No army in history has made a more heroic attack; no army in history has been set such a task. No other body of men in any modern war has been called upon to land over mined and wired waters under the cross fire of machine guns. The Japanese at Chinampo and Chemulpho were not opposed, the Russians at Pitezwo were not prepared, the Spaniards at Daiquiri made no fight. Our men achieved a feat without parallel in war and no other troops in the world (not even Japanese or Gurkhas or Ghazis in the hope of heaven) would have made good those beaches on the 25th of April. II Then said Roland: "Oliver, companion, brother ... we shall have a strong and tough battle, such as man never saw fought. But I shall strike with my sword, and you, comrade, will strike with yours; we have borne our swords in so many lands, we have ended so many battles with them, that no evil song shall be sung of them." ... At these words the Franks went forward gladly. _The Song of Roland._ Let the reader now try to imagine the nature of the landing. In order to puzzle the Turkish commander, to make him hesitate and divide his forces, it was necessary to land or pretend to land, in some force, simultaneously at various places. A feint of landing was to be made near Bulair, the French Corps Expeditionnaire was to land at Kum Kale, to attack and silence the Asiatic fortifications and batteries, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was to land at or near Gaba Tepe, while men of the 29th and Royal Naval Divisions landed at or near Cape Helles, some towards Krithia on the north, others nearer Sedd-el-Bahr on the southwest and south. The main attacks were to be those near Gaba Tepe and Cape Helles. [Illustration: Map No. 2 _Stanford's Geog'l Estab't London._] At Cape Helles three principal landings were to be made at the following places: 1. At Beach V, a small semi-circular sandy bay, 300 yards across, just west of the ruins of Sedd-el-Bahr castle. The ground rises steeply round the half circle of the bay exactly as the seats rise in an amphitheatre. Modern defence could not ask for a more perfect site. 2. At Beach W (to the west of V), where a small sandy bay under Cape Tekke offered a landing upon a strip of sand about the size of Beach V. The slope upward from this beach is more gentle than at V, through a succession of sand dunes, above which the ground was strongly entrenched. The cliffs north and south are precipitous, and make the beach a kind of gully or ravine. The Turks had placed machine guns in holes in the cliff, had wired and mined both beach and bay, and thrown up strong redoubts to flank them. Beach W was a death trap. 3. At Beach X (north of W, on the other or northern side of Cape Tekke), a narrow strip of sand, 200 yards long, at the foot of a low cliff. This, though too small to serve for the quick passage ashore of many men at a time, was a slightly easier landing place than the other two, owing to the lie of the ground.