Correspondence between Field Marshal Lord William Birdwood and Lady Janetta Birdwood, 1915 - Part 14

will of course arrange for the National Bank of India to  

draw the dividends for you on everything as usual.

 I'm so glad your Father is allowing her to drive the car again, 

but I can well believe how extraordinary difficult it must be 

for her to manage at all, with him beside her all that 

traffic & your dear old Father anxious beside her! Later. 

I have just been round all Cox's Bde who arrived this morning - Up to

now we have managed to get all the new troops ashore during the night 

& so have avoided them being shelled.  Unfortunately something must

have gone wrong in the Naval arrangements last night, as by 4.a.m 

there were still a good many troops to land, and as soon as even the 

Turks saw them they at once began shelling them - we were however 

lucky.  I saw a shell burst over a houseboat full of Gurkhas just 

as they were leaving, but not a man was touched.  By bad luck though

I had my Naval Staff Officer here killed yesterday afternoon on the pier - a

very nice keen young fellow by name Cater, who I had just had dining 

with me the night before - the same shell went through the boiler of one

of the picket boats - the second I have had sunk in the last two 

days.  But water is my greatest anxiety & a very grave one.  I only have 

just enough to fill the men's water bottles and am not quite sure if I'll even have 

that tonight, when I have to start our big fight. Shells have hit water ships 

& sunk water lighters - pumps have broken etc. etc. others keep coming to me

with most doleful faces & prophesies of dire water disaster! However 

all we can do is to take advantage of every moment. We have to pump 

whenever we can get a water boat near the shore & to eke out 

what little we can from our fast drying up wells.  

So much depends on this big fight which will be starting 

in a few hours time.  The difficulties of the country are

3) enormous & it is just those very great difficulties

which I am hoping may prove our best friends. If the 

country was in any way easier, it would be a mass of 

trenches everywhere. As it is, on all other sides of my 

position - the one side remaining is almost precipitous in

places & covered with thick jungle & vines. I commence

by making a big attack from my right on the Turkish trenches

& then swinging my left round through all this difficult

country during the input, while I'll have a tremendous bombardment 

of all my guns all round going on the while

night. So there will be a perfect babel. I fear I must

expect a large number of casualties & it will be a most

awful business getting them all down to the beach & off. It 

will be a long & very anxious time for me as communications 

will be terribly hard & I shall hear heavy fighting on every

side while shells will probably be flying around for hours.

If we succeed as I earnestly pray we may, it should be

a real good business - if I can get the Turks once well on

the run I hope we may capture a lot of their guns, camps

etc & in fact do a real big strike - but it is a great

gamble - if all goes well I have every hope it may

come off - if they go wrong we would lose a large

number of men and find ourselves in a very much

worse position than we now are. However I have told my

boys I feel confident that any one of them are the equal

of 10 Turks & they only have to a make up their minds to

succeed at all costs & we shall be through. It doesn't mean

anything very great in distance, but it does in importance - 

will be a much bigger fight than the day we landed.

We have been much hoping for the Turks to attack us first, as

they at one time intended doing, but unfortunately they

couldn't be brought up to the necessary point.

With all my love sweetheart. Ever your very loving old

Will

P.S. A terrible disaster has just happened - a 

lighter with 400 bags of English mail has 

just been sunk when coming in for us!!

Goodness knows what letters it may or may

not have had on board, so if you can

remember anything important you may just

have written, better repeat it!

 

[*Lone Pine

9 Aug 1915*]

 

Mediterranean Expdy Force
9 Aug 15 -

 

My own darling girl,

I have just got your letter of 28^th July, while we are 
still in the midst of the big fight I wrote & told you we 
were to have when I last wrote.  As I have just had to write 
an account of this, I think the best thing I can do is to 
enclose a copy of it as that will give you a pretty 
good idea - though it will not cover the great anxiety 
in which I now am about the final results - we were so 
near complete success in our first night attack - General 
Shaw who has lately come to me in command of one of K's
New Army Divisions & who is such a nice & good soldier 
whom I met in S. Africa, told me after just not succeeding 
that he had been trying to pick holes in the plans, but 
had to confess that he thought everything possible had 
been thought out & he could think of no other plan 
which would have been nearly so likely to ensure 
success.  If only the Regts on my extreme left had been 
able to shove on a bit more & reach the crest by 
dawn all would have been well & we should have 
held command of the Dardanelles beyond. Then 
again my second night attack, when I had 
got on to the ridge, two Brigades were beaten down

by one unfortunate ship landing a series of huge 
shells right among our men & inflicting heavy 
losses, as a result of which they retired & the Turks 
at once attacked them, making the whole attack a failure.  
And as you will see the Brigade I already had up there was 
beaten off the following night - leaving us in a most critical 
position, for I still have to take the hill & the Turks have 
had lots of time to bring up their reinforcements - They 
must be in great numbers for we have killed I believe 
several thousands & yet they continue to come along & I 
must say they are real brave fellows - you see while clumps 
of them being blown up in the air by shells, but still they 
come on and don't seem to mind their losses.

Goodness knows how many of them we have killed, 
while my casualties are terribly sickening - it is one 
of the most horrible & painful sights you can imagine 
to meet a constant stream of returning wounded 
men from the front - some just hobbling - others being
carried & all looking really much worse than 
perhaps they are by being covered with blood,
as of course there has been no time for washing.  
And we are in a very critical state I think - 
had I succeeded as I hoped & had Genl.

2)  Stopford's Army Corps succeeded as I hoped
it would have done, we should between us have
held a very fine position Commanding the Dardanelles
& giving us a safe base - but we have neither 
of us succeeded & though we will stick to it,
for all we know, yet every day makes it harder
as the Turks will be in greater strength & more dug
in - and the issue can be no certainty yet awhile.
I have told my boys they have to stick to it & see every
thing through & this they assure me they will do - and
they will fight as long as we have the strength to 
do so - and of course we will get reinforcements -
but it all takes time.
I can't think how it was that you didn't get one of
my letters which I fear must have gone astray, as
I have never missed writing. Angelsey has joined me
& seems such a particularly nice fellow & all our 
boys here on the staff have taken to him - at the
same time I have heard that the Chief is letting
me have de Crespigny & that he is now on his
way here from Aden - so for the time being I
shall have 3 ADC's, though Angelsey will probably
not stay for more than a couple of months - I

believe he has partly come because that Mother-in-law of
his the Duchess of Rutland has been starting stories about him that
he only came to Egypt to escape fighting & he wanted to prove this
was not the case - As Sir Ian said, he would probably see more
with me in a week than with most people in some months, & already
he has had to take his share of bullets coming along very close over his 
head when I took him along round my left flank fighting, & yesterday
we hadn't gone 10 yards when a big shell landed about 20 yards off. I was
rather amused as a new Battalion of the K. Army was just beside me
at the time & 3 young soldiers promptly fell head over heels with fright!
Not a very good augury, but it was probably the first they had
heard or seen coming near, & they just fell over their own feet in
a perfectly useless panic - if the Gunners who fired could have
seen they most probably have thought they had hit them!
These new Regts cannot at present touch my older hands.
Now that de Crespigny is coming I cannot of course get
Reggie Sherston, though as he is already an A.D.C. I probably in
any case would not have been able to do so.
What a nuisance it is that Nancy has had to return from the
hospital & I am so sorry about it, for I quite agree with you
that they will very soon get tired of her & say they can
not keep her on if she gets sick a second time.
I am quite sorry you couldn't all go to Lady Robinson at 
Broadstairs, for it was most awfully kind of her to ask you
& I daresay the change to the sea might have made you sleep
all right - is it still too late to say you find you can go after
all? All my love little wife. Ever your very loving old - Will -

M.E.F.
18 Aug 15

My own darling little wife.
We have still been having a lot of fighting
all round the new bits of position I have taken from the
enemy. The Turks evidently hated our taking the series of
trenches of theirs which we called "Lone Pine" on my right

& you can imagine what the fighting has been like when I mention
that we have in three days after taking it dragged over 1000
corpses out of the trenches - about half of them I am sorry to 
say being our own men. The enemy never ceased attacking,
but I fancy we have killed so many of them all round, &
especially in rear by our Artillery that they have now chucked
it, though they are sure to come on again later on. I have
in this & oth just been through all the trenches & I must say
the Turks had managed to make themselves pretty comfortable
for they had such a lot of excellent head cover made of beautiful
strong timber - a great deal of it recently cut pine trunks &
branches, than which nothing could be more suitable &
unfortunately we have nothing of this sort in our bit of
country.
On the left where we made our big move, we have too killed
an enormous number of Turks & I must say they are plucky 
fellows. Some of my guns are so placed that I could
get right into them in enfilade at the back of
their positions as they came up the hills to attack

and we got right into them in masses as they came
along. A prisoner whom we have just got who was there
says the corpses are so many it is hard to get over them
and that they are laid in rows just like corn which has 
been reaped! And yet they never stopped for a minute.
You will remember Capt. Allanson who has just arrived in
command of his Regt. the 6th Gurkhas. He did splendidly &
has will been recommended for the V.C - I hope - I was talking to him
yesterday just as he was going to hospital. He lead and his
story nearly made me cry to realize how I had
actually completed all we had to do, but failed
at the last moment. He lead his Regt. in their
night attack on the Turkish position which he
actually took & they were chasing the Turks down the
other side when suddenly one of our ships, not seeing who they
were put some of their huge shells among them. Some of them
blew some of the Gurkhas to pieces & made the rest for the
time being absolutely panic stricken & they bolted down the
hills like hairs & Allanson could not get them back. You
may remember young de Marchand in 56th in Yuhat - he
was attached to them & refused to leave the hill & was
killed. That poor young Dallas boy was shot through
the head & I hear can not be expected to live - in fact
has probably died by now & Allanson was wounded, but

2)  not seriously.  And all we have fought for is gone, for
since the Gurkhas left the Turks have been entrenching 

like the devil & I shall have an awful job taking it
again as I must do. The only small satisfaction is that
when the Turks came down to attack the Gurkhas that night
Allanson assures me they killed about 600 of them, which is
in addition to the large numbers we have down elsewhere.
Getting into so many of them you would think they must chuck 
it ere long - Every prisoner tells us they are dead sick of it &
are longing to surrender but are not allowed to and their numbers
seem inexhaustable - they have I believe about 150,000 in this 
Peninsula, which is of course far more than we have.
I wouldn't change my men for any - they are just magnificent
& I really am more than pleased & proud of them - they have
quite 

surprised one for I never hoped they would have come on as
they have & I believe they have confidence in me. Going
round all our new trenches up on the hill sides yesterday,
they would say "Yes - Sir - we are quite ready to go on killing
Turks whenever you call on us - but we are weak as cats
& I don't think we could march a couple of miles" - That is
the awful thing that really worries & frightens me. It
is hard to believe how much the really enervating
hot weather here has taken it out of the men - nearly
all have been ailing from the usual eastern stomach
complaints & this has taken it out of them more than one