The Turks' strongest attack of the campaign was made in the middle of May, when they attempted an assault all along the Anzac line. Both sides had had time to reorganize, and both had received reinforcements. The Turks probably had 35,000 men in their trenches at this time, while the Australians had 30,000. During the first fortnight of the month the enemy had brought up guns of bigger calibre, and had placed in the Olive Grove, from which they could enfilade the beach from the east, a six-gun battery which even the warships and the Australian gunners were unable to completely silence. The Allies had aeroplanes and captive balloons spotting for them, and yet the Turkish batteries, skilfully concealed, managed to continue shelling the beach and the incoming barges. Very little notice was taken by the Navy of this shelling, and very soon, too, the troops regarded it as the natural thing. What they would have felt like, these Australians, had they been fighting in France, where, for certain periods, they would be relieved and taken from under constant shell fire, it is not easy to say. The strain wore them down certainly, but it never affected the army nerves or its heart or its determination.

Nevertheless, May was a sad month for the troops, though it also brought later a chance of the Turks being taught a lesson. On Saturday, 15th May, Major-General Bridges, the leader of the 1st Division, fell mortally wounded. It had often been remarked by the troops at Anzac that their General was absolutely careless of his own safety. He was daily round the trenches, a rather glum, silent man, but keenly observant, and quickly able to draw from his officers all the points of information he required. Often he recklessly exposed himself to gain a view of the Turkish positions, despite the remonstrances of his Staff. As time wore on he took heed, and on the morning when he fell had been more than usually careful. General Bridges had left Anzac Headquarters, near the beach, at about 9.30, and was going up Shrapnel Gully, and at this time that terrible gully had no secret sap through which one might pass with comparative safety from snipers' bullets coming from the head of the gully. It was a matter of running, from sandbag traverse to sandbag traverse, a gauntlet of lead, up the bed of the dry gully.

General Bridges had just passed a dressing-station dug into the side of the hill, and had received a warning from the stretcher-bearers standing round the entrance. "You had better run across here, sir," they told him, "as the Turks are pretty lively to-day." He did, and reached a further traverse, where he stood near another dressing-station smoking a cigarette. "Well," he said to his Staff officer, after a few minutes, "we must make another run for it." He ran round the corner of the traverse and through the thick scrub. Before he could reach the next cover, not many yards away, he was struck by a bullet and lay prone. It is believed that the sniper at the head of the gully was waiting and watching that morning, and had already inflicted a number of casualties. Medical attention was immediately available. A doctor at the adjacent dressing-station found that the femoral artery in the thigh had been severed. The bullet, instead of merely piercing the leg, had entered sideways and torn a way through. Only for the fact that skilled attention was so prompt, General Bridges must have died within a few minutes. The wound was plugged. Taken to the dressing-station, the General's first words were, "Don't carry me down; I don't want any of your fellows to run into danger." Seeing the stretcher case, the Turks did not fire on the party that now made its way to the beach, all traffic being stopped along the track. The dying leader was immediately taken off to a hospital ship, but his condition was critical. Before the ship left his beloved Anzac, his last words to an officer, who had been with him from the first, were, "Anyhow, I have commanded an Australian Division for nine months."

General Bridges died four days later on his way to Alexandria. It was very typical, that last sentence of the man. His whole heart and soul and energies had been devoted to planning the efficiency of the 1st Division. A born organizer, a fine tactician, he was a lone, stern figure that inspired a great confidence in his men. His judgment in the field had proved almost unfailing. Unsparing to himself, he demanded, and obtained, the best in those he commanded. He was one of the finest leaders on Gallipoli, and in him General Hamilton and Lieut.-General Birdwood reposed the highest confidence.

General Birdwood, cabling from Army Corps headquarters to the Governor-General of Australia, said:—

The Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Ian Hamilton, cabled on 20th May:—

It is this Turkish attack that I now shall describe, and the nature of the revenge. Brigadier-General Walker, who had been commanding the 1st Infantry Brigade since the death of Colonel McLaurin, succeeded to the immediate command of the Division.

The new Turkish batteries employed at this time contained some 6-inch guns, and it is believed that the Goeben or one of the cruisers belonging to the Turks had come down from Constantinople and was stationed, just parallel to Bogali, in the Straits. Enemy warships, it is believed, were able to throw shells accurately into the heart of our position, searching for the guns. By the 18th May the Turks had an 11-in. gun, some 8-in., and a number of 4·7-in. guns trained on Anzac. With the support of these, and with the small mountain and field pieces that they had been using before, it has been since learned, they felt that they could safely attack. Their offensive was fixed for the 19th May. Preliminary bombardments began on the evening before, 18th, and were the fiercest that had yet been experienced. The hills echoed with the chaotic explosions of the bursting of heavy shells. One of the Australian 18-pounders was knocked out completely, and other shells reached the gun-pits; but the gunners stuck to their posts and replied effectively to this Turkish bombardment. It was reported that evening from aeroplane reconnaissances that the Turks had been seen landing a new Division at the Straits, and that they were marching to the support of the Anzac troops. Headquarters were located at Bogali. At once the warships commenced a bombardment of the main road leading along the side of the hills to Krithia village, where troops could be seen moving. They followed them up and shelled the general Turkish Staff out of a village midway between Kelid Bahr and Krithia.

Attacks at Anzac were always determined by the time at which the moon sank. I can remember on one occasion waiting night after night in the trenches, when the Turks were supposed to be about to attack, until the moon would sink. We would rouse-up and watch its departing sickly yellow circle dip behind the hills of Troy, and then turn towards the Turkish trenches, which we could see occasionally spitting fire, and wait for the general fusillade to open. Now, on the 18th the moon dipped down at a little before midnight, and just as the midnight hours passed, from the centre of the line round Quinn's Post arose the clatter of Turkish bombs. In the closely wedged trenches the Australians answered this attack with similar missiles, and for a while a little "bomb party," as it was called by the troops, began. From an intermittent rifle fire the sound of the sharp crackle of rifles intensified and extended from end to end of the Turkish lines. It was as if thousands of typewriters, the noise of their working increased a thousandfold, had begun to work. Every second the racket grew; in less than two minutes the gullies were torrents of singing lead, while the bullets could be heard everywhere whizzing through the bushes. The rapid beat of the machine guns began, their pellets thudding against the sandbag parapets. Bombs, bursting like the roar of water that had broken the banks of dams, drowned the general clatter. Immense "football bombs" (as the troops termed them) they were, that wrought awful havoc and formed huge craters. For half an hour the fury lasted. Then it died down, much as violent storms do, arising suddenly, and departing by fading away in a curiously short, sharp burst of firing. Again the sudden rapid fire arose and then again the splutter of ceasing shots. Bombing had stopped.

It is hard to know what the reason of the Turk was for this "bluff," for it was such, for no attack followed. It was not exactly an unusual incident in itself, but, nevertheless, always had the effect of rousing up the line and the troops manning the trenches. Probably the Turks calculated that we would be led to believe that the whole show was over for that night, and consequently without further bombardment they began a few hours later their extended attack.

Just in the hour preceding dawn—about 3.30 the time is given—the Turks began silently and stealthily to approach the trenches. Without a sound they came, in large and small bodies, up the gullies, working by the help of a marching tape that would keep them together. They approached to within, in some cases, 30 or 40 yards of our trenches. At that time coloured rocket shells were not so much used as they were later; no coloured green and red lights that would burn for some minutes, lit up any section of the line. But the sentries on the parapets suddenly began to detect, even in the blackness of the night preceding dawn, crawling figures. The Turk was always a good scout, and would get right under the parapets of our trenches almost undetected. But when he came to facing the Australian bayonet and jumping down into the trenches it was a different matter altogether. Now, it was just at the centre of the right of the position, at the point where the 1st Brigade and the 1st Battalion of that brigade held the line, that the alarm first was given. The sentries shot down the advancing figures. Immediately others rose up quickly and rushed silently at the trenches. A few managed to jump across the parapets and down into the trenches. It is a brave man indeed who will do such an act.

The attack was launched. Right down the Australian line now spread the order for rapid fire, for the Turks could be seen and heard calling "Allah! Allah!" They came in great numbers, dashing forward in the already coming dawn, for in the sky behind them the sun would rise, and now already its faintest streaks were appearing, casting an opaque tinge in the heavens. Gallantly as the Turks charged, the Australians stood magnificently steady, and fired steadily into the masses of moving silhouetted figures. It was "terrible, cold-blooded murder," as one of the defenders described it to me later. "They were plucky enough, but they never had a dog's chance."

Now in a few places the Turks did reach our trenches, but they found themselves trapped, and the few who escaped with their lives, surrendered. Across the Poppyfield the Turks had pressed hardest, but they were thrust back and back. Next morning, when the dawn came, their bodies could be seen lying in heaps on the slopes. It was as if the men had been mown down in lines.

While the attacks were developing against the centre of the right of the line—company after company and battalion after battalion were sent on by the Turks in their endeavours to push the Australians off the peninsula—there began fierce fighting on the extreme right, on the left, and at the apex of the position at the head of Monash Gully. It was a desperate enough position, for the Turks were not more than 10 or 20 yards away in places. Our machine guns ripped along their parapets; when one gun ceased, to fix in its jaws a new belt, another took on the fire; so the noise was insistent, and the Turks, yelling "Allah! Allah!" stumbled forward a few paces and were mown down, but never were able to advance to the trenches. Far into the morning the attacks continued. Mostly they were short rushes, opposed by terrific bursts of fire, bombs hurled into the advancing mass; a check and then a pause. As the enemy were still advancing, only at isolated points could their machine guns reply or rifles be fired. That there were some enemy bullets did not affect the troops, who regarded it as too good an opportunity to miss. The Australians' sporting instincts were roused, and at many points the men could be seen sitting on the parapets of the trenches, calmly picking off the Turks as they came up, working their bolts, loading, furiously. This was the way in which the few casualties that did occur (100 killed and 500 wounded) were sustained. It was a bloodless victory, if ever there has been one.

Once a German Albatross aeroplane had come sailing over the position at a very high altitude, the Turks must have known that their chances of success were gone. They commenced to shell the shipping off the beaches, in the hope that any reinforcements that might be arriving might be sunk, but they were not even successful in this. Our artillery had the range to a few yards, and as the Turks left their trenches (though only so short a distance away) the shrapnel swept along their parapets, and they were shot down in rows. It is calculated that 3,000 Turks perished in that attack. Some make the estimate higher, and there is reason to believe that they may be right. The wounded numbered nearly 15,000. It was their one and only general attack. It failed hopelessly. It was never repeated.

So horrible had the battlefield become, strewn with Turkish dead, that the enemy sued for an armistice. On the day succeeding the engagement and the repulse of the Turks, towards dusk white flags and the red crescents began to be hoisted all along the line. Now of the Turks and their flags of truce something had already been learned down on the banks of the Canal. On the other hand, in the evacuation of wounded from Gaba Tepe, when the attacking parties had failed to get a foothold on the narrow beach, and had been forced to retire leaving their wounded still on the shore, those soldiers were tended by the Turkish doctors. Their subsequent evacuation by the Navy under the Red Cross flag was accurately observed by the enemy. But that did not prevent this "new move" being regarded with some caution. It was between five and six o'clock that in the centre of the right of the line a Turkish Staff officer, two medical officers, and a company commander came out of their trenches—all firing having ceased, and by arrangement through an interpreter who had called across from our own to the enemy trenches during the day—and met Major-General H. B. Walker, who was commanding the 1st Division, on the neutral ground between the trenches. It was stated by the Staff officer that he had been instructed to arrange a suspension of arms in order that the dead between the lines might be buried and the wounded tended and removed. The position was, to say the least, a delicate one. The officer carried no written credentials. General Hamilton's dispatches convey the subsequent proceedings as they were viewed at the time by most of the leaders at Anzac:—

Negotiations were again opened up by the Turks during the morning of the 22nd. It must be recollected that by now the battlefields had been three weeks fought over, and many Australians as well as Turks who had perished in those first awful days, still lay unburied where they had fallen. The stench of decaying flesh threatened terrible calamity to both armies. For two days the Turkish dead in thousands lay rotting in the sun, their swollen corpses in some places on our very parapets. General Hamilton accordingly dispatched his Chief of Staff, Major-General W. P. Braithwaite, during the morning of the 22nd, to assist General Birdwood in coming to terms with an envoy that was to be sent by Essad Pasha, commanding at that time a section of the Turkish forces. Accordingly, on the afternoon of the 22nd an officer rode in from the extreme right of their line, across the plain that dipped down to the sea between the headland of Gaba Tepe and the last knoll of our position. He carried a white flag of truce. It was an impressive moment. He was beautifully mounted, and his uniform was a mass of gold lace. He was met by Staff officers from the Australian Army Corps. Now, coming to the wire entanglements that had been made across the beach—the visiting officer had already been blindfolded—it was a matter of doubt for a moment how he was to be taken across within the Anzac lines. A solution was gained when four Australians stripped off their uniforms and, placing the officer on a stretcher, bore the Turk round through the water to the other side. There he remounted his horse, and was escorted along the beach to the prepared dugout, where he met in consultation General Braithwaite and representatives of the Australian and New Zealand Corps, with interpreters. It took two days to arrange the details of the armistice, and eventually the terms were satisfactorily agreed on, written, and signed in duplicate by both army leaders.

On the 24th May—Empire Day, as Australians know it—the armistice was begun at eight o'clock, and lasted till five o'clock in the evening. Some of its features are interesting, gruesome as the object was. Burial parties were selected from each side. Groups of selected officers left the trenches and started to define with white flags the lines of demarcation. It had been decided there should be a central zone where the men from the two sides might work together—a narrow strip it was, too. The Turks were not to venture into what might be termed "our territory," that varied in width according to the distances the trenches were apart, and the Australians were not to venture into the enemy's. Orders were issued that there was to be no firing anywhere along the line. Arms were to be collected and handed over to the respective armies to which they belonged, minus the rifle bolts. No field-glasses were to be used, and the men were to keep down in the trenches and not look over the parapets.

Now one of the disadvantages of the armistice, from the Australians' point of view, was that the topographical features of the position enabled any of the Turks who might approach within a certain distance to look down into the heart of the Anzac position (that was, into their own gullies), but also into gullies that now contained the Australians' reserve trenches and bivouacs, and where the troops were sheltered and stores placed. It seems very probable that the enemy realized this advantage, however slight. I do not think they were able to gain much. Nevertheless, in the interests of the health of all at Anzac, it was essential that the armistice should be arranged. So the party of the armistice went carefully round the 2-mile front of the position, moving the flags a little nearer the Turkish lines here, there, nearer the Australian. Following these slowly worked the burial parties, all wearing white armlets—doctors and padres.

Under guise of a sergeant of the Red Crescent walked General Liman von Sanders, the German leader against Anzac, and he mixed with the burial parties. It was a misty and wet morning, and every one wore greatcoats and helmets that were sufficient cloak to any identity. All day the parties worked, collecting the identity discs of many gallant lads whose fate had been uncertain, men whose mouldering bodies had been seen lying between the trenches. They were buried in huge open trenches, often alongside their fallen foe, as often it was impossible, owing to the condition of the bodies, to remove them to the Turkish burial-grounds. Once some firing began on the right, where it was alleged some parties were digging firing trenches, but it was hushed, and I have never been able to find an exact and official statement of this.

Some of the Turks who were directing operations mingled with our men; they spoke perfect English. By judicious handing out of cigarettes they sought to discover as much as they dared or as much as they might be told. Brigadier-General G. J. Johnston (Artillery officer) told me an amusing interview he had with a Turkish officer who asked him about the number of men Australia was sending to the war. The Gunner replied, "Five times as many thousands as had been already landed, while hundreds of thousands more were ready." Another conversation shows very clearly the absence of bitterness on one side or the other. It concerned the meeting of two men who exchanged cards, while the Turk told (one suspects with a cynical smile) of many haunts of pleasure and amusement in Constantinople where the Australian could amuse himself when he came. I do not wish to convey that the Turks believed that they would be beaten, but they were not hated enemies of the Australians, and on this, as on other occasions, they played the game. Over 3,000 of their dead were buried that day. They lay in heaps; they sprawled, swelled and stark, in rows, linked together by the guiding ropes which they had clung to. Many were lying just above the Turkish parapets, where our machine guns had mowed them down as they left their trenches. And these the Turks themselves just barely covered, as was their custom in burying their dead.

Chaplains Merrington and Dexter both held short services over the graves of the fallen in the few hollows near Quinn's Post and other points farther south. A cairn of stones was left to mark the spot on which some day a greater memorial may be raised; down in the gullies rough wooden crosses mark other graves.

Gradually, after 3 p.m., the parties withdrew from their solemn task, and as the last white flag was struck and the parties retreated into their own trenches, the snip, snip, zip, zip, and crack of the bullets and boom of the bombs began again, and never ceased till the last shot was fired on the peninsula.