After serving in home defence, the Essex Brigade (containing the 1/4th, 1/5th, &lt;a href="6th%20Battalion%2C%20Essex%20Regiment"&gt;1/6th&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="7th%20Battalion%2C%20Essex%20Regiment"&gt;1/7th&lt;/a&gt; battalions and now numbered the 161st (Essex) Brigade in 54th (East Anglian) Division) landed at Suvla Bay in August 1915 in an attempt to restart the stalled Gallipoli Campaign. The four Essex battalions saw some hard fighting, but lost even more men to sickness. They were withdrawn to Egypt in December before the Gallipoli Peninsula was finally abandoned.