Australia in Arms by Phillip Schuler

Author:Phillip Schuler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2018-03-09T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVI

TURKISH MAY ATTACK AND ARMISTICE

The Turks’ strongest attack of the campaign was made in the middle of May, when they attempted an assault all along the Anzac line. Both sides had had time to reorganise, and both had received reinforcements. The Turks probably had 35,000 men in their trenches at this time, while the Australians had 30,000. During the first fortnight of the month the enemy had brought up guns of bigger calibre, and had placed in the Olive Grove, from which they could enfilade the beach from the east, a six-gun battery which even the warships and the Australian gunners were unable to completely silence. The Allies had aeroplanes and captive balloons spotting for them, and yet the Turkish batteries, skilfully concealed, managed to continue shelling the beach and the incoming barges. Very little notice was taken by the Navy of this shelling, and very soon, too, the troops regarded it as the natural thing. What they would have felt like, these Australians, had they been fighting in France, where, for certain periods, they would be relieved and taken from under constant shell fire, it is not easy to say. The strain wore them down certainly, but it never affected the army nerves or its heart or its determination.

Nevertheless, May was a sad month for the troops, though it also brought later a chance of the Turks being taught a lesson. On Saturday, 15th May, Major-General Bridges, the leader of the 1st Division, fell mortally wounded. It had often been remarked by the troops at Anzac that their General was absolutely careless of his own safety. He was daily round the trenches, a rather glum, silent man, but keenly observant, and quickly able to draw from his officers all the points of information he required. Often he recklessly exposed himself to gain a view of the Turkish positions, despite the remonstrances of his Staff. As time wore on he took heed, and on the morning when he fell had been more than usually careful. General Bridges had left Anzac Headquarters, near the beach, at about 9.30, and was going up Shrapnel Gully, and at this time that terrible gully had no secret sap through which one might pass with comparative safety from snipers’ bullets coming from the head of the gully. It was a matter of running, from sandbag traverse to sandbag traverse, a gauntlet of lead, up the bed of the dry gully.

General Bridges had just passed a dressing-station dug into the side of the hill, and had received a warning from the stretcher-bearers standing round the entrance. ‘You had better run across here, sir,’ they told him, ‘as the Turks are pretty lively to-day.’ He did, and reached a further traverse, where he stood near another dressing-station smoking a cigarette. ‘Well,’ he said to his Staff officer, after a few minutes, ‘we must make another run for it.’ He ran round the corner of the traverse and through the thick scrub. Before he could reach the next cover, not many yards away, he was struck by a bullet and lay prone.

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