LAND AND iS^ATER, 
July 10, 1915. 
It is difficult to see what other motive he could 
have had, for although the eradual advance of the 
Allied attack must be checked if it is not to suc- 
ceed yet to throw away such great masses or 
men'and to deliver an assault pushed so desper- 
ately home, and yet failing, means something 
more than that. 
We must clearly appreciate that the enemy 
lost in four full days and a portion of the faith 
half as manv men. as the total casualties upon our 
Bide during "all the operations from the beginning 
RVe mav count our casualties now at somewtiat 
over 40^000. His, in this one attack, are some- 
what over 20,000, and I say that these figures and 
the character of such an operation does look as 
though he were getting nervous upon the steadi- 
ness and rate of his supply and desired to settle 
matters as quickly as possible. 
It is justly remarked in all experiences of 
this kind that our estimates of enemy losses can 
never be perfectly accurato, and that we are 
always inclined to take our desires for realities 
But there are circumstances in this case which 
warrant our accepting the exactitude o± the 
figures given beyond the ordinary. 
In the first place the area over which the esti- 
mate must be made is restricted. It is a line a 
little over three miles altogether. In the second 
place the width of the belt over which the casual- 
ties must be measured is limited. From the Allied 
front to the very top of the ridge of Achi Baba 
is barely 3,000 vards range at the narrowest, it 
as much on the" left, and aU the heavy fighting 
took place quite on the edge of even that narrow 
belt. In the third place there was an advance over 
much of the ground where the fighting had taken 
place, so that the results of the British and Allied 
fire upon the enemy's troops could in a large 
measure be ascertained by direct evidence from 
the numbering of the dead left behind. Again, 
the ground lifts upwards everywhere in front of 
the Allied trenches towards the Achi Baba ridge 
and therefore the effect of the fire is under more 
or less direct observation whenever that effect is 
taken upon open ground. Further, we have from 
the General Officer in Command of the whole ex- 
pedition the phrase : "After checking and counter- 
. checking reports from all sources, I put down 
their total casualties at 5,150 killed and 15,000 
wounded." And he goes on to say what is valu- 
able to the comprehension of the calculation : 
•" The number of killed is approximately correct, 
while the number of wounded is an estimate based 
partly on the knowledge of the number already 
reported alive at Constantinople and on experi- 
ence of proportion of wounded to killed in 
previous engagements." 
It is not an over-estimate at all. It is much 
more likely an underestimate to have a multiple 
of less than three for wounded to killed even in 
8uch very close fighting as this. 
Now the second point, the proportion of 
ienemy loss, flows directly from the above. We do 
not know, of course, the exact numbers which the 
enemy has behind his deployment upon the slope 
of the Achi Baba ridge, still less do we know his 
rate of recruitment. But if we estimate his loss 
during this one engagement at an eighth or ninth 
of the men whom he had actually present upon 
Ihe Peninsula we probably should not be far 
wrong; and that is a heavy blow. 
FinaUy, we must consider the gain in actual 
ground and in position which the action means. 
Adit Baba, 
o Yards tooo 20co 3ooo 
V „ _ ■ 1 — ' V- 
Our great difficulties in the Gallipoli fighting 
have two sources. First, the great strength of the 
Achi Baba position, which is a ridge running 
right across the narrow width of the Peninsula 
from M to N, with its highest points about 730 
feet above the sea at the Achi Baba peak, its 
lowest in the saddle, 250 feet lower, in front of 
Krithia, at O, and either end, at M and N, repos- 
ing upon very precipitous ground which falls 
directly upon the water. 
Secondly, the veiy cramped limits to which 
the landing force has been confined. The ground 
occupied by the Allied troops at the end of the 
Peninsula — ground to which they were pinned 
after the fluctuating fighting of the first two days, 
is hardly eight square miles. It is only just over 
three miles broad at its broadest, and hardly three 
miles long at its longest, tapering down to the 
ridge at the very end of the Peninsula, in the 
intervals of which the landing beaches are 
situated. The whole of it is under direct shell fire 
from the enemy batteries upon the heights, and 
to that we owe not only the very heavy rate of 
casualties, but the impossibility of sufficiently 
screening even the hospitals and the posts of 
central command. Everything is equally in peril, 
and nothing has been more remarkable than the 
proportion of casualties among those who would, 
if it were possible, be put behind the zone of 
immediate fire. 
In this difficult and highly confined space the 
chief features are as follows : 
First, at the extreme end of the Peninsula, 
high ground, running more or less in a ridge from 
X toY. Then behind that a broadish valley, steeper 
upon the west than upon the eastern side, and 
scooped out of land which continually rises north- 
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