ge proper but some of the hills commanding its left flank. Here
Hill 70 and Hill 112 were the major positions, and on August 21, 1915,
the British troops moved out in an effort to capture them.

A portion of the British troops succeeded in reaching the top of Hill
70. There, however, they were greeted by a terrible fire from a
battery concealed on Hill 112 and forced to fall back, first to the
lower slopes of the hill and then, when the fire slackened, to their
original intrenched positions.

Even less success was enjoyed by the troops making the assault upon
Hill 112. The Turkish artillery poured a curtain of fire among the
shrubs at the foot of the hill which effectively prevented the
proposed advance. Farther to the south at the same time the
Australians were attacking Hill 60 of the Sari Bair group and
succeeded in driving the Turkish defenders from its crest.

PART VIII--AGGRESSIVE TURKISH CAMPAIGN AT DARDANELLES

CHAPTER XLII

SARI BAIR--PARTIAL WITHDRAWAL OF ALLIES

Thus practically ended the Suvla Bay operation and its supporting
movements. Much had been expected of it and, by the barest margin, in
the opinion of many competent military men, great results had been
missed. Just what ultimate effect its success in this operation would
have had on the Gallipoli campaign, on the position of Turkey in the
war and, finally, upon the course of the war as a whole, it is
obviously impossible to say. There are those who claim that the
capture of Constantinople would have brought the struggle to a quick
and disastrous end from the viewpoint of the Central Powers. There are
others, equally entitled by experience and knowledge to speak, who
claim that it would have had no appreciable influence on the final
result. And there is a third body of critics of opinion that the
capture of Constantinople would have been a disaster for the Allies,
inasmuch as it would have opened up vast questions of age-long
standing that would have led to wide dissension between England,
Russia, and France.

There is another and no less interesting phase of the Suvla Bay
operation that will one day be studied with care. In this crucial
attack a reliance was placed upon raw troops who had seen little or no
actual fighting. It was, in a way, an attempt to prove that patriotic
youths, rallying to the colors at their country's need, although
without previous training, could in a few months be made more than a
match for the obligat