14th October, 1915. Imbros. Colder than ever. We are told that the winter will kill the flies and that with their death we shall all get hearty and well. Meanwhile, they have turned to winged limpets.
Being Mail day as well as rough, stuck to camp. My friend England sailed into harbour in the Chelmer and came up to lunch. In the evening he took Godley back to Anzac. Duncannon came to dinner. I have made him liaison officer with the French in place of de Putron who has gone to Salonika with Bailloud.
As to the Murdoch unpleasantness, I began an exposé to be sent to the Governor General of Australia; another to the Secretary of the C.I.D. But Pollen, Braithwaite and Dawnay (the last of whom had been shown the document whilst he was at home, though he had said nothing to me about it) thought this was to make much ado about nothing. They cannot believe Lord K. will trouble himself about the matter any further and they think it best handled in lighter vein. Is K. still the demi-God, that is the question? Anyway, there is simply no time this Mail to deal with so many misstatements, so that has settled it.
"General Headquarters,
"Medtn. Expeditionary Force,
"14th October, 1915.
"Dear Callwell,
"I have read Mr. Murdoch's letter with care, and I have tried to give it my most impartial consideration and not to allow myself in reply to be influenced in any way by the criticisms he may have felt himself bound to make upon myself personally.
"What does this letter amount to? Here we have a man, a journalist by profession, one who is quick to seize every point, and to coin epithets, which throw each fleeting impression into strongest relief. He comes armed with a natural and justifiably enthusiastic admiration for everything connected with the Commonwealth to which he belongs, and ready to retail to his Minister or his public anything that can contribute to show the troops they have sent in an heroic light.
"Here he obtains his first sight of war and of the horrors and hardships inseparable from it. He finds men who have just been through some of the hardest fighting imaginable and who have suffered terrible losses; he finds probably that very many of those whom he hoped to see, certainly many of those of whose welfare their motherland would wish to hear, are killed, wounded or laid up with illness,—he finds all this and he becomes very deeply depressed. In such an atmosphere Mr. Murdoch composes his letter, a general analysis of which shows it to be divided, to my mind, into two separate strata.
"First an appreciation in burning terms of the spirit, the achievements, the physique and all soldierly qualities of the Australian Forces. Secondly, a condemnation, as sweeping and as unrelieved as his praise in the first instance is unstinted, of the whole of the rest of the force. I myself as C.-in-C., my Generals, my Staff, Lines of Communication, Sir John Maxwell and General Spens at the Base, even the British soldiers collectively and individually, are all embraced in this condemnation which is completed by the inclusion of the entire direction of the Forces at home, both Naval and Military.
"Where all are thus tarred with the same brush, I am content to leave it to the impartial reader to decide what reliance can be placed on Mr. Murdoch's judgment. My own feeling certainly is that in his admiration for the Australian Forces, and in his grief at their heavy losses (in both of which feelings I fully share) he has allowed himself to belittle and to criticize us all so that their virtues might be thrown into even bolder relief.