(_By permission of the Illustrated London News._)
Our illustration shows the repulse of a Turkish night attack on our trenches near Achi Baba on May 1, 1915. On the extreme left of our position lay the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and the Northern Irish Regiment, and in front of them was a small vineyard with a mud wall round it, the vine branches being entwined with a thick network of barbed wire. The Turks, led by German officers, moved directly on the Inniskillings; but the Irishmen lay low until their attackers were only a hundred and fifty yards away. Then light balls were fired from pistols, and a terrible torrent of lead swept the first line of the Turks to earth. The second line shared the same fate, and the survivors turned and fled. Several German officers were found shot amidst the heaps of slain next morning. (See page 267.)]
[Footnote 47: _Blackwood's Magazine_, February 1916.]
The Gallipoli campaign was a diversion that did not succeed--a side-show that failed. I shall not, therefore, describe the progress of the fighting in full detail. The story is rather a footnote to the history of the Great War than part of the text. We may divide the story--as Cæsar did Gaul--into three parts. Part I. deals with the fighting from the day of the landing on 25th April down to 13th July, and tells how we battered at the Achi Baba barrier while the Anzacs strove to carry the high and rugged hills on their front. Part II. carries on the story to the middle fortnight of August, when, with the aid of five new divisions, we made a big effort to break through at Suvla and Anzac; and Part III. describes the long period of waiting until those December and January days when we "came off" the peninsula without the loss of a single life. In this chapter I shall give you very briefly Part I. of the story.
On the night of 27th April the Allies lay on a line running across the peninsula about three miles north of Cape Tekke. Next day, at eight in the morning, an advance was made on the village of Krithia; and though the Turks strongly opposed us, the 87th Brigade, on the left, advanced two miles, while the French, on the right, pushed forward a mile. By the evening of the 27th we securely held the tip of the peninsula. During the fighting the _Queen Elizabeth_, far out at sea, observed 250 of the enemy preparing to make an attack from a point where they could not be seen by the troops on shore. Immediately she dropped a shrapnel shell amongst them. It weighed 1,800 pounds, and contained 13,000 bullets. When the smoke cleared away it was discovered that the attacking party had been completely wiped out.