Hi Pals

Duiring recent discussion with a Turkish academic the efficacy of Turkish MG fire on the landing beaches was challenged. He is not convinced the units in place on 25 Apr 15 had MGs. Most Allied historiography and memoirs comment on Turkish MGs so I am not seeking guidance toward British/AUS/NZ/French material.

Does anyone have access to Turkish or German papers which might support or refute my friend's doubts?

Cheers

Chris

I had the same discussion, probably with the same man (was it Kenan?) and had to admit that he made good points based on Turkish documents. However, many allied reports mention machine guns at the landing and the distinctive sound they made, as opposed to rifle fire.
I'm also not sure now for how long it's been claimed no MGs covered the landing areas.

Mates,

You pose aninteresting point.

When did the MG Companies as part of each Turkish regt get formed?

Surely they followed the German pratice in 1914 with a number of guns at regt/Bn level untill these companies were formed.

How long had Germany been suppling these weapons to Turkey pre war and did they use them in the Balkens war prior to the Great War?

Cheers

S.B

I would have to look it up but as far as I know the Turkish did not have any (or very little) machine guns of their own.

At the beginning of the campaign the machineguns avaiable where those (operated by Germans) from the Goeben and Breslau.

There is even an account in which Mühlman mentiones about a machinegun crew (German) being taken prisoner and beaten up by the Turks !!

eric

PS : Chris, I was out for a day with Kenan earlier this week and he mentioned you would not be coming !! Everything ok ??

Just to confirm Eric's point. Certainly German sailors had been detailed from the Goeben and Breslau with MG at a very early stage. I dont know for sure that this was by 25 April.

GHowever most accounts I have read have referred to MG emplacements in strategic positions at the time of the landings ie. at Sedd-ul-Bahr Fort, so it would be interesting to know the full argument put forward to refute the existence of MG.

The Turkish machine gun debate is another of those that goes around and around. British accounts of the landings at Seddulbahir, especially V Beach, and Australian accounts of the landing at Ariburnu, state clearly there were machine guns there. However, this is strongly refuted by both Turkish historians and written records.

I have had this discussion with Kenan Celik and with another local expert, Sahin Akdogan, a number of times. Indeed Sahin and I were talking over this again only a week ago. He pulled out the Turkish official history and the order of battle for the units of the Ottoman 9th division that was defending the Peninsula. Of note is the fact that the battalion defending the beaches at the toe of the Peninsula was not equipped with a machine gun detachment, though the other two battalions of the 26th regiment were.

Interestingly, the local command removed the battalion that had been posted along the Helles beaches on the 24th of April, sending it into reserve and replacing it with the one that did not have machine guns. According to Sahin, there were a couple of quick firing Nordenfeld (sic) guns around V Beach.

Again according to Sahin, the Ottomans did get some machine guns to V later in the day and I have seen a photo of a Turkish machine gun kept in the storeroom of the regimental museum of one of the units that landed at V beach with a plaque saying it had been captured at Seddulbahir on April 26. (sorry, off hand I can’t remember which unit or which museum).

Most Turkish battalions had at least two machine guns by 1915, though according to Turkish records, the one at the toe of the Peninsula was not one of those so equipped.

The teams of machine gunners from the Breslau and Goeben were not detached until after the landings as I understand it.

There are several refs to Turkish Pom-Poms above V-Beach, which I understand to refer to a quick-firing 1 pounder gun; does this match the Nordenfeld?

Von Sanders' book refers to the Turko-German fleet supplying ‘two machine-gun detachments with about 24 machine guns which were of great benefit’
And a little late he refers to the arrival of ‘the leader of the naval machine gun detachment, the brave Lieutenant Boltz,…..reaching the battlefield of Seddulbar on the evening of May 3rd’

Sorry lack of time precludes search for further ref to Turkish MGs
But I will keep an eye on this interesting thread

Regards
Michael D.R.

One of the things that everyone " knew " when I was a child, is that Churchill had an interest in the company that sold machineguns to the Turks. This is only one of the reasons that I am wary of anecdotal evidence.

Thanks, Pals.

Apologies for brevity in acknowledging your observations (due to 'outage' of site last night, pending departure for Istanbul and a sore head from supping Effes until 0100 hrs (thanks for that, Bill)).

Have had a cracking week here, much of it in Kenan's company during which this theory was discussed. The ex-infantry and sapper members of our group were singularly sceptical. One used [Frewster's] book [Gallipoli: The Turkish Story] to refute the idea, but on examination, sources quoted in the book were British.

Further discussion with Kenan and, later, with Bill, nurtures the seed of doubt - the staff (organizational) table argument is particularly useful. However, given the TU/GE threat analysis, it does seem remarkable that those southernmost beaches would remain machinegunless.

George Davidson, an MO with 89 Fd Amb aboard the RIVER CLYDE, upadting his diary on 26th Apr, wrote about the Clyde's approach, ". . . . they [barges towed by the Clyde] grounded too soon, then broke away from each other. The men then had to get ashore in open boats manned by the marines we had on board. This was at once pushed on, boat after boat left the ship's side for the beach, perhaps 30 yards off, terrific machine-gun fire sweeping each boat." ("The Incomparable 29th and the 'River Clyde'", George Davidson MA MD, Major RAMC, Aberdeen 1919, p 50).

So, how does that square with the theory? OK, quite probable that a 'light' unit was in situ. If it did not have MGs on establishment, then might not the TU regimental/divisional have arranged for MGs to be placed ubder operational control of the deployed unit?

Don't know when I'll next get the chance to follow up on this. I'll be back home tonight where we lost our internet connection at the end of June due to technical problems. Will catch up whenever I can get on the Community PC.

Good luck. Thanks a lot, Bill and Serpil, for your hospitality, enthusiasm, eagerness to share knowledge, and generosity. Sorry to have missed you, Eric. Kenan must have thought you were talking about Chris Pugsley (great shame he wasn't able to accompany us - good luck to his future venture).

Good bye Gallipoli, for another year or two.

Chris

Whilst I can't comment on the Machine Gun debate I just thought I would post that if anyone is intrested this is a story I did for my webpage by a Sgt Reginald Bell of the 15th Bedfordshire Regiment, about his time in Gallipoli. The story was given to a reporter of what was my local towns newspaper in 1915, when the Sgt was recovering at the Fernhill Covalescent Home.

I typed this up when I first did the site and having just looked at again realise I could have done a better job and will do so when I get a minute. However the story may still intrest some of you..I hope.... :


Arggh tried to upload story but it is too big.

The story can be read on my website which is bacuptimes.co.uk
then go to Wartime, Fernhill Military Hospital
the story is on the right hand side.

The defence of W and V beach was in the AOR of 3 Bn of 26 Rg under command of Major Mahmut. Neither his Bn nor 26 Rgt had a machine guns in the structure. His Bn took over the AOR on 23. April from an other Bn, which could have had machine guns because 25 and 27 Rgt had a machine gun Coy with 4 weapons each. it is not unlikely, that the already installed machine guns stayed in positions. But in records I found, that 4 machine guns were used in 3 Bn AOR - see also the attached map.

The German contribution with machine guns started after General Liman von Sanders asked Admiral Souchon for support and to send a Landungsabteilung. From both battleships "Goeben" and "Breslau" they formed a machinegun Coy with 44 men and 8 machineguns under command of 1st Lt Boltz. They arrived on 3rd May 1915 and after reporting at the Krithia-front "Südgruppe" HQ they were used mainly to support the left wing in the AOR of 7 Div. Because there was not enough time to change from the navy uniform they were stopped and threatend by own Turkish troops and only Major Mühlmann, Generalstaffofficer of the Südgruppe could solve the problem, when he passed by and saw the scene. This first battle was firce and the Coy lost 3 men, 7 wounded and 1 machine gun. During the attacks of 7th May the Landungsabteilung was in the trenches forward Kerevisdere and had to fight against the French troops. Boltz wrote about this attack: "In thick colomns, between 50 and 60 each, they came forward, and gave the Turkish artillery and our machine guns a full target. We mowed them down - row by row but always new colomns were send to attack. When our machine guns run out of ammunition, our soldiers took the rifles from the fallen Turkish soldiers and continued fighting. No more than five o'clock the attack was defeated. The enemy must have had terrible losses that day. The red trousers and red hats of the French soldiers were wonderful targets."
The Landungsabteilung continued on the 8 May the battle and 1st Ltn Boltz was wounded. After this week from the 44 soldiers only 7 were able to continue fighting - the rest was dead, wounded or ill.
12 May 1st Lt von Thomsen arrived with new personal and on 19 may also Boltz returned with new personel and weapons to Gallipoli. They now were used on the right flank on both banks of the Sigindere in the AOR of the 9 Div, which was under command of Col Kannengiesser. There the Landunsgabteilung again had heavy losses during the battles between 4 and 6 June. On 27 July the Landunsgabteilung was reinforced from Istanbul and had now a strength of 3 officers, 150 men an 12 machineguns. They were immedeately used in the defence of the 7 August landings, were they proved again their effectiveness but had heavy losses in particular on Hill 971.

After the withdrawel of the allied troops in January 1916 the Landungsabteilung stayed until the end of the war and secured from 5 observing posts the coastline. A special task was to show German submarines the way through the mine fields in the Dardanelles. For that reason the commander of the Landungsabteilung entered the submarine north of Kiretsch Tepe, north of Gallipoli. Then he guided the submarines around the coastline and left the boat in the bay of Maidos.

The Turkish troops used somes Vickers machine guns but mainly German build model 08/15 - also a water-cooled weapon. One original weapon from gallipoli is still in the entrance hall of the staff buildung of the 3rd Turkish Corps in Istanbul.

Germany certainly appears to have been supplying Machine guns to Turkey since at least 1908 MG08 pattern Maxims were supplied (although this does not automatically mean that they turned up at Gallipoli) Most of guns were probably a little later beong Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken supplied 7.65 MG09 pattern Maxims on tripod mountings (these were specifically manufactured for export only). During WW1 German service 7.9 Maxims were also supplied (which must have done wonders for the ammunition supply ). In 1915 a number of Dreyse Mgs were also supplied to Turkey. In addition there were still some Gatlings in service in 1914

John Walter says of Turkish machine guns "The guns were distinguished by the Toughra mark, prior to 1908, or by a star and crescent symbol. They bear makers marks, serial numbers and back sight graduations in Arabic.

I have no information that speaks directly to the question, other than when the British, later in the campaign, did the "end run" and landed north of ANZAC (Sulva Bay?), the area was only occupied by one Turkish battalion, possibly gendarmes, and that battalion had only rifles, not a single MG.

Someone has mentioned the Germans supplying the MG 08/15. Although 1915 is in the model description, I cannot recall seeing mention of a MG of this model even in the German service before 1916. I am sure that the Turks did not have them at the time of the landing, relatively early in 1915, as probably none were distributed to German forces in Germany or France at that time.

What no one has mentioned was the difficulty of supplying any sort of materiel to the Turks from Germany. When my father traveled to Gallipoli from Brandenburg, he and his companions had to turn in their uniforms, weapons, etc.; they were given a small sum of money to purchase a set of civilian clothes. They were replacements, I believe, for the German volunteer Pionier=Kompagnie that served at Gallipoli; the unit immediately suffered 80% casualties, mostly illness, and they received replacements, probably including my father; he joined the army too late to make the original deployment. I am sure that the Romanian border guards realized that the body of say 100 men, traveling together, were German soldiers, but they must have been paid off. The Romanians, although officially neutral, leant towards the Allies, and German officers complained that they had to pay larger bribes for favors than the Allies had to. (It may be non-PC to say this, but at this time Romania had a reputation for Olympic-scale corruption, and I myself have experienced border corruption in the 1970's. Stalin made a famous comment on this.)

I have heard that the Germans managed to get a few artillery shells thru hidden in sealed beer barrels supposedly traveling as a civilian export. The Turks, with German help, made satisfactory rifle ammunition, but the manufacture of shell fuzes was deficient, and I believe that Turkish shells of the period would usually fire, but were of debatable likeliness to explode at the other end. The Germans attempted to get some shells thru by submarine, but of course this only could supply a tiny number of shells.

When the Germans finally defeated the Serbs (the Austro-Hungarians having failed earlier) the way was open, but the Serbs had made a heroic effort to really destroy the rail lines thru the area, and the first Berlin to Istanbul train only got thru in February 1916, I believe. But the Central Powers finally got some materiel stuff thru earlier, I am sure with considerable effort, and in September 1915 it was managed to supply one battery of German 15 cm howitzers (four guns), which were sent to the beachhead at the tip of the penninsula, and one battery of Austrian 24 cm mortars (two guns), which were sent to ANZAC, and were seen there by my father. Additionally, some good German artillery ammunition got thru, and I have a quote somewhere by a British commander, possibly Birdwood, and possibly commented to Bean, that he was afraid that the Allies were going to be blasted off the beaches due to these new arrivals.

A lot of the above comments seem to reflect an assumption that the Germans were able to supply the Turks with lots of materiel at this phase of the war. This simply was not true. (It also has to be remembered that the Turkish Army was severely mauled in the several Balkan wars only a few years before.) When you add the fact that, I believe, that at most phases of Gallipoli the Turks were outnumbered, as well as terribly short of weapons and reliable shells, the accomplishments of the Turks in holding their own at Gallipoli against very effective Allied forces supported by heavy naval fire support is all the more remarkable.

This lack of weapons is also reflected in the information previously posted that the Turkish MG companies, if there were some, had four MGs per MG company. At this time, while German Jaeger companies had 12 MGs in a Jaeger MG company, German infantry companies has six MGs at the start of the war, but were being up-armed to 12 MGs per company. (This was the 140 pound heavy MG 08. When lighter MGs were provided the number of MGs in units tended to go up, while the MG 08s were still retained, often fired from far behind the front line with the use of telescopic sights.)

Based on the above supporting information I would doubt that the Turks had many MGs in the front lines during the opening phases of the battle. Why was it necessary to send German sailors armed with a few MGs from the armories of the Goeben and the Breslau to the front? I would bet that the Turks had less MGs than artillery pieces.

Bob Lembke

If anyone has any information on the activities of the German volunteer pioneer company at Gallipoli, please speak up. In some years of research on this (and many other WW I topics) I have only collected a few sentences of information, and this includes reading the obvious German and French sources, and an extremely painful attempt to translate a bit of Modern Turkish. The volunteer company was probably organized by Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 3 (von Rauch) from the III. Armeekorps.

My father was not wounded, but like many others contracted malaria at Gallipoli.

Bob Lembke

Hi Bob - as you said, the supply from Germany with ammo was less than poor until Serbia was beaten and the railway could be used. Anyway, the solution was to produce ammunition in Turkey.

After the battles in spring 1915 ammunition for infanterie and mainly artillery was almost finished. In this unfavourable situation Admiral Souchon recommended to the minister of war, Enver Pascha, to take care for the production and to hand over the lead of the Waffenamt to Captain Pieper. Pieper knew the weaknesses of the Turkish ammunition production and reorganized the whole production. In a couple of months from Germany 74 specialized officers (Feuerwerker), ingeneurs and chemists, 47 master craftmen and 659 spezialized workers travelled to Istanbul. The factories came all under German command and were mainly located in Istanbul and its suburbs, but also in Izmir, Eskischehir, Ismid, Tuzla, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Bagdad, Konia, Isparta, Ajasma. The number of Turkish workers in the factories rised up to 15.000 men - many women as well.
For the battles around Gallipoli those factories produced mainly rifles, rifle ammo, and artillerie ammo for the calibres between 7,5cm and 21cm. Production series were tested on a own shooting and test range. A further challenge were the production of fuzes, which fit to the trench warfare on the peninsula. The re-organization for that kind of production was also responsible for the material for ammo and weapons, the material for the Nitrier-process for the powder but also the machines and coal for the factories.
For the close battle of the trench warfare the factories produced special weapons. The documents are shows rockets.."which heads were filled with ingredienz to produce venomous gases.." - it would be interesting, if those weapons were really used in Gallipoli?
Further they build bombs in calibre 3,8 and 5cm, several hundret minethrouwers for calibre 8,5 and different ammo also with gasmines, fire- and shrapnell mines, heavy bombthrouwers, which were able to fire 50kg bombs, which could fire arond 800m, mortars and handgrenades.

For that reson ammunition was not a real problem, even if the quality of this products was not always like required...
I read a very detailed report about this work in the German Military Archiv in Freiburg as well as the memories of Capt Pieper.

Capt Pieper came begin 1915 to Istanbul because he was accused for being responsible of the sinking of the battleship "York". The time in Turkey saved him to continue his time in a military prison. First nobody wanted to have him in his staff - neither Souchon nor von Usedom. After his success the German Kaiser Wilhelm II stated 8. Dec 1915: "in acknowledgement of his outstanding duties in the weapon and ammunition production in Turkey, which contributed significantely to the victory of the Turkish forces, I reprieve him and he must not finish his detainment as stated in the judgement of the military court from 28. Dec 1914."

Hi, El Shahin;

I had heard of Captain Pieper but not so much interesting detail. I had not known that the operation was so big. Are Capt. Pieper's memoirs in book form, or did you find them in manuscript form or in an archive? Does it have a title? Could you suggest other possible sources on the freiwilliger Pionier=Kompagnie? I have, of course, read Liman von Sanders and Kannengiesser.

I have seen several estimates of how many Turkish-produced shells exploded when expected, and they vary, but clearly there was a real problem. Producing good fuzes is not an easy process.

My grand-father was a Feuerwerk=Hauptmann, retired as a Major a. D..

Bob Lembke

I was NOT refering to the Mg 08/15 but the earlier Maschinengewehr Modell 1909 which was itself the export version of the Maschinengewehr Modell 1908 (MG08) Numbers of these were sold privately to Bulgaria, China, Roumania and Turkey before the outbrak of war (so no transport problems - put 'em on a ship and sail them there) How many Turkey bought (and what was done with them) remains unclear but John Walters in 'Central Powers' Small Arms of WW1' suggests that "sales were good"

These two links may be of use - the first takes you to a site with a photo of a Turkish Machine Gun position, gun and gunner captured by the Australians at Galipolli whilt the second has a photo of a crest on a Turkish machine gun capured at ditto
http://www.diggerz.org/~anzacs/id285.htm

http://cas.awm.gov.au/PROD/cst.acct_master...r&bos=Win32

centurion, your second link doesn't work. It points to a timed out session at the AWM. The crest you're referring to is the photo numbered H02301 at the AWM. Anyone wanting to see it, just copy the number into the search field on the AWM website.

Centurion, I did say that "someone" mentioned that the Germans supplied the Turks with MG 08/15, not that you did, in your interesting information. I looked thru and indeed someone did say that. Due to the topic of the thread, this could be taken to imply that the Turks at Gallipoli had MG 08/15. I thought it was useful to point out that this was, IMHO, impossible, at that point in time. But quite likely this model was supplied later.

Bob Lembke

Try this one
http://nla.gov.au/nla.cs-pa-HTTP%253A%252F...TYPE%253DBOTTOM

The crest does not look German to me. This would imply that this was a gun made for the Turks and therefore probably one of the pre war imports. This would mean that either the Turks did have guns at Gallipoli at the begining or thay had the guns available but did not deploy them until after the landing (which would seem a very odd way of doing things and not what one would expect from General Kemal)

Certainly not German, almost certainly Turkish. The lower of the two roundelles contains an Arabic letter or short word written in a decorative, cursive style; Ottoman Turkish was of course written in the Arabic alphabet, although that alphabet is quite ill-suited to represent Turkish, a much more complicated language. Turkish has, amazingly, been written in about 8 or 10 alphabets. Can't help with what it says; I have a bit of spoken Arabic in four dialects (but not Iraq Arabic - amazingly the US Army wrote me asking that I sign up as a translator and ship out to Iraq; as my father fought at Gallipoli, you figure out how old I must be), but my wife does not have a word of vocabilary but has a fair grasp of the alphabet. We each only have a miniscule bit of spoken Turkish. I have a tenant, a young lady Ph.D., who has four dialects down very well, as well as other languages. I have repeatedly avocated that the Pals should get together and identify and pay some young or old Turks to do translations from Ottoman Turkish, many Pals seem to be interested. We will do ourselves a favor if we help organizing and supporting this exotic skill. There are 14 universities in Istanbul.

I doubt that a war-time supplied MG would have such an elaborate stamp; it looks like its complexity is equal to the task of making the MG!

The MG in the other link photo is, 99% sure, a MG 08 or a close derivative, like the export model you mentioned, based on the MG 08.

Bob Lembke

I wonder if this is the Toughra mark that John Walter states was used on machine guns Germany supplied to Turkey prior to 1908? After that he says that the guns had a star and crescent symbol. It certainly looks as if Turkey did have machine guns availble at the start of the Gallipoli campaign. Any that were pre 1908 would presumably be MG03s, somewhat heavier than the MG08 (basically a licence built Vickers Maxim)

I will provide some photos from Turkish machine guns after I return from Istanbul mid July. I will take some detailed pictures in the HQ of 3rd TU Corps as well in the Turkish army museum in Harbiye/Istanbul. I am not sure how many machine guns were supplied by Germany before 1914.

In 1906 the Ottoman government wanted to buy 50 machine guns from France, which was cancelled by the intervention from the German ambassador. Those 50 machine guns were supplied but in the same year the ottomans ordered 70 machine guns from France. I have many information about the supply of guns and rifles but couldn't find any lists of numbers and typs of German machine guns so far.

Bob, the information about Capt. Pieper is just from the military archiv - as far as I know, there is no book about him and his work. Would be a nice research to bring all the facts together.

The attached picture is from the Landungsabteilung - a machine gun crew and two officers at Gallipoli - unfortunately the gun is just a shadow behind the bush.

Hi Folks, Thankyou for the information on the German Naval MG Detachments that fought at Gallipoli.

I've just read by JH Patterson (CO of the Zionist Mule Corps) "With the Zionists in Gallipoli" and taking a paragraph from page 201:

"Among the prisoners taken in one of these battles were some German sailors from the Goeben, who had been working the machine-guns. When taken they had no more ammunition left, their officer and many others had been killed, and their position was quite hopeless, so they gladly surrendered. They looked crestfallen and sullen when Isaw them as prisoners on their way to the beach."

God Bless

Helen

It should be noted that the British soldiers landing on the beaches would not have been the first to confuse high volumes of aimed rifle fire as coming from machine guns. The same interpretation was made by the Germans who came under fire from the BEF in 1914.

Robert

The citations for the LF VCs refers to the MG fire, but, as Robert says, it could have been mistaken:-

Bravery: 25 April 1915.
On the 25th of April 1915, three Companies and the Headquarters of the 1st Battn. Lancashire Fusiliers,
in effecting a landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula to the west of Cape Helles, were met by very deadly fire
from hidden machine guns which caused a great number of casualties. The survivors, however, rushed up
to and cut the wire entanglements, notwithstanding the terrific fire from the enemy, and
after overcoming supreme difficulties, the cliffs were gained and the position maintained.
Amongst the very gallant officers and men engaged in this most hazardous undertaking,
Capt. Willis, Sergt. Richards and Private Keneally have been selected by their comrades
as having performed the most signal acts of bravery and devotion to duty.'

There are various mentions of machine guns in the Turkish account
see 'A Brief History of the Canakkale Campaign' published the Turkish General Staff, 2004

for example, page 110

d. The plan of the 9th Division for the night of April 25-26 and Attack Attempts on Various Landing Sites

Halil Sami, the Commander of the 9th Division, prepared a different and new plan for the 25-26 night attack.
According to the plan, the reserve regiment (most of the 25th Regiment) was to be divided in three:
1. Two companies from the 1st Battalion of the 25th Regiment with two heavy machine gun companies are to be reinforced to the 3rd Battalion in Zigindere and destroy the English in the region with a night attack.
2. The other half of the 1st Battalion with a machine gun company is to be under the battalion commander positioned in Seddulbahir sector, and attack English units with the 3rd Battalion of the 26th Regiment.
3. the 2nd Battalion of the 25th Regiment is to be divided in two. First of them (two companies) is to be under the command of battalion commander move to Eskihisarlik and teaming up with the 8th Comapny is to attack and destroy the English forces at night.

also see

page 111

The English Historians evaluate this battle ['Y' Beach] as:
"Planned well. Began in an opportune way. Well commanded and led. Zelilane finished"
General Hamilton tried to justify the defeat with unreal expressions such as: "The Turkish outnumbered our units and got continuous reserves..."
He was mistaken in this matter. The historical fact is an English brigade of two and a half battalions was landed in the region. The 4th English Fleet supported the brigade.
However a total of one and a half battalion with two machine guns was able to defeat the English forces.
On the other side two companies sent for reinforcing the 3rd Battalion of the 26th Regiment comprised one team and two heavy machine guns. This force was positioned in the north of Harapkale

Major Mahmut Sabri the brave and energetic commander of the Seddulbahir defense decided for a night attack at 0330 despite the insufficient reserves.
The attack plan was:
1…..
2…..
3 The 3rd Battalion positioned in Teke bay ridges-Aytepe and 9th Company units are to join the attack. The units of the 11th Company are to attack the side and rear flanks of Aytepe and the heavy machine gun team are to support the attack."


Still wishing I had more time for this
With regrets
Michael

I think that the answer is that the Turks had a few MGs. I read the same Brief History ---- a few weeks ago; either there or somewhere else I got the idea that a Turkish "machine gun company" had no more than four MGs, possibly only two. At this time German MG companies had six, soon to go up to 12. This indicates an army with few MGs. Prior discussion had the Turks placing an order of 60 MGs for their entire army. Also remember that the Turkish Army had been badly torn up only a few years before, in the Balkan Wars. And it was hard for the Germans to get anything thru to the Turks; they even attempted to bring artillery ammunition in the few tiny submarines they had in the theatre.

When the British landed to the north of ANZAC they initially were opposed by a single gendarmarie battalion, which only had rifles, not a single MG.

Bob Lembke

05.00 hrs 25th April
"By then the Turks estimate 4000 Anzac's are already ashore. The task of containing them was shouldered by the 2nd and 3rd platoons of the 4th company with a maximum of 160 rifles and not a single machine gun."

Gallipoli 1915 Day One Plus. 27th Ottoman Inf. Regt. vs. Anzac Based on account of Lt.Col. Sefik Aker, Commander of the 27th. Inf. Regt.
by H.B. Danisman
ISBN 978-9944-264-04-4 1st Edition 2007

Every Australian and New Zealand battalion history of every unit that landed on 25th April, and the British, Australian and New Zealand official histories, as well as a French account of their landing at Kum Kale, mention the presence of Turkish machine-guns on the first day.

The British history even notes that Turkish sources do not 'admit' the presence of machine-guns, but that they were certainly there.

Bryn is very correct in his statement with respect to NZ battalions on Gallipoli - I've also found lots of references in individual dairies and even specific mention re wounds caused by Turkish MG's as opposed to rifle, shrapnel etc. I would think that troops "ears" would be well tuned to the difference between MG fire and other types of fire. The question remains though where exactly were Turkish MG's situated on Gallipoli?

Zack

How to reconcile the machine-gun debate? From what I read here Turkish sources deny there were MG's, but, as Bryn points out, Allied forces were convinced they were facing MG's. In my area of research - the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance - MG's firing on North Beach on the morning of April 25th is a given. Nearly every account of the landing from this unit mentions two MG's - one firing from the north (in the direction of Fisherman's Hut) and the other from somewhere in front (Walker's Ridge) or to the right (Ari Burnu). C Section of the 3rd FAmb, landing on the extreme left of the 3rd Brigade, had one man hit on the way to the beach (a sailor was also killed) but, in the seconds between the boat grounding and emptying, 13 men were hit. I have always concluded, from the available information, that a machine-gun fired into the boat/onto the disembarking men. The alternative is a group of Turkish riflemen, in concert, suddenly bringing to bear an accurate rifle fire on this party (minimum of 7 rifles firing twice and hitting with every shot), which, given the range of targets available to the Turks at this point, always seemed unlikely.

The men of the 3rd Field Ambulance believed they faced MG's at the Landing, and any account of their experience on April 25th must take into account this perception. The question is - in reconstructing the landing of the 3rd Field Ambulance - am I entitled to believe in the MG's existence?

Good on you,

Grant

Grant notes that diaries and other accounts also mention the presence of MGs at Gallipoli on 25th April. The references are so numerous they're easy to locate. Here's one referring to the 10th Battalion on 25th April. Note it refers to 'bursts' of fire and also that the word 'gun' is here used in its correct military form to mean either a machine gun or artillery piece (and in this case, an MG), but specifically NOT a rifle:

' A Maxim commenced to enfilade us from the left. At every burst men stopped lead.
Behind was a Maxim worked by Lieut. Talbot Smith. It was right in the open. Every time the enfilading Turk gun opened this maxim opened on it with a throaty roar. Talbot Smith died at the gun. Others took post and fired for minutes or seconds, until death took them. Soon a ring of dead surrounded the gun. At last it ceased to bay.' (Mitchell, Capt. (Cpl at Landing) G.D. MItchell MC DCM 'The Anzac Landing' Reveille Vol. 8 No. 9; 1 May 1935).

As Zack implies, soldiers could tell the difference between the sound of a rifle and the 'clubbing' sound of a Maxim machine gun. Anybody who has served any time in the army will tell you that different weapons produce distinctive noises. Someone with experience can tell not only what type of weapon is firing, but even what model. An AK-47 sounds much different to an M-16, and a GPMG M-60 sounds radically different to a Bren, as does a Mauser rifle to a Maxim, and so on. Brigadier-General Hare was certain that, during the landing at W Beach, two machine-guns were firing from the right flank when he landed, and Turkish sources state two operational Maxims were at V Beach at the time of the landing (British Official History Vol 1 p221).

The Quote applies only to the 2nd and 3rd platoons and these platoons were almost annihilated by the Anzac forces.
The 27th Battalion were not equipped with machine guns, they were armed with bolt action mausers which took five round clips. In every squad there was one man with two grenades.
A company of machine gunners was under direct operational orders of the regimental commander.The 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 27th Regiment reach a point at which they could run into Anzacs by 8.00 hours.


With out breaching copyright, that is all I can put up, but although there were machine guns later, having been marched up from Maydos, (The 27th Regiment began using their MG's on Hill 165 at approx. 8am.)
it appears from Col. Sefik Aker, that initially in the very early hours, there were no MG's attached to the 2nd and 3rd Platoons.
This source does admit to the machine guns. It is merely saying that the two platoons at Ari Burnu did not have MG's at that time of the morning, but Captain Faik reported MG fire from small ships off the beach.
It really is interesting reading.
Cheers
Kim

Mates,

Of cause we had a simular discussion on the LH site about the use of MG's by the Turks at Magdhaba.

All Anzac reports mention being under MG fire but when the redoubts were taken only one MG was even found.

Did that gun travel the battlefield shooting at everyone?

Turkish offical reports mention that there was no MG's at Magdhaba as the MG company of the 80th Regt was with the 1stBn/80th Regt near Rafa although later documents show this MG company as only a platoon.

So its possible there was one platoon of MG's at this battle of which only one of the two guns were found/captured. And as to the MG fire which all record clearly that was incorrect and mistook rifle fire for MG fire other then in the one redoubt where that gun was captured.

Could that have happened at Anzac and Helles, well thats always possible concidering the troops were new to battle, they were very exusted, they were mixed up and never understoond the tactics the turks were using against them, but above all they were afraid and the shock of battle was heavy on most of them.

S.B

I guess it comes down to what you consider the debate to be. If the statement is that no Turkish units at Gallipoli on 25th April had MGs, then it's easily disputed. If it's that they didn't arrive till a certain time, that's another matter. The Anzac sector is made up of many different areas which are invisible to each other. What was happening in one may not have been happening in another, and when we include the seven separate landing places at Helles and Kum Kale, where the French landed, it gets more and more complicated.

As to the Anzac trroops being 'exhausted', that would have been some units and later in the day, but reinforcements were landing all day and night. Every account that states MGs opposed them cannot be wrong, but it has to be kept in mind that 'the Landing' was not a point-in-time. It didn't begin and end at 4:30am. It extended over the entire day, and when writers refer to the Landing, they may be referring to any time during the day.

I think that it is clear that the Turks had very few MGs at any time, and certainly on the opening days. It is entirely possible that entire Turkish divisions, at least on other fronts, did not have any. Certainly, with an attack immenent on this critical point, Liman von Sanders would have moved heaven and hell to get as many of these critical weapons to this front. It seems that his tactics were to keep reserves, not to put all his resources on the many threatened beaches, so certainly some of his MGs must have been held in reserve, but there certainly were only a few.

Why did the Germans strip MGs from the Goeben and Breslau and have valuable officers and sailors go to Gallipoli to provide MG support? Some buddy-buddy feel-good solidarity measure? Probably not, probably a desperate shortage. The Germans probably wanted their MGs back, and if they just handed them over to the Turkish Army it would not be reasonable to expect them to be sent back in a month or two by Fed Express. The Turks had no shortage of brave men to serve these valuable weapons.

Byrn correctly mentioned how experienced troops can tell one MG from another by sound. (In WW II the Americans were so concerned about the morale effect of the sound of the German MG 42, based on an astonishingly high cyclical rate, that they made a movie to show to US infantry to try to convince them that it was an over-rated weapon.) I have large gaps in my knowledge of Gallipoli. The ANZAC forces were clearly fine troops, but had they been in combat before?

A personal note related to Gallipoli. I am selling a small apartment building, sale should be complete next week. I had "shown" it about 45 times without success, and a new person drove up one day. He is a young (27?) Turk who I actually knew. We both laughed, he walked thru part of the building and said: "I will buy it, I have not seen the whole building, but I trust your description of it and its condition. I will waive all inspections and conditions, and I am going to pay you $50,000 more than I planned to spend." And he has done everything to allow this complicated deal to work, to make every accomodation.

He knew, from prior conversations in his sister's wonderful Turkish restaurant, that in 1915 my father had volunteered to travel to Turkey and fight with the Turkish Army, and he knew that my father had run guns to the Turkish Army ca. 1922 when the Greeks were driving deep into Turkey and no one in the Christian world would sell the Turks a pencil, never mind guns. This young Turk is sophisticated, I think he was doing graduate work in mathematics in New York when his sister lured him to Philadelphia to build her restaurant. Interesting that I am now receiving a significant benefit in part based on my father's service at Gallipoli 92 years ago.

Bob Lembke

Another quote from the Turkish GS's 'A Brief History...'
see page 128

"There were also many casualties, especially many officers were lost.
As a matter of fact the statements in the received report from lieutenant colonel Halil, the commander of the Regiment in the morning of May 2, are really interesting.
'As the soldiers of the regiment interweaved within other units, only 150 soldiers could be collected from the regiment. We learned that the battalion commander were injured and had to retreat. There is an officer left in the 1st battalion of the regiment and two officers were left in the other battalion. the commanders of the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and 12th units are killed. What happened to other officers could not be detected yet. It is said that some of the officers are within units of the 19th regiment. We have not been able to supply sufficient water and food to our units at the first line for two nights. All the ammunition carriers were shot down. I will be next to the frontier, our hinge, with my 150 soldiers at hand until I receive your new instructions. The Beyoglu Gendarmerie Battalion reached for reinforcement and there are no changes in the situation. A part of our machine gun troops have not been taken back yet. The enemy is dreading thus they confine themselves to fire battles. As I put forward before, I am in the opinion that the enemy soldiers have not the power and will to march forward.'"

The pattern, or style if you will, which I find to emerge from this writing is that while the Turkish historian makes several references to Allied machine guns/fire in his text, he only mentions his own machine guns in direct quotes eg. in the texts of Turkish orders or reports.

As I said, this may be nothing more than a question of the writer's style or perhaps even the translation. But, having direct quotes from Turkish orders and reports which mention machine guns, means (to me at least) that the Turkish army had machine guns and used them at Gallipoli

What I feel has yet to be decided, is to what extent the absence of machine guns from the general text can be read as there not being used/available at that point?

I am inclined to believe as they are mentioned in Turkish orders and reports, then they were more widely available to the Turkish army than is suggested by the absence of their mention in the general text. On this basis and without further evidence, I feel that because they are not mentioned at a particular point, then it would be a dangerous to presume that they were not there. The next question is, from where do we draw that 'further evidence'?



regards
Michael

Bob,

Yes the Anzac troops were all new to battle none save the odd soldier who served in the Boer War seen any active service for 13-15 years.

Many Anzac officers and soldiers had milita training (like your national guard) and had been in the Milita for many years and did know the noise of a maxim.

But as Bryn mentions when did this MG fire appear, as all Anzac records are different as to the time the troops arrived on the beach and when they saw or heard it.

The only problem with this idea is that at Anazc the troops were new to battle and understood what they were hearing while at Magdhaba the Anzac Troops were vetern's from the NZ mounted Rifles and ALH and draw the same conclusion.

If these veterns at Magdhaba could make that mistake why couldn't inexpirenced troops at Anzac?

What is interesting about the Maghdaba battle was when the histories of that battle were recorded the maps used changed to reflect what the troops fought not what was on the ground. That is clear when a look at the British Offical history is compared to the NZMR History and the Australian Offical History, the former has five redoubts while the later two histories has six and seven redoubts?

Why did they need to add two more redoubts when there original map drawn after the battle has five?

I think it was to fit in what the units were reporting.

S.B

Trying to summarize, it seems from a variety of types of information that the Turks seem to have had a small number of MGs at the beaches, but not more than a few. (Wasn't one, but only one, captured by ANZAC forces on the first day? As an area of (?) several square miles were taken, and I am sure that several Turkish units must have been almost entirely wiped out, that suggests some, but just a few MGs present on the first day.)

Wasn't the standard UK MG of the period (the Vickers?) actually a Maxim? Wouldn't they sound quite a lot alike? Weren't most of the rifle and MG cartriges fired on both sides much the same in form, ballistics, and hence sound? Men in a terribly fierce combat, a totally new experience to the vast proportion of men, and quite different to most Boer War engagements experienced 15 years before by a few of the men. Men receiving, for the first time in their lives, a great volume of small-arms fire, and hearing occasional bursts of MG fire, would be likely to associate the two.

It seems that, if in fact almost all of the ANZAC accounts of the first day report receiving a good deal of MG fire from the Turks, then many of them were mistaken, it would seem.

The very complex topography of the ANZAC terrain, steep hills, gullies, etc, of a particularly stony and not heavily vegitated landscape, would have the sounds of firing bouncing and echoing all over the place, making the seemingly perceived direction of the sources of received fire very uncertain and often deceiving.

Was the MG that the ANZACs brought ashore very similar in mechanics and ballistics to the German Maxim? The Turks bought weapons from a large variety of sources. I have visited the Askeri Mueze (Military Museum) in Istanbul on three different visits to that city, and recall seeing a lot of very odd MGs, things that I have never seen or even heard of, largely brass MGs, etc., from that period. I know that the Turks scoured their museums of the period for antique crew-served weapons to rush to the front, artillery firing stone balls, etc. Who knows what sort of MGs were the Turks actually using? Do I remember seeing a Gatling Gun at the Askeri Mueze ?

How many MGs did the ANZACs bring ashore on the first day?

Bob Lembke

Hi

Tosun posted this on AHF:

Col. Şefik Aker "Çanakkale-Arıburnu Savaşları ve 27 nci Alay" ( Gallipoli-Arıbunu Battles and 27th Inf. Regt.)

Lt. Col. Şefik Bey commanded the 27th Regt. during the first day of landing.

"The battalions had no MGs. Each Regt. had a MG Company with 4 Maxims. There were no spare parts. They worked very well at the day of landing on April 25th 1915. Later we had spare parts problems. 4 of them became useless."


Regards
Peter

Pom-Poms also encountered at Gallipoli

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=113676


Normally a fortress defensive weapon in a fixed static role but as the discussion indicates " 2 Nordenfelt(25mm) guns were used against the Anzacs in the first day of the landing,and the other two of the guns were used in Helles.."


Regards
Peter

There was a 'pom pom' on the Gaba Tepe headland south of the Anzac sector. It killed 2nd Lieutenant Thompson, of the 11th Battalion AIF, on the beach there, on 4 May 1915.

As for weapons sounding the same, the Anzacs were not quite so inexperienced that they couldn't tell when something was being fired at them. Anyone who's ever been in the 'butts' on a rifle / machine gun range, or otherwise been on the receiving end of bullets, can tell when the weapon is pointing towards them, no matter how inexperienced they may be.

The Admiralty Report on the landings at Kum Kale and Sedulbahr on the 26th February 1915 mentions "four Nordenfelt cannons--were destroyed".

It seems that the River Clyde on V Beach was subject to pom-pom fire,mistaken for machine gun fire.This did the greatest slaughter on the gangway down.

An article by a Turkish officer in the 'Turkish Military Review' of Oct 1926 states that the Turks had 4 old-pattern Maxims at V Beach on 25th April. Two were disabled in the bombardment. They also had two pom-poms at V Beach. (British Official History p221).

Thanks Bryn.

Another source I have(article by Alan Wykes in Purnell's History of the First World War,1970) infers that the 4 maxims were brought up later in the morning and did not cause the initial slaughter on the River Clyde.No source is given for this conclusion.

Regards
Peter

Hi Folks

I've been very interested in the number of comments on Turkish MGs at Gallipoli.

For what its worth I've been reading "Cobbers" Stories of Gallipoli 1915 based on recollections of veterans sharing their stories by Jim Haynes.

Now reading the chapter on "Heroes of Gallipoli" by Oliver Hogue ('Trooper Bluegum') he recalls a Sergeant Burne, 9th battalion tackling a machine gun on a hill with two of his lads. It seems the sergeant and the two soldiers took the position taking on ten Turks. There was also a German Officer working the MG. This was on the initial landing and after losing his Lieutenant.

Anyway can anyone verifly this story as being true.

Thankyou.

God Bless

Helen

Helen, is there a time mentioned, and a name of the hill, in this account?

Cheers
Kim

Helen;

Without knowing any specifics, I think that the odds are very strong that this story is fanciful.

The lesser evidence is the likelyhood of three soldiers rushing ten Turks, one German officer, and a MG, and (I imagine) successfully overcoming them. As we have generally established, the Turks had, at the most, only a few MGs on this front on Day One. They would have been very carefully sited and protected, and not put in a position where three men could rush them and take the MG.

I also have to point out that the Turks fought with enormous valor, and fiercely, and three men with bolt action rifles and bayonets would mostly have come to a bad end rushing these opponents and a MG. Possible, but not likely.

The most conclusive evidence was that, in the Turkish infantry at that time and place, it was almost certain that there were no German officers posted at a level below regimental HQs, and quite likely generally below the level of the division. I do think that there were some elite mobile artillery batteries assigned to move about and shell the Allied warships that had a German battery commander. I am almost positive that there were no German officers with the front-line troops, unless possibly one was visiting for some sort of inspection and got caught in the onslaught. German officers did not man MGs in the German Army, and it is very unlikely that one would in the Turkish Army. Even the commander of a German machine gun, a low-ranking NCO, did not "man" the gun, but positioned himself to the side with binoculars and directed his team.

Weeks or months later a few German machine gun units, formed from the German crews of the Goeben and the Breslau, showed up, but not at this date.

Also, a Turkish MG company had four, or possibly only two guns per company. Even if the only defenders were the men of the MG company, they would have had more than ten defenders.

I think your guy was spinning a tale.

Bob Lembke