1915: The Death of Innocence Read online

  A little after 9.30 that evening the first contingent of the main force landed at Suvla Bay. By ten o’clock four battalions were ashore and more were on the way. A single rifle shot from the shore had struck one lighter and an unfortunate naval rating was the only casualty. A short way to the north two Yorkshire battalions advanced in the dark and, at far greater cost, captured the main Turkish garrison on the hill of Lala Baba. But there the advance came to a halt.

  In the long bitter aftermath of the failed Gallipoli campaign the Anzacs could hardly be blamed for thinking they had been let down, and the impression took deeper root as the decades passed. More than seventy years on, the film Gallipoli told the story of just one of the tragic happenings on the fatal morning of 7 August. The framework of the plot was fictional and one-sided but in essence and in all its stark reality it was true, and it came to epitomise the whole desperate endeavour – the microcosm of the Australians’ sacrifice on Gallipoli.

  The attack at the Nek should have been a minor operation. It was such a narrow causeway of land to cross, only sixty yards at its widest, and it guarded the hill they called Baby 700, a position so strong that a lone assault could not possibly succeed. But in conjunction with a converging attack by the New Zealanders at Chunuk Bair it stood a good chance of success and if together the Anzacs could pull it off, the summit of the Sari Bair Ridge would be in their hands. Both forces were to attack simultaneously at dawn, and long before then the New Zealanders would have captured Chunuk Bair. But by dawn few of the New Zealanders had managed even to reach the assembly position, those who had were waiting for the others still struggling up the slopes and it would be many hours before the last of them arrived and the assault on Chunuk Bair could begin.

  But the attack, which was destined to be fruitless and in the circumstances pointless, was nevertheless ordered to proceed. Three separate waves went over the top into the maw of the Turkish rifles and machine-guns. The force was all but annihilated.

  The rattle and thunder of the deathly fire that slaughtered the Australians ripped across the pinnacles of Sari Bair. Marking time on Rhododendron Ridge, glad of the respite after their laborious climb, the New Zealanders listened and wondered as they rested and waited for the late arrivals and the long-awaited signal to advance, and, chafing at the delay, General Johnston wondered more than anyone if the attack which he himself should have supported could possibly have gone ahead without him. On the spur itself everything was peaceful. A short distance ahead, just beyond two more spurs and dips, the tantalising slopes of Chunuk Bair stood out against the sun as it climbed into the eastern sky. All was quiet. Two hours passed. At 6.30 Johnston decided to wait no longer and led his troops forward some five hundred yards to the rocky hillock at the apex of Rhododendron Ridge. They were met by a few shots from the main ridge and halted again. From the apex they were looking down on their left to Suvla, and on their right they could see the Nek where, on a tiny patch of ground no larger than two tennis courts, the morning sun burned down on the bodies of more than six hundred Australian soldiers, lying so motionless and so at one with the earth that to the New Zealanders on their vantage point the Nek seemed to slumber undisturbed in the sun. General Johnston’s Brigade Major scanned the view through binoculars and was deeply impressed: ‘The situation as seen from the Apex was intensely interesting and indeed astonishing. Looking down towards Anzac all was quiet. At the Nek and Baby 700 not a shot was being fired. Above us we could see the trenches on Chunuk Bair bristling with rifles, and a certain amount of rifle fire was coming from that direction. On Hill Q all was quiet. There was no sign of the Indian Brigade or the 4th Australian Brigade. Away at Suvla the bay was a mass of shipping. Some men could be seen on the beaches walking about freely. Peace seemed to reign everywhere.’

  Peace certainly reigned at Suvla. It was 9.30 in the morning. The first troops had landed twelve hours earlier, many more had arrived in the course of the night, and more still were now making for the beaches, but not much was happening and the worst of it was that no one, least of all the troops, seemed to know what was meant to be happening.

  Spr. J. Johnston, 44th (Welsh) Field Coy., RE, 53rd (Welsh) Div.

  We were loaded into small boats and rowed towards the shores of Suvla Bay where we had to wade ashore for about sixty yards as the boats couldn’t get in any nearer owing to the shallow water. In parts there was a lot of loose barbed wire which had been thrown there by the Turks to impede any landing, however we managed to get ashore about 5.45 a.m. and there were so many boats that we were told to move away as quickly as possible. The Turks had spotted the landing and opened up with shrapnel shell-fire, but we were fortunate to have been in the first boats and had travelled about two hundred yards inland, so the shrapnel shells went right over us towards the beach. This was our baptism of fire and we were all scared out of our wits, and as there were quite a lot of rocks near us we took what cover we could find until the firing slackened off. Then we began to look around for our officers for further orders, but there were no officers near us. It appeared that they had been landed further over from A beach. It was more than six hours before we were able to meet any of them, however like a lot of inquisitive war recruits that knew nothing about war, we went forward to see what was further on. When we had gone about three-quarters of a mile the heat was unbearable and we were thirsty. Then we saw a padre coming towards us with about two dozen water bottles over his shoulder. He was making for the beach to get water for the troops who were ahead of us. He was the padre of the 5th Welsh and generally known as ‘Dai 5 Welsh’. He advised us to make for Hill 10 as there were troops gathering there, however when we reached there we were advised to make for Hill 20 as it was considered there were too many troops in one place and we would be a target for the Turkish gunners if we were spotted, so off to Hill 20 we went. We hung around all day waiting for orders. No one told us what to do, so we stopped there all night.

  On board the destroyer Jonquil where he had slept all night on deck, General Stopford was as ignorant as anyone of the situation ashore and he was certainly in no position to influence events. It had been his intention to land with the troops and set up his Headquarters ashore but he had changed his mind and elected to stay on board – perhaps because of his injured knee, perhaps because he imagined that from the Jonquil he would obtain a more coordinated view. Either way it was a fatal mistake. Only half his staff was on board, the ship was not equipped for communication and small boats which might have carried messages to and from the shore were so scarce that it took one officer, desperate to discuss the situation with his Commander on board the Jonquil, six hours before he could find a vessel available to make the journey. As for Stopford himself, for all he knew of the situation he might as well have stayed on Lemnos. According to the single message which he succeeded in transmitting to GHQ he was satisfied that the troops had landed, adding with no hint of dismay that they had been unable to progress far beyond the beach. Its complacent tone did little to allay the anxiety of Sir Ian Hamilton, although he was comforted by the assumption that the message had been long delayed and merely described the situation early in the morning of the 7th. But as the hours passed and no news of further progress reached him, his anxiety deepened for he had heard from other sources that opposition at Suvla had been slight and he was desperate for confirmation that the troops had advanced and seized the Anafarta Hills. The fact was that they had hardly advanced at all.

  Spr. J. Johnston.

  Presently next morning the word came over from someone who appeared to be in charge with orders saying ‘Do not retire, stay and dig trenches for yourselves where you are, and hold them as long as possible,’ so after a while we were down in a trench deep enough to afford us some cover. This was done with our entrenching tools, because the picks and shovels had been landed with our tool carts elsewhere! Then we dug towards the others on each end of us and connected up the trenches together. Soon after we had finished a couple of our company officers arrived an
d took over. At about midnight that night we were told to fall in and form ranks, and we marched under cover of darkness over to a place called Lala Baba where we started again digging trenches. We had come about one and a half miles or so along the edge of the Salt Lake which was a dry bed at the time. We were soon put to work again setting up barbed wire entanglements there, and afterwards at Chocolate Hill.

  The order to ‘dig in’ had not come from Sir Ian Hamilton and it was the last thing he intended, especially in the light of the disturbing news brought back by a reconnaissance aircraft. Strong columns of Turkish reinforcements had been spotted marching towards Suvla from Bulair. It would be some hours before they got there, and there was still time for the troops to advance – but it was fast running out. The previous afternoon a message from Hamilton had urged Stopford to ‘Push on rapidly’ and to ‘Take every advantage before you are forestalled,’ but it had been couched in terms of such tentative encouragement that it might easily have been read as an expression of Hamilton’s confidence in his Corps Commander rather than a direct order from the man at the top. Not for the first time in Hamilton’s dealings with subordinates his characteristic gentle courtesy had betrayed him in a crisis which demanded overt bluntness and resolution.

  A second laconic message received next morning, 8 August, revealed with horrifying clarity that General Stopford’s imagination had stopped short at achieving the landing itself and that, contrary to the evidence, it was still inflamed by the belief that rows of trenches bristling with hostile troops stood in the path of an advance. Stopford had even taken the trouble to send a message of congratulation to the troops on their achievement so far, and he was in high spirits when he met Colonel Aspinall on the deck of the Jonquil. Aspinall, the main architect of the plan, had gone to Suvla to assess the situation at the urgent request of the commander-in-chief. ‘Well, Aspinall,’ beamed General Stopford as they shook hands, ‘the men have done splendidly and been magnificent.’ Aspinall was taken aback. ‘But they haven’t reached the hills, sir,’ he demurred. ‘No,’ replied Stopford, ‘but they are ashore!’ Aspinall never forgot the conversation and two years later, giving evidence to the Dardanelles Commission, he did not hesitate to report it verbatim. All his urging, all his reminders of the necessity for speed, all his arguments for an immediate advance were brushed aside by General Stopford. He answered with some complacency that he was well aware of the situation, but until the men were rested and more guns and supplies were landed it was quite impossible to move. He added soothingly that he had every intention of ordering a fresh advance next day. Next day, and Aspinall knew it, would be a day too late. He had already been ashore with Sir Maurice Hankey and they had found a doleful state of affairs.

  Col. Sir Maurice Hankey.

  A peaceful scene greeted us. Hardly any shells. No Turks. Very occasional musketry. Bathing parties round the shore. There really seemed to be no realisation of the overwhelming necessities for a rapid offensive, of the tremendous issues depending on the next few hours. One staff officer told me how splendidly the troops were behaving, and showed me the position where they were entrenching! Another remarked sententiously that it was impossible to attack an entrenched position without a strong artillery, and this was not yet available. As an irresponsible critic I do not want to be hard, and I do want to recognise the very real difficulties, but I must confess I was filled with dismay, as was the General Staff man whom I accompanied. It was a delicate situation. His message to Sir Ian had to be sent through the Corps Commander, and it was difficult for him to send an adequate message. We solved the difficulty by doing it through the Vice-Admiral, who was luckily in port!

  The message sent by wireless from Admiral Roebuck’s flagship read: ‘Just been ashore, where I found all quiet. No rifle fire, no artillery fire, and apparently no Turks. IX Corps resting. Feel confident that golden opportunities are being lost and look upon the situation as serious.’

  Col. Sir Maurice Hankey.

  What distressed me even more was the whole attitude of the division. The staff of the division and corps were settling themselves in dug-outs. The pioneers, who should have been making rough roads for the advance of the artillery and supply wagons soon to be landed, were engaged on a great entrenchment from the head of the bay over the hills to the sea ‘to protect headquarters’. It looked as though this accursed trench warfare in France had sunk so deep into our military system that all idea of the offensive had been killed.

  ‘You seem to be making yourselves snug,’ I said to a staff officer. ‘Are you not going to get a move on?’ ‘We expect to be here a long time,’ was his reply.

  The trouble is it is so difficult to do anything. One could only report to Sir Ian and to his Chief of Staff. It took hours to poke round and find all this out. It took hours to get a boat, and I was not back at Kephalos until 11 p.m.

  The soldiers of the Suvla force, the Kitchener’s men newly out from England, were equally at a loss. They had done well. They had not been rattled under haphazard shrapnel shelling, they had suffered many casualties, almost entirely due to overcrowding behind the beaches and the failure of the force to fan out, and they had suffered them stoically. They were keen to do well, but they could not advance without orders. In the innocence of their inexperience it was not up to them to reason why, but many of them wondered. Colonel Rettie who, as Commander of a brigade of guns, had rather more experience and did not hesitate to express an opinion, had spent two frustrating days aboard the destroyer Minneapolis before lighters arrived to take his guns ashore in the afternoon of 8 August.

  Lt. Col. W. J. K. Rettie, 59 Brig., RFA.

  At last we were told we might start disembarking… I was struck by the restfulness of all around. There appeared to be little going on – a good many infantry sitting about or having a bathe. The impression conveyed to my mind was that of a ‘stand-fast’ at some field day. Having located the Commander, Royal Artillery, on the beach near Lala Baba I was told to bring the batteries into action under cover of that hillock. This was rather a shock, as we had at least expected to go forward to Chocolate Hill. On expressing surprise, and asking what we were waiting for, I was met with the grim reply: ‘For the Turks to reinforce!’ And so it proved!

  When Colonel Rettie finally did move forward with his guns to Chocolate Hill, he found the Brigadier conferring with his Staff Officers. They sat with maps spread out, quite at ease on the open ground. There was no need to take cover.

  Lt. Col. W. J. K. Rettie.

  There was no firing, beyond an occasional shot from a sniper somewhere, and the sensation of a pause in a field day still prevailed. I was plied with queries as to how things were progressing on the beach, and when we were likely to get a move on – a question I could not answer.

  It was a question which has not been answered to this day, and the line has not yet been drawn beneath the final account. The blame has been laid on many shoulders, but the truth that shines through the continuing post-mortems is that it could not be laid on the shoulders of the troops. They had done their best, they had done their duty and many of them died in the doing of it. Golden opportunities had indeed been missed. By the New Zealanders, whose long wait had enabled Turkish reinforcements to reach Chunuk Bair in time to deny them more than a foothold on its slopes. By Kitchener’s men at Suvla, thwarted less by the enemy than by the pusillanimous leadership of their own command. Where minutes had counted hours had been frittered away and although the fighting battered on, the seeds of failure had been sown. They had germinated in the lack of coherent orders, in fatal delays and stultifying inaction, in pointless sacrifice and lack of resolve. The ‘big show’ conceived and planned as a coordinated effort had devolved into three independent battles. It could have succeeded, but it had failed – and it was the death-knell of the grand Gallipoli strategy. Suvla had finished it. As Sir Ian Hamilton would later point out, just as no one would think of pouring new wine into old bottles, the combination of ‘old Generals and new troops’ was
fatal. In the face of much vilification Hamilton kept his dignity and his gentlemanly reserve.

  General Stopford was less restrained. In mid-August when he was relieved of his command he embarked on a campaign in which self-justification and vilification of Hamilton played a large part. It hardly mattered now.

  Sir Maurice Hankey returned to London saddened and depressed to make his official report.