D'Amade's own inclinations would have led him to Asia. When he left France he did not know he was to be under me and he had made up his mind to land at Adramiti. But now he waives all preconceived ideas and is keen to throw himself heart and soul into Lord K.'s ideas and mine. He would rather I did not even refer to his former views as he sees they are expressly barred by the tenor of my instructions. The French are working to time in getting ship-shape. The 29th Division are arriving up to date and about one-third of them have landed. We are fixing up our gear for floating and other piers and are trying to improvise ways and means of coping with the water problem—this ugly nightmare of a water problem. The question of the carriage and storage of water for thousands of men and horses over a roadless, mainly waterless track of country should have been tackled before we left England.
To solve these conundrums we have had to recreate for ourselves a special field service system of food, water and ammunition supply. As an instance we have had to re-organise baggage sections of trains and fit up store ships as substitutes for additional ammunition columns and parks. We are getting on fairly fast with our work of telling off troops to transports so that each boat load of men landed will be, so to say, on its own; victualled, watered and munitioned. But it takes some doing. Greatly handicapped by absence of any Administrative, or Q. Staff. The General Staff are working double shifts, at a task for which they have never been trained—
It's a way we have in the Aaarmy!
It's a way we have in the NAAAAvy!!
It's a way we have in the Eeeeeempire!!!
That nobody can deny!!!!
What would my friends on the Japanese General Staff say—or my quondam friends on the German General Staff—if they knew that a Commander-in-Chief had been for a fortnight in touch with his troops, engaged with them upon a huge administrative job, and that he had not one administrative Staff Officer to help him, but was willynilly using his General Staff for the work? They would say "mad Englishmen" and this time they would be right. The British public services are poisoned by two enormous fallacies: (a) if a man does well in one business, he will do equally well or better in another; (b) if a man does badly in one business he will do equally badly or worse in another. There is nothing beyond a vague, floating reputation or public opinion to enable a new Minister to know his subordinates. The Germans have tabulated the experiences and deficiencies of our leaders, active and potential, in peace and war—we have not! Every British General of any note is analysed, characterised and turned inside out in the bureau records of the great German General Staff in Berlin. We only attempt anything of that sort with burglars. My own portrait is in those archives and is very good if not very flattering; so a German who had read it has told me. This is organisation: this is business; but official circles in England are so remote in their methods from these particular notions of business that I must turn to a big newspaper shop to let anyone even begin to understand what it is to run Q. business with a G.S. team. Suppose Lord Northcliffe decided to embark upon a journalistic campaign in Canada and that his scheme turned upon time; that it was a question of Northcliffe catching time by the forelock or of time laying Northcliffe by the heels. Suppose, further, that he had no first-hand knowledge of Canada and had decided to place the conduct of the campaign in the hands of his brother who would spy out the land; choose the best site; buy a building; order the printing press; engage hands and start the paper. Well; what staff would he send with him? A couple of leader writers, a trio of special correspondents and half a dozen reporters? Probably; but would there not also be berths taken in the Cunarder for a manager trained in the business side of journalism? Quite a fair way of putting the present case, although, on the other side, it is also fair to add that British Officers have usually had to play so many parts in the charade of square pegs in round holes, that they can catch a hold anywhere, at any time, and carry on somehow.
31st March, 1915. Alexandria.—Quill driving and dictating. Have made several remonstrances lately at the way McMahon is permitting the Egyptian Press to betray our intentions, numbers, etc. It is almost incredible and Maxwell doesn't see his way clear to interfere. For the last day or two they have been telling the Turks openly where we are bound for. So I have written McMahon the following:—
"General Headquarters,
"18 Rue el Caid Gohar,
"Alexandria, 31/3/15.
"Dear High Commissioner,
"I was somewhat startled a couple of mornings ago by an article in the Egyptian Gazette giving away the arrival of the French troops, and making open references to the Gallipoli Peninsula. The very frankness of such communications may of course mislead the Turk into thinking we mean thereby to take his mind off some other place which is our real objective, but I doubt it. He knows our usual methods too well.
"Consequently as it is very important at least to throw him into some state of bewilderment as to our movements, I propose sending the following cable to Lord Kitchener—
"'Whether of set purpose or through inadvertence articles have appeared in Egyptian Press openly discussing arrival of French and British troops and naming Gallipoli as their destination. Is there any political objection to my cautiously spreading rumour that our true objective is, say, Smyrna?'
"Before I despatch the wire, however, I think I should like you to see it, in case you have any objections. I have all the facilities for spreading any rumour I like through my Intelligence Branch, which would be less suspected than information leaking out from political sources.