The Dandarnelles Disaster (27 page)

General Hamilton and his staff left Alexandria on a requisitioned Cunard liner on 8 April and arrived at Mudros on the 10th, when a conference was held on de Robeck's flagship, the
Queen Elizabeth
. The overall plan for a main landing at the southern tip of the peninsula was agreed by the naval and army officers as the most useful for the navy's ultimate objective of breaking through the straits; it was also agreed that if naval fire support was to be of any use, the initial landings would have to be made in daylight, and from warships with landing vessels, mainly rowed cutters, in tow until the final approach, rather than from mercantile transports, which would have to stay out of range of enemy fire until beachheads had been secured. Once the first wave, known as the covering force, had established beachheads, the main body would be rowed ashore as soon as their troopships had closed up. The landing beaches V, W and X were small, enabling a combined maximum of 18 towed and rowed cutters at a time to unload, amounting to a first wave of 2,200 troops. Some 45 minutes would elapse before a second wave could be landed in this way; to increase substantially the size of the covering force, therefore, an ingenious variation on the theme of the Trojan horse, which had turned the trick for the besieging Greeks on the other side of the Dardanelles 3,000 years earlier, was proposed by the captain of a destroyer, Commander Edward Unwin, RN. His idea was to cram another 2,000 troops on an inconspicuous-looking collier, the SS
River Clyde
, and run her ashore on V beach as soon as the first troop-tows had arrived. She was equipped with a shielded machine-gun nest on the foredeck and would tow a steam barge, which was to run itself aground in turn in the shallower water ahead of the collier. Also in tow were flat-bottomed lighters to be used with the grounded barge as a
pontoon bridge from the
River Clyde
's bows to help the soldiers get ashore. Plates were cut from her sides near the bows, and plank walkways were suspended from them forward, to enable the troops to reach the bridge. Unwin retained command.

One of two further late additions to the plan of attack was the decision to land French troops on the Asian shore near the entrance fort of Kum Kale for a short period, instead of keeping the French division back as army reserve. V beach was most exposed to shellfire from the Asian side, which the French were to neutralise before withdrawing in due course. The other amendment was Hamilton's decision to add Y beach to the plan as an extra landing spot for 2,000 men. With them, and those going ashore at S beach, the covering force was increased to 4,900 troops plus the 2,000 on the
River Clyde.
Feint landings were mounted against Bulair by the RN Division and against Besika Bay on the Asian side opposite Tenedos by the French, each covered by battleships. A separate strong thrust would be made by a covering force of 4,000 ANZAC troops at Z beach some 12 miles to the north of the main assault; the balance of General Birdwood's corps of two divisions would follow them ashore.

For its part, the Allied navy planned to assist the army, not only by ferrying its troops ashore and supplying them, but also by attacking the Dardanelles again with a view to entering the Sea of Marmara within days of a successful landing. De Robeck recalled the great success of HM Submarine
B11
in December 1914 and decided, if either or both of these enterprises failed or stalled, to send another boat into the Dardanelles. The day before, however, on 16 April, a Turkish torpedo-boat, the
Demir Hissar
, mounted a bold attack on one of the last troopships bringing the 29th Division to the Aegean, the SS
Manitou,
with about 650 soldiers and 600 horses aboard. The 100-tonne boat had a Turkish crew with German officers and had already crippled a British seaplane-carrier in the Gulf of Smyrna. She slipped away from there on the night of 15–16 April without being noticed by British ships in the area and made for the Alexandria–Mudros transport route. Unusually for a troopship, even in those earliest days of the U-boat menace, the
Manitou
was unescorted and incapable of defending herself as there was no ammunition aboard. The German commander, observing prize rules, ordered the master to abandon ship in three minutes before issuing the order to sink her by torpedo; but she had enough boats for only a third of those on board. They were therefore given an extra ten minutes to jump overboard, but chaos reigned. The troops had been doing boat drill
when the torpedo-boat arrived, and began launching lifeboats independently, overloading and capsizing some. Two torpedoes were fired; both missed, and the
Demir Hissar
made off when British destroyers approached from north and south, eventually beaching herself on the neutral Greek island of Chios, where the crew was interned. Fifty-one men died in the confusion on the
Manitou
. Another stable door was closed when the handful of ships still to come from Alexandria were henceforward provided with naval escorts.

Lieutenant-Commander Theodore Brodie, RN, took one of the newest submarines in British service,
E15
, into the Dardanelles on 17 April. A naval aeroplane circled overhead, with Brodie's twin brother aboard as observer. The eternal current got the better of the submarine, which went aground near Kephez Point on the Asian shore on the 20th. The Turks and Germans promptly opened fire with their artillery, killing Brodie and 6 others and taking 24 sailors prisoner. A Turkish destroyer tried to tow the wreck clear but withdrew when British planes dropped bombs; the small British submarine
B6
came up the strait and tried to torpedo the
E15
but had to withdraw under heavy enemy fire. Two British destroyers were the next to try but were also driven off by heavy shelling. On the morning of the 18th Holbrook's famous submarine,
B11
, tried her luck but was foiled by a typical Dardanelles fog. Next two old battleships came up but could get no closer than six miles from the wreck under fierce enemy fire and withdrew without hitting it.

De Robeck was determined to prevent the enemy from learning the stranded boat's secrets, so on the next night Lieutenant-Commander E. G. Robinson, who had won the VC for leading gun-demolition parties ashore in February, led two picket boats, each carrying a single torpedo in a deck launcher, in a stealthy advance towards Kephez. They too came under heavy shellfire when caught in Turkish searchlights, which however also conveniently lit up their target. Both torpedoes were fired at the submarine, but as the two boats withdrew one was hit below the waterline by a Turkish shell and began to go under. Robinson's boat rescued the men on the other and withdrew; just one man was lost. It was only on the morning of the 18th, when an aeroplane flew over the scene, that the gallant raiders learned that their attack had succeeded and the
E15
had been destroyed. For the moment, submarine forays were suspended.

Among those captured from the
E15
was a Lieutenant Palmer of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, until recently the British vice-consul at Chanak, who was on de Robeck's staff as an intelligence officer and became the
subject of a tantalising rumour. He was personally interrogated by the Turkish commander of the Dardanelles forts, Colonel (later Major-General) Jevad, and apparently took the highly dangerous decision to provide some disinformation: talking freely about the Allied invasion plans in an apparent bid to save his neck, he said that the main focus would be the neck of the peninsula – Bulair and the Gulf of Saros. There is no proof, but this ‘revelation' may well have influenced Liman von Sanders's dispositions in the five days before the invasion (which included an elaborate feint against Bulair).

Meanwhile the largest fleet in terms of tonnage ever seen in the Mediterranean was gathering at Mudros: warships and naval auxiliaries, troop transports, supply ships and attendant vessels, more than 200 in all. Mudros, a capacious bay which normally had room to spare for the Allied naval forces, was not big enough for the whole of the invasion fleet, obliging the RND's and the French transports temporarily to make for Trebuki on the island of Skyros to the south-west, while those of the 29th and ANZAC divisions filled Mudros along with the warships. These numbered 59; strength had not declined since the losses incurred in the defeat of 18 March – on the contrary. There were once again 18 battleships, including 3 French, 12 cruisers (4 French) and 29 destroyers (5 French). These were supported by a dozen submarines (4 French), 5 French torpedo-boats, 6 fleet minesweepers and 20 trawlers, a seaplane-carrier, a submarine depot-ship – and one balloon ship with which naval gunfire could be observed.

The naval forces were organised into seven squadrons (one French under the irrepressible Guépratte). Admiral Wemyss, de Robeck's secondin-command and still acting governor of the Mudros base, was entrusted with the direction of the southern landings as flag officer of the First Squadron, by far the largest with 6 battleships, 4 cruisers and 6 fleet minesweepers – the Fourth Squadron of just 2 cruisers and 12 trawlers was also attached to his flag, which he flew on the cruiser
Euryalus
, more manoeuvrable than a battleship and able to go closer inshore. Rear-Admiral Stuart Nicholson was his second-in-command, leading the battleships and flying his flag on the
Swiftsure.
Rear-Admiral Cecil Thursby commanded the Second Squadron of 5 battleships, a cruiser and 8 destroyers, the seaplane-carrier and the balloon ship, which were to cover the ANZAC landing. A small Third Squadron (one battleship, and 2 each of cruisers, destroyers and trawlers) conducted the feint against Bulair. The Fifth
consisted of the battleship
Agamemnon
, 10 destroyers, three minesweepers and two trawlers: their task was to sweep the mouth of the strait for mines and to lay nets against enemy submarines. Admiral Guépratte's Sixth Squadron of three battleships (plus one British) and four cruisers (one of them Russian), seven destroyers and five torpedo-boats, covered the temporary landing on the Asian shore. A Seventh Squadron of just four destroyers was detached to blockade the port of Smyrna (now Izmir) against sallies by torpedo-boats like the
Demir Hissar
.

These units in all their complexity were ready for battle on 19 April. All first-wave troops sailing on warships and the
River Clyde
had rehearsed an opposed landing by then and 23 April was chosen as what would now be called D-Day. For this to be achieved, the first vessels would need to move out of Mudros on the 20th, but as so often in the history of the Dardanelles campaign the weather dictated otherwise and de Robeck had to order a 24-hour delay on the 19th and again on the 20th. Troops on ships exposed to the rough swell suffered miserably from seasickness. Only at midday on the 23rd did the weather turn fair, and vessels began to leave Mudros in their predetermined order. Seaplanes reconnoitred enemy defences and five aeroplanes took off from Tenedos to bomb Maidos on the European side of the Narrows. This had the unhelpful effect of driving up to 2,000 Turkish troops westward out of the village to positions one and a half miles closer to Anzac Cove.

The first wave of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, the covering units for the subsequent main landings, went ashore after dawn on 25 April 1915 at seven places more or less simultaneously. French troops landed in the vicinity of Kum Kale on the Asian side, while British units landed on five beaches at the Aegean end of the Gallipoli peninsula south of Suvla, earmarked clockwise and from east to west as S beach in Morto Bay, V and W (on either side of Cape Helles), X and Y to the north. S and Y beaches were last-minute embellishments of the plan of attack, broadening the front. The objective for 25 April was the high ground at Achi Baba, just over 700 feet above sea level. The invaders never reached it, still less their ultimate objective, the Kilid Bahr plateau overlooking the Narrows from the west.

ANZAC units landed a little before the others a dozen miles to the north of the Cape Helles landing places –
on the wrong beach
. What was to be immortalised as ‘Anzac Cove' is a small indentation on the Aegean shore of the peninsula with a narrow beach, overlooked by sheer cliffs. Between
there and the promontory of Gaba Tepe to the south is the rather longer and gentler shore of what was labelled Brighton Beach by the Allies. This is where they were meant to land; but in the dark Admiral Thursby's Second Squadron overshot and herded them ashore too far to the north. Their objective was the high ground of Chunuk Bair, less than two miles to the north-east as the crow flies. But between the impossibly difficult landing place and the targeted height (850 feet) lies a tortured landscape of ridges and ravines covered in scrub and small trees. Walking across it in peacetime is a daunting, ankle-breaking prospect; fighting over it (in both senses) could only be a very bloody business. This objective too was never secured.

General Hamilton, who moved his headquarters to the
Queen Elizabeth
on 24 April, disposed of an invasion force for the southern tip of the peninsula consisting of three divisions: the British 29th under Major-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, the French 1st Division under
Général de division
Masnou and a scratch composite division under Major-General A. Paris, the commander of the Royal Naval Division, elements of which were added to the 29th, French and composite divisions. The French troops, six battalions of colonials and six from Metropolitan France, were the bulk of General Albert d'Amade's French Expeditionary Force. The 29th included three British brigades and one Indian (Sikhs, Punjabis and Gurkhas), totalling 20 infantry battalions; the composite was made up of one Australian, one New Zealand and one naval brigade, ten battalions in all. Divisional troops variously attached to the three divisions included artillery, signals and engineer units, the RND's Motor Machine-Gun Squad, a battalion of the French Foreign Legion, an RND Cyclist company and Algerian Zouaves.

At sunset on 23 April there assembled, at an anchorage north of the island of Tenedos, the cruiser
Euryalus
with Admiral Wemyss aboard, two battleships, three transports carrying a battalion each for W, V and S beaches and towing between them a dozen lighters to take them ashore, the
River Clyde
weighed down with troops, and tugs pulling extra pontoons. To carry out their elaborate feint, the bulk of the RND and its transports and escorts were the first to move on the 24th, at dawn, as they had the furthest to go: from their anchorage at Skyros to a position off the tiny island of Xeros at the head of the eponymous gulf, due north of Bulair. The French ships had left Skyros three days earlier to take up temporary station off Mudros, where their admiral took the opportunity to organise unpromising landing rehearsals for the unpractised troops. The French moved on
to an anchorage off Tenedos. The bulk of the 29th Division in their transports congregated on the open sea off the mouth of the strait, while the ANZAC units bound for Z beach collected five miles offshore on three of Admiral Thursby's ships, with their supplies in four transports; the main ANZAC force assembled off Cape Kephalo on the island of Imbros. The two British battalions bound for Y beach, escorted by two cruisers and sailing on two transports, gathered off Tekke Burnu, at the south-western tip of the peninsula.