World's War Events Volume I Part 42

At Suvla every gun, vehicle and animal was embarked, and all that remained was a small stock of supplies, which were burned.

On December 28, 1915, your Lordship's telegram ordering the evacuation of h.e.l.les was received, whereupon, in view of the possibility of bad weather intervening, I instructed the General Officer Commanding Dardanelles Army to complete the operation as rapidly as possible. He was reminded that every effort conditional on not exposing the personnel to undue risk should be made to save all 60-pounder and 18-pounder guns, 6-inch and 4.5 howitzers, with their ammunition and other accessories, such as mules, and A. T. carts, limbered wagons, &c.

[Sidenote: Situation on Gallipoli Peninsula.]

[Sidenote: Increase in Turkish artillery.]

At a meeting which was attended by the Vice Admiral and the General Officer Commanding Dardanelles Army I explained the course which I thought we should adopt to again deceive the Turks as to our intentions.

The situation on the Peninsula had not materially changed owing to our withdrawal from Suvla and Anzac, except that there was a marked increased activity in aerial reconnoissance over our positions, and the islands of Mudros and Imbros, and that hostile patrolling of our trenches was more frequent and daring. The most apparent factor was that the number of heavy guns on the European and Asiatic sh.o.r.es had been considerably augmented, and that these guns were more liberally supplied with German ammunition, the result of which was that our beaches were continuously sh.e.l.led, especially from the Asiatic sh.o.r.e. I gave it as my opinion that in my judgment I did not regard a feint as an operation offering any prospect of success; and it was decided the navy should do their utmost to pursue a course of retaliation against the Turkish batteries, but to refrain from any unusually aggressive att.i.tude should the Turkish guns remain quiescent.

[Sidenote: General Birdwood's comprehensive plans.]

General Sir W. Birdwood had, in antic.i.p.ation of being ordered to evacuate h.e.l.les, made such complete and far-seeing arrangements that he was able to proceed without delay to the issue of the comprehensive orders which the consummation of such a delicate operation in war requires.

[Sidenote: French infantry embarked.]

The evacuation, following the same system as was practiced at Suvla and Anzac, proceeded without delay. The French infantry remaining on the Peninsula were relieved on the night of January 1-2, 1916, and were embarked by the French navy on the following nights. Progress, however, was slower than had been hoped, owing to delays caused by accident and the weather. One of our largest horse ships was sunk by a French battleship, whereby the withdrawal was considerably r.e.t.a.r.ded, and at the same time strong winds sprang up which interfered materially with work on the beaches. The character of the weather now setting in offered so little hope of a calm period of any duration that General Sir W.

Birdwood arranged with Admiral Sir J. de Robeck for the a.s.sistance of some destroyers in order to accelerate the progress of re-embarkation.

[Sidenote: Turks sh.e.l.l trenches and beaches.]

Meanwhile the Eighth Corps had maintained the offensive spirit in bombing and minor operations with which they had established the moral superiority they enjoyed over the enemy. On December 29, 1915 the Fifty-second Division completed the excellent work which they had been carrying out for so long by capturing a considerable portion of the Turkish trenches, and by successfully holding these in the face of repeated counter-attacks. The sh.e.l.ling of our trenches and beaches, however, increased in frequency and intensity, and the average daily casualties continued to increase.

On January 7, 1916, the enemy developed heavy artillery fire on the trenches held by the Thirteenth Division, while the Asiatic guns sh.e.l.led those occupied by the Royal Naval Division. The bombardment, which was reported to be the heaviest experienced since we landed in April, lasted from noon until 5 P. M., and was intensive between 3 and 3:30 P. M.

January 8, 1916 was a bright, calm day, with a light breeze from the south. There was every indication of the continuance of favorable conditions, and, in the opinion of the meteorological officer, no important change was to be expected for at least twenty-four hours. The Turkish artillery was unusually inactive. All preparations for the execution of the final stage were complete.

[Sidenote: Unfavorable weather.]

[Sidenote: Hostile submarine near by.]

About 7 P. M. the breeze freshened considerably from the southwest, the most unfavorable quarter, but the first trip, timed for 8 P. M., was dispatched without difficulty. The wind, however, continued to rise until, by 11 P. M., the connecting pier between the hulks and the sh.o.r.e at "W" Beach was washed away by heavy seas, and further embarkation into destroyers from these hulks became impracticable. In spite of these difficulties the second trips, which commenced at 11:30 P. M., were carried out well up to time, and the embarkation of guns continued uninterruptedly. Early in the evening reports had been received from the right flank that a hostile submarine was believed to be moving down the strait, and about midnight H. M. S. _Prince George_, which had embarked 2,000 men, and was sailing for Mudros, reported she was struck by a torpedo which failed to explode. The indications of the presence of a submarine added considerably to the anxiety for the safety of the troop carriers, and made it necessary for the Vice Admiral to modify the arrangements made for the subsequent bombardment of the evacuated positions.

[Sidenote: Gully Beach embarkation completed.]

At 1:50 A. M., Gully Beach reported that the embarkation at that beach was complete, and that the lighters were about to push off, but at 2:10 A. M. a telephone message was received that one of the lighters was aground and could not be refloated. The N. T. O. at once took all possible steps to have another lighter sent in to Gully Beach, and this was, as a matter of fact, done within an hour, but in the meantime, at 2:30 A. M. it was decided to move the 160 men who had been relanded from the grounded lighter to "W" Beach and embark them there.

[Sidenote: Conflagrations show Turks the allies have withdrawn.]

At 3:30 A. M. the evacuation was complete, and abandoned heaps of stores and supplies were successfully set on fire by time fuses after the last man had embarked. Two magazines of ammunition and explosives were also successfully blown up at 4 A. M. These conflagrations were apparently the first intimation received by the Turks that we had withdrawn. Red lights were immediately discharged from the enemy's trenches, and heavy artillery fire opened on our trenches and beaches. This sh.e.l.ling was maintained until about 6:30 A. M.

[Sidenote: Good luck and skilled organization forthcoming.]

Apart from four unserviceable fifteen-pounders which had been destroyed earlier in the month, ten worn-out fifteen-pounders, one six-inch Mark VII gun, and six old heavy French guns, all of which were previously blown up, were left on the Peninsula. In addition to the above, 508 animals, most of which were destroyed, and a number of vehicles and considerable quant.i.ties of stores, material, and supplies, all of which were destroyed by burning, had to be abandoned.

[Sidenote: Competent officers in charge.]

The entire evacuation of the Peninsula had now been completed. It demanded for its successful realization two important military essentials, viz., good luck and skilled disciplined organization, and they were both forthcoming to a marked degree at the hour needed. Our luck was in the ascendant by the marvelous spell of calm weather which prevailed. But we were able to turn to the fullest advantage these accidents of fortune.

Lieutenant General Sir W. Birdwood and his corps commanders elaborated and prepared the orders in reference to the evacuation with a skill, competence, and courage which could not have been surpa.s.sed, and we had a further stroke of good fortune in being a.s.sociated with Vice Admiral Sir J. de Robeck, K. C. B., Vice Admiral Wemyss, and a body of naval officers whose work remained throughout this anxious period at that standard of accuracy and professional ability which is beyond the power of criticism or cavil.

The form of "frightfulness" in which the Germans placed the greatest faith was the terrorizing of the inhabitants of unprotected enemy cities by bombs from Zeppelins and aeroplanes. While the objects for which these atrocities were perpetrated were not attained, hundreds of innocent men, women, and children were murdered. The following narrative describes one of these German air raids.

THE DEATH-SHIP IN THE SKY

PERRITON MAXWELL

Copyright Forum, August, 1916.

[Sidenote: The switchman at Walthamstow.]

For twenty-six years old Tom c.u.mbers had held his job as switchman at the Walthamstow railroad junction where the London-bound trains come up from Southend to the great city. It was an important post and old Tom filled it with stolid British efficiency. A kindly man who felt himself an integral part of the giant railroad system that employed him, old Tom had few interests beyond his work, his white-haired wife, his reeking pipe and the little four-room tenement in Walthamstow which he called home. The latter was one of the thousands of two-storied rabbit-hatches of sooty, yellow brick, all alike and all incredibly ugly, which stretch, mile upon mile, from Walthamstow toward London's tumultuous heart.

[Sidenote: The workshops near Epping Forest.]

[Sidenote: An appalling tragedy of the war.]

Within a radius of four dun miles, just on the nearer edge of Epping Forest--the scene in a forgotten day of Robin Hood's adventurings--a section of these huddling homes of the submerged, together with a street of trams and some pathetic shops, const.i.tute this town of Walthamstow.

It is a sordid, unlovely place, but for some ten thousand wage-strugglers it is all of England. There are workshops hereabout in which one may mingle one's copious sweat with the grime of machinery and have fourteen shillings a week into the bargain--if one is properly skilled and muscular and bovinely plodding. Walthamstow is not the place where one would deliberately choose to live if bread could be earned elsewhere with equal certainty. But for all its dirt and dullness it has a spot on the map and a meaning in the dull souls of its inhabitants, and here, within half an hour's train travel of the Lord Mayor's Mansion and the golden vaults of the Bank of England, transpired on the sweltering night of which I write, one of the most witless and appalling tragedies of the present war. Forever memorable in the hitherto colorless calendar of Walthamstow will be this tragedy in the second year of Armageddon.

[Sidenote: An ordinary hot night.]

[Sidenote: News of the war.]

Beyond the stenchful heat-stress of it, there was nothing up to half-past eleven to mark this night as different from its fellows of the past. From eight o'clock till ten the small activities of the town centered chiefly about its tramway terminus, its smudgy station, its three or four moving-picture theatres, and its fetid pubs. On the pavements, in the roadways and at every crossing, corduroyed men yawned and spat, and slatternly women, most of them with whimpering infants in their arms, talked of shop or household cares and the frailties of their neighbors. Some, more alive to the big events of a clashing world, repeated the meagre news of the ha'penny press and dwelt with prideful fervor on the latest bit of heroism reported from the front. Now and again an outburst of raucous humor echoed above the babble of c.o.c.kney tongues. The maudlin clamor of "a pore lone lidy 'oos 'subing 'ad desarted 'er" failed to arouse anyone's curiosity. Ladies in their cups are not a rarity in Walthamstow. In side streets, lads in khaki, many of them fresh from fields of slaughter "somewhere in Flanders," sported boisterously with their factory-girl sweethearts or spooned in the shadows. Everywhere grubby children in scant clothing shrilled and scampered and got in the way. Humidity enveloped the town like a sodden cloak and its humanity stewed in moist and smelly discomfort.

[Sidenote: Street lamps out.]

But shortly after eleven o'clock the whole place became suddenly and majestically still and black. People who go to their work at sunrise cannot afford the extravagance of midnight revelry, and there are few street-lamps alight after ten o'clock in any London suburb in these times of martial law. Walthamstow slept in heated but profound oblivion of its mean existence. Beyond the town lay, like a prostrate giant camel, the heat-blurred silhouette of the cla.s.sic forest. Low over Walthamstow hung the festoons of flat, humid clouds, menacing storm, but motionless.

[Sidenote: The rhythm of the Zeppelin.]

[Sidenote: The train to serve as pilot to London.]

[Sidenote: The Zeppelin forced to travel low.]

If there was no disturbance in the clouds themselves there was among them something very active, something that drilled its way through them with a m.u.f.fled whirring, something that was oblong and lean and light of texture, that was ominous and menacing for all its buoyancy. The sound it made was too high up, too thickly shrouded by clouds, to determine its precise position. It gave forth a breathing of persistent, definite rhythm. This was plainly not the wing-stroke of a nocturnal bird; for no bird, big or little, could advertise its flight in such perfect pulsation. And yet it was a bird, a Gargantuan, man-made bird with murder in its talons and hatred in its heart. From its steel nest in Germanized Belgium this whirring monster had soared eight thousand feet and crossed the Channel with little fear of discovery. It had penetrated the English Coast somewhere down Sheerness way and over Southend and then, dropping lower, had sought and found through the haze the tiny train whose locomotive had just fluted its brief salutation to Walthamstow. To the close-cropped men on the Zeppelin, the string of cars far down under their feet, with its side-flare from lighted windows, its engine's headlamp and its sparks, had proved a providential pilotage. They knew that this train was on the main line, and that it would lead them straight to the great Liverpool Street Station, and that was London, and it was London wharfs and ammunition works along the Thames that they had planned to obliterate with their cylinders of mechanical doom. But the moist clouds which aided so materially in hiding the Zeppelin's presence from below also worked for its defeat, in so far as its ultimate objective was concerned, for to keep the guiding train in view it was compelled to travel lower and yet lower--so low, indeed, as to make it a target for Kitchener's sentinels.

[Sidenote: The switchman signals "danger."]

[Sidenote: The train stops at Walthamstow.]