CHAPTER XXIII the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps Was
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CHAPTER XXIII THE RELIEF BY THE MARINES THEAustralian and New Zealand Army Corps was originally to have been reinforced by Major-General Cox’ with the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade, which had been garrisoning the Canal at Suez. When the plans for the landing were being first drawn up, Hamilton intended to add a Gurkha brigade to the N.Z. and A. Division as its third brigade in place of the light horse and mounted rifles who were being left in Egypt. He was eventually promised Cox’s brigade, consisting of mixed Indian troops, but it had not yet arrived when the A. and N.Z. Corps left I-eninos for the landing. On Tuesday, April 27th, a message from Sir Ian Hamilton was circulated by the Corps Staff. “Well done, Anzac,” it said. “You are sticking it splendidly. Twenty-ninth Division has made good progress, and French Division is now landing to support it. An Indian brigade is on the sea and will join Anzac on arrival.” Rirdwood expected Cox’s Indians to arrive on April 27th and 28th; on the 30th he was still looking for them. Hamilton, however, quite rightly at the time, was far more anxious to use them in reaching Achi Baba while the Turks were still few in that quarter; and his diary shows that, if they had arrived on April 28th, they would have been thrown in at Helles. Hamilton did not realise that Birdwood’s Corps had until Wednesday been Withstanding nearly the whole of the Turkish striking force in the south of the Peninsula. But he knew that Birdwood’s men were very weary; and on the morning of April 28th he decided that, as the French were supporting the 29th Division, part of the Royal Naval Division (which had made the feint at Bulair) should be sent to the.Aus- tralians. During that morning Major-General Paris, its com- mander, visited Birdwood, and was asked to land two of his battalions the same afternoon and two more as soon as possible. 1 General Sir H V Cox. G C.B , K C.hl G , C S I. Commanded 4th Aust. DIV. 1916. Officer of Indian Regular Army; b. Watford, Herts, Eng, IZ July, 1860. Died 8 Oct., 1923. 924 qth-27th Apr., 19151 RELIEF BY THE MARINES 525 The troops most urgently in need of relief were the 1st and 3rd Australian Infantry Brigades on MacLaurin’s Hill and the 400 Plateau. These two brigades, being completely intermingled, were treated as one. While under the command of MacLagan on Sunday and Monday they had borne the name of the “3rd Brigade” ; shortly after MacLaurin relieved him, the same troops became provisionally known as the “1st Brigade,” and as such they remained under Colonel Owen. The task of re-creating the Army Corps in its proper units began on Sunday night, when the Staff of the 3rd Brlgade attempted to disentangle their men from the line and to re-form the four battalions near the Beach. About 200 of each were collected, but they had to be rushed back to the line next day, the 9th and 10th onto the 400 Plateau, the 11th to Steele’s, and the 12th to MacLaurin’s Hill. The first rough organisation of the front had been into three sectors. M’Cay with the 2nd Brigade held the right; Mac- Lagan with a mixture of the 1st and 3rd Brigades and some New Zea- landers the centre; Braund with the 2nd Battalion and portions of the (1 New Zealand Infantry Brigade the left.2 The 4th Australian Infantry Brigade was then thrown in between MacLagan and Braund in the effort to connect them. The brigade staffs strove during Monday to re-organise both the New Zealand Infantry and the 3rd Aus- tralian Brigade, but the continuous fighting prevented their disengagement. On Tuesday morning, however, General Birdwood took General Godley, General Walker, Colonel Monash, and Colonel Skeen up onto Plugge’s Plateau, from which the whole Second ridge could be seen, and there and then, in view of the line, decided on a partition of the front. As the group stood on Plugge’s, the Turkish general attack-unrealised by them- ’Brig -General Walker of the N 2. Inf Bde. would have established himself on the left on April 25th but for his conviction (due to the defective map), that the proper approach to the left flank was over Plugge’s 526 THE STORY OF ANZAC [27th Apr., 19x5 was being delivered, and shrapnel was showered upon the hill- top. When the fire became too hot, Birdwood moved the party into the partial shelter of the old Turkish trench and continued the conference there. He now divided the line into four sectors. Walker with the New Zealand Brigade was to take the left, on Walker’s Ridge and Russell’s Top; and Monash L with the 4th Australian Infantry Brigade Pkerfg40msh 5 the left centre, from Russell’s Top to Courtney’s. Thus the two brigades form- ,wacLaur,,, 1 ing the N.Z. and A. Division would be together on the left and left centre, con- trolled by General Godley. From Court- ney’s southward the front was divided into two other sectors, garrisoned by the 1st Australian Division under General Bridges-the right centre held by the 1st and 3rd Brigades mixed (then under Colonel MacLaurin), and the extreme right by the 2nd Brigade under Colonel M’Cay. The line to be held by Monash’s 4th Brigade was. like that of MacLaurin, occupied by a mixture of troops from almost every battalion in both divisions. At the same time a consider- able part of the 4th Brigade was away from its sector, filling the old gap between the 2nd and 3rd Brigades. It was now ordered that troops who were not with their proper brigades should be withdrawn from the line when the local commander considered it safe to dispense with them, and should rejoin their brigade in its allotted sector. Monash was to take with him his last intact battalion, the 14th. to the head of Monash Valley, and was to discuss with MacLaurin where the division of their sectors should be. Monash saw Bridges and MacLaurin shortly before the latter was killed. The right flank of the 4th Brigade was fixed at Courtney’s, which was reinforced at once by part of the 14th Battalion under Major Steel,s and at 4 p.m. on Tuesday Colonel Monash took over command of this most difficult sector. He placed his headquarters near the head of Monash Valley (which thus acquired its name) opposite a Lieut -Colonel T. H. Steel. 0.B.E : 14th Bn Merchant, of Malvern. Mel- bourne, Vic; b. Horsham. Vic., 19 Nov.. 1878 zgth-27th Apr., 19151 RELIEF BY THE MARINES 527 the foot of Steele’s Post. It was at one time intended that his left should join Walker’s right at some point on the summit of Russell’s Top. But he was relieved of this obliga- tion a few days later, the whole of Russell’s Top being given to Walker’s New Zealanders, while Monash’s left rested on Pope’s Hill. Monash’s sector was necessarily the most difficult in the line. Few positions of the nature of Pope’s Hill and Quinn’s Post were held by any troops during the war. The garrison lining Pope’s Hill at this date knew nothing of the other side of the valley in rear of it, except that Turks existed there. The position at Quinn’s was even more danger- 4 artended ous. In consequence of fire from but pod trenches the left rear and both flanks the Australians at that point were /+lrd4v wr/twfrum A/Wr G/asfur& unable to live on the crest, and no&e-booh ,?7A,wil 1915) were holding only the reverse slope, the Turks continually accumulating on the other side of the narrow summit. The position of the 4th Brigade was one of constant tension. But its troops, having landed rather later than the rest, were held to be comparatively fresh. The New Zealand Brigade also had troops with whom to reinforce or relieve its own units. The 2nd Australian In fatitry Brigade, since the terrible fighting upon the 400 Plateau, had not sus- tained the same continuous pressure as that along Monash Valley. Its 5th, 6th, and 7th Battalions were completely intermingled, but were not scattered along the whole front of the Corps, and the 8th Battalion-and also the 4th, which had been lent from the 1st Brigade-were fairly well organised. But on MacLaurin’s Hill and along Monash Valley the endurance of the men who landed in the dawn of April 25th had been stretched almost to the last point of human elasticity. In front of this part of the line, so difficult to dig, there had existed ever since Sunday a series of small groups known as “battle outposts.” These were posts, in most cases originally of the strength of a platoon (about fifty men), lying ahead 528 THE STORY OF ANZAC [25th-28th Apr., 1915 of the line to cover it from sudden attack. Wire Gully came so close to the Australian position that there was danger of Turks massing there and behind German Officers‘ Ridge in the same way as they had massed at Quinn’s. At Quinn’s no battle outpost was possible-no party could live on its low crest with Baby 700 and the Chessboard looking down on them -and the danger of a rush by the Turks had to be accepted.