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Remembered Today:

Death of Le Marchand


Skipman

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Am interested in Galipolli,and have read a few accounts. Allanson in his account says" Le Marchand was down a bayonet through the heart" .In other accounts have read Le Marchand seems to be alive days later. Doubtful, if he was bayoneted through heart ..Anyone help, also can't find Le Marchand in CWGC.

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LE MARCHAND J W J DIED 9-8-1915 HELLES MEMORIAL PANEL 263 56TH PUNJAB RIFLES. CWGC. Ralph.

Cheers ralph.What nationality was he under?

Also,it says 9-8-15 allansons account was battle of hill q 8-8-1915,if as allanson says he got bayonet in heart,how come he died on the 9th?

This is where i am getting mixed up.

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Nationality given as INDIAN. I have in the past been given to understand the a stab wound in the heart is not immediately fatal, dont know how true this is, might have been "led up the garden path" or gullible. Regards Ralph.

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Nationality given as INDIAN. I have in the past been given to understand the a stab wound in the heart is not immediately fatal, dont know how true this is, might have been "led up the garden path" or gullible. Regards Ralph.

Never looked in indian,that was daft,him being in ghurka regt.As for surviving bayonet,i suppose it's possible.My memory is a bit like yours,of the seive variety,but i just feel in bits i have read,that something just doesn't add up in this story.Look up cecil allansons account of hill q assault(bill slim)took part and was very badly injured.Yet i read somewhere else can't remember where that le marchand was alive later,it's a mystery.

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quote: Also,it says 9-8-15 allansons account was battle of hill q 8-8-1915,if as allanson says he got bayonet in heart,how come he died on the 9th?

This is where i am getting mixed up.

My reading of the time-line here goes thus

Aug 7: Allanson and the 1/6th GR were 500 yard below the crest of Hill Q

Aug 8: Allanson is ordered forward to storm the crest together with British units

He is unable to find the latter, but presses on anyway with his Gurkhas

to a line 200 yards below the crest with only slight casualties

Here Allanson is joined by Slim and men of the Warwicks (some 6th S. Lancs men were also there)

After darkness fell they pushed on for another 50 yards then dug in

Aug 8: 9.30 pm Allanson is ordered to be in assaulting distance of the crest by 5.15 am the next morning, ie. Aug 9

[in fact Allanson was already waiting there]

Aug 9: quote from Allanson "5.18 it had not stopped (the artillery preparation) and I wondered if my watch was wrong. 5.20 silence: I waited three minutes to be certain, great as the risk was. Then off we dashed..."

The date of death for Lieutenant J. W. J. Le Marchand seems to be correct at 9th Aug

I have not come across anything suggesting how long le Marchand lived after he was bayonetted

regards

Michael

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quote: Also,it says 9-8-15 allansons account was battle of hill q 8-8-1915,if as allanson says he got bayonet in heart,how come he died on the 9th?

This is where i am getting mixed up.

My reading of the time-line here goes thus

Aug 7: Allanson and the 1/6th GR were 500 yard below the crest of Hill Q

Aug 8: Allanson is ordered forward to storm the crest together with British units

He is unable to find the latter, but presses on anyway with his Gurkhas

to a line 200 yards below the crest with only slight casualties

Here Allanson is joined by Slim and men of the Warwicks (some 6th S. Lancs men were also there)

After darkness fell they pushed on for another 50 yards then dug in

Aug 8: 9.30 pm Allanson is ordered to be in assaulting distance of the crest by 5.15 am the next morning, ie. Aug 9

[in fact Allanson was already waiting there]

Aug 9: quote from Allanson "5.18 it had not stopped (the artillery preparation) and I wondered if my watch was wrong. 5.20 silence: I waited three minutes to be certain, great as the risk was. Then off we dashed..."

The date of death for Lieutenant J. W. J. Le Marchand seems to be correct at 9th Aug

I have not come across anything suggesting how long le Marchand lived after he was bayonetted

regards

Michael

icon2.gif

I think i am just getting confused.....

My problem is....Later in Allanson's account he says

"the place was a mass of limbs and screams though the casualties were not very heavy.The whole force flew in a panic down the hill....There were left on the crest, LE MARCHAND,myself,two officers of the South Lancs.....

Does he mean Le Marchand was still on the crest (but dead)?

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When posting above I was looking at, amongst others, Rhodes James' "Gallipoli"

He quotes from Allanson's diary which was printed privately in a run of only 50 copies,

but in a footnote (page 290 in the Papermac edition, 1989) he also mentions that there are various versions of Allanson's account, with some differences between them.

Rhodes James gives the following quote commencing where you start

(which is after they had followed the retreating Turks 300 feet down the reverse slope [in the direction of Maidos] and then been hit by six large calibre shells)

"...the place was a mass of blood and limbs and screams, and we all flew back to the summit, and to our old position just below. I remained on the crest with about 15 men; it was a wonderful view; below were the Straits,... ..."

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By the way, this particular version of the passage is the same as that quoted by Moorehead; see his "Gallipoli" page 238 in the Wordsworth edition 1998

[though there is another difference, where Moorehead's quote from Allanson gives their position on the reverse slope as only 100 feet down (not 300)]

Not relevant to this particular topic (le Marchand) but nevertheless indicative of the variations in this story as it is repeated around; there is yet another version which was used by B Farwell, in The Gurkhas, Penguin Books, 1924, p.10 - see here where the distance down the reverse slope is given as 200 feet

Was it Allanson who gave out differing accounts or has he been let down by the historians who have quoted him? I don't know the answer to that, but there is something of a question mark over Allanson; see Prof Tim Travers' book "Gallipoli 1915" (Tempus Publishing, 2001) In particular, his notes on page 247 - "Godley, Birdwood and Cox all saw Allanson as an unreliable witness (at the Dardanelles Commission) and excitable."

and another example on page 132 - "Strangely, Allanson's story of naval shelling was later undercut by his own letters to Aspinal in 1930. In these Allanson says that he did not stay on the summit (or saddle) of Hill Q on 9 August, not because of naval shelling or other friendly fire, but because of the extreme exposure of the summit, where a few shells would dislodge them. He does not actually refer to any naval shelling."

So there are some unexplained inconsistencies in this story, whichever way you look at it.

Finally on the death of Le Marchand:

you may wish to see the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King's College London here http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/guides/ww1.shtml where you will find ref to Allanson's description of the death of Le Marchand under

"DONLEA, Patrick Plunkett (1877-1936)

Indian Civil Service, 1898-1932; Inspector of Police, North West Frontier, 1911.

Papers, 1911-1932, including press cuttings describing charge of 21 Lancers at Shabkadr, North West Frontier, India, Aug 1915, and copy of letter to Donlea's mother-in-law from Maj Cecil Allanson, 1/6 Gurkha Rifles, describing the death of her son, Lt Le Marchand, Gallipolli, 1915."

regards

Michael

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Thanks for that.At least now i know it's not only me that is confused.Still not sure of truth but who is.It's a pity Allanson is so unreliable,he was no doubt a brave man.I suppose he had had own reasons.Does anyone know of any other accounts of this action? ie other than allansons account......and did slim ever talk about it other than saying "i lay in the sun and got shelled"?

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skipman,

where did the version which you quote come from?

The two books that confused me were Mooreheads Gallipoli,and Defeat at Gallipoli by Nigel Steeland Peter Hart

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I have both these books sitting unread on my shelves.... Any recommendations as to which I should have a go at first?

Cheers,

Nigel

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I have both these books sitting unread on my shelves.... Any recommendations as to which I should have a go at first?

Cheers,

Nigel

I read Moorehead first,then yrs later,Steel and Hart,both good.I remember the Allanson account in particular because it's so dramatic,and read various accounts later which caused the confusion.

If you have L A Carlyon's book Gallipoli on your shelf read it first.I couldn't put it down.

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quote: The two books that confused me were Mooreheads Gallipoli,and Defeat at Gallipoli by Nigel Steeland Peter Hart

I see what you mean - the passage as given in Steel & Hart's book is quite different

They have taken it from 'Allanson of the 6th' by Harry Davies, Square One Publications, 1990

I don't know this book but am inclined to rely on Rhodes James et al, who seem to have used Allanson's own record of the events

regards

Michael

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  • 2 years later...

I was having a look again at this thread, and am still unsure of what actually happened.

Allanson “At the top we met the Turks; Le Marchand went down, a bayonet through the heart. I got one through the leg, and then, for about ten minutes, we fought hand to hand, we bit and fisted, and used rifles and pistols as clubs; blood was flying like spray from a hair wash bottle. And the Turks turned and fled, and I felt a very proud man; the key of the whole peninsula was ours, and our losses had not been so very great for such a result. Below I saw the Straits, motors and wheeled transport, on the roads leading to Achi Baba” "

On another forum HERE member lee123 says

" Re: a mystery unsolved at the battle of sari bair! Postby lee123 on 22 Sep 2008, 13:57

Hi i have just found a letter typed to Le Marchands mother from Allanson It goes in to great detail the events that happened on 7/8/9th And Lemarchand did not die from a bayonet to the heart he was shot in the brain while single handed tackling the turks. "

Bean in the OH doesn't even mention a hand to hand struggle?

" The Turkish garrison had been withdrawn from the crest, which was reached by the climbing troops without any opposition The portion of the summit which the Gurkhas and Lancashires had reached was a saddle, 600 yards in length, between the knolls of Chunuk Bair and “Q. Ahead of them was a deep valley, but to their right front, immediately inland of Chunuk, the ground sloped gently, until it fell into another ravine on the far side of which was Su Yatagha.lo On the slope immediately in front, perhaps 100 yards distant, was a body of Turks who had evidently withdrawn from the shallow unfinished trench on the summit and were crouched down, waiting for the bombment to finish. As soon as these saw the heads of the oncoming troops rising above the crest-line they began to retreat farther. The 6th South Lancashire and Gurkhas stood on the scratched-up parapet and fired into the backs of the fleeing enemy. Beyond, where the gentler slope dipped to the valley, was another body of 200 Turks, evidently the supports.” Had any supporting British force been present at that moment to occupy the empty northern slope and summit of Chunuk Bair and pour its fire into the enemy attacking the New Zealanders, there can be little doubt that the whole Turkish line on the southernshoulder of Chunuk Bair also would have retiredand left three-quarters of a mile of the crest-line open to Godley’s troops But Baldwin’s centra1 column was nowhere to be seen; and at this moment five high-explosive shells, doubtless from the same source as those which had just burst among the New Zealanders, fell upon the Gurkhas and Lancashires cresting the hill. These projectiles seemed to burst where the shells of the naval bombardment had been bursting, and, either from the sound or from other signs, all realised that they were fired by the guns of their own side. There appeared also to be a cross-fire from the direction of Abdel Rahman Bair, on which were known to be Turkish guns and troops. Had the line been crouched in the shallow Turkish trench, it is probable that no man would have been hit; nor was the damage inflicted, though considerable, such as would normally drive troops from a captured position. But at the moment the notion was irresistible that the naval bombardment had not ceased, and for Turks. Under this, the most demoralising of experiences even for the best European troops, the Gurkhas broke, and with most of the South Lancashire fell back down the hill. After vainly endeavouring to prevent the retirement and to rally their men, the British officers of the Gurkhas, with two officers and a handful of men of the 6th South Lancashire, remained alone on the summit. But the Turkish supports on the edge of the farther slope had observed the incident. lhese now advanced. The handful of British, a dozen in all, stayed until the enemy was fifty yards distant. Lieutenant Le Marchand" urged that they should stay there and die in the trench, but Allanson told him that it was folly, and they therefore ran down the hill-too late to save several gallant lives. Le Marchand was killed, and every officer of the Gurkhas was hit. The Gurkha supports held firm, and the South Lancashires rallied at the previous position 150 yards down the hill. Only one event could at this stage have retrieved the situation. If Baldwin's five New Army battalions, which at 5.15 were to have launched the central attack, had at this moment appeared along part of the summit, there is no doubt that the Gurkhas and Lancashires would again have attacked and possibly regained the crest. But no sign of the five battalions could yet be seen."

Allanson does seem to have suffered a bayonet wound in the leg. Is it possible the struggle took place, after the shells burst among them, and the Turks counter-attacked, and not on reaching the crest?

Confused (easily) Mike

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