Wired back:—
"In the circumstances the operation for to-morrow is postponed. Chief sending C.G.S. over now to see you."
Braithwaite went: is back now: has seen both Stopford and Reed: has agreed (with a sad heart) on my behalf to the night march being put off another twenty four hours.
Have had, therefore, to cable K. again, shouldering the heavy blame of this further delay:—
"(No. M.F. 545). From General Sir Ian Hamilton to Earl Kitchener. After anxiously weighing the pros and cons, I have decided that it is wiser to wait another 24 hours before carrying out the general attack mentioned in my No. M.F. 543. Braithwaite has just returned from the IXth Corps, and he found that the spirit and general organization were improving rapidly. A small attack by a Brigade, which promised well, was in progress. This morning the Xth Division captured a trench."
The story of the Suvla Council of War:—At first the Generals were for fighting. Inglefield, of the LIVth, who is told off for the attack, was keen. All he asked was, a clean start from Anafarta Ova. If his Division could jump off, intact and fresh, from that well-watered half-way house, Kavak Tepe was his. The LIIIrd Division for their part agreed to make good Anafarta Ova; to clear out the snipers and to hold the place as a base for the LIVth.
So at 10 a.m. Stopford issued orders saying the LIVth must march off at 4 p.m. moving East of Anafarta Ova. Then,—when at last all seemed settled, in came a message from the G.O.C. LIIIrd Division, saying he could not undertake to clear Anafarta Ova of snipers and to hold it as a cover to the advance of the LIVth.
Stopford thereupon cancelled his first order, and, at 1.15 p.m., issued fresh orders directing the LIVth Division to send in one of their own Brigades as an advance guard to clear the ground up to a point East of Anafarta Ova. Braithwaite stayed at Corps Headquarters at Suvla until this Brigade, the 163rd, was moving on Anafarta Ova driving the snipers before them. Mahon, too, after sitting for three days where I left him on the morning of the 9th, has got tired of looking at the gendarmes and has carried their trenches by the forbidden frontal bayonet charge without much trouble or loss although, naturally, these trenches have been strengthened during the interval.