The
triangle is cut in two by the valley through which flows the stream
known as Bokali Deresi.
It is indeed a formidable and forbidding land. To the sea it presents a
steep front, broken up into innumerable ridges, bluffs, valleys, and
sand pits, which rise to a height of several hundred feet. The surface
is either a kind of bare and very soft yellow sandstone, which crumbles
when you tread on it, or else it is covered with very thick shrubbery
about six feet in height.
It is, in fact, an ideal country for irregular warfare, such as the
Australians and New Zealanders were soon to find to their cost. You
cannot see a yard in front of you, and so broken is the ground that the
enemy's snipers were able to lie concealed within a few yards of the
lines of infantry without it being possible to locate them. On the other
hand, the Australians and New Zealanders have proved themselves adepts
at this form of warfare, which requires the display of great endurance
in climbing over the cliffs and offers scope for a display of that
individuality which you find highly developed in these colonial
volunteers. To organize anything like a regular attack on such ground is
almost impossible, as the officers cannot see their men, who, the moment
they move forward in open order, are lost among the thick scrub.
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