by Peter Hart
He shook us and pointed down the slope to the water below. He said he thought he could see shapes out there on the water. We looked out and strained to see in the half-light and then we heard noises and saw shapes of boats with soldiers coming ashore. We were ordered to start firing. Some fell on the beach and I wasn’t sure whether we’d hit them or they were taking shelter. They made for the base of the rise and then began climbing. We were outnumbered, so we began to withdraw. It was very confusing. We didn’t know anything about this invasion. We were very scared and retreated to the second ridge, firing as we went. I was very frightened.11
Private Adil Sahin, 2nd Battalion, 27th Regiment, 9th Division, Fifth Army
Scared or not, most of the Turks did their duty, holding on as long as they could before falling back under discipline.
The smattering of bullets on the first boats during the landing caused very few casualties – entirely concomitant with undirected rifle fire in the dark. The Turks had held their fire until the boats actually pulled in and thus lost their opportunity to hit the Anzacs while they were at their most vulnerable, sitting packed and helpless in the rowing boats. Indeed, photographs taken later that morning but still in the early stages of the landing show a beach nearly clear of casualties. Just one corpse lies by the waterline, which seems to be that of an engineer killed in a subsequent wave. It is questionable whether anyone was killed in the rush across the narrow beach, which would have been obscured from the defenders on the surrounding hills. Nevertheless the outbreak of gunfire added a certain impetus to the ongoing disembarkation of the second wave of soldiers from the destroyers into their attendant boats.
The outburst was so sudden, that our men were momentarily checked, when a most cheery very English voice from the bridge called out, ‘Go on lads, get into the boats, these fellows can’t shoot for tawfee!’ A regular laugh went up at the ‘tony’ accent. I looked up and saw the Lieutenant Commander, his arms folded on the bridge, leaning over, smiling, pipe in hand, as if he was looking on at a sports meeting. It was the right note to strike.12
Captain Dixon Hearder, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
However, the isolated 2/27th Regiment had no machine guns – contrary to the mixture of rumour and confused reports that have insisted ever since that there were Turkish machine guns not only at Gaba Tepe but on Ari Burnu, Plugge’s Plateau, Russell’s Top and Fisherman’s Hut. The ubiquity of these reports seems persuasive, until it is recalled that there were many other factors that might account for the confusion. The naval picket boats had machine guns mounted in their bows which provided the characteristic rattle when they fired. It is also an acknowledged phenomenon that inexperienced troops cannot distinguish exactly who or what is firing at them in the heat of battle. Finally, exaggeration by the men present of the problems they had to overcome was both understandable and part of the romantic image of war that still existed in 1915. For it is a certainty that the whole of the 27th Regiment had only the one machine gun company of four guns which was held with the reserve 1/27th and 3/27th Battalions back near Maidos; held ready to be deployed only when the point of danger had been determined. This made good sense; for to place such precious assets close to the shore was simply asking for them to be over-run in the initial confusion. Shooting down from hills on to a narrow overlooked beach would have allowed them but scant moments of effective use.13 It is instructive that no Turkish machine guns were captured, despite their supposed proximity to the beach and the impossibility of moving such heavy weapons during a scrambled retreat across rough country. They were not captured simply because they were not there in the first place. The real Turkish machine guns can be tracked in their movements and their arrival was recorded much later that morning. The Turks had one artillery battery of four guns on 400 Plateau but they refused to open fire when asked by Captain Faik as he lacked sufficient authority – the guns were intended to help defend the beaches next to Gaba Tepe.
Meanwhile Captain Faik had moved up on to Russell’s Top. From there he could see the destroyers moving in with the second wave.
We arrived at Yuksek Sirt [Russell’s Top] and occupied the trenches opposite the northern beach of Ari Burnu. I ordered firing to be opened from 1,300 metres. The 2nd Platoon in the Haintepe [Plugge’s Plateau] trenches a little way in front of us had been drawn into the fighting from the start. Torpedo boats towed the enemy craft and as they approached the shore they slipped the tow rope and quickly abandoned the craft which they had been towing. The torpedo boats then withdrew, firing continuously. The craft at which we were firing remained far from the shore because the coastal waters were shallow. Some of the enemy troops were hit and stayed in the craft. Those who were not hit jumped into the sea and only five or ten men escaped by getting into our ‘dead’ area.14
Captain Faik, 2nd Battalion, 27th Regiment, 9th Division, Fifth Army
The subsequent waves of Anzacs would come under somewhat heavier fire than the first, simply because visibility was improving by the minute and not all the Turks hidden on the surrounding hills had been cleared away. The Nordenfelts and the indirect fire from field guns located behind Gaba Tepe also began to take their toll. Despite these unwelcome attentions the second wave of troops approached the shore, landing across a much wider front stretching from just north of Ari Burnu to Brighton Beach and with the companies in the right order. Among them was Captain Dixon Hearder.
The pinnace went aground 36 yards from the shore and the men in the boats were packed absolutely closely. We had to get out oars and row ashore under heavy fire. It took no end of a time to get the oars out, as they were 18 foot oars and the men were sitting on them. Five men were hit in the boat. At last our boat grounded and I jumped out as I thought into 2 feet of water. It was up to my neck, and under I went!15
Captain Dixon Hearder, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
He got up and stumbled ashore, followed by his men. They were only about ten minutes behind the first wave and in some cases made more rapid progress inland.
We climbed up the beach and lay doggo for a few seconds while everyone took off his pack and got a breather, then round a winding precipitous path, up, up, up we charged. Not a rifle had been loaded (by strict order) and our boys did not waste their breath cheering until we got to the top, then a wild ‘Cooee!’ and the bayonet. I think the uncanny silence, and the fact that not a soul fired a shot, got on the Turks’ nerves in the dim light, anyway, very few waited to give an exhibition of bayonet fighting, and in an hour the first ridge was won, save for some snipers concealed in bushes, who lay doggo, and got quite a few of the main body as they came on.16
Captain Dixon Hearder, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
The complex nature of the terrain meant that in the confusion both sides were continually being enfiladed or in danger of being caught unawares by fire from unexpected quarters – as Captain Faik was to find up on Russell’s Top.
We came under fire from the enemy who were climbing up to the ridge where we were from a slope 100 metres to our left. We began to engage them on this side. In this fighting Sergeant Suleyman was wounded. Some of the private soldiers were also hit. I too received a severe wound in the groin and was reduced to a state where I could no longer command the platoon.17
Captain Faik, 2nd Battalion, 27th Regiment, 9th Division, Fifth Army
Sensibly, these small isolated parties of Turks, outnumbered as they were, did not wait to cross bayonets with the Anzacs. They had another, far more effective method of resistance. Falling back into the tortured landscape of gullies behind First Ridge, they melted into the scrub ready to carry on the fight as the invaders advanced, to painful contact in more ways than one. For the scrub that sheathed the hills and gullies came in many forms, but they all seemed to be prickly, tearing at uniforms and flesh, insinuating bristly spiked clusters and spores deep inside uniforms to rub soft skin red-raw. The breat
h rasped from the attackers’ lungs as they strove to climb up the sides of jagged ridges, physically forcing their way through tangled undergrowth. Their legs may have been strong enough from their training marches across the desert sands of Egypt, but few of the Anzacs had the aerobic capacity to cope with near-vertical climbs while carrying heavy rifles, their nerves already scraped bare by the extreme tensions of their first action. As the Anzacs moved forward, the Turks continued to fall back, taking advantage of the fact that they knew where they were going, and sometimes taking up impromptu skirmish lines. Elements of the 9th, 10th and 11th Battalions all found themselves on top of Plugge’s Plateau, where Major Edmund Drake-Brockman of the 11th Battalion tried to sort them into some kind of order. Corporal Thomas Louch and his party from the first wave had already climbed Plugge’s Plateau when they were ordered to cross the valley in front of them and climb up on to Second Ridge in the area that would become known as MacLaurin’s Hill.
We slid down the sheer, sandy slope of Plugge’s on our backsides, still clutching our box of ammunition, crossed the floor of Shrapnel Gully and with difficulty climbed the ridge where Major Denton directed us to a position on the forward side covering Wire Gully. We were soaking wet, very uncomfortable and enfiladed by fire from our left. We could see no enemy and did not seem to be doing any good where we were.18
Corporal Thomas Louch, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Australian Division, AIF
There was still much bewilderment when the machine gun section under the command of Captain Dixon Hearder arrived atop of Plugge’s Plateau.
The first 11th man I fell in with was Brockman. We joined forces and proceeded towards the left, when suddenly across a gorge and on the top of a ridge, about a mile away, arose an awful rattle of musketry and at once ‘D’ Company of the 11th under Major Denton semaphored through for reinforcements and I hurried off to his assistance. Down we went, slipping and scrambling and sliding, following the track of a stony gorge, while our friend the enemy poured in rifle fire and shrapnel. Here one man of mine got a scalp wound and I was struck at the back of the knee. We pushed on without one man and got to the top of the next ridge where I had last seen ‘D’ Company. I halted just short of the ridge, to enable all my men to catch up, as they had strung out a good deal. Bear in mind we had only advanced a mile as the crow flies, but we had at a conceivable estimate marched three miles, so high and so steep were the hills we had to traverse. Then I found we were two men short and a Corporal. However we dashed over the ridge, carrying our guns, tripods, belt boxes of ammunition, when to my dismay there was no sign of the Company I had come to reinforce. We got under cover of some scrub and set up our guns and opened fire, immediately a terrific fire opened on us, but we were lying pretty close to the ground and they could not actually see us, I think.19
Captain Dixon Hearder, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
Hearder’s experience was fairly typical of that of the first Anzacs feeling their way forward under harassing fire and then digging in. There has been a long-held belief that the Anzacs charged too far inland, that they became isolated by going way beyond their objectives. Rather, the bulk of the 3rd Brigade dug in on the seaward side of Second Ridge, instead of pushing across Legge Valley in order to occupy Third Ridge as they should have done in their role as the covering force. This was not through the effectiveness of the sniping of the Turkish screen as it fell back before the vastly superior Australian numbers, but rather through the conscious decision of Colonel Ewen Sinclair-MacLagan, who seems to have decided almost from the off that Third Ridge was a ridge too far. In doing so he was abrogating his responsibility to cover properly the landing of the main body. The fact that the 3rd Brigade might have found themselves under pressure on Third Ridge was irrelevant; it was their job to soak up that pressure as best they could and so allow the 2nd Brigade behind them freedom of action so that they would not get sucked haphazardly into battle. That way the 2nd Brigade could then move purposefully to seize control of the Sari Bair high ground stretching from Chunuk Bair right up to Hill 971 and thereby establish a solid northern flank before the lunge forward to Mal Tepe.
Despite this clear responsibility, as early as 05.30, Sinclair-MacLagan ordered the advance to be reined in. This was despite the fact that small parties of Australians had already gone forward and found nothing other than localised Turkish opposition beyond Second Ridge. But the hapless Sinclair-MacLagan was constrained by his fear of being left exposed to counter-attack from the right if he extended too far forward. Through his caution, he lost several hours that could have enabled the Anzacs to define the perimeters of a much larger bridgehead; for the Turkish reserves did not appear on Third Ridge in any strength until after 08.00. This crucial change in the original plan was compounded when Sinclair-MacLagan encountered Colonel James M’Cay, the commander of 2nd Brigade, some time just after 06.00. He successfully pressed M’Cay not to push on to the north up the Sari Bair Ridge in accordance with his orders, but instead to move south and take up positions on 400 Plateau, the continuation of Second Ridge. In essence he reversed their geographical positions in defending Second Ridge without assigning any units to push on. This effectively paralysed the Australian 1st Division in situ and gave the ANZAC Corps operations for the rest of the day a distinctly defensive flavour.
Meanwhile, members of the 2nd Brigade were coming ashore from 05.30 onwards. Most of them landed in Anzac Cove, but one group of four boats carrying men from the 7th Battalion directly approached Fisherman’s Hut. Here, a small group of Turks, under Second Lieutenant Ibrahim Hayrettin, were preparing a vigorous reception.
We faced them with our few weapons and our faith, and thanks to the devastating fire we rained down upon them, within an hour’s time we had felled and destroyed so many invading soldiers that the shores were covered with their bodies. Following this, and respecting the dictates of war whereby one must strive to hold the high ground, we went up to the hill of Chunuk Bair, which dominated the positions held by the enemy, and then after having left some of our men there, we pretended that reinforcements had come from the rear and surged forward towards the enemy, getting close enough so that our weapons would be effective and stopping them by engaging them with our intensive fire. In this way we managed to gain time in favour of the main forces which were following behind us.20
Second Lieutenant Ibrahim Hayrettin, 2nd Battalion, 27th Regiment, 9th Division, Fifth Army
The nature of Liman’s defensive plan meant that any time gained – whether it be through effective defensive actions or the hesitancy of Sinclair-MacLagan – was crucial. Wherever the British landed the Turks would have to first assess the situation and then physically deploy the troops from the 9th and 19th Divisions held in reserve in the Maidos area on the other side of the narrow peninsula. When the first reports from Gaba Tepe were received they caught Lieutenant Colonel Mehmet Sefik, commanding the 27th Regiment, somewhat at a disadvantage as he and his 1/27th and 3/27th Battalions had been carrying out a night exercise in the Gaba Tepe sector the previous night. His tired men had only returned to their Maidos base shortly after midnight, upon which they had fallen asleep. Nevertheless, when the alarm came Sefik immediately rousted them out, called an order group to brief the officers and began harassing his divisional commander for orders to send forward his two battalions and attached machine gun company to support their beleaguered comrades in the 2/27th Regiment. His superiors hesitated, unsure whether this was merely an Allied diversion, but eventually at 05.45 the orders came and they began marching across the Peninsula. As they crossed the narrow plain between Maidos and Gaba Tepe, their greatest fear was a deluge of naval shells.
I knew Ari Burnu and the country behind it very well. My purpose in the march was to occupy, before the enemy, Third Ridge which dominates the Ari Burnu ridge and all around. Our situation on the march was precarious and dangerous for the sun had risen and was beginning to get high in the sky. Over the
whole plain from Boyun we were exposed to attack by naval gunfire and bombing attacks from aircraft. One reason for the battalions being ordered to march along different roads was in order to pass quickly over the dangerous area. Another reason was to reduce the depth of columns, since the enemy was not far away, and to deploy quickly if necessary for battle.21
Lieutenant Colonel Mehmet Sefik, Headquarters, 27th Regiment, 9th Division, Fifth Army
By dint of a combination of good fortune, their taking practical measures such as avoiding the main road, and the inability of the Royal Navy observation officers to penetrate the morning haze, the Turks passed through their moment of greatest vulnerability unscathed. The Allies had thus missed a great chance to disrupt the Turkish reserves before they even reached Anzac. Conversely, it was a very good start for Sefik, who then marched his men up on to Third Ridge behind Scrubby Knoll, arriving some time after 08.00.
We guessed that the enemy was advancing slowly and cautiously in order to capture the ridge where we were which dominated all sides – namely Chunuk Bair to Gaba Tepe. We set about our task of throwing the enemy and we felt a moral force in ourselves for performing this task. All the signs indicated that opposing our 2,000 armed men was a force of at least four or five times that size – or even bigger. We had to prevent the enemy from reaching and occupying the dominating line of Chunuk Bair–Gaba Tepe and had to gain time until the 19th Division arrived.22
Lieutenant Colonel Mehmet Sefik, Headquarters, 27th Regiment, 9th Division, Fifth Army
Although the exact timings of events are unclear, one thing that is certain is that Colonel Aker’s appreciation of the ground, the situation and the role of his troops put that of Colonel Sinclair-MacLagan to shame.
Over the next few hours the 1/27th and 3/27th Battalions slowly developed their attack on a wide front across Legge Valley towards Second Ridge covered by the fire from Scrubby Knoll of not only the four guns of his machine gun company but eventually of the battery of guns which had been sent to reinforce them. From Scrubby Knoll (height 540 feet) the Turks looked down on 400 Plateau (so-called as it was mostly about 400 feet above sea level). The small parties of Australians that had reached Third Ridge or its spurs were harried back, step by step, by the Turks, who were pressing hard on hasty positions dug in on Second Ridge itself. During the campaign the Australians would never again set foot on Third Ridge, except as prisoners. Then the Turks attacked Pine Ridge running to the south and the Lone Pine section of 400 Plateau, with the intention of not only hurling the Australians back but more specifically of recapturing their three mountain guns that had been over-run in the first advance. The Australians continually reinforced Second Ridge and 400 Plateau, seemingly oblivious to the fact that, although there was plenty of scrub cover, this offered little protection against the Turkish bullets and shrapnel that sprayed liberally across them.