At about the same time in June, Turkish Northern Group Commander General Esat Pasha and divisional commander Colonel Mustafa Kemal were on Battleship Hill discussing risks from the north and south to the Anzac area. The groups Chief of Staff, Fahrettin, recounted the conversation between the two officers. Esat Pasha asked Mustafa Kemal, Where will the enemy come from? Kemal then made a sweeping hand gesture, from Ariburnu and up along the coastline to Suvla, and said, From there! Esat Pasha then said, Let’s assume that they do come from there! How will they be able to move? Kemal used his hand to draw a semi-circle that began from Ariburnu and continued towards Chunuk Bair Kocaçimentepe: Like that. Esat Pasha reportedly began to laugh and patting Kemal on the shoulder, said, Don’t you worry, they will not do that. Kemal replied, God willing, sir, may it turn out the way you expect.¹

During late June, in Helles, the French had launched a successful attack at Kereves Dere and a week later the British at Gully Ravine. At Anzac it had been quiet since May, with the exception of small scale raids and minor tactical operations. This posed a question for Turkish commanders as to where the next attack, large or small, would be happening. The Turks knew that the Gallipoli campaign would continue, especially after Winston Churchill’s speech on 5 June in Dundee when he stated, Through the Narrows of the Dardanelles and across the ridges of the Gallipoli Peninsula lie some of the shortest paths to a triumphant peace. The Kereves Dere and Gully Ravine successes did cause the Turks concern, but these were isolated bite and hold attacks, not an all-out offensive to end the campaign. It was now time for the Turkish command to work out the best way to counter the next offensive, but for that they needed to know where the next allied offensive was to fall.

Enver Pasha, the Turkish Minister for War and de facto Commander in Chief, still believed that Bulair and Enez at the Gulf of Saros was the main threat, but General Otto Liman von Sanders, his German military adviser and commander of Fifth Army, largely disagreed, although he did keep troops in the area. Sanders wrote to Corps Headquarters, requesting their opinions on possible enemy offensive locations. Vehip Pasha, commander of the Southern Group at Helles, responded that he did not believe there would be another major attack there; one main reason was the area was surrounded on three sides by the sea, so any advance would have to be due north. The previous slaughter during the Krithia battles proved this was not a viable route, and the nature of the ground elsewhere on that coastline prohibited a new major landing. He thought that a breakout at Anzac was most likely, combined with a new landing either north or south of that position. Esat Pasha, Vehip’s brother, who commanded the Northern Group at Anzac, expected a southerly break out from Anzac towards Gaba Tepe, discounting a breakout to the north, towards Chunuk Bair and Hill 971. Colonel Mustafa Kemal, who was still a divisional commander at the time, had not ruled out north Anzac.