Item 03: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett telegrams, 1915 - Page 26

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[Page 26]

[Continuation of Compton Mackenzie's despatch of 30 June 1915]
when Kalid Bahr falls the doom of Constantnople is at hand. In view of the difficulties – were it not for the landing one would be tempted to say the impossibilities – which confront our men, the gain of a score of yards in the Gallipoli Peninsular may fairly represent for the purposes of comparison a gain of 500 yards in the western theatre of war. Therefore to find its importance the gain of 500 yards on the fourth of June must be measures with affairs like Neuve Chapelle, and the few quiet days that succeeded may be accepted as repose after a violent effort.

On the night of the eleventh ad twelfth of June there was a brilliant little action by the Border Regiment and the South Wales Borderers, which resulted in the gain of two trenches. On the sixteenth the enemy, led by a Turkish and a German Officer, made an assault on the trenches of the 88th Brigade, but were driven off with loss. However, that night the trenches gained by the two regiments on the eleventh were heavily bombed, so heavily that our men were forced to retire about thirty yards and dig themselves in. At dawn we were able to enfilade with machine guns the vacated trenches; then the Dublin Fusiliers charged with bayonet and once more gave us possession of our gains, at heavy cost to the Turks whose dead completely filled one trench.

On the evening of the eighteenth the enemy bombarded very heavily another portion of our trenches on this side of the line. They were evidently attempting in miniature our own methods of Neuve Chapelle, and the Fourth of June, as immediately after the bombardment they were seen massing for an attack. However, the imitation ended rather abruptly at this point and the affair petered out into discretion. On the evening of the nineteenth the Turks by a fierce attack managed to get into an awkward salient which had remained in our hands after the Fourth of June. For some time there was great difficulty in recovering this, but the 5th Royal Scots and a Company of the Worcesters, led by Lt. Col. Wilson of the former regiment, made a glorious attack and drove out the Turks.

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