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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. ==Prelude== 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. On the morning of 9 August, the British made their first effort to advance towards the high ground to the east, a ridge called Tekke Tepe. Scimitar Hill, which guarded the approach to this ridge from the southwest along the Anafarta Spur, had been captured unopposed by the 6th Battalion, The East Yorkshire Regiment, on 8 August but was then abandoned. The British attempted to recapture the hill on 9 August and in the intense fighting it changed hands a number of times before the British were forced off around midday. Despite the arrival of reinforcements in the form of the 53rd (Welsh) Division on 9 August and the 54th (East Anglian) Division on 10 August, any hopes the British had of a swift victory at Suvla were now gone as the Ottomans consolidated their hold on the surrounding ridges. On 10 August the 53rd Division made another attack at Scimitar Hill, which was another massive failure for the British and effectively ruined the division as a fighting unit within two days of its landing. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Scimitar Hill」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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