Phillip F. E. Schuler

It must be recognized that except for the 4th Infantry Brigade the offensive of the Australians was completed on the morning of the 7th. Part had succeeded—part had failed. Their further advance rested entirely on the success of the second phase of the great scheme, the assault of the Sari Bair ridge. This terrible task fell mostly on the New Zealanders, but partly, too, on the new British army and the Indian brigades. The Australians were the connecting link between this greater Anzac and Suvla Bay landing. When the time came, they joined in the general offensive on the crest of the Sari Bair ridge and the attempt to take Hill 971—Koja Chemen Tepe. As my story mainly rests with the Australians, if more details necessarily are given of their part in this action, it must not be considered as a slur on the brilliant achievements of the New Zealanders and Britishers. What fighting I did not see at close fighting quarters I learned from the officers of those splendid battalions, later.

The vital movement to extend the Anzac position, connecting it with Suvla Bay, enveloping and taking of the summit of the mass of hills that dominated the central part of the peninsula and the Narrows, was entrusted to the care of General Sir William Birdwood. He had prefaced it with the offensive from Anzac proper. Now, under Major-General Sir Alexander Godley, the attempt to sweep up the northern slopes was to be carried out by a mixed force of Australians, New Zealanders, British, and Indians, numbering in all some 12,000 men.

The complete capture of the Sari Bair ridge would have brought into action again the 1st Australian Division, whose left wing at Anzac might have been relied on to advance over Baby 700 and up to Battleship Hill. What is too often overlooked, or forgotten, is that the capture of the great Hill 971 was a separate operation, though a natural corollary to the holding of the ridge, as a deep ravine separated this peak from the Sari Bair ridge. From Hill 971 the northern slopes (called the Abdel Rahman Bair), ran back within a mile to the Bijuk Anafarta village. It was separated from the foothills that fell away to the sea by the Asma Dere. Therefore a column, it was hoped (of the British troops and the 4th Australian Brigade), would make good this ridge and advance alongside it to the main peak. The operations, owing to the nature of the ground, fell into two stages. The first was the advance over the foothills to the Sari Bair ridge, the landing at Suvla Bay and first advance. The second stage was the united effort to take the hill and main ridge. To foretell the conclusion—now alas, passed into history as a splendid failure—the second stage was only partly possible, because on the right, from the direction of Suvla Bay, the British attack never developed; that is to say, it never reached even the foot of the Abdel Rahman Bair.

I have been in the heart of all that mass and tangle of hills and ravines. The country resembled, on a less grand scale, that of the Buffalo Ranges of Victoria, or the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. It might be ideal bushranging country, but the worst possible for an army fighting its way forward to the heights; gullies and precipices barred the way. Even with expert guides, and maps compiled by the Turks themselves, which we captured and had copied, there were many battalions that lost their way, and only by dogged perseverance and extraordinary pluck did they extricate themselves and reach points of vantage from which they could link up their positions. I say this of all forces engaged, because I know that many miscalculations occurred even after three days of fighting as to the exact gullies in which the troops were that had linked up with the units holding "The Farm" and Rhododendron Ridge. Gullies were cut by creeks, hills divided by spurs. Into this tangle was first hurled an army of 12,000 men—mostly fine bushmen, it is true, used either to the gum forest of Australia and its wide expanses, or to the jungles of the tropics.

General Hamilton had accepted General Birdwood's plans, that there should be two covering columns to reach the two ridges that met at the Hill 971, almost at right angles (Sari Bair, running from west to east, and Abdel Rahman Bair, running nearly due north and south), and two assaulting columns to capture the positions.

General Hamilton sets forth the plan thus:—

The right covering force was to seize Table Top, as well as all other enemy positions commanding the foothills between the Chailak Dere and the Sazli Beit Dere ravines. If this enterprise succeeded, it would open up, at the same time interposing between, the right flank of the left covering force and the enemy holding the Sari Bair main ridge. This column was under Brigadier-General A. H. Russell, who had the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, the Otago Mounted Rifles Regiment, Colonel A. Bauchop; the Maori Contingent and New Zealand Field Troop.

The left covering force was to march northwards along the beach to seize a hill called Damakjelik Bair, some 1,400 yards north of Table Top. If successful, it would be able to hold out a hand to the 9th Corps as it landed south of Nibrunesi Point, whilst at the same time protecting the left flank of the left assaulting column against enemy troops from the Anafarta Valley during its climb up the Aghyl Dere ravine. Brigadier-General J. H. Travers commanded the column which consisted of headquarters 40th Brigade, half the 72nd Field Company, 4th Battalion South Wales Borderers, and 5th Battalion Wiltshire Regiment.

The right assaulting column was to move up the Chailak Dere and Sazli Beit Dere ravines to the storm of the ridge of Chunuk Bair.

The column was under Brigadier-General F. E. Johnston, commanding New Zealand Infantry Brigade, Indian Mountain Battery (less one section), one company New Zealand Engineers.

The left assaulting column was to work up the Aghyl Dere and prolong the line of the right assaulting column by storming Hill 305 (Koja Chemen Tepe), the summit of the whole range of hills. Brigadier-General (now Major-General) H. V. Cox was in command of the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade, 4th Australian Infantry Brigade; Brigadier-General Monash, Indian Mounted Battery (less one section), one company New Zealand Engineers.

It may be roughly estimated that there were 3,000 troops with each column. A divisional reserve was formed from the 6th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment and 8th Battalion Welsh Regiment (Pioneers), mustered at Chailak Dere, and the 39th Infantry Brigade and half 72nd Field Company at Aghyl Dere.

Old No. 3 Post was the first objective of that right covering force which General Birdwood had prepared, and No. 2 Post was its jumping-off place. You reached this outpost, either day or night, by travelling along the great sap that for two miles wound out from the heart of Anzac. All the troops that were to take part in this new attack had come from Anzac. That night they had marched out under the cloak of darkness across the broad open flats that reached from the foothills to the water's edge. At the post they found its garrison ready to move. Major-General Godley had his headquarters there already. Here, too, had been marshalled all available water-cans and ammunition supplies.

So the first dash into what was practically the unknown was to commence at 9.30 p.m. Just in front of No. 2 Post was Old No. 3 Post, a steep-sided position which the Turks had captured from us on 30th May. They had since strengthened it by massive woodworks, protecting the avenues of advance by great stretches of thick barbed-wire. Behind the post again was Table Top, very flat on the summit, and about 400 feet high. On either flank of these hills ran a gully. On the left Sazli Beit Dere, and on the right the Chailak Dere. Both entrances through the valleys so formed to the inner hills were dominated by Old No. 3 Post, a veritable fortress with its revetted earthworks and its naturally steep sides.

General Birdwood had planned a ruse to take this hill. Every night, just at the same time, the destroyer Colne bombarded the post. Earlier in the evening her rays had gone wandering round the hills, but always at 9 p.m. there was a steady streak of light fixed on Old No. 3 Post, and the 6-in. guns belted the position for ten minutes. There was then a pause, and the beams disappeared, only to reappear again with the shells at 9.20. The bombardment continued till 9.30 p.m. For weeks this operation had continued. The Turks, it was learned from deserters, had got into the habit of retiring to their tunnels and never worrying much about the bombardment. After it was all over the New Zealanders used to hear an old Turk (they saw him once and christened him "Achmet"), a wire-mender, who came along the front of the line to repair the damage. They would not shoot him, though an attempt was made to trap him one night.

On the evening of the 6th August the bombardment continued, as it had every night for weeks, but under the noise of it, the Auckland Mounted Rifles Regiment, under Lieut.-Colonel Mackesy, stole from the trenches down into the gully and up to the lip of the Turkish trenches on the outpost. As the bombardment ceased, they rushed into the trenches without firing a shot, and bayoneted or bombed the astonished enemy. Many of the Turks were found to have removed their boots and coats and were resting. Seventy were captured. It took several hours in the darkness to clear the hill and the trenches that ran down into the gullies; the Turks gathered in small parties, resisting.

Meanwhile the attack on the left had been launched under the gallant leadership of Lieut.-Colonel Bauchop against the hill that bore his name. It had fallen to the Otagos to clear this hill and the Chailak Dere. By one o'clock Bauchop's Hill had been stormed and won. The enemy, surprised, made a stout resistance, and it was some time before the machine guns, cunningly concealed in this hill, were located. Colonel Bauchop fell mortally wounded in this assault. The New Zealanders worked with the bayonet round and over the hill, never firing a shot until they found their further progress barred by a terrible wire entanglement and trench that the Turks had placed across the mouth of the gully, which effectively sealed it. It was a party of New Zealand Engineers, under Captain Shera, with Maories in support, who broke a way through and left the path clear for the assaulting columns, by this time following.

Simultaneously, to the east, on the right of this attacking party, a violent, almost silent struggle for the possession of Table Top was also in progress. The destroyers had been bombarding the hill, which had now to be carried at the point of the bayonet by the dismounted mounted brigades of General Russell. The Canterbury men led the attack with bayonet and bomb. Their magazines were empty, under orders. For the first hours of this hill-fight all was silence. In the gullies and amongst the wooded spurs of the hills, parties of Turkish patrols were bayoneted and gave no alarm. Then from the north echoed the cheers of the Maories as they took Bauchop's Hill. It was caught up by the Canterbury men, now on Table Top. It was flung up to the lower slopes of the Rhododendron ridge, where the Turks still were. It was the battle-cry for the assaulting columns, which were advancing now through these protecting screens to the attack on the main ridge and on 971.

The 4th Australian Brigade, under General Monash, formed the head of the assaulting column that went out from the left, followed by General Cox's Indian Brigade—the whole command under General Cox. Already the way here had been blazed by the left covering force, under Brigadier-General Travers, consisting of South Wales Borderers and Wiltshires, who had marched out swiftly to the Damakjelik Bair—a hill that guarded the entrance to the Aghyl Dere, up which the left assaulting column of General Cox had to turn. The Turks at eleven o'clock still kept up a flanking fire from the northern slopes of Bauchop's Hill, but gradually they were driven off, and when the new columns arrived at this point—late, it is true—it was only to find isolated and terrified parties of Turks sniping from different points as they were driven back and back. The full story of this advance may be briefly told.

It was while the attention of the Turks was riveted on the fall of their trenches along the plateau at Anzac, that the Australian 4th Infantry Brigade had left Rest Gully, below the Sphinx Rock, just on the left of Anzac (where it had been for the past ten weeks), and in silence made for the seashore, actually traversing under a torrent of shell fire part of the same ground and foreshore where the troops had landed first on the peninsula. It was a start warranted to depress more seasoned troops than these browned Australians, for shrapnel fell over them, while shells skimmed above their heads on their way to the beach. But they pushed steadily on. Fortunately the casualties were light. In the far distance, from the hills on their right, came the sound of the clatter of rifles. That was the attack on No. 3 Post, for, as the troops watched the three beams of the destroyers' searchlights playing on the ridges, they saw one suddenly turned up into the sky and the noise of the ship's guns died away. The beam was the signal for attack.

Immediately the taking of the foothills by the New Zealanders was assured, the way was clear for the 4th Infantry Brigade, under Brigadier-General Monash, to advance from the outskirts of our furthermost outpost line. It was hardly a week since I had been to the edge of our flank and looked across the flats and ploughed lands, over which then it would have been instant death to have advanced. Now that the Turks had been to some extent cleared from the hills on the right, the column, with one flank exposed to the hills and the other on the seashore, set out, in close formation, from under cover of our outposts. The column worked in towards some raised land that made a sort of road running round the foot of the hills, and met with no resistance. But there was a considerable amount of shrapnel being thrown over the column, and the ranks were thinned. A mile from our outposts the brigade swung round into a gully called the Aghyl Dere, and was at once met by a hot rifle fire from the Turks, who had taken up positions behind hastily thrown-up ramparts in the gully. The nature of the country made it easy to defend the valley. General Monash found it necessary to spread out a screen. It was composed of the 15th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Cannan. The advance was constantly checked by the narrowness of the defiles through which the troops had to pass. At the head of the column was a Greek, and also a Turkish interpreter.

There were evidences of considerable occupation at some time by the Turks, for a series of mia mias were found in the gully. But the enemy were hastily fleeing before the advancing Australian Brigade. At the junction of the gully with a branch that ran east towards the slopes of the main ridge, there came a serious halt. Already the leading battalion, the 13th, had deployed and was scouring a grassy plain out to the left—that is, the north. It was by this time eleven o'clock, and absence of any idea of the numbers of the enemy, now at bay, rendered the position critical. General Cox, with the Indian troops, had deployed to the right and was making as rapidly as possible for the slopes of the main ridge on the sector allotted to them. At this confluence of the two streams it was decided by General Monash that the 13th and 14th Battalions of the 4th Brigade, under Lieut.-Colonel Burnage and Major Rankine respectively, should be turned to the north to join up with the British force, who were holding the hills overlooking the Chocolate Hills and Anafarta Valley, the line being extended as the battalions advanced and covered a wider front. With the 15th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Cannan, and the 16th, under Lieut.-Colonel Pope, General Monash pushed on. It was soon evident that the opposition here met was the screen the Turks had placed to enable them to get away two field guns (they were the "75's" which had given so much trouble), for the emplacements were soon discovered. The advance had been a series of rushes rather than a steady march forward.

I have seen no country that more resembled the Australian bush. The bushes grew very tall in the creek-bed. The whole battle was a running fight right up to the head of the dere, where, rather than lose touch with the British on his left, General Monash halted his troops. Dawn was just appearing in the sky, and as the men reached the fringe of the foothills there lay between them and the main ridge only a broad valley and a series of smaller knolls. On this ridge, above the Asma Dere, they therefore entrenched. Knowing that their lives depended on their speed, the men dug rapidly, and when I met the brigade, just after ten o'clock on the 7th, the reports came back that the fire-trenches were completed and, except for shrapnel and sniping, the enemy had shown no signs of a counter-attack.

It is now necessary to trace the events on the right, where the New Zealand Infantry, at midnight, had started on the second great phase of this night's venture—the storming of the Chunak Bair ridge. From the Table Top to the Rhododendron spur ran a thin razor-back ridge and a communication trench. The Turks had fled along this. The cheers of the army forging its way into the hills, had roused the Turks. Our infantry, in four columns, were advancing to the assault. General Monash's progress I have already described. The Indian troops of the 29th Brigade (Sikhs and Gurkhas) were on his right, having turned east where the Aghyl Dere forked, and now were approaching the foot of the main ridge, making for the hills called "Q." This point, in the Sari Bair ridge, was immediately to the south of the dominating peak—Koja Chemen Tepe. They held a ridge at dawn just west of "the Farm" that nestled in a shoulder of the main ridge immediately below Chunak Bair summit.

On the right the Otago and Canterbury Infantry Battalions were forcing their way up to the Rhododendron ridge. They had fought up the thickly wooded valley of the Sazli Beit, deploying men to the right and left to clear Turks from knolls, where they gathered to impede the progress of the army. Shrapnel now began to burst over the advancing companies as the enemy gained knowledge of the assault. The din of battle grew more awful as the morning came. From Anzac there resounded the fearful crashing of the bombardment of the Turkish trenches on Battleship Hill and the eastern slopes of the main ridge and the bomb battle at Lone Pine. The Light Horse at 4.30 had charged across the Nek and perished. Two battalions of New Zealanders met on the northern slopes of the Rhododendron ridge, and gathered in a depression quite well distinguishable from the No. 2 Post, and which was promptly termed the "Mustard Plaster." It was the one cramped position that the Turkish guns could not reach, where the troops were now digging in along the edge of the offshoot of the main ridge. Shrapnel, in white woolly balls, began to burst over the halted column. The 10th Gurkhas had advanced to within 300 yards of the crest of the ridge, about the vicinity of the Farm, while the 5th and 6th Gurkhas had fought their way on to the ridge farther to the north. There they had linked up with the 14th Sikhs on the right, who were in touch with the Australians, now brought to a standstill on the ridge above the Asma Dere.

Amongst the hills, the New Zealanders cleared the Turks from their bivouacs. Either they were bayoneted, or fled, or else surrendered. The Otagos had taken 250 prisoners before dawn. It was a curious incident, for the Turks piled their arms, cheered, and willingly left the fight. They were captured on Destroyer Hill, which was one of the knolls that had been passed in the first onward rush and left uncleared. The Canterbury Battalion, advancing up a southern gully, and the Otago Battalion, in the northern direction, swept the few remaining Turks before them, and met on the Rhododendron spur at seven o'clock. Above them lay the rugged line of Chunak Bair, 850 feet high, and just 200 feet higher than the position they held, and still some 400 yards away. This Rhododendron spur cut into the main ridge along a narrow neck. Turkish machine guns and enemy trenches, dug along the top of the crest of Sari Bair, commanded that spot. The New Zealanders were compelled to dig their trenches just below the edge of the Rhododendron spur. In support they had some light mountain batteries and machine guns, under Major Wallingford.

Having reached so near to victory early on this first morning (the 7th), they were ordered to advance again, first at 9.30 a.m. and then again at eleven o'clock, when a general assault by all the forces along the ridge took place. It was in vain that efforts were made to advance up the slopes of those terrible hills. But the Auckland Battalion gallantly charged across the bridge of land that linked the spur with the main ridge below, and to the south of Chunak Bair. It was only a narrow neck of some 30 yards wide. It was raked by Turkish fire. Up the bushy slope scrambled the gallant New Zealanders. They were checked at noon 200 yards from the crest of the ridge by a fearful musketry fire. They dug in.

At dawn, from the hills, I watched the Suvla Bay Landing spread out in a magnificent panorama before me. I saw the sea, usually just specked with a few small trawlers and a monitor or destroyer, covered with warships and transports and craft of all descriptions. I discerned through the pale morning light the barges and boats, close inshore, discharging troops round the Suvla Bay and Nebrunesi Point. As the sun mounted over the crest of Hill 971, the rays caught the rigging and masts and brasswork of the ships, and they shone and reflected lights towards the fleeing Turks. I saw, too, the British troops pouring over the hills immediately surrounding the Salt Lake. The warships were firing steadily, and, when there was light enough, the observation balloon rose steadily, and stayed in the sky, until attacked by a hostile aeroplane. But, as if anticipating this event, our aeroplanes darted up, and the Taube fled precipitously, and descended in a terrific volplane down behind the high hills. The sea was alive with small pinnaces and boats from the ships. Hospital ships lay in a long line from Gaba Tepe to Suvla Bay. I counted six of them, and they were coming and going all day.

So during the rest of the day the two assaulting columns clung to what they had won—a great gain of 2 miles on the left of Anzac—and the new base at Suvla Bay was secured. But, while the first part of the British 9th Army Corps plans had been successful, and the Navy had achieved another magnificent feat in landing the troops, stores, water, and munitions round the shores of Suvla Bay, the newly landed army under Lieut.-General Stopford were held back all that long day on the very fringe of Salt Lake. I remember how anxiously from the various commanding positions we had gained we watched for the signs of the advance of that British column. Our line bent back sharply to the Damakjelik Hills, that had been captured early the previous night. I am not in a position to explain the delays that occurred on the beach round Nebrunesi Point. Turkish officers have stated how the first reports from their outposts at Suvla Bay, believed the landing to be only a feint. Also how two regiments of gendarmes had held back, with some few machine guns, the British Divisions advancing towards the Chocolate Hills (the first of the series of hills that ran right into Buyak Anafarta), the capture of which was so urgently needed by us to control the attack on the Abdel Rahman Bair ridge, and to protect and support the attack on the main peak, Hill 971.

The great offensive had been auspiciously launched; it had gone well till dawn, in spite of the terrible difficulties of the maze of hills that clustered beneath the Sari Bair ridge. The new expedition had been landed, and had been left an open door to pass through (if it had but had the "punch") into the heart of the Turkish main positions. It is not too much to say that the Turks were thoroughly alarmed, surprised, and bewildered; they knew not now at which spot the great attack was to come. They had massed all their main forces at Cape Helles for an offensive there. Their supports had been hurried up to Anzac. Their reserves were still only on their way up the peninsula, coming from Gallipoli to Suvla Bay. Ignorant of the impending landing, the enemy dashed battalion after battalion against the captured Lone Pine; they recoiled before the stubborn and gallant resistance of its garrison. But by the next dawn they had recovered from the shock, and their resistance had grown powerful. Even then it was not too late. General Hamilton anxiously hastened the final assault.