The Dardanelles Campaign
Progress of the Allies in June
Slow and Difficult
In his speech at Dundee on June 5, from which the passage concerning the Dardanelles is reproduced below, Winston Spencer Churchill's reference to "losses of ships" constituted the official comment on the sinking by submarine attack on May 26 and 27 of the British battleships Triumph in the Gulf of Saros, and Majestic off Sedd-el-Bahr. That increased to six the sum of battleships lost to the Allies in the Dardanelles operations. The review of the operations from May 15 to June 17, shows a development of slow trench warfare on land, which postpones the attainment of a few miles to a victory confidently predicted by Mr. Churchill.
A FEW MILES FROM VICTORY.
In the course of his speech at Dundee on June 5, 1915, Winston Spencer Churchill said:
The operations which are now proceeding at the Dardanelles will give him (Mr. Balfour) the opportunity of using that quality of cool, calm courage and inflexibility which fifteen years ago prevented Ladysmith from being left to its fate and surrendered to the enemy. I have two things to say to you about the Dardanelles.
First, you must expect losses both by land and sea. But the fleet you are employing there is your surplus fleet, after all other needs have been provided for. Had it not been used in this great enterprise it would have been lying idle in your southern ports. A large number of the old vessels, of which it is composed, have to be laid up in any case before the end of the year, because their crews are wanted for the enormous reinforcements of new ships which the industry of your workships is hurrying into the water. Losses of ships, therefore, as long as the precious lives of the officers and men are saved—which in nearly every case they have been—losses of that kind, I say, may easily be exaggerated in the minds both of friend and foe. Military operations will also be costly, but those who suppose that Lord Kitchener—(loud cheers)—has embarked upon them without narrowly and carefully considering their requirements in relation to all other needs and in relation to the paramount need of our army in France and Flanders—such people are mistaken, and not only mistaken, they are presumptuous.
My second point is this. In looking at your losses squarely and soberly you must not forget at the same time the prize for which you are contending. The army of Sir Ian Hamilton, the fleet of Admiral de Robeck are separated only by a few miles from a victory such as this war has not yet seen. When I speak of victory I am not referring to those victories which crowd the daily placards of any newspapers. I am speaking of victory in the sense of a brilliant and formidable fact shaping the destinies of nations and shortening the duration of the war. Beyond those few miles of ridge and scrub on which our soldiers, our French comrades, our gallant Australian and New Zealand fellow-subjects are now battling, lie the downfall of a hostile empire, the destruction of an enemy's fleet and army, the fall of a world-famous capital, and probably the accession of powerful allies. The struggle will be heavy, the risks numerous, the losses cruel, but victory when it comes will make amend for all. There never was a great subsidiary operation of war in which a more complete harmony of strategic, political, and economic advantages were combined, or which stood in truer relation to the main decision, which is in the central theatre. Through the Narrows of the Dardanelles and across the ridges of the Gallipoli Peninsula lie some of the shortest paths to a triumphant peace.