Kemal reports the discussion that followed in these words: ‘Seeing this view, the Chief-of-Staff of the Corps said, “Only raiding parties could cross this ground.”
‘The Corps Commander turned to me and said, “Where will the enemy come from?” Pointing with my hand in the direction of Ari Burnu, and along the whole shore as far as Suvla, I said, “From here”.
‘ “Very well, supposing he does come from there, how will he advance?” Again pointing towards Ari Burnu, I moved my hand in a semi-circle towards Koja Chemen Tepe. “He will advance from here,” I said. The Corps Commander smiled and patted my shoulder. “Don’t you worry, he can’t do it,” he said. Seeing that it was impossible to convince him I felt it unnecessary to prolong the argument any further. I confined myself to saying, “God willing, sir, things will turn out as you expect”.’
In short, Kemal had anticipated the general lines of Hamilton’s attack — the landing at Suvla, the advance up Sazlidere and the neighbouring ravines to the crests of Sari Bair — and perhaps it was only human that Kemal later should have written in his journaclass="underline" ‘When from the 6th August onwards the enemy’s plans turned out just as I expected and tried to explain, I could not imagine the feelings of those who, two months before, had insisted on not accepting my explanations. Events were to show that they had been mentally unprepared and that due to insufficient measures in the face of hostile action, they had allowed the whole situation to become critical and the nation to be exposed to very great danger.’
From the British point of view the important thing was that Kemal at this stage had no power to enforce his ideas, and while he fumed and complained on Battleship Hill all the broken ground from Sazlidere to the north-east remained virtually unoccupied by the Turks, and the Suvla plain was left to the care of only three weak battalions. However, the German officer arrived to take command of the area, a Major Willmer of the Bavarian cavalry, a tall, spare figure with a duelling scar on his cheek, and he proved to be a very capable man indeed. When the salt lake dried up in July, Willmer saw that it was no use posting his 1,800 men along the coast, since there was no hope of preventing an enemy landing there. Just two outposts were left beside the sea: one of them on a patch of rising ground known as Hill Ten, to the north of the salt lake, and the other at Lala Baba, a 200-foot hillock between the salt lake and the bay. In the event of a landing being made, these men were told to resist as long as they could, but not to get cut off: they were to retire to the hills some three miles inland where the bulk of the little force was entrenched. And there, somehow or other, Willmer hoped to hold on until help reached him from Bulair in the north.
At the end of July Willmer received the warning issued to all Turkish army commanders that an enemy offensive was to be expected at any time, and he took care to conceal his men as much as possible by day and to push on with the digging of his entrenchments by night.
On August 6 the Major went down to the coast to inspect his outpost at Lala Baba, and it was there, late in the afternoon, that he heard the tremendous barrage of guns starting up at Anzac. Shortly afterwards he received an order from Liman to send one of his battalions there. The men were put on the road, but Willmer himself remained at Lala Baba to watch the horizon for any sign of approaching enemy ships. He saw the crimson sun go down on a flat and empty sea, and then, giving orders to his men to remain in instant readiness through the night, he rode home to his headquarters in the hills. He had hardly arrived there when he had word from Lala Baba that enemy soldiers were coming ashore on the beach below them in the darkness. At once he sent off a signal to Liman asking for the return of the battalion which was on the march to Anzac. Liman refused, and Willmer was now left with a force of less than 1,500 men to hold the whole area around Suvla Bay.
The night was pitch dark, and for some time the outpost at Lala Baba could not make out what was going on. Had they been able to see out to sea they would have been much more alarmed than they were, for the British fleet had carried through the first part of the plan with remarkable timing. There were three echelons: the 10,000 men from Imbros who, in three brigades, were to make the first landing, one of them inside the bay and the other two on the open beach to the south of it, and then, following on behind, the 6,000 men from Mytilene and the 4,000 from Mudros. Precisely at 9.30 p.m. the leading destroyers in line abreast came to a stop five hundred yards out from B Beach — the beach to the south of the lake — and quietly eased their anchors into the sea. The beetles and the picket boats which they had been towing were then cast off and made towards the shore.
At Lala Baba the Turks held their fire, for they could still see nothing, and in a fresh and gentle breeze the boats ran up to the beach and dropped their ramps on the sand. Within a few minutes some 7,000 men had walked ashore without getting their feet wet, and they were disturbed only by a single rifle shot which killed a sailor on the beach. As they marched inland for half a mile, two Turkish sentries rose in the darkness, fired their rifles and fled, but there was no other opposition; the invaders were in possession of an empty countryside.
But now a red flare went up from Lala Baba on their left, and the two battalions of Yorkshire soldiers who were advancing in that direction came under heavy rifle fire. This was the first time that Kitchener’s new civilian army had faced the enemy, and the conditions were very difficult: they had been on their feet for seventeen hours, they could see hardly more than a yard or two ahead, and they were under orders to use only their bayonets until the day broke. A third of the men and all but three of their officers were hit, but the remainder kept trudging on until they had driven the Turks off the top of the hill and had pursued them down to the salt lake on the opposite side. It was now midnight, and the survivors looked around for the third brigade which was supposed to have landed inside the bay, at a place called A Beach, and to have kept a rendezvous with them at Lala Baba. But of these others there was nothing to be seen; and so the men sat down to wait.
The Navy had been all too well justified in their dislike of the unknown waters in the bay. In the darkness the landing craft had lost their way, and those which had not fouled hidden reefs had come ashore at least a thousand yards to the south of the place where they were intended to be. It was not until well after midnight that the first troops of this third brigade began to line up on the beach, and nobody knew quite where they were or what they were supposed to do. However, the moon came up at 2 a.m. and by that pale light one column made a dash at a hill which they imagined to be Hill Ten (and which was not), while another struggled up the slopes of Kiretch Tepe to the north, and still another sat down and waited on the beach. As day began to break at 4.30 a.m. the advance everywhere had stopped. Hill Ten had still not been attacked or even found, disorganized groups were firing raggedly at any target that happened to present itself, and the utmost confusion spread along the shore. Officers everywhere were shouting to one another for information, arguing over their orders and sending off messengers who never returned. It was not the enemy fire that defeated then, for it was not very heavy, but their own physical exhaustion, the unfamiliar maps which seemed to bear no relation to the landscape, and the absence of anyone in high authority to give a clear command.