Why Chemical Warfare was not used at Gallipoli.

While not strictly a matter for inclusion in an account of extemporised weapons, it is convenient, as far as Gallipoli is concerned, to deal with their experience of chemical warfare here. With the benefit of hindsight, we can assess the danger of the Allied troops being driven into the sea by a gas attack as practically non-existent. Chemical warfare was in its infancy in 1915, having only been employed by the Germans on a limited scale, using one delivery system, liquefied chlorine gas from cylinders, and even this simple technique, if it was to be operated in relative safety, required several hundred highly trained specialists, none of whom existed in the Ottoman or Allied armies so, even if Sir Ian Hamilton, or General Liman von Sanders, wished to wage chemical warfare, they had neither the trained men nor equipment to do so and with little prospect of obtaining either. In other words, the technology was not up to the task, but this was a new and terrifying weapon unknown to the Allied armies on Gallipoli. With the Ottomans occupying the higher ground, we must recognise that their fears about chemical warfare were real, reinforced by a lack of knowledge of an unknown weapon against which there was no obvious defence.

Sir Ian Hamilton was apprised of the German gas attack at Ypres almost as soon as it happened but, probably believing it had no relevance to his army, it would be a month before he sent his first cable to Lord Kitchener requesting the means of protecting his troops against a Turkish gas attack, an action probably provoked more by Winston Churchill's alarmist telegram, marked Secret and Personal, to Vice-Admiral de Robeck on 15 May, rather than any reports on what the Germans were doing in Flanders. The critical phrase in Churchill's telegram was,

What do you and the General think about using poisonous gas against the Turks? The Government here have decided to use it freely against the Germans. The Turks will very likely use it against you.[1]

de Robeck showed this to Hamilton on 16 May, and a further two days before he requested the means of protecting his troops, and the munitions to retaliate if such an attack was mounted by the enemy, at the same time emphasising that he would never be the first to use gas in the region.[2] Hamilton repeated his request for chemical munitions on 7 June, and again on the 17th, adding urgency to the latter by reporting that intelligence sources had identified the arrival of German chemists in Constantinople.[3] Between these two cables, the War Office replied that no date could be given for the provision of gas, but chemical grenades were available if he required them.

The War Office did provide protective measures, dispatching 36,000 respirators and 10,000 gas helmets to Marseilles by train, and a fast French ship took them to Gallipoli.[4] With their arrival, GHQ took its first steps in issuing information to all units about the precautions against a gas attack.[5]  Gas training and drills became a daily feature of life for the troops on the Peninsula. During the morning Stand To, regular inspections were conducted to ensure that respirators and helmets were always accessible. However, practices to check that they could be fitted quickly and correctly were limited as they were easily damaged, and replacements were difficult to obtain. To ensure that soldiers took care of this new piece of personal equipment, ANZAC soldiers had to pay for the replacement if they lost or damaged their gas helmet.[6] VIII Corps appointed a staff officer to turn up, unannounced, at a unit anywhere in the Corps area to inspect their gas precautions and randomly examine individual soldiers regarding their knowledge of the Corps procedures and ability to fit their gas helmets properly.[7]

All this naturally raised awareness of the possible dangers from the enemy, and scattered throughout the War Diaries are periodic reports on the suspected use of chemicals by the enemy, and, as all are single observations, and in the absence of follow-up reports, one can only assume that the original suspicions were not confirmed by further investigation. For example, during the night of 24 November, Turkish miners broke into the main gallery of a mining operation close to Fusilier's Bluff, and soon afterwards the British miners reported gas that affected their eyes but not their lungs. However, once they blocked off the suspected source of the release, they continued to work normally. There were no casualties and, although air samples were taken for analysis, the mysterious substance was never encountered again.[8]  Then there was the mysterious case of the Turkish Officer. On 13 July, troops of the Royal Naval Division took a line of enemy trenches, capturing a Turkish officer who, on interrogation, stated that all the regiments in the front line had recently been supplied with gas bombs and the means of throwing them, as well as pumps for pumping liquid fuel. While there was no evidence that any such munitions had been used to defend the trenches during the recent attack, VIII Corps ordered a thorough search, even taking the prisoner back into the trenches to assist, and, with his help, uncovered a half-buried box of grenades that were removed and sent to GHQ for eventual transmission to England.[9] Any report on these grenades has not survived, and the incident is not referred to again by any of the units involved, suggesting that the grenades were of no particular interest.

In light of these reports alluding to the Turks resorting to the use of chemical weapons, Colonel Jackson, who Lord Kitchener had recently appointed to lead Britain's response to the gas attack at Ypres, suggested to the War Office that it send an experienced scientist to the Dardanelles to assess the situation. Of all the scientists who passed through Gallipoli, Majors Hewitt and Le Sueur stand out.[10] They spent several months there, mainly on Lemnos rather than the fighting zone on the Peninsula, which they only visited as required. Their role was quite varied: examining suspicious objects, lecturing troops on chemical warfare, instructing battalion officers in their duties, and offering advice to all and sundry on the best methods of protection.

Their most important contribution to trench warfare on the Peninsula was a comprehensive survey of the Allied front, carried out towards the end of November 1915, in which they assessed the feasibility of a gas attack by either side being successful. In many places, the hilly terrain precluded effective use of gas, and even where the ground was flatter and the trenches closer together, the large amount of scrub characteristic of such areas provided protection through the dense, low-lying vegetation, which impeded the flow of the gas cloud. Setting fire to the scrub by either side would provide almost total protection.

The primary danger at ANZAC was the extensive use of tunnels and galleries, where men could quickly become trapped, and the almost complete reliance on deep valleys, such as Monash Gully, for the movement and shelter of men, animals, and supplies. With the Turks generally occupying the higher ground at the head of these gullies, chlorine gas, being heavier than air, could flow down the gullies to disrupt the ANZAC defence.[11] At Helles, the main danger, like ANZAC, was in the importance of the numerous gullies and ravines, such as Gully Ravine, typically crowded with large numbers of men, transport animals, and supplies, with the added problem that they ran in a south-west direction, giving the Turks the advantage of favourable winds. Protecting Gully Ravine against a gas attack was considered an urgent priority and implemented by keeping a large stock of bombs at the Border Barricade at the head of the Gully so that as soon as gas was detected these could be thrown into No Mans Land to disperse the gas. The second line of defence was large fires built across the ravine at suitable intervals, which, when lit, would form a belt about 15 feet wide and capable of burning for at least 1.5 hours. Special attention was lavished on the bottom of the ravine where the heavy gas would accumulate, with similar precautions advocated for the Krithic and Achi Baba Nullahs.

For an allied attack against the Turks, a somewhat idiosyncratic proposal was put forward by Major H B Suttor, who suggested building a machine like those used for clearing rabbits out of burrows in Australia. It consisted of a drum containing burning charcoal and sulphur into which air was forced employing a hand-operated fan that drove the noxious fumes through a pipe up to 50 yards long. The idea was to push the pipe into a Turkish trench, or bunker, to flush out the occupants, but I can find no evidence that such a device was ever constructed.[12]

In early December, General Davies requested Major Le Sueur to prepare a memorandum detailing what was required to staff and train a specialised unit to conduct offensive gas warfare on Gallipoli. Based on his knowledge of the advances being made in Europe, he proposed a unit of about 350 officers and men to be trained to the same standards as the Special Companies R.E. Aware of the impossibility of training such a unit on the Peninsula, and the political ramifications of doing so in Egypt, he suggested that it should be raised and trained in the U.K. His memo was forwarded to Lieutenant-General William Birdwood, Commander of the recently formed Dardanelles Army, who passed it onto General Sir Charles Monro, Hamilton's successor as Commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force with a strong recommendation that such a unit be formed as a matter of urgency so that gas may be available to cover the retirement of the rear-guard when evacuating the Peninsula.[13]  This scheme was never implemented, but when Davies asked Le Sueur to prepare his memorandum, he must have been aware that he would soon have the means to wage chemical warfare, for the Dardanelles Committee had authorised the shipment of 600 gas cylinders, diverted from the Loos offensive to Mudros. They were stored in a ship in the harbour until one or two of them started to leak when they were transferred to a small, uninhabited island, where they remained until after the evacuation.[14]

Incendiary Grenades and Liquid Fire. In addition to chemical attack, there was also a fear that the Turks, occupying the higher ground, would flood the gullies and tunnels with liquid fire. Although there were the usual scares, there was no evidence that such a form of warfare was contemplated, but precautions were taken, such as boxes of loose earth kept in the front line trenches and, in December, asbestos suits were issued to be worn by machine-gun detachments, sentries, and look-outs.[15] We have no information as to the nature of the 5,000 phosphorus grenades dispatched to Gallipoli by the Trench Warfare Department in July. If they contained red phosphorus, they would have been smoke bombs; if they contained reactive white phosphorus, they were incendiary grenades, for which the infantry had several uses, including setting fire to the scrub in No Man's Land that was perceived as the haunt of enemy snipers, burning the logs used to provide head cover for the enemy trenches. The phosphorus grenades could also provide much-needed illumination, as demonstrated by the Officer Commanding the 42nd Division bombing school. He developed an incendiary grenade, which was quickly adopted across VIII Corps, for it was considered more effective than a Very light in stopping the enemy working at night.[16]

[1] Martin Gilbert, Winston S Churchill. Companion Volume. III. Part 2. May 1915-December 1916 (London: Heinemann, 1972)

[2] TNA: WO 33/731: Hamilton to Kitchener, MF 240 18 May 1915

[3] AWM4 1/4/3/Part I: General Staff. Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. June 1915

[4] Respirators were simple cotton pads impregnated with protective chemicals that covered the nose and mouth and held in place by tapes tied behind the head, a bit like a surgical mask. The gas helmets were flannel hoods impregnated with chemicals and fitted with mica eyepieces that went over the head and tucked into the top of the tunic to make a gas-proof seal.

[5] AWM4 1/4/3/ Part I: G.H.Q. Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. June 1915.

[6] AWM4 23/4/3: War Diary 4th Infantry Brigade Sept.- Nov. 1915. Extract from Corps Routine Orders. 21/10/15

[7] AWM4 1/4/4: General Staff. VIII Corps. Memorandum on Corps Conference 28/10/15

[8] AWM4 1/4/4: General Staff. VIII Corps.  28/11/15

[9] AWM4 1/4/4: General Staff. VIII Corps. Messages & Signals. July 1915

[10] John Theodore Hewitt was Professor of Chemistry, University of London and Henry Rondell le Sueur, Lecturer in Chemistry at St. Thomas’ Hospital.

[11] AWM4 1/17/1 Part I: General Staff. Dardanelles Army, Report on Use of Gas on Suvla and ANZAC Fronts. November 1915

[12] AWM4 1/25/3 Part 3: General Staff. ANZAC. Major H B Suttor, 7th Light Horse A.I.F. Fumigating Machine. June 1915. Appendix.10(c)

[13] AWM4 1/17/2. Part II: General Staff. Dardanelles Army. Nov.-Dec. 1915

[14] Yigal Sheffy, The Chemical Dimension of the Gallipoli Campaign: Introducing Chemical Warfare to the Middle East. War in History, vol.12, 3: (2005), p. 299

[15] TNA: ADM 137/4290: Royal Naval Division War Diary DADOS entry for 4 December 1915.

[16] AWM4 1/4/4: General Staff. VIII Corps. War Diary, Entry for 12/11/15 and Notes on Bombing Conference 15/11/15. Appendix XX