Had meant to run across and see Davies but time had slipped away and so we made tracks for H.M.S. Lefroy, and on back here to G.H.Q., where a letter from Callwell was laying in wait as a refresher after my fatigues.
Callwell begins by saying he encloses a document written by my late visitor, Mr. K. A. Murdoch, although "there are certain statements in this which are palpably false," and although Dawnay has pointed out to him at the War Office "a number of passages in it which are wholly incorrect as matters of actual fact." He says, Lord K., "who has not had time to read it yet," thinks I ought to be given a chance of defending myself.
Callwell goes on to write about the Press Censorship and my plea for publicity and then says he dislikes the Salonika stunt "because I am not quite clear of where we are going to, and the immediate result at the present is to take away from you troops that you can ill spare." Also, because "we may be involving ourselves in operations on a great scale in the heart of the Balkans, the result of which it is very difficult to foresee."
Godley dined. Captain Davidson, R.N., the Senior Naval Officer in harbour now, is a real Godsend. He looks after us as if we were Admirals of the Fleet.
Have now read, marked, learnt and inwardly indigested Callwell's enclosure; viz., the letter written by Mr. K. A. Murdoch to the Prime Minister of Australia. Quite a Guy Fawkes epistle. Braithwaite is "more cordially detested in our forces than Enver Pasha." "You will trust me when I say that the work of the General Staff in Gallipoli is deplorable." "Sedition is talked round every tin of bully beef on the Peninsula." "You would refuse to believe that these men were really British soldiers ... the British physique is very much below that of the Turks. Indeed, it is quite obviously so. Our men have found it impossible to form a high opinion of the British K. men and Territorials. They are merely a lot of childlike youths, without strength to endure or brains to improve their conditions." "I shall always remember the stricken face of a young English Lieutenant when I told him he must make up his mind for a winter campaign." "I do not like to dictate this sentence, even for your eyes, but the fact is that after the first day at Suvla an order had to be issued to Officers to shoot without mercy any soldier who lagged behind or loitered in an advance."
Well, Well! I should not worry myself over the out-pourings of our late guest, who has evidently been made a tool of by some unscrupulous person, were it not that Mr. Asquith has clothed the said out-pourings in the title, number, garb and colour of a verified and authentic State paper. He has actually had them printed on the famous duck's egg foolscap of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and under his authority, as President and Prime Minister, they have been circulated round the Government and all the notables of the Empire without any chance having been offered to me (or to K.) of defending the honour of British Officers or the good name of the British Rank and File. K. tells Callwell I should be given the opportunity of making a reply. Not having read it himself he has not yet grasped the fact that he also should have been given the opportunity of making a reply to the aspersions upon his selections. As for me, by the time my answer can get home and can be printed and circulated the slanders will have had over a month's start in England and very likely two months' start in Australia, where all who read them will naturally conclude their statements must have been tested before ever they were published in that impressive form.
Here we see an irresponsible statement by an ignorant man and I instinctively feel as if it were being used as one more weapon to force Asquith's hand and to ruin our last chance. I only hope it may not prove another case of, "Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!"
Certain aspects of this affair trouble my understanding. The covering note (dated 25th September) which encloses the letter to the Prime Minister of Australia (dated 23rd September) is addressed by Mr. Murdoch to Mr. Asquith by name. In that covering note Mr. Murdoch says, "I write with diffidence, and only at Mr. Lloyd George's request." Within three days (so great the urgency or pressure) Mr. Asquith causes—as he, President of the Committee of Imperial Defence, alone can cause—the covering note as well as the seven or eight thousand words of the letter to be printed and circulated round the big wigs of Politics, as well as (to judge by the co-incident hardening of the tone of this mail's papers) some of the Editors. Not one word to me as to Mr. Murdoch's qualifications or as to the truth or falsity of his statements, until these last have been a week in circulation. Then, I receive; first, a cable saying unofficial reports had come in censuring my General Staff and that I had better, therefore, let Braithwaite go; secondly, a cable asking me whether the absurd story of my having ordered my own soldiers to be shot "without mercy " is well-founded; thirdly, a bad last, the libellous letter itself.
Yet Mr. Asquith did know the paper contained some falsehoods. He may have attached weight to Mr. Murdoch's tale of the feelings of French soldiers at Helles (although he never found time to go there): he may have believed Mr. Murdoch when he says that Sir John Maxwell "has a poor brain for his big position"; that "our men feel that their reputation is too sacred to leave in the hands of Maxwell"; that Sir William Birdwood "has not the fighting quality or big brain of a great General"; that General Spens was "a man broken on the Continent" (although he never was broken and never served on the Continent); that "Kitchener has a terrible task in getting pure work from the General Staff of the British Army, whose motives can never be pure, for they are unchangeably selfish"; that "from what I saw of the Turk, I am convinced he is ... a better man than those opposed to him" (although, actually, Mr. Murdoch saw nothing of the Turks). The P.M. may have taken these views at their face values: even, he may have swallowed Mr. Murdoch's picture of the conscientious Altham "wallowing" in ice whilst wounded were expiring of heat within a few hundred yards; but Mr. Asquith has seen the K. Army and, therefore, he cannot have believed that these soldiers have suddenly been transformed into "merely a lot of childish youths without strength to endure or brains to improve their conditions."
Once more; these reckless scraps of hearsay would not be worth the paper they are printed on were it not that they are endorsed with the letters C.I.D., the stamp of the ministerial Holy of Holies. Only the Prime Minister himself, personally, can so consign a paper. Lord K. and I were both members of the C.I.D., and members of long standing. For the President to circularize our fellow members behind our backs with unverified accusations is a strange act, foreign to all my ideas of Mr. Asquith. On this point Callwell is quite clear: the Murdoch letter was published to the C.I.D. on the 28th ult. and Callwell writes on the 2nd inst., and says Lord K. "has not had time to read it yet."[16] But nothing else is clear. In fact, the whole thing is foreign to all my ideas of Mr. Asquith. He does not need to work the C.I.D. oracle in this way. As P.M. he has only to speak the word. He does not work the Press oracle either: not his custom: also he likes K. The whole thing is a mystery, of which I can only say with Hamlet—"miching mallecho; it means mischief."