By 9 August, the ill-advised Allied advances on Hill 971 had all petered out, bar one. About 450 British and Gurkha troops were poised to charge Hill Q, which lay between Hill 971 and Chunuk Bair. They lay hungry and thirsty in shallow dugouts below the crest as Turkish bullets thudded around them. The Gurkha 6th Battalion commander, Major Cecil Allanson, lay between two British soldiers. One read a Bible. At some point, Allanson realised the other was dead.
Allanson needed reinforcements, as did the New Zealanders on Chunuk Bair. Major General Alexander Godley was due to meet with senior officers to discuss these matters but he was waylaid by a phone call. He didn’t bother sending a staff officer in his place. At the meeting, Johnston suggested that the 5000 British reinforcements approach Hill Q and Chunuk Bair from low ground. Had Godley bothered to survey the ground himself, he might have over-ruled Johnston’s advice.
The British reinforcements hadn’t slept for four nights. They blundered through dark ravines on the night of 8 August and got lost. They were nowhere near Hill Q or Chunuk Bair when the naval bombardment of Turkish trenches ended at 5.15 am. Turkish fire forced them to entrench at 6 am.
The Allied plans for 9 August were already scuttled. A co-ordinated advance on Chunuk Bair hinged on reinforcements and Johnston had sent them the wrong way. Allanson gave up waiting for extra men and charged Hill Q anyway. His men fought with their bayonets, fists and teeth. ‘Blood was flying about like spray from a hair wash bottle,’ he wrote. Allanson chased the Turks down the inland side of Hill Q until Allied shells began bursting among his men. They had been mistaken for Turks.
The New Zealanders on Chunuk Bair were trapped under renewed Turkish fire. They couldn’t move. This fact didn’t ruin an uplifting lunch for Hamilton, Birdwood and Godley at Anzac. The Allies had failed to reach any objectives, mainly because the planning had been botched. Yet the three men still believed they could reach the Dardanelles and that Chunuk Bair was safe in their possession. Holding on to Chunuk Bair remained the Allies’ only chance of breaking through, but none of the commanders had bothered to properly monitor the battle there or look at the ground.
Kemal didn’t issue orders from headquarters. He preferred to stand before his men and lecture them on martyrdom. Kemal schemed to get Chunuk Bair back. Unlike Birdwood and Godley, he realised that Chunuk Bair mattered more than any other position. Turkish officers suggested flanking movements to remove the Allied troops. The logical part of Kemal’s mind tended to agree with this. But he was an instinctive leader. He decided on a frontal assault without the back-up of an artillery barrage. The enemy wouldn’t expect that.
Kemal was gambling. He didn’t know what or how many lurked on the other side of the hill. The charge had to be a surprise – otherwise his men would be wiped out by naval guns. Turkish losses had been heavy in the days before. A failed attack would open the way for an Allied push across the peninsula.
At dawn on 10 August, Kemal raised his riding whip. Thousands of shrieking Turks surged over Chunuk Bair. Young British volunteers had replaced the New Zealanders on the crest the night before. They heard the rumble before they saw the bayonets. Some were swept away before they knew it. Others stumbled down the steep slopes to the valley floor some 180 metres below. New Zealand machine-gunners fired on the Turks, as did the navy. But it all happened so fast. Chunuk Bair was lost in a few minutes.
A group of British troops was stranded for two weeks near the valley floor. They drank from a spring and scrounged food from the dead. Turks came across them and refused to take them prisoner. The British began to starve. Most of them rushed together down the valley to escape. It appears that Light Horsemen mistook them for Turks and fired on them. Those who rushed were never seen alive again. The seven who stayed behind were rescued by New Zealanders.
Kemal still frowns down on the peninsula from Chunuk Bair. Busloads of New Zealand tourists stare up at his bronze statue. Chunuk Bair to them is much like Lone Pine is to Australians. The statue commemorates Kemal’s lucky escape. During the charge of 10 August, his pocket watch was said to have stopped a piece of shrapnel from piercing his chest.
Kemal had been right about the Allied plans to break the stalemate. After the August offensive, he took to his July diary notes with red ink. He wrote in the margins that those who had dismissed his theory about the ‘left hook’ had been ‘mentally unprepared’. They had endangered the nation, he wrote.
Gallipoli made Kemal. After the Great War, he led Turkey to victories over the Greek invaders in 1922. As Atatürk, he became Turkey’s first president and set about wrenching his nation into the twentieth century. He was ashamed of what he saw as his country’s backward ways, as compared to those of western nations. He set about turning Turkey into a secular republic. He was as ruthless a politician as he was a soldier, and he ranks as one of the great reforming figures of his century.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Murder at Dawn
The Battle for the Nek, 7 August
Kemal was a good general and got better as the Gallipoli campaign went on. He was nothing like Ian Hamilton. He enjoyed responsibility. He was always a realist. He had a ruthless streak, and it showed in his hard eyes. He could quickly reduce a problem to its essentials. But he still made mistakes. One of those was to order a charge from the Turkish trenches at the Nek on 30 June. The Turks suffered 800 casualties to the Anzacs’ twenty-six. The dead and wounded Turks in no-man’s-land reminded an Australian sergeant of poisoned rabbits.
The conclusion was simple. Frontal charges at Anzac didn’t work. Kemal learnt his lesson and didn’t order another.
The Allied commanders learnt more slowly. As part of the August offensive, Australians on Russell’s Top were ordered to charge the Nek at dawn on 7 August. The charge was supposed to slot into the bigger scheme. The New Zealanders, as we know, planned on capturing Chunuk Bair by dawn. They would stream down the heights to attack the Turks from behind. The Australians at the Nek would charge up the hill as the New Zealanders charged down.
As we know, the New Zealanders got held up. Their commander, Brigadier General Johnston, lingered below the crest of Chunuk Bair. His decision condemned 600 Australians to charge at Turkish trenches without support from higher up the ridge. Yet we can’t blame Johnston for what happened at the Nek. Lieutenant General Birdwood knew that the New Zealanders had been delayed. He also knew about the failed Turkish charge of 30 June. He could have called the Australian charge off. Yet we can’t just blame Birdwood either. Or his subordinate, Godley.
The truth is that the Australian commanders on the spot could have cancelled the charge at the Nek. They chose not to. Two regiments of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade ran at Turkish machine-guns with bombs and bayonets. They leapt from the trenches and crumpled like rag dolls. They died for nothing.
The Light Horsemen at Russell’s Top relished the promise of battle. They were bored after eleven weeks of carting water and digging trenches. They were tired of dust and flies. Some imagined the upcoming charge as an escape into open country. Wasn’t it bad enough that they’d given up their horses to foot-slog like plain infantry? Those with wounds and illnesses begged their doctors to allow them back to the front-line. They knew the charge would be risky but they didn’t want to miss out.
The 8th and 10th Regiments of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade would run with the sun in their eyes. The Turkish trenches opposite lay eight-deep. The first wave of Light Horsemen would take the first trench, the second the rear trenches. The third wave would chase the enemy – it was assumed the Turks would retreat – while a fourth would drag shovels to entrench their gains. Each Anzac was to carry 200 rounds of ammunition, a field dressing kit, a full water bottle and two empty sandbags.
The Nek was a thin strip of dusty ground leading up the range from Russell’s Top. There were steep drops on either side. The Nek narrowed like a funnel. It was only about 25 to 35 metres wide at the Turkish trenches. Only 150 men could charge in each wave. Two Turkish machine-guns sat oppo
site the Australian trenches and at least two others sat on the flanks. Each machine-gun could fire about 500 bullets a minute.
The brigade’s commander, Brigadier General Frederick Hughes, was opposed to the charge at first, as was his subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel John Antill. Hughes, fifty-seven, had risen through the citizen soldier ranks, the equivalent of today’s Army Reserve. He delighted in marching drills and crisp saluting. At Gallipoli, his first war, Hughes was too old and too inexperienced. He delegated much of his authority to Antill, a Boer War veteran nicknamed ‘Bullant’ by the troops. The two met with Godley when the August offensive was being planned. There is no evidence that either argued strongly against the plan.
Pre-dawn, 7 August
The Light Horsemen shivered in shirts before dawn on 7 August. The nights had been chilly, but a fussy clerk had ordered the troops to hand in their greatcoats. The soldiers were given two tots of rum at 3 am. David McGarvie, the crack shot with the cleft palate, who had battled to sign up for war, didn’t have the time or peace-of-mind to sleep.
The bombardment boomed louder than any had for weeks. Then it stopped – seven minutes early. So much for the element of surprise. (It is suspected that watches had been incorrectly synchronised.) Silence fell as the first line of Anzac troops gathered. Everyone knew the plan had already gone wrong. The Turkish machine-gunners rattled off a few practice rounds. Bayonets bobbed in the Turkish trenches. The Turks knew what was coming.
The commander of the 8th Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander White, looked down at his watch. White could have stayed behind but he felt a duty to lead the charge. Personal belongings such as books and keepsakes sat in piles. White had kept the locket carrying a photo of his wife and young son around his neck. ‘Go,’ he yelled, and the first wave bounded forward.
The journalist Charles Bean was nearby. The Turkish machine-guns exploded in ‘one continuous roaring tempest’. God help anyone that was in that tornado, Bean thought. The Turkish trenches were between 35 and 80 metres away. Most Australians fell within a few metres of the Anzac parapet. Some pitched backwards into the trench. An observer said that the men fell to the ground ‘as though their limbs had become string’. White ran about ten paces and died. His men were wiped out in thirty seconds.
Sergeant Cliff Pinnock felt a ‘million ton hammer’ fall on his shoulder within 10 metres of the Australian trench. His mates fell around him like lumps of meat. A bullet had entered Pinnock’s shoulder and come out near his spine. ‘Well, we all got over and cheered, but they were waiting ready for us and simply gave us a solid wall of lead,’ he wrote from hospital.
McGarvie tripped over barbed wire. His rifle, helmet and haversack, with his Bible, bounced off in different directions. He picked himself up, raced through a ‘hail of bullets’, and dived into a gully a few metres from the Turkish trenches.
‘The only thing I could see worth shooting at was a Turk bayonet, two yards in front, so I fired and snapped it clean in two,’ he wrote to his parents. ‘Then the second row of Turks stood up showing heads and shoulders. I got some splendid shots; altogether I fired about 10 shots, and I am certain of four or five Turks. Then I felt a terrible crack on the foot.’
McGarvie’s letter is rare evidence to suggest that at least a few Turks were wounded in the attack. No Anzac officers survived the first wave. Most of them were dead in seconds. Turkish bullets continued to thump into the bodies as the wounded scrambled for cover. The Nek stunk of cordite and death.
Pinnock crawled back to the Anzac trenches. He grieved for his mates. They’d spent every hour of every day together for months. Later, he ‘cried like a child’. ‘There was no chance whatever of us gaining our point, but the roll call after was the saddest, just fancy only 47 answered their names out of close on 550 men,’ he wrote.
The second wave charged two minutes later. Like the first, it was wiped out in thirty seconds. McGarvie, lying in no-man’s-land, turned his head to watch. ‘They just mowed them down, and hardly a man reached the trench,’ he later recorded. ‘. . . I saw dozens of wounded turn back and make for our trench, but never got more than a few yards, so I made up my mind to stay there till dark.’
It seems unlikely that any Anzacs reached the Turkish trenches, although an observer reported seeing an Allied red- and-yellow marker flag in a Turkish trench. Trooper Vernon Boynton came close. ‘I got within about six yards of their trench when I seemed to be hit everywhere through my right leg, my right forearm, my right hand, the first finger of which was hanging off and blood pouring everywhere,’ he wrote to his sister.
Most of the second wave were added to the growing pile of bodies near the lip of the Anzac trenches. The scrub quivered with Turkish fire. One soldier, Trooper White, fell unconscious, with four dead Australians on top of him. In less than three minutes, nearly four in five men in the 8th Regiment had been killed or wounded. Not an inch of ground had been taken.
The 10th Light Horse stepped over and around bodies in the Anzac trenches as Turkish shells began bursting over no-man’s-land. Surely the 10th wouldn’t be sent over? There was nothing to be gained and everything to be lost. The 10th Regiment’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Noel Brazier, peered through a periscope at the carnage. He couldn’t order his men to die.
Brazier rushed back to brigade headquarters to ask Brigadier General Hughes to call the charge off. Hughes was elsewhere, observing the second wave. Instead, Brazier spoke with Antill. The two men had never got on. Antill told his subordinate that a flag had been seen in the Turkish trenches and that the attack must continue. Brazier argued that the flag sighting was most unlikely. Antill didn’t bother to consult Hughes. According to Brazier, he simply roared: ‘Push on.’
Brazier returned to his troops and said: ‘I am sorry lads but the order is to go.’ Seven officers shook hands and said goodbye to one another. Trooper Harold Rush, a farmhand, turned to his mate and said: ‘Goodbye cobber. God bless you.’
The third wave rushed at 4.45 am to ‘meet death instantly’. Among them was Wilfred Harper, a farmer, who was seen ‘running forward like a schoolboy in a foot race’. Harper’s dash was part of the inspiration for Peter Weir’s moving film, Gallipoli. The film depicts a British officer sending waves of Anzacs to their certain death. In truth, Anzacs sent Anzacs to their certain death.
Major Tom Todd lay in no-man’s-land, pinned down under Turkish fire. He scribbled a note asking for further orders. Brazier presented the note to Antill, who once again told him to push on. Brazier returned to the front trench and received another note from a stranded officer. Brazier now bypassed Antill. He wanted Hughes’ instructions on what should happen to the fourth wave.
Major Joe Scott, commanding the line, awaited Brazier’s return. Then another tragedy struck. It appears that men on the right of the line mistook an officer’s wave as an order to charge. Many men leapt forward before Scott could stop them.
The third and fourth lines suffered fewer casualties than the first two. Many sensibly rushed for the nearest cover. Lieutenant Hugo Throssell liked to crack jokes. He urged his men to a small hollow, then announced: ‘A bob in, and the winner shouts.’
‘At first here and there a man raised his arm to the sky, or tried to drink from his waterbottle,’ Bean wrote. ‘But as the sun of that burning day climbed higher, such movement ceased. Over the whole summit the figures lay still in the quivering heat.’
McGarvie lay stranded for more than fifteen hours. His feet lay across a Turk who had probably died in the 30 June assault. The slightest movement invited Turkish bullets, but he fired at nearby Turks anyway. He lay near a fallen soldier whose leg was hooked up in the scrub. The Turks fired at the dangling leg until it dropped down.
McGarvie moved after dark. He couldn’t stand, so he dragged himself like a worm for about 275 metres. He called out when he was near the Anzac trenches. A sentry fired at him. Perhaps for the first time ever, McGarvie felt blessed for his cleft palate. Another trooper with a clef
t palate also had an unusually muffled voice. McGarvie was mistaken for him and told to get in fast. He died in 1979, aged 86.
The 8th Regiment sent out 300 men and suffered 234 casualties, including 150 dead. The 10th had 138 casualties, including eighty dead. At least four sets of brothers died at the Nek. So too did a Rhodes scholar.
Australians tried to hook ropes around the corpses in no-man’s-land, to drag them in for burial. One man was found to have been clasping a prayer book when he died. But most of the dead rotted where they fell. In 1919, an Australian mission counted more than 300 Australian bodies in an area no larger than three tennis courts. In the Nek cemetery, no one knows who lies where.
The high command didn’t much talk about what had happened at the Nek. Ian Hamilton didn’t mention the charge in his war diaries. Godley gave it one sentence in his autobiography. The survivors didn’t talk about it either, although some nicknamed the strip of land ‘Godley’s abattoir’.
The charge at the Nek is considered the saddest waste of Australian lives at Gallipoli. William Cameron, a 9th Regiment sergeant who watched the charges, said the troops fell like corn before a scythe. ‘Yes, it was heroic, it was marvellous, the way those men rose, yet it was murder,’ he wrote.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Last Stand
Suvla, Hill 60 – Late August
The August offensive failed mainly because Hamilton and his commanders didn’t do their homework. They tried to blast their way out of their Anzac fortress without checking the escape routes. The confusing hills and gullies conspired to defeat the Allied troops as much as the Turks did. Hamilton’s plan had not allowed for a single hold-up. Yet the mad terrain had caused many.
The Gallipoli Story Page 9