Battle of Scimitar Hill

Part of First World War

Date	August 21, 1915
Location	Suvla, Gallipoli, Ottoman Empire
Result	Ottoman victory

Belligerents

United Kingdom

Ottoman Empire

Commanders and leaders

Beauvoir De Lisle

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Strength

11th and 29th divisions (14,300 men)

12th Division and 6 battalions of the 9th Division, 6th Division brought up but not used.

Casualties and losses

5,300

2,600

The Battle of Scimitar Hill (Yusufçuk Tepe (Dragonfly Hill)) was the last offensive mounted by the British at Suvla during the Battle of Gallipoli in World War I. It was also the largest single-day attack ever mounted by the Allies at Gallipoli, involving three divisions. The purpose of the attack was to remove the immediate Ottoman threat from the exposed Suvla landing and to link with the ANZAC sectors to the south. Launched on August 21, 1915, to coincide with the simultaneous attack on Hill 60, it was a costly failure, in which the Turks were forced to use all their reserves in "severe and bloody fighting" far into the night, with some Turkish trenches lost and retaken twice.

Paralysis had set in to the British campaign in the Dardanelles after repeated failures to advance at Helles on the tip of the peninsula since the original 25 April landings. In August a new offensive, known as the Battle of Sari Bair, was opened at Suvla in an attempt to regain the initiative from the Ottomans. Two divisions of Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford's IX Corps were landed at Suvla on the night of 6 August while a simultaneous breakout was made from the long-stagnant Anzac sector to the south of Suvla.

Scimitar Hill, so named because of its curved summit, and the neighbouring W Hills to the south were part of the Anafarta Spur that marked the southern edge of the Suvla sector. Their capture had originally been first-day (7 August) objectives but General Stopford was exceedingly hesitant about making any major advances without artillery support. Consequently, the troops of the British 11th (Northern) Division (which had made the initial landing on the night of 6 August) and the 10th (Irish) Division (which had landed the following morning) did not advance from the immediate environs of the beach until 8 August, by which time they were already exhausted from lack of water and being under constant shrapnel and sniper fire.

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Wikipedia