Gallipoli
Page 61
27.
S. Maude, quoted in Sir C. E. Callwell, Life of Sir Stanley Maude (London: Constable, 1920), p. 184.
28.
E. Stretch, quoted in ‘The Last Man Out’, The Gallipolian, no. 120, pp. 60–61.
29.
O. W. Steele, edited by D. R. Facey-Crowther, Lieutenant Owen William Steele of the Newfoundland Regiment (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), pp. 123–4.
30.
IWM Docs: N. Burge, manuscript letter, 10/1/1916.
31.
IWM Docs, R Langton-Jones Collection: letter to the Sunday Times.
32.
O. L. von Sanders, Five Years in Turkey (Nashville, Tennessee: The Battery Press, 2000), p. 103.
33.
IWM Docs: N. Burge, manuscript letter, 10/1/1916.
34.
D. Jerrold, Georgian Adventure: The Autobiography of Douglas Jerrold (London: Right Book Club, 1938), pp. 150 & 152.
20. Myths and Legends
1.
I. Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, Vol. I (London: Edward Arnold, 1920), p. viii.
2.
Exact casualty figures are difficult to determine as different countries define and account for their losses using different methods. However, there is some agreement that the British incurred 29,134 fatalities, the French approximately 9,800, the Australians 8,520, New Zealanders, 2,806 and the Indians, 1,891. Confidence in the French figure is somewhat undermined by the higher number of French remains that seem to be interred in their cemetery at Helles.
3.
I. Hamilton, preface to T. J. Pemberton, Gallipoli Today (London: Ernest Benn Ltd, 1926), pp. 3–4.
4.
I. Hamilton, preface to T. J. Pemberton, Gallipoli Today (London: Ernest Benn Ltd, 1926), pp. 7–8.
5.
IWM Docs: A. E. Cooper, typescript account, p. 1.
6.
IWM Docs: A. E. Cooper, typescript account.
7.
M. Kemal, quoted in K. Fewster, V. Basarin & H. H. Basarin, Gallipoli: The Turkish Story (New South Wales: Allen & Unwin, 2003), p. 129.
8.
T. Ataöv, ‘The Principles of Kemalism’, http://www.politics.ankara.edu.tr/dosyalar/MMTY/20/2_turkkaya_ataov.pdf.
9.
H. Simpson-Baikie, quoted by R. R. Thompson, The Fifty-second (Lowland) Division (Glasgow: Maclehose, Jackson & Co., 1923), pp. 42–4.
10.
IWM Docs: N. Burge, manuscript letter, 4/1/1916.
Acknowledgments
1.
Drink more, and more often!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FIRST OF ALL I must thank the Turkish experts who have done so much to refine my views over the last ten years on the conduct of the campaign, in particular with regard to the landings on 25 April. Kenan Çelik was the first to open my mind as we walked the Peninsula during our combined Imperial War Museum/Australian War Memorial staff study visit in 2000. Since then the quixotic expatriate Australian Bill Sellars, who lives in Eceabat (Maidos), was kind enough to introduce me to Sahin Akdogan and Haluk Oral. Collectively they convinced me that there were no Turkish machine guns on the beaches during the initial stages of the landings. I was also lucky enough to be able to draw on the expertise of Bulent Korkmaz and Aykut Degre during many of my Gallipoli tours with various army groups. I am very appreciative of Ramazan Altuntaş and T. J. himself of T. J. Tours, who have always been most helpful while I have been out in Turkey. I would also like to thank Tolga Örnek, director of the brilliant documentary Gallipoli, 1915, who has also been a great help over the years.
I am appreciative of the massed ranks of Australian historians who have long taken a far more mature view of the Gallipoli campaign than many of their compatriots, who are generally still swept up in the emotional power of the nationalistic legend. Prominent among them is Ashley Ekins, whose battlefield stand on the five myths of Anzac was eye-opening. I am also greatly indebted to Chris Roberts, who has thrashed out in detail the sequence of events of the ANZAC Corps landings and the ‘mystery’ of the Turkish machine guns, while Peter Pederson refocused my thinking on the enduring importance of competent staff work. In addition to this trio I have considerable awe for both the historical expertise and collective drinking stamina of Peter Burness, David Cameron, Rhys Crawley, Karl James, Matt Maclachlan, Aaron Pegram, the legendary Rick Pelvin, Robin Prior, Peter Stanley and of course the maestro Trevor Wilson. The lone New Zealander, Christopher Pugsley, has a masterly grasp of the campaign and has been generous with his time. The Americans who strangely failed to win the day at Gallipoli have nevertheless given us the wonderful Edward J. Erickson who has made us aware of the very real achievements of the Turkish Army during the Great War.
Of the British Gallipoli historians I regard my old writing partner Nigel Steel as the éminence grise. Over the years he has worked continuously on the campaign, both carrying out copious amounts of original research and acting as a tour guide. For the most part our historians have lamentably refused to grasp the enormity of the failure at Gallipoli, or the strategic and tactical realities of the Great War. However, I would like to pay tribute to the work of Steve Chambers, Peter Chasseaud, Peter Doyle, Michael Hickey, John Lee, Jenny Macleod and Tim Travers, all of whom, one way or another, have attempted to move the debate on. Yet overall it is the hard graft of historians more concerned with the primacy of the Western Front which has cast the calamitous conduct of the Gallipoli operations in a realistic light: Chris Baker, John Bourne, Gordon Corrigan, Paddy Griffiths, Bryn Hammond, Chris McCarthy, Charles Messenger, Gary Sheffield, Pete Simkins, John Terraine and the incorrigible George Webster, to name just a few. I have also greatly treasured the input of members of the Western Front Association Forum, the Great War Forum and the Facebook Gallipoli, 1915 page – all fantastic internet sources of freely exchanged information. The veterans of the Gallipoli Association were an inspiration to know and the recent republication of their magazine, The Gallipolian, provides a rich seam of invaluable first-hand accounts.
Nevertheless the best books on Gallipoli are easy to name: Military Operations: Gallipoli (1929 and 1932) by C. F. Aspinall-Oglander and The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–18: The Story of Anzac (1921 and 1924) by C. E. W. Bean are both incredible achievements, still the prime sources for facts, and cogent narratives of events, well written and at times wonderfully evocative. I may disagree with some of their conclusions – indeed, both authors were overly close to the campaign to have a truly impartial view – but I recommend their works without hesitation.
As ever I am beholden to the staff of the Imperial War Museum (IWM). Firstly I must acknowledge my debt to Rod Suddaby and his team in the Department of Documents: Wendy Luttorloch, Simon Offord, Tony Richards and Simon Robins, while Phoebe Reed was a great help during her work experience at the IWM in 2008. Thanks also to Alan Wakefield and other members of the Photograph Archive. I am most grateful to the IWM for permission to use the photographs. I fondly recall my colleagues in the Sound Archive: James Atkinson, Margaret Brooks, Richard Hughes, Richard McDonough and Lyn Smith. I have not used their outstanding Gallipoli oral history collection this time as I had assiduously trawled through it previously; but their interviews certainly taught me the importance of dysentery, fatigue and stress in understanding the problems facing soldiers at Gallipoli. It was a lesson I did not forget as I read the more sanitised face of battle as presented in most of the letters, diaries and post-war memoirs. There is nothing like oral history for exposing the sordid nature of war; nothing like contemporaneous written accounts for expunging it! I am particularly grateful to the staff of the Peter Liddle Archive held at the Brotherton Library of Leeds University, the National Library of Scotland and to Simon Moody of the National Army Museum. Indeed, I would thank all my museum and library colleagues for their hard work in ensuring that these voices from the past are not forgotten. Except in rare cases the historian is the beneficiary of their selfless professional dedicat
ion and not an intrepid explorer hacking a trail through uncharted undergrowth.
On a practical note I would like to thank my editor Daniel Crewe and all the staff at Profile, particularly Andrew Franklin, the wonderful Sally Holloway and Penny Daniel. Without their skills and easy tolerance of my failings there would be no book to read at all. Then I must thank my chums David Cameron, John Paylor, Chris Roberts and George Webster for reading through the manuscript and helping keep me, as far as is humanly possible, on the straight and narrow. Rob Massey and John Paylor also did me the invaluable service of providing excellent translations of the French sources. I am also greatly indebted to Polly Napper for creating my website which you can visit on http://peterhartmilitary.com/index.html. My lovely Polly also somehow found the time to cherish our two little lovelies, Lily and Ruby Hart, who continue to make our lives ever more interesting! What would I do without them?1
This book is by no means intended to replace Defeat at Gallipoli (1994), my youthful collaboration with Nigel Steel, which we rather ambitiously intended to become one of the standard histories of the campaign. Instead, this new offering hopes to take a place somewhere near it on your bookshelf. I have of course avoided quoting the same sources, but this has proved no handicap; indeed, I am staggered by the sheer variety of memoirs available. I enjoyed immensely the opportunity to delve deep into the French and Turkish sources to provide a rather more balanced perspective than before. I also had some innocent fun featuring quotes from a future Labour prime minister (Clement Attlee), the father of a famous left-wing firebrand (Tony Benn) and a dilettante socialist (Charles Lister) – all up to their necks in the ordure created by Winston Churchill, the hero of Conservative MP Robert Rhodes James. No more explanation should be necessary!
All in all, I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this book – Gallipoli will always be my primary interest in the Great War. I still love visiting the scenes of this most powerful of human dramas and long may that continue.
Peter Hart
21 August 2010
APPENDIX A
A Gallipoli Tour
Gallipoli Tour Day One: Helles
If you are based at Eceabat (Maidos) or Çaanakale (Chanak), then it is a good idea to start your tour at Kilid Bahr. Here you can look at the recently renovated forts and look out into the Narrows and across to Eren Keui Bay. With a little imagination the constant traffic in giant oil tankers and cargo ships can stand in for the pre-dreadnought behemoths of 1915. If you climb out of the back of the forts and up the side of the Kilid Bahr Plateau you will gain a valuable perspective of why Kilid Bahr was the main British objective.
Next drive to Sedd el Bahr. The castle is fascinating but slightly dangerous to walk around, so be careful. You can climb on to the north wall and get the Turkish viewpoint of the landings from the River Clyde on V Beach. If you walk out on to the spit of rocks you can look back across the very spot where so many men lost their lives in the bloody water. The only risk now is from the bow waves of the passing ships!
Now move along the beach, past the V Beach Cemetery, and up on to Fort No. 1 overlooking the beach, which is now a major Turkish tourist site. From here it is a short walk to the Helles Memorial, always a sobering moment as you look at the thousands of names of those killed who have no known grave. From here, though, you can gain a superb perspective of the whole of Helles looking up to Achi Baba. If you have time, search out some of the old heavy guns still lying in the fields nearby.
Then take a short drive round the headland to W Beach where the Lancashire Fusiliers landed. You can walk along the beach on which they were pinned down and slaughtered under heavy fire. There are still traces of the distinctive 1915 piers in the water. At the back of the beach are the remains of the old cave which was stuffed full of ammunition and exploded on the early morning of the final evacuation on 8 January 1916. Stones and boulders that shot up into the air still cover the local area. Then retrace your steps back across the beach to follow the footsteps of Brigadier General Steuart Hare up the cliffs just round the corner on the north side. En route you may notice some of the interconnected dugouts that lie just below the cliff top. On top you can see both the reservoirs left from 1915 and the myriad defensive and communication trenches dug all over the hill.
Next drive round to the path leading down to the beautiful Gully Beach at the exit of Gully Ravine. The remnants of the lighter abandoned on the morning of 9 January 1916 are still there. From here you can explore the lower reaches of Gully Ravine, which was one of the main supply depots for the VIII Corps. Then drive up to the Nuri Yamut Turkish Memorial. This marks the British furthest point and is also a mausoleum for the thousands of dead bodies collected by the Turks in the 1940s. The skulls are supposed to have littered the fields on Gully Spur and the upper Gully Ravine like melons in a field. You can explore the upper reaches of the Gully, a challenging walk which can be quite muddy depending on the season. There are clear traces of the front lines here and human bones can still be found.
Take a break, perhaps, in Alcitepe, as Krithia is now known. A visit to Kereves Dere, where the French sector was, will soon reveal its horrors – it is a dreadful configuration of terrain. Then drive up to the summit of Achi Baba. From the upper slopes of the hill you can appreciate its obvious tactical importance at Helles – it loomed over everything, and from here the Turkish artillery observers could direct the fire of the concealed batteries on the reverse slopes. But there is no view of the Narrows from Achi Baba. This reinforces the point that Achi Baba was just a stepping stone; the Kilid Bahr plateau was the real objective.
Gallipoli Tour Day Two: Anzac
Drive to Anzac Cove and pay a visit to the Ari Burnu Cemetery before walking along the shallow beach where the ANZAC Corps landed and had its base in 1915 – an emotional site for many visitors. At the other end of the beach is the Beach Cemetery on Hell Spit, probably the most beautiful cemetery in the world. Here is the grave of John Simpson, the ‘Man with the Donkey’, that most Australian of heroes. A larrikin rough diamond of a man, careless of rank or authority, he truly made the difference for a few weeks in Shrapnel Valley, rescuing the wounded with the help of his trusty donkey. Simpson was a man who summed up much of the modern values that army training establishments still struggle to din into recruits. Yet although an Australian, he was born, bred and raised in South Shields, County Durham.
Then climb the path from Shrapnel Valley up MacLaurin’s Hill and on to Plugge’s Plateau. The views across Anzac are staggering. Scramble down into Rest Gully and ascend to Russell’s Top. Here you can still see a communication trench six feet deep. Move on to gaze across Mule Valley at the wonders of the Sphinx. If you feel confident you can teeter carefully down Walker’s Ridge, once a scary prospect with sheer drops, but now quite tame.
Having reached the Anzac beach area again, drive up to Lone Pine, a staggeringly small area to be the scene of so much death and destruction on 6 August. The Lone Pine monument recording the ANZAC Corps missing is a sobering sight. Walk along the road which runs parallel with what was No Man’s Land – just twenty to thirty feet wide – along Second Ridge. Notice the trenches and tunnels on 400 Plateau. Walk on to Quinn’s Post which clung to the side of the precipitous Monash Valley. There are several interesting Turkish monuments on what used to be the Chessboard. Then drive round to The Nek. It is moving to look out from the Australian trenches to where the layered ranks of Turkish trenches and machine guns awaited the Light Horse.
Next drive up on to Chunuk Bair, the scene of Malone’s last stand. You can make detours from here down to the Farm and on to Rhododendron Ridge, where there are remnants of a recently collapsed old tunnel system. You can drive or walk (depending on the state of the road) along the Sari Bair range to Hill Q (briefly held by Allanson’s Gurkhas) and then up to Hill 971 – Koja Chemen Tepe – the highest point in the area. The views are stunning. With the whole tangle of valleys and ridges laid out below you, the insanity of Hamilton’s plans for a night atta
ck across this country will become all too clear.
Gallipoli Tour Day Three: Suvla
Start with a change of pace and a visit to an excellent little private museum full of the fascinating detritus of the battlefields in Biyuk Anafarta. Then move to the Turkish big guns from the 1870s, still located at the side of the road between the Anafarta villages. Although of archaic design, even in 1915, they were ideal for slow harassing fire on to the supply depots on the Suvla beaches.
Drive on to Scimitar Hill, the focus of incredibly bitter fighting, where the hills caught fire more than once incinerating the dead and wounded alike. Recently the ground to the north of the hill has been burnt off again and all the Turkish trench systems laid bare to see. An amazing sight.
Pass on to Green Hill and walk round Chocolate Hill. Here you will get a good view across the Salt Lake to Lala Baba. Then the programme really depends on time and the condition of the roads. W Hills, Hill 60 and the Lala Baba hills are well worth visiting. The A and B Beaches are idyllic and usually pleasantly deserted. Then round to visit Hill 10, the entrance to the Cut and the scene of the disastrous landing on C Beach inside Suvla Bay.
If transport can be arranged there is a wonderful walk from the Turkish Gendarmerie memorial all the way along Kiretch Tepe, down on to Karakol Dagh and out on to Suvla Point. This is quite challenging, but provides a breathtaking vantage point looking out over all the landmarks of the Suvla campaign. The sangars that criss-crossed the ridge and key posts like Jephson’s Post can still be located. Everything at Suvla is bigger and takes more time than at Anzac as distances are measured in miles rather than hundreds of yards. It is, however, worth the extra effort and much of it is completely unspoilt.