Turkish Artillery at Gallipoli

[bob lembke]

I am now actually writing text of a book partially on Gallipoli, and my research is on a fever pitch. I have long had some questions about the Turkish artillery utilized there, and I think that I am finding some answers, and others are popping up. Considering the astonishing interest in the monsterous thread on the question of the Turkish MGs at Gallipoli at the time of the initial landings, this might be an interesting thread if it generates one 20th the interest.

Let me start this off with a question. Although most of my study is based on German, Austrian, and to a tiny extent Turkish sources, I have read a fair amount of other material. At the suggestion of Pals I read the diary of Sergeant Lawrence of the Australian Engineers. (My father probably was involved in the Turkish mining warfare effort at the ANZAC sector.) I found the book quite interesting and useful. One thing that struck me was Sergeant Lawrence's description of Turkish shelling. Although he never came out and clearly stated it, it seems like few of the Turkish shells actually exploded when they landed. He described personally witnessing seeing a soldier hit in the head by a Turkish shell while standing with comrades, and then toppling over with his hands still in his pockets, while it seemed that the men about him were not hurt. He also described a soldier in a hospital awaiting evacuation being hit in the chest by a Turkish shell. It is clear that these shells did not explode. He also describes how when a Turkish shell landed the "diggers" would start digging to uncover the shell as a souvenier, even though the shell was still very hot. There were dozens of other descriptions of such incidents.

I have a lot of material about the difficulties that the Turks and Germans had in manufacturing workable shells. (During the period before and during most of the Gallipoli campaign it was almost impossible for any munitions to be brought into Turkey from the Central Powers.) I will soon post some of this material.

However, was their any interest in this question on the Allied side? Anyone ever see a study, or some sort of computation as to how many Turkish shells seemed to explode?

I will also want to post some observations my father made about the effectiveness of Austrian heavy artillery that arrived at ANZAC in November 1915. To sanity-check my father's assertions, it would be very useful if there are day-by-day casualty figures for the ANZAC forces there. I will post what my father said, and see if it makes sense to the Pals.

Bob Lembke

[stevenbecker]

Mate,

Considering the records at Anzac there is little to add to Sgt Lawrence.

It has always seamed strange that more heavier artillery barrages didn't happen at Gallipoli on both sides.

When we consider the British had a problem with ammo suppies and the limited ground for deploying large numbers of guns this would not seam strage.

Why then didn;t the Turk also use large barrages on the Allies?

I can only think that like the British there was limited areas to deploy large numbers of guns and they also had a problem with ammo supplies from German?

They were using a lot of the older types of weapons from the Balken wars and ammo was from that time?

It wasn;t untill the opening of the rail link with Germany that better weapons and ammo began to arrive?

Thats only my thoughts here.

S.B

[bob lembke]

Steve,

All good points and I will address each one in time.The Turkish supply of guns, oth field artillery and the coastal defence guns in the forts, were mostly purchased from Krupp in the 1870's, and were therefore 40 years old at the time. (Hey had lost lots of guns, equipment, and trained men during the disasterous Balkan Wars in 1912-13. When Gallipoli started they took mortars that were 100 or more years old out of the Military Museum in Istanbul and used them, supposedly in some cases using the original stone balls. But the lack of effective shells was the greatest problem. I can't get to at this minute but I have some interesting material on that.

Bob

[bob lembke]

Something else on the guns. Most of us are familiar with the naval situation at the western entrance to the Dardanelles, but many of us are probably less familiar with the situation in the Black Sea. At times at the same time that the Allies were attacking at the Dardanelles, the Russians were bombarding the Turkish forts at the entrance to the Bosporous, only about 25 miles from Constantinople, with as many as five battleships, plus smaller vessels. It would be fair to say that probably the only effective and modern ships in the Turkish Navy over the size of destroyers or torpedo boats were the ex-Goeben (a modern battle-cruiser) and the ex-Breslau (a modern light cruiser), which had been taken into the Turkish Navy. Despite this great danger on the other flank, which many of us are probably not familiar with, the lack of modern cannon at Gallipoli was so severe that at several times some of the guns on these two warships were dismounted and sent to Gallipoli to be mounted on makeshift carraiges for use there. (Additionally, the forts at the mouth of the Bosporous were also stripped of much of their ammunition, sent to the Dardanelles forts, and also some of their guns, mounted on make-shift field carraiges.) One of the 15 cm (5.9") secondary battery guns of the Goeben was taken out and shipped to Gallipoli, but unfortunately a British sub intercepted the ship in the Sea of Mamara and sank it and the gun, and also some of the 4.2" (105 mm) guns on the Breslau were removed and used elsewhere. (Eventually, when rail communication with Germany was opened in 1916, all of the 4.2" guns of the Breslau were removed and the ship was re-gunned with 5.9" guns probably shipped in from Germany; this move more than doubling the weight of the ship's broad-side. Of course, using (or attempting to use) these naval guns also provided a supply of modern reliable ammunition for the guns.

There is considerable information on the attempt to manufacture workable ammunition in Turkey. A German naval officer, in Turkey as a naval artillery expert, took over managing this effort, and managed to manufacture plentiful servicable small-arms ammunition. They managed to manufacture shells up to 15 cm. Due to the wide assortment of obsolete cannon, I have read that they had to produce 23 different artillery calibers, while not being able to manufacture shells for their heavy coastal defense guns, like 24 cm and 35.5 cm guns (the latter at least Krupp guns from 1875; the last one is parked in front of the Military Museum in Istanbul). One problem was fuses; supposedly the ones they manufactured generally did not work. (This is the factor that I am trying to quantify.) So, the shells that they made would fire, but often or usually it would not explode at the other end, and several German officers wrote that they were fired mostly for the effect on morale, to give the Turkish soldiers the impression that they had artillery support. Possibly the problem was that the fuses would not ignite if the shell hit relatively soft material. Someone just posted a diary from Gallipoli on the GWF, and the writer mentioned that he was swimming off the shore and a Turkish shell hit 2 or 3 yards from him, in the water. Clearly that shell did not explode. The Germans managed to fly some German fuses over then-neutral Bulgaria. Of course at this period the Germans and Turks only had a handful of aircraft in this theatre. There were a number of wild and whacky schemes proposed to get German ammunition into Turkey, such as disguising shells as beer, or shipping in German artillery ammunition by submarine or Zeppelin.

Another problem was that, aside from the question of the shell exploding, there was a problem with the shell casings, that they were not able to manufacture steel shell casings, but instead had to manufacture cast iron shell casings. While steel shell casings produce a blast of very nasty and sharp shell splinters, thrown about for many yards, cast iron casings supposedly produce very fine sand-like fragments that do not badly injure people at any distance from the explosion of the shell. So even if the shell exploded, the effect might be very small, unless the recipients were very close to the blast.

Bob Lembke

[bob lembke]

Let me put a specific question to the Australian and New Zealand Pals, and of course the other Pals who are students of the Allied side at Gallipoli. One of my father's specific recollections of Gallipoli was that, when the Austrian 24 cm mortar battery arrived at the ANZAC sector and commenced firing, the allied casualties at that sector rose sharply, which he said he could judge as he could see allied cemetaries on hillsides facing the Turkish lines, with every morning additional fresh graves could be seen, and that after the 24 cm mortars started firing a greater rate of burial could be seen. Can this observation be tested? The most reliable sources indicate that these guns started firing on the ANZAC lines on November 27th. Is there some source that would give the casualty rate at the ANZAC sector day by day? Or would the AWM, for example, have casualty files with date of death that could be massaged to provide this information?

This thread seems a bit static. If anyone has questions about the Turkish/German/Austrian artillery at Gallipoli, please post them. I have assembled a fair amount of information on this topic, and would be happy to try to answer questions in this area. This topic is really hard to research if you don't have German, and I have clues that one of the only detailed sources in English on this topic may be in error. I don't want to cite specifics until I can look at this source myself.

Bob Lembke

[themonsstar]

21cm Gun Helles the pic was taken around 1919-22

[themonsstar]

28cm gun pit Helles pic from around 1919-1922

[themonsstar]

6in Gun at Tekke above Lancashire Landing

[themonsstar]

Back end of 21cm Gun at Helles

[Jeff Pickerd]

Bob,

In your first post on this topic, you posed the following: "However, was their any interest in this question on the Allied side? Anyone ever see a study, or some sort of computation as to how many Turkish shells seemed to explode?

I have not come across any official recorded analysis to the ratio of Turkish shells that failed to explode. There are however, many references to shells failing to explode, as you have noted.

It is also very difficult to establish the number of casualties caused directly by shrapnel and shell fire. In very many of the service record files, men are recorded as being wounded by GSW (gun shot wound), BW (bullet wound), or shrapnel wound.

Many descriptions of wounds as "bullet wounds', were in fact inflicted by shrapnel, the type wounds inflicted being of the same in nature. Many reports of shrapnel wounds were from bombs and grenades, not shell fire.

To try and get some kind of picture to the effects of shrapnel, I have run a daily check of the record of the 8th Light Horse Regiment, from the day of their arrival at Anzac Cove, Friday 21st May, to Monday 28th June, the day before the attack on Russell's Top by the Turkish 18th Regiment.

Although this is only a span of just over two months, it does reveal some interesting statistics to the effect of shell fire on Defence Section No. 4. N.Z. & A. Division, and to the area incorporating Russell's Top, Walker's Ridge, Mule & Reserve Gullies, down to Ari Burnu and Anzac Cove (North end).

Before putting forward the results of this study, I must emphasise that it will not necessarily be totally accurate, and it only details those that can be directly attributed to wounds received from artillery shrapnel.

Before starting, this excerpt from the history of the 8th Light Horse Regiment by Major William (Lauchie) McGrath MC, for the day of the Regiments arrival at Gallipoli gives a good example to the effects of shrapnel, the failure to explode and the attitude towards shrapnel by the men.

He takes up the story after the Regiment has moved up into bivouac in Reserve Gully:

"Here all hands were warned to dig in immediately. There was a great deal of Rhododendron scrub about and the digging in consisted of each man burrowing out a hole slightly bigger than his body and about two feet deep, covering it with waterproof sheet and some branches. The Squadrons and troops were kept together as much as possible but all had to fit in to the nature of the ground."

McGrath noted that while the work was in progress of making their dugouts safer as a protection from enemy shellfire, the Turkish gun “Anafatta Annie” positioned at the “W” Hills out near Kuchuk Anafatta, to the north of Anzac, opened fire on the 8th’s position. (The actual position of these guns was not definitely known until the night of 20th June, when Lt G. R. Blackett of the NZ Canterbury Mounted Rifles, with a native guide and one trooper, landed from a British trawler on the coast north of Sulva Bay. He was able to make his way inland until reaching a position from where he was able to observe a Turkish gun crew working in one of the gun emplacements.)

“As the first shell screamed towards them, every man straightened and looked up to see where it would land. The gun had been well ranged and the shell landed right in their midst, but fortunately it was a dud and did not explode, it was closely followed by another, also being a dud. Most of the men rushed to try and secure what they considered to be a highly prised souvenir. Their enthusiasm was cut short by the scream of another shell, which sent them running for cover as it burst close by.

Fortunately there were no casualties, but they were now considerably wiser and kept their heads down as a few more shells exploded around their position. After digging in had been completed, most of the men found time to go down to the beach below for a swim. A few more shrapnel shells were fired at them, but they felt safe in the sea, and they took little notice of them. At sundown they all settled into their dugouts for the night, which being under the cliff was safe from rifle fire, which went directly over their heads and out into the sea. The men spent their first night on Gallipoli getting used to the sound of

real warfare, with all the noise that accompanied it.”

The resulting casualties from Turkish artillery fire for the 3rd Light Horse Brigade in Defence Section No. 4.

Fri 21/5/15 - 1 man slightly wounded by shrapnel during landing at Anzac Cove.

Wed 26/5/15 - 7 wounded. Intermittent shell fire Russell's Top/Walkers Ridge.

sat 29/5/15 - 2 wounded.

Sun 30/5/15 - 1 wounded.

Mon 31/5/15 - 1 wounded.

Tues 1/6/15 - 2 wounded.

Wed 2/6/15 - 1 wounded. Whilst swimming at Anzac Cove.

Thurs 3/6/15 - 2 wounded.

Fri 4/6/15 - 2 wounded.

Sat 5/6/15 - 1 killed. 2 wounded. Heavy bombardment late afternoon.

Sun 6/6/15 - 2 wounded.

Mon 7/6/15 - 1 wounded.

Tues 8/6/15 - 6 wounded. Very heavy bombardment in afternoon.

Wed 9/6/15 - 1 wounded.

Fri 12/6/15 - 1 killed. 10 wounded. Heavy bombardment.

Thurs 17/6/15 - 5 wounded. Heavy bombardment.

Fri 18/6/15 - 6 wounded. "

Sat 19/6/15 - 1 wounded.

Tues 22/6/15 - 2 killed. 4 wounded. Heavy bombardment. Turkish shell fire increasing over the following 7 days.

Wed 23/6/15 - 1 killed. 12 wounded.

Fri 25/6/15 - 4 wounded.

Sun 27/6/15 - 5 killed. 16 wounded. Heaviest bombardment of Russell's Top, 75 mm & 6" Howitzer. Estimated over 400 shells burst in area of just on one acre.

Mon 28/6/15 - 1 killed. 2 wounded.

What did become apparent with this study was the very low casualty figures for some days of heavy shelling, some having none at all, then, on some days of light shelling, one or more casualties. Some men in their diaries do describe narrow escapes, either with shells exploding relatively close and they receiving no injuries, or shells failing to explode on impact.

This is probably not a very scientific study to the ratio of shells failing to explode, or to the effectiveness of shrapnel to well entrenched positions, but it has been all very interesting, and seems to indicate more than anything else, 'the Luck of the Draw'. Although the average daily casualty figures are low, the total number of casualties for the time frame of 11 killed & 91 wounded is very heavy.

Jeff

[bob lembke]

Jeff;

Many, many thanks. I have to run off in a few minutes, so I can't respond in detail at the moment, but your contribution was exactly the sort of input I was hoping for.

I will expand this thread to mention some of the things that the Turks/Germans were planning to do if the campaign had gone on much longer, but I think that they add up to a judgement that the allies were right by getting out when they did. For example, the Germans were planning to send 20 batteries of artillery, mostly heavy; I will be able to post exactly what mix of guns, but I think 11 batteries were heavy guns of several sorts, in addition to the two batteries of heavy Austrian guns that had already arrived. The rail line from Germany to Turkey was, I think, only fully open in January 1916, as the Serbs did a great job in destroying the rail lines as they were being defeated. The first battery of guns that arrived, the 24 cm mortars, came partially by ship, and that was the first convoy to make it down the Danube in over a year, escorted by Austrian river monitors. The combination of a good number of modern high-angle guns and plentiful amounts of shells that would explode reliably, plus other planned new introductions, would have really changed the situation.

Will add later.

Bob

[James A Pratt III]

Hi Bob

You sure can find interesting things on Galipoli. I have something that might interest you the book The Ottoman Stea Navy 1828-1923 has the Ottoman Navys 2 pre-dreadnought battleships being used to both transport supplies and providing some artillery support for the Turkish army. The book also lists all Turkish ships acutually sunk/damaged/attacked by Allied submarines during WW I. This book and "The Russian Fleet 1914-1917" have the Breslau/Midilli damaged by a Russian mine on 18 July1915 and the ship was under repair until Febuary 1916. The ship did not put to sea with 15cm guns until June 1917.

[bob lembke]

Hi Bob

I have something that might interest you the book The Ottoman Stea Navy 1828-1923 has the Ottoman Navys 2 pre-dreadnought battleships being used to both transport supplies and providing some artillery support for the Turkish army. The book also lists all Turkish ships acutually sunk/damaged/attacked by Allied submarines during WW I. This book and "The Russian Fleet 1914-1917" have the Breslau/Midilli damaged by a Russian mine on 18 July1915 and the ship was under repair until Febuary 1916. The ship did not put to sea with 15cm guns until June 1917.

I can't give a precise citation, as I cannot access my materials at this moment, but I recently read most of a recent (about 1995) German book covering the sea war and Turkey, which covers all of this in exhaustive detail. I did not realize until recently that, as the Allied fleet was attacking at the Dardanelles, a Russian fleet of possibly as many as five old battleships was bombarding the Turkish forts at the entrance to the Bosporus, only a few miles from Istanbul. Despite this threat, the need was so great at Gallipoli that the Bosporus forts were stripped of many of their guns and shells for shipment to the Dardanelles, some of these being lost in the shipment. Klaus Wolf's recent book, Gallipoli 1915, which was initially published in German and Turkish, but eventually should come out in English, also covers much of this material. I imagine that a book in German is not "the cat's meow" to many of the Pals of the Forum, but both books have extensive tables of data on the Turkish/German side of the conflict, have modern type rather than Fraktur, and have the advantages of a good, modern book, extensive bibliographies, footnotes, indices, etc., so they would be of much more value to English-speaking students of Gallipoli than a German book written between "the wars".

An interesting sidelight was the efforts of a German Captain Pieper. He had been the CO of, I believe, a German armored cruiser, which was sunk with the loss of about 350 lives in 1914; he was sentenced to a prison term, but was sent to Turkey as a naval artillery expert to help with the improvement of the Turkish forts at the Dardanelles and Bosporus. He was then assigned to the vital task of leading the effort to modernize the production of ammunition in Turkey. He overcame every sort of problem, producing lots of quite good small arms ammunition, and not so good artillery ammunition, in over 20 calibers up to 15 or 21 cm (depending on the source that you read). The shells would fire, but, as I was asking earlier in this thread, their explosion on impact was doubtful; I believe that Liman von Sanders wrote that only 5% of the shells would explode, I think that the reality might have been a bit better. I saw a citation where one of the UK generals, it might have been Birdswood, saying to Bean that when the trains could run thru Serbia again and reliable ammunition arrived, they might be blown off the beaches.

When Captain Pieper eventually returned to Germany the Kaiser commuted his prison term for his excellent work in improving the local ammunition supply.

I think that, when the rails thru to Turkey were eventually restored, the Germans sent over 100,000 rail cars of war materiel to Turkey during the course of the war.

Bob Lembke

[johnshep]

This thread seems a bit static. If anyone has questions about the Turkish/German/Austrian artillery at Gallipoli, please post them. I have assembled a fair amount of information on this topic, and would be happy to try to answer questions in this area. This topic is really hard to research if you don't have German, and I have clues that one of the only detailed sources in English on this topic may be in error. I don't want to cite specifics until I can look at this source myself.

Bob Lembke

Bob

Can I pick your brains please? Is it possible from the data in your possession to provide any information on the artillery available to the Turkish in the Suvla sector at the time of the offensive of 21 August i.e. artillery units, types and number of guns?

John

[jwsleser]

John

A bit of help. The attached OB is from Birinci Dunya Harbinde Turk Harbi V Cilt 3 Kitap Canakkale Cephesi harekati kurulus 12 dated 21 August. The Anafartalar Grubu faced Suvla Bay. Some of the artillery numbers and sizes are marked, but not all. It is a start.

Jeff

Bob

Can I pick your brains please? Is it possible from the data in your possession to provide any information on the artillery available to the Turkish in the Suvla sector at the time of the offensive of 21 August i.e. artillery units, types and number of guns?

John

[johnshep]

Jeff

That is extremely helpful particularly as it is specific to 21 August, a date of great interest to me, so thank you very much. What now follows is going to seem very naive, but I am still on a learning curve here so what the heck?

Could you help me unlock the data in this organisation chart? I am OK with the majority of the symbols (e.g. infantry divisions, regiments, artillery units etc) but not the abbreviations and symbols for what seems to be the weaponry - for instance the symbol like a lighted candle with 2 bars through the upright. Is there a key you can guide me to perhaps?

Incidentally there is a close correspondence between the divisions and units in the chart and those sketched in on a contemporary plan by Capt Coleridge (GS XI Division) based on intelligence gained from Turkish POW's, so it looks as if the British troops knew who they were up against at the time.

Thanks again

John

[jwsleser]

John

Glad it helps. Standard usage is the units are at full strength unless a number is provided. For example, an artillery battery is four guns unless a number is listed. The 8.8sm lik Deniz (3) battery is three 8.8cm naval guns. The upright arrows with two horizontal bars are MG companies. One bar is light, two medium, three heavy. Assume four guns unless a number. The MG symbol is next to the unit to which it is assigned. So the 23rd Regiment/8th Infantry Division has one MG company of four guns. The 24th and 25th Regiment each have a two-gun company, while the 41st lacks a MG company.

sm = cm

top = gun

Deniz = naval

A.dan = from that regiment (the 2nd battery under the 9th Division is from the 12th Artillery Regiment)

Bt.dan = from that battery

Alman = German. The 23rd Regiment has three German MGs

Bulgar = Bulgarian

Jeff

[johnshep]

I'm most grateful to you, Jeff. Now I get the picture.

All the best

John

[inners]

Hi Bob,

i believe a large portion of the Krupp 75mm field guns were manufacturede in 1905 - some are used as monuments in Australia (captured in Damascas) and have 13223 as teh manufacture date (Arabic date = 1905).

Regards,

Inners

Steve,

All good points and I will address each one in time.The Turkish supply of guns, oth field artillery and the coastal defence guns in the forts, were mostly purchased from Krupp in the 1870's, and were therefore 40 years old at the time. (Hey had lost lots of guns, equipment, and trained men during the disasterous Balkan Wars in 1912-13. When Gallipoli started they took mortars that were 100 or more years old out of the Military Museum in Istanbul and used them, supposedly in some cases using the original stone balls. But the lack of effective shells was the greatest problem. I can't get to at this minute but I have some interesting material on that.

Bob