In the end I said ‘Salute my friends. If I am not killed and can help your countrymen later I will do so to the best of my power’. We parted great friends. It was a picturesque day, the walk through the rain, and then Sam and I sitting with the fierce Arab, smoking, in fields of glorious poppies, with the sea glittering by us, and later the long slow eastern talk with Sahib Bey, and the ride blindfolded to and from Kaba Tepé. We got very wet, and I rubbed my feet with shingle for I was not wearing socks.
Sunday, May 23rd, 1915. Kaba Tepé. We landed a month ago. We now hold a smaller front than then, also the Albion has gone ashore. The rest of the fleet has left us. She remains a fixture. All the possible boats are rushing up to the Albion to tow her off.
The Turks are sending in a hail of shrapnel. There is the deuce of a fight on. It will be an awful business if they don’t get her off. They have got her off thank goodness, everyone here breathes a sigh of relief.
We wonder if all the places with the funny accidental names will one day be historical, Johnson’s Jolly, Dead Man’s Ridge, Quinn’s Post, the Valley of Death? Plugge’s Plateau and Walker’s Ridge. Poor Plugge. A brave and good man, twice wounded, paid no attention the first time. I didn’t think that a schoolmaster would fight like that. The New Zealanders are most gallant fellows.
The big fight ought to come off, after the armistice. Two more divisions have come up against us. They will probably be en masse at one point. All was quiet last night but a shell came into the New Zealand hospital on the beach which is the safest place and killed four wounded men and one dresser and some more outside. It is these new guns whose position we still have not learnt.
Tuesday, May 25th, 1915. Kaba Tepé. We had the truce yesterday. I was afraid something might go wrong, but it went off all right. Skeen, Blamey53 and Howse VC54 and I started early. Skeen offered me breakfast but, like a fool, I refused. He put some creosote on my handkerchief. We were at the rendezvous on the beach at 6.30. Heavy rain soaked us to the skin. At 7.30 we met the Turks, Miralai Izzedin, a pleasant, rather sharp, little man; Arif, the son of Achmet Pasha, who gave me a card, ‘Sculpteur et Peintre,’ and ‘Etudiant de Poésie.’ I saw Sahib and had a few words with him but he did not come with us. Fahreddin Bey came later.
We walked from the sea and passed immediately up the hill, through a field of tall corn filled with poppies, then another cornfield; then the fearful smell of death began as we came upon scattered bodies. We mounted over a plateau and down through gullies filled with thyme, where there lay about 4,000 Turkish dead. It was indescribable. One was grateful for the rain and the grey sky. A Turkish Red Crescent man came and gave me some antiseptic wool with scent on it, and this they renewed frequently. There were two wounded crying in that multitude of silence. The Turks were distressed, and Skeen strained a point to let them send water to the first wounded man, who must have been a sniper crawling home. I walked over to the second, who lay with a high circle of dead that made a mound round him, and gave him a drink from my water-bottle, but Skeen called me to come on and I had to leave the bottle. Later a Turk gave it back to me. Nazim, the Turkish captain with me said: ‘At this spectacle even the most gentle must feel savage, and the most savage must weep.’ The dead fill acres of ground, mostly killed in the one big attack, but some recently. They fill the myrtle-grown gullies. One saw the result of machine-gun fire very clearly; entire companies annihilated – not wounded, but killed, their heads doubled under them with the impetus of their rush and both hands clasping their bayonets. It was as if God had breathed in their faces, as ‘the Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold.’
The line was not easy to settle. Neither side wanted to give its position or its trenches away. At the end Skeen agreed that the Turks had been fair. We had not been going very long when we had a message to say that the Turks were entrenching at Johnson’s Jolly. Skeen had, however, just been there and seen that they were doing nothing at all. He left me at Quinn’s Post, looking at the communication trench through which I had spoken to the Turks. Corpses and dead men blown to bits everywhere. Blamey was with me part of the time: easy to get on with; also a gentleman called indifferently by the men Mr. or Major Potts. A good deal of friction at first. The trenches were 10 to 15 yards apart. Each side was on the qui vive for treachery. In one gully the dead had got to be left unburied. It was impossible to bury them without one side seeing the position of the other. In the Turkish parapet there were many bodies buried. Fahreddin told Skeen he wanted to bury them, ‘but,’ he said, ‘we cannot take them out without putting something in their place’. Skeen agreed, but said that this concession was not to be taken advantage of to repair the trench. This was a difficult business.
When our people complained that the Turks were making loopholes, they invited me into their trench to look. Then the Turks said that we were stealing their rifles; this came from the dead land where we could not let them go. I went down, and when I got back, very hot, they took my word for it that we were not. There was some trouble because we were always crossing each other’s lines. I talked to the Turks, one of whom pointed to the graves. ‘That’s politics,’ he said. Then he pointed to the dead bodies and said: ‘That’s diplomacy. God pity all of us poor soldiers.’
Much of this business was ghastly to the point of nightmare. I found a hardened old Albanian chaoush and got him to do anything I wanted. Then a lot of other Albanians came up, and I said: ‘Tunya tyeta.’55 I had met some of them in Janina. They began clapping me on the back and cheering while half a dozen funeral services were going on all round, conducted by the chaplains. It was unseemly and I stopped it. I asked them if they didn’t want an Imam for a service over their martyrs, but the old Albanian roared with laughter like the pagan he was, and said that their souls were all right. I didn’t see many signs of fanaticism; one huge savage-looking Anatolian refused cigarettes and cursed; Greeks came up and tried to surrender to me, and were ordered back pretty roughly, but considering the amount of men we had killed, they remained unmoved and polite. I might have been able to do the same vis a vis to the Turks. I couldn’t have vis a vis to the Germans. Probably they couldn’t have with Russians.
Blamey came to say that Skeen had lost Hough and wanted me, so he, Arif and I walked to the sea. The burying had not been so well done in places, and Vassif took exception to it. Some bodies had been blown to pieces. As we went along we took our own rifles from the Turkish side minus their bolts, and gave up to the Turks their rifles in the same condition. When there was a doubt we gave them its benefit.
Our men gave cigarettes to the Turks, and beyond the storm-centre at Quinn’s Post the feeling was all right. We sat down and sent men to look for Skeen. Arif was nervous and almost rude. Then Skeen came. He told me to get back as quickly as possible to Quinn’s Post, as I said I was nervous at being away, and to retire the troops at 4 and the white-flag men at 4.15. I said to Arif: ‘Everybody’s behaved very well. Now we must take care that nobody loses his head. Your men won’t shoot you and my men won’t shoot me, so we must walk about, otherwise a gun will go off and everybody will get shot.’ But Arif faded away. I got back as quickly as possible. Blamey went away on the left. I then found that the Turks’ time was eight minutes ahead of ours, and put on our watches. The Turks asked me to witness their taking the money from their dead, as they had no officer there. They were very worried by having no officer, and asked me if anyone were coming. I, of course, had no idea, but I told them I would see that they were all right. They were very patient….
The burying was finished some time before the end. There were certain tricks on both sides I think. One of our Padres got the communication trench which had bothered us so much filled in by burying the dead there. Both sides did a bit of spying. Later a prisoner told us that the Turkish GHQ came out dressed up as Red Crescent men, and our Generals were looking round too, disguised, not by putting on clothes but by taking off their coats. The same thing in principle.
All the Turks cursed politicians
and their work. I made our men and the Turks talk together. They exchanged money and badges. At 4.00 the Turks came to me for orders. This couldn’t happen anywhere else. I retired their troops and Potts and I retired ours. At 4.07 I retired the white-flag men, making them shake hands. I came to the upper end. There about a dozen Turks came out. I told them how good their people had been to me in the past, giving me food and hospitality when they lacked food themselves, and said I looked forward to being friends again when this was over, if they didn’t shoot me the next day. They said, in a horrified chorus: ‘God forbid!’ The Albanians laughed and cheered, and said: ‘We will never shoot you.’ Then the Australians began coming up, and said: ‘Good-bye old chap; good luck!’ And the Turks said: ‘Oghur Ola gule gule gedejekseniz, gule gule gelejekseniz’ (Smiling may you go and smiling come again)56. Then I told them all to get into their trenches, and unthinkingly went up to the Turkish trench and got a deep salaam from it. I told them that neither side would fire for twenty-five minutes after they had got into the trenches. One Turk was seen out away on our left, but there was nothing to be done, and I think he was all right. A couple of rifles had gone off about twenty minutes before the end but Potts and I went hurriedly to and fro seeing it was all right. At last we dropped into our trenches, glad that the strain was over. I walked back with Temperley57 whom I met, and got some whisky for the infection in my throat and iodine where the barbed wire entanglement had cut my legs. I am glad that I worried about this Truce though it would probably have come about anyhow. The Turks have seen their dead in thousands, they have also seen that we aren’t bad fellows, and the infection is less. All that is to the good.
There was a hush over the Peninsula….
Wednesday, May 26th, 1915. Kaba Tepé. This morning all of us who were there still feel the infection in our throats and noses and shall for some days. I was sitting talking to Dix and asked him if he really believed there were submarines. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘unfortunately’, and came to the door of the dugout and swore, and said: ‘There is the Triumph sinking’. Every picket boat dashed off to pick up the survivors. The Turks were good and never shelled them at all. There was fury, panic, impotent rage on the beach and on the hill. I heard Colonel ‘Uncle Bill’ Ball half off his head saying ‘you should kill all enemies: Like a wounded bird, she is. Give them cigarettes. The swine!’ He shook his fist. Men were crying and cursing. Very different to last night when we were all wishing each other luck.
In the afternoon I went round past Monash Gully towards Kaba Tepé and bathed; one shell landed in the sea, one on the beach. I came back over the ridges having a beastly time from the shrapnel which tumbled round me. We have now undermined Quinn’s Post with a sap. We are worried by flies and ants past endurance.
Thursday, May 27th, 1915. Kaba Tepé. A very wet night. This morning there was no fleet and only one destroyer, we therefore await a great bombardment. I do wish that the Turks would forget how to shoot. We are to be shot at now for an indefinite period without the power of replying effectively, and the knowledge that we are firmly locked outside the back door of a side-show, besieged by more submarines at sea and Turks on the land.
Went with the General to General Russell’s trenches. They are very much improved. The men call an ideal trench a Godley-Braithwaite trench; that is, tall enough for General Godley and broad enough for Colonel Braithwaite. Bathed. Charlie Bentinck58 arrived. His destroyer lay just off the beach and was shelled. Some sailors and five soldiers killed. Forty-five wounded. Very unfortunate. If they had come yesterday, it would have been all right – a quiet day, though we had thirty men sniped. The Majestic reported sunk off Helles. Off to Mudros to get stores.
Friday, May 28th, 1915. Mudros. Left after many delays, and slept on deck. Very cold. The Greeks are now intriguing against us. The Greek military attaché has been here communicating with the Queen of Greece. Mudros almost entirely French Algerian and Senegalese. I think it is a pretty tall order to put a black Senegalese cannibal into Red Cross uniform. A reward has been published for information re. submarine depots. Have felt much could be done, but doubted if Admiralty was doing it.
Saturday, May 29th, 1915. Lemnos. Drove across the island to Castro. There was a delightful spring half a mile from Castro and a café kept by a Greek. His wife had been killed by the Turks. Great fig-trees and gardens. I met two naval officers, who told me Wedgwood59 had died of wounds. I am very sorry; he was a lion of peace, I admired him a lot. Castro is beautiful, with balconies over the narrow streets, half Turk and half Greek, and shady gardens. I bathed in a transparent sea, facing Athos, which was gleaming like a diamond. I watched its shadow come across the eighty miles of sea at sunset, as Homer said it did. I found a Greek, who had been Cromer’s cook. He said he would come back and cook for me, if there was no danger. He said he knew that GHQ cooks were safe, but his wife would not let him go on to the Peninsula. He said her idea of warfare was wrong. She always thought of men and bullets skipping about together on a hillside.
Sunday, May 30th, 1915. Mudros. I bathed before dawn and went back to Mudros with masses of mosquito-netting, etc. Turkish prisoners of the French were being guarded by Greeks. It was rather like monkeys looking after bears. They were uniforms that were a cross between Ali Pasha of Janina and Little Lord Fauntleroy. I saw Hoyland, who had been on the River Clyde. I was right to call the River Clyde the death ship. Hoyland looked as if he was still watching the sea turn red with blood as he described the landing on Gallipoli. Jack was sick, and I had to leave him with my coat. Went and saw my friend the Papas of the little Greek church on the hill.
Monday, May 31st, 1915. Anzac. I saw Hutton this morning, slightly wounded. Bathed at the farthest point towards Kaba Tepé, but had to fly with my clothes in my hand, leaving my cigarettes. Hid in gully, shelled again and crossing the ridge, very dangerous indeed. I had almost forgotten the war. Today is a Greek day, hot and lovely.
Wednesday, June 2nd, 1915. Kaba Tepé. I went out last night to the outposts where a Greek had been taken. His examination this morning would have made a wonderful picture with the setting of the fresh blue sea and mountain, the man himself biblical and full of gestures, surrounded by tall English officers and a number of half-naked soldiers.
Last night we sent up two bombs from Japanese mortars over by Quinns. It sounded beastly. This morning I went to Reserve Gully where the Monash Brigade is resting for the first time for five weeks. The General, looking like a hero, made them a speech from a kind of throne in the middle of the sunlit amphitheatre in which they sat. It was an odd sight, tier after tier of clean-shaven athletes, very handsome and brown as Indians. Bullets swept over all the time, sometimes drowning his voice. Quinn is killed, I am sorry. He was a brave, strong, jolly, coarse fellow. Screaton60 also is killed, he was quiet and shy. He died at Helles. Curious the different types I have known killed here – Rupert Brooke, Doughty and Wedgwood.
Friday, June 4th, 1915. Anzac. Nothing much doing. I feel we still might compromise about Constantinople:
(1) Our first essential is as an Eastern Empire not to have an unsuccessful Eastern Campaign
(2) To open the Dardanelles
(3) To occupy, if only nominally, Constantinople. Don’t know if the Turks would as yet agree to any of these things, or how far our old engagements with the Russians bind us.
George Lloyd came over. Very glad to see him. This morning I went with Shaw to the extreme left, through fields of poppies, thyme, and lavender. We saw a vulture high overhead, and the air was full of the song of larks. At Helles there was a savage attack going on. There was very bad sniping. In some places the trenches are only knee-high; in other places there are no trenches and the Turks are anything from four to eight hundred yards off. Yesterday seventeen men were hit at one place, they said, by one sniper. At one place on the way, we ran like deer, dodging. The General, when he had had a number of bullets at him, also ran. Sniping is better fun than shrapnel; it’s more human. You pit your wits against the enemy i
n a rather friendly sort of way. A lot of vultures collecting.
Saturday, June 5th, 1915. Anzac. Examined sixteen prisoners. Food good, munitions plentiful, morale all right. The individuals fed up with the war, but the mass obedient and pretty willing. No idea of surrendering. They think they are going to win. There was one Greek, a Karamanly, who only talked Turkish. He did not say until to-night that he was wounded. The flies are bad.
Sunday, June 6th, 1915. Anzac. A sergeant called to Turks this morning to surrender, one put his head up and was instantly shot. Two Turks, by Birdwood’s orders, to go and call on others to surrender to-night. Very hot, flies bad, have filled my dugout with kerosene. Helles fight indecisive. The French let us down. The Generals all being criticised. I think the end must be compromise; with Ian Hamilton I doubt his being man enough to carry it through.
Mons, Anzac and Kut Page 12