Gallipoli (38 page)

And yet, while fortune favours the brave, sometimes misfortune can devastate the bravest of them all … and now …
a Turkish bullet comes from one of the defenders and drills the captain through the head
… killing him instantly. Captain William Annear is among the first of the Australian officers to be sent to his grave.

For the shaken Australian soldiers with him, there is only one thing to do. Keep going.

Now they are atop the First Ridge, of course, their goal is to take the next ridge, all of 400 feet high, but therein lies a significant problem. While the first law of aggressive acts is that in compact unity lies strength – individual fingers may hurt, but clenched into a fist they damage, just as stones may sting, but formed into a rock they can kill – the landscape they are now crossing makes that impossible. Between them and the next ridge is an impossible tangle of gullies, ravines, sheer cliff faces and all but impenetrable undergrowth, not to mention a constant rain of bullets from the retreating Turks. It is inevitable that what was a compact unit of 50 soldiers soon becomes five groups of ten, less those who have been shot, and soon enough many groups of three and less. They press on regardless, the best they can.

For the instructions of General Birdwood and his senior officers have been clear for the last month: ‘Keep going at all costs! Go as fast as you can!'
²⁰

And so they do.

6 AM, 25 APRIL 1915, BOGHALI, A DUTY TO DISOBEY

At his small house, Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal, the Commander of the 19th Division, is awake, ear cocked to the west.

Guns. Big guns. And
not
his own Turkish guns – for there are none that big in that direction. The long-awaited invasion; it must have begun.

He immediately telephones General Esat in Gallipoli, who informs him that what is happening is as yet unclear, and for the moment he must simply wait further instruction. An independent and most earnest officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal does that, but still orders ‘all the troops to prepare themselves for mobilisation'.
²¹

And then he continues to wait … and wait. With no order arriving, he gives one of his own. His mounted company is told to ride ‘in the direction of [the highest spot of the Peninsula, Hill 971] in order to obtain information about the situation'.
²²

Finally, at 6.30 am, Mustafa Kemal receives partial confirmation in a report from the 9th Division Commander at Maidos, Colonel Halil Sami. Yes, the enemy is landing at Ari Burnu, and the invaders are beginning to swarm up and over the first of the ridges that overlook the shore there. But their Commanders, it seems, are not panicked, thinking this landing likely a feint. ‘It is demanded that you send one of your Battalions to oppose the enemy,' Sami says casually, passing on the order.
²³

But Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal disagrees. He has understood from the first the strategic importance of the high ground of the Sari Bair Range, and now that it has been confirmed that the enemy has indeed landed in that area and is heading towards it, albeit over very difficult country, it seems highly unlikely that it is a mere feint.

It is with that in mind that he takes it upon himself to order his whole 19th Division to mobilise. Most particularly, the 57th Regiment and the 72nd Regiment are to head towards the high peaks that overlook the whole invasion area, at all possible speed. (It is an enormous risk for him, personally. His job is to keep his forces in reserve, until ordered to move by his Corps Commander, and if it so happens that that order comes only to find that Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal has taken his men other than where they are truly needed, his career would be over.)

He now heads out with the division's crack 57th Regiment and a battery of mountain guns towards Hill 971, which overlooks the spot where the enemy has landed. Following them are the men of the 72nd Regiment. Desperate to see for himself exactly what the situation is, Mustafa Kemal – riding, as ever, tall in his saddle – takes a cabal of senior officers and goes on ahead of them.

6.25 AM, 25 APRIL 1915, HELL AT HELLES

At Cape Helles, the five separate British landings on the five designated beaches are each meeting entirely different fates. The forces of the Lancashire Fusiliers, landing on the spot designated Y Beach, have encountered almost no resistance at all – there is time to wade ashore and then have a spot of tea. As to
River Clyde
, however, and the 2000 predominantly Irish soldiers that lie within, that is another story.

For it is just before 6.30 am that the 4000-ton collier bursts through the entrance of the Dardanelles and arrows straight for V Beach, a sandy strip 300 yards long that forms the orchestra pit of a natural amphitheatre. Smoke hangs heavy over the beach from the pre-landing shelling, which has been going on since 5.30 am, though that barrage has caused few casualties among the Turkish defenders. That much is evident from the moment they devastatingly open fire on the 700 soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, being towed in boats by steamboats alongside
River Clyde
.

And now, the collier itself beaches and – after heroic work to get a rough kind of bridge in place – the sally ports burst open, and the first of the Irish soldiers come bursting through.

Just 75 yards back from the beach, Sergeant Yahya's 26th Regiment has been patiently waiting for this moment. He drops his arm: ‘
Ateş!
– Fire!'

As 100 rifles and the four machine-guns – all of them German, water-cooled, state-of-the-art Maxims – fire a furious fusillade at the courageous soldiers of the Royal Munster Fusiliers of the 29th Division, the Turkish defenders are soon joined by another nearby infantry company, making it around 300 rifles in total firing on those coming ashore. ‘They were literally slaughtered like rats in a trap,' one
River Clyde
officer would recount.
²⁴
For every man who makes it to shore, at least three are cut down on the way.

Of the two companies of Munsters that keep coming from
River Clyde
– 500 soldiers in all – only 150 survive the landing, and for the moment sanity makes a rare appearance, and a temporary halt is called on further soldiers emerging. As to the covering force of Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the open boats, of the 40 men in the first vessel that reaches the shore, only three are able to get out – not including their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Alexander Rooth, who is one of the first shot. They stagger up the beach, bleeding heavily.

Only 300 survive the landing unscathed. In the words of one Turkish officer, Mahmut Sabri, ‘not one of our soldiers' bullets was fired in vain. In fact in many cases one bullet accounted for several of the enemy …'
²⁵

Dead bodies begin to wash up on the shore, their hands all too frequently reaching for the solid land, their legs bobbing in water red with blood. As one of the
River Clyde
's officers would recall, ‘I never knew blood smelt so strong before.'
²⁶

The Turks keep firing their bullets and shells, keep adding to the bloody carnage. Mahmut Sabri would recall, ‘Ertuğrul Bay [V Beach] was packed with enemy corpses like fish piled on top of each other.'
²⁷

Back at Anzac, Captain Faik's certainty that they are pushing the enemy back is beginning to fade when he feels a searing pain in his groin. Looking down at his wound, he knows he can't lead his men anymore. After handing the command over to Sub-Lieutenant Muharrem, Captain Faik is evacuated.

Private Âdil, meanwhile, is retreating further and further back from his initial position on the shoreline, towards the Third Ridge. The Turks are in desperate need of reinforcement.

Just before 6 am, Colonel Şefik's men had finally been ordered to ‘proceed to the Gaba Tepe sector and hinder the enemy's attempted advance between Ari Burnu and Gaba Tepe, throwing those that have made it inland back into the sea'.
²⁸
After an hour and a half's marching at the double, they arrive at the southern slopes of the Third Ridge.

Approaching along a gully behind the ridge, they come across a wounded soldier who says, ‘The enemy are close up ahead.'
²⁹

‘Even better!' the Commander replies. ‘The earlier we meet with them the better.'

They then march towards a spot just to their north, overlooking 400 Plateau to the north-west, and are ordered to ‘keep your eyes peeled, in every direction'.

Şefik rides out in front with his Battalion Commanders. Now arriving atop the knoll, he surveys the land in front of him through his binoculars. ‘Just as the wounded soldier had said we saw enemy soldiers at close range … they were visible on 400 Plateau … But thanks to the scrub it was impossible to discern where exactly their soldiers had advanced to, nor where their left flank was.'
³⁰

But this is not the best spot from which to command his men. Telling them to hurry, he rides further north, to a spot high up on Third Ridge, directly east from where the enemy have landed. Enemy fire is becoming more frequent, and though Şefik can't yet see them, he knows the invaders are advancing onto the Third Ridge from the movements in the scrub, which catch his eye. Surveying the land closely, the Turkish Lieutenant-Colonel thinks hard about what his next move might be.

At around 6.45 am, atop Plugge's Plateau, right next to the body of Captain Annear, it is obvious to Colonel MacLagan that he must make quick and important decisions. Though his men of the 9th and 10th Battalions have already pushed on to the Third Ridge, the question is where to now direct the men of the 11th Battalion, who have just arrived on the plateau. The plan had been for them to go straight to the Third Ridge but he has just received word from 400 Plateau, via a signaller bearing a message, that large numbers of Turkish troops have been sighted on the Third Ridge opposite, presenting a serious threat to his right flank.

Map of First, Second and Third Ridge, after a map by C. E. W. Bean

It seems obvious to him that it is more important to secure the heights immediately in front of them, along the Second Ridge. And so he orders the men of the 11th Battalion to forgo the Third and rush to points along the northern end of the Second Ridge, all the way to the hill known as Baby 700 – for its presumed height of 700 feet
³¹
– on the Sari Bair Range.

He follows this up by sending orders forward to the men of the 9th and 10th to halt their advance at the Second Ridge and dig in. The Third Ridge to the east, and Battleship Hill, Chunuk Bair and Hill 971 to the north will just have to wait … for the moment, at least.

Given the Anzacs have all been landed too far north, it is almost certain that their right flank – where the Turks have men in reserve near Gaba Tepe – is inherently weak, and so that flank must be reinforced.