If ever the heart of man was searched by serious and painful stress, it may well have been in that Council chamber of January 28, 1915. For then a decision was taken, and an order given, as a result of which great ships were lost, great interests permanently ruined, and thousands of men sent to their last account.
CHAPTER III
THE NAVAL ATTACKS
At the War Council meetings of January 28 a demonstration extending to the possible capture of Constantinople was thus decided upon, and the demonstration was to be purely naval. All the members of the Council would have agreed that a joint naval and military (or “amphibious”) attack would have made success surer; but Lord Kitchener declared the necessary troops could not be supplied, and his decision was accepted without question. The evidence shows that when first Admiral Carden was commanded to attack, no hint of military support was given him. He was expected to depend entirely upon small landing-parties of his own marines to demolish the forts.[53] Mr. Churchill has himself told us that, if an amphibious attack had then been thought essential or seriously contemplated, nothing at all would have been done. Nothing less than 100,000 or 150,000 men could have been asked for, together with large supplies of high explosives and artillery. Whereupon, “all the military experts” (i.e. Lord Kitchener, with the possible addition of Lord French) “unanimously would have said that the men were not available, and the ammunition could not be spared from the French front.”[54] Whether it would not have been well, even at this last moment, to abandon the whole scheme rather than act contrary to the best judgment of experts and laymen alike, has now, unfortunately, become a matter of vain speculation.
HESITATION RENEWED
Hardly had the naval orders been given, and the ships dispatched, when the Council began to waver. It is impossible to fix a day for this change, for the change itself wavered. In his evidence, General Callwell (the D.M.O.) said: “We drifted into the big military attack”;[55] and “drift” is the precise word for the Council’s uncertain course. By the middle of February the feeling had evidently set towards an amphibious movement; but up to the middle of March they hoped that the need of landing troops upon a large scale might be avoided by purely naval success. It appears that early in February Lord Kitchener began to yield. Probably his former decision was shaken by the abandonment of a large-scale offensive in France, and by the failure of the Turkish attack upon the Suez Canal (February 3 and 4). Though the Turkish force was allowed to retreat without the destruction which greater energy in the Egyptian Command might have brought upon it, the troops then in Egypt had proved more than sufficient for defence; and Egypt, as we have noticed, was always Lord Kitchener’s peculiar care. On February 9 he remarked in the War Council that “if the Navy required the assistance of the land forces at a later stage, that assistance would be forthcoming.”
THE 29TH DIVISION DETAINED
But, by the majority of the Council, the claim for assistance was not postponed to a later stage. On February 15 Sir Henry Jackson sent a long memorandum of “suggestions” to Admiral Carden in regard to the approaching naval attack. Not only did this memorandum speak of strong military landing-parties with strong covering forces as necessary, but it added that “full advantage of the undertaking would only be obtained by the occupation of the Peninsula by a military force acting in conjunction with the naval operations.” The very next day (February 16) the War Council decided to send the 29th Division (hitherto destined for France) at the earliest possible date to Lemnos; to arrange for a force from Egypt, if required; and to order the Admiralty to prepare transport for the conveyance and landing of 50,000 men.[56] The navy and army were thus at last committed to an amphibious enterprise; but nineteen days had been lost. What was worse: the 29th Division was to have started on February 22, but on the 20th Lord Kitchener, on his own initiative, without consulting the First Lord or the Admirals, told the Director of Naval Transport to stop the preparation of transport, as the Division was not to go. In spite of Mr. Churchill’s vehement protests (for even his confidence in a purely naval attack was now shaking), Lord Kitchener stood by his decision till March 10, and the Division did not begin to start till March 16. Twenty-two more days lost! Add the nineteen of the Council’s hesitation, and forty-one days were lost in all. Forty-one days in an enterprise which depended upon speed and secrecy!
Undoubtedly Lord Kitchener had sufficient reason for delay. The Russian armies were hard pressed on their right or northern flank, and in the centre Hindenburg was pushing his third attempt upon Warsaw. If the Germans were successful at either point, it was probable that they would transfer large forces to their Western front, with which the French were then heavily engaged in Champagne and between the Moselle and Meuse, while the British were preparing and executing the assault at Neuve Chapelle (March 10 to 14).[57] There may have been other reasons, but those were enough to justify caution in allowing a splendid Regular Division like the 29th to be diverted from the critical strategic lines in France. Its retention, without due notice to the War Council, was sudden and arbitrary. That was Lord Kitchener’s way, and no more could be said. Perhaps the Division should not have been offered, and the Secretary for War, who also held supreme military command, could not be blamed for retaining it under his hand. Nevertheless, its retention stands high among the causes of ultimate disaster.
By the middle of February the War Council had tacitly abandoned the idea of a mere demonstration from which the ships could be at any moment withdrawn. But both Lord Kitchener and Mr. Churchill still thought that troops, if used at all, would be wanted only for “minor operations,” such as the final destruction of batteries, and both clung to this idea for about four weeks longer. Yet, in the first week of March, General Birdwood, who had been sent from Egypt to report upon this very question, telegraphed to Lord Kitchener that he was doubtful if the navy could force a passage unassisted, and that Admiral Carden’s forecast was too sanguine.[58]
THE DARDANELLES