WITH MANCHESTERS IN

 THE EAST

 Published by the University of Manchester at THE UNIVERSITY PRESS (H. M. MCKECHNIE, Secretary) 12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER

 LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. LONDON: 39 Paternoster Row NEW YORK: 443-449 Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street CHICAGO: Prairie Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street BOMBAY: 8 Hornby Road CALCUTTA: 6 Old Court House Street MADRAS: 167 Mount Road

[Illustration: THE BATTALION OFFICERS ON MOBILIZATION, AUGUST 1914

_Photo: Warwick Brookes_

_Front Row, left to right_--Rev. E. T. Kerby, Chaplain; Capt. C. Norbury;Capt. H. G. Davies; Capt. And Adj. P. H. Creagh; Major G. B. Hurst;Lieut. -Col. H. E. Gresham; Major J. H. Staveacre; Major J. Scott;Capt. J. N. Brown; Capt. H. Smedley. 

_Middle Row, left to right_-- ----; Lieut. F. Hayes; Capt. J. F. Farrow(R. A. M. C. ); Lieut. G. Chadwick; Lieut. W. G. Freemantle;Lieut. C. H. Williamson; Capt. A. T. Ward Jones; Lieut. W. F. Creery;Capt. C. E. Higham. 

_Back Row, left to right_--Capt. T. W. Savatard; Lieut. B. Norbury;Capt. D. Nelson; Lieut. D. Norbury; Lieut. E. Townson; Lieut. G. S. Lockwood; Lieut. J. H. Thorpe; Lieut. G. C. Hans Hamilton; Lieut. H. D. Thewlis; Lieut. A. H. Tinker. 

_Absent_--Capt. R. V. Rylands. ]

 WITH MANCHESTERS IN THE EAST

BY

GERALD B. HURST

 MANCHESTER: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. London, New York, Bombay, etc. 1918

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

During the passage of this book through the press, the Author has beenengaged overseas on active service, and has been unable to devote thenecessary attention to the correction of the proofs, etc. Due allowancemust therefore be made for such errors as have crept into the pages. 

The Publishers have felt obliged to delete the numbers of theTerritorial Battalions mentioned in the book, a fact which accounts foroccasional vagueness in terminology. 

CONTENTS

 PAGE

PUBLISHERS' NOTE v

CHAPTER

I. EASTWARD HO! 1

II. THE SUDAN 12

III. GALLIPOLI 23

IV. THE AUGUST BATTLES AT CAPE HELLES 33

V. TRENCH WARFARE ON GALLIPOLI 45

VI. THE STRAIN 56

VII. THE LIMIT 65

VIII. LAST WORDS ON GALLIPOLI 71

IX. REVIVAL IN EGYPT 76

X. ON THE SUEZ CANAL 82

XI. SINAI 88

XII. THE TERRITORIAL IDEA 95

 APPENDIX--EXTRACT FROM A LETTERFROM GENERAL WINGATE 100

 INDEX 103

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Battalion Officers on Mobilization, August1914 _Frontispiece_

 FACING PAGE

Lieut. -Col. H. E. Gresham 2

Arrival at Khartum, 2nd October 1914 10

General Sir F. R. Wingate, G. C. B. , K. C. , M. G. 14

Map of Gallipoli 24

(a) In Khartum Station } } 40(b) In a Turkish Trench }

C Company, The British Camel Company 62

Group of Officers, Egypt, 1914 84

With Manchesters in the East

CHAPTER I

EASTWARD HO!

Our Battalion of the Manchesters was typical of the old TerritorialForce, whose memory has already faded in the glory of the greater Armycreated during the War, but whose services in the period between theretreat from Mons and the coming into action of "Kitchener's Men" claimnational gratitude. 

Their earlier history hardly emerges from parochialism. Founded in 1859and recruited mainly from the southerly suburbs of Manchester, theBattalion lived through the common vicissitudes of the English Volunteerunit. It knew the ridicule and disparagement of the hypercritical andcosmopolitan, the too easy praise of the hurried inspecting general, theenthusiasm of the camp fire, the chill of the wet afternoon on a wintryrifle range at Crowden. The South African War gave many a chance ofactive service, and infused more serious and systematic training in theroutine of the yearly Whitsuntide camps. At that time everythingdepended on the Regular officer who acted as adjutant, and officers andmen owed much to the inspiring energy of Captain (now Colonel) W. P. E. Newbigging, C. M. G. , D. S. O. , of the Manchesters, whose adjutancy(1902-1907) meant a great step in their efficiency. The letter "Q, "which signifies success in all examinations required by the War Office, figured in the Army List after most of our officers' names during thisvivid and strenuous phase. For the rest, the pre-War period turnedmainly on the fortnightly camps and occasional Regimental exercises. Salisbury Plain, the Isle of Man, Aldershot and a few North Countryareas are full of memories of manoeuvre and recreation in a peacefulage. Regimental exercises filled weekends in Cheshire or the WestRiding. 

Volunteering served many purposes in England. It kept alive in luxurioustimes a sense of discipline and a cultivation of endurance. Itscomradeship brought classes together so closely that the easyrelationship between officers and men in the 1st line Territorial unitof 1914-1915 was the despair of the more crusted Regular martinet. Itsjoyous amateurism freed it from every trace of the mental servitudewhich is the curse of militarism, and stimulated initiative andindividuality. Long before the War, most Territorials believed inuniversal training, not so much on account of the German peril, which totoo many Englishmen seemed a mere delusion, as on account of itssocial value. It is pleasant to remember how solidly Lord Robertsreceived local Territorial support when he made the most prophetic ofall his speeches in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on the 22nd October1912. 

[Illustration: _Jerome, Southport. _

Lieutenant-Colonel H. E. GRESHAM. ]

Lord Haldane's conversion of the Volunteers into the Territorial Forceof 1907 meant little change in the internal economy or in the personnelof this Battalion. Its mounted infantry company, 140 strong, and itscyclists were lost in the interest of uniformity. Nevertheless, thechange made us better fitted for war by incorporating us in the largerDivisional organisation essential in European war. Volunteer unitssupplied select companies for South Africa in 1899 and 1900. The EastLancashire Territorial Division was ready to take the field _en bloc_against the Germans in 1914. 

The story to be told in these pages is so largely that of one battalionthat a word can be said of its leaders in August, 1914, without makingany claim to special pre-eminence, for our old and honourable rivalrieswith other local battalions faded long ago in mutual confidence. 

Lieutenant-Colonel H. E. Gresham, who had commanded since 1912, was anideal C. O. --a Territorial of long service and sound judgment, a fineshot, and in civil life a distinguished engineer. In Major J. H. Staveacre, the junior Major, we had an incomparable enthusiast, with azest for every kind of sport, a happy gift of managing men and an almostprofessional aptitude for arms which had been enriched by hisexperiences in the Boer War. Captain P. H. Creagh of the LeicestershireRegiment was a fine adjutant, whose ability and character were to winhim recognition in wider fields. His management of our mobilisation wasbeyond praise. The quartermaster, Major James Scott, was an oldManchester Regiment man, with a record of good work at Ladysmith andElandslaagte. Of the company officers and N. C. O. 's, there is no need toadd here to the tribute which will be theirs in any detailed history ofGallipoli. Nothing was more characteristic than their readiness tovolunteer for foreign service as soon as we mobilised--long before theimmensity of the War was understood, and considerably before the day ofthe lurid poster and the recruiting meeting. 

The Manchester Territorial Infantry Brigade was embodied on the 4thAugust 1914, and on the 20th marched out through Rochdale to a camp onthe Littleborough moors near Hollingworth Lake, where they were asked tooffer themselves for service abroad. Twenty-six officers and 808 men ofour Battalion (roughly, 90 per cent. Of our strength) volunteered. Awise pledge, afterwards unavoidably broken, was given by the authoritiesthat no man should be transferred from his own unit against his will. 

We dropped down the Channel on the evening of the 10th September 1914 ina convoy of fourteen transports and one ammunition ship, with H. M. S. _Minerva_ as escort--the first Territorial Division that ever leftEngland on active service. We sailed in a ship with a few EastLancashire details and the Headquarters Staff of the Brigade. GeneralNoel Lee, the Brigadier, was an old Manchester Territorial officer, whounderstood the Territorial spirit to a nicety, and his death from woundsreceived in the battle of the 4th June 1915 was our irreparable loss. The Brigade Major was a tower of strength when on Gallipoli. 

Of our Battalion, who enjoyed during those shining autumn days theirfirst vision of Gibraltar "grand and grey, " with its covey of Germanprizes in harbour, and of the Mediterranean, then free of the submarine, and who half feared that the War would be over while they were stillburied in the African desert, only a small number survive unscathed. Many sleep amid the cliffs and nullahs of Gallipoli. 

The virtues and capacities of these my comrades will always haunt myimagination. Their psychology was extraordinarily interesting. They wereunlike the Regulars, who preceded them in the field, and to some extentunlike the New Army, which gathered in their wake. 

They had very little of the professional soldier. Only 45 among them hadever served in the Regular Army. Their homes and callings and the lightamusements of a great city filled their minds in the same way as theRegimental tradition and routine filled those of the old British RegularArmy. With a few exceptions, the feeling of duty was a far strongermotive to their soldiering than any love of adventure. These Manchestermen had little of the Crusader or Elizabethan but his valour. They were, in fact, almost arrogantly civilian, coming from a country which haddared ineptly to look down on its defenders. The Northerner is not anenthusiast by nature. His politics are usually limited to concretequestions of work and wages, prices and tariffs, and he knows nohistory. The Germans in August, 1914, were still "Lancashire's bestcustomers"--not a warlike race bent on winning world-empire by blood andiron. The social traditions of the middle-class urban population, fromwhich the Territorials were drawn, had never fostered the militaryspirit, nor the power to recognise and understand that spirit in others. In such circumstances the sober zeal with which middle-aged sergeantsforsook their families and businesses at the very outset of the War, without a moment's hesitation, is a signal proof of their character. Nomen were ever greater lovers of peace. Some philosophers have seen ortried to see in the War a judgment on the luxury and frivolity ofpre-War England, on her neglect of defence, and her absorption inopulence. Were this the case, it would be ironical to reflect how theNorth Country homes, first and most cruelly scourged by the War, werehomes to which the so-called "sins of society" were least known and mostrepugnant, and where military training had been long pursued in theteeth of public ridicule and at the sacrifice of leisure. Longafterwards the father of a very talented private (Arthur Powell), whowas killed in Turkey, wrote of his son: "We never intended him for therude alarums of war, but his sense of duty and the horrors of Belgiumfired his imagination, so that with hundreds of thousands ofhigh-spirited young Englishmen, he placed himself in his country'sservice. " This cast of thought is uncommon in the ranks of a Regulararmy. 

Officers and N. C. O. 's were obviously and admittedly amateurs, and neveracquired the distinctive dash of the old Army. Soldiering was not theirprofession. Yet Territorials like the Manchesters possessed a range oftalent in many ways beyond the normal standard of the Army. They had themanual arts and crafts of the industrial North. These volunteers were incivil life builders and joiners; railwaymen, tramwaymen, engineers;clerks, shorthand-writers, draughtsmen, warehousemen, packers; cartersand fitters; telephonists, chemists. When half of C Company was suddenlyconverted into the British Camel Corps at Khartum it was discovered tocontain the camel-keeper of Bostock's menagerie. We found piano-tunersfor the Sirdar's Palace, gardeners for the Barrack plantations, and inlater days expert mechanics for anti-aircraft gunnery. Skilled clerkslike Sergeants J. C. Jones and Beaumont were marked out by Nature for theorderly room. Many men well qualified to hold commissions served in theranks and died before the nation recognised their quality. Lastly, wecould turn out more barristers than all the other East Lancashire unitsput together. It would be hard to imagine better officers than ourthree ex-Juniors of the Northern Circuit--N. H. P. Whitley, J. H. Thorpeand Hans Hamilton. 

With the New Army, that was destined to do so much to save the cause ofcivilisation, our men had more in common than with the Regulars. In1914, however, we had inevitably a less thorough training in techniquethan that which fell to their lot in the ensuing years. Only a few ofour officers had gone the round of "schools of instruction" and"courses. " We had fewer specialists, and our equipment was probablyinferior. During all our Eastern experiences we used the long rifleonly. It was, however, a real advantage to have had nearly sixty years'record as a Volunteer unit behind us, with all sorts of Regimentaltraditions, which lie at the roots of comradeship and ensure happyrelations between officers and men. Another distinctive virtue of theTerritorial system about Manchester was that all ranks, fromBrigadier-General to private, came from one neighbourhood, and viewedlife from much the same angle. They ran to type, and their interest insoldiering, obviously spontaneous in the first instance, had beenfostered by common experiences in time of peace. 

We saw Malta in the far distance on the evening of the 21st September, and next day, in mid-afternoon, our convoy unexpectedly met an IndianDivision on its way from Bombay to Marseilles. Their transports, mainlyBritish Indian liners, passed ours and exchanged escorts with us, thrilling the least imaginative with pride in the Empire and a sense ofthe illimitable issues at stake in Europe. We had left England ringingwith the legendary passage of the Russians from Archangel, the snowstill clinging to their furs, just as the British Army in Spain, in1812, had been cheered by a similar mirage of Russians streaming totheir aid through Corunna. The first paper that we read on reachingEgypt announced in giant headlines the arrival of 250, 000 no lessshadowy Japanese at Antwerp. But the Indians were real. Their appearancewas a true touch of the World War and they reached the firing line inFlanders on the 19th October. 

We eventually arrived at Alexandria on the 25th September 1914. BCompany, under Captain (afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel) J. N. Brown, wasdropped here, half of it under Captain E. Townson going on to Cyprus, which they garrisoned until the eve of its annexation. Eventually thewhole Company, then under Captain (afterwards Major) D. Nelson, wasreunited to the rest of the Battalion when it left for the Dardanelles. The remaining part of the Division also disembarked at Alexandria, inorder to relieve the Regular garrisons of Alexandria and Cairo. TheBattalion passed on to Port Said. As we neared the harbour, our menhailed watchers on the quay for the latest news. Antwerp was then at itslast gasp, and the _Aboukir_, _Hague_ and _Cressy_ had been torpedoed inthe North Sea. The first cry from the ship was "How is City gettingon?" League football was still the first interest of Young England inthe second month of the Great War. 

We sailed down the Canal on a scorching Sunday morning to Suez and theRed Sea. A few Indians guarded its banks. Onward through the misty heat, under escort of a destroyer, with a wind blowing hot from Arabia, toPort Sudan, where we put in at 11 A. M. On the 30th September. Thetemperature was 105° F. In the shade. Here half of C Company, underCaptain T. W. Savatard (afterwards killed on Gallipoli) were left togarrison and construct defences for the place. Once a desolate coralreef, it is now a great harbour with the promise of a greater future. This first night of Africa we rowed happily across its starlit lagoon inthe full glamour of the East to enjoy British hospitality. 

Next morning we started, with Major Boyle of the Egyptian Army Staff asa "cicerone, " on the long railway track from the sea to Atbara andKhartum, past scattered villages peopled by staring Fuzzy Wuzzies witherect and luxuriant black hair, and across hot stretches of desert androck. At a quarter past eleven on the morning of the 2nd October 1914 wearrived at Khartum North, where we detrained and were met by the Sirdar, General Sir Reginald Wingate, then Governor-General of the Sudan, andhis Staff. We marched over the Blue Nile Bridge to the spacious Britishbarracks, the only spot in the Sudan where the Union Jack fliesunaccompanied by the flag of Egypt, and relieved the Suffolk Regiment. In the afternoon our band played them out of the cantonment, and wecheered them on the first stage of their long journey to theblood-stained battle-fields of Flanders. 

[Illustration: ARRIVAL AT KHARTUM, 2nd OCTOBER 1914. ]

CHAPTER II

THE SUDAN

The tasks allotted to the Battalion between October, 1914, and April, 1915, while garrisoning the Sudan were of great variety. With thegunners at Khartum Fort, they constituted part of the British force thenin the country, of which Colonel Gresham was commander. The detachmentleft at Port Sudan organised its defences, ran an armoured train, andpatrolled the Red Sea in the _Enterprise_. One group, under Captain R. V. Rylands (afterwards killed on Gallipoli), guarded the railway works atAtbara. Another under Captain B. Norbury occupied the hill station ofSinkat. Important censorship work at Wadi Halfa was entrusted to CaptainJ. H. Thorpe, and, when he was invalided, to Lieutenant L. Dudley, whofell later in action on Gallipoli. At Khartum a half company, underCaptain C. Norbury, was on arrival transformed immediately into theBritish Camel Corps. 

For some little time after our coming the normal social and sportinglife of the small British colony at Khartum was hardly ruffled by thestorm raging in Europe, and we gratefully enjoyed its warm-heartedhospitality. At the beginning of November war broke out between GreatBritain and Turkey, and the loyalty of the Sudanese was put to the test. The Germans built upon the probability of a Jihad or Holy War, and neverdreamed that the handful of young Englishmen who administered thecountry under the Sirdar's guidance could have won its loyalty againstall comers. When the Sirdar announced in English and Arabic the news ofthe Porte's entry into the War one shining Sunday morning in earlyNovember, to a large gathering of Egyptian and Sudanese officers anddignitaries at the Palace, their zealous unanimity was impressive. Hundreds of native notables contributed generously to British Red Crossfunds. Sheikhs of the Red Sea Province, who had once been dervishpartisans, showed me with glowing pride when at Port Sudan silvermedallions with King George's likeness, given by him to them on hisvisit to Sinkat. 

Few pages of history are more wonderful than that which records theconversion of the chaotic and down-trodden Sudan of 1898 into thepeaceful and prosperous Sudan of to-day. Scepticism as to the uses ofEmpire, which too often beset the Manchester man at home before the War, was dissipated by seeing what Anglo-Egyptian sovereignty and Britishcharacter and industry have achieved in a land so long tormented byslave-traders and despots. The happy black boys of Gordon College go toschool with books under their arms, and play football, coached by OldBlues and cheered by enthusiastic comrades. On the 30th October (KurbanBairam day) the Manchesters saw the Sirdar bestow gaily coloured robesof honour on deserving chiefs. Everywhere were signs of economicprogress. The cotton-growing plantations on the Gezira Plain, theginning factory at Wad Medani, the numerous irrigation and public healthworks, the research laboratories of Gordon College, the industries ofKhartum North and of Atbara, all bore the distinctive hall-mark ofBritish Imperialism. 

The magic of the British name in the Sudan seemed to us to rest not onlyon the art of government but on the great memories of Gordon andKitchener and the abiding influence of General Wingate's personality. The Gordon statue at Khartum is almost a shrine. The Sudan itself isLord Kitchener's monument. During our life there we were daily witnessesof General Wingate's tact, power and example. In all Mohammedan areas ofthe Sudan, Great Britain is wisely defender of the faith, and Islam iswisely with Britain. On the 19th November we were entertained at theEgyptian Army Officers' Club on the occasion of the Mohammedan New Year. On the 27th January 1915 the Prophet's birthday was celebrated withrapturous pageantry, and the Sirdar and Lady Wingate paid mostimpressive visits to the pavilions set up by the principal sheikhs andnotables in front of the mosques at Khartum and Omdurman, while hugecrowds of religious enthusiasts beat tom-toms and sang outside. We sawthe Sirdar reviewing his Egyptian and Sudanese troops at Khartum, formally inspecting the schools, hospitals, barracks and prisons aroundPort Sudan, decorating veterans with medals, and addressing in everynative dialect the political and religious leaders of the people. Wefound that no men appreciated the care and skill of the Red Sea Provincehospital more warmly than Arabs from the then Turkish territory ofJiddah. 

[Illustration: _Elliot & Fry Ltd. _

General Sir F. R. WINGATE, G. C. B. , G. C. V. O. , K. C. M. G. , G. B. E. , D. S. O. 

Honorary Colonel of the Battalion. ]

The whole history of the evolution of the Sudan is epitomised in thebare, sun-scorched Christian graveyard of Wadi Halfa. The sandy, high-walled enclosure is the common resting-place of four successivegenerations of British Empire builders: first, of soldiers who fell inthe Gordon Relief Expedition; secondly, of men who died while buildingthe railway which proved the key to Lord Kitchener's success; thirdly, of soldiers who perished in the war of 1898; lastly, of civil servantswho have died while administering the country since its reconquest. 

Staveacre and I touched a much earlier phase of history when wediscovered and bought derelict French helmets and cuirasses of 1798 thatmust once have been the booty of some Mameluke. Who would wish for moreromantic trophies?

The Turkish war added gravity to the Battalion's responsibilities in theSudan. The idea at the time was to treat it passively, so long as theTurks did not molest British Moslems on pilgrimage to Mecca. The Arabswere known to have little sympathy with the Ottoman Turk and hispretensions to religious authority; so Jiddah was not to be starved bynon-intercourse. The Turks themselves made such a policy impossible bytheir raid against the Suez Canal in February, 1915, and the inceptionof the Dardanelles Expedition marked the final victory of the school ofthought which put its faith in an Eastern offensive. Some sort ofoffensive, whether against Gallipoli or Alexandretta or Haifa, hadbecome perhaps a moral necessity. 

We learnt in the Sudan how Turco-German machinations were necessitatinga more active policy towards the Porte. I acted as prosecutor at thepublic trial of a Sudanese by general court martial in the court-houseof Port Sudan in the second week of December, 1914. He had risen fromsergeant's rank in a Sudanese regiment to be Captain of the EgyptianCoastguard in 1907. Cashiered in 1912, he served Enver Pasha in Tripoli, became an officer of Abdul Hamid's bodyguard, and afterwards a Major ofthe Baghdad Gendarmerie. Long before November, 1914, he had busilyplotted for a rising in Egypt and the diffusion of German propaganda allover the Sudan. Under Enver Pasha's personal direction he disguisedhimself in a pilgrim's robe, styled himself Suleiman Effendi, andcrossed the Red Sea from Jiddah with six pilgrims. One of these was anHowrowri Arab from Kordofan. The rest were Falatas or Takruri--_i. E. _pilgrims from British West Africa to Mecca--a class whose wholeexistence is spent on pilgrimage, brightened by spells of residence andfamily life at centres like Omdurman, and this man planned to pass as apilgrim among pilgrims. The party was asked by the sheikh of the Takurnavillage, near Port Sudan, where they came from. They replied:"Omdurman. " On the 16th November he, in beggar's clothes, sought aninterview with a Bimbashi of the Egyptian Army, at Port Sudan. He toldhim and his adjutant that he had come on a secret mission from Enver torouse the Sudan against the British and to ascertain native feeling atPort Sudan, Khartum, Sinja, Wad Medani, Kordofan and El Obeid. 

"The Porte, " he said, "knows that the English treat you badly andintends to drive them out of Egypt. " The officers whom he tempted were, however, staunchly loyal. They handed him over to Colonel Wilson, Governor of the Red Sea Province. His red and blue uniform, sword andpapers were discovered, but he defended himself stoutly against thecharges of spying and war treason, and his interests were carefullywatched by Judge Davidson, who acted as Judge Advocate. One Arabicletter found among his papers was addressed to the Ministry of War atConstantinople, and appears to have been a copy of a report sent off byhim just before his arrest. It is worth quoting as a footnote tohistory:

 "I arrived at Mecca, where I met the Valy and Commandant, Wahib Bey, and gave him my information. He left Mecca for Jiddah at once for his usual work, and provided me with a boat and six civilians, who accompanied me from Jiddah to Suakin and Port Sudan on a secret mission to induce the natives to favour the presence of the Turkish government, to rise against the existing European government, and to take necessary precautions for upholding the honour of the Turkish government without anyone's knowledge.... I hope when I reach Khartum, in a secret way to encourage a rising against the British troops, if possible. As for my expenses, I took from the Valy Commandant sixteen Turkish pounds and three pounds sterling for the necessary expenses of the journey by steamer and land. I have every wish for the prosperity of the Religion and for the Sultan's victory over the unbelievers. "

This man in his defence denied that any Sudanese like himself woulddream of plotting against the British, who had purified government, employed Sudanese in administration, and given their children schools. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but that penalty was commutedby the Sirdar, in consideration of a tardy confession. 

One of the Falatas turned King's evidence against his other companionson the charge of war treason. Squatting on the floor of the courthouse, their rosaries interlaced with their handcuffs, they assumed the air ofinnocence, but were convicted and condemned to terms of imprisonment. Two were called Isa (Jesus) and one was Adam. Arab life has more than atouch of the Bible. 

The whole episode brought into relief the wide ramifications ofTurco-German intrigue. 

Another singular case of German subtlety was that of an alleged Swissexplorer, who arrived on the 10th November at Khartum on his way fromAbyssinia to undergo the Pasteur treatment at Cairo. He claimed to havehad his leg bitten by a dog, and was in hot haste to reach Egypt. Hesatisfied our doctors as to the genuineness of his injuries and anxiety, wept when Captain Morley, most expert of surgeons, told him of thesurrender of Antwerp, and was given help and hospitality. He wentthrough the Pasteur treatment and disappeared from our ken. A few weekslater an Italian newspaper applauded the patriotism of a German reserveofficer, whose zeal to serve his country had nerved him to brave thevigilance of Khartum and the too devoted attentions of the hydrophobiaexperts at Cairo. 

At a date when all Britons of military age worth their salt weretraining for war, the actual work of the Manchesters in the Sudan hardlycalls for description. In the personal supervision of the Sirdar theyenjoyed a special advantage not shared by the Territorial units left inEgypt. What is of more lasting moment is the share they took infurthering the cause of peace, order and good government in the Sudan bytheir steady conduct and happy relations with the inhabitants. Ourofficers interchanged visits with the officers of an Egyptian regimentquartered at Khartum, enjoying tea, music and speeches. With an Egyptianregiment at El Obeid we had a pleasant and symbolic exchange of colours. In the ceremonial occasioned by the Sultan's accession, a guard ofhonour under Major J. H. Staveacre represented the British Army in thePalace garden, and acclaimed: "Ya-aish Hussein Pasha, Sultan Masr" (Longlive Hussein Pasha, Sultan of Egypt). The men were scrupulously carefulof native sensibilities. At Port Sudan, Private J. P. Lyons, our championboxer, who was killed on Gallipoli, was publicly thanked by theGovernor, Colonel Wilson, for having saved a black policeman from somedrunken sailors. The Battalion hoped it had really earned the honourpaid it when the Sirdar accepted its honorary colonelcy. 

The knowledge gained during the months in the Sudan will be an asset tosuch Manchester Territorials as survive, and may even exercise aninfluence upon local public opinion. To many, the Sudan seemed entitledto rank among the best administered countries in the world. Its civilservice governs vast areas and vast numbers practically without militaryaid. Its selection from University graduates who best combine brainswith physique is in the spirit of Cecil Rhodes. Government of blacks bywhites is a commonplace; of blacks by blues, a stroke of genius. 

Looking back after years of soldiering and disillusion, the firstmonths of the War no doubt seem brighter than they really were. It iseasy to forget the illnesses that sent the writer as an invalid to Luxorand Cairo, and finally to England; to ignore the heat and dust andisolation, the long glare of the African day. We think more readily ofGordon's rose-tree blooming in the Palace garden; of the long cameltreks across the desert; of the wail of the yellow-ribboned Sudanesebagpipes; of our visit with Colonel Smyth, V. C. , to the stony, sun-bakedbattle-field of Omdurman; of the lusty strains of _Tipperary_ in thecool barrack rooms. It is right that this should be so. The men to whomthese memories would appeal were men who enjoyed life to the full. Theyplayed the first lacrosse ever seen in the Sudan, engaged in keen boxingcompetitions, rallied to football on the roughest of barrack squares, listened cheerfully to weekly concerts and the first of our long seriesof history and military lectures. They hunted for curios in the dustyalleys of Omdurman, enjoyed recreation in the library and billiard-room, and ran with great spirit the early numbers of the _Manchester Sentry_, first published of all active service periodicals. To this paper theSirdar and Lady Wingate contributed welcome and inspiring letters, andthe Battalion owed its motto: "We never sleep. "

In April, 1915, the Battalion left the Sudan for Cairo, where it againcame in contact with the other units of the East Lancashire TerritorialDivision, thenceforward called the 42nd Division On the 3rd May itembarked in company with another battalion of the Manchesters on the_Ionian_, and at seven in the evening, on the 7th May, it landed at "V"Beach, Cape Helles. 

CHAPTER III

GALLIPOLI

The 42nd Division was soon in the midst of hard fighting, stormy weatherand much privation. Casualties began early, though the first Battalionexploit under fire was happily bloodless. On the 9th May, 80 men weretold off to fill water-bottles and carry them under fire overhalf-a-mile of broken ground to an Australian unit. They trackedcleverly across the moor, and were met by an eager Australian with thequestion: "Have you brought the water, cobbers?" On the 11th, theBattalion had a long, weary march to the front line. The trenches werefull of water, and the gullies became almost impassable. On the 28th, Lockwood, our musketry expert, was severely wounded in the chest. 

On the same day Lieutenant-Colonel Gresham was forced by ill-health toleave us. He was invalided to Malta, and thence to England. A year laterhe relinquished his command, without having been able to rejoin. He hadserved with the Battalion ever since 1890. He was known to suffer fromchronic illness, but he let nothing interfere with the call of duty, andhis hard work overseas set a fine example to all ranks. It is, indeed, still, in 1917, difficult to think of the Battalion with any otherCommanding Officer. His departure was widely regretted, and the laterachievements of his men in the War are the best tribute to the manyyears of labour he had given to their training and organisation. 

His immediate successor in command was Major Staveacre. On the night ofthe 28th May the Battalion advanced, and B and D Companies dugthemselves in under a full moon and in the face of the enemy, a platoonof C Company finishing the work on the following evening. In theseoperations fell Captains T. W. Savatard and R. V. Rylands, men of sterlingcharacter and capacity, and Lieut. T. F. Brown, a gallant boy, who, inthe happier days of the threatened war in Ulster, had served in the WestBelfast Loyalist Volunteers. 

The advance of the 28th May was preliminary to the historic attack ofthe whole allied line from sea to sea, which had been timed for middayon the 4th June 1915. In this attack the Battalion advanced as theextreme right unit of our Infantry Brigade. On the left of theManchesters was the 29th Division; on our right was the Royal NavalDivision, and on their right were the French. 

During the previous night the Turks, writes an eyewitness in the_Sentry_, gave us "our first taste of bombing. They crawled down a smallgully and threw eight or nine bombs on to our gun emplacement, hurtingno one, but putting the gun out for twenty minutes. " Meanwhile theyfired the gorse in front of the 29th Division. 

[Illustration: GALLIPOLI. ]

At eight in the morning the British guns opened the bombardment. "Ateleven-twenty our whole line from the sea to the Straits got up andwaved their bayonets, pretending the attack was to start. " At twelve, "with wild cheers" the assault was launched. A and C Companies rushedthe first Turkish trench, and captured the surviving occupants, whilealong a front that stretched far away to the left, similar success waswon by the whole British line. While A and C Companies consolidated thetrench they had won, B and D Companies passed over it, in order to takethe next Turkish line. Captain (afterwards Major) C. E. Higham, alwaysresourceful and imperturbable, was shot in the foot while crossing thetrench, but Captain (afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel) Fawcus led theattack a long way forward, and held a dummy trench in the heart of theTurkish position for many hours. 

Subsequently the right flank of the Battalion was not only enfiladed butexposed to fire from their rear. The officers at this deadly point wereLieutenants H. D. Thewlis, W. G. Freemantle and F. C. Palmer. Palmer wasbadly wounded. Thewlis, a keen subaltern and expert in scientificagriculture, refused to retire, and was killed. Freemantle was of Quakerstock and, like Thewlis, a graduate of Manchester University. He wasfirst shot through the right arm, and then through the left. He insistedon remaining with his men, though the pain was so intense that he brokehis teeth while clenching them. He was then shot through the body, anddied. 

C Company on this right flank was in danger. Lieutenant G. C. HansHamilton, a prince of fighters, had organised a bombing party withCorporal Cherry, and did great work, but was now severely wounded. Leonard Dudley, an adventurous soul who had fought under Staveacre withthe Cheshire Yeomanry in South Africa, was killed. Captain CyrilNorbury, who commanded the Company, had written to Major Staveacre forinformation, and he received this answer from Captain Creagh: "Regret tosay Major Staveacre dead; also Thewlis and Freemantle. Do not knowwhereabouts of missing platoons. Fear most lost. "

Staveacre had been shot through the back while passing ammunition to thefiring line. He said to Regimental Sergeant-Major H. C. Franklin (theActing Adjutant of our later days on Gallipoli): "Never mind me. Carryon, Sergeant-Major, " and died at once. 

All day long the Turks counter-attacked the Manchesters without success. Private Richardson won the D. C. M. By bombing feats, but the supply ofbombs ran out early. Their use was in its infancy, and their characterwas primitive. C Company, among whom Sergeant M'Hugh, Corporal Basnettand Private (afterwards Lieutenant) J. W. Sutherland were conspicuous, was reinforced by some gallant bombers from another battalion of theManchesters under Captain James, who was killed after driving the Turksfrom a trench, and later by some of the Lancashire Fusiliers. They heldtheir own, and a last Turkish counter-attack, on the morning of the 5thJune, was scattered by our machine guns and those of the LancashireFusiliers, well handled by Captains Hayes and Bedson. 

Fawcus brought back about nine survivors from his advanced positionafter great feats of endurance, in which the Manchester units on ourleft had fully shared. Lieutenant T. E. Granger, who had been left behinddangerously wounded, was taken prisoner. Lieutenant Ward was killed. Lieutenant Bateman was shot through the lungs; Lieutenant G. Norbury onthe scalp. 

On the 4th June the Brigadier, General Noel Lee, was mortally wounded, to the intense and universal sorrow of the whole Division. He died inMalta. Lieutenant-Colonel Heys, on taking his place, was immediatelykilled. The retreat from the more advanced trenches to the originalTurkish firing line, necessitated by enfilade fire and by the absence ofreinforcements, proved far deadlier than the advance. The battle, withits preliminary operations, cost us some of our bravest sergeant-majorsand sergeants--Cookson, Arnott, Marvin, Mundy, Balfe, Webster. SergeantLindsay lost his leg. Of them and of all the men of the 42nd Division, who gave their lives in this action, any praise is superfluous. 

A broad strip of land gained securely on a wide frontage, an immensenumber of Turkish dead and prisoners, and a sense of great personalascendancy, were the measure of their success, and General Sir IanHamilton's dispatch truly estimates its quality. 

The survivors of the Battalion rested for a few days on Imbros after thebattle, and then returned to the Peninsula under the command of CaptainP. H. Creagh. On the 16th July the command was passed toLieutenant-Colonel A. Canning, a veteran of the Egyptian War of 1882, who had previously commanded the Leinster Regiment at Cork. We couldhave had no greater confidence in any possible Commanding Officer, andwhile he acted as Brigadier of the Manchester Territorials his influencewas no less inspiring. The record of our later campaign on Gallipoli isclosely associated with his name and work. 

All these early scenes of the expedition to the Dardanelles I hadmissed. On the 17th March I had been invalided home on the Indianhospital ship, _Glenart Castle_, Alexandria to Southampton, and the onlypublic meeting I witnessed during three years of warfare--a recruitingrally in the Manchester Hippodrome--was a poor outlet for one'sactivity. An offer of the command of the new 3rd line reserve unit atSouthport naturally failed to quench my keenness to rejoin theBattalion, and after vexatious delays I at last sailed from Devonportfor the East, on the _Simla_, on the 13th July 1915. 

We reached Alexandria on the 25th, and the crowded harbour of Mudrosearly on the 29th. The boat was full of drafts for the 29thDivision--Essex and Hampshire men, Inniskillings, Munsters, Royal andLancashire Fusiliers, Worcesters--and rumours of the intended Suvlaexpedition were in the air. Our optimism was, however, chastened by theopinions of one experienced soldier on board, who insisted that we oughtnever to have landed at Cape Helles, but on the Gulf of Saros behind thelines of Bulair, and made straight for Constantinople with a large army, without trying to force the Dardanelles. He believed that the Germanswould still take Warsaw, and thought Holland's co-operation essential toany plan of early success. The War was still at a stage when men did notmind talking about it, and the general assumption was that it could notlast long. One sailor told me a story typical of the German's ignoranceof sportsmanship. A captured naval officer was courteously allowed theuse of the British captain's cabin. A few moments later a crashannounced that he had requited chivalry by breaking everything he couldlay his hands on. Other passengers on the _Simla_ were nursing sistersin dainty scarlet and grey, naval airmen who disembarked at Valetta, andthe whole staff of an Australian General Hospital bound forMudros--expert specialist officers and splendid men, with songs cheeryand robust:

 "When the beer's on the table, we'll be there. "

Perhaps my most vivid memories, however, are of the keen young officersconducting drafts, who were so soon to fall in the great attempt atSuvla. 

The fate of one of these, J. R. Lingard, then in charge of someLancashire Fusiliers, was one of the unsolved mysteries of theDardanelles campaign. A brave and popular officer, he was severelywounded on the 21st August. He was carried out of action and placed on astretcher for conveyance across Suvla Beach to a hospital ship. At thispoint all trace of him disappeared. His fate is unknown. 

In the late afternoon of the 30th July 1915 we neared Cape Helles andheard the thunder of the guns. We landed laboriously about midnight, andwere led by guides to a rendezvous of the 29th Division at a point somethree miles along the coast on the northern side of the Peninsula. Brilliant moonlight shone upon a sleeping French force close to thelanding-place on "V" Beach. The country looked unspeakably dry and bare. 

At six o'clock the following morning we were divided into details forour various units, and sleepless, unshaven and hungry, I was againguided to where the 42nd Division had its headquarters--a spot to thesouth of the 29th, and, roughly, in the left centre of the short line ofthe Allies. The narrowness and shallowness of the area of our occupationstruck all observers at once. The great ridge of Achi Baba, some sixhundred feet above sea-level, barring our advance upon Turkey, confronted us the very moment that we climbed to the top of the cliffsthat enclosed every landing-place. We were shelled as we struck acrossthe moorland, and then I found myself once more in East Lancashire. 

A long wait at Divisional Headquarters was followed by a delightfulwelcome at the Quartermaster's dump of the Battalion, where, in blazingsunshine, I enjoyed my first food and shave on enemy soil, and abundantnews of the unit. A friendly sergeant then led me up to the firetrenches some two miles forward, where the Manchesters held both sidesof Krithia nullah, a ravine running up into a sloping heath, where theTurks had lain dug in for the last two months. Our way, after passing"Clapham Junction, " was fringed with the graves of the fallen. I noticedStaveacre's. 

It was pleasant to reach the cool burrow, which served as our BattalionHeadquarters. Here I found Colonel Canning, P. H. Creagh and Fawcussitting on the yellow, dusty ground beneath a tarpaulin. It wasthrilling once again to walk among our Manchester men, now very thin andsunburnt, in shirt-sleeves and shorts, making the best of life in narrowtrenches, and watching day after day the serried Turkish lines andbroad, brown mass of Achi Baba. Next day (1st August), in mid-afternoon, we moved into the most advanced fire trenches, and I became O. C. Of ourBattalion's firing line, with a small dug-out of my own in the centre ofour sector. This sector was within forty or fifty yards of the Turkishposition, and in the early morning, as the sun rose over Asia, we heardthe _muezzin_ calling the faithful to prayer. There was a lull at thistime in warfare. Casualties were few, and the periscope disclosed littlebeyond the vista (soon too familiar) of arid heath, broken only bypatches of wild thyme, and of the intricate lacework of sandbaggedtrenches stretching from the tip of Cape Helles behind us to the top ofAchi Baba. But for the constant booming of the guns and the plague offlies, these first days on Gallipoli were days of peace and happinessunder a quiet, blue sky. Our men were hopeful, and a stray memorandum ofmine of the 3rd August records that "P. H. Creagh bets Fawcus £1 that theTurks will be driven out of the Peninsula within a month. " Our faith wasgreat in those days. 

CHAPTER IV

THE AUGUST BATTLES AT CAPE HELLES

In the history of the expedition to the Dardanelles, the August battlesin the area of Cape Helles figure as a pinning or holding attack by theBritish Army, designed to occupy the enemy while the Suvla Bay landingwas effected. The line of communications that linked the Achi Babaposition with Maidos and Gallipoli was to be cut by our forces operatingfrom Suvla and Anzac, and the Narrows were to be opened to our fleet bythe capture of Sari-Bair. The epic of the actual Suvla effort has beennobly told in both Sir Ian Hamilton's dispatches and Mr Masefield's_Gallipoli_. 

The Regimental officer at Cape Helles naturally knew very little of thestrategy underlying these operations, and nothing of events at Suvla orAnzac, though Suvla was but thirteen miles and Anzac but five fromFusilier Bluff. His could only be the impressions of an eyewitness in anorbit limited to his Brigade. During the whole of our Gallipoliexperiences, we were only conscious of Divisional organisation andpersonnel through the literature and correspondence of the orderly-room, or from mere glimpses on the occasion of our rare visits to the base onGully Beach. I am glad to have once seen the Commander-in-Chief, Sir IanHamilton. He passed our Headquarters on the Western Mule Sap, walkingbriskly towards the trenches. The fine appreciation of the ManchesterTerritorial Brigade's work on the 4th June, which he wrote in hisdispatches, made his name a name always to conjure with, but to the manin the trenches, an Army Commander can at most be but a shining name. Consequently, the story of the fighting in August, as we saw it, mustneeds be silent on all vexed questions of high policy, and also on themore famous struggle to the north of Achi Baba. Its limitations are trueto life. 

On the 5th August we learnt that our Army was to assault the enemy'sposition simultaneously with the enterprise at Suvla. 

Three points were emphasised in our instructions. First, the frontageand depth of the sector to be carried by each unit was carefully andpersonally explained to us by General the Hon. H. A. Lawrence, who was atthat time our Brigadier. Secondly, we had to tell our men that theTurkish lines would have been rendered almost untenable before theiradvance, in consequence of the heavy bombardment, which was to precedethe attack. Thirdly, we were to emphasise to the men that Turkish moralewas on the wane. Prisoners, whose only words were "English good; Turkeyfinish, " were, I fancy, responsible for this last venture in optimism. 

We had every reason to anticipate that the attempt was to be a thoroughonslaught, not a mere demonstration, and would probably lead to success. The discovery that the Turks had in reality been massing for an attackon our lines within a few hours of our own assault was only madeafterwards. 

At 2. 20 P. M. On the 6th August, the British guns opened on the Turkishpositions in front of the 29th Division, and at 3. 50 P. M. We could seeour infantry advance under a hail of musketry and machine-gun fire. Ourguns lengthened range, and we saw shells fired by our warships in theGulf of Saros bursting along the crest of Achi Baba. Through theperiscope we watched the tin back-plates, worn by our men for theenlightenment of artillery observers, twinkling under the dust andsmoke. Some other Manchesters were lending a hand in the battle already, and were struggling under heavy shrapnel fire to gain a footing in thetrenches immediately to the north of the sector to be assaulted by theBrigade on the morrow. Then gradually the firing sank. By 4. 45 P. M. There was a distinct lull. One of our Companies (C Company) underCaptain G. Chadwick, was sent as reinforcements. A stream of wounded(Manchesters, Worcesters, Munsters) began to file past our lines intothe winding nullah. We knew little as to what had happened. The skyabove the shell-riddled ridge of Achi Baba was serene and purple in theglow of evening, but the fog of war was upon us. 

Suddenly, at 6. 40 P. M. , a message came that two of our Companies wererequired at once to help the Worcester Regiment, who had taken part inthe assault about a mile to the north of where we were. A Company(Captain A. E. F. Fawcus) and D Company (Captain H. Smedley) were orderedto comply. The men were resting for the work planned for the next day. They got ready hurriedly, and moved in fast-gathering darkness along alabyrinth of unfamiliar trenches to a position from which the Worcestershad advanced in the afternoon. 

Our information was most vague. The Worcesters had gone "over the top"many hours earlier and had disappeared. They were believed to be holdingtrenches somewhere beyond, but they were out of touch with our line, andit was intended to reinforce them. The night was dark, and the directionto be taken after leaving our trenches could only be roughly indicated. A Company lined up first, and went over the top like one man. D Company, which was to move to the right of A, then lined up along the fire stepand followed. 

Our men passed into a tornado of fire, and drifted forward on a brokenmoor, already littered with dead and wounded. Both Companies eventuallylined up in shallow depressions of ground, but there was no trench toreceive them. 

Meanwhile, many of our wounded had straggled back to the trench fromwhich they started, and numbers of wounded Regulars of the 29thDivision who had lain out for many hours were brought in by our menduring the long night. This was the one bright touch in its story. Welaid down these brave men on the narrow fire-step, and ourstretcher-bearers worked nobly. Several men went out with stretchersunder heavy fire, and fetched in as many survivors as they could find. One, I remember, was called Corris. At midnight the Colonel and CaptainP. H. Creagh, our Adjutant, left for Headquarters, where the morrow'splan of operations was being partially recast. The hours passed. At lasttwo messengers clambered back with reports from Fawcus and Smedley. Lance-Corporal H. L. MacCartney brought the former's. 

The only sensible course was for our parties to come in. I noticed thatMacCartney's hand was broken and bleeding, and suggested to him thatsomeone else should go back with my message of recall. He insisted onhis ability to go, and with a companion he climbed over the parapet. Afew moments later he was shot through the heart. Smedley's messenger wasLance-Corporal G. W. F. Franklin, whose services on the field won him acommission, and who played a splendid part in the subsequent annals ofthe Battalion. He was given a like message of recall for CaptainSmedley, and with it he too clambered back over the parapet and passedout into the night. 

At 3. 30 A. M. On the 7th August the two Companies toiled homewards, having lost heavily. Davidson, a plucky Australian officer attached tous, was among the killed. He had been in charge of a working party whichwandered in the darkness into the Turkish lines, and was theredestroyed. 

After a couple of hours' sleep, we rose to take our part in the renewedoffensive. A heavy bombardment was to precede a general advance. As thefront-line trenches lay within a few yards of the Turks, they were nowpractically cleared of men in order to avoid casualties from our owngunfire. The scheme laid down for our Battalion required a north-eastadvance by C and B Companies out of the narrow defile known as Krithianullah. A gap was therefore made overnight in the barrier that hadhitherto crossed the mouth of the defile and linked our fire trencheswith those neighbouring. A machine gun was placed at the north-westcorner of this gap under cover of the end of our fire trench. On thesouth-east side of the gap, a barricade ran up a steep slope to thetrenches of other Manchesters, whose assault was to be simultaneous withours. Owing to the clearance of the fire trenches, the assaultingparties had, unfortunately, to move across the open. The nullah wastwisted and partly covered by curving banks on either flank; so that itwas hoped that our men might nevertheless avoid complete exposure. Thegreat hope, however, was that the British guns would succeed in wreckingthe redoubt that commanded the outlet of the nullah before the infantrymoved. 

We waited at the spot where the support line ran down to the nullah andfrom which C Company was to emerge, while our artillery thunderedagainst the enemy's position. Then the hour came, and C Company, underChadwick (bravest of the brave), moved in single file into the nullahand onward towards the gap in the front-line barricade and the Turkishredoubt beyond. 

B Company, under Captain J. R. Creagh, followed in their wake. 

At the same time a battalion of the Manchesters, commanded byLieut. -Col. Darlington, was launched against the Turkish line on theleft of the redoubt, and another, under Lieut. -Col. Pilkington, againstthe line on its right. The redoubt itself was at the apex of a broadangle of trenches. 

It was at once obvious that our guns had been unable to affect thestrength and resisting power of the enemy's front line. Each advancingwave of the Manchesters was swept away by machine-gun fire. A few ofthem gallantly reached the Turkish trenches and fell there. Longafterwards, during the last flicker of a British offensive in December, some Lowland Scots soldiers of the 52nd Division found in trenches onthe west of the nullah the bodies of some of the Manchester men, who hadalso this day fought a way to their objective and perished. 

We saw shrapnel bursting along the nullah, through which C Company waspassing, and progress seemed stopped. I ran along the deserted sapsthat connected our support line with the front firing trench, and cameto the gap. Some twenty yards ahead, a group of about thirty men werelying together in the shallow water-course, mostly dead. Another groupwas gathered under cover by the gap. The rest of C and B Companies werestill running up to the gap from the support line through the long grassof the nullah, and dropping in their tracks under the constant fire ofthe redoubt. Chadwick and J. R. Creagh were both in the forefront of theadvance, and Chadwick signalled back its hopelessness. His subaltern, Bacon, had been the first to pass the gap, and had been killed onemerging. The whole battle in this sector was really over, and I stoppedthe men under cover from moving out into the open. In the late afternoonthe survivors of the little group in front crawled back to safety. Thedead were gathered in by the devoted stretcher-bearers under SergeantMort, during the evening. One party, under Corporal F. White, had alonepenetrated to within a few yards of the redoubt. He held his mentogether through the afternoon and brought them in under cover ofdarkness, for which the D. C. M. Was his reward. Mort had won the D. C. M. Earlier in the campaign. 

All through that hot afternoon the wounded Manchesters trailed back tothe busy dressing-stations, pictures of suffering and patience. Theattack still further reduced the numbers of the original Territorialunits, already greatly diminished by casualties. 

[Illustration: In Khartum Station. 

Col. Gresham. General Wingate. ]

[Illustration: In the Turkish trench captured on 4th June. ]

We wondered to what extent the effort at Cape Helles had eased the greattask of the armies operating from Anzac and Suvla Bay. The guns used toboom all day long from the hidden north until the 22nd August, when theattempt was given up. Several weeks passed before we realised that thevaliant armies there had laboured in vain, and that Sari-Bair hadremained unconquered. 

We were far more conscious of the limited results of the battle on theCape Helles side of Achi Baba. 

To the right of the line attacked by the Manchester Brigade and some 200yards east of Krithia nullah, the Lancashire Fusiliers succeeded, withgreat gallantry, in capturing a small plot known as the Vineyard, whichthe Turks in six days' hard fighting were unable to regain. 

Regarded purely as a holding attack during the main enterprise fromSuvla, the offensive fully achieved its purpose. It was, however, difficult to look upon it in this somewhat narrow light from the pointof view of a Regiment which took part in the actual adventure. 

Of the many personalities that struck one's imagination during thisAugust battle, the majority were simply of the rank and file, whosepluck and unselfishness were incomparable. Of most I have forgotten thevery names. There was a postman from Bradford, who was forty-seven yearsold and had thirteen children. I remember his telling me of SouthAfrican experiences. He fell. Most of our men were far younger. Manywere mere boys, whose days in the Camel Corps at Khartum had been theirfirst taste of manhood. Their Company Sergeant-Major, Leigh, wasmortally wounded by shrapnel while running up the nullah. 

Of our officers, Captains Smedley and Chadwick survived to be pillars ofstrength during the whole campaign. About the time when I finally leftthe unit Captain Smedley joined the Egyptian Army as a Bimbashi, andChadwick the Royal Flying Corps. Chadwick received a Serbian decoration. 

Fawcus, who distinguished himself by his cool leadership on the night ofthe 6th August, left the Battalion very soon afterwards to conduct anewly formed Bombing School on the Peninsula. He was the recipient ofmany well-earned honours, and ultimately, as a battalion commander, wonwider fame in another theatre of war. 

A number of the men received cards from Divisional Headquarters, expressing appreciation of their gallantry: Sergeants W. Harrison andM'Hugh; Corporal (afterwards Company Sergeant-Major) J. Joyce;Lance-Corporal (afterwards Lieutenant) G. W. F. Franklin; Lance-Corporal(afterwards Lieutenant) W. T. Thorp; Corporals Hulme and Cherry; PrivatesAnderson, Beckett, Bradbury, Fletcher, Hayes, Hamilton, Maher, Murphyand Walsh. Joyce was afterwards awarded the Russian Order of St George. 

On the 15th August 1915 we were relieved by a Lowland Scots Brigade ofthe 52nd Division, and moved to what were then called the Scotchdug-outs, a bivouac about two and a half miles behind the fire trenchesupon the central plateau of the Peninsula. It was hot and dusty, butfive minutes' walk led the weary to the cliff. We used to go down itssteep side on to the coast road, full of soldiers of the Allied Armies, of carts and mules with long tassel fly protectors, and of Indian orZionist muleteers. Across the road a lighter was moored, from which webathed happily in a peaceful sea, with the pale blue contours of Imbrosand Samothrace cut clearly against the sky, and our trawlers andcruisers moving up and down on their ceaseless watch between Cape Hellesand Anzac. Here and here alone was it possible to forget the brownwilderness above the cliff, and all the toil and bloodshed betweenourselves and the summit of Achi Baba. 

Casualties are soon forgotten in war. In the dusty and exposed dug-outs, which were now our refuge, men revived. After the recent losses, it wasgood to see our clever Territorials transforming what looked like dogbiscuits into a palatable porridge, cooking rice and raisins, pickinglice from their grey woollen shirts, reading papers (all very light andvery old), grumbling, but ever cheerful. It was in the Scotch dug-outsthat we heard of the loss of the _Royal Edward_ and of the German entryinto Warsaw; but already mails and food held the first place in ourminds. Man readjusts his sense of proportion as he enters a theatre ofwar. 

On the 19th August, Colonel Canning became temporary Brigadier. I thusbecame Commanding Officer in his absence. The same day we left ourbivouac, and after a long, hot, march, through the dusty gorge calledGully Ravine, we relieved another unit in the firing line on thenortherly side of that great artery of British life and traffic. 

CHAPTER V

TRENCH WARFARE ON GALLIPOLI

The routine upon which the Battalion entered at this stage remainedalmost unchanged until the evacuation. Our Headquarters, where I sleptwhen in command of the Battalion during Colonel Canning's various shortspells as acting Brigadier, were usually in some heather-covered gorge, opening upon a deep blue sea. Essex Ravine was a frequent site. The sideof this ravine which faced the north-east protruded beyond the sidesheltered from the Turkish fire, and was thus forbidden ground. All downthe slope were spread the dismembered remains of hundreds of Turks, whomust have been slaughtered in retreat by guns from our warships in theÆgean Sea. It was impossible to bury them, owing to the enemy's fire. The other side, where we slept on a rocky ledge high above the sea, wasstill a beautiful glen. 

An hour before dawn we went round the lines, while the men "stood to. "We returned for a bathe and breakfast in the open, while the destroyersused to pass to and fro between Cape Helles and the Gulf of Saros, and apearly haze brooded over Imbros. Then back to the trenches, which werealways dusty and fly-pestered, to visit men always under fire, but fullof bravery and patience. Diarrhoea and dysentery were already sendingmany of them from the Peninsula. The trenches were often noisome. Onlyin the evening, with Imbros growing fainter in the fading day andSamothrace rising huge and cloudy behind, while the red and green lightsof the hospital ships off Helles shone brightly across the water, wasphysical vigour possible. When I acted as Second in Command, as was moreusual, my nights were spent in the centre of the firing line, withexcellent telephonists like Hoyle or Clavering close to me, but thenights were usually quiet, and indeed it was not until the middle ofSeptember that the Turks showed any symptoms of the offensive spirit. Our casualties were mainly caused by random shots at night, whichchanced to hit our sentries as they peered into the gloom over theparapet. 

After a fortnight's spell in the trenches, rest bivouacs were welcome asa change, though the name was a mere mockery. Mining and loadingfatigues were incessant. I admired the humour of a Wigan sergeant, whomI heard encouraging a gang of perspiring soldiers, while carrying heavyammunition boxes up a hill-side one sweltering afternoon, with theincitement that they must "Remember Belgium. "

For a Field Officer one of the most trying experiences of such breaks inthe common routine was the task of presiding over field generalcourts-martial. Courts-martial under peace conditions are not withoutinterest to a lawyer, but these in the field dealt wholly with gravecharges, such as falling asleep while on sentry duty and other offencesalmost as dangerous and considerably more heinous morally. It was hardin many cases to reconcile the exigencies of war with the call ofhumanity, and the sense of responsibility was only partially relieved bythe knowledge that a higher authority would give due weight to theextenuating circumstances that appealed so often to one's compassion. The introduction of "suspended sentences" by the Army (Suspension ofSentences) Act 1915, with a view to keep a man's rifle in the firingline, and to give an offender the chance of retrieving his liberty bysubsequent devotion to duty, was probably the War's best addition toBritish Military Law. Nevertheless, the duty of acting as President onthese occasions is found universally distasteful. 

There were, however, two great charms in these short intervals in trenchwarfare. First, it was delightful to escape to places where you couldmove erect and see something besides the brown wilderness of saps andcuts. A walk to Lancashire Landing along the coast road, between greatrugged cliffs on one side and the rippling sea on the other, took uspast the little colony of the Greek Labour Corps, and past terraces ofnew stone huts and sandbag dug-outs, which indicated the presence ofStaff Officers. Looking seaward, we saw the hull of the sunken_Majestic_, a perpetual sign of the limitations of "sea power. " We couldthen strike up from the beach and see the A. S. C. Stores, admirablymanaged by Major (afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel) A. England, and pushingon to the top of the plateau, the whole area of warfare betweenLancashire Landing and Achi Baba was at our feet. 

Even more delightful was the long series of entertainments which weorganised in the Battalion, and which eventually drew large numbers fromthe rest of the 42nd Division. These entertainments were opened bylectures on history. Our men became familiar with the history andconditions of all the belligerent Powers, and were kept well acquaintedwith the developments of the actual military situation in Europe. Theyenjoyed these lectures. Education has its uses, after all. Then followedconcerts, which were splendidly arranged by Regimental Sergeant-Major M. Hartnett, a veteran of Ladysmith and East Africa and a pillar of theBattalion, now, alas, dead, and by Quartermaster-Sergeant Mort, himselfan adept as an entertainer. These "shows" used to start about 6. 45 inthe evening, and the vision of our tired boys scattered in the fastfading twilight on the slope of some narrow ravine beneath the serene, starry sky of Turkey will be among our most lasting memories ofGallipoli. The sentimental song was typical of the Territorial's taste. Even now I can hear the refrain sung by Company Sergeant-Major J. W. Woods:

 "My heart's far away with the Colleen I adore; Eileen alannah; Angus asthor. "

At the finish, before singing the National Anthem and the no lesspopular anthem of the Machine Gun Section, our men always sang: _Keepthe Home Fires Burning_. The soldiers could have no better vesper hymn. 

On the 8th September 1915 we went into a new sector of trenches oneither side of what was called Border Barricade. The name was, likeBorder Ravine, a relic of the Border Regiment, just as Skinner's Lane, Watling Street, Essex Ravine and Inniskilling Inch recalled theactivities of other units. 

I can claim personal responsibility for placing Burlington Street andGreenheys Lane upon the map of Gallipoli. They are reminders of ourHeadquarters in Manchester. 

Border Barricade barred a moorland track which led upwards to higherground where the Turks were strongly entrenched. Below it were littlegraveyards of Turkish and British dead, and below them the moorscontracted into the narrow defile of Gully Ravine. Here on the 15thSeptember we lost some casualties in a mine explosion, which the Turkshad carefully timed for our evening's "Stand to. " Dense columns of smokeand earth shot up high into the air, and the rapidly increasing darknessof the evening added greatly to our difficulties. Most gallant work wasdone in digging out buried men, a task of great danger, as the fronttrench was completely destroyed, and the Turks, whose trenches at thispoint were within ten yards of ours, were bombing heavily. Thirteen menlost their lives through the explosion. For some days afterwards thisspot and an open space behind it were constantly sniped, and, as anaddition to our troubles, one of our own trench mortars, fired by aneighbouring unit, landed in error in our lines, killing 3 men andwounding 4, including Captain Smedley. Later the Turks exploded furthermines in the same area when it was occupied by other units. 

Our chief losses, however, were through illness. Captain P. H. Creagh, whose splendid work was rewarded by a D. S. O. , left us at the end ofAugust for good, and joined his own regiment in Mesopotamia. Before theend of September, Captain C. H. Williamson, the Brigade's excellentSignalling Officer (afterwards killed in action); Captain A. H. Tinker, at that time Machine Gun Officer, but afterwards most admirable ofCompany Commanders; Captains H. H. Nidd and J. R. Creagh, most careful ofCompany Officers; D. Norbury of the Machine Guns; Pain and Pilgrim, invaluable Somerset officers attached to us, all left the Battalion withjaundice. Burn and Bryan left it with dysentery; Morten with a poisonedhand. 

There was little indeed to cheer the men in the trenches. Newspercolated through to us of the failure at Suvla and of the hardshipsendured in that enterprise. Mails from home arrived all too slowly andprecariously. Death was always present. We regretted the loss of CaptainH. T. Cawley on the night of the 23rd September. He had given up a softbillet as A. D. C. To a Major General in order to share the lot of hisold regiment, a battalion of the Manchesters, and was killed in a minecrater near Border Barricade. 

The spell in the trenches admitted of few variations. The journey tothem was always burdensome. It is easy to recall the trek, on the 1stOctober 1915, of weary, dust-stained, overloaded men some three miles upthe nullah, inches deep in dirty dust and under a broiling sun, tooccupy narrow fire trenches, unprotected as ever by head cover, andpestilential with smells and flies. Yet once established in thetrenches, life was tolerable enough. As a Field Officer I was fortunateto be able to escape at times to enjoy the intense luxury ofsea-bathing. Sometimes the evenings were misty, and the fog-horns of ourdestroyers and trawlers carried faintly across the Ægean Sea. More oftenthe sunsets were gorgeous. The day always seemed long. Firing wasfrequent but targets were rare. Some men curled themselves up betweenthe narrow red walls of the trenches, read, dozed, smoked, talked, oneor two in each traverse observing in turns through the periscope acrossthe arid belt of No Man's Land, where groups of grey-clad Turks, killedlong ago, still lay bleaching and reeking under the torrid sky. Othersforaged behind for fuel, which could only be found with greatdifficulty. A little later dozens of fires would be crackling in thetrenches, with dixies upon them full of stew or tea. Flies hovered inmyriads over jam-pots. The sky was cloudless. Heat brooded over all. Noone ever visited the trench except the Battalion Headquarters Staff andfatigue parties with water-bottles. Many soldiers stripped to the waist, and wore simply their sun helmets and shorts. Sickness alone drew menaway. The soil was dark red, caked and crumbling. Here and there thedead were buried into the parados, with such inscriptions as "Sacred tothe Memory of an Unknown Comrade. _R. I. P. _"

The Mule Sap connected the trenches with Headquarters. We gatheredcurios, Turkish and German, from among its débris. At Headquarters thetelephone, orderly-room and dressing-station alone denoted the presenceof war. They were fixed in a beautiful ravine, looking upon a smoothsea, warm in the sunlight, with Imbros ten miles across the water. Themeals were of first importance, but sandbags are uncomfortable seats, and the heat was trying. Pleasant it was in the cool of the evening togo to sleep with one's Burberry as a pillow. The stars shone kindlydown, as they had shone long ago upon the heroes of the Iliad on thePlains of Troy, seven miles away across the Dardanelles, upon theCrusaders and Byzantines. You were asleep in a moment, and hardlystirred until 5 A. M. , when it was time for "Stand to. " Daylight movedquickly across the desolate waste, and by six o'clock another day of warand waiting had dawned. 

The Territorial's thoughts turn to home far more often than do those ofthe Regular, for to him the family has always been more important thanthe regiment. H. C. Franklin, who took P. H. Creagh's place as ourAdjutant at the end of August, and was an old Regular soldier of theManchester Regiment, often said that the week's mail of a Territorialbattalion is as large as six months' mails for a unit of the old Army. He told, too, a good story, which shows the perceptiveness of Indians. He was standing near to some Indian muleteers when the ManchesterTerritorial Brigade disembarked on Gallipoli. He heard them say inHindustani: "Here is another of the regiments of shopkeepers. " Onepointed to Captain P. H. Creagh, our Adjutant and only Regular officer. He said: "But he is a soldier. " Another said of Staveacre: "A fine, bigman, but he also is of the shopkeepers. "

The story of trench warfare during these months on Gallipoli isundramatic. A record of their little episodes is almost trivial. Yetthis want of movement and initiative is true to life, and was the commonlot of the three or four British Divisions then responsible foroperations at Cape Helles. The campaign, in fact, came to a standstillon the failure of the great offensive in August. The objects of the Armywere simply to hold the ground so hardly won in the first two months ofthe expedition, and to contain as large as possible a Turkish force onGallipoli for the benefit of our Russian Allies in the Caucasus andelsewhere. The first of these objects was attained in spite of thethinness of our line, the universal inferiority of our positions tothose of the enemy, and the gradual improvement of their guns andaircraft. The Nizam--_i. E. _ the Regular first-line Turkish troops--hadbeen practically destroyed. The remainder lacked the offensive spiritafter their heavy losses in August, and perhaps their hearts were notsufficiently in the struggle to welcome further sacrifice of life, withtime already running in their favour. We heard of one British officerwho had acted as a hostage during a short armistice at Anzac. The Turksloaded him with presents of fruit, and, pointing to their dead on thebattle-field, said: "So much for your diplomatists and diplomacy!"

Our second object, also, is believed to have been gained, so far as waspossible, having regard to our inadequate numbers and to the limitationsof our technique of the period. Bombing used at this time to bepractised by small sections in each battalion, who occupied dangeroussalients called "bird-cages" in the fire trenches. Here in ourBattalion, G. Ross-Bain and W. H. Barratt among the officers, S. Cloughand T. Hulme among the N. C. O. 's--all valiant men--won a modest measureof fame. On one occasion Hulme picked up a live bomb thrown by the enemyand saved his comrades' lives by throwing it over the parapet withsplendid self-devotion. Our British sappers became more proficient inmining, special corps being formed from among the Wigan colliers of theManchesters and the Lowland Scots. The guns were always active, andtheir co-operation with the infantry was perfected. Those who rememberpassing by night along the winding length of Inniskilling Inch willrecall the red lamp that marked the artillery forward observationofficer's post at the corner of Burlington Street, and the well-hiddengun emplacement, where Greenheys Lane ran out of the Mule Sap. Thefamiliar street signs carried men's minds back to Manchester. 

CHAPTER VI

THE STRAIN

In the second week of October, 1915, the Army at Cape Helles wasreinforced by dismounted Yeomanry from East and West Kent, Surrey andSussex, and by some Royal Fusilier Territorial units from Malta, whowere lent to the Royal Naval Division. Many West Kent officers andN. C. O. 's were for a time attached to the Battalion, and proved admirablecomrades. The 42nd Division received some scanty drafts on the 23rdOctober. These came from the 3rd line units at Codford on SalisburyPlain, and were of excellent quality. Our draft was under LieutenantC. S. Wood, a very able signaller. 

I noted on the 21st October that of the 300 men of the Battalion then inthe field, nearly 100 were on detached jobs--signallers, machine gunnersand details attached to various headquarters. 

The result of the shrinkage in strength was a great strain upon thesurvivors. "We never sleep, " the Battalion's motto, was adoptedgrudgingly as a rule of life. The necessities of the firing linerequired vigilance by day and night, and the long frontages allotted tothe various units of the 42nd Division entailed broken nights andlaborious days for all. The men's physique became lowered. Septic soreswere general; bad eyes, not infrequent; jaundice of a type indicatingpara-typhoid was common; amoebic dysentery very prevalent. Loss ofhealth meant loss of vigour. Limited to one bottle of water a day forall purposes, and perpetually a prey to flies, heat, diarrhoea andwant of rest, the soldier had a trying time. Rations of a type welcomein a northern climate were unpalatable in Turkey. In July and August wewere liberally supplied with vegetables and raisins, and withmuch-prized golden syrup for our porridge; but the latter luxury thendisappeared, while for several months our only vegetables were onions, which do not appeal to every palate. Jams, even when the pots wereadorned with pictures of one Sir Joseph Paxton, had very diminishingattractions. The only strawberry jam we ever had on the Peninsula cameto us in tins, from which the labels had been stripped by some kindlyact of Providence. In the expedition's early days our men had been ableto exchange English jams for dainties procurable by the French andSenegalese, but the monotonous and indefinable "plum and apple" of thelater summer killed the trade and extinguished all foreign admiration ofBritish jam-making. Only the flies were fascinated. 

Our East Lancashire Territorials did all that was possible to relievethe strain. We had a most able medical officer in Captain J. J. Hummel, of Glasgow, who had temporarily succeeded Captain J. F. Farrow (our ownveteran M. O. ) in July, but indeed all the units were happy in theirdoctors, and _emetine_ in dysentery cases was a gift of gold. Nor coulda Brigade have had a more gallant and untiring padre than Captain E. T. Kerby. He and Captain Farrow both won the Military Cross. Kerby musthave said the burial service over the graves of nearly a thousandManchesters on Gallipoli. 

The food difficulty we met by encouraging unofficial imports. Thekindness of all at home was beyond praise. Consignments of comforts werewell regulated by Major H. G. Davies, who had charge of the Manchesterdepot, but many came direct from innumerable friends and national andlocal organisations. One mother of two boys of the Battalion who hadlost their lives wrote to me, while sending parcels for their survivingcomrades: "I dare say that life is dreary for them, poor lads. God inHis mercy has been so very merciful in that my Darlings have been sparedso much. My prayers will follow you throughout, praying for the successof the whole of Our Battalion, and that you may all be spared to comesafely home to the fond hearts waiting. "

England need never despair while she has such mothers. 

The great glory of the East Lancashire Division during the long-drawndays of October and November was, however, the temper of its men. Thespiritual exaltation, that all races feel at the outbreak of war and inthe hour of battle, disappears under the pressure of the daily grind. Then, in his divine good-nature, the British Tommy comes into his own. Nothing dims his cheerfulness and humour. A chorus starting with: "Weare the M. G. " proclaimed the jollity of our Machine Gun Section and theingenuity of Sergeant W. Harrison. A Machine Gun Corps of the largertype, organised under the energetic command of Captain Hayes, was athing of the future. A long list of singers and performers--Hartnett, Mort, Addison (of ragtime celebrity), Wheelton, Holbrook, Hoyle, Clavering, Shields--adorned the programmes of our concerts. Other menlike Tabbron and F. E. H. Barratt were notably cheery souls in the lines. The handful of surviving officers--Higham, Chadwick, Whitley, Douglas--with a few excellent attached officers--J. Baker and J. W. Barrett of the Somersets, and F. W. Woodward of the SherwoodForesters--were untiring promoters of the men's well-being. 

Their wants were so modest. Old magazines and football editions ofSaturday evening papers, published a month or two earlier in England, sufficed for their literary appetites. Lancashire boys are not broughtup to read; the _Sentry_ writers were exceptional. When I once came upona man reading the _Golden Treasury_, in Hardship Avenue, I knew he couldnot be a Manchester man. He was not. He came from the Isle of Man, andhad joined our reserves at Southport. I found about half-a-dozen menwho could enjoy _The Times_ broadsheets. I am afraid _John Bull_ wasmuch more popular. 

It was pleasant indeed to stroll along the narrow trenches and see howstaunchly the men forgot their privations. Towards evening littleparties would go, heavy-laden, into long forward saps that the engineershad thrown forward from Inniskilling Inch, to pass the night in cuttingscalled "T-heads, " which were ultimately to be connected together andform a new trench closer to the enemy. They looked out from these lonelyplaces in the midst of No Man's Land upon scattered heaps of corpses, and in their front upon the well-built Turkish trenches, substantiallywired in and full of cleverly disguised loopholes. Two sentries wereplaced in each "T-head. " The man on watch was exposed to oblique firefrom all directions, as both British and Turkish lines curved to rightand left, while the constant sound of Turkish picks at work suggestedthe proximity of mines. The sap that ran back to the fire trench wasvery narrow, and ended in a low tunnel under our parapet. It wastherefore hard to bring wounded in from the "T-head. " I remember onepoor fellow in A Company called Renshaw being badly wounded in the headone night, and being dragged back through the tunnel with infinitedifficulty. 

The Turks were quick to pick up targets. One morning at our bivouac onGeoghegan's Bluff, we noticed half-a-dozen mules stray from Gully Ravineto the moor on the summit of its southerly side, perhaps a thousandyards from the enemy's front line. We saw them shot, one by one, withina minute. As the Turks enjoyed the possession of higher groundeverywhere from first to last, their power of observation wasnecessarily greater than ours, and no corner of Cape Helles was exemptfrom shell fire. It pursued us even in our bathing places. 

The course of life on Gallipoli was, however, so monotonous that menbecame callous to all dangers. They carried on the long day's routineand the numberless little jobs included in the term "trench duties, " asif nothing else mattered. Such tasks are familiar to-day to so manymillions of Europeans that they need no description. Gas masks, sprinklers and gongs were ready for use in every trench, but werehappily not needed. 

Our men represented every Lancashire type, from the master builder tothe barrister's clerk, from the wheelwright to the calico printer, fromthe railway carter to the commercial traveller. You would find togetherin one traverse Sergeant J. V. H. Hogan, a well-read ex-Socialist devoteeof Union Chapel debates and old political opponent of my own, andanother sergeant, whose name I cannot now recall, but who had been thepetty officer of a South American liner sunk by the _Karlsruhe_ in theearly days of the War. Then we had famous footballers in SergeantsPearson and Bamber. The Territorial origin of the Battalion was, indeed, a never-failing source of strength. Officers and men came from the sameplace, enjoyed the same interests and possessed the same outlook. Itwas pleasant to see in the trenches, faces familiar in my own suburb ofFallowfield, and to chat with hundreds of men whose lives had touchedmine in days of peace. 

The worth and capacity of these men were not peculiar to our unit, butwere common to the Manchester Brigade and the whole Division. Onebattalion contained expert miners. Another battalion, at this timecommanded by Major (afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel) C. L. Worthington, hadlost enormously in their valiant battles. One of their captains--R. H. Bedford--helped in our history lectures. Another battalion, underLieutenant-Colonel MacCarthy Morrogh, with Major H. C. F. Mandley asSecond in Command and Captain E. Horsfall as Adjutant, were our constantneighbours and allies. With the Lancashire Fusiliers and EastLancashires, and with the admirably run A. S. C. And R. A. M. C. We enjoyed aslighter but no less hearty friendship. 

The best relief from the long strain of the trenches was a bathe in thesea, but any diversion while in rear of the firing line wasexhilarating. We used to gather on the moors that lay betweenGeoghegan's Bluff and Bruce's Ravine, Turkish cartridge boxes made bythe Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken at Karlsruhe and labelled withinscriptions in German and Turkish, innumerable spent Turkishcartridges, abandoned Mäuser rifles, Turkish bandoliers (stamped withthe English name "Warner's") and all the usual fascinating débris ofbattle. 

[Illustration: C COMPANY, THE BRITISH CAMEL COMPANY, KHARTUM. ]

On the 19th October I made a special expedition, with Captain C. E. Higham, to the southern sector of the area, where the French had heldthe line ever since their move from Kum Kale to the Peninsula. We walkedto beautiful Morto Bay, with its graceful curve from the headland calledDe Tott's Battery. The ruins on this point, carried by the South WalesBorderers on the 25th April, stood out clear-cut against the bright blueof the Dardanelles and the fainter grey of the Asiatic coast beyond. Wewent on past French and Senegalese dug-outs to Sedd-el-Bahr, a villageand fort wrecked by our naval guns in the first days of the campaign. The country was open and dotted with the remains of vineyards. North ofSedd-el-Bahr was the well-tended French graveyard, more prettily keptthan our own cemetery above Lancashire Landing. Here sleep many hundredsoldiers, "morts sur le champs d'honneur, " their _képis_ on the crosses, and their graves adorned by flowers. The Jews and Senegalese had theirown separate plots. 

Sedd-el-Bahr appeared to be but a collection of outer walls and brokenpillars, posts and fountains, some of archaic design. On the beachbelow, the _River Clyde_ recalled the glory of the landing of theDublins, Hampshires and Munsters. We struggled back to our bivouac inthe teeth of a dusty, warm wind, to be inoculated with _emetine_ and torest by the white coast road, while we watched our monitors ridingbetween Cape Helles and Imbros, and landing shells in the Turkishtrenches on the slopes of Achi Baba. On such an occasion Ross Bain wouldarrive from marketing among the Greeks on Tenedos with some greatlyvalued potatoes, and then all our troubles would be forgotten. 

When rain came, the joy of living was hard to attain. During all ourtime on Gallipoli I remember but one or two occasions when we werefortunate enough to secure timber or some corrugated iron to roof ourdug-outs. Normally we had only our mackintosh sheets. Rain turned thethick dust to a brown morass, and the little mule carts struggling pastthe swampy curve of Geoghegan's Bluff could hardly clamber up the GullyRavine. It was choked with mud. 

Then the sun would come out and the flies returned in their myriads toplague us. They blackened every jam-pot and clustered thickly round themouths and eyes of sleeping soldiers. The trenches became dry and dusty. Detached legs or feet or arms of the dead would protrude from theparapet, as the soil around them fell away. Smells became all-pervading. We would seek refuge in the dug-outs, that looked out upon a crowdedgraveyard from the sloping incline by Border Barricade. Then would comethe time for another inoculation with _emetine_, and we would join thelong line of men waiting, stripped to the waist, for Captain Hummel'sneedle. We prayed that it might be effective, and that we should bespared the curse of dysentery and long nights of misery in and about thefly-infested latrines. 

CHAPTER VII

THE LIMIT

In the balmy days of late October it was still possible to enjoy life onGallipoli. The ceaseless vigil of the trenches was cheered by contactwith the bravest men I have known. The dirt and drudgery of restbivouacs were assuaged by bathing, and by jolly "missing wordcompetitions" and "sing-songs, " as well as our courses of lectures anddiscussions on history, politics, the War, and the England to ariseafter the War. 

Talk gravitated again and again to the tragedy of the 4th June. I have arecord of one such symposium, that illuminates the infinite variety ofhuman nature. "Franklin says that he and Staveacre could see in the farforefront of the battle Sergeant Marvin engage four Turks simultaneouslywith his bayonet till shot dead. But X. Boggled at going over theparapet. He was told: 'You are a disgrace to the Manchester Regiment. 'He replied: 'I shall never let that be said of me, ' rose to climb over, and was blown to bits by a shell. Whitley carried a badly wounded man along way under fire. Creery did splendidly. " It may be added thatWhitley's act was afterwards recognised by an award of the MilitaryCross. He became Staff Captain at Ismailia. W. F. Creery joined theConnaught Rangers and was mentioned in dispatches. 

Another hero of the men's reminiscences was Captain A. H. Tinker. Onenight during the first month of the campaign a working party had lostitself on the moor. It was so dark that they ran great risk of strayinginto the enemy's lines--a fate that befell a number of our men at thisperiod in that broken country. In spite of the proximity of the Turks, Tinker left the trenches and boldly sought the men himself, calling outloudly for them. They heard him and made their way back. 

The days of initiative and enterprise had, however, passed. The wind andgrit gave the strongest of us sore throats and high temperatures, and Igradually joined the crowded ranks of sick men "on light duty only. " Atthe beginning of November we moved to the northern extremity of theAllies' line across the Peninsula, and here I saw the last phase of ourwarfare on Gallipoli. Sir Ian Hamilton had gone. All ideas of a renewedoffensive had disappeared. After the 24th October the Turks enjoyeddirect communication with Germany, and at Cape Helles there was no signof revived strategy or rejuvenated tactics. Our work was simply to carryon and hold out. Some of the other Divisions took steps to guard theirmen against the menace of a "Crimean winter" by preparing shelteredquarters. Great flights of geese used to fly in V-shaped formations highover our heads on their way from Russia to Egypt. They were augurs ofour own eventual migration. 

The new position of the Battalion was on Fusilier Bluff, a mile to thewest of the ruins of Krithia. The left ran straight down to the sea, where monitors used to shell the enemy's positions, while destroyerswatched the flank, and at night played flashlights on the ravine thatdivided us from the next bluff, where the Turks were entrenched. Thisground had been won in the brilliant British advance of the 28th June. The Turkish line was close to ours, and our men were always on thestrain. Incidents were common. On the 2nd November a Turk crawled alongthe beach with a white flag, and surrendered. At night the Turks builtup in front of their parapet, and two were shot by Sergeant Stanton. Oneof our men was killed and two were wounded. On the 3rd, another man waskilled by a bomb, while the daily drain of sickness went on unabated. General Elliott, at this period our Brigadier, was an energetic pioneerof new methods and more vigorous tactics. He had the Mule Saps improved. 

Even, however, in the secluded Headquarters at Bruce's Ravine I couldnot keep my health, and Hummel's art was unavailing. 

The average soldier on Gallipoli broke down after a month or two. Comparatively few endured more than three months. Of our officers onlyScott (the Quartermaster) and Fawcus were on the Peninsula from start tofinish, though Colonel Canning, Higham and Chadwick had almost as finea record. Few of the sick came back to Turkey. 

Some, like my first batman Dinsdale, died in hospital at Alexandria orin Malta. Many went to England and passed into other units. Othersrejoined later in Egypt. Somehow, in peace times we had never imaginedthat the Battalion could be so dispersed and broken. 

My departure from Gallipoli is perhaps worth a description. Would thatthe wounded heroes of the landing could have received a hundredth partof the same care!

I left Border Ravine at six in the evening of the 5th November 1915, with a high temperature, and feeling very ill. I walked down to the 1stField Ambulance Dressing Station in "Y" Ravine, where CaptainFitzgerald, R. A. M. C. , directed me on to the base of that Ambulance inGully Ravine. Here my servant, Hawkins, left me, and two medicalorderlies carried my traps. Alas, I left behind me a much-prized Turkishcopper basin and bayonet, spoils of war, which I never saw again. Wewalked two miles along the rough and dusky beach, a full tide washingover our feet and throwing many dead mules high upon the pebbles. At thestation I got a cup of hot milk, and spent the night on a stretcher. Next morning my case was diagnosed as one of fever and swollen glands, by Captain John Morley, R. A. M. C. , most brilliant of surgeons, and at teno'clock (cherishing a label marked "Base") I was swirled off in a motorambulance to No. 17 Stationary Hospital above the beach known asLancashire Landing since its glorious capture by the LancashireFusiliers on the 25th April. At 4. 15 in the afternoon we motored offonce more and boarded a steam launch, whence we transshipped to anuncomfortable lighter. At 6. 30, in the dark, we were lifted by a craneinto the P. & O. Hospital ship _Delta_, where 500 sick and wounded werebeing collected. Dinner consisted of bread and milk only for many of us, but we revelled in the luxury of bed and bath. Next morning I sat on thesunny side of the deck. The shady side, chilly in the November air, looked out upon Cape Helles, with Achi Baba rising straight behind it, and to the left upon the grey succession of landing-places, enshrined inso many English hearts. 

We sailed the next morning, and thus avoided the misery of the greatNovember blizzard on the Peninsula. 

The Division remained on the Peninsula until the 29th December. Dysentery abated and the flies vanished, but gale and storm carried onthe strain, and frostbite was added to the men's trials. The Turks seemto have much increased their supply of munitions, and the loss of lifecontinued day by day. "Asiatic Annie" and other guns across the straitsshowed renewed activity. A mine explosion on the 4th December killed oneof our men and injured eight. Two popular privates, Hancock and Lee, were killed on Christmas Day. One singular innovation was the Turkishpractice of shooting steel-headed darts from their aeroplanes. Theirchance of striking any man was, luckily, very small. 

Nothing daunted the spirit of East Lancashire. Our men held concerts tothe very last, and the football eleven survived three rounds of an ArmyCorps competition, losing their tie in the fourth round on a field inwhich shells burst repeatedly to the discomfort of the players. CaptainsJ. F. Farrow, F. Hayes and E. Townson returned to strengthen the smallband of officers, while R. J. R. Baker, who had been intercepted on hisway out and sent to Suvla Bay, was released for service with us. 

CHAPTER VIII

LAST WORDS ON GALLIPOLI

The last I saw of the trenches was the tangled line on Fusilier Bluff. The last I saw of Gallipoli was the fading contour of its cliffs as wesailed in the _Delta_ for Mudros and Alexandria. When we touched atMudros we heard the first whisper of Lord Kitchener's fateful visit tothe Eastern Mediterranean. 

All questions relating to the initiation and conduct of the expeditionare fitly left to the judgment of the Dardanelles Commission. Here haveonly been expressed ideas that occurred to a Regimental Officer, whoserange of vision is always restricted, and whose generalisations areinevitably based on a narrow, personal experience. Yet such ideas maystill have a bearing upon the history of the campaign, as the wholetheatre of operations at Cape Helles was extraordinarily congested. In atiny area, barely three miles by four, strategy had no elbow-room whenonce the Army was committed to the plan of operations that had beenadopted. The war with the Turks on the Peninsula became purely a war oftactics. If Inkermann was "the soldier's battle, " Gallipoli was thesoldier's campaign. 

It is easy to criticise in the light of a later standard. Gallipoli wasinvaded early in 1915, not in 1916 or 1917, when the whole technique ofassault had been revolutionised. We landed with the methods practised inEngland since the Boer War, methods as out of date in France in 1917 asWellington's methods were in 1815. On later knowledge no one can doubtthat a vast concentration of gun power, infinitely equipped andmunitioned, a scientific use of barrage fire, nicely adjusted to themovements of a great infantry force, itself organised to develop thefullest use of machine guns, Lewis guns, and grenades, would have brokenthe defences of Achi Baba. Our Army knew none of these advantages. Theartillery was inadequate and was inadequately supplied with highexplosives to prepare for an attack in the style afterwards perfected onthe Western Front. It was realised nowhere at this period that the rôleof infantry in attack is quite secondary to that of the guns. Thebombardment that preceded the infantry assaults at Cape Helles in Augustdid not last over two hours, and certainly never hit the trenchesactually in front of the Manchester Territorial Brigade. The gunnerscould do no more than they did. The resources at their disposal werequite insufficient to atone for the Army's difficulties in point ofnumbers and in point of ground. It would appear as if we enjoyed no realascendancy over the enemy either in aircraft or mining. Bombing was mostunfamiliar to us on arrival. It appeals to the English sportsmangreatly and came to be brilliantly practised, but it was rarely adetermining element. The Battalion bombers on Gallipoli were officiallyknown as Grenadiers. Steel hats were, of course, unknown. They wouldhave saved many lives. Visual signalling, on which pains had beenlavished during training, proved of little use. The telephone, however, was a godsend, and in our Battalion was admirably worked by SergeantStanton. 

The one handicap that was above all others a constant and pervadingthought in the minds of our men was the shortage in numbers. It was acommon belief that more reinforcements would have carried the greatadvances of June and July over every obstacle. Our drafts were alwaystoo small and too few, and the want of men infinitely aggravated theexhaustion of the survivors. With but a part of its old strength, andwith no supports whatever between itself and the beaches, a battalionwas still expected to hold the same length of line as when it was up tostrength. Some two hundred men, for instance, occupied the long stretchof trenches from Skinner's Lane corner to the eastern bird-cage and itsnumerous forward saps, upon which men had once been employed. The taskinvolved weeks of scanty and broken sleep, and caused our support andreserve lines to be utterly untenanted. Fatigue work was necessary thevery hour that a unit had straggled down to a bivouac from the firetrenches. So precious was man power that the doctors were forced tokeep unfit men at duty until they dropped. It is impossible to imaginemen more worn by sleeplessness and sickness than the jaded ManchesterTerritorials at the end of a fortnight in the front line. On a movingday Gully Ravine was littered with men who had fallen out of the ranksof a dozen regiments as they trudged, heavily laden, along the windingand dust-swept track. 

Sir Ian Hamilton wrote of our men early in August: "The ---- Manchestersare a really good Battalion. Indeed, the whole of that Brigade haveproved themselves equal to veteran Regulars. The great misfortune hasbeen that there are no drafts ready to fill them up quickly. Had theybeen at once filled up, as is the case in France, they would be finerthan ever. As it is, I fear lest the remnants may form too narrow abasis for proper reconstruction when ultimately the drafts do make theirappearance. "

The drafts we received on Gallipoli were the cream of the 2nd and 3rdreserve lines, which had been organised at home under Colonels Pollittand Hawkins. They gave up their ease and often their ranks in order toserve England better, but their numbers were small. The work ofreconstruction, to which Sir Ian Hamilton looked forward, cameafterwards in Egypt. 

Sometimes the infantryman wondered whether, even if the essentialreinforcements arrived, they would ensure victory. On this point it isdifficult to judge. The home Government had committed itself to theproject of an offensive on the Western Front in the autumn of 1915, inspite of the huge obstacles that confronted the Allies in that theatreof war. The tactics of the period did not even organise trench raids. 

The memory that dominates all recollections of Gallipoli is that of thegrandeur of the British soldier. Though he took no part in the miracleof the landings, the East Lancashire Territorial proved himself worthyof comradeship with even "the incomparable 29th Division. " He rankedwith the Anzac and the Lowland Scot in the great adventure. The original1st-line of our Battalion were really destroyed in Turkey with theircomrades of the same Brigade, but their gallantry in the early assaultsand their inflexible fortitude in the trenches--pestered by flies, enfeebled by dysentery, stinted of water, and worn out by hardships--area lasting title to honour. 

Their story, as told in the pages of the _Sentry_, was read by GeneralWingate a few months later "with mixed feelings of joy andsorrow--sorrow for the many good friends who have laid down their livesfor their King and Country, and joy that it has fallen to the lot of thegallant Battalion, of which I have the honour to be Colonel, to havebehaved so gloriously in one of the hardest and most deadly campaigns inwhich British troops have ever been engaged. "

It is a source of pride to have known and lived with such men. 

CHAPTER IX

REVIVAL IN EGYPT

A large proportion of the sick and wounded invalided from Gallipolibecame familiar with one or other of the Alexandria hospitals. I spent aweek at Victoria College, which had become No. 17 General Hospital, withSister Neville, whose devotion to duty the Battalion had learnt when atKhartum, as Matron. Thence I went to No. 10 Convalescent Hospital atIbra-himieh, once the stately house of an interned German calledLindemann but now converted into a comfortable home under the care of Mrand Mrs Scott. British leniency still reserved its tempting orangery forthe use of local Huns. It is the English way. 

When the evacuation of Gallipoli was contemplated, every hospital wascleared as far as possible of inmates, and I was one of the manyofficers who in early December were turned adrift either to the hotelsof Alexandria or the great waiting camps of Mustapha and Sidi Bish. 

The mere narrative of a holiday period at Alexandria has no publicinterest. We learnt to know Levantine and Egyptian mentality better thanever. When at Khartum an Egyptian _dobey_ (washerman) had amused us bysoliciting Regimental custom in preference to his competitors, not onthe ground that he washed clothes better or charged less, but solely, hesaid, because the other _dobeys_ were "terribly wicked men. " So atAlexandria, every pedlar was the one honest follower of his craft. Yetits population is more European than Egyptian. The shops were full ofthe picture post cards of Italy and France, and portraits of Venezeloswere to be seen everywhere, adorned with the pale blue and whitenational colours of Greece. Probably Mr Lloyd George's fame enjoys evenwider bounds. I have seen his likeness enshrined in wattle huts atOmdurman and Wadi Halfa. 

I touched unfamiliar minor issues of the War on the two occasions when Isat as a member of the military court, which sits for the purpose ofenforcing proclamations issued by the supreme British military authorityin Egypt, and thus tides over the time that has to pass before theCapitulations are abolished and a regular system of uniform justiceestablished. A day thus spent at the Carracol Attarine gives a fineinsight into the blessings of British occupation. 

Most of the cases that I heard turned on the adulteration andfalsification of liquors. Egypt has had no licensing laws; and no effortto apply elementary principles of fair dealing to the drink trade hadapparently been made until initiated under military law for theprotection of the troops. Foreign wine dealers at Alexandriaconsequently flooded the market with spurious liquor, concocted fromthe weirdest raw materials. The only genuine claim they could set up fortheir merchandise was that it was at all events alcoholic. Owing to theutilisation of refuse beet and potatoes, alcohol is cheap in Egypt. Byblending pure alcohol to the extent of anything up to ninety per cent. Of the whole concoction with any particular paste or colouring matter, it is open to wine dealers to pass off any liquid as the most popular ofwines or spirits. Case after case came before the court, of beer made ofalcohol and powder; wine of colouring matter, alcohol and paste; brandyof "essences"; and bitters of "Chinese elixirs. " The falsifyingappliances came from Europe, but the bogus labels, which described thosepoisons as "specially adapted for invalids and bottled in Glasgow, Scotland, " or even offered 25, 000 francs to any who could prove thatso-called Greek "Koniak" was not "the pure juice of the grape, " wereamusingly Levantine. British justice is sweeping away these pitfalls forthe soldier and sailor. 

Egypt was at this time a centre of Anzac relaxation. To have exploredthe tombs of the kings with a New Zealander, paced the roof of the CairoCitadel with Australians, and watched the colonial celebrations ofChristmas in the Alexandria streets is a political education. NoEnglishman after the War will be ignorant of that golden New World, where all the labour is well paid, all hours of work are limited, andall shops close at noon on Saturdays. In any competition for the gloryof being God's own country

 "Australia will be there. "

We were, however, at war. As a field officer, I had the duty ofattending the burial of British soldiers in the Christian cemetery atAlexandria on Christmas Eve, 1915. Since the outbreak of the War thegraveyard had extended from its original site, prettily shaded byfoliage, over an adjacent waste of sand and rubble, where over 2500 ofour men who died of wounds or disease at this base had already at thisdate been laid to rest. Here sleep many Manchester Territorials. In themidst of many graves, identified only by numbers, a black cross recallsthe memory of Mundy, one of our gallant Company Sergeant-Majors. 

On the 30th December 1915 I left Alexandria for the Dardanelles on the_Arcadian_, Sir Ian Hamilton's old ship, once most luxurious of steamyachts but destined to be torpedoed on the 15th April 1917 in these samewaters. It carried some details for the various Divisions still believedto be holding Cape Helles. We sailed in long zigzags through a rough seato within a few hours' distance from Lemnos. We were then ordered backby wireless to Alexandria, landing there, much to our chagrin, on the6th January 1916. Two days later Cape Helles was evacuated. It was neverknown whether our departure from Egypt had been a piece of bluffdesigned to cloak the impending move from Gallipoli, or a sheeraccident arising from ignorance at Alexandria of the true intentions ofthe Mediterranean Expeditionary Force Headquarters. 

From the date of the _Arcadian's_ return down to the end of January, thelarge waiting drafts at Alexandria remained in tantalising inactivity, in spite of the passage of the Gallipoli survivors southward throughAlexandria. The East Lancashire details forgathered at Mustapha on thesite of the famous victory of 1801, and near the pretty white obeliskthat commemorates Sir Ralph Abercromby. The time was filled as bestcould be by route marches, history lectures and various competitions, until at last we had orders to rejoin the Division. We moved from SidiGaber station to Cairo, and thence by trams to Mena, where, with "fortycenturies" looking down upon us, we found what was left of theManchester Territorial Brigade, then under General Elliott's command. The Battalion numbered close on 300 men. 

Our stay at Mena was short, for infinite labour was now urgently neededon the Sinai Peninsula. In the early stages of the War, the Suez Canalhad been treated as itself the main obstacle to an attack on Egypt. Outlying posts like El Arish had been abandoned, and Sinai left almostbare of defences. This policy accounts for the ease with which the Turkshad actually gained the Canal bank in February, 1915. It was nowrecognised that defensive lines should run on the Asiatic side of theCanal in order to make it impossible for any invader to come withingunshot of the waterway. Three possible routes were open to the enemy. The northerly coast road by El Arish and Katia was the best, and enjoyeda Napoleonic tradition, but naval co-operation made its defence easy. Acentral track ran from El Audjo at the end of the main Palestine railwayembankment to Bir Hassana, and might be used against Ismailia. Asoutherly approach was possible through Akaba and Nekl, and thence bythe main pilgrims' road, the Darb El Haj, to Suez. 

The Division was now to be employed in creating some of the new posts ofdefence, by which all such dreams of attack were to be dispelled. Thestrategy was passive, but it paved the way for the offensive undertakenin the ensuing summer. 

On the bitterly cold night of the 1st February 1916 we left Mena. Beforenoon on the 2nd we reached Shallufa sidings. In the evening we crossedthe Canal, and bivouacked in gathering darkness on a desert site knownlater as Shallufa Camp. The days of rest were over. 

CHAPTER X

ON THE SUEZ CANAL

During February of this year the Battalion was engaged upon an innerline of works within easy walking distance of the Canal. A semicircularoutpost line, which covered these works and the Brigade camp, wasoccupied nightly, but there was no real danger of attack. Beyond theoutpost line a distant screen of posts, whose names recalled Lancashire, were in course of construction. 

Life under such conditions gave no scope for ideas. The men did settasks as fatigue work. There was no tactical training. Gangs drew achain ferry to and fro across the Canal, while Lieutenant A. N. Kay actedas wharfmaster. Several days were given to moving camp a few hundredyards north or south within a small area. Two detached posts were heldat this period. One far out among the rolling sandhills, skilfully laidout by Captain A. H. Tinker, was known for a week or two as Ardwick, andthen abandoned. Another, very ably commanded by Captain C. Norbury, wasthe far more fascinating blockhouse known as Gurkha Post, noted for itsbathing, fishing and agreeable remoteness from staff officers. It wasdelightful to ride out from Shallufa camp along a track called "thepilgrims' way" to so charming a spot for a swim in the Canal andpleasures impossible on the dust-swept desert. A few hundred yards tothe north, a little white tower called Lonesome Post long flaunted inred paint the Battalion's name and motto for the edification of passingliners. What have become of like devices that were once deep cut on thescarped cliff of Bruce's Ravine on Gallipoli?

One amusing experience of this period was to bathe in the Canal whilethe transports were passing with newly trained drafts for Mesopotamia orIndia. "Who are you?" was the invariable cry from the banks. Ourwar-worn men received usually the answering taunt: "Garrison duty only!When are you going to do your bit?" To the call: "Who are you?" from atransport, a witty diver replied: "A submarine. "

The whole Canal zone from Port Said to Suez was in reality a hive ofworkers. A visit to the School and Headquarters of the Royal FlyingCorps threw a flood of light on that brilliant service. Its observerscommanded every track and camping ground of the Sinai desert. 

While the Canal was being girdled by defence works the ManchesterTerritorial Brigade was regaining the physical vitality lost in Turkey. Apart from sandstorms, the climate was good. Sports, football, concerts, buried-treasure hunts, competitions "for the singing championship ofAsia" and other sounding honours, and much bathing helped us to recoverhealth and joy. Our numbers remained much below strength. Perhaps 130 ofthe original unit remained, with some 250 who had come to Turkey indrafts. To these hardly 100 were added at this period. 

Such officers and men, however, as did reach us from the two reserveunits at home were of the best. They lost temporary rank on re-posting, and knew that weaker vessels had succeeded to their place on Englishcamping grounds. Those who came from another battalion had beenspecially fortunate in their training, and in having the inspiringinfluence in their midst of Captain J. H. Thorpe, but all alike werekeen. Their anxiety to learn was palpable whenever we went the round ofthe chilly desert outposts under the starry sky. 

Battalion patriotism was kindled anew by the adoption as a flash of theold Lincoln green fleur-de-lis of the Manchesters, a cap badge worn byus since 1889, and a relic of the conquest of Guadaloupe by the 63rdRegiment in 1759. No less inspiring was the revival of the _Sentry_ onthe 1st March 1917. Of its staff of fifteen when published at Khartum, nine had died on Gallipoli. Their places were filled by new enthusiasts, and one genuine poet was discovered in T. G. King. 

Our one lasting loss while at Shallufa was the departure of nearly allthe time-expired Territorials to England. Those under forty-one years ofage were retaken later by the Government under its new powers ofconscription, but the Battalion saw few of them more. These men--W. Jones, Mort, Woods, Stanton, Fielding, Lyth, Bracken, Houghton, Dermody, Parkinson, Barber--were the salt of the Regiment. During the long yearswhen Territorial service had been irksome and unfashionable, they madeit succeed. With a few old hands like Regimental Quartermaster-SergeantOgden, who elected to remain with the unit, they had borne the burden ofthe trenches manfully, and never grumbled as to their status whilecommissions were showered on men at home whose claims, compared withtheirs, were modest. 

[Illustration: _Back Row_--Lieut. T. F. Brown, Lieut. N. H. P. Whitley, Lieut. J. H. Thorpe, Lieut. G. S. Lockwood. 

_Front Row_--Capt. R. V. Rylands, Capt. H. Smedley. ]

On the 24th March 1916 the Brigade left Shallufa, and on the morning ofthe 25th marched into Suez New Camp to undergo training. The move waswelcome, as it was imagined to lead to a departure for a more activetheatre of war. 

The type of training adopted at Suez derived its inspiration from theFrench Army, whose text-books of 1916 taught that close order drill andpunctilious discipline, tempered by games and sports, were ideal meansof reviving the all-important offensive spirit in units. 

The four and a half weeks spent by the Battalion at Suez were thereforecrowded with field days and ceremonial drill. On the 21th May there wasa striking review of the whole Division, followed by a march past inblinding dust. Days of this type, however, even if they mean rising atfour in the morning and include Brigade bathes in the warm, blue Gulf ofSuez, followed by breakfast on a sun-baked shore, are the same all theworld over. They are not worth discussing in writing of the fateful timewhich witnessed the great German attack upon Verdun and Fort Douaumont. 

At all events, Suez saw the reconstruction of the Manchester Territorialunits completed. The sense of vitality, without which no army can takethe offensive, was fully restored. We had spirited sham fights withanother battalion of the Manchesters for the possession of "Tower 16, " asolitary landmark on the caravan track to Cairo, after the manner of thepre-War era. The _Sentry_ blossomed as the first English paper of thecountry. Two thousand copies used to be sold at Suez alone. Our mencompeted for Colonel Canning's football cup and played a great matchwith the crew of the _Ben-my-Chree_, the famous seaplane carrier, sunkby gunfire, alas, some eight months later in Kastelorizo Harbour. The"Flashes" gave notable concerts. 

From the 21st April I again enjoyed the command of the Battalion. Colonel Canning went on leave to England, and his distinguished serviceswere recognised soon afterwards by a C. M. G. 

Towards the end of May, 1916, the Division was unexpectedly ordered tomove from Suez, and broken up in order to supply battalions for diggingwork at various spots on the eastern side of the Canal--mainly on thethen most advanced screen of detached infantry posts--where the existingdefence scheme had not progressed with sufficient speed. A morecombative strategy was obviously contemplated, no doubt provoked by therecent action at Katia. In the late afternoon of the 25th May theBattalion started on their march into the Sinai Peninsula. The transportwas left at Suez under Lieutenant M. Norbury and Sergeant A. B. Wells, and with Captain A. T. Ward Jones as Brigade Transport Officer. 

Among the posts thrown out into the Peninsula, none at that time wasmore desolate or remote than the sandy ridge called Ashton-in-Sinai, apparently in honour of Ashton-under-Lyne. It lies many miles to theeast of the Little Bitter Lake. The trek to this spot by way of Kubriand Shallufa was an ordeal even for our seasoned troops in the blazingheat of an African summer. At 3 A. M. On the 27th May the Battalion setout from their chilly bivouac by the Y. M. C. A. Hut at Shallufa along aroad made by the Egyptian Labour Corps to a site called Railhead, aboutten miles off, where we rested during the broiling day. At four in theafternoon we started on the worst lap of the trek, a final two hours'ascent across the softest and heaviest sand imaginable to the highrolling dunes of Ashton. 

CHAPTER XI

SINAI

The view at Ashton is superb. Looking back on Africa, we saw on thehorizon the pale contour of the Gebel Ataki beyond the silvery line ofthe Bitter Lakes and the Canal. On its Asiatic side, the detached postsof Oldham, Railhead, and Salford, held by other battalions of theManchesters, glittered under a torrid sky amid the great waste ofdesert. Facing our front, the wilderness stretched towards Palestine inendless undulation. 

The sultry days spent by the Battalion at Ashton were, however, spoiledby excessive heat and repeated sandstorms. Double-lined tents were onlysupplied after much delay, and promised wooden dining huts onlyapproached completion by the time we left. 

This arid outpost of Empire was linked to civilisation by a camel trailto Railhead. Its garrison duties were performed by some EssexTerritorials, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Jameson, afterwards killedbefore Gaza. Yeomanry passed by frequently, scouting far into the waste. The Manchesters were occupied exclusively in digging trenches and inlaying entanglements in the deep soft sand, "according to plan" and ona scale sufficient to daunt any invader who could have surmounted thehuge physical obstacles that already barred all approach to this spotfrom the Wadi Muksheib and the East. 

The arms of Britain have by now made these particular defences of theCanal of most trifling importance. Her foot is in Palestine. Work doneat Ashton may well be gradually obliterated. Yet a few words can be saidof the men who lived and laboured here in June, 1916, in a temperaturerising often to 120° F. In the shade and rarely falling under 100° F. Atnight. No digging was practicable between 7. 30 A. M. And 4. 30 P. M. Themen rose before four in the morning for the day's work. Progress wasnecessarily slow, partly owing to constant silting, partly to the commonweakness of the authorities for varying the sites and types of thetrenches. Materials were often wanting. Nevertheless the Manchesters wonunqualified praise. Their civil life had fitted many for the task ofreveting trenches with hurdles. The defences of Ashton-in-Sinai wereimproved in a few weeks beyond recognition. 

One incident that occurred here illustrates amusingly the contrastbetween the outlooks of the new soldier and the old. Our ManchesterTerritorials were distressed to find that thousands of yards of hurdleswere being lined with the best tent cloth at 1s. 4d. A yard, instead ofwith cheap cotton at a quarter the price. I repeated their plaint to aRegular officer of the old school, expecting sympathetic indignation. "Magnificent, " was his reply. "It shows the world in what spirit Englandgoes to war. "

It was at Ashton that we first heard the news of the Jutland Battle fromColonel Fremantle, R. A. M. C. , who could only give us the version spreadby German wireless. A few days later we learnt of Lord Kitchener'sdeath. 

It is clear that this particular phase of soldiering has in itself noplace in the annals of the Great War. Ashton is already nothing but adesert site. The tide of victorious warfare has left it high and dry. Italways was high and dry. At probably no other period, however, did thepersonality of the Manchester Territorial show to greater advantage, asthe life was one of peculiar privation. Water was carried up daily bycamels from Railhead, but was most scanty, and always warm. The sand wastoo soft for any game to be played--too soft even to permit of trottinghorses. The heat was constant and intense. The men were as cheerful anduncomplaining as ever. 

To have developed such a spirit in men entirely civilian in habits andtraditions was the glory of the Territorial system. 

All ranks toiled together to make life in this corner of Sinai liveable. History hardly looks beyond the Army Corps at the smaller unit. Stillless does she concern herself with the humble pawn in some unimportantcorner of the great game. In reality, however, his lot is of moment tothe race. The tone of an army is the tone of its individual men. Anunhappy soldiery cannot win wars. "An army moves on its stomach, " saidNapoleon; and the recognition of the soldier's hunger and thirst, hisdesire for rest, amusement and sympathy helps, almost as much as skilland self-confidence help, to make the successful leader of men. 

It was, therefore, a soldier's job to keep up the hearts of our colonyat Ashton-in-Sinai. Captain C. Norbury, as acting President ofRegimental Institutes, and Captain H. Smedley, as stage-manager andsinger, worked on the only sound lines. 

Journalism, theatrical performances, lecture courses, concerts andcanteen business, as initiated and practised by the officers and men ofthe Battalion at Ashton, were true factors towards efficiency anddiscipline. 

After three hours' work and their breakfast, the men would gather in ourrecreation tent with its flaps rolled up, and listen to a lecture onsome historical or military subject which bore upon the topic of thehour. They then slept and smoked and played cards or sang through thelong midday heat until the time came again for digging. In the evening, on a stage cleverly made by Sergeant Taylor, the dramatic company wouldact some play that appealed to their emotions, or a concert party wouldindulge them with a medley of ragtime and sentimental songs, Addison's_Stammering Sam_ alternating with Sergeant Shields' _When Irish Eyesare Smiling_. The taste of Lancashire is catholic. 

On Sundays we often merged "Church and Chapel" in a common service. Davey, the Methodist padre, was an ex-gunner of the Royal Navy and agreat athlete--attributes that enhanced his influence as preacher. "Crime, " however, did not exist at Ashton-in-Sinai. Nor did temptations. The real danger was mental and physical deterioration under thedepressing influence of the country and the climate, for the intenseheat sapped every man's vitality. We set ourselves to combat theserisks, and to give the men the food and recreation without whichsoldiering becomes a burden, and discipline degenerates to servitude. 

Towards evening I would ride into the desert and watch from the east ourmen labouring on the great sand ridge in a haze of heat. On this side ofAshton there were no tracks at all. The eye could see nothing butendless sand hills, broken only by patches of dry scrub and shimmeringyellow under the burning sun. If nature has changed little in the desertsince Israel came out of captivity, it is easy to sympathise with theirregret for the fleshpots of Egypt. So penetrating was the sun that thecolour of the men's khaki breeches faded into purple. 

There was, indeed, a certain charm in our remoteness from the outerworld. Camping out in the wilderness had more than a touch of the desertisland of boyish imagination. There was glamour in the extraordinarysimplicity of a life where the higher command was but a distant name, and where men dressed themselves and spent the long, hot day as theypleased. The fret and competition of Europe were felt no more. Iremember our arguing about Irish Home Rule one night till the starspaled in the eastern sky, but the episode was unique. In spite of itshardships, no manner of life was ever more calculated to banish ancientfeuds, to strip human nature of envy and uncharitableness, or to mouldthat most perfect of all democracies--a brotherhood in arms. 

On the afternoon of the 22nd June 1916 we left the wilderness underorders for Kantara. We spent several days near Shallufa sidings, andthen, having obtained leave for England, I left for Suez with W. H. Barratt and W. T. Thorp, two subalterns who had made their mark while inthe ranks by distinguished service in the field. Early in July we sailedfrom Port Tewfik to Marseilles and watched from its deck the distantcamp of the Turkish prisoners from Arabia twinkling in the sunlightacross the most southerly reaches of the Canal. 

I need say no word more in praise of the men of our Battalion, whom Isaw for the last time in my eighteen years of service resting in a dustygorge near Shallufa. Knit together by common ideals and experiences, they were, in Nelson's phrase, "a band of brothers. "

We crossed France from Marseilles to Boulogne in an atmosphere of war. We had glimpses of Lyons and Paris, talked with _poilus_ on leave, heardfrom a French officer (who professed to know) that the War would be overin March, 1917, and bought from vivacious street hawkers pretty metalsouvenirs of Verdun. We saw our own wounded coming back in Red Crosstrains from the first days of the great push on the Somme. Then, afterexactly a year's absence, I was once more at home. 

Within the ensuing month all but three of the original combatantofficers still on the strength of the Battalion were seconded forservice elsewhere. "The old order changeth, giving place to new. " ... 

A Regiment in war rises like the phoenix from its own ashes and renewsits immortal youth. The vicissitudes here recorded fill but a fewshining chapters in what will no doubt prove a long history. They by nomeans necessarily contain its most distinguished pages. The close of thesecond year of the Battalion's active service is, however, a fittingpoint to end this volume. It marked the stage at which the distinctively"1st line" unit, composed of officers and men enlisted and trainedvoluntarily in time of peace, had passed into the normal type of BritishBattalion of 1916--a unit born of the War, with its personnel mainlyrecruited and trained after its outbreak. 

It is to the memory of the original volunteers of August, 1914, thatthis book is dedicated. 

CHAPTER XII

THE TERRITORIAL IDEA

The experiences of a typical unit of the Territorial Force must throwlight on the vexed questions that have gathered round it. 

Three criticisms of the Territorial system have been made ever since itsadoption in 1907. First, its establishment of 310, 000 men has beenregarded as totally inadequate, and before the War the country evenfailed to recruit numbers within sixty thousand of this modest standard. Secondly, its yearly training, which provided but a fortnight's life incamp, has been deemed so paltry as to be almost negligible. Thirdly, theTerritorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 provided a legal loophole bywhich the less patriotic could evade service overseas in however greatan emergency. Section 13 specifically lays down that, apart from purelyspontaneous offers by officers or men to serve abroad, "no part of theTerritorial Force shall be carried or ordered to go out of the UnitedKingdom. "

In reality, none of the defects which attracted these criticisms wasinherent in the Territorial idea. They rather belonged to the wholemilitary policy of the country before the War. Public opinion held thata European War was practically impossible, and that the British Armymust of necessity be small in numbers and voluntary in character. 

On these assumptions the limitations of the Territorial Force weresimply inevitable. Having regard to the prevailing views on nationaldefence and to the general resistance to Lord Roberts' propaganda, theTerritorial scheme reduced the evils of voluntaryism to the minimum. 

The difficulty as to its shortage in men was met as soon as War wasdeclared. The Territorial Force was, in fact, capable of infiniteexpansion, and of being the basis of the entire New Army, had theGovernment so willed. Its training, again, was far better than notraining at all. Later events have proved with what speed whollyuntrained British conscripts can be moulded into efficient soldiers, andthat willing men can learn discipline and the use of the rifle within avery few months. Territorial training sufficed, at any rate, to enableTerritorial units to relieve the Regular Army of all garrison dutiesabroad immediately on the outbreak of war, and in many cases themselvesto take the field on active service before Christmas, 1914. Even withregard to the constitutional obstacle to using the Force overseas, fullynine-tenths of its men never dreamed of claiming immunity. The smallmargin, which were left for employment in home defence, mainlyrepresented the physically unfit or boys under age. 

As events turned out, two unexpected disadvantages of the system weregenerally experienced. In times of peace the Territorial Force had beenable to influence public policy through the County Associations and theHouse of Commons. After embodiment, the Force itself became necessarilyinarticulate under the conditions that govern all military service. Farless influential than the Regulars and far less numerous than the NewArmy, it went abroad early in the War, and was thus not actively intouch with Parliament, while the semi-civilian County Associations, whose personal and local knowledge might have been invaluable, ceased tohave any powers over its organisation, and had no means of safeguardingits interests on questions of promotion, appointments, commands and pay. 

An even more serious flaw arose from the dispersion of the Territorialsall over the world from Gibraltar to Burmah in the first months of theWar. An enormous volume of skilled labour was thereby lost to thecountry, and exemption from service, which might well have kept thesemen at home in the national interest, fell later to the lot of manyyounger and less expert workers in their stead. Moreover, a great numberof men ideally fitted for commissions were killed fighting in the ranksor were allowed to serve obscurely in remote corners of the globe. Bothamong Territorial officers and men, a large proportion were qualified, by gifts of leadership, technical knowledge or familiarity with foreignlanguages, for special employment in Western Europe. There was indeed ademobilisation in this respect of a considerable proportion of thecountry's brain power. 

Happily, the East Lancashire Territorials found an outlet for theirqualities on Gallipoli. 

Against all the defects that have no doubt affected the application ofthe Territorial idea, the historian should set its signal virtues. It isan asset beyond price in soldiering to have all ranks welded together bycommunity of feeling and opinion. Joined by ties of neighbourhood, occupation, sport and common interests, men are particularly apt tocultivate that intense patriotism of the small unit which is termed_esprit de corps_. The history of the War--like the history of all pastwars--will illustrate its constant military value. It would be idioticto reassert the old fallacy, belied by the experience of centuries, thatone volunteer is worth ten pressed men. Nevertheless the morale of aunit can only be enriched when it is recruited wholly from willingapplicants familiar with its traditions and with the badges thatsymbolise its past, rather than from conscripts drafted from anywhere inGreat Britain by the chance action of a Government department. Indeedthe Territorial idea has counted for much wherever British man power hasbeen successfully organised during the War. 

Those who have believed in the Territorial Force during its strugglesagainst popular apathy and professional distrust have been justified byits deeds in the field. 

The true greatness, however, of the simple and unambitious Territorialsoldiers, whose life and work are described in these pages, lies more intheir spirit than in any actual achievements. All of them came from theindustrial North, where the business of life is fiercely competitive, and where each man is wont to seek his own fortune without much outwardconsideration for his fellows. Yet in the field it would be impossibleto imagine minds less touched by selfishness or less influenced by anynotion of personal distinction or reward. They did their best forBritain. Honours are but gifts of the capricious gods. 

Thus "to put the cause above renown" is a principle of conduct oftenidentified with what is called the Public School spirit. Fortunately thetemper which it expresses extends far beyond the governing class inEngland, and it animated the typical Territorial of the Great War. Likeall good soldiers, he was far too inarticulate and reserved to think ofputting it into words. His deeds spoke for him. _The Whitewash on theWall_ and _Hold your Hand out, Naughty Boy_ are not beautiful songs, butthe lads who have sung them in English lanes and Turkish gullies couldhave shown no greater self-devotion had their songs been as solemn asthe Russian National Hymn, or as thrilling as the _Marseillaise_. 

APPENDIX

_The following is an extract from a letter on the work of the Battalionsent by General Sir F. R. Wingate, G. C. B. , K. C. M. G. , D. S. O. , HighCommissioner for Egypt, to the General-Officer-in-Chief of the Division, when the Battalion left the Sudan. _

 GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S OFFICE, KHARTUM. _10th April 1915. _

... During the few months they [the Battalion] have been in the Sudanthey have become thoroughly efficient soldiers in the strictest sense ofthe term. Route marches, night operations, field days, hard drilling inthe Barrack square, digging trenches, gun and maxim drill, and last butnot least, constant practice on the ranges in addition to ordinarygarrison duties have transformed them into an alert body of trainedsoldiers capable of taking their place anywhere. You can safely rely onthem to do--and do well--whatever duty they may be called upon toperform against the enemy, and I am confident that they will yield to noBattalion in the Division in regard either to training or fightingefficiency. Should, by any chance, the Division be sent to the NearEast, you will find in the Battalion upwards of one hundred men fullytrained in camel riding and camel management, and this knowledge mayprove useful under certain conditions, but of course I have no ideawhere the Division is to be sent and whether a knowledge of the numerouspromiscuous duties required by Battalions garrisoning the Sudan willfind an outlet. 

A sound system of Interior Economy prevails in the Battalion, and thegood organisation of the Regimental Institutes reflects much credit onall concerned with their management. During the time the Battalion hasbeen in my Command the behaviour of all ranks has been exemplary--themen have made themselves liked by all in Khartum and are very popularwith the natives. 

I have the highest opinion of Colonel Gresham--he has an excellent lotof Officers, and both the Adjutant, Captain Creagh, and theQuarter-Master, Major Scott, have done particularly well. I am proud tobe Honorary Colonel of such a fine Territorial Battalion. 

We all are heartily sorry to bid them good-bye, and we wish them and thegallant Division which you Command every success and good luck whereveryou may be. 

 Yours sincerely, (_Signed_) R. WINGATE. 

INDEX OF PERSONAL NAMES

(_Italics signify that the person mentioned has been killed or has diedof wounds_)

_Abercromby, Gen. Sir R. _, 80Addison, J. , 59, 91Anderson, C. , 42_Arnott, M. _, 27

_Bacon, A. H. _, 40Baker, J. , 59Baker, R. J. R. , 70_Balfe, W. _, 27Bamber, Sgt. , 61Barber, W. , 85Barratt, F. E. H. , 59Barratt, W. H. , 54, 93Barrett, J. W. , 59Basnett, J. , 26Bateman, M. , 27Beaumont, T. , 7_Beckett, J. _, 42Bedford, R. H. , 62Bedson, Capt. , 27Boyle, Major, 10Bracken, W. , 85Bradbury, C. S. , 42Brown, J. N. , 9_Brown, T. F. _, 24Bryan, C. J. , 50Burn, F. G. , 50

Canning, Lt. -Col. A. , 28, 31, 37, 43, 68, 86_Cawley, H. T. _, 50Chadwick, G. , 35, 39, 40, 42, 59, 68Cherry, W. , 26, 42Clavering, H. , 46, 59Clough, S. , 54_Cookson, C. _, 27Corris, J. , 37Creagh, J. R. , 39, 40, 50Creagh, P. H. , 4, 26, 28, 31, 32, 37, 50, 58, 101Creery, W. F. , 65, 66

Darlington, Lt. -Col. , 39Davey, Lt. -Col. , 92Davidson, Judge, 17Davidson, J. , 38Davies, H. G. , 58Dermody, W. , 8_Dinsdale, T. _, 68Douglas, C. B. , 59_Dudley, C. L. _, 12, 26

Elliott, Brig. Gen. W. , 67, 80England, Lt. -Col. A. , 48Enver Pasha, 16

Farrow, J. F. , 58, 70Fawcus, A. E. F. , 25, 31, 32, 36, 37, 42, 67Fielding, W. , 85Fletcher, J. , 42Franklin, G. W. F. , 37, 42Franklin, H. C. , 26, 53, 65_Freemantle, W. G. _, 25, 26Fremantle, Lt. -Col. F. E. 90

George, D. Lloyd, 14_Gordon, Gen. G. C. _, 14Granger, T. S. , 27Gresham, Lt. -Col. H. E. , 3, 12, 23, 101

Haldane, Viscount, 3Hamilton, A. , 42Hamilton, G. Hans, 8, 26Hamilton, Gen. Sir Ian, 28, 33, 34, 66, 79_Hancock, L. _, 69Harrison, W. , 42, 59Hartnett, M. , 48, 59Hawkins, Lt. -Col. H. , 74Hawkins, I. , 68Hayes, F. , 27, 59, 70Hayes, Pte. , 42Heys, Lt. -Col. , 27Higham, C. E. , 25, 59, 63, 68Hogan, J. V. H. , 61Holbrook, J. , 59Horsfall, E. , 62Houghton, Pte. , 85Hoyle, H. , 46, 59Hulme, T. , 42, 54Hummel, J. J. , 57, 64, 67

_James, Capt. _, 27Jones, J. C. , 7Jones, W. , 85Joyce, J. , 42

Kay, A. N. , 82Kerby, E. T. , 58King, T. G. , 84_Kitchener, Earl_, 14, 71, 90

Lawrence, Maj. -Gen. H. A. , 34_Lee, Brig. -Gen. N. _, 5, 27_Lee, B. _, 69_Leigh, A. _, 42Lindsay, W. , 27Lingard, J. R. , 30Lockwood, G. S. , 23_Lyons, J. P. _, 20Lyth, J. , 85

_MacCartney, H. L. _, 37M'Hugh, S. , 26, 42Maher, T. , 42Mandley, H. C. F. , 62_Marvin, W. _, 27, 65Masefield, J. , 33Morley, J. , 19, 68Morrogh, Lt. -Col. M. , 62Mort, W. , 40, 48, 59, 85Morten, J. C, 50_Mundy, A. _, 27, 79Murphy, Pte. , 42

Nelson, D. , 9Neville, Sister M. , 76Newbigging, Col. W. P. E. , 2Nidd, H. H. , 50Norbury, B. , 12Norbury, C. , 12, 26, 82, 91Norbury, D. , 50Norbury, G. , 27Norbury, M. , 87

Ogden, T. , 85

Pain, R. , 50Palmer, F. C. , 25Parkinson, W. , 85Pearson, Sgt. , 61Pilgrim, H. , 50Pilkington, Lt. -Col. C. R. , 39Pollitt, Col. J. B. , 74_Powell, A. _, 6

Renshaw, C. , 60Richardson, Pte. , 26_Roberts, Earl_, 3, 96Ross Bain, G. , 54, 64_Rylands, R. V. _, 12, 24

_Savatard, T. W. _, 10, 24Scott, J. , 4, 67, 101Shields, J. , 59, 92Smedley, H. , 36, 37, 42, 50, 91Smyth, Col. , 21Stanton, J. , 67, 85_Stanton, W. _, 73_Staveacre, J. H. _, 3, 14, 20, 24, 26, 31, 50, 65Sutherland, J. W. , 26

Tabbron, W. , 59Taylor, J. , 91_Thewlis, H. D. _, 25, 26Thorp, W. T. , 42, 93Thorpe, J. H. , 8, 12, 84Tinker, A. H. , 50, 66, 82Townson, E. , 9, 70

Venezelos, 77

Walsh, Pte. , 42_Ward, Lt. _, 27Ward Jones, A. T. , 87_Webster, Sgt. _, 27Wells, A. B. , 87Wheelton, S. , 59White, F. , 40Whitley, N. H. P. , 8, 59, 65_Williamson, C. H. _, 50Wilson, Col. , 17, 20Wingate, Gen. Sir F. R. , 10, 13, 14, 21, 75, 101Wingate, Lady, 14, 21Wood, C. S. , 56Wood, J. W. , 48, 85Woodward, F. W. , 59Worthington, Lt. -Col. C. R. , 62