Gallipoli Diary Volume I Part 24

Now he has mysteriously made himself (heaven knows how) into our premier authority on the Middle East and is travelling on some ultra-mysterious mission, very likely, _en pa.s.sant_, as a critic of our doings: never mind, he is thrice welcome as a large-hearted and generous person.

Dined with de Robeck on board the _Triad_. He is _most_ hospitable and kind. I have not here the wherewithal to give back cutlet for cutlet, worse luck.

_26th June, 1915._ Worked till past 11 o'clock, then started for Anzac with Braithwaite per destroyer _Pincher_ (Lieutenant-Commander Wyld). After going a short way was s.h.i.+fted to the _Mosquito_ (Lieutenant-Commander Clarke). We had biscuits in our pockets, but the hospitable Navy stood us lunch.

When the Turks saw a destroyer come bustling up at an unusual hour they said to themselves, "fee faw fum!" and began to raise pillars of water here and there over the surface of the cove. As we got within a few yards of the pier a sh.e.l.l hit it, knocking off some splinters. I jumped on to it--had to--then jumped off it nippier still and, turning to the right, began to walk towards Birdie's dugout. As I did so a big fellow pitched plunk into the soft s.h.i.+ngle between land and water about five or six yards behind me and five or six yards in front of Freddie. The slush fairly smothered or blanketed the sh.e.l.l but I was wetted through and was stung up properly with small gravel. The hardened devils of Anzacs, who had taken cover betwixt the sh.e.l.l-proofs built of piles of stores, roared with laughter. Very funny--to look at!

As the old Turks kept plugging it in fairly hot, I sat quiet in Birdwood's dugout for a quarter of an hour. Then they calmed down and we went the rounds of the right trenches. In those held by the Light Horse Brigade under Colonel G. de L. Ryrie, encountered Lieutenant Elliot, last seen a year ago at Duntroon.

Next, met Colonel Sinclair Maclagan commanding 3rd (Australian) Infantry Brigade. After that saw the lines of Colonel Smith's Brigade, where Major Browne, R.A., showed me a fearful sort of bomb he had just patented.

At last, rather tired by my long day, made my way back, stopping at Birdie's dugout en route. Boarded the _Mosquito_; sailed for and reached camp without further adventure. General Douglas of the East Lancs Division is here. He has dined and is staying the night. A melancholy man before whose eyes stands constantly the tragic melting away without replacement of the most beautiful of the Divisions of Northern England.

_27th June, 1915. Imbros._ Blazing hot; wound up my mail letters; fought files, flies and irritability; tackled a lot of stuff from Q.M.G. and A.G.; won a clear table by tea time. In the evening hung about waiting for de Robeck who had signalled over to say he wanted to talk business.

At the last he couldn't come.

The sequel to the letter telling me I'd have to cut the names of battalions out of my Despatch has come in the shape of a War Office cable telling me that, if I agree, it is proposed "to have the despatch reviewed and a slightly different version prepared for publication." I hope my reply to Fitz may arrive in time to prevent too much t.i.tivation.

An imaginative War Office (were such a thing imaginable) would try first of all to rouse public enthusiasm by letting them follow quite closely the brave doings of their own boys' units whatever these might be. Next, they would try and use the Press to teach the public that there are three kinds of war, (_a_) military war, (_b_) economic war and (_c_) social war. Lastly, they would explain to the Cabinet that this war of ours is a mixture of (_a_) and (_b_) with more of (_b_) than (_a_) in it.

How can economic victory be won? (1) by enlisting the sympathy of America; (2) by taking Constantinople.

The idea that we can hustle the Kaiser back over the Rhine and march on to Berlin at the double emanates from a school of thought who have devoted much study to the French Army, not so much to that of the Germans. But we _can_ (no one denies it) hustle the Turks out of Constantinople if we will make an effort, big, no doubt, in itself but not very big compared to that entailed by a few miles' advance in the West. Let us do that and, forthwith, we enlist economics on our side.

None of these things can be carried through without the help of the Press. Second only to enthusiasm of our own folk comes the sweetening of the temper of the neutral. Hard to say at present whether our Censors.h.i.+p has done most harm in the U.K. or the U.S.A. Before leaving for the Dardanelles I begged hard for Hare and Frederick Palmer, the Americans, knowing they would help us with the Yanks just as much as aeroplanes would help us with the Turks, but I was turned down on the plea that the London Press would be jealous.

These are the feelings which have prompted my pen to-day. Writing one of the few great men I know I put the matter like this:--

"From my individual point of view a hideous mistake has been made on the correspondence side of the whole of this Dardanelles business. Had we had a dozen good newspaper correspondents here, the vital life-giving interest of these stupendous proceedings would have been brought right into the hearths and homes of the humblest people in Britain....

"As for information to the enemy, this is too puerile altogether. The things these fellows produce are all read and checked by competent General Staff Officers. To think that it matters to the Turks whether a certain trench was taken by the 7th Royal Scots or the 3rd Warwicks is just really like children playing at secrets. The Censors who are by way of keeping everyone in England in darkness allow extremely accurate outline panoramas of the Australian position from the back; trenches, communication tracks, etc., all to scale; a true military sketch, to appear in the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_ of 5th June. The wildest indiscretions in words could not equal this."

Again I say the Press must win. On no subject is there more hypocrisy amongst big men in England. They pretend they do not care for the Press and _sub rosa_ they try all they are worth to work it. How well I remember my Chief of the General Staff coming up to me at a big conference on Salisbury Plain where I had spent five very useful minutes explaining the inwardness of things to old Bennett Burleigh, the War Correspondent. He (the C.G.S.) begged me to see Burleigh privately, afterwards, as it would "create a bad impression" were I seen by everyone to be on friendly terms with the old man! He meant it very kindly: from his point of view he was quite right. I lay no claim to be more candid than the rest of them: quite the contrary. Only, over that particular line of country, I am more candid. Whenever anyone ostentatiously washes his hands of the Press in my hearing I chuckle over the memory of the administrator who was admonis.h.i.+ng me as to the unsuitability of a public servant having a journalistic acquaintance when, suddenly, the door opened; the parlour-maid entered and said, "Lord Northcliffe is on the 'phone."

Have told Lord K. in my letter we have just enough sh.e.l.l for one more attack. After that, we fold our hands and wait the arrival of the new troops and the new outfit of ammunition:--not "wait and see" but "wait and suffer." A month is a desperate long halt to have in a battle. A month, at least, to let weariness and sickness spread whilst new armies of enemies replace those whose hearts we have broken,--at a cost of how many broken hearts, I wonder, in Australasia and England?

This enforced pause in our operations is a desperate bad business: for to-day there is a feeling in the air--thrilling through the ranks--that _at last_ the upper hand is ours. Now is the moment to fall on with might and main,--to press unrelentingly and without break or pause until we wrest victory from Fortune. Morally, we are confident but,--materially? Alas, to-morrow, for our last "dart" before reinforcements arrive a month hence, my sh.e.l.l only runs to a forty minutes' bombardment of some half a mile of the enemy's trenches. We simply have not sh.e.l.l wherewith to cover more or keep it up any longer.

A General laying down the law to a Field Marshal is as obnoxious to military "form" as a vacuum was once supposed to be to the sentiments of nature. The child, who teaches its grandmother to suck eggs, commits a venial fault in comparison. So I have had to convey my precepts insensibly to Milord K.--to convey them in homeopathic doses of parable.

The brilliant French success of the 21st-22nd, I explain to him, was due to the showers of sh.e.l.l wherewith they deluged the Turkish lines until their defenders were sitting dazed with their dugouts in ruins about them. Also, in the same epistle, I have tried to explain Anzac.

In the domain of tactics our landing at h.e.l.les speaks for itself. Since gunpowder was invented nothing finer than the 29th Division has been achieved. But it will be a long time yet before people grasp that the landing at Anzac is just as remarkable in the imaginative domain of strategy. The military student of the future will, I hope and believe, realize the significance of the stroke whereby we are hourly forcing a great Empire to commit _hari kiri_ upon these barren, worthless cliffs--whereby we keep pressing a dagger exactly over the black heart of the Ottoman Raj. Only skin deep--so far; only through the skin. Yet already how freely bleeds the wound. Daily the effort to escape this doom; to push away the threat of that painful point will increase. Even if we were never to make another yard's advance,--here--in the cove of Anzac--is the cup into which the life blood of the Caliphat shall be pressed. And on the whole Gallipoli Peninsula this little cove is the one and only spot whereon a base could have been established, which is sheltered (to a bearable extent) from the force of the enemy's fire.

Dead ground; defiladed from inland batteries; deep water right close to the sh.o.r.e!

Enver dares not leave Anzac alone. We are too near his neck; the Narrows!! So on this most precarious, G.o.d-forsaken spot he must maintain an Army of his best troops, mostly supplied by sea,--by sea whereon our submarines swallow 25 per cent. of their drafts, munitions and food, just as a pike takes down the duckling before the eyes of their mother on a pond. Hold fast's the word. We have only to keep our grip firm and fast; Turkey will die of exhaustion trying to do what she can't do; drive us into the sea!

Braithwaite and Amery dined. Great fun seeing Amery again. _What_ memories of his concealment in the Autocrat's "Special" going to the Vereeniging Conference; of our efforts to create a strategical training ground for British troops in South Africa; of our battles against one another over the great Voluntary Service issue.

CHAPTER XII

A VICTORY AND AFTER

_28th June, 1915. Imbros._ The fateful day.

Left camp with Braithwaite, Dawnay and Ward. Embarked on the destroyer _Colne_ (Commander Seymour) and sailed for h.e.l.les. The fire fight was raging. From the bridge we got a fine view as our guns were being focused on and about the north-west coast. The cliff line and half a mile inland is shrouded in a pall of yellow dust which, as it twirls, twists and eddies, blots out Achi Baba himself. Through this curtain appear, dozens at a time, little b.a.l.l.s of white,--the shrapnel searching out the communication trenches and cutting the wire entanglements. At other times spouts of green or black vapour rise, mix and lose themselves in the yellow cloud. The noise is like the rumbling of an express train--continuous; no break at all. The Turks sitting there in their trenches--our men 100 yards away sitting in _their_ trenches! What a wonderful change in the art,--no not the art, in the mechanism--of war. Fifteen years ago armies would have stood aghast at our display of explosive energy; to-day we know that our shortage is pitiable and that we are very short of stuff; perilously short.--(Written in the cabin of the _Colne_.)

Jimmy Watson met me on the pier. He is Commandant Advance Base. Deedes also met me and the whole band of us made our way inland to my battle dugout. This is probably our last onslaught before the new troops and new supplies of sh.e.l.l come to hand in about a month from now. We have just enough stuff to deal with one narrow strip by the coast. Had it not been for some help from the French, we could not have entered upon this engagement at all, but must have continued to sit still and be shot at--rather an expensive way of fighting if John Bull could only be told the truth. Now, although the area is limited the battle is a big one, fairly ent.i.tled to be called a general action. As I said, the French are helping Simpson-Baikie in his bombardment; the Fleet are helping us with the fire of the _Scorpion_, _Talbot_ and _Wolverine_, and Birdwood has been asked to try and help us from Anzac by making a push there to hold the enemy and prevent him sending reinforcements south. On their side the Turks are making a very feeble reply. Looks as if we had caught them with their ammunition parks empty.

I went into the dugout indescribably slack; hardly energy to struggle against the heat and the myriads of flies. I came out of it radiant. The Turks are beat. Five lines of their best trenches carried (or, at least, four regular lines plus a bit extra); the Boomerang Redoubt rushed, and in two successive attacks we have advanced 1,000 yards. Our losses are said to be moderate. The dreaded Boomerang collapsed and was stormed with hardly a casualty. This was owing partly to the two trench mortars lent us by the French and partly to the extraordinary fine shooting of our own battery of 4.5 howitzers. The whole show went like clockwork--like a Field Day. First the 87th Brigade took three lines of trenches; then our guns lengthened their range and fuses and the 86th Brigade, with the gallant Royal Fusiliers at their head, scrambled over the trenches already taken by the 87th, and took the last two lines in splendid style. We could have gone right on but we had nothing to go on with. How I wish the whole world and his wife could have been here to see our lines advancing under fire quite steadily with intervals and dressing as on parade. A wonderful show!

As the 87th Brigade left the trenches at 11 a.m., the enemy opened a hot shrapnel fire on them but although some men fell, none faltered as we could see very well owing to the following device. The 29th attackers had sewn on to their backs triangles cut out of kerosine tins. The idea was to let these bright bits of metal flash in the sunlight and act as helios. Thus our guns would be able to keep an eye on them. The spectacle was extraordinary. From my post I could follow the movements of every man. One moment after 11 a.m. the smoke pall lifted and moved slowly on with a thousand sparkles of light in its wake: as if someone had quite suddenly flung a big handful of diamonds on to the landscape.

At 11.30 the 86th Brigade likewise advanced; pa.s.sed through the 87th and took two more lines of trenches.

At mid-day I signalled, "Well done 29th Division and 156th Brigade. Am watching your splendid attack with admiration. Stick to it and your names will become famous in your homes."

At 1.50 I got a reply, "Thanks from all ranks 29th. We are here to stay."

At 3.15 I ran across and warmly congratulated Hunter-Weston, staying with him reading the messages until about 4 p.m. when I went on to see Gouraud. Hunter-Weston, Gouraud and Braithwaite agree that:--_had we only sh.e.l.l to repeat our bombardment of this morning, now, we could go on another 1,000 yards before dark,--result, Achi Baba to-morrow, or, at the latest, the day after; Achi Baba_ and fifty guns perhaps with, say, 10,000 prisoners.

At 5 p.m. Gouraud and I walked back to Hunter-Weston's G.H.Q. A load was off our minds--we were wonderfully happy. At 5.30 a message from Birdie to say the Queenslanders had thrust out towards Gaba Tepe and had "drawn" the Turkish reserves who had been badly hammered by our guns.

With this crowning mercy in my pocket, walked down and boarded the destroyer _Scourge_ (Lieutenant Tupper) and got back to camp before seven. What a day! May our glorious Infantry gain everlasting _Kudos_--and the Gunners, too, may the good use they made of their sh.e.l.l ration create a legend.

The French official photographer has fixed a moment by snapping Gouraud and myself overlooking the h.e.l.lespont from the old battlements.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL GOURAUD "Central News" photo.]

_Midnight._--When I lay down in my little tent two hours ago the canvas seemed to make a sort of sounding board. No sooner did I try to sleep than I heard the musketry rolling up and dying away; then rolling up again in volume until I could stick it no longer and simply had to get up and pick a path, through the brush and over sandhills, across to the sea on the East coast of our island. There I could hear nothing. Was the firing then an hallucination--a sort of sequel to the battle in my brain? Not so; far away I could see faint corruscations of sparks; star sh.e.l.ls; coloured fire b.a.l.l.s from pistols; searchlights playing up and down the coast. Our fellows were being hard beset to hold on to what they had won; there, where the horizon stood out with spectral luminosity. What a contrast; the direct fear, joy, and excitement of the fighting men out there in the searchlights and the dull anguish of waiting here in the darkness; imagining horrors; praying the Almighty our men may be vouchsafed valour to stick it through the night; wondering, waiting until the wire brings its colourless message!

One thought I have which is in the end a sure sleep-getter--the advancing death. Whether by hours or by years, by inches or by leagues, by bullets or bacilli, we struggle-for-lifers will very soon struggle no more. My last salaams are well-nigh due to my audience and to the stage.

That rare and curious being called I is more fragile than any porcelain jar. How on earth it has preserved itself so long, heaven only knows.

One pellet of lead, it falls in a heap of dust; the Peninsula disappears; the fighting men fall asleep; the world and its glories become a blank--not even a dream--nothing!

_29th June, 1915. Imbros._ Sunlight has scattered the spectres of the night,--they have fled, leaving behind them only the matter-of-fact residuum of heavy Turkish counter-attacks against our fresh-won ground.

The fighting took place along the coastline, and the stillness of the night seems to have helped the sounds of musketry across the twelve miles of sea. The attack was most determined: repulsed by bombs and with the bayonet: at daylight the enemy came under a cross-fire of machine guns and rifles and were shot to pieces.

Very early approved the revise of my long cable (for the Cabinet) outlining my hopes and fears:--

"(No. M.F. 381). From General Sir Ian Hamilton to Earl Kitchener. With reference to your telegram No. 5770, cipher. As the Cabinet are anxious to consider my situation in all its bearings, it is necessary I should open to you all my mind. In my No. M.F. 328 of 13th June, I gave you an outline of my plan, based on the news that I was to be given new divisions, and I told you what I should do with a possible fourth division in my No. M.F. 364 of 23rd June. I am now asked whether I consider a fifth division advisable and necessary.

"I have taken time to answer this question, as the addition of each new division necessitates, in such a theatre of war as this, a reconsideration of the whole strategical and tactical situation as well as of the power of the Fleet to work up to the increased demands that would be placed upon it. The scheme which might tempt me (Naval considerations permitting) of landing the 4th and 5th Divisions together with the three divisions and one or two divisions from Cape h.e.l.les and Anzac on flank of sh.o.r.e of Gulf of Saros to march on Rodosto and Constantinople I reject because the 4th and 5th Divisions cannot reach me simultaneously with all their transport.

"But a.s.suming that reinforcements can only reach me in echelon of divisions I have decided that the best policy would be to adhere to my original plan of endeavouring to turn the enemy's right at Anzac with the first three divisions and to gain a position from Gaba Tepe to Maidos. I should then use the 4th and 5th Divisions, in case of non-success at first to reinforce this wing, and in case of success possibly to effect a landing on the southern sh.o.r.e of the Dardanelles; and since the enemy's forces south of the Straits would probably have been reduced to a minimum in order to oppose my reinforced strength on the Peninsula I should in the latter case count upon these two divisions doing more than hold a bridge-head (see my M.F. 349 of 19th June), and should expect them, reinforced from the northern wing if necessary, to press forward to Chanak and thus to cut off this enemy's sole remaining line of supply.[22] By these means I should hope to compel the surrender of the whole Gallipoli Army. Meanwhile, with my force on the Asiatic side I would be enabled to establish in Morto Bay a base safe from the bad weather which must be expected later on.

"With regard to ammunition, the more we can get the more easy will our task be, but I hope we may be able to achieve success at the end of July with the amount available. As we are so far from home, however, we cannot afford to run things too fine, and we shall always be obliged to keep up a large reserve until the arrival of further supply. I should, therefore, like as much as you can spare, particularly high explosive.