“They (the experts) were there—that was the reason, and the only reason, for their being there—to give the lay members the benefit of their advice.... To suppose that these experts were tongue-tied or paralysed by a nervous regard for the possible opinion of their political superiors is to suppose that they had really abdicated the functions which they were intended to discharge.”[27]
These views appear so reasonable that we might suppose them unofficial, had not the speakers occupied the highest official positions themselves. The result of this difference of opinion regarding the duty of expert advisers was disastrous. The War Council assumed the silence of the experts to imply acquiescence, whereas it sprang from obedience to etiquette. Before the Commission, Lord Fisher stated that from the first he was “instinctively against it” (i.e. against Admiral Carden’s plan);[28] that he “was dead against the naval operation alone because he knew it must be a failure”; and he added, “I must reiterate that as a purely naval operation I think it was doomed to failure.”[29] It may be supposed that these statements were prophecies after the event, and the Commissioners observe that Lord Fisher did not at the time record any such strongly adverse opinions. Nevertheless, on the very day when a demonstration was first discussed, he wrote privately to Mr. Churchill:
“I consider the attack on Turkey holds the field, but only if it is immediate; however, it won’t be. We shall decide on a futile bombardment of the Dardanelles, which wears out the invaluable guns of the Indefatigable, which probably will require replacement. What good resulted from the last bombardment? Did it move a single Turk from the Caucasus?”[30]
Two days later he sent Mr. Churchill a formal minute, saying that our policy must not jeopardise our naval superiority, but the advantages of possessing Constantinople and getting wheat through the Black Sea were so overwhelming that he considered Colonel Hankey’s plans for Turkish operations vital and imperative, and very pressing. The object of these plans (circulated to the War Council on December 28, 1914) was to strike at Germany through her allies, particularly by weaving a web around Turkey; and for this purpose Lord Fisher sketched a much wider policy requiring the co-operation of Roumania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia.[31] The scheme was not identical with another design of naval strategy which was already occupying Lord Fisher’s mind, and the frustration of which by the Dardanelles Expedition ultimately caused his resignation (in May). But the evidence here quoted shows that Lord Fisher could not be included among the “high authorities” referred to by Mr. Churchill as concurring with Admiral Carden’s opinion. Mr. Churchill said in his evidence that he did not wish to include either Lord Fisher or Sir Arthur Wilson (who throughout agreed with Lord Fisher in the main). He was thinking of Admirals Jackson and Oliver. Yet to Admiral Carden’s mind Lord Fisher would naturally be suggested as one of the high authorities; and was suggested.[32]
ADMIRAL JACKSON’S OPINION
So soon as a demonstration of some sort was decided upon, Mr. Churchill asked Admiral Jackson to prepare a memorandum, which the Admiral described as a “Note on forcing the passages of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus by the Allied fleets in order to destroy the Turko-German squadron and threaten Constantinople without military co-operation.” The last three words are important, for it is evident that, though Admiral Jackson expressed no resolute opposition at the time, he was strongly opposed to the idea of a merely naval attack. In this memorandum he pointed out facts which even a layman might have discerned: that the ships, even if they destroyed the enemy squadron, would be exposed to torpedo at night, to say nothing of field-guns and rifles in the Straits, and would hold no line of retreat unless the shore batteries had been destroyed; that, though they might dominate the city, their position would not be enviable without a large military force to occupy it; that the bombardment alone would not be worth the considerable loss involved; that the city could not be occupied without troops, and there was a risk of indiscriminate massacre.[33]
The dangers of an unsupported naval attack were so obvious that Admiral Jackson can have needed no further authority in urging them. Yet he may have recalled a memorandum drawn up by the General Staff (December 19, 1906), stating that “military opinion, looking at the question from the point of view of coast defence, would be in entire agreement with the naval view that unaided action by the Fleet, bearing in mind the risks involved, was much to be deprecated.”[34]
Admiral Jackson’s discouraging memorandum of January 5 was not shown to the War Council. Yet it was of vital importance. In his evidence, Admiral Jackson insisted that he had always stuck to this memorandum:
“It would be a very mad thing,” he said, “to try and get into the Sea of Marmora without having the Gallipoli Peninsula held by our own troops or every gun on both sides of the Straits destroyed. He had never changed that opinion, and he had never given any one any reason to think he had.”
Long afterwards, Mr. Churchill suggested that what Admiral Jackson meant by a mad thing was an attempt to rush the Straits without having strong landing-parties available, and transports ready to enter when the batteries were seen to be silent.[35] It is just possible to put that interpretation on the words, but both they and the memorandum itself appear naturally to imply a far larger military force than landing-parties as essential.