FEATURE—MILITARY THE IRISH AT GALLIPOLI So closely do Australians identify with Gallipoli that they often think they were the only ones there, apart from their Anzac partners from New Zealand—and the Turks, of course. Yet the campaign was a multi-national affair, with the Allied forces including soldiers from Britain, France, India, Nepal, North Africa, Newfoundland and Ireland. And while Australians in their enthusiasm to build their new nation might be forgiven for having overlooked such details, in Ireland many have forgotten the Gallipoli campaign altogether, notwithstanding the significant part that Irish soldiers played in it and its impact on their own national development. By Jeff Kildea For some in Ireland it was Gallipoli rather than the Easter Rising that marked the moment when their feelings towards the British began to turn, particu larly after the August offensive when the 10th (Irish) Division was almost destroyed at Suvla Bay. In her 1919 memoirs, Irish poet and novelist Katharine Tynan describes that summer of 1915 as a time '... when blow after blow fell day after day on one's heart. So many of our friends had gone out in the 10th (Irish) Division to perish at Suvla. For the first time came bit terness, for we felt that their lives had been thrown away and that their heroism had gone unrecog nised.' After Gallipoli many moderate nationalists began to lose faith in the idea that supporting Britain in the war would assure Home Rule. Irish troops were at Gallipoli from the start of the campaign. On 25 April 1915, men of the 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers and 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers were slaughtered in their hundreds during the ill-fated landing at V Beach near Cape Helles. In May, June and July the Dublins and Munsters with their compatriots from the 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers took part in the many dis astrous attempts, wasteful in lives, to capture Krithia and Achi Baba, the first-day's objectives which in the nine months of the campaign were never taken. But it was in August that Irishmen arrived at Gallipoli in large numbers as part of Allied commander Sir Ian Hamilton's plan to break the stalemate and go on the offensive. Suvla Bay To this end the secretary of state for war, Lord Kitchener, sent Hamilton five additional divisions under the command of the elderly but inexpe rienced Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick Stopford. Among them was the 10th (Irish) Division under the command of Lt. Gen. Bryan Mahon. From the start the 10th Division's experience at Gallipoli was blighted by poor planning and incompetent logistics. Its three brigades were split, with the 29th joining the Australians and New Zealanders in the Anzac sector while the 30th and 31st landed at Suvla Bay minus the division's artillery, which was still in Fgypt, and the division's engineers, who were delayed. Nevertheless, the 10th had an early success at Suvla, when it took part in the seizure of Chocolate Hill, after having advanced across open ground under intense Turkish fire in the heat of the day and without adequate supplies of water. Apart from this success, however, the men of the 30th and 31st Brigades had little to show for their sacrifice. Procrastination by General Stopford gave the Turks time to rein force the heights that dominated the Suvla plain. Ground that was undefended when the Suvla landing began soon bristled with Turkish defenders. Over the following weeks the men of the 10th Division suffered heavy casualties, particularly in the assault on Kiritch Tepe ridge. Their plight was not helped when, in the middle of the battle, their divisional commander resigned in a fit of pique when passed over for promotion to commander of IX Corps following Sir Ian Hamilton's sacking of General Stopford. A week later, Irish regulars of the 29th Division, brought up from Helles to reinforce IX Corps, suffered badly at Scimitar Hill. During the battle, continuous shelling set the undergrowth ablaze and many wounded were burnt alive where they had fallen. Attack after attack failed to dislodge the Turks and when the action was called off more than a third of the attacking force had been killed or wounded. Anzac sector Meanwhile, in the Anzac sector, the 29th Brigade, which included the 6th Royal Irish Rifles, the 6th Leinster Regiment and the 5th Connaught Rangers, assisted the attempt to break out from the precarious positions along the Second Ridge, which the Anzacs had occupied since the first day of the campaign. At Lone Pine the Australian 1st Division commenced its assault on the afternoon of 6 August. It was to be one of the bloodiest fights of the whole campaign, resulting in more than 2,000 Australian and 5,000 Turkish casualties in four days of hand-to-hand fighting with bayonet and bomb in the labyrinth of Turkish 36 /HISTORY IRELAND/ July-August 2015