PeteBlog

Hi Peter,I thought I would see how the site is going.. It looks like you am me at the moment.RegardsMartin.P.S. spoke to M at IWM - mad as a box of frogs!

www.peterhartmilitary.com

Writing this book has been one of the most exciting projects I have ever undertaken. When I started I was a bit worried, I’d had lots of problems writing Aces Falling and I wasn’t sure that I was up to the job of writing another large book so soon. Like most Great War enthusiasts I was also conscious of gaps in my understanding of the 1918 fighting. I’ve always been far more fascinated by the Somme, Passchendaele or even, whisper it, Loos! 

But when I started the detailed research I began to realise that our communal understanding of the whole of the First World War has a strangely ‘unfinished’ aspect to it; why have the great battles of the earlier years seemed so futile in the public imagination and why are British High Command so denigrated? It is because most books aimed at the popular market concentrate on the disasters and setbacks of the first four years of the war. Even those that cover 1918 seem to concentrate on the wonders of the German offensives commencing on 21 March. When a book does deign to cover the Hundred Days, the British Advance to Victory, it seems to be a quick blast on the role of the tanks at the Battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918, a bit of musing on what was a ‘Black Day for the German Army’, then a turkey trot to victory, swiftly referenced, before turning to the Armistice on 11 November. It is usually implied that the British never really won the war ‘fair and square’, that it was all down to the fresh injection of hordes of young Americans or that anyway they cheated by undermining the German Army using the naval blockade to starve them out, thereby underhandedly promoting the revolution that stabbed the undefeatable German Army ‘in the back’.

Now, ignoring the self-evident fact that Total War is strangely all-encompassing, this approach to 1918 is rubbish. The more I read the more it was apparent that the German offensives that year weren’t that brilliant - their tactics not that far advanced and they were carried out with a minimal grasp of strategic priorities. But what about the reality of the British ‘All Arms Battle’ that was finally unveiled in all its glory on 8 August. Here were the tanks true, but more important they were seamlessly welded into a greater whole. Here were the infantry: well armed with light Lewis machine guns and rifle grenades deploying sophisticated tactics that minimised losses. In immediate support were the heavy Vickers machine guns banded together to provide lethal firepower in attack or defence, the light and heavy mortars hurling high explosives, deadly thermite or poisonous gas canisters. Concealing them were dense smoke barrages that veiled from the Germans what was coming towards them. Trundling along into action alongside the infantry were the heavy tanks to crush the wire and assault German strongpoints, behind them came the supply tanks bringing forward huge quantities of ammunition, then there were the lighter tanks and armoured cars held ready to push through and cause chaos in the rear areas in the event of a rupture in the German lines. Aircraft flew above them, now not just photographing or carrying out artillery observation functions, but diving down to spray machine gun fire and small bombs to harass and disrupt the German army every step of the way. Aerial bombing had progressed to such a level that it was not only used to kill on, or near, the battlefield, but also to try and sever the German strategic rail communications which they needed to bring up reinforcements. Behind everything there was the artillery: truly, as the Royal Artillery motto suggests, the guns were ubique – everywhere – on the Western Front. Within the whole murderous conglomeration that was the ‘All Arms Battle’ they were still the supreme weapons system.

And what about the other ninety-nine of the Hundred Days. The German Army did not just roll over, they fought every step of the way - well most of them anyway! Retiring in good order they inflicted dreadful casualties, but they were losing even more themselves. Battle after battle was fought, German last-ditch defensive lines were breached, culminating in the fall of the Hindenburg Line in late September. Even then the Germans used river lines to try and stem the inexorable Allied advance. Both sides were approaching the limits of human endurance but it was the Germans that finally broke. The Armistice was not just an Armistice - it was an utter surrender, read the stringent all-embracing conditions and see how the German military services, all of them, were systematically stripped of their ability to resume the conflict. And that was just to obtain the Armistice, never mind peace itself.

And what about the quality of the personal experience quotes I discovered lovingly tended, not lost or forgotten, by archivists at the Imperial War Museum? Judge for yourself from a few examples the type of vicarious excitement mixed with horror that I feel burns it’s way off the page 

War is the most ruthless system of organised murder that the animal ‘man’ has invented, and the most horrible. Wars are fought by young men, inexperienced and impressionable - to whom in large part the thing is seen in the light of an adventure. Indeed, it is in some degree an adventure, and no adventure is worth calling such without a degree of risk to life and limb. But its results are so ghastly that inevitably there comes a time when war ceases to be an adventure, and the young regard it cynically, disillusioned and disenchanted. I do not suppose any generation ever marched to war with the stars in their eyes as my generation did, but after the Somme and the even worse slaughter at Third Ypres there were no more stars.

Lieutenant Richard Dixon, 251 Battery, 53rd Brigade, Royal Artillery

We awoke to the thunder of a thousand guns and the shattering crash of a storm of shells upstairs. The place was in darkness and the gas curtain already hung in shreds. A shower of dirt descended on my face. Scared stiff we all tumbled out of our bunks, scrabbled round for tin hats and respirators, looking at the roof, now showing signs of bulging ominously in parts, in spite of being 20 feet underground. I remember hoping that the French sappers who had built our underground home had done a good job of it. Like the rest I dreaded being buried alive.

Private James Brady, 43rd Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, 14th Division

At a critical stage in battle the British soldier is not a silent man. Cursing and blaspheming, the Jocks were exposing themselves recklessly and they fired round after round at the enemy.

Major Robert Johnston, 16th Battalion, Royal Scots, 101st Brigade, 34th Division

I came to paralysed, breathing shallowly. There was a little gap in the haze and sunlight. I could see the blood dripping down from the end of my nose into the clay, but I couldn’t move. At the edge of the haze was a pair of boots. He said, “You’re not dead!” He pulled me to my feet and he got a field dressing, put it on me bound it up, handed me my tin hat and said, “You lucky beggar!”

 Corporal Edmund Williams, 19th Battalion, King’s Liverpool Regiment, 89th Brigade, 30th Division

One solitary shell of large calibre came whistling trough the air and burst just behind us, practically wiping out the rear platoon. I went back the few paces to where the men and bits of men lay and have never forgotten one poor fellow, who with blood pouring down his face and dreadful wounds in his body, pointed to my pistol holster and said, “Put me out, Sir, please”.

Captain George Brett, 23rd Battalion, London Regiment, 142nd Brigade, 47th Division 

The order was to stay put as long as we could - we were not to retire! We stayed where we were. We shot and shot and shot till the fellows in the trenches could hardly hold their rifles. They killed thousands; I have never seen so many dead in front of out trenches.

Captain Ulick Burke, 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment, 23rd Brigade, 8th Division

Poor old Lieutenant Ferguson, absolutely fearless and exceedingly popular among the boys of No. 2 Company. I can picture him now as he was that day, so unlike his natural self. He had a sort of dejected look about him and told us that he was going to “get his” that day. How he knew is something we don’t quite understand. He got it all right, a piece of shrapnel through the head. I was with him at the time; just another ‘C-R-R-UMP’ and he slumped to the ground - dying instantly.

Lance Corporal Kenneth Foster, 2nd (Eastern Ontario) Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Canadian Division 

Some of the graves dotting a battlefield had inscriptions, often macabre as in the case of one I saw – that of a German killed during an Australian advance. To the man’s rifle had been pinned a sheet of cardboard on which was scrawled in chalk:Here you lie, brother BoscheYour Pals won’t bury you, Hindenburg won’t bury you, your Kaiser won’t bury you; they can’tBut the poor bloody Aussie will bury you, because YOU STINK!

Second Lieutenant John Fleming, U Bty, 16th Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery 

We are in a place made immortal by Americans – and they are not unusual or extraordinary supermen, but simply Americans. I am with the infantry in the line and if the Bosche gets this place back, it will be because none of us is left alive. You would be very proud of America if you could see the things that are here now. I am very glad you can’t though. Squads lying where they fell, charging in perfect formation against a Bosche machine gun – pitiful shattered helmets, letters from home, bayonets no longer shiny near the end – everything bloody and stained.

Lieutenant Kenneth Walser, 101st Field Artillery, 51st Brigade, 26th Division, American Expeditionary Force 

Fear is a man’s biggest individual enemy. Not in the battle when there is action and movement and sport and excitement; but in the recesses of his little pit which he dug by dint of scratching maybe with his jack-knife and mess pan using them as pick and shovel, when the damp misting whistling wind is blowing through the shattered trees around, and groaning of the wounded becomes unbearable and hunger and thirst seem to drag vitality from you inch by inch, and the shells big and little are pulling one more from among the few men you have left, and you shiver-from cold and the thoughts of some horrible death you’ve seen some fellow die that day, his one game hand trying to stuff his entrails back into his belly maybe some of his brains in his helmet and the pain from a shinbone bent double toe touching knee, spasmodically making his last breath a gurgled curse of pent up hatred! God in heaven knows that if it doesn’t cast a spell of fear over you I don’t know what will.

Lieutenant Eugene West, 5th Marine Regiment, 2nd Division, AEF 

The racket was awe-inspiring, it was impossible to hear, even if orders were given. Over we went, slipping and sliding down the canal bank to the cold water below. The opposite bank was pitted with machine gun nests, in tunnels dug into the 30 feet high sloping bank. How any of us even reached the water beats me, but a surprising number did. The water was up to armpits, and holding that gun above my head was bad enough without being machine gunned as well. Clawing our way on to the bank we were underneath some of the machine guns making it more difficult to hit us, so my team and many others flung Mills grenades into the various tunnels nearest to us, while clinging for dear life to any scrap of projection on the bank. After many years I still don’t know how we got away with it.

Corporal George Parker, 1/8th Battalion Sherwood Foresters, 139th Brigade, 46th Division 

I hope no terms will be granted that don’t make the Huns absolutely grovel. We have the Bosche so beat that if he won’t grovel now, it is only a matter of hanging on a little bit more, when he positively won’t be able to help himself. What one has seen and heard makes one hate and loathe the Bosche just more than ever as the most unutterable of all brute beasts.

Brigadier-General George Stevens, Headquarters, 90th Brigade, 30th Division

Our job is to make the miserable Bosche climb on his chair and be a good boy. So far as we can see he has not as yet shown any very wholesome haste to get on the chair without a considerable amount of assistance from our part, so I guess we will carry on for a bit yet.

Colonel Leland Garretson, 315th Machine Gun Battalion, 80th Division, AEF

We automatically mounted the machine gun for action. Then like animals we burrowed into the earth as if trying to find protection deep in its bosom. Something struck my back where I carried my gas mask, but I did not pay attention to it. A steel splinter broke the handle of my spade and another knocked the remains out of my hand. I kept digging with my bare hands, ducking my head every time a shell exploded nearby. A boy to my side was hit in the arm and cried out for help. I crawled over to him, ripped the sleeves of his coat and shirt open and started to bind the bleeding part. The gas was so thick now I could hardly discern what I was doing. My eyes began to water and I felt as if I would choke. I reached for my gas mask, pulled it out of its container - then noticed to my horror that a splinter had gone through it leaving a large hole. I had seen death thousands of times, stared it in the face, but never experienced the fear I felt then. Immediately I reverted to the primitive. I felt like an animal cornered by hunters. With the instinct of self-preservations uppermost, my eyes fell on the boy whose arm I had bandaged. Somehow he had managed to put the gas mask on his face with his one good arm. I leapt at him and in the next moment had ripped the gas mask from his face. With a feeble gesture he tried to wrench it from my grasp; then fell back exhausted. The last thing I saw before putting on the mask were his pleading eyes.

Corporal Frederick Meisel, 371 Infantry Regiment, 43rd Ersatz Brigade, 10th Ersatz Division, German Army

One of our men received a terrible stomach wound - I don’t think I’ll say what I saw. But I do remember this poor wretch rolling over and over and the steam from his blood rising up. It was obvious he was not going to live. From the first to the last days of the war men were dying. But those who so nearly finished the course and fell at the last fence, these are the ones we most feel sorry for. To think another day and he should have been safe. But it wasn’t to be.

Private Harold Bashford, 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, 54th Brigade, 18th Division

No more slaughter, no more maiming, no more mud and blood, no more killing and disembowelling of horses and mules. No more of those hopeless dawns, with the rain chilling the spirits, no more crouching in inadequate dugouts scooped out of trench walls, no more dodging snipers’ bullets, no more of that terrible shell fire. No more shovelling up of bits of men’s bodies and dumping them into sandbags, no more cries of, “Stretcher-bearers!”

Lieutenant Richard Dixon, 251 Battery, 53rd Brigade, Royal Artillery

We were told that this was ‘the war to end war’ and some of us at least believed it. It may sound extraordinarily naïve, but I think one had to believe it. All the mud, blood and bestiality only made sense on the assumption that it was the last time civilised man would ever have to suffer it. I could not believe that anyone who had been through it could ever allow it to happen again. I thought that the ordinary man on both sides would rise up as one and kick any politician in the teeth who even mentioned the possibility of war.

Lieutenant John Nettleton, 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade, 25thBrigade, 8th Division

So there it is: writing 1918 A Very British Victory was the best experience I have ever had as a writer. Then the editorial team led by Keith Lowe added their input, all helpful and spot on in unearthing my many errors of omission and commission! The result is what I hope is my best book by a long street. Interesting material, a good narrative drive, bone-shaking battles, vigorous controversy and, whisper it, the right side win! 

 www.peterhartmilitary.com 

Well a bit of a hangover to greet the dawn but a power shower, breakfast and the tender ministrations of Dr Alka Seltzer soon restore my physical equilibrium. Off we go again: this time to the ‘Big Country’ that is Suvla Bay – an area that swallowed up British troops and spat them out. The mood was slightly ‘tired’ in the coach but we gradually revived.

Our first stop was at the Turkish big guns from the 1870s located near Anafarta. They were definitely ‘big’ and although of archaic design even in 1915 were ideal for harassing fire onto our major corps depot on the beaches at Suvla. Then on to Scimitar Hill and after a bit of ground orientation we had a briefing on the outline of the campaign. The staggering incompetence of the British commanders at all levels was evident. The plans had been watered down from the ‘coup de main’ as originally planned by Hamilton whereby the newly created IX Corps was to seize the heights, establish a viable corps base and if possible to assist in the efforts to seize the Sari Bair range by the assaulting columns driving out from Anzac. However Hamilton had been given an entirely unsuitable and totally incompetent commander for his brand new shiny IX Corps in the august figure of Lieutenant General Frederick Stopford – one of nature’s scapegoats but a man who thoroughly deserved the censure. But Stopford was not alone in his inability to grasp Hamilton’s intentions. It is fair to say that most of the senior officers demonstrated once again the default setting of the British Army at Gallipoli: when in doubt - do nothing! We discussed the irony of Hamilton, so often criticised for his laissez faire attitude, provoked disaster when he finally intervened after a couple of days to insist on an immediate attack on the Tekke Tepe heights. The orders were passed down until the battalion holding Scimitar Hill was removed and sent off on the task of taking the Tekke Tepe Ridge – where they duly failed as the massed Turkish reserves arrived from Bulair. Several of the team members could not believe that such a key tactical position could be so casually and voluntarily abandoned.

We then made the short journey to Green Hill where we first looked at the cemetery and then walked over Chocolate Hill. Here we encountered a mercifully friendly swarm of bees and some notably unfriendly gorse – ouch! We looked at the ground lying in front of the troops and the problems that developed over their route to their first day objective at Chocolate Hill. Stopford was worried by the prospect of Turkish defences to the south of the Hills so he wanted to avoid the option of sending troops on the obvious route straight from the landing beach round the southern border of the Salt Lake. But then as he wasn’t sure of the surface of the (actually dry) Salt Lake, then perforce he had to send the troops on a crazy route swinging all the way round the northern boundary of the Salt Lake. And it is a ‘Big Country’ so that meant a lot of marching in the broiling sun. Then there were the Turks fighting a truly classic delaying action: providing a stiff resistance to troops blundering to contact and then melting away to reform and strike back hard. It reminded us of similar problems at both Helles and Anzac. The delays built up: the generals prevaricated and blundered. No leadership, no mission command, no hope!

We then went by bus to the very end of the Kiretch Tepe Ridge. Here there was a deliberately provoked (by me!) practical demonstration illustrating the difficulty of keeping a group together in a terrain featuring fractured ridges and gullies when you don’t know where you are going! Then we climbed onto the ridge proper and marvelled at the view whilst trying not to break our ankles – medivac did not seem likely to be a comfortable process from that benighted ridge. We looked at the terrain, stretched before us, the landmarks of the campaign, the various posts, sangars and built up stone trenches that criss-crossed the ridge. It was quite a walk but the views were breathtaking and it was with a considerable sense of achievement that we finally reached the bus.

Almost finished (literally and figuratively) we moved on to look at the Cut, the small channel that links the Salt Lake – now wet – to the sea proper. We had considered a swim but deterred by the stench we moved round to Brighton Beach, just south of Anzac, where we both swam and played volleyball. (I am it appears not good at volley ball and at times brought shame to the ranks of military tour guides) Some of us also took the opportunity to look at the remnants of a beached lighter (which was much more visible than in the past) and also saw the trace mark echoes of the holes dug in the sand bank cliffs for shelter from machine gun fire by Leane’s raiders. They had tried to surprise the Turks with a commando style raid and had been comprehensively surprised themselves by the scale of The Turkish reaction. Then it was back to the hotel for a well-earned rest. The team went off for an orgy of food and drink over the straits in the sultry fleshpots of Chanakale, but I had a couple of pints with Bill Sellers – as ever a mine of information and an early(ish) night.

So that was the end of a typical tour. Military history lessons incorporating plenty of reference to modern doctrine and I hope great fun for everyone on the tour – I certainly enjoyed it. Tomorrow it’s Istanbul but that’s another story not for blogging! 

www.peterhartmilitary.com

Come the dawn and no hangover. This was going to be a toughish day as we were doing Anzac. We set off in high spirits and soon found ourselves whisked by charabanc to Ari Burnu Cemetery. This was the third most beautiful cemetery I’ve ever seen in the world, beaten only by Ramparts Cemetery at Ypres and the Beach Cemetery at Hell Spit just a few hundred yards away. After the usual briefings and syndicate contributions we walked along the Anzac Cove beach – truly an underwhelming experience after the depredations of various Turkish road builders (sanctioned by the Australian and Turkish governments), which have turned it into a travesty of its original shape. Still it was the shallow beach that once acted as the base for a corps – amazing in itself – protected from the guns of Gaba Tepe by the aforementioned Hell Spit.

Then we entered Beach Cemetery. Swiftly I found my favourite grave stone inscription ‘Well done Ted’ and moved to look at the grave of John Simpson – the Man with the Donkey. We pondered on this most Australian of heroes: a larrikin, a rough diamond, a man careless of rank or authority. A man who truly ‘made the difference’ for a few weeks in Shrapnel Valley rescuing the wounded with the help of his trusty donkey. A man who summed up much of the modern values that training establishments still struggle to din into recruits. Yet although an Australian he was also born, bred and raised in South Shields, County Durham.

Then the fun began. We climbed up the path from Shrapnel Valley, MacLaurin’s Hill onto Plugge’s Plateau. As ever the views were staggering and so were some of the less fit members of the party! More briefings and ground orientation followed before we set off to descend by the most difficult route possible into Rest Gully. Men and women stood defined by the choice they made, but it is pleasing to relate that we picked the worst route and that our Turkish guide Ikud wore a look of unrestrained disbelief when he saw us set off down. Many stumblings and scratchings followed until we got to the bottom and climbed straight up onto Russell’s Top. The whole exercise was an object lesson in how vulnerable the Australians were as they advanced on 25 April. Turkish snipers took out the officers first, then the NCOs, then the influential privates. Soon men of lesser character would be helping the wounded – and each other back to the beach in the absence of authority, clear instructions and any idea in the rough scrub and tangled ridges of where they were and what they were meant to be doing. If they did advance, then if they stuck to the easy route along the ridges they would be shot, but if they went into the gullies they would soon be lost. We got to the top of Russell’s: gasp, pant, must get fitter – and walked alongside the huge deep communication trench that is still a pretty big construction. Then on to gaze at the Sphinx.

Now it was down Walker’s Ridge, once a fearsome prospect, but now quite tame as the paths have become clearer and less narrow. Quite, but not completely, tame and it was a pleasure to watch the progress of a young RAF servicewoman who had decided that the WAG look would be ideal for a day at Anzac. Thin white cotton trousers, flimsy top, flip-flops and a large designer handbag completed a fetching, but staggeringly inappropriate attire. What a sight it was to see her, struggle down some of the near vertical scrambles, a drop of 80 feet inches to her left, wearing borrowed trainers and clutching onto her precious handbag for dear life. Happily they both made it safely to the bottom. She was of course uncomplaining throughout – a true credit to the RAF.

On to the bus and up to Lone Pine, another briefing and on to our lunch by the tunnels and trenches on 400 Plateau. It was a surprise for out modern soldiers to see the width of No Man’s Land, essentially marked out by the width of the modern road and about 20-30 feet across. It was even closer at Quinn’s Post our next stop, where I played them my old recording of Private Harry Baker who was wounded on Bloody Ridge, across the Bloody Angle and just a few feet from where we were standing listening to his voice 90-odd years later. Spooky! Then on to the Nek. We had had a briefing on this and we looked at the old Australian front line trenches, which although renovated with wooden stakes are still the real thing as evinced by recently collapsed dugouts. To look out from there at where the layered ranks of Turkish trenches and machine guns waited for their desperate series of pointless charges was quite moving: not of course the fault of the British at Suvla (who were engaged in a quite different cock-up), but of the New Zealand column which had failed for a variety of reasons to get up onto Chunuk Bahr and behind the Turkish lines facing the Nek. Once again there was comment on the complexity and lack of realism of Hamilton’s plans for the August offensive. Then the bus lifted us onto Chunuk Bahr itself and we considered both the New Zealand defence of the sector on its capture, but more importantly the success of the mass counterattack launched by the Turks on 10 August. And at last we got a well deserved ice cream! Restored by this it was decided to retrace that desperate charge by thousands of Turks wielding rifle and bayonet down the near vertical slope to the Farm. It was pretty tough going at the start and I was nearly permanently ‘finished’ when our giant Australian lost his footing and began running pell-mell down the hill, completely out of control and flailing his arms like a lunatic! I am proud to report that not a single member of the team attempted to in any way stop or slow his descent.  (I neatly sidestepped up the slope as he neared me!) His seemingly doomed progress was eventually brought short by a solid – it had to be – tree! Excellent!

After a quick look at the Farm Cemetery we walked round the fire track road along the contour to join Rhododendron Ridge. Then a very steep climb passing past the Apex and passing holes leading to a recently collapsed tunnel system. Gasp! Wheeze! Pant! Of course one of our more foolish members crawled in one entrance to emerge dusty but proud some 20 feet away and 10 feet down at the next hole. Then up the last steep drag to regain Chunuk Bahr. Onto the bus for the slightly dodgy road/track to Hill 971 Koja Chemen Tepe the highest point in the area. At least we didn’t have to climb and after a briefing from the Turkish point of view our day was done.

Just one event worthy of comment from the general banter on the bus was when a cheery cove announced to the multi-service group that “The Navy had Heritage; the Army had Tradition and the RAF had Bad Habits!” General mirth ensued although our RAF contingent seemed a little put out!

In the late afternoon the rest of the group went swimming at Brighton Beach but I, dear reader, knew my duty and wrote my blog for Day One while I could still remember bits of it! What a mug! That evening after a lovely Turkish cultural display, featuring male and female dancers we went to the Boomerang Bar. This noble establishment had been slightly cleaned since my last visit and was now merely dirty, but for the sake of visiting historians they still left the latrines in true 1915 style with the authentic stench of dysentery and covered liberally with the filth of the trenches – nice! 

And so once more to bed: slightly drunk this time I fear!

www.peterhartmilitary.com 

Tired, footsore, a bit exhilarated. The perfect end to a perfect day. Today was the first day of my tour with the Combined Services, Northwood Headquarters Staff. Fifteen of Britain’s finest Royal Navy, Army and RAF men and women banded together and bolstered by the addition of one Australian colossus for our three day tour of Gallipoli. We had travelled out by plane to Istanbul on Sunday and then had a fairly tedious journey on a small bus to Eceabat where we are staying at the TJ’s Tours hotel which is very popular with the army battlefield tours.

We started Day One bright and early leaping aboard our little coach and heading for the forts just along the Straits at Khilid Bahr. We looked at the renovated lower fort, then climbed up onto the Kilid Bahr Plateau to get a perspective from the massif that was the British objective overlooking the Turkish forts. (see below)

We had to crack on though and drove then to Backhouse Post en route to Sedd ul Bahr. We didn’t stop in quite the usual place so there was a little confusion in

finding it tucked away in the side of Achi Baba Gully. When we did it was evident that someone was camping out there, that or a suspiciously modern phone had been left by our brave lads in 1915. We then moved on to board the boat at Sedd ul Bahr  in the little port where the Camber had been. The boat trip round the Sedd ul Bahr Castle V and W Beaches was a spectacular as ever: 

We all get a clear view of why attacking the strong Turkish defences in these natural amphitheatres was an overconfident move. Then we anchored off W Beach and it was swimsuits and and the race into the water. The first man in took a huge leap from the stern but the most spectacular ‘bomber’ entrance was made by a large Australian who later repeated the jump from the top deck in an effort to recreate the impact of a Turkish shell close to the boat. He did! Strangely many of our clothes were a little damp afterwards!

Then it was back to the Camber and across the barbed wire, (what was that doing there?) and into the lower Sedd ul Bahr fort. We walked round the lower area, then climbed up onto the wall to enter the main courtyard. The group then ascended the somewhat dodgy steps to stand on the tower roof immediately overlooking where the River Clyde ran aground. What a superb view! Gingerly back down the stairs, pout of the castle and onto the spit of rocks where so many of the troops from the River Clyde died. We had a syndicate presentation and I played a recording of Private William Flynn describing struggling through the water under heavy fire onto the very spit where we were standing. Then across to V Beach Cemetery and up into Fort No 1 which has been renovated in true Turkish style - removing almost all its historical integrity. Up then to the Helles Memorial - always a sobering moment as you look a the thousand of names of those killed who have no known grave.

Then it was off to W Beach. Here the winter storms had exposed an old lighter parallel to the shore that I had never seen before. We looked at the seen of the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers landing, walking along the beach and examining the remains of the old cave which had been stuffed full of ammunition and exploded on the early morning of the final evacuation on 8 January 1916. Stones and boulders shot up into the air still covered the local area. Then back across the beach to follow the footsteps of Brigadier Stuart Hare up the cliffs just round the corner. En route we looked at the huge interconnected dugouts that lie just below the cliff top. As ever I enforced our rule that we all had to go in so that if they collapsed there would be no faffing on with rescue attempts and we could be the ‘Missing Northwoods’! Onto the top and a look at both the reservoirs left from 1915 and the myriad of defensive and communication trenches - on the hill. Then to Lancashire Landing Cemetery where there was a presentation in memory of Private William Keneally VC.

 The coach lifted us from there to the path leading down to the very beautiful Gully Beach at the exit of the Gully Ravine. We could see the remnants of the abandoned lighter still int he sea and the well supposedly dug by Joe Murray the well known Hood Battalion veteran whom I had interviewed back in the mid-1980s. Back on the bus and up to the Nuri Yamut Turkish Memorial. This marked the British furthest point and was also a mausoleum for all the thousands of dead bodies collected by the Turks in the 1940s. The skulls are supposed to have littered the fields on Gully Spur and the upper Gully Ravine like a melon field. Then the walk through the upper reaches of the Gully. A fantastic walk; sometimes extremely difficult physically true, but dead easy in the summer. The front lines, the bones up a side gully, the unexpected pools that had to be circumnavigated while idiots threw stones close by in the water, the threat of a difficult exit through the maze of prickly bushes if the party got too out of hand. Eventually we emerged from the lowering cliffs of the ravine at Geoghagen’s Bluff. From there a fairly dull walk up Gully Spur back to the bus at the Turkish Monument.

Now it was time for something vital to any unit’s morale - an ice cream! And where better to get it than the village of Alcitepe or Krithia as it had been. Not really an objective at all it had attained a ludicrous importance in the mission creep of the campaign in 1915. Then on the bus up to the summit of Achi Baba. From the upper slopes of the hill we pondered on the obvious tactical importance of Achi Baba at Helles - it loomed over everything and from there Turkish artillery observers could accurately direct the fire of the concealed batteried on the reverse slopes. Then to the very crest - now we would see our reward a view of the Narrows! Oh no we wouldn’t! All we could see was the Straits where the French and British Fleet had manoeuvred on 18 March. We couldn’t see the Narrows Forts at all! Once again we realised that the Kilid Bahr Plateau was everything; Achi Baba was just the first day’s objective - just a stepping stone - to the real objective of dominating the Narrows Forts.

What a great day. Then back to the hotel, a shower a meal and a few pints with an Australian historian called Bill Sellars. And so to bed!

www.peterhartmilitary.com Quite unlike anyone I know. Possibly one of the last great British eccentrics. A brain with ideas buzzing round it that you can almost hear crackling, a man who can talk 90 to the dozen, possibly a photographic memory - quite unnerving really …On no account let Peter persuade you to come for ‘just one drink’. Even now I’m suffering the consequences - not a hangover, just a lot of time that was supposed to be spent on ‘history’ used up in an evening of cheery company, a lot of laughs and only a tiny bit of ‘history’. Why, oh, why? When will I ever learn?!I wouldn’t swap him for the world though. After all, what would I get for him? A couple of shirt buttons and a broken bic biro? We can only admire Polly (we call her ‘the long-suffering Polly’) for her fortitude and selfless sacrifice in marrying him. Her reward will be great, I’m sure.Blog on, Pete - but keep it clean, eh?BrynleyH

www.peterhartmilitary.com

On this blog I will post occasional reviews that I have written on books that I think were particularly good. Here is the first 25 April 1915 by David Cameron. It wasn’t perfect - what book is - but it was a cracking read whilst reorganising the Anzac material to give you a newish perspective of the battle there that day. I can’t wait to get back there with the army in about a month.25 April 1915: The Day the Anzac Legend was BornDavid CameronThis book is a temptation to any Gallipoli enthusiast. David Cameron’s method is simple but beguiling: he has recast Charles Bean’s magnificent geographically dominated account into a chronological narrative encompassing the whole of the events at Anzac on 25 April 1915. Into this framework he has layered in copious personal experience accounts that include key Turkish accounts. I initially was sceptical, especially on encountering the spectacularly misjudged couple of paragraphs that summed up the Allied naval assault of 18 March 1918, which contained a series of errors that undermined my confidence in the author – who by his own account is not a historian. He has no grasp of the differences between super-dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts, pre-dreadnoughts and battlecruisers. This wouldn’t really matter, but in itself the details are really not that complex and indicate a complete lack of interest in maritime affairs despite the list of naval sources that are lovingly inserted in the bibliography, but were clearly never read. The Inflexible wavers between being a battleship and a battlecruiser, the Irresistible is apparently a battlecruiser although it was actually a pre-dreadnought etc, etc. This is compounded by the irrelevant intersections throughout the book of the exploits of the AE2, these have nothing to do with ANZAC and serve only to distract from the narrative that he has gone to such efforts to create.But boy what a narrative it is!I read most of the book during a recent tour of Gallipoli in May 2007 with a British Army logistics unit, which included a full day at Anzac. Whatever doubts I had were washed away by the sheer power of the story as Cameron tells it. The chance to walk the exact ground in the footsteps of these men would entrance and enthral anyone. To teeter down the Zig Zag path from Plugge’s Plateau into Rest Valley, to climb up on to Russell’s Top, to nervously walk down a muddy Walker’s Ridge, to search for the Cup, to overlook Dead Man’s Ridge and Bloody Angle from Quinn’s Post with the voices of the dead playing in your ears. The heroism of certain individuals created a legend that Australians rightly will never forget. Names ring out like clarion bells: Loutit, Margetts, Bennett, Westamacott, Talbot Smith and Braund. Cameron’s book is a salute to their initiative, determination, endurance and all too frequent sacrifice.One thing that clearly emerges from the time-sequenced narrative is the utter brilliance of the Turks. The heroic defence of the very few men that face the initial landings. Their retirement time and time again just before their positions were overrun by massively superior numbers. The deadly accurate sniping that stripped units of first their senior officers, then the subalterns, the senior NCOs and finally of every individual that showed initiative and courage. Advance to contact is always painful, but in amidst the gullies, ridges and dense undergrowth of Anzac it was usually fatal. Significantly when the Prisk and his men on Pine Ridge came under sustained ‘friendly’ fire on falling back towards Bolton’s Ridge they suffered no casualties. Perhaps not every Australian bushman was a crack shot despite all the legends? Then when the Turkish reinforcement battalions arrived they flung themselves into battle with no thoughts of their personal survival under the inspiring leadership of Mustafa Kemal and the often forgotten Colonel Sefik Aker. The importance of artillery support, as always in the Great War is correctly emphasised time and time again.Perhaps Cameron brushes things under the carpet: the overblown accounts of the initial almost unopposed landings, who was the officer Major Bennett had to threaten with a revolver to keep him in line, the ubiquity of men drifting back to the beach is referenced, but nevertheless significantly underplayed while the incompetence of senior commanders who constantly failed to grasp the tactical situation is not really nailed to the ground. He also uses ‘decimated’ time and time again when he clearly does not mean one in ten; he thinks the Nek is of ‘strategic’ importance – the Kilid Bahr Plateau and the Narrows were of strategic importance, the Nek is just tactically significant. But this is not intended as an analytical book; it is a story and a bloody good one. In the end I loved this book and if you want to relive the battle I can recommend nothing more than you read this and the Official Australian History by the ‘Blessed Bean’ - side by side. Then visit Anzac…

www.peterhartmilitary.com   Jury Duty is our obligation as members of society. Twelve just men/women combining their life experiences to come to a fair and binding judgement directed by a pillar of authority and rectitude - an old bloke dressed in drag with a wig. Of course that doesn’t apply to me: I’m far too busy interviewing veterans, writing fab history books and taking the army to far off Gallipoli to drink EFES and raki. Well I soon found out that, as far as the court summoning service, were concerned it did mean me. Although I was allowed a postponement from October 2007, my excuses were brushed aside and I could only bring the jury service forward - no more postponements.I was seething with frustration and rage - couldn’t somebody else do it - I’m busy!So I decided to turn up in such a disreputable state that I would be excused as manifestly unsuitable. I had allowed my hair to grow so that I looked like a mad professor, Max Wall or Coco the Clown depending on your viewpoint. I didn’t shave! I got out my filthy dirty ripped denims, a Drive by Truckers T-Shirt and examined the effect - perfect. I’d be home by lunchtime.

My Polly had a different take on what would happen. She said I would turn up, sulk like a child for the first few days, gradually get friendly with the people around me, get called for a case, get interested, start wearing my normal clothes and be a fully committed jury member within a week. How little she knows me even after all these years of domestic bliss!What really happened was this. I turned up 30 minutes late, was rude to the security people on the door who searched us, playing my I-Pod, refused to fill out any documentation, threw my attendance sheet away, refused to claim food allowance/expenses, ignored the briefing by a pompous dwarf brassy woman with dyed blond hair and refused to watch the briefing video.I told the brassy woman that I had regular migraines: she ignored me! Well I do - they are regular - one a year!I sat on my own, I-Pod playing, working on some cataloguing and reading the Guardian. I snapped at an old Labour Party comrade who tried to speak to me, I refused to eat anything and for some reason became increasingly irritable as the long day wore on. I wasn’t called, and - Jesus wept on a bicycle! - some people were being considered for an 8 week case. Well not me - ha - my cunning plans were working a treat!The second day, same clothes, but as I sat down I got talking to a nice barrister who had been called up and was in danger of being put on the long case. Sympathised as penury loomed for her and her one woman law firm! Noticed that we seemed to be on an all Guardian reading table and two of the chaps and chappesses worked for the Labour Party - we all got talking some how. I still wasn’t called and we were allowed to go at lunch time - hooray it was working!Third day, same clothes, tee hee - I’d show them what the word uncooperative meant. Spent a reasonably pleasant day chatting, reading and cataloguing. We were allowed home early but warned that we were now selected for a jury for Thursday.Thursday dawned, New T-Shirt - a Ba-Lamb number! I was absolutely confident that the judge would take one look at me and I would be kicked out. No! Not a blink! Oh god it was a serious assault case! Quite interesting and oooh look the first prosecution witness was clearly lying! Drew a diagram so that I could follow the exact sequence and location of events! Mind you the defence lawyer kept sniffing in the classic manner of coke snorting solicitors the world over! Naughty boy!Friday. Well I wanted to be taken seriously by my fellow jurors so I wore my usual work clothes - to be honest I was still pretty scruffy but not now by design! Case really interesting! My jurors were a mixed lot but we seemed to be rubbing along all right.Monday: the verdict - unanimous not guilty and the initial doubters were motivated by the ‘no smoke without fire’ instinct. Watched the accused in the dock - would he laugh thus undermining my faith in human nature. No he cried real tears of relief and brokenly thanked the jury - I felt great that I’d played my part…And that was that. We had to call in the next day but we were all released from jury duty that the Tuesday so it was back to work for me on Wednesday!Quite an interesting experience, in parts at least. Perhaps I was wrong to behave like an infantile child at the start. I wonder if I can still claim expenses!Will I learn from this - shouldn’t think so - I am 53!Pete

www.peterhartmilitary.com Well fresh from an unwise consumption of assorted pints of foaming ale and bubbly cider on Saturday night I can assure you they do. The carefree cheeriness with which I accepted my seventh pint; that feeling of joie de vivre, that everything was right in the world has been replaced by a dull ache. For five days I had not drunk anything alcoholic: my mind was racing streets ahead, every neuron springing to work with a metaphorical spring in their steps. I was able to bash off an article for the Australian War Memorial in a matter of hours, I could intervene in complex family quarrels between my four and eight year old daughters without making the situation worse and I could accept the deep trauma of Liverpool’s humiliating defeat by the mighty Barnsley without too much collateral damage to my nearest and dearest.After my night of revelry, when I got back home I found the ‘pillows of doom’ outside the bedroom door! It seemed it was to be the attic and the cold comfort of my library for me. Yet even then I had the residual brainpower to drink a couple of glasses of water and soluble aspirin! I even realised that Polly was fast asleep and would never notice me sneaking into the matrimonial bed. I’d still got it! I was unaffected by booze. A new life of carefree debauchery lay before me…But come the dawn, all is dull as if a strange cloudy cloud has descended on me like the blanketing fog over the British lines on 21 March 1918. I have an ache at both the front and back of the head, disrupted eyesight, a slight feeling of nausea and everyone I know is a bloody nuisance. I still have to check and send off the article written yesterday and I can barely read it, never mind focus on any finely honed arguments. Thank the Holy Sausage that looks down on us all that I didn’t have the eighth pint is all I can think! Urrrggggghhhhh!Peter Hart Sunday 17 February