Krithia
The Forgotten Anzac Battle of Gallipoli
Mat McLachlan
Sydney, NSW: Hachette, 2024
Paperback 224pp RRP: $34.99
Reviewer: Robert Dixon, August 2024
This is a well-researched and very well written account of the first weeks of the Gallipoli campaign. The book covers the landings at both Anzac Cove and Cape Helles and the (failed) attempts by the forces at both places to capture strategically important high ground which allowed Turkish artillery and infantry to prevent an expansion of the bridgeheads. At Helles there were repeated attempts to capture the village of Krithia and a nearby hill named Achi Baba. After the first failed attempt to take Krithia a decision was made to conduct a second attack but this time with the assistance of troops from the Australian 2nd brigade (made up of four battalions that were raised from Victorian volunteers for overseas service) together with a brigade of New Zealanders. These men together with five artillery batteries were transported by ship from Anzac Cove to the southern end of the peninsula early in May 1915.
On the 8th of May, these troops attacked across a featureless plain in broad daylight and came under a hail of artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire from the Turkish positions. The Australians advanced as ordered, but the intensity of the fire against them was so great that they had to dig-in before reaching the Turkish line. (The New Zealanders on their left fared no better.) In the second volume of his Official History Charles Bean writes ‘The Australian 2nd Brigade had left Anzac on 5 May with 2568 men. By the end of Second Krithia 1056 of them had been killed or wounded’. He goes on point out that these casualties had been incurred ‘in a little over an hour’ and ‘in merely approaching the enemy’. It is no wonder that the official British Historian of the Gallipoli campaign (Cecil Aspinall-Oglander) described the second battle of Krithia as Australia’s ‘unrecognised Balaclava.
In drawing attention to this battle the book is a welcome addition to accounts of the Gallipoli campaign. It is printed in a very reader-friendly font size and has two useful maps, thirteen black and white photos and nine pages of Endnotes which include mention of other works on the subject (including Bean’s Official History and Austin’s account of the battle) and a very useful ten-page Index.
While the text of this book can be described as scholarly and an example of military history at its best, the same cannot be said for the description of the book to be found on the back cover, where we read that ‘The battle of Krithia is … a great Australian story that hasn't been told - until now.’ This statement is totally untrue. Why do I say this? To begin with, this is not the first book published in Australia which focuses on the Second Battle of Krithia. In 1989 Ronald Austin published a book titled The White Gurkhas: Australians at the Second Battle of Krithia which contains a very detailed account of the battle. Also, while other books about Australians at Gallipoli devote most of their attention to the fighting at Anzac, they also have chapters on the Second Battle of Krithia. These include a lengthy chapter of 44 pages in the second volume of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 with this volume titled The Story of ANZAC from 4 May 1915 to the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula. In addition, there are chapters on the Second Battle of Krithia in the popular books on Gallipoli written by Peter FitzSimons and Les Carlyon, amongst others.
Mat McLachlan is also the author of Walking with the Anzacs: An updated guide to Australian battlefields of the Western Front; Gallipoli: The Battlefield Guide and The Cowra Breakout.
The RUSI – Vic Library is most grateful to the publishers for making this work available for review.