"Joffre's objections appear to be that a landing in Asia opens up a very wide field if the force be not immediately successful, and that in that case more troops, munitions and drafts would be eventually required than he could spare with due regard to the safety of France.
"Secondly, he is not very confident of Sarrail's leadership, particularly as the plans Sarrail has made seem to be worthless. Joffre is having careful plans worked out by his Staff for the expedition on the Asiatic shore which, he says, though unfinished, do not look promising. The same objection on his part would not, I gather, be felt if the French troops were given a definite area and objective on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where the scope of their activities, and consequently the support required from France, could be limited."
Where's the use of M. Millerand's consulting me over what lies on the far side of a dead wall? Had he asked me to show why action here should have priority over action in France, then I might have been of some use. But that is settled: the four French Divisions earmarked for the East will not now be sent until after "the results of the coming offensive in France have been determined." "If the success of this push equals expectations you will reap the benefit." If indecisive then, "by the 10th October," two British Divisions and four French Divisions will be at Marseilles ready to sail out here: "about the middle of November would be the time when everything would be ready." There are altogether too many ifs and ands and pots and pans about Millerand's question. When a man starts going West who can foretell how long it will take him to arrive at the East?
(1) If the push in the West is victorious we will score, says K. That is so. Far as the Western battlefield lies from the scene of our struggle, the report of a German defeat in France would reverberate Eastwards and would lend us a brave moral impetus. But the point I would raise is this:—did K., as representing a huge Eastern Empire, press firmly upon Millerand and Joffre the alternative,—if the push in the East is victorious the West will score?
What express strategical gain do they expect from pushing back the Germans? A blow which merely destroys a proportion of men and material without paralysing the resources of the enemy is a blow in the air. War cannot be waged by tactics alone. That is a barbaric method. To bend back the German lines in the West, or to push the first line back on to the second or third, or twentieth, has of itself but slight strategical or economic import.
Here, on the other hand, we have literally in our grasp a clear cut gift offered us by the Gods. The impossible part, the landing, is done. All that remains is so many fresh men and so many thousand shell. The result is not problematical, but mathematical. Napoleon is the only man who has waged a world war in the world as we know it to-day. Napoleon said, I think it was on the famous raft, "Who holds Constantinople is master of the world." And there it lies at the mercy of the Briton—could he only convince Joffre that the shortest cut to freeing his country from the Germans lies through the Dardanelles.
"Exclusive News" phot.
Marshall Liman Von Sanders
The principles which should underlie Entente strategy will be clear to military historians although obscured to-day by jealousies and amateurishness: just the usual one, two, three they are, in this order:—
(a) Hold the sea.
(b) Hold the West.
(c) Smash the Turk.