"In your reply you need not consider the possible future danger to the Empire that might be thus caused."[15]
If they do this they make the Dardanelles into the bloodiest tragedy of the world! Even if we were to escape without a scratch, they would stamp our enterprise as the bloodiest of all tragedies! K. has always sworn by all his Gods he would have no hand in it. I won't touch it, and I think he knew that and calculated on that when he cabled. Anyway, let K., cat or Cabinet leap where they will, I must sleep upon my answer, but that answer will be NO!
Just as I am turning in, a cable from the S. of S. saying, "there is an idea that Sir John Maxwell is not sending you as many troops as he might from Egypt. Have you any complaints on this score?" Rather late in the day this "idea." Certainly, I have never made any "complaints" and I don't mean to do so now. The War Office have only to look up their returns and see how many men are being maintained to defend us from the Senoussi!
Maxwell has never had less than 70,000 troops in Egypt, a country which might have been held with 10,000 rifles—ever since we landed here, that is to say. My troops can sail back to Egypt very much faster than the Turks—or the Senoussi for that matter—can march to the Canal.
In the same cable the S. of S. asks what is the cause of the sick rate and remarks that, "some accounts from the Dardanelles indicate that the men are dispirited." Small wonder if they were! When they see two Divisions taken away from the Peninsula; when their guns can't answer those of the enemy; when each unit finds itself half-strength, and falling—why then, tumbling as they do to the fact that we won't get through till next year, they ought to be unhappy. But the funny thing is that the Cabinet, the Secretaries of State, are the people who are "dispirited" and not the people out here. If the P.M. could walk round the trenches of the Naval Division at Helles, or if K. could exchange greetings with the rank and file at Anzac and Suvla, they would find a sovereign antidote for the blues and would realize that it was they who were down-hearted and not the men at the Dardanelles. There was an old French Colonel, killed at Gravelotte; he had studied the classic world battles and he shows that it was never the front line who gave way first, but always the reserves:—they, the reserves, watched bloodshed in cold blood until they could stand it no longer and so took to their heels whilst the fighting men were still focussed upon victory. Not the enemy in front but the friends behind are the men who spread despondency and alarm.
Charley Burn has arrived on the Imogene with Dawnay.
Davies went back to Helles after tea. Dawnay says K. was most interested in him and most charming to him all through his stay until his last interview just before he started on his return journey. K.'s manner then, he said, had changed—so much so as to give him an impression that the great man was turning, or was being turned, against all of us out here. K.'s conduct at the first meetings is in full harmony with his message sent to Braithwaite for me by Fitz about a fortnight ago, saying I possessed his fullest confidence. The change of manner was marked and Dawnay is sure he made no mistake about it. But nothing has happened since the date of Dawnay's arrival and departure save a very well engineered withdrawal of the 10th and the French Divisions for which, in point of fact, we have all been rather expecting congratulations. Dawnay thinks some queer things are happening. He could—or would—say nothing more.
12th October, 1915. Imbros. Early in the morning got off my answer to K.'s evacuation cable. The elements, the enemy and ourselves are the three factors of the problem. Were I to measure my problem by the night flitting of the Irish and French Divisions (who lost neither man nor beast in the process), I could guarantee that we would shoot the moon with the balance of the force smoothly, swiftly and silently. That is to say, supposing the Turks and the weather remain constant. But these are two most inconstant things: no one can tell how a Turk will behave under any given conditions; the Turks themselves do not know how they will behave: the weather now is written down by the meteorologists for sudden changes; for storms. Unsettled weather is due and ought to be reckoned upon. Imagine a blow coming up from the South when the evacuation is half way through. That does not seem to be, and is not, any great stretch of imagination. Well then, having so imagined, we get a disaster only equalled in history by that of the Athenians at Syracuse: a disaster from which the British Empire could hardly hope to recover.
Twice backwards and forwards to the General Staff Marquee with the draft of my guesses, my first being that we would probably lose 35 to 45 per cent. But the General Staff have also been consulting their oracle and were clear for 50 per cent. Months of the most anxious calculations will not get a white man one whit forrarder in seeing into the brains of an Asiatic Army or in forecasting Mediterranean weather. Safest to assume that both brains and weather will behave as the German General Staff would wish them to behave rather than as they chanced to behave when the French and Irish went off a few days ago. So have ended by taking the Staff's figure because any figure being, in any case, the wildest of shots, their shot best suits my views on the issue.
"From General Sir Ian Hamilton to Earl Kitchener. Our losses would depend on such uncertain factors, enemy's action or inaction, weather, question whether we could rely on all troops covering embarkation to fight to the last, that impossible to give you straight answer especially until I have permission to consult Admiral. Once discussing this very problem with General Gouraud, we came to the conclusion that at Cape Helles we must sacrifice two divisions out of total of six divisions and Cape Helles easiest of three places to get away from. My opinion now is that it would not be wise to reckon on getting out of Gallipoli with less loss than that of half the total force as well as guns, which must be used to the last, stores, railway plant and horses. Moral of those who got off would fall very low. One quarter would probably get off quite easily, then the trouble would begin. We might be very lucky and lose considerably less than I have estimated. On the other hand, with all these raw troops at Suvla and all these Senegalese at Cape Helles, we might have a veritable catastrophe."