Gallipoli (28 page)

General Hamilton quite agrees. At ten the following morning, he and General Birdwood land on the foreshores of Port Mudros to inspect some of the 1st Australian Division's finest troops – the 9th Battalion of the 3rd Brigade – all of them trained to a high peak by their Commanding Officer, Colonel Ewen MacLagan.

As an exercise, the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force asks the Colonel to have his men carry out a practice attack on yonder row of windmills – massive, old-fashioned, 30-foot wheels with 20 arms, each arm bearing triangular sails – and though to Hamilton's eyes their military tactics don't particularly shine through, there is no doubt that these men of the 3rd Brigade ‘are superb specimens'.
⁴⁷

(This is in rather stark contrast to Charles Bean's impression of some of the British troops. ‘The Territorials have not our physique,' he would report, ‘and some of the Lancashire regiments seem to be composed largely of mere children.')
⁴⁸

A short time later, General Birdwood has a quiet word with Colonel MacLagan and tells him to begin training his men to land quickly on shore and secure a beachhead. ‘The landing-places chosen,' he says, giving a broad hint, ‘should resemble those at the toe of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The men are to be practised at communicating information in battle, and at carrying a very full load.'
⁴⁹

No, of course nothing is locked in yet. But that is the way things are starting to look.

23 MARCH 1915, DARDANELLES DILLY-DALLIES

Can it really be true?

Is it that the British Fleet will
not
try once more?

Have we Turks wrought a great victory?

Though scarcely daring to believe it, both the Turkish and German military leadership is slowly coming to that conclusion.

In the considered estimation of the German naval attaché, Admiral Guido von Usedom, ‘The whole affair gave the impression of groping round without a plan …'
⁵⁰

It appears extraordinarily timid of the Allies, and General Enver would later say, ‘If the English had only the courage to rush more ships through the Dardanelles, they could have got to Constantinople, but their delay enabled us thoroughly to fortify the Peninsula, and in six weeks time we had taken down there over 200 Austrian Skoda guns.'
⁵¹

And many more things, as well.

For if the British are not going to force their way through by ship, it's obvious they must come by land. And so steps must be taken, urgently.

23 MARCH 1915, THE ADMIRALTY, DE ROBECK DISAPPOINTS

Rarely in this war has Winston Churchill been more appalled. Just when he is expecting the fleet alone to finish the job it has started in the Dardanelles, he receives a cable from Admiral de Robeck, now referred to by Churchill as ‘De Row-Back',
⁵²
informing him that, after meeting with Generals Hamilton and Birdwood on
Queen Elizabeth
, the Royal Navy does not wish to make another attempt to force the Dardanelles until the middle of April, and then only in tandem with a major force of the army landing on the shores of Gallipoli.

‘I read this telegram with consternation,' Churchill would later recall. ‘I feared still more the immense and incalculable extension of the enterprise involved in making a military attack on a large scale.'
⁵³

Immediately, Churchill drafts his proposed reply, and then convenes a meeting of the Admiralty War Group, essentially the senior officials of the Admiralty and key advisers. With some vigour, he proposes that Admiral de Robeck be instructed:

The First Lord of the Admiralty is met with ‘insuperable resistance'.
⁵⁵
Now that the two men ‘on the ground', de Robeck and Hamilton, have decided on a joint operation, Admiralty has no choice but to go along with their views.

‘What more could we want?' Sir John Fisher asks plaintively, clearly thrilled at Admiral de Robeck's decision. ‘The Army
were
going to do it. They ought to have done it all along.'
⁵⁶

Bereft, Churchill considers resigning, but convinced that would only make matters worse, he decides to stay. In the subsequent Cabinet meeting on this day, he announces with ‘grief' the refusal of the Admiral and the Admiralty to continue the naval attack, reporting that for the moment it must be abandoned.

Lord Kitchener, however, rises to the occasion, and simply says the army will ‘carry the operations through by military force'.
⁵⁷

And that's it.

There is no further discussion, either within the Cabinet or the War Council.

The beginning of a campaign that will see one of the greatest invasion forces ever assembled, involving 80,000 soldiers and over 200 ships, is committed to, as Churchill notes, by ‘the agreement of the Admiral and the General on the spot, and the declaration of Lord Kitchener … No formal decision to make a land attack was even noted in the records of the Cabinet or the War Council.'
⁵⁸

How, in the space of just a few days, has the plan gone from the navy forcing the Dardanelles alone to the soldiers now essentially doing it alone, simply transported there by the navy?

Exactly.

It has just … sort of … happened.

This key decision falls in a period of over nine weeks when there is no meeting of the War Council in London. And, as a later inquiry would acidly note, ‘We think that before such operations were commenced the War Council should have carefully reconsidered the whole position. In our opinion the Prime Minister ought to have summoned a meeting of the War Council … We think this was a serious omission.'
⁵⁹

As it happens, however, the Prime Minister is as busy as ever on this day, as every day, writing to that fragrant beauty Venetia all the news of what has gone on in Cabinet:

At the time, the man who feels perhaps most wretched about it all is Churchill. ‘Why turn and change at this fateful hour and impose upon the Army an ordeal of incalculable severity?' he records. ‘An attack by the Army if it failed would commit us irrevocably in a way no naval attack could have done. The risk was greater; the stakes were far higher.'
⁶⁰

But he feels there is nothing he can do. For better or worse, for triumph or tragedy – and he fears the latter – things have taken on a momentum all their own.

24 MARCH 1915, CONSTANTINOPLE, 5TH ARMY – ACTIVATE!

After the attacks of 18 March, General Enver is not too proud to admit that his approach to defending the Straits has been too tame, and so he sends word to the Chief of the German Military Mission, General Otto Liman von Sanders, that he is to wait in his office – the Minister of War is coming to visit.

Arriving a short time later, the flamboyant General explains what he needs from his German counterpart. General Enver is so convinced that the British will now attempt a land invasion on the Dardanelles that he has decided to create an army formation directly responsible for its defence. General Enver would now like General Liman von Sanders to relinquish control of the 1st Army in Constantinople and take charge of the newly activated 5th Army on the Gallipoli Peninsula, in order to prepare them for what is surely coming.

General Liman von Sanders assents at once and makes preparations to leave Constantinople the following evening.

For the first time since the war began, Liman von Sanders feels happier. For months he has been agitating his supervisors in Berlin to recall him to Germany so that he can see action on the front, and now it looks as though the front is coming to him.

In many ways the 60-year-old – described by a colleague as ‘a tall, stern, military-looking man, very self-contained, quick in decision, clear in his orders, scanty of praise, sharp in reprimand and in following up a decision once taken'
⁶¹
– has been born for the task. For the last four decades his life has been dedicated to matters military, and he has proved to be so good at it that just the year before he had been promoted to General. In 1913, he had become the Commander of the newly established German Military Mission to Turkey and was assigned the task of bringing the Ottoman Army into the 20th century – something he had already achieved a great deal of success in.

The key thing he must do now, he decides as he heads to Gallipoli on a fast ship, is work out where to place his forces, consisting of no fewer than 65,000 men.

As General Otto Liman von Sanders disembarks from his vessel at the port of Gallipoli on the morning of 26 March, he looks up at the ‘pronounced mountainous terrain with precipitous ridges, the slopes of which are rent by deep ravines and shaft clefts'.
⁶²
He considers the sparse natural cover – ‘a few lone pine woods, a few bushes on the banks of the creeks and [deep ravines]'
⁶³
– and appreciates the amount of work before him.

He is met with a warm handshake from Brigadier-General Esat, the Commander of the Army's 3rd Corps, who is wearing the black wool cap known as a kalpak, a signature of many Ottoman officers. Liman von Sanders has worked with General Esat before and holds him in high esteem, a quality officer that the German knows he can trust to command troops.
⁶⁴

General von Sanders and his entourage are ushered to their new accommodation – a house formerly occupied by the French consular agent. After the Allies' flight from the Empire, looters had taken much of the furniture, leaving the General two rooms, with a round table and a wall mirror. Beds and other such creature comforts are to be borrowed from someone in town …

Von Sanders receives his assignment just two days after General Hamilton, and these two implacable foes have roughly the same amount of time to prepare.

LATE MARCH 1915, GALLIPOLI PENINSULA, A FORCE IS UNLEASHED

The Hun is not at the gate, the Hun is
everywhere
– in the barracks, at Cape Helles, at Gallipoli, on the roads between, surveying the lie of the land. General Liman von Sanders roars at his underlings in much the same manner as he roars back and forth across the Peninsula in his staff car, on horseback and even on foot – with speed, force and urgency – as well as being ferried back and forth between the Asian and European sides of the Sea of Marmara. He and his entourage of officers, in turn led by the extremely energetic Brigadier-General Esat, cover ‘hundreds of kilometres' in the first couple of days alone, and it feels as if ‘there are not enough hours in the day'.
⁴
Together, they are trying to banish something of the natural lassitude that lies over this ancient land. With the failure of the British Fleet to force the Dardanelles, it is obvious a landing of troops is the likely next option, and von Sanders and Brigadier-General Esat are insistent that the Turkish troops –
Schnell! Schnell! Schnell! Çabuk! Çabuk! Çabuk!
– get themselves and their weaponry ready to meet them.

Troops are sent on long marches and made to do endless training drills to improve their toughness and mobility – including practice marches at night to different beaches considered likely landing places. Munitions are stockpiled in strategic spots. Boats are assigned to suitable ports in the Straits to expedite the movement of troops. The paths and goat tracks that criss-cross the Peninsula are turned into actual roads by labour battalions. Soldiers are trained to be snipers; they learn how to throw grenades for maximum effect. The sentries on the coast are trained to report instantly the first sign of any invasion, and Liman von Sanders is particularly insistent that phone lines are put in to allow them to do so. Defensive trenches are dug just inland from where an invading force might land. Though short of resources across the board – from building materials and tools to artillery and ammunition – local innovation helps make up for it.

Turkish soldiers place torpedo heads tight by landmines, to blow up when the mines do, and strip the local garden fences of wood and wire to augment their meagre stock. At some particular places on the coast, the lapping waters of the Aegean are laced with barbed wire – stripped from farmers' fences – stretched out and hidden just below the surface. With every passing day, the defences of the Gallipoli Peninsula get stronger.

Positions, everyone! The enemy will soon be here!

‘The important question,' von Sanders would reminisce, ‘was where the hostile landing should be expected.'
⁵

He and Brigadier-General Esat identify the most likely landing places, focusing on the lower tip of the Peninsula around Cape Helles, the coast on either side of Gaba Tepe – though this is deemed unlikely by many – or further north around the vicinity of Bulair. The other place of concern is on the Asian shore around Kum Kale, and, after great rumination, von Sanders places one-third of his forces there.

Only by concentrating the forces in central inland positions and enabling them to quickly get to the spot where the British land will the Turks be able to stop them. So, they would be much better off holding the majority of their forces back, ‘sending only the most indispensable security detachments to the coast'
⁶
itself.

Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal's 19th Division, meanwhile, is ordered to wait in reserve, headquartered inland at the village of Boghali.

Though von Sanders recognises in Mustafa Kemal the mark of a fine officer, he is wary of the young man's forthright manner. His posture is a little too handsome, his bearing a little too regal, for one yet to truly prove himself in war. On their first meeting, General von Sanders had asked the former Military Attaché to Sofia his opinion on why the Bulgarians had not sprung into action to help the German–Ottoman alliance.

‘Because they are not convinced that Germany will win,' Mustafa Kemal answered.

‘And what do you think?' asked von Sanders.

‘I agree with the Bulgarians,' replied Mustafa Kemal, with a sparkle in his watery blue eyes.
⁷

This is not the only issue that Mustafa Kemal has with his superiors' decisions. After being stationed on the Peninsula for the better part of the Balkan Wars, he is convinced that the Allies will attempt to land on the southern end of the Peninsula, not at Bulair or Kum Kale.

For now, Mustafa Kemal is powerless to convince the brass above him, and he must obey the order to march his troops to Boghali. The village sits some four and a half miles directly north of Maidos and four miles to the east of Ari Burnu. At this time of year, the mulberry trees dotted generously around the village are blossoming, and chickens scuttle along the narrow streets between wonky stone houses.

Even before the Allied naval attacks on the Dardanelles had started, Liman von Sanders' respected colleague, Admiral Guido von Usedom, had inspected the Peninsula. He had arrived at Gaba Tepe, along with a cadre of top brass, including the Commander of the 3rd Corps, Brigadier-General Esat, and the Commander of the 9th Division, Lieutenant-Colonel Halil Sami, and their attendant staff.

Together with Lieutenant-Colonel Şefik, Commander of the 27th Regiment, which was stationed at Ari Burnu and had been assigned the task of defending and fortifying that stretch of coast, the men climbed to the top of the promontory at Gaba Tepe – a post that is already well fortified, with troops entrenched, an artillery battery in place and other gun emplacements nearby. It is not far from an extraordinary natural rock formation that looks like the famed Great Sphinx of Giza, and they are able to garner a view of the coastline stretching north and the terrain leading up to the ridges from the beach below.

Peering down the steep incline, which extends all the way to the beach, they contemplate just how an invading force would fare trying to storm ashore here. Some of the soldiers with them are commanded to toss grenades down the slope, and they all watch the explosions closely.
Devastating
.

Soon enough, Colonel Şefik, as commander of the men responsible for defending this stretch of the shore, speaks for the Turks: ‘A landing here is not possible without them also capturing the ridges extending from Ari Burnu.'

‘We have determined,' a German officer agrees, ‘that it is very shallow along the coast. The terrain is very steep and unsuitable for a landing. In the first place, the enemy would have to land at Gaba Tepe and then spread along the line of the ridges behind Ari Burnu in order to capture the area.'
⁸

And so the discussion ends, the high brass believing that in the unlikely event the enemy lands on this part of the coast, it will probably be at Gaba Tepe, not Ari Burnu. As a consequence, only one battalion of some 800 men is left behind to defend the coastline stretching from Gaba Tepe to Suvla Bay in the north.

LATE MARCH 1915, ALEXANDRIA, NO QUARTER IN THE QUARTER-MASTER'S STORE

So how does one move 75,000 men from one continent to another, in the middle of the night, equipped to fight, capable of both defending and attacking, of staying for the long haul if things go badly and yet still with the capacity of pushing on to Constantinople if all goes well? And all of it when they are
still
without an administrative staff to see to the thousands of details that might make all the difference between a successful mission and a shambolic one?

It is a very good question, and one that General Hamilton and his staff struggle with every day. The first thing to do is make lists, lists, lists … and then make some more. And then you have your individual brigades form up lists:

The wine? Apparently for the officer class, an accompanying slip of paper notes:

The whole thing is of course a logistical nightmare, unprecedented in scale and degree of difficulty. In the words of one contemporary writer, ‘They were going to land on a foodless cliff, five hundred miles from a store, in a place and at a season in which the sea's rising might cut them from supply.'
¹¹

Come to think of it, they will also need hundreds, no,
thousands
of Union Jacks with which to wrap bodies before they are committed to the deep. And yet neither General Hamilton nor his senior officers can expect any sympathy from Kitchener of Khartoum, who has already cabled his concern to Hamilton about the mooted 14 April landing:

Which is as may be, but General Hamilton can only do so much. He and his staff must simply soldier on while still oft yearning wistfully for the simpler times …

On the second-last day of the month, the Commander-in-Chief spies a well-built but agile and distinguished-looking officer with a distinctive, bushy moustache beneath his large nose. It can only be Colonel John Monash! General Hamilton cocks his head to one side and says, ‘Well, Monash, when we sat under a gum tree together twelve months ago [at Duntroon], we didn't think, either of us, we should meet again so soon.'
¹³

Monash happily agrees, but, always a man of empathy, feels for Hamilton – he clearly looks as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.

1 APRIL 1915, WEST OF MECCA, BY THE RED SEA, BEWARE BEDOUIN BANDITS

It has been the most extraordinary journey of their lives. After the destruction of
Emden
in mid-November, Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke and his small command of 50 sailors on the Cocos Islands have been travelling, trying to make good their escape. Initially in the Clunies-Ross schooner
Ayesha
, von Mücke has led his men all the way through the Dutch East Indies, across the Indian Ocean and into the Middle East, stalked by death all the way, starved, nearly dead of thirst, ambushed, betrayed, shot at, nearly sunk and lost.

Still, they have managed to keep going and now are on a trek through the desert, just one more night's march from Jeddah, where a 300-strong garrison of Turks is apparently expecting them. True, this is particularly tough country and there are meant to be so many gangs of robbers about that the locals call this area the ‘Father of the Wolf',
¹⁴
but now, the long night's journey nearing its end, the German officers' thoughts are turning more to their next meal, when …

A piercing whistle shatters the dawn, followed by heavy, sustained rifle fire. They are under attack! Rallying his men, von Mücke rushes forward and for the moment at least they are able to get partial cover, first behind their camels and then the nearest sand dunes as they get their weapons out.

How many of them are there?

The answer is appalling. As the sun rises a little more, the Germans can now see that the sand hills just in front of them are
black
with Bedouin bandits, at least 300 of them. All armed, all firing.

Despite the dire situation, von Mücke and his men react with calm vigour. Almost as one, they fix their bayonets. What now?

Von Mücke is just trying to decide when he hears a voice: ‘
Kapitänleutnant! Kapitänleutnant!
'

He looks over to see it is an 18-year-old sailor, one of their youngest.

‘
Was gibt's denn?
– Well, what is it?' he asks.

‘
Geht's bald los, Herr Kapitänleutnant?
– How soon are we going at it, Sir?'

‘
Was denn?
– At what?'

‘
Na, stürmen!
– Why, at storming the enemy …'

The worthy von Mücke pauses for an instant, reflects, and then takes instant action. ‘
Stimmt! Du hast recht.
– Exactly! You are right,' he roars, getting up. ‘
Sprung auf, Marsch, Marsch!
– Up! Charge, charge!'
¹⁵

And charge they do. With a great cheer, Kapitänleutnant von Mücke leads his men in a mad dash, straight at the Bedouins …

EVENING, 1 APRIL 1915, MENA CAMP, NO BULL

Hold your horses, Bluey. Something's going on. The word is getting around. A Major of the Army Corps staff has journeyed from Cairo to Mena Camp to see General Bridges behind closed doors, and as he leaves, a jovial Bridges is heard to say, ‘Well, thanks for bringing us good news. That's the most cheerful thing we've had happen to us for a long time.'
¹⁶

And now, suddenly, all further leave for officers has been stopped.

It can surely only mean one thing: we're going to get a fight at last.

And it is dinkum, all right.

A group of Australian officers and their men, who had just been about to head off on a weekend at Luxor, 450 miles to the south, are recalled to the Camp from the station. Another group, who had been out having a picnic on the Nile, return to the wharf to find their smiling Colonel waiting for them.

It's true. It's really true!

Ah, the excitement it causes among the officers. The cheers. The songs. The back-slapping! No, no one knows where they are going – the Dardanelles are rumoured, but who knows? – and no one particularly cares. Though for the moment they must keep it to themselves, the main thing is that after all these months they might see some action, actually get to test themselves and their men against the enemy. In the time that remains before they have to march to Cairo, to catch a train to Alexandria, to get on ships that will take them somewhere, most officers busy themselves writing letters to loved ones.