From 10 a.m., Kemal Pasha was able to advance a company on the left flank of the Australians, along the slopes descending from Babi 700, a hill culminating at 700 meters, the final point reached by the soldiers of the landing corps.
A second regiment from the Turkish 19th Division has joined the troops already fighting. He is launched without further delay in the counter-attack which then takes on a worrying magnitude. The fighting is fierce, Babi 700 will be taken and retaken before remaining, at the end of the morning, in the hands of the Australians who have just received the reinforcement of two companies rising directly from the landing beach.
Relentlessly and without concern for casualties, the regiments of Kemal's division, now in full force, launched an assault with cries, repeated a thousand times, of "La Ilaha Illa Allah!" answered by the howls and curses in good English of the Australian soldiers.
On five occasions, the Turks set foot on Babi 700, to finally drive out the Australians and the New Zealanders who were at the end of their tether. Until evening, the Turks counter-attacked, the living marching on the dead.
Commonwealth soldiers were killed on the spot, but, when evening came, the Allied lines were no longer held only by seven battalions, each fighting on its own, without.
the command appearing capable of mounting a coherent operation to stop the onslaught of the enemy.
A fine, penetrating rain begins to fall on this indescribable fray. In the dark ravines, transformed into streams, the wounded wade down towards the beach, while the reinforcement troops climb towards the summits where New Zealanders and Australians cling to the slightest bump in the ground, spontaneously launching themselves into counterattacks. local attacks, without much effectiveness, but nevertheless slowing down the adversary's progress.
It is said that an Australian corporal, armed with a single pickaxe handle, at the head of a group heterogeneous, rushed in front of an enemy section and succeeded in putting it to flight...
The heroism of the wounded is no less admirable. It takes two and a half hours, in complete darkness, on steep paths made slippery by the rain, to reach the beach where the medical antennas are to be located.
In the immense chaos that continues to reign on the landing site, doctors and nurses do what they can to help the most seriously injured.
The others will lie down on the sand, protected
by a tarpaulin, waiting for someone to take care of them. Many die there, without a cry, resigned and already forgotten.
A little after 8 p.m., General Birdwood, who was commanding the landing, came to confer with his Australian and New Zealand divisional officers. He finds the morale of the command at the lowest point and agrees quite easily with the advice of his deputies who recommend embarking immediately what can still be saved from their units dispersed in nature and badly manhandled by the enemy counter-attack.
It seems obvious, both at the divisional level and at the brigade level, that the Turks will take advantage of the night to round up fresh troops. Humanly neither the Australians, online since the morning, nor the New Zealanders will be able to resist this counter-attack that the British generals foresee massive. And unfortunately there are no more reserve troops. Sick at heart, Birdwood returned to his command ship to seek instructions from Sir Lan Hamilton, more than half convinced himself of the futility of continuing this bloodshed.