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To the right of the line attacked by the Manchester Brigade and some 200 yards east of Krithia nullah, the Lancashire Fusiliers succeeded, with great gallantry, in capturing a small plot known as the Vineyard, which the Turks in six days' hard fighting were unable to regain. Regarded purely as a holding attack during the main enterprise from Suvla, the offensive fully achieved its purpose.
Over an area of 100 miles, from five or six places; from Krithia and Morto Bay; from Gaba Tepe; from Bulair and from Kum Kale in Asia, as well as, if the French can manage it, from Besika Bay, the cables will pour in. I reckon Liman von Sanders will not dare concentrate and that he will fight with his local troops only for the first forty-eight hours. But what is the number of these local troops?
The Goliath wouldn't answer; the Dublin said the force was coming off, and we could not get into touch with the soldiers at all. At about a quarter to ten the Sapphire asked us to fire over the cliffs into the country some hundreds of yards further in, and so the Queen E. gave Krithia and the South of it a taste of her metal.
Zeal carried the Anzacs nearly to the summit of the hills overlooking the Straits, and excess of it led to heavy losses in a Turkish counterattack; nor could the parties of British troops who got within a few hundred yards of Krithia on the 28th maintain their position, and the result of this first attempt was to give us possession of the extremity of the peninsula from a mile above Eski Hissarlik inside the Straits to three miles above Tekke on the Aegean, and of an exposed ridge of cliffs at Anzac.
So we turned South and steamed slowly back along the coast to Cape Helles. Opposite Krithia came another great moment. We have made good the landing sure it is a fact. I have to repeat the word to myself several times, "fact," "fact," "fact," so as to be sure I am awake and standing here looking at live men through a long telescope.
From General Sir Ian Hamilton to Secretary of State for War. In continuation of my Nos. M.F. 379 and 382. Plan of operations yesterday was to throw forward left of my line south-east of Krithia, pivoting on point about one mile from the sea, and after advancing extreme left for about half a mile, to establish new line facing east on ground thus gained.
With the withdrawal of the allied troops from Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay, the Turks were free to concentrate all their forces in the Gallipoli Peninsula in the south against the British and French forces that were still intrenched on a line running roughly from Y Beach on the Ægean Sea to Kereves Dere on the Dardanelles, skirting the slopes that led up to the town of Krithia and the heights of Achi Baba.
Immediately the Turks began to transfer the guns and men that had been used against the northern position. Obviously such a transfer in difficult country with few roads and a restricted front took considerable time. In the meantime the British and French in front of Krithia were not inactive. They countered constantly against the ever-increasing pressure of the enemy.
Elsewhere was scrub and, in those early months, sweet-smelling and aromatic plants and flowers round which bees hummed and butterflies hovered in the heat. The Peninsula was rent by three great ravines; the Gully with its precipitous banks on our left, and the Krithia and Achi Baba nullahs in the centre.
At 4 o'clock I issued orders that the whole line, reinforced by the Australians, should on the stroke of 5.30 fix bayonets and storm Krithia and Achi Baba. At 5.15 the men-of-war went at it hot and strong with their big guns and fifteen minutes later the hour glass of eternity dropped a tiny grain labelled 5.30 p.m. 8.5.1915 into the lap of time.
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