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BRAW LADDIES AMIDST THE CLASH OF THE EMPIRES
The 52nd (Lowland) Division began to
arrive at Gallipoli on 6 June, and the 1st
Brigade was first in action on 28 June on
the left flank at Helles along the Gully
Ravine.
The assault Battalions were 1/4th
Royal Scots, 1/7th Royal Scots and 1/8th
Scottish Rifles.
As a result of intensive Turkish
machine gun fire they paid a terrible
price, they were also inadequately
supported by the naval guns firing from
the sea. The Edinburgh Battalions lost
heavily: the 1/4th Royal Scots had 16
officers and 204 soldiers killed or missing
while the 1/7th Royal Scots had been
reduced to six officers and 169 soldiers,
roughly the size of a company.
The division launched it’s first major
offensive on Achi Baba Nullah on 12
July. Alexander Burnett, 1/4th Royal
Scots Fusiliers, looked back at the
battle-field and regretted the loss of
men who had joined up with him in
Kilmarnock at the beginning of the war:
“We were all boys together at school, we’d
started jobs as apprentices, we’d formed
friendships. And there they were a line
of them all killed at one time,none of them
over seventeen.”
As well as dreadful losses the men
were also suffering under appalling
conditions. The fighting was conducted
at close-quarters with some trenches
being almost within spitting distance.
And the physical hardships were worse
than anything faced on the Western
Front. Despite the best efforts at
maintaining basic sanitation, disease
was rampant, especially dysentery and
enteric fever which was spread by the
absence of proper latrines and washing
facilities and by the ever-present swarms
of black buzzing flies.
One Medical Officer said it was
impossible to eat with the flies around
as they immediately swarmed onto every
spoonful between plate and mouth.
T H E BAT T L E S O F G U L LY RAV I N E A N D AC H I BA BA N U L L A H
A HOME MADE GRENADE BEING LAUNCHED, CAPTAIN W.R. KERMACK,
7TH BATTALION, 1915