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quintinshill rail disaster
The 1st/7th Battalion
(1
/
7 RS)
was reinforced by two companies from
8th Battalion, The Highland Light Infantry
(8HLI)
to bring it up to
the War Establishment of 30 Officers and 972 Other Ranks. These were
divided, under the command of a Lieutenant Colonel, into a Headquarters,
including a machine-gun section of two Vickers-Maxim guns, a small
signals section, an administrative support element with some horse-drawn
transport and the band. The fighting element of a Battalion consisted of
four rifle companies
(replacing the earlier eight smaller ones)
, each
commanded by a Major or a Captain, six Officers and 221 soldiers. The
company was further divided into four, 50 strong platoons commanded
by a Lieutenant, and then further divided into four sections of 12 men
under a Corporal. This was the structure of 1/7 RS when it set out from
Larbert to embark at Liverpool for Gallipoli as reinforcements to the failing
Dardanelles Campaign.
The Campaign, strongly supported by
Winston Churchill
as First Lord
of the Admiralty, was originally conceived as a naval operation to force
the Straits of the Dardanelles with the aim of capturing the Ottoman
capital of Constantinople
(modern-day Istanbul)
and forcing the Ottoman
Empire
(Turkey)
out of the War. A force of 18 older British and French
battleships launched the attack on 18 March 1915 at the narrowest point
of the Straits, after preliminary bombardment of the shore defences.
Six of the battleships, however, were quickly sunk or severely damaged
by Turkish mines and the attempt was abandoned. Planning began
immediately for an alternative amphibious landing on the Gallipoli
Peninsula, on the north side of the entrance to the Straits,tobe followedbyan
overland approach to Constantinople. The initial landings took place
on 25 April by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
(ANZAC)
,
the British 29th Division, which included 1st/5th Battalion The Royal
Scots, and a diversionary landing by the French on the south side. After
the landings, not all of which were successful, little was done by the Allies
to exploit what limited successes they had achieved. Apart from a few
short advances by small groups of men, most of the troops stayed on, or
close to the beaches. The initiative was lost and the failure to secure the
high ground dominating the Peninsula then, or later, doomed the
Campaign to failure, in spite of reinforcements in May and June.
Amongst these was the 52nd
(Lowland) Division, including the surviving
elements of 1/7RS.