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.
Aux Dardanelles; Victoire; Vive les AlliésLogo and number: ACA 2131Reverse:Artige - Fabricant 16, Faub. St. Denis Paris Visé Paris N. au verso. Fabrication Française - Marque A.C.A
". . . from the early evening of 26 November, the Suvla Sector War Diary of the 86th Brigade, 29th Division, illustrates the terrible experience which was to befall those at Suvla and to some extent those at Anzac.'1900. Very severe thunderstorm with very strong gale and torrents of rain.'2000. All telephone communication was cut off and all dugouts flooded out.'2100. Reported to Bde H.Q.s that all trenches were flooded, water had come in as though it had been a tidal wave, that many men must have been drowned, and few had been able to save their rifles and equipment. The men were standing up to their knees in water, behind the parados of the trenches.'"
The storm that moved into the Dardanelles on November 26, 1915 would prove deadly, first with flood waters, then with blizzard conditions and freezing cold. Of the three Allied positions on the Gallipoli Peninsula, that at Suvla Bay was the most recent and least well entrenched due to the the rocky soil that made it too difficult to dig in. In many places the men, rather than being dug in, sheltered behind stone barriers.
Men of Gallipoli: The Dardanelles and Gallipoli Experience August 1914 to January 1916 by Peter Liddle, pp. 256, 257, copyright © Peter Liddle, 1976, publisher: David and Charles, publication date: 1976
1915-11-26, 1915, November, Gallipoli, flood, gale
