LACK OF ARTILLERY

Evening Post, Issue 37, 12 August 1936, Page 9

LACK OF ARTILLERY

GALLIPOLI FAILURE

FURTHER DISCUSSION

LONDON, August 11.

The "Daily Telegraph's" military correspondent, Major-General A. C. Temperley, vcommenting on MajorGeneral Rosenthal's views on the1 Gallipoli failure, says: "Those of us who were present at the landing have good cause to remember the lack of artillery support. Great reliance was placed on naval guns, but owing to their low trajectory they could not search the deep valleys in which the Turks were massed. There was also an unaccountable delay in landing artillery, despite urgent requests, especially for the New Zealand Howitzer Battery. "The situation was so critical that late hi the afternoon on the day of the landing the re-embarkation of the 18-pounders was actually ordered. In point of fact, the 8000 Australians landed by 8 a.m. were held up by a single outpost company and the remainder of an outpost battalion scattered- over a five-mile front. It was the intricacy of the country mixing up the units, not the strength of the opposition, that prevented an immediate advance.' The- complete absence of artillery caused General Birdwood later to suggest withdrawal. Major-General Rosenthal has placed his .finger on one of the causes of failure, but I do. not believe it was the chief or only one." Sir lan Hamilton, interviewed, said that Sir Charles Rosenthal's remarks were simply what was the main comment in Australian military circles for many years. Guns were landed and then sent back. If they had been allowed to remain they would have made a great difference. Mr. C. E. W. Bean, author of the official Australian history of the war, had thrashed the matter out in detail and was a fairminded and competent authority. Anyone in doubt should read Mr. Bean's book and make up his own rriind. Major-General Sir Charles Rosenthal, in a lecture on Gallipoli in England last month, said: "Australia carries a grave responsibility for the failure at Gallipoli. I say that deliberately and without fear of contradiction. If howitzers had been landed to support the'Anzacs on their first day on the Peninsula, the war might have been shortened by two or three years." Major-General Rosenthal, who served as an officer at the landing, explained that before the war he was in command of a special -howitzer battery which had been formed in New South Wales. He urged the military commander that these guns should be taken abroad with the troops. "If on the first morning at Gallipoli we had had howitzers on the beach I am certain our infantry would have reached their objective, Gun Ridge, on the same morning," he added.

Commenting at Melbourne on Sir Charles Rosenthal's lecture, General Sir Talbot Hobbs, who .was commander of the First Australian Divi-

sion, said he entirely disagreed that the Gallipoli failure was Australia's responsibility. "To say that the absence of the four guns Sir Charles Rosenthal mentioned was the cause of our failure at the landing is, to my mind, absurd. I think that, if Sir Charles inspected the ground from Cape Helles to Suvla Bay he would realise that there were many more ridges beyond Gun Ridge, and that the whole . area was a vast natural fortress garrisoned by brave and resolute soldiers led by efficient generals who knew the ground and were experts in defence. Australia did her best and all she was able to do."