Grasping Gallipoli

by Peter Chasseaud

  Appendix V

  Extracts from: Manual of Combined Naval and Military Operations, 1913. Confidential. 40/GEN. NO./269 [A 1674] London: Printed for HMSO by Harrison & Sons, St. Martin’s Lane, Printers in Ordinary to His Majesty. (B 156) 4000 9/13 H&S 194 WO. [72pp. The second edition, dated 2 September 1913, is at TNA(PRO) WO 33/644; an earlier edition was dated 1911. Page numbers of the extracts below are given in square brackets.]

  This Manual is issued by command of the Army Council, and with the concurrence of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. It is for the use of officers only … War Office 2nd September, 1913.

  This Manual deals only with oversea operations which involve a landing on an open beach and in circumstances where sea communications and disembarkation are liable to interference by the enemy’s naval or military forces. [6]

  Chapter III. Plans. General Principles [emphasis added]

  12. When operations oversea are contemplated by the Government, it will be necessary for the naval and military authorities to advise as to the forces to be employed for the attainment of the object, having regard to the information available concerning the enemy, the topography and resources of the proposed theatre of operations, the anchorages, landing places and harbours, and the districts inland. A detailed scheme will also be required for the organization and mobilization of the expedition; and plans must be prepared for its embarkation and disembarkation and, as far as possible, subsequent operations.

  Such plans should be framed with due regard to the fact that circumstances, such as change of weather, or concentration of the enemy in unexpected localities, may demand variations of procedure, and these possibilities should be carefully considered.

  13. In certain circumstances it may be necessary, owing to the naval risks involved in their execution, to change or modify the plans originally drawn up for the disembarkation and subsequent operations. Such alterations will, however, usually involve delays, and will thus reduce the possibility of inflicting a surprise, which is all important. It will, therefore, as a rule, be best to carry out the original plans in spite of the risks which must be incurred. [10]

  … the complicated duties of embarking and landing troops and stores can only be carried out successfully so long as perfect harmony and co-operation exist between the naval and military authorities and commanders, and when the staff duties devolving on both services have been carefully organised and adjusted.

  Chapter IV. Reconnaissance

  Preliminary Measures

  20. A thorough reconnaissance of the coast line, beaches and covering positions both by day and night, and at different seasons of the year and states of the tide, should be made before the despatch of an expedition is undertaken.

  21. Preliminary reconnaissances should be carried out by naval and military officers. It will rarely be possible for the whole of the necessary information to be gained at one time, or by officers of the two services working in conjunction; its collection must therefore systematically be pursued as opportunities offer.

  Nature of Information Required

  22. The information required falls under three headings, namely:-

  i. Anchorages and harbours for transports and warships.

  ii. Topographical conditions for landing the troops and for forming them up.

  iii. Topographical conditions inland.

  If a joint reconnaissance were possible, the first would be purely naval, the second joint naval and military, and the third purely military. As, however, the conditions for landing may govern the whole scheme of operations, and as the officers of either service may have opportunities for gathering intelligence of value from the point of view of the other, it is necessary that both should understand the nature of the information required under all the headings. [16]

  Coast Line and Landing Places

  26. Beaches and landing places should be examined with reference to:-

  Exposure to hostile fire. Height and nature of cliffs. Suitability in various conditions of tide and weather. Liability of surf to rise rapidly.

  The beach-slope, shelving or steep-to. Obstructions such as groynes.

  Nature of the beach; sand, or mud, &c., hard or soft. Dimensions of the beach, low-water mark to high-water mark, and above high-water mark.

  Length available for landing. Estimate of the number of troops that can be landed simultaneously by day or by night.

  The suitability of the beach for movement, especially at night. Exits and proposals for improvement. Forming-up places. Rendezvous. Routes to forming-up places and rendezvous. Water. Positions for covering re-embarkation.

  Facilities for landing at or in the neighbourhood of the landing place.

  Possibility of constructing further facilities for landing or of the extension of those existing. Materials obtainable.

  Tugs and boats obtainable locally.

  Intercommunication. It is of especial importance to bring to notice the facilities or otherwise which the country offers for the maintenance of communication. Points likely to be of use for visual signalling, existing wireless stations, telegraph or telephone lines which may be utilized, should be noted.

  27. Reports on covering positions should give information regarding:-

  Distance from the beach. Routes to the covering position, and their recognition by night. Positions where opposition may be offered by the enemy.

  General description of the position recommended for occupation by day and night. Estimate of the force required to hold it by day and night. Signalling stations. Probable action of the enemy. Suggestions as to support by ships’ guns. Positions for covering final stages of re-embarkation. Facilities for communication both along the position and with the beach. Water.

  Military reconnaissance of the country inland

  28. Information regarding the country inland of the point of landing is required under the following headings:-

  Topography, with special reference to the object of the expedition and to the influence likely to be exercised by natural features on its attainment, e.g.:- General nature of country; enclosed or open; cultivated, pasture, or wooded; level, undulating, or mountainous; passable or impassable by all arms. Roads and railways, especially those by which enemy’s forces would approach the point of landing. Rivers. Canals. Towns. Villages.

  Supplies.- Food, forage, fuel, &c.

  Transport.

  Water.

  Accommodation in billets in towns and villages. [16–19]

  The covering force

  50. The successful landing of a covering force to seize and occupy such positions as will enable the landing of the main force to proceed with security will always be a necessary preliminary to the disembarkation of an army on the enemy’s coast-line. By a secret landing at night, if the nature of the coast and of the proposed anchorage are such as to render this practicable, and possibly by drawing the defenders elsewhere by means of feints, it may be comparatively easy to gain time for a covering force to effect a lodgement, and to make such dispositions for the protection of the beach and anchorage as will enable the disembarkation of the main body to be undertaken.

  51. The strength and composition of the covering force will vary according to the information available as to the strength and armament of any troops likely to oppose the landing. The nature of the country, the extent and distance from the shore of the positions necessary to cover the disembarkation must also be taken into account. If the enemy has mobile artillery it will be advisable during the hours of darkness to occupy, and so deny to him, all points from which effective gun fire can be directed on the beach and transports. These may be 4 or 5 miles inland, and may also be widely separated from one another.

  Rapidity in landing is of great importance. This will usually make it advisable to distribute the covering force over as many transports – the maximum number may be taken to be five or six – as can be brought in and anchored at one time in the dark, in order that the largest possible number of boats may be employed. [29�
�30]

  Indirect fire from ships is rarely practicable. For convenience in indicating targets, which would be visible from the ships, naval and military officers should be provided with similar maps marked in squares. [44]

  Appendix I. Definitions. [48]

  Beach.- The stretch of shore allotted for the disembarkation of troops and material from one or more transports. A beach may be subdivided into two or more sections and these into two or more landing places, according to their respective extent.

  Forming-up place.- A place of assembly for the smaller units, clear of but close to the landing place, to which troops proceed directly they land.

  Rendezvous.- A place of assembly for the larger units to which the smaller units proceed from the ‘Forming-up place’.

  Covering Position.- A position to be occupied by an advanced detachment of troops (covering force) at such distance from the selected landing that neither anchorage, beach, nor forming-up place are exposed to shell fire from the enemy’s land forces.

  Appendix VI

  Extract from: Secret. Notes on Mapping from Aeroplane photographs in the Gallipoli Peninsula. E. M. Dowson, Director-General, Survey of Egypt

  [NB: An extract from the text of this document (written after 22 September 1915; comprising over 40 foolscap pages, with maps, diagrams, and four air photographs ‘taken by the R.N.A.S. in Gallipoli for mapping purposes’) is given here, but not the mathematical sections, nor the accompanying photographs, diagrams and maps. Originals of this document are to be found in The National Archives: TNA(PRO) WO 317/13 and AIR 1/2284/209/75/10.]

  Mapping From Aeroplane Photographs in Gallipoli

  The evolution of the above is interesting and may be of value in that it arose to satisfy a local need and was quite independent of any work that had been done elsewhere.

  Aerial photographs at various altitudes and inclinations had, of course, been taken by many observers all over the Near Eastern Theatre since the commencement of War, and it was a good series of these taken in a horizontal plane over the South-Western end of the Gallipoli Peninsula that first suggested to Major W V Nugent, R F A, the possibility of constructing from such photos the map which was so badly needed.

  It should be explained here that the 1:40,000 map of the Gallipoli Peninsula originally supplied proved, under the test of experience, to be inaccurate and unreliable and a need, more insistent and imperative than can even have been the case in France and Belgium, arose, not only for the location of enemy positions, but for the actual mapping of areas held by them. Ships and land batteries alike found the squared 1:40,000 useless for the direction and control of fire, and hence the impulse which first incited Major Nugent to compose a map of the area in which his own battery was operating, from aerial photographs.

  The first experimental map was quite crudely constructed merely by taking one series of photographs covering the area it was required to depict and tracing the salient features through on to a piece of plain drawing paper with the point of an aeroplane ‘flêche’. The recessed lines were then pencilled and the rough and uncontrolled map inked in. The scale was primarily gauged from the height at which the plane was flown when photographing (about 6,000 feet) obtained from aneroid readings checked by known distances whenever possible.

  On trial, this diagram – for it was not, and could not, be dignified by the name of a map, rough and uncontrolled as it was, proved an enormous advance on anything that previously existed since, for the first time, there was available some sort of a detailed picture of the ground shewing the principal recognizable features and the relative positions of the enemy trenches. If shells now burst on the edge of a poppy-field, the position of that poppy-field was, not only for the first time localized, but was actually located with a very fair approximation to accuracy, and its shape and relation in distance and bearing to the objective, closely determined.

  From the battery the use of the Trench Diagram, as it has come to be called, spread first to the Corps and then to the whole South-Western front, and at the time [July 1915] I visited G H Q Med. Force to see what further help Egypt could give on questions of survey and mapping, Major Nugent had just been appointed to G H Q as G.S.O.3 in charge of an embryo Survey and Map Section. Major Nugent had worked with me previously in the survey of the northern portion of the Peninsula of Sinai which had been executed by the G.S.G.S. in conjunction with the Survey of Egypt, and we were therefore able to co-operate effectively from the start.

  Incidentally it should be remarked that the position from the point of view of the provision of a reasonably accurate general operations map had been greatly improved by the capture, on prisoners, of a series of recent Turkish maps, on a scale of 1:25,000, of nearly the whole of the Gallipoli Peninsula and portions of the Asiatic Shore. These maps were sent to Egypt as captured and were reproduced here in quantity in English for supply to units. This map is being tested by the Survey and Map Section M E F in the areas occupied and the verdict seems to be that:

  (a) The controlling frame-work is good.

  (b) The detail comprehensive but variable in accuracy. ([footnote:] The last report received on this point, dated 22nd Sept, reads ‘The main outline of the 1:20,000 has proved to be very good. The contours are not up to much and the coastline is badly out in places.’ The test, of course, has only been applied to a very small area)

  The map is, however, it is universally agreed, a very great improvement on the original 1:40,000 as, indeed, being based on a properly controlled, if hastily executed, survey, it was bound to be.

  This unlooked for assistance at the hands of the enemy did not materially affect the problem under discussion for, while the 1:20,000 forms an exceedingly useful general map, it is far too lacking in the representation of the varied detail with which the Gallipoli Peninsula abounds, to take the place of the diagrams constructed from photoplane work.

  The construction of the TRENCH PLANS gradually improved as the collection of photographs of the area multiplied, and as increased time and increased skill in reading and taking the photographs enabled better use to be made of them. In principle, however, the plans still suffered from the essential defects of being compiled from a medley of pictures of the ground, held together by no framework, taken at varying heights and at unknown departures from the vertical.

  The great utility of the results, even in this crude and uncertain form, can be readily appreciated. The next steps were clearly:

  (1) To provide some controlling frame-work.

  (2) To devise some systematic means of:

  (a) Adjusting the photographs approximately to one common scale.

  (b) Correcting their more serious errors, and

  (c) Extracting from them the information required and translating it as rapidly as possible to its place in the plans.

  Provision of a control

  The provision of the controlling frame-work was the first problem. Since it was impossible to occupy points in the territory held by the enemy the only alternative appeared to be to build up a network in areas held by us and, with this as a basis, to intersect a number of recognizable points in enemy territory, and thus obtain a number of control points. Fortunately the nature of the country at the south-western end of the Gallipoli Peninsula lends itself to this, as the points capable of such intersections are very numerous. This appears also to be the case at present at Suvla. If the enemy territory becomes the reverse slope in either case more difficulty may be experienced, but features are so plentiful that no serious lack of suitable points need, I think, be anticipated. Instrumental observing, of course, may be, and often is, difficult and dangerous, but, like other things, it is carried out.

  One difficulty experienced hitherto is that the points necessarily selected for visibility and recognizability, when seen in profile are often not so easily recognizable on the view plan photographed from above. The area to be covered being, unfortunately, still small, this has not proved the difficulty it might otherwise do, as fliers and surveyors alike
get intimately acquainted with the ground. In certain cases help has been obtained in spotting control points by taking photographs of the area in which they lie at an inclination from the vertical so that the points in question are partially projected in a vertical lane.

  Triangulation on the above system has now been carried up to the line of the crest of Achi Baba and is being connected through Imbros to Anzac and Suvla, at which latter place it is also being pushed ahead as far as circumstances permit. A reproduction of a profile sketch made from three triangulation points on the Krithia front made with a view to assisting selection and recognition of forward intersected points is attached.

  Incidentally it may be mentioned that the portion of the S.W. end of the Peninsula held by us has been re-surveyed by ordinary methods on the basis of the triangulation executed there, and the general verdict on the accuracy of the (second) captured Turkish series, referred to above, is based on this and similar tests elsewhere. This work is incorporated in the new-issues of the 1:20,000 general operations map (Krithia Sheet) as all reliable new work will be.

  Adjustment and correction of photos

  In the early stages of the work the map was pieced together by individual comparison of and selection from all available photographs of a given area. This was, naturally, not only very tedious but very slow and uneven.

  As a first experiment an apparatus, which is essentially an adjusting camera was devised, which aimed at enabling the images, of any selected photographs to be thrown on a piece of tracing cloth on a glass slab and traced straightaway. By suitable adjustments the image can be enlarged and reduced and can also be tilted in either plane, so that any given portion of a photograph (within practical limits of variation in scale and error in inclination of exposure from the vertical) can be adjusted to fit the control points which are previously plotted on the tracing cloth to the desired scale of working.