tion was consolidated, and
in the morning was still held by the Rangers. The next day we were
thanked by three General Officers and congratulated on the magnificent
charge." The 7th Dublins had to advance across an open plain under the
heights of Sari Bair. An Australian soldier who stood on a
neighbouring hill told me that while English battalions cautiously
crossed in a series of rushes--falling flat on their stomachs at each
outburst of the Turkish guns--the Dublins made their way over the
uneven, hillocky ground at a run. To move slowly, with proper caution,
would be torture to their Irish nature, impatient and ardent, in such
circumstances.

One of the old Regular battalions in the 29th Division, the 1st
Inniskillings, also greatly added to their renown by their dauntless
resolution on August 21st. The battalion pushed up to the top of Hill
70, or Scimitar Hill, but were unable to maintain their position,
owing, as the Brigadier-General of their Brigade states, "to the
unavoidably inadequate artillery support and complete preparedness on
the part of the enemy, resulting in heavy cross-fire from shrapnel,
machine-guns and rifles." Again they climbed the hill and again were
driven back. They made a third charge up the hill, and after a
desperate struggle were compelled once more to yield ground that was
now thickly strewn with their dying and dead. The Brigadier-General
mentions that the Inniskillings undertook the two further assaults
entirely on their own initiative. He adds: "Had there been any
appreciable number of survivors in the battalion, and had Captain Pike
been spared to lead them for a fourth time, they would have continued
their efforts to secure complete possession of the hill."

The operations failed in their main purpose. Sari Bair remained in the
possession of the Turks. Mistakes made by some of the Generals of
Divisions are said, by Sir Ian Hamilton, the Commander-in-Chief, to
have been largely to blame for things going wrong. But the fighting
was not altogether barren of results. The most desperate engagements
in the last days of August had for their object the capture of Hill
60, close to Sari Bair. An attack by the 5th Connaught Rangers on
August 29th secured its possession.

The battalion was again congratulated on its gallantry by three
different General Officers. One of them, General Sir A.J. Godley, in
command of the New Zealanders, sent the following message to Colonel
Jourdaine, of the