Gallipoli: The first day short film

Department of Veterans' Affairs and Australian Broadcasting Corporation present Gallipoli: The first day.

[Music]

Germany declares war; all Europe is in arms

When the Great War began in August of 1914, no one could have imagined what would follow. Rewriting the human experience with a degree of tragedy and loss never seen before. By the end, 16,000,000 people lay dead 20,000,000 wounded. And the world plunged into an economic despair that would seed a second world war. It was the crucible from which our modern world arose. The Gallipoli Campaign on the Meditteranean front of the war was Australia's first major battlefront in which its citizens fought and died in significant numbers. The invasion force, comprising British, French, Indian, Australian and New Zealand soldiers, was the largest amphibian landing for nearly 2,500 years. This is the story of the first day 25 April, 1915.

02:00 HRS Captain Faik, Ottoman Shore Platoon, Second Ridge

It's 2 am on this still moonlit night, and Captain Faik is scanning the Aegean waters. He's been alerted to the presence of ships some kilometres from the coast. Weeks have passed since the British Navy's attack on the Dardanelles, and another attack on the peninsula is expected at any time. Faik is one of 880,000 Ottoman soldiers scattered across the Gallipoli peninsula, ready to defend their homeland. He stands in front of a trench within which a handful of his men await orders. Although he can gauge little detail about the ships, Faik telephones his commander and alerts him to their arrival. Soon, he will move to higher ground to keep watch. It's just before 3 am, and the first wave of the ANZAC covering force is about to start its landing. Fifteen hundred nervous young men from Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland have already climbed down off battleships into landing boats. The landing boats are now towed behind steamboats, which in turn are being pulled toward shore by the battleships. The moon dips below the horizon, and the men know they'll have just 90 minutes to land under cover of darkness. Back on land, the Ottoman Captain Faik also watches as the moon disappears, removing his ability to observe the distant silhouetted ships. He reports to headquarters his loss of vision and sends a message to all shore platoons to be alert and on watch. Two and a half kilometres from shore, the steamboats cast off from the battleships and continue on to their specific landing sites. From south to north, the 9th, 10th and 11th battalions edge closer to the shoreline, around 40 men crammed into each landing boat. In the still pitch black, the steamboats shift gradually to the north, and as a result, the landing boats begin to crab together. As they come to shore, the toe line of the 9th Battalion crosses behind the 10th Battalion boats, and the landing formation is lost. Around 4:15 am, as the landing boats cast off to row the final metres to the shoreline, a flash of sparks escapes from one of the steamboat funnels. Almost immediately, a beacon is lit on land, Illuminating the scene. Nearly ashore, the first wave of the covering force is exposed.

04:15 HRS The landing of the Covering Force, Anzac Cove

It's 4:25 am, and men of the 9th and 10th battalions are landing under a hail of Ottoman gunfire at what will become known as Anzac Cove. Bullets spray the water and splinter the wood of this boat as it reaches the shore. Men are injured or already dead, slumped in the boats or dragged wounded to the seabed by the weight of their packs. Closer to shore, they climb out into the shallows and up onto the beach. As the minutes pass, the men of the covering force scramble onto the beach in disarray. On shore, Lieutenant Colonel Price Weir is directing confused soldiers who've lost their companies. Orders to reassemble are forgotten as Weir tells them to put down their packs and charge up the hill into the dark. Soon, they will run up the steep and rugged land, wild with fear and excitement.

04:35 HRS Adil's trench: first contact between ANZAC and Ottoman soldiers

It's now 4:35 am, and Private Adil looks down to see ANZAC soldiers rapidly approaching his trench. Private Adil is a young local man who's been conscripted to the Ottoman 5th Army. Awake since the very early morning, he has been firing on the Anzacs since they landed minutes ago upon the beach below his trench, but now he can see these men of the 9th and 10th battalions will soon be upon him. His platoon is outnumbered, and they retreat quickly uphill to the next bridge above Chimen Tepe.

04:50 HRS The Guns of Kabatepe Ottoman artillery battery

It's around 4:50 am, and Major Halis orders his heavy guns to open fire on the Anzac landing site. Major Halis is the commander of this Ottoman battery and has just lost communications with Captain Faik, who is reporting the events as they take place from a much closer position. Fearing the worst, Halis orders his battery begin shelling in order to spray the landing site with shrapnel. The guns can't reach Anzacs that have already landed, but the shells strike over the landing boats and destroyers of the second wave of boats as they come to shore. Many men will be killed or horribly wounded by hot, sharp metal. The battleship HMS Triumph will try to retaliate but will not be able to subdue the Kabatepe guns. It's 5 am, and despite the growing number of dead and wounded, the Anzacs advance quickly. The units from the 9th and 10th battalions who have taken Private Adil's trench and another on Ari Burnu knoll above the beach are soon joined by others, and they quickly capture the first ridge. From here, some soldiers now head down into the valley in front, aiming toward the retreating enemy units and their battery on the second ridge. The forward units of Anzacs push eastwards through gullies and scrub toward the 400 Plateau. Others are directed over and up the Razor's Edge north-eastwards toward Russell's Top and the high ground known as Baby 700 for their attack on the heights. Further troops who've landed at Anzac Cove head south to try and capture the big guns at Kabatepe, which, with devastating effect, are firing on the second wave of landing boats. Meanwhile, men from the 11th Battalion have landed on the North Beach and worked their way up the Sphinx, a near-vertical rock face, to reach Russell's Top. There, they meet a small number of men from the 9th and 10th battalions for the planned attempt to capture the heights. The ANZAC assault is met with strong opposition from Captain Faik and his men, who are firing on them from their new position at Russell's Top. Ottoman machine-gunners at Fisherman's Hut also bear down on the ANZAC advance, but despite determined resistance, by 8 am, parts of the ANZAC position are well advanced. Soldiers have taken Faik's trench, and units led by Captains Tulloch and Lalor attack the remains of the Ottoman 27th, who are forced back up to Baby 700. However, back on the 400 Plateau, most Australians have been ordered to dig in. The main advance has stalled here, under fire from the third ridge across the valley. Only isolated units are trying to move north and east. The lack of ANZAC reinforcements will hamper any further progress north-eastwards up the heights. Coastal landings are also stalled by the growing number of wounded and many troops who do make shore scatter and lose direction. All the while, the Ottomans are desperately defending their positions with their remaining men and dwindling gunpowder as they await urgently needed backup from Midos.

08:00 HRS Colonel MacLagan's crucial decision, 400 Plateau

'Let the bastards come. Let's get at the bastards. B, give me a hand here. Take it easy.' It's around 8 am, and the brigade commanders make a crucial strategic decision. Lieutenant Colonel McKay has just arrived here in command of the 2nd Brigade, part of the main force. 'I want you to take your ...' Lieutenant Colonel Sinclair-MacLagan is trying to persuade him that he should take his men to the south as defence. 'You're asking me to disobey orders.' MacLagan has taken a survey of the battlefield, and he's worried. 'Perhaps I can go forward and see how things are.' Fighting on all fronts is disorganised. 'There isn't time.' And battalions are scattered across all lines. 'I assure you my right will be turned if you do not do this.' Although their main objective is to take the hill known as 971 and claim high ground, most of the covering force is still too far south. MacLagan has sent 2 companies to join the advanced units fighting up to Hill 971. The rest of his 3rd Brigade, now digging in on the second ridge, will then fight their way along the ridge in order to join them. But this strategy will leave his southern flank exposed, and MacLagan expects Ottoman reinforcements will soon arrive to threaten it, and despite the arrival of the 2nd Brigade, MacLagan also has reports that the landing of the rest of the main force is being delayed by the heavy shelling from Kabatepe. With all these considerations, MacLagan orders McKay to go south. 'Can you assure me too that the left is ... ' These are not McKay's orders, and although he is not convinced, he agrees to the new strategy.

10:00 HRS Mustafa Kemal's defining order 27th and 57th Regiments, Hill 971

It's 10 am, and Colonel Mustafa Kamal, commander of the 19th Division, arrives at Chunuk Bair. Kamal has led advanced parties of the 57th Regiment to the high ground of Hill 971, which is the Anzac objective for the day, but unable to gauge the action from there, he orders his men to rest and has walked forward on foot with the regimental doctor, the battery commander and his aide-de-camp. Ahead of Kamal and moving towards him, the surviving men of the 27th Regiment are retreating along Battleship Hill. These soldiers are the last of the 27th Regiment's battalion who have been defending Kilic Bayir, known as Baby 700, against the advancing Anzacs. Having run out of ammunition, they are retreating from a small advanced front of ANZAC soldiers, but Kamal tells them to turn around and face the enemy with their bayonets fixed. The soldiers turn around and lie down in the scrub, which in turn leads to the Anzacs also taking cover. Now Kamal dictates an order addressed to the 57th Regiment behind them that will one day be repeated around the world: 'I don't order you to attack. I order you to die. By the time we are dead, other units and commanders will have come to take our place.' And with this command, the 57th Regiment will go down and defend Baby 700 for hours. It's 11 am, and the front line of fighting has advanced as far as it will for the remainder of the entire Gallipoli Campaign. At Anzac Cove, the first New Zealanders begin landing, and the crucial Indian Mountain Battery starts unloading its Howitzers onto the beach. As these troops land, they're confronted by the dead and wounded men who litter the beaches. Up on the heights at Baby 700, there is a fierce battle between Kamal's 57th Regiment and the ANZAC battalions as Tulloch's men capture the hill. Over the next 4 hours, the Ottomans will fight hard to reclaim their ground, and Baby 700 will change hands 5 times throughout the day. Elsewhere, the Anzacs lose the upper hand as the Ottoman counterattack begins in earnest with the arrival of fresh regiments. The Ottoman forces have strong positions on the high ground, from Fisherman's Hut in the north, at Chunuk Bair and then down across the ridges to the south. Ottoman artillery power begins to take its toll as batteries fire from these high points with deadly results. Men everywhere are horrifically wounded by shrapnel. The Indian Mountain Battery pulls a lone gun as far as the 400 Plateau and begins to return fire, but this causes such a retaliatory bombardment from the Ottomans that by 2:30, the Indians are forced to withdraw the gun to a safer, less effective position.

22:00 HRS The case for evacuation Anzac Cove

It's around 10 pm. The exhausted Anzacs have fought all day without nearing their objective. Morale is low. Hundreds of men are dead, and thousands are wounded. Thousands more cannot be accounted for. All the while, the Ottoman defence remains strong, with reinforcements expected by morning. Darkness has also brought rain, soaking the dead and wounded as they lie on the beach at Anzac Cove. The commanders are putting their case for evacuation to ANZAC Commander General Birdwood. 'If we are to embark, it must be at once.' They propose to him that their landing and attempts to take the peninsula have been a failure. 'Sir Ian will heed the message.' Birdwood is initially taken aback by the arguments of his officers, but as the discussion continues, he agrees to represent their views to General Hamilton. '... by tomorrow morning, there is likely to be a fiasco.' New Zealand and Australian Division Commander General Godley is about to write an urgent note that Birdwood will sign. It will then be taken out to General Hamilton on board his battleship Queen Elizabeth. 'To replace those in the ...' It requests immediate evacuation. '... to re-embark. It must be at once.'

24:00 HRS Hamilton's defining order HMS Queen Elizabeth

It's around midnight, and General Sir Ian Hamilton is meeting with his top brass. He has just been woken and given the handwritten note sent from Beach HQ requesting evacuation. Some of the men in the room support this action, but it is Admiral Thursby's opinion that it will take him at least 2 days to evacuate. After some debate, General Hamilton begins to dictate a response. Whilst he does, Commander Keyes receives news that an Australian submarine has slipped through enemy mines and sunk a ship on the other side of the peninsula. 'AE2 is in the Marmara.' The news reinforces General Hamilton's decision, which will turn the course of events. 'Don't go off now, for sure.' He writes a message containing orders that will commit both Anzacs and Ottomans to 8 months of futile, terrible fighting. 'Time to dig in, General.' In his PS, Hamilton offers the following advice to his men: 'You have got through the difficult business; now, all you have to do is dig, dig, dig, until you are safe.'