Current Information:

Age-19

4 Block, Peabody Avenue, Ebury Bridge

Gallipoli 1915

On 25 April, British, Australian and New Zealand forces landed on the Gallipoli peninsula. The plan was that these forces would soon defeat a demoralised Turkish army, knock Turkey out of the war, open up the Mediterranean to the Russian navy and threaten Austro-Hungary from the south. None of these things were achieved despite nine months of hard fighting in terrible conditions. It was a heroic failure.

By July, 1915, and after much fierce fighting, stalemate had set in at Gallipoli both at Cape Helles where the British and French had landed and at Anzac Cove where the Australian and New Zealand Corps were unable to break out of their beach head. Fresh troops were needed and they were on their way in the shape of four divisions from Britain and things were put on hold until they arrived.

The plan for August was for a landing at Suvla Bay to the north of Anzac Cove whilst at the same time, the ANZAC Corps, reinforced by some of the new British troops would effect a breakout from Anzac Cove and establish a line across the peninsula. Whilst this was going on the troops in the south at Helles would stage a number of diversionary attacks. But it all went horribly wrong and much of the reason for this can be explained by inadequate planning and leadership. Nobody seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing and Lieutenant-General Stopford, in charge of the Suvla landings was particularly out of his depth. The landings at Suvla failed to link up with the forces at Anzac and the breakout from there did not happen despite valiant efforts by all concerned. The loss of life on all fronts was again enormous. L.A. Carlyon’s excellent book “Gallipoli” gives a superb yet chilling account of the events.

During the night of 6/7th August, 11th Division landed at Suvla when 32 and 33 Brigades came ashore on B Beach, south of Nibrunesi Point. The beach was undefended and the 7th South Staffordshire and 9th Sherwood Foresters battalions of 33 Brigade, were given the task of entrenching a line from the shore to the edge of the Salt Lake. Due to a mix-up in the landings, with units finding themselves in the wrong positions and a lack of any decisive leadership, a great deal of confusion reigned for the next 36 hours and it was not until the night of 7/8th August that 7th South Staffordshire moved forward to support the attack on the Chocolate Hills. On 9^th August they attacked the W Hills (Ismail Oglu Tepe) but came under very heavy fire from Scimitar Hill which killed or wounded every officer in the three attacking companies. They were unable to make any further headway, even with the support of battalions from 10^th Division that moved up to them that evening. With casualties of over 400, one of whom was Albert Beckwith, they moved back to trenches near Chocolate Hill.