THE GREAT WARTHE GREAT WAR||MIDDLE EAST CAMPAIGN MIDDLE EAST CAMPAIGN THE GREAT WAR|MIDDLE EAST CAMPAIGN
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stated, only in warning the enemy of
the point of attack and in gross waste
of ammunition.”
The arguments rumbled on till
just hours before the assault was to
go in. A liaison officer was privy
to one such heated dispute at 54th
Divisional HQ between Major-
General Hare and his senior artillery
officer, Brigadier Henry Sandilands.
According to his eyewitness
account, Sandilands “seriously
and very firmly... begged Hare to
withdraw the order” to attack across
what the liaison officer described as
more than 2,000 yards (1,830m) of
“perfectly open grass-land” that was
“as smooth as a lawn”.
As well as complaining of a lack
of ammunition, Sandilands insisted
that with the Turkish positions more
than 6,000 yards away there was no
guarantee of hitting any of them
with a single shell. “All we shall do,”
he protested, “is keep them awake
and ready, and when the infantry
start to move forward they will
just be mown down in swathes.
It is just murder.”But Hare
refused to
budge,
insisting
that his
hands were
tied. “I can’t
alter the order
now,” he was said
to have replied,
and with that the
matter was settled.
Final instructions,
delayed in part by
the extraordinary
and testy two-hour
long argument, did not
reach the two Norfolk
battalions until shortly
before midnight.
The menrepresenting the vanguard of the
163rd Brigade’s assault spent the rest
of a sleepless night drawing rations
and attaching scraps of tin cut from
biscuit boxes to their packs to allow
observers to plot their progress so
that the artillery could ‘accurately’
support them.
The die was well and truly cast.A Perfect Hell
The bombardment heralding the
Second Battle of Gaza opened
at 5.30am on April 19 and bore
out all of Sandilands’ misgivings.
So desultory was the fire that it
appeared, as one historian put it,
“to have woken up the Turks rather
than intimidated them”.
As for the
promised ‘gas
cloud’, the
planners
overlooked
the fact
that higher
temperatures
ensured such
rapid evaporation
that the Turks
were unaware that
chemical shells
were actually
being used against
them. Thereafter, in
a way that was wholly
predictable given the
unrealistic goals set for
the infantry, things
rapidly went from
bad to worse.RIGHT
One of the
British Mk.I
tanks knocked
out during the
advance.RIGHT
Private Bob
Overman of the
5th Norfolks
viewed the attack
on Gaza as an
opportunity
to pay back
“a few debts”
for the losses
sustained at
Gallipoli. Seriously
wounded in the
attack, he later
succumbed to his
injuries.BELOW
The exposed
nature of the
ground is
captured in
this shot of the
battlefield at
Gaza.