Another great advantage was that the weather, when we landed in April, was much cooler; there was also an ample rainfall, so that there would have been no difficulty about drinking-water, a lack of which in August proved fatal to the attempt made in that hot, dry month. We did not, of course, rely upon a chance rainfall at the time of our landing, for, as I shall show later on, ample provision had been made for carrying and supplying water, at all events for the 29th Division.
Unfortunately, such a plan of campaign as I have outlined was not put into execution. Instead, the force was split up into no less than nine parts, and practically destroyed in detail, or brought to a standstill by the Turks.
The Australian and New Zealand Divisions landed at Anzac, the key position; the 29th Division beat themselves to death attacking six different and almost impregnable positions on the toe of the Peninsula, where, I dare to say, not a single man ought ever to have been landed; in addition to the opposition they met with in Gallipoli they were subjected to a rain of shells from Asia, not only at the time of landing but throughout the whole time we wasted in occupying this utterly (from a military point of view) useless end of the Peninsula.
The Royal Naval Division was sent somewhere in the direction of the Bulair Lines, where it effected nothing, and the two French Divisions made an onslaught on the Asiatic coast, which, although well conceived and most gallantly put into execution, helped the main cause not at all. Of course, they were invaluable in preventing the Asiatic guns from firing on the 29th Division at the time of the landing, but then this Division should of course have been landed at Anzac, where they would have been out of range of those guns. Whatever Turkish force opposed the French at Kum Kale could never have got across the Dardanelles in time to have opposed our landing at or near Anzac.
If it had been thought necessary to make demonstrations on the Asiatic coast, at the toe of the Peninsula, and at the Bulair Lines, this could have been done equally well by sending the empty transports to those places, escorted by a few gunboats, and thus have held the Turks in position by making a pretence at throwing troops ashore at those points.
Of course, it is easy to be wise after the event, but I never did see, and never could see, the point of dividing our force and landing on the southern part of Gallipoli, for, once we had got astride the Peninsula from Anzac to the Narrows, all the Turks to the south of us must have fallen into our mouths, like ripe plums.
Napoleon has placed it on record that it is the besetting sin of British commanders to fritter away their forces by dividing them and so laying themselves open to be defeated in detail. It would appear that we have not even yet taken Napoleon's maxim to heart, for if ever there was an occasion on which it was absolutely vital to keep the whole force intact for a mighty blow, it was on that fateful Sunday morning, April 25th, 1915, when one concentrated thrust from Anzac to the Narrows would have undoubtedly placed in our hands the key of the Ottoman Empire.
The Dardanelles campaign will go down to history as the greatest failure sustained by British arms, and yet no more glorious deeds have ever been performed by any army in the world.