Battle of Sari Bair begins

On the afternoon of 6 August 1915 the great Allied August offensive began on the Gallipoli peninsula. Its main part was an attempt to capture the Sari Bair ridge (Turkish: Sarı Bayır), the highest hills above the bridgehead at Anzac Cove, from which the Narrows of the Dardanelles could be seen. At 5.30 p.m. the Australians attacked the Turkish trenches at Lone Pine, to draw the enemy’s reserves there. After dark on the northern flank the New Zealanders silently captured Turkish outposts, and behind them columns set off into the wild, winding gullies, meant to stand on the summits before dawn. The same night the British IX Corps landed at Suvla Bay, a few kilometres further north.

Birdwood’s plan

The idea came from General William Birdwood, commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, which since the April landing had been stuck in a narrow bridgehead under constant fire. Birdwood noticed that the Turks held the hills north of Anzac, covered in thorny scrub and cut by steep gullies, only with weak outposts. He proposed to outflank the Turkish positions that way and, in a night march, climb the three summits of the ridge: Chunuk Bair (Turkish: Conkbayırı), Hill Q and the highest point, Hill 971. General Ian Hamilton made this the basis of his plan, and divided the new divisions that the government had granted him in June between Anzac and Suvla. Over several moonless nights before the attack about 25,000 soldiers of the British 13th Division, part of the 10th Division and the 29th Indian Brigade were secretly landed on the Anzac beaches. By day they hid in dugouts cut into the slopes, so that Turkish observers would not spot them. In this way Birdwood had about 37,000 men against about 20,000 Turks of Esat Pasha’s Northern Group.

In the afternoon the Allies began with attacks meant to distract the Turks. At about 3.50 p.m. at Helles, at the southern tip of the peninsula, the British 29th Division advanced against the Turkish trenches in front of Krithia. The attack broke down with heavy losses.

Lone Pine

On the right flank of Anzac, on the 400 Plateau, the Turkish trenches at Lone Pine lay 60–150 yards (55–140 metres) from the Australian ones. In many places they were roofed with thick pine logs. At 4.30 p.m. about 28 guns and the cruiser Bacchante began shelling them, and at 5.30 p.m. three battalions of General Nevill Smyth’s 1st Australian Brigade went into the attack in four waves. Two leapt out of the openings of tunnels dug under no man’s land, two went over the parapet. They crossed no man’s land quickly, but above the Turkish trenches the men were held up by the logs. Some fired through the gaps at the defenders below, others jumped in through holes in the roof or through the open communication trenches at the rear. In the dark, covered passages a hand-to-hand fight with bayonets and hand grenades took place. By about 6 p.m. the Australians were already in the heart of the Turkish position.

At 7 p.m. the brigade’s last battalion went into the trenches. The Turks, who call this sector Kanlısırt (“Bloody Ridge”), counter-attacked with grenades all night. Esat Pasha sent to Lone Pine all the reserves he had to hand, and called up from Gaba Tepe two regiments of the 9th Division of the German Colonel Hans Kannengiesser. According to the British official history, this is precisely why he lacked men on the northern flank in the morning. The fighting for the captured trenches was to go on for several more days.

The night march

After dark about 2,000 New Zealanders of General Andrew Russell’s Mounted Rifles Brigade, the Otago Mounted Rifles and the Māori contingent set off against the Turkish outposts at the mouths of the gullies. One of them, Old No. 3 Post, was taken by a ruse prepared for weeks. Every night at exactly 9 p.m. a destroyer lit it with a searchlight and shelled it for half an hour, and the Turks then took cover in their dugouts. That night, when at 9.30 p.m. the searchlight moved on, the men from Auckland were already under the Turkish parapet and took the post almost without loss. By about 1 a.m. Destroyer Hill, Table Top and Bauchop’s Hill had fallen in turn. The commander of the Otago regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Bauchop, who led the last bayonet charge, was mortally wounded. Further north two New Army battalions occupied the Damakjelik Bair hill and took about 200 prisoners. All this, however, took about two and a half hours longer than planned.

The assault columns set off late. General Francis Johnston’s New Zealand Infantry Brigade, which was to climb Chunuk Bair, was by about 1 a.m. only about 1.4 kilometres from the summit, then empty. Johnston, however, halted to wait for the Canterbury Battalion, which had lost its way in a neighbouring gully and before dawn found itself back at its starting point. The second column, General John Monash’s 4th Australian Brigade and the 29th Indian Brigade under the overall command of General Herbert Cox, had a longer route to Hill Q and Hill 971. On the advice of a local guide it took a short cut through a narrow, overgrown ravine, later named Taylor’s Gap. Fired on by a few Turkish scouts, the column covered those 600 yards in three hours.

At dawn on 7 August none of the columns stood on the ridge. The New Zealanders were waiting on the western shoulder of Rhododendron Ridge, while the exhausted Australians and the Gurkhas scattered in the gullies were still far from their objectives. The British official history stresses that during the night they met hardly any resistance. According to Turkish sources, the ridge from Battleship Hill northwards was almost undefended all night. A few hours later, as the Australian Light Horse stormed the Nek and the New Zealanders approached Chunuk Bair, Turkish reinforcements were already beginning to reach the summit.