordeal! But here was just one of the drawbacks of the battlefield and no getting over it.

After a bit, I went down to de Lisle and found him sitting on a little spur about fifty yards from his own Headquarters with one of his Staff Officers. He was smoking a pipe--quite calm. There is usually nothing to be said or to be done once our war dogs have been slipped. A soldier might as well try to correct the aim of his bullet after he has pulled the trigger! Whilst I was there we heard--probably about 4.30--that the 11th Division had captured the Turkish first line trenches which run North and South of Hetman Chair. Real good news this. We were considerably bucked up. Climbed back to Karakol Dagh but, from that time onwards, could make out nothing of the course of the battle save that Ismail Oglu Tepe was not yet taken. As to Knoll 70, it was completely shrouded in dust and smoke. Sometimes it seemed as if the Turkish guns were firing against it; sometimes we thought they were our own. Far away by Kaiajik Aghala things looked well as many enemy shrapnel were bursting there or thereabouts showing our men must have got home. By 6.30 it had become too dark to see anything. The dust mingling with the strange mist, and also with the smoke of shrapnel and of the hugest and most awful blazing bush fire formed an impenetrable curtain.