“Butler’s air photo of Turkish defences at Achi Baba on 24 April, the day before the landings”, picture reproduced from “Grasping Gallipoli”, (Staplehurst 2005), Peter Chasseaud and Peter Doyle, p. 106

side of olives and cypresses and scattered farms.
But Hamilton was determined to take it. Once on the crest he believed that his guns would enfilade the straits as far as the Narrows, and the enemy line in the south would give way. On April 28 his position was particularly frustrating. He knew that time was running out. He saw the hill before him, and given another fresh division- perhaps even a brigade- he knew that he could have it.

“Gallipoli”, (Ware 1997), Alan Morehead, p. 135

Already Achi Baba had begun to dominate everybody’s mind. It loomed there on the skyline only a mile or two away, but as remote as Constantinople itself. It was not a spectacular hill any way, for its height was only 709 feet and its sides sloped gently down to the Aegean through a pleasant country-

---

---

We saw at last the little sugarloaf peak of Aci Baba, absurdly pink and diminutive in the distance.  A man’s first frontal impression of that great rampart, with the outlying slopes masking the summit, was that it was disappointingly small; but when he had lived under and upon it for a while, day by day, it seemed to grow im menace and in bulk, and ultimately became an overpowering monster pervading all his life; so that it worked on men’s nerves, and almost everywhere in the Peninsula they were painfully consious that every movement they made could be watched from somewhere on that massive hill.

“The Secret Battle”, (Oxford-1919), A.P. Herbert, p.93.

next

Last updated : 15/06/07

next

 

cont@ct us