Hamilton, the Suvla generals and Scimitar Hill

As part of his planning of the August offensive, Sir Ian Hamilton wrote to Kitchener specifically asking for younger generals to command IX Corps, preferably with some Western Front experience and he named Julian Byng and Henry Rawlinson as ideal. Kitchener replied that he would not ask for any officers from the BEF and offered the next most senior lieutenant-generals from the Army List. Hamilton turned down Mahon because of his temperamental nature and Ewart because of his physical fitness and was left with only Sir Frederick Stopford, a good staff officer who had never commanded troops in combat.

Stopford came out in July and was carefully briefed about the August plan and seemed to be in complete agreement with it. The arrival of his chief of staff, Brig.- Gen. Reed, VC and Sir Bryan Mahon introduced an increasing note of caution into all the plans of IX Corps. The planners at GHQ, their hands full with the details of the attack on the Sari Bair Ridge out of Anzac, did not pick up on this watering down of the plans for the Suvla Bay landings, where weak Turkish resistance was supposed to be brushed aside to allow swift advance and seizure of the Tekke Tepe ridge.

Things went very badly wrong during the landings at Suvla on the night of 6 August and the situation rapidly became chaotic. Very poor staff work at corps, division and brigade level saw many opportunities for advance squandered and paralysis gripped the whole force as Stopford warned his men they could not proceed without strong artillery support.

On 8 August Hamilton sent officers from his General Staff to Suvla to ascertain the exact position. Aspinall alerted him to the lack of drive there and Hamilton arrived himself to try and urge activity upon Stopford and his generals. Hamilton insisted that Hammersley (11^th Division) organise a forward movement without delay and 32^nd Brigade was ordered to deliver an attack on Scimitar Hill as a preliminary to an advance the next day on the Tekke Tepe ridge. The brigade staff had so little idea of the whereabouts of its formations that it ordered them to concentrate at the Sulajik wells. Tragically this involved one battalion vacating Scimitar Hill where it was already established, and another had to halt it ascent of the ridge. When the attack went in early on 9 August it was defeated by Turkish reinforcements hurrying down from Bulair.
 
It is ironic that Hamilton, routinely criticised for not interfering enough in the plans of his subordinates, should now be blamed for this farcical abandonment of a position that the British were never again able to capture.

Finally Kitchener agreed that the Suvla generals were too old and inefficient and sent out the very type of general from France that Hamilton had originally requested (including Julian Byng).

John Lee 
(Author of 'A Soldier's Life: A Biography of Sir Ian Hamilton')

IWM: Q 13343: General Sir Ian Hamilton and General Braithwaite, his Chief of Staff, and Captain F Maitland, being rowed ashore in a warship's dinghy.