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A bird's eye view of the Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Front, showing the Gully leading to the shore and hospital. From 'Gallipoli' by John Masefield.
To the Dardanelles! The Entente Allies successfully capture their objective and plant their flags in this boy's 1915 war game, as they did not in life, neither in the naval campaign, nor in the invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula.
French and Montengrin troops on Mount Lovćen. From Mount Lovćen, Montenegrin artillery were able to bombard the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Cattaro, and began doing so in August, 1914. They conducted an artillery duel with Austro-Hungarian guns on land and on the armored cruiser Kaiser Karl VI, which was joined by three more battleships in September. The French supported the Montenegrins, landing four 12 cm and four 15 cm naval guns in September and moving them into position in the following month, opening fire on October 19. With the addition of SMS Radetsky, the Austro-Hungarian battery was able to overcome the Montenegrin position, which was abandoned by November, 1914. From a painting by Alphonse LaLauze, 1915.
A map of the Russian-Turkish front from Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, a 1930s German history of the war illustrated with hand-pasted cigarette cards, showing the Turkish Empire in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf. To the west is Egypt, a British dominion; to the east Persia. Erzerum in Turkey and Kars in Russia were the great fortresses on the frontier.
Intermission at a French theater, 1915. Women and a girl knit, socks perhaps, for soldiers at the front, as does a Red Cross nurse seated between two sleepy soldiers, one — from an Algerian regiment — visibly wounded. An older man reads the news. Illustrated by A. Guillaume, the postcard is captioned in the languages of the Entente Allies, French, English, and Russian.
"On 7 January [1916], von Sanders delivered the first attack of his campaign to drive the British forces from Helles. At midday a massive bombardment fell on 13 Division at Gully Spur, which was countered by the few guns remaining on short and by the navy off-shore. At 4 p.m., two enormous onshore Turkish mines were exploded at Gully Spur, and the bombardment increased in intensity. Shortly afterwards the Turks charged, but the British machine-guns were still intact and the navy, unhampered by concerns over ammunition usage, cut down the Turkish troops before they made any progress. By 6 p.m. the fighting was over." ((1), more)
"There were now just 17,000 men left, and January 8 [1916] was another calm spring-like day. Once again as at Suvla and Anzac great stores and ammunition were got ready for destruction. Landmines were laid, and the self-firing rifles set in position in the trenches. Once again the sad mules lay dead in rows. . . .The thing that the soldiers afterwards remembered with particular vividness was the curious alternation of silence and of deafening noise that went on through the day. . . .Apart from the spasmodic shelling there was no movement in the Turkish lines, and as the night advanced the Turks very largely ceased to count; it was the weather which engrossed everybody's mind. By 8 p.m. the glass was falling, and at nine when the waning moon went down the wind had risen to thirty-five miles an hour. . . ." ((2), more)
"Rest of company left, leaving only ten of us. Part of firing line went off. 8th: . . . Hoods on our left moved out very quickly . . . straw down and muffled feet . . . 23.45: All moved out. We put down crinolines in front line . . . we put down umbrellas and crinolines at Supports . . . Waited for Dumezil and bomb people at Ligne de Repli barricade. Further wait at Post 11 for Thompson. Then all down to Post 15. Eski. Longish wait for Blake. Barricaded road. Put gear on, proceeded down. Very quiet. Few French left round Camp des Oliviers. Via Cypresses to F.U.P. at Seddel Bahr—then in fours—slow progress over beached French warship on to destroyer Grasshopper. Like sardines, on board before 0300. Few dud shells from Annie. Out to sea. Bonfires started 0400 on all beaches and Turks started shelling like blazes and sending up red flares. Fine to watch it from a distance." ((3), more)
"The offensive by the Central Powers in the Balkans paid the Austrian navy a major dividend. On 8–10 January 1916, the XIX Austrian Army Corps, effectively supported by naval gunfire from the old battleships and cruisers of the Fifth Division, cleared the Montenegrins from Mount Lovčen. This removed observation posts that could report all Austrian ship movements during daylight hours. The Montenegrins requested an armistice on 12 January and dropped out of the war." ((4), more)
"Germany continued to look to anti-war agitation in Russia as a way to lessen the burdens on the Eastern Front, and perhaps to end them altogether. On January 11 more than 10,000 Russian workers went on strike at the Black Sea port and naval base of Nikolayev. Within two weeks the strike spread to Petrograd, where as many as 45,000 dock workers went on strike. Both the Russian discontent with the war and the national aspirations of Russia's subject people stimulated German attention." ((5), more)
(1) The Allies were abandoning their Gallipoli campaign, when German General Liman von Sanders, commanding Turkish forces on the Gallipoli peninsula. Having already evacuated their positions at Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove to the north, British forces held only Cape Helles at the end of the peninsula. French, French colonial, and some British and Empire forces had already left, leaving a force that feared such an attack. Sanders claimed to have gained some ground. In his Gallipoli, Alan Moorehead claims that, after a few minutes and many dead, the Turkish infantry refused to charge.
Gallipoli — Attack from the Sea by Victor Rudenno, page 263, copyright © 2008 Victor Rudenno, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2008
(2) The Allies' Gallipoli campaign, begun in April with great hopes of quick victory, was in its penultimate day. Having already evacuated their positions at Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove to the north, a British force, its numbers determined by what the fleet could transport in a single night, held, and thinly, only Cape Helles at the end of the peninsula.
Gallipoli by Alan Moorehead, page 346, copyright © 1956 by Alan Moorehead, publisher: Perennial Classics 2002 (HarperCollins Publications 1956), publication date: 2002 (1956)
(3) Excerpt from the diary of Eric Wettern of the Royal Naval Division 2nd Field Company Engineers, beginning from the end of the entry for January 7, 1916, the day of a Turkish attack, through 4:00 a.m. the morning of January 9. Ellipses in original. 'Annie' was likely Turkish heavy artillery.
Men of Gallipoli: The Dardanelles and Gallipoli Experience August 1914 to January 1916 by Peter Liddle, page 270, copyright © Peter Liddle, 1976, publisher: David and Charles, publication date: 1976
(4) With the loss of Mount Lovčen, Montenegro, with a population of just over half a million, was little match for Austria-Hungary. King Nicholas fled the country, and established a government in exile in France.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 157, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(5) Throughout the war German authorities provided support to revolutionary groups and individuals both inside and outside Russia. Revolutionaries in turn tried to influence workers, soldiers, and sailors in Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Russian navy battled Turkey in the Black Sea. The strike in the capital, Petrograd, on the Baltic, was more threatening to the Russian government and war effort.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 227, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
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