25 April Gallipoli invasion

Transcription

1 25 April 1915 Each year on Anzac Day, New Zealanders (and Australians) mark the anniversary of the Gallipoli landings of 25 April On that day, thousands of young men, far from their homes, stormed the beaches on the Gallipoli Peninsula in what is now Turkey. For eight long months, New Zealand troops, alongside those from Australia, Great Britain and Ireland, France, India, and Newfoundland battled harsh conditions and Ottoman forces desperately fighting to protect their homeland. By the time the campaign ended, more than 130,000 men had died: at least 87,000 Ottoman soldiers and 44,000 Allied soldiers, including more than 8700 Australians. Among the dead were 2779 New Zealanders, about a fifth of all those who had landed on the peninsula. In the wider story of the First World War, the Gallipoli campaign made no large mark. The number of dead, although horrific, pales in comparison with the death toll in France and Belgium during the war. However, for New Zealand, along with Australia and Turkey, the Gallipoli campaign is often claimed to have played an important part in fostering a sense of national identity. New Zealand s path to Gallipoli began with the outbreak of war between the United Kingdom and Germany in August Prime Minister William Massey pledged New Zealand s support as part of the British Empire and set about raising a military force for service overseas. The 8454-strong New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) left Wellington in October 1914, and after linking up with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) steamed in convoy across the Indian Ocean, expecting to join British forces fighting on the Western Front. In early November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria). This changed the strategic situation, especially in the Middle East, where Ottoman forces now posed a direct threat to the Suez Canal an important British shipping lane between Europe and Asia. The British authorities decided to offload the Australian and New Zealand expeditionary forces in Egypt to complete their training and bolster the British forces guarding the canal. In February 1915, elements of the NZEF helped fight off an Ottoman raid on the Suez Canal. Gallipoli invasion The NZEF s wait in Egypt ended in early April 1915, when it was transported to the Greek island of Lemnos to prepare for the invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The peninsula was important because it guarded the entrance to the Dardanelles Strait a strategic waterway leading to the Sea of Marmara and, via the Bosphorus, the Black Sea.

2 The Allied plan was to break through the straits, capture the Ottoman capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul), and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. Access to the straits and the Sea of Marmara would also provide the Allies with a supply line to Russia, and open up new areas in which to attack the Central Powers. Following the failure of British and French warships to force the straits, the Allies dispatched the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF) to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula. New Zealanders and Australians made up nearly half of the MEF s 75,000 troops; the rest were from Great Britain and Ireland, France, India and Newfoundland. Led by Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton, the MEF launched its invasion of the Dardanelles on 25 April While British (and later French) troops made the main landing at Cape Helles on the southern tip of the peninsula, Lieutenant-General Sir William Birdwood s Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) soon to become known as Anzacs made a diversionary attack 20 km to the north at Gaba Tepe (Kabatepe). Because of navigational errors the Anzacs landed about 2 km north of the intended site. Instead of a flat stretch of coastline, they came ashore at Anzac Cove, a narrow beach overlooked by steep hills and ridgelines. The New Zealanders, who were part of the New Zealand and Australian Division, followed the Australians in and took up positions in the northern part of the Anzac sector.. Stalemate The landings never came close to achieving their goals. Although the Allies managed to secure footholds on the peninsula, the fighting quickly degenerated into trench warfare, with the Anzacs holding a tenuous perimeter against strong Ottoman attacks. The troops endured heat, flies, the stench of unburied bodies, insufficient water and disease. Early in May 1915, the New Zealand Infantry Brigade was ferried south to Helles, where it took part in an assault on the village of Krithia (now Alchiteppe) on 8 May. The attack was a complete disaster; the New Zealanders suffered more than 800 casualties but achieved nothing. August offensive and Chunuk Bair In August 1915, the Allies launched a major offensive in an attempt to break the deadlock. The plan was to capture the high ground overlooking the Anzac sector, the Sari Bair Range, while a British force landed further north at Suvla Bay. Major-General Sir Alexander Godley s New Zealand and Australian Division played a prominent part in this offensive, with New Zealand troops capturing one of the hills, Chunuk Bair. This was the limit of the Allied advance; an Ottoman counter-attack forced the troops who had relieved the New Zealanders off Chunuk Bair, while the British failed to make any progress inland from Suvla. In the aftermath of the Sari Bair offensive, the Allies tried to break through the Ottoman line north of Anzac, which was now linked up with the beachhead at Suvla. New Zealanders were also involved in this fighting, participating in costly attacks at Hill 60 in late August.

3 Evacuation Hill 60 turned out to be the last major Allied attack at Gallipoli. The failure of the August battles meant a return to stalemate. In mid-september 1915, the exhausted New Zealand infantry and mounted rifles were briefly withdrawn to Lemnos to rest and receive reinforcements from Egypt. By the time the New Zealanders returned to Anzac in November, the future of the campaign had been determined. Following the failure of the August offensive, the British government began questioning the value of persisting at Gallipoli, especially given the need for troops on the Western Front and at Salonika in northern Greece, where Allied forces were supporting Serbia against the Central Powers. In October, the British replaced Hamilton as commander-in-chief of the MEF. His successor, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Munro, quickly proposed evacuation. On 22 November the British decided to cut their losses and evacuate Suvla and Anzac. In contrast to earlier operations, planning moved quickly and efficiently. The evacuation of Anzac began on 15 December, with 36,000 troops withdrawn over the following five nights. The last party left in the early hours of 20 December, the night of the last evacuation from Suvla. British and French forces remained at Helles until 8-9 January Aftermath Gallipoli was a costly failure for the Allies: 44,000 Allied soldiers died, including more than 8700 Australians. Among the dead were 2779 New Zealanders about a fifth of those who fought on the peninsula. Victory came at a high price for the Ottoman Empire, which lost 87,000 men during the campaign. Shortly after the October 1918 armistice with the Ottoman Empire, British and dominion Graves Registration units landed on Gallipoli and began building permanent cemeteries for the dead of During the 1920s, the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) completed a network of Anzac and British cemeteries and memorials to the missing that still exist on the peninsula today. In 1925, the New Zealand government unveiled a New Zealand battlefield memorial on the summit of Chunuk Bair. The battlefields are now part of the 33,000-ha Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park, or Peace Park. Legacy The Gallipoli campaign was a relatively minor aspect of the First World War. The number of dead, although horrific, pales in comparison with the casualties on the Western Front in France and Belgium. Nevertheless, for New Zealand, along with Australia and Turkey, it has great significance. In Turkey, the campaign marked the beginning of a national revival. The Ottoman hero of Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal, would eventually become, as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding President of the Turkish Republic. In New Zealand (and Australia), Gallipoli helped foster a developing sense of national identity. Those at home were proud of how

4 their men had performed on the world stage, establishing a reputation for fighting hard in difficult conditions. Anzac Day grew out of this pride. First observed on 25 April 1916, the date of the landing has become a crucial part of the fabric of national life a time for remembering not only those who died at Gallipoli, but all New Zealanders who have served their country in times of war and peace. New Zealand troops made their first major effort of the First World War during the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April The Allies hoped to seize control of the strategic Dardanelles Strait and open the way for their naval forces to attack Constantinople (Istanbul), the capital of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. Allied forces landed on Gallipoli on 25 April. British (and later French) forces made the main landing at Cape Helles on the southern tip of Gallipoli, while the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed midway up the peninsula. Sent 2 km north of their intended landing place, they encountered determined Ottoman forces in the rugged country above the beach (soon known as Anzac Cove). Unable to make any significant advance, the Anzacs spent the next few days desperately holding onto their small beachhead. Churchill s strategy At the end of 1914, the Western Front was a 700-km-long line of fortified trenches stretching through France and Belgium from the Swiss border to the North Sea. Fighting had reached a stalemate, with the Germans dug in on one side of the line and the French and British on the other. Keen to break the deadlock, the Allies began looking at ways to exploit their superior sea power. With the German fleet contained in the North Sea, the opportunity of launching amphibious attacks on the enemy was especially evident to British First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. He submitted several plans to utilise British naval resources, including an assault on the Dardanelles Strait a 50-km-long waterway linking the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The aim was for an Allied naval force to break through into the Sea of Marmara and threaten Constantinople, the capital of Germany s ally, the Ottoman Empire. Churchill wasted no time in ordering a bombardment of the Ottoman forts guarding the narrowest point of the straits, the Narrows, which was less than 2 km wide. This operation, carried out a few days before Britain and France formally declared war on the Ottoman Empire (5 November 1914), reminded the Ottomans of the threat to the Dardanelles. They quickly improved their defences, including by laying underwater minefields. Target Gallipoli? In late November 1914, Churchill raised the idea of an attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula at a meeting of the British War Council. The council, led by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, Secretary of War Lord Kitchener, and Churchill, deemed the plan too risky.

5 However, the continuing stalemate on the Western Front, and developments in the Balkan region led the council to rethink its position. Most of the people living on the Gallipoli Peninsula until April 1915 were Greek. The Ottoman Fifth Army forcibly removed 22,000 Greek civilians from the area two weeks before the landings, on the pretext that, as Orthodox Christians, they might support the forthcoming Allied invasion. They never returned, ending 2500 years of Greek settlement on the peninsula. With the Ottomans advancing northwards into the Caucasus region, Russia appealed for help to relieve the pressure. Although Russian forces soon drove the Ottomans back, this scare saw Churchill s proposal taken more seriously. The War Council began to warm to the idea of a Dardanelles campaign, believing it could tempt Balkan states such as Greece and Romania to attack Austria-Hungary from the south-east, and persuade Italy to enter the war on the Allied side. The limited nature of Churchill s plan also counted in its favour. A naval attack on the Narrows would not require a large force. Nor would it compromise British naval power in the North Sea, as only older battleships would be involved. On 28 January 1915, the War Council approved an attack on the Dardanelles. Naval attack The naval attack began on 19 February While the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles fell within a week, the Ottoman defences inside the straits proved tougher to crack. Attempts by British and French warships to clear the underwater mines and knock out the coastal batteries ended in disaster a final attack on 18 March saw three battleships sunk by mines. These minefields remained a barrier to Allied progress. Rather than concede defeat, the Allies despatched a ground force which was to land on the Gallipoli Peninsula and capture the prominent Kilid Bahr plateau, west of the Narrows. From there, they could destroy Ottoman defensive positions on both sides of the straits, which would allow the naval operation to proceed. Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton, commander of the new Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF), assumed responsibility for organising and planning the invasion. Hamilton assembled his forces in Egypt. As well as a single British division sent out from England the 29th the forces at Hamilton s disposal included the Anzac troops in Egypt, a makeshift Royal Naval Division of sailors and Royal Marines, a French colonial division from North Africa, and a small Indian expeditionary force. Of the 75,000 men in the MEF, almost half were serving in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), which consisted of the 1st Australian Division (commanded by Major-General William Bridges) and the composite New Zealand and Australian Division (Major- General Sir Alexander Godley). The New Zealanders and Australians had been training in Egypt since December 1914, in preparation for service on the Western Front. The decision to invade the Gallipoli Peninsula changed all that. Invasion plans Hamilton spent the next month finalising his plan for the landing not an easy task, given the rough nature of the peninsula s coastline. He decided to focus his attack on Cape

6 Helles at the southern tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, where British forces would land at five separate beaches. At the same time, French colonial troops would launch a diversionary attack at Kum Kale on the Asiatic side of the straits. The ANZAC, under the command of Lieutenant-General William Birdwood, would make a separate landing midway up the peninsula near Gaba Tepe (Kabatepe). Their job was to secure key points in the Sari Bair Range and then capture Mal Tepe, a hill overlooking the main road running from north to south down the peninsula. This would allow them to prevent Ottoman reinforcements reaching Helles. Only the New Zealand Infantry Brigade (led by Brigadier-General Francis Johnston) would be involved in this attack the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade (Brigadier-General Andrew Russell) remained in Egypt. Defending the Gallipoli Peninsula were six infantry divisions (around 80,000 men) and support units of the Ottoman Fifth Army. Turkish troops made up the majority of the Ottoman units, but Arab infantry regiments also played a significant role in the defence of the peninsula. The invasion would be a tough task for Hamilton s force. Under-strength and underequipped, the ad hoc MEF had had little time to prepare for the landings. While senior British generals such as Lord Kitchener still had doubts about the MEF s military capabilities, they felt it would be good enough against a second-rate opponent like the Ottomans. The landing: 25 April 1915 Originally scheduled for 23 April, the invasion was delayed for two days by bad weather. On Sunday 25 April, the MEF launched its invasion of the Dardanelles. First ashore was the ANZAC, which had moved forward to the nearby Greek island of Lemnos from Egypt in mid-april. From Lemnos, warships and merchant ships transported the troops to the landing zone, where they were loaded into ships longboats that were towed inshore by steamboats before rowing to the beaches. The ANZAC landing site was Z Beach (later known as Brighton Beach), a 2700-m front north of the Gaba Tepe headland. Historians have long argued about the reasons for this, suggesting unexpected tides, faulty navigation by the landing fleet and belated changes of orders. The most likely explanation is that an unauthorised change of direction by one of the midshipmen commanding a steamboat pulled the whole line of tows off-course. The 1st Australian Division spearheaded the attack, with the first wave of troops landing before dawn. They came ashore about 2 km north of the intended landing site, most in a narrow bay (later known as Anzac Cove) just south of the Ari Burnu headland. This was one of the worst places on that stretch of coast to make a landing the surrounding landscape was steep and broken by deep gullies. As the troops tried to get off the beach, units got hopelessly lost amidst the rugged terrain. Only a few small, uncoordinated parties managed to reach the initial objective, Gun Ridge. Delays in landing the remainder of the 1st Australian Division compounded the problems ashore. The last of these troops reached shore four hours behind schedule. In the meantime, the first elements of Godley s New Zealand and Australian Division had begun landing soon after 10 a.m., adding to the confusion. New Zealand infantry, led by

7 the Auckland and Canterbury battalions, started landing around 11 a.m. and quickly joined the desperate and confused fighting on the hills and ridgelines above Anzac Cove. We came in, in a rowing boat half full of water and with about 30 men, in it. It was the slowest yet most exciting row that I ever had. The shrapnel was trying to stop us all the time and it seemed hours before we ran ashore. This shrapnel is very deadly stuff if it catches anyone in an exposed position and no position is more exposed than an open rowboat out on the water. It was our first experience of it and I can tell you we did not like it. After reaching dry land we started work straight away. We did not have to look for wounded who required attention. They were lying all about the beach and in the bushes and we gradually cleared the hillside until we reached the top at about 8 o clock in the evening. Then the trench work started and it was real hard work and rather dangerous. Anzac terrain The Australians and New Zealanders landed on a particularly rugged stretch of the Gallipoli coastline. The tangle of ravines, gullies and spurs inland from Anzac Cove climbs up to a line of scrub-covered ridges known as the Sari Bair Range. The highest points on this range are Hill 971 (971 m), Hill Q (900 m), and Chunuk Bair (850 m). Three spurs designated First, Second, and Third Ridges by the Anzacs run off Chunuk Bair. Third ridge runs south, eventually joining up with two smaller crests Battleship Hill (or Big 700) and Baby 700 overlooking First and Second Ridges. Second Ridge continues as a narrow spur from Baby 700. Small indentations along the ridgeline were to be developed into Quinn s, Courtney s, and Steele s Posts. Further along the ridge opened out into a broad plateau (400 Plateau). At the southern end of Anzac, a series of thin spurs ran down toward Gaba Tepe before merging into rolling mounds inland from Z Beach (Brighton Beach), and the small headland of Gaba Tepe. First Ridge stretched southwest from Baby 700 across a narrow saddle (The Nek) to a narrow plateau (Russell s Top). From Russell s Top, two spurs ran down to the beaches, some 150 metres below. The northern spur (Walker s Ridge) allowed access onto Russell s Top via a series of narrow tracks, while the southern spur (The Sphinx) presented a seemingly inaccessible face. Russell s Top itself ended in a narrow ridge (The Razor Edge), which fell away steeply at both sides. This impassable obstacle linked Russell s Top with Plugge s (Pluggy s) Plateau, the arms of which ran to Maclagan s Spur in the south and Queensland Point (Ari Burnu) to the north. Both features enclosed the beach at Anzac Cove. The inland slopes of the First Ridge fell away into a valley, which bent sharply before climbing toward the junction of the First and Second Ridges. The section from the bend to the sea became Shrapnel Valley, the upper part Monash Gully. Together, they separated the First and Second Ridges. Dig, dig, dig

8 Defending the area were two infantry companies (around 200 men) and an artillery battery of the Ottoman 27th Infantry Regiment. They inflicted substantial casualties on the Australians but were unable to prevent them landing and advancing inland. The Anzacs haphazard progress continued until they ran into elements of the Ottoman 19th Infantry Division, commanded by Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk). One of his units the 57th Infantry Regiment was on exercises near Hill 971 that morning. When reports of the landings reached Kemal, he quickly led this force toward the threatened area. As Kemal s men arrived on the scene, they went straight into battle. A counter-attack in mid-morning drove the Australians back from 400 Plateau. Kemal then turned his attention to the Anzac position around Baby 700, where New Zealand troops had joined the Australians in the front line. As fighting intensified during the afternoon, casualties mounted on both sides. By evening, Ottoman troops had pushed the Australians and New Zealanders back from Baby 700 and the Nek. Instead of securing the heights of Hill 971, or even Gun Ridge, the exhausted Anzacs were facing defeat. The situation looked so dangerous that Birdwood recommended evacuation. Lieutenant- General Hamilton, commander of the MEF, rejected this option, as there was no way to undertake it with the resources available. He could only urge Birdwood s Anzacs to dig in: You have got through the difficult business, now you only have to dig, dig, dig until you are safe. Over the next 48 hours, the Anzacs scrambled to secure their tiny foothold. As further units from the New Zealand and Australian Division landed, they filled gaps in the line. The Anzac positions were gradually linked up and a tenuous line developed along Second Ridge. As soon as possible, the original landing units were withdrawn and reorganised. Eventually, Birdwood was able to establish two divisional sectors: the New Zealand and Australian Division took responsibility for the line north of Courtney s Post, and the 1st Australian Division for the southern area. Cape Helles The results of the British landings at Cape Helles were equally disappointing. Although tactical success was gained at two of the beaches (S and Y), unimaginative leadership ensured this was not exploited. At the main landing sites (X, W and V Beaches), the British 29th Division suffered heavy losses in gaining a shaky foothold. Casualties were particularly heavy at V Beach, where troops disembarking from the improvised landing craft River Clyde made easy targets for Ottoman machine gunners. The results fell far short of the first-day objectives. On the Asiatic side of the peninsula, French colonial troops landed at Kum Kale as planned but were soon withdrawn and sent to Helles. On 26 April, the British finally cleared the beaches and landed the remainder of the 29th Division. The first units of the Royal Naval Division also came ashore after making a mock landing at Bulair the previous day. In this operation, which had little practical effect, Bernard Freyberg, future commander of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force and Governor-General of New Zealand, distinguished himself by swimming ashore to light flares in an attempt to mislead the Ottoman defenders. By 29 April, the battle of the landing was over; both sides had fought themselves to a standstill. While the New Zealanders and Australians had established a beachhead at

9 Anzac Cove, they had failed to capture Mal Tepe, let alone the north-south road. Yet the Ottomans had failed to throw the invaders back into the sea. Further south at Helles, the British and French had established a tenuous foothold on the peninsula but failed to achieve their other objectives. It was a stalemate. Early offensives In the aftermath of the landings, the Anzacs spent time consolidating their position. Unit commanders restored order and discipline. Men dug trenches, unloaded stores and established lines of communication between the front line and headquarters. Lieutenant-Colonel William Malone commanded the Wellington Battalion at Gallipoli. In the weeks after the landing, he helped consolidate and secure vulnerable parts of the Anzac perimeter. At Quinn s Post, where a small advance by the Ottomans would have threatened the entire front, Malone established an almost impregnable defensive position. He died on Chunuk Bair on 8 August Once the perimeter was relatively secure, ANZAC commander Lieutenant-General Birdwood attempted to take the offensive. On the evening of 2 May, the New Zealand and Australian Division, supported by four Royal Naval Division battalions (recently arrived from Helles), launched an attack on the dominating Baby 700 position. The plan called for Australian units to attack from Quinn s Post while the Otago Battalion advanced out of Monash Gully, north of Quinn s, and secured the seaward slopes of Baby 700. Australian troops would then move forward to take the inland slopes. Poorly prepared and badly coordinated, the attack went badly from the outset. The Otago Battalion s move from Walker s Ridge to the head of Monash Valley took longer than expected, and it was not in position when the Australians launched their attack. When the Otagos finally charged out of Monash Gully, 90 minutes late, the forewarned Ottomans mowed them down. At daybreak, the exposed nature of the New Zealand and Australian positions became apparent as they drew heavy fire from Second Ridge. When they withdrew, units of the Royal Naval Division tried to continue the advance, but also suffered heavy losses. The failed assault cost the Anzacs a thousand casualties and gained nothing. Battle of Krithia Unable to break through at Anzac, Hamilton focused the MEF s energies on the Helles sector, targeting the village of Krithia (Alҫitepe) and the hill known as Achi Baba (Alҫi Tepe). An attack by British and French forces on 28 April the First Battle of Krithia made little headway and cost some 3000 casualties. To offset these losses, Hamilton dispatched the 29th Indian Brigade and British 42nd Division to Helles from Egypt. Another French division arrived shortly afterwards. The Ottomans matched this build-up of forces and on 1-2 May launched a major attack on the Allied line, which only just held. After defeating the Ottoman attack at Helles, Hamilton decided to launch a new offensive towards Krithia to take advantage of the weakened Ottoman defences. He looked to Anzac for the reinforcements needed for this second attack. On the night of 5-6 May, the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and the 2nd Australian Infantry Brigade were ferried down to Helles, along with one New Zealand and four Australian field artillery batteries which had been unable to get ashore at Anzac.

10 I watched the 12th Nelson Company make an advance over open country called the Daisy Patch. There was absolutely no cover for them. They lost their commanding officer, and several men were casualties. Ray Lawry then came up and led the 2nd Company over the same place, with a good dash. He got through safely, setting a fine example of courage to the men. He is a plucky beggar. Our turn to go across came next, and we went over the top in good order, with the best of luck. At once we were greeted with a terrible fusillade of rifle and machine gun fire, which was deadly. The man on my right had his brains shot out into his face, and the chap on my left was shot through the stomach. Halfway across the patch I tripped over a root and fell down. I lay still for two or three minutes until I had recovered my breath. Then the bullets started plugging up the earth all around me, so I got up again and made for the Turkish trench as hard as I could go. I reached it without being hit, but was almost dropping with weakness. There was no room in the trench for me, so I jumped into a river bed close by and found a safe place. In the Second Battle of Krithia, which began on 6 May, the Allies launched a series of unsuccessful daylight assaults on the Ottoman trenches. They suffered heavy losses and were unable to break through. The New Zealand Infantry Brigade went into action on the 8th, tasked with capturing Krithia. It was a disaster the New Zealanders had little time to prepare and attacked behind a weak artillery barrage. The troops charged across the Daisy Patch into a hail of Ottoman machine-gun and rifle fire. The New Zealand infantry suffered 835 casualties and achieved nothing, an experience repeated all along the line. By the time Hamilton broke off the attack that evening, the Allies had lost 6500 men killed or wounded and advanced just 500 m. Reinforcements arrive Following the Krithia debacle, the shattered New Zealand Infantry Brigade was taken out of the front line and went into reserve at Helles. It received a much-needed reinforcement draft of 900 men from Egypt before shipping back to Anzac on the night of May. In the interim, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade (commanded by Brigadier-General Andrew Russell) and the 1st Australian Light Horse Brigade had arrived at Anzac on 12 May. Sent from Egypt without their horses, the Mounted Rifles fought as infantry for the remainder of the campaign. The Mounteds baptism of fire was not long in coming. On 19 May, some 40,000 Ottoman troops attacked the Anzac perimeter in an attempt to overrun and annihilate the enclave. In the New Zealand sector, troops successfully defended Russell s Top against a series of frontal assaults, while the Australians did the same further south. The Anzacs inflicted enormous casualties on the attacking waves of Arab and Turkish infantry. By the end of the carnage, more than 3000 Ottoman bodies carpeted no-man s-land. As these rotted in the sun, the smell became so unbearable that both sides agreed to a day-long truce on 24 May to bury the dead. This respite in living conditions was short-lived. As soon as you grabbed a corpse by the arm to drag it over to a hole, the arm came off in your hand. So you just ended up by scratching a little bit of trench alongside of it, rolling it over into the trench and scraping some stuff back over the top. Nobody handled on that day was buried more than six or eight inches underground. The stench was so numbing that the incentive was to get out of it as quick as you possibly could. So finally, instead of one man digging a hole here, 10 men got on to it and

11 scratched and scratched, and instead of one body going into it, 20 bodies went into it. We thought, We ll eventually have all this land, they can have reburials and sort it out. But we never took that land, and those dead were never buried any deeper. The first shower of rain, they were practically out and about again. Stay or go? With Allied operations at Gallipoli going badly, the newly formed Dardanelles Committee (which had replaced the War Council) met in London to consider the future of the campaign. Should they continue with the land operation, or cut their losses and withdraw? Influenced by political considerations, they decided to persist, and agreed to send Hamilton additional forces. Hamilton made further attempts to break through the Ottoman lines at Helles during June and July. Heavy artillery bombardments preceded small gains at the cost of 12,000 British and French casualties. Ottoman troops merely pulled back up the slopes of Achi Baba and waited for the next onslaught. With the situation at Helles seemingly stalemated, attention switched back to Anzac. As the futile attacks continued at Helles, the Allies began looking at alternative strategies to break the deadlock. Lieutenant-General Birdwood, the ANZAC commander, formulated a plan to break through the Ottoman lines at Anzac and seize the heights of the Sari Bair range. Lieutenant-General Hamilton had given up on breaking out at Helles and seized upon Birdwood s idea. He expanded the plan to include landing two British divisions at Suvla Bay, 8 km north of Anzac Cove, and launching diversionary attacks at Cape Helles. Complicated plan At Anzac Cove, the task of carrying out the assault on Sari Bair fell to the New Zealand and Australian Division, the newly arrived British 13th (Western) Division, 29th Indian Brigade, and part of the 10th (Irish) Division. Major-General Godley assumed overall command of this force. Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton commanded the MEF at Gallipoli until replaced in October Described by British PM Herbert Asquith as having much experience of warfare but too much feather in his brain, Hamilton was never able to inspire his commanders or gain the confidence of his troops during the illfated campaign. The success of Hamilton s plan rested on timing and speed. While the Australians made a diversionary assault to distract Ottoman attention, two columns of men would advance up the Sari Bair range and capture the three key high points of Chunuk Bair, Hill Q and Hill 971 (Koja Chemen Tepe) during the night of 6-7 August. At dawn, a joint assault on the Nek from New Zealand and Australian forces on Chunuk Bair and Russell s Top would complete the capture of the whole ridge as far as Hill 971. Meanwhile, British troops would land in Suvla Bay, north of Anzac, and move forward to support the assault on the range.

12 Initial attacks: 6-7 August The August offensive opened on 6 August with an Australian attack on Lone Pine, at the southern end of the Anzac perimeter, and diversionary British and French attacks at Helles. While Helles was a costly failure, Lone Pine proved more successful. Four days of savage fighting secured the area for the Australians at the cost of more than 2000 casualties. While the attack sucked in some Ottoman reserves, this proved counterproductive, for they redeployed on the Sari Bair range. Godley s attack began after dusk that night. As soon as it was dark, two covering forces moved out to capture the foothills over which two assault columns would move to seize Chunuk Bair, Hill Q and Hill 971. Everything went to plan initially. On the right, New Zealand Mounted Rifles units and the Native Contingent captured four of the five key features assigned to them Old No. 3 Post, Big Table Top, Destroyer Hill and Little Table Top. The fifth (Bauchop s Hill) proved tougher to crack, with the Otago Mounted Rifles suffering some 100 casualties in taking it, and losing their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Bauchop. At 9 o clock sharp the Mounteds and the Maori were to charge. Some of the Maoris were to act in conjunction with the Auckland Mounteds in the attack on old No. 3 Outpost. As the sun was setting on Friday 6th of August they gathered around their native chaplain in fighting array, and a brief service as held in their own tongue. To me it was a historic scene. After a few words the hymn Jesu Lover of My Soul was sung in Maori, to a tune of their own. My squadron stood round silent, listening intently. There was something pathetic about the tune and scene that brought tears to my eyes and yet as we listened we felt that they and we could go through anything with that beautiful influence behind us. The hymn ceased. There was a silence that could be felt and then Maori and Pakeha heads were bowed while the native prayer and benediction were pronounced. A brief message was read to the Contingent, and they dispersed, we all remarking that they could not go wrong after all that grand singing. Later on we heard the fierce Kamate from the same throats resounding from the hill they captured. The war cry mingled strangely with the cheers of the Aucklanders. By the time the Mounted Rifles secured their objectives, the attack was several hours behind schedule. From that point on, the plan began to fall apart. The left assaulting column, made up of British and Indian troops, got lost in the darkness and rugged terrain. The right assaulting column never formed. Its two elements the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and an Indian mountain battery did not make their intended rendezvous on Rhododendron Spur, below the summit of Chunuk Bair. At dawn on 7 August, the New Zealand Infantry Brigade s commander, Brigadier-General Francis Johnston, was still waiting on the Spur for missing units to arrive. It was daylight before the troops were ready to move; by then the Ottomans had reinforced Chunuk Bair. Across the valley, Birdwood decided to press ahead with the planned dawn attack at the Nek even though the New Zealanders were in no position to launch a converging attack from Chunuk Bair. He thought that an assault might distract the enemy and help the assaulting columns take Chunuk Bair. Successive waves of Australian light horsemen were cut down charging the Ottoman trenches. By the end of the attack, more than 200 Australians lay dead or dying in no-man s-land.

13 Despite the carnage at the Nek, Godley insisted that Johnston press on, and at a.m., the Auckland Battalion attacked Chunuk Bair. They got as far as an old Ottoman trench at the Pinnacle before heavy machine-gun and rifle fire forced them to take cover. When Johnston ordered the Wellington Battalion forward, its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel William Malone, refused to attack during daylight, insisting he would not send his men over to commit suicide. Godley eventually agreed to postpone the attack until nightfall. Battle for Chunuk Bair: 8-10 August Malone s Wellington Battalion advanced up onto Chunuk Bair in the early hours of 8 August. They found it unoccupied the defenders had surprisingly pulled out during the night. It was not long before the Ottomans realised their mistake and sent troops to retake the position. For the next 24 hours, the Wellington Battalion, reinforced by the Auckland Mounted Rifles and two British battalions, held the summit against repeated attacks. Finally got there [Chunuk Bair] and [had] an instantaneous look-round to see who else was there, and then you had to get busy on the Turk bloke because he was there and he let you know he was there. There was not very much in the way of shelter excepting the trench on the Turkish side, and that from us was on the downhill side. We took that. That is where we started to get close enough for the bayonet. But somebody d forgotten to tell us that when you fired 20 or 30 rounds in rapid fire, and then you d stick the bayonet on, you couldn t hold the rifle to use the bayonet because it was red hot. We got over that with the wounded. The wounded in the forward trench were the bravest ever; they are now skeletons on Chunuk Bair. It didn t matter how badly they were knocked, they still loaded rifles for us. In the holding of the ridge in the first hour or two, I had four rifles my own and three others that the chap down below was loading for me. He had one leg nearly shot off and the other leg was just a mangled-up mess and he was just handing them up. Casualties amongst the defenders were extremely high. The New Zealanders on Chunuk Bair were completely isolated from the rest of the Allied line and subjected to intense artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire from nearby Hill Q and Battleship Hill. There were also instances of friendly fire from artillery and naval gunfire laid around the summit to break up the Ottoman infantry assaults Malone was killed in one such incident on the evening of 8 August. Corporal Cyril Bassett, New Zealand Divisional Signals Company, was the only NZEF soldier awarded the Victoria Cross during the Gallipoli campaign (NZ-born Alfred Shout won a posthumous VC serving with the AIF at Lone Pine). Bassett won the VC, the highest award for valour in the British and dominion forces, for laying and repairing signal cables under fire on numerous occasions, including on Chunuk Bair, 8-10 August. Attacks on Hill 60 Sari Bair was not the last offensive action by the New Zealanders. With Anzac and Helles locked in stalemate, the British planned an attack at Suvla, aimed at taking the Anafarta Ridge. The Anzacs would launch a supporting attack against Hill 60, a small piece of Ottoman-held high ground between the two Allied areas.

14 With ANZAC units severely depleted after Sari Bair, Birdwood cobbled together a composite force of New Zealand, Australian, British and Gurkha troops for the Hill 60 attack. New Zealand s contribution to this force came from the Canterbury and Otago Mounted Rifles regiments, which could barely muster 400 men between them. The 21 August attack was another costly failure. Allied planners underestimated the strength of Ottoman defences and the attack quickly broke down. The New Zealanders managed to capture part of the Ottoman trenches on the southern side of the hill, while British troops had similar success on the north-western side. Nobody else got as far, and the attack cost over 2000 casualties, including 200 New Zealanders. The attack at Suvla also failed. On 27 August, the surviving New Zealand mounted riflemen took part in another attempt to clear Hill 60. After two days of bitter fighting, the hill remained firmly under Ottoman control. Once again, casualties were appalling. In three disastrous weeks, the New Zealand infantry and mounted brigades had effectively been destroyed as fighting forces. After the carnage on Chunuk Bair and Hill 60, the surviving New Zealanders, along with three exhausted Australian brigades, were sent to Lemnos in mid-september 1915 to recover and rebuild their strength. At full strength they would have numbered 18,000; just 4000 survivors stumbled into the rest camps. The disorganisation that had marred the Gallipoli campaign followed the men even here on arriving at Sarpi Camp, the sick and weary veterans found they had to build it themselves. Exit strategy Hill 60 was the last major Allied attack at Gallipoli. The failure of the August offensive raised more questions about the future of the campaign, especially in light of the demands on the Western Front and at Salonika. For the British authorities, Gallipoli had become an embarrassing backwater. Herbert Asquith s government turned down Lieutenant-General Hamilton s request for more men, and then in mid-october replaced him with Lieutenant- General Sir Charles Munro. To exacerbate problems, the Central Powers occupation of Serbia had created a direct rail link between the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and German empires. The Ottomans could now receive heavy artillery from Germany and Austria. The strength of the Ottoman Fifth Army was also increasing; its 315,000 soldiers now opposed the MEF s 134,000. It did not take Munro long to recommend evacuation. Evacuation The New Zealand brigades returned to Anzac on 8-9 November. While they had received some fresh reinforcements from Egypt, every unit was below strength and the men s health remained poor. The onset of winter did not help their frail bodies. Frostbite and hypothermia became rife as cold rain, icy wind and snow lashed the peninsula. A huge storm at the end of November flooded trenches and caused many deaths among the exposed troops.

15 The deteriorating conditions, and the Ottomans growing strength, finally convinced the British to order the evacuation of Suvla and Anzac on 22 November. Planning moved quickly and, in contrast to the shambolic landings of April, efficiently. To maintain security, troops were told their units were heading to Lemnos for a rest, although rumours of evacuation were rife as stores disappeared and supplies were not replaced. Now & again batches of troops were taken away, till at last roughly 45,000 troops were left to hold the lines. Fine weather & secrecy were required for our success. How secrecy was kept was a mystery to us all, as the fact was known for some time previous, & yet as events transpired, it is almost certain the enemy never had an inkling of what our next move was going to be. On Saturday December 18th, half of those left were to be taken off, the remainder to hold the line until the next night. So anything of any use ammunition etc was buried or destroyed, except what would be required. Then Saturday came & the first lot were taken off successfully. Among those left for the last night were the machine Gunners, & all their equipment had to be taken away so rifles worked automatically with water dripping into a tin, & made fast to the trigger, & which were placed at intervals in the trenches, these would fire every now and then. In December 1918, the Canterbury Mounted Rifles Regiment returned to Gallipoli temporarily as part of an Allied garrison force. They helped monitor Ottoman compliance with the armistice and searched the Anzac battlefields for the graves and remains of missing comrades. The influenza pandemic and wintry conditions on the peninsula took a toll on the men s health; more than 100 fell ill and 11 died before the unit returned to Egypt in late January The evacuation of Anzac began on 15 December, and 36,000 troops were shipped out over four nights. Support troops and reserves went first, then the fighting units were thinned out until only 10,000 remained on 19 December. They moved out that night in a coordinated withdrawal from the front-line trenches. At 4.10 a.m. on the 20th, the last men left Anzac Cove. Suvla was evacuated the same night, but British and French forces remained at Helles until 8-9 January Then the campaign was over. Gallipoli s legacy Gallipoli was a costly failure for the Allies, with 27,000 French and nearly 115,000 British and dominion casualties. New Zealand suffered around 8000 casualties, including 2779 dead. Australia s 28,000 casualties included more than 8700 fatalities. The Ottomans paid a heavy price for their victory: an estimated 250,000 men were killed or wounded defending Gallipoli. For the survivors, their families and communities, the effects of the campaign would last for many years. Strategic factors determined the outcome of the campaign. Essentially, the Allies did not have enough men available at the crucial moments. Hamilton launched the campaign with five divisions against a roughly comparable Ottoman force operating on familiar territory. This rough parity continued throughout the campaign, with 13 Allied divisions eventually facing 14 Ottoman divisions. The British government s lukewarm commitment to Gallipoli before July 1915 ensured that the Allied build-up was always too little, too late. Poor leadership also played a part in the Allied failure, with many men sacrificed in futile attacks at Anzac and Helles.

16 The Gallipoli campaign had little impact on the outcome of the First World War. The decisive theatre was the Western Front, where the Anzacs headed next. It was far from clear that the Ottomans would have capitulated even if Allied naval forces had threatened Constantinople. And now, given the sorry state of the Balkan armies, the chances of a Balkan coalition attacking the Allies were slim. New Zealand's last Gallipoli veteran, Alfred Douglas (Doug) Dibley, died on 18 December 1997, aged 101. A stretcher bearer with the New Zealand Medical Corps, he served at Anzac in November December Gallipoli has become a place of special significance to Turkey, Australia and New Zealand alike. For many Turks, it marks the beginning of a process of national revival in which Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal Atatürk), the Ottoman hero of Gallipoli, would become the founding president of the Turkish Republic. In Australia and New Zealand, the campaign helped foster a growing sense of national identity. Those at home were proud of how their boys had performed under difficult conditions. Official observance of Anzac Day, the day of the landing, ensured the campaign would not be forgotton. Today, Gallipoli remains in the collective consciousness of both countries. Thousands of New Zealanders and Australians each year make the pilgramage to Turkey to visit the battlefields where their ancestors fought and died. For many, being at Anzac Cove on 25 April is almost a rite of passage. Life for the New Zealand soldier on Gallipoli was tough. Packed inside the tiny Anzac perimeter, they endured extreme weather and primitive living conditions during their eight-odd months on the peninsula. During summer (June-August), temperatures soared, while the winter months (November-January) brought rain, snow and bone-chilling winds. After a few months in crowded conditions on the peninsula, soldiers began to come down with dysentery and typhoid because of inadequate sanitation, unburied bodies and swarms of flies. Poor food, water shortages and exhaustion reduced the men s resistance to disease. Living conditions The area occupied by the New Zealanders and Australians at Anzac was tiny less than six square kilometres. At its furthest point, the distance between the front line and the beach was just over 900 metres. Conditions were harsh. The area possessed no natural water source, so there were constant shortages. Water, food, ammunition, and other supplies arrived at Anzac on ships and were landed on the beach with great difficulty. Whenever possible, whether in the line or out of it, a man paired off with a mate and established a bivvy. This was a structure of a very primitive sort. With pick and shovel a cut was made in a slope that gave protection from the bullets of the snipers, and if possible from the bursts of shrapnel. A couple of salvaged oil sheets pinned across with salvaged bayonets made a roof that would keep out the dew at night and the sun glare by day. Furnishings consisted of commandeered sandbags or old overcoats for softening the hardness of the baked floor, a cut down petrol tin for a bath and whole one for storing water. As soon as the work was finished the flies and the lice the permanent residents took up their abode, while the casual boarders such as centipedes and soldiers strayed in from time to time as opportunity offered