Cratered earth, bodies, and scorched vegetation littered the no man's land, where shattered trees stood as bare trunks, as if silently sharing their suffering with the soldiers. Many parts of the battlefield now resembled the moon's pocked surface, only here it was bleak and gray instead of white.
In the faint morning light, the land ahead was marked by rough mounds of earth—barriers and fortifications hastily erected by the enemy in front of their trenches.
Suddenly, a shrill whistle cut through the air, signaling the start of the assault to break through the blockade. The offensive began with a concentrated attack at the center of the line. The Allies' massed assault was designed to draw Ottoman artillery fire, preventing the center of their defensive line from collapsing.
As soon as the Ottoman cannons roared to life, Charles ordered the main assault from the Sand Trench to comnce. Amid fierce cries, the French and Australian troops leaped from their positions, bayonets gleaming as they charged through pre-cut wire obstacles, surging toward the enemy's line.
There was no artillery fire here, as the Ottomans' guns were focused on the central front. Nor were there machine guns aid at them—at least not yet. The Ottoman machine-gunners scrambled to their positions, unaware that Allied snipers were waiting for them. With a few precise shots, the machine-gunners were swiftly silenced, each one falling into pools of their own blood.
Each ti a replacent gunner took over, he was quickly picked off as well. The Ottoman soldiers, oblivious to the snipers' role, believed the relentless shelling had neutralized their machine guns.
Luckily for the Ottomans, the barbed wire slowed the Allied assault, giving them just enough ti to set up and fire their rifles at the advancing enemy. Amid cries of pain, the Allied forces' montum began to falter.
"Ten o'clock, 400 ters!" called Idris, giving coordinates. A machine-gunner, carrying the distinctive Maxim ammunition case, was moving into position.
Shen Billy wasted no ti; he adjusted his aim to the reported position, and with a single shot, the machine-gunner fell to the ground, clutching his chest.
"Three o'clock, 250 ters!" Idris spotted another target—a field officer frantically speaking into a phone, likely calling for reinforcents.
"Bang!" Another shot rang out, cutting off the officer mid-sentence.
"Two o'clock, 300 ters!" Idris spotted a hidden machine gun firing at the French troops. Cleverly concealed behind logs and covered with sand to blend with the surroundings, it had gone unnoticed during the previous night's reconnaissance.
Shen Billy hesitated briefly. Idris imdiately regretted pointing out this target. This was a fortified gun, effectively a small pillbox, with only a tiny firing slit visible. Sniping it would be near impossible, and he worried he had given Shen an impossible target.
But just as Idris was about to search for another, more realistic target, a single shot rang out, and the machine gun fell silent. Idris turned to Shen in astonishnt, wondering how he had done it.
For Shen, this was straightforward. He had deduced the gunner's position from the angle of fire and simply waited for the mont the gun shifted to align perfectly with his sights.
While Idris marveled at Shen's skill, Shen quickly fired another shot and then ordered, "Change positions!"
Idris snapped out of his daze, quickly gathering his binoculars and crouching as he followed Shen to the next vantage point.
anwhile, with the Ottoman troops focused on defense, they failed to notice the twenty amphibious landing craft appearing on the sea. Though the crafts moved slowly—under 10 knots—the short distance of a few hundred ters between them and the shore ant they reached their positions in just three minutes.
The Ottomans, stunned, suddenly saw their flank overrun with twenty "tanks" advancing from the sea, sweeping the line with machine-gun fire. French soldiers jumped down from the crafts, throwing grenades and seizing the enemy's forward trenches.
The Ottoman 3rd Militia Regint, already shaken by the French assault, panicked at the sight of these "tanks" and scattered, abandoning their positions in terror. The landing crafts moved steadily onward, mowing down fleeing Ottomans with machine-gun fire, until groups of Ottoman soldiers began raising their rifles in surrender.
With the defensive line broken, the French and Australian forces on the main front surged forward, flooding into the Ottoman trenches. The Ottoman flank had fallen in less than ten minutes.
The French now moved to widen the breach in the Ottoman line, yet Bahar, the Ottoman commander, remained unaware of the impending disaster. He was positioned at the center of the line, focused on repelling the Allied assault there.
Thinking the Allies were making a final, desperate push, Bahar called out to his troops with excitent:
"Hold the line! This is their last attempt! They know their end is near—they're fighting with nothing left!"
"Victory is ours! Long live the Ottoman Empire!"
But as the soldiers' morale lifted at his words, a runner appeared, urgently handing Bahar a telegram. "Colonel, the general orders you to retreat imdiately!"
"Retreat?" Bahar turned to the runner, stunned. They were winning; why retreat now? And retreat where? Behind them lay only the sea.
"Our flank has collapsed, sir," the runner reported anxiously. "The general commands you to board ships and fall back to Bolayir. If you delay, it will be too late!"
For a mont, Bahar was dumbstruck. Then he laughed bitterly. "Impossible!" He grabbed the telegram, scanned it quickly, and his face fell.
Their isolation had left them blind. With resources stretched thin, the "A" sector defenses had only a few telephones, none of which could relay the collapse of their lines in ti. General Sanders, watching the disaster from afar, had sent the retreat orders by telegram.
Looking eastward toward the now-broken flank, Bahar sighed, defeated. "We've lost to Charles once again…using the exact sa strategy."
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