The next great effort to advance in the south of the peninsula was made on 4 June. To distract the enemy's attention from that theatre of war the Anzacs began a series of demonstrations and sorties after sunset on that day. In the south, fighting had gone on uninterruptedly during May up to the night of 4 June. On the day of the general attack the enemy's front line of trenches ran from the west of the Kereves Dere in a northerly direc tion to the sea. The Allied battle line from right to left was held in this order: The French expeditionary force, the Royal Naval division, the 42d East Lancashires, and the 29th division. The British front alone was little over 4,000 yards, and the total infantry available amounted to 24.,000 men, including a reserve of 7,000. At 8 in the morning the artillery overture broke out lasting, with half an hour's intermission, unhl noon, when the range was extended and the infantry advanced with fixed bayonets. The assault' was immediately successful. On the extreme right the French lst division carried a line of trench, while the 2d division with a gallant dash captured a strong redoubt for which they had already fought three desperate contests. Only the extreme left of the French was unable to gain any ground—a feature destined to have an unfortunate effect upon the final issue. The 2d Naval brigade rushed forward; the battalion frosn H.M.S. Anson captured the southern face of a Turkish re doubt which formed a salient in the enemy's line, the Howe and Hood battalions captured trenches fronting them, and by 12:15 the whole Turkish line forming their first objective was in their hands. In five minutes the Manchester brigade of the 42d division had stormed the first line of Turkish trenches and 25 minutes later had carried the second line, making a prog ress of 600 yards. On the left the 29th met sterner opposition. In most places the Turks crossed bay.onets with them, but after a struggle of some minutes the front line was taken. On the extreme left the front Turkish trench was so situated that it had escaped the artillery bombardment, leaving the barbed wire obstacles intact. The result was that, though the 14th Sikhs on the right flank pushed on despite losses asnounting to three-fourths of their effectives, the centre of the brigade could make no head way. A company of Gurkhas actually forced its way into a Turkish trench, but the failure of the rest of the brigade threatened them with isolation,. and they were withdrawn. Mean while, reinforcements were rushed to the left to make a fresh attack On the right, the Turks poured in frcsh reserves and forced the French 2d division to fall back from the redoubt they had won, which retirement un covered the right flank of the Royal Naval division. These also had to retire with heavy loss from their conquered terrain, thus exposing in turn the Howe and Hood battalions to en filade fire so that they, also, could do nothing but retreat across the open under galling rifle and machine-gun fire. By 1:30 P.M. all the gains had been lost again in this section, while the Collingwood battalion, which had rushed to the rescue, was practically annihilated. All the bravery and sacrifice of the first charge appeared to have gone for naught. The Man chesters were still holding on to their captured trench, while every effort was made to sustain them by sending reinforcements, but it soon became clear that their position was untenable. In this dilemma orders were issued for a fresh attadc in force at 3 P.M., an arrangement that was twice postponed at the request of General Gouraud, who finally reported that he could do no more that day with any chance of suc cess. By 6:30, therefore, the Manchesters had to be extricated from their perilous position from the second Turkish lines. There was some difficulty in persuading them to retreat to the front Turkish line which they had taken in the first five minutes. Several other AUied attacks were frustrated; at the close of the battle the net result was an advance of from 200 to 400 yards on a front of nearly three miles. Further attempts were made on the Turkish defenses on 21 June, in which the French lost 2,500 men; the enemy's loss in counter-attacks was estimated at 7,000. Yet the French had succeeded in storming the first and second lines on their front. On the 27th the British left carried four Turkish lines and advanced about a mile. Further severe fighting toolc place from 28 June to 2 July, between which dates the Turks were reported to have lost over 5,000 killed and 15,000 wounded. On 5 July the Turks made another big attempt to drive the Allies into the sea, though the voiture failed. Throughout July there oc curred at intervals minor attacks by one side or the other, such as c.haracteristic trench warfare produces, with little results. Early in August the Turks announced the loss of one of their battleships, the Hairredin Bar barossa, sunk by a submarine. Other Turkish vessels were sunk about the same time. Against this, however, had to be set the loss of a large British transport, the Royal Edward, sunk by a submaririe in the /Egean Sea with a loss of about 1,000 men.
A new armv was landed at Suvla Bay on 6 August and an attempt was made to capture the summit of Sari Bair and Chunuk Bair ridges by simultaneous attacks by the Anzacs and the new army. The Anzacs reached the objective, but the attacic from Suvla did not make the progress expected, with the result that, as had happened too often in this campaign, the temporary victors had to retire from the ground they had captured. The two armies came into touch, however, making a front of about 12 miles. Another assault was simultaneously de livered at the south, but no decisive result was gained. At the end of September the fighting on Gallipoli again resumed the form of un eventful trench work. The campaign had simply failed; from the first it had been a policy of sacrificing armies for acres. Gen eral Hamilton apparently still believed in suc cess, but the British government had lost faith; they decided to write the expedition off as a bad debt. The stream of men and munitions dried up ,• wounds, sickness and fatigue left their marks upon the discouraged soldiers. On 11 Oct. 1915 Lord Kitchener, then Minister for War, cabled to Hamilton asking for his estimate of the losses lilcely to be involved in an evacua tion of Gallipoli. Hamilton replied in terms showing that such a step was szunthinkables to him. On the 16th he was recalled. Failure was
written large across the Gallipoli-Dardanelles campaigns. The only event of importance which remains to be recorded is the withdrawal of the troops. Hamilton was succeeded by Gen eral Mona), and during the short interregnum General Birdwood took command. Mon ro arrived with instructions to report on the situa tion, as to whether the peninsula oiight to be evacuated on military grounds or anotht at tempt made to carry it. He reported that °the mere fringe of the coast line hact. been secured.
The piers and beaches upon which they de pended for all requirements of personnel and material were exposed to registered and ob served artillery fire. Our entrenchments were dominated ahnost throughout by the Turks. . . The.force, in short, held a line possessing every possible military defect . . ? An evacuation presented difficulties as great as a landing; since every corner of the peninsula was exposed to hostile fire, it was not possible to withdmw any of the troops frorn the shell-swept area. The troops were enervated by disease; in con sequence of terrible losses there was a dearth of officers. General Monro considered that no advance could reasonably be expected from the positions held by the expeditionary force, and that the troops here locked up should be di verted to a more useful theatre of war. Evac uation was decided upon. Winter set in with heavy storms; hurricanes and torrential rains swept the peninsula; floods spread over the country,. filled the trenches and cut off com munications. Troops, animals and supplies not needed for a long campaign were to be taken off first Next were to come the men, guns, animals and stores except those required for a defensive during a certain period; and the last batch were to withdraw as rapidly as possible leaving behind, if necessary, guns, animals and stores not required for the time being. The three men upon whom the task now devolved were Generals Monro and Birdwood and Ad miral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss. They began with Suvla. This was a wise step, for it could afford the enemy no clue, since the removal of these troops did not necessarily indicate abandonment of the expedition. From 10-18 Dec. 1915 the surplus of the force at Suvla gradually melted away to seaward. While the front was held, corps behind the lines were withdrawn to the embarkation beaches first, with full pro vision in the event of attack Intermediate positions were prepared for this purpose. The final withdrawal from here was timed for the night of 19-20 December. The sea waa calm and the moon was veiled by hazy. clouds; the covering ships had taken up their positions, ready to open fire if the enemy showed any activity. Everything went smoothly; when the fiist batch had gone far enough, the men in the trenches left them; every vehicle and gun was embarked. Anzac and Suvla were cleared ; what little had to be left behind was destroyed The Turks grew suspicious; the movement took them completely by surprise; they were not conscious of the operation until it had been completed. Not a single life was lost, and only three men were wounded. The enemy now hurried his liberated troops and guns from Suvla and Anzac to the southern end of the peninsula, strengthening his batteries on both sides of the straits. No attempt was made to remove the Allied army from the south; it appeared as though the British authorities at home were still unwilling to give in. The po sition of that army grew more perilous as the Turks increased their strength; after a delay of eight days orders came from London to withdraw the remainder of the force from the peninsula; already the bulk of the French troops had been taken off by their own ships, and most of their section of the line had been taken over by the Royal Naval division and the 86th brigade. The embarkations were con ducted in the night time; by daylight nothing unusual could be observed by the enemy. Meanwhile, the Turks continued to bombard the Allied lines, to which the battleships re sponded. The remainder of the French troops were taken off first. The final withdrawal was to take place during the night of 8 Jan. 1916. With some trouble owing to the weather the embarkation was duly carried out according to program; the guns which had been ordered from London to be brought away were left to cover the movement and destroyed at the last moment By 3:30 A.M. the last man had been taken on board. The store and antmunition dumps which had been left were provided with time fuses for their destruction. As the last parties left the shore these broke out into flames at different points, illuminating the darkness. Magazines of munitions and explosives blew up in rapid succession; red lights flared up over the Turkish lines; their heavy artillery burst into a furious bombardment of the empty beach,• the last ship steamed away, and the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign was over. Altogether the tragic adventure had cost the British Empire the lives of 1,785 officers aud 31,737 other ranks ; 3,010 officers were wounded, and 75,508 of other ranks; missing and prisoners amounted to 258 officers and 7,431 of other ranks; making a total of casualties of 5,053 officers and 114,676 of other ranks. These figures do not include the heavy French losses. In due course a com mission was appointed to inquire into and report on the causes of the failure. In a scholarly criticism of the campaign published in London, December 1919, by Maj.-Gen. Sir C. E. CaIlwell, K.C.B., the writer expresses the opinion that the principal cause of the failure was ((not so much the consequence of topographical conditions nor of the dispo sition of the enemy forces, nor of bad lucic, as it was the upshot of a factor that had not been taken sufficiently into account. This factor was the rare fighting qualities that the Osmanli soldier was to display in the campaign . . . But if Sir Ian Hamilton and his staff at the outset underrated Ottoman valor and grit, if they assumed too readily that the opposition that would be offered by this soldiery would not be of the most whole-hearted type, they were only following the lead of govemments which, in a happy-go-lucicy mood and confident that the enemy would crumble up before a show of bluff, had dispatched the expedition on a mis sion of which they had failed to realize the danger, and for which suitable preparations had not been made by them in advance.* ((The Dardanelles.') HENRI F. KI.EIN, Editorial Staff of The Americana.