By December 1915, the fighting at Gallipoli had ended. Boats had been loaded, supplies removed, and then some time at Lemos, or in hospital to recover, before moving to the Western Front.
What did it achieve? In the end not much, just the slaughter of so many innocent lives, Allies and Turkish Allies alike.
Bones bleached by the sun, used shells, equipment, wooden grave markers for those who could be identified, nothing to remember the thousands who couldn't.
And there they lay, not this time for 4 long months, but for 4 long years, some never to be found.
After the end of the War the allies then returned to Turkey to take stock of the weapons, and to bury the dead. Cemeteries were laid out and the bones were reburied.
One of those was another Durnford, from the Australian lineage. His name was Montague John Durnsford, my great uncle, and for whom this World War One tribute has been done, in his honour.
But it would have been totally disrespectful to have not acknowledged each and everyone of the members of our Durnford family who served either alongside him in the Australian forces, or beside him in the British and Canadian forces.
His story later.
 |
| A Turk carries an injured Australian The Turkish people also remember their loved ones in the Turkish Memorials |
*********************************************************************
The Evacuation of Anzac, December 1915
Lieutenant-General Sir William Birdwood, Commander,
Mediterranean Expeditionary force; Field Marshal Lord Kitchener;
Major-General Alexander Godley, Commander, New Zealand and Australian
Division; and Major-General John Maxwell at North Beach, 13 November
1915. [AWM A00880]
At about 1.40 pm on 13 November 1915 a small boat arrived
at North Beach. From it stepped Field Marshal Lord Kitchener,
Commander in Chief of the British Army. He had come to Anzac
to see the positions there for himself.
As he walked up
the pier with other generals, he was recognised and men
came running from all over towards the pier where they surrounded
the great man. Charles Bean watched Kitchener walk up from
the pier:
The tall red cap [Kitchener] was rapidly closed
in among them-but they kept a path and as the red
cheeks turned and spoke to one man or another, they
cheered him–they, the soldiers-no officers leading
off or anything of that sort. It was a purely soldiers’
welcome. He said to them, ‘The King has asked
me to tell you how splendidly he thinks you have done-you
have done splendidly, better, even, than I thought
you would.’
[Kevin Fewster, Frontline Gallipoli – C E W Bean’s diary from the trenches, Sydney, 1983, p.176]
Kitchener spent just over two hours at Anzac surveying the
Turkish line from Australian trenches inland of the Sphinx
and at Lone Pine. Two days later, after further consultation
with senior commanders, he recommended to the British War
Cabinet that Gallipoli–Anzac, Suvla and Helles–be
evacuated.
Without significant reinforcement and the bringing
in of considerable artillery resources, little progress
could, in his opinion, be made against the strengthening
Turkish trenches. This was especially so at Anzac where
a further surprise attack, such as had been conducted in
August against Chunuk Bair and Kocacimentepe, was virtually
impossible. Moreover, local commanders were extremely worried
about the problems of supplying Gallipoli throughout the
winter with its many severe storms.
Once the decision had been taken, the biggest problem was
how to leave the peninsula without arousing the suspicions
of the Turks. A detailed evacuation plan was devised by
an Australian, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Brudenell White.
This involved elaborate deception operations such as the
so-called ‘silent stunts’ of late November where
no artillery fire or sniping was to occur from the Anzac
lines. It was hoped that this would accustom the Turks to
the idea that preparations were underway for the coming
winter. Hopefully, the enemy would not, therefore, interpret
these silences as a withdrawal. Right to the end, great
care was taken to keep up the kind of irregular rifle and
artillery fire from Anzac that would be expected by the
Turks.
An evacuation schedule planned for the leaving of Anzac
in three stages. In the ‘preliminary stage’, to
be set in motion while awaiting word from London that the
British Cabinet had approved Lord Kitchener’s recommendation
to evacuate, men and equipment would be taken off consistent
with a garrison preparing for a purely defensive winter
campaign.
After Cabinet approval, the ‘intermediate’
stage would commence, during which the number of soldiers
on Anzac would be reduced to a point where they could still
hold off a major Turkish attack for about one week. During
the first two stages, the Anzac garrison would fall from
41 000 to 26 000.
These 26 000 would then be withdrawn over
two nights in the ‘final’ evacuation on 18-19
and 19-20 December 1915. In the event, by 18 December at
the end of the ‘intermediate’ stage, there were
only 20 277 soldiers left at Anzac. Although Anzac Cove
was used, the chief evacuation points were the piers at
North Beach. It was at North Beach, therefore, that many
men spent their last moments on Anzac and caught their last
glimpses in the dark of the Sari Bair Range as they pulled
away from the piers.
During the evacuation, movement to the piers took place
after dark. An Australian observer watched a busy night
scene at North Beach:
I went down to see the sending away of the British
Labour Corps [the ‘Old and Bold’]
and Egyptians and Maltese. Flares were burning on
Williams’ Pier and Walker's Ridge. Baggage was
piled on the wharf–mostly field ambulance; four
gun-teams made their way through the crowd out towards
the left; ammunition was being carried in on gharries
[a type of horse-drawn Indian carriage] and
taken on to the pier or stacked on the beach …
truck-load after truck-load of warm winter clothing
was being sent running down the little railway on
Williams’ Pier.
[Quoted in C E W Bean, The Story of Anzac, Sydney, 1924, Vol II, pp. 865-866]
Lieutenant-General Sir William Birdwood, Commander, Mediterranean Expeditionary force; Field Marshal Lord Kitchener; Major-General Alexander Godley, Commander, New Zealand and Australian Division; and Major-General John Maxwell at North Beach, 13 November 1915. [AWM A00880]
[Kevin Fewster, Frontline Gallipoli – C E W Bean’s diary from the trenches, Sydney, 1983, p.176]
A 'duty clear before us' – North Beach and the Sari Bair Range
Thus to leave you–thus to part
Thus to leave you–thus to part
The Evacuation of Anzac, December 1915
- Members of the Indian Mule Cart Corps with their charges in
Mule Gully, near the New Zealand supply dump, looking towards Destroyer
Hill, Sari Bair Range. [AWM C00900]
At night, from the positions north of Walker’s Ridge
stretching through the ranges to Hill 60, mule columns looked
after by men of the Indian Mule Cart Corps brought material
for evacuation to Williams’ Pier.
Once on flat ground
and heading south for North Beach, these columns passed
a stretch of coast opposite the Sniper’s Nest where
they could undoubtedly be heard by Turkish patrols. However,
as the mules were constantly going up the line with supplies,
there was nothing to tell the enemy that they were now returning,
equally heavily laden. Moreover, so skilled were the Indian
handlers that hardly any noise was made.
Encountering a
column, an Australian confided to his diary:
At once I thought–‘My goodness, if the
Turks don’t see all this as it goes along they
must be blind’. But as I went along behind them
I began to notice how silently these mules behaved.
They had big loads, but they were perfectly quiet.
They made no sound at all as they walked except for
the slight jingle of a chain now and then … .
I doubt if you could have heard the slightest noise
… . I doubt if at 1,000 yards [915 metres]
you could see them at all-possibly just a black
serpentine streak.
[Quoted in C E W Bean, The Story of Anzac, Sydney, 1924, Vol II, p.866]
Although much equipment was removed from Anzac, a great
deal, especially foodstuffs, was left behind or destroyed.
- An Australian officer visits a comrade's grave on Gallipoli. [AWM G00419]
So well were the objectives of the first two stages kept
secret from all but those who needed to know, that it was
not until the second week in December that the ordinary
soldiers realised that a full-scale evacuation was in progress.
Charles Bean felt that everyone knew by 13 December. Men’s
reactions varied, but a common sorrow was the thought of
leaving behind their dead comrades. Bean noted how many
now spent time in the small Anzac cemeteries tidying up
the graves.
On the nights of 18-19 and 19-20 December the final 20 000
Anzacs were taken off. On 19 December, the British cruiser
HMS Grafton lay in off North Beach ready to take
the soldiers on board and, if necessary, to open fire on
any enemy attempt to hinder this final withdrawal. An observer
on the Grafton noted:
It is about 9 o'clock. An ideal night for the
job. No ships (only a few lights) visible at Suvla.
One ship about a mile on our port beam. Barely a wrinkle
on the water. Soft air from the north. Moon at present
quite invisible. The wash of the destroyer has been
lapping against our sides like wavelets at the edge
of a pond.
10.00 pm- Three ships just gone in …
10.35 pm- Five trawlers coming out with cutters in tow.
On 19 December just 10 000 men held the lines of trenches
from Bolton’s Ridge in the south to Hill 60 in the
north. The day was spent in constant activity aimed at convincing
their watchful enemy that things were proceeding as normal.
At 2.15 pm the British started a feint attack at Helles
to distract the Turks. At dusk the rear guard began leaving
for the beach until finally there were but 1500 left in
all those miles of dark trench. Company Sergeant Major Joe
Gasparich, Auckland Infantry Battalion, was among the last
to depart in the early hours of 20 December:
-
- HMS Cornwallis, the last ship to leave Gallipoli in
the evacuation of 19-20 December 1915, returns fire to the Turkish guns
shelling her as she prepares to sail. In the background stores at Suvla
Bay, set alight to prevent their use by the Turks, can be seen burning.
[AWM H10388]
I came down - I got off my perch (the firing step)
[and] I walked through the trench and the
floor of the trench was frozen hard … and when
I brought my feet down they echoed right through the
trench, down the gully, right down, and you could
hear this echo running ahead … Talk about empty,
I didn’t see a soul … It was a lonely feeling.
[Gasparich, quoted in C Pugsley, Gallipoli – The New Zealand Story, London, 1984, p.343]
By 4.00 am, 20 December 1915, a handful of men were left
at North Beach. Among these was the commander of the ‘Rear
Party’, Colonel J Paton, from Waratah, Sydney. At 4.10
am, Paton, having waited ten minutes for any last Anzac
straggler, declared the evacuation complete and sailed off.
The Anzacs had successfully left Gallipoli with hardly a
casualty.
On 19 December, as he waited to go, Company Quarter Master
Sergeant A L Guppy, 14th Battalion, of Benalla, Victoria,
confided his feelings in verse to his diary. His words probably
spoke for them all:
Not only muffled is our tread
To cheat the foe,
We fear to rouse our honoured dead
To hear us go.
Sleep sound, old friends- the keenest smart
Which, more than failure, wounds the heart,
Is thus to leave you- thus to part,
Comrades, farewell!
******************************************************************
Members of the Durnford Family who were killed at Gallipoli
Thomas Edward Durnford
Thomas Edward Durnford was born in Pendleton, Lancashire.
He was the son of Edward Durnford and his wife Sarah Ann Howard.
He was born in October 1894, and lived at 12 Scarsdale St Pendleton. He had two sisters and one surviving brother. His father was in the Railways.
He enlisted at Salford as a Private in the Lancashire Fussiellers, when he was 19, and he sailed with them to Gallipoli.
Thomas is our 10th cousin *2. Our lineage begins with his Richard Durnford 1580 d 1632 and his wife Alice Powle 1582 - 1635. Richard is our 10th Great Uncle, and direct great grandfather of Thomas.
The stories of the different battles in this war, become more meaningful when you realise that these soldiers are not names on a bit of stone, but part of our own ancestry.
Thomas was in the 1st/7th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers.
Members of the Lancashire Fusiliers
The timeline of the Battalion:
16.03.1915 Embarked for Gallipoli via Alexandria and Mudros.
25.04.1915 Landed at Gallipoli and the Division engaged in actions at the Battles for Krithia and the Achi Baba heights on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
02.01.1916 Evacuated to Egypt due to the severe casualties from combat, disease and harsh weather.
Mar 1916 Embarked for France landing at Marseilles on the 29.03.1916 and the Division engaged in various actions on the Western Front including; The Battle of Albert, The Battle of the Transloy Ridges.
During 1917
The First Battle of the Scarpe, The Second and Third Battles of the Scarpe, The Battle of Langemarck, The Battle of Broodseinde, The Battle of Poelcapelle, The Battle of Cambrai.
During 1918
The Battle of Estaires, The Battle of Messines, The Battle of Hazebrouck, The Battle of Bailleul, The Action of Outtersteene Ridge, The capture of Ploegsteert and Hill 63, The Battle of Ypres, The Battle of Courtrai.
11.11.1918 Ended the war in Belgium, Moen S.E. of Courtrai.
**********************************************************************************
However, unlike other members of the Battalion, Thomas did not live past 7th May 1915.
The stories of the landings and the subsequent horrific loss of life have been well recorded in the Annals of War. British Generals who appeared to have no compunction at all in sending young men to their death, over and over and over again.
To understand the location, the Dardanelles Strait is a strip of water between two sides of Turkey. Turkey is the only continent which straddles two continents - Europe on the left and Asia on the right. The waterway is the only means of shipping for places like Russia , without the freedom of the water, the countries become "landlocked". It feeds into the Sea of Marmara.
The bridge links both continents today, and standing on the Europe Continent you can see how much shipping traffic is on the Straits heading to the right towards the Marmara Sea.
This article from the BBC.
By 1915 the Western Front was clearly deadlocked. Allied strategy was under scrutiny, with strong arguments mounted for an offensive through the Balkans or even a landing on Germany's Baltic coast, instead of more costly attacks in France and Belgium.
These ideas were initially sidelined, but in early 1915 the Russians found themselves threatened by the Turks in the Caucasus and appealed for some relief. The British decided to mount a naval expedition to bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula on the western shore of the Dardanelles, with Constantinople as its objective.
By capturing Constantinople, the British hoped to link up with the Russians, knock Turkey out of the war and possibly persuade the Balkan states to join the Allies.
The naval attack began on 19 February. Bad weather caused delays and the attack was abandoned after three battleships had been sunk and three others damaged. Military assistance was required, but by the time troops began to land on 25 April, the Turks had had ample time to prepare adequate fortifications and the defending armies were now six times larger than when the campaign began.
Against determined opposition, Australian and New Zealand troops won a bridgehead at 'Anzac Cove' on the Aegean side of the peninsula. The British, meanwhile, tried to land at five points around Cape Helles, but established footholds in only three before asking for reinforcements. Thereafter little progress was made, and the Turks took advantage of the British halt to bring as many troops as possible onto the peninsula.
This standstill led to a political crisis in London between Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty and the operation's chief advocate, and Lord Fisher, the First Sea Lord, who had always expressed doubts about it. Fisher demanded that the operation be discontinued and resigned when overruled. The Liberal government was replaced by a coalition and Churchill, though relieved of his former post, remained in the War Council.
Amid sweltering and disease-ridden conditions, the deadlock dragged on into the summer. In July the British reinforced the bridgehead at Anzac Cove and in early August landed more troops at Suvla Bay further to the north, to seize the Sari Bair heights and cut Turkish communications. The offensive and the landings both proved ineffectual within days, faced with waves of costly counter-attacks.
The War Council remained divided until late 1915 when it was decided to end the campaign. Troops were evacuated in December 1915 and January 1916. Had Gallipoli succeeded, it could have ended Turkey's participation in the war. As it was, the Turks lost some 300,000 men and the Allies around 214,000, achieving only the diversion of Turkish forces from the Russians.
Bad leadership, planning and luck, combined with a shortage of shells and inadequate equipment, condemned the Allies to seek a conclusion in the bloody battles of the Western Front. Furthermore, Gallipoli's very public failure contributed to Asquith's replacement as Prime Minister by David Lloyd George in December 1916.
On the ships being brought to shore.
What would they be thinking? Fear of the unknown? Apprehension? Huge adrenalin rushes?
All that and more.
Were these young boys well equipped and trained for what was nothing more than being mowen down by Turkish gunfire?
It is not too far removed from those who were unexpectedly confronted with the roar of 20,000 Zulus, here it was a roar of a different kind - that of the machine gun.
- Members of the Indian Mule Cart Corps with their charges in Mule Gully, near the New Zealand supply dump, looking towards Destroyer Hill, Sari Bair Range. [AWM C00900]
Once on flat ground and heading south for North Beach, these columns passed a stretch of coast opposite the Sniper’s Nest where they could undoubtedly be heard by Turkish patrols. However, as the mules were constantly going up the line with supplies, there was nothing to tell the enemy that they were now returning, equally heavily laden. Moreover, so skilled were the Indian handlers that hardly any noise was made.
Encountering a column, an Australian confided to his diary:
At once I thought–‘My goodness, if the Turks don’t see all this as it goes along they must be blind’. But as I went along behind them I began to notice how silently these mules behaved. They had big loads, but they were perfectly quiet. They made no sound at all as they walked except for the slight jingle of a chain now and then … . I doubt if you could have heard the slightest noise … . I doubt if at 1,000 yards [915 metres] you could see them at all-possibly just a black serpentine streak.Although much equipment was removed from Anzac, a great deal, especially foodstuffs, was left behind or destroyed.
[Quoted in C E W Bean, The Story of Anzac, Sydney, 1924, Vol II, p.866]
- An Australian officer visits a comrade's grave on Gallipoli. [AWM G00419]
Charles Bean felt that everyone knew by 13 December. Men’s reactions varied, but a common sorrow was the thought of leaving behind their dead comrades. Bean noted how many now spent time in the small Anzac cemeteries tidying up the graves.
On the nights of 18-19 and 19-20 December the final 20 000 Anzacs were taken off. On 19 December, the British cruiser HMS Grafton lay in off North Beach ready to take the soldiers on board and, if necessary, to open fire on any enemy attempt to hinder this final withdrawal. An observer on the Grafton noted:
It is about 9 o'clock. An ideal night for the job. No ships (only a few lights) visible at Suvla. One ship about a mile on our port beam. Barely a wrinkle on the water. Soft air from the north. Moon at present quite invisible. The wash of the destroyer has been lapping against our sides like wavelets at the edge of a pond.
10.00 pm- Three ships just gone in …On 19 December just 10 000 men held the lines of trenches from Bolton’s Ridge in the south to Hill 60 in the north. The day was spent in constant activity aimed at convincing their watchful enemy that things were proceeding as normal.
10.35 pm- Five trawlers coming out with cutters in tow.
At 2.15 pm the British started a feint attack at Helles to distract the Turks. At dusk the rear guard began leaving for the beach until finally there were but 1500 left in all those miles of dark trench. Company Sergeant Major Joe Gasparich, Auckland Infantry Battalion, was among the last to depart in the early hours of 20 December:
-
- HMS Cornwallis, the last ship to leave Gallipoli in the evacuation of 19-20 December 1915, returns fire to the Turkish guns shelling her as she prepares to sail. In the background stores at Suvla Bay, set alight to prevent their use by the Turks, can be seen burning. [AWM H10388]
I came down - I got off my perch (the firing step) [and] I walked through the trench and the floor of the trench was frozen hard … and when I brought my feet down they echoed right through the trench, down the gully, right down, and you could hear this echo running ahead … Talk about empty, I didn’t see a soul … It was a lonely feeling.By 4.00 am, 20 December 1915, a handful of men were left at North Beach. Among these was the commander of the ‘Rear Party’, Colonel J Paton, from Waratah, Sydney. At 4.10 am, Paton, having waited ten minutes for any last Anzac straggler, declared the evacuation complete and sailed off. The Anzacs had successfully left Gallipoli with hardly a casualty.
[Gasparich, quoted in C Pugsley, Gallipoli – The New Zealand Story, London, 1984, p.343]
On 19 December, as he waited to go, Company Quarter Master Sergeant A L Guppy, 14th Battalion, of Benalla, Victoria, confided his feelings in verse to his diary. His words probably spoke for them all:
Not only muffled is our tread******************************************************************
To cheat the foe,
We fear to rouse our honoured dead
To hear us go.
Sleep sound, old friends- the keenest smart
Which, more than failure, wounds the heart,
Is thus to leave you- thus to part,
Comrades, farewell!
Members of the Durnford Family who were killed at Gallipoli
Thomas Edward Durnford
Thomas Edward Durnford was born in Pendleton, Lancashire.
He was the son of Edward Durnford and his wife Sarah Ann Howard.
He was born in October 1894, and lived at 12 Scarsdale St Pendleton. He had two sisters and one surviving brother. His father was in the Railways.
He enlisted at Salford as a Private in the Lancashire Fussiellers, when he was 19, and he sailed with them to Gallipoli.
Thomas is our 10th cousin *2. Our lineage begins with his Richard Durnford 1580 d 1632 and his wife Alice Powle 1582 - 1635. Richard is our 10th Great Uncle, and direct great grandfather of Thomas.
The stories of the different battles in this war, become more meaningful when you realise that these soldiers are not names on a bit of stone, but part of our own ancestry.
Thomas was in the 1st/7th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers.
02.01.1916 Evacuated to Egypt due to the severe casualties from combat, disease and harsh weather.
Mar 1916 Embarked for France landing at Marseilles on the 29.03.1916 and the Division engaged in various actions on the Western Front including; The Battle of Albert, The Battle of the Transloy Ridges.
During 1917
The First Battle of the Scarpe, The Second and Third Battles of the Scarpe, The Battle of Langemarck, The Battle of Broodseinde, The Battle of Poelcapelle, The Battle of Cambrai.
During 1918
The Battle of Estaires, The Battle of Messines, The Battle of Hazebrouck, The Battle of Bailleul, The Action of Outtersteene Ridge, The capture of Ploegsteert and Hill 63, The Battle of Ypres, The Battle of Courtrai.
11.11.1918 Ended the war in Belgium, Moen S.E. of Courtrai.
**********************************************************************************
However, unlike other members of the Battalion, Thomas did not live past 7th May 1915.
The stories of the landings and the subsequent horrific loss of life have been well recorded in the Annals of War. British Generals who appeared to have no compunction at all in sending young men to their death, over and over and over again.
To understand the location, the Dardanelles Strait is a strip of water between two sides of Turkey. Turkey is the only continent which straddles two continents - Europe on the left and Asia on the right. The waterway is the only means of shipping for places like Russia , without the freedom of the water, the countries become "landlocked". It feeds into the Sea of Marmara.
The bridge links both continents today, and standing on the Europe Continent you can see how much shipping traffic is on the Straits heading to the right towards the Marmara Sea.
This article from the BBC.
On the ships being brought to shore.
What would they be thinking? Fear of the unknown? Apprehension? Huge adrenalin rushes?
All that and more.
Were these young boys well equipped and trained for what was nothing more than being mowen down by Turkish gunfire?
It is not too far removed from those who were unexpectedly confronted with the roar of 20,000 Zulus, here it was a roar of a different kind - that of the machine gun.
He was the son of Edward Durnford and his wife Sarah Ann Howard.
He was born in October 1894, and lived at 12 Scarsdale St Pendleton. He had two sisters and one surviving brother. His father was in the Railways.
He enlisted at Salford as a Private in the Lancashire Fussiellers, when he was 19, and he sailed with them to Gallipoli.
Thomas is our 10th cousin *2. Our lineage begins with his Richard Durnford 1580 d 1632 and his wife Alice Powle 1582 - 1635. Richard is our 10th Great Uncle, and direct great grandfather of Thomas.
The stories of the different battles in this war, become more meaningful when you realise that these soldiers are not names on a bit of stone, but part of our own ancestry.
Thomas was in the 1st/7th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers. |
| Members of the Lancashire Fusiliers |
The timeline of the Battalion:
16.03.1915 Embarked for Gallipoli via Alexandria and Mudros.
25.04.1915 Landed at Gallipoli and the Division engaged in actions at the Battles for Krithia and the Achi Baba heights on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
02.01.1916 Evacuated to Egypt due to the severe casualties from combat, disease and harsh weather.
Mar 1916 Embarked for France landing at Marseilles on the 29.03.1916 and the Division engaged in various actions on the Western Front including; The Battle of Albert, The Battle of the Transloy Ridges.
During 1917
The First Battle of the Scarpe, The Second and Third Battles of the Scarpe, The Battle of Langemarck, The Battle of Broodseinde, The Battle of Poelcapelle, The Battle of Cambrai.
During 1918
The Battle of Estaires, The Battle of Messines, The Battle of Hazebrouck, The Battle of Bailleul, The Action of Outtersteene Ridge, The capture of Ploegsteert and Hill 63, The Battle of Ypres, The Battle of Courtrai.
11.11.1918 Ended the war in Belgium, Moen S.E. of Courtrai.
**********************************************************************************
However, unlike other members of the Battalion, Thomas did not live past 7th May 1915.
The stories of the landings and the subsequent horrific loss of life have been well recorded in the Annals of War. British Generals who appeared to have no compunction at all in sending young men to their death, over and over and over again.
To understand the location, the Dardanelles Strait is a strip of water between two sides of Turkey. Turkey is the only continent which straddles two continents - Europe on the left and Asia on the right. The waterway is the only means of shipping for places like Russia , without the freedom of the water, the countries become "landlocked". It feeds into the Sea of Marmara.The bridge links both continents today, and standing on the Europe Continent you can see how much shipping traffic is on the Straits heading to the right towards the Marmara Sea.
This article from the BBC.
By 1915 the Western Front was clearly deadlocked. Allied strategy was under scrutiny, with strong arguments mounted for an offensive through the Balkans or even a landing on Germany's Baltic coast, instead of more costly attacks in France and Belgium.
These ideas were initially sidelined, but in early 1915 the Russians found themselves threatened by the Turks in the Caucasus and appealed for some relief. The British decided to mount a naval expedition to bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula on the western shore of the Dardanelles, with Constantinople as its objective.
By capturing Constantinople, the British hoped to link up with the Russians, knock Turkey out of the war and possibly persuade the Balkan states to join the Allies.
The naval attack began on 19 February. Bad weather caused delays and the attack was abandoned after three battleships had been sunk and three others damaged. Military assistance was required, but by the time troops began to land on 25 April, the Turks had had ample time to prepare adequate fortifications and the defending armies were now six times larger than when the campaign began.
Against determined opposition, Australian and New Zealand troops won a bridgehead at 'Anzac Cove' on the Aegean side of the peninsula. The British, meanwhile, tried to land at five points around Cape Helles, but established footholds in only three before asking for reinforcements. Thereafter little progress was made, and the Turks took advantage of the British halt to bring as many troops as possible onto the peninsula.
This standstill led to a political crisis in London between Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty and the operation's chief advocate, and Lord Fisher, the First Sea Lord, who had always expressed doubts about it. Fisher demanded that the operation be discontinued and resigned when overruled. The Liberal government was replaced by a coalition and Churchill, though relieved of his former post, remained in the War Council.
Amid sweltering and disease-ridden conditions, the deadlock dragged on into the summer. In July the British reinforced the bridgehead at Anzac Cove and in early August landed more troops at Suvla Bay further to the north, to seize the Sari Bair heights and cut Turkish communications. The offensive and the landings both proved ineffectual within days, faced with waves of costly counter-attacks.
The War Council remained divided until late 1915 when it was decided to end the campaign. Troops were evacuated in December 1915 and January 1916. Had Gallipoli succeeded, it could have ended Turkey's participation in the war. As it was, the Turks lost some 300,000 men and the Allies around 214,000, achieving only the diversion of Turkish forces from the Russians.
Bad leadership, planning and luck, combined with a shortage of shells and inadequate equipment, condemned the Allies to seek a conclusion in the bloody battles of the Western Front. Furthermore, Gallipoli's very public failure contributed to Asquith's replacement as Prime Minister by David Lloyd George in December 1916.
On the ships being brought to shore.
What would they be thinking? Fear of the unknown? Apprehension? Huge adrenalin rushes?
All that and more.
Were these young boys well equipped and trained for what was nothing more than being mowen down by Turkish gunfire?
It is not too far removed from those who were unexpectedly confronted with the roar of 20,000 Zulus, here it was a roar of a different kind - that of the machine gun.
THE LANDING AT 'W' BEACH
W Beach, on the other side of Cape Helles from V Beach, is about 350 yards (320 m) long and varies between 15 and 40 yards (37 m) wide. While it lacked the strong defensive structures provided by the fort and castle at V Beach, it was mined , and had extensive barbed wire entanglements including one extending for the length of the shoreline and another entanglement just under the surface of the water offshore. Trenches in high ground overlooking the beach provided good defensive positions, and the only exit was via a gully that could be easily defended.
The beach was protected by a single company of Ottoman troops, from the 3rd Battalion of the 26th Regiment; around 240 men, defending against a force of around four times their number who were taking part in the initial landing. British accounts say there was at least one machine gun, Ottoman accounts say there were none.
The 1st Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers were embarked in the cruiser HMS Eurylus and the battleship HMS Implacable which took up positions off the beach. The troops transferred to 32 cutters at around 4 am. Euryalus closed in on the beach at around 5 am whilst Implacable moved off to land troops and provide covering fire at X beach, and opened fire on the defences.The cutters were towed towards the shore in groups of four by steam pinnaces, and at around 6:15 am when they were about 50 yards (46 m) from the shore the cutters were cast off to be rowed to the shore.
As at V Beach, the defenders held their fire until the boats were almost to the shore. When they opened fire they caused horrific casualties amongst the troops tightly packed into the boats.
As the troops landed many leapt into deep water and sank under the weight of their equipment; others got caught on the barbed wire. However, unlike V Beach, the Lancashires were able to get ashore and, although suffering horrendous losses managed to break through the wire entanglements and reach the cliffs on either side of the beach where the companies were reformed before storming the defending trenches. The battalion suffered 533 casualties, over half its strength.
In his account, Corporal John Grimsaw reported that, "In boats we got within 200 or 300 yards (270 m) from the shore when the Ottomans opened a terrible fire. Sailors were shot dead at their oars. With rifles held over our heads we struggled through the barbed wire in the water to the beach and fought a way to the foot of the cliffs leaving the biggest part of our men dead and wounded."
Reinforcements started landing at 9:30 and by 10 am, the lines of trenches had been captured and the beach was secured. By 12:30 the troops had linked up with the 2 Battalion of the who had landed at X beach to the left with the capture of the defensive position called Hill 114. However it was not until 4 pm that the more heavily defended position to the right, Hill 138, was captured following heavy naval bombardment and an assault by the Worcester Regiment.
With V Beach still closed, the main force began to come ashore at W. The British commander in chief of the expedition, General Sir Ian Hamilton later ordered that the beach be renamed Lancashire Landing. In his first despatch to the Secretary of State for War he wrote "So strong, in fact, were the defences of 'W' Beach that the Ottomans may well have considered them impregnable, and it is my firm conviction that no finer feat of arms has ever been achieved by the British Soldier - or any other soldier - than the storming of these beaches from open boats on the morning of 25th April."
W Beach became the main British base at Helles for the rest of the campaign, until the evacuation on 9th January 1916. The cliffs were terraced and bunkers dug into them and the beach area itself was converted into a small port with piers built out into the sea to receive lighters from ships anchored offshore to bring in supplies and reinforcements, and to evacuate wounded troops. Lancashire Landing Cemetery is located a few hundred metres away.
At the initial landings of the Gallipoli Campaign at Cape Helles on 25 April 1915, six Victoria Crosses were awarded to 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers – 'the six VCs before breakfast'. The landing spot was later known as 'Lancashire Landing'.
Shortly afterwards, the four Territorial battalions from the regiment in 125th (Lancashire Fusiliers) Brigade landed at Helles and took part in the Second Battle of Krithia (6–8 May) under command of the 29th Division. The brigade later rejoined the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division for the Third Battle of Krithia and Battle of Krithia Vineyard.
A subsequent landing further north at Suvla Bay took place on the night of 6/7 August. The Kitchener's Army volunteers of 9th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, part of 34th Brigade of 11th (Northern) Division, waded ashore in deep water and darkness and were pinned down on the beach losing their CO and a number of officers.
A service of commemoration has been held in the regimental town, Bury, every Gallipoli Sunday, the nearest Sunday to 25 April, since 1916. It has recently been decided that this commemoration will continue despite the death of the last survivor of the Lancashire Fusiliers who was present at Gallipoli.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/1915/dec/20/mainsection.fromthearchive
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.
“On the 25th of April 1915 one of the most gallant actions in the history of the British Army took place at ‘W’ Beach at Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsular. 1000 men of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers stormed the beach under withering fire from the Turkish defenders. During the course of this action 6 Victoria Crosses were won by the Regiment. The Fusiliers took the beach but at horrendous cost. Of the first 200 men who landed only 21 survived. 600 men of the Battalion were killed or wounded. The beach was later re-named “Lancashire Landing” in honour of the Fusiliers. This action was later referred to as “6 VC’s before breakfast”.
Then the Lancashire region, called Tashi Bay (W coast)/W Beach, later known as Lancashire Landing.
Evacuating the wounded, what a terrible ordeal
Seddülbahirde, W Shiki (Lancashire Bölgesi), Gelibolu, 7 Ocak 1916, Çanakkale Muharebeleri esnasında Ingiliz kuvvetlerinin son tahliyesinden hemen öncesi. /W Beach (Lancashire Landing) at Cape Helles, Gallipoli, 7 January 1916, just prior to the final evacuation of British forces during the Battle of Gallipoli. The explosion of a Turkish shell in the water, fired from the Asian shore of the Dardanelles, can be seen.
Not all were evacuated, so many were left behind, nothing but bones, or in some cases
nothing found at all.
Cyril Richard Lydekker Death Date: 7 May 1915
Lancashire Fusiliers Battalion: 1st 7th Battalion Regimental Number: 2355 Type of Casualty Killed in action Theatre of War: Balkan Theatre Panel 58 to 72 or 218 to 219. HELLES MEMORIAL
The Lydekker family had two sons in the battle at Gallipoli. The boys are our 3rd Cousin Julia Mable Durnford's nephews. How typical would their story be? A family of very clever people, losing two sons, both in the same Regiment. Their father was an esteemed writer.
125. LYDEKKER Cyril Richard Lieutenant
5th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment
He was born at The Lodge, Harpenden, the younger son of Richard Lydekker, Esq. and Lucy his wife.
He was educated at Haileybury College. He was killed in action at Sulva, Gallipoli, on 15 August 1915, and is commemorated at the AZMAK Cemetery at Sulva.
Cyril Lydekker became a subaltern on the 14th March 1914 and was the brother of Lt Gerald Owen Lydekker, who was to become the Battalions Quartermaster in 1915. Enlisted in the 5th Battalion and gained appointment as a Lieutenant 29th August 1914.
1/5th Battalion Territorial Force
04.08.1914 Stationed at Bedford as part of the East Midland Brigade of the East Anglian Division.
Aug 1914 Moved to Romford and then Bury St. Edmunds.
May 1915 Moved to St. Albans and the formation became the 162nd Brigade of the 54th Division.
26.05.1915 Mobilised for war and embarked for Gallipoli from Plymouth via Mudros.
11.08.1915 Landed at Suvla Bay and engaged in various actions against the Turkish Army.
He was killed 15th August 1915 at Galliopoli and is buried at Azmak Cemetery, Suvla.
From the Bedfordshire Records
The annual Territorial Army summer camp of 1914 finished with emergency orders for all units to return to their bases and await further instructions. At 6.15 p.m. on Tuesday 11 August 1914 orders arrived to mobilise and the entire Battalion was 'embodied' for war service with the East Anglian Division.
Officers contacted all men in their command to report by 10am Weds Weds 12 August 1914 - men to report to Bedford by 10am. "By 9.59 a.m. they were nearly all there, together with a crowd of leave-taking wives and children. A and H Companies (Bedford) formed up and marched off to billet in The Rink, whistling and singing "Fall in and follow me". Another Bedford squad were billeted in The Swan Hotel. The 56 men of D Company (Biggleswade) quartered at Park Lane Schools, where they initially slept in the great coats on the floors. Within a week of being mobilised, the East Anglian Division was at its station in and around Chelmsford in Essex, with the Bedfords being billeted at Romford, Essex.
The soldiers were asked whether they wanted to enlist for overseas duties, with a very high percentage saying 'yes' and the '5th (Reserve) Battalion' was also raised soon afterwards. Initially the Reserve battalion was a 'Home Service' battalion for those who did not wish to serve abroad, those who were over service age or medically unfit for active duty.
The battalions first death occurred before training had really started in earnest. On Thursday 27 August 1914 Private 3388 Benjamin Headley Seabrook was guarding a Great Eastern railway bridge at Manningtree when, at 8.30 a.m. he was killed by an express train.
Despite preparations, the expected move abroad did not follow and in September they were dispersed throughout the East Anglia, to provide home defence and train hard in readiness for overseas duties. The 5th battalion were stationed at Bury St. Edmunds from September 1914. Late in 1914 the Companies forming the active service battalion were also re-organised from the pre war structure of eight Companies to four companies, called A to D. In January 1915 the 5th Battalion was designated 'The 1st/5th Battalion' and the '5th Reserve Battalion' was re-designated as the '2nd/5th Battalion', the latter serving with the '69th (2nd East Anglian) Division' in the Home Forces until disbanded in February 1918. Later that year the '3rd/5th Battalion' was also raised as a training and draft finding battalion.
In March 1915, the 1st/5th Battalion moved from Bury to Norwich and then to St. Albans in May, where specialist training was stepped up and their formation was re-designated as the 162nd (East Midland) Brigade in the 54th (East Anglian) Division. On the 25th July hot climate uniforms were issued, the battalion were ordered to hurriedly collect all stores and equipment and they set off for the south coast on a series of trains.
The battalion left Devonport on 26 July 1915, bound for 'somewhere out East' and, after a brief stop-over in Egypt, disembarked on Gallipoli, serving there between 10 August and 4 December. During their assault against the Kiretch Tepe Sirt on 15 August 1915 an observing Staff Officer observed their progress through his binoculars and saw the battalion's metal flashes glinting yellow in the sun as they doggedly advanced. He remarked "By Jove! If only we had one or two more battalions of those yellow devils we should be across the peninsular by tommorow". With that, the battalion's nickname - the 'Yellow Devils' - was born. A pitifully small number of them remained by December 1915 and they were moved back to Egypt to be rebuilt between January and March 1916, after which a year-long posting to guard the Suez Canal followed. The battalion advanced to Gaza with the British and Commonwealth forces in March 1917, taking part in all of the actions there and during the advances through Palestine that followed. By the armistice in October 1918, they were stationed at Beirut, having spent the entire campaign in that theatre of war.
On the 6th August 1915 the British and Commonwealth forces opened up a new front on the Gallipoli peninsular with the intention of breaking the deadlock that had set in at Helles and ANZAC. To that end, new landings were made in the Suvla Bay area with the idea of taking the hills surrounding the bay, attacking the Turkish Army from the rear and forcing their way to a decisive victory against their worthy enemy.
The initial landings of the 10th and 11th Divisions were fraught with bad luck, confusion and badly directed attacks, and little ground was made by the 12th August. Indeed no further ground was gained during their entire time in the peninsular, as the map below illustrates.
The height of the cliffs
Following a major but ultimately unsuccessful offensive to the North / East of the bay along the Kiretch Tepe Sirt on the 12th (during which the famous Sandringham Company of the 1/5th Norfolks were wiped out, as portrayed in the film "All The Kings Men") the Allied commanders chose to mount a final major attack along the same ridge.
On the 15th August 1915, the 30th and 31st Brigades of the 10th (Irish) Division attacked along the ridge, with the 162nd Brigade of the 54th Division moving in protective support along the vulnerable right flank of the attack.
Having landed at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli 11th August, the 3 untried Battalions of the 162nd Brigade (the 1/4th Northamptons were not on the peninsular yet) were ordered into the attack on the 15th. The map below shows the Irish Divisions movements in blue and the 162nd Brigade in purple. The Bedfords had the honour of leading the Brigade, with B Company on right, A on left, C&D in support.
The 5th Battalions War Diary recorded simply; 'Battalion paraded for attack at 12.15pm with the Brigade in connection with the 10th Division. The attack arrived through with tremendous dash - hills taken & entrenched Casualties 14 Officers and 300 men.'
That night the aftermath of battle was terrible. Private Harold Thomas of the 5th Bedfords, who was in one of the many patrols sent out that night, wrote "I remember the tremendous crash of rifle and machine-gun fire close to us and the 'thump' 'thump' of bullets and sparks flying from stones while an officer, sergeant and six of us pushed through the scrub towards the curve of a hill which showed up darkly against the night sky. Between the bursts of fire the silence was broken by agonizing cries which will always haunt me: seemingly from all about that hill there were voices crying 'Ambulance' 'Stretcher-bearers' 'Ambulance' 'Oh damn you my leg's broken' and then again 'Stretcher-bearers.'
It was horrible, we would start for a voice and it would cease and another far away would begin. That hill-side was a shambles: evidently there had been a fierce hand-to-hand fighting there a few hours ago, rifles, kits, water-bottles, khaki, Turkish tunics and headgear were strewn among the scrub. While we were following a phantom-like voice we came suddenly on a half dug trench which an RAMC officer had made into a combined mortuary and first aid station; there we set furiously to work sorting out the dead from the living; there reeled among us out of the darkness an officer raving, 'My men have taken that bloody hill but they're dying of thirst.' He passed on and we continued our ghastly work."
As on Kidney Hill, attempts were made to recover the wounded left on the ground by the Irish on the Kiretch Tepe Ridge. "Second-Lieutenant Lyndon spent much of the night rescuing them in the depth of Turkish lines, to earn the first of two MCs he would gain during the war. In later years he was to say that he only got the awards 'because there was nobody else left alive to receive them'."
W Beach, on the other side of Cape Helles from V Beach, is about 350 yards (320 m) long and varies between 15 and 40 yards (37 m) wide. While it lacked the strong defensive structures provided by the fort and castle at V Beach, it was mined , and had extensive barbed wire entanglements including one extending for the length of the shoreline and another entanglement just under the surface of the water offshore. Trenches in high ground overlooking the beach provided good defensive positions, and the only exit was via a gully that could be easily defended.The beach was protected by a single company of Ottoman troops, from the 3rd Battalion of the 26th Regiment; around 240 men, defending against a force of around four times their number who were taking part in the initial landing. British accounts say there was at least one machine gun, Ottoman accounts say there were none.
The 1st Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers were embarked in the cruiser HMS Eurylus and the battleship HMS Implacable which took up positions off the beach. The troops transferred to 32 cutters at around 4 am. Euryalus closed in on the beach at around 5 am whilst Implacable moved off to land troops and provide covering fire at X beach, and opened fire on the defences.The cutters were towed towards the shore in groups of four by steam pinnaces, and at around 6:15 am when they were about 50 yards (46 m) from the shore the cutters were cast off to be rowed to the shore.
As at V Beach, the defenders held their fire until the boats were almost to the shore. When they opened fire they caused horrific casualties amongst the troops tightly packed into the boats.
As the troops landed many leapt into deep water and sank under the weight of their equipment; others got caught on the barbed wire. However, unlike V Beach, the Lancashires were able to get ashore and, although suffering horrendous losses managed to break through the wire entanglements and reach the cliffs on either side of the beach where the companies were reformed before storming the defending trenches. The battalion suffered 533 casualties, over half its strength.
In his account, Corporal John Grimsaw reported that, "In boats we got within 200 or 300 yards (270 m) from the shore when the Ottomans opened a terrible fire. Sailors were shot dead at their oars. With rifles held over our heads we struggled through the barbed wire in the water to the beach and fought a way to the foot of the cliffs leaving the biggest part of our men dead and wounded."
Reinforcements started landing at 9:30 and by 10 am, the lines of trenches had been captured and the beach was secured. By 12:30 the troops had linked up with the 2 Battalion of the who had landed at X beach to the left with the capture of the defensive position called Hill 114. However it was not until 4 pm that the more heavily defended position to the right, Hill 138, was captured following heavy naval bombardment and an assault by the Worcester Regiment.
With V Beach still closed, the main force began to come ashore at W. The British commander in chief of the expedition, General Sir Ian Hamilton later ordered that the beach be renamed Lancashire Landing. In his first despatch to the Secretary of State for War he wrote "So strong, in fact, were the defences of 'W' Beach that the Ottomans may well have considered them impregnable, and it is my firm conviction that no finer feat of arms has ever been achieved by the British Soldier - or any other soldier - than the storming of these beaches from open boats on the morning of 25th April."
W Beach became the main British base at Helles for the rest of the campaign, until the evacuation on 9th January 1916. The cliffs were terraced and bunkers dug into them and the beach area itself was converted into a small port with piers built out into the sea to receive lighters from ships anchored offshore to bring in supplies and reinforcements, and to evacuate wounded troops. Lancashire Landing Cemetery is located a few hundred metres away.
As the troops landed many leapt into deep water and sank under the weight of their equipment; others got caught on the barbed wire. However, unlike V Beach, the Lancashires were able to get ashore and, although suffering horrendous losses managed to break through the wire entanglements and reach the cliffs on either side of the beach where the companies were reformed before storming the defending trenches. The battalion suffered 533 casualties, over half its strength.
In his account, Corporal John Grimsaw reported that, "In boats we got within 200 or 300 yards (270 m) from the shore when the Ottomans opened a terrible fire. Sailors were shot dead at their oars. With rifles held over our heads we struggled through the barbed wire in the water to the beach and fought a way to the foot of the cliffs leaving the biggest part of our men dead and wounded."
Reinforcements started landing at 9:30 and by 10 am, the lines of trenches had been captured and the beach was secured. By 12:30 the troops had linked up with the 2 Battalion of the who had landed at X beach to the left with the capture of the defensive position called Hill 114. However it was not until 4 pm that the more heavily defended position to the right, Hill 138, was captured following heavy naval bombardment and an assault by the Worcester Regiment.
With V Beach still closed, the main force began to come ashore at W. The British commander in chief of the expedition, General Sir Ian Hamilton later ordered that the beach be renamed Lancashire Landing. In his first despatch to the Secretary of State for War he wrote "So strong, in fact, were the defences of 'W' Beach that the Ottomans may well have considered them impregnable, and it is my firm conviction that no finer feat of arms has ever been achieved by the British Soldier - or any other soldier - than the storming of these beaches from open boats on the morning of 25th April."
W Beach became the main British base at Helles for the rest of the campaign, until the evacuation on 9th January 1916. The cliffs were terraced and bunkers dug into them and the beach area itself was converted into a small port with piers built out into the sea to receive lighters from ships anchored offshore to bring in supplies and reinforcements, and to evacuate wounded troops. Lancashire Landing Cemetery is located a few hundred metres away.
At the initial landings of the Gallipoli Campaign at Cape Helles on 25 April 1915, six Victoria Crosses were awarded to 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers – 'the six VCs before breakfast'. The landing spot was later known as 'Lancashire Landing'.Shortly afterwards, the four Territorial battalions from the regiment in 125th (Lancashire Fusiliers) Brigade landed at Helles and took part in the Second Battle of Krithia (6–8 May) under command of the 29th Division. The brigade later rejoined the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division for the Third Battle of Krithia and Battle of Krithia Vineyard.
A subsequent landing further north at Suvla Bay took place on the night of 6/7 August. The Kitchener's Army volunteers of 9th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, part of 34th Brigade of 11th (Northern) Division, waded ashore in deep water and darkness and were pinned down on the beach losing their CO and a number of officers.
A service of commemoration has been held in the regimental town, Bury, every Gallipoli Sunday, the nearest Sunday to 25 April, since 1916. It has recently been decided that this commemoration will continue despite the death of the last survivor of the Lancashire Fusiliers who was present at Gallipoli.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/1915/dec/20/mainsection.fromthearchive
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 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.
“On the 25th of April 1915 one of the most gallant actions in the history of the British Army took place at ‘W’ Beach at Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsular. 1000 men of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers stormed the beach under withering fire from the Turkish defenders. During the course of this action 6 Victoria Crosses were won by the Regiment. The Fusiliers took the beach but at horrendous cost. Of the first 200 men who landed only 21 survived. 600 men of the Battalion were killed or wounded. The beach was later re-named “Lancashire Landing” in honour of the Fusiliers. This action was later referred to as “6 VC’s before breakfast”.
Then the Lancashire region, called Tashi Bay (W coast)/W Beach, later known as Lancashire Landing.
Evacuating the wounded, what a terrible ordeal
Seddülbahirde, W Shiki (Lancashire Bölgesi), Gelibolu, 7 Ocak 1916, Çanakkale Muharebeleri esnasında Ingiliz kuvvetlerinin son tahliyesinden hemen öncesi. /W Beach (Lancashire Landing) at Cape Helles, Gallipoli, 7 January 1916, just prior to the final evacuation of British forces during the Battle of Gallipoli. The explosion of a Turkish shell in the water, fired from the Asian shore of the Dardanelles, can be seen.
Not all were evacuated, so many were left behind, nothing but bones, or in some cases
nothing found at all.
Cyril Richard Lydekker Death Date: 7 May 1915
Lancashire Fusiliers Battalion: 1st 7th Battalion Regimental Number: 2355 Type of Casualty Killed in action Theatre of War: Balkan Theatre Panel 58 to 72 or 218 to 219. HELLES MEMORIAL
The Lydekker family had two sons in the battle at Gallipoli. The boys are our 3rd Cousin Julia Mable Durnford's nephews. How typical would their story be? A family of very clever people, losing two sons, both in the same Regiment. Their father was an esteemed writer.
Cyril Lydekker became a subaltern on the 14th March 1914 and was the brother of Lt Gerald Owen Lydekker, who was to become the Battalions Quartermaster in 1915. Enlisted in the 5th Battalion and gained appointment as a Lieutenant 29th August 1914.
1/5th Battalion Territorial Force
The height of the cliffs
The Lydekker family had two sons in the battle at Gallipoli. The boys are our 3rd Cousin Julia Mable Durnford's nephews. How typical would their story be? A family of very clever people, losing two sons, both in the same Regiment. Their father was an esteemed writer.
125. LYDEKKER Cyril Richard Lieutenant
5th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment
5th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment
He was born at The Lodge, Harpenden, the younger son of Richard Lydekker, Esq. and Lucy his wife.
He was educated at Haileybury College. He was killed in action at Sulva, Gallipoli, on 15 August 1915, and is commemorated at the AZMAK Cemetery at Sulva.
1/5th Battalion Territorial Force
04.08.1914 Stationed at Bedford as part of the East Midland Brigade of the East Anglian Division.
Aug 1914 Moved to Romford and then Bury St. Edmunds.
May 1915 Moved to St. Albans and the formation became the 162nd Brigade of the 54th Division.
26.05.1915 Mobilised for war and embarked for Gallipoli from Plymouth via Mudros.
11.08.1915 Landed at Suvla Bay and engaged in various actions against the Turkish Army.
He was killed 15th August 1915 at Galliopoli and is buried at Azmak Cemetery, Suvla.
From the Bedfordshire Records
The annual Territorial Army summer camp of 1914 finished with emergency orders for all units to return to their bases and await further instructions. At 6.15 p.m. on Tuesday 11 August 1914 orders arrived to mobilise and the entire Battalion was 'embodied' for war service with the East Anglian Division.
Officers contacted all men in their command to report by 10am Weds Weds 12 August 1914 - men to report to Bedford by 10am. "By 9.59 a.m. they were nearly all there, together with a crowd of leave-taking wives and children. A and H Companies (Bedford) formed up and marched off to billet in The Rink, whistling and singing "Fall in and follow me". Another Bedford squad were billeted in The Swan Hotel. The 56 men of D Company (Biggleswade) quartered at Park Lane Schools, where they initially slept in the great coats on the floors. Within a week of being mobilised, the East Anglian Division was at its station in and around Chelmsford in Essex, with the Bedfords being billeted at Romford, Essex.
The soldiers were asked whether they wanted to enlist for overseas duties, with a very high percentage saying 'yes' and the '5th (Reserve) Battalion' was also raised soon afterwards. Initially the Reserve battalion was a 'Home Service' battalion for those who did not wish to serve abroad, those who were over service age or medically unfit for active duty.
The battalions first death occurred before training had really started in earnest. On Thursday 27 August 1914 Private 3388 Benjamin Headley Seabrook was guarding a Great Eastern railway bridge at Manningtree when, at 8.30 a.m. he was killed by an express train.
Despite preparations, the expected move abroad did not follow and in September they were dispersed throughout the East Anglia, to provide home defence and train hard in readiness for overseas duties. The 5th battalion were stationed at Bury St. Edmunds from September 1914. Late in 1914 the Companies forming the active service battalion were also re-organised from the pre war structure of eight Companies to four companies, called A to D. In January 1915 the 5th Battalion was designated 'The 1st/5th Battalion' and the '5th Reserve Battalion' was re-designated as the '2nd/5th Battalion', the latter serving with the '69th (2nd East Anglian) Division' in the Home Forces until disbanded in February 1918. Later that year the '3rd/5th Battalion' was also raised as a training and draft finding battalion.
In March 1915, the 1st/5th Battalion moved from Bury to Norwich and then to St. Albans in May, where specialist training was stepped up and their formation was re-designated as the 162nd (East Midland) Brigade in the 54th (East Anglian) Division. On the 25th July hot climate uniforms were issued, the battalion were ordered to hurriedly collect all stores and equipment and they set off for the south coast on a series of trains.
The battalion left Devonport on 26 July 1915, bound for 'somewhere out East' and, after a brief stop-over in Egypt, disembarked on Gallipoli, serving there between 10 August and 4 December. During their assault against the Kiretch Tepe Sirt on 15 August 1915 an observing Staff Officer observed their progress through his binoculars and saw the battalion's metal flashes glinting yellow in the sun as they doggedly advanced. He remarked "By Jove! If only we had one or two more battalions of those yellow devils we should be across the peninsular by tommorow". With that, the battalion's nickname - the 'Yellow Devils' - was born. A pitifully small number of them remained by December 1915 and they were moved back to Egypt to be rebuilt between January and March 1916, after which a year-long posting to guard the Suez Canal followed. The battalion advanced to Gaza with the British and Commonwealth forces in March 1917, taking part in all of the actions there and during the advances through Palestine that followed. By the armistice in October 1918, they were stationed at Beirut, having spent the entire campaign in that theatre of war.
On the 6th August 1915 the British and Commonwealth forces opened up a new front on the Gallipoli peninsular with the intention of breaking the deadlock that had set in at Helles and ANZAC. To that end, new landings were made in the Suvla Bay area with the idea of taking the hills surrounding the bay, attacking the Turkish Army from the rear and forcing their way to a decisive victory against their worthy enemy.
The initial landings of the 10th and 11th Divisions were fraught with bad luck, confusion and badly directed attacks, and little ground was made by the 12th August. Indeed no further ground was gained during their entire time in the peninsular, as the map below illustrates.
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The height of the cliffs
Following a major but ultimately unsuccessful offensive to the North / East of the bay along the Kiretch Tepe Sirt on the 12th (during which the famous Sandringham Company of the 1/5th Norfolks were wiped out, as portrayed in the film "All The Kings Men") the Allied commanders chose to mount a final major attack along the same ridge.
On the 15th August 1915, the 30th and 31st Brigades of the 10th (Irish) Division attacked along the ridge, with the 162nd Brigade of the 54th Division moving in protective support along the vulnerable right flank of the attack.
Having landed at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli 11th August, the 3 untried Battalions of the 162nd Brigade (the 1/4th Northamptons were not on the peninsular yet) were ordered into the attack on the 15th. The map below shows the Irish Divisions movements in blue and the 162nd Brigade in purple. The Bedfords had the honour of leading the Brigade, with B Company on right, A on left, C&D in support.
The 5th Battalions War Diary recorded simply; 'Battalion paraded for attack at 12.15pm with the Brigade in connection with the 10th Division. The attack arrived through with tremendous dash - hills taken & entrenched Casualties 14 Officers and 300 men.'
That night the aftermath of battle was terrible. Private Harold Thomas of the 5th Bedfords, who was in one of the many patrols sent out that night, wrote "I remember the tremendous crash of rifle and machine-gun fire close to us and the 'thump' 'thump' of bullets and sparks flying from stones while an officer, sergeant and six of us pushed through the scrub towards the curve of a hill which showed up darkly against the night sky. Between the bursts of fire the silence was broken by agonizing cries which will always haunt me: seemingly from all about that hill there were voices crying 'Ambulance' 'Stretcher-bearers' 'Ambulance' 'Oh damn you my leg's broken' and then again 'Stretcher-bearers.'
It was horrible, we would start for a voice and it would cease and another far away would begin. That hill-side was a shambles: evidently there had been a fierce hand-to-hand fighting there a few hours ago, rifles, kits, water-bottles, khaki, Turkish tunics and headgear were strewn among the scrub. While we were following a phantom-like voice we came suddenly on a half dug trench which an RAMC officer had made into a combined mortuary and first aid station; there we set furiously to work sorting out the dead from the living; there reeled among us out of the darkness an officer raving, 'My men have taken that bloody hill but they're dying of thirst.' He passed on and we continued our ghastly work."
It was horrible, we would start for a voice and it would cease and another far away would begin. That hill-side was a shambles: evidently there had been a fierce hand-to-hand fighting there a few hours ago, rifles, kits, water-bottles, khaki, Turkish tunics and headgear were strewn among the scrub. While we were following a phantom-like voice we came suddenly on a half dug trench which an RAMC officer had made into a combined mortuary and first aid station; there we set furiously to work sorting out the dead from the living; there reeled among us out of the darkness an officer raving, 'My men have taken that bloody hill but they're dying of thirst.' He passed on and we continued our ghastly work."
As on Kidney Hill, attempts were made to recover the wounded left on the ground by the Irish on the Kiretch Tepe Ridge. "Second-Lieutenant Lyndon spent much of the night rescuing them in the depth of Turkish lines, to earn the first of two MCs he would gain during the war. In later years he was to say that he only got the awards 'because there was nobody else left alive to receive them'."
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The 2nd Objective; Kidney Hill
As soon as the Bedfords left their trenches to form up for the second advance, they came under heavy fire. It was so bad that one company of the Bedfords (likely to be B Company) recorded that it was "led from the outset by a Private" as all Officers and NCO's became casualties "in the opening minutes of the (2nd) attack". An eyewitness from the 8th Hampshire Battalion positioned high above on the Kiretch Tepe Ridge wrote that the 5th Bedfords had to advance across a mile of open ground and were subject to heavy fire all the way with "one unfortunate soldier having an arm carried away by a shell which did not burst for another 50 yards". Watching the advance from their position "caused one company of the 8th Hampshires to refuse to move, and they were sent to the beach."
(Source; Prof Tim Travers "Gallipoli 1915" pp160)
Private Horace Manton of the 5th Bedfords wrote; 'We'd got no cover at all. One of the lieutenants was going aside of me. We were in open formation. He got shot while we were going up the hill, I said: "Do you need any help Sir?" He said: "No, carry on, don't break the line." Our commanding officer, Colonel Brighten, got through alright. He gave us the name of the Yellow Devils. We got to the top and then we got blasted by shrapnel. I saw my cousin get killed in front of me. He was crying when he got shot. It killed him anyhow; he was only sixteen. How I missed it I don't know, shrapnel was flying all the time.'" Horace Manton survived both the charge and the war.
The Brigade advanced along the broken southern slopes of the ridge towards Kidney Hill with "all the enthusiasm of inexperienced troops" and paid heavily for it. Brigadier-General de Winton (the 162nd Brigade's commander) placed himself at the head of the Bedfords and spurred them on until he was wounded himself.
Direction was soon lost due to the difficult nature of the terrain and Major JE Hill and the Adjutant Captain Harold Younghusband "performed prodigies" by moving from place to place and re-establishing contact between the separated units of the Battalion.
The Headquarters section were shelled constantly and few survived unscathed. Lt FS Shoosmith's machine Gun section was left with only one man and Major Hill, fearing that the machine guns would be knocked out completely - as Shoosmith was the only officer with knowledge on their use - dashed through the severe shrapnel and rifle fire to seek advice. The incredible Lt Shoosmith cheerily replied "oh, you just pull this and press that. It's quite simple", all the time continuously firing at the Turkish positions "as if nothing was doing".
Following the dreadful advance through difficult terrain, under constant shrapnel, enfilading machine gun, rifle and sniper fire, having already lost many of their friends and with their nerves in shreds, the furious men were finally given the order to charge …
"It was a great and glorious charge, but the position was won at terrible cost. The whole advance had been made with bayonets fixed and when the final stage was reached and the order to charge rang out the men dashed to the attack. There was no stopping these unblooded British Troops. London, Essex and Bedford Territorials charged together, but the Bedford men outstripped the Regiments on right and left and dashed into the lead, causing the line to form a crescent and sweeping everything before them. Turks went down before cold steel in hundreds, and those who were not killed turned and fled."
Making camp 18th August 1915
The Turkish Guns
object description: Panoramic view of Ocean Beach, north of Ari Burnu and Anzac Cove, looking towards Suvla Bay. In the foreground is No 1 Australian Stationary Hospital, in the centre are the Ordnance and Supply Stores, and in the distance No 13 Casualty Clearing Station.;
The view taken in August 2010 from a Turkish trench (in the foreground lined with rocks), looking towards the scrub covered slopes over which the Bedfords advanced
The evacuation.
Bedfordshire Memorial
Cyril Richard Lydekker
Cyril Lydekker became a subaltern on the 14th March 1914 and was the brother of Lt Gerald Owen Lydekker, who was to become the Battalions Quartermaster in 1915.
Cyril was from Harpenden and was killed on the 15th August 1915, aged 25, during the second assault on Kidney Hill itself. He was the son of the late Richard Lydekker, F.R.S. and Lucy Marianne Lydekker, of Harpenden Lodge, Harpenden, Herts.
Cyril had been educated at Haileybury College, and is buried at Azmak Cemetery, Suvla.
His elder brother, Gerard Lydekker died on the 14th June 1917, also in the 5th Battalion
Cyril was a Bank Clerk before enlisting. He was born 8th November 1889 and the family lived in London
The Unit moves to Egypt
After Gallipoli they left to go to Egypt and were in the following campaigns.
The 1st Battle of Gaza, Palestine in March 1917.
The 2nd Battle of Gaza, Palestine in April 1917.
Raids against Umbrella Hill, opposite Gaza in July 1917.
3rd Battle of Gaza, Palestine in November 1917.
Defensive actions during November and December 1917.
Operations in the Jordan Valley, February to May 1918.
Battle at Megiddo, Palestine in September 1918.
The battalion were disembodied in June 1919 whilst stationed at Beirut and reformed in February 1920 at Bedford, as a part time, Territorial battalion again.
According to Captain Webster's 1935 history of the battalion, 26 officers and 750 ranks left England in July 1915, with 231 officers and 4,939 ranks reinforcing the battalion during the war. 17 officers and 202 ranks were killed, 29 officers and 660 ranks were wounded in action, with 1 officer and 10 ranks being taken prisoner. Sickness accounted for the largest percentage of casualties by far, totalling 116 officers and 4,125 ranks.
The First Battle of Gaza was fought on 26 March 1917 during the first attempt by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) to invade the south of Palestine in the Ottoman Empire during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. Fighting took place in and around the town of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast when infantry and mounted infantry from the Desert Column, a component of the Eastern Force, attacked the town. Late in the afternoon, on the verge of capturing Gaza, the Desert Column was withdrawn due to concerns about the approaching darkness and large Ottoman reinforcements. This British defeat was followed a few weeks later by the even more emphatic defeat of the Eastern Force at the Second Battle of Gaza in April 1917.
Unloading Stores
British Troops on the March in Egypt 1916
Lieutenant & Quartermaster Gerard Owen LYDEKKER
Gerard was the son of the late Richard Lydekker, F.R.S. and Lucy Marianne Lydekker (nee Davys). He was born at Harpenden, Herts, educated at Haileybury College, and is buried in the Alexandria (Hadra) War Memorial Cemetery.
Lt Gerard Lydekker became the Battalions Quartermaster before they sailed for Gallipoli and served with them until his death in 1917.
Lt Gerard Lydekker died on the 14th June 1917, aged 29 from Myasthenia Gravis at No. 17 Central Hospital in Alexandria and is buried in the Hadra Military Cemetery.
Richard Lydekker (25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was an English naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history
Richard Lydekker was born at Tavistock Square in London. His father was Gerard Wolfe Lydekker, a barrister-at-law with Dutch ancestry. The family moved to Harpenden Lodge soon after Richard's birth.and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a first-class in the Natural Science tripos (1872)
In 1874 he joined the Geological Survey of India and made studies of the vertebrate palaeontology of northern India (especially Kashmir). He remained in this post until the death of his father in 1881. His main work in India was on the Siwalik palaeofauna; it was published in Palaeontologia Indica. He was responsible for the cataloguing of the fossil mammals, reptiles and birds in the Natural History Museum (10 vols., 1891).
He was influential in the science of biogeography. In 1895 he delineated the biogeographical boundary through Indonesia, known as Lydekker's Line, that separates Wallacea on the west from Australia-New Guinea on the east.
Lydekker attracted amused public attention with a pair of letters to The Times in 1913, when he wrote on 6 February that he had heard a cuckoo, contrary to Yarrell's History of British Birds which doubted the bird arrived before April. Six days later on 12 February 1913, he wrote again, confessing that "the note was uttered by a bricklayer's labourer". Letters about the first cuckoo became a tradition in the newspaper.
He received the Lyell Medal from the Geological Society of London in 1902.
He wrote:
Catalogue of the Fossil Mammalia in the British Museum (Natural History), 5 vols. (1885-1887)
A Manual of Palaeontology (with Henry Alleyne Nicholson, 2 vols., 1889)
Phases of Animal Life (1892)
The Royal Natural History[7] (with W. H. Flower], 6 vols., 12 sec. (1893-1896)
A Hand-book to the Marsupialia and Monotremata (1894)
Life and Rock: A Collection of Zooogical and Geological Essays (1894)
A Geographical History of Mammals (1896)
A Hand-book to the British Mammalia (1896)
A Handbook to the Carnivora : part 1 : cats, civets, and mongooses (1896)
The Deer of all Lands : A history of the family Cervidae, living and extinct (1898)
Wild Oxen, Sheep & Goats of all Lands, Living and Extinct (1898)
The Wild Animals of India, Burma, Malaya, and Tibet (1900)
The great and small game of Europe, western & northern Asia and America (1901)
The New Natural History 6 vols. (1901)
Living Races of Mankind: : A popular illustrated account of the customs, habits, pursuits, feasts, and ceremonies of the races of mankind throughout the world, 2 vols. (1902), [1] & [2] with Henry Neville Hutchinson and John Walter Gregory
Mostly Mammals: Zoological Essays (1903)
Guide to the Gallery of Reptilia and Amphibia in the British museum (1906)
Sir William Flower (1906)
The Game Animals of India, Burma, Malaya, and Tibet (rev. ed.) (1907)
Guide to the Great Game Animals (Ungulata) in British Museum (1907)
Guide to the Specimens of the Horse Family (Equidæ) in British Museum (1907)
The Game Animals of Africa (1908)
A Guide to the Domesticated Animals (other than horses) (1908)
Guide to the Whales, Porpoises, and Dolphins (order Cetacea) (1909)
A number of articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911
Animal Portraiture (1912) [3]
The Horse and its Relatives (1912)
The Sheep and its Cousins (1912)
Catalogue of the heads and horns of Indian big game bequeathed by A. O. Hume ... to the British Museum (Natural History) (1913)
Catalogue of the ungulate mammals in the British Museum (Natural History) 5 vols. (1913-1916)
Wild life of the World : a descriptive survey of the geographical distribution of animals 3 vols. (1916)
Source:wikipedia
Some information on the boy's grandfather.
Gerard Wolfe Lydekker, who bought Harpenden Lodge in 1857, was born in Rochester in 1811. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge and graduated MA in 1836. He was called to the Bar in 1841, joined the Home Circuit, and practised at the Hertford and St. Albans Sessions. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire and was for a time Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for West Hertfordshire.
He married Margaret Martha Peake in 1848 and they lived in Tavistock Square, London. He bought Harpenden Lodge from the Hadden family in 1857 and came, at the age of 46, to live in Harpenden with a wife seven years younger and three young sons; Richard 8, John 7 and Arthur 4. Edgar, the fourth son was the first to be born (1863) in Harpenden.
The three younger boys grew up, married, and left home. Richard, the eldest, graduated in 1871 and in 1874 went to India working for the Geological Survey of India. His father died in 1881 a couple of months before the census. Present in the Lodge on census night were Martha, her sons John, a Barrister-at-law, (30 and not married at this time), and Edgar, 17, described as a private pupil, two visitors, Henry Oakley, 17, also a private pupil, a friend of Edgar’s, and Mary Bedford, 25, described as of private means. There was a staff of 6: a footman, a lady’s maid, a cook, a housemaid, a kitchen maid and a coachman.
http://www.harpenden-history.org.uk/page_id__330.aspx
Richard was in India at the time of his father's death. He returned home to the Lodge in 1882 and took up his position as head of the family. Shortly afterwards he married Lucy Davys, the elder daughter of the Rector of Wheathampstead. They had five children, Helen, born in 1883, Beatrice in 1884, Hilda in 1886, Gerard in 1887 and Cyril in 1889. His mother (Martha) died in 1897.
Beatrice's wedding and her sisters Hilda and Helen. The girls did not marry.
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How fitting that a Lancashire man wrote the very words that are still said today.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon wrote one of the best known and most frequently recited verses of the First World War. Across the world, and particularly the Commonwealth, the central stanza of his poem For the Fallen is regularly used to proclaim and affirm the resolve of nations and communities neither to forget nor overlook the effort and sacrifice of the First World War generation, as well as their successors in later wars and conflicts.
Yet few remember who wrote the words. The poem’s smooth, rhythmic flow and formal, elegant language, embody the profound sense of respect, admiration and grief that hangs over modern acts of collective remembrance. Yet the poem was not written by a soldier who had seen action but by a civilian less than a month after the start of the fighting.
Born in Lancaster in 1869, Laurence Binyon was keeper of oriental prints and drawings at the British Museum when the First World War began in August 1914. He was an established and well-respected scholar, poet and author.
Aged 45, Binyon was too old to enlist, but in 1915 he volunteered as an orderly with the French hospital services, a task he undertook again the following year as the casualties rolled in from Verdun.
After the war, Binyon continued at the British Museum until his retirement in 1933. He was appointed professor of poetry and literature first at Havard and then Athens and died following an operation in 1943.
FOR THE FALLEN
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
For the Fallen was written early in September 1914 as news began to filter through of the fighting at Mons and the retreat that followed. The same news provided a dynamic spur to Lord Kitchener’s recruiting drive, with 33,000 men enlisting on September 3 alone. Compared to casualty levels after the Somme, British losses in 1914 were relatively small but still a shock. What is remarkable about Binyon’s poem is that it anticipates those much higher, later losses and lays down a consolatory framework for understanding them.
On his 70th birthday in August 1939, Laurence Binyon explained that the idea for his most famous poem came to him on a clifftop at Polzeath in Cornwall: ‘‘The stanza ‘They Shall Grow Not Old’ was written first and dictated the rhythmical movement of the whole poem.’’ The words of these four crucial lines beat sonorously in monosyllables, echoing the solemn, funereal drums of the second stanza. It is this sombre, repetitive rhythm that invests the fourth stanza with such enduring power when read aloud in public.
In his references to youth and not growing old, Binyon anticipates the sentiments evoked only a few weeks later by Rupert Brooke in his famous sonnets and particularly Peace. To drive home this point, Binyon also includes a subtle Shakespearean reference. When Enobarbus returns to Rome in Antony and Cleopatra he evokes with some excitement Cleopatra’s eternal youth and beauty: ‘‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety’’. The subliminal cadences of Shakespeare add further to the power of Binyon’s lines.
Binyon’s poem was first published in The Times on September 21, 1914. Its measured, elegiac tone resonated with increasing power as the war evolved. The closing image of stars sparkling in the infinity of the heavens offered consolation and hope to those whose husbands, sons, brothers and friends were dying in increasing numbers. As a traditional ode, formal and dignified, the whole poem had spiritual depth and meaning.
But its central stanza in particular meant, and continues to mean 100 years on, that everyone, through the line that stands at its heart, could together sound aloud their determination that ‘‘We will remember them’’.
We will remember them: Binyon's poem 'For the Fallen' is a poignant elegy for the dead of several wars Photo: Fotolia
Commentary by Nigel Steel The Telegraph Newspaper London
Principal historian for IWM’s First World War Centenary Programme
30 Jul 2014
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All the battle locations
Some reminders of Gallipoli from the Turks themselves, they have produced some excellent photographs to share!
Some days were freezing
As soon as the Bedfords left their trenches to form up for the second advance, they came under heavy fire. It was so bad that one company of the Bedfords (likely to be B Company) recorded that it was "led from the outset by a Private" as all Officers and NCO's became casualties "in the opening minutes of the (2nd) attack". An eyewitness from the 8th Hampshire Battalion positioned high above on the Kiretch Tepe Ridge wrote that the 5th Bedfords had to advance across a mile of open ground and were subject to heavy fire all the way with "one unfortunate soldier having an arm carried away by a shell which did not burst for another 50 yards". Watching the advance from their position "caused one company of the 8th Hampshires to refuse to move, and they were sent to the beach."
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Private Horace Manton of the 5th Bedfords wrote; 'We'd got no cover at all. One of the lieutenants was going aside of me. We were in open formation. He got shot while we were going up the hill, I said: "Do you need any help Sir?" He said: "No, carry on, don't break the line." Our commanding officer, Colonel Brighten, got through alright. He gave us the name of the Yellow Devils. We got to the top and then we got blasted by shrapnel. I saw my cousin get killed in front of me. He was crying when he got shot. It killed him anyhow; he was only sixteen. How I missed it I don't know, shrapnel was flying all the time.'" Horace Manton survived both the charge and the war.
The Brigade advanced along the broken southern slopes of the ridge towards Kidney Hill with "all the enthusiasm of inexperienced troops" and paid heavily for it. Brigadier-General de Winton (the 162nd Brigade's commander) placed himself at the head of the Bedfords and spurred them on until he was wounded himself.
Direction was soon lost due to the difficult nature of the terrain and Major JE Hill and the Adjutant Captain Harold Younghusband "performed prodigies" by moving from place to place and re-establishing contact between the separated units of the Battalion.
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Following the dreadful advance through difficult terrain, under constant shrapnel, enfilading machine gun, rifle and sniper fire, having already lost many of their friends and with their nerves in shreds, the furious men were finally given the order to charge …
"It was a great and glorious charge, but the position was won at terrible cost. The whole advance had been made with bayonets fixed and when the final stage was reached and the order to charge rang out the men dashed to the attack. There was no stopping these unblooded British Troops. London, Essex and Bedford Territorials charged together, but the Bedford men outstripped the Regiments on right and left and dashed into the lead, causing the line to form a crescent and sweeping everything before them. Turks went down before cold steel in hundreds, and those who were not killed turned and fled."
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| Making camp 18th August 1915 |
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| The Turkish Guns |
object description: Panoramic view of Ocean Beach, north of Ari Burnu and Anzac Cove, looking towards Suvla Bay. In the foreground is No 1 Australian Stationary Hospital, in the centre are the Ordnance and Supply Stores, and in the distance No 13 Casualty Clearing Station.;
The view taken in August 2010 from a Turkish trench (in the foreground lined with rocks), looking towards the scrub covered slopes over which the Bedfords advanced
The evacuation.
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| Bedfordshire Memorial |
Cyril Richard Lydekker
Cyril Lydekker became a subaltern on the 14th March 1914 and was the brother of Lt Gerald Owen Lydekker, who was to become the Battalions Quartermaster in 1915.
Cyril was from Harpenden and was killed on the 15th August 1915, aged 25, during the second assault on Kidney Hill itself. He was the son of the late Richard Lydekker, F.R.S. and Lucy Marianne Lydekker, of Harpenden Lodge, Harpenden, Herts.
Cyril had been educated at Haileybury College, and is buried at Azmak Cemetery, Suvla.
His elder brother, Gerard Lydekker died on the 14th June 1917, also in the 5th Battalion
Cyril was a Bank Clerk before enlisting. He was born 8th November 1889 and the family lived in LondonThe Unit moves to Egypt
After Gallipoli they left to go to Egypt and were in the following campaigns.
The 1st Battle of Gaza, Palestine in March 1917.
The 2nd Battle of Gaza, Palestine in April 1917.
Raids against Umbrella Hill, opposite Gaza in July 1917.
3rd Battle of Gaza, Palestine in November 1917.
Defensive actions during November and December 1917.
Operations in the Jordan Valley, February to May 1918.
Battle at Megiddo, Palestine in September 1918.
The battalion were disembodied in June 1919 whilst stationed at Beirut and reformed in February 1920 at Bedford, as a part time, Territorial battalion again.
According to Captain Webster's 1935 history of the battalion, 26 officers and 750 ranks left England in July 1915, with 231 officers and 4,939 ranks reinforcing the battalion during the war. 17 officers and 202 ranks were killed, 29 officers and 660 ranks were wounded in action, with 1 officer and 10 ranks being taken prisoner. Sickness accounted for the largest percentage of casualties by far, totalling 116 officers and 4,125 ranks.
The First Battle of Gaza was fought on 26 March 1917 during the first attempt by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) to invade the south of Palestine in the Ottoman Empire during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. Fighting took place in and around the town of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast when infantry and mounted infantry from the Desert Column, a component of the Eastern Force, attacked the town. Late in the afternoon, on the verge of capturing Gaza, the Desert Column was withdrawn due to concerns about the approaching darkness and large Ottoman reinforcements. This British defeat was followed a few weeks later by the even more emphatic defeat of the Eastern Force at the Second Battle of Gaza in April 1917.
The 1st Battle of Gaza, Palestine in March 1917.
The 2nd Battle of Gaza, Palestine in April 1917.
Raids against Umbrella Hill, opposite Gaza in July 1917.
3rd Battle of Gaza, Palestine in November 1917.
Defensive actions during November and December 1917.
Operations in the Jordan Valley, February to May 1918.
Battle at Megiddo, Palestine in September 1918.
The battalion were disembodied in June 1919 whilst stationed at Beirut and reformed in February 1920 at Bedford, as a part time, Territorial battalion again.
According to Captain Webster's 1935 history of the battalion, 26 officers and 750 ranks left England in July 1915, with 231 officers and 4,939 ranks reinforcing the battalion during the war. 17 officers and 202 ranks were killed, 29 officers and 660 ranks were wounded in action, with 1 officer and 10 ranks being taken prisoner. Sickness accounted for the largest percentage of casualties by far, totalling 116 officers and 4,125 ranks.
The First Battle of Gaza was fought on 26 March 1917 during the first attempt by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) to invade the south of Palestine in the Ottoman Empire during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. Fighting took place in and around the town of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast when infantry and mounted infantry from the Desert Column, a component of the Eastern Force, attacked the town. Late in the afternoon, on the verge of capturing Gaza, the Desert Column was withdrawn due to concerns about the approaching darkness and large Ottoman reinforcements. This British defeat was followed a few weeks later by the even more emphatic defeat of the Eastern Force at the Second Battle of Gaza in April 1917.
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| Unloading Stores |
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| British Troops on the March in Egypt 1916 |
Lieutenant & Quartermaster Gerard Owen LYDEKKER
Gerard was the son of the late Richard Lydekker, F.R.S. and Lucy Marianne Lydekker (nee Davys). He was born at Harpenden, Herts, educated at Haileybury College, and is buried in the Alexandria (Hadra) War Memorial Cemetery.
Lt Gerard Lydekker became the Battalions Quartermaster before they sailed for Gallipoli and served with them until his death in 1917.
Lt Gerard Lydekker died on the 14th June 1917, aged 29 from Myasthenia Gravis at No. 17 Central Hospital in Alexandria and is buried in the Hadra Military Cemetery.
Richard Lydekker (25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was an English naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural historyRichard Lydekker was born at Tavistock Square in London. His father was Gerard Wolfe Lydekker, a barrister-at-law with Dutch ancestry. The family moved to Harpenden Lodge soon after Richard's birth.and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a first-class in the Natural Science tripos (1872)
In 1874 he joined the Geological Survey of India and made studies of the vertebrate palaeontology of northern India (especially Kashmir). He remained in this post until the death of his father in 1881. His main work in India was on the Siwalik palaeofauna; it was published in Palaeontologia Indica. He was responsible for the cataloguing of the fossil mammals, reptiles and birds in the Natural History Museum (10 vols., 1891).
He was influential in the science of biogeography. In 1895 he delineated the biogeographical boundary through Indonesia, known as Lydekker's Line, that separates Wallacea on the west from Australia-New Guinea on the east.
Lydekker attracted amused public attention with a pair of letters to The Times in 1913, when he wrote on 6 February that he had heard a cuckoo, contrary to Yarrell's History of British Birds which doubted the bird arrived before April. Six days later on 12 February 1913, he wrote again, confessing that "the note was uttered by a bricklayer's labourer". Letters about the first cuckoo became a tradition in the newspaper.
He received the Lyell Medal from the Geological Society of London in 1902.
He wrote:
Catalogue of the Fossil Mammalia in the British Museum (Natural History), 5 vols. (1885-1887)
A Manual of Palaeontology (with Henry Alleyne Nicholson, 2 vols., 1889)
Phases of Animal Life (1892)
The Royal Natural History[7] (with W. H. Flower], 6 vols., 12 sec. (1893-1896)
A Hand-book to the Marsupialia and Monotremata (1894)
Life and Rock: A Collection of Zooogical and Geological Essays (1894)
A Geographical History of Mammals (1896)
A Hand-book to the British Mammalia (1896)
A Handbook to the Carnivora : part 1 : cats, civets, and mongooses (1896)
The Deer of all Lands : A history of the family Cervidae, living and extinct (1898)
Wild Oxen, Sheep & Goats of all Lands, Living and Extinct (1898)
The Wild Animals of India, Burma, Malaya, and Tibet (1900)
The great and small game of Europe, western & northern Asia and America (1901)
The New Natural History 6 vols. (1901)
Living Races of Mankind: : A popular illustrated account of the customs, habits, pursuits, feasts, and ceremonies of the races of mankind throughout the world, 2 vols. (1902), [1] & [2] with Henry Neville Hutchinson and John Walter Gregory
Mostly Mammals: Zoological Essays (1903)
Guide to the Gallery of Reptilia and Amphibia in the British museum (1906)
Sir William Flower (1906)
The Game Animals of India, Burma, Malaya, and Tibet (rev. ed.) (1907)
Guide to the Great Game Animals (Ungulata) in British Museum (1907)
Guide to the Specimens of the Horse Family (Equidæ) in British Museum (1907)
The Game Animals of Africa (1908)
A Guide to the Domesticated Animals (other than horses) (1908)
Guide to the Whales, Porpoises, and Dolphins (order Cetacea) (1909)
A number of articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911
Animal Portraiture (1912) [3]
The Horse and its Relatives (1912)
The Sheep and its Cousins (1912)
Catalogue of the heads and horns of Indian big game bequeathed by A. O. Hume ... to the British Museum (Natural History) (1913)
Catalogue of the ungulate mammals in the British Museum (Natural History) 5 vols. (1913-1916)
Wild life of the World : a descriptive survey of the geographical distribution of animals 3 vols. (1916)
Source:wikipedia
Gerard Wolfe Lydekker, who bought Harpenden Lodge in 1857, was born in Rochester in 1811. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge and graduated MA in 1836. He was called to the Bar in 1841, joined the Home Circuit, and practised at the Hertford and St. Albans Sessions. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire and was for a time Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for West Hertfordshire.
He married Margaret Martha Peake in 1848 and they lived in Tavistock Square, London. He bought Harpenden Lodge from the Hadden family in 1857 and came, at the age of 46, to live in Harpenden with a wife seven years younger and three young sons; Richard 8, John 7 and Arthur 4. Edgar, the fourth son was the first to be born (1863) in Harpenden.
The three younger boys grew up, married, and left home. Richard, the eldest, graduated in 1871 and in 1874 went to India working for the Geological Survey of India. His father died in 1881 a couple of months before the census. Present in the Lodge on census night were Martha, her sons John, a Barrister-at-law, (30 and not married at this time), and Edgar, 17, described as a private pupil, two visitors, Henry Oakley, 17, also a private pupil, a friend of Edgar’s, and Mary Bedford, 25, described as of private means. There was a staff of 6: a footman, a lady’s maid, a cook, a housemaid, a kitchen maid and a coachman.
http://www.harpenden-history.org.uk/page_id__330.aspx
Richard was in India at the time of his father's death. He returned home to the Lodge in 1882 and took up his position as head of the family. Shortly afterwards he married Lucy Davys, the elder daughter of the Rector of Wheathampstead. They had five children, Helen, born in 1883, Beatrice in 1884, Hilda in 1886, Gerard in 1887 and Cyril in 1889. His mother (Martha) died in 1897.
Beatrice's wedding and her sisters Hilda and Helen. The girls did not marry.
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How fitting that a Lancashire man wrote the very words that are still said today.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon wrote one of the best known and most frequently recited verses of the First World War. Across the world, and particularly the Commonwealth, the central stanza of his poem For the Fallen is regularly used to proclaim and affirm the resolve of nations and communities neither to forget nor overlook the effort and sacrifice of the First World War generation, as well as their successors in later wars and conflicts.
Yet few remember who wrote the words. The poem’s smooth, rhythmic flow and formal, elegant language, embody the profound sense of respect, admiration and grief that hangs over modern acts of collective remembrance. Yet the poem was not written by a soldier who had seen action but by a civilian less than a month after the start of the fighting.
Born in Lancaster in 1869, Laurence Binyon was keeper of oriental prints and drawings at the British Museum when the First World War began in August 1914. He was an established and well-respected scholar, poet and author.
Aged 45, Binyon was too old to enlist, but in 1915 he volunteered as an orderly with the French hospital services, a task he undertook again the following year as the casualties rolled in from Verdun.
After the war, Binyon continued at the British Museum until his retirement in 1933. He was appointed professor of poetry and literature first at Havard and then Athens and died following an operation in 1943.
FOR THE FALLEN
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
For the Fallen was written early in September 1914 as news began to filter through of the fighting at Mons and the retreat that followed. The same news provided a dynamic spur to Lord Kitchener’s recruiting drive, with 33,000 men enlisting on September 3 alone. Compared to casualty levels after the Somme, British losses in 1914 were relatively small but still a shock. What is remarkable about Binyon’s poem is that it anticipates those much higher, later losses and lays down a consolatory framework for understanding them.
On his 70th birthday in August 1939, Laurence Binyon explained that the idea for his most famous poem came to him on a clifftop at Polzeath in Cornwall: ‘‘The stanza ‘They Shall Grow Not Old’ was written first and dictated the rhythmical movement of the whole poem.’’ The words of these four crucial lines beat sonorously in monosyllables, echoing the solemn, funereal drums of the second stanza. It is this sombre, repetitive rhythm that invests the fourth stanza with such enduring power when read aloud in public.
In his references to youth and not growing old, Binyon anticipates the sentiments evoked only a few weeks later by Rupert Brooke in his famous sonnets and particularly Peace. To drive home this point, Binyon also includes a subtle Shakespearean reference. When Enobarbus returns to Rome in Antony and Cleopatra he evokes with some excitement Cleopatra’s eternal youth and beauty: ‘‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety’’. The subliminal cadences of Shakespeare add further to the power of Binyon’s lines.
Binyon’s poem was first published in The Times on September 21, 1914. Its measured, elegiac tone resonated with increasing power as the war evolved. The closing image of stars sparkling in the infinity of the heavens offered consolation and hope to those whose husbands, sons, brothers and friends were dying in increasing numbers. As a traditional ode, formal and dignified, the whole poem had spiritual depth and meaning.
But its central stanza in particular meant, and continues to mean 100 years on, that everyone, through the line that stands at its heart, could together sound aloud their determination that ‘‘We will remember them’’.
We will remember them: Binyon's poem 'For the Fallen' is a poignant elegy for the dead of several wars Photo: Fotolia
Commentary by Nigel Steel The Telegraph Newspaper London
Principal historian for IWM’s First World War Centenary Programme
30 Jul 2014
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| All the battle locations |
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| Some days were freezing |
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| Weekly bath - built by the Turks! |
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| Three Englishmen decide to have a "picnic" |
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| Burying the dead from the British ship |
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| The Messenger between Suvla and Helles dodging a sniper |
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| A combined effort of all countries, including Tasmania |
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| Operating theatre - outdoors |
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| Left behind |
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| Turkish sniper captured |
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| Evacuating the Rum! |
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| Then to Lemos - bringing the French wine |
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| Camp on Lemos - Wine kegs for the French |
Unidentified
personnel standing around the field cookers of the 9th Battalion at
their camp on the Aegean island of Lemnos, where they were based after
being evacuated from the Gallipoli Peninsula.
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Next stop Egypt The last group of medical officers of No. 3 Australian General Hospital (3AGH) march through their former hospital site, to leave Lemnos Island.  |
** Gallipoli, Turkey. 1918. A burial party cremating the remains of Ghurka soldiers who were killed in this area during 1915. A Ghurka officer wearing a felt hat is on the left of the photograph. (Donor Lieutenant James)
Members of the 7th Light Horse Regiment standing in front of mud brick huts formerly used by the Turkish Regimental Staff at Lone Pine. Between December 1918 and January 1919, the 7th Light Horse, in company with the Canterbury Mounted Rifle Regiment (NZ), garrisoned the Gallipoli Peninsula. They conducted a reconnaissance of the peninsula to locate any guns, dumps or stores not reported by the Turks, and began work on the cemeteries and war graves prior to the arrival of The Australian Historical Mission, directed by Captain C E W Bean, in February 1919. Note the Turkish star marked out on the ground with shell casings in the foreground.
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THAT WAS THEN - THIS IS RECENT - SUVLA BAY
Serene Gallipoli peninsula holds memory of bloody war campaign
Suvla Bay Letter: 99 years ago 28,000 died in an allied attempt to take the peninsula
Suvla Bay on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. ‘The landings at Suvla, which involved, among others, the 10th Irish Division, occurred in August 1915 and were the final phase of fighting before Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand withdrew, defeated, between December 1915 and January 1916. The place where it all happened is now so calm, so serene, so relaxed.’ Photograph: Peter Murtagh
There’s stuff everywhere, the detritus of a life spent fishing out of small boats: bits of rope and chain and piles of fishing nets; car tyres used as buoys; plastic containers, used, reused and then used again; bits of metal (use unknown but probably vital); and tables and chairs – one lot under a vine-covered awning for family and friends, the other for visitors to Güral’s café, if that is not too grand a word to describe the set-up.
But on a bright sunny August day, Güral’s place seems like paradise on earth. To say it is relaxed would be to suggest a level of activity way beyond anything witnessed.
Güral’s makeshift harbour was fashioned by nature whittling away at the soft sandstone jutting into the sea. The slipway is lapped by the water of Suvla Bay, which in turn is shades of aquamarine, turquoise and cobalt – rich blues that deliver a sense of calm merely by looking at them.
I guess the hippy touch comes also in part from the tiny electricity-generating windmill whirring just above the large camper van parked beside Güral’s tiny seaside cottage home.
I sit in the shady spot clearly reserved for visitors and a woman, Güral’s wife I assume, comes to serve me. I ask for Turkish tea with lemon and take out my Gallipoli campaign military map to pour over the details.
Güral approaches with several framed photographs from the 1915 war. They show that the exact spot where we now are was then swarming with British soldiers and landing craft. There are two sunk just around the corner, Güral indicates.
Then he brings to the table a rusted military shell. It is about 10 inches long and very, very heavy for its size. British, he says.
Immediately inside Güral’s tiny cottage, to which he insists I come, is his bedroom, living room and kitchen all in one. You don’t need a lot of indoors when living in a climate like this.
Necklace of bullets
Hanging like a necklace across a corner of the room are half a dozen bullets strung together by a thread. There’s a small, three-bullet magazine clip on a shelf, all rusty but still recognisable for what it is, and lots of photos of Güral’s fishing trips with pals.
Outside again and drinking my tea, I am joined by Renato who comes from Novara in northern Italy. Renato is the owner of the camper van, it transpires. Despite running a factory that makes plastic bags, he also has that neo-hippy, extremely relaxed air about him. Maybe it is the T-shirt and holiday beard . . .
Renato ambled into Güral’s laid back world some years ago and, despite holidaying in many other places, he keeps coming back here. The fishing, he says.
He tells me how local children used to collect bits of scrap metal from the fields that back onto the shore, the fields fought over in 1915.
Renato is well travelled. He’s been to Afghanistan and Bosnia, and most places in between, in his camper van. He pulled into Travnik in Bosnia one time before the war there with a mechanical problem.
A bloke in a garage fixed it. “And so we drank a lot and fished a lot,” Renato says in that way continentals have when talking philosophy. “And when I go back [after the war], he gone. And now I don’t know his name. The war is crazy you know.”
Marta, Renato’s daughter joins us. She’s an anthropologist but works as a language teacher.
Bone in the sand
“I found a bone,” she announces, gesturing to the side of her abdomen, suggesting a rib.
“Yes. Over there.” She indicates the very end of Suvla Point. “There’s a small beach and I was swimming and I lifted the bone from the sand and they says here [in Güral’s] that it is human.”
Marta’s find occurred in 2006 and is not uncommon, says Güral. There are bits of the war everywhere – bullets, bullet casings, shells and bones.
The landings at Suvla, which involved, among others, the 10th Irish Division, occurred in August 1915 and were the final phase of fighting before Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand withdrew, defeated, between December 1915 and January 1916.
The place where it all happened is now so calm, so serene, so relaxed.
The Turks say they lost 8,155 men in their successful defence of Suvla and that their enemy lost 19,850.
One of them was 23-year-old Capt William George Massy Eagar, of the 1st battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, who lived on Church Road in Greystones, Co Wicklow. He has no known grave but is remembered on the Helles Memorial.
He died 99 years ago last week, on August 21st 1915.
http://www.irishtimes.com/profile/peter-murtagh-7.1837453
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