I could not help laughing heartily at the blue looks of Tyrrell, the Head of our Intelligence. After all, this is Asquith's own affair. I do not for one moment believe Mr. Asquith would employ such agencies and for sure he will turn Murdoch and his wares into the wastepaper basket. I have reassured Tyrrell. Tittle-tattle will effect no lodgment in the Asquithian brain.
Lieutenant Moore from the Military Secretary's office in London dined. He has been useful to us. During the night there was rain and heavy fog. The evacuation of Suvla by the 10th Division goes on without the smallest hitch and is almost finished—all except the guns. Whether the Turks have fallen asleep or only closed an eye is the question of the hour but Birdwood's Intelligence are certain they are stone cold and cannot be dragged to the attack.
1st October, 1915. Imbros. S. of S. cables he will not overlook our wants in the matter of ammunition but that "at the present moment all he can get has to be sent to France." I have thanked him. Not a word from France since we fired the feu de joie.
K. believes in the East and sends shell to the West. The reason is that K.'s beliefs are only intuitions; he believes in the same sort of way that Elijah knew certain things.
The principle underlying the world war seems to me this:—that wherever the new system of trenches, dug-outs, barbed wire, can reach its fullest development, there we should prefer the defensive. Wherever this new system cannot be fully developed, there the old ideas hold good and there are the theatres for the offensive. In France and Flanders where both sides are within a few hours' run, on good railways, from their own chief arsenals and depôts the new system attains prodigious power. In the Turkish Empire almost all the conditions; railways, material, factories, etc., are favourable to the old and unfavourable to the new conditions.
To me these views appear as clear as crystal and as unanswerable as Euclid. The tenacity of the new system of defence; the pressure of France; the apathy of a starved military opinion; the fact that all our most powerful soldiers are up to their necks in the West, combine to keep us ramming our heads against the big pile of barbed wire instead of getting through by the gate called strait.
Next Braithwaite with the following electrical bombshell:—
"By Bailloud's report I see that he considers that the French line can be held by one division. If, on reconsideration, you agree with this view can you spare the LIIIrd Division?"
K. has pounced like a hawk on Bailloud's statement (which I cabled to him yesterday) that he is taking steps for Brulard to hold the French section with one division.