by Peter Hart
Four of us lay under shrapnel, machine gun and rifle fire, not daring to lift our heads the whole while; if we had budged we would have been killed dozens of times over. The bullets were streaming so thick over our heads. My rifle, which I had placed just a bit ahead of me to protect my head, was chipped two or three times and the dirt was plugged on either side of me. Our officer said he’d never seen anything like it and he’s an old soldier. I was jolly tired, too, and as a matter of fact I went to sleep twice. It made no difference whether I got hit sleeping or waking as I couldn’t shoot from the position I was in. The only thing to do was to lie low until the fire slackened. It was about 3.30 p.m. when I got hit.23
Private Herbert Fildes, 12th (South & Western Australian and Tasmanian) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
Fildes was hit three times in the legs before he could get back to the beach. Men were wounded time and time again. Captain John Milne, positioned on Bolton’s Ridge, just south of 400 Plateau, had already been wounded three times when he was hit again.
A man lying next to me got killed, and I put out my left hand to take his rifle and have a shot. Just as I did so a shell burst right overhead and hit me across the fingers, smashing the stock of the rifle to splinters, so I didn’t have a shot that time. I got out my field dressing and tied them up and carried on, but very soon after a 6″ shell got to business and a piece of it ripped through the back of my upper left arm.24
Captain John Milne, 9th (Queensland) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
Through his binoculars Lieutenant Colonel Sefik had brief glimpses of the deadly combat, including one skirmish at the north-east corner of Lone Pine.
All of a sudden, among the thickets, a closely packed line of soldiers were seen to rise to their feet. This line moved through the thickets in front of them and rushed upon our riflemen in a bayonets attack. When our riflemen saw this attack of the Australians, they immediately jumped to their feet, all together, and rushed in retaliation at the Australians. Most of the Australians who saw the counter-attack of our men suddenly stopped. While a few of them engaged in a bayonet and rifle duel with our men, the others ran away and got lost among the high brushwood. Our men pursued them with rifle fire.25
Lieutenant Colonel Mehmet Sefik, Headquarters, 27th Regiment, 9th Division, Fifth Army
Meanwhile, on Sefik’s right, isolated elements of the 3/27th Regiment were fighting hard to prevent the Anzacs from pushing up further towards Chunuk Bair. Second Lieutenant Mucip Bey was on Mortar Ridge, a spur stretching down from Baby 700.
I went 40 to 50 paces in front of our skirmish line. When I got above the ridge line I could see the Australians advancing among the bushes. A line was also advancing behind them. Without letting the enemy see, I selected a position and had our men moved into it. Suddenly from 200 metres we opened heavy fire. The Australians were shaken by the casualties they suffered. Some heroes appeared amongst them – disregarding death they worked to improve their situation.26
Second Lieutenant Mucip Bey, 3rd Battalion, 27th Regiment, 9th Division, Fifth Army
Throughout that long day, whenever the Australian and New Zealand soldiers tried to move forward to reinforce their foremost positions, they faced a quandary. If they moved along the high ridge lines, where they had the chance to see the layout of the landscape, they would be shot down; if they hastily dived down into the gullies then they would soon be lost, climbing up and down the intervening ridges, while still risking instant death every time they allowed themselves to be briefly sky-lined. Whether teetering down near-vertical slopes or tortuously climbing back up the other side, they were slow moving targets. It was all too easy for the waiting Turks to pick them off: first, the officers, their rank insignia clear to behold on their shoulders and sleeves; then the NCOs, cajoling and directing their men as was their duty; and finally, the men of characer would step forward – men willing to risk their all to drive forward. In effect the Turks were able to scythe down the leaders from the advancing Anzacs.
One half company of 11th Battalion, commanded by Captain Eric Tulloch, had pushed determinedly up towards Chunuk Bair in one of the very few forward movements made after the first couple of hours. With them was Signaller Corporal Herbert Hitch. By about 09.30 they had managed to advance on to the Incebayor Spur of Battleship Hill but found themselves more or less isolated, with the bulk of 3rd Brigade still stalled back on Second Ridge.
I was supposed to keep in touch with any unit on the flank, any unit in the front or the rear as we advanced through the scrub. Whenever I reached any vantage point I waved the flag – a small flag white with a blue stripe through it. I was watching out for answering signals, I didn’t get any – we were out of touch. It was quite a distance between us and the next unit on the right as far as I know. By that time our numbers were down to about twenty, perhaps thirty.27
Corporal Herbert Hitch, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
He was finally receiving a signal when he got a terrible shock.
The Turkish artillery had opened up and were firing salvos, dropping the range 100 yards at a time, searching the ground. I was right in the line with two bursts. I thought, ‘My goodness, the next one will catch me!’ It burst behind me and the whole contents of the shell went round me. I had the rifle leaning against my crutch and that spun to the ground. The pellets flew past and they sounded like a flight of parrots and puffs of dust rose here and there where the pellets struck the ground. I fell down thinking I must have been hit; twitching my muscles. When I picked the rifle up it had three hits on the barrel. Two close together on a hand guard knocking the woodwork away, leaving the springs on the barrel and one on the hand guard casing above the barrel. I also had one through my clothing, I found later on. That was remarkable because there were about 300 odd bullets in a shrapnel shell.28
Corporal Herbert Hitch, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
Over on Mortar Ridge, Second Lieutenant Mucip Bey and his small squad were desperate for reinforcements.
The battle started showing its effect on our side, too. The commander of the battalion, Major Halis Bey from Uşak, appeared at that moment. I felt that the weight of the responsibility, which had been unbearable for several hours, was being lifted from my shoulders. I took a deep breath. There couldn’t have been a bigger support than this for a 20-year-old subaltern. The battalion commander complimented me and then started studying the position of the enemy. I was trying to make sense of his face which was turning yellow, and of the fading light in his eyes. But I didn’t need to reflect much or to search for a clue, for the left arm of his khaki jacket started to turn red and drops of blood gathered at his finger tips. ‘You are wounded!’ I said. ‘Not now! Don’t let the men know.’29
Second Lieutenant Mucip Bey, 3rd Battalion, 27th Regiment, 9th Division, Fifth Army
Only when he was convinced that his young officer had the situation in hand did Major Halis Bey go back for treatment.
It was evident that the 27th Regiment had little more to give; but the promised reinforcements had still not arrived. The Turks were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Lieutenant Colonel Sefik had been told that the men of the 19th Division were on their way. But where were they?
LIEUTENANT COLONEL MUSTAFA KEMAL, the commander of the 19th Division, had had a much longer wait for orders than Sefik. With news of landings flooding in from all sides the Turkish High Command had hesitated to commit its reserves and it was only at about 08.00 that Kemal finally received his orders. His dramatic reaction – crucial to the outcome of the whole day’s fighting – was witnessed by Major Zeki Bey.
My battalion was on parade when the news of your landing came to us. It chanced that there had been ordered for that morning an exercise over the ground, especially towards Koja Chemen Tepe [Hill 971]. The Commander of our Division had received about dawn a report that a landing had occurred at Ari Burnu. The Turkish staff and commanders c
oncerned did not expect a landing at Ari Burnu because it was too precipitous. The message then asked the Commander of the 19th Division to send one battalion from Boghali against Ari Burnu. The Regiment was assembled when the order came. Mustafa Kemal came himself, and ordered the Regiment and a Battery of artillery – mountain guns – to intercept the ‘English’ who had landed. He reasoned, ‘If this force has gone in the direction of Koja Chemen Tepe, the landing is not a mere demonstration – it is the real thing, the landing of a main force.’ For that reason he took, not one Battalion, as the Commander of the 9th Division had asked, but the whole Regiment. They went at once straight across country towards the south of Koja Chemen Tepe towards Chunuk Bair – Kemal himself leading.30
Major Zeki Bey, 1st Battalion, 57th Regiment, 19th Division, Fifth Army
Mustafa Kemal was truly to make his mark on the ANZAC Corps over the next hours, days and months of the Gallipoli campaign. Born in 1881 in the port of Salonika, which was then in Turkish Macedonia, from the age of twelve he had attended military schools before entering the Staff College. He was commissioned as a captain in 1905, but his mushrooming political activities meant that he often found himself in conflict with the authorities and he was posted away to the backwater of Syria and then to a staff position in Salonika. By this time his political group had been subsumed within the much more influential Young Turks. When the revolution came in July 1908 Kemal had been left a peripheral figure and, in his frustration, he had reacted badly, openly criticising the Young Turks. The brief counter-revolution of April 1909 made him militarily useful and he was given a staff appointment during the Tripolitanian War with Italy. Then, during the First Balkan War, Kemal had the unpleasant experience of watching from afar as his Macedonian homeland was over-run by the Greeks. As a staff officer, he was sent to help organise the defence of the Gallipoli Peninsula. By the end of the Balkan Wars Kemal had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but then he was despatched out of the way as a military attaché to Bulgaria. When the Great War broke out in 1914 he had not been in favour of entering on the German side; he feared that Turkey would decline into a satellite state if Germany won, and lose everything if Germany lost. Kemal had wanted to wait and see for as long as possible, but on balance favoured joining the Allies. Nevertheless, despite his past politicking, he remained at heart a loyal Turkish officer and he was appointed to command the 19th Division in Gallipoli with his headquarters in Maidos. This, then, was the complex and driven man who faced the Anzacs on 25 April 1915.
The ground we had to traverse consisted largely of scrub and rocky valleys. I detailed the artillery commander to find a road and to point it out to the units. Kocacimen Tepe [Sari Bair] is the highest hill on the Peninsula, but as Ari Burnu is in dead ground it cannot be seen from here. From there I could see nothing at all except the battleships on the sea. I realised that the enemy infantry which had landed were still some way off. Our men had got very tired crossing that difficult ground without any halt and the line of march had become very strung out. I told the Regimental and Battery commanders to close their men up and give them a short halt. They were to halt there for 10 minutes out of sight of the sea and then follow me.31
Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal, Headquarters, 19th Division, Fifth Army
Kemal moved down towards Chunuk Bair, taking with him a few of his staff. At about 10.00, he saw a detachment of Turkish troops running back.
Confronting these men myself, I said, ‘Why are you running away?’ ‘Sir, the enemy!’ ‘Where?’ ‘Over there!’ they said, pointing out Battleship Hill. In fact a line of skirmishers of the enemy approached Battleship Hill and was advancing completely unopposed. Now just consider the situation. I had left my troops, so as to give the men 10 minutes’ rest. It meant that the enemy was nearer to me than my troops were, and if the enemy came to where I was, then my troops would find themselves in a very difficult position. Then, I still do not know what it was, whether a logical appreciation or an instinctive action, I do not know, I said to the men running away, ‘You cannot run away from the enemy!’ ‘We have no ammunition!’ ‘If you haven’t got any ammunition you have your bayonets!’ I said. And shouting to them I made them fix their bayonets and lie down on the ground. When they fixed their bayonets and lay down on the ground the enemy also lay down. The moment of time that we gained was this one.32
Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal, Headquarters, 19th Division, Fifth Army
At the same time Kemal sent back his orderly officer to bring up his men as quickly as possible. Every minute counted but it took a considerable time. As the 57th Regiment arrived they first formed a firing line and were then sent in to attack the tentative Australian positions on Baby 700 and Tulloch’s men on Incebayor Spur. It is at this point that Kemal is reputed to have given the order that has gone down in history.
To my mind there was a more important factor than this tactical situation – that was everybody hurled himself on the enemy to kill and to die. This was no ordinary attack. Everybody was eager to succeed or go forward with the determination to die. Here is the order which I gave verbally to the commanders: ‘I don’t order you to attack – I order you to die. In the time which passes until we die, other troops and commanders can take our places.’33
Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal, Headquarters, 19th Division, Fifth Army
The Australians, partially dug in on Battleship Hill, were caught unawares by Kemal’s onslaught. Some had never guessed that the Turks would counter-attack; they imagined that, once a position was taken, it was only onwards and upwards to success. Now they found themselves suddenly outnumbered. There was no command and control at all; indeed, at one point there were isolated portions of seven different battalions in the sector. With no communications, no common plan and no integrated defence system, they were ripe to be overwhelmed by the more purposeful Turks. A rapid swelling in the level of Turkish small arms fire indicated the arrival of their reinforcements. Tulloch’s men were unable to do anything more than cower down in small folds in the ground. Retreat was unavoidable if they wanted to live.
Then the order came, retire in sections from the right and being on the right flank I jumped up to run. As soon as I jumped up the air was alive with bullets, most of them going overhead. We ran back about 200 yards, but by the time we reached the top of the next ridge all the rest were in motion. We opened fire and we fired about six or seven rounds each just to keep the enemy from coming on too quickly and then we all ran back together for about another 150 yards and the order was passed along, ‘Reform left, Turks advancing on the left!’ They were a fine looking body of men. They weren’t running but were walking very quickly. As they came under our fire they ran back and I had two shots at a running man and missed him each time – I thought my rifle must have had the barrel bent. Then suddenly down from the sky as if by magic came the shells – their artillery observer had put them on to us. Providentially they were bursting late and the shrapnel was shredding the scrub behind us.34
Corporal Herbert Hitch, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
Back they tumbled during a gap in the shell fire. In all the confusion Hitch lost touch with his comrades.
I burst through the scrub suddenly and found myself on the edge of a steep ravine. I broke through so suddenly I had to grasp a sapling to save going over. There seemed no way of getting out from there. I thought, ‘I’m going to get across here somehow!’ and I threw my rifle down into this ravine and jumped. I sailed through the air about 25 feet and landed on a slope of 1 in 1. As I jack-knifed I felt as though I had landed on a couple of bayonets. I pitched over head first and seemed to be heading for a precipice, but I was lucky enough to grab a root with my left hand and swing round and go down feet first. I went over two or three vertical falls of about 8 to 10 feet and landed like a sack of spuds each time until finally I reached the breakaway with a drop of about 30 feet and I managed to stop there with about 6 feet to the next drop. As I stopped
the earth I had dislodged came tumbling after me.35
Corporal Herbert Hitch, 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF
Battleship Hill fell to the Turks and still they pushed on, driving down on to Baby 700. The fighting surged backwards and forwards, but overall the Anzacs were falling back towards The Nek and Russell’s Top.
It was becoming evident that Kemal’s intervention could not have been better timed if it had been entirely deliberate. From the Australian perspective the 27th Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Mehmet Sefik appeared first, threatening their right flank and developing a strong counter-attack, sucking in reserves. All the while, hidden behind the various ridges, the 57th Regiment was marching straight for the key high ground that would determine once and for all the fate of the ANZAC Corps landing. When the 57ths suddenly appeared and began to push home their counter-attack in the afternoon it was already too late. The Anzacs did not have enough reserves left; what minimal chances they had of success had been eroded by the unilateral actions of Colonel Sinclair-MacLagan, first in stopping the advance on Second Ridge and then in deploying most of the available reserves on to 400 Plateau, leaving the left flank open. Since that fateful decision, the 1st Division’s commander, Major General Sir William Bridges, had failed to take any determined action that might have changed the course of the battle. Even the battalions of the 1st Brigade, his divisional reserve, had been assigned to the bitter fighting on 400 Plateau – indeed, elements of ten of the twelve 1st Division battalions ended up fighting there on 25 April. Worse still, when the New Zealand Brigade of the NZ&A Division, temporarily commanded by Colonel Harold Walker, began to come ashore from 10.45 with orders to reinforce the left flank, they too ended up dispersed randomly along Second Ridge. The Auckland Battalion was ashore by 12.30 but it had been decided – not unreasonably – that the direct route off the beach via Walker’s Ridge was too precipitous and they were redirected through the bottleneck of Shrapnel and Monash Valleys.
