The Story of the Great War, Volume 4: Champagne, Artois, Grodno; Fall of Nish; Caucasus; Mesopotamia; Development of Air Strategy; United States and the War
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume 4: Champagne, Artois, Grodno; Fall of Nish; Caucasus; Mesopotamia; Development of Air Strategy; United States and the War
World War, 1914-1918
By nightfall of August 8, 1915, the few Turkish patrols in the
district had been driven off and considerable forces of the British
troops had made their way inland. Splitting into two columns, one
moved north and seized Karakol Bagh; the other and larger force
marched across the low country until it had arrived in position facing
the Anafarta Ridge, its objective.
Lying between the line of advance from Suvla Bay to the Anafarta Ridge
and Asma Dere, the base of the Australian troops operating against
Sari Bair, were a number of hills, two of which played supremely
important parts in the fighting of the next few days. They have been
called Chocolate Hill and Burnt Hill.
It was in an action against Chocolate Hill that the battle opened.
Moving in a night attack on August 8, 1915, Irish troops stormed
Chocolate Hill and came within measurable distance of connecting up
with the Australian division. Then preparations were made for an
attack upon the Anafarta Ridge.
On August 11, 1915, the right wing of the forces landed at Suvla Bay
succeeded in working along the coast and linking up with the
Australians at Asma Dere. They brought with them to the hard-hitting
Colonials the first word of the progress of the Anafarta operation,
and it was a bitter disappointment to the latter to learn that their
heroic efforts against Sari Bair had been largely made in vain because
of the failure of the Suvla Bay force to accomplish its task.
Both sides then busied themselves preparing for the new warfare in
this region. The British consolidated their positions, and on August
15, 1915, sent forward the same Irish division that had captured
Chocolate Hill in an attempt to rush Dublin Hill. After a hand-to-hand
fight with the Turkish troops, who swarmed out of their trenches to
meet the charging Irishmen, the hill was won.
The Turks, meanwhile, were strongly fortifying not only the Anafarta
Ridge proper but some of the hills commanding its left flank. Here
Hill 70 and Hill 112 were the major positions, and on August 21, 1915,
the British troops moved out in an effort to capture them.
A portion of the British troops succeeded in reaching the top of Hill
70. There, however, they were greeted by a terrible fire from a
battery concealed on Hill 112 and forced to fall back, first to the
lower slopes of the hill and then, when the fire slackened, to their
original intrenched positions.
Even less success was enjoyed by the troops making the assault upon
Hill 112. The Turkish artillery poured a curtain of fire among the
shrubs at the foot of the hill which effectively prevented the
proposed advance. Farther to the south at the same time the
Australians were attacking Hill 60 of the Sari Bair group and
succeeded in driving the Turkish defenders from its crest.
PART VIII--AGGRESSIVE TURKISH CAMPAIGN AT DARDANELLES
CHAPTER XLII
SARI BAIR--PARTIAL WITHDRAWAL OF ALLIES
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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