A Cavalry Chaplain

Excerpt:

XI. The Story of the Battle

Arrived on Chocolate Hill I was dumbfounded to observe its changed and forlorn appearance. The densely crowded hill of the previous evening was this Sunday morning but sparsely occupied by a handful of war-worn men. They were engaged in selecting sites, and digging in. My first impression was that this was all that was left of our splendid Division. A line of forgotten verse revived in my memory :

" One moment in annihilation's waste."

But no, it was not complete annihilation. The men I saw were the remnants of a single Brigade, the Bucks, Berks, and Dorsets. Most of the Division had retired to the sea during the late hours of the night, or the early hours of the morning. These troops were expected to rejoin us in the front line by evening. The only other information I could immediately glean was that the 2nd Brigade with whom I now found myself had started the attack on the left and managed to push forward a considerable distance, before they were eventually forced to retire, after sustaining terrible casualties. My favourite regiment, the Dorsets, had suffered most. This unit was reduced to the barest skeleton formation—no officers except the Commanding-Officer left, few N.C.O.'s, and only one hundred and fifty men. I had not the heart to search for my friends. The sight of Colonel Troyte-Bullock giving directions to the little groups of survivors was touching. I approached him, and expressed in a few words my sympathy. The Brigade had also lost its gallant chief. Brigadier-General Lord Longford fell leading his men.

To give the reader a clearer insight into the part taken by our Division, I venture to insert an extract from Sir Ian Hamilton's Despatch dealing with the battle of 21st-22nd August as a whole :

" At three p.m. an advance was begun by the Infantry on the right of the line. The 34th Brigade of the 11th Division rushed the Turkish trenches between Hetman Chair and Aire Kavak, practically without loss, but the 32nd Brigade, directed against Hetman Chair and the communication trench connecting that point with the south-west corner of the Ismail Oglu Tepe Spur, failed to make good the point. The Brigade had lost direction in the first instance, moving north-east instead of east, and though it attempted to carry the communication trench from the north-east with great bravery and great disregard of life, it never succeeded in rectifying the original mistake. The 33rd Brigade, sent up in haste with orders to capture this communication trench at all costs, fell into precisely the same error, part of it marching north-east and part south to Susuk Kayu.

" Meanwhile the 29th Division, whose attack had been planned for three-thirty p.m., had attacked Scimitar Hill (Hill 70) with great dash. The 87th Brigade, on the left, carried the trenches on Scimitar Hill, but the 86th Brigade were checked and upset by a raging forest fire across their front.

" Eventually pressing on, they found themselves unable to advance up the valley between the two spurs owing to the failure of the 32nd Brigade of the 11th Division on their right. The Brigade then tried to attack eastwards, but were decimated by a cross fire of shell and musketry from the north and south-east. The leading troops were simply swept off the top of the spur, and had to fall back to a ledge south-west of Scimitar Hill, where they found a little cover. . . .

" Now that the 11th Division had made their effort and failed, the 2nd South Midland Brigade (commanded by Brigadier-General Earl of Longford) was sent forward from its position in readiness behind Yilghin Burnu, in the hope that they might yet restore the fortunes of the day. This Brigade, in action for the first time, encountered both bush fire and musketry without flinching, but the advance had in places to be made almost by inches, and the actual close attack of the Yeomen did not take place until night was fast falling. On the left they reached the foremost line of the 29th Division, and on the right also they got so far as the leading battalions. But, as soon as it was dark, one regiment pushed up the valley between Scimitar Hill and Hill 100 (on Ismail Oglu Tepe) and carried the trenches on a small knob near the centre of this horse-shoe. . . .

" As the men were too done, and had lost too heavily to admit of a second immediate assault, and as the knoll actually held would have been swept by fire at daybreak, there was nothing for it but to fall back under cover of darkness to our original line."

Thus owing to one Brigade mistaking its direction and another" being held up by a bush-fire, the Division on left and right could not get through. The reserves called into action later succeeded no better. The result was that the attack on Hill 70 (Scimitar Hill) and Ismail Oglu Tepe, though fiercely maintained for several hours, completely failed. General Sir Ian Hamilton, who watched the fighting till dark, has suggested different causes. The preliminary bombardment was nearly futile. This was not the fault of the gunners. It was due on the one hand to an unexpected mist which interfered with the aiming of the guns, and, on the other, to shortage of ammunition which prevented the inaccuracy of the shooting being compensated by quantity. Then the bush-fire came along and put an impassable barrier between the heroic 29th and the Turks. The " fine edge " of the 11th Division had also been blunted.

It was said, moreover, that the 9th Division had been shouldered off the true line of attack by the 11th Division, driven in by fire, and that the 11th Division had been barged into by the Yeomen and thrown off their line. But the root cause of all the trouble seems to have been the afternoon mist. This was wholly unexpected, and has been described by the Commander-in-Chief as " sheer bad luck." He had reckoned " on the enemy's gunners being blocked by the declining sun, and upon the Turkish trenches being shown up by the evening light with singular clearness. This would have been the case in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But actually we could hardly see the Turk's lines this afternoon; whereas to the westwards our troops stood out in strong relief against the luminous mist, and offered excellent targets to the enemy."

The ensuing account of the doings of the Mounted Division is made up from scraps of information gathered at different times from various sources:

On the day of the battle Major-General Peyton left us to assume command of the 9th Corps, in order to leave General de Lisle free to conduct operations. The command thus vacated by General Peyton was given to General Kenna. Colonel Sir John Milbanke took over the 3rd Brigade. These temporary changes provoked some criticism at the time, on account of the prevalent belief that the officers in question were without previous experience in handling the larger formations with which they were suddenly entrusted. A further disconcerting fact was the lack of local knowledge on the part of regimental commanders. No reconnaissance had been made. General Kenna, alone of our officers, visited the front line beforehand. Consequently, when the attack, which started at a late hour, took place, officers had to push their troops forward, through an unexplored, heavily entrenched country (the enemy had been concentrating for days) with only the haziest knowledge of their objectives.

General Kenna established his battle Headquarters and assembled all the machine guns of the Division at Chocolate Hill, on the night of the 20th. Events proved that these guns would have been of infinitely greater use with their units.

At five-thirty in the afternoon of the 21st, the 2nd and 4th Brigades were ordered into action. Their instructions were of the vaguest description. They were to seize " W " Hill on the east slope of the Anafarta ridge, and then move forward indefinitely. The 2nd Brigade wheeled round the left foot of Chocolate Hill, while the 4th started from the other side and attacked on the right. The fighting on the left has been already described. Jt was the most successful part of that night's operations. The Bucks, Berks, and Dorsets, alone of our Yeomanry, got in bayonet touch with the Turks. The events on the right are vividly described by Captain Wedgwood Benn:

" During the next advance (from Chocolate Hill) we had no shell fire to meet, only rifle and machine gun. We ran across the front field and jumped into a line of trenches—supports of our own, then out again and formed into the next trench, leaping in on top of the men of the Division ahead of us. . . . From here we got into a communication trench filled with men of the Irish Division, whose gallant attempt earlier in the day had failed. We had to stand aside to let pass a pitiable, ghastly procession of maimed, most of whom had been half-stripped to have their wounds bound by their friends. The horror of that scene will bear no description. Fearing the effect on the moral of our men, we decided to leave this trench and run across the field in front to a small hill a little ahead of us. As far as we could see it provided good cover, for there appeared to be a number of reserves lying there in perfect quiet and safety. Out we sprang with a shout, and ran forward to the selected spot, only to find that it was under brisk machine-gun fire. The reserves were quiet, indeed —for they were dead. We saw nothing for it now but to get up and shift our position. For one thing the bushes in front of us were alight, and the fire was already advancing on to the corpses at our side. It was from this incident that the bill became known as 'Burnt Hill' Having made up our minds, we rose, leaped over a low communication trench, across another field, and tumbled into the advance support trench. We were now behind the spot which came to be known later as ' Yeomen's Knoll.'

" By the time we reached the ' Yeomen's Knoll ' it was getting dark, and we began to arrange our forces on the left and right to make up the line in order to hold it for the night. Orders were received that our Colonel was to take command of the whole of this portion of the front. We were all in a state of the greatest uncertainty, not knowing who was who, or where the enemy was to be found. The Rough Riders were on our left, and we were in touch with them. The Sharpshooters were on our right.

" Having consolidated the position, we sat for the next few hours in the trench, deepening it and improving it in various ways. Once, about half-past twelve, we feared an attack, and fixed bayonets ready to leap out and meet the oncoming Turks. This definite offensive act of picking up a rifle and fixing a bayonet conveyed a feeling of real relief after hours of helpless, defensive waiting. However, no Turks came, and we settled down again, re-filling our water-bottles from a spring, and doing other useful jobs. . . .

" About half-past one, in reply to several requests that we might be permitted to go on, the order came that the Brigade was to retire at once . . .