ous ruses to try and draw him in this way. For
instance, in the end of August, on receiving news of Italy's declaration
of war on Turkey, orders were sent to the front line that at a certain
hour during the night, all troops would cheer, to give the Turk the
impression that we were going to attack. Of course this immediately
started an outburst from the Turkish lines; rifles, machine-guns and a
proportion of the Turkish artillery all joined in. To say the least of
it, it was uncomfortable in the trenches, but few casualties occurred
there. Most of the damage, which in reality was very small, took place
well behind our lines, as the Turk on these occasions always fired high,
and we came to the conclusion that they must stand on the floor of the
trench, with their rifles pointing upwards over the parapet, firing as
hard as they could. It certainly had the advantage of disclosing Turkish
machine-gun positions, and we were able, with the help of the artillery,
if not to destroy the machine-gun, at least make it move to another part
of the trench.

[Illustration: GALLIPOLI

BATTLE OF 12th JULY, 1915]

Again, on receiving news of a big advance in France, we carried out a
similar plan to annoy the Turk. This time our artillery joined in, each
battery firing a salute of twenty-one guns on selected objectives. This
again very successfully drew the Turk, and probably he was never quite
certain of our intentions, and may have formed the opinion that our
infantry was unwilling to attack, an opinion which we formed of him
later on with justification.

The ships which were lying off Cape Helles occasionally carried out
minor bombardments. It was very interesting to watch the effect of their
shells bursting when they got a direct hit on the Turkish lines, as of
course we had no land guns of such heavy calibre. The ships were
perfectly safe from any reply the Turkish artillery cared to make and we
in the front line had to suffer for the navy's demonstration. No one
really objected to this, although there was a lot of "grousing," because
we were glad to feel that we had the support of these big guns, which
must have harassed the enemy tremendously.

The people that annoyed us most of all, however, were the trench mortar
companies, who lived in comparative comfort in substantial dug-outs
behind the front line. A detachment of these people would frequently
visit our trenches, take up a position and proceed to bombard the
enemy's lin