The Battle of Lone Pine; At the Lone Pine Cemetery and Memorial at Gallipoli it is moving to realise that this place was once a battlefield. At Lone Pine, with its sweeping views over the Aegean and down the Gallipoli peninsula, Turks and Australians lived, fought and died. During the days of the Battle of the Landing, 25 April to 3 May, this area was the scene of a fierce struggle as the Anzacs tried to push inland and then settled for establishing a line on the seaward side of the plateau against Turkish counter-attacks. There are a number of headstones in the cemetery with dates in April 1915, especially 25 April, the day of the landing. But Lone Pine is not remembered today for those early clashes of the Gallipoli campaign. Many more headstones here carry dates between 6 and 9 August 1915, the days of the Battle of Lone Pine.
Given the losses and the savagery experienced at Lone Pine during that battle, it is something of a shock to realise that it was called a ‘demonstration’ or a ‘feint’. To the north, along the ridge, at such places as German Officer’s Trench and the Nek, other attacks resulting in great loss of life were also called ‘feints’. Feint is defined in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary as a ‘sham attack’, designed to engage the attention of the enemy from some larger and more central action taking place elsewhere. These attacks at Anzac were part of a plan known as the ‘August Offensive’. This offensive aimed at nothing less than victory at Anzac by driving the enemy from the heights of Chunuk Bair and positioning the Allies for an advance across the peninsula in the Turkish rear. In this way the original objective of seizing the Straits of the Dardanelles would be achieved and the Royal Navy sail triumphantly through to Constantinople.
During the planned offensive Chunuk Bair and Koja Temen Tepe (Hill 971), a higher peak further north, were to be seized in a complex set of actions involving New Zealand, Australian, British and Indian troops. They would carry out a night march to their attacking positions from the North Beach area of Anzac after sunset on 6 August 1915. That same evening, a British force would land even further to the north at Suvla Bay and begin pushing its way inland across the plain. To cover these movements, and to make the Turks think that the main attack was happening elsewhere, the biggest ‘feint’ of all was planned for Lone Pine. At the Pine the men of the Australian 1st Division would assault the central stronghold of the whole Turkish line and capture its forward trenches. If the the attack were convincing enough, so it was believed, the Turks would think that this was a major effort to break through their lines. Consequently, they would throw into the recapture of such a significant position their main reserves so drawing them away from the main assault at Chunuk Bair and Koja Temen Tepe.
The ‘demonstration’ opened at 4.30 pm on 6 August 1915 with a one-hour bombardment of the Turkish trenches. Previous bombardments had destroyed many of the barbed-wire entanglements that the Turks had placed out in front of their line in no-man’s-land. As the bombardment proceeded the men of the attacking battalions – the 2nd, 3rd and 4thBattalions, all from New South Wales – packed into the Anzac forward positions. Packs had been dumped to the rear and each man wore a white arm-band or a piece of white material attached to his back. This was to help tell friend from foe in the close fighting in the Turkish trenches that would soon be upon them:
The men chaffed each other drily, after the manners of spectators waiting to see a football match. Some belated messenger hurried along the trench to find his platoon, and, in passing, recognised a friend. ‘Au revoir’, Bill’, he nodded, ‘meet you over there’. ‘So long, Tom’, was the answer; ‘see you again in half an hour’.
[Charles Bean, The Story of Anzac, Vol II, Sydney, 1924, p.502]
The Turks were taken by surprise. Many of their front line soldiers had sought safety in mine-shafts during the bombardment and did not have time to emerge before the Australians were upon them. One thing the Anzacs did not know was that much of the Turkish front line was covered with large pine logs. Some men ran on over this obstacle and jumped into the communication and reserve trenches to the rear. Others found gaps in the log cover blown open by the bombardment and let themselves down into the semi-darkness. By 6 pm, the attack had proved a great success as the main objectives in the enemy front-line had been taken and posts established well forward into the communication trenches. It had not been done without loss as General Birdwood later reported:
The boys went right through these Turkish works, and had regular hand to hand fights every yard. To show you the nature of the fighting I may mention that in one corner we came across eight Turks and six Australians, all dead, who had evidently fought it out man to man to the last.
[Birdwood’s report on Lone Pine, quoted in Harvey Broadbent, The Boys Who Came Home: Recollections of Gallipoli, Sydney, 2000, p.92]
Birdwood went on to describe what became the main feature of the Lone Pine battle. This was the Australian defence over the three days and nights of what had been won as the Turks, as anticipated, threw their reserves into numerous counter-attacks to regain their lost trenches. Both sides, as Birdwood wrote, lost heavily – ‘ … we dragged a thousand corpses out of the actual trenches which gives some idea of the fighting and was irrespective of the large numbers lying around outside’. The presence of the dead and dying all around in the confined spaces of the Pine was something that those who fought there never forgot. Private William Tope, 12th Battalion, recalled one Turkish counter-attack where bodies saved his life:
I thought the best thing would be for me to be down in this trench that had no men in it at all, where the bodies were, because I felt that the counter-attack could come at any time. I’d hardly got into position before an absolute avalanche of bombs fell, puncturing these bodies, and up on top you’d hear the air coming out of the ones up there. I think they were aiming for the bodies that they could see. I was sheltering behind them, and I was there for all that day and the next night, then suddenly it all stopped, just like that…
[Tope, quoted in Harvey Broadbent, The Boys Who Came Home: Recollections of Gallipoli, Sydney, 2000, p.94]
The fighting at Lone Pine for both sides during these Turkish counter-attacks was all about throwing bombs across hastily erected barriers, dashing around corners in trenches and getting off a few rounds at the shapes of advancing men, slipping over the dead and avoiding the dying and wounded. For the Anzacs, the action revolved around holding on to half a dozen such barriers erected during the attacking phase on 6 August and the network of Turkish trenches seized at that time. Dozens of small-scale actions were fought on 7, 8 and 9 August to hold back the brave and determined Turkish efforts to drive the Australians back out of their Lone Pine positions. This was the battle context for the award to seven Anzacs during this period of the Victoria Cross. In every way the story of how these awards were gained by these soldiers is typical of the actions carried out by hundreds of soldiers who fought at Lone Pine but who received no official recognition of their courage. Proof of this can be found in the pages of Charles Bean’s two chapters on the Lone Pine battle from his The Story of Anzac, Vol II – ‘The Attack Upon Lone Pine’ and ‘The Counter Attack at Lone Pine’. That said, the VC stories are stories of high courage and fully deserve to be told in memory of the VCs themselves.
Showing posts with label Gallipoli 1915. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gallipoli 1915. Show all posts
Friday, 20 December 2013
Thursday, 5 December 2013
The August offensive 1915
The August offensive - the Gallipoli campaign; The attack on Chunuk Bair in August 1915 was one of New Zealand's key events on Gallipoli. Here, on one of the three peaks in the Sari Bair range, the New Zealanders fought hard to win the summit. The victory was short-lived and costly, like so much of this August offensive.
As the futile attacks continued at Helles, General Sir Ian Hamilton, who was in charge of the entire campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula, began preparing an offensive at Anzac. His aim was to take the high positions on the Sari Bair range and drive the Turkish defenders from the slopes.
Timing and speed were vital to prevent the Turks regrouping. Two columns of men, right and left, would advance up the Sari Bair range and capture the key high points of Chunuk Bair, Hill Q and Hill 971 (Koja Chemen Tepe) during the night of 6 and 7 August. A diversionary attack by the Australians would distract Turkish attention from the assault. At dawn on 7 August an attack launched by the New Zealanders from Chunuk Bair in conjunction with an Australian attack from Russell's Top against the heavily fortified position at the Nek would complete the capture of the whole ridge as far as Hill 971. Down in Suvla Bay, to the north of Anzac, additional troops would land and support the assault on the range. That plan was later changed to one of securing a base.
The offensive opened on 6 August with diversionary attacks at both Helles and Anzac's Lone Pine. Helles was a costly failure, but Lone Pine was one of the rare victories for the British forces. Four days of intense fighting secured the area for the Australians; 7000 Turks and 2000 Australians lost their lives. Turkish troops moved out of the area but only to appear on the Sari Bair range.
As soon as night fell on 6 August, two covering forces set out to capture the foothills through which the columns would move. New Zealand Mounted Rifles units and the Maori Contingent cleared the way by taking key points.
Then the plan came unstuck. The left assaulting column – British and Indian troops – got lost in the darkness and rugged terrain. The right assaulting column never formed. Its two parts, which included the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, were to meet on Rhododendron Spur (or Ridge), about 500 metres short of the summit, before moving to the top of Chunuk Bair. At dawn on 7 August the brigade was still waiting at the spur for part of the column to arrive. The attack went ahead, anyway, at mid-morning. The Auckland Battalion managed to reach within 200 metres of the summit, but casualties were heavy. The Wellington Battalion was ordered to follow suit. Its commander, Lieutenant Colonel William Malone, refused to sacrifice his men and argued that the attack should take place at night.
Under the cover of early morning darkness on 8 August, the Wellington Battalion raced to the summit. It was abandoned. Some of the Auckland mounted rifles, as well as British troops, also reached the top, but the Turks had only moved to other high points to fire on the summit. Reinforcements – the Otago Battalion and Wellington Mounted Rifles – could not arrive until the evening to relieve the exhausted men from the Wellington Battalion – those who were still standing: perhaps 70 of the battalion's 760 men remained. Malone was among those killed.
“Turks to our left and to our right now, too, their shots started getting us. I heard thump, thump, thump and it was fellows falling around me. Nine or ten of them, suddenly wounded or dead, all the jokers I'd been playing poker with just a minute or two before.
Charlie Clark in Maurice Shadbolt, Voices of Gallipoli, 1988”
The New Zealanders held the summit for two days during searing heat and under constant fire. But on 10 August a massive Turkish counter-attack settled the issue. The British battalions that had relieved the New Zealanders on Chunuk Bair the previous night were swept away.
It was not quite the end of the offensive for the New Zealanders. Less than two weeks later, men of the Canterbury and Otago Mounted Rifles tried to dislodge the Turkish defenders from Hill 60. The New Zealanders took some of the trenches, but eventually the British forces withdrew, leaving the Turks in control of the hill.
Delays fatally compromised the whole plan. Even when the British had taken their targets such as Chunuk Bair or Hill Q, captured for a time by Gurkha soldiers, sufficient reinforcements could not arrive to secure things. Had the positions been held, it is by no means certain that the Allies could then have pushed on towards the Narrows.
The failure to secure the Sari Bair heights on the first night had clinched the outcome. Events at Suvla Bay did not help either. There, two divisions, ashore by midday on 7 August, could not seize the heights. When they finally tried to, hastily deployed Turkish reserves stopped them in their tracks.
Hamilton's complicated plan
As the futile attacks continued at Helles, General Sir Ian Hamilton, who was in charge of the entire campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula, began preparing an offensive at Anzac. His aim was to take the high positions on the Sari Bair range and drive the Turkish defenders from the slopes.
Timing and speed were vital to prevent the Turks regrouping. Two columns of men, right and left, would advance up the Sari Bair range and capture the key high points of Chunuk Bair, Hill Q and Hill 971 (Koja Chemen Tepe) during the night of 6 and 7 August. A diversionary attack by the Australians would distract Turkish attention from the assault. At dawn on 7 August an attack launched by the New Zealanders from Chunuk Bair in conjunction with an Australian attack from Russell's Top against the heavily fortified position at the Nek would complete the capture of the whole ridge as far as Hill 971. Down in Suvla Bay, to the north of Anzac, additional troops would land and support the assault on the range. That plan was later changed to one of securing a base.
Initial attacks
The offensive opened on 6 August with diversionary attacks at both Helles and Anzac's Lone Pine. Helles was a costly failure, but Lone Pine was one of the rare victories for the British forces. Four days of intense fighting secured the area for the Australians; 7000 Turks and 2000 Australians lost their lives. Turkish troops moved out of the area but only to appear on the Sari Bair range.
As soon as night fell on 6 August, two covering forces set out to capture the foothills through which the columns would move. New Zealand Mounted Rifles units and the Maori Contingent cleared the way by taking key points.
Then the plan came unstuck. The left assaulting column – British and Indian troops – got lost in the darkness and rugged terrain. The right assaulting column never formed. Its two parts, which included the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, were to meet on Rhododendron Spur (or Ridge), about 500 metres short of the summit, before moving to the top of Chunuk Bair. At dawn on 7 August the brigade was still waiting at the spur for part of the column to arrive. The attack went ahead, anyway, at mid-morning. The Auckland Battalion managed to reach within 200 metres of the summit, but casualties were heavy. The Wellington Battalion was ordered to follow suit. Its commander, Lieutenant Colonel William Malone, refused to sacrifice his men and argued that the attack should take place at night.
Chunuk Bair: won and lost
Under the cover of early morning darkness on 8 August, the Wellington Battalion raced to the summit. It was abandoned. Some of the Auckland mounted rifles, as well as British troops, also reached the top, but the Turks had only moved to other high points to fire on the summit. Reinforcements – the Otago Battalion and Wellington Mounted Rifles – could not arrive until the evening to relieve the exhausted men from the Wellington Battalion – those who were still standing: perhaps 70 of the battalion's 760 men remained. Malone was among those killed.
“Turks to our left and to our right now, too, their shots started getting us. I heard thump, thump, thump and it was fellows falling around me. Nine or ten of them, suddenly wounded or dead, all the jokers I'd been playing poker with just a minute or two before.
Charlie Clark in Maurice Shadbolt, Voices of Gallipoli, 1988”
The New Zealanders held the summit for two days during searing heat and under constant fire. But on 10 August a massive Turkish counter-attack settled the issue. The British battalions that had relieved the New Zealanders on Chunuk Bair the previous night were swept away.
It was not quite the end of the offensive for the New Zealanders. Less than two weeks later, men of the Canterbury and Otago Mounted Rifles tried to dislodge the Turkish defenders from Hill 60. The New Zealanders took some of the trenches, but eventually the British forces withdrew, leaving the Turks in control of the hill.
The failed offensive
Delays fatally compromised the whole plan. Even when the British had taken their targets such as Chunuk Bair or Hill Q, captured for a time by Gurkha soldiers, sufficient reinforcements could not arrive to secure things. Had the positions been held, it is by no means certain that the Allies could then have pushed on towards the Narrows.
The failure to secure the Sari Bair heights on the first night had clinched the outcome. Events at Suvla Bay did not help either. There, two divisions, ashore by midday on 7 August, could not seize the heights. When they finally tried to, hastily deployed Turkish reserves stopped them in their tracks.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Early battles - the Gallipoli campaign
Digging in
The Anzacs and other British forces who landed on Gallipoli in April 1915 had few options. For a time on 25 April, evacuation was considered. General Sir Ian Hamilton, in charge of the invading force, knew this was impossible. There was, simply, no way to do achieve it with the resources available.
Digging in was the only choice. And the Anzacs did this, frantically clinging to their tiny foothold. Their position became more secure. Gaps in the line were plugged by further units of the New Zealand and Australian Division as they came ashore.
As soon as possible, the original landing units were pulled out of the line and reorganised. Eventually two divisional sectors were formed in the Anzac area: the New Zealand and Australian Division took responsibility for the line north of Courtney's Post and the 1st Australian Division for the line south of it. Two Anzac brigades, including the New Zealand Brigade, were moved to Helles. One New Zealand and four Australian field batteries, which had not managed to get ashore at Anzac, joined them.
Early battles
A pattern seemed to have been set. Short battles that were often costly, for both sides, marked the first few months on Gallipoli. Both sides had to bring in reinforcements. Two days after the landing the Turks tried unsuccessfully to force the Anzacs back into the sea. The British and French tried, also unsuccessfully, to capture the inland village of Krithia.
With their defences boosted by the arrival of four Royal Naval Division battalions at Anzac Cove, the New Zealand and Australian Division attacked the Baby 700 feature in early May. The plan was too ambitious, poorly prepared and uncoordinated – the Otago Battalion failed to make its start line in time. The troops were forced to retreat, with about 1000 casualties.
It was the worst night I can remember. The wounded came tumbling down. All we could do was try to relieve the pain.
George Skerret in Maurice Shadbolt, Voices of Gallipoli, 1988
At Helles, the British tried again to take the village of Krithia on 6 May. It was a dangerous plan – a frontal assault in full daylight. The New Zealanders had little time to prepare for their role on 8 May. They went in behind a weak artillery bombardment. The Wellington Battalion struggled a few hundred metres before being brought to a halt. Ordered to renew the attack later in the day, more New Zealanders fell as they fought across the Daisy Patch. This Second Battle of Krithia took the British about 500 metres further inland; there were 6500 British casualties, including 800 New Zealanders.
The worse the situation became at Helles, the more attention turned to Anzac. There the Anzacs had become better organised. Reinforcements had arrived, including the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade. The Turks launched a massive assault on Anzac on 19 May. About 10,000 Australians and New Zealanders faced more than 40,000 Turks, who hoped to surprise the invaders and overwhelm them by sheer numbers. In the New Zealand sector the troops beat off repeated attacks, and the Australians did the same further south. About 3000 Turks died, and another 7000 were wounded. It was their worst disaster of the whole campaign.
Question marks
In the British camp, questions were now being asked of the tactics. Should the land operation – still short of its first-day objectives – be continued? Or should the troops withdraw, leaving the peninsula in Turkish hands? The Dardanelles Committee, as the War Council had been renamed, decided to press on.
During June and July the British made further attempts to break through the lines at Helles. Heavy bombardment brought them small gains, but at horrendous loss, with casualties reaching up to 30%. The Turks, having sustained severe casualties themselves, merely pulled back up the slopes and waited for the next onslaughts.
25 April 1915
25 April 1915 - the Gallipoli Campaign; The British attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915 depended on careful timing and planning. Even if all had gone to plan, the force would have struggled to secure its objectives, especially within the time allotted. While the British were planning their attack, the Turks stockpiled ammunition and other supplies. The German General Otto Liman van Sanders, in charge of the 5th Army, which was defending the Dardanelles, had six first-rate Turkish divisions at his disposal.
The British plan was thrown into disarray even before the landing at dawn on 25 April. The Australian spearhead was mistakenly directed about 2 kilometres north of the envisaged landing place, nearer to Ari Burnu (at what was later named Anzac Cove) and on a much narrower front than expected.
People have long argued about the reasons for this. The tides, faulty navigation and a belated change of orders have all been suggested. An unauthorised change of direction by one of the midshipmen commanding a steamboat, which pulled the whole line of tows in this direction, is the most likely explanation.
Whatever the reasons, the effect for the men landing on the beaches was the same: ahead of them there was a tougher terrain than if they had landed where originally planned. The attack turned to chaos as the Australians pushed through tangled ravines and spurs. Units were split up or mixed together. Only a few small, uncoordinated parties reached the objective, Gun Ridge.
Delays in landing the rest of the 1st Australian Division made things even worse - the last troops reached shore four hours behind schedule. The first New Zealanders had begun landing soon after 9 a.m. in a process that took much of the day:
We ... didn't land until ... about five o'clock. The wounded and killed were lying about in all directions. I should say a thousand or more of them. The noise was terrific.
Hartley Palmer in Maurice Shadbolt, Voices of Gallipoli, 1988
Strong and well-positioned Turks opposed this messy landing. Their reinforcements were quick to arrive. Mustafa Kemal Bey – later known as Ataturk – led his 19th division to meet the Anzacs. A counter-attack in mid-morning drove the Australians back from the 400 Plateau. Kemal then turned his attention to the right of the Anzac position, where New Zealand troops had joined the Australians in the front line.
By evening, fierce fighting left the Turks with the high ground. About one in five of the 3000 New Zealanders who had landed became casualties. Far from rapidly gaining their initial objectives, the Anzacs were in danger of being pushed back into the sea.
Things were not much better at the main British landing site at Helles. The 29th Division took heavy losses to gain a shaky foothold. At V Beach the improvised landing craft, the transport SS River Clyde, had been run ashore. Disembarking men made easy targets – only about a tenth of the first 200 soldiers to leave the ship made it ashore. Casualties there were about 70%.
On the other side of the peninsula the French had landed at Kum Kale as planned. They were soon withdrawn and sent to Helles. The mock landing at Bulair went as planned, but it had little effect on the Turks. In that operation, Bernard Freyberg, future commander of New Zealand forces in the Second World War and later Governor-General of New Zealand, created a one-man diversion: he swam ashore to light flares with a view to misleading the Turkish defenders.
Misdirected initial attack
The British plan was thrown into disarray even before the landing at dawn on 25 April. The Australian spearhead was mistakenly directed about 2 kilometres north of the envisaged landing place, nearer to Ari Burnu (at what was later named Anzac Cove) and on a much narrower front than expected.
People have long argued about the reasons for this. The tides, faulty navigation and a belated change of orders have all been suggested. An unauthorised change of direction by one of the midshipmen commanding a steamboat, which pulled the whole line of tows in this direction, is the most likely explanation.
Whatever the reasons, the effect for the men landing on the beaches was the same: ahead of them there was a tougher terrain than if they had landed where originally planned. The attack turned to chaos as the Australians pushed through tangled ravines and spurs. Units were split up or mixed together. Only a few small, uncoordinated parties reached the objective, Gun Ridge.
Delays in landing the rest of the 1st Australian Division made things even worse - the last troops reached shore four hours behind schedule. The first New Zealanders had begun landing soon after 9 a.m. in a process that took much of the day:
We ... didn't land until ... about five o'clock. The wounded and killed were lying about in all directions. I should say a thousand or more of them. The noise was terrific.
Hartley Palmer in Maurice Shadbolt, Voices of Gallipoli, 1988
Vigorous Turkish defence
Strong and well-positioned Turks opposed this messy landing. Their reinforcements were quick to arrive. Mustafa Kemal Bey – later known as Ataturk – led his 19th division to meet the Anzacs. A counter-attack in mid-morning drove the Australians back from the 400 Plateau. Kemal then turned his attention to the right of the Anzac position, where New Zealand troops had joined the Australians in the front line.
By evening, fierce fighting left the Turks with the high ground. About one in five of the 3000 New Zealanders who had landed became casualties. Far from rapidly gaining their initial objectives, the Anzacs were in danger of being pushed back into the sea.
No way through
Things were not much better at the main British landing site at Helles. The 29th Division took heavy losses to gain a shaky foothold. At V Beach the improvised landing craft, the transport SS River Clyde, had been run ashore. Disembarking men made easy targets – only about a tenth of the first 200 soldiers to leave the ship made it ashore. Casualties there were about 70%.
On the other side of the peninsula the French had landed at Kum Kale as planned. They were soon withdrawn and sent to Helles. The mock landing at Bulair went as planned, but it had little effect on the Turks. In that operation, Bernard Freyberg, future commander of New Zealand forces in the Second World War and later Governor-General of New Zealand, created a one-man diversion: he swam ashore to light flares with a view to misleading the Turkish defenders.
Landing plans
Gallipoli Landing plans; General Sir Ian Hamilton, in charge of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, had about a month to finalise plans for the landing of troops on the rough coastline of the Gallipoli Peninsula. There was much improvisation in the weeks preceding the landings and little time to practise.
It would be a tough task for Hamilton's force. It had evolved in an ad hoc fashion and was not even fully equipped, especially in ammunition. There was a degree of complacency, most importantly, about the ability of the Turkish defenders to counter an attack.
The grand plan; General Sir Ian Hamilton, in charge of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, had about a month to finalise plans for the landing of troops on the rough coastline of the Gallipoli Peninsula. There was much improvisation in the weeks preceding the landings and little time to practise.
It would be a tough task for Hamilton's force. It had evolved in an ad hoc fashion and was not even fully equipped, especially in ammunition. There was a degree of complacency, most importantly, about the ability of the Turkish defenders to counter an attack.
The force's main focus would be the southern part of the peninsula at Cape Helles and Sedd el Bahr. The 29th Division would land there on five separate beaches, and the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps would make a subsidiary landing, about 20 kilometres up the coast, north of Gaba Tepe. The Australians and New Zealanders would seize the southern part of the Sari Bair ridge before advancing across the peninsula to Maidos. From there they could mount a threat to the Kilid Bahr plateau from the rear. The French division would, meanwhile, make a temporary landing at Kum Kale on the Asian side of the peninsula. This would prevent Turkish gunners there from bombarding the troops landing at Helles. To divert Turkish attention, the Royal Naval Division would make a sham attack at Bulair, at the narrow neck of the peninsula.
The landings were originally scheduled to take place on 23 April. Weather delayed them for two days. The first ashore were to be the Anzacs. The 3rd Australian Brigade would land before dawn and advance to Gun Ridge. Following them, the 2nd Australian Brigade would occupy the Sari Bair ridge as far as Hill 971. The 1st Australian Division's remaining brigade would land by 9 a.m.
With the covering force in place, the New Zealand and Australian Division would then land, and the drive across the peninsula would begin. From Lemnos, the troops would be carried to the landing zone on warships (in the case of the 3rd Brigade) or on merchant ships, loaded into ships' boats and towed inshore by steamboats and, eventually, rowed to the beaches. They would come ashore on a 2700-metre front with their left south of Ari Burnu on what was later dubbed Brighton Beach.
It would be a tough task for Hamilton's force. It had evolved in an ad hoc fashion and was not even fully equipped, especially in ammunition. There was a degree of complacency, most importantly, about the ability of the Turkish defenders to counter an attack.
The grand plan; General Sir Ian Hamilton, in charge of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, had about a month to finalise plans for the landing of troops on the rough coastline of the Gallipoli Peninsula. There was much improvisation in the weeks preceding the landings and little time to practise.
It would be a tough task for Hamilton's force. It had evolved in an ad hoc fashion and was not even fully equipped, especially in ammunition. There was a degree of complacency, most importantly, about the ability of the Turkish defenders to counter an attack.
Landing schedule
The force's main focus would be the southern part of the peninsula at Cape Helles and Sedd el Bahr. The 29th Division would land there on five separate beaches, and the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps would make a subsidiary landing, about 20 kilometres up the coast, north of Gaba Tepe. The Australians and New Zealanders would seize the southern part of the Sari Bair ridge before advancing across the peninsula to Maidos. From there they could mount a threat to the Kilid Bahr plateau from the rear. The French division would, meanwhile, make a temporary landing at Kum Kale on the Asian side of the peninsula. This would prevent Turkish gunners there from bombarding the troops landing at Helles. To divert Turkish attention, the Royal Naval Division would make a sham attack at Bulair, at the narrow neck of the peninsula.
The landings were originally scheduled to take place on 23 April. Weather delayed them for two days. The first ashore were to be the Anzacs. The 3rd Australian Brigade would land before dawn and advance to Gun Ridge. Following them, the 2nd Australian Brigade would occupy the Sari Bair ridge as far as Hill 971. The 1st Australian Division's remaining brigade would land by 9 a.m.
With the covering force in place, the New Zealand and Australian Division would then land, and the drive across the peninsula would begin. From Lemnos, the troops would be carried to the landing zone on warships (in the case of the 3rd Brigade) or on merchant ships, loaded into ships' boats and towed inshore by steamboats and, eventually, rowed to the beaches. They would come ashore on a 2700-metre front with their left south of Ari Burnu on what was later dubbed Brighton Beach.
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