Gallipoli (78 page)

Hammersley finally agrees to send the 32nd Brigade to the Sari Bair Range overnight, but that is as far as he will go.

‘I fancy,' Hamilton would report witheringly afterwards, ‘they were upset and tired by landing at night, and then thought they had done such a tremendous big thing advancing a couple of miles or so into the country that they might then rest on their oars.'
⁴⁹

For the moment, Hamilton returns to his command vessel,
Triad
, hopeful that the morrow will bring better things, but not yet insisting upon it.

Throughout the rest of the day, the Turks, with artillery positioned on Hill Q and Battleship Hill, continue pounding the New Zealanders and the British frontline atop Chunuk Bair, as well as launching attacks against them. Through it all, Colonel William Malone has been unceasing in his efforts to rally his men, to organise them, direct them, and even lead them in the many bayonet charges they are forced to perform, to keep waves of Turks away. When one of his fellow officers remonstrates, saying Malone should not be putting himself in such danger, Malone's answer is the measure of the man: ‘You're only a kid – I'm an old man – get out yourself!'
⁵⁰

In the end, however, it is one of those things. Near dusk, at the end of a day when some hundreds of his own men lie dead and wounded all around him, a piece of shrapnel scythes cruelly through the air and in an instant a brave woman in Taranaki is a widow, though she doesn't know it yet, left to raise her three children on her own – just as Malone's five children from his previous marriage are left without a father. For he lies dead in a shallow trench, the men closest to him weeping over his bloodied corpse.

Compounding the tragedy is that Malone actually only had to survive a little longer to make it to safety. After sundown, the Wellingtons are relieved by soldiers from the Otago Battalion and the Wellington Mounteds. It is a measure of just how torrid their time atop Chunuk Bair has been that, of the Wellingtons' original contingent of 760 soldiers, less than 50 are still standing and unwounded.

But at least, at this time, as the sun goes down on 8 August, Chunuk Bair remains in the hands of the Allies.

It is going to take a massive effort to dislodge them. And quite a leader of men …

All day, Colonel Kemal has been at Battleship Hill receiving news riddled with ‘discrepancies about whether the peak [of Chunuk Bair] has or has not been taken by the enemy'. The latest report says, ‘the enemy continue to dig trenches at Chunuk Bair … The enemy soldiers are walking around the trenches and placing sand bags in them …'
⁵¹

From his observations, though, one thing is blindingly clear on this evening of 8 August: ‘Chunuk Bair is in a dangerous situation.'
⁵²

Yet again, just after 7 pm, the telephone rings. It is Liman von Sanders' Chief of Staff, who wishes to know what Colonel Mustafa Kemal thinks of the situation.

‘There is one moment left to reclaim our position,' Kemal replies. ‘If we lose that moment, we are faced with a general catastrophe.'
⁵³

He explains that, because of the nature and quantity of the enemy force that has landed at Suvla, it is necessary to ensure command and control in that sector by uniting the effort under a single commander.

‘Is there no other solution?' the Chief of Staff asks.

And here is Mustafa Kemal's chance. ‘There is no other option,' he says forcefully, ‘but to assign all the available forces under my command.'

‘Won't that be excessive?'

‘It won't be enough,' Kemal says, before putting the phone down.
⁵⁴

Three hours hence, at 9.45 pm, he receives an order from General Esat: ‘You are to take command of the Anafarta Group effective immediately. You are to proceed immediately to [the Group's Headquarters] and execute an attack by sunrise 9 August.'
⁵⁵

Though Mustafa has not slept for three days and three nights straight, and is in any case a sickly shadow of his former healthy self, his heart leaps. His desires have been realised. He is now in charge of no fewer than six divisions, and given the responsibility of winning back the day, and the night!

Within two hours, at 11.30 pm, under the cover of darkness, Colonel Kemal rides away from the Headquarters of the 19th Division, alive as never before. ‘For four months,' he would recall, ‘I had lived three hundred metres away from the firing line, breathing the fetid smell of corpses. Finally I was able to breathe clean air again.'
⁵⁶

PRE-DAWN, 9 AUGUST 1915, IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, TRY, TRY AGAIN

Hammersley's 32nd Brigade?

As demanded by Sir Ian Hamilton, they actually do try to take the heights to the east of Suvla Bay, alas arriving at the highest ridge … some 30 minutes too late. For by the early hours of 9 August, the Turkish reserves have flooded the hills. Immeasurably aided by the advantage of height, and well-placed artillery, they are able to cut the 32nd Brigade to pieces, and force a rag-tag retreat. By the time the sun rises, two full Turkish Divisions, with artillery, are securely positioned atop the heights surrounding Suvla Bay, raining hell down upon the two British Divisions, who simply have not had the gumption to attack quickly enough.

Surely nothing else could go wrong for the British, on this whole disastrous venture at Suvla Bay? Yes, it could, and Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett is there to witness it. Though the naval artillery is showing every bit of ferocity that the troops are not, the same problem dogs them here as has happened at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles – when the Turkish artillery is positioned on the lee side of the hills, naval shells are simply incapable of knocking them out.

What the shells can do, however, in these dry conditions, is to start fires, and that is what happens at midday on 9 August, just as some British soldiers are at last making an attempt to reach the heights of Scimitar Hill, a lump of tactical importance east of the salt lake. Worse, a wind comes pouring down the hill, catches the flames and sends them straight at the climbing soldiers.

As Ashmead-Bartlett watches on, appalled, he sees wounded British soldiers, now burning, break cover from the flaming scrub beneath the lip of Scimitar Hill and crawl out into the open, where they are cut down by snipers and shrapnel. After the flames have passed on, all that remains are ‘little mounds of scorched khaki … where another mismanaged soldier of the King had returned to mother earth'.
⁵⁷

The English correspondent keeps watching, powerless to do anything, bar chronicle the catastrophe.

Later that afternoon, he is joined by fellow journalist Henry Nevinson, who is feeling every bit as appalled as Ashmead-Bartlett by what he has seen. He has come from the far side of the Salt Lake and still can't quite fathom how it can all have gone so wrong. ‘Our infantry,' Nevinson declares, ‘are demoralised, weary, and absolutely refuse to advance. The muddle is beyond anything I have ever seen.'
⁵⁸

For his part, Ashmead-Bartlett is convinced it is yet more evidence that the problem lies not with the soldiers but with their officers. He has seen for himself, up close, just how badly organised the whole thing had been from first to last by the officers who were meant to be in charge. ‘Confusion reigned supreme,' he would record in his diary. ‘No one seemed to know where the headquarters of the different brigades and divisions were to be found. The troops were hunting for water, the staffs were hunting for their troops, and the Turkish snipers were hunting for their prey.'
⁵⁹
In only the last of these do the hunters find what they are looking for in abundance.

Late that evening, Ashmead-Bartlett comes across Sir Ian Hamilton, standing all alone, on the north coast of Suvla Bay, not a staff officer or underling to be seen anywhere near. There is an unmistakable aspect to Hamilton, a paleness, an anxiety as he watches the billowing columns of smoke from the battle gone wrong, the battle he had staked his career on, now turning to ashes before his eyes. Just as he had feared, all the ranges around Suvla Bay are now held by whole divisions of Turkish reinforcements, which have arrived on this day. Hamilton had thrown a huge number of rifle men onto the frontline, but now there are none left to throw. The English General has squandered 9000 men in four days, with next to nothing to show for it, bar the squalid flats of Suvla Bay. And for all of the August Offensives, there are 25,000 casualties so far.

To Ashmead-Bartlett, it seems clear that the Commander-in-Chief has just realised at this hour ‘that his final effort to reach the Narrows had failed'.
⁶⁰

Despite the Suvla Bay disaster and the debacle of Hill 971 (Monash alone has ‘lost nearly 1,000'
⁶¹
and Bean later writes of the attempt as ‘one of those “black days” which most deeply affect the spirits of soldiers'
⁶²
), it remains possible that the August Offensive could be considered a success if it can hold on to just one last thing: the summit of Chunuk Bair. Magnificently, the New Zealanders had held onto it all through 9 August – despite continued attacks – and as dusk falls on this day they are relieved by soldiers of the 6th Loyal North Lancashires, who are part of Kitchener's New Army.

PRE-DAWN, 10 AUGUST 1915, THE DENOUEMENT

But can Chunuk Bair continue to be held?

Not if Colonel Kemal has anything to do with it. Fully aware of the strategic significance of this vantage point, he is prepared to sacrifice much to hold it. Even his life, if it comes to that.

The following morning, just before dawn, Colonel Kemal pulls back the flap of his tent and, as is his habit, looks first to the sky to determine the state of the heavens. They are sparkling, the stars like fireflies burning off the last of their lustre in the few minutes that remain before they must, alas, give way to the day.

Looking now before him, towards the network of shallow trenches nestled just below the crest of Chunuk Bair, he squints to properly discern the silhouettes of his men. Many are sitting alone smoking cigarettes, their thoughts with the prospect of violent death and the glories of the afterlife. Others are huddled in groups, whispering and checking their equipment. Some are assembled in a line, prostrating themselves to Allah. The Colonel sees others move purposefully, hunched over, keeping themselves small and inconspicuous to enemy observers. Few of them laugh or smile. All are fated to attack, with this charge forward at Chunuk Bair at the prow of an attack across nearly the entire line atop the Sari Bair Range. ‘The dark curtain of night had been raised,' Mustafa Kemal would later recall. ‘The moment for attack had come.'
⁶³

According to his plan, the Turks are going to go into the enemy trenches, just a stone's throw over the crest of the ridge – the Mehmets with their bayonets only, the officers with their swords – and sweep down on the enemy en masse.
⁶⁴
The enemy may kill the first ones, but they will not kill us all. There is to be no bombardment beforehand. The invaders have become used to that. They expect a bombardment. Not this time. It will just be us, and our bayonets, and Allah. And we will charge in a full-frontal attack.

True, many of his officers think such a move is crazy, and are brave enough to say so, but for Mustafa Kemal the decision is not an intellectual but a visceral one, the sort of decision that comes ‘from what we feel in the blood and the fiery moments of battle'.

Slowly, he rises out of his tent and stretches his aching, battle-worn limbs. Reaching into his right-hand breast pocket, he pulls out his trusty watch, which he has had since his days at the Ottoman War College – a gold-coloured watch with a plain white face marked with Roman numerals, which fits snugly in the palm of his hand. It is nearly 4.30 am. In a matter of minutes, the first dull glow of dawn will hit and they will be exposed to the enemy.

Without hesitation, he walks briskly to the front of his newly formed-up men and offers his final instructions. ‘Soldiers,' he begins, in his richly resonant and confident voice. ‘There is no doubt that we will defeat the enemy that stands before us … I will go ahead first. As soon as you see me raise my whip then you will all leap forward!'
⁶⁵

The word is spread around quickly, and all men, from every part of the front within seeing distance, turn to focus on their Commander. Now is the moment. Now is their time. They will know triumph, or they will know eternity, or they will know both – but whatever else, with this many men ready to sacrifice themselves for their country, for their god, defeat is not a possibility.

Colonel Kemal walks just ‘five to ten steps' up the slope in the gloom, turns to his men, raises his whip … before dropping his arm. In an instant, the first line of 300-odd Turkish soldiers bursts up, and over, running silently for the first few steps before uttering their earthly cry to those heavens above: ‘
Allah! Allah! Allah!
'