Photograph: of Lawrence having his hair cut at Anzac. AWM (P02226.020)"Up at 6.30 - glorious morning. Started on the 8am till 4pm shift this morning. It is much better working in the daytime, as one can get proper sleep at night. The flies are simply the limit and won't let one sleep in the daytime. Our tunnel is still being driven ahead but today it was decided that a new firing line was to be formed along a front 90 feet out in front of the firing line, and with this in view we started two tunnels running right and left on the 90 feet mark in the main B5 tunnel. I have charge of the tunnel running towards the left and have four infantrymen under me. They are supposed to do the work and me to supervise, but it generally ends up that they do all the grumbling and we do all the work. Today we went in 15 feet for the 24 hours. Of course on these works, work is carried on day and night and only ceases when we are listening for the sound of enemy picking. We Australians and New Zealand armies who hold this position are badly placed for everything necessary. We cannot possibly by any means get into an absolutely safe position, as we only hold a few mountainous ridges and their shells can get us anywhere; they come from all directions. As for water there is practically nil and what little we do get here has to be obtained from wells which supply only a small quantity which is unfit for drinking unless boiled. Nearly all our water is brought here in barges. We get about one water bottle full (1 quart) per day. This has to do for washing as well, but we always use the sea. All water rations and goods, ammunition, shells etc. has to be manhandled right up to the trenches - in some cases 500 to 600 feet up. The poor infantry chaps either sleep in the firing line itself or else in the support trenches just at the rear of the former. They have no dugouts like we have but just lie in the trenches anywhere and anyhow. Each man has also to cook his own rations, get his own firewood and everything. They do 24 hours in the firing line, 24 hours on fatigues and in the support trenches and then another 24 hours in the firing line and so on, but go where you will you can't possibly get out of the range of bullets etc. Our rations are as follows. Breakfast: tea & sugar, no milk, six biscuits per day (hard as Hell too), a small piece of cheese, ¼lb jam and one rasher of bacon. Lunch: tea only. Tea: stew or bully beef and tea, no milk. When one first arrives here with his blood in good condition and feeling fit he does not notice the food, but after a while it gets absolutely unbearable." (Sapper Cyril Lawrence, 2nd Field Company, Australian Engineers, AIF)
SOURCE: C. Lawrence (edited by R. East) The Gallipoli Diary of Sergeant Lawrence of the Australian Engineers, 1st AIF, 1915, (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press1981), pp.26-27
The war diary gives the bare bones of what happened on the night of 10 June and the next morning.
I like Heald's gentle sense of humour. Here he reflects on how quickly he got used to the horrors of trench warfare in the front line at Helles.
Amidst all the political manoeuvring the Dardanelles Committee did not actually meet until 7 June. Hamilton had already asked for three more divisions in total, in addition to the 52nd Division that he had already been promised by Kitchener. For the moment he would have to make do with the 52nd Division. Everything else was left up in the air. Then there was a change of tack: Kitchener who considered evacuation far too damaging to even think of, decided that he was, after all, in favour of a full scale renewal of the campaign. The Dardanelles Committee agreed that Hamilton's request for four divisions should be met in full. As the 52nd Division had already been sent out to him as agreed on 10th May, the three remaining divisions of the first New Army not yet detailed for use on the Western Front, consisting of the 10th, 11th and 13th Divisions, would now also be sent to Gallipoli. This decision had been forwarded to Hamilton on 8th June. The question was what to do with the new legions? The answer came in a new plan being formulated by Birdwood for a break out to the north of Anzac to sweep through to capture Hill 971, the highest peak of the Sari Bair range, by surprise. On 11 June Hamilton checked the progress of the new scheme for what would be the August Offensives.
"The trenches are awful - very badly made - narrow, not bullet proof and smell absolutely revolting from dead bodies. We are occupying Turkish trenches which we captured, but there is an absolute maze of trenches. We are all round the Turk and they are all around us too. The Dublin's trenches have their back to Achi Baba and face our base, the Turks being between them and us! We share several trenches with the Turks, with a barricade between and throw bombs at each other over the top! The whole place is up and down hill not in the slightest bit like the trenches in France. To get to our trenches we go 4 miles up a deep nullah with sides 200 feet high. There is a great barricade up right across the nullah at the furthest point we hold. To get into our trenches we go up a zig zag track and enter a hole in the cliff which leads into our support trenches and from them there are innumerable communication trenches leading into the firing line. Of course you can't show your head above the trench for a second, but have to look through periscopes or through peep holes. The smell is awful, though we throw down quantities of chloride of lime and creosote. We are always sapping and digging day and night, and so are the Turks, who in places are about 30 yards away and in others 100, and where we share trenches only the other side of the barricade."
Photograph: Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War