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CHAPTER XV
THE GREAT NIGHT MARCH
It is now time to follow the fortunes of the 4th Brigade of Australian Infantry who, under General Monash, had massed at Outpost No. 2 on the night of August 6. Their mission was to cross the two gullies up which the New Zealanders had charged to the capture of Chunuk Bair, and to storm a third and more northerly gully, known as the Aghyl Dere. The upper portion of this gully leads to the slopes of the height of Koja Chemen, the highest point of the mountain mass of Sari Bair. Its crest is 971 feet above sea level, and is marked on the maps as Hill 971.
Their line of march lay north-east, through unknown country that was badly broken by gullies and steep hills. It took them over part of the open plain which lay between Sari Bair and Suvla Bay, an agricultural plain comparatively flat and clear, where the Australasians had watched the Turkish peasants getting in their crops through the month of July.
It was the individual resource and confidence of each unit of these Colonial troops which permitted this difficult night march to be accomplished successfully. The task of co-operation set to the newly landed troops at Suvla Bay was by no means so difficult. Without intending any disparagement of these forces, it has to be said that if they had displayed the initiative and resource of their more seasoned Colonial comrades, a more successful outcome of these operations could surely have been recorded.
The plan adopted by the Australians was beautiful in its simplicity, and in the full reliance placed upon each individual man. The officers showed the non-commissioned men their maps of the unknown country through which the night march was to be made; and the non-coms, in their turn explained to each man the object of the march, and the nature of the chief obstacles marked on the maps.
When the word to advance was given, the men simply melted away into the darkness, and without any noise made their way towards the goal. Sometimes two or three pressed forward silently together; more often the fellows made their way alone. The most impressive part of that advance was its noiselessness. Now and then the enemy would turn their guns down the gullies up which the advance was being made, and then each man found cover as best he could, and waited until he thought it safe to pursue his onward way.
The net result of these tactics was that a surprisingly large percentage of the men reached their objective unharmed. Where opposition had to be overcome, the men massed silently in the darkness, and charged at the word of their officers. The terror inspired among the Turks by these midnight charges, coming suddenly out of the silent darkness, has been testified by the prisoners taken.
Thus the 4th Brigade reached its first objective after the wonderful night march; but the expected supports were not forthcoming. During the day that followed, the enemy appeared in great force, and there was some stiff fighting. The 13th Battalion captured the emplacement of a 75-gun, which had worked great havoc during the preceding six weeks in the Australasian trenches. The 15th Battalion saw the gun disappearing round one long bend of a valley, as they emerged from the scrub at the elbow below. A few shots were fired at it, but the chance was lost, by at most two minutes.
The 14th Battalion captured a Turkish bakery, and a Turkish major in charge of it; also a telephone exchange and a very sullen German lieutenant. Later in the day the 16th Battalion encountered a strong force of the enemy, very skilfully posted, and suffered very severe losses.
On August 7 a fresh advance was made from the Aghyl Dere to a gully still further north; the Asmak Dere. As they advanced they drove the enemy back, and got into touch with a regiment of Sikhs from Suvla Bay. So reinforced they made an attack upon the big hill, but found that by this time the Turks had come up from further south. The effect of the frontal attacks from the old Anzac line had expended itself, and the enemy had moved north in force. It is worthy of mention that the official estimate of the total number of Turks mustered to the defence of Sari Bair places it at 75,000. They were certainly strong enough to check the attack on Hill 971 without much difficulty.
In the evening of the same day (August 7) the 4th Brigade attacked the height of Abduo Rahman Bair, running out from Koja Chemen to the north, and met a perfect hell of machine-gun fire. In less than an hour's fighting they lost 1,000 men, and were nearly surrounded. They managed to withdraw to their original positions, and spent the night resisting a series of vicious attacks from the intrepid enemy. In this fighting they inflicted severe loss, without budging one foot from the line they had taken up.
From this point, slightly south of the hill known as Kaiajik Aghala, or Hill 60, they saw the loss of the crest of Chunuk Bair, and the great slaughter of Turks that followed. And there they remained for the next fortnight, while the line across the valley which led to the village of Biyuk Anafarta was being strengthened. On August 21 it was deemed that the time had come for an attack upon Hill 60 itself, and in this the 4th Brigade participated.
They were joined by General Russell and his New Zealanders, and by the 18th Battalion of Australian Infantry, who had landed on the preceding day as the advance guard of the Second Division of the A.I.F. The fighting was desperate and the newcomers suffered most severely in their baptism of fire. In the end the capture of Hill 60 had to be postponed.
But on August 27 the attack was renewed, this time with success. The operations are clearly told in the official dispatch: —
"The conduct of the attack was again entrusted to Major-General Cox, at whose disposal were placed detachments from the 4th and 5th Australian Brigades, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, and the 5th Connaught Rangers. The advance was timed to take place at 5 p.m. on August 27, after the heaviest artillery bombardment we could afford. This bombardment seemed effective; but the moment the assailants broke cover they were greeted by an exceeding hot fire from the enemy field-guns, rifles, and machine-guns, followed after a brief interval by a shower of heavy shell, some of which, most happily, pitched into the trenches of the Turks. On the right the detachment from the 4th and 5th Australian Brigades could make no headway against a battery of machine-guns which confronted them. In the centre the New Zealanders made a most determined onslaught, and carried one side of the topmost knoll. Hand-to-hand fighting continued here till 9.30 p.m., when it was reported that nine-tenths of the summit had been gained.
"On the left the 250 men of the 5th Connaught Rangers excited the admiration of all beholders by the swiftness and cohesion of their charge. In five minutes they had carried their objective, the northern Turkish communications, when they at once set to and began a lively bomb-fight along the trenches against strong parties which came hurrying up from the enemy supports and afterwards from their reserves. At midnight fresh troops were to have strengthened our grip upon the hill, but before that hour the Irishmen had been out-bombed, and the 9th Australian Light Horse, who had made a most plucky attempt to recapture the lost communication trench, had been repulsed. Luckily, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles refused to recognize that they were worsted. Nothing would shift them. All that night and all next day, through bombing, bayonet charges, musketry, shrapnel, and heavy shell, they hung on to their 150 yards of trench. At 1 a.m. on August 29 the 10th Light Horse made another attack on the lost communication trenches to the left, carried them, and finally held them. This gave us complete command of the underfeature, an outlook over the Anafarta Sagir valley, and safer lateral communications between Anzac and Suvla Bay.
"Our casualties in this hotly contested affair amounted to 1,000. The Turks lost out of all proportion more. Their line of retreat was commanded from our Kaiajik Dere trenches, whence our observers were able to direct artillery fire equally upon their fugitives and their reinforcements. The same observers estimated that the Turkish casualties as no less than 5,000. Three Turkish machine-guns and forty-six prisoners were taken, as well as three trench mortars, 300 Turkish rifles, 60,000 rounds of ammunition, and 500 bombs. Four hundred acres were added to the territories of Anzac. Major-General Cox showed his usual forethought and wisdom. Brigadier-General Russell fought his men splendidly."
This was the last great offensive movement made by the Anzacs on the Gallipoli peninsula. Shortly afterwards the whole of the Second Australian Division was landed, a step which permitted the temporary withdrawal of the veteran brigades to Lemnos for a much-needed spell. Then operations at Anzac dragged on until the entry of Bulgaria into the war established easy communication between Berlin and Constantinople, and made the evacuation of Gallipoli an imperative necessity.
The story of those last months at Anzac, and the final act of withdrawal, will be found in the two concluding chapters of this book. The position occupied by the Anzacs at the point now reached was summarized by Lord Kitchener in the House of Lords on September 15 in the following terms: —
"The attack from Anzac, after a series of hotly contested actions, was carried to the summit of Sari Bair and Chunuk Bair, which are the dominating positions in this area. The arrival of the transports and the disembarkation of the troops in Suvla Bay were designed to enable the troops to support this attack. Unfortunately, however, the advance from Suvla was not developed quickly enough and the movement forward was brought to a standstill after an advance of about 2½ miles. The result was that the troops from Anzac were unable to retain their position on the crest of the hills, and after being repeatedly counter-attacked they were ordered to withdraw to positions lower down.
"These positions, however, have been effectively consolidated, and now, joining with the line occupied by the Suvla Bay force, form a connected front of more than twelve miles. From the latter position a further attack on the Turkish entrenchment was delivered on August 21, but after several hours of sharp fighting it was not found possible to gain the summit of the hills occupied by the enemy, and the intervening space being unsuitable for defence the troops were withdrawn to their original position.
"Since then comparative quiet has prevailed and a much-needed rest has been given to our troops. In the course of these operations the gallantry and resourcefulness of the Australian and New Zealand troops have frequently formed a subject for eulogy in Sir Ian Hamilton's reports. General Birdwood and his staff have greatly distinguished themselves both in planning and conducting the operations of the Australian and New Zealand Corps, whose activities have been marked by constant success. Their determination to overcome apparently insuperable difficulties has been no less admirable than their courage in hand-to-hand fighting with the enemy.
"It is not easy to appreciate at their full value the enormous difficulties which have attended the operations in the Dardanelles or the fine temper with which our troops have met them. There is now abundant evidence of a process of demoralization having set in among the German-led (or rather the German-driven) Turks due, no doubt, to their extremely heavy losses and to the progressive failure of their resources. It is only fair to acknowledge that, judged from a humane point of view, the methods of warfare pursued by the Turks are vastly superior to those which disgraced their German masters."
CHAPTER XVI
THE STORY OF THE "SOUTHLAND"
The transport of the Second Australian Division from Egypt to Gallipoli was not to pass without at least one striking incident, which proved that the Australian army, if without traditions of its own, is able at a moment's notice to live up to the finest traditions of the soldiers of the British race. There is probably no Australian who has not been made familiar with the history of the Birkenhead, and it fell to the lot of one battalion of the Second Division to show that "To stand and be still in the Birkenhead Drill" is not too tough a thing for the untried troops of the south.
This battalion was the 21st, a Victorian Battalion mainly composed of farmers' sons from the Wimmera district; and it left Egypt on the last Monday in August on board the transport Southland in charge of Colonel Linton. The transport had also on board General Legge, the officer in command of the Second Division, and his staff – the brains of the Second Division, as one of the men told me. And, when she left Egypt, it was freely prophesied that she would be the object of attack by the submarines that were at that time very busy in the Ægean Sea.
No precaution was omitted on the voyage. The men were daily paraded by their Colonel (Colonel Hutchinson) and instructed in boat and lifebelt drill. All went well till Thursday morning, just after the early exercises. It was a beautiful morning, and the deck was crowded with men, smoking and chatting, and some of them cleaning their equipment in readiness for the imminent landing.
Suddenly a cry was heard, "God, is that a torpedo?"
No one who saw the deadly thing ripping through the water had any doubt of it. A moment later there was a dull clanging roar, and a hole nearly thirty feet in diameter was blown in the side, two holds being destroyed. In a second the siren was blowing the signal to abandon ship, and the Australians, conforming to the drill regulations, lined up on deck as if on parade.
The ship's officers kept magnificently cool. The captain, by a magnificent piece of navigation, contrived to avoid a second torpedo which if it had struck the Southland would undoubtedly have sunk the vessel in a couple of minutes. The engineer closed the bulkheads and a number of open portholes, and to him also must be ascribed the credit of having prevented the vessel from sinking.
Obeying the order conveyed by the siren, the crew of the Southland made for the boats, and most of them were afloat before any Australian moved. They stood at attention along the deck and waited for a lead from their officers.
It came from the General himself. In full uniform, with spurs and cane, he stood at the side of the ship and lighted a cigarette. General Legge was joined there by his Chief of Staff, Colonel Gwynn of Duntroon College, and the two chatted unconcernedly as they surveyed the scene.
The order was given to the men to remove their boots, and they began to do so. One of them noticed the General standing there, booted and spurred, and ventured the question, "What about General Legge?" "Oh, the General is going to walk it," he was told.
There was a heavy rolling sea, and the ship was now in a bad way, listing as though she were about to sink at every roll. Some of those bush boys could not swim, and to all of them boats and lifebelts were unfamiliar articles. But they stood in line and saw the sailor men go, waiting for orders.
Then they were set to launching boats and life rafts, and it cannot be said they made a very good job of it. The first boat was launched by one rope only, and turned all its occupants out as it struck the water. It was one of four boats overturned for some reason. In one of these was Colonel Linton, the Brigadier, who unfortunately died of heart shock in the water.
While this was happening destroyers were steaming to the spot at a rate of thirty knots, and did not arrive one moment too soon. The water was dotted with the floating rafts and coops and with the heads of swimming men. Remarkable gallantry was displayed by many, and one young officer who was a fine swimmer is mentioned as swimming about and helping the struggling men to places on the rafts and collapsible boats.
But before all had left the ship, the captain of the Southland made a call for volunteers to stay by the sinking ship, on the chance that she might be driven under her own steam to the beach. He had a response from three times as many men as he required, and the Australians, officers and men together, stripped for the stokehold.
Their bravery met with its just reward. The Southland held out long enough to be driven ashore at Lemnos, and all who had remained aboard got off her safely. In all there were some twenty men drowned, among them the Brigadier, and several were killed and about fifteen wounded by the explosion of the torpedo.
The steadiness and grit displayed by the men on the deck of the shattered transport was matched by their behaviour in the water and on the crowded boats. Although some of the collapsible boats were loaded almost to sinking point, and although the heavy sea had made many of the men extremely seasick, they waited for the expected help to come with the utmost sang-froid.
An officer on another transport, which came up three hours later and took many of the men on board, tells of their coolness and unconcern: —
"We slowed down as we came up, but missed some of the boats, as no rope was thrown out to them. They drifted past us, calling out 'Don't you want us?' and another wag added, 'We've just been fishing.' In another boat they were singing 'Here We Are Again.' All were more or less merry, including the injured, for some had their hands torn with sliding down the ropes; others had got under the capsized boats, and had a struggle to get out, especially if they had the lifebelts on; others got cuts on the head."
"You couldn't get bustled," one of the 21st told me, "when the General and all the officers were taking it so coolly. And the skipper of the Southland too; talk about the spirit of a British sailor, he showed us what it was that day. And I think from what I heard him say he likes Australians. I was one of those who escaped a ducking, being lucky enough to be chosen for stokehold duty. So I never even got my feet wet."
The story of one of the men who had a swim of over a mile is eloquent of the spirit of the fellows, and of the dangers in which they found themselves: —
"Some of the sights I saw I'll never forget. A boat full was being let down and one of the ropes either broke or slipped, and one end dropped, and there it was hanging end on. Naturally its occupants all fell out all ways, and then the other end broke, and the whole boat dropped on them. There were yells, etc., but I didn't wait to see any more, and espied a boat some distance away and made for it.
"Eventually I reached it, about a mile or so from the ship, and got hauled in, although I don't remember that; I was feeling a bit goosed. However, after five minutes' spell, I got on to an oar and started to row. Not that we wanted to row anywhere, but just to keep head on to the waves and keep the water down. It was a collapsible boat, and lived up to its name admirably and collapsed frequently. After about an hour or so smoke appeared on the horizon, and it turned out to be a hospital ship, coming up fast. Then another appeared, and then another, and then a destroyer came in sight, and soon quite a collection had arrived, but all made for the ship herself, which was still hanging on to life.
"Then our boat went to the pack and started to sink. Oh! it was a lovely sensation – I don't think. Eventually after four and a half hours up to our knees in water, baling and rowing like fiends, we reached the hospital ship, and – talk about a relief to feel something solid again! As soon as we came up the ladder each man was handed a packet of cigarettes, and we were then bundled below, and had beef tea and dry clothes given us.
"I forgot to say that soon after we were hit our little 4.7 let fly. I don't know if she hit the submarine; at all events she scared it, or we'd have stopped another for a cert. And God only knows what would have happened if we hadn't had wireless to let every one know. However, it's all over now, and I'm safe and sound, bar a bang on the head and the ankle, but have only a pair of pants and singlet and my knife; no hat, or boots and socks."
Throughout their trying experiences not a man among the Australians showed a sign of panic or concern. Naturally their General was very proud of them, as they of him. General Legge, as soon as all were collected together, issued an order congratulating them upon their pluck and fine discipline at a critical time.
Later General Birdwood, the officer commanding at Anzac, issued an order commending them in the eyes of the whole forces in the Anzac zone. It was worded in the following terms: —
"On behalf of all the comrades now serving on the peninsula, I wish to convey to the Australian unit concerned our general feeling of admiration for the gallant behaviour of all ranks on the transport Southland. All the troops of the army corps have heard with pride of the courage and discipline shown at the moment when the nerves of the bravest are liable to be so highly tried. Not only was there not the slightest confusion on the part of the troops, who quietly fell in and prepared to meet whatever fate might be in store, but later, when there was prospect of the Southland being able to make way under her own steam and stokers were called for, the men at once came forward and successfully helped in getting the Southland into port."
The episode of the Southland confirmed the impression created by the gallant behaviour of the 18th Battalion at Hill 60, when they were thrown into the thick of the fight within a few hours of their landing on Gallipoli, and behaved like veterans. It was established that the Second Division was composed of the same splendid fighting material as the First. They had a thankless task before them, as the reader will learn from the last two chapters of this book. But they carried it through in the fine spirit displayed by the men of the Southland and of Hill 60.
