CHAPTER 1

The Attack
at The Nek

Battles often begin in the dimness before dawn, or in the evening around sunset. First light on 7 August 1915 was to be the test for the Australians in the 3rd Light Horse Brigade on Gallipoli. On that morning they were to make a dismounted charge across the narrow no-man’s-land which had separated them and the Turks for the past 12 weeks. Most of the light horsemen did not show alarm at the task they had been set. Among many there was nervous anticipation, for this was to be their first real taste of pitched battle, and it would be a demonstration of their worth. They were aware that the infantrymen, who had got a tenuous grip on the peninsula when they made their amphibious landing in April, were watching to see how well these more recently arrived troops, supposedly Australia’s elite, would acquit themselves.

There was a strong belief that this was to be the brigade’s climactic battle, from which victory would come. In the network of trenches, and in the saps which had been driven beyond the ragged front line, men waited for the order to charge. Most had been sitting quietly through the previous day and night, sometimes managing to snatch a few moments of uneasy sleep. The collective air of excitement concealed the natural fear and concern of individuals. All their training, travel and hardships had brought them to this moment. They were willing and confident, and by now the opportunity to participate in a great battle seemed a part of the natural course of their lives.

The sounds of war were all around them. This was part of a large-scale general movement. Actions had commenced on the previous evening, and all night the noise of fighting drifted across from the flanks. After some hours the tap, tap, tap of machine-guns, and the pop of rifle-fire, softened by the distance, began to die away, only to return as fighting ebbed and flowed. Later came the sharp swish overhead, followed by the nearby crash of a shell-burst on the enemy trenches opposite as the artillery began its preparation for the dawn attack.

The darkness had brought relief from the heat of the day, but the night was cold. The men were only thinly dressed, so some went down to the communications trenches to help themselves to the greatcoats which had been piled with others’ belongings. They reckoned that things could be sorted out again later. About 3 am a staff sergeant, with a small party carrying stone jars, began to move about distributing a double issue of rum.

Each man knew that shortly he would confront the enemy, armed with only the bayonet on his rifle, while a few carried hand bombs. Ammunition hung heavily in pouches worn above the waist, but all rifles were unloaded, for this was to be a bayonet assault. Hopefully the Turks would not stand and fight. If they did it was going to be a vicious and bloody melee. It was not a thought to dwell on; most men were silently concerned only that their courage would not be seen to fail.

The Turks’ earthworks looked formidable. The Australians were on a feature called Russell’s Top, facing the Sari Bair Range, which was held by the enemy. Joining these was a bridge of land called The Nek. Here the Turks had their trenches, extending back in rows up the hill behind, called Baby 700.

At 4 am the allied artillery began to concentrate on the forward slopes of Baby 700. Fire from the Royal Navy standing off-shore joined in. It was the heaviest bombardment the light horsemen had seen, and they were reassured to see shells bursting on the enemy, throwing up dirt, dust and smoke, which drifted heavily across into their own lines. In the soft light a veil of yellow smoke gathered over the Turks, leaving only their foremost trenches visible. For half an hour the shell-fire grew in intensity. Then it stopped.

The moment for the attack had arrived. In the front line, formed of deep trenches and shallow saps, the first wave of attacking troops waited for an agonising seven minutes for the order, which was to come from the commanding officer of the 8th Light Horse. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander White had been keen and fresh-faced when he arrived on Gallipoli. He was now anxious and tired, and his sun helmet concealed the nasty shrapnel wound, which had put him in hospital just a few weeks earlier. Finally, he yelled ‘Go!’ The order was passed along the line and 150 men, with White at their front, clambered up, with their bayonets fixed, to face the enemy.

The Australians rushed forward across the rough ground to be met by a gale of flying metal. Quickly, hundreds of rifles from directly opposite were joined by machine-guns higher up the slopes, snapping out fire. In the dimness the flames from the rifle barrels seemed to spit halfway across no-man’s-land. The sound of the shooting engulfed the battlefield, smothering the ferocious yells of the attackers and the screams and moans of those hit. The Turkish riflemen fired furiously. Their shots tore and smashed through bone and flesh. They saw the Australians dropping, not singly, but in dozens. Within a couple of minutes there was only a scattered handful left.

Then, against the backdrop of a dark sea, another line of attackers rose. A row of widely-spaced leaders first appeared, closely followed by their troops. Again more than 150 men scrambled forward yelling, with their bayonets thrust before them. In a moment they too were falling. The volume of rifle and machine-gun fire was enormous. Against this, men had no chance. Almost everyone was hit, many even before they had found their footing after clambering from the trench.

The dead and wounded soon littered the battlefield. The brigade had lost one of its regiments in just five minutes. The men of the second line had not even got as far as the first. In some places a few of the wounded scrambled for better cover, while several of the immobile were helped by mates. Sergeant Henry Nugent of the 8th Regiment, a survivor who had sought some protection after being shot through the hand, later described the charge in a letter to his mother:

It was grand to see the spirit in which the boys went over the top of that trench at the word of command. Every man knew that he was going to almost certain death, but not one hesitated. We had only 40 yards to go to the Turkish trenches, but not one man reached them. Our men fell dead and wounded 10 yards from the goal. It was just hell, and no man could penetrate and live.¹

Movement had almost ceased 15 minutes after the assault began, and the firing was beginning to die down. Already it was becoming light. It was apparent that the attack had been decisively defeated. Certainly, nobody expected that the Australians would maintain their action. However, at 4.45 am a third line of light horsemen sprang forth. These were the Western Australians of the 10th Light Horse Regiment. They had filed into the front trenches after the previous two waves left. Dead and wounded were already choking the trenches and, although they had not been able to look over the parapet, the Western Australians could hear the devastating firepower they were to face. But the order was given, and they obeyed.

The Western Australians’ efforts were doomed. Even if they could reach the enemy’s trenches, the loss of the previous two lines meant that they would not have the strength to take and hold any of them. The Turks were now fully alert and again met the assault with withering fire, which had been joined by artillery bursting its shrapnel over no-man’s-land. The third line was simply swept away.

The battle could have ended there. However, further tragedy was heaped upon folly. At 5.15 am a fourth line, this time smaller than the others, made a final charge. This futile assault, which could not hope to achieve anything, was almost destroyed on its own parapet. It took only a few minutes for the fighting to be over. The Australians’ hopes had been extinguished.

Two hundred and forty men were killed, and about 140 wounded, in this short, sharp action. In the trenches, from which they had begun only minutes earlier, there was shock and chaos. Some officers and a few men peered out over the battlefield, using periscopes, looking in disbelief at the fate of their two fine regiments. Around them the dead lay on the dirt floor. Several already had coats thrown over their faces to hide the horror they presented. A few of the mortally injured were passing their final moments in agony. The other wounded were beginning to receive some treatment, and stretcher-bearers had started moving them away. The evacuation system was soon overwhelmed. Unless they were strong enough to pass the rest of the day unattended, they had little chance of survival.

Dead and wounded lay thick in no-man’s-land. For many, death had been instantaneous. Others were wounded and isolated, with neither the strength nor the opportunity to get back. Among the suffering, some prayed – weeks later a body was recovered still grasping a prayer book – while others called in vain for help. Those who could crawled in carefully, and for at least an hour there was a slow stream of men slipping over the parapet. Several who had found some cover were pinned down. They waited through the day until darkness before making their dash for safety.

The battle for The Nek had ended. In the front trenches things were in a shambles, and the battlefield appeared crowded with the dead and dying. Charles Bean wrote that, ‘as the sun of that burning day climbed higher … movement ceased. Over the whole summit the figures lay still in the quivering heat.’²In the next few days attention would be drawn to the fighting elsewhere, although not far away. But no major gains could be made there either.

The Australians never did take The Nek. The failure of the attacks launched here, and elsewhere, in August was an indicator that nothing more was possible at Anzac. Finally, in December, the allies withdrew, slipping away quietly before the Turks realised they had gone. As the Australians left, perhaps in spite as much as in defiance, they detonated a huge mine under the enemy’s front trench at The Nek. The explosion was a signal that the campaign here was over.

The story of the charge at The Nek became part of the history of Australia’s experience at war, both as fact and as mythology. Early accounts tended to focus on the heroic efforts of those who had lost their lives, and on the courage that they had displayed in going willingly to their deaths for the greater cause.

Charles Bean published his final volume of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–18 in 1942, ending, at least in one sense, a task he had commenced 28 years earlier. When he came to his last chapter, he was compelled to say something about the discipline of the Australian Imperial Force. He wrote:

In the history of war there is no more signal example of reckless obedience than that given by the dismounted light horsemen at The Nek when, after seeing the whole of the first attacking line mown down within a few yards by a whirlwind of rifle and machine-gun fire, the second, third, and fourth lines each charged after its interval of time, at the signal of its leaders, to certain destruction.³

Comparisons with the charge of the Light Brigade, a famous cavalry action during the Crimean War, and an inspiring story of Victorian valour known to all of the First World War generation since childhood, were inevitable. Even participants and the historian Charles Bean could not avoid the analogy. The connection remained strong and, in the 1930s, a prestigious Australian War Memorial publication said that ‘the charge of the six hundred British cavalry against the Russian guns at Balaclava immortalised in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s stirring poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, had its counterpart at the Anzac “Nek”’.⁴ Indeed, Tennyson’s words do seem most apt:

They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

Yet behind the glorious charge of the Light Brigade there is a story of inadequacies, incompetence and bitter personal rivalries. The action at The Nek was no different. The attack had been a disaster. Hundreds of lives had been lost needlessly, and for no gain. The Australians had been set a task that was unachievable and, even when this was apparent following the destruction of the first line, three more waves were sent to the same fate.

Something had gone very seriously wrong at The Nek. The courage of the officers and men who made the charge cannot be denied. We can only join Bean in admiring their remarkable discipline. But battles cannot be fought solely on the basis of discipline and courage. It was in the other skills and qualities – most particularly those sought in certain leaders – that the conduct of this battle was deficient. The terrible waste of human life was a consequence of these failures.