Chapter 9
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
_3rd October, 1915. Imbros._ Church Parade. Inspected escort, men of the Howe and Nelson Battalions and a contingent from the 12th and 26th Australian Infantry. At 12.15 Bailloud, Brulard and Girodon arrived from Mudros for a last conference. Everything is fixed up. We are going to help the derelict division of French in every way we can. Bailloud, for his part, promises to leave them their fair share of guns and trench mortars. Whenever I see him I know he is one of the best fellows in the world. We went down and waved farewells from the pier. He was quite frank. He does not think the Allies have either the vision or the heart to go through with Gallipoli: he begins to suspect that the big push on the Western Front is going to yield no laurels: so Salonika hits his fancy.
Lieutenants Weston and Schemallach of the Australians and Lieutenant Gellibrand of the Naval Division lunched. A Mr. Unsworth came to talk over gifts for the Australian troops. He seems a capital chap; full of go and goodwill to all men.
_4th October, 1915. Imbros._ Vague warnings have taken shape in an event. A cable from K. telling me to decipher the next message myself. I have not drafted out an average of fifty telegrams a day for Lord K. for six months at a stretch without knowing something of his _modus scribendi_. The Staff were pleasantly excited at the idea that some new move was in the wind. I knew the new move--or thought I did.
Well, not that: not exactly that; not this time. But the enemies of our enterprise have got our range to a nicety and have chucked their first bomb bang into the middle of my camp.
A "flow of unofficial reports from Gallipoli," so K. cables to me, is pouring into the War Office. These "unofficial reports" are "in much the same strain" (perhaps they spring from the same source?). "They adversely criticize the work of the Headquarters Staff and complaints are made that its members are much out of touch with the troops. The War Office also doubt whether their present methods are quite satisfactory." K. therefore suggests "some important changes in your Headquarters Staff; for instance, if you agreed, Kiggell from home to take Braithwaite's place with you. Should you, however, decline and desire to remain as at present, may we assume that we are quite safe in regarding these unofficial reports as not representing the true feelings of the troops?"
So----! On the face of it this cable seems to suggest that a man widely known as a straight and capable soldier should be given the shortest of shrifts at the instance of "unofficial reports"; i.e., camp gossip. Surely the cable message carries with it some deeper significance!
I am grateful to old K. He is trying to save me. He picked out Braithwaite himself. Not so long ago he cabled me in his eagerness to promote him to Major-General; he would not suggest substituting the industrious Kiggell if he didn't fear for me and for the whole of this enterprise.
K. wants, so he says, "some important change"; that cannot mean, surely, that he wants a sufficiently showy scapegoat to feed the ravenous critics--or does it? Perhaps, he's got to gain time; breathing space wherein to resume the scheme which was sidetracked by the offensive in France and smashed by the diversion to Salonika. Given time, our scheme may yet be resumed. The Turks are in the depths. Sarrail with his six divisions behind him could open the Narrows in no time. I see the plan. K. must have a splendid sacrifice but by the Lord they shan't have the man who stood by me like a rock during those first ghastly ten days.
The new C.R.E., General Williams, and Ellison turned up for lunch. Williams gave us the first authentic news we have had about those Aden excursions and alarms.
An amusing aftermath of the evacuation by the French and Irish Divisions. When the last of Bailloud's troops had embarked the Turks dropped manifestoes from aeroplanes along the lines of the Senegalese calling upon these troops to make terms and come over now that their white comrades had left them to have their throats cut. I have cabled this queer item to the S. of S. Evidently the enemy were quite well aware of our withdrawal. Then _why_ didn't they shell the beaches? At French Headquarters they believe that the Turks were so glad to see our backs that they hardly dared breathe (much less fire a shell) lest we should change our minds.
_5th October, 1915._ First thing another cable from K. saying, "I think it well to let you know" that it is "quite understood by the Dardanelles Committee that you are adopting only a purely defensive attitude at present." Also:--"I have no reason to imagine you have any intention of taking the offensive anywhere along the line seeing I have been unable to replace your sick and wounded men." But, if he knows I _can't_ take the offensive, why trouble to cable me that the Dardanelles Committee expect me to adopt "only a purely defensive attitude"? I realize where we stand; K., Braithwaite and I,--on the verge. We are getting on for two months now since the August fighting--all that time we have been allowed to do nothing--literally, allowed to do nothing, seeing we have been given no shell. What a fiasco! The Dardanelles is not a sanatorium; Suvla is not Southend. With the men we have lost from sickness in the past six weeks we could have beaten the Turks twice over. Now Government seem to be about to damn everything--themselves included.
But after all, who am I to judge the Government of the British Empire? What do I know of their difficulties, pledges, and enemies--whether outside or inside the fold?
I have no grouse against Government or War Office--still less against K.--though many hundred times have I groused.[14]
Freely and gratefully do I admit that the individuals have done their best. Most of all am I indebted--very deeply indebted--to K. for having refrained absolutely from interference with my plan of campaign or with the tactical execution thereof.
But things are happening now which seem beyond belief. That the Dardanelles Committee should complacently send me a message to say we "quite understand that you are adopting only a purely defensive attitude at present" is staggering when put side by side with the carbon of this, the very last cable I have sent them. "I think you should know immediately that the numbers of sick evacuated in the IXth Corps during the first three days of October were 500 men on the 1st instant; 735 men on the 2nd instant and 607 men on the 3rd instant. Were this rate kept up it would come to 45 per cent. of our strength evacuated in one month."
Three quarters of this sickness is due to inaction--and now the Dardanelles Committee "quite understand" I am "adopting only a purely defensive action at present." I have never adopted a defensive attitude. They have forced us to sit idle and go sick because--at the very last moment--they have permitted the French offensive to take precedence of ours, although, on the face of it, there was no violent urgency in France as there is here. Our men in France were remarkably healthy; they were not going sick by thousands. But I feel too sick myself--body and soul--to let my mind dwell on these miseries.
Sealed my resolution (resignation?) by giving my answer about Braithwaite. Though the sins of my General Staff have about as much to do with the real issues as the muddy water had to do with the death of the argumentative lamb, I begin by pointing out to the War Office wolf that "no Headquarters Staff has ever escaped similar criticism."
Grumblings are an old campaigner's _vade mecum_. Bred by inaction; enterprise and activity smother them. A sickness of the spirit, they are like the flies that fasten on those who stay too long in one place. Was Doughty Wylie "much out of touch with the troops" when he led the Dublins, Munsters and Hampshires up from "V" beach and fell gloriously at their head? Was Williams "out of touch" when he was hit? Was Hore Ruthven? "As to Braithwaite," I say, "my confidence in that Officer is complete. I did not select him; you gave him to me and I have ever since felt most grateful to you for your choice."
Now--I feel better.
The plot thickens. A cable just come in from the S. of S. for War:--
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"The following statement has been made in letter to Prime Minister, Australia, by Mr. Murdoch: 'The fact is that after the first day at Suvla an order had to be issued to officers to shoot without mercy any soldier who lagged behind or loitered in advance.' Wire me as to the truth or otherwise of this allegation."
Murdoch must be mad. Or, is there some method in this madness?
Mr. Murdoch was not a war correspondent; he is purely a civilian and could hardly have invented this "order" on his own. No soldier could have told him this. Someone not a soldier--someone so interested in discrediting the Dardanelles Campaign that he does not scruple to do so even by discrediting our own troops must have put this invention about, _per_ Murdoch. Doubtless we strike here upon the source of these "unofficial statements" which have been flowing into the War Office. All I remember of his visit to me here is a sensible, well-spoken man with dark eyes, who said his mind was a blank about soldiers and soldiering, and made me uncomfortable by an elaborate explanation of why his duty to Australia could be better done with a pen than with a rifle. He was one week at the Press Correspondents' camp and spent, so they tell me, a few hours only at Anzac and Suvla, never once crossing to Helles. If then his letter to his Prime Minister is a fair sample of the grounds upon which Braithwaite has been condemned, Heaven help us all!
As a relief to these disagreeable thoughts, a Taube dropped a couple of bombs into camp. She flew so high that she was hard to see until the bursting shrapnel gave us her line. As she made tracks back through the trackless blue, the ships gave her a taste of some big projectiles, 12-inches or 9.2. The aerial commotion up there must have been considerable.
At noon, sailed over to Suvla in H.M.S. _Savage_. We took our lunch on board. As we came into harbour the Turks gave us a shell or two from their field guns, then stopped. Young Titchfield, the Duke of Portland's son, met us at the beach and brought us along to Byng's Headquarters, where I met also de Lisle and Reed. After hearing their news I started off with the whole band to make a tour of the trenches held by the 88th Brigade, under General Cayley. On the way I was taken up to "Gibraltar" observation post to get a bird's-eye view of the line. Besides my old friends of the 29th Division I saw some of the new boys, especially the 1st Newfoundland Battalion under Colonel Burton, and the 2/1st Coy. of the London Regiment. This was the Newfoundlanders' first day in the trenches and they were very pleased with themselves. They could not understand why they were not allowed to sally forth at once and do the Turks in. The presence of these men from our oldest colony adds to the extraordinary mix-up of people now fighting on the Peninsula. All the materials exist here for bringing off the biblical coup of Armageddon excepting only the shell.
In the course of these peregrinations I met Marshall of the 53rd Division, Beresford, commanding the 86th Brigade, and Colonel Savage, R.E.
After tea with Byng, including the rare treat of a slice of rich cake, we went down to our friend H.M.S. _Savage_. The wind had risen to a fairly stiff gale, and the sea was beginning to get very big. Those field gun shells had caused the _Savage_ to lie a desperate long way out to sea; we had a very stiff pull in the teeth of the waves, and every one of us began to think that salt water rather than the bullet was going to end our days. However, we just managed by the skin of our teeth and the usual monkey tricks, to scramble up on board. As I said in my wrath when I first stood on the firm deck, I would sooner have a hundred shells fired at me by the Turks.
Captain Davidson commanding H.M.S. _Cornwallis_ dined; everyone liked him very much.
_6th October, 1915._ Left General Headquarters soon after 11 o'clock for Helles, taking with me Aspinall and Freddie. Lunched with Davies at 8th Corps Headquarters.
Afterwards rode across to Royal Naval Division and saw Paris. Then went with Bertie Lawrence, commanding 52nd Division, to his lines. Our route lay up Achi Baba Nallah and along the trenches to the Horse Shoe; then along Princes Street trench up the Vineyard, and back along the Krithia Nallah to the Headquarters of the 156th Brigade. There we mounted our horses and rode back to Corps Headquarters. I brought Steward back with me to dine and sleep the night. Colonel Tyrrell and Major Hunloke (King's Messenger) also dined.
_7th October, 1915._ Wasted energy brooding over the addled eggs of the past. Are the High Gods bringing our new Iliad to grief in a spirit of wanton mischief? At whose door will history leave the blame for the helpless, hopeless fix we are left in--rotting with disease and told to take it easy?
That clever fellow Deedes dined; also Rowan Hamilton, son of my old Simla friend the Colonel of that name.
_8th October, 1915. Imbros._ At 11 a.m. Ellison, Taylor, Gascoigne and Freddie sailed with me for Anzac. There we lunched with the ascetic Birdie and Staff off bully beef, biscuits and water. Then, the whole lot of us, together with de Crespigny, Birdie's Staff Officer, hurried five miles an hour down the communication trench to the Headquarters of the Indian Brigade. After greetings we shoved on and saw the 2nd Lovat Scouts under Lieutenant-Colonel Stirling and met, whilst going round their line, Major Morrison Bell and Captain Oppenheim. They seemed in very good fettle, and it would have been hard to find a finer lot of men. Taking leave of the 2nd Lovat Scouts, we worked along the trenches of the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, under Colonel Mitchell, until we came to the 1st Lovat Scouts under Colonel Bailey. Lovat himself was sick, but Peyton commanding the 2nd Mounted Division turned up just when the inspection was at an end. He had got lost in the trenches, or we had. Next time the way was lost there was no mistake as to who had made the mistake. Birdie and I were pushing along as fast as we could leg it back towards Anzac. In the maze of trenches we came to a dividing of the ways. Two jolly old Sikhs were sitting at the junction. I asked if the road to the left led to the Headquarters of the Indian Brigade. They said, "Yes," so on we went, I leading, Birdie following. The trench got shallower and shallower until, in a little grove of trees, it petered out entirely. But it seemed to begin again in the other side and so we crossed through the trees. Once there we found that the supposed trench was only a shallow scratching up of the earth, and that we were standing within a hundred yards of the Turkish lines just about half way between them and the Lovat Scouts! I shouted to Birdie and we turned and ran for it--for our lives, I mean. Luckily the Turks were slow at spotting us, all except one who was a rank bad shot: so tumbling back into the trenches from which we had emerged, we saved ourselves by the skin of our teeth. I could not have been smarter about dodging two or three bullets had it been the beginning of our enterprise and had the high minarets of Constantinople glittered before my eyes.
When we got back to where the two old Sikhs were sitting, as placid as idols, Birdie gave them his opinion of their ancestors. On reaching the Australian and New Zealand Division we were done to a turn, but Godley revived us with tea and then we made our way back to our destroyer and to Headquarters. It was dark when we arrived and a bad storm was setting in--wind and rain--which went on till midnight.
Replies have come in to our enquiries as to Mr. Murdoch's statement to the Prime Minister of Australia that British Officers had been ordered to "shoot without mercy any soldier who lagged behind or loitered." As the Secretary of State seems to take this charge seriously, I thought it well, before I sent my answer, just to make sure that no subordinate had said, or done, or written anything which could plausibly be twisted into this lie. The Generals have denied indignantly; are furious, in fact, at the double insult to their men and to themselves.
Have cabled accordingly:--
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"(No. M.F.A.B. 4491). From General Sir Ian Hamilton to Secretary of State for War. With reference to your No. 8554 M.O. 414 of the 5th inst. I have _pro forma_ made full enquiries and I find that there is no truth whatever in the allegation made by Murdoch."
_9th October, 1915._ Had made my _band-o-bast_ for running over to Helles, but the Vice-Admiral cabled he wanted to see me if he could at 11.45. Anyway the sea is still a bit rough for the crossing and landing. A lot of damage was done last night to the Anzac piers, two of them being clean washed away. Peter Pollen is off colour. Freddie and I dined on board the _Triad_.
Whilst at dinner got full reports both from Suvla and Anzac as to the effects of the storm. The southerly gale, which not only washed away the piers but sunk the water lighters at Anzac, has done no harm at Suvla except that three motor lighters have been driven ashore. The Admiral is clear that, during southerly gales we shall have to supply both Anzac and Suvla by the new pier just north of Ari Burnu. The promontory is small but last night it gave complete protection to everything in its lea. By sinking an old ship we can turn Ari Burnu into quite a decent little harbour.
_10th October, 1915._ Made my deferred visit to Helles, going over this morning in the _Arno_ with Braithwaite, Val and Alec McGrigor. Looked in at the Clearing Hospital and cast an eye over Lancashire Landing. Then, in company with Jimmy Watson and Colonel Ayres, walked up to Corps Headquarters where we had a fine lunch with Davies, de Rougemont and the melancholy Yarr. Afterwards rode across to the Headquarters of the Royal Naval Division and on to their trenches, some 3-1/2 miles. Generals Mercer and Paris followed us through their trenches. The Hood and Hawke Battalions were in the firing line where we talked to great numbers of old comrades of all ranks. Glad to meet Freyberg again (the man who swam to light the flares at Enos). Kelly of the Hood Battalion too, I saw, and Fairfax of the Hawke, also Commander King of the Drake Battalion and Burrows, a gunner who was running a bombing school with much zeal on a piece of ground specially patronized by the Turks as a target for their own shelling practice. Got back to Helles by the Saghur Dere and the Gulley. Going down the Gulley, nearly lost two of our attendant Generals, a shrapnel bursting between them with a startling loud report caused by the high banks of the Gulley on either side.
In the Gulley we met a swarm of old friends from Kent; Brigadier-General Clifton-Browne, an officer whose command I had inspected both at Potchefstroom and near Canterbury, with a Brigade of West and East Kent and Sussex Yeomen. They made a brave showing, but he tells me some of them have caught this wretched enteritis already. Amongst others, I spoke to Douglas, commanding the East Lancashire Division, Major Edwards of the Sussex Yeomanry, Major Sir S. Scott and Colonel Whitburn of the West Kent Yeomanry, Colonel Lord Guilford, East Kent Yeomanry. A cheerier crowd no one could wish to meet. If these are the type of men who spin black yarns for home wear, I can only say that not the most finished actors could better disguise their despair. General King, R.A., rode part of the way back with us.
After all this hard exercise, got back to the _Arno_ in a lather of sweat about 6 o'clock carrying Davies with me. Leslie Wilson, commanding the Hawke Battalion, had gone sick to-day, so sent him a telegram after dinner to the Hospital ship _Somali_, telling him his trenches had been found in apple-pie order.
_11th October, 1915._ Bad night with this beastly complaint. De Robeck came up at 11 o'clock to see me. He has had a message from the Admiralty asking him what number of extra troops could be maintained on the Peninsula if the units there now were brought up to strength. The Admiral asked me for the figures and the A.G. brought them over. My force as a whole is as near as may be to half strength. Half of that half are sick men. We have 100,000 men on the Peninsula, 50,000 of whom are unfit: if the unfits were up to strength there would be 200,000 men on the Peninsula as well as excitement and movement which would greatly reduce the disease. Bearing in mind that the Anzacs have been well supported by their Governments and that their units are fairly strong, these figures show what wait-and-see-sickness has meant to British Regiments.
The tone of this Admiralty question had seemed cheerful: almost as if the Higher Direction were thinking of putting us on our legs but, in the evening, another cable from K. gave a different and a very ominous complexion to the future:--
"From Earl Kitchener to General Sir Ian Hamilton. What is your estimate of the probable losses which would be entailed to your force if the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula was decided on and carried out in the most careful manner?
"No decision has been arrived at yet on this question of evacuation, but I feel that I ought to have your views.
"In your reply you need not consider the possible future danger to the Empire that might be thus caused."[15]
If they do this they make the Dardanelles into the bloodiest tragedy of the world! Even if we were to escape without a scratch, they would stamp our enterprise as the bloodiest of all tragedies! K. has always sworn by all his Gods he would have no hand in it. I won't touch it, and I think he knew that and calculated on that when he cabled. Anyway, let K., cat or Cabinet leap where they will, I must sleep upon my answer, but that answer will be NO!
Just as I am turning in, a cable from the S. of S. saying, "there is an idea that Sir John Maxwell is not sending you as many troops as he might from Egypt. Have you any complaints on this score?" Rather late in the day this "idea." Certainly, I have never made any "complaints" and I don't mean to do so now. The War Office have only to look up their returns and see how many men are being maintained to defend us from the Senoussi!
Maxwell has never had less than 70,000 troops in Egypt, a country which might have been held with 10,000 rifles--ever since we landed here, that is to say. My troops can sail back to Egypt very much faster than the Turks--or the Senoussi for that matter--can march to the Canal.
In the same cable the S. of S. asks what is the cause of the sick rate and remarks that, "some accounts from the Dardanelles indicate that the men are dispirited." Small wonder if they were! When they see two Divisions taken away from the Peninsula; when their guns can't answer those of the enemy; when each unit finds itself half-strength, and falling--why then, tumbling as they do to the fact that we won't get through till next year, they _ought_ to be unhappy. But the funny thing is that the Cabinet, the Secretaries of State, are the people who are "dispirited" and _not_ the people out here. If the P.M. could walk round the trenches of the Naval Division at Helles, or if K. could exchange greetings with the rank and file at Anzac and Suvla, they would find a sovereign antidote for the blues and would realize that it was they who were down-hearted and _not_ the men at the Dardanelles. There was an old French Colonel, killed at Gravelotte; he had studied the classic world battles and he shows that it was never the front line who gave way first, but always the reserves:--they, the reserves, watched bloodshed in cold blood until they could stand it no longer and so took to their heels whilst the fighting men were still focussed upon victory. Not the enemy in front but the friends behind are the men who spread despondency and alarm.
Charley Burn has arrived on the _Imogene_ with Dawnay.
Davies went back to Helles after tea. Dawnay says K. was most interested in him and most charming to him all through his stay until his last interview just before he started on his return journey. K.'s manner then, he said, had changed--so much so as to give him an impression that the great man was turning, or was being turned, against all of us out here. K.'s conduct at the first meetings is in full harmony with his message sent to Braithwaite for me by Fitz about a fortnight ago, saying I possessed his fullest confidence. The change of manner was marked and Dawnay is sure he made no mistake about it. But nothing has happened since the date of Dawnay's arrival and departure save a very well engineered withdrawal of the 10th and the French Divisions for which, in point of fact, we have all been rather expecting congratulations. Dawnay thinks some queer things are happening. He could--or would--say nothing more.
_12th October, 1915. Imbros._ Early in the morning got off my answer to K.'s evacuation cable. The elements, the enemy and ourselves are the three factors of the problem. Were I to measure my problem by the night flitting of the Irish and French Divisions (who lost neither man nor beast in the process), I could guarantee that we would shoot the moon with the balance of the force smoothly, swiftly and silently. That is to say, supposing the Turks and the weather remain constant. But these are two most inconstant things: no one can tell how a Turk will behave under any given conditions; the Turks themselves do not know how they will behave: the weather now is written down by the meteorologists for sudden changes; for storms. Unsettled weather is due and ought to be reckoned upon. Imagine a blow coming up from the South when the evacuation is half way through. That does not seem to be, and is not, any great stretch of imagination. Well then, having so imagined, we get a disaster only equalled in history by that of the Athenians at Syracuse: a disaster from which the British Empire could hardly hope to recover.
Twice backwards and forwards to the General Staff Marquee with the draft of my guesses, my first being that we would probably lose 35 to 45 per cent. But the General Staff have also been consulting their oracle and were clear for 50 per cent. Months of the most anxious calculations will not get a white man one whit forrarder in seeing into the brains of an Asiatic Army or in forecasting Mediterranean weather. Safest to assume that both brains and weather will behave as the German General Staff would wish them to behave rather than as they chanced to behave when the French and Irish went off a few days ago. So have ended by taking the Staff's figure because any figure being, in any case, the wildest of shots, their shot best suits my views on the issue.
"From General Sir Ian Hamilton to Earl Kitchener. Our losses would depend on such uncertain factors, enemy's action or inaction, weather, question whether we could rely on all troops covering embarkation to fight to the last, that impossible to give you straight answer especially until I have permission to consult Admiral. Once discussing this very problem with General Gouraud, we came to the conclusion that at Cape Helles we must sacrifice two divisions out of total of six divisions and Cape Helles easiest of three places to get away from. My opinion now is that it would not be wise to reckon on getting out of Gallipoli with less loss than that of half the total force as well as guns, which must be used to the last, stores, railway plant and horses. Moral of those who got off would fall very low. One quarter would probably get off quite easily, then the trouble would begin. We might be very lucky and lose considerably less than I have estimated. On the other hand, with all these raw troops at Suvla and all these Senegalese at Cape Helles, we might have a veritable catastrophe."
Do the men toying with the idea of bringing off our men not see that thereby the Turks will be let loose somewhere; not nowhere? Do they not see that if they are feeling the economic pinch of keeping their side of the show in being, the Turks, much weaker economically, must be feeling it much more--!
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It was a relief to get this perilous stuff off my chest, and in a brighter frame of mind, sailed for Anzac on the destroyer _Lewis_. We took biscuits and bully beef with us but the hospitable sailors insisted on regaling us with a hot meal. Sat in cabin all the way as usual writing up my record. Freddie tells me that these studious habits of mine have started the shave that I spend my time composing poetry, especially during our battles!
At Anzac Birdwood took us round the trenches and underground passages about Russell's Top and Turk's Head, held by the 5th Brigade, 2nd Division, under Legge. Half way up to Russell's Top was the 3rd Battery Australian Field Artillery:--talked with Major King, the C.O. Next unit was the 20th Infantry Battalion under Major Fitzgerald. Colonel Holmes, commanding the 5th Infantry Brigade, and Wilson, his Brigade Major, took us through their cave dwellings. Ex-westerners say that in France they have nothing to touch these Australian tunnellings. In one place they are boring into a crater only 20 feet from the Turkish trench. There is nothing unusual in the fact, but there is in the great depth they are going down so as to cross the danger zone far below the beaten track of mines and counter-mines. On the steep slope in another place there is a complete underground trench running parallel to, and only a short bomb-throw from, a Turkish trench. We went through it with a lantern. Sandbags, loopholes, etc., all are there, but blind! They are still veiled from view by several feet of clay. To-morrow night the Anzacs are going to chip off the whole upper crust of earth, and when light dawns the Turks will find a well equipped trench, every loophole manned, within bombing range of their own line.
Other notables met with were Major Murphy of the 20th Infantry Battalion, Major Anderson (an old friend) commanding the Australian Field Artillery, and Captain Perry Oakdene, the Engineer Officer on the job. Saw Birdie and returned in the destroyer about 6.30. The day had been so quiet that it would have been almost dull had it not been for the sightseeing--hardly a shot was fired by Turk or Anzac with either gun, trench mortar or rifle.
Bishop Price, the Bishop of North China, and Charlie Burn, King's Messenger, dined. The quietness of the Bishop was remarkable.
Have cabled the S. of S. for War in answer to his enquiries about the causes of the sickness, and as to whether Maxwell is not holding up my share of troops in Egypt, saying:--(1) that "constant strain and infection by dust and flies" have caused the sickness but that the men are getting better; (2) that "we have been under the impression that drafts meant for us and due to us have been retained in Egypt; also, that men discharged fit from Hospitals have been held back, but I have represented this last point to Maxwell personally as I always feel I am not the person to gauge Maxwell's needs. On 27th September, I asked him to send up all available Australian--New Zealand Army Corps drafts and reinforcements, and, as you already know, am at present in telegraphic correspondence about these reinforcements coming straight here without being kept in Egypt for training at all."
At 10.40, after clearing my table, went with Ellison, Taylor, and Freddie on board H.M.S. _Lefroy_ (Commander Edwards) and steamed for "V" Beach. Enjoyed a fine luncheon with Brulard and then started off for the trenches. At Morto Bay we were met by Captain de Bourbon, a big handsome man with the characteristic Bourbon cut of countenance. He took us first to the _château_ whence we worked down along the trenches to where our extreme right overlooks the Kerevez Dere. General Faukard was here and he thinks that we ought easily to get complete mastery of both sides of the Kerevez Dere as soon as we get the means and the permission to shove ahead again. When we do that the advance will let our Fleet another half mile up the Straits and the "spotting" for the ships' guns will double their value in the Narrows. From the Kerevez Dere we worked along the fire trenches towards the French centre and then, getting to a sheltered strip of country, walked back across the open to the second line. From the second line we made our way, still across the open, to the third line, over a heather covered strip. No one ever moves here by daylight except in double quick time as there is always danger of drawing a shell either from Asia or from Achi Baba and so it was that "Let the dead bury the dead" had been the motto and that we met many corpses and skeletons. Merciful God, what home tragedies may centre in each of these sinister bundles. But it is the common lot--only quicker. Here, too, we found excavations made by the French into a burial ground believed to be of the date 2,500 B.C. The people of that golden age had the sentimental idea of being buried in couples in big jars. A strange notion of our Allies unburying quiet people who had enjoyed dreamless rest for 2,000 years whilst, within a few yards, their own dead still welter in the parching wind.
Had meant to run across and see Davies but time had slipped away and so we made tracks for H.M.S. _Lefroy_, and on back here to G.H.Q., where a letter from Callwell was laying in wait as a refresher after my fatigues.
Callwell begins by saying he encloses a document written by my late visitor, Mr. K. A. Murdoch, although "there are certain statements in this which are palpably false," and although Dawnay has pointed out to him at the War Office "a number of passages in it which are wholly incorrect as matters of actual fact." He says, Lord K., "who has not had time to read it yet," thinks I ought to be given a chance of defending myself.
Callwell goes on to write about the Press Censorship and my plea for publicity and then says he dislikes the Salonika stunt "because I am not quite clear of where we are going to, and the immediate result at the present is to take away from you troops that you can ill spare." Also, because "we may be involving ourselves in operations on a great scale in the heart of the Balkans, the result of which it is very difficult to foresee."
Godley dined. Captain Davidson, R.N., the Senior Naval Officer in harbour now, is a real Godsend. He looks after us as if we were Admirals of the Fleet.
Have now read, marked, learnt and inwardly indigested Callwell's enclosure; viz., the letter written by Mr. K. A. Murdoch to the Prime Minister of Australia. Quite a Guy Fawkes epistle. Braithwaite is "more cordially detested in our forces than Enver Pasha." "You will trust me when I say that the work of the General Staff in Gallipoli is deplorable." "Sedition is talked round every tin of bully beef on the Peninsula." "You would refuse to believe that these men were really British soldiers ... the British physique is very much below that of the Turks. Indeed, it is quite obviously so. Our men have found it impossible to form a high opinion of the British K. men and Territorials. They are merely a lot of childlike youths, without strength to endure or brains to improve their conditions." "I shall always remember the stricken face of a young English Lieutenant when I told him he must make up his mind for a winter campaign." "I do not like to dictate this sentence, even for your eyes, but the fact is that after the first day at Suvla an order had to be issued to Officers to shoot without mercy any soldier who lagged behind or loitered in an advance."
Well, Well! I should not worry myself over the out-pourings of our late guest, who has evidently been made a tool of by some unscrupulous person, were it not that Mr. Asquith has clothed the said out-pourings in the title, number, garb and colour of a verified and authentic State paper. He has actually had them printed on the famous duck's egg foolscap of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and under his authority, as President and Prime Minister, they have been circulated round the Government and all the notables of the Empire without any chance having been offered to me (or to K.) of defending the honour of British Officers or the good name of the British Rank and File. K. tells Callwell I should be given the opportunity of making a reply. Not having read it himself he has not yet grasped the fact that he also should have been given the opportunity of making a reply to the aspersions upon his selections. As for me, by the time my answer can get home and can be printed and circulated the slanders will have had over a month's start in England and very likely two months' start in Australia, where all who read them will naturally conclude their statements must have been tested before ever they were published in that impressive form.
Here we see an irresponsible statement by an ignorant man and I instinctively feel as if it were being used as one more weapon to force Asquith's hand and to ruin our last chance. I only hope it may not prove another case of, "Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!"
Certain aspects of this affair trouble my understanding. The covering note (dated 25th September) which encloses the letter to the Prime Minister of Australia (dated 23rd September) is addressed by Mr. Murdoch to Mr. Asquith by name. In that covering note Mr. Murdoch says, "I write with diffidence, and only at Mr. Lloyd George's request." Within three days (so great the urgency or pressure) Mr. Asquith causes--as he, President of the Committee of Imperial Defence, alone can cause--the covering note as well as the seven or eight thousand words of the letter to be printed and circulated round the big wigs of Politics, as well as (to judge by the co-incident hardening of the tone of this mail's papers) some of the Editors. Not one word to me as to Mr. Murdoch's qualifications or as to the truth or falsity of his statements, until these last have been a week in circulation. Then, I receive; first, a cable saying unofficial reports had come in censuring my General Staff and that I had better, therefore, let Braithwaite go; secondly, a cable asking me whether the absurd story of my having ordered my own soldiers to be shot "without mercy " is well-founded; thirdly, a bad last, the libellous letter itself.
Yet Mr. Asquith did know the paper contained _some_ falsehoods. He _may_ have attached weight to Mr. Murdoch's tale of the feelings of French soldiers at Helles (although he never found time to go there): he _may_ have believed Mr. Murdoch when he says that Sir John Maxwell "has a poor brain for his big position"; that "our men feel that their reputation is too sacred to leave in the hands of Maxwell"; that Sir William Birdwood "has not the fighting quality or big brain of a great General"; that General Spens was "a man broken on the Continent" (although he never was broken and never served on the Continent); that "Kitchener has a terrible task in getting pure work from the General Staff of the British Army, whose motives can never be pure, for they are unchangeably selfish"; that "from what I saw of the Turk, I am convinced he is ... a better man than those opposed to him" (although, actually, Mr. Murdoch saw nothing of the Turks). The P.M. may have taken these views at their face values: even, he _may_ have swallowed Mr. Murdoch's picture of the conscientious Altham "wallowing" in ice whilst wounded were expiring of heat within a few hundred yards; but _Mr. Asquith has seen the K. Army_ and, therefore, _he cannot have believed_ that these soldiers have suddenly been transformed into "merely a lot of childish youths without strength to endure or brains to improve their conditions."
Once more; these reckless scraps of hearsay would not be worth the paper they are printed on were it not that they are endorsed with the letters C.I.D., the stamp of the ministerial Holy of Holies. Only the Prime Minister himself, personally, can so consign a paper. Lord K. and I were both members of the C.I.D., and members of long standing. For the President to circularize our fellow members behind our backs with unverified accusations is a strange act, foreign to all my ideas of Mr. Asquith. On this point Callwell is quite clear: the Murdoch letter was published to the C.I.D. on the 28th ult. and Callwell writes on the 2nd inst., and says Lord K. "has not had time to read it yet."[16] But nothing else is clear. In fact, the whole thing is foreign to all my ideas of Mr. Asquith. He does not need to work the C.I.D. oracle in this way. As P.M. he has only to speak the word. He does not work the Press oracle either: not his custom: also he likes K. The whole thing is a mystery, of which I can only say with Hamlet--"miching mallecho; it means mischief."
_14th October, 1915. Imbros._ Colder than ever. We are told that the winter will kill the flies and that with their death we shall all get hearty and well. Meanwhile, they have turned to winged limpets.
Being Mail day as well as rough, stuck to camp. My friend England sailed into harbour in the _Chelmer_ and came up to lunch. In the evening he took Godley back to Anzac. Duncannon came to dinner. I have made him liaison officer with the French in place of de Putron who has gone to Salonika with Bailloud.
As to the Murdoch unpleasantness, I began an _exposé_ to be sent to the Governor General of Australia; another to the Secretary of the C.I.D. But Pollen, Braithwaite and Dawnay (the last of whom had been shown the document whilst he was at home, though he had said nothing to me about it) thought this was to make much ado about nothing. They cannot believe Lord K. will trouble himself about the matter any further and they think it best handled in lighter vein. Is K. still the demi-God, that is the question? Anyway, there is simply no time this Mail to deal with so many misstatements, so that has settled it.
"GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, "MEDTN. EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, _"14th October, 1915._
"DEAR CALLWELL,
"I have read Mr. Murdoch's letter with care, and I have tried to give it my most impartial consideration and not to allow myself in reply to be influenced in any way by the criticisms he may have felt himself bound to make upon myself personally.
"What does this letter amount to? Here we have a man, a journalist by profession, one who is quick to seize every point, and to coin epithets, which throw each fleeting impression into strongest relief. He comes armed with a natural and justifiably enthusiastic admiration for everything connected with the Commonwealth to which he belongs, and ready to retail to his Minister or his public anything that can contribute to show the troops they have sent in an heroic light.
"Here he obtains his first sight of war and of the horrors and hardships inseparable from it. He finds men who have just been through some of the hardest fighting imaginable and who have suffered terrible losses; he finds probably that very many of those whom he hoped to see, certainly many of those of whose welfare their motherland would wish to hear, are killed, wounded or laid up with illness,--he finds all this and he becomes very deeply depressed. In such an atmosphere Mr. Murdoch composes his letter, a general analysis of which shows it to be divided, to my mind, into two separate strata.
"First an appreciation in burning terms of the spirit, the achievements, the physique and all soldierly qualities of the Australian Forces. Secondly, a condemnation, as sweeping and as unrelieved as his praise in the first instance is unstinted, of the whole of the rest of the force. I myself as C.-in-C., my Generals, my Staff, Lines of Communication, Sir John Maxwell and General Spens at the Base, even the British soldiers collectively and individually, are all embraced in this condemnation which is completed by the inclusion of the entire direction of the Forces at home, both Naval and Military.
"Where all are thus tarred with the same brush, I am content to leave it to the impartial reader to decide what reliance can be placed on Mr. Murdoch's judgment. My own feeling certainly is that in his admiration for the Australian Forces, and in his grief at their heavy losses (in both of which feelings I fully share) he has allowed himself to belittle and to criticize us all so that their virtues might be thrown into even bolder relief.
"With Mr. Murdoch's detailed points I do not propose to deal, nor do I think you expect me to do so. On every page inaccuracies of fact abound. The breaking of Spens on the Continent, a theatre of war he has never visited; the over-statement of our casualties by more than 40 per cent.; the acceptance as genuine of a wholly mythical order about the shooting of laggards--really the task would be too long. As to the value of Mr. Murdoch's appreciation of the strategical and tactical elements of the situation you can yourself assess them at their true value.
"Finally, I do not for one moment believe the general statement put forward to the effect that the troops are disheartened. Neither that statement nor the assertion that they are discontented with the British Officers commanding them has the slightest foundation in fact.
"Believe me, "My dear Callwell, "Yours very sincerely, (_Sd._) "IAN HAMILTON.
"P.S.--I attach correspondence showing how Mr. Murdoch's visit arose. I believe I exceeded my power in giving him permission to come but I was most anxious to oblige the Australian Prime Minister and Senator Pearce. You will see that he promises faithfully to observe any conditions I may impose. The only condition I imposed was that he should sign a declaration identical with that which I attach. He signed and the paper is in my possession."
CORRESPONDENCE.
"Dear Sir,
"On the advice of Brigadier-General Legge I beg to request permission to visit Anzac.
"I am proceeding from Melbourne to London to take up the position of managing editor of the Australian news cable service in connection with the _London Times_ and at the Commonwealth Government's request am enquiring into mail arrangements, dispositions of wounded, and various matters in Egypt in connection with our Australian Forces. I find it impossible to make a complete report upon changes that have been suggested here until I have a better knowledge of the system pursued at base Y, and on the Mainland, and I beg of you, therefore, to permit me to visit these places.
"I should like to go across in only a semi-official capacity, so that I might record censored impressions in the London and Australian newspapers I represent, but any conditions you impose I should, of course, faithfully observe.
"I beg to enclose (_a_) copy of general letter from the Prime Minister and (_b_) copy of my instructions from the Government. I have a personal letter of introduction to you from Senator Pearce, Minister of Defence.
"May I add that I had the honour of meeting you at the Melbourne Town Hall, and wrote fully of your visit in the Sydney _Sun_ and Melbourne _Punch_; also may I say that my anxiety as an Australian to visit the sacred shores of Gallipoli while our army is there is intense.
"Senator Millen asked me to convey his most kindly remembrances to you if I had the luck to see you and in case I have not I take this opportunity of doing so.
"As I have only four weeks in which to complete my work here and get to London a 'collect reply by cable to C/o Colonel Sellheim, Australian Intermediate Base, Cairo, would greatly oblige.
"I have the honour to be, "Sir, "Your obediently, (_Sd._) "KEITH A. MURDOCH.
"C/o Colonel Sellheim, C.B., "A.I.F. Intermediate Base, "Cairo. "_August 17, 1915._"
"COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, "PRIME MINISTER'S DEPARTMENT, "MELBOURNE. _"July 14th, 1915._
"This letter will serve to introduce Mr. Keith Arthur Murdoch, a well known journalist, of Melbourne, who is proceeding to Europe to undertake important duties in connection with his profession.
"Mr. Murdoch is also undertaking certain inquiries for the Government of the Commonwealth in the Mediterranean Theatre of War. And for any facilities which may be rendered him to enable him the better to carry out these duties I shall be personally obliged.
(_Sd._) "ANDREW FISHER, "_Prime Minister._"
"DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE, "MELBOURNE, "_July 2nd, 1915._
"Mr. Keith A. Murdoch,
"Alfred Place, Melbourne.
"The Minister desires that you furnish a report upon the following matters together with any suggestions for improvements.
"1. Arrangements for the receipt and delivery of letters, papers and parcels to and from members of the Australian Imperial Force.
"2. Arrangements for the receipt and delivery of cablegrams to and from members of the Australian Imperial Force.
"3. Arrangements for notifications to the Department in Australia of the disposition of Australian Wounded in Hospitals.
"4. Suggested despatch of special expert corps to Hospitals.
"5. Frauds by impersonation at cable offices.
(_Sd._) "T. TRUMBLE, "_Acting Secretary for Defence._"
When I got this, I hesitated. Evidently the writer was not accredited as a war correspondent and his remark about having written me up in the _Sun_ and in _Punch_ did not count for much. But I was anxious then, as ever, that as many journalists as possible should be put into a position for seeing the fine things the troops had done and were doing; I noted the emphasis laid by the writer upon his acceptance of the censorship, and so I took upon myself to exceed my powers and asked Braithwaite to cable to Mr. Murdoch:--
* * * * *
"This cable is your authority to come to G.H.Q. at once whence you will be sent to Anzac.
C.G.S., Medforce."
Mr. Murdoch landed on the 2nd instant and on that date signed the following declaration:--
* * * * *
DECLARATION TO BE USED BY WAR CORRESPONDENTS.
I, the undersigned, do hereby solemnly undertake to follow in every particular the rules issued by the Commander-in-Chief through the Chief Field Censor, relative to correspondence concerning the forces in the Field, and bind myself not to attempt to correspond by any other route or by any other means than that officially sanctioned.
Further, in the event of my ceasing to act as correspondent with the British Forces, I will not during the continuance of the War join the forces of any other Power in any capacity, or impart to anyone military information of a confidential nature or of a kind such that its disclosure is likely to prejudice military operations, which may have been acquired by me while with the British Forces in the Field, or publish any writing, plan, map, sketch, photograph or other picture on military subjects, the material for which has been acquired by me in a similar manner, unless first submitted by me to the Chief Field Censor for censorship and passed for publication by him.
(_Signature of Correspondent_)................
* * * * *
_15th October, 1915. Imbros._ Bitter cold. The whole camp upside down and all the Staff busy with their shift of quarters to the other side of the Bay.
Altham has been at Salonika and came over to report how things were going there. Remembering the accusation of "wallowing" in ice, I nearly touched him for a Vanilla cream.
As to Salonika, he tells me that, so far, the occupation has been a travesty of any military operation. No plan; no administration; much confusion; troops immobile and likely to sit for weeks upon the beach. The Balkan States Intelligence Officers are on the spot and grasp the inferences. Until the troops landed they were not quite sure whether some serious factor was not about to be sprung upon them: now they are quite sure nothing can happen, big or small, beyond our letting a lot of our bayonets go rusty. Sarrail has been implored by the Serbians to push his troops up into their country, but he has been wise enough to refuse. How can he feed them? On the top of it all, the conduct of the Greeks seems fishy. As to the Bulgarians, they have already thrown off the mask. Although Salonika is going to be our ruin, I can still spare some pity for Sarrail.
Have heard from Birdie who at last gives me leave to see his Lone Pine section. Until now I have never been able to get him to let me go there. Too many bombs, he says, to make it quite healthy for a Commander-in-Chief.
_16th October, 1915. Imbros._ Had just got into bed last night when I was ferreted out again by a cable "Secret and personal" from K. telling me to decipher the next message myself. The messenger brought a note from the G.S.--most of whom have now gone across to the other side of the Bay--to ask if I would like to be awakened when the second message came in. As I knew the contents as well as if I had written it out myself, I said no, that it was to be brought me with the cipher book at my usual hour for being called in the morning. When I had given this order, my mind dwelt awhile over my sins. Through my tired brain passed thought-pictures of philosophers waiting for cups of hemlock and various other strange and half-forgotten antique images. Then I fell asleep.
Next morning, Peter Pollen came in with the cipher book and the bow-string. I got K.'s message pat in my dreams last night and here it is, to a word, in black and white:--
* * * * *
"The War Council held last night decided that though the Government fully appreciate your work and the gallant manner in which you personally have struggled to make the enterprise a success in face of the terrible difficulties you have had to contend against, they, all the same, wish to make a change in the command which will give them an opportunity of seeing you."
How far we have travelled, in spirit, since K. sent me his September greetings with spontaneous assurances of complete confidence! Yet, since then, on the ground, I have not travelled at all--have indeed been under the order of the Dardanelles Committee to stand still.
Charles Munro is to relieve me and brings with him a Chief of Staff who will take Braithwaite's place. On my way back I "might visit Salonika and Egypt" so as to be able to give the Cabinet the latest about the hang of things in these places.
When I go, Birdie is to take my place pending Munro's arrival.
De Robeck must give me a cruiser so that we may start for home to-morrow. The offer of a jaunt at Government expense to Salonika and Egypt leaves me cold. They think nothing of spending some hundreds of pounds to put off an awkward moment. What value on earth could my views on Salonika and Egypt possess for people who have no use for my views on my own subject!
After breakfast, read K.'s cable over once more. "A War Council," it seems, decided to make the change. Did the War Council also appoint Munro? K. did not appoint him--anyway. Munro succeeded me at Hythe. In 1897 I was brought home from Tirah to Hythe by Evelyn Wood in order that I might keep an eye on the original ideas which, from India under Lord Roberts, had revolutionized the whole system of British musketry. I left Hythe on the outbreak of the South African War and during that war Munro went there.
He was born with another sort of mind from me. Had he been sent out here in the first instance he would never have touched the Dardanelles, and people who have realized so much may conclude he will now clear out. But it does not follow. Munro's refusal to attempt a landing in the first instance would have served as the foundation stone for some totally different policy in the Near East. That might perhaps have been a good plan. But to start a campaign with me and try to carry it on with Munro has already been tried and found hardly fair to either of us. The intention of whoever selected Munro is so to use him as to force K. to pull down the blinds. But they may be mistaken in his character.
One thing is sure: whenever I get home I shall do what I can to convince K. that the game is still in his hands if only he will shake himself free from slippery politics; come right out here and run the show himself. Constantinople is the only big big hit lying open on the map at this moment. With the reinforcements and munitions K., as Commander-in-Chief, would have at his command, he can bring off the coup right away. He has only to borrow a suitable number of howitzers and aeroplanes from the Western front and our troops begin to advance. Sarrail has missed the chance of twenty generations by not coming here. Let K. step in. In the whole of the Near East his name alone is still worth an Army Corps. My own chance has gone. That is no reason why my old Chief should not himself make good. I told the War Council we held at Suvla before the battle of the 21st August that if the Government persisted in refusing me drafts and munitions--if they insisted on leaving my units at half-strength--then they would have to get someone cleverer than myself to carry out the job. Well, it has come to that now. K. looms big in the public eye and can insist on not being starved. He must hurry up though! Time enough has been lost, God knows. But even to-day there is time. Howitzers, trench mortars, munitions, men, on a scale France would hardly miss,--the Asiatic side of the Straits would be occupied--and, in one month from to-day, our warships will have Constantinople under their guns. If K. won't listen to me, then, having been officially mis-informed that the War Council wish to see me (the last thing they _do_ wish), I will take them at their word. I will buttonhole every Minister from McKenna and Lloyd George to Asquith and Bonar Law,--and grovel at their feet if by doing so I can hold them on to this, the biggest scoop that is, or ever has been, open to an Empire.
Rather a sickly lunch. Not so much the news as the Benger's on which we all feasted for our stomach's sake. Birdie came over at 4 p.m. with Ruthven. Both his A.D.C.s are sick. I am going to ask him to take on young Alec McGrigor. Peter and Freddie will come home with Braithwaite and myself. What a true saying,--a friend in need is a friend indeed. Were I handing over to Birdie for good I should feel unalloyed happiness in his well-deserved success.
At tea Ellison, Braithwaite, Bertier, Colonel Sykes and Guest appeared. They looked more depressed than I felt. I had to work like a beaver before I could brighten them up. "I'm not dead yet," I felt inclined to tell them, "no, not by long chalks." What I did say to one or two of them was this:--"My credit with Government is exhausted; clearly I can't screw men or munitions out of them. The new Commander will start fresh with a good balance of faith, hope and charity lodged in the Bank of England. He comes with a splendid reputation, and if he is big enough to draw boldly on this deposit, the Army will march; the Fleet will steam ahead; what has been done will bear fruit, and all our past struggles and sacrifices will live."
Dined with Freddie on the _Triad_. De Robeck and Keyes were all that friends can be at such a moment.
_17th October, 1915. H.M.S. "Chatham"_ (_At sea_). A pretty beastly day within and without. For the within part, all sorts of good-byes to put pain into our hearts; for the without, a cold drizzle chilling us all to the bone.
At 10.30 Brulard and his Staff came over; also Generals Byng and Davies with their Staffs. After bidding them farewell; a function whereat I was grateful to the French for their lightness of touch, I rode over with Braithwaite and the A.D.C.s to the new Headquarters at Kephalos to say good-bye to my own Staff. Although I had meant to live there until we drove the Turks far enough back to let us live on the Peninsula, I had found time to see my little stone hut built by Greek peasants on the side of the hill:--deliciously snug. To-day, this very day, I was to have struck my tent and taken up these cosy winter quarters; now I move, right enough, but on the wrong road.
The adieu was a melancholy affair. There was no make-belief, that's a sure thing. Whatever the British Officer may be his forte has never lain in his acting. So, by 2.30, I made my last salute to the last of the old lot and boarded the _Triad_. A baddish wrench parting from de Robeck and Keyes with whom I have been close friends for so long. Up to midnight de Robeck had intended coming home too. Keyes himself is following me in a day or two, to implore the Cabinet to let us at least strike one more blow before we haul down our flag, so there will be two of us at the task.
I wrung their hands. The Bo'sun's whistle sounded. The curtain was falling so I wrung their hands once again and said good-bye; good-bye also to the Benjamin of my personal Staff, young Alec, who stays on with Birdie. A bitter moment and hard to carry through.
Boarded the _Chatham_ (Captain Drury-Lowe) and went below to put my cabin straight. The anchor came up, the screws went round. I wondered whether I could stand the strain of seeing Imbros, Kephalos, the camp, fade into the region of dreams,--I was hesitating when a message came from the Captain to say the Admiral begged me to run up on to the quarter deck. So I ran, and found the _Chatham_ steering a corkscrew course--threading in and out amongst the warships at anchor. Each as we passed manned ship and sent us on our way with the cheers of brave men ringing in our ears.
* * * * *
FAREWELL ORDER BY GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON.
"GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, "MEDITERRANEAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, _"October 17th, 1915._
"On handing over the Command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force to General Sir C. C. Munro, the Commander-in-Chief wishes to say a few farewell words to the Allied troops, with many of whom he has now for so long been associated. First, he would like them to know his deep sense of the honour it has been to command so fine an Army in one of the most arduous and difficult Campaigns which has ever been undertaken; secondly, he must express to them his admiration at the noble response which they have invariably given to the calls he has made upon them. No risk has been too desperate; no sacrifice too great. Sir Ian Hamilton thanks all ranks, from Generals to private soldiers, for the wonderful way they have seconded his efforts to lead them towards that decisive victory, which, under their new Chief, he has the most implicit confidence they will achieve."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: I think I hardly knew _how_ often till I came to read through my diary in cold print. But all the time I was conscious, and am still more so now, of K.'s greatness. Still more so now because, when I compare him with his survivors, they seem measurable, he remains immeasurable.
I wish very much I could make people admire Lord K. understandingly. To praise him wrongly is to do him the worst disservice. The theme can hardly be squeezed into a footnote, but one protest must be made all the same. Lord Fisher gives fresh currency to the fable that K. was a great organizer. K. hated organization with all his primitive heart and soul, because it cramped his style.
K. was an individualist. He was a Master of Expedients; the greatest probably the world has ever seen. Whenever he saw _any_ organization his inclination was to smash it, and often--but not always--he was right. This may sound odd in Anglo-Celtic ears. But most British organizations are relics of the past. They are better smashed than patched, and K. loved smashing.--IAN H., 1920.]
[Footnote 15: Lord K.'s reason for putting in this last paragraph may be obscure unless I make it clear. As explained in a previous footnote, Lord K. knew that I knew his strong personal view that the smashing blow to our military reputation which would be caused by an evacuation of the Dardanelles must, in course of time, imperil our hold upon Egypt. Therefore, for the moment, it was necessary to warn me that the problem must be considered in the purely military, tactical, aspect.--IAN H. 1920.]
[Footnote 16: Lest anyone should imagine there is any privilege or secrecy attached to this document it may be well to explain that all the best passages came back to me from Melbourne in due course; often with marginal comment.--IAN H., 1920.]
APPENDIX I
STATEMENT ON ARTILLERY BY BRIGADIER GENERAL SIR HUGH SIMPSON BAIKIE, EX-COMMANDER OF THE BRITISH ARTILLERY AT CAPE HELLES.
The first landing of British troops at Cape Helles took place on 25th April, 1915. On arriving at that place during the first week in May, I found that heavy fighting had occurred without ceasing from the time of the disembarkation. Having come straight from the Headquarters Staff of the 2nd Army in France, where the question of artillery ammunition was a constant source of anxiety to all the higher commanders, I at once set to work to discover what reserves remained in the hands of G.H.Q. and what the daily expenditure had been since the landing. The greatest difficulty was experienced in obtaining figures of expenditure from the units, so constant had been the fighting, which still continued, and so great the casualties, and consequent confusion in reckoning expenditure. Yet, after some delay, sufficient information was obtained to enable me to demonstrate with certainty that, if such severe fighting continued, the Force would soon be in danger of losing their artillery support.
On the 4th May a cable was sent, I believe, to Lord Kitchener saying that ammunition was becoming a very serious matter owing to the ceaseless fighting; pointing out that 18 pr. shell were a vital necessity and that a supply promised by a certain ship (I believe the S.S. _Funia_) had not turned up. A day or two later, a cable was received by G.H.Q. saying munitions were never calculated on a basis of prolonged occupation of the Peninsula, and that the War Office would have to reconsider the whole position, if more was wanted. If I remember aright, the cable finished by saying, "It is important to push on." A few days later a cable was received saying the War Office would not give us more ammunition until we submitted a return of what was in hand. The compilation of that cut-and-dried return in the midst of a desperate battle was a distracting and never-to-be-forgotten effort, but there was no help for it: no return, no shells; that was the War Office order. The ammunition still in hand lay mostly in the holds of the ships at Mudros, 60 miles away, and did not lend themselves to easy counting; while the actual expenditure was, for reasons already given, an intricate problem indeed.
Continuous cables on the subject of ammunition passed during the next few days between G.H.Q. and the War Office, all of which passed through my hands and some of which I drafted for superior authority. I cannot remember their sequence and not always their purport, but I distinctly remember about the 10th or 11th May a cable being received from Lord Kitchener saying ammunition for Field Artillery was being pushed out _via_ Marseilles. I think the figures given were about ten or twenty thousand rounds of 18-pr. and some one thousand rounds of 4.5 howitzer H.E., but I am not sure.
The fact that does remain indelibly impressed on my mind is that I am convinced from the cables that passed through my office that no provision had been made by the War Office to keep up a regular supply of artillery ammunition to the Dardanelles Expedition. The W.O. authority appeared to have given a bonus of ammunition when the Expedition sailed, and to have been somewhat taken aback and annoyed by the fact that a sure and continuous supply should afterwards be demanded.
On 29th May I left G.H.Q. on appointment as Brigadier-General to command all the artillery at Cape Helles, in which capacity I served till September, i.e. through all the big attacks and counter-attacks of June, July and August. In this capacity I was brought face to face with all the deficiencies in artillery _matériel_ and ammunition, of which the following were the most important.
Although there was only one Battery of 4.5 and one Battery of 6-in. howitzers at Helles there was always an extreme deficiency of howitzer H.E. ammunition. So great was the shortage that immediately on taking up my command I found it necessary to issue a most stringent order that no howitzer on Cape Helles was ever to fire H.E. without my personal authority. When the Turks attacked, 18-prs. and 15-prs. were to support the Infantry with shrapnel; howitzers were only to be used with my personal permission and then were only to fire shrapnel. All howitzer H.E. was to be used exclusively for supporting British attacks by bombarding the Turkish trenches before and during such activities. Throughout the above months, constant appeals were made to me by Infantry Commanders to bombard the Turkish trenches with H.E. in order to retaliate for the loss our men had suffered from the Turkish guns using H.E. Such requests I had invariably to refuse.
There were fifty-six 18-prs. at Helles, when I assumed command on the 29th May, and subsequently they were increased to seventy-two at the end of July. Except for 640 rounds of H.E., which was fired off during the 4th June battle, no more H.E. arrived till the end of July.
Never during my command did the total number of rounds of 18-pr. ammunition at Helles ever reach 25,000. Before one of our attacks, with very careful previous husbanding, the total used perhaps to reach 19,000 to 23,000. The total amount I could therefore allot justifiably for the artillery preparation before an attack of our four British Infantry Divisions never exceeded 12,000 rounds; as from 6,000 to 7,000 must necessarily be kept in reserve to assist in beating off the determined hostile counter-attacks. As I remarked at the beginning of this paper, artillery ammunition was a constant anxiety to the higher commanders on the Western Front also, but never, I believe, had Infantry to attack with so little artillery support as the above. My position in France did not give me any inside knowledge of the details of artillery supply, but in one action at St. Eloi (near Ypres) on 14th or 15th February, in which only 27th Division was concerned, the artillery of this Division (so the C.R.A. informed me) alone fired 10,000 18-pr. rounds in one night. At a similar action at the same place by the same division about a month later the divisional artillery fired, I believe, a slightly larger amount. Again, at Neuve Chapelle, in February, 1915, each Division had its own divisional artillery and the ammunition expenditure worked out to 150 rounds per 18-pr. gun. These official figures were shown me a few days after the battle by the G.O.C., 2nd Army.
In comparing the ammunition expenditure of France in 1915 and in the Dardanelles, the enormous discrepancy in the number of 18-prs. per Division must be taken into account. Reckoning on the scale of the number of 18-prs. allotted to a British Division in France, we had at Helles little more than sufficient 18-prs. for one Division, yet with this number we had to give artillery support to four Divisions. As to the French artillery at Helles, they could always reckon on being able to expend 40,000 to 45,000 rounds when their two Divisions attacked.
The complete absence of H.E. was severely felt, as shrapnel were of little use for destroying trenches, machine gun emplacements, etc. Therefore, in each and every British attack, success was jeopardized and our infantry exposed to cruel losses, because, firstly, there was not sufficient ammunition to prepare their attack, and, secondly, there was no H.E. (except for howitzers) to destroy the machine guns in their emplacements. The latter, therefore, inflicted great losses on our Infantry in their advance.
Our unfortunate position did not escape the notice of the French, who used at times generously to place under my command some of their field guns and howitzers, but in the latter they were also lamentably deficient, and in ammunition they were, themselves, during May and early June, none too well provided, although towards July their reserves grew more sufficient. The British deficiency in ammunition, however, was so great, and created so much merriment among the French that they christened the British Artillery, "Un coup par pièce"; with which term of endearment I was always personally greeted by the French Artillery General and his Staff, with all of whom I was great friends.
At the battle of 28th June the French were unable to spare us the howitzers or ammunition we begged of them. The failure of the gallant 156th Brigade of the 52nd Division to take the H.12 trenches was essentially due to lack of artillery ammunition, especially of H.E. Allowing for losses that must have been suffered under any condition, I believe that some 700 or 800 Scottish casualties were due to this cause. Before the action the Corps Commander sent for me to say that he did not consider that enough guns and ammunition had been allotted to this portion of the Turkish trenches. I replied that I agreed, but that there were no more available and that to reduce the bombardment of the hostile trenches on the left of our front would gravely prejudice the success of the 29th Division in that quarter and that I understood success there was more vital than on our right flank. After consultation with the G.O.C. 29th Division, the Corps Commander agreed with my allotment of the artillery. We then did our utmost to obtain the loan of more guns, howitzers or ammunition from the French without success and with the result that the attack was beaten off.
So successful had been the attack on our left with its capture of five successive lines of Turkish trenches that we had actually some ammunition to spare. In the afternoon it was agreed that there should be another attack on H.12, preceded by a very short but very intense bombardment from every gun and howitzer we possessed. All artillery arrangements for this were completed before 2.30 p.m., from which hour all the guns waited alert and ready for the Infantry to inform us of the hour they wished us to commence fire. I was in direct telephonic communication with the commander of the 52nd Division, having had a private wire laid on to his Headquarters the previous day. Suddenly, to my horror, I received a telephone message from my Artillery Group Commander, Colonel Stockdale, saying the Infantry were making the assault and that he had no time to do more than fire half a dozen shots!
In the attacks of 12th and 13th July, the French placed some thirty or forty guns and howitzers under British command, and on account of the shortage of British ammunition their guns undertook the whole of the artillery preparation, our artillery confining itself to covering fire during and after the Infantry advance. The counter-attacks were so violent and the calls for artillery support were so incessant that towards the afternoon of the 13th July the British gun ammunition began to get alarmingly low, until finally only about 5,000 rounds of 18-pr. ammunition, including all rounds in Battery charge, remained at Helles. The French were reluctant to supply further artillery support, fearing further attacks on themselves. This was the most anxious night I spent on the Peninsula--all but a limited number of rounds were withdrawn from most Batteries and were placed in horsed ammunition wagons, which perambulated from one side of the British position to the other according to where it seemed most likely the next Turkish attack would take place. These measures were successful and no Battery actually was left without one round at a critical moment, but the position throughout that night was a most dangerous one. Every hour a wire was sent to G.H.Q. giving expression to our crying needs, but there was next to nothing at Mudros, while desperate fighting still went on without a minute's respite. At 11 p.m. that night a trawler did, to the joy of every gunner, reach Helles with 3,000 rounds of 18-pr., but on the arrival of my Staff Officer to unload it, it was found that the fuses were of a new pattern never issued before and that the existing fuse keys would not adjust the fuses. As no new pattern fuse keys had been sent from home the Batteries had to manufacture their own, which was successfully accomplished after two days' delay.
During June two Batteries, and during July two more Batteries of 5-inch howitzers, manned by Territorials, arrived at Helles. During the last week of July the first two Batteries were sent to Anzac. Some of these howitzers were very old and worn by corrosion, and were consequently inaccurate.
The Gun History sheets of some of them showed they had been used at the Battle of Omdurman, seventeen years before, and had been in use ever since. After the big British attacks of 6th and 7th August, their ammunition began to run short. On demand about 500 or 700 rounds were sent up from Mudros--on arrival each shell was found to be of only 40 lb. weight, whereas former shells were of 50 lb. weight. Their fuses were also of new pattern, which existing fuse keys would not fit and, to crown all, no range tables had been sent for this new pattern of shell. In spite of continual letters and telegrams to the War Office, when I left Helles in September no new pattern fuse keys or range tables had ever arrived from England; consequently these shells remained stacked on the Peninsula while the Batteries only fired occasionally for want of ammunition!
On another occasion, when we were in the greatest straits for 15-pr. ammunition, many hundreds of rounds arrived at Helles, which on being landed were discovered by my Staff only to be suitable for the Ehrhardt R.H.A. guns in Egypt, no such guns being in the Dardanelles.
As for heavy artillery, practically speaking, there was none! Only one 6-inch Howitzer Battery (4 howitzers) and one 60-pr. Battery (4 guns) were in action at Helles up to July when four more guns of the latter calibre were landed. Unfortunately, however, the 60-prs. were of little use, as the recoil was too great for the carriages and the latter broke down beyond repair by our limited resources after very few rounds. At the beginning of August only one 60-pr. gun remained in action. Consequently, we had no heavy guns capable of replying to the Turkish heavy guns which enveloped us on three sides, and from whose fire our infantry and artillery suffered severely.
As to spare parts, spare guns and carriages, such luxuries were practically non-existent. No provision appears to have been made by the War Office to replace our guns or their parts, which became unserviceable through use or through damage by the hostile artillery. As the British were holding the lower slopes of the Achi Baba position, and as all our gun positions could be seen into by the Turks with powerful spectacles from their observation posts on the top of Achi Baba, our equipment suffered severely. During June and July one 6-inch howitzer and twenty-five 18-prs. (out of a total of seventy-two) as well as one or two 60-prs., were put out of action by direct hits from the hostile artillery. Such guns were withdrawn to the field workshops on "W" Beach, but as these workshops were exposed to the enemy's artillery fire from three sides, the guns were often further damaged while under repair. Damaged guns had sometimes to wait for days in this workshop until other guns had been damaged in a different place by the hostile artillery. Then possibly one efficient gun could be made up of the undamaged portions of one, two or more guns. Batteries often, therefore, remained for days short of guns on account of the lack of spare parts.
When I assumed command of the artillery at Helles, there were two Batteries of mountain guns (10-prs.) in action, but they were of a prehistoric pattern. In 1899 the Khedive of Egypt possessed in his Army, in which I was then serving, mountain guns which were more up-to-date in every respect. So inaccurate were these 10-prs. that they had to be placed close behind the front trenches lest they should hit our own Infantry, the result being a very heavy casualty list in officers and men amongst their Territorial personnel. Many of these lives could have been saved, had reasonable modern weapons been supplied. These obsolete old guns wore out so quickly that the two Batteries quickly melted into one Battery, and when they finally left Helles for Anzac at the end of July, I believe only 3 guns and their detachments were left in being.
As for anti-aircraft guns, they did not exist at all and the hostile aeroplanes used to fly over and drop bombs _ad lib._ without fear of molestation, the only saving clause being that the enemy appeared to possess almost as few aeroplanes as the British.
In no point of their equipment did the force at Helles suffer so much in comparison with their comrades in France as in the matter of aeroplanes which, at the Dardanelles, were hopelessly deficient not only in the numbers but also in quality. There were not sufficient pilots and there were no observers at all. Brave and efficient as the naval pilots were, they could not be expected to be of any use as artillery spotters unless they had been thoroughly trained for this important duty. This deficiency had to be made good at all costs by drafting young artillery subalterns from their Batteries and sending them to the Air Force, where their lack of training and experience in operation was at first severely felt, although later these lads did magnificent work. Thus Batteries were deprived of their trained subalterns just at the moment when the latter were most required on account of the severe casualties suffered in the landing and during the subsequent early operations. But few of the aeroplanes were fitted with wireless and the receivers on the ground could not take in messages over a distance longer than 5,000 yards. Consequently, each aeroplane had to return within this radius of the receiver, before its observation could be delivered, thus immensely curtailing the usefulness and efficiency of the aeroplane observation. Owing to the above conditions, aeroplanes could only be used for the counter-batteries firing on hostile artillery.
As regards trench mortars, the supply was hopelessly inadequate. I cannot give the exact figures, but I believe there were not a dozen at Helles during the whole period I was there, and these were of such an indifferent type as to be practically useless, and for this reason no one bothered about them. No provision appears to have been made for the supply of such necessities of trench warfare by the Home Authorities. This appears to be indefensible, as I believe very early in the operations their provision was specially asked for by G.H.Q. The absolute failure to supply such articles of vital necessity eventually led to the French C.-in-C. at Helles lending the British two demizel trench mortars and large quantities of ammunition. These were manned by artillery detachments, and by their magnificent work and the constant demand from the Infantry for their services, it was conclusively proved what an invaluable aid a sufficient supply of these weapons would have been.
From the very first it was apparent to me that the number of British guns at Helles was not sufficient to prepare and support simultaneous Infantry attacks of the whole British Force at this end of the Peninsula. In June I drew up a memorandum to G.H.Q. pointing this out and asking for a big increase of guns, howitzers and ammunition. What happened to this I cannot say. I only know that the guns and ammunition asked for never materialized.
The whole story of the artillery at Helles may be summed up in the following sentences: insufficiency of guns of every nature; insufficiency of ammunition of every nature, especially of H.E.; insufficient provision made by the Home Authorities for spare guns, spare carriages, spare parts, adequate repairing workshops, or for a regular daily, weekly or monthly supply of ammunition; guns provided often of an obsolete pattern and so badly worn by previous use as to be most inaccurate; lack of aeroplanes, trained observers and of all the requisites for air observation; total failure to produce the trench mortars and bombs to which the closeness of the opposing lines at Helles would have lent themselves well--in short, total lack of organization at home to provide even the most rudimentary and indispensable artillery requisites for daily consumption; not to speak of downright carelessness which resulted in wrong shells being sent to the wrong guns, and new types of fuses being sent without fuse keys and new types of howitzer shells without range tables. These serious faults provoked their own penalties in the shape of the heavy losses suffered by our Infantry and artillery, which might have been to a great measure averted if sufficient forethought and attention had been devoted to the "side-show" at the Dardanelles.
After commanding the starved artillery at Helles it was my good fortune to command the artillery of the 21st Army Corps at the third Battle of Gaza, in November, 1917, and also at the great Battle of 19th September, 1918, in which the Turks in Palestine were finally crushed, and I think it may add emphasis to what I have said if I contrast the artillery support of the two campaigns and show the results which ensued. On the night before the third Battle of Gaza, the artillery under my command (to support three Divisions) consisted of the following, viz.:--19-1/2 Batteries (i.e., 78 guns and howitzers) of heavy artillery, comprising 8-inch howitzers, 6-inch guns, 6-inch howitzers and 60-pr. guns--all of the most modern and up-to-date type.
The Field Artillery comprised 108 18-prs. and 36 4.5 howitzers while in addition there were 8 modern mountain howitzers and guns. There was not an artillery weapon in the whole Army Corps that was not efficient and up-to-date, while immediately behind the front line existed perfectly organized workshops capable of executing any repairs. There was ample provision of spare guns, carriages and parts, and an abundance of trench mortars which, though they would have changed the whole face of the Peninsula conflict, could not be used in Palestine owing to the breadth of No Man's Land. Ammunition for every nature of gun and howitzer was pressed upon us in profusion--over a thousand rounds per gun was buried and concealed near every Battery, while immediately behind the fighting line huge reserves were available for immediate use if required. At the advanced railhead, G.H.Q. literally built mountains of ammunition as a further supply; all this in addition to vast quantities stored in depôts in Egypt and on the banks of the Suez Canal. So great was the superabundance of shell, that hundreds of tons were left lying on the ground after the nine days' Battle at Gaza; which it took months to remove. At the battle of the 19th September, 1918, in Palestine conditions were exactly the same. There was an absolute _embarras de richesse_ of every artillery requisite. This wealth of artillery material was supported in Palestine by a full complement of artillery, aeroplanes, pilots and observers, the latter being all thoroughly trained and efficient. In addition, by a sufficiency of fighting aeroplanes with most efficient pilots, our artillery were adequately guarded from sunrise to sunset from any hostile aeroplane observation.
In short, our air supremacy was undisputed and absolutely protected our own artillery against damage and molestation from the hostile guns. On the other hand, the enemy's artillery lay at our mercy directly their gun positions were discovered.
The whole science of artillery and aeroplane co-operation had, of course, been vastly extended and perfected since Gallipoli days, but the point I wish to make is this: that in 1917 and 1918 the Palestine Front was fitted out on the same scale, proportionately, as the Western Front; whereas in 1915 this was not the case in the Dardanelles as regards artillery, for instance, only one Division (the 29th) at Helles having 18-pr. guns and the Naval Division having been given no artillery at all!
To put the matter shortly, whereas at Helles I had under my command no more than 88 to 95 guns and howitzers of all natures with scarcely any ammunition or aeroplanes to support four British Divisions; in Palestine at Gaza I had at least 230 guns and howitzers (one-third of which were of heavy calibre) with an abundance of ammunition and a sufficiency of aeroplanes to support the attack of one and a half Divisions, the remaining one and a half Divisions at Gaza being in reserve. At the battle of 19th September, 1918, in Palestine I had, to the best of my recollection, about 360 guns of all calibres to support four Divisions. The terrible casualties suffered by our Infantry at Helles are well known, and my feelings as Artillery Commander unable to give them anything like the support they would have had in France or Flanders may be guessed. But this was made up to me afterwards when I commanded the artillery at Gaza, that strong fortress which was captured by the 21st Army Corps, with certainly under 3,000 casualties and I believe with under 2,000 killed and wounded. At Gaza the Turks were simply crushed by our overwhelming artillery, fed from inexhaustible Ordnance parks and dumps. Before the Infantry attack commenced the position was subjected to a continuous bombardment night and day for six days and six nights from every available gun and howitzer. The Infantry then attacked and took a large portion of the position with a loss of, I believe, under 1,000 men. The Turks counter-attacked, but they melted away under the tremendous artillery barrage and never attempted another during this battle. Next night our Infantry tried to extend their conquest but the Turks had meanwhile brought up an old Gallipoli Division, the 7th, which held them at bay and inflicted upon them serious losses which, I believe, increased their casualties to between two and three thousand. The Corps Commander then decided to let the Infantry stand where they were, to submit the Turks to a further three days' and three nights' bombardment, at the end of which our Infantry advanced again only to find that the Turks were evacuating the whole of the Gaza position. After the Battle of 19th September, 1918, many Infantry commanders of Divisions, Brigades and Battalions have told me the Turks appeared crushed by the terrific artillery bombardment (under cover of which our men advanced) and offered a resistance which, in comparison with our experiences of Gallipoli, can only be called feeble.
The cardinal fact that remains in my mind is that in Palestine the 21st Army Corps always had enough (and more than enough) of every artillery requisite for whatever number of Divisions the Army Corps was composed of; whereas, in Gallipoli, the VIIIth Army Corps at Helles, which was composed of four British Divisions, never had enough Field Artillery or ammunition to support more than one Division, and never possessed sufficient heavy artillery to support more than one Infantry Brigade.
The material part of my statement ends here, and it only remains for me to remind you that all the grievous shortcomings I have exposed were actually made good by the heroism, devotion and sufferings of the Officers and men of the Artillery at Helles, both Regular, Territorial, Australian and New Zealand. Rest was impossible, as no Battery could ever be withdrawn from the line and all field Batteries were under rifle fire. If placed outside that range, they were destroyed by flanking fire from Turkish guns in Asia. No dug-outs were possible, as dug-outs were understood in France, as there was no timber or roofing for their construction. All ranks were thus exposed night and day to continuous fire, and were sometimes killed as they slept in their valises by stray bullets, thousands of which were fired unaimed every night by the Turks in the hopes of inflicting casualties; water for drinking and washing was almost as precious as guns and shells. The joys of a canteen, as was at that time supplied by the War Office to our Army in France, were unknown; bare rations washed down by a limited allowance of water were our only form of food; everyone suffered more or less from dysentery, spread by the millions of flies which settled on every mouthful we ate and made life almost insupportable by day. No Man's Land was one vast litter of unburied corpses. Yet no man's spirit ever wavered and all ranks remained as bright, as hopeful and as cheerful as on the day of the first great landing. If shells were scarce, complaints were non-existent; all were upheld by the wonderful religion of self-sacrifice. It will ever remain my greatest pride that I had the astonishing good fortune to be associated with such a body of officers and men; to them I owe a debt of gratitude that is beyond redemption, and to them alone is due the credit for any success which the artillery at Helles may have attained in what was one of England's greatest tragedies, but was also one of England's greatest glories.
APPENDIX II
DARDANELLES EXPEDITION
NOTES BY LIEUT.-COLONEL CHARLES ROSENTHAL,[17] COMMANDING 3RD AUSTRALIAN FIELD ARTILLERY BRIGADE, 1ST AUSTRALIAN DIVISION, RELATING TO ARTILLERY AT ANZAC, FROM 25TH APRIL TO 25TH AUGUST, 1915. (_Compiled from personal diary._)
During the early hours of 25th April, 1915, the 3rd Australian Infantry Brigade landed on Gallipoli Peninsula, close to Gaba Tepe, at a point now known as Anzac Beach, followed by other troops of 1st Australian Division and Australian and New Zealand Division.
Arrangements had been made for artillery to land about 10 a.m. on the same morning, but owing to delays in disembarkation of Infantry, and enemy shelling of transports necessitating ships temporarily leaving their allotted anchorage, it was after mid-day before the vessels carrying guns were actually in correct position for disembarkation.
I did not wait for the naval boats to come alongside, but after issuing necessary instructions to Battery Commanders concerning the landing of the guns, I disembarked in a ship's boat manned by a volunteer crew from my Brigade Ammunition Column, accompanied by two officers and sixteen men of my Headquarters' Staff.
Immediately on landing I reported to my C.R.A., and was by him informed that the Divisional Commander had decided no artillery should land during the day. This decision absolutely nonplussed me, and on asking the reason I was informed the position was not considered sufficiently secure to ensure the safety of guns, if emplaced. With this decision I did not agree and urged, without result, that the safety of guns was surely secondary to the proper supporting of the troops already committed.
In view of the above decision instructions were at once sent off to the ships ordering Colonel Johnstone, Commanding 2nd A.F.A. Brigade, and Major Hughes, acting for me in command of 3rd A.F.A. Brigade, to defer disembarkation of guns. Colonel Johnstone, however, by this time had one 18-pr. gun well on the way to the shore. Permission was given for it to be landed and it was brought into action close to the beach against guns at Gaba Tepe, undoubtedly temporarily silencing them.
In the meantime the Indian Mountain Battery attached to 1st Australian Division, which had landed early in the day, was in action doing splendid work though suffering severe casualties.
By the order of Colonel White, G.S.O. (1), 1st Australian Division, I spent the afternoon in collecting Infantry stragglers and getting them forward again to the firing line. At 5 p.m. I reported completion of this task and then proceeded to thoroughly reconnoitre the right flank, overlooking Gaba Tepe, which had seemed to me, from observations made from the ship, to be a suitable area for emplacing of guns.
I returned to Divisional Headquarters just before dark, and informed the C.R.A. and Divisional Commander that I had found suitable places for batteries and could use them effectively.
I had in my reconnaissance conferred with three Battalion Commanders (one of whom was killed a couple of days later), who were delighted to hear that the artillery they were so anxiously waiting for was to come up in support.
After much discussion and persuasion the Divisional Commander agreed to allow me to land two of my three 18-pr. batteries. This approval was shortly afterwards altered to permission to land two guns only, and finally all approval was cancelled, though no information of these decisions officially reached me.
During the night, in anticipation of early arrival of guns, my Headquarters personnel worked untiringly in preparing a track from the beach to the selected sites for guns, and it was not till 5.30 a.m. on 26th that I learned approval to land guns had been cancelled overnight.
During the morning of 26th April one gun of 1st Battery, 1st Brigade, and one gun of 4th Battery, 2nd Brigade, were landed, hauled up the steep hill to their positions, and came into action on the extreme right of ridge overlooking Gaba Tepe.
Later in the day the 7th Battery of my Brigade came into action on the same ridge and the single guns of 1st and 4th Batteries were withdrawn for return to their respective Brigades.
During the afternoon there also came ashore, apparently without order, two guns of 3rd Battery, 1st Brigade, and 8th Battery, 3rd Brigade, but were returned to their respective ships by the C.R.A.
My guns were placed absolutely in the Infantry front trenches, on the sky line, no troops of any kind being in advance of them. It would have been quite useless to take up positions behind the Infantry line in the normal way, owing to the configuration of the ground, for in such cases the lowest range at which the crest could be cleared was 3,000 yards, while our targets were from 500 to 1,000 yards distant. Indeed at night, shrapnel shell with fuse set at zero was frequently used.
Each gun fired during the 26th about 400 rounds, over open sights, and caused very heavy casualties to the enemy.
The whole battery covered a front of 187°, necessitating each gun being personally controlled by an officer and each with its own particular arc of fire.
The supply of ammunition was very difficult. It had to be delivered by hand to the guns over a bullet-swept area, the distance from the beach to the guns being about half a mile, while in this distance the hills rose 400 feet.
By the afternoon of the 3rd May, two guns of 8th Battery, 3rd Brigade, were in action, and 2nd Brigade also had guns in position on the left flank of 1st Australian Divisional Front.
The Australian and New Zealand Division also had 18-prs. in action together with two 4.5-inch Howitzer Batteries, the latter being the only howitzers available up to this time at Anzac.
I was wounded on 5th May, evacuated to Cairo, and did not rejoin my command at Anzac till 26th May. During this interval gun positions, as well as Infantry trenches, had been much improved, and the enemy country in our immediate front which, when I left on 5th May, gave no signs of life, was now well traversed by trenches.
I found in my sector that the guns of my Brigade were now all in action, and the remainder of the artillery of the Division was also emplaced.
About this time 6-inch howitzers were made available and later emplaced, one for left sector, one for the centre, and one for the right, but with very limited quantities of ammunition. Another 6-inch howitzer was landed on 17th June.
I had made continual urgent representations for two 4.7-inch guns for right flank to deal with innumerable targets beyond the range of 18-prs., but it was not till 11th July that one very old and much worn gun arrived, and was placed in position on right flank, firing its first round on 26th July.
On 24th June a Scottish Territorial Howitzer Battery (the 5th Battery, City of Glasgow Lowland Howitzer Brigade) arrived and came under my command.
On 14th July a heavy battery was organized for right flank, consisting of the two 6-inch howitzers and the 4.7-inch gun before mentioned, but ammunition was still very scarce.
On 15th July a 5-inch Howitzer Brigade under Colonel Hope Johnstone commenced to arrive and was complete in position by 18th July.
On 28th July the 4th Battery of Lowland Brigade arrived.
About this time some alterations were made in artillery dispositions and grouping in preparation for impending battle at Suvla Bay and Lone Pine, commencing on 6th August, and on 30th July the artillery of right sector under my command was as follows:--
3rd A.F.A. Brigade (18-prs.). Heavy Battery (two 6-inch howitzers and one 4.7-inch gun). 2 Mountain Guns. Two 5-inch Howitzer Batteries, Lowland Brigade. One 5-inch Howitzer Battery, 69th Brigade.
When leaving Australia in 1914 I had urged that a battery of 5-inch howitzers (which I commanded prior to the outbreak of war), together with stocks of ammunition held by Australia, should accompany 1st Australian Division. This was not approved. On arrival at Gallipoli Peninsula, when the need for howitzers was at once apparent, I again re-opened the question, particularly on the 29th May, when the C.R.A. agreed to press for them to be sent forward. The Divisional Commander, on 25th June, cabled Australia definitely asking for this battery, which was at once forwarded, but arrived at the Peninsula too late to be of any service.
Two Australian Field Batteries (together with a Brigade of Infantry) were transferred to Cape Helles on 5th May and did not rejoin the Australian Division at Anzac till 18th August.
With the limited number of guns available it was exceedingly important that transfers might be made very rapidly from one part of our front to another, and on 2nd June I put forward a proposal which was approved immediately to make a road along the entire front just behind the crest on which infantry trenches were sited. This road was completed in about two weeks and was a great boon alike to gunners and Infantry.
Up to 24th August no anti-aircraft guns had been provided, but specially constructed emplacements had been made for 18-prs. to be used against aircraft, and though never successful in bringing down an enemy 'plane they certainly made good enough shooting to cause enemy aviators to treat them with respect. About 20th August three 3-pr. Hotchkiss arrived for anti-aircraft purposes. They were of obsolete pattern and had been manufactured for the Japanese Government many years before. In fact the only range tables provided were printed in Japanese, but thanks to the fact that one of my Sergeants (who was a Master Mariner) spoke Japanese, we succeeded in preparing serviceable range tables.
Two Japanese trench mortars were also used from Infantry trenches with excellent effect, but owing to ammunition supply becoming soon exhausted and no fresh supplies being available they had to be discarded. A good supply of these weapons, together with full supplies of ammunition, would have been invaluable in bombarding enemy front line trenches.
The ammunition supply at all times up to the operation of 6th August was a difficult problem. Frequently we had to be rationed to a very small allowance per battery per day, and the guns of the heavy battery were for some time not permitted to fire more than two rounds per day and then only by special permission of the C.R.A.
On 20th June I was first informed that H.E. for 18-pr. was to be supplied, and shortly afterwards a small supply for experiment was landed at Anzac. I think I am right in saying my share was 15 rounds per battery.
On 2nd August our first supply of H.E. arrived, but only 150 rounds per battery.
During the first few months of the campaign, when our stocks of ammunition were desperately low, our guns and gunners had to suffer considerable casualties without being able to effectively reply.
Our batteries were of necessity in many cases under direct observation of the enemy, and only the splendid work of the detachments in building earthworks for their protection made it possible to carry on.
Under the protection of the banks of a small ravine near the beach, our artificers established a workshop, and the extraordinary ingenuity and skill displayed in the repairing and replacing of damaged guns earned for the artificers our most grateful appreciation and thanks.
On 25th August I was evacuated suffering from enteric.
These notes only apply to the right sector, which I commanded.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 17: Now Major-General Sir Charles Rosenthal, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.--IAN H. 1920.]
APPENDIX III
The Dispatch of a Commander-in-Chief is not a technical document. In it the situation should be set forth, as briefly and clearly as may be, together with a few words indicative of the plan of G.H.Q. for coping with it. After that comes a narrative which ends with thanks to those individuals and units who have earned them. A Dispatch should be so written that civilians can follow the facts stated without trouble: it should not be too technical. But when the Military Colleges and Academies at Camberley, Duntroon, Kingston, West Point and in the European and Japanese capitals set to work in a scientific spirit to apportion praise or blame they are more influenced by the actual instructions and orders issued by the Commander-in-Chief _before and during the battle_, than by any after-the-event stories of what happened. They are glad to know the intentions of the Commander, but his instructions i.e., the actual steps he took to give practical effect to those intentions, are what really interest them.
When I came to write my Dispatch of the 11th December, so much about the actual course of events at Suvla was still obscure, that it had become desirable either to write the narrative in a more technical form than was customary or else to publish my actual instructions simultaneously with the Dispatch. I chose the latter course. The authorities had raised objections to several passages in the Dispatch, and in every case but one, where they had wished me to add something which was not, in my opinion, correct, I had met them. No objection had been raised to the inclusion of my instructions. At 9 p.m. on the night of the 6th January (the Dispatch being due to appear next morning) I received a letter by Special Messenger from the War Office telling me the Press Bureau were wiring to all those to whom the Dispatch had been issued to suppress the instructions!
Whatever the reason of this action may have been, its result was clear enough: my Dispatch was eviscerated at the very moment it was stepping on to the platform. Had I known that these instructions, now given, were to have been cut out, my Dispatch would have been differently written.
IAN H., 1920.
SIR IAN HAMILTON'S INSTRUCTIONS.
TO VICE-ADMIRAL, COMMANDING EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SQUADRON,
_17th July, 1915._
SIR,--I have the honour to forward a series of tables drawn up to show in detail the men, animals, vehicles, stores, etc., which it will be required to land in connection with the forthcoming operations. I shall be grateful if you will let me know as early as possible if you consider that any part of the programme indicated presents especially serious difficulties or is likely to require modification.
In informing me of the results of your consideration, I shall be obliged if you will let me know what craft you intend to use in carrying out the disembarkations referred to in tables B, C, D and E, so that detailed arrangements with regard to embarkation and to the allocation of troops, etc., to boats may be prepared.
2. Immediately after the disembarkation of the details referred to in the attached tables it will be necessary, if the operations are successful, to land 5,000 to 7,000 horses in order to render the force sufficiently mobile to carry the operations to a conclusion. Details as to disembarkation of these horses will be forwarded to you later. In the meantime the horses will be collected at Alexandria, and should subsequently be brought up to Mudros or Imbros, to begin arriving on August 6th.
It will also be necessary to land the remaining portions of the units referred to in the tables (first line transport, etc.), and, further, the remaining units of the formations to which they belong. In this latter category will be included three batteries of heavy artillery with mechanical transport. It will not be required to land any of the above until after August 7th, and details as to numbers, order of disembarkation, etc., will be forwarded to you later.
I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient Servant, (_Signed_) IAN HAMILTON,
_General, Commanding_ _Mediterranean Expeditionary Force._
* * * * *
TABLE A.
TABLE SHOWING UNITS AND DETAILS WHICH IT IS REQUIRED TO LAND GRADUALLY AT ANZAC COVE BEFORE THE MORNING OF THE 3RD OF AUGUST. IT WILL BE NECESSARY TO CARRY OUT THESE DISEMBARKATIONS BY NIGHT, AND THE MOVEMENTS CAN BEGIN AS SOON AS IT IS CONVENIENT TO THE NAVAL TRANSPORT AUTHORITIES.
+------------------------+------------+--------+----------+ Unit. | From | To |Personnel.| +------------------------+------------+--------+----------+ 69th Howitzer Bde. |Mudros |Anzac | 312 | R.F.A. | |Cove | | | | | | 1/3rd City of Glasgow 5" | Helles |Anzac | 78 | | | | | 10th Heavy Battery |On board |Anzac | 11 | R.G.A. |ship at |Cove | | |Mudros | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | One F.A. Bde. (11th |On board |Anzac | 33 | Division, "A" Bde.) |ship at |Cove | | |Mudros | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Reinforcements for Units |Alexandria |Anzac | 7,000 | of A.N.Z.A.C. | |Cove | to | | | | 8,000 | | | | | Mule Corps |Helles |Anzac | 50 | | |Cove | | | | | | Ammunition Park |Mudros |Anzac | 65 | | |Cove | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +------------------------+------------+--------+----------+
+--------------------+--------+------------------------------+-------------- | Vehicles. |Animals.| Stores. | Remarks. +--------------------+--------+------------------------------+-------------- |16 guns, 16 wagons, | Nil | | |4 water carts | | | | | | | |4 guns, 4 wagons, 1 | Nil | | |water cart | | | | | | | |4 guns, 4 wagons, 1 | Nil | |I.G.C. has |water cart, 2 | | |already been |G.S. wagons | | |instructed to | | | |arrange for | | | |this move. | | | | |16 guns, 32 wagons, | Nil | |I.G.C. has |telegraph cart, 4 | | |already been |water carts | | |instructed to | | | |arrange for | | | |this move. | | | | | Nil | Nil | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Nil | 200 | |By August 1st. | | | | | | | | | Nil | Nil |S.A. Ammn. 5,500,000 rounds | | | |Mk. VII (_a_) (225 tons), | | | |760,000 rounds Mk. VI (30 | | | |tons) | | | |Gun Ammunition (_b_) 10 pr. | | | |2,700 (19 tons), 18 pr. 5,500 | | | |(70 tons), 4.5" How. 1,600 | | | |(45 tons), 5" How. 10,000 | | | |(330 tons), 6" How. 1,200 | | | |(70 tons), 60 pr. 1,000 (30 | | | |tons) | +--------------------+--------+------------------------------+---------------
_a_ If possible, an additional 3,000,000 S.A.A. should be landed, so that half the reserve for the whole Northern Force may be ashore before operations begin (see Table "C" Remarks).
_b_ If possible, the following additional gun ammunition should also be landed, so that the full reserve for the whole Northern Force may be ashore before operations begin:--
10 pr. 3,000 rounds} 18 pr. 10,000 rounds} See Table "C" Remarks. 6" Howitzer 1,000 rounds}
TABLE B.
TABLE SHOWING UNITS AND DETAILS WHICH IT IS REQUIRED TO LAND AT ANZAC COVE ON THE NIGHTS OF AUGUST 3RD/4TH, AUGUST 4TH/5TH AND AUGUST 5TH/6TH.
---------------------+------+-------+----------+---------+--------------------- Unit. | From.| Date. |Personnel.|Vehicles.| Remarks. ---------------------+------+-------+----------+---------+--------------------- 6 Battalions (_a_), |Mudros|Night, | 4,650 | Nil |Machine guns and 13th Division | |August | | |other equipment | |3rd/4th| | |carried by hand. | | | | | Bearer Sub-Division, |Mudros|Night, | 100 | Nil | -- personnel Anzac | |August | | | | |3rd/4th| | | | | | | | 7 Battalions (_a_), |Mudros|Night, | 5,425 | Nil |Machine guns and 13th Division | |August | | |other equipment | |4th/5th| | |carried by hand. | | | | | Bearer Sub-Division, |Mudros|Night, | 125 | Nil | -- 1 Field Ambulance, | |August | | | 13th Division | |4th/5th| | | | | | | | 4 Battalions, 10th |Mudros|Night, | 3,100 | Nil |Machine guns and Division | |August | | |other equipment | |5th/6th| | |carried by hand. | | | | | 29th Indian Brigade |Imbros|Night, | 2,000 | Nil | Ditto. and Field Ambulance | |August | | | | |5th/6th| | | | | | | | Bearer Sub-Divisions,|Mudros|Night, | 255 | Nil | -- 2 Field Ambulance, | |August | | | 13th Division | |5th/6th| | | | | | | | 3 Field Companies |Mudros|Night, | 525 | Nil |Machine guns and R.E. (_a_), 13th | |August | | |other equipment Division | |5th/6th| | |carried by hand. All | | | | |tools carried by hand. ---------------------+------+-------+----------+---------+---------------------
_a_ These units to move from Helles to Mudros as follows:--
1 Brigade } Night, 1 Field Company} 28th/29th July.
1 Brigade } Night, 1 Field Company} 29th/30th July.
1 Brigade } Night, 1 Field Company} 30/31st July.
TABLE C.
TABLE SHOWING UNITS AND DETAILS WHICH IT IS REQUIRED TO LAND AT NEW BEACH DURING THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 6TH/7TH, BEGINNING ONE HOUR AFTER DARK (9.30 P.M.). ALL TROOPS WILL COME FROM IMBROS, BUT HORSES WILL COME DIRECT EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE STATED.
-----------------+----------+-------+---------------+-------------------------- Unit. |Personnel.|Horses.| Vehicles. | Remarks. -----------------+----------+-------+---------------+-------------------------- 1 Inf. Bde. and | 3,050 | 36 | Nil |Personnel only to be Sig. Sec.(_a_) | | | |disembarked in the order | | | |shown. Animals of Mountain 1 Bearer Sub-Div.| 40 | Nil | Nil |Batteries as soon as there | | | |is sufficient light, | | | |followed by horses of one 1 Inf. Bde. and | 3,065 | 36 | Nil |18-pr. Battery (82) and of Sig. Sec. and 1 | | | |H.Q. F.A. Brigade (10). W/T Station | | | |Animals of remaining units | | | |to follow in the order 1 Bearer Sub-Div.| 40 | Nil | Nil |shown. Supplies and forage | | | |for 7 days for these Field Co. R.E. | 175 | 16 |4 tool carts |troops and animals to be | | | |dumped on the beach as 2 Mountain Batts.| 100 | 80 | Nil |soon as possible, will (_b_) | | | |amount to about 250 tons. | | | |S.A.A. 4,000,000 will also Div. H.Q. and | 125 | 28 |2 cable wagons,|have to be landed besides Sig. Co. | | |1 water cart, |that carried by the | | |2 limbd. R.E. |troops, say, 150 tons. | | |wagons | | | | | 1 Inf. Bde. and | 3,840 | 44 | Nil |Artillery reserve Pioneer Bn. and | | | |ammunition will also be Sig. Sec. and 1 | | | |required as follows:-- W/T Station | | | |To come by trawler from | | | |Mudros 7 Bearer Sub-Divs| 300 | Nil | Nil | 10 pr. 3,000 rds. (20 tons) | | | | 18 pr. 10,000 rds. (130 tons) | | | | 60 pr. 1,000 rds. (30 tons) 2 Platoons Div. | 62 | Nil |62 bicycles |(See notes to Table A.) If Cycl. Co. | | | |reserve S.A.A. and gun | | | |ammunition can be put 2 Field Cos. R.E.| 350 | 32 |8 tool carts |ashore at Anzac Cove | | | |before operations begin 1 F.A. Bde. ("L" | 550 | 251 |16 guns, 44 |this will also be done. Bde.) (_c_) | | |wagons, 1 |But the above-mentioned | | |telephone |reserves must also be | | |wagon, 5 water |landed at New Beach in | | |carts |case the congestion on the | | | |road from Anzac makes its | | | |forwarding a matter of | | | |great difficulty. Ammn. Park | 65 | Nil | Nil | Personnel (11 | | | | Div.) | | | | | | | | 9 Tent Sub.-Divs.| 350 |84 |30 ambulance | | |horses |wagons, 9 water| | |or |carts, 3 | | |144 |Maltese carts | | |mules | | | | | | 4 Casualty | 360 | Nil | Nil | Clearing Stations| | | | | | | | Bde. Ammn. Col. | 60 | 62 |8 ammunition | | | |wagons, 1 water| | | |cart, 4 S.A.A. | | | |wagons | 2 Bns. for Beach | 1,000 | Nil | Nil | Parties | | | | | | | | Mule Corps | 150 | 300 |150 mule carts | | | | | Wireless Sec. | 18 | 16 |2 two-horse | | | |vehicles | -----------------+----------+-------+---------------+--------------------------
_a_ Helles to Imbros, night July 31st/August 1st.
_b_ Helles to Imbros, night August 1st/2nd.
_c_ Animals in remarks columns (82 and 10) come from Imbros, remainder from Mudros in horse-ships.
TABLE D.
TABLE SHOWING UNITS AND DETAILS WHICH IT IS REQUIRED TO LAND AT ANZAC COVE BEGINNING AT DAWN AUGUST 7TH.
ORDER OF LANDING AS SHOWN. ALL THESE TROOPS WILL COME FROM MUDROS.
----------------------------+----------+-------+---------+--------------------- Unit. |Personnel.|Horses.|Vehicles.| Remarks. ----------------------------+----------+-------+---------+--------------------- Medical personnel, tent sub-| 900 | Nil | Nil |All spare stretchers divisions A. and A.N.Z.A.C. | | | |to be carried by Field Ambulance | | | |hand. | | | | Bearer Sub-Divisions of 1 | 125 | Nil | Nil | Field Ambulance, 10th Div | | | | | | | | One 18-pr. Battery and H.Q. | 120 | 92 | Nil | F.A. Bde. ("A" Bde.) | | | | | | | | 10th Heavy Battery R.G.A. | 110 | 70 | Nil | | | | | Three 18-pr. Batteries ("A" | 300 | 246 | Nil |Guns and personnel Brigade) | | | |already ashore, (See | | | |Tables A and B.) Mules of Mule Corps | * | 400 | Nil |* Sufficient personnel | | | |to look after mules. ----------------------------+----------+-------+---------+---------------------
TABLE E.
TABLE SHOWING UNITS TO BE READY TO LAND IMMEDIATELY AFTER THOSE SHOWN IN TABLES A, B, C AND D. UNITS WILL PROBABLY BE REQUIRED IN THE ORDER SHOWN EITHER AT NEW BEACH OR ANZAC COVE AS CIRCUMSTANCES MAY DICTATE.
-----------------+------+----------+--------+---------------+------------------ Unit. | From |Personnel.|Animals.| Vehicles. |Remarks. -----------------+------+----------+--------+---------------+------------------ Divl. H.Q. 10th |Mudros| 125 | 28 |2 limbered R.E.| Divn. | | | |wagons, 1 water| | | | |cart, 2 cable | | | | |wagons | | | | | | 3 Battalions 10th|Mudros| 2,325 | 40 |6 water carts |S.A.A. 2,600,000 Divn. | | | | |rounds besides | | | | |that carried on the | | | | |men. | | | | | 6 Battalions 10th|Port | 4,650 | 76 |12 water carts | Divn. |Iero | | | | | | | | | H.Q. Divl. R.E. |Mudros| 525 | 30 |12 tool carts, | | | | |3 water carts | | | | | | 3 Field Cos. R.E.| -- | -- | -- | -- | 10th Division | | | | | | | | | | Bearer Sub- |Mudros| 250 | -- | -- | Divisions of 2 | | | | | Field Ambulances,| | | | | 10th Divn. | | | | | | | | | | 15th Heavy |On | 121 | 70 |4 guns, 4 | Baattery R.G.A. |board | | |wagons, 1 water| |ship--| | |cart, 2 G.S. | |Mudros| | |wagons | | | | | | Tent Sub-Division|Mudros| 350 |54 |15 ambulance | of 10th Divn. | | |horses |wagons, 12 | | | |or 84 |carts | | | |mules | | | | | | | Mule Corps |Mudros| 150 | 300 |150 carts | -----------------+------+----------+--------+---------------+------------------
GENERAL OFFICER COMMANDING,
AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND ARMY CORPS.
With reference to your G.288 of 15th July, the Navy is being asked to provide transport for the following ammunition to be landed at Anzac by the 3rd August:--
* * * * *
_For A. and N.Z.A.C._--Sufficient S.A.A. to bring the amount on shore up to 500 rounds per rifle and 27,500 per machine-gun.
_For other Troops._--300 rounds per rifle and 24,000 rounds per machine-gun (in addition to what the troops will carry on landing).
These will come to 10,000,000 rounds in all, and arrangements are being made to begin landing this ammunition as soon as possible.
2. The following artillery ammunition will also have to be gradually landed and stored, and should all be ashore, if possible, by August 3rd:--
10 pr. 5,700 rounds 18 pr. (probably 15 per cent. H.E.) 15,500 " 4.5-in. Howitzer probably half H.E. 1,600 " 5-in. Howitzer majority H.E. 10,000 " 6-in. Howitzer majority H.E. 1,200 " 60 pr. probably two-thirds H.E. 1,000 "
All of this ammunition is not yet arrived, and the proportion of H.E. shell is not yet ascertainable from England. The arrangements suggested in your paragraph 2 (iii.) of your letter are noted, and will be followed as far as possible.
3. With regard to the marking of ammunition-boxes, the necessary arrangements are being prepared. You will be informed of the arrangements and of the system of marking in due course.
Consignments of Mark VI. and Mark VII. will be sent separately as you suggest.
4. The above figures do not include the periodical replenishment referred to in paragraph 2 (iv.) of your letter. Dispatch of consignments on this account and consignments for the reserve will be notified to you separately.
(_Signed_) W. P. BRAITHWAITE,
_Major-General, C.G.S.,_ _Mediterranean Expeditionary Force._
Enclosed a copy of tables forwarded to Vice-Admiral, showing troops, animals, stores, etc., which the Navy is being asked to land at Anzac.
_22nd July, 1915._
GENERAL OFFICES COMMANDING, 9TH CORPS.
The General Commanding wishes me to send you the following outline of his plans for the next general attack, for the exclusive information of yourself, your Divisional Generals, and such Officers of your Corps Headquarters and Divisional Headquarters as you may consider it necessary to take into your confidence. I am to add that it is Sir Ian's wish that as few officers as possible should be made acquainted with it.
2. The general plan is, while holding as many of the enemy as possible in the southern theatre, to throw the weight of our attack on the Turkish forces now opposite the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. It is hoped, by means of an attack on the front and right flank of these forces, to deal them a crushing blow, and to drive the remnants south towards Kilid Bahr. It will then be the object of the General Commanding to seize a position across the peninsula from Gaba Tepe to Maidos with a protected line of supply from Suvla Bay.
3. The strength of the enemy north of Kilid Bahr at the present time is about 30,000 men. Of these some 12,000 are permanently maintained in the trenches opposite the Anzac position, and the majority of the remainder are held in reserve at Boghali, Kojadere and Eski-Keui. It is believed that there are about three battalions in the Anafarta villages, a battalion at Ismail Oglu Tepe (New map 1/20,000), a battalion near Yilghin Burnu, and small parties of outposts at Lala Baba (Sq. 104.L.) and Ghazi Baba (Sq. 106.N.). The hills due east of Suvla Bay towards Aji Liman are believed to be held only by a few Gendarmerie, but information on this point is at present not precise. The hills near Yilghin Burnu and Ismail Oglu Tepe are known to contain one 4.7-in. gun, one 9.2-in. gun, and three field guns, protected by wire entanglements and infantry trenches, but it is believed that the main defences are against attack from the south or west, and that there is no wire on the northern slopes of the hills; also that the guns can only be fired in a southerly direction.
4. The success of the plan outlined in paragraph 2 will depend on two main factors:--
(a) The capture of Hill 305 (Sq. 93.W.).
(b) The capture and retention of Suvla Bay as a base of operations for the northern army.
5. The operations from within the present Anzac position against the enemy on Hill 305 will be carried out by the Australian and New Zealand Corps, temporarily reinforced by the following units of the 9th Army Corps:--
13th Division (less 66th, 67th and 68th Brigades, R.F.A.).
29th Infantry Brigade (10th Division).
29th Indian Brigade.
69th Howitzer Brigade, R.F.A.
6. The landing near Suvla will be entrusted to you, and you will have at your disposal:--
11th Division.
10th Division (less 29th Brigade).
Highland Mountain Artillery Brigade.
1st/4th Lowland Howitzer Brigade.
The disembarkation of your command, which may be expected to be opposed, though not in great strength, will be after dark at a point immediately south of Lala Baba. The first troops to disembark will be the 11th Division, which will have been concentrated at Imbros previously to the attack, and will be brought across under cover of darkness in destroyers and motor-lighters. It is expected that approximately 4,000 men will be disembarked simultaneously, and that three infantry brigades and the mountain artillery brigade will be ashore before daylight.
Your first objectives will be the high ground at Lala Baba and Ghazi Baba, and the hills near Yilghin Burnu and Ismail Oglu Tepe. It will also be necessary to send a small force to secure a footing on the hills due east of Suvla Bay. It is of first importance that Yilghin Burnu and Ismail Oglu Tepe should be captured by a coup-de-main before daylight in order to prevent the guns which they contain being used against our troops on Hill 305 and to safeguard our hold on Suvla Bay. It is hoped that one division will be sufficient for the attainment of these objectives.
Your subsequent moves will depend on circumstances which cannot at present be gauged, but it is hoped that the remainder of your force will be available on the morning of the 7th August to advance on Biyuk Anafarta with the object of moving up the eastern spurs of Hill 305 so as to assist General Birdwood's attack.
7. The operations from within the present Anzac position will begin during the day immediately preceding your disembarkation (the reinforcements for General Birdwood's force having been dribbled ashore in detachments at Anzac Cove on the three previous nights). The operations will begin with a determined attack on the Turkish left centre, Lonesome Pine and Johnston's Jolly (see enlarged map of Anzac position), with the object of attracting the enemy's reserves to this portion of the line. The Turks have for long been apprehensive of our landing in the neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe, and it is hoped that an attack in force in this quarter will confirm their apprehensions. At nightfall the Turkish outposts on the extreme right of the enemy's line will be rushed, and a force of 20,000 men will advance in three or more columns up the ravines running down from Chunuk Bair. This advance, which will begin about the same time as your first troops reach the shore, will be so timed as to reach the summit of the main ridge near Chunuk Bair about 2.30 a.m. (soon after moon-rise).
Latest photographs show that the Turkish trenches on this ridge do not extend further north than Chunuk Bair, and it is unlikely that the higher portions of the ridge are held in great strength.
As soon as a lodgement has been effected on this ridge a portion of the attacking force will be left to consolidate the position gained and the remainder will advance south-west against the enemy's trenches near Baby 700, which will be attacked simultaneously by a special detachment from within the Anzac position.
An advance by your force from the east will, as already indicated in paragraph 6, be of great assistance in the event of this attack being checked.
8. The landing of sufficient transport to secure the mobility of your force will be a matter of considerable difficulty. No animals or vehicles of any kind will be able to land in the first instance, and machine-guns, tools and necessary medical and signalling equipment must be carried by hand. All men will land with two iron rations (one day's meat ration only is advised); infantry will carry 200 rounds S.A.A. and machine-gun sections 3,500 rounds in belt boxes. Packs and greatcoats will not be taken ashore. Before dawn it is hoped to land enough horses to secure the mobility of the mountain artillery brigade and one battery R.F.A., and it is hoped that within the first 24 hours the disembarkation of all the personnel, horses and vehicles enumerated in the attached table will be complete.
One brigade R.F.A. 11th Division, 1/4th Lowland 5th Howitzer Brigade (two batteries) and the 10th Heavy Battery, will be landed at Anzac before the operations commence, and their personnel and horses will disembark on the morning following your disembarkation, and will then be directed along the beach to join your command.
Water is plentiful throughout the Anafarta Valley, but pending the disembarkation of water carts a number of mules with special 8-gallon water bags will be attached to the units of your command.
(_Signed_) W. P. BRAITHWAITE,
_Major-General, C.G.S._, _Mediterranean Expeditionary Force_.
P.S.--This letter is never to be out of an officer's possession, and if, as is probable, you require to send it to your Brig.-Gen. G.S., it must be sent to Mudros in charge of an officer.
TABLE.
|Animals. | Vehicles. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 11TH DIVISION.
Divl. H.Q. and Signal Co. 28 1 cart, 2 cable wagons.
3 Infantry Brigades 108 Nil.
Pioneer Battalion 8 Nil.
2 F.A. Brigades 506 32 guns, 88 wagons, 2 telegraph wagons, 10 carts.
1 Heavy Battery R.G.A. 45 4 guns, 4 wagons, 2 G.S. wagons, 1 cart.
3 Field Coys. R.E. 48 12 tool carts.
2 Platoons Divl. Cyclist Co. Nil 62 bicycles.
3 Field Ambulances 144 30 ambulances, 12 carts.
10TH DIVISION.
Divl. H.Q. and Signal Co. } -- Transport on 1-1/2 Infantry Brigades } approximately the same Pioneer Battalion } scale 3 Field Cos. R.E. } as that for 11th 3 Field Ambulances } Division.
29th Indian Brigade and Indian Field Ambulance. 2 Mountain Batteries (80 mules). 2 Battalions (of 500 men each) for Beach parties. Mule Corps with 300 mules and 150 carts. 3 Casualty Clearing Stations.
Organization Orders for Troops Landing at Anzac.
1. Troops landing at Anzac are to land equipped as follows:
* * * * *
F.S. equipment, including respirator;
Pack and waterproof sheet;
No blanket.
Officers' kit reduced to what they can carry.
No transport of any kind will be available to move baggage or equipment.
Ammunition S.A.A. 200 rounds per rifle or person; 3,500 rounds per machine-gun in belt boxes.
No regimental reserve S.A.A.
Gun, limbers and wagons filled with fused shell.
Water bottles--filled.
Rations--iron rations one day meat and biscuit, two days' groceries.
Sufficient to provide breakfasts.
(Fuel will be issued on shore.)
Tools--infantry. Regimental reserve distributed to individuals and carried on person; Brigade reserve entrenching tools distributed to units, by them to individuals and carried on person.
Engineers--tools for road making and entrenching work--carried on person.
Other arms--usual allotment.
Signal company cable and equipment usually carried in carts to be transferred to barrows.
Ambulances--all available stretchers and equipment of dressing stations only. Tent sub-divisions in readiness to rejoin early.
A.S.C.--Small allowance of distributing equipment, to be brought by advance parties of S. and T. personnel.
Establishments.
2. No horses, attendants or drivers are to land. Brigade Sections of Signal Companies are to land with the brigades they serve.
Tent sub-divisions of field ambulances are not to land.
Equipment carried in technical vehicles is to be transferred to vehicles which can be hand-propelled or else carried on person.
3. Troops should disembark into lighters, etc., in complete units, companies, platoons, and so on, unless much space is sacrificed in so doing.
4. All troops should land wearing two white 6-inch armlets and a white patch on back of right shoulder.
5. No lights or noise are to be permitted while disembarking; troops will move into the lighters or horseboats as quickly as possible.
6. On disembarking troops will be met by staff officers and guides, and will be marched off direct to the ground allotted to them--in no case more than 1,200 yards from the beach. All kit brought must be removed by the troops, and must be taken out of the lighters at the same time as the troops leave.
Special parties to assist with the machine-gun and other loads are to be detailed in the load of each lighter.
7. No lights or talking are permitted on the beach or till the troops reach their allotted area. Fires are not to be lit in any area till 4.15 a.m., and must be extinguished by 8 p.m. Green wood is not to be used; the smoke it causes will draw shell fire.
8. No troops are to leave the area allotted to them between 4 a.m. and 8 p.m. except on special duty with the authority of the Brigade Commander. Piquets will be placed under area arrangements at intervals round the area to prevent men straying independently.
9. Troops may be exposed to desultory shelling during the day or night. This is never aimed, and the best protection against it is to move into the bottom of the gully in which the troops are bivouacked.
10. Troops are not to use any portion of the iron ration with which they land. Issues will be made under brigade arrangements of rations and extras to last the period of their stay.
11. Water is issued on ration at one gallon fresh water per day. This includes water for all purposes. For bathing, the sea is available, but may only be visited after 9 p.m. daily.
12. Latrines for immediate use are dug and marked in each area; additional latrines are to be prepared by units and the strictest orders issued to prevent fouling the ground. Latrines are to be made very deep, as space is much restricted.
13. Casualties of any kind after treatment in the field ambulance affiliated to the brigade will be taken to the casualty clearing station in Anzac Cove for removal to Hospital Ship.
Urgent cases at any time; others as far as possible between 7.30 and 8.30 p.m. and between 6 and 9 a.m.
14. The following is to be practised by all troops after landing:--
* * * * *
Falling in once during the night in any close formation, and to remain so closed up for a period of at least half an hour, during which passing of commands (messages from front to rear and back again and to the flanks) is to be practised.
The troops must be accustomed to the starlight, which may be expected during night operations.
15. If aeroplanes pass overhead troops are not to look up, as this will give away the position of bodies of troops and probably draw shell fire.
16. Troops landing should be provided with Maps 1/20,000 of the area in which operations are to take place. These maps to be in bulk, and not issued till after landing.
Maps 1/10,000 of the Anzac area showing roads and bivouacs will be issued to unit commanders on arrival.
17. Telephone lines will be found laid from Anzac Headquarters to points suitable for Brigade or higher Headquarters. On arrival brigades will join up these points to Anzac.
An officer and two orderlies per brigade will also be detailed to remain at Anzac Headquarters.
Staffs of formations higher than brigades will be located within easy reach of Anzac Headquarters.
* * * * *
G.S.R. Z. 18/2.
_Instructions for G.O.C. 9th Army Corps._
Reference Sheet Anafarta Sagir Gallipoli Map 1/20,000.
1. The intentions of the General Commanding for the impending operations, and a rough outline of the task which he has allotted to the troops under your command, were communicated to you in my G.S.R. Z. 18, dated 22nd instant.
2. In addition to the information contained in paragraph 3 of the above quoted letter, small numbers of Turkish mounted troops and Gendarmerie have been reported in the country north of Anzac, and three guns with limbers, each drawn by six oxen, have been seen moving into Anafarta Sagir. An aeroplane photograph has also disclosed the presence of a few trenches on Lala Baba. A sketch of these trenches, which have apparently been constructed for some months, is attached. It is believed that the channel connecting the Salt Lake with Suvla Bay is now dry.
3. Your landing will begin on the night 6th/7th August. Your primary objective will be to secure Suvla Bay as a base for all the forces operating in the northern zone. Owing to the difficult nature of the terrain, it is possible that the attainment of this objective will, in the first instance, require the use of the whole of the troops at your disposal. Should, however, you find it possible to achieve this object with only a portion of your force, your next step will be to give such direct assistance as is in your power to the G.O.C. Anzac in his attack on Hill 305, by an advance on Biyuk Anafarta, with the object of moving up the eastern spurs of that hill.
4. Subject only to his final approval, the General Commanding gives you an entirely free hand in the selection of your plan of operations.
He, however, directs your special attention to the fact that the hills Yilghin and Ismail Oglu Tepe are known to contain guns which can bring fire to bear on the flank and rear of an attack on Hill 305, and that on this account they assume an even greater importance in the first instance than if they were considered merely part of a position covering Suvla Bay. If, therefore, it is possible, without prejudice to the attainment of your primary objective, to gain possession of these hills at an early period of your attack, it will greatly facilitate the capture and retention of Hill 305. It would also appear almost certain that until these hills are in your possession it will be impossible to land either troops or stores in the neighbourhood of Suvla Bay by day.
5. The troops at your disposal will be:--
11th Division (less one Brigade R.F.A., at Helles).
10th Division (less 29th Infantry Brigade).
Three squadrons R.N. Armoured Car Division, R.N.A.S. (one squadron motor cycles, six machine guns; one squadron Ford cars, six machine guns; one squadron armoured cars, six machine guns).
Two Highland Mountain Artillery batteries.
An endeavour will be made to release for your force one or more 5-in. howitzer batteries, now at Anzac, during the day following your initial disembarkation.
6. In order that you may be able to arrange for the disembarkation of your force to agree, so far as Naval exigencies will admit, with the plan of operations on which you decide, the allocation of troops to the ships and boats to be provided by the Navy is left to your decision.
With this object, tables have been drawn up, and are enclosed with these instructions, showing the craft which can be placed at your disposal by the Navy, their capacity, and the points at which the troops can be disembarked. The tables also show what numbers of troops, animals, vehicles, and stores can be landed simultaneously.
The beaches available for your landing on the first night are (1) a frontage of 600 yards in Suvla Bay (sq. 117 Q.V.); (2) a frontage of 1,800 yards S. of Kuchuk Kemikli (sq. 9, 103 z, 104 V; 91 A.B.), called "New Beach" in the tables. It will not be possible in the first instance to land more than one brigade of your force in Suvla Bay, though other vessels can simultaneously be discharging their passengers on New Beach.
7. As regards the time at which the disembarkation may be expected to commence, no craft will be allowed to leave Kephalos Harbour till after dark, and the passage across will take from one and a half to two hours. It is unsafe, therefore, to count on any troops being ashore before 10.30 p.m., and in no case must your approach be disclosed to the enemy till 10 p.m., the hour at which the outposts on the left flank of the Anzac position are to be rushed.
8. No allowance has been made in the tables for the disembarkation of your headquarters, as it is not known at what period of the operations you will wish them to land.
9. Special attention is directed to paragraph 8 of my letter G.S.R. Z. 18, dated 22nd July.
10. The infantry of the 53rd Division will be available as Army Reserve, and will be at the disposal of the General Commanding.
11. Special instructions regarding signal communications will be issued later. In general terms the arrangements will be as follows:--
* * * * *
There is a submarine cable between Imbros and Anzac, and a cable will be laid as soon as practicable from Imbros to Suvla Bay. A submarine cable and a land cable will also be laid between Anzac and Suvla Bay as soon as circumstances permit, probably before dawn. Pending the completion of this work inter-communication between Anzac and Suvla Bay will be carried out by lamp, and, subject to Naval approval, between Suvla Bay and Imbros by wireless telegraphy.
Two[18] military pack W.T. stations and one R.N. Base W.T. station will be provided at Suvla Bay, four naval ratings will be attached to each station as visual signalling personnel. One of these military pack W.T. stations will be disembarked with the second brigade to land, and will act as a base station pending the arrival of the R.N. Base wireless station. The second military pack W.T. station will be disembarked with the third brigade to land; it will be placed on a flank and used mainly for fire control under the B.G.R.A.
A wagon wireless station at G.H.Q., Imbros, will be in communication with both these pack W.T. stations.
One officer and 23 other ranks, with two pack animals from the Brigade Signal Section, will be landed with each Infantry Brigade.
These parties will lay their cable by hand and establish telephone and vibrator communication from the beach forward. No vehicles will be landed in the first instance, all necessary stores being man-handled.
Three officers, 74 other ranks, 28 animals and five vehicles will be landed with Divisional Headquarters.
The advance parties will release the brigade sections from the beach and be prepared to lay cable lines by hand.
Two cable wagons will be included in the five vehicles, and should be the first of those vehicles to be disembarked.
----------------------+----------------------+--------------------+ Time of Arrival | | | off Coast. | Craft. | Capacity. | ----------------------+----------------------+--------------------+ In time to disembark |10 motor lighters |500 infantry | all troops, |(10 steamboats |each (and | vehicles, horses, |accompanying) |400,000 rds. | stores, etc., by | |S.A.A. if necessary)| night | | | | | | |10 destroyers |530 infantry | | |each | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |1 sloop, towing |600 men | |1 motor lighter |88 horses | |and 4 horseboats |8 mtn. guns | |(1 steamboat |30 bicycles | |accompanying) | | | | | | | | | | | |1 sloop, towing |500 men | |4 horseboats (1 |24 horses | |steamboat |4 18-pr. guns | |accompanying) |or wagons | | | | |1 trawler, towing |250 men | |4 horseboats |24 horses | |(1 steamboat |4 18-pr. guns | |accompanying) |or wagons | | | | | | | | | | |H.M.S. |1,000 men | |_Endymion_ | | | | | |H.M.S. |1,000 men | |_Theseus_ | |
-------------------+-----------------------+------------------------- | Method of | Landing Place. | Disembarkation. | Remarks. -------------------+-----------------------+------------------------- 7 lighters at |Land direct on beach |Ammunition if necessary New Beach, | |may be left on motor 3 lighters at | |lighters until convenient Suvla Bay | |to land it, according to | |circumstances. | | One attending |Motor lighters take |The disembarkation from each motor |off troops and land |the destroyers cannot lighter |them on beach |begin until the 10 motor | |lighters have landed | |their complement and | |returned. | | New Beach |Motor lighters and |The sloops and trawler, |horseboats loaded |after casting off their |with guns, horses of |tows, will return to |mountain and 18-pr. |Kephalos. Other |batteries. Sloop |horseboats |loaded with men and |boats will be there, |bicycles |ready filled with the | |remainder of the horses New Beach |Horseboats loaded |required in the first |with guns, vehicles, |instance for the two |and horses of 18-pr. |Mountain Batteries, |battery. Sloop |the 18-pr. Battery, and |loaded with men |the Signal Company. |and bicycles |They will pick up these New Beach |Horseboats loaded |horseboats and tow |with guns, vehicles, |them over to the beach |and horses of 18-pr. |immediately. |battery. Trawler | |available to carry men | | | New Beach |Landed either from | -- or Suvla |cutters towed by | Bay, as may |steamboats, or from | -- be convenient |motor lighters | | | -------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------
The above would admit of the disembarkation before dawn at and in the neighbourhood of Suvla Bay of:--
Divisional Headquarters. Signal Co. with 40 horses. 1 W.T. Section and 2 W.T. Stations. H.Q. F.A. Bde. (18-pr.) with 10 horses. 1 F.A. Battery (18-pr.) with 82 horses. 2 Mountain Batteries with 80 horses. 3 Field Companies R.E. 3 Infantry Brigades and part of remainder of F.A. Bde. (personnel). 1 Pioneer Battalion. 2 Battalions for Beach parties and part of Ammn. Park personnel. 2 Platoons Divl. Cyclist Co. and part of Tent Sub-divisions of Field Ambulances. Bearer Subdivisions of 3 Field Ambulances and part of Casualty Clearing Stations.
The 10 motor lighters will land their complements first, and then the troops from the 10 Destroyers, the two sloops and their tows, and the trawler and her tows, can proceed simultaneously on a front of about 600 yards in Suvla Bay and 1,800 on the beach south of Suvla Bay, directly beach secured. The two landing places are about 2 miles apart. The landing of the troops from H.M.S. _Endymion_ and _Theseus_ may be able to take place simultaneously, or may have to be deferred until the motor lighters have cleared the destroyers.
----------------------+----------------------+---------------------+ Time of Arrival | | | off Coast. | Craft. | Capacity. | ----------------------+----------------------+---------------------+ At or immediately |1 horse transport |All horses enumerated| after dawn | |in Table C appended | | |to letter G.S.R. Z. | | |18 of 23rd July, | | |except those already | | |provided for. Water | | |bags and pumps | | | | |1 mule transport |All mules and mule | | |carts provided for in| | |Tables C and E | | |appended to G.S.R. Z.| | |18 of 23rd July | | | | |6 small transports |5,000 Infantry | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Called up from |1 supply ship |7 days' supplies for | Kephalos as soon after| |troops and animals | dawn as circumstances | |in Tables C and E | permit | |appended appended to | | |G.S.R. Z. 18 of 23rd | | |July | | | | Called up from |4 small transports |2,700 Infantry | Kephalos as soon after| | | dawn as circumstances | | | permit | | | | | | |1 horse transport |All horses and | | |vehicles enumerated | | |in Table E, appended | | |to G.S.R. Z. 18 of | | |23rd July | | | | ----------------------+----------------------+---------------------+
-------------------+-----------------------+------------------------- | Method of | Landing Place. | Disembarkation. | Remarks. -------------------+-----------------------+------------------------- Suvla Bay |Six of the horseboats |Transport comes from |from which the 18-pr. |Mudros. |and mountain batteries | |will previously have | |been landed | | | | | | | Suvla Bay |Six of the horseboats |Transport comes from |from which 18-pr. and |Alexandria. |mountain bateries will | |previously have been | |landed | | | _Suvla Bay_or |Landed from motor |Six battalions 10th _New Beach_ if |lighters as soon as |Division coming from necessary) |they have finished |Port Iero. |clearing the destroyers| |and (if necessary) | |H.M.S. _Endymion_ and | |_Theseus_ | | | Suvla Bay |Landed from motor | |lighters as soon as | |the Port Iero troops | |are cleared | | | | | | | _Suvla Bay_ (or |Landed from motor |Three battalions 10th _New Beach_ if |lighters as soon as |Division from Mudros. necessary) |the Port Iero troops | |are cleared. | | | Suvla Bay |Landed from horseboats | |brought up on second | |trip by the trawler and| |two sloops, as soon as | |the horseboats have | |been emptied | -------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------
The above will provide for the disembarkation of the remainder of the troops, etc., enumerated in Tables C and E, appended to letter G.S.R. Z. 18 of 23rd July, that is those not already detailed to be landed before dawn, viz.:--
Remainder of F.A. Brigade (18 pr.). Remainder of Ammunition Park Personnel. 15th Heavy Battery R.G.A. Brigade Ammunition Column. Remainder of Casualty Clearing Stations. Mule Corps. Also 4,000,000 rds. S.A.A. Reserve Gun Ammunition (by special trawlers from Mudros) 7 days' supplies for the above troops and animals.
As soon as possible after Corps Headquarters go ashore, the personnel of the Divisional Signal Companies will be released from work at the beach.
Arrangements will be made subsequently to disembark an air line detachment and a cable section to provide and pole local lines.
The remainder of the Corps Headquarters Signal Company will be kept in readiness to be forwarded as soon as Corps Headquarters reports that circumstances admit of its disembarkation.
12. Two Military Landing Officers and their assistant military landing officers will be placed at your disposal from units other than those under your command.
13. In addition to the units mentioned in Tables A-E forwarded to you with my letter G.S.R. Z. 18, dated 23rd July, the following are being dispatched from Alexandria in this order:--
Three Squadrons Armoured Car Division R.N.A.S. (These will be available to land on the morning after your disembarkation begins, if you so desire.)
(1) H.Q.R.A. 10th Division.
Two F.A. Brigades 10th Division (modified scale of horses).
R.A. personnel and ammunition of 10th Divisional Ammunition Park.
(2) One F.A. Brigade 11th Division (modified scale of horses). One F.A. Brigade 10th Division (modified scale of horses).
(3) Two F.A. Brigades 13th Division.
(4) Horses for 11th Division.
and the following will be assembled at Imbros to land when required:--
11th Divisional Cyclist Company (less two Platoons).
10th Divisional Cyclist Company.
13th Divisional Cyclist Company.
14. You are requested to submit your proposed plan of operations to G.H.Q. for approval at the earliest possible date.
(_Signed_) W. P. Braithwaite,
_Major-General, C.G.S., Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. 29th July, 1915._
G.S.R. Z. 18/2. _July 29th._
GENERAL OFFICER COMMANDING, 8TH CORPS.
The General Commanding has decided that his next main attack shall be made in the vicinity of Anzac with the object of placing ourselves astride the Peninsula to the north of Kilid Bahr.
2. The 8th Corps with attached troops is to assist this main operation by offensive action in the south, the scope and form of this action being determined solely with reference to its effects on the main operation.
As the decisive point will be in the neighbourhood of Anzac, all reinforcements will be utilized in that theatre, and it is improbable that any will be available for the southern zone before the middle of August, except such drafts for the 8th Corps and the Corps Exp. Orient as may reach the Peninsula in the next ten days.
3. In order to free sufficient troops to enable the 8th Corps to take the offensive, the French will take over part of the line as defined in Force Order No. 22.
4. In addition to the troops of the 8th Corps and R.N.D. at present at your disposal, the following reinforcements may be expected:--
29th Division 280 due 29th July. 29th Division 900 due 4th August. 42nd Division 100 due 29th July. ----- Total 1,280
which, allowing for normal wastage, should give an effective total of 24,780 on 5th August. These numbers, with the shorter line you will be called upon to hold, should leave you with sufficient troops to undertake a limited offensive operation on or about that day.
5. Assuming that you are not attacked in the meanwhile, the total amount of ammunition which should be available at Helles early in August for offensive action, and to maintain a reserve is:--
18 pr. 36,000 } 4.5 inch 2,000 } Plus any amounts saved 5 inch 4,000 } from normal daily expenditure. 6 inch 545 } 60 pr. 3,000 }
but it must be borne in mind that no replacements can be looked for before August 16th.
6. The scope of your offensive action must be based upon these figures, and it is thought that the most suitable objective will be the capture of the Turkish trenches up to the line F. 13, G. 13, H. 13, and H. 12. Plans for this operation should, therefore, be undertaken at once.
7. Pre-supposing that this attack is successful, and that the numbers at your disposal admit of a further advance, the capture of the trenches on the line H. 14 to H. 15, followed perhaps by the capture of Krithia could then be undertaken, and plans for this action should be prepared beforehand. But as the launching of this further attack must be entirely dependent on unknown factors, a definite decision on this point cannot be arrived at beforehand. It is, moreover, essential that the plan of your first attack should not definitely commit your troops to a further advance unless the trend of events should render such a course desirable.
8. As regards the date for launching your first attack, it is thought that the most favourable time would be shortly before the main operations at Anzac begin, and you should therefore arrange for your first attack to take place on the 4th August.
9. Beyond holding the enemy in front of them to their positions and assisting you with artillery fire, the French will not be asked to take part in your first attack, but, in the event of your reaching Krithia, they will be directed to conform to your movements and to establish themselves on the spurs leading up to Achi Baba.
I will ascertain the amount of artillery support and lean you can expect from the C.E.O., and if the information arrives in time will attach it as an appendix to this letter.
10. The possibility of the southern force being able to capture Achi Baba has not been dealt with in this memorandum, as the attempt should only be made in the event of large reinforcements being available for the southern zone, and these must depend on the course of events in the main theatre.
(_Signed_) W. P. BRAITHWAITE,
_Major-General, C.G.S., Mediterranean Expeditionary Force._
It will be apparent to you how necessary it is not to allow any suspicion of the reason for the date mentioned in paragraph 8 being told to any person other than your Brigadier-General G.S.
(_Intd._) W. P. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 18: All W.T. arrangements are subject to alteration, as they have not yet been confirmed by the Vice-Admiral.]
APPENDIX.
_French Artillery Support for 8th Corps._
1. One Brigade of 75's will be placed at the disposal of the 8th Corps for the attack on 4th-5th August.
Of these
(_a_) One battery will be moved to support closely the attack on Krithia.
(_b_) One battery will fire up the Nullah E. of Krithia.
2. In addition, six French howitzers will be so disposed as to open fire upon Turkish artillery north of the ridge 150--Achi Baba peak.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR G.O.C. A. AND N.Z. ARMY CORPS.
Reference Map Anafarta Sagir Gallipoli Map 1/20,000.
1. The General Commanding has decided to mass the whole of his reinforcements in and immediately north of the area occupied by the corps under your command, with a view to securing Suvla Bay as a base of operations, driving the enemy off the Sari Bair, and eventually securing a position astride the Gallipoli Peninsula from the neighbourhood of Gaba Tepe to the straits north of Maidos.
2. The general outline for your proposals for the action of the A. and N.Z. Army Corps contained in your G a 89 of 1st July are approved.
3. (_a_) The General Commanding wishes your operations to begin on August 6th with a strong and sustained attack on Hill 125 (Plateau 400), every effort being made to deceive the enemy as to the locality against which our main effort is to be made, and to induce him to believe that it will be directed against his lines opposite the southern portion of your position. In pursuance of this object the Vice-Admiral has arranged that H.M. ships shall in the meantime display increased activity off the coast between Gaba Tepe and Kum Tepe. It has been arranged that soundings shall be taken by night off the coast south of Gaba Tepe; and, on the evening of August 6th, a naval demonstration will be made off this part of the coast, H.M. ships being accompanied by a number of trawlers as if a landing were to be undertaken.
(_b_) The General Commanding further concurs in the subsequent sequence of the operations outlined by you, namely:--
(i) The clearing of the enemy's outposts from the ridges facing Nos. 2 and 3 posts, to be undertaken after nightfall.
(ii) An attack in as great strength as possible up the Sazli Beit Dere, the Chailak Dere and the Aghyl Dere, against the Chunuk Bair ridge, by night.
(iii) When the Chunuk Bair ridge is gained, a converging attack from that ridge, and from the north-eastern section of your present position, against Hill 180 (Baby 700).
4. (_a_) For the above operations the following troops will be at your disposal:--
A. and N.Z. Army Corps. 13th Division, less all artillery except 69th F.A. (Howitzer) Brigade. 29th Brigade (10th Division). 29th Indian Brigade.
(_b_) At the date of commencement of the operations the following troops belonging to or attached to the 9th Army Corps will be at Anzac, but will not, except so far as is stated hereunder, be at your disposal:--
One F.A. Brigade, 11th Division: To rejoin 9th Army Corps as soon as horses are landed.
10th Heavy Battery, R.G.A.: Ditto.
14th Lowland (Howitzer) Brigade (two Batteries): Arrangements must be made so that these batteries may be free to rejoin the 9th Army Corps before nightfall on August 7th.
5. The operations carried out by the Corps under your command will form part of a general combined offensive undertaken by the whole of the forces of the Gallipoli Peninsula and by the 9th Army Corps, which will be disembarked in the neighbourhood of Suvla Bay, beginning on the night of August 6th-7th.
(_a_) The 8th Army Corps, in conjunction with the Corps Expéditionnaire, will attack the Turkish lines south of Krithia on August 4th and 5th. The attack will be made on a large scale, and will be vigorously pressed, and it is hoped that by its means the enemy will be induced to move part of his central reserves southward into the Cape Helles zone during the 5th and 6th, so that they may not be available in the northern zone on the 6th and 7th.
(_b_) The 9th Army Corps will begin landing in and close to Suvla Bay during the night of August 6th-7th. Three infantry brigades, with one field and two mountain batteries, engineers and medical services, should be ashore before dawn, and will be closely followed by two more infantry brigades and additional artillery and engineers.
The G.O.C. 9th Army Corps has been informed:--
(i) That his mission is to secure Suvla Bay as a base of operation for all the forces in the northern zone.
(ii) That the seizure of Yilghin Burnu and Ismail Oglu Tepe ("W" and Chocolate Hills), on account of the presence there of artillery which may interfere with your operations, must be considered as of very special importance.
(iii) That so far as is possible after the fulfilment of his primary mission, he is to render you such direct assistance as may be practicable by moving any available troops via Biyuk Anafarta up the eastern slopes of the Sari Bair.
(_c_) At the commencement of these operations the infantry of the 53rd Division will be available as Army Reserve and will be at the disposal of the General Commanding.
6. The Vice-Admiral has agreed provisionally to the following allotment of ships affording naval support to the operations:--
In Suvla Bay: One 6-in. monitor.
South of Kuchuk: H.M.S. _Endymion_.
Kemliki (Nibrunesi Point): H.M.S. _Edgar_, H.M.S. _Talbot_, one 6-in. monitor, one 9.2-in. monitor. These ships would be in position at daylight on August 7th, and would mainly be required to support the operations of the 9th Army Corps.
West of Gaba Tepe: H.M.S. _Baccanto_, H.M.S. _Humber_, H.M.S. _Havelock_, one 6-in. monitor.
These ships would be in position at 3 p.m. on August 6th, except H.M.S. _Havelock_, which would be in position at daylight on August 7th. They would be detailed for support of the right flank of the A. and N.Z. Army Corps.
Off Kum Tepe: One 6-in. monitor.
A separate communication is being sent to you with regard to the final settlement of details as to the support of the operations by naval guns, allocation of targets, etc.
7. Special instructions regarding signal communication will be issued later. In general terms the arrangements will be as follows:--
A submarine cable and a land cable will be laid between Anzac and Suvla Bay as soon as circumstances permit.
A submarine cable will also be laid as soon as practicable between Imbros and Suvla Bay. Pending the completion of connection between Anzac and Suvla Bay, inter-communication will be carried out by lamp.
Two military pack W/T stations and a R.N. Base W/T station will be established in the vicinity of Suvla Bay. The W/T station at Anzac will be able to intercept messages from seaplanes, but must not attempt to reply.
W/T via the ships will be an alternative means of communication between G.H.Q. and the troops ashore in case of interruption of cable communication.
A system of flares will be arranged for employment on the left flank of your position at dawn on August 7th to indicate to the ships the positions reached by the troops.
8. G.H.Q. will in the first instance be at Imbros.
(_Signed_) W. P. BRAITHWAITE,
_Major-General, C.G.S., Mediterranean Expeditionary Force._
G.H.Q., _30th July, 1915_.
FORCE ORDER No. 25.
GENERAL HEADQUARTERS,
_2nd August, 1915._
1. The total forces of the enemy in the Gallipoli Peninsula are estimated at 100,000.
Of these, 27,000 are in the neighbourhood of Anzac (5th, 19th, 16th Divisions, and 18th and 64th Regiments); 36,000 are in the Southern zone (1st, 4th, 6th Division less one regiment, 7th Division, 11th Division less one regiment, and one regiment each of the 12th, 25th and 3rd Divisions); and 37,000 are in Reserve (9th Division less one regiment, 12th less one regiment, 13th, 14th, and 25th less one regiment, and 10th Divisions). Of this reserve force two Divisions are in the Bulair district and one Division in the Eyerli Tepe zone. There are 12,000 on the Asiatic shore of the Dardanelles (2nd Division and 8th Division less one regiment). There are believed to be five Divisions (45,000 men) in the Keshan area belonging to the 5th and 6th Corps.
All reports tend to show that though the enemy may be expected to fight well in trenches, their _moral_ has suffered considerably as a result of their recent heavy casualties, and that their stock of ammunition is low.
2. The General Commanding intends to carry out a combined and simultaneous attack on the enemy in the northern and southern zone commencing on 6th August, in accordance with the special instructions already issued to the Corps Commanders concerned.
During the first phase of these operations the 13th Division (less three 18-pdr. Bdes. R.F.A.), the 29th Infantry Brigade will be attached to the A. and N.Z. Army Corps. Three squadrons R.N. Armoured Car Division and two batteries Highland Mounted Artillery will be attached to 9th Corps. 86th Brigade R.F.A. and 91st Heavy Battery R.G.A. will be attached to 8th Corps.
3. Special instructions regarding embarkation and disembarkation are issued to G.O.C. 9th Corps, G.O.C., A. and N.Z. Corps, and I.G.C., as appended to this order.
4. The 53rd Division will remain at the disposal of the General Commanding as general reserve.
5. G.H.Q. will remain in the first instance in its present situation.
_(Signed)_ W. P. BRAITHWAITE,
_Major-General, C.G.S., Mediterranean Expeditionary Force._
Issued to: G.O.C. Corps Expéditionnaire; G.O.C. A. and N.Z. Army Corps; G.O.C. 8th Army Corps; G.O.C. 9th Army Corps; G.O.C. 53rd Division; I.G.C.; Vice-Admiral.
APPENDIX TO FORCE ORDER NO. 25.
_Embarkations._
1. The embarkation of units of the 9th Corps concentrated at Imbros will be carried out under the orders of G.O.C. 9th Corps, commencing for personnel on 6th August, for vehicles and stores at such earlier date as may be convenient. The necessary ships and boats (lists of which have already been handed to the G.O.C. Corps) will be assembled in the harbour beforehand; and the embarkation programme will be worked out in consultation with Commander Ashby, R.N., who has been detailed by the Vice-Admiral for this purpose, and who will arrange for the various vessels to be in their allotted positions at the hours arranged.
G.O.C. 9th Corps will also be responsible for the allocation to ships or lighters, and for the embarkation of the following units:--
* * * * *
At Imbros: One W.T. Section (Nos. W. 10 and W. 11 Pack Wireless Stations); Two Anson Battalions R.N.D. (for duties on the beach); No. 16 Casualty Clearing Station.
In transit from Mudros to Imbros: One Casualty Clearing Station.
Units and formations concentrated at Mudros and Mitylene will be embarked for their various destinations under the orders of I.G.C. in accordance with the programme already issued to that officer.
_Military Transport Officers._
2. G.O.C. 9th Corps and I.G.C. respectively will ensure that an officer is appointed Military Transport Officer on every ship for the embarkation of which they are severally responsible (_vide_ paragraph 1).
_Landing Places._
3. The landings of the 9th Corps will be referred to as "A," "B," and "C" Beaches.
"A" Beach--Square 117.q. and v.
"C" Beach--Square 103.u.z.
"B" Beach--Square 91.b, i, o.
"C" and "B" Beaches are practically contiguous.
_Beach Control Personnel._
4. The following naval and military beach control personnel have been appointed for the landing places of the 9th Corps:--
* * * * *
Principal Beach Master: Captain H. F. G. Talbot, R.N.
Beach Masters: Commander I. W. Gibson, M.V.O. ("A" Beach), Captain C. P. Metcalfe, R.N. ("B" Beach), Commander C. Tindal-Carril-Worsley ("C" Beach).
Assistant Beach Masters and Beach Lieutenants: Four Lieutenant Commanders, ten Lieutenants, R.N.
Principal Mil. L.O.: Colonel W. G. B. Western, C.B.
Mil. L.O.'s: Major F. W. Pencock, Derbyshire Yeomanry, Major Sir R. Baker, Dorset Yeomanry, Captain Tylsen Wright, A.S.C.
Assistant Mil. L.O.'s: Captain Wade Palmer, Derbyshire Yeomanry, Captain B. A. Smith, South Notts Hussars, Lieutenant H. V. Browne, Dorset Yeomanry, Lieutenant Krabbe, Berks Yeomanry.
The allocation of the above military officers to the various landing places will be detailed by the P.M.L.O. in consultation with the P.B.M.
Special instructions with regard to beach fatigue parties have already been issued to the G.O.C. 9th Corps.
G.O.C., A. and N.Z. Army Corps will detail such military landing officers, assistant military landing officers, and beach parties for A.N.Z.A.C. as he may consider necessary. The names of officers so appointed will be reported as early as possible to V.A. and to G.H.Q.
The following special service officers are attached to H.Q., A. and N.Z. Army Corps, for such duties in connection with the landing as the G.O.C. may direct:--
* * * * *
Major P. R. Bruce, S. Notts Hussars.
Captain C. R. Higgens, County of London Yeomanry.
Captain Sir E. Pauncefort Duncombe, Royal Bucks Hussars.
_General Instructions for Landing._
5. All troops will land with two iron rations (one day's meat only in case of troops disembarking at Anzac). Infantry will carry 200 rounds of S.A.A., machine-gun sections 3,500 rounds. Packs will not be worn. A proportion of heavy entrenching tools, signalling and medical gear will be carried by hand. Camp kettles will be handed to the Ordnance Officer of the camp at which units concentrate before embarkation. They will be forwarded and reissued at the first opportunity.
6. Horses will be landed harnessed, and with nosebags filled to their full capacity.
Poles of G.S. wagons will be removed before slinging and made fast to the body of the wagon. Poles of carts, limbers, and limbered wagons will not be removed; these vehicles should be so placed in the boats that they can be landed pole leading.
_Ammunition._
7. The G.O.C. 9th Corps will depute an officer to arrange, in consultation with the P.M.L.O., for the storing of reserve ammunition in convenient localities near the beach. Guards for these stores may be found from the beach fatigue parties.
_Water._
8. The strictest economy must be exercised with regard to drinking water. Under arrangements already made by G.H.Q., receptacles filled with water will be landed as early as possible from the ships carrying the mule corps, and will be conveyed to the troops as transport becomes available. Waterproof tanks (2,300 gallon capacity) and lift and force pumps will be available on the _Prah_--R.E. Storeship--in Kephalos Harbour, and will be forwarded by D.Q.M.G., G.H.Q., on request of G.O.C. Corps.
_Transport._
9. Transport to supplement that in possession of units will be provided for the 9th Corps and the A.N.Z. Corps by the Indian Mule Corps. The amount of transport for each formation has been calculated to carry rations, water, and S.A.A., making one or two trips a day, according to the anticipated distance of the various units from the beach.
This transport will be handed over, as it is landed, by an officer appointed by the D.S.T., to transport officers of Brigades and divisional troops for allotment as circumstances may require.
Senior transport officers of Divisions will be ordered to report to the following representatives of the D.S.T. immediately on landing:--
* * * * *
At Anzac: Lieutenant-Colonel Streidinger, A.D.T.
At "A" Beach: Major Badcock, D.A.D.T.
_Supplies._
10. A supply depôt has been formed at Anzac, and it is in charge of Major Izod, A.S.C. A supply depot will be formed by D.S.T. at "A" Beach as soon as supplies can be landed, and will be in charge of Major Huskisson, A.S.C. Senior supply officers of Divisions will be ordered to place themselves in communication with the officer in charge of the nearest supply depôt and to keep him informed of their daily requirements. Supplies will, so far as possible, be handed over to them in bulk at the depôt. Owing to the difficulty in landing sufficient animals in the first instance it is possible that only half rations may be available on the third and fourth days after the operations begin. All units should be specially ordered to husband their rations.
_Medical._
11. Arrangements have been made to establish on the beach at Anzac two casualty clearing stations, which will be embarked by I.G.C., and two at "A" Beach, which will be embarked under orders of G.O.C. 9th Corps (_see_ paragraph 1). Medical officers will be appointed by G.H.Q. to control these units, and to take charge of the arrangements for evacuation of the wounded from the beach.
(_Signed_) C. F. ASPINALL, _Lieutenant-Colonel,
For Major-General, C.G.S., Mediterranean Expeditionary Force._
APPENDIX IV
INSTRUCTIONS TO MAJOR-GENERAL H. DE LISLE, C.B., D.S.O.
1. The operations of the northern wing of the Army have only been partially successful.
(_a_) The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, with the 13th Division and the 29th Brigade of 10th Division attached, has greatly extended the area occupied, and now holds a position under the Chunuk Bair Ridge, which the G.O.C. considers a favourable one from which to launch the final attack on the ridge. The necessity for reorganization after the recent operations, and for establishing a satisfactory system of forwarding water, ammunition and supplies, will involve a delay of some days before the attack on the main ridge can be made.
(_b_) The 9th Army Corps, less the 13th Division and 29th Brigade, but with the 53rd and 54th Divisions attached, holds the Yilghin Burnu hills, and a line northwards from the easternmost of these two hills roughly straight across the Kuchuk Anafarta Ova to the highest point of the Kiretch Tepe Sirt. Attacks by the 11th Division against the Ismail Oglu Tepe and the Anafarta spur from the north-west have been made without any success. In the course of the operations the 9th Corps became very much disorganized, and since August 11th the work of reorganization and consolidation has been proceeding.
2. At present the enemy has shown no great strength north of an east and west line through Anafarta Sagir. He has a force operating on and near the Kiretch Tepe Sirt, the strength of which cannot yet be accurately estimated. From present indications this appears to be a detachment which is known to have guarded the coast from Ejelmer Bay to Suvla Bay; it does not appear to have been reinforced to any extent. Across the Kuchuk Anafarta Ova there appear to be no more than snipers. In the region Anafarta Sagir--Ismail Oglu Tepe and the Biyuk Anafarta Valley the enemy has developed considerable strength--his intention being, no doubt, to protect the right of his main force which opposes the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and to prevent our advance on the Anafarta gap.
3. The General Commanding has decided to strike as quickly and in as great strength as possible against the enemy's on the line Ismail Oglu Tepe--Anafarta Sagir with the objects, first, of driving in this flank and preparing a further enveloping advance; and, secondly, by clearing the Anafarta spur to deny to the enemy the gun positions and facilities for observation therefrom, which would otherwise endanger Suvla Bay. He considers it imperative to effect this with the least possible delay. In his view the left flank of this advance will require comparatively little protection, at all events in the first instance, in view of the difficulty which the enemy may be expected to find in throwing any considerable force round our left over the high and difficult country north of Anafarta Sagir. It appears that the double purpose of defeating the enemy and securing Suvla Bay as a port for the northern wing of the Army can best be served by an attack on the enemy's right on the Anafarta spur, made with all the strength at our command, while leaving a comparatively small force as left flank guard to clear the enemy's snipers out of the Kuchuk Anafarta Ova and to occupy and press back his detachment in the Ejelmer Bay region.
4. You will have at your disposal the following troops:--
11th Division, 10th Division (less 29th Brigade), 53rd Division, 54th Division,
and there is on its way from Egypt to join you the 2nd Mounted Division (5,000 men dismounted), which should be available by August 18th. The 10th, 11th and 53rd Divisions are considerably depleted, and the _moral_ of the latter at present leaves much to be desired. There are at present ashore, belonging to the above two F.A. Brigades (three batteries of which are awaiting horses to bring them up from Anzac) and two Heavy Batteries. In addition, two Highland Mountain Batteries, attached to the 9th Corps, are ashore, and the 1/4th Lowland Brigade (two batteries 5-inch howitzers) are at your disposal when they can be brought up from Anzac. It has only been possible to land a bare minimum of horses owing to difficulties in respect of water and the landing of forage.
Three further F.A. Brigades and the 57th Brigade (two batteries) 4.5-inch howitzers are at Mudros ready to be brought up as soon as it is possible to land them. These Brigades will probably have to be landed without any horses in the first instance, and taken into position by the artillery horses already ashore.
5. For the purpose of an early attack in accordance with the plan indicated in paragraph 3, the A. and N.Z. Army Corps will probably not be able to co-operate directly with more than one Infantry Brigade, and it is possible that it may be able to do no more than swing up its left into line with the right of your advance. It is improbable that the 8th Corps and the C.E.O. will be in a position to do more than undertake vigorous demonstrations.
6. With the above in view, you will proceed at once to Suvla Bay and take over command of the 9th Corps. Your immediate and most urgent concern will be to complete the reorganization of the Corps and to prepare as large a force as possible for the offensive against Ismail Oglu Tepe and the Anafarta spur, bearing in mind that time is of vital importance. You will then consider and report at the earliest moment:--
(_a_) What force you consider that you will be able to employ for this purpose.
(_b_) The date on which you will be ready to undertake the offensive.
(_c_) The method by which you purpose to carry out your task.
(_Signed_) W. P. BRAITHWAITE,
_Major-General, Chief of the General Staff,
Mediterranean Expeditionary Force._
INDEX
"A" Beach, II. 69, 75, 146.
Abdel Rahman Bair, II. 115.
Abrikja, II. 87.
Achi Baba, I. 272, 362; II. 194.
Adderley, Lieut., II. 5.
Adrianople, I. 10.
Aeroplanes, I. 110.
Agnew, Col. Quentin, II. 160.
Air Service, I. 8, 287, 384.
Aitkin, Capt., II. 30.
Aja Liman, II. 112, 148, 152.
Aja Liman Anafarta Ridge, II. 83, 84.
Akbashi Liman, I. 291; II. 193.
_H.M.T._ Alaudia, II. 44.
Alexandretta, I. 9.
Allanson, Col., II. 214.
Altham, Genl., II. 6, 32, 123, 167, 172, 186, 261, 270.
Ambulance-- 87th Field, II. 172. 110th Indian Field, II. 167. 3rd R.N.D. Field, I. 317. West Lancs. Field, II. 231.
Amery, Col., I. 342.
Ammunition, I. 62, 196, 286, 289, 308; II. 9, 10, 11, 13, 35, 41, 140.
Anafarta, II. 148.
Anafarta Ova, II. 93.
Anafarta Sagir, II. 68, 69, 70, 81, 89, 112.
Anatolia, II. 191.
_H.M.T._ Andania, II. 44.
Anderson, Maj., II. 255.
Andrews, Col., II. 18.
Anglesey, Lord, II. 196, 200.
Anson Bn., I. 73, 271, 274, 333.
Anstey, Capt., II. 58.
Anzac Cove, II. 111.
_S.S._ Arabian, I. 316.
_H.M.S._ Arcadian, I. 84, 185, 248.
Ari Burnu, II. 246.
Armistice, I. 248, 387.
Armoured Car Section, I. 106; II. 188.
_H.M.S._ Arno, II. 57, 58, 98, 146, 158, 159, 165, 166, 246.
Artillery, I. 48, 307, 374; II. 35. Australian, I. 117. _See_ also Appendices I. and II.
Ashmead-Bartlett, Mr., I. 106, 253, 334; II. 8, 165, 190, 204, 226.
_H.I.M.S._ Askold, I. 106, 135.
Aspinall, Lt.-Col., I. 152, 169, 383; II. 4, 17, 25, 26, 61, 64, 126, 130, 243.
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., I. 54, 247; II. 227, 259, 260, 261, 262, 274.
Asquith, Lieut. Arthur, I. 20, 71.
Australian F.A., 3rd Battery, II. 254.
Australian Light Horse, I. 285, 359.
Australians-- 9th Bn., I. 49. 12th Bn., II. 234. 15th Bn., I. 216. 16th Bn., I. 216. 20th Bn., II. 254, 255. 26th Bn., II. 234.
Ayres, Col., II. 246.
Babtie, Genl., I. 367.
Baby 700, II. 111.
_H.M.S._ Bacchante, I. 154.
Backhouse, Commodore, I. 333.
Bailey, Col., II. 244.
Bailloud, Genl., I. 192, 207, 243, 371, 379; II. 25, 27, 146, 158, 179, 213, 218, 219, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 234.
Baldwin, Genl., I. 386; II. 80, 81.
Balkans-- C.-in-C.'s views on, I. 115.
Bard, _see_ Tullibardine.
Barttelot, Sir W., II. 219.
_H.M.S._ Basilisk, I. 328, 370, 372.
Battle-- Kum Kale, I. 135, 150. Landing, I. 126. Naval, I. 30. Quinn's Post, I. 255. Sedd-el-Bahr, I. 131. "V" Beach, I. 135. "W" Beach, I. 130. "X" Beach, I. 130. "Y" Beach, I. 129 _et seq._ Yeni Shahr, I. 151. 6th-9th May, I. 206. 4th June, I. 270 _et seq._ 28th June, I. 344 _et seq._ 12th July, II. 6 _et seq._ 21st August, II. 127 _et seq._
Bayley, Maj., II. 231. (Should read "Baylay.")
Beadon, Lt.-Col., II. 120, 130.
Beetleheim, Capt., I. 273.
Bell, Maj. Morrison, II. 244.
Benbow Bn., I. 333.
Beresford, Genl., I. 242.
Berks Regt., II. 230.
Bertier, Maj., I. 119, 379; II. 25, 40, 220, 233, 275.
_Beryl_, II. 32.
Besika Bay, I. 9.
Birmingham, I. 326
Bishop, Maj., I. 320.
Biyuk Anafarta, II. 112, 157.
Blockhouses, II. 93.
Bluff Redoubt, I. 225.
Boers, II. 161, 162.
Bombs, I. 43, 258, 321, 383; II. 140.
Bonham-Carter, Mr., II. 98.
Bonsor, Maj., I. 370.
Boomerang Redoubt, I. 344, 352.
Border Regt., I. 352; II. 230.
_Bouvet_, I. 36.
Bowlby, Flag-Lt., II. 8, 169
Boyle, R.N., Capt., I. 38.
Boyle, R.N., Lt.-Comr., I. 234, 240.
Braithwaite, Capt. V., II. 120, 130, 146, 158, 159, 165, 186, 246.
Brassey, II. 110.
Brassey, Lady, II. 105, 168.
Brassey, Lord, II. 105.
Bridges, Genl., I. 118, 179, 229, 256.
Brigade-- 1st (Australian), II. 55. 2nd (French), II. 225. 2nd (Naval), I. 333. 3rd (Australian), I. 336. 3rd (Marine), I. 303. 4th (Australian), I. 249, 256. 5th (Australian), II. 254. 30th, II. 44. 32nd, II. 22, 29, 60. 33rd, II. 22, 46, 60. 34th, II. 22, 28, 61. 39th, II. 18. 86th, I. 82, 220, 302, 345, 352; II. 171, 172. 87th, I. 82, 209, 210, 224, 301, 345, 352; II. 230. 88th, I. 170, 209, 210, 293, 353; II. 166, 241. 127th, I. 317. 155th, I. 303. 156th, I. 303, 346, 352, 371; II. 9, 243. Indian, I. 301; II. 15, 127, 130, 208. Light Horse, I. 336. Manchester, I. 272, 273. Younghusband's, II. 147, 150, 151, 153, 154.
Brodrick, Capt. Hon. G., I. 357; II. 24, 52, 68, 72, 74, 76, 78, 125, 130, 146, 154.
Brody, Capt., II. 68.
Brooke, Sir B., II. 138.
Brooke, Rupert, I. 71, 122, 124.
Brown, Percy, I. 371.
Browne, Maj., I. 336.
Bruce, Col., I. 74, 301, 359, 361.
Bruce, Maj., I. 74.
Brulard, Genl., II. 225, 228, 229, 234, 256, 276.
Bryant, Lt.-Col., I. 323.
Buchanan, Col., II. 186.
Buchanan, Sir G., II. 207, 208.
Bulair Lines, I. 9, 29, 130, 275, 290, 291, 292, 361.
Bulgaria, I. 116; II. 192, 202, 204, 209.
Bulgarians, II. 212.
Burleigh, Bennett, I. 339.
Burmeister, Flag-Capt., I. 71.
Burn, Col. C., I. 121; II. 8, 15, 251, 255.
Burrell, Lieut., I. 370.
Burrows, Capt., II. 247.
Burton, Col., II. 18, 242.
Bush-fires, II. 131.
Byng, Genl., I. 303; II. 35, 105, 106, 137, 138, 139, 146, 151, 159, 160, 165, 186, 206, 218, 219, 241, 242, 276.
"C" Beach, II. 75.
Cadorna, Genl., II. 178.
Callwell, Genl., I. 6, 241; II. 172 _et seq._ , 257, 259, 261, 263.
Camel Corps, Bikaner, I. 74.
Cameron, R.N., Capt., I. 8, 31.
Campbell, Col., I. 74.
_H.M.T._ Canada, II. 44.
_H.M.S._ Canopus, II. 44.
Canteen, II. 123, 170.
Carden, Admiral, I. 17, 19.
Carruthers, Genl., I. 142.
Carter, Capt., I. 280.
_Carthage_, I. 371.
Casualty Clearing Station, 25th, II. 14.
Cayley, Genl., II. 18, 241.
Censorship, I. 320, 327, 332; II. 140, 172 _et seq._ , 257.
_H.M.T._ Ceramic, II. 156.
Chanak, I. 291, 292, 293; II. 192.
Charak Cheshme, II. 74.
_H.M.S._ Chatham, II. 43, 45, 60, 275, 277.
Chauvel, Genl., I. 285, 359.
Cheape, Capt., II. 203, 204.
_H.M.S._ Chelmer, II. 262.
Cheshire Point, II. 201.
Chocolate Hill, II. 214.
Christian, Admiral, II. 60.
Chunuk Bair, I. 330, 361; II. 57, 86, 111, 113.
Churchill, Rt. Hon. W., I. 44, 161, 240, 242, 247; II. 24.
Churchill, Maj. J., I. 153, 178; II. 155.
Church Parade, I. 370; II. 20, 29, 157, 234.
Clarke, Lt.-Comr., I. 335.
Clifton-Browne, Genl., II. 247.
Coddan, Capt., I. 121.
Coleridge, II. 52.
Collet, Capt., II. 123, 126.
Collingwood Bn., I. 333.
Collins, Lt.-Col., I. 317.
_H.M.S._ Colne, I. 112, 178, 180, 343.
Conference--- 17th March, I. 21. 22nd March, I. 41. 18th April, I. 118. Midnight, 25th April, I. 142.
Connaught Rangers, II. 155.
Constantinople, I. 10.
Convalescent Depôt, II. 168.
_H.M.S._ Cornwall, II. 221.
_H.M.S._ Cornwallis, I. 134, 138; II. 221, 242.
Cowans, Genl., I. 365, 366.
Cox, Genl., I. 73, 174, 186; II. 15, 132, 139, 155, 190.
d'Amade, Genl., I. 3, 21, 64, 78, 118, 222, 223, 226.
Damakjelik Bair, II. 113, 127, 128.
Danube, I. 11; II. 202.
_H.M.S._ Dartmouth, I. 106.
Davidson, R.N., Capt., II. 242, 258.
Davies, R.N.A.S. Capt., I. 109.
Davies, Genl., II. 33, 51, 139, 140, 144, 160, 196, 243, 246, 248, 251, 276.
Dawnay, Capt., I. 152, 178, 343; II. 120, 126, 133, 165, 189, 251, 262.
De Bourbon, Capt., II. 256.
De Crespigny, Capt., II. 243.
Deedes, Capt., I. 344; II. 120, 126, 158, 186, 243.
De la Borde, Lieut., I. 119; II. 40, 196, 220.
De la Fontaine, Capt., I. 185.
De Lisle, Genl., I. 274, 280, 293, 356; II. 17, 18, 25, 106, 119, 121, 129, 130, 132, 159 _et seq._, 241.
De Lothbinière, Genl., I. 259, 357.
Dent, R.N., Capt., I. 118, 122.
De Putron, Maj., II. 196, 262.
De Robeck, Admiral, I. 21, 41, 48, 142, 383; II. 60, 124, 275, 276.
De Rougemont, Col., II. 246.
Des Coigns, Col., I. 183, 185.
De Tott's Battery, I. 134; II. 26, 27.
Devon Regt., 2/5th, II. 156, 157, 160. Dick, Col., I. 105, 385.
Diggle, Capt., II. 51.
Division-- 1st (Australian), II. 217. 1st (French), I. 323, 324. 2nd (Australian), II. 167. 2nd (French), I. 323, 324. 2nd (Mounted), II. 37. 10th, I. 306, 328; II. 97, 127, 159, 217, 224, 227, 233. 11th, I. 328; II. 49, 52, 60, 83, 127, 129, 131, 132, 159, 188. 11th (Turkish), I. 373. 13th, I. 328, 386; II. 18, 57, 83, 91, 107. 16th (Irish), II. 159. 42nd, I. 386; II. 40. 52nd, I. 386; II. 158, 243. 53rd, II. 90, 128, 217, 225, 226. 54th (Essex), II. 81, 90, 92, 100, 128, 208. East Lancs., I. 58, 314; II. 57, 196. Irish, II. 31, 41, 60. Lowland, I. 355; II. 6. Mounted, II. 217. Naval, I. 272, 303, 318, 377; II. 8, 25, 40, 158. Welsh, II. 101.
Djavad Pasha, I. 20.
Dod, Col. Wolley, I. 302.
Doran, Genl., I. 280, 282.
_H.M.S._ Doris, I. 68.
Dorling, Col., II. 219.
Dorset Regt., 5th, II. 28.
Doughtie, R.N., Capt., II. 21.
Douglas, Genl., I. 282, 337, 382; II. 25, 247.
Downing, Col., II. 44.
Drafts, I. 368; II. 16, 35, 42, 46, 126, 132, 139, 223.
Drake Bn., I. 73.
Drury-Lowe, R.N., Capt., II. 43, 277.
_H.M.S._ Dublin, I. 109, 146.
Dublin Fusiliers, I. 157, 224; II. 172.
Dudley, Lord, II. 167.
Duff, Genl. Beauchamp, II. 198.
Duncan, Major, II. 28.
Duncannon, Lord, II. 262.
_H.M.S._ E 11, I. 282, 284.
_H.M.S._ E 14, I. 234, 240.
East Kent Yeomanry, II. 247.
East Lancs. Regt., 6th, II. 18.
East Yorks, 6th, II. 67.
Edinburgh, Lord Provost of, II. 155.
Edwards, Maj., II. 247.
Edwards, Comr., II. 256.
Edwards, Lieut., I. 370.
Egerton, Genl., I. 371; II. 160.
Egyptian Gazette, I. 77.
Ehren-Keui, II. 192.
Ejelmer Bay, II. 72.
Elliot, Genl., I. 353.
Elliot, Lieut., I. 336.
Ellison, Genl., I. 7, 280, 366; II. 6, 32, 126, 165, 236, 243, 256, 275.
Engineers, I. 43, 48.
Enos, I. 275; II. 194.
Enver Pasha, I. 12, 363; II. 212, 258.
Erskine, Genl., I. 303.
Eski Lines, II. 25.
Essex Regt., I. 136, 220.
_H.M.S._ Europa, II. 168.
_H.M.S._ Euryalus, I. 133.
Ewart, Genl., I. 306.
_H.M.S._ Exmouth, II. 58.
Ezine, II. 192.
Fairfax, Comr., II. 247.
Fallowfield, R.N., Lieut., I. 328, 370.
Fanshawe, Genl., II. 106, 138, 159, 160, 161, 188.
Faukard, Genl., II. 256.
Ferdinand, Tzar, II. 204, 205, 207, 208, 212, 213.
Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, II. 244.
Fisher, Lord, I. 44, 240, 247.
Fitz, _see_ FitzGerald.
FitzGerald, Col., I. 320, 321; II. 251.
Fitzgerald, Maj., II. 254.
Fitzmaurice, R.N., Capt., I. 112.
Fitzmaurice, Mr., I. 114.
Forde, Col., II. 168.
_H.M.S._ Foresight, I. 16.
Forster, Col., II. 167.
Forts, I. 6.
Foumet, Admiral, II. 188.
_H.M.S._ Franconia, I. 36.
Fraser, Col., II. 172.
Freddie, see Maitland.
French, Sir John, I. 269, 289, 305, 306, 311, 374.
French Corps, I. 78.
French Mission, I. 119.
Freyberg, Lieut., II. 247.
Fuller, Lieut.-Col., I. 178; II. 15.
Gamble, Sir D., II. 32, 33.
Gascoigne, Lieut.-Col., II. 39, 214, 233, 243.
_Gascon_, I. 228.
_Gaulois_, I. 35, 36, 169, 170.
Geddes, Maj., II. 172.
Gellibrand, Lieut., II. 234.
George, Rt. Hon. Lloyd, II. 260, 274.
Ghazi Baba, II. 72, 77.
Gillivan, Col., II. 18.
Girdwood, Capt., I. 372.
Girodon, Genl., I. 234, 244, 260, 325, 379; II. 46, 234.
Glyn, Capt., II. 15, 108, 165.
Godfrey, Maj., I. 152, 326.
Godley, Genl., I. 118, 179, 309, 331, 386; II. 80, 82, 208, 245, 258, 262.
_Goeben_, I. 162.
_H.M.S._ Goliath, I. 146, 152, 156, 224.
Gouraud, Genl., I. 226, 244, 260, 270, 281, 288, 295 _et seq._, 304, 305, 333, 346, 355, 359, 385; II. 203, 253.
Graives, Mr., I. 385.
_H.M.S._ Grampus, I. 293.
Grand Duke Nicholas, I. 230; II. 158.
Grant, R.N., Capt., II. 44.
Greece, I. 116; II. 203.
Greeks, II. 201.
Green Hill, II. 214.
Greer, Lieut.-Col., II. 44.
Guépratté, Admiral, I. 21, 101, 118, 157.
Guest, Capt. (?), II. 275.
_Guildford Castle_, I. 217.
Guilford, Col. Lord, II. 247.
Gully Ravine, I. 376.
Gurkhas, Bde. of, I. 43, 55, 56, 59, 75, 83, 193, 225, 226, 352, 359, 361, 362, 364; II. 94.
Gurkhas-- 4th Bn., II. 167. 5th Bn., II. 15. 6th Bn., I. 74, 76; II. 15, 81, 214. 10th Bn., II. 15.
Guyon, Maj., II. 172.
H. 12, I. 355, 372; II. 9.
Haig, Sir Douglas, I. 306; II. 185.
Haldane, Lord, I. 240, 289.
Hamilton, Genl. Bruce, II. 26, 32, 36, 101.
Hamilton, Col. Cole, II. 18.
Hamilton, Lieut. Rowan, II. 243.
Hammersley, Genl., I. 328; II. 28, 52, 59, 64 _et seq._, 72, 87, 103, 104, 120, 161.
Hampshire Regt., I. 155, 157, 220. 8th Bn., II. 101.
Hand grenades, I. 43, 48, 356; II. 156, 157.
Hankey, Col., II. 24, 37, 98, 108, 123.
Harding, Col., I. 74.
Hardy, Lieut.-Comr., II. 169.
Hare, Mr., I. 338.
Haricot Redoubt, I. 244, 271, 272, 324.
Hawke Bn., II. 247, 248.
Heliopolis, I. 61.
Herbert, Aubrey, I. 239, 243.
Herts Yeomanry, I. 58.
Heseltine, Capt., II. 204.
Hetman Chair, II. 128, 129.
Hill, Genl., II. 44, 107, 110.
Hill 10, II. 61, 62, 64, 69, 146.
Hill 60, II. 127, 155, 157, 158.
Hill 70, II. 88, 127, 128, 129, 131.
Hill 305, I. 330; II. 89, 111.
Hillyard, Maj., II. 18.
Hindlip, Lord, I. 166.
Hogg, Capt., I. 74.
Holdich, Lt.-Col., II. 165.
Holmes, Col., II. 254.
Homer, Lt-Comr., II. 17.
Hood, Maj., II. 186.
Hood Bn., I. 206, 274, 333; II. 247.
Hope, R.N., Capt., I. 26, 116.
Horne, Genl., II. 105.
Horse Shoe, II. 243.
Hospital Ships, II. 24.
Hospital-- No. 1 Stationary, I. 323; II. 168. No. 1 (Australian) Stationary, II. 167. No. 2 Stationary, I. 322. No. 2 (Australian) Stationary, II. 168. No. 3 (Canadian) Stationary, II. 168. No. 3 (Australian) Stationary, II. 168. No. 15 Stationary, I. 322; II. 167. No. 16 Stationary, I. 322. No. 18 Stationary, II. 168. No. 24 (British-Indian), II. 167.
Howe Bn., I. 71, 73, 274, 333; II. 234.
Howitzers, I. 48. _See also_ Appendices I and II.
Hunloke, Maj., II. 243.
Hunter-Weston, Genl., I. 3, 61, 62, 89, 118, 260, 280, 288, 346; II. 22, 26.
_Imogene_, II. 91, 123, 139, 205, 251.
_H.M.S._ Implacable, I. 52.
Indian troops, II. 161.
_H.M.S._ Inflexible, I. 33.
Inglefield, Genl., II. 81, 90, 94, 97, 208.
Inniskilling Fusiliers, I. 224, 361.
Irish Pioneer Regt., II. 74.
_H.M.S._ Irresistible, I. 35, 36, 51.
Ishiklar, II. 192.
Ismail Oglu Tepe, II. 63, 70, 81, 89, 112, 127, 129, 131.
Istomine, Genl., I. 70, 108, 186; II. 158.
Italy, II. 140.
Ivanoff, Capt., I. 106.
J. 13, I. 362.
Jackson, Capt., II. 18.
_Jeanne d'Arc_, I. 135.
Joffre, Genl., I. 269, 289, 305, 374; II. 179, 180, 190, 213.
Johnson, R.N., Lieut. Ormsby, I. 326; II. 32.
Jones, Col., I. 322.
_H.M.S._ Jonquil, II. 61.
Jordon, Col., II. 18.
_Junia_, I. 196.
Kabak Kuyu, II. 130.
Kahn, Capt., I. 184.
Kaiajik Aghala, II. 129, 130, 139, 155, 210.
Kaiajik Dere, II. 158.
Kantara, I. 73.
Karabingha, I. 292.
Karakol Dagh, II. 126, 129, 159.
Karna Bili, II. 148.
Kavak Tepe Sirt, II. 81, 82, 90.
Kavanagh, Genl., II. 105.
Kelly, R.N., Capt., I. 109.
Kelly, Comr., II. 247.
_H.M.S._ Kennett, I. 176.
Kephalos Camp, I. 317; II. 21, 126, 196, 209, 276.
Kereves Dere, I. 324, 362; II. 256.
Kereves Dere Ravine, I. 211.
Keshan, II. 112, 194.
Keyes, Commodore, I. 21, 48, 56, 142, 253; II. 60, 64, 79, 275, 276.
Keyes, Sir C., I. 56.
Keyes, Lady, I. 56.
Keyes, Lt.-Comr., I. 254, 270.
Kiggell, Genl., II. 235, 236.
Kìlia Liman, I. 291.
Kilid Bahr, I. 330, 362; II. 193.
King, Col., II. 31.
King, Comr., II. 247.
King, Genl., II. 248.
King, Maj., II. 254.
King's Own Scottish Borderers, I. 129; II. 230.
Kiretch Tepe Sirt, II. 61, 69, 72, 75, 77, 81, 128.
Koja Chemen Tepe, II. 57.
Krithia, I. 330, 362.
Kum Kale, I. 135, 150, 159; II. 192.
Kurt Ketchede, II. 113.
Lala Baba, II. 61, 64.
Lancashire Division, I. 198.
Lancashire Fusiliers, I. 136, 220, 352; II. 172.
Lancashire Fusiliers-- 1st Bn., I. 320. 5th Bn., I. 272. 9th Bn., II. 28.
Lancashire Fusilier Brigade, I. 207.
Lancashire Landing, I. 371, 376; II. 246.
Lapruin, Capt., II. 144.
Laverton, Lieut., I. 371.
Law, Rt. Hon. Bonar, II. 274.
Law, Capt., I. 372.
Lawes, Capt., II. 196.
Lawrence, Genl., I. 382; II. 27, 243.
Lawson, Sir H., II. 204, 226.
_H.M.S._ Lefroy, II. 256, 257.
Legge, Genl., II. 15, 20, 167, 254, 266.
Lemnos, I. 26.
_H.M.S._ Lewis, II. 254.
Liman von Sanders, Genl., I. 95, 246, 357, 358.
Lindley, Genl., II. 85, 87, 103, 122, 167, 168.
Lines of Communication, I. 354, 365, 380; II. 264.
Lister, Hon. C., II. 29.
Lloyd, Capt., II. 20, 160, 162.
_H.M.S._ London, I. 154.
London Regt., 2/1st Coy., II. 242. 10th Bn., II. 101. 11th Bn., II. 101.
Lone Pine, II. 55, 57, 111, 271.
Long, Capt., I. 279.
_H.M.S._ Lord Nelson, I. 228, 248.
Loring, R.N., Capt., I. 119.
Lovat, Lord, II. 244.
Lovat's Scouts-- 1st Bn., II. 244. 2nd Bn., II. 244.
Lowland Division, I. 219.
Lowther, Lancelot, II. 171.
Lucas, Maj., II. 230.
Mackenzie, Lieut.-Col., II. 14.
Mackenzie, Compton, I. 234; II. 45.
Maclagan, Col., I. 336.
Maclean, Maj., I. 371.
Maher, Col., I. 322.
Mahon, Genl., I. 285, 289, 306, 328; II. 31, 61, 69 _et seq._, 100 _et seq._, 159, 161, 165, 169.
Maidos, I. 291, 330.
Maitland, Capt. F., I. 323, 336, 383; II. 17, 32, 55, 92, 126, 130, 146, 158, 159, 166, 167, 170, 172, 186, 189, 196, 214, 243, 254, 256, 275.
_H.M.S._ Majestic, I. 154, 252.
Makalinsky, I. 121.
Malcolm, Col., II. 28, 52, 65 _et seq._, 159.
Mal Tepe, I. 130.
Manchester Bde., I. 207.
Manchester Regt.-- 6th Bn., II. 25. 7th Bn., II. 25. 11th Bn., II. 28.
Manifold, Col., II. 159.
_Manitou_, I. 116.
Maoris, I. 234; II. 94.
Marmora, II. 193, 205.
Marshall, Genl., I. 224; II. 130, 132, 165, 171, 172, 242.
Matthews, Lt.-Col., I. 72.
Maude, Genl., II. 106, 137, 138, 159, 161, 165, 166, 186.
Maxwell, Sir J., I. 58, 73, 306; II. 149, 176, 231, 250, 255, 260, 264.
Maxwell, Capt., II. 220.
McClay, Lieut., I. 372.
McGrigor, Capt., II. 200, 246, 275, 277.
McKenna, Rt. Hon. R., II. 274.
McMahon, Sir H., I. 66, 77.
McMunn, Col., II. 167.
Mecklenburg, Duke of, II. 207.
Mena Camp, I. 60.
_H.M.S._ Mercedes, II. 58.
Mercer, Genl., I. 73; II. 247.
Methuen, Lord, I. 73, 259, 326.
Mewes, Maj., I. 72.
Micklem, Col., I. 243.
Millen, Senator, II. 267.
Millerand, M., II. 179, 180, 190.
Mitchell, Col., II. 244.
Mitchell, Commodore, II. 220.
Mitylene, II. 43, 45.
Monash, Col., I. 249; II. 170.
Moore, Lieut., II. 214, 227.
_H.M.S._ Mosquito, I. 335, 337.
Mountain Battery, 29th, I. 74.
Mudge, Col., I. 371.
Mudros, I. 322; II. 167.
Mudros West, II. 168.
Munro, Genl., II. 272, 273, 277.
Munster Fusiliers, I. 157; II. 172.
Murdoch, Mr. K. A., II. 164, 190, 203, 204, 226, 227, 240, 245, 246, 257, 260 _et seq._
Murphy, Maj., II. 255.
Murray, Genl. Wolfe, II. 5, 22, 37.
Nagara Point, I. 290; II. 193.
Nallah-- Achi Baba, II. 243. Krithia, II. 243.
Napier, Genl., I. 150.
Napier, Col., I. 115; II. 201, 202.
Nasmith, Comr., I. 234, 284.
Nelson Bn., I. 73; II. 234.
Nevinson, Mr., II. 219, 220.
Newfoundland Bn., 1st, II. 242.
New Zealand Mounted Rifles, I. 250, 256, 359.
Nibrunesi Point, II. 189.
Nicholas, Grand Duke, I. 108, 230; II. 158.
Nicholls, Admiral, II. 260.
Nicholson, Admiral, I. 57.
Nicol, Admiral, I. 247; II. 188.
Nisch, II. 202.
Nogués, Col., I. 135, 151, 325.
Northcliffe, Lord, I. 66, 340.
Northumberland Fusiliers, II. 28.
_H.M.T._ Novian, II. 44.
Nuillon, Col., I. 383.
Nunn, Col., II. 18.
Oakdene. Capt. Perry-, II. 255.
_H.M.S._ Ocean, I. 35, 36, 51.
Odessa, I. 11.
O'Dowda, Col., II. 172.
Olivant, Lt.-Col., I. 71.
Onslow, Capt., I. 360.
Oppenheim, Capt., II. 244.
Order to the Troops-- 21st April, I. 120. 22nd April, I. 121. 28th April, I. 171. 9th May, I. 213. 12th May, I. 222. 25th May, I. 250. Farewell, II. 277. By Genl. Gouraud, I. 324. Turkish Divisional, I. 372.
_H.M.T._ Orsova, II. 156.
O'Sullivan, V.C., II. 171.
Owen, Genl., Cunliffe-, I. 143.
Palin, Col., I. 74; II. 214.
Pallin, Genl., I. 372.
Palmer, Col., II. 18.
Palmer, Maj., I. 72.
Palmer, Mr. F., I. 338.
Panderma, I. 292, 293.
Paris, Genl., I. 3, 71, 93, 166, 303, 333; II. 25, 160, 243, 247.
Paterson, Col, I. 106.
Pearce, Senator, II. 265, 266.
Pearson, Maj., II. 172.
Peebles, Col., I. 372.
Peel, Col., I. 117.
Pelliot, Lieut., I. 119; II. 220.
Percival, Genl., II. 171.
Percy, Lord William, II. 219.
Periscopes, I. 43, 48.
Perriera, Admiral de la, II. 169, 170.
Peter, _see_ Pollen.
Peyton, Genl., II. 107, 120, 165, 208, 244.
_H.M.S._ Phaeton, I. 18, 35, 36.
Phillimore, R.N., Capt., I. 118, 178; II. 130.
Piépape, Col., I. 379; II. 146.
Pierce, Admiral, I. 71.
Pierce, Maj., II. 230.
Pike, Lt.-Col., II. 44.
_H.M.S._ Pincher, I. 335.
Plan of attack-- C.-in-C.'s on Peninsula, I. 95. Sari Bair, I. 329. Suvla Landing, I. 329; II 3.
Plymouth Bn., I. 72, 129, 221.
Pollard, Capt., II. 230.
Pollen, Capt., I. 21, 41, 178; II. 126, 146, 207, 246, 262, 271, 275.
Porter, Sir James, I. 367.
Potts. Lt.-Comr., II. 91.
Press, I. 320, 327, 332, 337; II. 140, 175 _et seq._
Price, Bishop, II. 255.
_H.M.S._ Prince of Wales, I. 154.
Princes Street, II. 243.
Punjabis-- 69th Bn., I. 74. 89th Bn., I. 74.
Q., II. 80.
Quadrilateral, I. 355, 358.
_H.M.S._ Queen, I. 35, 52, 154.
_H.M.S._ Queen Elizabeth, I. 21, 32, 35, 103.
Queensland Bn., I. 346, 358.
Queen Victoria's Own Sappers, I. 74.
Quinn's Post, I. 255, 256, 257, 259.
Rabbit Island, I. 35; II. 27.
_H.M.S._ Racoon, II. 169.
Ratilva Valley, II. 134.
_H.M.S._ Rattlesnake, I. 228.
Rawlinson, Genl., I. 303; II. 35.
Reconnaissance of Peninsula, I. 28.
Régiment de marche d'Afrique, 175th, I. 79.
Régiment, 4th Colonial, I. 79.
Régiment, 6th Colonial, I. 135.
Reed, Genl, II, 5, 36, 53, 63, 77, 96, 99, 120, 241.
Reinforcements, I. 368; II. 144 _et seq._
Rhodes, Lieut., I. 386.
Rifaat, Col., I. 373.
_H.M.T._ River Clyde, I. 131, 254.
Rochdale, Lord, I. 317.
Rodosto, I. 293.
Roper, Genl., I. 178.
Rosomore, Comr., I. 31.
Ross, Mr. Malcolm, II. 219.
Roumania, I. 116; II. 202.
Royal Dublin Fusiliers-- 6th Bn., II. 44. 7th Bn., II. 44.
Royal Engineers, II. 72. West Riding Field Coy., II. 231. 67th Coy., II. 29. 68th Coy., II. 29. 134th Fortress Coy., II. 29.
Royal Field Artillery, 10th By., I. 364. _See also_ Appendix I.
Royal Fusiliers, I. 136, 345; II. 172. 2nd Bn., I. 352.
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, II. 230. 5th Bn., II. 44. 6th Bn., II 44.
Royal Irish Fusiliers-- 5th Bn., II. 44. 6th Bn., II. 44.
Royal Scot, wounded, I. 356.
Royal Scots, I. 352, 355. 4th Bn., I. 372. 5th Bn., I. 190, 220, 318; II. 126, 155. 6th Bn., II. 156, 160. 7th Bn., I. 372.
Ruef, Col, I. 186.
Rundle, Genl., I. 14; II. 202.
Russell, Genl., I. 359; II. 130, 132, 139, 155, 194.
Russell's Top, II. 254.
Russian Corps, I. 255, 375; II. 21.
Russian Officers, II. 158.
Ruthven, Maj. Hore-, I. 357; II. 84, 130, 240, 275.
Ryrie, Col., I. 336.
Saghir Dere, I. 351, 352; II. 247.
_St. Louis_, I. 325.
Salonika, II. 184, 201 _et seq._
Salt Lake, I. 329; II. 69, 128.
Samson, Comr., I. 109, 181, 238, 383; II. 54, 221.
_H.M.S._ Sapphire, I. 146.
Sari Bair, I. 330, 360; II. 71, 111, 128.
Saros, I. 28, 349.
Sarrail, Genl., II. 179, 180, 191, 236, 270, 271.
Savage, Col., II. 242.
_H.M.S._ Savage, I. 303; II. 17, 19, 20, 241, 242.
Scatters, _see_ Wilson.
Schemallach, Lieut., II. 234.
Schröder, I. 95.
Schuler, Mr., II. 21.
Sclater, Genl., I. 365.
_H.M.S._ Scorpion, I. 253, 344, 351, 356, 364.
Scott, Maj. Sir S., II. 247.
Scottish Horse, II. 151, 166, 208, 209.
Scottish Rifles, 8th Bn., I. 372.
Scott-Moncrieff, Genl., I. 303.
_H.M.S._ Scourge, I. 346; II. 186.
Seaplane Camp, II. 21, 32.
Sedd-el-Bahr, I. 131.
Sellheim, Col., II. 267.
Senegalese, I. 104, 192, 195, 212; II. 226, 237, 253.
Serbia, II. 202, 209.
Serbians, II. 201, 213.
Seymour, Comr., I. 343.
Shaw, Genl., I. 328; II. 13, 18, 33, 80.
Sheppard, Lieut., I. 370.
Sickness, II. 136, 170, 239, 255.
Signal Coy., 53rd, II. 90.
Sikhs, II. 244, 245. 14th Bn., I. 73, 74; II. 15, 190, 197, 198, 200. 51st Bn., II. 189, 190, 196, 197, 231. 53rd Bn., II. 189, 190, 196, 197, 231.
Silver Baby, II. 233.
_H.M.T._ Simla, II. 42.
Simpson, Capt., II. 18.
Simpson-Baikie, Genl., I. 286, 344, 376, 387.
Sinclair, Capt., I. 372.
Sitwell, Genl., II. 122.
Skeen, Col., I. 288, 319; II. 120, 121.
Smith, Col., I. 336.
Smith, Genl., II. 87.
Smith, Hesketh, II. 45.
Smith, R.N., Lieut., I. 134.
Sofia, II. 207.
Soghan Dere, I. 290, 362.
Solvili, II. 148.
_Somali_, II. 248.
_Southland_, I. 118.
South Wales Borderers, I. 134, 318, 370; II. 230. 2nd Bn., I. 138.
Spens, Genl., II. 261, 264, 265.
Stanley, Capt., I. 322.
Stephens, Capt., II. 32, 167.
Steward, (Col. ?), II. 243.
Stewart, Col., II. 188.
Stewart, Lieut. Shaw-, I. 387.
Stirling, Lt.-Col., II. 244.
Stockdale, Lt.-Col., I. 186.
Stoney, Maj., II. 230.
Stopford, Genl., I. 306; II. 1, 5, 25, 26, 40, 53, 61 _et seq._, 72, 77, 82, 87, 99, 102, 104, 106, 108.
Street, Col., I. 182.
Stuart, Lt.-Col. Crauford-, I. 274.
Stuart, Maj. Villiers-, I. 234.
Sulajik, II. 67, 70, 128.
Sultan of Egypt, I. 58, 60.
_Sunbeam_, II. 105.
Surrey Yeomanry, I. 370; II. 220.
Susak Kuyu, II. 135, 217.
Sussex Yeomanry, II. 247.
Suvla Bay, I. 328; II. 84, 111.
Sykes, Sir Mark, I. 335; II. 275.
Syria, II. 191.
Tactics, I. 363.
Talaat, I. 12.
_H.M.S._ Talbot, I. 344, 351.
Taube, I. 102, 171, 194, 196, 302; II. 188, 196, 204, 218, 219, 241.
Taylor, Genl., II. 214.
Taylor, Col., II. 154, 201, 214, 243, 256.
Tekke Tepe, II. 63, 68, 69, 70, 79, 81.
Tenedos, I. 21, 227, 331, 384.
_H.M.T._ Themistocles, II. 42.
Thomson, Col. Courtauld, I. 260.
Thursby, Admiral, I. 52, 118, 142, 179, 239.
Tillard, Maj., II. 167.
Titchfield, Lord, II. 241.
Tollemashe, Capt., I. 371.
Trench mortars, I. 43, 48, 288, 317, 326, 352; II. 140.
_H.M.S._ Triad, I. 284, 316, 357; II. 58, 71, 155, 167, 168, 275, 276.
Trotman, Genl., I. 303.
_H.M.S._ Triumph, I. 112, 154, 247, 248.
Trumble, Mr. T., II. 268.
Tullibardine, Lord, II. 208.
Tupper, R.N., Lieut., I. 346; II. 186.
Turkish Regt.-- 13th, I. 356. 16th, I. 356. 33rd, I. 356. 127th, I. 373.
Turk's Head, II. 254.
Tyrrell, Col., II. 226, 227, 243.
Tyrrell, Capt., II. 138.
Unsworth, Mr., II. 234.
Usborne, Neville, I. 384.
Uzunkiupru, II. 194.
Val, _see_ Braithwaite.
Valley of Death, I. 256.
Vandenberg, Genl., I. 185.
Vanrennan, Lieut.-Col., II. 44.
"V" Beach, I. 135, 360.
Venezelos, M., I. 316.
_H.M.S._ Vengeance, I. 248.
Vineyard, II. 57, 243.
Viont, Col., I. 324.
Vitali, Capt., II. 178.
Von Donop, Genl., I. 197, 305; II. 139.
Vyvian, R.N., Capt., I. 118.
Walden Point, II. 55.
Wallace, Genl., I. 279, 353, 354, 382.
_Waratah_, I. 371.
War Correspondents, I. 320, 334, 338; II. 190, 269.
Ward, Lt.-Col., I. 284, 343; II. 20, 178, 221.
Wardian Camp, I. 84.
Watson, Col. Jimmy, I. 344; II. 246.
"W" Beach, I. 130, 177, 293.
Weber Pasha, I. 387.
Wedgwood, Comr., I. 106, 206, 228.
Wells, Col., II. 186.
Wemyss, Admiral, I. 21, 38, 41, 48, 118; II. 31, 168.
West Kent Regt., 8th, II. 29.
West Kent Yeomanry, II. 247.
Westminster Dragoons, I. 58.
Weston, Lieut., II. 234.
West Yorks Regt., 9th, II. 29, 64, 67.
Whitburn, Col., II. 247.
White, Lt.-Col., I. 323.
Wigram, Col. Clive, I. 208.
Williams, Capt., II. 178, 230.
Williams, Col., I. 17, 266; II. 240.
Williams, Genl. Hanbury, I. 255.
Williams, Genl., II. 236.
Wilson, Bde.-Maj., II. 254.
Wilson, Col. "Scatters," II. 203, 204, 248.
Winter, Genl., I. 17, 118, 165, 353, 354.
_H.M.S._ Wolverine, I. 254, 270, 344, 351, 356.
Woodward, Genl., I. 17, 80, 118, 165; II. 24.
Worcester Regt., I. 136, 318.
Worcester Yeomanry, II. 209.
Worsley, Comr., II. 79.
Wyld, Lt.-Comr., I. 335.
Wylie, Col. Doughty-, I. 53, 156; II. 240.
"X" Beach, I. 135.
Xeros, II. 192.
Yarr, Col., II. 247.
"Y" Beach, I. 129, 146, 163.
Yeni Shahr, I. 151.
Yeomanry, II. 121, 127, 128, 132, 211, 244, 247.
Yilghin Burnu, II. 57, 65, 112.
Yorks Regt., 6th Bn., II. 29.
York and Lancs Regt., 6th Bn., II. 29.
Younghusband, Genl., II. 147.
Yukeri, I. 331; II. 192.
Zimmerman's Farm, II. 25.
Zion Mule Corps, I. 84.
Zouaves, I. 212.
* * * * *
_Printed in Great Britain by_
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED
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End of Project Gutenberg's Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2, by Ian Hamilton