"I am sorry about the Xth and XIth Divisions in which I had great confidence. Could you not ginger them up? The utmost energy and dash are required for these operations or they will again revert to trench warfare."
K.'s disappointment makes me feel sick! I know the great hopes he has built on these magnificent Divisions and I know equally well that he is not capable of understanding how he has cut his own throat, the men's throats and mine, by not sending young and up-to-date Generals to run them. K. in this, and this alone, is with Tolstoi. The men are everything; the man nothing. Have cabled back saying, "I am acting absolutely as you indicate by 'ginger'; I only got back at 11 last night from a further application of that commodity. As a result a fresh attack will be made to-morrow morning by the IXth Corps and the LIVth Division."
As to the New Army I point out to K. that "they are fighting under conditions quite foreign to their training and moreover they have no regulars to set them a standard": also, (and pray Heaven it is truth) "Everyone is fully alive to the necessity for dash, so I trust the attack of to-morrow will be much better done than were the two previous attempts."
Hardly had my cable to K. been despatched when Stopford gives us a sample specimen of "dash" by his answer to my reminder. He wires:—
"IXth Corps to G.H.Q. I foresee very great difficulty. The only system possible at first probably will be convoy under escort."
Twelve hours ago, more or less, Stopford had agreed that there was a difficulty which it was up to him to solve and that, at first, (i.e., till blockhouses had been built) the system would be convoy under escort. We ask him what he had done, expecting to get the particulars worked out by his Staff after the conference of Generals, and this is the reply!
Five minutes later, in came another wire giving the general situation at Suvla; saying the 53rd Division had failed to clear ground from which the right of the advance of the 54th Division might be threatened, and that Stopford wished to postpone his night march another four and twenty hours.
So this is the result of our "ginger," and Braithwaite or I must rush over to Suvla at once. Meanwhile, tactics and Kavak Tepe must wait.