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Anzac Day 2008
Section 3: Gallipoli
Gallipoli: What happened on 25 April 1915?
It was at 4.29 am in the eerie pre-dawn on 25 April 1915 when a Turkish
outpost signalled the alarm. Below, barely discernible on the dark waters
off Ari Burnu, a small
plateau jutting out into the Aegean Sea, steamboats towing rowboats carrying
Australians were nearing the Gallipoli shoreline. There are very few instances
in which the deeds of ordinary people fashion a whole chapter in a nation’s
history and forge a national identity. This first wave of the Australian
and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was doing just that. A minute later,
the first boatloads reached the shingly beach and clambered out, under
fire.
The plan
The landing was one of the more imaginative strategies of WW I. In eastern
Europe the Germans had delivered a series of blows to the Russians who,
fearing a second offensive by Turkish forces from the south, appealed
to their allies for assistance. Hard-pressed by the Germans on the Western
Front and with Egypt threatened
by the Turks, the British and French could not afford for the Russians
to collapse. They agreed to attack Turkey.
Their objective was to wrest control of the Dardanelles and re-establish
sea communications with Russia
through the Black Sea.
An attempt by warships in February 1915 to break through the straits
was defeated. A plan to land troops at Gallipoli was then drawn up. It
was actually a series of landings, originally planned for 23 April, but
pushed back by bad weather: the main landing by British troops at Cape
Helles, in the south, to seize forts and advance north; across the strait,
on the Asiatic side, a landing by French troops to destroy artillery batteries
before withdrawing and going to Cape Helles; at the northern end of the
peninsula, near Bulair, where the peninsula is narrowest, a feint by British
marines to confuse the Turks; and in the centre, the landing by Australian
and New Zealand to block any Turkish troops retreating from the south
and reinforcements coming from the north. The plan was for the Anzac and
British troops to link up for a final push across to the Dardanelles.
The wrong beach?
Those who landed near Ari Burnu
often commented on how they landed on ‘the wrong beach’. The
boats landed about a mile north of the loosely planned landing site. The
reason is unclear, but most likely the naval ratings taking the troops
ashore were disorientated and simply veered left.
This error gave the men a fighting chance. Had they landed on the ‘correct’
beach near Gaba Tepe,
there would have been a slaughter (as at ‘Y’ Beach, one of
the British landing sites at Cape Helles). Boats would have been shot
up, and on the beach men would have been caught in barbed wire entanglements,
against well-sited machine-guns. At Ari
Burnu, the first wave came under fire from some of the
200 Turks in position at that time; some boats landing later were shot
up, suffering heavier casualties. Most of the casualties on that first
day occurred as men scrambled up the brush-entangled gullies leading off
the beach, and over the ridges.
A long and terrible day
The objective was Gun Ridge, the third ridgeline inland. Troops pushed
up and over gulleys, ravines and spurs. It was hard going under fire,
and they broke into smaller groups to advance over tracks or through undergrowth.
They crossed the first ridgeline, some reached the second and a few got
to the third, but they were too scattered to hold on.
As the day wore on, the remainder of the ANZAC landed. There was confusion
on the beach, as new troops and wounded men intermingled. ‘Stragglers’
(men separated from their units) were found at the beach or sheltering
in the gulleys, but officers led many of them back into action.
The Turkish local commander, Mustapha
Kemal (later, Kemal Ataturk,
President of Turkey) organised his force and counter-attacked. The Turks
secured the high ground and pushed on. An evacuation of the ANZAC was
suggested, but naval advice was that it would be impossible. With nowhere
to retreat, the Australians and New Zealanders dug in. They fought tenaciously,
with mounting casualties, to cling onto a small strip of land that came
to be called Anzac.
The landing itself was a failure. The impossible had been asked of the
men. There was no way that any troops could have landed, advanced four
miles across hard terrain, taken a 4-5 mile stretch of
ridgeline, and then withstood strong counter-attacks—all in the
course of one day. What they did achieve was to secure a foothold and
forge a legend.
The battle of the landing stretched into May. It quietened down until
August, when British troops landed at nearby Suvla, and the Anzacs and
Gurkhas made supporting attacks at Lone Pine, Chunuk
Bair and the Nek. Anzac and Suvla were abandoned in December,
and Cape Helles in January. The Gallipoli campaign cost the lives of more
than 40 000 British Empire and French troops and 85 000 Turks.
Gallipoli: Frequently asked questions
Why did the Anzacs land at Gallipoli?
They were part of a British-French force attempting to capture the Dardanelles
and open a route to Russia through
the Black Sea. They were selected because their training had progressed
and being based in Egypt, they
were readily available.
Who was first ashore?
We can never know for certain. C. E.
W. Bean, official historian,
concluded it was possibly Lieutenant Duncan
Chapman, 9th Battalion. The Queenslander wrote home:
‘I happened to be in the first boat that reached the shore, and,
being in the bow at the time, I was the first man to get ashore.’
One of his men later confirmed this. Chapman was killed
at Pozieres, France on 6 August
1916.
How many Australians died on the first day?
We do not really know. In bitter fighting after the landing, the details
of many men’s deaths were sketchy. First to Fall, a CD-ROM
by the Australian Defence Force Academy, names 621 men. The Roll of Honour
lists 749, although some of these are deaths administratively classified
as ‘on or about’ 25 April 1915, and could have been later.
When did the Gallipoli campaign end?
The evacuation of Anzac and Suvla was completed on 20 December 1915,
a few days short of eight months after the landing. The campaign ended
on 9 January 1916 when British forces completed the evacuation of Cape
Helles.
What other nationalities were at Gallipoli?
The British-French force included men from these countries and their
colonies. The ‘French’ included French and also Senegalese
and other colonial troops. The ‘British’ included Englishmen,
Irishmen, Welshmen, Scots, Indians, Gurkhas, Australians, New Zealanders
and Newfoundlanders. The ‘Turks’ were mostly Turkish, with
some from other parts of the Ottoman Empire, and a few Germans and Austrians.
Where else at Gallipoli did the Anzacs serve?
In early May the 2nd Infantry Brigade and New Zealand Infantry Brigade
re-embarked and sailed to Cape Helles. They were thrown into the Second
Battle of Krithia. More than 1800 Anzacs (about a third of the two brigades)
were killed or wounded there. The survivors returned to Anzac. In August,
the RAN Bridging Train landed at Suvla, north of Anzac, building wharves
after the British landing there.
Were the British really ‘drinking tea’?
When British troops landed at Suvla in August, the Anzacs were fighting
and dying at Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair
and the Nek. Peter Weir’s
1981 film Gallipoli made famous a story that the Anzacs could see
the British ‘drinking tea’. This left a poor impression of
British soldiers. The Suvla landing was poorly planned, and confusion
on the beaches meant some units had no option but to congregate and wait
for orders. Soldiers of any nationality would have taken this chance to
‘brew up’. Meanwhile, further inland, British soldiers were
fighting courageously. The loss of 1700 men killed or wounded in the first
24 hours is testimony to this.
Why wasn’t Simpson decorated?
‘The man with the donkey’ actually was decorated. Private
John Simpson
Kirkpatrick, 3rd Field Ambulance, killed on 19 May 1915
was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches for his transporting of wounded
men. This was noted in The London Gazette on 5 November 1915, and
in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette on 27 January 1916. This
honour was rare. Other than the Victoria Cross, it was the only honour
able to be granted to a man killed in action. Of 60 000 Australians
who died in the Great War, only about 220 were accorded this honour. Simpson’s
medals are held by the Australian War Memorial. They include his Victory
Medal, with the Mention-in-Despatches rosette on its ribbon.
How many Australians died at Gallipoli?
We do not really know. The ‘accepted official estimate’ of
the Australian War Memorial is 8709, and this number is most commonly
quoted. However, this figure could (and probably should) be revised downwards
to around 8150.
The figure of 8709 is drawn from the War Office’s Statistics of
the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War, 1914-1920.
On page 239, Australian deaths are given as 362 officers and 7779 other
ranks (a total of 8141), but on page 286 a table of month-by-month deaths
is stated as adding up to 371 officers and 8338 other ranks (a total of
8709). At some point, the Memorial accepted this higher number, even though
it is much higher than any other official estimate. Examination of the
War Office table reveals that staff got their tallying up wrong. The monthly
deaths actually add up to 359 officers and 7800 other ranks, which equals
8159 (this is 550 fewer than the ‘accepted official estimate’).
Given that the War Office’s lower number and the corrected sum
of monthly deaths are close, that Australian official medical history
statistics are reasonably close, and that the Roll of Honour for this
period would be close too once unrelated deaths (from illnesses and accidents
in Australia, at sea or in Egypt) are taken into account, then a revised
estimate of the number of Australians who died in the Gallipoli campaign
could be around 8150.
The campaign
-
a summary
of the Gallipoli campaign from The Oxford Companion to Australian
Military History—includes maps.
-
a brief
summary of the Gallipoli Campaign from the 1990 media kit issued
to assist Australia's 75th
anniversary official commemorative visit.
-
Visit Gallipoli website—commissioned
by the Department of Veterans' Affairs and developed by the Board
of Studies, NSW. Here you can explore new and historical material
on Gallipoli.
First-hand accounts of the Gallipoli campaign
C.E.W. Bean's first report
of the Anzac landings at Gallipoli was published in the Commonwealth
Gazette on 17 May 1915. At this point Bean was the official press
representative with the Australian Expeditionary Force.
British War correspondent, Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett's
first-hand reports on the Anzac Landing at Gallipoli praised the courage
of the 'raw' Australian and New Zealand
troops. Ashmead-Bartlett became frustrated and disillusioned with the
course of the campaign, and with the difficulties placed in the path of
his reporting. In concert with the Australian journalist, Keith
Murdoch, he attempted to circumvent the military
censorship imposed by General Sir Ian
Hamilton. Murdoch left Gallipoli with
Ashmead-Bartlett's letter
to British Prime Minister Asquith which contributed to the withdrawal
of troops from the Peninsula and the downfall of Sir
Ian Hamilton.
In 'Anzac:
Nationhood, Brotherhood and Sacrifice', chapter 4 of Bill Gammage's
The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War, the author
has used first-hand accounts of the Gallipoli campaign by Australian soldiers
to explore their attitudes to the war; to the fighting; to their British
allies and their Turkish opponents; and to the death of comrades.
In this extract from The Story of Anzac, Volume 1 of the Official
history of Australia in the war of 1914–1918, C.E.W. Bean, the
official historian, summarises the course of the
Gallipoli campaign from the landings to the end of the first phase
in early May 1915 when the advance of the British forces at both Gaba
Tepe and Cape Helles had been brought to a standstill. Bean
discusses Australian successes and failures in the early phase of the
campaign up to Sir Ian
Hamilton's decision that the next thrust of the battle
should be at Helles rather than at Anzac.
Gallipoli—legend versus myth
An article by Robert Manne,
'A
Turkish tale: Gallipoli and the Armenian genocide' explores possible
connections between the two events (Monthly, February 2007, pp.
20–28).
The following five articles are from Wartime journal:
-
Nigel Steel, 'What
if...? Imagine the Gallipoli landings on 25 April 1915 had succeeded
- what then?', (Wartime, No. 38, 2007, pp. 34–37).
-
Nigel Steel, 'Heroic
sacrifice', (Wartime, No. 38, 2007, pp. 22–27).
-
Harvey Broadbent,
'Gallipoli
from the Turkish perspective', (Wartime, No. 38, 2007,
pp. 18–21).
-
Rhys Crawley, 'Lone
Pine: worth the cost?', (Wartime, No. 38, 2007,
pp. 14–17).
-
Peter Hart, 'War
is helles: the real fight for Gallipoli', (Wartime, No.
38, 2007, pp. 10–12.).
In ‘Gallipoli:
a Turkish view’, David Cameron
examines the first hours after the landings from the viewpoint of a company
of 250 Turkish soldiers who opposed the ANZACs. (Wartime, No. 42,
2008)
In 'The
first casualty' , Les Carlyon
argues that the truth bears more eloquent witness to the heroics of Gallipoli
than the myths that have grown up around it. (Bulletin with Newsweek,
7 August 2001)
'The
lure of Gallipoli', by Les Carlyon,
is an article on the myth, the pride and the nostalgia evoked by the campaign
and its commemoration. (Australian Women’s Weekly, 1 August
2001)
In 'A
terrible beauty', the final chapter of his book, Gallipoli,
Les Carlyon summarises
the importance of Gallipoli and sketches the fates of a number of the
key protagonists.
In 'When
myth makers go over the top', Ray Cassin
argues that it does no honour to those who lie buried at Gallipoli if
their suffering is allowed to become the permanent property of the national
myth makers. (Age, 24 June 2001)
'The
last Anzac: the fatal shore that defines a nation', Tony
Stephens discusses where Gallipoli ranks in
Australia's historical picture
(Sydney Morning Herald, 17 May 2002).
'First
casualty', Robin Prior
and Trevor Wilson give
a summary of the Gallipoli campaign and correct 10 myths about it (Sydney
Morning Herald, 20 April 2002).
'Exploding
the myths of Gallipoli' by Ashley Ekins,
(Bulletin with Newsweek, 27 April 2004, pp.30–33.)
In ‘The
wrong place’, W Refshauge examines the continuing debate about
whether the original landing at Anzac Cove was made at the wrong place.
(Sabretache, September 2007)
Gallipoli—military resources
Gallipoli—biographies
Gallipoli
biographies contains brief sketches of the most prominent officers
and men involved in the campaign. The Australian War Memorial's on-line
encyclopaedia provides a list of Gallipoli
biographies including those of C.E.W.Bean,
Ataturk, and John Simpson Kirkpatrick
(the man with the donkey).
Brief biographical
details of Mustapha Kemal
(later known as Ataturk). These are the frequently quoted
words of comfort to Australian mothers which appear on the Ataturk memorial near
the Australian War Memorial in Canberra:
'Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ... You are
now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies and the
Mehmets to us. Where they lie side by side now here in this country
of ours ... You mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries
wipe away the tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in
peace after having lost their lives on this land. They have become our
sons as well.'
In 'First
Anzac heroes' , Barry Clissold
discusses the men who were awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal on
Gallipoli and how they 'set a high standard of courage for a young nation
in its first major engagement'. (Wartime, No. 25, 2004)
Gallipoli—geography, then and now
End of section 3
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