Gallipoli
Page 44
Major General Walter Braithwaite, General Headquarters, MEF
Of course this gave the Turks yet more time to bring up reinforcements, consolidate their units and dig trenches. But there was no alternative.
So another couple of days passed. The important questions had been answered. The major hills and ridges surrounding the Suvla Plain would be under the control of the Turks. All that now remained to be resolved was the exact position of the trench lines weaving their way across the foothills and plains below them.
The next major attack by the IX Corps would take place along the knife-edge ridge of Kiretch Tepe. At last most of what remained of the 10th Division had been reassembled, with the 30th Brigade on the northern face of the ridge and the 31st Brigade on its southern slopes. Perversely, Stopford seems to have interpreted the words, ‘Take every opportunity to make as forward a line as possible’ to mean that Mahon should launch a full-scale assault on the Turkish forces on Kiretch Tepe and Kidney Hill, which ran down as a spur from the main ridge. But what would have been a laudable initiative with some hope of success a couple of days earlier was near suicide when the 10th Division attack went in supported by the 162nd Brigade of the 54th Division at 13.00 on 15 August. The Turks had been reinforced by several battalions from the 19th and 127th Regiments.
The exact strength of the enemy was not known, but there was abundant evidence that he had recently been substantially reinforced and that the bulk of his strength was on our southern side of the hill where he was not subjected to direct fire from HMS Grampus. It was believed that his trenches were located on the near slope of Kidney Hill, but it was impossible to be certain owing to the thickness of the scrub. The preparations for the attack having been completed, there was nothing to do but to sit down and wait. In order to fill in the time the company mess had a large meal at 11 a.m. – my first on the Peninsula – out of a Fortnum and Mason hamper which had just arrived. Tinned fruit, bottled asparagus, potted meat, dates, biscuits and so on; everything was devoured with the utmost celerity. During the meal we discussed the coming attack and arranged what was to be done with our effects if we were killed or wounded. I estimated for three casualties but was hooted down as a prophet of evil. No one guessed that by evening no survivors would be left to carry out our complicated testamentary dispositions.51
Second Lieutenant Ivone Kirkpatrick, 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 31st Brigade, 10th Division
The attack was presaged by a bombardment, the effects of which were derisory.
If the fire had any effect it must have been to warn the Turk to rise from his siesta. At 1.15 we started off at a brisk walk. My platoon was on the extreme left, that is to say the highest up and nearest to the crest on our side of the hill. In front of us the ground undulated downwards for some 200 yards; then came an even stretch of some 800 yards running up to the foot of Kidney Hill. Gullies of irregular shape and size ran at right angles to our line of advance and the ground was covered with scrub, very thick and prickly in places, whilst here and there were bare patches of sand and rock. We came under fire at once. Owing to the invisibility of the enemy it was not practicable to retaliate with rifle fire and our only course was to push on. My chief care and anxiety was to convey this to the men and to keep my platoon in line with the rest of the company. This was not so easy as it sounds. In the first place the scrub and the broken nature of the ground made it impossible often to see more than two or three men on either side of one. Secondly the rate of advance varied necessarily in various parts of the line. Whilst a section were racing across a bare sandy patch, the men on each side of them would be slowly pushing their way through dense clumps of scrub. It was only by dint of much labour and running hither and thither that it was at all possible to keep in touch with one’s platoon let alone the rest of the company.52
Second Lieutenant Ivone Kirkpatrick, 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 31st Brigade, 10th Division
They had been advancing for about thirty minutes and had almost reached Kidney Hill, but the Turkish fire seemed to be increasing and it was at this point that Kirkpatrick ran out of luck.
Suddenly I felt a terrific blow on the left shoulder blade, as if someone had driven a golf ball into me at close range. I thought I had been shot from behind and looked round angrily for the careless fool, but I saw nobody. I was unable to go on, so I sat on the ground to examine the damage. I found that I had a puncture in front above my heart and concluded that the bullet had gone right through my lung. I had hardly sat down when I noticed that I seemed to be in an unhealthy spot and I started to crawl up the hill to my left. At once what seemed to be a heavy projectile struck me in the stomach and I sank to the ground. For a moment I felt weary and discouraged; it seemed the last straw and I thought all was up.53
Second Lieutenant Ivone Kirkpatrick, 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 31st Brigade, 10th Division
Kirkpatrick already had two serious wounds, either of which could have proved fatal, and he was in an isolated position in the middle of a battlefield far from help. He had nothing to lose.
On further reflection I decided that it would be folly to give in and I cast about for means of escape. I remembered that our Medical Officer had warned us on no account to move if hit in the stomach, but it seemed certain death to stay where I was and I preferred to take my chance. As a preliminary I crawled into a hollow and tried to dress my wounds. The attempt was not a success, partly because my hands were shaking, but chiefly because it requires a high degree of skill to bandage one’s own chest and stomach. I managed, however, to get a little iodine into the wounds.54
Second Lieutenant Ivone Kirkpatrick, 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 31st Brigade, 10th Division
He believed that he had been hit by a Turkish sniper whom he imagined would be watching and waiting for a further chance to finish him off. He was in a truly awful situation.
It was quite hopeless to go back the way we had come. The whole area was swept with bullets and I should have been lucky to get through even if I had the strength. My only chance seemed to be to make for the crest of the hill on my left and hope that there were no Turks on the other side. A few yards from me lay a wounded soldier of my platoon. He started to crawl back to our trenches and I asked him to get me a stretcher later, if he could. He soon disappeared and I began my slow and painful journey to the top of the hill some 100 yards away. As I crawled over the rough ground I became weaker and weaker. Sometimes a bullet would hit the sand beside me and thinking that my sniper was after me I would scurry behind a rock or bush. These sudden efforts cost me so much that I could scarcely move. Soon I discarded my precious glasses, then my revolver, this very reluctantly, but I did not feel up to carrying it. It seemed that I would never reach the top; eventually I did so and had to face the problem of getting over the sky line. It would be a dangerous operation if my sniper friend was still watching me, but I decided to try it. After a rest I crawled the last few yards very slowly, then at the last moment got up, jinked quickly to the right and scrambled over. As I did so, I fancied I heard a bullet whistle by, but in the general din I was not sure. I laid down on a soft spot and waited.55
Second Lieutenant Ivone Kirkpatrick, 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 31st Brigade, 10th Division
Kirkpatrick was eventually picked up by stretcher bearers from the Dublin Fusiliers who carried him back to the regimental aid post.
A Sergeant looked at my wounds. I asked him whether he thought they were mortal and he cheerfully replied that they were nothing at all. I was carried through the ranks of a whole battalion of Dublins waiting to attack. I tried to say a few words of encouragement to them, but I don’t think that my ‘speech before battle’ sounded very convincing. After a short walk I found myself at a field dressing station half way down the hill in a little hollow, behind a rock. The stretcher was put down and the doctor examined my wounds. By this time I was in acute pain. A sort of violent cramp convulsed my stomach and I was unpleasantly conscious that all was not well
with my left lung or shoulder. The doctor cut away most of my clothes and dressed the wounds; after which he gave me an injection of morphia and left me.56
Second Lieutenant Ivone Kirkpatrick, 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 31st Brigade, 10th Division
The morphia did not seem to reduce significantly Kirkpatrick’s bodily pain, but he found himself drifting off into unconsciousness which provided its own relief. Then began the long and painful journey along the benighted ridge of Kiretch Tepe.
I was awakened by hearing the Doctor say, ‘He must take his chance!’ Two stretcher bearers took hold of my stretcher and carried me away. It must then have been about 5 p.m. The journey was something of an ordeal. On we went over the rough ground: sometimes a bearer would stumble, sometimes let the stretcher drop. Occasionally they would fail to clear a boulder which would hit the bottom of the stretcher. On the way I was violently sick, all over my chest, as I could not move. My wounds began to bleed again and I lay in a pool of greasy blood which covered me from my helmet to my boots. It was over an hour before I reached the beach.57
Second Lieutenant Ivone Kirkpatrick, 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 31st Brigade, 10th Division
But he was still not safe. The beach areas were all under sporadic shell fire and the medical arrangements were strained beyond breaking point by the torrent of casualties pouring in for treatment. There was little time for the doctors to do anything but basic triage: sort those who could benefit from medical assistance from those for whom it was likely to be a waste of time. The prognosis did not look good for Kirkpatrick.
I was placed in a marquee already filled with wounded. A doctor came to look at me by the light of an oil lamp, tied a label on my coat and ordered me to be evacuated. I was carried out and placed on the beach. All around me were men on stretchers, groaning, shouting and cursing. It was now dark. A Methodist chaplain with a white shaggy mane asked me my religion. When I told him, he replied that it didn’t make much difference. 1 was getting rather short-tempered by then and said I thought he was mistaken. He shook his head sadly and disappeared.58
Second Lieutenant Ivone Kirkpatrick, 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 31st Brigade, 10th Division
But the good chaplain was wrong. Kirkpatrick was to be safely evacuated aboard the hospital ship Assaye and would survive his ordeal. Behind him the attack had spluttered out in abject failure. Initial gains by the Irish battalions on the crest of the ridge were counterbalanced by the lack of progress at Kidney Hill and, when the Turks vigorously counter-attacked on 16 August, they were able to smash them back to the old front lines. As at Helles and Anzac the front lines were not moving.
Hamilton realised the hopelessness of his position and on 17 August sent a cable to Kitchener detailing the course of operations up to that point and confessing failure. It finished up with a plea for yet more reinforcements that threw the future of the whole campaign into harsh relief.
Unfortunately the Turks have temporarily gained the moral ascendancy over some of our new troops. If, therefore, this campaign is to be brought to an early and successful conclusion large reinforcements will have to be sent to me – drafts for the formations already here, and new formations with considerably reduced proportion of artillery. It has become a question of who can slog longest and hardest. Owing to the difficulty of carrying on a winter campaign, and the lateness of the season, these troops should be sent immediately. My British Divisions are at present 45,000 under establishment, exclusive of about 9,000 promised or on the way. If this deficit were made up, and new formations totalling 50,000 rifles sent out as well, these, with the 60,000 rifles which I estimate I shall have at the time of their arrival, should give me the necessary superiority, unless the absence of other enemies allows the Turks to bring up large additional reinforcements.59
General Sir Ian Hamilton, Headquarters, MEF
It is noticeable that even this request has a caveat, showing that Hamilton had finally realised that the Turks found it far easier to reinforce their forces. Unless Kitchener responded quickly and positively then the Gallipoli adventure was drawing to a close. On the Western Front the Allies were in the throes of preparation for their autumn offensives, of which the British contribution was to be an attack on Loos commencing 25 September 1915. It is not therefore surprising that decisions were delayed and Hamilton only received an interim promise of 13,000 replacement drafts and 12,000 new troops. The writing was on the wall.
When judging the performance of the British at Suvla it is best to ignore the Australian perspective, which has been warped by their own awful trials in the August fighting and magnified by the great shibboleth of the attack at The Nek. The Australians looked down from the heights at Anzac and cruelly caricatured the British efforts as nothing more than sea bathing and drinking tea by the beaches. Some of the British units did mill about without purpose, but many others were engaged in vicious fighting against an invisible enemy who cut them down in swathes. The conditions they faced were a dreadful trial for barely trained soldiers caught up in a situation that was far beyond them. They often found themselves isolated in mere scrapes in the ground that provided minimal cover. It was too cold at night and far too hot during the day. Ravaged by a permanent thirst exacerbated by their physical efforts and the leaching effect of the cordite smoke, they were pinned down unable to move in the sweltering sun, with dust caked on their faces, their cracked dry lips black with blood. The IX Corps was thrown into battle long before it was ready, with incompetent commanders and preposterously optimistic plans which, despite the experience of the last four months, seemed to ignore the possibility of a potent Turkish resistance. And the IX Corps was not alone in its failure: the ANZAC Corps had also fallen short in its thrust from Anzac, while the VIII Corps had encountered disaster at Helles.
Above all when assessing the failure of IX Corps it is essential to ignore the self-serving assessments made by Hamilton and his senior staff officers such as Major Guy Dawnay:
Our plans all succeeded, and worked out beyond expectation satisfactorily. But the task set to the New Army divisions was, as it turned out, rather beyond their powers, owing to the fact that their officers were not sufficiently trained. It is no one’s fault – but officers can’t be made good company leaders even after nearly a year. The result was that, though the New Army divisions were not opposed by any great force, and though they had practically no artillery against them, they could not get on quickly enough, and their advance hung fire.60
Major Guy Dawnay, Headquarters, MEF
Dawnay after all had a vested interest in defending the integrity of the plan. Hamilton himself attributed failure to the combination of the incompetency of Stopford and his senior generals and the rawness of the troops that made up IX Corps. His assessment was cutting: ‘Just as no man putteth new wine into old bottles so the combination between new troops and old generals seems to be proving unsuitable.’61 From his perspective the ‘old’ generals lacked the guts and gumption that were required at Suvla. At the same time the young and inexperienced soldiers did not have the training, the knowledge or the self-confidence to push on regardless; easily dispirited, they were not tough enough to cope with the physical challenges.
As far as Hamilton and his staff were concerned they had nothing to reproach themselves about. Yet even well-led élite battalions in the peak of condition would have had trouble carrying out the operational orders issued by Hamilton’s staff in the face of the Turks’ robust opposition at Suvla. Ultimately, the plan was Hamilton’s responsibility, but he found plenty of scapegoats and there was consequently a veritable cull of IX Corps senior officers. On 15 August Kitchener gave his sanction for the dismissal of Stopford himself and shortly afterwards arranged for Lieutenant General Julian Byng to come out from the Western Front to take over command of IX Corps. In the meantime Major General Henry de Beauvoir de Lisle was to take temporary command, having been replaced at 29th Division by Major General William Marshall. Lieutenant General Sir Bryan Mahon pr
edictably objected to the appointment of de Lisle, who was junior to him, and he was therefore temporarily replaced by Brigadier General Felix Hill in command of 10th Division. Shortly afterwards Major General John Lindley gave up his command of the 53rd Division to be replaced by Major General Herbert Lawrence, while Major General Frederick Hammersley was replaced in command of the 11th Division by Major General Edward Fanshawe. Many of the brigadiers who had been found to lack the necessary qualities of command were also replaced. There is no doubt that these changes were justified, that the incumbents had failed, but was it really fair? The ultimate architect of their failure and disgrace, Sir Ian Hamilton, remained in command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.
21 AUGUST 1915: A USELESS GESTURE
The battle of the 21st was a complete failure, except as proof that the British race is not yet played out.1
Captain Stair Gillon, author, The KOSB in the Great War, 1930
A POINTLESS BATTLE is always tragic. Soldiers on both sides are killed, maimed or mentally shattered, their families left distraught, but overshadowing everything is the depressing realisation that it was all for nothing. And if there was ever a futile battle it was the assault at Suvla by IX Corps on 21 August. All the issues of the August Offensive had already been resolved. The British had secured a large base to facilitate their logistical organisation; but the Turks had confined them to the lower foothills and remained inviolate on the high ridges that surrounded them. Given the balance of forces available to the two sides, that was not going to change whatever happened on 21 August. In these circumstances it was perverse that Major General Beauvoir de Lisle decided on one last attack with the intention of seizing the foothills of the Scimitar and W Hills, thereby further securing the tentative British line snaking across the Suvla Plain. These were in themselves worthwhile objectives; but did the plan have any realistic chance of success? Hamilton should have stopped him, but instead he stoked the fire and sent the 29th Division from Helles to augment the forces available for the attack.