"J'ai l'honneur d'être avec l'assurance de ma plus haute considération.

(Sd.) "LIMAN VON SANDERS,
"Commandant en chef de la 5me
Armée Ottomane.
"Commandant en chef des Forces Britanniques,
Sir John Hamilton, Excellence."

23rd May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian." Blazing hot. Wrote all day. Had an hour and a half's talk with de Robeck—high politics as well as our own rather anxious affairs. No one knows how the new First Lord will play up, but Asquith, for sure, chucks away his mainspring if he parts with Winston: as to Fisher, he too has energy but none of it came our way so he will have no tears from us, though he has friends here too. The submarine scare is full on; the beastly things have frightened us more than all the Turks and all their German guns.

24th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian." Vice-Admiral Nicol, French Naval Commander-in-Chief, came aboard to pay me a visit.

Armistice from 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. for burial of Turkish dead. All went off quite smoothly.... This moment, 12.40 p.m. the Captain has rushed in to say that H.M.S. Triumph is sinking! He caught the bad news on his wireless as it flew. Beyond doubt the German submarine. What exactly is about to happen, God knows. The fleet cannot see itself wiped out by degrees; and yet, without the fleet, how are we soldiers to exist? One more awful conundrum set to us, but the Navy will solve it, for sure.

25th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian." Bad news confirmed. The Admiral came aboard and between us we tried to size up the new situation and to readjust ourselves thereto. Our nicely worked out system for supplying the troops has in a moment been tangled up into a hundred knotty problems. Instead of our small craft working to and fro in half mile runs, henceforth they will have to cover 60 miles per trip. Until now the big ocean going ships have anchored close up to Helles or Anzac; in future Mudros will be the only possible harbour for these priceless floating depots. Imbros, here, lies quite open to submarine attacks, and in a northerly gale, becomes a mere roadstead. The Admiral, who regards soldiers as wayward water babes, has insisted on lashing a merchantman to each side of the Arcadian to serve as torpedo buffers. There are, it seems, at least two German submarines prowling about at the present moment between Gaba Tepe and Cape Helles. After torpedoing the Triumph the same submarine fired at and missed the Vengeance. The Lord Nelson with the Admiral, as well as three French battleships, zig-zagged out of harbour and made tracks for Mudros in the afternoon. We are left all alone in our glory with our two captive merchantmen. The attitude is heroic but not, I think, so dangerous as it is uncomfortable. The big ocean liners lashed to port and starboard cut us off from air as well as light and one of them is loaded with Cheddar. When Mr. Jorrocks awoke James Pigg and asked him to open the window and see what sort of a hunting morning it was, it will be remembered that the huntsman opened the cupboard by mistake and made the reply, "Hellish dark and smells of cheese." Well, that immortal remark hits us off to a T. Never mind. Light will be vouchsafed. Amen.

The burial of 3,000 Turks by armistice at Anzac seems to have been carried out without a hitch. All these 3,000 Turks were killed between the 18th and 20th instant. By the usual averages this figure implies over 12,000 wounded so the Lord has vouchsafed us a signal victory indeed. Birdwood's men were all out and his reserves, or rather the lack of them, would not permit him to counter-attack the moment the enemy's assault was repulsed. When we read of battles in histories we feel, we see, so clearly the value of counter-attack and the folly of passive defence; but, in the field, the struggle has sometimes been so close that the victorious defence are left gasping. The enemy were very polite during the armistice, and by way of being highly solemn and correct, but they could not refrain from bursting into laughter when the Australians held up cigarettes and called out "baksheesh."

Last night the French and the Naval Brigade made a good advance with slight loss. The East Lancs also pushed on a little bit.

26th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian." Entertained a small party of Australian officers as my private guests for 48 hours, my idea being to give them a bit of a rest. Colonel Monash, commanding 4th Australian Infantry Brigade, was the senior. He is a very competent officer. I have a clear memory of him standing under a gum tree at Lilydale, near Melbourne, holding a conference after a manœuvre, when it had been even hotter than it is here now. I was prepared for intelligent criticisms but I thought they would be so wrapped up in the cotton wool of politeness that no one would be very much impressed. On the contrary, he stated his opinions in the most direct, blunt, telling way. The fact was noted in my report and now his conduct out here has been fully up to sample.

A horrid mishap. Landing some New Zealand Mounted Rifles at Anzac, the destroyer anchored within range of the Turkish guns instead of slowly steaming about out of range until the picket boats came off to bring the men ashore. The Turks were watching and, as soon as she let go her anchor, opened fire from their guns by the olive, and before the destroyer could get under weigh six of these fine New Zealand lads were killed and forty-five wounded. A hundred fair fighting casualties would affect me less. To be knocked out before having taken part in a battle, or even having set foot upon the Promised Land—nothing could be more cruel.