 
Members of the 4th Australian Field
Ambulance
watching over stretcher cases awaiting
treatment at Walden Grove.
(AWM P1116/69/64)
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By the evening of 9 August the New Zealanders were exhausted.
Countless determined Turkish attacks had taken their toll.
Trooper Harry Brown of the Wellington Mounted Rifles described
the desolate scene in the trenches:
At 8.00 pm on 9 August the New Zealanders finally left Chunuk
Bair. In their place stood soldiers of the British 6th Battalion
of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and the 5th Battalion
of the Wiltshire Regiment. Beyond the British trenches,
the Turks were massing for a great attack.
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Major Leslie Morsehead, 2nd Battalion,
1st Brigade,
AIF, surveys the results of the action at Lone Pine
(Kanli Sirt). Australian and Turkish dead lie
on the parapet of the trench. In 1941,
Moreshead, as Major-General Morshead,
commanded the allied garrison during
the Siege of Tubruk, Libya.
(AWM A02025)
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The Turks had been highly alarmed by the threat at Chunuk
Bair and Suvla to their whole position at Gallipoli. Fighting
back the Australian diversionary attack in the south at
Lone Pine was Major Zeki. Zeki later told the Australian
official historian:
To take charge at Chunuk Bair, the Turkish high command
now dispatched Colonel Mustafa Kemal, a senior officer who
led from the front. On 9 August, Kemal routed the British
as they advanced across the Suvla plain. In the evening
he rode up to Chunuk Bair where the Turks were faltering
under the British naval bombardment and the strong stand
of the New Zealanders. Convinced that the time had come
for an all-out counter-attack, Kemal ordered his men forward
at dawn on 10 August in a bayonet charge:
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Colonel Mustafa Kemal, one of the
principal
Turkish commanders at Gallipoli. In 1923
Kemal was elected the first president of
the Republic of Turkey, and later
dubbed Ataturk – 'Father of Turkey'.
(AWM A05319)
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The blanket of night had lifted. Now was the hour
for the attack. I looked at my watch. It was nearly
4.30 am. After a few minutes it would become quite
light and the enemy would be able to see our troops.
Should the enemy infantry open fire with his machine
guns and should the land and naval guns open fire
on our troops in our close packed formation I didn’t
doubt the impossibility of the attack .... I greeted
the men and addressed them:
‘Soldiers! There is no doubt that we can defeat
the enemy opposing us. But don’t you hurry, let
me go in front first. When you see the wave of my
whip all of you rush forward together!’
Then I went to a point forward of the assault line,
and, raising my whip, gave the signal for the assault. |
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[Kemal, quoted in RR James, Gallipoli,
London, 1999, p.299]
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The Turks rushed forward and swept the British from the
heights of Chunuk Bair. They dashed on down the seaward
slope only to be slaughtered by the British naval guns and
the New Zealand machine guns. Sergeant Daniel Curham of
the Wellington Infantry Battalion was operating one of those
machine guns:
The Turks were held but the battle for the summit, which
had so nearly ended in a complete rout for the British Empire
soldiers, was over and with it the August offensive. The
Turks had regained Chunuk Bair and no British Empire soldier
ever again beheld the Dardanelles from that peak.
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