Turns out that Cox and Russell did even better than Birdwood had thought in the fighting on the 21st and the morning of the 22nd. They have killed more Turks and the line held runs well out to the North-east and quite a good long way to the North of Kaiajik Aghala.
Byng left to take over his command. Davies came over from Helles and stayed for dinner.
The Imogene sailed in with Mails. News by wireless of German Naval defeat in the Baltic and Italian declaration of war against Turkey. Well, that part at least of K.'s aspirations has come off; we have dragged in Italy. Now—will she send us a contingent?
Davies dined. With his ideas still framed on Western standards he puts it forcibly, not to say ferociously, that we must, must, must be given our fair share of trench mortars, bombs and gun ammunition. Fresh from France he watched the artillery preparation at Helles and (although we had thought it rather grand) says we simply don't know what the word bombardment means. Instead of seeing, as in the Western theatre, an unbroken wall of flame and smoke rising above the enemy trenches about to be stormed, here he saw a sprinkling of shells bursting at intervals of 20 yards or so—a totally different effect. And yet the Turks are as tough as the Germans and take as much hammering!
When I read the British Press, starved and yet muzzled, I feel as if I could render my country no better service than to kill my friend the Censor and write them one or two articles.
By surprise either Army can bulge in a sector of the opposing lines but, until one Army loses its moral, neither Army can break through. An engine will be found to restore marches and manœuvres but, at this historic moment, our tactics are at that stage. To break through, Armies must advance some six or seven miles; otherwise they can't bag the enemy's big guns. But, the backbone of their attack, their own guns, can't support them when they get beyond five or six miles. The enemy reserves come in; they come at last to a stop. A three or four mile advance should be easy enough, but, in the West, that would mean just three or four miles of land; nothing more. But here, those three or four miles—nay, two or three miles—(so ineffective in France) are an objective in themselves; they give us the strategical hub of the universe—Constantinople!
Suppose even that by paying the cost in lives we did succeed in driving the Germans over the Rhine, still we stand to gain less than by taking this one little peninsula! A quarter of the energy they are about to develop for the sake of getting back a few miles of la belle France could give us Asia; Africa; the Balkans; the Black Sea; the mouths of the Danube: it would enable us to swap rifles for wheat with the Russians; more vital still, it would tune up the hearts of the Russian soldiery to the Anglo-Saxon pitch.
Victory by killing Germans is a barbarous notion and a savage method. A thrust with small forces at a weak spot to bring the enemy to their knees by loss of provinces, resources and prestige is an artistic idea and a scientific stroke: the one stands for a cudgel blow, the other for rapier play.
We take it for granted that we have to "push" in France and Flanders; that we have to exhaust ourselves in forcing the invaders back over their own frontiers. Whereas, content to "hold" there, we might push wherever else we wished.
I can well understand that a Frenchman should say, "Let the world go hang provided I get back my Patrie, whole; undivided and at once." Indeed, only the other day, one of the best French Generals here, after speaking of the decisive, world-embracing consequences of a victory at the Dardanelles, went on to say, "But we ought to be in France." Seeing my surprise he added, "Yes, I am quite illogical, I admit, but until our nine departements are freed from the Boche, world strategy and tactics may go to the devil for me."