page_title: 125th (Lancashire Fusiliers) Brigade
section_title: Gallipoli
hierarchical_section_title: 125th (Lancashire Fusiliers) Brigade / First World War / Gallipoli
caption_attribution_description: Lancashire Fusiliers of the 125th Brigade, 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, bound for Cape Helles, Gallipoli, May 1915. The soldiers have just disembarked aboard Trawler 318 from the transport SS Nile, from the deck of which the photo was taken.
context_page_description: The 125th (Lancashire Fusiliers) Brigade was an infantry brigade formation of the British Army that saw active service during both the First and Second World Wars. It was assigned to the 42nd Division and served in the Middle East and later in the trenches of the Western Front in the First World War. In the Second World War the brigade, now redesignated 125th Infantry Brigade, fought in Belgium and France before being evacuated at Dunkirk and was then converted into 10th Armoured Brigade.
  Throughout its existence the brigade was composed almost entirely of battalions of the Lancashire Fusiliers, except for a few brief months in the early half of the Second World War.
context_section_description: In early May 1915, the 42nd Division embarked from Alexandria for Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where Allied troops had landed a few days earlier. 125th Brigade was the first part of the division to go into action, at the Second Battle of Krithia under the command of the Regular 29th Division. It then reverted to 42nd Division, and took part in the Third Battle of Krithia and Battle of Krithia Vineyard. The fighting was 'a singularly brainless and suicidal type of warfare', and virtually nothing was achieved in any of these attacks, at the cost of heavy casualties. Two brigades (the other being 126th (1/1st East Lancashire) Brigade) of 42nd Division attacked on the second day of the Krithia Vineyard battle: 'By nightfall both brigades were back in their old lines, with the exception of some parties of the 6th and 7th Lancashire Fusiliers, who defended the Vineyard against repeated Turkish attacks until, after a bitter and pointless struggle during the following five days, a trench dug across the centre of this worthless tract of scrub became the British front line'. After this failure, the Helles front was shut down and no further attacks were made. Five months later, following repeated failures elsewhere, the whole Gallipoli Campaign ended in evacuation back to Egypt.
caption: A boat carrying men of 125th (Lancashire Fusiliers) Brigade ashore at Cape Helles, May 1915. Photo by Ernest Brooks
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