End of the Battle of Sari Bair

At dawn on 10 August 1915 Turkish infantry poured over the summit of Chunuk Bair on the Gallipoli peninsula and swept away the British battalions which the day before had relieved the shattered New Zealanders on its slope. The attack was prepared and led by Colonel Mustafa Kemal, since the evening of 8 August commander of the Turkish troops north of Anzac Cove. By noon the Allies had lost everything they had gained on the Sari Bair ridge since 8 August, except the trenches on the lower Rhododendron Ridge. With this day the British official history ends the four-day Battle of Sari Bair, on which the fate of the whole campaign had hung.

Changing of the guard

After the failed attack of 9 August the British remained on the western slope of Chunuk Bair, a few dozen metres below the summit. After dark the New Zealanders, who had been fighting there for three days, were relieved by the 6th Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment of the British 13th Division. There was room in the trenches for only about 700 men. Two and a half companies of the 5th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment, which were to support it, arrived only at about 2 a.m. Unable to fit into the trenches, they went down into the Sazli Beit Dere gully, which a New Zealand guide had judged safe, laid down their arms and equipment and fell asleep for the first time in four days. Along the whole sector from the Apex to the farmstead called the Farm there were about 2,000 soldiers from four brigades and three divisions, most of them strangers to one another and to their commanders.

On the other side of the ridge Kemal, after a daring personal reconnaissance, decided to retake Chunuk Bair, drive the Allies off Rhododendron Ridge and the Farm and in this way separate the bridgeheads at Anzac and Suvla. According to the British official history he gathered six battalions for the attack; according to Turkish studies about 5,000 men from regiments of the 8th and 9th Divisions.

The attack at dawn

Just before dawn Turkish bombers wiped out the forward posts which the commander of the Loyal North Lancashires had sent out to the edge of the ridge, and for half an hour they showered the trenches with grenades. At about 4.30 a.m. the Turkish artillery opened fire, and at about 4.45 a.m. dense waves of infantry appeared on the skyline and rushed down with bayonets. According to Turkish accounts Kemal led them personally, and before the attack he told his soldiers not to hurry and to move only when they saw his raised riding crop. The British trenches were overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the attackers. Of the Loyal North Lancashire battalion about 500 men, together with their commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Levinge, were posted missing. The Wiltshire companies, caught without their arms in the gully, were scattered.

A few minutes later the Turks took the knoll called the Pinnacle, but they got no further. At the Apex they were stopped by the fire of the New Zealand machine guns gathered in that sector, of the artillery and of the ships, and the Irish Leinster battalion manned the line and held it until evening. On the northern slope, towards the Farm, the second part of the attack ran down the steep hillside and hand-to-hand fighting followed. General Anthony Baldwin, commanding this sector, and his staff officer were killed there, and General Richard Cooper of the 29th Brigade was badly wounded. At about 10 a.m. the remnants of the British fell back to the neighbouring spur, Cheshire Ridge. The Turks, themselves bled white under the fire of the ships and the machine guns, did not follow them and returned to the ridge. Only the wounded and the dead remained on the Farm plateau. This day is also linked with the Turkish story of the shrapnel fragment that was stopped by the watch in Kemal’s pocket and saved his life.

In the afternoon a battalion of the Connaught Rangers reoccupied the Farm and carried away many wounded, but after the loss of the Pinnacle the position was too exposed and after dark the Irishmen withdrew. The last to come down from below Hill Q was a Gurkha battalion, unattacked all morning, which no longer had any British officer with it except the doctor; the withdrawal was carried out by its senior Gurkha officer.

Balance

According to the British official history, General William Birdwood’s corps had lost more than 12,000 men since 6 August and had no reserves left. The Australian official historian Charles Bean, citing Turkish figures, estimated the defenders’ losses at Anzac at about 18,000. From the Sari Bair ridge, on which the defence of the Narrows depended, the Turks now looked down on the new Allied line, running from the Apex along Cheshire Ridge to the north. After the war the British official history judged that the double defeat of 9 August, at Anzac and at Suvla, had already sealed the failure of the August offensive, although at General Ian Hamilton’s headquarters it was believed for several more days that the ridge could be outflanked from the north, through the hills above Suvla.

At the end of August the Allies made their last attacks on Scimitar Hill at Suvla and on Hill 60 at the junction of the two bridgeheads, but they never took the Sari Bair ridge. For Kemal the August victory, after his defence of Anzac in April, was the foundation of his fame as the commander who had saved the peninsula. Today a New Zealand memorial stands on the summit of Chunuk Bair, and beside it a monument to Atatürk.