CHAPTER 7

Gallipoli and Trench Warfare

Two large ships carried the 2nd and 3rd Light Horse Brigades from Alexandria to Gallipoli. The Menominee left with the 8th and 9th Regiments, brigade headquarters, the signallers and ambulance, and some New Zealanders. The 10th went on the Lutzow, along with the 2nd Light Horse Brigade. The voyage was only to be a short one so the men were packed tight. Reynell, on the Menominee, noted: ‘There is every comfort for the majority of officers on this transport as she is a passenger boat but the men are terribly crowded.’¹ The Lutzow had been regularly ferrying troops and was in a filthy condition.

No sooner were they at sea than there was a submarine scare. Already the Royal Navy had demonstrated the effectiveness of submarines in these waters, and the enemy would do the same. The men stood at watch throughout the voyage. On the evening of 18 May they crowded the rails to see two distant British warships firing their heavy guns against an invisible shore. Soon Cape Helles, the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, where the British army had landed, appeared on the horizon. The Lutzow was first to arrive off the cape and dropped anchor about a kilometre from shore, giving the troops their first view of the battlefields. The Menominee arrived during the day but, while the troops waited, expecting the ships to carry them towards Anzac, they were ordered to Lemnos harbour. It had been decided that the threat of submarines was too great to expose so many troops to this peril.

Ashore, a momentous battle was taking place. The Turks launched large-scale frontal attacks preceded by heavy artillery shelling on the allies’ positions. Throughout 19 May the Turkish infantry threw themselves at various parts of the lines but machine-gun and rifle fire shot their attacks to pieces. At Anzac, by the end of the day, over 3,000 of the enemy were believed to have been killed, while the Australians had 628 killed and wounded. The battlefields were strewn with Turkish dead. So intense and persistent were the Turkish assaults that many Australians admitted to an admiration for such determined bravery. It was about this time that the Anzacs began to speak of the enemy in terms of respect as fighting men. In the following days there was a general lull in the action and the light horsemen arrived; they were able to come ashore and get settled in during this relatively quiet period.

The Lutzow proceeded to Anzac without the company of the Menominee. The ship sailed quietly through the dark night with all lights out. Each man on board knew that on shore men had been fighting and dying, and they peered at the dark mist-covered cliffs with a mixture of curiosity and excitement. All through the night they could hear the rattle of rifle and machine-gun fire coming across the water. They could see the narrow beach and the rugged, eroded, scrub-covered hills and, as daylight broke, the sun glinted on stacks of ammunition boxes and stores, and shadows defined terraces with their rows of dug-outs and the ragged trench lines.

During the afternoon of the 20th, the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, mostly men from New South Wales and Queensland, was disembarked. The 10th Light Horse had to wait until the following day, when the rest of the brigade came up from Lemnos, where it had been put onto speedy destroyers. The troops were then transferred onto barges and pinnaces to make the last short leg of their journey to the shore.

Corporal Henry Foss was found to have a poisoned hand and the doctor would not allow him to land until a few days later. He watched his comrades go while the wounded men were brought on board to take their places. He recorded that, ‘they went ashore cheering and laughing, while the wounded chaps alongside me dismally remarked “They’ll soon drop that sort of thing”.’²

The light horsemen landed wearing their smart service dress uniforms and sun helmets, and carrying their packs and rifles, ready to join their countrymen in the great adventure. They received a sober welcome. The place was more like a mining camp, and its occupants, now veterans of a campaign less than a month old, were already weary, tattered and battle-wise. The brigade was guided to its bivouacs without fuss and at dawn next morning stood to arms.

The first mounted units to arrive at Anzac had been Colonel Harry Chauvel’s 1st Light Horse Brigade and the New Zealanders under Colonel Andrew Russell. These brigades had been longer in training and were commanded by senior experienced officers, so they were sent directly into the trenches at Monash Valley and Walker’s Ridge as part of the New Zealand and Australian Division under Major General Alexander Godley. More caution was applied to the placement of the two newly arrived brigades. The 2nd Light Horse Brigade was allotted to the 1st Australian Division and was split up through the infantry battalions to gain some experience. Thought had to be given as to how the 3rd Brigade would be employed.

There were some doubts about Hughes’ readiness for front-line command, but it was acknowledged that he did have Antill, an experienced regular with war experience, to support him. So the 3rd Light Horse Brigade was initially sent into the northern sector and placed in sections of the line under Chauvel and Russell. This arrangement was soon changed to allow Colonel Russell to be released, and Hughes and his brigade took over on Russell’s Top.

The brigade became part of General Godley’s division. The general was a tall slender man with an aristocratic air. In many respects he represented the ‘haw haw’ type of British senior officer so often lampooned by the Australians. He was of Anglo-Irish descent, from a military family of no great wealth, and had a close and important association with the New Zealanders. Shortly before the war he had gone to New Zealand to organise and command the forces there, and he was already known to some of the senior Australian officers. His was one of the two divisions at the original landing on 25 April, making up the corps (a corps is usually two or more divisions) from which the name Anzac was derived.

The 9th Light Horse was sent directly up to Walker’s Ridge and on to Russell’s Top, where the New Zealanders had earlier established themselves. They were to relieve the Auckland Mounted Rifles. Reynell went on ahead and, in a letter sent home, described what he found:

When I was looking round one trench that we were to relieve I suddenly came on a dead New Zealander in an advanced state of decomposition that had been dragged into the trench by the NZ men with a crooked stick. It was a very unpleasant object and I was glad they had buried him by the time our men came to occupy the trench.³

White also had a look around: ‘I went through the trenches, it’s impossible to describe them, they are wonderful. In some places they are only 20 yards from the Turks. The Turks are very good at snipe shooting. There are lots of dead Turks about, and the smell is awful, also lots of our chaps, it’s impossible to get them in.’⁴

The 10th Light Horse moved in below Walker’s Ridge and reported for orders to the 1st Light Horse Brigade, while the 8th Regiment went up to the ridge two days later to relieve the Wellington Mounted Rifles.

Tom Kidd was 45 years old when he left his wife and family, and a settled position as a Geraldton accountant, to join the AIF. He had been quick to rush to the bugle’s call, just as he had 15 years earlier when he went off to the South African War. He was now an officer in the 10th Light Horse.

We removed camp on the morning of May 23 to Shrapnel Valley. We do not have transport facilities on Gallipoli as all ranks carry everything on their backs. Officers dress similar to the troopers carrying ruck-sacks (or packs) and wearing similar equipment, but without rifles. By means of a big communications sap we pass across hills behind GOC headquarters until we reach a long valley which commences at the steep hills [and] runs right down to the sea opening out on to the beach.⁵

The one thing that immediately struck the men, especially as they came closer to the front line and the adjoining no-man’s-land, was a pervasive stench. The dead, particularly the Turks killed in their attack of 19 May, lay thick in front of the trenches. Lieutenant Kidd continued: ‘The atmosphere was heavily charged with the smell of rotting humans which was until one became accustomed to it, inclined to render you a bit bilious.’⁶ Not only was it unpleasant, it was also posing a very serious health problem.

Fortunately, a remarkable thing happened on the 24th: the fighting stopped to allow the dead to be buried. The two sides had managed to arrange a nine-hour armistice. ‘It’s quite strange not to hear shooting,’ noted Colonel White.⁷

During this break in the fighting, William Cameron, of the 9th Light Horse, decided that he would hop out to have a look around:

Have done so and the sight is gruesome and peculiar. Its awfulness is appalling. Thousands of bodies lie rotting in the intervening space between the enemy’s and our trenches about 200 yards, and the stench is sickening. The burial party have a horrible job, yet the whole thing is peculiar in that Turk, Britain [sic], or Australian are intermingled in a common task of placing out of sight the bodies of dead comrades, and in a few short hours this will cease and each will be in his own trench, each doing his best to add to the already large list.⁸

The 10th Light Horse provided burial parties to dispose of the dead from both sides in front of Quinn’s Post, which was already a notorious killing ground. Next day Reynell noted that in his area ‘all the dead were buried – the ground on which they were lying rotting still stinks badly but it is better and will no doubt be all right in a day or two’.⁹

Following the repulse of the Turkish attack of 19 May, the British commanders at Anzac began to feel that their defences were strong enough to resist any Turkish effort to try to push them back into the sea. The Turks too now believed that they could hold the British and empire troops in the small area at Anzac. Neither side was willing to acknowledge that a stalemate was all that was now possible, and Birdwood was already considering the likely success of a new offensive. Any British optimism was dulled on 25 May, when HMS Triumph was sunk by an enemy submarine. The battleship had stood off Anzac, in view of the troops ashore, providing a symbol of British naval might. The light horsemen on Walker’s Ridge watched as boats rushed to rescue crewmen, then saw the big ship slip below the surface.

For several days the 10th Light Horse provided parties on rotation at Pope’s Hill and Quinn’s Post, two of the most dangerous spots at Anzac. Both places were critical for the security of the entire Anzac area and at each the Australian and Turkish trenches almost ran into each other.

Lieutenant Kidd had watched the enemy attack at Quinn’s Post only a day or so before he went up there:

The enemy lost heavily and I myself saw a huge heap of mangled and dismembered Turks dragged out of our own trenches. They lay in heaps in view of all of us for days before they could be removed and presented a sickening sight. However we became used to it. It was good schooling for the game of war.¹⁰

The brigade’s first fight was a limited affair and came on 30 May, when parties from the 10th Light Horse made an assault on two positions at Quinn’s Post. It had been observed that the enemy had occupied and were fortifying two craters immediately in front of the Australians’ trenches. Fifty men were ordered to make the attack. Everyone knew the danger, but when told that two officers would be needed, Kidd responded: ‘Put me down for one and Colpitts for the other.’ Kidd later confided that ‘at this time the attack appeared like a forlorn hope … [I] handed Doc Bentley my paybook with money, binoculars, and last but not least a letter to my wife before we lined up.’¹¹

At five minutes past one o’clock the officers led their men in scrambling charges into the Turks’ new positions. They took them after wild fighting and then, for three hours, held on against counter-attacks. The Turks threw 30 bombs into Kidd’s trench; these were grabbed and returned. Almost every man was wounded in the fierce melee. One Turk managed to fire at Kidd from about 5 metres. The round grazed his nose and cheek, leaving him momentarily blinded by blood and dirt. Eventually, realising his position was hopeless he led his men in a desperate dash back to their own lines. Colpitts was able to hold out long enough to be reinforced and for a tunnel to be dug to tie-in the captured crater with Quinn’s Post.

It was a brief but heroic effort. Of the 46 men who took part, only 14 came out unscathed. Lieutenant Colpitts was evacuated wounded, but Kidd managed to stay on duty. The next day he noted: ‘Find my limbs full of bomb splinters. Joe Scott picks them out with a knife. My left eye blackens, partially closed. Left side of face all bruised.’ At first the strain did not show, but the reaction came shortly afterwards when he went down to the beach for a rest: ‘Go for a swim. Collapse on platform just as good old Doc Bentley predicted would happen.’¹²

This attack at Quinn’s Post was one of the few offensive actions undertaken by members of the brigade during its first ten weeks at Anzac. Shortly after this the 10th Light Horse moved up to Russell’s Top so that the brigade’s three regiments were now all together for the first time since Egypt.

Russell’s Top came off the main Sari Bair range and could be reached up a long and very steep route from the beach area along Walker’s Ridge. It was exhausting work to carry any load along the narrow track, which in places ran close to sheer cliff edges. Monash Valley pinched into Russell’s Top at the narrowest point confronting the Turkish positions, on one side of what was called ‘The Nek’. Evidently some South African War veteran had named the place in the early days of the fighting. A nek was a local name for a feature on military maps during that war. The regiments took their turns in the forward trenches and the support lines, where they were employed improving and extending the defences. The men soon began to fall into the routine of trench warfare: working, manning trenches and resting. Jack Dean’s lifelong recollections of this period were of ‘digging, tunnelling, getting out dirt, and putting in mines’. He remembered the dust and grime, poor food, and the flies. The continual digging often exposed the buried dead.¹³After several weeks of these foul conditions, he succumbed to enteric fever and became one of the 8th Light Horse’s long list of men evacuated through illness. In addition to the squalid unhealthy conditions, the enemy was always there to shell, bomb or threaten attack.

The regiments usually worked on the basis of a fortnight in the trenches, followed by a similar period of rest. Rest simply meant a move closer to the beach. It was sometimes better to be in the trenches than down on the shore. Foss records that ‘the trenches during our stay were particularly safe, and though continually ordered to keep our heads down etc, these orders only excited our amusement. Fact was that Abdul found it too risky to fire at us, but turned his attention mainly to the beach.’¹⁴

Despite this snipers were always a danger, and there was a steady stream of wounded sent down from the trenches to the hospital tents. Shelling was a greater problem though, and while a well-directed salvo often caused no casualties, a stray shell might come over at any time and create death and havoc. The light horsemen discovered that there was one Turkish 75-millimetre gun, claimed to be of French manufacture, which clearly had Russell’s Top as one of its dedicated targets.

The selection of weapons available to the trench soldier at this time was limited. The Lewis gun and Stokes mortar had not yet made their appearance, nor had poison gas or flame-throwers been introduced here. The main arms were the Maxim machine-gun, the rifle and bayonet, and hand grenades. The Australians had virtually no experience with grenades – ‘bombs’, as they were called then – until they arrived at Anzac, and then the supply was always short. The very effective Mills bomb, which remained in use until the Korean War, did not appear until late in the campaign. A number of more primitive types, cast in foundries in Egypt and Malta, were used, and these were supplemented by crude ‘jam-tin’ bombs made from scraps in a workshop on the beach. The Turks always seemed better off. The Australians had the impression, although they were wrong, that the enemy had large stocks of bombs. They did have iron spherical grenades and were skilled in using them; most of these relied largely on their blast and were more likely to maim than to kill outright. They also had an effect on morale. McConnan recalled some enemy bombs exploding harmlessly high above him: ‘it is curious that each bomb gave me a kind of shock which took a minute or two to pass.’¹⁵

Bombs were in constant use in the front line, and opposing trenches were sometimes within throwing range. The Turkish bombs often had long fuses which, if one was quick and game enough, enabled them to be thrown back. Many brave men were mutilated or killed attempting this. One of the types issued to the light horsemen was an old model with a brass body, around which was an iron fragmentation band. It was thrown using its cane or wooden handle and detonated on impact. It was dangerous to throw from the confines of a trench, and awkward to carry. Another type, made of cast iron, was similar to the Turks’ ‘cricket ball’ bombs and was ignited by a five-second fuse.

Digging was an unrelenting and exhausting business. New trenches, saps and tunnels were dug, while existing ones had to be deepened or widened. Colonel White commented that it was a far cry from the type of work that light horsemen had joined up to do: ‘It is such rotten soldiering. Trench warfare is the limit, so different to what we expected.’ Earlier he had marvelled at the extent of the trenches: ‘They are a maze, a network, and quite easy to get lost in.’¹⁶

Eating, sleeping and swimming – these were the few simple pleasures available to the soldiers. Although water was always short, the food was adequate but rarely interesting. Tinned meat, called ‘bully beef’, and biscuits were the staple. This was usually supplemented with vegetables and occasionally bread and fresh meat. Cooks did not usually accompany the squadrons into the trenches, where cooking was often done in small groups. Rissoles made from bully beef, ground-up biscuits, some ‘Indian meal’ and locally gathered thyme were popular. Rum was issued, but its arrival was not very regular. In late May William Cameron of the 9th Light Horse happily recorded: ‘Enjoyed a very good breakfast of fried “Bully”, carrots, parsnips, and onions, with army biscuits and jam; cocoa to drink.’¹⁷ On another occasion he wrote: ‘Whilst our men were cooking their breakfast this morning two shells lobbed right on the parapet flattening out two men and covering one right over; the breakfast suffered considerably, but we had to have it or nothing. We were eating sand and gravel with our curry stew.’

On 6 June the 9th Light Horse was able to hold a church parade. A week later a similar parade, held by the 8th Regiment, was disrupted by shell fire. Cameron was a keen soldier and a devout Christian. On a previous Sunday he had observed the Sabbath as best he could:

Here I am … having had a shave, a wash and mouth cleaning, all in one cup of water, and general change, and feel quite Sunday-like, while outside and all around is the thunder of guns, the whistle and scream of bullets and shells. Have been spending this couple of hours reading passages from my Bible, and a feeling of calm and confidence comes over me.

After the first church parade he wrote:

I have never seen these men listen as they have done this day; notwithstanding their outward apparent callousness, these rough-hewn men have an undercurrent of thought which is only brought to the top on occasions such as this, when, more than anywhere else, they are brought to face with the stern fact that, we know not what a day or an hour may bring forth. Truly God has greatly blessed us, and we are truly grateful.

The possibility of sudden death, or mutilation, was always present on Anzac, as the evidence all around showed. One of the most horrible memories from that time was the exposing of decaying corpses while extending the trenches, and it happened often. Trooper Jack Dean recalled the unpleasantness of it 70 years afterwards, and there are numerous contemporary accounts. Colonel White reported: ‘We are always finding dead men, it’s all very awful: The smell of the dead is not nice.’ Major Thomas Redford, one of his officers, wrote: ‘While sapping and trenching we continually come across dead men.’¹⁸ Another in the regiment, Tom Austin, wrote:

It was quite a common sight to pass through portions of the saps, and see a pair of boots, the feet of a dead man, or his hands or else some boards passing through the sides and holding the bodies in place. In no time we grew callous to such items and the boards often contained epitaphs inscribed there by some ‘hard cases’.¹⁹

Alexander White was a popular and inspiring officer, but in the privacy of his dug-out he revealed his horror in his diary: ‘Dear little wife and kiddie I seem so far away from you all; I do not want to speak about the war; it’s horrible. If I let myself think too much about it my nerves would go. Have seen things and done things I want to forget.’²⁰

June arrived and the weather was becoming warmer. With the heat came masses of flies and the spread of sickness and disease. By July a health crisis was developing. Sanitation became an increasingly vital concern, and the medical officers had to work hard to see that every effort was made to improve the conditions. Dysentery and diarrhoea spread through the regiments, which were quickly weakened by the high sickness rate and the consequent evacuations of sick to the hospitals.

Tom Austin recorded that ‘the flies and vermin were becoming intolerable and the Medical Officer was at his wits end to know how to cope with disease owing to the very limited facilities at his disposal’.²¹ In the first days of July the 8th Light Horse moved down to its rest camp. ‘The men at this time were suffering very badly from a vomiting sickness with septic sores.’ The latter, said Austin, ‘is a kind of scurvy and is similar to an Australian scourge known as “Barcoo Rot”, known to every bushman West of the Darling.’²² A few days later he joined the sick parade and was among those who had to be taken off Anzac.

The dwindling strength of the regiments through death, sickness and wounds was now a major concern. Reinforcements arrived but they were not keeping pace with the losses. The older men usually suffered most, and Hughes and Miell were soon ill. The 10th Light Horse could not maintain sufficient officers as evacuations rose. By 22 June, 237 men were away from the brigade. When the 9th Regiment went back into the trenches in mid-July, every man was placed in the front line as there were not enough to provide the usual supports. Even men who were managing to hang on were becoming noticeably weaker.

A few weeks later Lieutenant Charles Carthew reflected on the state of the 8th Light Horse: ‘Our old Regt. That fine body of men that marched through town a short time ago would make a very poor show now – that is if we had only those that are left of the original crowd. Don’t think I have ten men of my old original crowd and not one Non Com[missioned officer]. I’d give something to have them here today.’²³

As the days dragged into weeks, and June slipped into July, a psychological change came over the soldiers clinging to the hot, dusty and dangerous cliffs on this narrow and short stretch of the Turkish peninsula. Many weeks earlier these men had grumbled about long rides in the desert, at having to dig trenches and then fill them in, had resented the brigade major’s early morning inspections, and had complained about the boredom of the training camps. These worries seemed to be of small consequence now. They had wanted to see action, even if it meant being separated from their horses. Now they had it. They had sought adventure, and possibly glory, but found themselves dirty, thirsty, constantly digging and tunnelling, living in scooped-out burrows, having to stand-to before each dawn, and their field of activities limited to the slopes of this rugged shoreline. Of even greater concern was the alarming spread of disease and illness and the constant threat of death or possibly maiming from the ever-present enemy. Evidence of their mortality was all around them. They lived among the graves, looked out over rotting corpses, and had their senses assailed by the constant stench.

Overriding all the soldiers’ worries was the realisation that there was no end in sight. Most of these men had been prepared to be away from home maybe a year or so, to perhaps face a major battle, and even risk death. Now it appeared that they would stay on Anzac, fearing an attack that could come at any time, and with no conclusion possible for them beyond serious illness, injury or death.