Start of the evacuation of Cape Helles

A British chronology of the war records under 7 January 1916 the beginning of the evacuation of Cape Helles, the last Allied bridgehead on the Gallipoli peninsula. In reality troops had been withdrawn from there for several days already. After the order of 28 December the so-called intermediate stage began: guns, horses, mules, stores and further battalions were taken off the beaches, so that only a garrison capable of holding the trenches until the last night would remain ashore. 7 January was the last day of this stage and also the day on which the Turks made their last attempt to attack the British on Gallipoli.

Before the last night

The intermediate stage went much worse at Helles than it had earlier at Suvla and Anzac. From New Year’s Day strong winds repeatedly interrupted loading for many hours at a time, and the French battleship Suffren collided with and sank the British transport St. Oswald, which had come to take off a thousand mules. The French did not manage to remove most of the stores gathered on V Beach. Their last infantry sailed away in the first days of January, and the whole position was taken over by the commander of VIII Corps, General Francis Davies. Only the French batteries remained under his orders. On 1 January the Commander-in-Chief, General Charles Monro, sailed from Mudros to Egypt, leaving the conduct of the operation to the commander of the Dardanelles Army, General William Birdwood.

On 4 January it became clear that a choice had to be made: either postpone the final stage or abandon a great many animals and much equipment. Birdwood unhesitatingly chose the latter, because every day of delay increased the risk of a bloody withdrawal. A day later Davies gave up spreading the final stage over two nights. The navy promised that, thanks to piers by a sunken collier and by old French ships that served as breakwaters, it would take off 17,000 men in a single night instead of the 15,000 previously planned. It was agreed that by the morning of 8 January the garrison would be reduced to exactly that number, and the last soldiers would be taken off on the first calm night. On the morning of 7 January about 19,000 soldiers remained on the cape.

The attack on Gully Spur

General Otto Liman von Sanders, the German commander of the Ottoman Fifth Army, resolved that after the British had slipped away from Suvla and Anzac he would not be caught out a second time. He brought his best batteries and scouts to Helles, ordered his soldiers to watch closely for signs of withdrawal, and prepared a great attack along the whole southern front. It was to be preceded by an attack by the 12th Division, trained for the purpose, on the Gully Spur ridge above the western shore of the peninsula, where the British line formed a forward salient.

Before noon on 7 January, after several days of relative quiet, the Turkish guns opened fire, including from the Asian shore of the Dardanelles. The heaviest fire fell on the 13th Division, commanded by General Frederick Stanley Maude. Veterans said they had never seen such fire on the peninsula. At about 4 p.m. the Turks blew two mines near Fusilier Bluff, and their trenches bristled with bayonets. The British saw Turkish officers trying to push their soldiers into the attack, but the accurate fire of the defenders and the ships meant that most of them did not leave their trenches. Only in two places, opposite the 7th Battalion of the North Staffordshire Regiment, were feeble attacks launched, and they were repulsed with heavy losses. The cruiser Edgar fired a thousand 6-inch (152 mm) shells that day, and the destroyer Wolverine used up all its ammunition. At about 5 p.m. the bombardment died down. According to the official history of the land campaign the British lost 164 men, including the commander of the North Staffordshire battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Walker. The history of naval operations speaks of 164 killed.

The night of 7–8 January

The attack frayed the command’s nerves, but it turned out to be a stroke of luck for the British. Their furious fire convinced the Turkish commanders that the Helles garrison was as strong as ever and that for the time being no one was thinking of withdrawal. In the evening the Turks did not renew their attempts, and the shelling of the beaches was lighter than usual. On the calm night of 7–8 January Davies embarked 2,300 soldiers, nine guns and almost a thousand animals. In the morning he reported that fewer than 17,000 men remained on the cape and that he was ready for the final stage. Over 500 mules and 1,590 wagons, which could no longer be taken off, were still waiting on the shore. The last soldiers left Helles during the night of 8–9 January.