Although initially successful, against only light opposition, the landing at Suvla was mismanaged from the outset and quickly reached the same stalemate conditions that prevailed on the Anzac and Helles fronts.

On 7 June 1915, the Dardanelles Committee[2] met in London and, under the guidance of Lord Kitchener, decided to reinforce the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force of General Sir Ian Hamilton with three New Army divisions.

A long-standing plan to break out of the Anzac bridgehead was adopted; it had first been proposed on 30 May by the commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, Lieutenant-General William Birdwood.

British military historian J. F. C. Fuller said of Stopford that he had "no conception of what generalship meant" and indeed he was appointed not on his experience (he had seen little combat and had never commanded men in battle) or his energy and enthusiasm (he was aged 61 and had retired in 1909) but because of his position on the list of seniority.

The only available generals of appropriate seniority were Spencer Ewart whom Hamilton thought too "stout of girth" and lacking recent experience with troops, and Stopford who was selected by a process of elimination.

The landing at Suvla was to commence at 10:00 pm, an hour after the two assaulting columns had broken out of Anzac heading for the Sari Bair heights.

Reconnaissance had revealed no prepared fortifications at Suvla and yet Stopford proceeded to limit the objectives of the landing and Hamilton failed to stop him.

The final orders issued by Stopford and the 11th Division commander, Major General Frederick Hammersley, were imprecise, requiring only that the high ground be taken "if possible".

British deceptions made a landing on the Asian shore possible so three divisions were located there while three more were stationed 30 miles (48 km) north of Suvla at Bulair on the neck of the peninsula.

Suvla was defended by three battalions, the "Anafarta Detachment", under the command of a Bavarian cavalry officer, Major Wilhelm Willmer, whose task was to delay any enemy advance until reinforcements arrived.

When the attack at Lone Pine commenced, Willmer was ordered to send one battalion as reinforcements so that when 20,000 British began landing at Suvla, they were opposed by only 1,500 Ottoman soldiers.

In the first action fought by a New Army unit, two companies from the 6th Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, drove the Ottoman defenders off the small hillock of Lala Baba which overlooked the beach.

The destroyers conveying the brigade anchored 1,000 yards (910 m) too far south, facing shoal water and on the wrong side of the channel that drained the salt lake into the bay.

The 11th Battalion, The Manchester Regiment, having come ashore from the destroyer HMS Grampus, had the greatest success of the landing, managing to find its way to the Kiretch Tepe ridge and fight its way some distance along it to the east for the loss of 200 casualties.

Elsewhere the landing was in chaos, having been made in pitch darkness which resulted in great confusion with units becoming mixed and officers unable to locate their position or their objectives.

While he could hear the fighting continuing at Anzac, Suvla was comparatively quiet and "no firm hand appeared to control this mass of men suddenly dumped on an unknown shore."

The British official history, written by Captain Cecil Aspinall-Oglander who was on Hamilton's staff, was blunt in its assessment; "It was now broad daylight and the situation in Suvla Bay was verging on chaos."

[citation needed] The British staff had estimated that it would take the Ottoman divisions at Bulair 36 hours to reach Suvla – they could be expected to arrive on the evening of 8 August.

Aspinall was accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice Hankey, Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, who was to report on the progress of the campaign to the British Cabinet.

Aspinall and Hamilton both converged on the light cruiser HMS Chatham, the flagship of Rear-Admiral John de Robeck who commanded the landing fleet.

Hamilton insisted that an advance be made immediately and so, at 6.30 pm, the 32nd Brigade was ordered to march two and a half miles to the Tekke Tepe ridge.

Kemal, who had proved aggressive and capable at ANZAC, held the high ground and was content to remain on the defensive at Suvla while he dealt with the threat to the Sari Bair ridge.

Around midday the gunfire set scrub alight on Scimitar Hill, and Ashmead-Bartlett, watching from Lala Baba, saw the British wounded trying to escape the flames: Reinforcements were arriving, the 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division had started coming ashore on the night of 8 August, and the 54th (East Anglian) Division arrived on 10 August, but command remained paralysed.

On 15 August Hamilton dismissed Stopford and, while Byng was travelling from France, replaced him with Major-General Beauvoir De Lisle, commander of the British 29th Division at Helles.

[6] The song has been recorded by numerous artists, including the Clancy Brothers, Joan Baez, the Pogues, The Dubliners, June Tabor and Nathan Lay.

The fictional character General Gardiner orders the advance reconsidered, with the line "at Suvla ... the [English] officers are sitting on the beach drinking cups of tea".