But, taking things as they are—
(1). No detail thought out, much less worked out or practised, as to form or manner of landing;
(2). Absence of 29th Division;
(3). Lack of gear (naval and military) for any landing on a large scale or maintenance thereafter;
(4). Unsettled weather; my ground is not solid enough to support me were I to put it to K. that I had broken away from his explicit instructions.
The Navy, i.e., de Robeck, Wemyss and Keyes, entirely agree. They see as well as we do that the military force ought to have been ready before the Navy began to attack. What we have to do now is to repair a first false step. The Admiral undertakes to keep pegging away at the Straits whilst we in Alexandria are putting on our war paint. He will see to it, he says, that they think more of battleships than of landings. He is greatly relieved to hear I have practically made up my mind to go for the South of the Peninsula and to keep in closest touch with the Fleet. The Commodore also seems well pleased: he told us he hoped to get his Fleet Sweeps so reorganised as to do away with the danger from mines by the 3rd or 4th of April; then, he says, with us to do the spotting for the naval guns, the battleships can smother the Forts and will alarm the Turkish Infantry as to that tenderest part of an Army—its rear. So I may say that all are in full agreement,—a blessing.
Have cabled home begging for more engineers, a lot of hand grenades, trench mortars, periscopes and tools. The barbed wire bothers me! Am specially keen about trench mortars; if it comes to close fighting on the Peninsula with its restricted area trench mortars may make up for our lack of artillery and especially of howitzers. Luckily, they can be turned out quickly.
23rd March, 1915. H.M.S. "Franconia." At 9 a.m. General d'Amade and his Staff came aboard. D'Amade had been kept yesterday by his own pressing business from attending the Conference. I have read him these notes and have shown him my cable of yesterday to Lord K. in which I say that "The French Commander is equally convinced that a move to Alexandria is a practical necessity, although a point of honour makes it impossible for him to suggest turning his back to the Turks to his own Government." But, I say, "he will be enchanted if they give him the order." D'Amade says I have not quite correctly represented his views. Not fantastic honour, he says, caused him to say we had better, for a while, hold on, but rather the sense of prestige. He thought the departure of the troops following so closely on the heels of the naval repulse would have a bad moral effect on the Balkans. But he agrees that, in practice, the move has now become imperative; the animals are dying; the men are overcrowded, whilst Mudros is impossible as a base. My cable, therefore, may stand.
At 10 o'clock he, Birdie and myself landed to inspect a Battalion of Australians (9th Battalion of the 3rd Brigade). I made them carry out a little attack on a row of windmills, and really, they did not show much more imagination over the business than did Don Quixote in a similar encounter. But the men are superb specimens.