Recommended: The Gallipoli Gallop: Dealing with Dysentery on the "Fringes of Hell"

Thank You Brother Steve for this video about The Gallipoli campaign which was how the Australian. British and New Zealand troops fought and died during World War 1 in the Middle East.

Gallipoli 1915 - The Great War DOCUMENTARY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeAPkEl8hHg

Images:
1. pictorial cotton map of the Gallipoli campaign depicting the Straits area with ships, aircraft, towns, hills etc.
2. Corporal Cyril Bassett, New Zealand Divisional Signals Company, was the only NZEF soldier awarded the Victoria Cross during the Gallipoli campaign
3. New Zealand troops construct a track up Walker’s Ridge, Gallipoli, May 1915
4. New Zealand infantry at Helles
5. View up Monash Gulley
6. Digging in on Walkers Ridge, Gallipoli
7. New Zealand and Australian soldiers landing on Gallipoli on April 25, 1915


Background from {[nzhistory.govt.nz/war/the-gallipoli-campaign/landing-plans]}
The Gallipoli campaign
Page 3 – Invasion
New Zealand troops made their first major effort of the First World War during the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915. The Allies hoped to seize control of the strategic Dardanelles Strait and open the way for their naval forces to attack Constantinople (Istanbul), the capital of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire.
Allied forces landed on Gallipoli on 25 April. British (and later French) forces made the main landing at Cape Helles on the southern tip of Gallipoli, while the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed midway up the peninsula. Sent 2 km north of their intended landing place, they encountered determined Ottoman forces in the rugged country above the beach (soon known as Anzac Cove). Unable to make any significant advance, the Anzacs spent the next few days desperately holding onto their small beachhead.

Churchill’s strategy
At the end of 1914, the Western Front was a 700-km-long line of fortified trenches stretching through France and Belgium from the Swiss border to the North Sea. Fighting had reached a stalemate, with the Germans dug in on one side of the line and the French and British on the other.
Keen to break the deadlock, the Allies began looking at ways to exploit their superior sea power. With the German fleet contained in the North Sea, the opportunity of launching amphibious attacks on the enemy was especially evident to British First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. He submitted several plans to utilise British naval resources, including an assault on the Dardanelles Strait – a 50-km-long waterway linking the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The aim was for an Allied naval force to break through into the Sea of Marmara and threaten Constantinople, the capital of Germany’s ally, the Ottoman Empire.
Churchill wasted no time in ordering a bombardment of the Ottoman forts guarding the narrowest point of the straits, the Narrows, which was less than 2 km wide. This operation, carried out a few days before Britain and France formally declared war on the Ottoman Empire (5 November 1914), reminded the Ottomans of the threat to the Dardanelles. They quickly improved their defences, including by laying underwater minefields.

Target Gallipoli?
In late November 1914, Churchill raised the idea of an attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula at a meeting of the British War Council. The council, led by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, Secretary of War Lord Kitchener, and Churchill, deemed the plan too risky. However, the continuing stalemate on the Western Front, and developments in the Balkan region led the council to rethink its position.

Where did all the people go?
Most of the people living on the Gallipoli Peninsula until April 1915 were Greek. The Ottoman Fifth Army forcibly removed 22,000 Greek civilians from the area two weeks before the landings, on the pretext that, as Orthodox Christians, they might support the forthcoming Allied invasion. They never returned, ending 2500 years of Greek settlement on the peninsula.
With the Ottomans advancing northwards into the Caucasus region, Russia appealed for help to relieve the pressure. Although Russian forces soon drove the Ottomans back, this scare saw Churchill’s proposal taken more seriously. The War Council began to warm to the idea of a Dardanelles campaign, believing it could tempt Balkan states such as Greece and Romania to attack Austria-Hungary from the south-east, and persuade Italy to enter the war on the Allied side.
The limited nature of Churchill’s plan also counted in its favour. A naval attack on the Narrows would not require a large force. Nor would it compromise British naval power in the North Sea, as only older battleships would be involved. On 28 January 1915, the War Council approved an attack on the Dardanelles.

Naval attack
The naval attack began on 19 February 1915. While the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles fell within a week, the Ottoman defences inside the straits proved tougher to crack. Attempts by British and French warships to clear the underwater mines and knock out the coastal batteries ended in disaster – a final attack on 18 March saw three battleships sunk by mines. These minefields remained a barrier to Allied progress.
Rather than concede defeat, the Allies despatched a ground force which was to land on the Gallipoli Peninsula and capture the prominent Kilid Bahr plateau, west of the Narrows. From there, they could destroy Ottoman defensive positions on both sides of the straits, which would allow the naval operation to proceed. Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton, commander of the new Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF), assumed responsibility for organising and planning the invasion.
Hamilton assembled his forces in Egypt. As well as a single British division sent out from England – the 29th – the forces at Hamilton’s disposal included the Anzac troops in Egypt, a makeshift Royal Naval Division of sailors and Royal Marines, a French colonial division from North Africa, and a small Indian expeditionary force. Of the 75,000 men in the MEF, almost half were serving in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), which consisted of the 1st Australian Division (commanded by Major-General William Bridges) and the composite New Zealand and Australian Division (Major-General Sir Alexander Godley). The New Zealanders and Australians had been training in Egypt since December 1914, in preparation for service on the Western Front. The decision to invade the Gallipoli Peninsula changed all that.

Invasion of Gallipoli, April 1915
Hamilton spent the next month finalising his plan for the landing – not an easy task, given the rough nature of the peninsula’s coastline. He decided to focus his attack on Cape Helles at the southern tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, where British forces would land at five separate beaches. At the same time, French colonial troops would launch a diversionary attack at Kum Kale on the Asiatic side of the straits.
The ANZAC, under the command of Lieutenant-General William Birdwood, would make a separate landing midway up the peninsula near Gaba Tepe (Kabatepe). Their job was to secure key points in the Sari Bair Range and then capture Mal Tepe, a hill overlooking the main road running from north to south down the peninsula. This would allow them to prevent Ottoman reinforcements reaching Helles. Only the New Zealand Infantry Brigade (led by Brigadier-General Francis Johnston) would be involved in this attack – the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade (Brigadier-General Andrew Russell) remained in Egypt.
Defending the Gallipoli Peninsula were six infantry divisions (around 80,000 men) and support units of the Ottoman Fifth Army. Turkish troops made up the majority of the Ottoman units, but Arab infantry regiments also played a significant role in the defence of the peninsula.
The invasion would be a tough task for Hamilton’s force. Under-strength and under-equipped, the ad hoc MEF had had little time to prepare for the landings. While senior British generals such as Lord Kitchener still had doubts about the MEF’s military capabilities, they felt it would be good enough against a ‘second-rate’ opponent like the Ottomans.

The landing: 25 April 1915
Originally scheduled for 23 April, the invasion was delayed for two days by bad weather. On Sunday 25 April, the MEF launched its invasion of the Dardanelles. First ashore was the ANZAC, which had moved forward to the nearby Greek island of Lemnos from Egypt in mid-April. From Lemnos, warships and merchant ships transported the troops to the landing zone, where they were loaded into ships’ longboats that were towed inshore by steamboats before rowing to the beaches. The ANZAC landing site was Z Beach (later known as Brighton Beach), a 2700-m front north of the Gaba Tepe headland.

Landing error
Historians have long argued about the reasons for this, suggesting unexpected tides, faulty navigation by the landing fleet and belated changes of orders. The most likely explanation is that an unauthorised change of direction by one of the midshipmen commanding a steamboat pulled the whole line of tows off-course.
The 1st Australian Division spearheaded the attack, with the first wave of troops landing before dawn. They came ashore about 2 km north of the intended landing site, most in a narrow bay (later known as Anzac Cove) just south of the Ari Burnu headland. This was one of the worst places on that stretch of coast to make a landing – the surrounding landscape was steep and broken by deep gullies. As the troops tried to get off the beach, units got hopelessly lost amidst the rugged terrain. Only a few small, uncoordinated parties managed to reach the initial objective, Gun Ridge.
Delays in landing the remainder of the 1st Australian Division compounded the problems ashore. The last of these troops reached shore four hours behind schedule. In the meantime, the first elements of Godley’s New Zealand and Australian Division had begun landing soon after 10 a.m., adding to the confusion. New Zealand infantry, led by the Auckland and Canterbury battalions, started landing around 11 a.m. and quickly joined the desperate and confused fighting on the hills and ridgelines above Anzac Cove.
We came in, in a rowing boat half full of water and with about 30 men, in it. It was the slowest yet most exciting row that I ever had…. The shrapnel was trying to stop us all the time and it seemed hours before we ran ashore. This shrapnel is very deadly stuff if it catches anyone in an exposed position and no position is more exposed than an open rowboat out on the water. It was our first experience of it and I can tell you we did not like it.… After reaching dry land we started work straight away. We did not have to look for wounded who required attention. They were lying all about the beach and in the bushes and we gradually cleared the hillside until we reached the top at about 8 o’clock in the evening. Then the trench work started and it was real hard work and rather dangerous….
James Jackson, New Zealand Medical Corps, in Gavin McLean, Ian McGibbon and Kynan Gentry (eds), The Penguin Book of New Zealanders at War, Penguin, Auckland, 2009, pp. 119–20

The Australians and New Zealanders landed on a particularly rugged stretch of the Gallipoli coastline. The tangle of ravines, gullies and spurs inland from Anzac Cove climbs up to a line of scrub-covered ridges known as the Sari Bair Range. The highest points on this range are Hill 971 (971 ft/296 m), Hill Q (900 ft/274 m), and Chunuk Bair (850 ft/259m).
Three spurs – designated First, Second, and Third Ridges by the Anzacs – run off Chunuk Bair. Third ridge runs south, eventually joining up with two smaller crests – Battleship Hill (or Big 700) and Baby 700 – overlooking First and Second Ridges.
Second Ridge continues as a narrow spur from Baby 700. Small indentations along the ridgeline were to be developed into Quinn’s, Courtney’s, and Steele’s Posts. Further along the ridge opened out into a broad plateau (400 Plateau). At the southern end of Anzac, a series of thin spurs ran down toward Gaba Tepe before merging into rolling mounds inland from Z Beach (Brighton Beach), and the small headland of Gaba Tepe.
First Ridge stretched southwest from Baby 700 across a narrow saddle (The Nek) to a narrow plateau (Russell’s Top). From Russell’s Top, two spurs ran down to the beaches, some 150 metres below. The northern spur (Walker’s Ridge) allowed access onto Russell’s Top via a series of narrow tracks, while the southern spur (The Sphinx) presented a seemingly inaccessible face.
Russell’s Top itself ended in a narrow ridge (The Razor Edge), which fell away steeply at both sides. This impassable obstacle linked Russell’s Top with Plugge’s (Pluggy’s) Plateau, the arms of which ran to Maclagan’s Spur in the south and Queensland Point (Ari Burnu) to the north. Both features enclosed the beach at Anzac Cove.
The inland slopes of the First Ridge fell away into a valley, which bent sharply before climbing toward the junction of the First and Second Ridges. The section from the bend to the sea became Shrapnel Valley, the upper part Monash Gully. Together, they separated the First and Second Ridges.


Digging in on Walkers Ridge
Defending the area were two infantry companies (around 200 men) and an artillery battery of the Ottoman 27th Infantry Regiment. They inflicted substantial casualties on the Australians but were unable to prevent them landing and advancing inland. The Anzacs’ haphazard progress continued until they ran into elements of the Ottoman 19th Infantry Division, commanded by Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk). One of his units — the 57th Infantry Regiment — was on exercises near Hill 971 that morning. When reports of the landings reached Kemal, he quickly led this force toward the threatened area.
As Kemal’s men arrived on the scene, they went straight into battle. A counter-attack in mid-morning drove the Australians back from 400 Plateau. Kemal then turned his attention to the Anzac position around Baby 700, where New Zealand troops had joined the Australians in the front line. As fighting intensified during the afternoon, casualties mounted on both sides. By evening, Ottoman troops had pushed the Australians and New Zealanders back from Baby 700 and the Nek. Instead of securing the heights of Hill 971, or even Gun Ridge, the exhausted Anzacs were facing defeat.
The situation looked so dangerous that Birdwood recommended evacuation. Lieutenant-General Hamilton, commander of the MEF, rejected this option, as there was no way to undertake it with the resources available. He could only urge Birdwood’s Anzacs to dig in: ‘You have got through the difficult business, now you only have to dig, dig, dig until you are safe.’
Over the next 48 hours, the Anzacs scrambled to secure their tiny foothold. As further units from the New Zealand and Australian Division landed, they filled gaps in the line. The Anzac positions were gradually linked up and a tenuous line developed along Second Ridge. As soon as possible, the original landing units were withdrawn and reorganised. Eventually, Birdwood was able to establish two divisional sectors: the New Zealand and Australian Division took responsibility for the line north of Courtney’s Post, and the 1st Australian Division for the southern area.

Cape Helles
The results of the British landings at Cape Helles were equally disappointing. Although tactical success was gained at two of the beaches (S and Y), unimaginative leadership ensured this was not exploited. At the main landing sites (X, W and V Beaches), the British 29th Division suffered heavy losses in gaining a shaky foothold. Casualties were particularly heavy at V Beach, where troops disembarking from the improvised landing craft River Clyde made easy targets for Ottoman machine gunners.
The results fell far short of the first-day objectives. On the Asiatic side of the peninsula, French colonial troops landed at Kum Kale as planned but were soon withdrawn and sent to Helles. On 26 April, the British finally cleared the beaches and landed the remainder of the 29th Division. The first units of the Royal Naval Division also came ashore after making a mock landing at Bulair the previous day. In this operation, which had little practical effect, Bernard Freyberg, future commander of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force and Governor-General of New Zealand, distinguished himself by swimming ashore to light flares in an attempt to mislead the Ottoman defenders.

The Gallipoli campaign
Page 4 – Stalemate
By 29 April, the battle of the landing was over; both sides had fought themselves to a standstill. While the New Zealanders and Australians had established a beachhead at Anzac Cove, they had failed to capture Mal Tepe, let alone the north-south road. Yet the Ottomans had failed to throw the invaders back into the sea. Further south at Helles, the British and French had established a tenuous foothold on the peninsula but failed to achieve their other objectives. It was a stalemate.

Early offensives
In the aftermath of the landings, the Anzacs spent time consolidating their position. Unit commanders restored order and discipline. Men dug trenches, unloaded stores and established lines of communication between the front line and headquarters.
Malone and Quinn's Post
Lieutenant-Colonel William Malone commanded the Wellington Battalion at Gallipoli. In the weeks after the landing, he helped consolidate and secure vulnerable parts of the Anzac perimeter. At Quinn’s Post, where a small advance by the Ottomans would have threatened the entire front, Malone established an almost impregnable defensive position. He died on Chunuk Bair on 8 August 1915.
Once the perimeter was relatively secure, ANZAC commander Lieutenant-General Birdwood attempted to take the offensive. On the evening of 2 May, the New Zealand and Australian Division, supported by four Royal Naval Division battalions (recently arrived from Helles), launched an attack on the dominating Baby 700 position. The plan called for Australian units to attack from Quinn’s Post while the Otago Battalion advanced out of Monash Gully, north of Quinn’s, and secured the seaward slopes of Baby 700. Australian troops would then move forward to take the inland slopes.
Poorly prepared and badly coordinated, the attack went badly from the outset. The Otago Battalion’s move from Walker’s Ridge to the head of Monash Valley took longer than expected, and it was not in position when the Australians launched their attack. When the Otagos finally charged out of Monash Gully, 90 minutes late, the forewarned Ottomans mowed them down. At daybreak, the exposed nature of the New Zealand and Australian positions became apparent as they drew heavy fire from Second Ridge. When they withdrew, units of the Royal Naval Division tried to continue the advance, but also suffered heavy losses. The failed assault cost the Anzacs a thousand casualties and gained nothing.

Battle of Krithia
Unable to break through at Anzac, Hamilton focused the MEF’s energies on the Helles sector, targeting the village of Krithia (Alҫitepe) and the hill known as Achi Baba (Alҫi Tepe). An attack by British and French forces on 28 April – the First Battle of Krithia – made little headway and cost some 3000 casualties. To offset these losses, Hamilton dispatched the 29th Indian Brigade and British 42nd Division to Helles from Egypt. Another French division arrived shortly afterwards. The Ottomans matched this build-up of forces and on 1-2 May launched a major attack on the Allied line, which only just held.
After defeating the Ottoman attack at Helles, Hamilton decided to launch a new offensive towards Krithia to take advantage of the ‘weakened’ Ottoman defences. He looked to Anzac for the reinforcements needed for this second attack. On the night of 5-6 May, the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and the 2nd Australian Infantry Brigade were ferried down to Helles, along with one New Zealand and four Australian field artillery batteries which had been unable to get ashore at Anzac.
I watched the 12th Nelson Company make an advance over open country called the Daisy Patch. There was absolutely no cover for them. They lost their commanding officer, and several men were casualties. Ray Lawry then came up and led the 2nd Company over the same place, with a good dash. He got through safely, setting a fine example of courage to the men. He is a plucky beggar.
Our turn to go across came next, and we went over the top in good order, with the best of luck. At once we were greeted with a terrible fusillade of rifle and machine gun fire, which was deadly. The man on my right had his brains shot out into his face, and the chap on my left was shot through the stomach. Halfway across the patch I tripped over a root and fell down. I lay still for two or three minutes until I had recovered my breath. Then the bullets started plugging up the earth all around me, so I got up again and made for the Turkish trench as hard as I could go. I reached it without being hit, but was almost dropping with weakness. There was no room in the trench for me, so I jumped into a river bed close by and found a safe place.
Walter (Bill) Leadley, Canterbury Battalion, in Gavin McLean, Ian McGibbon and Kynan Gentry (eds), The Penguin book of New Zealanders at war, Penguin, Auckland, 2009, p. 136
In the Second Battle of Krithia, which began on 6 May, the Allies launched a series of unsuccessful daylight assaults on the Ottoman trenches. They suffered heavy losses and were unable to break through. The New Zealand Infantry Brigade went into action on the 8th, tasked with capturing Krithia. It was a disaster – the New Zealanders had little time to prepare and attacked behind a weak artillery barrage. The troops charged across the Daisy Patch into a hail of Ottoman machine-gun and rifle fire. The New Zealand infantry suffered 835 casualties and achieved nothing, an experience repeated all along the line. By the time Hamilton broke off the attack that evening, the Allies had lost 6500 men killed or wounded and advanced just 500 m.
Reinforcements arrive

Armistice at Anzac, May 1915
Following the Krithia debacle, the shattered New Zealand Infantry Brigade was taken out of the front line and went into reserve at Helles. It received a much-needed reinforcement draft of 900 men from Egypt before shipping back to Anzac on the night of 19-20 May. In the interim, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade (commanded by Brigadier-General Andrew Russell) and the 1st Australian Light Horse Brigade had arrived at Anzac on 12 May. Sent from Egypt without their horses, the Mounted Rifles fought as infantry for the remainder of the campaign.
The Mounteds’ baptism of fire was not long in coming. On 19 May, some 40,000 Ottoman troops attacked the Anzac perimeter in an attempt to overrun and annihilate the enclave. In the New Zealand sector, troops successfully defended Russell’s Top against a series of frontal assaults, while the Australians did the same further south. The Anzacs inflicted enormous casualties on the attacking waves of Arab and Turkish infantry. By the end of the carnage, more than 3000 Ottoman bodies carpeted no-man’s-land. As these rotted in the sun, the smell became so unbearable that both sides agreed to a day-long truce on 24 May to bury the dead. This respite in living conditions was short-lived.
As soon as you grabbed a corpse by the arm to drag it over to a hole, the arm came off in your hand. So you just ended up by scratching a little bit of trench alongside of it, rolling it over into the trench and scraping some stuff back over the top. Nobody handled on that day was buried more than six or eight inches underground.
The stench was so numbing that the incentive was to get out of it as quick as you possibly could. So finally, instead of one man digging a hole here, 10 men got on to it and scratched and scratched, and instead of one body going into it, 20 bodies went into it. We thought, We’ll eventually have all this land, they can have reburials and sort it out. But we never took that land, and those dead were never buried any deeper. The first shower of rain, they were practically out and about again.
Vic Nicholson, Wellington Battalion, in Jane Tolerton, An awfully big adventure: New Zealand World War One veterans tell their stories, Penguin, Auckland, 2013, p. 71

Stay or go?
With Allied operations at Gallipoli going badly, the newly formed Dardanelles Committee (which had replaced the War Council) met in London to consider the future of the campaign. Should they continue with the land operation, or cut their losses and withdraw? Influenced by political considerations, they decided to persist, and agreed to send Hamilton additional forces.
Hamilton made further attempts to break through the Ottoman lines at Helles during June and July. Heavy artillery bombardments preceded small gains at the cost of 12,000 British and French casualties. Ottoman troops merely pulled back up the slopes of Achi Baba and waited for the next onslaught. With the situation at Helles seemingly stalemated, attention switched back to Anzac.

The Gallipoli campaign
Page 5 – The Sari Bair offensive
As the futile attacks continued at Helles, the Allies began looking at alternative strategies to break the deadlock. Lieutenant-General Birdwood, the ANZAC commander, formulated a plan to break through the Ottoman lines at Anzac and seize the heights of the Sari Bair range. Lieutenant-General Hamilton had given up on breaking out at Helles and seized upon Birdwood’s idea. He expanded the plan to include landing two British divisions at Suvla Bay, 8 km north of Anzac Cove, and launching diversionary attacks at Cape Helles.
Complicated plan


Sari Bair offensive, August 1915
At Anzac Cove, the task of carrying out the assault on Sari Bair fell to the New Zealand and Australian Division, the newly arrived British 13th (Western) Division, 29th Indian Brigade, and part of the 10th (Irish) Division. Major-General Godley assumed overall command of this force.
Sir Ian Hamilton
Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton commanded the MEF at Gallipoli until replaced in October 1915. Described by British PM Herbert Asquith as having ‘much experience of warfare … but … too much feather in his brain’, Hamilton was never able to inspire his commanders or gain the confidence of his troops during the ill-fated campaign.
The success of Hamilton’s plan rested on timing and speed. While the Australians made a diversionary assault to distract Ottoman attention, two columns of men would advance up the Sari Bair range and capture the three key high points of Chunuk Bair, Hill Q and Hill 971 (Koja Chemen Tepe) during the night of 6-7 August. At dawn, a joint assault on the Nek from New Zealand and Australian forces on Chunuk Bair and Russell’s Top would complete the capture of the whole ridge as far as Hill 971.
Meanwhile, British troops would land in Suvla Bay, north of Anzac, and move forward to support the assault on the range.
Initial attacks: 6-7 August


Native Contingent assembles, 6 August 1915
The August offensive opened on 6 August with an Australian attack on Lone Pine, at the southern end of the Anzac perimeter, and diversionary British and French attacks at Helles. While Helles was a costly failure, Lone Pine proved more successful. Four days of savage fighting secured the area for the Australians at the cost of more than 2000 casualties. While the attack sucked in some Ottoman reserves, this proved counterproductive, for they redeployed on the Sari Bair range.
Godley’s attack began after dusk that night. As soon as it was dark, two covering forces moved out to capture the foothills over which two assault columns would move to seize Chunuk Bair, Hill Q and Hill 971. Everything went to plan initially. On the right, New Zealand Mounted Rifles units and the Native Contingent captured four of the five key features assigned to them – Old No. 3 Post, Big Table Top, Destroyer Hill and Little Table Top. The fifth (Bauchop’s Hill) proved tougher to crack, with the Otago Mounted Rifles suffering some 100 casualties in taking it, and losing their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Bauchop.
At 9 o’clock sharp the Mounteds and the Maori were to charge. Some of the Maoris were to act in conjunction with the Auckland Mounteds in the attack on old No. 3 Outpost. As the sun was setting on Friday 6th of August they gathered around their native chaplain in fighting array, and a brief service as held in their own tongue. To me it was a historic scene. After a few words the hymn ‘Jesu Lover of My Soul’ was sung in Maori, to a tune of their own. … My squadron stood round silent, listening intently. There was something pathetic about the tune and scene that brought tears to my eyes and yet as we listened we felt that they and we could go through anything with that beautiful influence behind us. The hymn ceased. There was a silence that could be felt and then Maori and Pakeha heads were bowed while the native prayer and benediction were pronounced. A brief message was read to the Contingent, and they dispersed, we all remarking that they could not go wrong after all that grand singing. Later on we heard the fierce ‘Kamate’ from the same throats resounding from the hill they captured. The war cry mingled strangely with the cheers of the Aucklanders.
Harry Browne, Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment, in Gavin McLean, Ian McGibbon and Kynan Gentry (eds), The Penguin book of New Zealanders at war, Penguin, North Shore, 2009, pp. 141–2


Wellington Mounteds on Table Top, 7 August 1915
By the time the Mounted Rifles secured their objectives, the attack was several hours behind schedule. From that point on, the plan began to fall apart. The left assaulting column, made up of British and Indian troops, got lost in the darkness and rugged terrain. The right assaulting column never formed. Its two elements — the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and an Indian mountain battery — did not make their intended rendezvous on Rhododendron Spur, below the summit of Chunuk Bair. At dawn on 7 August, the New Zealand Infantry Brigade’s commander, Brigadier-General Francis Johnston, was still waiting on the Spur for missing units to arrive. It was daylight before the troops were ready to move; by then the Ottomans had reinforced Chunuk Bair.
Across the valley, Birdwood decided to press ahead with the planned dawn attack at the Nek even though the New Zealanders were in no position to launch a converging attack from Chunuk Bair. He thought that an assault might distract the enemy and help the assaulting columns take Chunuk Bair. Successive waves of Australian light horsemen were cut down charging the Ottoman trenches. By the end of the attack, more than 200 Australians lay dead or dying in no-man’s-land.
Despite the carnage at the Nek, Godley insisted that Johnston press on, and at 10.30 a.m., the Auckland Battalion attacked Chunuk Bair. They got as far as an old Ottoman trench at the Pinnacle before heavy machine-gun and rifle fire forced them to take cover. When Johnston ordered the Wellington Battalion forward, its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel William Malone, refused to attack during daylight, insisting he would not send his men ‘over to commit suicide’. Godley eventually agreed to postpone the attack until nightfall.
Battle for Chunuk Bair: 8-10 August


Battle of Chunuk Bair, 8 August 1915
Malone’s Wellington Battalion advanced up onto Chunuk Bair in the early hours of 8 August. They found it unoccupied – the defenders had surprisingly pulled out during the night. It was not long before the Ottomans realised their mistake and sent troops to retake the position. For the next 24 hours, the Wellington Battalion, reinforced by the Auckland Mounted Rifles and two British battalions, held the summit against repeated attacks.
Finally got there [Chunuk Bair] and [had] an instantaneous look-round to see who else was there, and then you had to get busy on the Turk bloke because he was there and he let you know he was there.
There was not very much in the way of shelter excepting the trench on the Turkish side, and that from us was on the downhill side. We took that.
That is where we started to get close enough for the bayonet. But somebody’d forgotten to tell us that when you fired 20 or 30 rounds in rapid fire, and then you’d stick the bayonet on, you couldn’t hold the rifle to use the bayonet because it was red hot.
We got over that with the wounded. The wounded in the forward trench were the bravest ever; they are now skeletons on Chunuk Bair. It didn’t matter how badly they were knocked, they still loaded rifles for us. In the holding of the ridge in the first hour or two, I had four rifles – my own and three others that the chap down below was loading for me. He had one leg nearly shot off and the other leg was just a mangled-up mess – and he was just handing them up.
Vic Nicholson, Wellington Battalion, in Jane Tolerton, An awfully big adventure: New Zealand World War One veterans tell their stories, Penguin, Auckland, 2013, p. 90
Casualties amongst the defenders were extremely high. The New Zealanders on Chunuk Bair were completely isolated from the rest of the Allied line and subjected to intense artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire from nearby Hill Q and Battleship Hill. There were also instances of ‘friendly fire’ from artillery and naval gunfire laid around the summit to break up the Ottoman infantry assaults – Malone was killed in one such incident on the evening of 8 August.
First NZEF Victoria Cross
Corporal Cyril Bassett, New Zealand Divisional Signals Company, was the only NZEF soldier awarded the Victoria Cross during the Gallipoli campaign (NZ-born Alfred Shout won a posthumous VC serving with the AIF at Lone Pine). Bassett won the VC, the highest award for valour in the British and dominion forces, for laying and repairing signal cables under fire on numerous occasions, including on Chunuk Bair, 8-10 August.

Attacks on Hill 60
Sari Bair was not the last offensive action by the New Zealanders. With Anzac and Helles locked in stalemate, the British planned an attack at Suvla, aimed at taking the Anafarta Ridge. The Anzacs would launch a supporting attack against Hill 60, a small piece of Ottoman-held high ground between the two Allied areas.
With ANZAC units severely depleted after Sari Bair, Birdwood cobbled together a composite force of New Zealand, Australian, British and Gurkha troops for the Hill 60 attack. New Zealand’s contribution to this force came from the Canterbury and Otago Mounted Rifles regiments, which could barely muster 400 men between them.

Advancing near Hill 60
The 21 August attack was another costly failure. Allied planners underestimated the strength of Ottoman defences and the attack quickly broke down. The New Zealanders managed to capture part of the Ottoman trenches on the southern side of the hill, while British troops had similar success on the north-western side. Nobody else got as far, and the attack cost over 2000 casualties, including 200 New Zealanders. The attack at Suvla also failed.
On 27 August, the surviving New Zealand mounted riflemen took part in another attempt to clear Hill 60. After two days of bitter fighting, the hill remained firmly under Ottoman control. Once again, casualties were appalling. In three disastrous weeks, the New Zealand infantry and mounted brigades had effectively been destroyed as fighting forces.

FYI Maj Marty Hogan Sgt (Join to see) MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. CMDCM John F. "Doc" Bradshaw MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi LTC Trent Klug CWO4 Terrence Clark MSG Roy Cheever SMSgt Lawrence McCarterMAJ Roland McDonald SSG Byron Hewett COL (Join to see) COL Lisandro Murphy SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL] ~1701514:1LT Voyle Smith] CWO3 Dennis M.SSgt David M.