This thrust from Suvla against Koja Chemen was designed to complete and make decisive the thrust already begun by the Right and Left Attacking Columns. The attack on Chocolate Hill, Scimitar Hill and Ismail Oglu was to make that thrust possible by destroying forever the power of the Turk to parry it. The Turk could only parry it by firing from those hills on the men making it. It was therefore necessary to seize those hills before the Turk could stop us. If the Turks seized those hills before us, or stopped us from seizing them, our troops could not march from Suvla to take part in the storm of Koja Chemen. If we seized them before the Turks, then the Turks could not stop us from crossing the valley to that storm. The first problem at Suvla therefore was not so much to win a battle as to win a race with the Turks for the possession of those hills; the winning of the battle could be arranged later. Our failure to win that race brought with it our loss of the battle. The next chapter in the story of the battle is simply a description of the losing of a race by loss of time. Now the giving of praise or blame is always easy, but the understanding of anything is difficult. The understanding of anything so vast, so confused, so full of contradiction, so dependent on little things (themselves changing from minute to minute, the coward of a moment ago blazing out into a hero at the next turn) as a modern battle is more than difficult. But some attempt must be made to understand how it came about that time was lost at Suvla, between the landing, at midnight on the 6th-7th August, and the arrival of the Turks upon the hills, at midnight on the 8th-9th.