CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE BATTLE OF THE LANDING.

You are now to imagine yourself wrapped in the invisible cloak of the fairies, and able to move over land and sea, where you will, with the speed of thought. Thus magically endowed, you will be able to flit to and fro, and witness one of the most remarkable invasions known to history.

Dusk is falling on the evening of 23rd April, and you are hovering over the Lemnian harbour of Mudros. The haven is as crowded as the port of Liverpool. In the dim light you see a huge fleet of grim, gray warships of all classes, from the mighty _Queen Elizabeth_ down to the little puffing launches that speed from ship to ship. You also notice many great transports, grimy colliers, mine-sweepers, and trawlers. As you watch, a large number of the warships, transports, and mine-sweepers cast off and move out of the harbour. Their lights disappear in the distance. They are off to Tenedos, where they will embark the troops that are to land on the beaches round the tip of the peninsula.

The morning of the 24th sees the harbour still busy and animated, though most of the ships have departed. An almost unending stream of boats, each of them packed with tall, bronzed Australians and New Zealanders, plies towards the warships and transports that remain. By noon 10,000 men are on board; all are in the highest spirits, keen and eager for the coming battle. Every man knows what lies before him. All have read or heard the Commander-in-Chief's message addressed to "Soldiers of France and of the King":--

"Before us lies an adventure unprecedented in modern war. Together with our comrades of the Fleet, we are about to force a landing upon an open beach in face of positions which have been vaunted by our enemies as impregnable.

"The landing will be made good, by the help of God and the Navy; the positions will be stormed, and the war brought one step nearer to a glorious close.

"'Remember,' said Lord Kitchener, when bidding adieu to your Commander--'remember, once you set foot upon the Gallipoli Peninsula, you must fight the thing through to a finish.'

"The whole world will be watching our progress. Let us prove ourselves worthy of the great feat of arms entrusted to us.

"Ian Hamilton, _General_."

* * * * *

We will now follow the fortunes of the gallant Australians and New Zealanders. The transports, escorted by the Second Squadron of the Fleet, steam slowly on, and by half-past one on the morning of the 25th have reached a prearranged point. The sea is calm, there is scarcely a breath of wind, the moon is shining behind the ships, and the silence of night is only broken by the throb of the propellers. The ships heave to. Swiftly, and with scarce a sound, shadowy figures climb down into boats. They are the 1,500 men who are to be the first to set foot on the peninsula. Meanwhile their comrades are being transferred from the transports to six destroyers. It is now 2.30, and the warships, together with the destroyers and the towed boats, move slowly and silently towards a point about a mile north of Gaba Tepe. At 3.30 the order is given to "go ahead and land." Away go the boats, and, forty minutes later, the destroyers follow them.

Now the hazy dawn begins to break, and the men in the boats see before them the loom of the steep cliffs underneath which they are soon to tread. Beneath those cliffs there is a very narrow strip of sand, about a thousand yards long, closed in on the north and south by small promontories. Near the northern end of the beach a small but steep gully runs up into the hills at right angles to the shore. At the southern end there is a deep ravine with very steep, scrub-clad sides. Between the ravine and the gully a lofty spur comes down to the shore. Such is the landing-place. The Commander-in-Chief has chosen it because he thinks the enemy would never suppose that he would dream of making a landing in such an unfavourable position. Henceforth it will be known all the world over as Anzac[45] Cove.

The boats and destroyers steal in towards the land. They are now close to the shore, and the troops perceive that they must fight for a footing. Turkish soldiers are seen running along the beach ready to give the boats a warm reception. Not a word is spoken: our men remain perfectly still and quiet, awaiting the enemy's fire. A few moments more, and bullets rain down on them. Many a man has breathed his last before the boats run aground.

The keels have not touched the sand when the Australians of the 3rd Brigade spring out of their boats. A blaze of fire sweeps against them from the Turkish trenches on the beach, but they heed it not. With fixed bayonets they dash forward, as though they mean to conquer the whole peninsula by one mighty rush. On they go, and the Turks flee before them. The beach is carried with cold steel, and in open order they dive into the scrub and scramble up the hundred feet of cliff that rises before them. The famous exploit at Wolfe's Cove, when the Heights of Abraham were scaled, is altogether outdone.[46]

Now they are on the top of the cliff, and come under the main Turkish fire. The ground, however, gives them good cover, and they speedily dig themselves in. By seven in the morning they are holding the cliff top. Meanwhile the 1st and 2nd Brigades have come ashore, and two batteries of Indian Mountain Artillery have been landed. The enemy is now shelling the transports, and they are obliged to stand out to sea. Further artillery cannot, therefore, be put ashore just yet. By noon more than 10,000 men are on the beach, or are climbing the gully and the ravine. The thousand yards of shore is covered with busy working-parties. Stores are being landed, the Royal Engineers are making roads, and wireless stations are being erected; and all the time Turkish shells are falling fast and thick. Our warships are at work, but the morning sun is in the eyes of the gunners, and they fire at a disadvantage.

The Australians on the cliff top have not been content to remain idle in their hastily-dug trenches. They rashly push on across three ridges, and actually come within sight of the Narrows; but now the enemy is strongly reinforced, and they are driven back with heavy loss. Stretcher-bearers are stumbling down the steep paths and across the beach carrying their freight of wounded to the hospital ships on the bullet-splashed sea. There is much confusion as the advancing troops meet those who are retiring; but before noon a semicircular position on the cliffs is firmly held. Parties of the 9th and 10th Battalions charge and put out of action three of the enemy's Krupp guns.

The Turks now begin their counter-attacks, which continue far into the night. Again and again our men make bayonet charges, and the line holds fast. They have suffered terribly, but they have made good their footing, and are firmly placed at Gaba Tepe, on Anzac territory.

* * * * *

Now we must hurry southwards and see how matters are faring at Beach Y. Three cruisers--_Dublin_, _Amethyst_, and _Sapphire_--have covered the landing of the 1st Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers and the Plymouth (Marine) Battalion. The men have leaped ashore on a narrow strip of sand at the foot of a crumbling, scrub-covered cliff 200 feet high. They climb to the top of the cliffs by means of a number of small gullies, and there establish themselves, almost without loss. Food, water, and ammunition are hauled up. Now the Turks begin to attack them, and are fiercely resisted. Later in the day the enemy, largely reinforced, advances from the direction of Krithia, and our men have to dig in. Against them the Turks launch attack after attack, supported by heavy guns. Owing to the sharp fall of the ground behind the cliffs, our warships can render but little assistance. Through the afternoon and night the attacks continue, and our men make several desperate bayonet charges. But it is clear, even now, that they cannot maintain themselves in this position. By seven o'clock on the morning of the 26th the King's Own Scottish Borderers have lost half their number, including their gallant colonel.

The order for withdrawal is given. A small rearguard of the King's Own Scottish Borderers with desperate valour holds off the enemy, while the rest, with their wounded, stores, and ammunition, re-embark, and are safely brought round to the southern end of the peninsula. The landing at Y has failed, and our losses have been very heavy; but the plucky stand of the two battalions has prevented large numbers of the enemy from going to the assistance of their comrades at other points, where, as you will soon learn, a very touch-and-go struggle is in progress.

* * * * *

A short journey southward brings us to Beach X, where the 1st Royal Fusiliers have been landed. The _Swiftsure_ has plastered the high ground with shells, and the _Implacable_, which has anchored close inshore, is bringing every gun to bear on the Turkish position. Without losing a single man, the Fusiliers push up a low cliff and entrench themselves. By evening they are in touch with their comrades at Beach W. A Turkish battery which gets the range of our men is knocked out by a fine shot from the _Implacable_. At Beach X everything is going well.

* * * * *

We now hurry away to Beach W, between Cape Tekke and Cape Helles. Here a doubtful battle is raging. The beach consists of deep, powdery sand, and is 350 yards long, with steep ground on the flank and sand dunes in the centre. The Turks have turned this beach into a perfect death-trap. Close to the water's edge there is a broad wire entanglement running the whole length of the shore, and in front of it, in the shallow sea, there is another similar barricade. There are lines of trenches on the high ground; machine guns are tucked away into holes in the cliff; snipers lurk in the scrub, and there is not an inch of the shore which cannot be swept by deadly fire. On a hill overlooking the beach there are two redoubts, and elsewhere in the line of possible advance there are other formidable obstacles. Land mines and sea mines have been laid, and the Turks may well boast that no invader will ever remain alive on this terrible beach.

Lancashire men are now about to perform one of the finest feats of arms ever achieved by British soldiers or by any other soldiers. They are about to storm this death-trap from open boats! Hereafter, as a tribute to their splendid valour, Beach W will be known as Lancashire Landing.

At six in the morning of the 25th eight picket boats, in line abreast, each boat towing four ship's cutters packed with men of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, approach the shore. As soon as shallow water is reached the tows are cast off, and oars are plied. The first boat touches the shore, and out spring the Fusiliers, to be met by a hurricane of lead from the Turkish trenches. Many a man receives his death-wound while waist-deep in the water, but the unfaltering Fusiliers rush ashore, and though fired at from the right, the left, and the centre, begin hacking their way through the wire. A long line of men is at once mown down as by a scythe; but the remainder, now covered by the guns of the warships, and helped by the flanking fire of a party which has secured a foothold on a small ledge of rock under the cliff, break through the entanglements, and, rapidly re-forming, hurl themselves on the Turkish trenches. Several land mines are exploded, but nothing can stem the torrent of the British advance. By ten o'clock three lines of the enemy's trenches are in our hands.

On the right some of the Fusiliers have come under the fire of a redoubt, and they can make but little headway in this direction. The edge of the wire entanglements is reached, but they can go no further. They are now lying under the scanty cover of a sandbank, cleaning their rifles, which have been wetted by sea-water and choked with sand.

The guns of the warships boom out, and a rain of shells falls near the redoubt. About 2 p.m. the Worcester Regiment dashes forward. Men hack their way through the entanglements, and, in spite of heavy losses, carry the redoubt by storm. Now an attempt is made to join hands with the troops which are in dire peril on Beach V; but the defences are too strong to be broken through. Men are seen under an awful fire calmly snipping the wire as though they were pruning a vineyard. But the troops are worn out by their long labours under a hot sun, and the attack is perforce suspended. When night falls the Turks make assault after assault on the wearied invaders. So hard pressed are they that even the working parties on the beach have to be flung into the trenches in order that the line may be held. Happily the attacks of the enemy are beaten off, and no ground is lost. So the night passes, and the dawn ushers in another day of struggle and anxiety.

* * * * *

Now we hurry off to Beach V, where tragic events are taking place. Beach V resembles an old Greek theatre. There is a stretch of sand as at Beach W, and running along it is a low sandy ridge, four feet high, which affords some shelter. Beyond rise grassy terraces to a height of 100 feet. The rising ground is flanked on the one side by an old castle, and on the other side by a modern fort. On the heights overlooking the shore the Turks have massed artillery, machine guns, and riflemen. On the very margin of the beach there is an exceedingly strong barbed-wire fence, and two-thirds of the way up there is an even stronger obstacle. From all sides the defenders can pour down a deadly fire on the landing parties. So strongly defended is this beach that special arrangements have been made to cope with it. Large doors have been cut in the steel plates of a collier, the _River Clyde_, and wide gangplank have been slung from her side. These gangways slope gradually down from the doors to her bows, so that men can pass along on both sides in single file, and jump on to the lighters which she will tow in with her. Her bridge has been turned into a little fortress, and behind steel plates and sand-bags in her bows there are twelve machine guns to cover the landing. Two thousand men of the Hampshires and Munster Fusiliers have been stowed on board, and now she steams bow on to the shore close to a reef of rock. The lighters are placed in position so as to form a bridge between the gangway and the rock.

Eight boatloads of Dublin Fusiliers towed by steam pinnaces make a dash for the shore. Every kind of missile is hurled at them, and the men suffer horribly. Some few manage to gain the beach and take refuge under the sandbank already mentioned. None of the boats, however, push off again. They and their crews are destroyed.

Now comes the moment for the _River Clyde_, like the horse of Troy, to pour forth its living freight; but there is grievous delay, for the current runs strongly, and there is grave difficulty in keeping the lighters in position. The splendid pluck and tenacity of the naval working-party are tried to the utmost, and many splendid deeds of heroism are accomplished before the bridge of boats holds fast. Now a company of the Munster Fusiliers, followed by a second company, issues from the ship and strives to cross the shifting and swaying bridge. The lighters give way in the current; the end one nearest the shore drifts into deep water, and many men striving to swim from it to the beach are drowned. All the time a perfect tornado of fire sweeps down upon them. A third company essays the task: the lighters are filled with dead and wounded. A thousand men have striven to land, but barely five hundred have got ashore. So hot is the Turkish fire that the remaining men in the _River Clyde_ dare not emerge. A man has only to show his head to be instantly picked off.

* * * * *

Twenty-four hours after the _River Clyde_ runs ashore there are but the survivors of the Dublin and the Munster Fusiliers and two companies of the Hampshire Regiment on the beach, and they are still crouching beneath the shelter of the sandy ridge. Early in the morning the _Cornwallis_, _Albion_, and _Queen Elizabeth_ come to the rescue and begin a heavy bombardment of the enemy. Under cover of this bombardment the men on the beach push up the slopes on the bluff under a most galling fire, and capture the village, a fort, and a hill. The landing can now go forward. By the evening of Tuesday, the 27th, Beach V is in working order.

The whole scene on the beach reminds you of a gigantic shipwreck. It looks as if the whole army with its stores had been washed ashore after a great gale, or had saved themselves on rafts. All this work is carried on under an incessant shrapnel fire which sweeps the trenches and hills. The shells are frequently bursting ten or twelve at the same moment, making a deafening noise, and plastering the foreshore with bullets. The only safe place is close under the cliff, but every one is rapidly becoming accustomed to the shriek of the shells and the splash of bullets in the water, and the work goes on as if there was not a gun within miles.

* * * * *

Before I conclude this account of the landing I must say a word as to the part played by the French in the operations. Their duty was to land on the Asiatic shore at Kum Kale, and engage the batteries so that they could not interfere with the landings at Beaches V and S. During a skirmish which took place on the height at Kum Kale and on the Trojan plain the French took 500 prisoners, and would have captured more had there been room for them in the boats. This French diversion enabled trawlers to land 700 men of the 2nd South Wales Borderers at Beach S. A stiff little fight followed; but the Welshmen gained the top of the cliff, and digging themselves in, managed to hold their own until the position was taken over by the French. Their landing had only cost them fifty casualties. A company was also put ashore at Camber, a little boat harbour nestling just east and under the ruined fort of Sedd-ul-Bahr. This little force, however, met with such a fierce fire that it could make no progress up the steep cliffs towards the village, and had to be withdrawn.

* * * * *

Thus the landing was made, and a feat believed to be impossible was performed. When we consider how strongly the Turks were posted, how skilfully their trenches were made, how completely the beaches were swept by their fire, we are lost in admiration of the superb gallantry and contempt of life displayed by our men. You will read on a later page some account of those who specially distinguished themselves; but do not forget that many heroes who deserved the Victoria Cross had laid down their lives before the tops of the cliffs were reached. We were on the peninsula at last, but our footing was very insecure. We had our backs to the sea and our faces to a stubborn foe, who was holding positions of enormous strength. In later chapters we shall learn how these positions baffled every effort of the most heroic of men to carry them. For the moment, however, we were flushed with victory, and our hopes were high.

[Footnote 45: Made up of the initial letters of the words--Australian New Zealand Army Corps.]

[Footnote 46: On the night of September 12-13, 1759, General Wolfe's army of 4,000 men climbed a wooded precipice on hands and knees, and next day defeated a French army on the plateau (Heights of Abraham) to the south-west of Quebec. This victory gave us Canada.]