Item 01: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett diary, 1915-1917 - Page 229
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[Page 229]
perfect concealment. He, therefore, is constantly effecting some new surprise by shelling beaches, ships and camps from totally unexpected positions. The fire of field guns does but little harm but the moral effect on troops, who are thus constantly exposed to shell fire and on the qui vive, is bad. Regiments are brought out of the trenches into rest camps, but what are these camps? It merely means moving them back to the shade of some trees closer to the coast, where at any hour they May be smothered with shrapnel or blown up by high explosive shells.
The enemy has got two big guns in position behind the slope of Achi Baba and with these they started a systematic bombardment of W Beach or Lancashire Beach, as it is now known. In two days they killed one hundred horses and several men! These high explosive shells naturally get on the nerves of the working parties. Also a tremendous amount of digging had to be undertaken and the horses placed on roads cut in the cliffs, where they are fairly safe. We are much in the same position as an army besieging a fortress which is held by a more powerful garrison than the besieging force and which constantly makes sorties. In fact, as we are situated at present, the Turks have it in their power to annoy us in a hundred different ways, whilst our chances of retaliation are small. It is still considered necessary to keep battleships protecting the flanks, even