John Masefield’s Great War: Collected Works

by Philip Errington

  The seashore, like the Straits shore, is mainly steep-to, with abrupt sandy cliffs rising from the sea to a height of from one hundred to three hundred feet. At irregular and rare intervals these cliffs are broken by the ravines or gullies down which the autumnal and winter rains escape; at the sea mouths of these gullies are sometimes narrow strips of stony or sandy beach.

  Viewed from the sea, the Peninsula is singularly beautiful. It rises and falls in gentle and stately hills between four hundred and eleven hundred feet high, the highest being at about the centre. In its colour (after the brief spring), in its gentle beauty, and the grace and austerity of its line, it resembles those parts of Cornwall to the north of Padstow from which one can see Brown Willie. Some Irish hills recall it. I know no American landscape like it.

  In the brief spring the open ground is covered with flowers, but there is not much open ground. In the Cape Helles district it is mainly poor land growing heather and thyme; farther north there is abundant scrub, low shrubs and brushwood, from two to four feet high, frequently very thick. The trees are mostly stunted firs, not very numerous in the south, where the fighting was, but more frequent north of Suvla. In one or two of the villages there are fruit trees; on some of the hills there are small clumps of pine. Viewed from the sea the Peninsula looks waterless and sun-smitten; the few watercourses are deep ravines showing no water. Outwardly, from a distance, it is a stately land of beautiful graceful hills rolling in suave yet austere lines and covered with a fleece of brushwood. In reality the suave and graceful hills are exceedingly steep, much broken and roughly indented with gullies, clefts, and narrow irregular valleys. The soil is something between a sand and a marl, loose and apt to blow about in dry weather when not bound down by the roots of brushwood, but sticky when wet.

  Those who look at the south-western end of the Peninsula, between Cape Suvla and Cape Helles, will see three heights greater than the rolling wold or downland around them. Seven miles south-east from Cape Suvla is the great and beautiful peaked hill of Sari Bair, 970 feet high, very steep on its sea side and thickly fleeced with scrub. This hill commands the landing-place at Suvla. Seven miles south from Sari Bair is the long dominating plateau of Kilid Bahr, which runs inland from the Straits, at heights varying between five and seven hundred feet, to within two miles of the sea. This plateau commands the Narrows of the Hellespont. Five miles farther to the south-west and less than six miles from Cape Helles is the bare and lonely lump of Achi Baba, 590 feet high. This hill commands the landing-place at Cape Helles. These hills and the ground commanded by them were the scenes of some of the noblest heroism which ever went far to atone for the infamy of war. Here the efforts of our men were made.

  Those who wish to imagine the scene must think of twenty miles of any rough and steep sea coast known to them, picturing it as roadless, waterless, much broken with gullies, covered with scrub, sandy, loose and difficult to walk on, and without more than two miles of accessible landing throughout its length. Let them picture this familiar twenty miles as dominated at intervals by three hills bigger than the hills about them, the north hill a peak, the centre a ridge or plateau, and the south hill a lump. Then let them imagine the hills entrenched, the landing mined, the beaches tangled with barbed wire, ranged by howitzers and swept by machine guns, and themselves three thousand miles from home, going out before dawn, with rifles, packs, and water-bottles, to pass the mines under shellfire, cut through the wire under machine gun fire, clamber up the hills under the fire of all arms, by the glare of shell-bursts, in the withering and crashing tumult of modern war, and then to dig themselves in in a waterless and burning hill while a more numerous enemy charge them with the bayonet. And let them imagine themselves enduring this night after night, day after day, without rest or solace, nor respite from the peril of death, seeing their friends killed, and their position imperilled, getting their food, their munitions, even their drink, from the jaws of death, and their breath from the taint of death, and their brief sleep upon the dust of death. Let them imagine themselves driven mad by heat and toil and thirst by day, shaken by frost at midnight, weakened by disease and broken by pestilence, yet rising on the word with a shout and going forward to die in exultation in a cause foredoomed and almost hopeless. Only then will they begin, even dimly, to understand what our seizing and holding of the landings meant.

  All down the south-eastern coast of this Peninsula or outlier from Europe is a channel of sea, known, anciently, as the Hellespont, but in modern times more generally as the Dardanelles, from old fortifications of that name near the south-western end of the Strait. This channel, two or three miles across at its south-western end, broadens rapidly to four or five, then narrows to two, then, for a short reach, to one mile or less, after which (with one more contraction) it maintains a steady breadth of two or three miles till it opens into the great salt lake of the Sea of Marmora, and thence by another narrow reach into the Black Sea, or Euxine.

  It is a deep-water channel, with from twenty-five to fifty fathoms of water in it throughout its length. The Gallipoli, or European, shore is steep-to, with a couple of fathoms of water close inshore, save in one or two beaches where it shoals. On the Asian shore, where the ground is lower and the coast more shelving, the water is shallower. A swift current of from two to three knots an hour runs always down the channel from the Sea of Marmora; and this with a south-westerly gale against it makes a nasty sea.

  This water of the Hellespont is the most important channel of water in the world. It is the one entrance and exit to the Black Sea, the mouths of the Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, and Don, and the great ports of Constantinople, Odessa, and Sebastopol. He who controls the channel controls those ports, with their wealth and their power to affect great conflicts. The most famous war of all time was fought, not for any human Helen, but to control that channel. Our Dardanelles Campaign was undertaken to win through it a free passage for the ships of the Allied Powers.

  While the war was still young it became necessary to attempt this passage for five reasons: (1) To break the link by which Turkey keeps her hold as a European Power. (2) To divert a large part of the Turkish army from operations against our Russian Allies in the Caucasus and elsewhere. (3) To pass into Russia, at a time when her northern ports were closed by ice, the rifles and munitions of war of which her armies were in need. (4) To bring out of Southern Russia the great stores of wheat lying there waiting shipment. (5) If possible, to prevent, by a successful deed of arms in the Near East, any new alliance against us among the Balkan peoples.

  In its simplest form the problem was to force a passage through the defended channel of the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmora, to attack the capital of Turkey in Europe, to win through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, securing each step in the advance against reconquest by the Turks, so that ships might pass from the Ægean to the Russian ports in the Black Sea, bringing to the Russians arms for their unequipped troops and taking from them the corn of the harvests of Southern Russia. The main problem was to force a passage through the defended channel of the Hellespont.

  This passage had been forced in the past by a British naval squadron. In February, 1807, Sir John Duckworth sailed through with seven ships of the line and some smaller vessels, silenced the forts at Sestos and Abydos and destroyed some Turkish ships, and then, fearing that the Turks, helped by French engineers, would so improve the fortifications that he would never be able to get back, he returned. On his return, one of his ships, the Endymion frigate, 40 guns, received in her hull two stone shot each twenty-six inches in diameter.

  The permanent fortifications guarding the channel were added to and improved during the nineteenth century. At the outbreak of the war with Italy, four years ago, they were equipped (perhaps by German officers) with modern weapons. An attempt made by Italian torpedo-boats to rush the Straits by night was discovered by searchlights and checked by a heavy fire from quick-firing and other guns. All the torpedo-boats engaged in the operations were hit and compelled
to return.

  When Turkey entered the war against the Allied Powers, her officers had every reason to expect that the British or French fleets would attempt to force the channel. The military prize, Constantinople and the control of the Black Sea (whether for peace or for offence), was too great a temptation to be resisted. Helped by their German allies, they prepared for this attack with skill, knowledge, and determination. The Turks had no effective battle fleet, as in the sixteenth century, when they sought their enemies upon their own coasts, and had they had one they could not have passed the British fleet blockading the Dardanelles; but they prepared the channel and its shores so that no enemy ship might pass to seek them.

  More than the two great wars, in South Africa and Manchuria, the present war has shown:

  (a) That in modern war, defence is easier and less costly in men and munitions, however much less decisive, than attack;

  (b) That the ancient type of permanent fortress, built of steel, concrete, and heavy masonry, is much less easy to defend against the fire of heavy modern howitzers and high-explosives than temporary field works, dug into the earth and protected by earth and sandbags;

  (c) That the fire of modern long-range guns is wasteful and ineffective unless the object fired at can be accurately ranged, and the fire controlled by officers who can watch the bursting of the shells on or near the target;

  (d) That in restricted waters the fixed or floating mine, filled with high-explosive, is a sure defence against enemy ships.

  Beginning with proposition (a), the Turks argued that (unlike most defences) a defence of the passage of the Dardanelles against naval attack might well be decisive (i.e., that it might well cause the attack to be abandoned or even destroy the attacking ships), since ships engaged in the attack would be under every disadvantage.

  (b) Their guns, however heavy, would not be overwhelmingly successful against temporary field works and gun emplacements.

  (c) Their officers, unable in the first place to locate the guns hidden on the shore, would be unable to observe the effect of their fire, and therefore unable to direct it, and this disadvantage would become greater as the ships advanced within the channel and became shut in by the banks.

  (d) They would be unable to enter the channel until the waters had been dragged for mines by minesweepers. The batteries of field guns hidden on the coast would perhaps be sufficient to stop the progress of the minesweepers. If not, floating mines, alongshore torpedo-tubes, and the accurately ranged and directed fire of heavy howitzers, would perhaps sink the ships of war as they advanced.

  (e) A ship, if damaged, would be five hundred miles from any friendly dock and seven hundred miles from any friendly arsenal. Replenishments of ammunition, fuel, food and water would have to be brought to the attacking fleet across these distances of sea, past many islands, and through one or two channels well-suited to be the lurking grounds for enemy submarines.

  On the other hand, there was the possibility that the heavy naval guns would make the field works untenable; that observers in aeroplanes and seaplanes would locate, range, and observe the fire upon the hidden batteries; that thus the minesweepers would be able to clear a passage up the Straits without undue interruption, and complete the task demanded of them without military assistance.

  Before operations could be begun by the Allied Fleets it was necessary to secure some harbour, as close as possible to the Straits, to serve as what is called an advanced or subsidiary base, where large stores of necessaries, such as fuel and munitions, could be accumulated for future use by the ships engaged.

  The port of Mudros, in Lemnos, was selected as this subsidiary base. This great natural harbour, measuring some two by three miles across, provides good holding ground in from five to seven fathoms of water for half the ships in the world. Two islands in the fairway divide the entrance into three passages, and make it more easy for the naval officer to defend the approaches. It is a safe harbour for ocean-going ships in all weathers; but with northerly or southerly gales, such as spring up very rapidly there in the changeable seasons of the year, and blow with great violence for some hours at a time, the port is much wind-swept, and the sea makes it dangerous for boats to lie alongside ships. Mudros itself, the town from which the port is named, is a small collection of wretched houses inhabited by Levantines, who live by fishery, petty commerce, and a few olive gardens and vineyards. It has a cathedral or largish church, and a small wooden pier, without appliances, for the use of the native boatmen. The town lies to the east of the harbour, on some rising ground or sand which stands up a little higher than the surrounding country. Behind it, rather more than a mile away, are barren hills of some eight hundred or nine hundred feet. The port is ringed in with these hills; it looks like a great extinct crater flooded by the sea. Over the hills in fair weather the peaks of Samothrace can be seen. When the spring flowers have withered the island is of the colour of a lion’s skin. Its only beauty then is that of changing light.

  Mudros in itself offered nothing to the Allied Fleets but a safe anchorage. It could not even supply the ships with fresh water, let alone meat, bread, and vegetables. The island produces little for its few inhabitants; its wealth of a few goats, fish, olives, and currants could be bought up in a week by the crew of one battleship. Everything necessary for the operations had therefore to be brought by sea and stored in Mudros till wanted. When this is grasped, the difficulties of the undertaking will be understood. There was no dock, wharf, nor crane in Mudros, nor any place in the harbour where a dock or wharf could be built without an immense labour of dredging. Ships could not be repaired nor dry-docked there, nor could they discharge and receive heavy stores save by their own winches and derricks. Throughout the operations ships had to serve as wharves, and ships’ derricks as cranes, and goods were shipped, reshipped, and transhipped by that incessant manual labour which is the larger half of war.

  Early in 1915, it was decided that a naval force should attempt the passage of the Straits.

  On the 18th of February and following days, the Allied Fleets attacked the forts at the entrance to the Straits and soon silenced them. These were old-fashioned stone structures of great strength; they were knocked about and made untenable by the fire from the ships, but not destroyed. After this first easy success came delay, for the real obstacles lay within the Straits, between Cape Helles and the Narrows. Here, at intervals, very skilfully laid, commanded by many guns, ranged to the inch, were eight big minefields, stretching almost across the navigable channel in different directions. No ships could pass this part of the Straits until the mines had been groped for and removed. In thick and violent weather, under heavy fire, and troubled by the strong current, the minesweepers began to remove them, helped by the guns of the fleet. But the fleet’s fire could not destroy the mobile field guns and howitzers hidden in the gullies and nullahs (invisible from the ships) on the Asian shore and to the east of Achi Baba. The Boers, and, later, the Japanese, had shown how difficult it is to locate well-concealed guns. Even when sea and aeroplanes had seen and signalled the whereabouts of the hidden guns, the ships could only fire at the flashes and at most hit some of the gunners; if their fire became too accurate, the gunners would retire to their shelters, or withdraw their guns to new hidden emplacements. These hidden guns, firing continually upon the minesweepers, made the clearing of the minefields towards the Narrows a slow and bloody task.

  On the 18th of March, the ships developed a fierce fire upon the shore defences, and in the midst of the engagement the Turks floated some large mines upon the attacking ships, and by these means sank three battleships, one French, two English, the French ship with all her crew.

  Heavy and unsettled weather, which made minesweeping impossible, broke off serious operations for some days. During these days it was decided, though with grave misgivings among the counsellors, that an army should be landed on the Peninsula to second the next naval attack.

  It was now a month since the operations had begun, and the ori
ginal decision, to leave the issue solely to the ships, had delayed the concentration of the troops needed for the task. The army, under the supreme command of General Sir Ian Hamilton, was assembling, but not yet concentrated nor on the scene. Some of it was in Egypt, some in transports at sea. When it was decided to use the army in the venture, much necessary work had still to be done. The Turks had now been given so much time to defend the landing-places that to get our troops ashore at all called for the most elaborate preparation and the working out of careful schemes with the naval officers. The Germans boasted that our troops would never be able to land; possibly at first thought many soldiers would have agreed with them. But English soldiers and sailors are not Germans; they are, as Carlyle says, “far other”; our Admirals and General felt that with courage and a brave face our troops could land. It was true that the well-armed Turks were amply ready, and could easily concentrate against any army which we could land and supply a far larger force, more easily supplied and supported. But in the narrow Peninsula they could not move their larger forces so as to outflank us. Our flanks could be protected always by the fleet. And besides, in war, fortune plays a large part, and skill, courage, and resolution, and that fine blending of all three in the uncommon sense called genius, have often triumphed even where common sense has failed. It was necessary that we should divert large armies of Turks from our Russian allies in the Caucasus; it was desirable to strike the imaginations of the Balkan States by some daring feat of arms close to them; it was vital to our enterprise in Mesopotamia and to the safety of Egypt that we should alarm the Turks for their capital and make them withdraw their armies from their frontiers. This operation, striking at the heart of the Turkish Empire, was the readiest way to do all these things.