Gallipoli (88 page)

Such Kitchener enthusiasm drives the likes of Lloyd George to distraction – as Minister for Munitions, Lloyd George has come to see up close the level of Kitchener's incompetence in everything to do with modern warfare – to the extent that, on 28 October, the Welshman leads a delegation of Cabinet Ministers who dine with Prime Minister Asquith to urge him to outright sack the Secretary for War, and to hell with the political consequences!

As to Keyes' plan, they point out the obvious: the Imperial Fleet, with French assistance, had tried forcing the Narrows on naval power alone six months earlier and it had not worked. Why on earth would they revisit it?

Prime Minister Asquith couldn't agree more. As to getting rid of Kitchener, leave it with him …

1 NOVEMBER 1915, MONTAZA BEACH, EGYPT, NOTE FROM ANOTHER WORLD

It is a strange circumstance indeed that such a message should wash up on one of the few Mediterranean shores where it will attract immediate attention, but this appears to be the case. For in the bottle is a scrap of paper and on it is scrawled a note:

It is the first sign of life of Edgar Adams, who had gone missing on the afternoon of the 25 April landing and had not been heard from since. Once advised by cable that he is alive –
he is alive!
– there is great rejoicing in the Adams household in Mildura.

EARLY NOVEMBER 1915, GALLIPOLI, COMETH THE COLD

Trooper Bluegum, who has now been at Anzac Cove for well over five months, puts it typically well: ‘Days dragged drearily on. Pessimism peeped into the trenches. Later in the solitude of the dug-out pessimism stayed an unwelcome guest, and would not be banished. All the glorious optimism of April, the confidence of May, June and July had gone, and the dogged determination of August, September and October was fast petering out.'
¹⁹

A low, slow malaise starts to settle over the Anzacs, above and beyond the general sickness they have all been struggling with for so long. As winter starts to approach, a general sense of hopelessness deepens, and while the wild birds far above are clearly flying south for the warmer climes, the men must stay. Now, night after night, the creeping cold comes up from the depths of the Dardanelles, steals across the ravaged landscape and settles in the trenches, where it stealthily begins turning flesh to ice, lays siege to the soul and seeps into the marrow of men's bones. On a bad night, it is
cold
… so freezing cold, so catastrophically cold that, as the running joke among the Diggers goes, instead of blowing out the candle in your dugout at night, you actually have to knock the flame off with the butt of your .303. So cold that Trooper Bluegum and his comrades frequently fire ‘five rounds rapid' for the simple pleasure of ‘hugging the rifle barrel'.
²⁰
Warmth!

In early autumn, the tepid sunlight of dawn had managed to chase the cold away again, at least a little, but now, as the season progresses, the ‘sun' is that in name only, and the best you can hope for is a general numbness to relax the cold's agonising grip, as the brass monkeys scamper hither and thither.

The temperature is dropping, the wind is blowing like a bastard and winter is grabbing the Dardanelles by the throat. Can men even live in an open trench in winter in Turkey? It is debatable, and orders go out for materials from Egypt to help to cover those trenches.

In fact, that cover might be useful for more than keeping out the cold when the expected munitions of Germany arrive, and the Diggers will likely be facing ‘modern bombardment',
²¹
under more high-explosive heavy howitzer shells than ever.

Aware of this, Lord Kitchener has already instructed Birdwood, ‘you should study very carefully and carry out defensive works and communication trenches on the lines of those that have successfully resisted German artillery in France, so as to be prepared to resist increased bombardment of your positions. My advice is dig.'
²²

Now there's something that had not previously occurred to them.

In the meantime, the problem of self-inflicted wounds among the Anzacs is now so bad – soldiers prepared to do anything just to get away from this infernal place – that Birdwood posts a new rule. From now on, if a soldier is suspected of such a thing, he will not be sent to the hospitals of Great Britain, Malta or Egypt but will go no further than the toxic tent hospitals of Lemnos.
²³

And maybe that helps. But one machine-gunner thwarts Birdwood anyway, by putting an instantaneous fuse bomb under his pillow and blowing his brains out. ‘Strain evidently too much for him,' his mate records in his diary. ‘Traces of doubtful syphilis.'
²⁴

Many others continue to be killed in battle, with Private Charles Bingham, of the 1st Field Ambulance – a gentle man of impeccable manners, who had seen little of the rough side of life before joining up – recording how a particular Captain of the Royal Garrison Artillery had come in with his brain spilling out of his shattered skull, with no fewer than three wounds in his chest and two in his stomach from shrapnel. How do you even
begin
? All they can do is dress his wounds the best they can, pushing his brains back into his skull and putting a bandage around it, and then Bingham and a comrade carry him to a tent, where they have no choice but to leave him, while they concentrate on helping men who
might
be saved.

‘We heard the death rattle in his throat but oh it seems awful for civilised men to leave him by himself to die like a dog. Flies just eating him. I put a cloth over his face and eyes to keep them off but I looked back an hour later and someone had removed it. I mention this to show just how human life is valued here. Some mother perhaps is worrying her heart out for him too …'
²⁵

Of course, the Turks, French and British are suffering similarly. For those who stick it out on both sides of no-man's-land, the knowledge that they are all in the same wretched boat continues to, somehow – through an affinity of abysmal-ness – bring a strange air of fraternity to the two sides, all while they continue to try to kill each other.

Sergeant Cuthbert Finlay would later tell of another odd truce at Quinn's at this time, how one morning he and his fellow Diggers noticed Turkish heads coming above the parapet and signalling them, before again a parcel is thrown over containing cigarettes and a note in bad French that translates to, Have these with pleasure, our heroic enemies. Send milk.
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Well, one thing leads to another, and before long the soldiers from both sides have once more emerged from their trenches to shake hands, communicate the best they can, exchange mementoes – but, alas, no milk – and get a look at each other before, again, the war calls.

‘The Turks and ourselves intermingled in No Man's Land for about a quarter-hour,' Finlay would tell Bean, ‘and then “finis” was announced. A few shots were fired towards the sky and everything went on as usual.'
²⁷

Back to the business.

3 NOVEMBER 1915, LONDON, HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN

For Lloyd George, it is something, anyway. On this day, he receives a handwritten letter from Prime Minister Asquith that helps to mollify him a little:

Lloyd George must concede the brilliance of the manoeuvre. For while many in the Cabinet agree with him that Lord Kitchener must go, to the British public he remains a hero and for the moment probably
is
unsackable. By sending ‘K.' to Gallipoli to see for himself, it serves both purposes: informing him of the situation and getting him away from the War Office for a precious month, allowing some level of organisation to be imposed.

4 NOVEMBER 1915, ANZAC COVE, GETTING OUT OF THE KITCHENER

All these months in, it takes a bit to stun ‘Birdie', but the mixed signals and conflicting assertions he is getting from the seemingly ever more erratic Secretary for War are verging on the simply ludicrous.

Yet more cables come from Kitchener, changing his position each time: from staying, to landing elsewhere, to forcing the Fleet through, to replacing Monro, to evacuation. All of that on
just this one day
. And to add to it, Lord K. is ‘coming out at once to see things for himself …'
²⁹
General Birdwood reels, though maintaining a calm exterior.

For his part, whatever Kitchener's own confused state of mind, there is one thing he is certain of: he does not wish to be sacked in his absence from London. It is for this reason that he carefully packs away into his baggage before departure the official seals of the War Office, without which orders are null and void.

Two days later, on 6 November, Birdwood gets a solid intimation of the way London's thoughts are turning when he receives a cable from Prime Minister Asquith, telling him to prepare IN CONCERT WITH THE NAVAL AUTHORITIES AND YOUR STAFF … IN THE UTMOST SECRECY A COMPLETE PLAN FOR EVACUATION IF AND WHEN IT SHOULD BE DECIDED UPON.
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1.40 PM, 13 NOVEMBER 1915, ANZAC COVE, THE GREAT MAN STEPS ASHORE

It couldn't be, could it? Not Great Britain's most famous military man – in fact, the most famous military man in the world – stepping ashore here at Anzac Cove? Well, there is
someone
large and ungainly getting out of a picket boat on the pier at North Beach, just come from the destroyer
La Foray
offshore, and Birdie seems to be fussing all around him. The soldiers look closer …

It is! The same walrus moustache, the same imperious air, the same red hatband and baleful glare that has stared down on potential recruits all over the British Empire – it is Field Marshal Lord Kitchener!

After all the cables, all the reports, all the endless hand-wringing and discussions, the great man has come to have a look at the situation himself. As he steps from the small boat that is ferrying him, he is accompanied, of course, by his faithful Aide-de-Camp Captain Oswald FitzGerald, who
never
leaves his side. For such an occasion as this, however, there are also many Generals of his senior staff jockeying for position around him. Of course, such a well-uniformed entourage arriving attracts a great deal of attention, and of course the soldiers instantly recognise the towering and beribboned Lord Kitchener with the greying temples in the middle of the throng.

Private Reginald Scott Gardiner is, if you can believe it, just
two yards away
from where the good Lord first sets foot on land, and will report to his mother in a letter, ‘He is very tall and broad, with bushy moustache, and red face …'
³¹

And they run from everywhere, the interaction between this most supreme of British officers and the many men he has caused to be in this most godforsaken of places carefully recorded by Charles Bean, who watches closely. ‘The tall red cap,' the Australian journalist would record in his diary that night, ‘was rapidly closed in amongst them – but they kept a path and as the red cheeks turned and spoke to one man or another, they cheered him – they, the soldiers – no officers leading off or anything of that sort. It was a purely soldiers' welcome.'
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And yes, the Lord their saviour, maybe, is even able to rise magnificently to the occasion. ‘The King,' he says with some warmth, ‘asked me to tell you how splendidly he thinks you have done.'
³³

Hurrah!

‘You have done very well indeed,' he confirms, ‘better even than I thought you would.'
³⁴

For the next two hours, Kitchener, still accompanied by his doting entourage, strides around this most perilous of domains, this small 400 acres that has been paid for so heavily with blood, and carefully examines what he can see of the Turkish lines. As has happened at the beach, he creates quite a sensation in the trenches, as the men recognise him and cheer him as he strides forward, likely touched by their acclaim but not particularly showing it.

Still, almost like a royal visit, he does stop here and there to chat to the men, saying how ‘proud and pleased' he is by their efforts, and asking them to hang on ‘a little while longer'.
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In one trench, General Birdwood borrows one of the Diggers' periscopes and holds it momentarily above the parapet, at which point a shot rings out and the instrument is shattered. ‘The chap can shoot the eye out of a mosquito,' the Digger drawls, and now holds his hat on the end of a rifle to demonstrate further. This time, nothing, but not to worry. ‘If I had my head in it,' he says cheerfully to Lord Kitchener, ‘he would drill a hole in it!'

The entourage moves on, with Lord Kitchener remarking, ‘Thank you very much, we can find our way now, thanks.'
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