100 Events of the Gallipoli Campaign
June - July 1915
4 June 1915
At Helles, the British launched the Third Battle of Krithia on what was described as ‘an exquisite summer’s day’. Although the British broke through the Turkish lines towards Krithia, this advantage was not followed up and the Turkish line held. The British suffered more than 4,500 casualties, the French more than 2,000 and the Turks admitted to more than 9,000 dead and wounded.
5 June 1915
In a speech delivered in his parliamentary constituency at Dundee, Scotland, Winston Churchill urged a maximum effort at Gallipoli:
Through the Narrows of the Dardanelles and across the ridges of the Gallipoli Peninsula lie some of the shortest paths to a triumphant peace.
7 June 1915
First meeting in London of the Dardanelles Committee of the British government. It had been set up to oversee the campaign and to decide the level of support which it should receive.
15 June 1915
Corporal Alec Riley, 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, wrote from Helles:
We itched and scratched until we were tired with scratching. We turned our clothes inside out, and ran the burning ends of cigarettes up the seams. The crack of a frizzled louse was one of the sweetest sounds we knew.
18 June 1915
At MEF Headquarters on Imbros island, Sir Ian Hamilton and his staff celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo with a special dinner of crayfish.
21 June 1915
At Helles, French forces launched an attack on the Turks at Haricot Redoubt and Kereves Dere. The French, for little progress, suffered more than 2,500 casualties and the Turks lost more than 6,000 killed and wounded.
28 June 1915
Between 28 June and 5 July, Turkish forces at Helles attacked British positions at Gully Ravine. In eight days the Turks suffered more than 16,000 casualties, more than 10,000 of whom had been killed. The British refused a truce in this area, similar to the one on 24 May at Anzac, to bury the dead.
11 July 1915
Death at Helles of Lieutenant-Colonel Hasan Bey, commander of the Turkish 17th Regiment, 5th Division. He was killed by a wounded French soldier and Hasan’s last words were supposedly:
Don’t kill the Frenchman; he did his duty.
12 July 1915
On 12 July 1915, British forces at Helles launched an attack known as the Action of Achi Baba Nullah. Some Turkish trenches were captured but no significant headway was made. One unit — a battalion of the Kings Own Scottish Borders — lost more than 300 men killed and 200 wounded. At the end of the day, one British commanding officer wrote that the troops in one sector ‘could not be induced to go forward’.
Between June and 13 July 1915, British forces had advanced just 500 yards at Helles at a cost of more than 17,000 casualties. Turkish casualties in the same period amounted to more than 40,000. One British soldier wrote of the Helles battlefield that it ‘looked like a midden and smelt like an open cemetery’.