5.2 The First Battle of Krithia, 28th April

The Allied perspectives on the morning of 28th April were not good : the ranks of British officers had heavily suffered and far too many troops had become casualties during the landing and the ensuing fighting. Some battalions had been reduced to 50% of their effective strength. Apart from that, the 87th brigade was not complete : the King's Own Scottish borderers and a company of the South Wales Borderers had not yet returned from their adventure at Y-Beach.

 What was worse, was the lack of artillery to support the attack, as only 28 guns were available. Also many machine-guns had been lost during the landing and the supplies in ammunition, food and water were barely sufficient for an action of this size.

 On paper, the plans looked splendid, but in practice they were hardly realistic : what was to commence as a frontal attack, should develop into a complicated move, in which the whole line should pivot with the French on the right as an anchor point. Once this plan was carried out, the frontline would then run almost from south to north, and Krithia would be taken by the troops on left flank. These complicated orders were given much to late, to weary and sleepy officers, with as a result that hardly anybody understood what was in fact expected.

 The results were as could be expected : after an initial small gain of ground, the line started to disintegrate, there was no coordination in the speed of the advance and soon both flanks were threatened. The 87th Brigade was stopped before they had even reached Y-Beach and on the right the French were immediately driven back to their starting lines by strong Turkish resistance.

 By noon, the confusion in the centre, where the 88th Brigade was active, had become so big that the battle weary 86th Brigade had to be called upon to lend a helping hand. Small groups of the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers advanced as far as Fir Tree Wood at 1 mile south-west of Krithia, where the Turkish defences began to waver.

 If one more fresh brigade had been available to the British, the attack might still have been successful, ill-conceived as it was. As things turned out however, not the Allies but the Turks were reinforced. Their divisions from Bulair and Asia, together with fresh troops from Constantinople, had indeed arrived and took their place in the line.

 In the afternoon their counter-attacks became so fierce, that even a prolonged bombardment by the Queen Elisabeth was necessary to prevent the 87th Brigade from being driven back into the sea.

 The final result was that when evening started falling, the British and French troops were back in the trenches they had left with such high hopes in the morning. Here they spent the following day beating back new Turkish attacks aimed at breaking their front line.

 In the night of 1st-2nd May the Turks staged a new forceful attempt, this time with 21 battalions, to drive their enemies back into the sea. The line held by the Senegalese on the right was driven in and in the centre they reached the trenches of, again, the Dublin and Munster Fusiliers. After fierce man to man fighting, they were eventually brought to a standstill and beaten back with heavy losses, which enabled the Allies to restore their front line.

 Among the Dublin and Munster Fusiliers, the number of casualties was so high that they had to be reorganised by the General Command into one single unit, hardly bigger than a company.