Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar

Subject: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 11:07 AM

Someone was asking recently where Suvla and Sud-al-Bar - mentioned in Down the Glen - were.

A letter in today's Irish Times might help to clear up the matter: they were the sites of two 1915 battles in which Irish troops fighting in the British Army had been slaughtered:

"The assault on Gallipoli was spearheaded by the 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers and 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers of the 29th Division, and they were annihilated at Cape Helles on V Beach, on the collier the River Clyde and in the village and castle of Sedd-el-Bahr on Ap[ril 25th and 26th 1915," writes Gerald Morgan, FTCD.

(The spelling in English of Arab names varies, as witness the modern example of Gadaffi/Ghadafi/Quadafi, etc.)

"The Times History of the War (London, 1915) records that 'the glorious annals of the British Army present no example of a position carried against more dreadful odds'," writes Morgan.

"Even more disastrous from Ireland's point of view was the destruction of the Tenth (Irish) Division of Kitchener's First New Army at Suvla Bay in August and September 1915.

"With this tragic and monumental sacrifice of Irish young men (mostly well educated), the cause of Irish Home Rule and peace in Ireland was doomed."

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: masato sakurai
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 12:00 PM

Also called Anafarta Bay. The map is HERE. There's a song called "Suvla Bay" (Click here (Lyr Req Suvla Bay).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 02:34 PM

Jtt, you are of course correct, but you make it sound as though only Irishmen fell at Gallipoli, which is a slight on the memory of the thousands of British, Australian, and other nationals who served and suffered there.
Keith.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 02:39 PM

Ireland was mighty slow in raising a memorial to the thousands of Irish boys who were killed in that war.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST,Ernest C
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 02:55 PM

In defense of JTT, though he doesn't likely need it. Remember that this was an article in THE IRISH TIMES, not something he was saying. That is probably enough on that subject. There are already too many arguements going on around here without starting more unnecessarily.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Gareth
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 04:19 PM

Hmmm ! an awful lot of Turks died too !

Gareth

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 04:41 PM

Better not let the ANZACS hear you say that either!

LTS

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 07:18 PM

Australian,New Zealanders, Indian, Ghurkas, and French.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: maire-aine
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 01:04 AM

The lyrics to Foggy Dew that I've seen have a line that goes "Their lonely graves are by Suvla's waves, On the fringe of the grey North Sea." Is there something wrong with the geography or the lyric here? What does the North Sea have to do with it? Or was that poetic license from O'Neill?

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 03:15 AM

"...OR the fringe..." surely?

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 04:49 PM

There is a bit of poetic licence but bear in mind that British (Including Irish troops) were also fighting in France and Belgium hence O'Neill's reference. And as I remember the song Jon is absolutely right the proper word in the lyric is "Or". Hope this helps. If memory serves, Suvla and Sud-al Bar were particularly brutal fights in a campaign that was marked by brutal fighting and inept mismanagement. The troops of all nationalities who fought there were hard used and probably none more so than the ANZAC soldiers. Unfortunately, that was most of that war and Suvla and Sud-al-bar offer really pointed lessons as to why we shoul do our best to avaoid war. Kindest regards, neil

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 05:02 PM

There is another thread (6-8 mo. ago?) that has a rather full discussion but i can't find it now.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 02:56 AM

Irish Sergeant, I wonder why you suggest the ANZACS were more hard used than others? This thread started with a suggestion that only the Irish were slaughtered. It is distasteful to try to rank sacrifice of units in a battle like this where all suffered appallingly
The majority of the troops in Gallipoli were British.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 03:50 AM

The story I grew up with is that the ANZACS were sent as a diversion to take the Turks from where the real attack was to be.
The British High command apparently stuffed up and sent them to the wrong beach - one where an attack was expected and was therefore heavily defended.
When the generals learned of their mistake (before it was too late), they ordered the ANZAC attack to continue.
Sure plenty died besides ANZACS, but probably not as many died as a direct result of British Imperial arrogance and incompetence.
I don't know about the Irish soldiers, but the historical English contempt for the Irish is well enough documented to make one wonder what the point of it allreally was ...
The majority of troops at Gallipoli may have been British but the majority of deaths were Turkish, and they knew as little about what they were fighting for as the ANZACS did.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST,glen2Glenn
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 03:52 AM

Sorry, I didn't mean to send that anonymously.
I don't like that.
Glenn

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 04:09 AM

Keith,

I think the Gallipoli campaign was felt more of a disaster by the ANZACS was that it was their first real "blooding" in war. They had sent troops to the Boer War but casualties there had been relatively light. The casualty rates at Gallipoli were high and many communities lost what almost amounted to an entire generation of their young men.

In Eric Bogle's song "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda", the words "They gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun and sent me away to the war", are inaccurate. One of the reasons for the high casualty rates was due to the fact that the troops did not have "tin hats" - they were not universally issued to British troops until late 1915/early 1916. The incidence of head wounds caused by bullets, shrapnel and rock splinters was far higher in Gallipoli than in France, this hastened the introduction of "the Tin Bowler" to British and Commonwealth troops.

The campaign, though considered a disaster, came tantalisingly close to succeeding. It opened with an attempt to force the Dardanelles with naval forces. At the time the Allied naval commanders issued orders to withdraw, the Turkish shore batteriies had actually run out of ammunition. It was then decided to land a force so that a combined operation could be resumed. In my childhood our next dooor neighbour fought at Gallipoli and later in Palestine under Allenby.

What you state regarding the proportion of troops participating is correct.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: MudGuard
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 04:38 AM

Could someone please explain the term ANZAC(S)?
TIA
MudGuard

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 04:40 AM

Australian New Zealand Army Corps - ANZAC

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: MudGuard
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 04:41 AM

Thanks, Teribus, that was fast!

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 08:55 AM

Teribus,

One minor correction, ont steel helmets
"...they were not universally issued to British troops until late 1915/early 1916..."
The issue began in 1916 and, until the middle of the year they were issued as "trench stores" (along with such materials as barbed wire, flares, grenades, duckboards and the like, the outgoing unit left them behind and the incoming unit took them over. The supply only reached the level to allow "universal issue" just before the opening of the Battle of the Somme in July.

Walrus

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 09:19 AM

Oh, heavens, I wasn't saying only Irish troops fell at Suvla or Sud-al-Bar - just explaining the context of the lyric of an Irish song.

Actually the Irish were rather swift to build a memorial: isn't the Lutyens Memorial Garden by the Liffey at Inchicore dedicated to them, as well as to the troops who died fighting in the Great War, and the soldiers of the War of Independence, the Civil War and those who died peacekeeping with the UN?

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 04:22 PM

I must apologize. I meant no disparigy to the British troops or the others who fought there. The error was mine and unintentional. I was under the impression (Wrongly) that the majority of the troops fighting there were ANZAC Again my apologies and thank you for your correction. Neil

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Jul 02 - 07:14 AM

Walrus at work, thanks for the correction - very interesting.

Cheers,

Bill.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 25 Jul 02 - 09:36 AM

GUEST JTT,

In the best folksong tradition you're conflating two memorial gardens and a day of commemoration.

The Lutyens garden in Inchicore was dedicated to the Irish dead ofthe Great War (which includes inter alia Gallipoli and "Salonica"). As part of the post-independence rejection of things British, it was allowed to fall into decay for decades.

The garden in Parnell Square (with the statue of the Children of Lir) was built as part of the 1916 50th anniversary commemoration. The square is where the Volunteers were founded and where they and the Citizen Army were held after the surrender in 1916.

As part of the hiberno-british reconciliation associated with the Northern Ireland peace process (during Mary Robinson's presidency, but my memory of the chronology is a bit shaky here), an annual day of commemoration of all the Irish dead of all wars and UN peacekeeping operations was decreed, and a ceremony is held in the Parnell Square garden each year.

Another element in this process was a decision by the Irish Government to rehabilitate the Inchicore garden. Yet another was the construction of a memorial to the Irish first-world-war dead of all persuasions at Messines (now known by the Flemish spelling Mesen) where the nationalist 16th Division and unionist 36th (Ulster) division fought alongside each other. The park around this monument (built partly by young trainees from the Republic and from both Northern Ireland communities) was laid out in great haste for an inauguration ceremony attended, if I remember correctly, by both Queen Elizabeth and President Robinson, and every so often a few trees die off and Kevin Myers of the Irish Times tries to claim that the park is being deliberately neglected. But don't mind him, he was always on the other side of whatever the argument was about.

Admittedly, bland inclusive ceremonies of commemoration of more than one side of a conflict don't stir the imagination and the blood in the same way as a good old-fashioned canonisation of Our Great Nation's Glorious Dead, but these are all small steps in the right direction

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST,Thomas
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 08:35 AM

Another song called "Foggy Dew" has been attributed to Peadar Kearney- who also wrote "Amhrán na bhFiann" ("Soldier's Song"), the national anthem of the Republic of Ireland- and to Canon Charles O'Neill, with no side providing better sources to actual authorship than the other. This song chronicles the Easter Uprising of 1916, and encourages Irishmen to fight for the cause of Ireland, rather than as cannon fodder for the British, as so many young men were doing in World War I.

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST,Rathingle
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 09:45 AM

Did the Connaught rangers fight at Suvla and Sud al Bar also ?
The Wolfe Tones song ''The Connaught Rangers'' say they did.


To[D] the tiny homesteads of the[A] west,
Their recruting sargent[D] came,
He[G] promised[D] all a future[A] bright,
So a brave young men went off to fight
For the empire and the[D] might
[2]
And many a victory they had seen
Many hardships their had been,
They fought and died side by side,
Their enemies they had defied and for a foreign king.
[Chorus]
And[D] the drums they were a beating[A] time,
While the pipes did loudly[D] play,
When[G] Daly[D] died,the drums did[A] beat,
That morning in the Dagshai heat,
Now we'll beat the drums no[D] more.
[2]
While serving in the far off land,
The news had come from home,
Of a peoples fate it did relate,
Of the tans and their campaign of hate,
And we're fighting on their side.

Arise ,arise young Daly cried,
Come join along with me,
We'll strike a blow for liberty,
Our regiment will mutiny
And support our friends at home.
[Chorus]
[3]
And the colonel stood before his troops,
Those men who mutineed,
He told them of those honours won,
But the men stood in the blazing sun,
Saying we'll fight your wars no more
[4]
For cannon fodder we have been,
For the French at Waterloo
At Suvla and Sud Elbar,
We fought your every bloody war,
And we'll fight your war no more.
[Chorus]
[5]
Those men got penal servitude,
And Daly's condemned to die
Far from his home in Tyrellspass,
This young man's died in Ireland's cause,
Far from his native land.
[Chorus]

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 10:07 AM

An estimated 210,000 Irish volunteers served with British forces in WW1

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 11:03 AM

GUEST,Thomas
"The Foggy Dew" was by Canon O'Neill alright(I've seen it as "P O'Neill" at least once - a neat Freudian slip!). Written after the war.

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 11:11 AM

My grandfather was at Gaillipi. (padon the spelling)

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 09 - 08:22 AM

there died a-lot of people and the majority of them were certainly Turks.

Fatos

Subject: RE: Help: Suvla and Sud-al-Bar
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 25 Jul 09 - 11:59 AM

For an account of the Gallipoli campaign from the Turkish point of view you might like to read Louis de Bernieres's extraordinary novel, 'Birds Without Wings'. It's a sort of Turkish 'War and Peace'. For me it's a much better book than his more famous 'Captain Correli's Mandolin'.