"Allies retreat from Gallipoli disaster"

[brindlerp]

From the archive

" In a laconic, single-sentence communique, the War Office in London this afternoon revealed that the ill-fated Gallipoli expedition had been abandoned after 10 months of bad luck, muddle, indecisiveness - and outstanding heroism by British, Australian and New Zealand troops.

The final act of evacuating some 90,000 men, with 4,500 animals, 1,700 vehicles and 200 guns was carried out with great skill and ingenuity, under the very noses of powerful Turkish forces. Not a single life was lost. Some 30,000 beds had been prepared for the wounded in Mediterranean hospitals, but these were not needed.

The evacuation was carried out at night-time. During the day, however, ships riding at anchor under Turkish observation could be seen disembarking troops and unloading guns and stores. The trick was that more men and materials were evacuated during the night than had been ostentatiously brought ashore during the day.

In the last stages, at Anzac Bay, when it seemed the Turks could not fail to hear what was going on, a destroyer trained its searchlight on the enemy's trenches. While the Turks concentrated their fire on the destroyer, the troops were lifted off the beaches.

As the last men were leaving, having set thousands of booby traps, a huge landmine in no-man's-land was exploded. The Turks, thinking the Australians were attacking, began a furious barrage of fire that lasted 40 minutes.

It was a better end than might have been expected to a sorry story that began when the Russians appealed to Britain and France for munitions. Ministers and military men in London agreed to let the Royal Navy try to get to Russia's Black Sea ports by forcing the passage of the Dardanelles; they also decided a back-up force of land troops would be needed.

Kitchener said he could not spare the men from the Western Front. Three weeks later he changed his mind and said he could send a division to join Royal Marines and troops from Egypt.

But by the time the combined land and sea operation was mounted at the end of April, a full two months after the navy had first bombarded the Dardanelles forts, all advantages of surprise had been lost and the Turks had heavily reinforced their positions.

When Bulgaria came into the war a clear route was opened for Germany to keep Turkey supplied. Britain decided to pull out and use the men, as today's announcement says, in "another sphere of operations".

The Commons has been told the casualties were 25,000 dead, 76,000 wounded, 13,000 missing and 96,000 sick admitted to hospital. "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/s...1670937,00.html

[bob lembke]

Kannengeisser (a German general at Gallipoli, who wrote an interesting book about it; it may have even been translated into English, but is a very scarce book) had interesting things to say about the withdrawal. If memory serves, in the last hours they had an idea as to what was going on, but the Turkish troops, who had been so brave, proved rather unmanagable. Perhaps, having won the battle, they did not fancy being the last one to die. They also may have fell to looting (one can scarcely imagine how badly provided they were) rather than press forward.

My father served there, at ANZAC Cove, as a volunteer Pionier, and simply loved the Turkish soldier, and his bravery. In this he considered them better than Allied troops and all but the very best German troops, the Stosstruppen like Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr)., which he fought with. In the early 1920's he was happy to help run some guns to the Turks, when the Greeks were pushing deep into Turkey, with western support, I believe.

Bob Lembke

[Gilgamesh of Uruk]

Is there any truth to the story that the final casualties were a couple of Turks who died of a surfeit of jam (or marmalade, in some versions)?

Slightly OT - if it hadn't been for Gallipoli, and the realisation of the need for specialist "landing craft" such as the Beetles, would the necessary experiments have been done post-war to provide at least a nucleus of knowledge by the time of WWII?

[Robert Dunlop]

Gallipoli was not the only amphibious operation for which specialist landing craft were built. Although the planned landing on the Belgian coast did not occur in 1917, considerable planning was involved. Huge landing craft were built. You could regard these as the forerunners of the LCTs, as they were designed to carry tanks right up to the beach front. Several trial runs were successfully carried out but they were never tested in anger. There are photographs of the pontoons here:

http://www.1914-1918.net/BATTLES/hush/hush.htm

Robert

[Cliff. Hobson]

Copy of letter sent home by F.Beswick,D. Co., 15th Bn., 6th Lincs.

Evacuation --Suvla Bay, One of thirty Two.

"The sight was one I shall never forget, I was one of thirty Two who held 300 yards of the firing line for 5 hours, when I got the order to leave my post I only left 16 of the lads to chance their luck. We went back to the beach to get on our ship I was about beat I carried 2 dixies of meat to the ship. We could only pass by certain paths as our Engineers had placed mines and trip wires all over the place.

The hours seemed like days as we waited for the remainder to come, but at last they came in the early hours of the day while it was pitch dark we set fire to large dumps of rations, my word it was a proper bonfire. We did look proper objects, dead beat Officers and men alike.

Everything went splendidly, Johny Turk was completely mesmerised, four came and gave themselves up. We should have got more prisoners only they were afraid of the Australians, they told us they thought we were preparing for a big advance. It was a fine bit of work which will always be history we had not been away many days befor the Turks found us by a Taube on Imbros Island..........."

[Gilgamesh of Uruk]

Gallipoli was not the only amphibious operation for which specialist landing craft were built. Although the planned landing on the Belgian coast did not occur in 1917, considerable planning was involved. Huge landing craft were built. You could regard these as the forerunners of the LCTs, as they were designed to carry tanks right up to the beach front. Several trial runs were successfully carried out but they were never tested in anger. There are photographs of the pontoons here:

http://www.1914-1918.net/BATTLES/hush/hush.htm

Robert

Interesting, indeed. I'd class those pontoons as nearer a Rhino ferry than an LCT, though!

There is a pic. of a (card) model of a "beetle" / X-lighter on the "Paper Shipwright" site, if you are interested.

homepage.ntlworld.com/david.hathaway/ps_web/new.htm

[Brigantian]

The remains of a Beetle left behind at Suvla:

Regards

Mark

[paul guthrie]

Forget about me boys save Serjean Beaton, grave inscription at Evacuation Cove ? Cemetery.