On June 9, 1915, the capture of Gradisca completed the Italian control of the lower Isonzo, and Cadorna prepared for a general attack on all the strongholds guarding Trieste. Of these the most important were the Carso tableland on the south, Gorizia barring the river-valley of the Vipacco between the Carso and the foothills of the Julian Alps, the fortified system of heights north of Gorizia surrounding the town of Tolmino, and the great intrenched camp of Tarvis above Tolmino extending to Malborghetto and the other Alps of Carinthia. These fortified points had to be attacked generally or not at all. Any attempt to mass an army against any one of them would have spelled disaster, for the Italians would have been flanked by Austrian forces from the north or south. A properly defined advance against Trieste called for a simultaneous thrust at Tolmino and the Tarvis fortress commanding the road to Vienna. The Austrians had been strengthening Tarvis ever since 1859, after Napoleon III overthrew the Austrians in the battles that freed Lombardy. The Austrian fortresses were again strengthened after the siege of Port Arthur had demonstrated the power of high-explosive shells, and again in 1910 when the Teutonic allies made their great discovery that their new giant howitzers laughed at modern defense works of steel and concrete. In remodeling her Alpine strongholds Austria selected positions on the plateau for systems of earthworks containing mobile siege guns.

The key to this immensely strong Austrian line of defense was the railway town of Plava on the eastern bank of the Isonzo under the wooded heights of the Ternovane Forest. Plava was in a salient occupying about the middle of the Austrian line.

Here, on the night of June 17, 1915, the Italians began their general offensive by an attack from Mount Korada on the opposite side of the river. Under cover of darkness the Italian sappers built a pontoon bridge, and the Bersaglieri crossed and carried the town and the surrounding heights at the point of the bayonet. The Austrians realized the importance of the position and quickly returned to a violent counterattack. The Italians threw all their available men into the gap, and a great battle raged on the edge of the highlands east of the river. The Austrians had the advantage of position, for their forces could be massed in the woodland out of sight of the Italian aviators. But, on the other hand, the Italian batteries on Mount Korada were able to pour a plunging fire into the lower tableland; and due mainly to the aid of their artillery the Italian troops drove back the enemy and maintained the ground won by the first dash.

General Cadorna was now in a position to begin a direct attack upon Gorizia. He assailed the Hill of Podgora, forming the barbican of the city's system of defenses and advanced a reconnoitering force toward Mount Fortin. Meanwhile he massed 500 pieces of artillery on the heights commanding the city. But the defenses of Gorizia had been well planned, and they proved their completeness by a long resistance covering a period that brought successive reports that the fortress had fallen. All these reports proved false. South of the city the Austrian intrenchments covered a front of more than ten miles, from the Mount of San Gabriele below Plava to Mount San Michele on the Carso tableland. The trenches were built in the most modern style, of concrete more than a yard thick covered with steel armor, against which ordinary shrapnel had no more effect than so much hail, and even high-explosive shells of medium power did little damage. The Italian weapons of attack were hand grenades and short knives, in the use of which the infantry were expert. Four army corps operating under the Duke of Aosta between Gorizia and the sea were beaten back by the Austrians with heavy losses. This victory so encouraged the archduke and chief lieutenant, General Boroevics, that they decided upon a counteroffensive in force. Therefore, as soon as the Italian attack slackened, the main Austrian army advanced across the Carso Plateau.

The series of battles that now followed were the first engagements of any size between the Italians and the Austro-Hungarians in the open field. They began June 22, 1915, and lasted until the close of July, with a short let-up at the end of the first week in July. The theatre included the whole Carso front, the Vipacco Valley, and the southern part of the Ternovane Forest. After his first repulse General Boroevics brought up fresh corps and renewed the attack, but in the end he was driven back to his main line with shattered forces.

In the Carso tableland the Austrians had as nearly perfect a position of natural defense as a general could choose. On the east of the Isonzo plain the broken, rocky wall rises in places to 1,000 feet, seamed with gullies and ravines, and bristling with forest growth which afforded ideal cover. The action of the rain has pitted the limestone with funnel-shaped holes which form natural redoubts for machine guns; and there are larger depressions and caves where heavier pieces of artillery may be placed in excellent shelter.

But while the Italians were unable to capture this position, when General Boroevics took his troops out of their defenses and sent them charging across the open ground, he found that the enemy had made good use of his precarious hold on the edges of the tableland. Although they occupied barely more than the rim of the plateau, with the flooded Isonzo a third of a mile broad beneath them, the Italians had strengthened their positions with sandbag intrenchments and hauled up a few pieces of light artillery.

The chief support of the infantry holding these sandbag defenses was the heavy guns across the river, which searched out the Austrian columns whenever they left cover. In weight of artillery the Italians had the advantage, for most of the Austrian 12-inch howitzers were busy in the Alps, and they had to depend mainly upon 6-inch pieces.

By the second week in July, 1915, the Austrians relaxed their efforts, and the Italians began a slow advance, working up the hills overlooking Gorizia by a variety of methods. In the places, comparatively few, where there was cultivated ground, they practiced the siege method of sapping forward, but generally their advance was over bare rock, where trenches could be excavated only by the use of dynamite, and when a charge was made the troops had to carry sandbags to build temporary cover from machine-gun fire. This method of warfare, in fact, was general throughout the whole mountain front, where the hard rock carried a mere veneer of earth, and sandbags had to serve for defense until the engineers could blast trenches and galleries in the flintlike face of the slopes.

The repulse of the Austrian counterattack in the middle of July, 1915, ended the first phase of the battle of Gorizia. On July 18th, 19th and 20th, General Cadorna delivered a fierce assault aided by knowledge gained in the first stage of the battle, which, for the Italians, was little more than a reconnaissance in force. For three days and nights he drove the troops of his combined Second and Third Armies against the enemy's lines all along the Isonzo. His system was to attack by day and then at night resist the enemy's counterassaults on his newly won positions. The Italians retained all the ground they won during these days of terrific fighting, and captured 3,500 prisoners.

By the 20th of July their confidence had increased to such an extent that they determined upon a night assault. But next morning Cadorna received word from his aeroplane scouts and his spies that the enemy was massing for a supreme effort. The Italian advance was stayed and every man was set at work helping the engineers strengthen the trenches.

On July 21, 1915, there came a complete lull. The next day the Austrians opened their attack with a concentrated bombardment. During the period of Italian advance the railways had been piling up the Austrian shells and German gunners had been sent by the Crown Prince of Bavaria to help serve the heavy howitzers rushed to the Carso from the Julian Alps and the Tyrol and Trentino salients. With the design to cut the Italian line of communication, the main Austrian infantry attack was delivered toward Gradisca where the Italians had constructed their principal bridges across the Isonzo. The infantry massed behind the neighboring hills and under cover of a tremendous artillery bombardment advanced in close formation. The first line of Italian troops seemed about to be swept away when the gunners on the heights across the river got the range and poured into the advancing Austrians a massed fire from all their 500 pieces. General Boroevics's advance was pounded to pieces; the Italians brought up reenforcements and charged and captured the lines from which the Austrians had delivered their assault, taking 2,000 prisoners.



On July 23, 1915, the archduke ordered another attack upon the Italian positions near the sea on the edge of the Carso tableland. This was really an effort to recapture Monfalcone; but it failed, although the Italians did not dare risk pursuit over the rough ground. Later two Austrian divisions, advancing from San Michele and San Martino against Sagrado were repulsed with heavy losses.

By July 25, 1915, the Italians were able to attack and capture some of the intrenchments on the slopes of San Martino and to storm Sei Busi. This hill of Sei Busi witnessed some of the most sanguinary fighting of the whole series of engagements. On a single day it was won, lost and won again by the Italians, both sides bringing up strong reenforcements and concentrating against the summit all the artillery within range. Over the crest of San Michele which dominated a large part of the tableland the battle surged for many days.

On July 27, 1915, the Italians, attacking with bombs and bayonets were able to occupy the summit, but could not establish themselves there in the face of the enemy's bombardment. The lower slopes they were able to hold behind their sandbag intrenchments, but the crest, swept by the enemy's heavy artillery and offering no shelter, was absolutely untenable. In all this fighting artillery played the major role. The Italians charged that Archduke Eugene, realizing that any infantry advance against this terrific gunfire was a certain sacrifice of men, placed in his van regiments of men from the Italian-speaking provinces and from Old Serbia and Croatia. In this position these troops were exposed to fire from their own batteries with the knowledge that any attempt at treachery meant annihilation by their own guns in the rear. No figures as to the number of men from the "unredeemed" provinces forced to fight against their kinsmen on the frontier are obtainable. Italian writers, however, maintain that during the first months of the war Austrian infantrymen of Latin and Slav origin were sacrificed by the hundred thousand around Gorizia and Trento.

Like other great drives of the Allies on the French front, the Italian offensive on the chain of forts guarding Gorizia failed to break the enemy's resistance. The fighting, however, seasoned the untried troops of General Cadorna and won them praise even from the veterans of General Boroevics and from Boroevics himself. "I cannot refrain from saying," declared the Austrian General in an interview published in a Hungarian newspaper, "that the bravery of the Italian regiments was almost incredible, for even if certain regiments lost all their officers, this did not deter them from advancing with the greatest contempt for death."



CHAPTER LXVIII

FIGHTING IN THE ALPS—ITALIAN SUCCESSES

Leaving the situation on the Isonzo where it rested at the close of July, 1915, in a condition virtually of stalemate, we return to the still more picturesque struggle in the Alps. While the Italian Third Army in massed assault was making its unsuccessful fight for possession of Gorizia with Trieste as its ultimate objective, warfare was in progress in a hundred places in the Julian, Carnic, Dolomite, Trentino and Tyrolean mountains. Although along this part of the frontier the Italians inflicted no vital harm upon the enemy during the first two months of the war, they were successful in a multitude of minor enterprises, each of which furnishes its stirring tale of hand-to-hand fighting, individual heroism and novel expedients in a country singularly adapted to some of the methods of primeval warfare. Being on the defensive, the Austrians frequently made use of the primitive ambush of mountain tribes. Loose, heavy bowlders were lashed to the edge of a precipice and masked with pine branches. Then when the enemy passed along the mountain path beneath, the wires holding the rocks in place were cut, releasing a deadly avalanche upon the advancing foe.

Any description of the fighting on this Alpine front becomes by necessity a catalogue of apparently isolated operations, for the nature of the ground negatived any great battle in force such as that along the Isonzo River. In the Julian Alps the Italian mountaineers gained a lucky success early in June. General Rohr, the Austrian commander, had set two companies to guard a rampart of rock between Tolmino and Monte Nero. The position was so strong that a few hundred men with Maxims and quick-firers could have held it against an army corps. Its strength, in fact, was so apparent that the Austrians took their duties too lightly. Leaving only a few sentries on watch, both companies enjoyed plenty of sleep at night. But one night the Italian Alpinists climbed silently over the mountain, killed the enemy's sentries with knives before they could make an outcry and coming upon the two companies from the rear captured them with scarcely a struggle.

The peak of Monte Nero, a stump-shaped mountain 7,370 feet high at the headwaters of the Isonzo, proved important to the Italians, for it gave them a fire-control station from which 12-inch shells were dropped into the forts of Tolmino and the southern forts of Tarvis. North of Monte Nero, where the boundary turns to the west, is the important pass of Predil, the gateway to Tarvis, guarded on the southeast by the fortress of Flitsch and on the west by Malborghetto. These two positions were the strongest points in a great ring of fortified heights protecting the pass and the highway and railroad running through an angle of the Julian Alps into the heart of Austria. The forts of Malborghetto projected into Italian territory and its chief works, Fort Hensel, a great white oblong of armored concrete, was visible miles away in the Italian mountains. Against this system of fortifications the Italians brought their heaviest howitzers and demonstrated, as satisfactorily as the Germans had shown months earlier at Liege, that the strongest forts were no match for modern artillery. Fort Hensel and the other permanent forts were shattered and the ground around them was pitted with great craters from explosions of the 12-inch shells.

The final ruin of Fort Hensel was accomplished by a shell which penetrated through the thickest of its steel and concrete layers and exploded in its ammunition magazine. This bombardment of Malborghetto necessitated firing mortar shells at a high angle completely over mountains which hid the target from the Italian gunners. The work of destruction was slow owing to the fact that mists often curtained the mountain tops and forced the gunners to cease operations, because to fire while the observers were unable to watch every shot and telephone the results would have been only a waste of ammunition.

But the Austrians already knew that their forts were no match for 12-inch howitzers, once these great guns could get into position, and they had prepared another method of defense which they put into use as soon as the forts were destroyed. Batteries of Skodas, hidden in a stretch of pasture land below the summit of the mountain, were brought up and placed in pits concealed by tufts of grass and brush from reconnoitering airmen, while at a safe distance dummy guns were displayed to draw the Italians' fire. Thus one of the greatest artillery duels of the whole front continued day after day, neither side being able to see the enemy and relying for information upon observers posted on mountain tops and in aeroplanes. These 12-inch guns were not intended for such work. They had been laboriously hauled to their lofty emplacements five and six thousand feet above sea level to destroy 6-inch batteries, as these 6-inch guns had been brought up to overpower the lighter 3-inch mountain guns, some of which the Italians worked from peaks as high as 10,000 feet. When both sides got these monster howitzers into position the natural sequence was a deadlock. The most the infantry could do was to drive the enemy's troops from summits valuable as observation points in the service of the heavy artillery.

Thus the official reports issued by the Austrian and Italian staff headquarters reiterated the names of peaks hitherto unknown to the traveler and tourist mountaineer, peaks which became of immense importance now, not so much on account of their height as because they commanded the best views of the surrounding territory. One of these was Freikofel. The Alpini captured it early in the war with scarcely a struggle and then for weeks the Austrians sacrificed regiments and even brigades in vain attempts to recover it.

The loss of Freikofel by the Austrians was followed, on June 24, 1915, by the loss of Cresta Verde, and then in the first week of July the Italians captured the important observation peak of Zellenkofel. This mountain was held by the Austrians with a force of only forty men, but in view of its extraordinary position this squad was considered sufficient. The slopes below them were swept by a battery of their mountain guns, in telephonic communication with the more distant howitzer battery upon which it could call for assistance if necessity arose, and a large infantry reserve was stationed in the wooded valley below. But one night twenty-nine Alpini crept up the almost sheer precipice a thousand feet high that separated them from the Austrian defenders. They carried ropes and a machine gun and just as the moon rose they attained the summit, set up their Maxim and opened fire. Every man in the observation station was shot down.

Then followed a desperate fight with the Austrian mountain battery on the reverse slope. But thanks to their machine gun the Italians were able to break up the enemy's charge and as day broke they captured the Austrians' guns and drove the men who served them down the mountain. When the Austrian reserves arrived the Italians had intrenched themselves on the southern slope and were able to make use of the captured guns. The attacks of the reserves were repulsed and the Italians held the mountain.



CHAPTER LXIX

MORE MOUNTAIN FIGHTING—RESULTS OF FIRST CAMPAIGN

At the western end of the rugged battle front, the Italian mountain troops, after the first advance, were less successful than the troops of Cadorna in the Carnic and Julian Alps. Here the fighting mountaineers of Tyrol redeemed their reputation by a daring stroke. The scene of this brilliant operation was close above the Tonale Pass, the site of one of the greatest glaciers in Europe. From Presanella to Care the ice extends in a gleaming crescent for more than twenty miles. Its broadest part stretches for six miles to Monte Adamello, 11,640 feet high. The paths over or by these glaciers had been seized and fortified by the Italians and their line along this front lay mostly within Italian territory. In mid-July a force of Tyroleans found a new track through the ice and before the Italians, engrossed with operations elsewhere, knew what they were doing they had penetrated several miles into Italian lands. The Italians met the invaders at the famous Garibaldi Hut owned by the Italian Alpine Club just beneath Mount Adamello and checked the advance, although the Austrians retained some of the peaks commanding the Hut.

Just north of the Adamello group of peaks in the upper part of the Giudicari Valley extending to Lake Garda the Italians took one of the northern passes by surprise and advanced toward the forts defending Riva and Arco. Eventually they won all the country south of the Ledro Valley with a series of fierce artillery duels. A similar advance was made east of Lake Garda and down the Lagarina Valley. The forward movement was signalized by engineering feats comparable, in their mastery of the human hand over the forces of nature, only to the building of the Pyramids. The great siege guns weighing many tons were hoisted to the top of cloud-piercing summits solely by man power. Every bit of ammunition and supplies had to be brought up by the same laborious method. At Col di Lana the Austrians had an intricate series of works excavated deep in the solid rock. High explosive shells and hand bombs were useless against this defense, but Colonel Garibaldi, a grandson of the great Italian Liberator, found a way to drive the Austrians out of their position. He mustered a corps of engineers who had helped drill the great railway tunnels on the Swiss frontier and under his direction they tunneled right through the mountain into the Austrian galleries on the reverse slope. When the fumes of the last charge of blasting dynamite cleared away a detachment of bomb carriers leaped through the jagged hole, drove the enemy from their galleries, and, constantly fed by supporting troops, cleared their way up and down the mountain.

The first of August, 1915, found the Italians holding the Austrian outpost positions they had taken during June and July; but the Austrian main defenses from one end of the frontier to the other, a distance of more than 300 miles, were virtually intact. It must be borne in mind, however, that the Italian General Staff at this period of the war never contemplated any general offensive except on the Isonzo River. Although their attack along the Isonzo did not attain its object of reducing the main defenses of Trieste and Gorizia, proved too hard a nut to crack, the Italians here won a series of minor victories against great odds and, to the Italian mind at least, demonstrated the valor of the army and the effectiveness of the new artillery which boded well for the future.

It has been pointed out that in these operations General Cadorna had to consider other things besides the immediate problems facing his troops. The Italo-Austrian warfare was but a small factor in the great plan of the Entente allies, who as the war progressed, realized more and more the importance of cooperative action. All that happened in Galicia, Poland, Lithuania and Courland had a direct influence upon Cadorna's plans. Russian reverses and the failure of all attempts by the French and British to break the German line in France and Belgium made the Italian commander cautious. The series of Teutonic victories made it possible that at any time he might have to face an overwhelming host of Austrians and Germans equipped with artillery which he could not hope to equal and backed by an apparently limitless supply of ammunition. For political reasons, also, he could not risk, even in the hope of reaching Trieste, sacrificing his men in an offensive costing anything like the quantities of human material being used up each day in other theatres. His preponderance of troops at the opening of operations in May was gradually reduced. But the enemy's positions and his superior artillery offset the Italian's greater numbers. On the whole it may be said that the Italians accomplished quite as much as any of their allies. They penetrated farther into the Alps and the rugged tableland west of Trieste than the British and French with their colonials did into the hills of Gallipoli or into the ridge of the Lille region, and the length of their thrusts was greater than the French advances in Artois and Champagne.

The Italians were more successful in concealing the extent of their losses than most of the other belligerents. A conservative estimate places their total casualty list between the last week in May and the first of August, 1915, at 25,000. The Austrians in the same period on the same front lost about 15,000 dead, 50,000 wounded and 15,000 prisoners. The slight Italian losses compared with their enemy's is remarkable in view of the fact that they were almost constantly on the offensive. By far the greater portion of the casualties were suffered in the east, during the two assaults on the defenses of Gorizia.

Measuring the territory gained during these two months and comparing it with the concessions offered by Austria as the price of Italy's neutrality—on this basis the Italians had no cause to regret their decision. On the Venetian Plain by the lower Isonzo a few thousand men in two days with comparatively small loss conquered all the territory which the Italian nation had been offered for keeping out of war. This conquered territory, however, was far less than the prize the Italian King and his Cabinet set before the eyes of the people when they declared war.



PART X—THE DARDANELLES AND TURKEY



CHAPTER LXX

BEGINNING OF OPERATIONS

During the month of January, 1915, the British and French naval authorities came to a decision to attempt a naval attack upon the Dardanelles. It was decided, too, to lose no time in the matter, but to push the campaign with all speed. Undoubtedly, behind this decision there were many political factors of a grave kind because, on the face of it, there were many reasons why the attack should have been delayed until fine weather. Once having come to a decision, no time was lost. The Island of Tenedos was seized, and under an agreement with Venizelos, the Greek Premier, the island of Lemnos was occupied. In the latter the large harbor of Mudros offered an ideal naval and military base for operations against the Dardanelles, overcoming one of the chief original handicaps of the allied command, distance of base from scene of operations. Lemnos was less than fifty miles from the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, while Tenedos was but twenty-two miles away, lying close to the Turkish coast. At these two depots a considerable Anglo-French naval squadron was rapidly collected. They came from all parts of the world.

The elimination of the German commerce raiders from the high seas, and the obvious intentions of the main German and Austrian fleets to avoid a general action against overwhelming odds, freed a large number of allied, and especially British, warships of secondary fighting value.

By the middle of February, 1915, the rendezvous was complete. Besides the ships belonging to the British and French Mediterranean fleets, there had arrived, fresh from the battle of the Falkland Islands, the Inflexible, a dreadnought battle cruiser. The Queen Elizabeth, too, arrived, the newest and strongest of the ships of the whole British navy. It is evident that great reliance had been placed on the enormous gun power of this vessel, it being hoped that her great 15-inch pieces would blow the Dardanelles defenses to pieces, somewhat in the way the gigantic German land guns had blown the Belgian forts into fragments. In no other way is it possible to explain the risking of this capital ship in the highly dangerous operations in the AEgean sea.

In addition to the Queen Elizabeth and the Inflexible, the British force included the Agamemnon, the Irresistible, the Vengeance, the Triumph, the Albion, the Lord Nelson, the Ocean and the Majestic. The French ships numbered the Charlemagne, the Gaulois, the Suffern, and the Bouvet.

Early in the morning of February 19, 1915, these vessels, under the supreme command of Vice Admiral Sackville Carden, and with Rear Admiral Guepratte in command of the French division, arrived off the Gallipoli Peninsula. At 8 a. m. they opened an intense bombardment of the several forts. At first they battered away at the Turks at long range but finally, about the middle of the afternoon, the Vengeance, Cornwallis and Triumph of the British forces, and the Suffern, Gaulois and Bouvet of the French fleet, closed in upon the Turkish forts which were still replying. It was not until darkness that all the land batteries had been apparently silenced.

At this time, and throughout the various attempts to reduce the Dardanelles forts by naval bombardment, there was considerable difficulty in making the demolition permanent. On the following morning a detachment of the Naval Flying Corps made a reconnaissance and discovered that the damage was not as great as had been hoped. Accordingly, preparations were made to give the Turks another dose of the 12-inch guns. Before this could be done bad weather intervened.

On February 25, 1915, there was a further bombardment and by five o'clock in the evening all the forts again had been silenced. Mine sweeping operations were then begun. For this work English-Scotch trawlers from the North Sea had been brought down and the crews of these little unprotected boats added many pages of heroism to the book of great deeds of the Dardanelles operations.

The following day a division of the battleship fleet entered the straits for a distance of four miles, the mine sweepers having cleared the channel for that distance. The Albion, Vengeance and Majestic opened fire with their 12-inch guns on Fort Dardanos, a battery mounting nothing but 5.9-inch guns, situated on the Asiatic shore some distance below the Narrows. Fort Dardanos bravely replied, however, until put out of action, as did several concealed batteries, the presence of which the British and French had not suspected.

With the completion of this operation the allied command believed they had not only permanently silenced the forts guarding the entrance to the Dardanelles but had, as well, made both sides of the straits then too warm for the Turkish troops. Accordingly forces of marines were landed to complete the work of demolition. They were successful except at Kum Kale where the Turks proved to have maintained a large force. The British landing party was driven back to its boats in a hurry after suffering a score of casualties.

The apparent success of these naval operations raised high hopes in Great Britain and in the other allied countries. The British Government, which had established a censorship for all news that might tend to depress the British public, saw no reason for interfering to prevent the publication of news that might tend unduly in the other direction. The newspapers and the so-called military experts gave the public what they evidently wanted. The attack upon the Dardanelles, according to the majority of these, was practically over. A few voices of warning were raised, but they were immediately silenced as "croakers" and "pessimists" and even "pro-Germans." Absurd reports of consternation and panic in Constantinople were sent broadcast throughout Great Britain, and thence to the whole world. Thousands of Turks, in abject fear, were pictured as spending most of their days and nights on the housetops of the sacred city, anxiously awaiting the first glimpse of the victorious allied fleet sailing up the Golden Horn. Hundreds of thousands were said to be fleeing into Asia Minor and preparations were being made by the sultan and his government to follow suit.

Meanwhile, nothing of the kind was happening, either in Gallipoli or in Constantinople. The German and Turkish authorities, confident in their ability to hold the straits against all the forces that could be brought against it, were quietly perfecting their plans. Bad weather again interrupted the Allies' operations, and it was not until March 1, 1915, that the Triumph, Ocean and Albion again entered the straits, and bombarded Fort Dardanos (once more active), and the concealed shore batteries. The same night the mine sweepers, under the protection of destroyers, cleared an additional five miles of the channel, and the waters were safe up to within a mile and a half of the entrance to the Narrows.

About the same time the two French squadrons bombarded the Bulair lines, where the Gallipoli Peninsula connects with the mainland, in an attempt to interrupt the Turks' supply of troops and ammunition.

On the following day, March 2, 1915, the Canopus, Swiftsure and Cornwallis drew close into Fort Dardanos and opened fire. By so doing they got within range of the Turkish batteries in the pine woods just below the Kilid Bahr plateau and all three boats were hit.

For the next few days the bombardment of various Turkish positions and batteries was continued. On the afternoon of March 4, 1915, a large landing party was put ashore at Kum Kale and Sedd-el-Bahr to complete the demolition of the works. That on the Asiatic shore again had a hard time and was driven off by a Turkish force after doing only small damage. The force on the European side also found that the Turks had quickly returned to the tip of the peninsula as soon as the fire of the warships had ceased.

On the following day there occurred at Smyrna an incident that is hard to explain. Even British experts have not made any attempt to solve the puzzle. Vice Admiral Peirse with a British and French fleet, appeared off the city and opened a bombardment. The Turkish command did not reply and, after doing considerable damage, Peirse and his ships sailed away. He made no attempt to land, indeed he is not believed to have had a force for that purpose with him. The only reasonable explanation of the bombardment is that it was in the nature of a diversion intended to keep as many troops as possible from Gallipoli.

In the Dardanelles the operations were rapidly coming to a head. The Anglo-French command believed the time had now arrived for an attack in force upon the forts at the Narrows, the real defenses of the straits. Accordingly, on March 6, 1915, the Albion, Prince George, the Vengeance, the Majestic and the Suffern steamed well up the straits and opened a direct fire on the big forts. It was not upon the work of these ships, however, that great hopes rested. A new experiment was being tried from the Gulf of Saros on the other side of the Peninsula of Gallipoli, at the same time. With their long range guns the Queen Elizabeth, the Agamemnon, and the Ocean stood well out and, by indirect fire, threw shell after shell over the heights of the peninsula into the land works. All the while circling aeroplanes, under the constant fire of the Turkish antiaircraft guns, watched and corrected the firing, while a captive balloon, sent up from the Agamemnon, did additional and valuable service in this respect.

It was found that, because of the angle of fire of the big naval guns, it was not possible to score any hits from the Gulf of Saros on the Turkish forts on the European side of the straits and the attempt was soon abandoned. Modern big gun ammunition was too expensive to be lightly thrown away. Furthermore, the life of one of the big guns of these battleships is strictly limited, especially if full charges are being used. Ultimately, the three battleships in the Gulf shifted their fire to the forts near Chanak, on the Asiatic side, where the works were on low ground, almost at sea level.

It was confidently hoped that, by means of this indirect fire, it would be possible to put the 14-inch guns of these forts out of action, without giving them a chance to reply. The idea of trying to force a way past these great guns, exposing the relatively frail sides of precious battleships to their direct fire, was not relished by the allied command.

But if the Turks could not reply to the fire of the three battleships in the Gulf of Saros with their 14-inch guns, they could and did do effective work with smaller guns concealed on the heights of the peninsula overlooking the gulf, and the Queen Elizabeth was hit three times.

On the following day, March 7, the attack was renewed. The four French battleships, the Charlemagne, Gaulois, the Bouvet and the Suffern took the post of greatest danger inside the straits and finally again silenced the Dardanos fort. The Agamemnon and the Lord Nelson, behind them, made a long range attack upon the forts fringing the Narrows. Three of the allied battleships, the Gaulois, the Agamemnon and the Lord Nelson were hit by Turkish shells but, as an offset, it was believed that the great forts at Chanak, as well as the works at Dardanos, had been permanently silenced.

This confidence, as we shall see later on, was not justified. Inside the great forts, it is true, the Turks and their German officers were suffering terribly from the bombardment. That they stood it in some cases for periods of seven hours at a stretch, and continued firing effectively for the whole of that time, is testimony to their courage and devotion to duty. As the great shells of the Queen Elizabeth landed in the forts they did frightful havoc. The shrapnel shells contained something like 12,000 separate bullets and it is on record that one of these shells wounded or killed no less than 250 Turkish soldiers. As the high explosive shells struck the works and exploded they threw up tons of earth and cement a hundred feet in the air, plainly visible to the allied observers on the warships in the straits.

But this was not the worst that the defenders had to endure. The exploding shells gave off poisonous gases that filled the underground passages of the redoubts. The heroic Turks worked under such conditions as long as it was humanly possible, but eventually their German officers were compelled to withdraw their men from each fort in turn to allow the gases to clear away. These circumstances undoubtedly account for the fact that almost every one of the forts was reported permanently silenced, only to resume action a few days later, much to the surprise and consternation of the allied command.

Furthermore, there is abundant evidence that the Turks were economizing ammunition, especially big gun shells. They had made up their minds that there would be a direct naval attack upon the forts sooner or later, and their instructions were to reserve their fire "until they saw the whites of the enemy's eyes," so to speak.

From March 6 to March 18, 1915, there was a lull in activity at the straits. Momentous events were transpiring in London and at the island of Lemnos, and upon the outcome of these events depended the future course of the operations at the Dardanelles. While the individual ships of his fleet conducted minor bombardments intended to harass the Turks, Vice Admiral Carden, pleading ill health, had been allowed to relinquish the command of the allied fleet, and Vice Admiral John de Robeck, newly promoted to his rank, succeeded him. Almost immediately the latter steamed away to Mudros to engage in a fateful conference.



CHAPTER LXXI

PREPARATIONS FOR LANDING—COMPOSITION OF FORCES

It had evidently been the intention of the Allies to force the Narrows by naval power, and then follow up the success by an occupation of Gallipoli by a land force. For this purpose the troops solicited of Venizelos, the Greek Premier, were undoubtedly to be used, but sole reliance was not to be placed upon them. For one thing, the Allies had no intention of allowing Greece to assume too great an importance in the campaign against Constantinople, well knowing that the Greek people had large ambitions in that part of the world—ambitions that clashed with those of more important powers.

In early March, 1915, the French were busy concentrating an expeditionary force in North Africa, under the command of General d'Amade. By March 15 the French force had been gathered together at Bizerta, in the AEgean Sea. At the same time the British Government had been undertaking a similar concentration, and by the third week in March a force estimated at about 120,000 men had arrived in transports at Mudros in the island of Lemnos. This English force consisted of the Twenty-ninth Division, the Royal Naval Division, a special force formed by Winston Churchill, British Secretary to the Admiralty, and used in the attempt to relieve Antwerp, the Australian and New Zealand divisions originally brought to Egypt, a Territorial division, and some Indian forces.

These troops, with the comparatively small French force under General d'Amade, were placed under the command of one of the most popular of British officers—General Sir Ian Hamilton.

Sir Ian Hamilton and his staff were hurried from London by special trains and a fast cruiser steaming upward of 30 knots an hour. By the time he reached Mudros the French troops had also arrived from Bizerta.

The island of Lemnos presented a strange and picturesque spectacle when all these troops, drawn from so many distant parts of the world, were gathered in the sheltering bay. The blue and red of the Frenchmen's uniforms, the khaki of the British, the native costumes of the Indian and North African troops contrasted strangely. Mixing freely with them and driving hard bargains, were the native Greek tradesmen. All over the little town thousands of temporary huts and shops and tents sprang up for the supply of the needs of the troops.

Out in the harbor hundreds of ships of every description were moored. There were battleships, cruisers, torpedo boats, submarines, transports, supply boats, barges, picket boats, and dozens of Greek trading vessels. Into all this mess and chaos came the British commander.

Then followed a long conference with General d'Amade, Admiral de Robeck, and Admiral Guepratte. There does not seem to be any reason for doubting that the plan was to launch a land attack upon the Gallipoli defenses immediately. But General Hamilton demurred. He inspected the loading of the transports, and refused to give the order for an attack until grave defects had been remedied. Of this period he wrote subsequently:

"I knew that nothing but a thorough and systematic scheme for flinging the whole of the troops under my command very rapidly ashore could be expected to meet with success."

The slightest delay in landing, Sir Ian Hamilton realized, would prove terribly costly, if not absolutely fatal. He and his troops were embarking on a campaign opening with a feat of arms for which there was no precedent in history. He did not intend that there should be the slightest chance of failure if forethought and intelligent preparation could prevent it.

The prime obstacle to an immediate descent of the allied land forces upon Gallipoli Sir Ian Hamilton found to be the manner in which the British transports had been loaded. The only consideration that seems to have been present in the minds of the military authorities who superintended the work was the question of getting the material and men aboard the ships. The supplies, artillery, and ammunitions had all been loaded without any consideration as to which was to come off the boats first. Material absolutely necessary for the protection of the troops once they had landed on hostile shores, and vital in any attempt to press home the advantage thus gained, was buried under tents, hut parts, cooking material, etc.

"I cannot go ahead with a transport fleet in this condition," said General Hamilton in substance to his French and English colleagues. "The whole fleet must return to Egypt and be reloaded."

"But time," urged Admiral de Robeck. "It will take weeks of valuable time."

"Better lose time than run straight to certain disaster," declared General Hamilton.

And back to Alexandria went the whole fleet of transports, with the exception of a few vessels carrying the Australian Infantry Brigade, which, by some miracle, had been properly loaded.

When General Hamilton and his soldiers sailed out of Mudros Harbor, bound for Alexandria, Admiral de Robeck came to a momentous and historic decision. Acting either on his own responsibility or under orders or advice of some superior authority, he decided not to wait for the troops, but to make a determined attack upon the Narrows with his whole fleet. By sheer weight of guns he would try to run past the great forts that lined the 1,500-yard channel, pounding his way through on the theory that "what will not bend must break."

March 18, 1915, was an ideal day for such an heroic attempt. The sailors of the allied fleet were called to quarters as the morning sun, in a perfect sky, arose over the towering hills that lined the straits. Briefly the officers addressed the men, told them of the work ahead, spoke of the glory that awaited them if successful, and ordered each man to his post.

The reader, in order to gain some definite idea of the defenses that were to be attacked, should take up a map showing the Dardanelles. He will find, about ten miles from the entrance, a narrow channel where the shores of Asia and Europe almost touch. There, at the narrowest point of the channel, the Turks had built their chief defenses. On the south slope of the Kalid Bahr were three powerful works. The Rumeli Medjidieh Battery mounted two 11-inch, four 9.4-inch, and five 3.4-inch guns. The Hamidieh II Battery had two 14-inch, while the Namazieh Battery had one 11-inch, one 10.2-inch, eleven 9.4-inch, three 8.2-inch, and three 5.9-inch guns.

On the Asiatic side of the Narrows, near Chanak, was a system of redoubts of equal strength. The Hamidieh I Battery, south of Chanak, consisted of two 14-inch and seven 9.4-inch guns, while the Hamidieh III Battery possessed two 14-inch, one 9.4-inch, one 8.2-inch, and four 5.9-inch guns.

Besides all these formidable defenses there were many minor positions on the very edge of the Narrows. In fact the whole channel, and the way of the allied fleet to the Sea of Marmora, lay through rows upon rows of high-power guns.

The disastrous naval attack upon the big forts at the Narrows, resulting, as it did, in the loss of three battleships and the disabling of others, convinced the British and French naval authorities that it was hopeless to expect success along that line, except at a price that they could ill afford to pay, and that would have a terribly depressing effect upon public opinion at home.

Admiral de Robeck and his British "bulldogs" were called off to await the coming of Sir Ian Hamilton and his mixed expeditionary force. This force, while the 12-and 15-inch guns of the Anglo-French fleet had been vainly battering the Dardanelles forts, had returned to Alexandria, and, under the careful supervision of Sir Ian Hamilton and General d'Amade, had been reshipped aboard the great transport fleet.

At this point there appears to have arisen a serious misunderstanding between Great Britain and France as to the exact number of troops to be supplied by each. Although the true facts have not yet come to light, it is believed that General Joffre emphatically refused to detach any of the French troops from the western front. The force that France eventually contributed to the allied army at the Dardanelles consisted of units not at that time in view for service in northern France. These numbered a small detachment of Fusiliers Marines, a section of the Armee Coloniale, and the Foreign Legion, a force made up of volunteers from all over the world, enlisted for service anywhere, and generally assigned to a post of unusual danger.

Great Britain was, therefore, under the necessity of providing the bulk of the troops.

The British authorities did not make the mistake of throwing raw troops into the initial struggle at the Dardanelles. The backbone of the force supplied to General Sir Ian Hamilton was the Twenty-ninth Division of Regulars, made up largely of the hardiest of England's youth—the north countrymen. It comprised the Eighty-sixth Brigade of Infantry—Second Royal Fusiliers, First Lancashire Fusiliers, First Royal Munster Fusiliers, and the First Royal Dublin Fusiliers; the Eighty-seventh Brigade—Second South Wales Borderers, First King's Own Scottish Borderers, First Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and First Border Regiment; the Eighty-eighth Brigade—Second Hampshires, Fourth Worcesters, First Essex, and the Fifth Royal Scots, the latter a Territorial battalion. Attached to this force of infantry was a squadron of the Surrey Yeomanry and two batteries of the Fourth Mountain Brigade, a Highland artillery unit.

To the command of these regular troops, Major General Hunter-Weston was appointed. This officer had been through much of the early fighting in the western theatre, originally commanding the Eleventh Brigade of the Third Corps of General French's army. His appointment to the Dardanelles was in the nature of a promotion, it being recognized that his dash and energy would be useful in the style of warfare that would govern the battle for the straits.

In addition to the regular troops brought out from England, there was the Naval Division. This force had seen a bit of action in the attempt to save Antwerp. It consisted of two Naval Brigades and a Royal Marine Brigade.

Also there was a Territorial Division, known as the East Lancashires, under the command of Major General Douglas. Immediately upon the outbreak of war this division had volunteered for foreign service and had been shipped to Egypt, where it had had six months' training. It comprised the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Lancashire Fusiliers, the Fourth and Fifth East Lancashires, the Ninth and Tenth Manchesters, the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Manchesters.

These troops, with the inclusion of the Australian and New Zealand forces brought to Egypt at the beginning of the war, under the command of Lieutenant General Birdwood, and a considerable number of Indian troops, made up the force at the disposal of Sir Ian Hamilton. They numbered in all, with the French troops, about 120,000 men.

What had the Turkish authorities to set against this army, supported by the great fleet of battleships and unlimited number of transports and subsidiary vessels? Estimates of the potential strength of the Turkish army available for service in and about the Gallipoli Peninsula at this time vary widely. There were those, for instance, who claimed that, if necessary, the Turks could command at least 600,000 troops for the defense of the straits, and that any attempt to capture the positions with the force supplied to Sir Ian Hamilton was doomed to failure. On the other hand were those who claimed that the Turks were short of equipment and ammunition, and had no means of replenishment; that they had no heart in the fight; that they were already in revolt against their German taskmasters; that the Suez and Caucasus defeats had undermined their morale and depleted their numbers, and that the Turkish high command had decided that it was useless to attempt to defend the position. Fortunately, between these two extremists there was a happy mean, and the best evidence points to the conclusion that, for the defense of the Dardanelles, from first to last, the Turks depended upon about 200,000 men with reenforcements brought up from time to time to refill the ranks. Probably when the great landing took place only a small proportion of the Turkish troops were in Gallipoli.

These troops were under the command of the German General Liman von Sanders, although, from time to time in the operations, the picturesque figure of Enver Pasha appeared. Admiral Usedom, a high German naval expert, was placed in command of the purely naval defenses of the straits.

Unfortunately for the allied force the attack upon the Dardanelles lacked the important—and perhaps indispensable—element of surprise. By their early naval attack upon the outer fort, by the gathering of the army at Mudros and its subsequent return to Alexandria, and, finally, by the ill-fated naval attack upon the Narrows' defenses, the Allies had given the Turks ample warning of their intentions. During the many weeks that intervened between the first naval attack upon the outer forts and the approach of Sir Ian Hamilton's army, the Turks, under the supervision of their German mentors, and borrowing largely of the lessons of the trench campaign in Flanders and France, made of the Peninsula of Gallipoli a network of positions which it proved possible, to borrow an expression used of the German concrete trenches in France, "for a caretaker and his wife to hold." This elaborate system of trenches and redoubts was dominated by the three great heights. Every foot of the sides of these major positions had been prepared with barbed wire, monster pits, mines, concealed machine-gun batteries, and the almost endless variety of traps evolved out of six months' experience with the new style of warfare.

Along the many miles of coast of the Peninsula of Gallipoli there were but few places where, even under the most advantageous of conditions, it was possible to effect a landing in the face of a strongly intrenched enemy. The steep slopes of the hills rose from the very water's edge. Even in cases where there was a low, sandy beach, the nature of the country in the immediate vicinity made it impossible to deploy and maneuver any considerable number of troops.

Furthermore the Turks, well aware of the limited possibilities at the disposal of the allied force, had made terrifically strong defensive positions of the few beaches where successful landings were at all possible. Row upon row of barbed wire had been run along the shores and even out into the sea. Mines had been constructed that could be depended upon to blow the intrepid first landing parties to pieces. The ground had been thoroughly studied and machine-gun batteries placed so that every inch of the beaches could be raked with a devastating fire. And finally the ranges for all the great guns in the hills beyond had been accurately measured so that the ships and the troops would be literally buried under an avalanche of shells.



CHAPTER LXXII

PLANS OF SIR IAN HAMILTON—FIRST LANDING MADE

The broad outlines of the problem that faced Sir Ian Hamilton and his force were comparatively simple. The assault upon the Gallipoli Peninsula resolved itself into rush attacks upon two major heights, leading up to a grand assault upon the key position to the Narrows.

These three positions formed an irregular triangle. The first was Achi Baba, situated within three and a half miles of the tip of the peninsula. The second was Sari Bair, about eight miles due north of the Narrows. By either taking or isolating these two positions the Allies would be in a position for a grand attack upon the third and most important height, the plateau of Kilid Bahr, or Pasha Dagh. This position not only commanded the Narrows and the adjacent channel but it contained two of the great forts that successfully withstood the grand fleet attack. It was, in the minds of the allied command, the key to the whole situation. With Kilid Bahr in their hands, they believed the way to Constantinople would be open and the elimination of the Turk as a factor in the war and the settlement of the Balkan question or questions in a manner favorable to the allied powers would necessarily follow.

The operations as planned by Sir Ian Hamilton, then, consisted of a number of landings—as many as possible so as to conceal the real objectives of the allied troops and to disperse the Turkish force—and an attempt to rush the position of Achi Baba, and to isolate the position of Sari Bair by advancing through the low country that lay between that position and Kilid Bahr.

On April 7, 1915, Sir Ian Hamilton, with his staff, returned to Mudros and held a conference with the naval commands. By the 20th his plans had been perfected and the great landing was fixed to take place on Sunday, April 25, 1915. During the previous week the Allies had been making feints along the shore of the Gulf of Saros in an attempt to give an element of surprise to the real attack.

As Sir Ian Hamilton subsequently wrote, the question of weather was one of vital importance to the success of the landing. If, after a number of the troops had been thrown upon the beaches, bad weather had intervened, prevented further landings and perhaps driven the fleet and auxiliary vessels to Mudros Harbor, the unfortunate troops ashore would have been wiped out.

Sunday, April 25, 1915, however, was a perfect day. The low mist of the early morning hid the great fleet until it was close to the shore of the peninsula. As the day progressed the mist disappeared, the blue sky presented an unbroken expanse, while no wind disturbed the placid sea. In a setting such as this was enacted one of the greatest battles of all history.

At the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula were five small beaches. They were subsequently named by the Allies, for identification purposes, Beaches S, V, W, X, and Y. Against these points was to be flung the Twenty-ninth Division, supported by some of the naval division. These troops, once having gained the shore and held it against the enemy counterattacks, were to push on in all haste by the road that led to the village of Krithia, northwest of Achi Baba, turn east before reaching that place, and carry Achi Baba with a rush.

At the same time the Australian and New Zealand troops were to effect a landing at Gaba Tepe, about twelve miles up the AEgean coast of the peninsula and about three and a half miles south of Sari Bair. Running southeast from near Gaba Tepe was a good road connecting with the town of Maidos, on the Dardanelles, above the Narrows. The whole way lay through low country and, once in command of this road, the allied troops would not only sever direct communications between Sari Bair and Kilid Bahr but would be in a position to attack the defenses of the latter on the flank.



Meantime the French were to make a landing at Kum Kale on the Asiatic side of the straits. There is some doubt as to the real purpose of this landing. After the French had reembarked—"driven off with terrible losses," according to the Turkish official account—it was claimed that the landing was merely a diversion. Certainly nothing more than that could be claimed for a feint made by a portion of the Naval Division farther up the Gulf of Saros.

These, then, were the plans of Sir Ian Hamilton: four landing operations in widely separated points, two of serious importance and the other two, probably, intended only to draw the troops and energy of the defenders. How they prospered, what measure of success they obtained, how the Turks, fighting with the valor which has made them famous through ages, how the British Colonial and French troops accomplished almost unbelievable deeds of heroism and skill, make one of the most fascinating stories in the annals of warfare.

While these operations were timed to occur simultaneously, they will appear more clear to the reader if they are taken separately and each followed to its conclusion from the opening day. In this way we will tell the story, first, of the Australian-New Zealand landing northeast of Gaba Tepe; then of the landings on the five beaches at the tip of the peninsula; and, finally, of the French landing on the Asiatic shore and the naval brigade demonstration at Bulair.

By one o'clock on the morning of Sunday, April 25, 1915, the allied expeditionary force had arrived within five miles of the Gallipoli shore. Under cover of darkness the final dispositions were made and the ships maneuvered so that the timing of the several landings would be accurately synchronized. Shortly after one o'clock the landing boats were lowered from the transports.

Strung in lines of four and five the boats were slowly towed toward shore by steam pinnaces. Not a sound was heard but the panting of the engines of the little boats. The speed was accurately calculated to bring the parties close in shore with the first break of the dawn.

Accompanying the Australian and New Zealand troops, were a number of destroyers. Just as they reached the shallow water in front of the cliffs of Gaba Tepe, a Turkish lookout spied them in the hazy light of the morning. Instantly he gave the alarm and a flaring searchlight flashed its rays on the little flotilla.

The need for silence had disappeared. With a cheer the British troops leaped from their boats into the shoal water and splashed their way ashore. While many of them were still in their boats, however, the Turks opened fired. The whole ground had been carefully prepared and from every cover on the shore and the cliffs beyond a deadly fire was poured upon the Colonial troops.

Without faltering, however, the Australian and New Zealand troops, supported by a squadron of battleships and destroyers, came on straight at the strongly intrenched Turks. The first of the Australians to reach the shore were the Third Brigade under Colonel Sinclair Maglagan. With a rush they charged the first Turkish lines, bayoneted the defenders, and scrambled up the steep cliffs that rise a hundred feet in the air.

Fortunately for the British troops, as these and subsequent events proved, there had been a slight miscalculation in the landing, and the men had actually gone ashore a mile and a half northeast of Gaba Tepe, instead of at that point. Gaba Tepe is so rugged and uninviting that it was believed that the Turks would not trouble to intrench it. Actually the Turks appeared to have intrenched and prepared every inch of the coast. But at Sari Bair, where the Australian and New Zealand troops actually landed, the character of the ground, although not so advantageous at first, afforded much more protection once the men were ashore. Sir Ian Hamilton, in his graphic account of the operations, subsequently said:

"Owing to the tows having failed to maintain their exact direction, the actual point of disembarkation was rather more than a mile north of that which I had selected, and was more closely overhung by steeper cliffs. Although this accident increased the initial difficulty of driving the enemy off the heights inland, it has since proved itself to have been a blessing in disguise, inasmuch as the actual base of the force of occupation had been much better defiladed from shell fire.

"The beach on which the landing was actually effected is a very narrow strip of sand about 1,000 yards in length, bounded on the north and the south by two small promontories. At its southern extremity, a deep ravine with exceedingly deep, scrub-clad sides, runs inland in a northeasterly direction. Near the northern end of the beach a small but steep gully runs up into the hills at right angles to the shore. Between the ravine and the gully the whole of the beach is baked by the seaward face of the spur which forms the northwestern side of the ravine. From the top of the spur the ground falls almost sheer, except near the southern limit of the beach where gentler slopes give access to the mouth of the ravine behind. Farther inland lie in a tangled knot the under-features of Sari Bair separated by deep ravines which take a most confusing diversity of direction. Sharp spurs, covered with dense scrub and falling away in many places in precipitous sandy cliffs, radiate from the principal mass of the mountain, from which they run northwest, west, southwest and south to the coast."

As fresh British troops came ashore they cast aside their heavy packs and followed their comrades across the forty feet of open beach and into the scrub that covered the side of the cliffs. Halfway up the Turks had prepared a second position. Attacking it in open formation the Third Brigade succeeded in clearing it within fifteen minutes of the time they came ashore, despite the desperate and brave defense of the Turks.

Meanwhile some of the landing boats, subjected to the terrible fire of the Turkish guns, were having a bad time. The towing ropes of three of them were cut by the fire and the boats drifted helplessly about under the withering rain of bullets that rapidly wiped out their cargoes of men. But despite these mishaps the First and Second Brigades were hurried ashore to support the Third. Soon, in the face of terrible difficulties including the narrowness of the beach, there were between 3,000 and 4,000 allied troops ashore.

By this time the Turks, by means of the mobile carriages prepared for them by the Germans, had maneuvered some heavy artillery into position on the heights inland. Also some of their warships, moored in the Narrows, began throwing heavy shells across the peninsula into the allied fleet standing close inshore. So dangerous and accurate became this fire that the transports had to be ordered out to sea and this delayed the operations seriously.

At Gaba Tepe and on the heights to the north of the beach the Turks posted guns and enfiladed the Narrows beach. Thus the troops, as they landed, had to make their way through a rain of shrapnel, machine gun and rifle fire that wiped out hundreds. Despite the success of the Australian Brigades in clearing the beach and the face of the cliff, the Turkish fire never seemed to slacken.

Because of the nature of the country there could be no central control over the advance fighting and no continued communications between the several forces making their way to the top of the cliffs. The battle resolved itself into a series of fights between small parties, or even individual soldiers, whose one object was to kill as many of the enemy as possible and make their way as far inland as possible in the first rush.

By two o'clock about twelve British regiments had been landed and the ground gained consolidated and prepared against counterattack. Thousands of Turkish troops were by this time pouring along the road from Maidos and by the middle of the afternoon it was calculated that there were fully 20,000 of them before the Australian and New Zealand troops. The latter, in the meantime, had been further reenforced by two batteries of Indian Mountain Artillery. The pressure of the constantly increasing Turkish force compelled General Birdwood, who came ashore about this time, to contract his lines and to reach a decision that, at that time at least and until the arrival of more troops, no further advance could be made. The Gaba Tepe landing had not been the surprise that was expected and the Turks had proved to be in unexpected strength.

About three o'clock the Turkish counterattacks began. Absolutely regardless of human life, they threw themselves in dense masses against the Second and Third Brigades. The British battleships, the Queen, the London, the Prince of Wales, the Triumph and the Majestic, posted close inshore, poured a devastating fire on the advancing Turkish troops as they came into the open.

About five o'clock the Turks, after repeated assaults upon the British lines, massed for a final attempt to drive the invaders into the sea. On and on they came, concentrating on the hard-pressed Third Brigade as the weak spot in the British defense. Fighting gamely against heavy odds, this Australian Brigade which had borne the brunt of the landing attack and which had been almost continually counterattacked all afternoon, gave way slowly, selling every inch of ground dearly. Hundreds of the brave Turkish troops were mown down by the machine guns which the Australians had by this time brought ashore. At nightfall, however, General Birdwood, as a consequence of the persistence of the enemy, had to contract his lines further.

As night settled on the battle field on the ridge above Gaba Tepe and Sari Bair, and the two forces rested from sheer exhaustion, the British troops, who once were well inland toward Maidos, their objective, were barely hanging onto the ridge overlooking the shore of the Gulf of Saros. All their water and food and munitions and reenforcements had to be brought ashore across the exposed beach, while the landing of the necessary artillery in the face of the Turkish fire was a feat to appal the bravest. But though their hold on their position was precarious it was tenacious and, in the end, effective. If they had not won all they expected to win they had at least won a foothold in the face of terrific difficulties.

While the Australians and New Zealanders were fighting desperately beyond Gaba Tepe, the other forces of the allied army were accomplishing similar deeds of heroism at the tip of the peninsula.

Coming down the coast of the peninsula from Gaba Tepe, about three miles from the extreme southwestern tip, was what was known as Beach Y. It was almost due west of the important town of Krithia, and the landing was intended primarily to protect the left flank of the British landing forces from attack by the considerable forces believed to be concentrated there.

The actual landing seems to have been somewhat of a surprise to the Turks. Indeed, subsequent events showed that they were correct in their estimate that a landing at the so-called Beach Y would be a mistake. A narrow strip of sandy beach led to the cliffs, two hundred feet high, that were believed to be almost unscalable. It is easy to be wise after the event, but military writers subsequently declared that if the Turks had been prepared to defend the position, the force that landed at Beach Y would have been wiped out in the preliminary attempt to establish a footing.

The force assigned to this point of attack consisted of the First King's Own Scottish Borderers, and the Plymouth Battalion of the Royal Naval Division, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Koe. The latter was under orders, if the landing proved successful, to work his way south to effect a junction with the force landing at Beach X, some two miles away.

About five o'clock, Koe's force appeared off Beach Y, on the transports Braemar Castle and Southland, and escorted by the battleship Goliath, and the cruisers Amethyst and Sapphire. The Turks had posted a large force at Beach Y 2, between Beach Y and Beach X, but half of the Scottish Borderers were ashore before the Turkish command had realized what was happening. As a result Colonel Koe's force was partly established on the cliffs before the Turks had begun to arrive.

But if the initial stages were unexpectedly easy for this force, difficulties soon developed. Once on the heights, Colonel Koe ordered an advance to link up with the force at Beach X. The British troops had not gone far when they ran into the Turkish troops from Beach Y. So large was this force and so determined an opposition did it offer to the British troops that Colonel Koe soon decided it would be impossible, with the two battalions at his disposal, to accomplish the task assigned him.

Early in the afternoon the little British force was dismayed by the approach on its left flank of a large force of Turks from Krithia, which threatened to cut it off from the landing beach. Reluctantly Colonel Koe, just before he received a fatal wound, gave the order to intrench.



CHAPTER LXXIII

THE BRITISH IN DANGER—BITTER FIGHTING

The British troops were now in a critical position. There was a peculiar spoonlike formation of the ground at the end of the Gallipoli Peninsula. From the high cliffs along the shore the ground fell away. Thus it was impossible for the supporting warships lying offshore to give any effective aid to the little British force once it had left the shore and the edge of the heights. The Turks realized to the full their advantage and attacked the Borderers and the marines with fury. Frequent attacks were launched against the dwindling line of the British force. Guns of large caliber were rapidly brought up from Krithia, while the Turks showed extraordinary daring and cleverness in bomb attacks upon the hastily dug trenches of the enemy.

All night long the Turks attacked. By morning the remnants of the British force were in desperate straits. Sir Ian Hamilton subsequently declared that the losses at this time had been "deplorable." Many of the officers, in addition to Lieutenant Colonel Koe, had been killed or wounded, while 50 per cent of the Borderers had been put out of action. They were no longer able to defend properly their trenches. Food, water, and ammunition were running short. A consultation of the remaining officers was held. The question of trying to hold out until reenforcements arrived was considered, but ultimately it was decided to retreat to the shore and to reembark.

At seven o'clock on Monday morning the order was given. The attending fleet had been strengthened by the arrival of the cruisers Talbot and Dublin, and, supported by the Goliath, the Amethyst, and the Sapphire, they began a terrific bombardment of the tops of the cliffs. Protected by this screen of fire, the few remaining British troops were able to get away in their boats without molestation save for a long distance bombardment by the Turkish artillery.

The landing at Beach X was more successful. The Eighty-seventh Brigade, under the command of Brigadier General Marshall, was assigned to this part of the field. It was to work its way as far as possible inland and link up with the troops coming ashore at Beach W. At Beach X the Turks were well prepared. They had constructed bomb-proof shelters and trenches on the heights and were well led by German officers.

Before the actual landing the supporting battleships, led by the Swiftsure and the Implacable, bombarded the Turkish positions for almost an hour with their heaviest guns. The ground was thoroughly swept by the great 12-inch and smaller guns of the warships. Finally, just before the actual landing, the Implacable steamed within 500 yards of the shore, dropped her anchor and smothered the near cliffs and the foreshore with her fire.

Subsequent investigation proved that in this affair of Gallipoli, as in Flanders and elsewhere, the British suffered from their lack of foresight in the provision of proper shells. The battleships used shrapnel, which, it was afterward discovered, did little damage to the deep, protected trenches prepared by the Turks under the supervision of the German officers. If the British had had instead the high-explosive shells that were necessary for the work, the story of the Gallipoli landings under the wing of the great fleet of battleships might have made different reading.

After about a quarter of an hour's final bombardment by the Implacable, two companies and a machine-gun section of the First Royal Fusiliers were thrown ashore at Beach X. Under cover of the battleships, the landing was safely accomplished and the Fusiliers advanced almost 1,000 yards without much opposition. Hill 114 on their right, where the Turks proved to be firmly intrenched, then proved a serious obstacle to the advance. While the Royal Fusiliers were considering the best method of attacking this position, a Turkish battery, in position near the town of Krithia, opened fire and tore holes in the left wing of the British force. At the same time they were heavily counterattacked by a Turkish force coming from the east. Gradually the Royal Fusiliers were compelled to give ground. Two battalions of the Eighty-seventh Division were sent ashore and with these reenforcements the British again advanced, this time clearing Hill 114 of the enemy. There they joined hands with the First Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, and although all day long the Turks tried to break the union of the two forces, they did not succeed in doing so.

However, General Marshall's force was hard pressed. Once more the unceasing Turkish counterattacks drove them back to the very edge of the heights overlooking Beach X, where only the intense bombardment of the protecting warships saved them. General Marshall was wounded, but refused to relinquish his command, and a very large proportion of the total force was either killed or wounded in the day's fighting. When night fell the British troops held only half a mile of territory around their original landing place, with their right wing resting on Hill 114, linked up with the force from Beach W.

Here at Beach W, a mile and a half down the coast, midway between Tekke Burna and Hellas Burna, was being enacted a feat of arms which, in the opinion of competent military men, is fit to rank with the great military accomplishments of all time. In speaking of it subsequently Sir Ian Hamilton made use of the following terms:

"So strong, in fact, were the defenses of Beach W that the Turks may well have considered them impregnable, and it is my firm conviction that no finer feat of arms has ever been achieved by the British soldier—or any other soldier—than the storming of these trenches from open boats on the morning of April 25."

At Beach W the Turks, fully foreseeing a landing, had prepared as at no other point. The beach is in a wide bay and leads into a gully flanked on one side by the hills extending to Cape Tekke and, on the other side by the steep cliffs extending to Cape Hellas.

Every inch of the ground had been prepared against attack. Sea and land mines had been profusely laid, wire entanglements had been placed along the shore and stretching out into the water. Deep trenches had been dug on the heights and on the sides of the slopes while strong redoubts had been built at two dominating positions. Every bush and cover contained a sniper while larger covers concealed machine guns trained to sweep the beach and the slopes leading to the Turkish trenches.

As a defensive position Beach W was almost ideal. It had two weak points, however, which in the end turned the scales and made success possible for the attacking force. At either end of the bay were small rock positions from which it was possible to enfilade the elaborate system of defenses.

The landing party at Beach W consisted of the First Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, under command of Major Bishop. "It was," wrote Sir Ian Hamilton, "to the complete lack of the sense of danger or of fear of this daring battalion that we owed our astonishing success." After a preliminary bombardment by the supporting warships the men of the First Battalion, in thirty-two cutters drawn by eight picket boats, approached the shore. The Turks made no move until the men were in shallow water and were leaping out of the boats. Then they opened fire with a murderous torrent from artillery, machine guns, and rifles. The first line of the First Battalion went down to a man. The second never faltered, but came on bravely into the fire, striving desperately to cut the wire entanglements. So quickly did they fall that observers on the warships wondered why they were "resting" on the bullet swept shore instead of running to cover.

Rapidly the men from Lancashire worked. Finally a remnant of the battalion forced its way through the last line of wire and ran for shelter on the bush covered slopes. Almost at the same moment, detachments that had landed on the rocks at Cape Tekke and under Cape Hellas began to have an important effect upon the struggle. At the latter point, the Eighty-eighth Brigade, under Brigadier General Hare, clambered up the steep side of the cliffs, searched out the machine gun positions of the enemy and swept the ground clear with the bayonet. This and the work of the force at Cape Tekke eased the Turkish fire on the beach and, on the slopes of the Cape Tekke side of the ravine, the few remaining officers of the First Battalion were able to re-form the remnants of their force and advance upon Hill 114.

About nine o'clock reenforcements were landed, this time not on the exposed beach but under Cape Tekke, the heights of which were by now largely in the hands of the British troops. With the help of these fresh troops, three lines of Turkish trenches were carried. Brigadier General Hare was seriously wounded and his place was filled by Colonel Wolley-Dod, who was sent ashore with orders to organize a further advance at all speed. At this point the attacking force ran up against the Turkish redoubt at Hill 138.

The afternoon opened with an intense naval bombardment of the ground around Hill 138 and of that redoubt itself. At two o'clock the Fourth Battalion of the Worcesters was ordered to take the position by assault. Under Lieutenant Colonel D. E. Cayley, they advanced a considerable distance under rifle fire and charged up the heights with a cheer. The Turks fought bravely against a stronger force, but by four o'clock Hill 138 was in the hands of the Worcesters.

Less than a mile down the coast, almost to the old fort and village of Sedd-el-Bahr, was what was known as V Beach. There a landing in great force was attempted. Largely because of the scale of the operations, but also because of the difficulties and the accidents of warfare, this landing was made with great losses.

The beach and the shore in the immediate vicinity form a most regular amphitheatre of a radius of about 400 feet. The beach is about 10 yards wide and 350 to 400 feet long and it runs into a slightly concaved, grassy slope that rises gently to a height of a hundred feet. Little or no real cover was to be found on this slope and the defenders were able to sweep it from all angles with a devastating rain of all kinds of shells. Just at the edge of the strip of sand, however, was a continuous escarpment about four feet high, which afforded a cover in which troops once ashore might be re-formed. As a result of the early naval bombardment of the tip of the peninsula, much of the village of Sedd-el-Bahr and the fort and the barracks had been reduced to ruins. The ruins afforded, however, excellent cover for the Turkish troops and proved a serious obstacle to the advance of the British when they reached the shore.

In addition to the natural disadvantages under which the attacking party had to work, the Turks had constructed two lines of barbed wire obstacles—one at the edge of the beach and the second two-thirds of the way up to the top of the ridge. These two lines of barbed wire were more stoutly constructed than were any others with which the British had to contend. Just beyond the second obstacle the Turks had built their first line of trenches and beyond the ground was scored with innumerable covers for the defenders.