The History of the World War I. Various Authors

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СКАЧАТЬ the peninsula of Gallipoli. Under Sir Ian Hamilton's scheme it was here that a decoy party of French and British troops were to be landed to draw the Turks from Anzac. Simultaneously an overwhelming British force was to land at Suvla Bay and Anzac to make a surprise attack on the Turks' right flank. Presently we were going upshore past the wrecked steamer River Clyde, the famous "Ship of Troy" from the side of which the Australians had issued after the ship had been beached on the shore hitherto nameless, but now known as Anzac. Australian New Zealand Army Corps those five letters stand for; but to those of us who have been on Gallipoli they stand for a great deal more; they represent the achievement of the impossible. They are a glorious record of sacrifice, reckless devotion, and unselfish courage; to put each letter there cost the men from Australasia ten thousand of their best soldiers.

      And so we edged our way along, fearing mines or, even more disastrous than mines, discovery by the enemy. From the Australasians over at Anzac we could hear desultory rifle fire. Once we heard the boom of some big guns that seemed almost alongside the ship. Four hours it took us to go fifty miles in a destroyer that could make thirty-two knots easily. By one o'clock the stars had disappeared, and for perhaps three-quarters of an hour we nosed our way through pitch darkness. Gradually we slowed down until we had almost stopped. Something scraped along our side. Somebody said it was a floating mine, but it turned out to be a buoy that had been put there by the navy to mark the channel.

      Out of the gloom directly in front some one hailed, and our people answered.

      "Who have you on board?" we heard a casual English voice say, and then came the reply from our colonel:

      "Newfoundlanders." There was to me something very reassuring about that cool, self-contained voice out of the night. It made me feel that we were being expected and looked after.

      Arrival of a launch.

      "Move up those boats," I heard the English voice say, and from right under our bow a naval launch with a middy in charge swerved alongside. In a little while it, with a string of boats, was securely fastened.

      Just before we went into the boats the adjutant passed me.

      "Well," he said, "you've got your wish. In a few minutes you'll be ashore. Let me know how you like it when you're there a little while."

      "Yes, sir," I said. But I never had a chance to tell him. The first shrapnel shell fired at the Newfoundlanders burst near him, and he had scarcely landed when he was taken off the peninsula, seriously wounded.

      The Newfoundlanders land.

      In a short time we had all filed into the boats. There was no noise, no excitement; just now and then a whispered command. I was in a tug with about twenty others who formed the rear-guard. The wind had freshened considerably, and was now blowing so hard that our unwieldy tug dared not risk a landing. We came in near enough to watch the other boats. About twenty yards from shore they grounded. We could see the boys jump over the side and wade ashore. Through the half-darkness we could barely distinguish them forming up on the beach. Soon they were lost to sight.

      Enemy artillery in action.

      During the Turkish summer dawn comes early. We transhipped from our tug to a lighter. When it grounded on the beach day was just breaking. Daylight disclosed a steeply sloping beach, scarred with ravines. The place where we landed ran between sheer cliffs. A short distance up the hill we could see our battalion digging themselves in. To the left I could see the boats of another battalion. Even as I watched, the enemy's artillery located them. It was the first shell I had ever heard. It came over the hill close to me, screeching through the air like an express-train going over a bridge at night. Just above the boat I was watching it exploded. A few of the soldiers slipped quietly from their seats to the bottom of the boat. At first I did not realize that any one had been hit. There was no sign of anything having happened out of the ordinary, no confusion. As soon as the boat touched the beach the wounded men were carried by their mates up the hill to a temporary dressing-station.

      Beginning of bombardment.

      Coolness of the Newfoundlanders.

      The first shell was the beginning of a bombardment. Beachy Bill, a battery that we were to become better acquainted with, was in excellent shape. Every few minutes a shell burst close to us. Shrapnel-bullets and fragments of shell-casing forced us to huddle under the baggage for protection. A little to the left some Australians were severely punished. Shell after shell burst among them. A regiment of Sikh troops, mule-drivers, and transport-men were caught half-way up the beach. Above the din of falling shrapnel and the shriek of flying shells rose the piercing scream of wounded mules. The Newfoundlanders did not escape. That morning Beachy Bill's gunners played no favorites. On all sides the shrapnel came in a shower. Less often, a cloud of thick, black smoke and a hole twenty feet deep showed the landing-place of a high-explosive shell. The most amazing thing was the coolness of the men. The Newfoundlanders might have been practising trench-digging in camp in Scotland. When a man was hit some one gave him first aid, directed the stretcher-bearers where to find him, and coolly resumed digging. In two hours our position had become untenable. We had been subjected to a merciless and devastating shelling, and our first experience of war had cost us sixty-five men. In a new and safer position we dug ourselves in.

      Four miles of graveyard.

      No move could be made in daylight. That evening we received our ration of rum, and under cover of darkness moved in open order across the Salt Lake for about a mile, then through three miles of knee-high, prickly underbrush, to where our division was intrenched. Our orders were to reinforce the Irish. The Irish sadly needed reinforcing. Some of them had been on the peninsula for months. Many of them are still there. From the beach to the firing-line is not over four miles, but it is a ghastly four miles of graveyard. Everywhere along the route are small, rude wooden crosses, mute record of advances. Where the crosses are thickest there the fighting was fiercest, and where the fighting was fiercest there were the Irish. On every cross, besides a man's name and the date of his death, is the name of his regiment. No other regiments have so many crosses as the Dublins and the Munsters. And where the shrapnel flew so fast that bodies mangled beyond hope of identity were buried in a common grave, there also are the Dublins and Munsters; and the cross over them reads "In Memory of Unknown Comrades."

      The incomparable Twenty-ninth.

      How the hill was taken, and lost.

      The line on the left was held by the Twenty-ninth Division; the Dublins, the Munsters, the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and the Newfoundlanders made up the 88th Brigade. The Newfoundlanders were reinforcements. From the very first days of the Gallipoli campaign the other three regiments had formed part of what General Sir Ian Hamilton in his report calls the "incomparable Twenty-ninth Division." When the first landing was made, this division, with the New-Zealanders, penetrated to the top of a hill that commanded the Narrows. For forty-eight hours the result was in doubt. The British attacked with bayonet and bombs, were driven back, and repeatedly re-attacked. The New-Zealanders finally succeeded in reaching the top, followed by the 88th Brigade. The Irish fought on the tracks of a railroad that leads into Constantinople. At the end of forty-eight hours of attacks and counter-attacks the position was considered secure. The worn-out soldiers were relieved and went into dug-outs. Then the relieving troops were attacked by an overwhelming hostile force, and the hill was lost. A battery placed on that hill could have shelled the Narrows and opened to our ships the way to Constantinople. The hill was never retaken. When reinforcements came up it was too late. The reinforcements lost their way. In his report General Hamilton attributes our defeat to "fatal inertia." Just how fatal was that inertia is known only to those who formed some of the burial-parties.

      Newfoundlanders run in battle.

      The Turks charge in mass formation.

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