Item 02: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett articles on the Gallipoli campaign, 1915 - Page 69
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[Page 69]
were available, whereas the real losses of the Division amounted to nearly seventy per cent; the remains of the Naval Division, originally eleven thousand strong, which has also had very heavy losses. This Division has fought extremely well considering its heterogeneous and amateur elements. Cox's Indian Brigade of two battalions, as the two Punjabi battalions were sent back to Egypt, The Gurkha and Sikh battalions have done extremely well. Then there is the Lancashire Territorial Division. Its losses have been slight up to date. The men in all three brigades are considered good but the officers in the East Lancashire Brigade have done badly. This Brigade has now been broken up and its units distributed amongst the remnants of the 29th. Division.
These were all the forces we had in Southern Gallipoli when I left the front. The Lowland Division of Territorials was due to arrive. The French force had been brought up to the strength of two Divisions or twenty-four Battalions. Of these troops, the Division which first landed has lost very heavily. The troops are bad and liable to sudden panics. They seem incapable of consolidating and holding a position after it has been won. The worst offenders are the Senegalese Infantry, who are all right in attack as long as their European officers are with them but who are useless without them. The 175th. Regiment of the line is somewhat immature. The Foreign Legion are perhaps the best, followed by the Colonial Infantry. But the heart of the French is not in the job. They never fight the same off their own soil and in this expedition they feel they have nothing to gain for