Gallipoli Diary Volume I Part 7

Secondly, because I agree that a landing between Saros Bay and Enos would leave us no "forrarder." There we should be attacked in front from Rodosto; in flank from Adrianople; in rear from Bulair; whilst, as we advanced, we would lose touch with the Fleet. But if our scheme is to be based on severance from the Fleet we must delay another month or six weeks to collect pack transport.

Thirdly, the Asiatic side _does not_ dominate the Peninsula whereas the Kilid Bahr plateau _does_ dominate the Asiatic narrows.

Fourthly, the whole point of our being here is to work hand-in-glove with the Fleet. We are here to help get the Fleet through the Dardanelles in the first instance and to help the Russians to take Constantinople in the second. The War Office, the Admiralty, the Vice-Admiral and the French Commander-in-Chief all agree now that the Peninsula is the best place for our first step towards these objects.

Hunter-Weston's appreciation, written on his way out at Malta, is a masterly piece of work. He understands clearly that our true objective is to let our wars.h.i.+ps through the Narrows to attack Constantinople.

"The immediate object," he says, "of operations in the Dardanelles is to enable our wars.h.i.+ps, with the necessary colliers and other unarmoured supply s.h.i.+ps--without which capital s.h.i.+ps cannot maintain themselves--to pa.s.s through the Straits in order to attack Constantinople."

And again:--

"It is evident that land operations at this stage must be directed entirely towards a.s.sisting the Fleet; and no operations should be commenced unless it is clear that their result will be to enable our wars.h.i.+ps, with their necessary colliers, etc., to have the use of the Straits."

The Fleet, he holds, cannot do this without our help because of:--

(1). Improvement of the defences.

(2). The mobile howitzers.

(3). The Leon floating mines.

Things being so, he sets himself to consider how far the Army can help, in the light of the following premises:--

"The Turkish Army having been warned by our early bombardments and by the landings carried out some time ago, has concentrated a large force in and near the Gallipoli Peninsula."

"It has converted the Peninsula into an entrenched camp, has, under German direction, made several lines of entrenchments covering the landing places, with concealed machine gun emplacements and land mines on the beach; and has put in concealed positions guns and howitzers capable of covering the landing places and approaches with their fire."

"The Turkish Army in the Peninsula is being supplied and reinforced from the Asiatic side and from the Sea of Marmora and is not dependent on the Isthmus of Bulair. The pa.s.sage of the Isthmus of Bulair by troops and supplies at night cannot be denied by the guns of our Fleet."

After estimates of our forces and of the difficulties they may expect to encounter, Hunter-Weston comes to the conclusion that, "the only landing places worth serious consideration are:

"(1). Those near Cape Suvla, (2). Those near Cape h.e.l.les."

Of these two he advises h.e.l.les, because:--"the Fleet can also surround this end of the Peninsula and bring a concentrated fire on any Turks holding it. We, therefore, should be able to make sure of securing the Achi Baba position." Also, because our force is too weak to hold the big country round Suvla Bay and at the same time operate against Kilid Bahr.

If this landing at h.e.l.les is successful, he considers the probable further course of the operations. Broadly, he thinks that we are so short of ammunition and particularly of high explosive sh.e.l.l that there is every prospect of our getting tied up on an extended line across the Peninsula in front of the Kilid Bahr trenches. Should the enemy submarines arrive we should be "up a tree."

The cards in the game of life are the characters of men. Staking on those cards I take my own opinions--always. But when we play the game of death, things are our counters--guns, rivers, sh.e.l.ls, bread, roads, forests, s.h.i.+ps--and in totting up the values of these my friend Hunter-Weston has very few equals in the Army.

Therefore, his conclusion depresses me very much, but not so much as it would have done had I not seen him. For certainly during his conference on the 30th March with d'Amade and myself he never said or implied in any way that under conditions as he found them and as they were then set before him, there was no reasonable prospect of success:--quite the contrary. Here are the conclusions as written at Malta:--

"Conclusion. The information available goes to show that if this Expedition had been carefully and secretly prepared in England, France and Egypt, and the Naval and Military details of organisation, equipment and disembarkation carefully worked out by the General Staff and the Naval War Staff, and if no bombardment or other warning had been given till the troops, landing gear, etc., were all ready and despatched, (the troops from England ostensibly for service in Egypt and those in Egypt ostensibly for service in France) the capture of the Gallipoli Peninsula and the forcing of the Dardanelles would have been successful.

"Von der Goltz is reported to have visited the Dardanelles on 11th February and before that date it appears that very little had been done.

"Now big guns have been brought from Chatalja, Adrianople and elsewhere,--roads have been made,--heavy movable armaments provided,--troops and machine guns have been poured into the Peninsula,--several lines of trenches have been dug,--every landing place has been trenched and mined, and all that clever German Officers under Von der Goltz can design, and hard working diggers like the Turks can carry out, has been done to make the Peninsula impregnable.

"The prizes of success in this Expedition are very great.

"It was indeed the most hopeful method of finis.h.i.+ng the war.

"No loss would be too heavy and no risks too great if thereby success would be attained.

"But if the views expressed in this paper be sound, there is not in present circ.u.mstances a reasonable chance of success. (The views are founded on the information available to the writer at the time of leaving Malta, and may be modified by further information at first hand on arrival at Force Head Quarters.)

"The return of the Expedition when it has gone so far will cause discontent, much talk, and some laughter; will confirm Roumania and Greece in the wisdom of their neutrality, and will impair the power of our valuable friend M. Venezelos. It will be a heavy blow to all of us soldiers, and will need great strength and moral courage on the part of the Commander and Government.

"But it will not do irreparable harm to our cause, whereas to attempt a landing and fail to secure a pa.s.sage through the Dardanelles would be a disaster to the Empire.

"The threat of invasion by the Allies is evidently having considerable effect on the Balkan States.

"It is therefore advisable to continue our preparations;--to train our troops for landing, and to get our expedition properly equipped and organised for this difficult operation of war; so as to be ready to take advantage of any opportunity for successful action that may occur.

"But I would repeat; no action should be taken unless it has been carefully thought out in all its possibilities and details and unless there is a reasonable _probability_ of success.

"A. HUNTER-WESTON, M.G."

Paris's appreciation gives no very clear lead. "The enemy is of strength unknown," he says, "but within striking distance there must be 250,000."

He also lays stress on the point that the enemy are expecting us--"Surprise is now impossible--.... The difficulties are now increased a hundredfold.... To land would be difficult enough if surprise was possible but hazardous in the extreme under present conditions." He discusses Gaba Tepe as a landing place; also Smyrna, and Bulair. On the whole, he favours Sedd-el-Bahr as it "is the only place where transports could come in close and where the actual landing may be unopposed. It is open to question whether a landing could be effected elsewhere. With the aid of the Fleet it may be possible to land near Cape h.e.l.les almost unopposed and an advance of ten miles would enormously facilitate the landing of the remainder South of Gaba Tepe."

The truth is, every one of these fellows agrees in his heart with old Von der Goltz, the Berlin experts, and the Sultan of Egypt that the landing is impossible. Well, we shall see, D.V., we shall see!! One thing is certain: we must work up our preparations to the _n_th degree of perfection: the impossible can only be overborne by the unprecedented; i.e., by an original method or idea.

_10th April, 1915. S.S. "Arcadian." Lemnos._ Cast anchor at 7 a.m. After breakfast went on board the _Queen Elizabeth_ where Braithwaite and I worked for three hours with Admiral de Robeck, Admiral Wemyss and Commodore Roger Keyes.

Last time the Admiral made the running; to-day it was my turn for I had to unfold my scheme and go through it point by point with the sailors.

But first I felt it my duty to read out the appreciations of Hunter-Weston, Birdwood and Paris. Then I gave them my own view that history had never offered any nation so clean cut a chance of bringing off an immeasurably big coup as she had done by putting our Fleet and Army precisely where it was at present on the map of the war world. Half that unique chance had already been muddled away by the lack of secrecy and swiftness in our methods. With check mate within our grasp we had given two moves to the enemy. Still, perhaps; nay, probably, there was time. Were we to prolong hesitation, or, were we, now that we had done the best we could with the means under our hands, to go boldly forward?

Here was the great issue: there was no use discussing detail until the principle was settled. By G.o.d's mercy the Vice-Admiral, Wemyss and Keyes were all quite clear and quite determined. They rejected Bulair; they rejected Asia; most of all they spurned the thought of further delay or of hanging about hoping for something to turn up.

So I then told them my plan. The more, I said, I had pondered over the map and reflected upon the character, probable numbers and supposed positions of the enemy, the more convinced I had become that the first and foremost step towards a victorious landing was to upset the equilibrium of Liman von Sanders, the enemy Commander who has succeeded Djavad in the Command of the Fifth Army. I must try to move so that he should be unable to concentrate either his mind or his men against us.

Here I was handicapped by having no knowledge of my opponent whereas the German General Staff is certain to have transferred the "life-like picture" Schroder told me they had of me to Constantinople. Still, sea power and the mobility it confers is a great help, and we ought to be able to rattle the enemy however imperturbable may be his nature and whatever he knows about us if we throw every man we can carry in our small craft in one simultaneous rush against selected points, whilst using all the balance in feints against other likely places. Prudence here is entirely out of place. There will be and can be no reconnaissance, no half measures, no tentatives. Several cautious proposals have been set before me but this is neither the time nor the place for paddling about the sh.o.r.e putting one foot on to the beaches with the idea of drawing it back again if it happens to alight upon a land mine. No; we've got to take a good run at the Peninsula and jump plump on--both feet together. At a given moment we must plunge and stake everything on the one hazard.

I would like to land my whole force in one,--like a hammer stroke--with the fullest violence of its ma.s.s effect--as close as I can to my objective, the Kilid Bahr plateau. But, apart from lack of small craft, the thing cannot be done; the beach s.p.a.ce is so cramped that the men and their stores could not be put ash.o.r.e. I have to separate my forces and the effect of momentum, which cannot be produced by cohesion, must be reproduced by the simultaneous nature of the movement. From the South, Achi Baba mountain is our first point of attack, and the direct move against it will start from the beaches at Cape h.e.l.les and Sedd-el-Bahr.

As it is believed that the Turks are there in some force to oppose us, envelopment will be attempted by landing detachments in Morto Bay and opposite Krithia village. At the same time, also, the A. and N.Z. Corps will land between Gaba Tepe and Fisherman's Hut to try and seize the high backbone of the Peninsula and cut the line of retreat of the enemy on the Kilid Bahr plateau. In any case, the move is bound to interfere with the movements of Turkish reinforcements towards the toe of the Peninsula. While these real attacks are taking place upon the foot and at the waist of the Peninsula, the knife will be flourished at its neck.

Transports containing troops which cannot be landed during the first two days must sail up to Bulair; make as much splash as they can with their small boats and try to provide matter for alarm wires to Constantinople and the enemy's Chief.

So much for Europe. Asia is forbidden but I hold myself free, as a measure of battle tactics, to take half a step Troywards. The French are to land a Brigade at k.u.m Kale (perhaps a Regiment may do) so as, first, to draw the fire of any enemy big guns which can range Morto Bay; secondly, to prevent Turkish troops being s.h.i.+pped across the Narrows.

With luck, then, within the s.p.a.ce of an hour, the enemy Chief will be beset by a series of S.O.S. signals. Over an area of 100 miles, from five or six places; from Krithia and Morto Bay; from Gaba Tepe; from Bulair and from k.u.m Kale in Asia, as well as, if the French can manage it, from Besika Bay, the cables will pour in. I reckon Liman von Sanders will not dare concentrate and that he will fight with his local troops only for the first forty-eight hours. But what is the number of these local troops? Alas, there is the doubtful point. We think forty thousand rifles and a hundred guns, but, if my scheme comes off, not a tenth of them should be South of Achi Baba for the first two days. Hints have been thrown out that we are asking the French cat to pull the hottest chestnut out of the fire. Not at all. At k.u.m Kale, with their own s.h.i.+ps at their back, and the deep Mendere River to their front, d'Amade's men should easily be able to hold their own for a day or two,--all that we ask of them.

The backbone of my enterprise is the 29th Division. At dawn I intend to land the covering force of that Division at Sedd-el-Bahr, Cape h.e.l.les and, D.V., in Morto Bay. I tack my D.V. on to Morto Bay because the transports will there be under fire from Asia unless the French succeed in silencing the guns about Troy or in diverting their aim. Whether then our transports can stick it or not is uncertain, like everything else in war, only more so. They must if they can and if they can they must; that is all that can be said at present.

As to the effort to be made to envelop the enemy's right flank along the coast between h.e.l.les and Krithia, I have not yet quite fixed on the exact spot, but I am personally bent upon having it done as even a small force so landed should threaten the line of retreat and tend to shake the confidence of any Turks resisting us at the Southernmost point.

Some think these cliffs along that North-west coast unclimbable, but I am sure our fellows will manage to scramble up, and I think their losses should be less in doing so than in making the more easy seeming lodgment at Sedd-el-Bahr or h.e.l.les. The more broken and precipitous the glacis, the more the ground leading up to the objective is dead. The guns of the Fleet can clear the crest of the cliffs and the strip of sand at their foot should then be as healthy as Brighton. If the Turks down at h.e.l.les are nervous, even a handful landing behind their first line (stretching from the old Castle Northwards to the coast) should make them begin to look over their shoulders.

As to the A. and N.Z. landing, that will be of the nature of a strong feint, which may, and we hope will, develop into the real thing. My General Staff have marked out on the maps a good circular holding position, starting from Fisherman's Hut in the North round along the Upper Spurs of the high ridges and following them down to where they reach the sea, a little way above Gaba Tepe. If only Birdwood can seize this line and fix himself there for a bit, he should in due course be able to push on forward to Kojah Dere whence he will be able to choke the Turks on the Southern part of the Peninsula with a closer grip and a more deadly than we could ever hope to exercise from far away Bulair.

We are bound to suffer serious loss from concealed guns, both on the sea and also during the first part of our landing before we can win ground for our guns. That is part of the hardness of the nut. The landings at Gaba Tepe and to the South will between them take up all our small craft and launches. So I am unable to throw the Naval Division into action at the first go off. They will man the transports that sail to make a show at Bulair.

This is the substance of my opening remarks at the meeting: discussion followed, and, at the end, the Navy signified full approval. Neither de Robeck, Wemyss nor Roger Keyes are men to buy pigs in pokes; they wanted to know all about it and to be quite sure they could play their part in the programme. Their agreement is all the more precious. They (the Admirals and the Commodore) are also, I fancy, happier in their minds now that they know for sure what we soldiers are after. Rumours had been busy in the Fleet that we were shaping our course for Bulair. Had that been the basis of my plan, we should have come to loggerheads, I think.

As it is, the sailors seem eager to meet us in every possible way. So now we've got to get our orders out.

On maps and charts the scheme may look neat and simple. On land and water, the trouble will begin and only by the closest thought and prevision will we find ourselves in a position to cope with it. To throw so many men ash.o.r.e in so short a time in the teeth of so rapid a current on to a few cramped beaches; to take the chances of finding drinking water and of a smooth sea; these elemental hazards alone would suffice to give a man grey hairs were we practising a manoeuvre exercise on the peaceful Ess.e.x coast. So much thought; so much _band-o-bast_; so much dove-tailing and welding together of naval and military methods, signals, technical words, etc., and the worst punishment should any link in the composite chain give way. And then--taking success for granted--on the top of all this--comes the Turk; "unspeakable" he used to be, "unknowable" now. But we shall give him a startler too. If only our plans come off the Turk won't have time to turn; much less to bring into play all the clever moves foreseen for him by some whose stomachs for the fight have been satisfied by their appreciation of its dangers.