Order to evacuate Cape Helles

On 28 December 1915 a telegram from London reached General Charles Monro’s headquarters at Mudros on Lemnos, one the troops at the Dardanelles had been awaiting for a week: “The Government have decided that the Helles position may now be evacuated. The withdrawal is to be carried out as soon as possible, but entirely at your discretion.” The Cabinet had decided by 27 December at the latest, because on that day the First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur Balfour, confidentially informed the fleet commander, Admiral John de Robeck. After the evacuation of Suvla and Anzac, the cape at the southern tip of the Gallipoli peninsula was the last patch of ground the British and French held there.

“For the present”

When at the beginning of December the Cabinet ordered Suvla and Anzac to be abandoned, it said only that Helles was to be held “for the present”. For the commanders on the spot this was the worst possible solution. If the bridgehead was to survive the winter, the garrison had to be strengthened and large stocks of ammunition and food accumulated. If it was soon to be abandoned, exactly the opposite had to be done. The British official history stresses that from 8 December both Monro and General William Birdwood, commanding the Dardanelles Army, wanted to leave Helles as soon as possible after the evacuation in the north was complete. They feared that the Turks, freed from Suvla and Anzac, would bring more guns south, and that the January gales would take away the last chance of a safe withdrawal. Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss and Commodore Roger Keyes, who as late as the beginning of December had wanted to force the straits with warships, eventually decided that Helles alone was not worth the losses. De Robeck, however, back from leave, took the opposite view and, according to the British history of naval operations, was still arguing on Christmas Day that holding the cape was of “great importance to the fleet”.

Meanwhile the French wanted to take their corps off the peninsula as soon as possible. Between 12 and 22 December all the Senegalese infantry left, and its place in the line was taken by the exhausted British 29th Division, brought down from Suvla. The soldiers at Helles already knew that the northern bridgeheads had been abandoned, and found it ever harder to believe they were fighting for any purpose. The commander of VIII Corps, General Francis Davies, therefore ordered the Turks to be harassed ceaselessly with bombs, trench mortars and mining, so that the British would hold the upper hand in no man’s land whether the order came to stay or to go.

Preparations before the order

Matters were hastened by a change in London. On 23 December General William Robertson became Chief of the Imperial General Staff, succeeding Archibald Murray, and made it a condition that from then on he, and not the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, would issue orders to the commanders in the field. He was convinced that at Helles there was nothing to gain and much to lose. On 24 December he telegraphed to Monro that he could prepare for immediate evacuation, provided he did not weaken the defence in case the government decided to stay after all. On Christmas Day Birdwood conferred on the cape with Davies and the commander of the French troops, General Brulard. It was agreed that the rest of the French infantry would be relieved as soon as possible, while the French guns would remain to the end under the orders of VIII Corps and leave together with the British ones. Brulard even agreed that some old heavy guns should be destroyed and abandoned. From 26 December the 13th Division began to replace the 42nd Division, and mules and surplus equipment were shipped off from the beaches, where the piers had been repaired.

After the order

On 27 December Davies learned that the navy could take off at most 15,000 men from Helles in a single night, and that was the size the final party could be. When the order arrived a day later, he was told to begin the intermediate stage of the evacuation. On 29 December Monro gathered Birdwood and his staff at Mudros. Speed was paramount, and because of the weather men were not to be risked to save equipment, although Monro wanted to save the more valuable guns and all the howitzer ammunition. In the evening Birdwood learned that Davies believed that in the event of a prolonged gale he could not hold the position with fewer than 22,000 men and 60 guns. He therefore provisionally agreed to spread the final stage over two nights: first 7,000 men and 40 guns were to leave, and on the last night 15,000 men with as much of the remaining artillery as possible.

This time the Turks were more alert than at Suvla and Anzac. On the evening of 29 December word came from the cape that a Turkish deserter had stated that his battalion was to send small parties towards the British lines again and again to check whether the trenches were still manned. The shelling of the beaches was growing heavier. The last soldiers left Helles on the night of 8/9 January 1916.