Gallipoli

By nightfall, from almost every point of the bridgehead, desperate calls were coming in for more reinforcements, for ammunition, for artillery fire and for men to take the wounded away. The front line, it seemed, was breaking. It was in these circumstances that at 9.15 p.m. Bridges and Godley sent a message to General Birdwood aboard the Queen, asking him to come ashore at once. Birdwood, who had been on shore all afternoon, returned to the beach, and there he learned with astonishment that his two divisional generals, both Bridges the Australian, and Godley the Englishman, were in favour of an immediate evacuation.

Birdwood at first refused to accept this proposition, but he was persuaded as the conference went on: the troops were worn out and in the appalling terrain there was no reasonable chance of making any headway. If the Turks developed a counter-attack and a heavy bombardment next day the situation might get out of control.

Huddled together around candles in an improvised dug-out and with the rain falling outside and the wounded all about them, it ca

‘Both my divisional generals and brigadiers have represented to me that they fear their men are thoroughly disorganized by shrapnel fire to which they have been subjected all day after exhaustion and gallant work in the morning. Numbers have dribbled back from the firing line and ca

This was the message which was placed before Hamilton when he was woken aboard the Queen Elizabeth at midnight that night.

The scene in de Robeck’s dining saloon was more oppressive than dramatic, and yet it has an oddly spot-lighted quality that sets it apart from any other such conference in the Gallipoli campaign: the General standing there in his pyjamas reading Birdwood’s message, the others gathered around him in silence, the orderlies waiting at the door. This was either to be the ending of the campaign or a new begi

For Hamilton there was no escape; he alone had to take the decision and it had to be taken at once. Already all available boats had been ordered to stand by for the evacuation. Yet there was something missing in this unbearable proposition — some one hard definite factor that would enable him to make up his mind.

Turning to Thursby, Hamilton said, ‘Well then, tell me, Admiral, what do you think?’

Thursby answered, ‘What do I think? Well, I think myself they will stick it out if only it is put to them that they must.’

It was at this point that Keyes was handed a wireless message from Lieut.-Commander Stoker, the captain of the submarine AE 2, saying that he had penetrated the Narrows and had reached the Sea of Marmara. Keyes read the telegram aloud and turning to Hamilton added, ‘Tell them this. It is an omen — an Australian submarine has done the finest feat in submarine history, and is going to torpedo all the ships bringing reinforcements into Gallipoli.’

Upon this Hamilton sat down, and in a general silence wrote to Birdwood:

‘Your news is indeed serious. But there is nothing for it but to dig yourselves right in and stick it out. It would take at least two days to re-embark you as Admiral Thursby will explain to you. Meanwhile, the Australian submarine has got up through the Narrows and has torpedoed a gunboat at Cunuk.[15] Hunter-Weston despite his heavy losses will be advancing tomorrow which should divert pressure from you. Make a personal appeal to your men and Godley’s to make a supreme effort to hold their ground.

P.S. You have got through the difficult business, now you have only to dig, dig, dig, until you are safe.

In an instant, with this message the action starts moving forward again. Aboard the Queen Elizabeth, back on the beach at Anzac Cove, among the soldiers in the front line, everyone suddenly feels an immense relief, everyone perversely finds his courage all over again. Now that they have got to fight it out the dangers appear to be half as formidable as they were before.

It was the postscript of the letter which contained the required touch of inspiration, for when it was read out to the soldiers on shore they began at once, quite literally, to dig. Here was something definite to do; you dug your way down to safety. Officers and men alike, on the beach and in the hills, set about hacking at the ground, and as the hours went by and still no Turkish counter-attack came in, all the seaward slopes of the Sari Bair range began to resemble a vast mining camp. It was not long after this that the Australian soldiers became known as Diggers, and that name has remained with them ever since.

But there was, in fact, no possibility of a serious Turkish counter-attack at Anzac Cove that night or even on the following day. With 2,000 casualties in his ranks not even Mustafa Kemal could do more than launch a series of heavy raids that were never quite strong enough to push Birdwood into the sea. Everywhere along the front, at Cape Helles as well as Anzac, the first phase was already over. The moment of surprise had gone. Hamilton had declared his plan and Liman was reacting to it. Both sides now began to mass men on the two main battlefields, the Turks still convinced that they could throw the Allies into the sea, the Allies still believing that they could advance upon the Narrows. At this moment nobody could have persuaded either of the two generals or their soldiers that they were wrong. So long as their hopes held they were committed to a vast slaughter.

From this point onwards the element of the unexpected gradually dies away from the battle, the chances are calculated chances, the attacks and the counter-attacks foreknown, and only exhaustion can put an end to the affair.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘The terrible “Ifs” accumulate.’

THE news of the landing at Gallipoli was not released for publication until two days after the event, and it made no great stir in England. The Times in a leading article on April 27 put the matter very clearly: ‘The news that the fierce battle in Flanders which began on Thursday (April 22) is being continued with unabated fury is coupled this morning with the news that the Allied troops have landed in Gallipoli. But the novel interests of that enterprise ca

A new and terrible phase of the war in Europe had begun. In the very battle which The Times was describing the Germans used poison gas for the first time. This was soon followed by the news of the collapse of the Russian front in Galicia, and of the failure of the new British offensive in Aubers Ridge in France. The Aubers Ridge battle was typical of the kind of fighting which was to dominate the Western Front for the next three years: Sir John French attacked a German fortified line in full daylight on a two-mile front, and the action was not broken off until nightfall when 11,000 men had fallen. Not a single yard of ground was gained.

15

Chanak.