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Battle of Battleship Hill
The last battle of this series is the battle of battleship hill, strange things tho, battle of battleship hill actually in fact never happened, but it was the battle name that have been given to 2 separate battles (Battle of Chunuk Bair and Battle of the Nek) that supposed to capture a location called Battleship Hill.
As with the ANZAC tradition, the battles went to hell, and with no real estate gain for this operation but in the process, losing a great chunk of Australian and New Zealand man power.
However, this battle did also means the most for the Australia, In the Australian War Memorial, there was a plaque with 3 words cut deep into it "Mateship, Courage and Sacrifice" and this term was defined in the height of Battle of the Nek, where basically, 650 Australian from the 3rd Light Horsemen were ordered to die.
It is with this battle, the Australian realised their national identity and they were no longer fighting for the King and Mother Country, it was the Aussie blood that flow thru the vein of each Australian, and they are at war to fight for each other, and die for each other, a feat which define a generation.
Background
As with the 5 battle happening across the Gallipoli peninsula, the battle of Battleship hill was part of feign/real break out battle from ANZAC, the other battle were Battle of Lone Pine, by the 1st Australian Brigade, the Battle at Krithia Vineyard by the British 29th Division and the Landing at Suvla by the British 10th and 11th Division.
The call for battle of battleship hill is, again, at Baby 700, where the New Zealander will hook East to Chunuk Bair and the cross SW to attack Battleship Hill from NE, meanwhile the Australian 3rd Light Horse Brigade would cross the Nek and attack Battleship Hill from the West and finish a pincer attack on the ottoman on Battleship hill.
While the Chunuk Bair is not as high as Baby 700, or Big 700, not to mention Hill 971 in the Sari Bair range, however, this is the place connect the Nek, with lone pine and beach, capturing the Chunuk Bair would form a continuous line between the NZ and Australian Position, while t is reverse salient in the current situation and would greatly reduce the pressure from the Australian Defence point of view.
And a continuous line is formed, the force could consolidate and break out of the range to Hill 971.
The Battles
Both Battle of the Nek and the Battle of Chunuk bair were set to go at 0430, and while the Australian hold their defence line at the nek, the New Zealander have to move to location from their own position, from the Beach, the New Zealander have to move across Rhododendron Spur which leads to Chunuk Bair, and the Ottoman have established quite an amount of outpost overlooking the spur, all these out post have to be taken before assaulting the Chunuk Bair.
Battle of Chunuk Bair
There were 2 approach went thru the spur, the Northern Approach and the Southern Approach, which both approach will leads to the Apex, an staging area over Chunuk Bair, there, the New Zealander will launch their attack.
While the northern approach (Auckland and Wellington battalion) clear out ottoman opposition and arrived at the apex on time, the southern approach (The Canterbury) were lost during the fight and they have been delayed The Commander of the New Zealand Brigade decided to wait for the lost battalion instead of assaulting the objective with the force at hand.
The attack assume at 0800 (3 and a half hours after the battle of the Nek) and now the other battle have long been decided, with decisive ottoman victories, the ottoman knew the New Zealander were to attack Chunuk Bair and formed up and reinforce the position an hour prior to the New Zealander attacks.
The attacks then falter and disintegrated where 300 men were lost in the first assault between the apex and the Chunuk Bair ridge, and the distance is only some 400 yards.
The New Zealander then were ordered to dig in and wait for night fall before trying too attack again. And the Kiwi dug in for the rest of the day. 3 more battalions were dispatched for the anticipated night attack.
At 0300, 8th August, the next day, the Wellington attacked, followed by the Glouster, preceded by Artillery and Naval Bombardment, the Kiwi took the ridge without any casualty as the Naval Bombardment is so accurate that it driven out the some 500 ottoman defender
The ottoman then counter attack the Wellington battalion position and succeed to take part of the trench but largely repelled by the Wellington Battalion in the morning, however, a division a strength night attack was staged by the ottoman and successfully repel all New Zealand defender from Chunuk Bair for good the next day
The next morning, the ottoman continue to attack the Chunuk Bair, while the British trying to out flank the ottoman position by attack Hill Q, an elevation just North of Chunuk Bair, but to get then the British have to cross the farm then climb to Hill Q. The task were given to a combine brigade of the General Baldwin's 38th Brigade, again, as with the tradition ANZAC battle on that days and age, Baldwin got lost and cannot find the farm until morning the 9th August, the only battalion that reach the summit of Hill Q is the 1/6 Indian Gurka Rifle, which did not stayed long after firing on by friendly ships. The momentum once again stalled, and effectively doomed the Kiwis position in Chunuk Bair
And the force in the Farm was hit hard and repelled by a decisive counter offensive led personally by Mustafa Kemal.
Battle of the Nek
the battle was supposed to be a supporting battle to Chunuk Bair and to draw out or dilute the ottoman defence in battleship hill, the main thrust is at Chunuk Bair, however, for Battle of the nek to work, it is very important that the Kiwi have to launch the attack at Chunuk bair at the same time as the Aussie launch the battle of the nek, but as described above, this is not to be.
The Nek would call for Naval Gun support before the Aussie going over, the Light Horse will charge the ottoman position just 30 meters away, in 4 waves, 150 men each.
The First wave will charge immediately after the cessation of artillery fire on 0430, and each wave will follow 2 minutes after, the whole battle would not last more than 10 minutes.
Instead, the naval gun fire stopped at 0423 with no one know if the gun fire would continue, that gave the ottoman about 5 minutes to go back and man their position, the first wave charged the ottoman position exactly 0430, and cut down within 30 second, most of them got shot immediately after launching themselves over and felt back to the Australian Own Trench, with estimated 98% casualty.
Second wave, seeing this, followed after 2 minutes, met with the same fate.
The Australian charging the ottoman position were told to unload their rifle and fix bayonet and so they can be go over "quickly" and most of the Light Horsemen felt to the ground before leaving their own trench, knowing full well that they can't fight back
Third wave were disrupted and a request to cancel the pointless charge have raise, and overruled by the command of the 3rd Light Horse, and went over a little more than 5 minutes after the second wave. Knowing that they were going to be killed by overwhelming ottoman rifle and machine gun fire, most of the third wave from 10th Battalion launch themselves then immediately hit the dirt, seeing they perform their duty, they crawl back to their own line, suffer 65% casualty. Which is the lowest of all wave.
And then, by the fourth wave, a serious question again raised about the point of the charge and a request to cancel the charge is now bring to the ANZAC command instead of the 3rd Light Horse command. but perhaps to suit this tragic ending, confusion arise and a section of 4th wave charge without waiting for the inquest and prompt the whole line launched over, suffer from 80% casualty.
That's 380 people felt dead and wounded in a window less than 30 minutes. Accounts have shown that both side were obvious silent after the battle of the nek, with the ottoman cannot believe the Australian would send wave after wave of man just to get killed.
Post Mortem
Command failure were blamed on the Chunuk Bair battle while the need to the Battle of the Nek had become a million dollars question for historian.
The need for charging the nek is gone when the New Zealander are not in position to attack Chunuk Bair at 0430, 7th August, the charge of the nek were then unsupported and also, charging the nek before an attack on Chunuk Bair would basically handed the ottoman the information that the commonwealth is going to attack Chunuk Bair, which is nothing but a big giveaway.
However, the charge in the nek were allowed to carry on despite the command knew the kiwi absent from Chunuk Bair can be interpret as one of the 2 decision making factors.
1.) The enemy line is just 30 meter away, the Australia could have try to charge it an overwhelm it anyway, with about 80-100 defender estimated, 600 Australian seems like a large enough number to overwhelm the ottoman defences, with Naval support (which is another great let down)
2.) The Australian launch the attack regardless to try to cut off ottoman support to Lone Pine, where the main game were that day, once they harassed the ottoman line at the nek, the ottoman would need to think twice before moving away from the nek and support the lone pine defence.
Either way, the decision maker feel the need justified the charge, knowing full well the consequence of an unsupported charge, and the charge were to went ahead.
Then the second question came, should they just stopped in 2 waves? Seeing their own soldier have been cut to pieces not even leaving their own trenches.
The problem is, once the charge gone ahead, you need to follow through otherwise if you launch half of your force to your objective and not supporting it, that would mean you condemn the first half of your force to death, either you send the second half of your force to be slaughter or you condemn the first half and cut lost, it would be quite honestly, "bad" either way. But under the circumstance, the launching of 3rd wave could still be justified.
Back onto Chunuk Bair, the New Zealander lost the initial momentum and attack the ottoman position before the ottoman can reinforce their position. As with almost all other battle fought in Gallipoli, the moment is gone and the command on site have been too slow to capitalise any gain in either surprise or decisiveness.
With Chunuk Bair going back to the Ottoman, the line remain unchanged before the August Offensive and the breakout did died when the ottoman retook the Chunuk Bair. Where both side will then settle with reinforcing their position until the British Commonwealth decided, it is too much, and pack up and left in December.
My Take on Gallipoli Campaign.
In hind sight, any campaign that failed and eventually led to overall victories is a waste, that mean you do not need to waste the resource you devoted in the losing campaign and the result of said campaign did not alter the final objective.
The problem is, we, student of history, usually benefitted by the hind sight, which we knew what had happened and what is relevant and what is irrelevant. But when you are on ground, trying to fight a war, and trying to win a war, you do not benefit from these hind sight and you have to try almost everything to try to tilt the odds in your favour.
I have led troop myself, I knew first hand how uncertainty can battlefield can get, the question is always not "What kind of stupidity you can allow to go" but rather what you can think of that other can't. And sometime it may look stupid, or nonsense or even crazy, but then commander have also need to remember, every battle is an odd you have to take, and who dares, win.
Going back to Gallipoli, when you look at the situation as of 1915, the Turks is fighting on the side of the Triparted power (Austro-Hungary and Germany) which mean the road to Russia thru Mediterranean were blocked and that is the only viable route to Russia during winter time, so the need to capture or capitulate turkey is indeed needed otherwise the Central Power can drive a wedge between the Eastern and Western Power and separate them.
While the battle is worth to fight, the way the battle being conducted is another story, but then can we actually blame how the battle went on with the commander? Granted, there are some moronic moment such as General Ferderik Stopford which never meant to command this much amount of troop. But do remember, it was 1915, when ships, ironclad, rifle and airpower did just appear in battlefield, and just because you can make them, that doesn't mean people know how to use them. The problem is, the tactics and strategy expired overnight, and the old line and file no longer effective with rifle, cannon, artillery and air power.
Commander have been given advance technology, but they don't know what it is and how to use them effectively. Hence even tho technological break thru like that, commander still trying to fight wars the way back in medieval time.
That is why Gallipoli Campaign, or to a point, the whole WW1 suffer extreme casualty, and then we can look at how war evolve from WW1 to the War in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2000s, exactly 100 years have passed, and we are still advancing in a pace we cannot keep up with our tactics and strategy.
In another note, the Gallipoli Campaign sees that Australian first fight for the King and Country, then fight for each other, and the national identity starting to appear that separate the Australian from the British. While the soldier would fight on as part of British Army until the end of WW1, 3 years later, but the emerging national identity have already been forge, and from that day on, they are not part of the Kings (or Queens now) Army, but they are ANZACs
Thank you for reading all these battle, I hope you have a good time as much as I am writing it.
Lest We Forget
The last battle of this series is the battle of battleship hill, strange things tho, battle of battleship hill actually in fact never happened, but it was the battle name that have been given to 2 separate battles (Battle of Chunuk Bair and Battle of the Nek) that supposed to capture a location called Battleship Hill.
As with the ANZAC tradition, the battles went to hell, and with no real estate gain for this operation but in the process, losing a great chunk of Australian and New Zealand man power.
However, this battle did also means the most for the Australia, In the Australian War Memorial, there was a plaque with 3 words cut deep into it "Mateship, Courage and Sacrifice" and this term was defined in the height of Battle of the Nek, where basically, 650 Australian from the 3rd Light Horsemen were ordered to die.
It is with this battle, the Australian realised their national identity and they were no longer fighting for the King and Mother Country, it was the Aussie blood that flow thru the vein of each Australian, and they are at war to fight for each other, and die for each other, a feat which define a generation.
Background
As with the 5 battle happening across the Gallipoli peninsula, the battle of Battleship hill was part of feign/real break out battle from ANZAC, the other battle were Battle of Lone Pine, by the 1st Australian Brigade, the Battle at Krithia Vineyard by the British 29th Division and the Landing at Suvla by the British 10th and 11th Division.
The call for battle of battleship hill is, again, at Baby 700, where the New Zealander will hook East to Chunuk Bair and the cross SW to attack Battleship Hill from NE, meanwhile the Australian 3rd Light Horse Brigade would cross the Nek and attack Battleship Hill from the West and finish a pincer attack on the ottoman on Battleship hill.
While the Chunuk Bair is not as high as Baby 700, or Big 700, not to mention Hill 971 in the Sari Bair range, however, this is the place connect the Nek, with lone pine and beach, capturing the Chunuk Bair would form a continuous line between the NZ and Australian Position, while t is reverse salient in the current situation and would greatly reduce the pressure from the Australian Defence point of view.
And a continuous line is formed, the force could consolidate and break out of the range to Hill 971.
The Battles
Both Battle of the Nek and the Battle of Chunuk bair were set to go at 0430, and while the Australian hold their defence line at the nek, the New Zealander have to move to location from their own position, from the Beach, the New Zealander have to move across Rhododendron Spur which leads to Chunuk Bair, and the Ottoman have established quite an amount of outpost overlooking the spur, all these out post have to be taken before assaulting the Chunuk Bair.
Battle of Chunuk Bair
There were 2 approach went thru the spur, the Northern Approach and the Southern Approach, which both approach will leads to the Apex, an staging area over Chunuk Bair, there, the New Zealander will launch their attack.
While the northern approach (Auckland and Wellington battalion) clear out ottoman opposition and arrived at the apex on time, the southern approach (The Canterbury) were lost during the fight and they have been delayed The Commander of the New Zealand Brigade decided to wait for the lost battalion instead of assaulting the objective with the force at hand.
The attack assume at 0800 (3 and a half hours after the battle of the Nek) and now the other battle have long been decided, with decisive ottoman victories, the ottoman knew the New Zealander were to attack Chunuk Bair and formed up and reinforce the position an hour prior to the New Zealander attacks.
The attacks then falter and disintegrated where 300 men were lost in the first assault between the apex and the Chunuk Bair ridge, and the distance is only some 400 yards.
The New Zealander then were ordered to dig in and wait for night fall before trying too attack again. And the Kiwi dug in for the rest of the day. 3 more battalions were dispatched for the anticipated night attack.
At 0300, 8th August, the next day, the Wellington attacked, followed by the Glouster, preceded by Artillery and Naval Bombardment, the Kiwi took the ridge without any casualty as the Naval Bombardment is so accurate that it driven out the some 500 ottoman defender
The ottoman then counter attack the Wellington battalion position and succeed to take part of the trench but largely repelled by the Wellington Battalion in the morning, however, a division a strength night attack was staged by the ottoman and successfully repel all New Zealand defender from Chunuk Bair for good the next day
The next morning, the ottoman continue to attack the Chunuk Bair, while the British trying to out flank the ottoman position by attack Hill Q, an elevation just North of Chunuk Bair, but to get then the British have to cross the farm then climb to Hill Q. The task were given to a combine brigade of the General Baldwin's 38th Brigade, again, as with the tradition ANZAC battle on that days and age, Baldwin got lost and cannot find the farm until morning the 9th August, the only battalion that reach the summit of Hill Q is the 1/6 Indian Gurka Rifle, which did not stayed long after firing on by friendly ships. The momentum once again stalled, and effectively doomed the Kiwis position in Chunuk Bair
And the force in the Farm was hit hard and repelled by a decisive counter offensive led personally by Mustafa Kemal.
Battle of the Nek
the battle was supposed to be a supporting battle to Chunuk Bair and to draw out or dilute the ottoman defence in battleship hill, the main thrust is at Chunuk Bair, however, for Battle of the nek to work, it is very important that the Kiwi have to launch the attack at Chunuk bair at the same time as the Aussie launch the battle of the nek, but as described above, this is not to be.
The Nek would call for Naval Gun support before the Aussie going over, the Light Horse will charge the ottoman position just 30 meters away, in 4 waves, 150 men each.
The First wave will charge immediately after the cessation of artillery fire on 0430, and each wave will follow 2 minutes after, the whole battle would not last more than 10 minutes.
Instead, the naval gun fire stopped at 0423 with no one know if the gun fire would continue, that gave the ottoman about 5 minutes to go back and man their position, the first wave charged the ottoman position exactly 0430, and cut down within 30 second, most of them got shot immediately after launching themselves over and felt back to the Australian Own Trench, with estimated 98% casualty.
Second wave, seeing this, followed after 2 minutes, met with the same fate.
The Australian charging the ottoman position were told to unload their rifle and fix bayonet and so they can be go over "quickly" and most of the Light Horsemen felt to the ground before leaving their own trench, knowing full well that they can't fight back
Third wave were disrupted and a request to cancel the pointless charge have raise, and overruled by the command of the 3rd Light Horse, and went over a little more than 5 minutes after the second wave. Knowing that they were going to be killed by overwhelming ottoman rifle and machine gun fire, most of the third wave from 10th Battalion launch themselves then immediately hit the dirt, seeing they perform their duty, they crawl back to their own line, suffer 65% casualty. Which is the lowest of all wave.
And then, by the fourth wave, a serious question again raised about the point of the charge and a request to cancel the charge is now bring to the ANZAC command instead of the 3rd Light Horse command. but perhaps to suit this tragic ending, confusion arise and a section of 4th wave charge without waiting for the inquest and prompt the whole line launched over, suffer from 80% casualty.
That's 380 people felt dead and wounded in a window less than 30 minutes. Accounts have shown that both side were obvious silent after the battle of the nek, with the ottoman cannot believe the Australian would send wave after wave of man just to get killed.
Post Mortem
Command failure were blamed on the Chunuk Bair battle while the need to the Battle of the Nek had become a million dollars question for historian.
The need for charging the nek is gone when the New Zealander are not in position to attack Chunuk Bair at 0430, 7th August, the charge of the nek were then unsupported and also, charging the nek before an attack on Chunuk Bair would basically handed the ottoman the information that the commonwealth is going to attack Chunuk Bair, which is nothing but a big giveaway.
However, the charge in the nek were allowed to carry on despite the command knew the kiwi absent from Chunuk Bair can be interpret as one of the 2 decision making factors.
1.) The enemy line is just 30 meter away, the Australia could have try to charge it an overwhelm it anyway, with about 80-100 defender estimated, 600 Australian seems like a large enough number to overwhelm the ottoman defences, with Naval support (which is another great let down)
2.) The Australian launch the attack regardless to try to cut off ottoman support to Lone Pine, where the main game were that day, once they harassed the ottoman line at the nek, the ottoman would need to think twice before moving away from the nek and support the lone pine defence.
Either way, the decision maker feel the need justified the charge, knowing full well the consequence of an unsupported charge, and the charge were to went ahead.
Then the second question came, should they just stopped in 2 waves? Seeing their own soldier have been cut to pieces not even leaving their own trenches.
The problem is, once the charge gone ahead, you need to follow through otherwise if you launch half of your force to your objective and not supporting it, that would mean you condemn the first half of your force to death, either you send the second half of your force to be slaughter or you condemn the first half and cut lost, it would be quite honestly, "bad" either way. But under the circumstance, the launching of 3rd wave could still be justified.
Back onto Chunuk Bair, the New Zealander lost the initial momentum and attack the ottoman position before the ottoman can reinforce their position. As with almost all other battle fought in Gallipoli, the moment is gone and the command on site have been too slow to capitalise any gain in either surprise or decisiveness.
With Chunuk Bair going back to the Ottoman, the line remain unchanged before the August Offensive and the breakout did died when the ottoman retook the Chunuk Bair. Where both side will then settle with reinforcing their position until the British Commonwealth decided, it is too much, and pack up and left in December.
My Take on Gallipoli Campaign.
In hind sight, any campaign that failed and eventually led to overall victories is a waste, that mean you do not need to waste the resource you devoted in the losing campaign and the result of said campaign did not alter the final objective.
The problem is, we, student of history, usually benefitted by the hind sight, which we knew what had happened and what is relevant and what is irrelevant. But when you are on ground, trying to fight a war, and trying to win a war, you do not benefit from these hind sight and you have to try almost everything to try to tilt the odds in your favour.
I have led troop myself, I knew first hand how uncertainty can battlefield can get, the question is always not "What kind of stupidity you can allow to go" but rather what you can think of that other can't. And sometime it may look stupid, or nonsense or even crazy, but then commander have also need to remember, every battle is an odd you have to take, and who dares, win.
Going back to Gallipoli, when you look at the situation as of 1915, the Turks is fighting on the side of the Triparted power (Austro-Hungary and Germany) which mean the road to Russia thru Mediterranean were blocked and that is the only viable route to Russia during winter time, so the need to capture or capitulate turkey is indeed needed otherwise the Central Power can drive a wedge between the Eastern and Western Power and separate them.
While the battle is worth to fight, the way the battle being conducted is another story, but then can we actually blame how the battle went on with the commander? Granted, there are some moronic moment such as General Ferderik Stopford which never meant to command this much amount of troop. But do remember, it was 1915, when ships, ironclad, rifle and airpower did just appear in battlefield, and just because you can make them, that doesn't mean people know how to use them. The problem is, the tactics and strategy expired overnight, and the old line and file no longer effective with rifle, cannon, artillery and air power.
Commander have been given advance technology, but they don't know what it is and how to use them effectively. Hence even tho technological break thru like that, commander still trying to fight wars the way back in medieval time.
That is why Gallipoli Campaign, or to a point, the whole WW1 suffer extreme casualty, and then we can look at how war evolve from WW1 to the War in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2000s, exactly 100 years have passed, and we are still advancing in a pace we cannot keep up with our tactics and strategy.
In another note, the Gallipoli Campaign sees that Australian first fight for the King and Country, then fight for each other, and the national identity starting to appear that separate the Australian from the British. While the soldier would fight on as part of British Army until the end of WW1, 3 years later, but the emerging national identity have already been forge, and from that day on, they are not part of the Kings (or Queens now) Army, but they are ANZACs
Thank you for reading all these battle, I hope you have a good time as much as I am writing it.
Lest We Forget
