CHAPTER IX

LAST DAYS

“It is better not to begin than never to finish.”—

Serbian Proverb.

AT the beginning of September a portion of the Divisional Artillery arrived in the Peninsula. The three brigades (54th, 55th and 56th) which sailed from England with the Division, had been landed at Alexandria and sent into camp near Cairo. Rumour had assured the remainder of the Division that they were ultimately destined for Aden, but in this as in almost every other instance, rumour lied. After about three weeks in Egypt, where a certain number of horses died as the result of eating sand which caused colic, the 55th and 56th Brigades were transferred to Mudros and thence without their horses to the Peninsula. The 55th Brigade went to Cape Helles, where it took up a position near the Great Gully with its sixteen guns crowded closely together, and suffered a good deal in that congested area from the enemy's shell-fire. This brigade was definitely removed from the Division and had no further dealings with it. The 56th Brigade, on the other hand, came to the Suvla area, though it did not actually rejoin the Division. Gun positions were not very easy to discover, but the ‘A’ and ‘B’ Batteries of the Brigade came into action below Lala Baba. ‘C’ Battery was out on the plain in a low-lying spot, which was flooded out by the November blizzard, while ‘D’ Battery moved southward into the Anzac area. Here they took up a position on the Damakjelik Bair near the South Wales Borderers' Gully facing northward, which enabled them to enfilade the Turkish trenches on Scimitar Hill, and did excellent work. The whole Brigade remained in its positions when the rest of the Division left the Peninsula, and did not depart till the final evacuation of Suvla and Anzac. They consequently definitely severed their connection with the 10th Division.

Throughout September the days passed with monotonous regularity. The routine of trench work, and the telling off and supervision of fatigue parties did not do much to occupy the imagination, and plenty of time was spent gazing out over the sea to Imbros and Samothrace and wondering what was going to happen next. There did not seem much prospect of an advance but it was never easy for junior officers and men to tell what was brewing.

It was somewhat trying to the nerves to know that one was never certain that one would not be required at a moment's notice. Even when nominally resting behind the line units were frequently obliged to stand to in consequence of an alarm of some kind. By this time, blankets and officers' valises had been retrieved, but one felt that one was tempting Providence if one undressed or even took off one's boots at night, for one was always liable to be roused suddenly. The Turks, during this period, were not in at all an aggressive mood, but they too, were subject to nerves, and used occasionally to open fire all along the line for no particular reason. Except for these spasms of nervousness, however, they confined their attention to sniping, intermittent shelling, and where the trenches were very close together, to trench mortar work and bombing.

Two minor distractions were the swallows and the “Peninsula Press” In August Anzac was a singularly birdless place; in fact except for one cornfield the area had no sign of life of any kind in it. About the middle of September, however, it was invaded by troops of swallows on their way southward, and every gully was full of diving, swooping birds. They brought back many memories of home and of warm Spring evenings and long twilights, and it was a pleasure to watch them circling past the dug- outs. They did not seem to mind the shell-fire, and there was much discussion as to whether they would winter in Gallipoli, but we did not remain in the Peninsula long enough to make sure.

The other alleviation of the dullness was a half-sheet of news issued by the Authority and entitled “The Peninsula Press” The perusal of this piece of foolscap, which was printed at Army Headquarters and sent to units with more or less regularity, was sufficient to fill one with admiration for the art and mystery of journalism. It was surprising how different the string of communiques and bulletins served up raw without amplification or comment was from the newspaper that one had been accustomed to. For the first time one realized the enormous importance of sub-editing. Nor were the communiques very informing, since for the most part they dealt with Polish towns whose names had never been heard of before by any of us. An atlas was a possession extremely rare in Gallipoli, so we were compelled to take the bulk of the news on trust and hope for the best.

Another minor inconvenience was lack of exercise. In the early days of August there had been no reason to complain on this score, but by the time that we had settled down to routine work in September, many found it hard to keep in condition. Unless you went out with a fatigue party ration-carrying or road-making, your work was confined to a comparatively small area. Walks for the sake of exercise only were discouraged by those in authority, partly because officers were few and could not easily be spared from the possible call of duty that might come at any time, and partly because walking, unless you confined your movements to saps, was not a particularly safe amusement. It was extremely easy to go out for a stroll and come home on a stretcher. Added to this was the possibility, that if you went outside the area in which you were known that you might be taken for a spy. Lurid stories were told of unknown officers who had walked the whole length of Anzac Beach asking questions and then disappeared, and though like most rumours these were probably quite unfounded, yet there was always a chance that some over-zealous and suspicious individual might give you an unpleasant half-hour. All these considerations tended to make walking for pleasure an amusement to be indulged in with moderation.

Fairly soon, however, officers began to work at training again, for early in September steps were taken to fill up the depleted ranks of the Division. The first reinforcements had been quickly absorbed on their arrival from Mudros, and by the end of August every unit was much below strength. Since under normal conditions the voyage from England to Mudros usually occupied from ten days to a fortnight it naturally took some time before the gaps in the units were filled. At the end of the first week in September, however, news was received that the first drafts from home had arrived. The men who composed these drafts were for the most part drawn from the reserve battalions of Irish regiments and were excellent material, many of them being men of the old Regular Army who had been wounded in France.

The summer of 1915 in Flanders had been a comparatively quiet one, since there had been a lull in the fighting after the second battle of Ypres. The Regular Battalions of the Irish Regiments serving there had made comparatively small demands on their Reserve Battalions for reinforcements, and consequently large and good drafts were sent out to the loth Division. This consideration, however, did not apply to the Inniskilling, Munster and Dublin Fusiliers, whose 1st Battalions were serving in Gallipoli with the 29th Division and had sustained terrible losses. Unfortunately, the officers who accompanied the first drafts were not those who had been trained with the units of the division, and had been left behind as surplus to establishment, but were drawn, as a general rule, from Scotch regiments. They were excellent fellows and showed no lack of keenness or courage, but officers who had had some previous knowledge of the units in which they were serving would have been more useful, and in addition, from the sentimental point of view, it was felt that an influx of trews and glengarries tended to remove the Irish character of the Division.However, with the later drafts received, a number of Irish officers did arrive.

It was not entirely an easy matter to assimilate these reinforcements. As a rule, a draft is a comparatively small body of men which easily adopts the character of the unit in which it is merged. In Gallipoli, however, units had been so much reduced in strength that in some cases the draft was stronger than the battalion that it joined, while it almost invariably increased the strength of what was left of the original unit by half as much again. As a result after two or three drafts had arrived, the old battalion had been swamped. For many reasons this was unfortunate. It took a considerable time for the officers and N.C.O.s even to learn the names of the newcomers, still more to acquire that insight into their characters necessary for the smooth working of a company or platoon. The shortage of good and experienced N.C.O.s, too, had the result of throwing rather too much influence into the hands of bad characters. In every large body of soldiers there are bound to be men who dislike danger and do their best to avoid it. As a rule these undesirables are known and are unable to do much harm; but among an influx of young soldiers a few men of this stamp, posing as experienced veterans, may do a considerable amount of mischief, till they are discovered and dealt with.

It was unfortunately impossible to adopt the most favourable method of assimilating the new men. To teach men to act together, to recognise and obey the voice of their officer or sergeant there is nothing Uke drill, and particularly drill in close order. Only from drill can be obtained the surrender of individuality in order to achieve a common purpose which is the foundation of military discipline. It is on the barrack square that a platoon or company first “gets together” and realises its corporate entity; it is “on the square” that an officer first begins to distinguish his men and to discriminate between their characters, and it is “on the square” that men first begin to know their officer. Barrack square drill is not, as it was in the Eighteenth Century, the end-all and be-all of military training, but it is an indispensable foundation for it, and no effective substitute has ever yet been found to take its place.

Unfortunately, in Gallipoli, drill was out of the question. When on the move, men straggled along in single file without thought of step, while the duties of trench-manning, road making, or onion carrying, did not encourage smartness. While off duty the men were scattered round a rabbit warren of dug-outs, and any gathering for parade purposes was at once dispersed by hostile shrapnel. All that could be done was to practise bombing in disused Turkish trenches and carry out the usual inspections of rifles, ammunition and iron rations. The severity of the handicap thus imposed upon battalions will be best appreciated by those who have served in France. There units periodically go behind the line to rest, and during the rest-period are able by drill and discipline to learn to know and assimilate their new men.

Among other matters that had to be faced was the training of specialists. Most battalions had lost the bulk of their machine-gunners and signallers and it was extraordinarily rare to find a unit in which both the signalling and machine-gun officer survived. If they did, the Adjutant probably did not, and one of them had been promoted to fill his place. In any case, fresh officers and men had to be trained for the duty. It proved to be unfortunate that very few of the officers who joined with drafts had had any training in either of these branches. A reserve battalion, if well organised, should be a kind of military university in which an energetic officer can pick up some knowledge of every branch of infantry work since he can never tell what he may not be required to do when posted to a battalion on active service. The power to command a platoon is only the foundation, not the climax, of a subaltern’s training. Fortunately, in addition to the second-lieutenants who accompanied drafts, a certain number of officers and men re-joined from hospital. These had mostly been wounded or gone sick during the fighting at the beginning of August, and they formed a very welcome reinforcement, since they were both experienced and seasoned to the climate.

Unfortunately, as much could not be said for the new drafts, who suffered very badly from dysentery. It was a common experience for a company commander to congratulate himself on having discovered a good sergeant-major or platoon-sergeant only to hear on the following day that he had been invalided. The men who had been wounded in France seemed to be peculiarly liable to dysentery.

While steps were being taken to reorganise the shattered units, rumours began to spread that the Division was to leave the Peninsula to rest. By this time most people had begun to discredit all rumours, but it appeared possible that there might be something in this. It was known that both the 29th Division and what was left of the original Australians had been removed to Mudros for a change of ten days or so, and from a military point of view it was eminently desirable to give the Division a chance of training its new drafts in a spot free from shell-fire.

It was, however, very uncertain when and where we were to go. The place varied between Mudros and Imbros, while the time suggested was always “next week.” Finally, the 29th Brigade received orders on September 28th to prepare to move on the following evening, not to either of the places anticipated but to Suvla. For a moment people thought that an attack was in prospect since a day or two earlier “The Peninsula Press” had announced great victories in France. Since units of the Division had been paraded at Mudros in July and ordered to cheer for the impending fall of Bagdad, most people were a little distrustful of official bulletins, but if it really was true, and the German line was broken both at Loos and in Champagne, then, of course, we should push the enemy as hard as possible wherever we could. All these speculations were shattered, however, early on the 29th, by the cancellation of the orders to proceed to Suvla, and the receipt of instructions to embark at Anzac for Mudros on the same evening.

Somehow one was not as glad to be leaving Gallipoli as one had anticipated. To be sure it was all to the good to be out of the shelling for a time and the Turks took steps to intensify the pleasure caused by this prospect by firing on the bivouacs of the 29th Brigade on their last day with unusual vigour. One shell fell immediately outside the guard room of the Connaught Rangers, but fortunately failed to explode. Another burst in the camp of the Royal Irish Rifles and wounded Lieutenant Elliot. This officer was the last survivor except for the Quartermaster and Doctor, of the officers of the battalion who had landed at Anzac on August 6th, and was unlucky in being hit on the last day. Even the prospect of immunity from bombardment could not however disguise the fact that one was sorry to leave. As the 29th Brigade filed down the long sap to Anzac in the darkness, as the 30th and 31st Brigades retraced their steps past Lala Baba and over the beaches at Suvla, it was impossible to avoid retrospect. We had passed that way less than two months before, but going in the opposite direction full of high hopes. Now we were leaving the Peninsula again, our work unfinished and the Turks still in possession of the Narrows. Nor was it possible to help thinking of the friends lying in narrow graves on the scrub-covered hillside or covered by the debris of filled-in trenches, whom we seemed to be abandoning. Yet though there was sorrow at departing there was no despondency. We had the memory of strenuous effort and achievement to inspire us, and the bond of friendship among the few officers who survived had been knit closer than it had ever been before. The men, too, felt a new spirit towards their officers, and the hard times they had shared together had cemented the feeling of comradeship which had always existed. They knew now that whatever the danger might be their officers would be the first to face it, and the officers had proved that their men would follow them anywhere. Once that sentiment exists in a battalion it is impossible to break its spirit.

The 29th Brigade reached Mudros at dawn on September 30th and went under canvas in the Mudros East area, which was on the opposite side of the harbour to the bivouac they had previously occupied. The remainder of the Division followed them thither in the course of the week. There was unfortunately not many of the original Division left.

Though the Divisional Staff had not greatly changed, only one brigadier still held his original command. This was Brigadier-General Nicol, who had won the admiration and affection of the 30th Brigade by his unfailing courage and tenacity. He was not a young man, but in spite of the sickness which afflicted everyone in Gallipoli he resolutely refused to go to hospital, and by his example encouraged many younger officers to “stick it out.” Of the original Brigade Staffs only one Brigade-Major, Captain Cooke Collis, and one Staff Captain, Captain Goodland, survived, and sickness and wounds had so thinned the ranks of the commanding officers that only Lieutenant-Colonel Jourdain of the Connaught Rangers, Lieutenant-Colonel Cox of the 6th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Lieutenant-Colonel Pike of the 5th Royal Irish Fusiliers, and Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Granard of the Royal Irish Regiment, were still with their units. One Lieutenant-Colonel, Vanrenen, of the 5th Inniskillings, had fallen, and the other eight were wounded or sick. The battalions, too, had suffered terribly, and it was an exceptional unit that possessed more than half-a-dozen of its original officers and 200 of the men who had gone with it to the Peninsula at the beginning of August. Even of these a fair proportion had spent part of the time in hospital and rejoined; those who had seen the campaign through from start to finish were rare.

There was, however, little time to think of these matters. The concentration of the Division was not completed till October 3rd and on October 4th its first two battalions sailed for another theatre of war.

Source: The Tenth (Irish) Division at Gallipoli by Major Bryan Cooper, 1917.