At all events, the submarines came, with the result that the battleships _Goliath_ and _Triumph_ were sunk with appalling swiftness and great loss of life.
Then, and then only, did the Fleet awaken to its danger; the battleships and cruisers vanished into the unknown, while the transports disappeared in a night, and we felt, as it were, marooned on this inhospitable Peninsula, from which the Turks had removed every living thing, save only a few dogs, which were found to be so dangerous that they had to be shot at sight.
It was, therefore, with feelings of great pleasure that, as I rode down to W Beach on the evening of the 26th May, I saw the stately battleship, the _Majestic_, lying at anchor out in the roadstead, a few cable lengths from W Beach; and as I looked my heart grew glad within me, because there lay the ship in the open sea, exposed to any attack, and I felt that it would be impossible for the ship to lie thus unless the German submarines which had sunk the other battleships a few days previously were either disposed of, or else some clever new defence had been designed which made the _Majestic_ immune from the deadly torpedo.
It was a cheering thought, and it helped to enhance the beauty of the wondrous panorama which lay spread before my eyes.
Away to my left stood the quaint old ruined walls and towers of Sedd-el-Bahr, thrown into bold outline against the rippling waters of the Dardanelles, while further on the eye was caught by the green plains of Ilium, set in a tangle of hills, on the picturesque Asiatic coast.
Ahead of me, to the south, glittered the soft sea, with Cape Helles jutting into it, like a rough brown hand thrust into a basin of shimmering quicksilver. Almost at my feet lay Lancashire Landing, busy with its hundreds of men and animals going to and fro, while away on my right sparkled the aegean, with the Isles of Greece jutting out of it, like rugged giants rising from their ocean lair. To crown all, the sun was going down in a perfect blaze of colour, tipping the crests of Imbros and Samothrace with a glint of gold, as it sank behind them into the sea. I have seen sunsets in many parts of the world, but never have I seen anything to equal the glorious lights and shades which at sundown are painted on the aegean sky. If I were an artist, my ambition would be to go in the lovely autumn days on a pilgrimage to these shores and humbly try to put on my canvas the perfectly gorgeous but harmoniously blended rose, pink, scarlet, red, yellow, purple, green, amber and blue--a perfect intoxication of glorious colours which the imagination would be unequal to, unless they were absolutely thrown on the sky before one's own eyes. The magnificence of the sunsets seen from Gallipoli were the sum of what an ordinary mortal could conceive as a fitting setting for the splendour of God's Throne.
So it is to be hoped that the officers and crew of the _Majestic_, which was moored so peacefully amid such heavenly surroundings, took a soul-satisfying view of the glory around them, because, alas, for many of the poor fellows it was the last sunset that would ever gladden their eyes, for on the morning of the 27th the ship was marked down by a German submarine and sent to its doom within four minutes of being struck.
I was attending to some routine work in my camp when I heard the terrific explosion and, looking up, saw a volume of smoke ascending to the heavens from W Beach. I jumped on my horse, which was ready saddled close by, and galloped over to hear what had happened. When I topped the rise, all of the _Majestic_ that I could see was a couple of dozen feet of its copper keel which projected above the water, and which still remains thus--a mute witness to the fact that "some one had blundered."
Regrettable incidents like these should be unknown in a Navy renowned for the good practical commonsense and thoroughness of its captains.
CHAPTER XVII
TRENCH WARFARE IN GALLIPOLI
"From all forms of trench warfare, preserve us, O Lord!" should be the humble prayer of every soldier, for it is about the most unpleasant, tiresome, humdrum, disagreeable, dangerous, death-without-glory kind of warfare which the evil genius of man could devise. As, however, it has come to stay, it may perhaps be of interest to describe what it was like in Gallipoli.
When, after the first battles, the Turks refused any longer to meet us in the open, and took to the trenches, which they had, with great energy, dug right across the Peninsula, it became necessary for us to adopt the same mole-like tactics, and our advance was brought practically to a standstill. Instead of going ahead a couple of miles in a day's fight, it now became a question of taking one trench at a time, and often we did not gain as much as that, even after the most strenuous battles.
Long lines of trenches, from three to six or more feet deep, and three or four feet wide, were dug in zig-zags right across the Peninsula, more or less parallel to the Turkish lines, and behind these were similar support and reserve trenches; at the back of these again were second and third line defence trenches; while still further were the so-called rest trenches, but in Gallipoli these were just as dangerous as the front trenches, owing to the confined space in which the army was cooped up, and also owing to the configuration of the ground, which exposed them to fire from Achi Baba as well as from the guns in Asia. Some of our trenches were so deep that hundreds of scaling ladders were always kept in readiness to enable the men to swarm out quickly when an assault was to be made. Long lines of communication trenches ran up and down and to and fro, connecting the various lines of trenches, and many of these were dug deep enough and wide enough to give ample cover for mules and horses. Various little back alleys were also dug in different directions, so that the whole face of the country was transformed into a veritable rabbit warren. These communication trenches were necessary so that reliefs, reinforcements, munitions, food and water could be taken up in safety to the firing line.
Where the ground was very hard and deep trenches could not be dug, the necessary cover was given by building parapets made of sandbags, little canvas bags about two feet long and ten inches across, which could easily be carried by one man when filled with sand or clay. These sandbags should be of different colours, because otherwise when one is taken out to make a loophole the blank space is seen at once and the enemy's fire is concentrated on it. In Gallipoli our sandbags were all of the same colour--drab-coloured canvas.
When an attack was made and an enemy's trench was captured, thousands of these sandbags were carried forward, and by piling them up a new protective trench was rapidly constructed, for, of course, the original Turkish trench was always battered to pieces (or should have been) by high explosive shells before the attack was launched.
Another great use of the sandbag was to erect a barrier across an enemy communication trench, otherwise, of course, he could pour his troops down the communication alley and perhaps effect a surprise. It was exceedingly odd to see our sentry on one side of such a barrier and the Turkish sentry on the other side, apparently quite friendly in the intervals of bombing each other!
One day a man of the Inniskilling Fusiliers played a trick on the Turkish sentry. Finding life rather monotonous, and being somewhat fed up with bully beef, he bored a hole in his tin, stuck a cartridge into it, and hurled the novel projectile over the sandbag barrier among the Turks, who could be heard flying for their lives away from it along the trench, evidently thinking it was some new form of diabolical bomb we had invented. Then one man, a little bolder than the rest, could be heard cautiously stalking it; he even threw stones at it, and when these failed to cause an explosion, he plucked up enough courage to hook it towards him with his fixed bayonet. It was apparently sent off for investigation to some German professor in the rear, for some few hours later the Turkish sentry shouted out loudly over the parapet: "Bully beef, bully beef; throw us more," and this little incident led to many friendly exchanges of bully or cigarettes.
Life in the trenches when no "strafe" was on was very monotonous--dull, weary watching and waiting, with dust blowing into one's eyes and mouth and nose all the time, and flies everywhere. While in the trenches food had to be snatched when it was possible to get it. It was cooked some considerable distance to the rear and was then carried up to the trenches in great pots and there distributed, and in Gallipoli, of course, that meant dividing it between men and flies--the latter getting the lion's share during the months of June, July and August.
Of course, work was always going on. The trenches had to be carefully drained and sloped so as to allow the rainfall to flow off. If this were not properly done they would inevitably be flooded out in the rains, and life in them would be impossible. Even when every care was taken they sometimes became raging torrents. Much ground was made good by digging out from the trenches towards the Turkish lines and forming a fresh line of trenches closer to the enemy and in a better position.
Every yard in front of the trenches was guarded by barbed wire, sometimes left unrolled on the ground, where it naturally goes into coils and traps for the unwary, and sometimes interlaced on stakes, like a regular wire fencing, doubled many times. It was very dangerous work putting up this form of defence, and it was generally done at night, but even then the enemy could see our men by the light of the brilliant flares which were constantly sent up, for these remained in the air for several seconds, making everything as bright as day. The only chance of escape then was to lie flat down and remain perfectly still until the flare went out.
Then there was the constant arduous and dangerous labour of sapping, _i.
e._, tunnelling underground from our trenches underneath the Turkish trenches, making a huge cavity there, filling it with explosives and blowing the trench and such Turks as were in it sky high. This was generally done when an attack was made, so as to throw the enemy into greater confusion.
At night it was usual to man the front trenches fairly strongly, one-third of the force always being awake and on the look-out for the enemy.
Of course, it was almost certain death for a man to stand up and show his head and shoulders above the parapet line, so the watch on the enemy was kept by men with periscopes, who could see every move in perfect safety. Even the periscopes were often shattered to pieces by the bullets of the Turks, which shows that some of them were good marksmen.
Telephone wires were laid everywhere in the trenches, and telephone operators and observing officers were scattered up and down the line.
On the first sign of an enemy attack these officers communicated with their Batteries in the rear, and within two seconds a curtain of fire was rained on the advancing foe, which, in most cases, he found it quite impossible to get through. If he ever succeeded, however, the Infantry were by this time lining the parapets, ready to mow down the enemy with rifle and machine-gun fire, so the only marvel is that any of the assaulting force ever got through. A very rare occurrence--and those that did pierce the line never again got back to their own trenches.
One day I went up to visit Lieutenant Davidson, who was Forward Observing Officer, and he, having occasion to fire a gun, telephoned to the Battery; it was a distinctly weird feeling to hear the scream of the shell from the guns two miles back flying close over our heads into the Turkish trenches in front of us, almost before Davidson had ceased speaking! At that same observation post, on a previous day, another R.
H. A. officer, Lieutenant Perceval, who also was a member of our little mess, had a very narrow escape. A Turkish shell came through, slightly bruised his shoulder, and killed his Bombardier, who was, at the moment, holding the telephone.
In the side of the trench next the enemy little niches were excavated where men could lie and sit fairly well sheltered from wind and rain.
These recesses were often used by the Turks as burial places for their dead. I remember on one occasion I was walking along a piece of the line which we had just taken from the Turks when a shell exploded close to the trench. The concussion shook away some loose earth and out from the side of the trench popped a dead hand and arm!--just as if a policeman had put out his hand to stop the traffic. The dead Turk seemed to try, even in death, to bar the way to an enemy's approach.
A very disagreeable feature of trench life is the unpleasant odour of the dead, which penetrates everywhere, for, of course, when an attack is made by one side or the other hundreds may be killed close to the trenches, and as a rule it is impossible either to rescue the wounded or to bury the dead, because the enemy would inevitably shoot down any one attempting such a task.
One of the very worst trials of trench warfare is to see the dead body of a comrade lying out in the open, gradually fading away before one's eyes, a mummied hand still clutching the rifle, the helmet a little way off, looking ever so weird in its gruesome surroundings.
While in the trenches one is, of course, subject at all times to shells, rifle fire, mine explosions, poison gas, bombs, liquid fire, and other diabolical inventions. The Turks, however, did not use either poison gas or liquid fire, and, of course, neither did the British.
Worst trial of all is the trench mortar! This venomous weapon sends a bomb weighing a hundred pounds or more of the most deadly high explosive plumb into the midst of a trench with marvellous accuracy at any range up to four hundred yards. The vicious thing can be seen soaring high up into the air, until it reaches a point directly overhead, then it hovers for a moment, like a hawk over its prey, and finally swoops down, pulverising everybody and everything near which it explodes.
From my own observation of trench warfare I would say unhesitatingly that no assault should be launched against the enemy until his trenches had been thoroughly pounded to pieces by high explosive, his men demoralised by a constant stream of shells, and all wire entanglements or other barriers swept out of the way of the advance. Then, and then only, should the infantry attack be launched, but before doing so the supports and reserves should be brought up as close as possible to the firing line, because, in these days especially, the speed with which an assault can be reinforced makes all the difference between victory and defeat.
During the assault the guns should be constantly playing on the reserve trenches of the enemy, the counter batteries (_i. e._, those batteries told off to dominate enemy batteries) firing as fast as they possibly can to keep down enemy shrapnel fire and generally supporting the attack in every possible way. Special groups should always be told off (not single individuals) with orders to signal back to the batteries the position which the front line has reached in the assault, otherwise--and I have seen it happen more than once--our own guns will be found playing on our own men.
It is unwise to trust to telephone wires for passing signals back to the batteries, for they are often cut by shells or broken by passing troops.
Aeroplanes fitted with wireless are most useful. Another good plan is to fasten some very conspicuous object, such as a large tin disc, to the backs of the men, so that the gunners would always be able to tell at whom they were firing. The disc should be tied so that the men could switch it round to the front if they were forced to retire. This plan was adopted in Gallipoli towards the end of July with excellent results, for our men could always be made out by the flashing of the tin, which, of course, the enemy could not see.
Bombs should always be carried with the assaulting columns, and the bomb throwers should not be hampered by a rifle, but should only be armed with revolver and bayonet, for when their stock of bombs is expended there are always plenty of rifles lying around belonging to the dead and badly wounded.
When all these arrangements have been completed, and a combined attack is made with shells, machine-guns, rifle fire, trench mortars, poison gas, liquid fire, etc., the attack is almost certain to succeed at some point or other, and once the defender's line is broken his whole line is threatened, and if the reserves are brought up and poured quickly enough into the breach, so as to get a wedge in between the enemy's forces, his army can then be smashed up in detail and a great victory won.
Cavalry can then burst through and once more come into their own by playing havoc with the enemy's line of communication. Of course, in Gallipoli we had no Cavalry; at least, such mounted men as we had came as Infantry without horses! and I must say that they fought well, those yeomen from Bucks and Kent--the only pity is that we did not have more of them. When we did make a breach in the enemy's line, we never had enough troops to push through and so ensure a crushing victory.
CHAPTER XVIII
GUNS AND STAFF
The losses which we suffered in every attack on the Turkish trenches were very severe, and it was painful to see our men frittered away time after time in these hopeless assaults on what had now become an impregnable position--impregnable at all events to such forces as we could launch to the attack. Our casualties at the original landing had reduced the 29th Division to a mere skeleton. Many of the Battalions were not a company strong and had scarcely any officers left, and it was found necessary to join the remnants of two or three together to make one rather weak Battalion. The Dublins and Munsters were thus linked up together and were officially known as the "Dubsters."
Reinforcements only came in by driblets, and as they came they were eaten up in futile attacks on the strong trenches which the Turks had meanwhile, with great energy, dug right across the Peninsula.
We were never really strong enough to undertake a serious offensive, and our guns never had ammunition enough to prepare the way properly by a devastating bombardment. Half an hour or an hour was usually about all we were able to do in the way of knocking the Turkish trenches about with high explosive, whereas these same trenches needed a steady rain of shells for several days to crumple them up and destroy the scores of machine-guns which bristled everywhere. Trench warfare seemed to have taken us completely by surprise; we were without trench mortars, but luckily were able to borrow some from the French; neither had we any bombs or hand grenades, except such as we could manufacture locally out of jam tins!
No battery commander was allowed to fire a single round unless he had first obtained permission from his Brigadier, and even when a couple of battalions of Turkish troops well within range could be observed marching in column, the Brigadier was compelled to limit the battery to two rounds only, for to such dire straits were we reduced owing to lack of ammunition!
Even with the slight support given by the guns I have seen our gallant fellows time after time leap out of their trenches and, in an irresistible onslaught with the bayonet, sweep over trench upon trench full of Turkish soldiers. Nowhere could the enemy stand up to our men in the open, as was proved over and over again in the early days of the fight before they took to trench warfare. If only we had had enough ammunition and one more Division, equal to the 29th, we would have retrieved the initial mistake of landing at Helles, and have swept the Turks over Achi Baba from their positions round the Narrows, and Constantinople itself would have been in our grip within a month.