19/06/2026
Part of a letter sent by Private Frederick Warren Muir to his mother in 1915. The former law student describes landing at Gallipoli on April 25th with E Company of the 1st Battalion.
"The spot where we landed is known as Sari Bair and lies about half-way between Cape Suvla and Kaba Tepe. As we sat on the hillside it was hard to reconcile our surroundings with the fact that war was raging all around us.
No trace of the enemy was to be seen in the green hills behind us, and the ships were hidden from view by a small headland; a few wild flowers were in bloom about us and the crushed plants underfoot gave out a pleasant aromatic odour; in front, the islands of Imbros and Samothrace lay on the sunlit waters of the peaceful Aegean.
Immediately the remainder of our battalion arrived, we set out to reinforce the 3rd Brigade, which was hard pressed. The country we had to traverse was exceedingly difficult from a military point of view. From within a few yards of the beach, steep sandy bluffs rose abruptly to a height of some hundreds of feet; the hills were covered with short, thick scrub, affording excellent cover for hostile snipers and troops, and were intersected with deep gullies.
We made our way along one of these gullies, across a rustic looking little bridge and onto a wider path built by the Turks; here we paused a moment to throw off our heavy packs and then pushed forward again.
As we went upwards we met a string of wounded returning to the rear, some limping painfully, others carried on stretchers. From these we learnt that the 3rd Brigade had captured two ridges and were fighting desperately for the third.
Rushing over the crest of the hill we came for a moment under heavy rifle fire and a couple of our men fell. We then went down into the gully and over a slight rise, breasting the side of the hill the men were holding.
By this time we had left our original track and were compelled to pick our way as best we could through the scrub. In this mad rush onwards, company was separated from company and platoon from platoon, so that when at last we reached the crest of the hill we had but half a company, the remainder having become broken off unnoticed.
However, after a few minutes rest we charged our rifles and rushing over the hill found ourselves in the midst of a hail of bullets. Our Captain fell almost immediately, mortally wounded, and the men commenced to drop.
Henceforward, it was a case of every man for himself. The firing line was some distance over the ridge, and pushing forward we found ourselves almost in the open and unable to advance further in face of the murderous fire which the enemy kept up against us.
The enemy held a strong position on the next ridge but were so well concealed that we seldom could see a satisfactory target to fire at. We had therefore to be still in the glaring sun under a heavy fire from rifles and machine guns, while ever and anon the Turkish field guns sent their shells screaming across to deal out death and destruction amongst us.
To entrench ourselves in the face of the fire was manifestly impossible, as the least movement brought a shower of bullets around us, but most of us managed to dig a little cover with our entrenching tools and lay there waiting for the night, which we knew would bring a cessation of the shrapnel fire and give us a chance to improve our position.
I have never in my life known a day which dragged on so wearily, or so ardently wished for the night to come as when I lay there with a dead man on one side of me and a dying man on the other and wondered how long it would be before my own turn came.
Shortly after noon the enemy’s fire in front seemed to be slackening, so we made another attempt to advance, but a terrific fire from a machine gun on our flank checked us and we returned slightly beyond our old line into a new position which we eventually held.
As the day wore on, the fire grew heavier as the Turks received fresh reinforcements and more guns; the latter, together with the fort at Kabe Tepe and another fort on our left, opened up and swept our lines with a terrible enfilading fire. We were quite helpless against this hail of lead as the Navy were silent.
The few Indian mountain guns which had been hauled up were powerless against the overwhelming number of Turkish guns.
Dead and wounded were everywhere; those slightly wounded managed to crawl to the rear themselves, but the more serious cases were compelled to remain where they lay.
Towards sunset, as the long day dragged to a close, the battle grew fiercer and the air was filled with the roar of guns and the scream of shell. The battleships now opened a fresh bombardment of the enemy’s guns and positions, shelling their reserves and doing much damage.
The “Queen Elizabeth”, too, joined in, and the noise of the mighty guns shook the earth as the shells passed over our heads with a whistling roar to burst far out of sight with a terrific detonation.
Amid this inferno of sound, the sun set behind the Isle of Samothrace and the longed for night commenced to close in. The cannonade gradually ceased and just at dusk the rifle fire faltered and died away, giving us a few seconds of infinite quiet in which the whole world seemed still.
But this respite was not for long as almost immediately the fire of rifles and machine guns broke out with redoubled vigour."
[Source: Mark Tanner. War Letters 1914–1918, Vol. 3: From an Australian at Gallipoli during the First World](AWM)
