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THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN

By the same Author

ESSAYS IN
REBELLION

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NEIGHBOURS OF OURS: Scenes of East End Life.

IN THE VALLEY OF TOPHET: Scenes of Black Country Life.

THE THIRTY DAYS’ WAR: Scenes in the Greek and Turkish War of 1897.

LADYSMITH: A Diary of the Siege.

CLASSIC GREEK LANDSCAPE AND ARCHITECTURE: Text to John Fulleylove’s Pictures of Greece.

THE PLEA OF PAN.

BETWEEN THE ACTS: Scenes in the Author’s Experience.

ON THE OLD ROAD THROUGH FRANCE TO FLORENCE: French Chapters to Hallam Murray’s Pictures.

BOOKS AND PERSONALITIES: A Volume of Criticism.

A MODERN SLAVERY: An Investigation of the Slave System in Angola and the Islands of San Thomé and Principe.

THE DAWN IN RUSSIA: Scenes in the Revolution of 1905–1906.

THE NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA: Scenes during the Unrest of 1907–1908.

ESSAYS IN FREEDOM.

THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM: A Summary of the History of Democracy.

GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON. G.C.B., D.S.O.

FROM A PORTRAIT BY JOHN S. SARGENT. R.A.

THE DARDANELLES
CAMPAIGN

BY
HENRY W. NEVINSON

THIRD AND REVISED EDITION

London
NISBET & CO. LTD.
22 BERNERS STREET W. 1

DEDICATED TO
THOSE WHO FELL ON THE
GALLIPOLI PENINSULA

Οἱ δ’ αὐτοῦ περὶ τεῖχος

θήκας Ἰλιάδος γᾶς

εὔμορφοι κατέχουσιν’ ἐχθρὰ δ’ ἔχοντας ἔκρυψεν.

Beside the ruins of Troy they lie buried, those men so beautiful; there they have their burial-place, hidden in an enemy’s land.

The Agamemnon, 453–455.

Ἀνδρῶν ἐπιφανῶν πᾶσα γῆ τάφος, καὶ οὐ στηλῶν μόνον ἐν τῇ οἰκείᾳ σημαίνει ἐπιγραφὴ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῇ μὴ προσηκούσῃ ἄγραφος μνήμη παρ᾽ ἑκάστῳ τῆς γνώμης μᾶλλον ἢ τοῦ ἔργου ἐνδιαιτᾶται.

Of conspicuous men the whole world is the tomb, and it is not only inscriptions on tablets in their own country which chronicle their fame, but rather, even in distant lands, unwritten memorials living for ever, not upon visible monuments, but in the hearts of mankind.

Pericles’ Funeral Speech;
Thucydides, ii. 43.

PREFACE

From the outset the Dardanelles Campaign attracted me with peculiar interest. The shores of the Straits were the scene of the Trojan epics and dramas. They were explored and partly inhabited by a race whose legends and history had been more familiar to me from boyhood than my own country’s, and more inspiring. They belonged to that beautiful part of the world with which I had become personally intimate during the wars, rebellions, and other disturbances of the previous twenty years. But, above all, I was attracted to the Campaign because I regarded it as a strategic conception surpassing others in promise. My reasons are referred to in various chapters of this book, and indeed they were obvious. The occupation of Constantinople would have paralysed Turkey as an ally of the Central Powers; it would have blocked their path to the Middle East, and averted danger from Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and India; it would have released the Russian forces in the Caucasus for action elsewhere; it would have secured the neutrality, if not the active co-operation, of the Balkan States, and especially of Bulgaria, not only the most resolute and effective of them, but a State well disposed to ourselves and the Russian people by history and sentiment; by securing Bulgaria’s friendship, it would have delivered Serbia from fear of attack upon her eastern frontier, and have relieved Roumania from similar apprehensions along the Danube and in the Dobrudja; it would have confirmed the influence of Venizelos in Greece, and saved King Constantine from military, financial, and domestic temptations to Germanise; above all, it would thus have secured Russia’s left flank, so enabling her to concentrate her entire forces upon the Lithuanian, Polish, and Galician frontiers from the Memel to the Dniester.

The worst apprehensions of the Central Powers would then have been fulfilled. Blockaded by the Allied fleets in the Adriatic, and by the British fleet in the Channel and the North Sea, they would have found themselves indeed surrounded by an iron ring, and, so far as prophecy was possible, it seemed likely that the terms which our Alliance openly professed as our objects in the war might have been obtained in the spring of 1916. The subsidiary and more immediate consequences of success in the Dardanelles, such as the supply of munitions to Russia, and of Ukrainian wheat to our Alliance, were also to be considered. The saying of Napoleon, in May, 1808, still held good: “At bottom the great question is—Who shall have Constantinople?”

Under the prevailing influence of “Westerners” upon French and British strategy, these probable advantages were either disregarded or dismissed, and to dwell upon them now is a useless speculation. The hopes suggested by the conception in 1915 have faded like a dream. The dominant minds in our Alliance either failed to imagine their significance, or were incapable of supplying the power required for their realisation while at the same time pressing forward the proposed offensive in France. The international situation of Europe, and indeed of the world, is now changed, and the strategic map has been completely altered. Early belligerents have disappeared from the field, and new belligerents have entered the shifting scene. Already, in 1918, the Dardanelles Expedition has passed into history, and may be counted among the ghosts which history tries in vain to summon up. It is as an episode of a vanished past that I have attempted to represent it—a tragic episode enacted in the space of eleven months, but marked by every attribute of noble tragedy, whether we consider the grandeur of theme and personality, or the sympathy aroused by the spectacle of heroic figures struggling against the unconscious adversity of fate and the malign influences of hostile or deceptive power.

In treatment, I have made no attempt to rival my friend John Masefield’s Gallipoli—that excellent piece of work, at once so accurate and so brilliantly illuminated by poetic vision. Mine has been the humbler task of simply recording the events as they occurred, with such detail as seemed essential to complete the history, or was accessible to myself. In this endeavour, I have trusted partly to the books and documents mentioned below, partly to information generously supplied to me by many of the principal actors upon the scene; also to my own notes, writings, and memory, especially with regard to the nature of the country and the events of which I was a witness. Accuracy and justice have been my only aims, but in a work involving so much detail and so many controverted questions mistakes in accuracy and justice are scarcely to be avoided. I know the confusion of mind and the distorted vision so frequent in all great crises of war, and I know from long experience how ignorant may be the criticism applied to any soldier from the Commander-in-Chief down to the private with a rifle.

The mention of the private with a rifle suggests my chief regret. The method I have followed, in treating divisions or brigades or, at the lowest, battalions as the units of action, almost obliterates the individual soldier from consideration. Divisions, brigades, and battalions are moved like pieces on a board, and Commanding Officers must regard each of them only as a certain quantity of force acting under the laws of time and space. Yet each of the so-called units is made up of living men—men of distinctive personality and incalculably varying nature. Men are the actual units in war as in the State, and I do not forget the “common soldiers.” I do not overlook either their natural failures or their astonishing performance. In various campaigns and in many countries I have shared their apprehensions, their hardships, their brief intervals of respite, and their laborious triumphs. They, like the rest of mankind, have always filled me with surprised admiration or poignant sympathy. Among the soldiers of many races, but especially among the natives of these islands, whom I could best understand, I have always found the fine qualities which distinguish the majority of hardworking people, all of whom live perpetually in perilous hardship. I have found a freedom from rhetoric and vanity, a simple-hearted acceptance of life “in the first intention,” taking life and death without much criticism as they come, and concealing kindliness and the longing for happiness under a veil of silence or protective irony. But a book of this kind has little place for the mention of them, and that is my regret. Like a general, I have been obliged to consider forces mainly in the mass, and must leave to readers the duty of remembering, as I never cease to remember, that all divisions and all platoons upon the Peninsula were composed of ordinary men like ourselves—individual personalities subject to the common sufferings of hunger, thirst, sickness, and pain; filled also with the common delight in life, the common horror of death, and the desire for peace and home. As in the case of general mankind, it was their endurance, their courage, self-sacrifice, and all that is implied in the ancient meanings of “virtue,” which excited my wonder.

Among those who have given me very kind assistance either on the Dardanelles Peninsula or in London, I may mention with gratitude General Sir Ian Hamilton, G.C.B., etc.; General Sir William R. Birdwood, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., etc.; Major-General Sir Alexander Godley, K.C.B., etc.; Major-General Sir A. H. Russell, K.C.M.G., etc.; the late Lieut.-General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, K.C.B.; Major-General Sir W. R. Marshall, K.C.B.; Major-General H. B. Walker, C.B.; Major-General Sir William Douglas, K.C.M.G.; Major-General F. H. Sykes, C.M.G.; Major-General Sir D. Mercer, K.C.B.; Brigadier-General Freyberg, V.C.; Colonel Leslie Wilson, D.S.O., M.P.; and Lieut. Douglas Jerrold, R.N.V.D.; Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, K.C.B., etc.; Rear-Admiral Heathcote Grant, C.B., etc.; Captain A. P. Davidson, R.N.; Captain the Hon. Algernon Boyle, R.N.; Staff-Surgeon Levick, R.N.; and the Rev. C. J. C. Peshall, R.N. It would indeed be difficult to draw up a complete list of the Naval and Military officers to whom I owe my thanks.

Having taken many photographs on the Peninsula, I posted them, as I was directed, to the War Office, and never saw them again. I can only hope that any one into whose possession they may happen to have come upon the route, may find them as useful as I should have found them in illustrating this book. My friend, Captain C. E. W. Bean, has generously supplied me with some of his own photographs in their place. For the rest I am permitted to use official pictures, taken by my friend, Mr. Brooks. They are of course far superior to any I could have taken, but some are already familiar.

The maps are for the most part constructed from the Staff Maps (nominally Turkish, but mainly Austrian I believe) used by the G.H.Q. upon the Peninsula. Some also are derived from drawings by Generals and Staff Officers. For the larger maps of Anzac and Suvla I am indebted to the assistance of Captain Treloar and the Australian Staff in London, with permission of Sir Alexander Godley, and Brigadier-General Richardson (formerly of the Royal Naval Division); and to Mr. S. B. K. Caulfield.

The following is a list of the chief books and documents which I have found useful:—

Sir Ian Hamilton’s Dispatches.

Sir Charles Monro’s Dispatch on the Evacuation.

The Dardanelles Commission Report, Part I.

With the Twenty-ninth Division in Gallipoli, by the Rev. O. Creighton, Chaplain to the 86th Brigade (killed in France, April 1918).

The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli, by Major Bryan Cooper, 5th Connaught Rangers.

With the Zionists in Gallipoli, by Lieut.-Colonel J. S. Patterson.

The Immortal Gamble, by A. J. Stewart, Acting Commander, R.N., and the Rev. C. J. E. Peshall, Chaplain, R.N.

Uncensored Letters from the Dardanelles, by a French Medical Officer.

Australia in Arms, by Phillip F. E. Schuler.

The Story of the Anzacs. (Messrs. Ingram & Sons, Melbourne.)

Mr. Ashmead Bartlett’s Dispatches from the Dardanelles.

What of the Dardanelles? by Granville Fortescue.

Two Years in Constantinople, by Dr. Harry Stürmer.

Inside Constantinople, by Lewis Einstein.

Nelson’s History of the War, by Colonel John Buchan.

The “Times” History of the War.

The “Manchester Guardian” History of the War.

H. W. N.

London, 1918.

Secrets of the Bosphorus, by Henry Morgenthau (1919), especially illustrate pp. 144–145.

An interview with General von Sanders, by Mr. G. Ward Price, of the Daily Mail, in Constantinople (Nov. 13, 1918), contains points of military interest.

(Note to Second Edition.)

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE DARDANELLES
CAMPAIGN

CHAPTER I
THE ORIGIN

On November 3, 1914, the silence of the Dardanelles was suddenly broken by an Anglo-French naval squadron, which opened fire upon the forts at the entrance of that historic strait. The bombardment lasted only ten minutes, its object being merely to test the range of the Turkish guns, and no damage seems to have been inflicted on either side. The ships belonged to the Eastern Mediterranean Allied Squadrons, commanded by Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden, and the order to bombard was given by the Admiralty, Mr. Winston Churchill being First Lord. The War Council was not consulted, and Admiral Sir Henry Jackson, Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, in his evidence before the Dardanelles Commission described the bombardment as a mistake, because it was likely to put the Turks on the alert. Commodore de Bartolomé, Naval Secretary to the First Lord, also said he considered it unfortunate, presumably for the same reason.[1] Even Turks, unaided by Germans, might have foreseen the ultimate necessity of strengthening the fortification of the Straits, but at the beginning they would naturally trust to the long-recognised difficulty of forcing a passage up the swift and devious channel which protects the entrance to the Imperial City more securely than a mountain pass.

War between the Allies and Turkey became certain only three days before (October 31), but from the first the temptation of the Turkish Government to throw in their lot with “Central Europe” was powerful. It is true that, during three or four decades of last century, Turkey counted upon England for protection, and that by the Crimean War and the Treaty of Berlin England had protected her, with interested generosity, as a serviceable though frail barrier against Russian designs. But the British occupation of Egypt, the British intervention in Crete and Macedonia, and perhaps also the knowledge that a body of Englishmen fought for Greece in her disastrous campaign of 1897, shook Turkish confidence in the supposed protection; while, on the other hand, Abdul Hamid’s atrocious persecution of his subject races proved to the British middle classes that, though the Turk was described as “the gentleman of the Near East,” he still possessed qualities undesirable in an ally of professing Christians. Besides, within the last eight years (since 1906), the understanding between England and Russia had continually grown more definite, until it resulted in open alliance at the outbreak of the war; and Russia had long been Turkey’s relentless and insatiable foe. For she had her mind steadily set upon Constantinople, partly because, by a convenient and semi-religious myth, the Tsars regarded themselves as the natural heirs of the Byzantine Emperors, and partly in the knowledge that the possession of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles was essential for the development of Russia’s naval power.

HOW GERMANY WON TURKEY

Germany was not slow in taking up the part of Turkey’s friend as bit by bit it fell from England’s hand. If, in Lord Salisbury’s phrase, England found in the ’nineties that at the time of the Crimean War she had put her money on the wrong horse, Germany continued to back the weak-kneed and discarded outsider. Germany’s voice was never heard in the widespread outcry against “the Red Sultan.” German diplomacy regarded all Balkan races and Armenians with indifferent scorn. It called them “sheepstealers” (Hammeldiebe), and if Abdul Hamid chose to stamp upon troublesome subjects, that was his own affair. With that keen eye to his country’s material interest which, before the war, made him the most enterprising and successful of commercial travellers, Kaiser Wilhelm II., repeating the earlier visit of 1889, visited the Sultan in state at the height of his unpopularity (1898), commemorated the favour by the gift of a deplorable fountain to the city, and proceeded upon a speculative pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which holy city German or Turkish antiquarians patched with the lath and plaster restorations befitting so curious an occasion.

The prolonged negotiations over the concession of the Bagdad railway ensued, the interests of Turkey and Germany alike being repeatedly thwarted by England’s opposition, up to the very eve of the present war, when Sir Edward Grey withdrew our objection, providing only for our interests on the section between Bagdad and the Persian Gulf.[2] During the Young Turk revolution of 1908–1909, English Liberal opinion was enthusiastic in support of the movement and in the expectation of reform. But our diplomacy, always irritated at new situations and suspicious of extended liberties, eyed the change with a chilling scepticism which threw all the advantage into the hands of Baron Marschall von Biberstein, the German Ambassador in Constantinople. His natural politeness and open-hearted industry contrasted favourably with the habitual aloofness or leisured indifference of British Embassies; and so it came about that Enver Pasha, the military leader of Young Turkey, was welcomed indeed by the opponents of Abdul Hamid’s tyranny at a public dinner in London, but went to reside in Berlin as military attaché.

GERMANY’S EASTERN AIMS

Germany’s object in this astute benevolence was not concealed. With her rapidly increasing population, laborious, enterprising, and better trained than other races for the pursuit of commerce and technical industries, she naturally sought outlets to vast spaces of the world, such as Great Britain, France, and Russia had already absorbed. The immense growth of her wealth, combined with formidable naval and military power, encouraged the belief that such expansion was as practicable as necessary. But the best places in the sun were now occupied. She had secured pretty fair portions in Africa, but France, England, and Belgium had better. Brazil was tempting, but the United States proclaimed the Monroe doctrine as a bar to the New World. Portugal might sell Angola under paternal compulsion, but its provinces were rotten with slavery, and its climate poisonous. Looking round the world, Germany found in the Turkish Empire alone a sufficiently salubrious and comparatively vacant sphere for her development; and it is difficult to say what more suitable sphere we could have chosen to allot for her satisfaction, without encroaching upon our own preserves. Even the patch remaining to Turkey in Europe is a fine market-place; with industry and capital most of Asia Minor would again flourish as “the bright cities of Asia” have flourished before; there is no reason but the Ottoman curse why the sites of Nineveh and Babylon should remain uninhabited, or the Garden of Eden lie desolate as a wilderness of alternate dust and quagmire.

But to reach this land of hope and commerce the route by sea was long, and exposed to naval attack throughout its length till the Dardanelles were reached. The overland route must, therefore, be kept open, and three points of difficulty intervened, even if the alliance with Austria-Hungary permanently held good. The overland route passed through Serbia (by the so-called “corridor”), and behind Serbia stood the jealous and watchful power of the Tsars; it passed through Bulgaria, which would have to be persuaded by solid arguments on which side her material interests lay; and it passed through Constantinople, ultimately destined to become the bridgehead of the Bagdad railway—the point from which trains might cross a Bosphorus suspension bridge without unloading. There the German enterprise came clashing up against Russia’s naval ambition and Russia’s rooted sentiment. There the Kaiser, imitating the well-known epigram of Charles v., might have said: “My cousin the Tsar and I desire the same object—namely, Constantinople.” There lay the explanation of Professor Mitrofanoff’s terrible sentence in the Preussische Jahrbücher of June 1914: “Russians now see plainly that the road to Constantinople lies through Berlin.” The Serajevo murders on the 28th of the same month were but the occasion of the Great War. The corridor through Serbia, and the bridgehead of the Bosphorus, ranked among the ultimate causes.

The appearance (Dec. 1913) of a German General, Liman von Sanders, in Constantinople shortly after the second Balkan War, if it did not make the Great War inevitable, drove the Turkish alliance in case of war inevitably to the German side. He succeeded to more than the position of General Colman von der Goltz, appointed to reorganise the Turkish army in 1882. Accompanied by a German staff, the Kaiser’s delegate began at once to act as a kind of Inspector-General of the Turkish forces, and when war broke out they fell naturally under his control or command. The Turkish Government appeared to hesitate nearly three months before definitely adopting a side. The uneasy Sultan, decrepit with forty years of palatial imprisonment under a brother who, upon those terms only, had borne his existence near the throne, still retained the Turk’s traditional respect for England and France. So did his Grand Vizier, Said Halim. So did a large number of his subjects, among whom tradition dies slowly. With tact and a reasonable expenditure of financial persuasion, the ancient sympathy might have been revived when all had given it over; and such a revival would have saved us millions of money and thousands of young and noble lives, beyond all calculation of value.

ENGLAND’S ATTITUDE TO TURKEY

But, most disastrously for our cause, the tact and financial persuasion were all on the other side. The Allies, it is true, gave the Porte “definite assurances that, if Turkey remained neutral, her independence and integrity would be respected during the war and in the terms of peace.”[3] But similar and stronger assurances had been given both at the Treaty of Berlin and at the outbreak of the first Balkan War in 1912. Unfortunately for our peace, Turkey had discovered that at the Powers’ perjuries Time laughs, nor had Time long to wait for laughter. Following upon successive jiltings, protestations of future affection are cautiously regarded unless backed by solid evidences of good faith; but the Allies, having previously refused loans which Berlin hastened to advance, had further revealed the frivolity of their intentions the very day before war with Germany was declared, by seizing the two Dreadnought battleships, Sultan Osman and Reshadie, then building for the Turkish service in British dockyards. Upon these two battleships the Turks had set high, perhaps exaggerated, hopes, and Turkish peasants had contributed to their purchase; for they regarded them as insurance against further Greek aggression among the islands of the Asiatic coast. Coming on the top of the Egyptian occupation, the philanthropic interference with sovereign atrocity, the Russian alliance, and the refusal of loans, their seizure overthrew the shaken credit of England’s honesty, and one might almost say that for a couple of Dreadnoughts we lost Constantinople and the Straits.[4]

GERMANY TAKES HER ADVANTAGE

With lightning rapidity, Germany seized the advantage of our blunder. At the declaration of war, the Goeben, one of her finest battle-cruisers, a ship of 22,625 tons, capable of 28 knots, and armed with ten 11-inch guns, twelve 5·9-inch, and twelve lesser guns, was stationed off Algeria, accompanied by the fast light cruiser Breslau (4478 tons, twelve 4·1 inch guns), which had formed part of the international force at Durazzo during the farcical rule of Prince von Wied in Albania. After bombarding two Algerian towns, they coaled at Messina, and, escaping thence with melodramatic success, eluded the Allied Mediterranean command, and reached Constantinople through the Dardanelles, though suffering slight damage from the light cruiser Gloucester (August 8 or 9). When Sir Louis Mallet and the other Allied Ambassadors demanded their dismantlement, the Kaiser, with constrained but calculated charity, nominally sold or presented them to Turkey as a gift, crews, guns, and all. Here, then, were two fine ships, not merely building, but solidly afloat and ready to hand. The gift was worth an overwhelming victory to the foreseeing donor.[5]

Germany’s representatives pressed this enormous advantage by inducing the Turkish Government to appoint General Liman Commander-in-Chief, and to abrogate the Capitulations. They advanced fresh loans, and fomented the Pan-Islamic movement in Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia, and perhaps in Northern India. They even disseminated the peculiar rumour that the Kaiser, in addition to his material activities, had adopted the Moslem faith. The dangerous tendency was so obvious that, after three weeks’ war, Mr. Winston Churchill concluded that Turkey might join the Central Powers and declare war at any moment. On September 1 he wrote privately to General Douglas, Chief of the Imperial General Staff:

“I arranged with Lord Kitchener yesterday that two officers from the Admiralty should meet two officers from the D.M.O.’s (Director of Military Operations) Department of the War Office to-day to examine and work out a plan for the seizure, by means of a Greek army of adequate strength, of the Gallipoli Peninsula, with a view to admitting a British Fleet to the Sea of Marmora.”

Two days later, General Callwell, the D.M.O., wrote a memorandum upon the subject, in which he said:

“It ought to be clearly understood that an attack upon the Gallipoli Peninsula from the sea side (outside the Straits) is likely to prove an extremely difficult operation of war.”

He added that it would not be justifiable to undertake this operation with an army of less than 60,000 men.[6]

Here, then, we have the first mention of the Dardanelles Expedition. It will be noticed that the idea was Mr. Churchill’s, that he depended upon a Greek army to carry it out, and that General Callwell, the official adviser upon such subjects, considered it extremely difficult, and not to be attempted with a landing force of less than 60,000 men.

In mentioning a Greek army, Mr. Churchill justly relied upon M. Venizelos, at that time by far the ablest personality in the Near East, entirely friendly to ourselves, and Premier of Greece, which he had saved from chaos and greatly extended in territory by his policy of the preceding five or six years. But Mr. Churchill forgot to take account of two important factors. After the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, King Constantine’s imaginative but unwarlike people had acclaimed him both as the Napoleon of the Near East and as the “Bulgar-slayer,” a title borrowed from Byzantine history. Priding himself upon these insignia of a military fame little justified by his military achievements from 1897 onward, the King of Greece posed as the plain, straightforward soldier, and, perhaps to his credit, from the first refused approval of a Dardanelles campaign, though he professed himself willing to lead his whole army along the coast through Thrace to the City. The profession was made the more easily through his consciousness that the offer would not be accepted.[7] For the other factor forgotten by Mr. Churchill was the certain refusal of the Tsar to allow a single Greek soldier to advance a yard towards the long-cherished prize of Constantinople and the Straits.

TURKEY DECLARES WAR

Turkish hesitation continued up to the end of October, when the war party under Enver Pasha, Minister of War, gained a dubious predominance by sending out the Turkish fleet, which rapidly returned, asserting that the ships had been fired upon by Russians (Oct. 28)—an assertion believed by few. On the 29th, Turkish torpedo boats (at first reported as the Goeben and Breslau) bombarded Odessa and Theodosia, and a swarm of Bedouins invaded the Sinai Peninsula. Turkey declared war on the 31st. Sir Louis Mallet left Constantinople on November 1, and on the 5th England formally declared war upon Turkey.

CHAPTER II
THE INCEPTION

The breach with Turkey, so pregnant with evil destiny, did not attract much attention in England at the moment. All thoughts were then fixed upon the struggle of our thin and almost exhausted line to hold Ypres and check the enemy’s straining endeavour to command the Channel coast by occupying Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne. The Turk’s military reputation had fallen low in the Balkan War of 1912, and few realised how greatly his power had been re-established under Enver and the German military mission. Egypt was the only obvious point of danger, and the desert of Sinai appeared a sufficient protection against an unscientific and poverty-stricken foe; or, if the desert were penetrated, the Canal, though itself the point to be protected, was trusted to protect itself. On November 8, however, some troops from India seized Fao, at the mouth of the Tigris-Euphrates, and, with reinforcements, occupied Basrah on the 23rd, thus inaugurating that Mesopotamian expedition which, after terrible vicissitudes, reached Bagdad early in March 1917.

THE CAMPAIGN SUGGESTED

These measures, however, did not satisfy Mr. Churchill. At a meeting of the War Council on November 25, he returned to his idea of striking at the Gallipoli Peninsula, if only as a feint. Lord Kitchener considered the moment had not yet arrived, and regarded a suggestion to collect transport in Egypt for 40,000 men as unnecessary at present. In his own words, Mr. Churchill “put the project on one side, and thought no more of it for the time,” although horse-boats continued to be sent to Alexandria “in case the War Office should, at a later stage, wish to undertake a joint naval and military operation in the Eastern Mediterranean.”[8]

On January 2, 1915, a telegram from our Ambassador at Petrograd completely altered the situation. Russia, hard pressed in the Caucasus, called for a demonstration against the Turks in some other quarter. Certainly, at that moment, Russia had little margin of force. She was gasping from the effort to resist Hindenburg’s frontal attack upon Warsaw across the Bzura, and the contest had barely turned in her favour during Christmas week. In the Caucasus the situation had become serious, since Enver, by clever strategy, attempted to strike at Kars round the rear of a Russian army which then appeared to threaten an advance upon Erzeroum. On the day upon which the telegram was sent, the worst danger had already been averted, for in the neighbourhood of Sarikamish the Russians had destroyed Enver’s 9th Corps, and seriously defeated the 10th and 11th. But this fortunate and unexpected result was probably still unknown in Petrograd when our Ambassador telegraphed his appeal.

On the following day (January 3, 1915) an answer, drafted in the War Office, but sent through the Foreign Office, was returned, promising a demonstration against the Turks, but fearing that it would be unlikely to effect any serious withdrawal of Turkish troops in the Caucasus. Sir Edward Grey considered that “when our Ally appealed for assistance we were bound to do what we could.” But Lord Kitchener was far from hopeful. He informed Mr. Churchill that the only place where a demonstration might have some effect in stopping reinforcements going East would be the Dardanelles. But he thought we could not do much to help the Russians in the Caucasus; “we had no troops to land anywhere”; “we should not be ready for anything big for some months.”[9]

So, by January 3, we were bound to some sort of a demonstration in the Dardanelles, but Lord Kitchener regarded it as a mere feint in the hope of withholding or recalling Turkish troops from the Caucasus, and he evidently contemplated a purely or mainly naval demonstration which we could easily withdraw without landing troops, and without loss of prestige. In sending this answer to Petrograd, he does not appear to have consulted the War Council as a whole. His decision, though not very enthusiastic, was sufficient; for in the conduct of the war he dominated the War Council, as he dominated the country.

THE WAR COUNCIL

The War Council had taken the place of the old Committee of Imperial Defence (instituted in 1901, and reconstructed in 1904). The change was made towards the end of November 1914, but, except in one important particular, it was little more than a change in name. Like the old Committee, the Council were merely a Committee of the Cabinet, with naval and military experts added to give advice. The main difference was that the War Council, instead of laying its decisions before the Cabinet for approval or discussion, gave effect even to the most vital of them upon its own responsibility, and thus gathered into its own hands all deliberative and executive powers regarding military and naval movements. Sir Edward Grey, as Foreign Secretary, Mr. Lloyd George, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord Crewe, as Secretary for India, occasionally attended the meetings, and Mr. Balfour was invited to attend. But the real power remained with Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister, Lord Kitchener, the Secretary for War, and Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. In Mr. Asquith’s own words: “The daily conduct of the operations of the war was in the hands of the Ministers responsible for the Army and Navy in constant consultation with the Prime Minister.”[10]

LORD KITCHENER’S POWER

This inner trinity of Ministers was dominated, as we said, by Lord Kitchener’s massive personality. In his evidence before the Dardanelles Commission, Mr. Churchill thus described the effect of that remarkable man upon the other members:

“Lord Kitchener’s personal qualities and position played at this time a very great part in the decision of events. His prestige and authority were immense. He was the sole mouthpiece of War Office opinion in the War Council. Every one had the greatest admiration for his character, and every one felt fortified, amid the terrible and incalculable events of the opening months of the war, by his commanding presence. When he gave a decision, it was invariably accepted as final. He was never, to my belief, overruled by the War Council or the Cabinet in any military matter, great or small. No single unit was ever sent or withheld contrary, not merely to his agreement, but to his advice. Scarcely any one ever ventured to argue with him in Council. Respect for the man, sympathy for him in his immense labours, confidence in his professional judgment, and the belief that he had plans deeper and wider than any we could see, silenced misgivings and disputes, whether in the Council or at the War Office. All-powerful, imperturbable, reserved, he dominated absolutely our counsels at this time.”[11]

These sentences accurately express the ideal of Lord Kitchener as conceived by the public mind. His large but still active frame, his striking appearance, and his reputation for powerful reserve, in themselves inspired confidence. His patient and ultimately successful services in Egypt, the Soudan, South Africa, and India were famed throughout the country, which discovered in him the very embodiment of the silent strength and tenacity, piously believed to distinguish the British nature. Shortly before the outbreak of war, Mr. Asquith as Prime Minister had taken the charge of the War Office upon himself, owing to Presbyterian Ulster’s threat of civil war, and the possibility of mutiny among the British garrison in Ireland, if commanded to proceed against that rather self-righteous population. When war with Germany was declared, it so happened that Lord Kitchener was in England, on the point of returning to Egypt, and Mr. Asquith handed over to him his own office as Secretary for War. The Cabinet, and especially Lord Haldane (then Lord Chancellor, but Minister of War from 1905 to 1912), the most able of army organisers, urged him to this step. But he needed no persuasion. He never thought of any other successor as possible. As he has said himself:

“Lord Kitchener’s appointment was received with universal acclamation, so much so indeed that it was represented as having been forced upon a reluctant Cabinet by the overwhelming pressure of an intelligent and prescient Press.”[12]

By the consent of all, Lord Kitchener was the one man capable of conducting the war, and by the consent of most he remained the one man, though he conducted it. Yet it might well be argued that the public mind, incapable of perceiving complexity, accepted a simple ideal of their hero which he himself had deliberately created. A hint of the mistake may be found in Mr. Asquith’s speech.[13] He admitted that Lord Kitchener was a masterful man; that he had been endowed with a formidable personality, and was by nature rather disposed to keep his own counsel. But he maintained that he “was by no means the solitary and taciturn autocrat in the way he had been depicted.” One may describe him as shy rather than aggressive, genial rather than relentless, a reasonable peacemaker rather than a man of iron. Under that unbending manner, he studiously concealed a love of beauty, both human and artistic. Under a rapt appearance of far-reaching designs, his mind was much occupied with inappropriate detail, and could relax into trivialities. He was distinguished rather for sudden flashes of intuition than for reasoned and elaborated plans. During the first year of the war, his natural temptation to occupy himself in matters better delegated to subordinates was increased by the absence in France of experienced officers whom he could have trusted for staff work. He became his own Chief of Staff,[14] and diverted much of his energy to minor services. At the War Council he acted as his own expert, and Sir James Murray, who always attended the meetings as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, was never even asked to express an opinion. The labours thus thrown upon Lord Kitchener, or mistakenly assumed, when he was engaged upon the task of creating new armies out of volunteers, and organising an unmilitary nation for war while the war thundered across the Channel, were too vast and multifarious for a single brain, however resolute. It is possible also that the course of years had slightly softened the personal will which had withstood Lord Milner in carrying through the peace negotiations at Pretoria, and Lord Curzon in reforming the Viceroy’s Council at Simla. Nevertheless, when all is said, all-powerful, imperturbable, reserved, Lord Kitchener dominated absolutely the counsels of the war’s first year, and his service to the country was beyond all estimate. It raises his memory far above the reach of the malignant detraction attempted after his death by certain organs of that “intelligent and prescient Press” which had shrieked for his appointment.[15]

MR. ASQUITH AS PRIME MINISTER

Second in authority upon the War Council and with the nation, but only second, stood Mr. Asquith. For six years he had been Prime Minister—years marked by the restlessness and turbulence of expanding liberty at home, and abroad by ever-increasing apprehension. Yet his authority was derived less from his office than from personal qualities which, as in Lord Kitchener’s case, the English people like to believe peculiarly their own. He was incorruptible, above suspicion. His mind appeared to move in a cold but pellucid atmosphere, free alike from the generous enthusiasm and the falsehood of extremes. Sprung from the intellectual middle-class, he conciliated by his origin, and encouraged by his eminence. His eloquence was unsurpassed in the power of simple statement, in a lucidity more than legal, and, above all, in brevity. The absence of emotional appeal, and, even more, the absence of humour, promoted confidence, while it disappointed. Here, people thought, was a personality rather wooden and unimaginative, but trustworthy as one who is not passion’s slave. No one, except rivals or journalistic wreckers, ever questioned his devotion to the country’s highest interests as he conceived them, and, as statesmen go, he appeared almost uninfluenced by vanity.

Balliol and the Law had rendered him too fastidious and precise for exuberant popularity, but under an apparent immobility and educated restraint he concealed, like Lord Kitchener, qualities more attractive and humane. Although conspicuous for cautious moderation, he was not obdurate against reason, but could sing a palinode upon changed convictions.[16] Unwavering fidelity to his colleagues, and a magnanimity like Cæsar’s in combating the assaults of political opponents, and disregarding the treachery of most intimate enemies, surrounded him with a personal affection which surprised external observers; while his restrained and unexpressive demeanour covered an unsuspected kindliness of heart. In spite of his lapses into fashionable reaction, most supporters of the Gladstonian tradition still looked to him for guidance along the lines of peaceful and gradual reform, when suddenly the war-cloud burst, obliterating in one deluge all the outlines of peace and progress and law. The Tsar who, with assumed philanthropy, had proposed the Peace Conferences at The Hague; the ruler to whom the ambition of retaining the title of “Friedenskaiser” was, perhaps honestly, attributed; the President who had known how passionately France clung to peace; the Belgian King who foresaw the devastation of his wealthy country; the stricken Emperor who, through long years of disaster following disaster, had hoped his distracted heritage might somehow hang together still—all must have suffered a torture of anxiety and indecision during those fateful days of July and August 1914. But upon none can the decision have inflicted deeper suffering than upon a Prime Minister naturally peaceful, naturally kindly, naturally indisposed to haste, plagued with the scholar’s and the barrister’s torturing ability to perceive many sides to every question, and hoping to crown a laborious life by the accomplishment of political and domestic projects which, at the first breath of war, must wither away. Yet he decided.

MR. CHURCHILL’S IDEA

Third in influence upon the War Council (that is to say, upon the direction of all naval and military affairs) stood Mr. Winston Churchill. In his evidence before the Commission, Mr. Churchill stated:

“I was on a rather different plane. I had not the same weight or authority as those two Ministers, nor the same power, and if they said, This is to be done or not to be done, that settled it.”[17]

The Commissioners add in comment that Mr. Churchill here “probably assigned to himself a more unobtrusive part than that which he actually played.” The comment is justified in relation to the Dardanelles, not merely because it is difficult to imagine Mr. Churchill playing an unobtrusive part upon any occasion, but because, as we have seen, the idea of a Dardanelles Expedition was specially his own. It was one of those ideas for which we are sometimes indebted to the inspired amateur. For the amateur, untrammelled by habitual routine, and not easily appalled by obstacles which he cannot realise, allows his imagination the freer scope, and contemplates his own particular vision under a light that never was in office or in training-school. In Mr. Churchill’s case, the vision of the Dardanelles was, in truth, beatific. His strategic conception, if carried out, would have implied, not merely victory, but peace. Success would at once have secured the defence of Egypt, but far more besides. It would have opened a high road, winter and summer, for the supply of munitions and equipment to Russia, and a high road for returning ships laden with the harvests of the Black Earth. It would have severed the German communication with the Middle East, and rendered our Mesopotamian campaign either unnecessary or far more speedily fortunate. On the political side, it would have held Bulgaria steady in neutrality or brought her into our alliance. It might have saved Serbia without even an effort at Salonika, and certainly it would have averted all the subsequent entanglements with Greece. Throughout the whole Balkans, the Allies would at once have obtained the position which the enemy afterwards held, and have surrounded the Central Powers with an iron circle complete at every point except upon the Baltic coast, the frontiers of Denmark, Holland, and Switzerland, and a strip of the Adriatic. Under those conditions, it is hardly possible that the war could have continued after 1916. In a speech made during the summer of the year before that (after his resignation as First Lord), Mr. Churchill was justified in saying:

“The struggle will be heavy, the risks numerous, the losses cruel; but victory, when it comes, will make amends for all. There never was a great subsidiary operation of war in which a more complete harmony of strategic, political, and economic advantages has 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.”[18]

LORD KITCHENER’S EARLY OBJECTION

The strategic design, though not above criticism (for many critics advised leaving the Near East alone, and concentrating all our force upon the Western front)—the design in itself was brilliant. All depended upon success, and success depended upon the method of execution. Like every sane man, professional or lay, Mr. Churchill favoured a joint naval and military attack. The trouble—the fatal trouble—was that in January 1915 Lord Kitchener could not spare the men. He was anxious about home defence, anxious about Egypt (always his special care), and most anxious not to diminish the fighting strength in France, where the army was concentrating for an offensive which was subsequently abandoned, except for the attack at Neuve Chapelle (in March). He estimated the troops required for a Dardanelles landing at 150,000, and at this time he appears hardly to have considered the suggested scheme except as a demonstration from which the navy could easily withdraw.

Mr. Churchill’s object was already far more extensive. Like the rest of the world, he had marvelled at the power of the German big guns—guns of unsuspected calibre—in destroying the forts of Liége and Namur. In his quixotic attempt to save Antwerp (an attempt justly conceived but revealing the amateur in execution) by stiffening the Belgian troops with a detachment of British marines and the unorganised and ill-equipped Royal Naval Division under General Paris, he had himself witnessed another proof of such power. For he was present in the doomed city from October 4 to 7, two days before it fell. Misled by a false analogy between land and sea warfare, he asked himself why the guns of super-Dreadnoughts like the Queen Elizabeth should not have a similarly overwhelming effect upon the Turkish forts in the Dardanelles; especially since, under the new conditions of war, their fire could be directed and controlled by aeroplane observation, while the ships themselves remained out of sight upon the sea side of the Peninsula. It was this argument which ultimately induced Lord Kitchener to assent, though reluctantly, to a purely naval attempt to force the Straits, for he admitted that “as to the power of the Queen Elizabeth he had no means of judging.”[19]

But, for the moment, Mr. Churchill contented himself with telegraphing to Vice-Admiral Carden (January 3):

“Do you think that it is a practicable operation to force the Dardanelles by the use of ships alone?... The importance of the results would justify severe loss.”

SERVICE ON BOARD H.M.S. QUEEN ELIZABETH, SEEN BETWEEN HER 15-INCH GUNS

At the same time he stated that it was assumed that “older battleships” would be employed, furnished with mine-sweepers, and preceded by colliers or other merchant vessels as sweepers and bumpers. On January 5 Carden replied:

“I do not think that the Dardanelles can be rushed, but they might be forced by extended operations with a large number of ships.”

Next day Mr. Churchill telegraphed: “High authorities here concur in your opinion.” He further asked for detailed particulars showing what force would be required for extended operations.[20]

THE ADMIRALS IN AUTHORITY

Among the “high authorities,” Carden naturally supposed that one or more of the naval experts who attended the War Council were included. These naval experts were, in the first place, Lord Fisher (First Sea Lord) and Sir Arthur Wilson, Admirals of long and distinguished service. Both were over seventy years of age, and both were regarded by the navy and the whole country with the highest respect, though for distinct and even opposite qualities. Lord Fisher had been exposed to the criticism merited by all reformers, or bestowed upon them. Especially it was argued that his insistence upon the Dreadnought type, by rendering the former fleet obsolete, had given our hostile rival upon the seas the opportunity of starting a new naval construction on almost equal terms with our own. But, none the less, Lord Fisher was recognised as the man to command the fleet by the right of genius, and his authority at sea was hardly surpassed by Lord Kitchener’s on land. The causes of the confidence and respect inspired by Sir Arthur Wilson are sufficiently suggested by his invariable nickname of “Tug.” Both Admirals were members of the War Staff Group, instituted by Prince Louis of Battenberg in the previous November,[21] and both attended the War Council as the principal naval experts. Admiral Sir Henry Jackson and Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Oliver (Chief of the Staff) were also present on occasion.

THEIR DUTY AS ADVISERS

The expert’s duty in such a position has been much disputed. The question, in brief, is whether he acts as adviser to his Minister only (in this case, Mr. Churchill), or to the Council as a whole. Lord Fisher and Sir Arthur Wilson, supported by Sir James Wolfe Murray, Chief of the Imperial General Staff under Lord Kitchener (who was always his own expert), maintained they were right in acting solely as Mr. Churchill’s advisers. Though they sat at the same table, they did not consider themselves members of the War Council. It was not for them to speak, unless spoken to. They were to be seen and not heard. The object of their presence was to help the First Lord, if their help was asked, as it never was. In case of disagreement with their chief, there could be “no altercation.” They must be silent or resign. Their office doomed them, as they considered, to the old Persian’s deplorable fate of having many thoughts, but no power.[22] In this view of their duties, they were strongly supported among the Dardanelles Commissioners by Mr. Andrew Fisher (representing Australia) and Sir Thomas Mackenzie (representing New Zealand). Following official etiquette, they were, it seems, justified in holding themselves bound by official rules to acquiesce in anything short of certain disaster rather than serve the country by an undisciplined word.[23]

If this attitude was technically correct, it is the more unfortunate that the Ministers most directly concerned, as being members of the War Council, should have taken exactly the opposite view, though masters of parliamentary technique. In his evidence before the Commission, Mr. Churchill, the man most closely concerned, protested:

MR. CHURCHILL’S OBJECTS

“Whenever I went to the War Council I always insisted on being accompanied by the First Sea Lord and Sir Arthur Wilson, and when, at the War Council, I spoke in the name of the Admiralty, I was not expressing simply my own views, but I was expressing to the best of my ability the opinions we had agreed upon at our daily group meetings; and I was expressing these opinions in the presence of two naval colleagues and friends who had the right, the knowledge, and the power at any moment to correct me or dissent from what I said, and who were fully cognizant of their rights.”[24]

Mr. Asquith said “he should have expected any of the experts there, if they entertained a strong personal view on their own expert authority, to express it.”[25] Lord Grey, Lord Haldane, Lord Crewe, Mr. Lloyd George, and Colonel Maurice Hankey, the very able Secretary to the War Council, gave similar evidence. Mr. Balfour said: “I do not believe it is any use having in experts unless you try and get at their inner thoughts on the technical questions before the Council.”[26] In the House of Commons, at a later date, Mr. Asquith maintained:

“They (the experts) were there—that was the reason, and the only reason, for their being there—to give the lay members the benefit of their advice.... To suppose that these experts were tongue-tied or paralysed by a nervous regard for the possible opinion of their political superiors is to suppose that they had really abdicated the functions which they were intended to discharge.”[27]

These views appear so reasonable that we might suppose them unofficial, had not the speakers occupied the highest official positions themselves. The result of this difference of opinion regarding the duty of expert advisers was disastrous. The War Council assumed the silence of the experts to imply acquiescence, whereas it sprang from obedience to etiquette. Before the Commission, Lord Fisher stated that from the first he was “instinctively against it” (i.e. against Admiral Carden’s plan);[28] that he “was dead against the naval operation alone because he knew it must be a failure”; and he added, “I must reiterate that as a purely naval operation I think it was doomed to failure.”[29] It may be supposed that these statements were prophecies after the event, and the Commissioners observe that Lord Fisher did not at the time record any such strongly adverse opinions. Nevertheless, on the very day when a demonstration was first discussed, he wrote privately to Mr. Churchill:

“I consider the attack on Turkey holds the field, but only if it is immediate; however, it won’t be. We shall decide on a futile bombardment of the Dardanelles, which wears out the invaluable guns of the Indefatigable, which probably will require replacement. What good resulted from the last bombardment? Did it move a single Turk from the Caucasus?”[30]

Two days later he sent Mr. Churchill a formal minute, saying that our policy must not jeopardise our naval superiority, but the advantages of possessing Constantinople and getting wheat through the Black Sea were so overwhelming that he considered Colonel Hankey’s plans for Turkish operations vital and imperative, and very pressing. The object of these plans (circulated to the War Council on December 28, 1914) was to strike at Germany through her allies, particularly by weaving a web around Turkey; and for this purpose Lord Fisher sketched a much wider policy requiring the co-operation of Roumania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia.[31] The scheme was not identical with another design of naval strategy which was already occupying Lord Fisher’s mind, and the frustration of which by the Dardanelles Expedition ultimately caused his resignation (in May). But the evidence here quoted shows that Lord Fisher could not be included among the “high authorities” referred to by Mr. Churchill as concurring with Admiral Carden’s opinion. Mr. Churchill said in his evidence that he did not wish to include either Lord Fisher or Sir Arthur Wilson (who throughout agreed with Lord Fisher in the main). He was thinking of Admirals Jackson and Oliver. Yet to Admiral Carden’s mind Lord Fisher would naturally be suggested as one of the high authorities; and was suggested.[32]

ADMIRAL JACKSON’S OPINION

So soon as a demonstration of some sort was decided upon, Mr. Churchill asked Admiral Jackson to prepare a memorandum, which the Admiral described as a “Note on forcing the passages of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus by the Allied fleets in order to destroy the Turko-German squadron and threaten Constantinople without military co-operation.” The last three words are important, for it is evident that, though Admiral Jackson expressed no resolute opposition at the time, he was strongly opposed to the idea of a merely naval attack. In this memorandum he pointed out facts which even a layman might have discerned: that the ships, even if they destroyed the enemy squadron, would be exposed to torpedo at night, to say nothing of field-guns and rifles in the Straits, and would hold no line of retreat unless the shore batteries had been destroyed; that, though they might dominate the city, their position would not be enviable without a large military force to occupy it; that the bombardment alone would not be worth the considerable loss involved; that the city could not be occupied without troops, and there was a risk of indiscriminate massacre.[33]

The dangers of an unsupported naval attack were so obvious that Admiral Jackson can have needed no further authority in urging them. Yet he may have recalled a memorandum drawn up by the General Staff (December 19, 1906), stating that “military opinion, looking at the question from the point of view of coast defence, would be in entire agreement with the naval view that unaided action by the Fleet, bearing in mind the risks involved, was much to be deprecated.”[34]

Admiral Jackson’s discouraging memorandum of January 5 was not shown to the War Council. Yet it was of vital importance. In his evidence, Admiral Jackson insisted that he had always stuck to this memorandum:

“It would be a very mad thing,” he said, “to try and get into the Sea of Marmora without having the Gallipoli Peninsula held by our own troops or every gun on both sides of the Straits destroyed. He had never changed that opinion, and he had never given any one any reason to think he had.”

Long afterwards, Mr. Churchill suggested that what Admiral Jackson meant by a mad thing was an attempt to rush the Straits without having strong landing-parties available, and transports ready to enter when the batteries were seen to be silent.[35] It is just possible to put that interpretation on the words, but both they and the memorandum itself appear naturally to imply a far larger military force than landing-parties as essential.

On January 11 Vice-Admiral Carden telegraphed a detailed scheme for gradually forcing the Dardanelles by four successive stages, the operations to cover about a month. The plan was considered by the War Staff Group at the Admiralty, and in subsequent evidence all agreed that they were very dubious, if not hostile. Lord Fisher said he was instinctively against it. Sir Arthur Wilson said he never recommended it. Admiral Oliver and Commodore Bartolomé said they were definitely opposed to a purely naval attempt. But all agreed that the operations could not lead to disaster, as they might be broken off at any moment.[36] Admiral Jackson (not a member of the Group) also drew up a detailed memorandum upon all stages of the plan, “concurring generally,” and suggesting that the first stage should be approved at once, as the experience gained might be useful. He insisted in evidence that he recommended only an attack on the outer forts. He accepted the policy of a purely naval attack solely on the ground that it was not for him to decide. His responsibility was limited to his staff work, which he performed.[37]

THE WAR COUNCIL’S FIRST DECISION

The two decisive meetings of the War Council on January 13 and January 28 followed. At the former meeting Mr. Churchill explained the details of Admiral Carden’s plan, adding that, besides certain older ships, two new battle-cruisers, one being the Queen Elizabeth, could be employed.[38] He thus revived his Antwerp experience of big-gun power against fortresses. When the exposition of the whole design was completed, Lord Kitchener gave it as his opinion that “the plan was worth trying. We could leave off the bombardment if it did not prove effective.” In this delusive belief the War Council arrived at the momentous decision:

“The Admiralty should prepare for a naval expedition in February to bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula, with Constantinople as its objective.”[39]

Although the word “take” is used, the Council had no intention at this time of employing a military force. It was assumed that none was available. The same meeting sanctioned Sir John French’s plan for an offensive in France (the offensive which degenerated into the attack on Neuve Chapelle in March). In case of a naval failure, the ships could be withdrawn; in case of success, there was talk of a revolution in Constantinople, and upon that hope the Council gambled.[40]

During this meeting Lord Fisher, together with Admiral Wilson and Sir James Murray, sat dumb as usual, and his silence was as usual taken for assent. When the Council had arrived at their resolution, he considered his sole duty was to assist in carrying it out. The very next day he signed a memorandum from Mr. Churchill strongly advising that we should devote ourselves to “the methodical forcing of the Dardanelles,”[41] and he added the two powerful battleships Lord Nelson and Agamemnon to the fleet allotted for this operation. But his underlying difference of opinion became steadily stronger. In evidence, Mr. Churchill said he “could see that Lord Fisher was increasingly worried about the Dardanelles situation. He reproached himself for having agreed to begin the operation.... His great wish was to put a stop to the whole thing.... I knew he wanted to break off the whole operation and come away.”[42] On January 25 Lord Fisher took the unusual course of writing to Mr. Asquith and stating his objections. He considered the Dardanelles would divert from another large plan of naval policy which he had in mind; further, that it was calculated to dissipate our naval strength, and to risk the older ships (besides the invaluable men) which formed our only reserve behind the Grand Fleet.[43]

MR. CHURCHILL’S INSISTENCE

Mr. Churchill replied in a similar memorandum to the Prime Minister, defending his Dardanelles plan on the plea of its value, even at a cost which, after all, would be relatively small. In hope of obtaining some agreement, Mr. Asquith invited Lord Fisher and Mr. Churchill to his room just before the meeting of the War Council on January 28—the second decisive meeting. After discussion, the Prime Minister expressed his satisfaction with Mr. Churchill’s view, and all three proceeded to the Council. It was a fairly full meeting, Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Balfour being present, besides the three dominating members and the experts. Mr. Churchill pressed his plan with eloquent enthusiasm. “He was very keen on his own views,” said Sir Arthur Wilson in evidence; “he kept on saying he could do it without the army; he only wanted the army to come in and reap the fruits ... and I think he generally minimised the risks from mobile guns, and treated it as if the armoured ships were immune altogether from injury.”[44] Mr. Churchill re-stated the political and strategic advantages of success. He said that the Grand Duke Nicholas had replied with enthusiasm, and that the French Admiralty had promised co-operation.[45] He said the Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean believed it could be done in three weeks or a month. The necessary ships were already on their way.

All the members of the War Council were won by these persuasive arguments. They needed little persuasion, and no persuasion is so strong as an enterprise begun. But Lord Fisher for once broke silence. He said he had not supposed the matter would be raised that day, and that the Prime Minister was well aware of his views. When he found that a final decision was to be taken, he got up to leave the room, intending to resign. But Lord Kitchener intercepted him, and taking him to the window strongly urged him to remain, pointing out that he was the only dissentient and it was his duty to carry on the work of his office as First Sea Lord. Whereupon Lord Fisher reluctantly yielded to the entreaty and returned to his seat.[46]

It is remarkable that at a meeting of such decisive moment no mention was made of Lord Fisher’s memorandum, nor of Mr. Churchill’s reply, nor of their conference with the Prime Minister an hour before. None the less, not only Mr. Asquith and Mr. Churchill knew of Lord Fisher’s opposition. Lord Kitchener knew of it; so did Sir Edward Grey. Yet the opinion of the chief naval authority in England was overruled. Mr. Asquith subsequently stated that “the whole naval expert opinion available to us (the War Council), whether our own or the French, was unanimously and consentiently in favour of this as a practical naval operation. There was not one dissentient voice.” As to Lord Fisher, he continued, it was quite true that he expressed on the morning of that day an adverse, or at least an unfavourable opinion, but not upon the ground of its merits or demerits from a technical naval point of view:

“Lord Fisher’s opinion and advice were not founded upon the naval technical merits or demerits of this operation, but upon his avowed preference for a wholly different objective in a totally different sphere.”

No doubt Lord Fisher insisted mainly upon that different objective as being the more important cause of his opposition. But it seems evident that from the first he was also opposed to a merely naval attack and bombardment. His letter to Mr. Churchill on January 2 (quoted above) proves this. And so does the following clause in his memorandum to the Prime Minister on January 25:

“The sole justification of coastal bombardments and attacks by the fleet on fortified places, such as the contemplated prolonged bombardment of the Dardanelles forts by our fleet, is to force a decision at sea, and so far and no further can they be justified.”[47]

Yet, in this case, there was no suggestion or possibility of forcing a decision at sea.

LORD FISHER’S RELUCTANT ASSENT

In the afternoon of the same day (January 28) Mr. Churchill had a private interview with Lord Fisher, and “strongly urged him to undertake the operation.” Lord Fisher definitely consented. Mr. Churchill says that if he had failed to persuade him, there would have been no need to altercate, or to resign, or even to argue. He would have gone back to the War Council and told them they must either appoint a new Board of Admiralty or abandon the project. “For the First Sea Lord has to order the fleets to steam and the guns to fire.”[48] Lord Fisher, on the other hand, insisted in evidence that he had taken every step, short of resignation, to show his dislike of the proposed operations; that the chief technical advisers of the Government ought not to resign because their advice is not accepted, unless they think the operations proposed must lead to disastrous results; and that the attempt to force the Dardanelles as a purely naval operation would not have been disastrous so long as the ships employed could be withdrawn at any moment, and only such vessels were employed as could be spared without detriment to the general service of the fleet.[49]

The divergence of opinion here is not so complete as it seems; for by admitting that the War Council could have appointed a new Board of Admiralty if Lord Fisher had refused to carry out their decision, Mr. Churchill showed that, though the First Sea Lord could order the fleets to steam and the guns to fire, the ultimate control did not lie with him. The ultimate control lay with the Government (in this case the War Council), and Lord Fisher was undoubtedly right in thinking his constitutional duty consisted in carrying out the Council’s decisions or resigning his office. He did not resign at this time, because he thought the naval attack did not necessarily imply disaster. He agreed to undertake the charge. He considered it his duty simply to carry out the Council’s decision as best he could. With Mr. Churchill he attended another Council meeting later in the afternoon, and there the fateful, if not fatal, step was taken. It was decided that an attack should be made by the fleet alone, with Constantinople as its objective.[50]

Though Lord Fisher agreed to do his best, and though the members of the War Council accepted the plan with more or less enthusiasm, the ultimate decision was arrived at owing to Mr. Churchill’s insistence upon his own brilliant idea, and his resolve to attempt it even without military aid. The Commissioners remark that in this resolve he was carried away by his sanguine temperament and his firm belief in the success of the undertaking which he advocated.[51] They were probably right. But as evidence of the complexity in all natures—even in a character apparently so self-confident, impetuous, and sanguine—we may recall the passage in Mr. Churchill’s speech upon these events, where, after referring to “the doubts and the misgivings which arise in every breast when these great hazards of war are decided,” he went on to say:

“No one who has not had to take these decisions can know how serious and painful are the stresses which search every man’s heart when he knows that an order is going to be given as a result of which great ships may be lost, great interests may be permanently ruined, and hundreds or even thousands of men may be sent to their last account.”[52]

A NAVAL EXPEDITION DECREED

If ever the heart of man was searched by serious and painful stress, it may well have been in that Council chamber of January 28, 1915. For then a decision was taken, and an order given, as a result of which great ships were lost, great interests permanently ruined, and thousands of men sent to their last account.

CHAPTER III
THE NAVAL ATTACKS

At the War Council meetings of January 28 a demonstration extending to the possible capture of Constantinople was thus decided upon, and the demonstration was to be purely naval. All the members of the Council would have agreed that a joint naval and military (or “amphibious”) attack would have made success surer; but Lord Kitchener declared the necessary troops could not be supplied, and his decision was accepted without question. The evidence shows that when first Admiral Carden was commanded to attack, no hint of military support was given him. He was expected to depend entirely upon small landing-parties of his own marines to demolish the forts.[53] Mr. Churchill has himself told us that, if an amphibious attack had then been thought essential or seriously contemplated, nothing at all would have been done. Nothing less than 100,000 or 150,000 men could have been asked for, together with large supplies of high explosives and artillery. Whereupon, “all the military experts” (i.e. Lord Kitchener, with the possible addition of Lord French) “unanimously would have said that the men were not available, and the ammunition could not be spared from the French front.”[54] Whether it would not have been well, even at this last moment, to abandon the whole scheme rather than act contrary to the best judgment of experts and laymen alike, has now, unfortunately, become a matter of vain speculation.

HESITATION RENEWED

Hardly had the naval orders been given, and the ships dispatched, when the Council began to waver. It is impossible to fix a day for this change, for the change itself wavered. In his evidence, General Callwell (the D.M.O.) said: “We drifted into the big military attack”;[55] and “drift” is the precise word for the Council’s uncertain course. By the middle of February the feeling had evidently set towards an amphibious movement; but up to the middle of March they hoped that the need of landing troops upon a large scale might be avoided by purely naval success. It appears that early in February Lord Kitchener began to yield. Probably his former decision was shaken by the abandonment of a large-scale offensive in France, and by the failure of the Turkish attack upon the Suez Canal (February 3 and 4). Though the Turkish force was allowed to retreat without the destruction which greater energy in the Egyptian Command might have brought upon it, the troops then in Egypt had proved more than sufficient for defence; and Egypt, as we have noticed, was always Lord Kitchener’s peculiar care. On February 9 he remarked in the War Council that “if the Navy required the assistance of the land forces at a later stage, that assistance would be forthcoming.”

THE 29TH DIVISION DETAINED

But, by the majority of the Council, the claim for assistance was not postponed to a later stage. On February 15 Sir Henry Jackson sent a long memorandum of “suggestions” to Admiral Carden in regard to the approaching naval attack. Not only did this memorandum speak of strong military landing-parties with strong covering forces as necessary, but it added that “full advantage of the undertaking would only be obtained by the occupation of the Peninsula by a military force acting in conjunction with the naval operations.” The very next day (February 16) the War Council decided to send the 29th Division (hitherto destined for France) at the earliest possible date to Lemnos; to arrange for a force from Egypt, if required; and to order the Admiralty to prepare transport for the conveyance and landing of 50,000 men.[56] The navy and army were thus at last committed to an amphibious enterprise; but nineteen days had been lost. What was worse: the 29th Division was to have started on February 22, but on the 20th Lord Kitchener, on his own initiative, without consulting the First Lord or the Admirals, told the Director of Naval Transport to stop the preparation of transport, as the Division was not to go. In spite of Mr. Churchill’s vehement protests (for even his confidence in a purely naval attack was now shaking), Lord Kitchener stood by his decision till March 10, and the Division did not begin to start till March 16. Twenty-two more days lost! Add the nineteen of the Council’s hesitation, and forty-one days were lost in all. Forty-one days in an enterprise which depended upon speed and secrecy!

Undoubtedly Lord Kitchener had sufficient reason for delay. The Russian armies were hard pressed on their right or northern flank, and in the centre Hindenburg was pushing his third attempt upon Warsaw. If the Germans were successful at either point, it was probable that they would transfer large forces to their Western front, with which the French were then heavily engaged in Champagne and between the Moselle and Meuse, while the British were preparing and executing the assault at Neuve Chapelle (March 10 to 14).[57] There may have been other reasons, but those were enough to justify caution in allowing a splendid Regular Division like the 29th to be diverted from the critical strategic lines in France. Its retention, without due notice to the War Council, was sudden and arbitrary. That was Lord Kitchener’s way, and no more could be said. Perhaps the Division should not have been offered, and the Secretary for War, who also held supreme military command, could not be blamed for retaining it under his hand. Nevertheless, its retention stands high among the causes of ultimate disaster.

By the middle of February the War Council had tacitly abandoned the idea of a mere demonstration from which the ships could be at any moment withdrawn. But both Lord Kitchener and Mr. Churchill still thought that troops, if used at all, would be wanted only for “minor operations,” such as the final destruction of batteries, and both clung to this idea for about four weeks longer. Yet, in the first week of March, General Birdwood, who had been sent from Egypt to report upon this very question, telegraphed to Lord Kitchener that he was doubtful if the navy could force a passage unassisted, and that Admiral Carden’s forecast was too sanguine.[58]

THE DARDANELLES

By that time General Birdwood had definite experience to guide him; for, in obedience to Mr. Churchill’s orders, Admiral Carden had on February 19 begun to execute his detailed plan for forcing the Straits by naval power alone. The scene of our narrative accordingly shifts from the Council Chambers of Whitehall to that famous channel which, like a broad, deep river, divides the European from the Asiatic coast. Celebrated beyond all other waters of the world by legend and history, and by one of mankind’s noblest poems, it is haunted by almost overwhelming memories, to which the great tragedy here described has added new. At the very entrance, where the passage is three miles broad, you see upon your right hand the flat and gently curving beach upon which Agamemnon tied his ships for the prolonged siege of a low hill, formed even in his time of ruined and piled-up cities. It rises, still quite visible from the opposite shore, above the marshes where Simois and Scamander unite their small and immortal streams.

Vandyk]

GENERAL SIR WILLIAM BIRDWOOD

Steering north-east, a vessel beats up against the swirling eddies of a tideless current, always pouring down against her bows, with a force that varies from three knots to four, and even to five in the centre when the wind drives it on. Sailors have told me that they believe an undercurrent passes the water back; else, they think, it could not perpetually run so strong. What was the experience of submarine officers like Lieutenant Holbrook, who, on December 13, 1914, groped his way below the surface and through the mines till he emerged near the entrance to the Sea of Marmora, and destroyed the Turkish warship Messoudieh, I do not know. But it seems probable that enough water is poured into the Black Sea by the Dnieper, Dniester, and Don, rivers of the Steppes, to account for a rapid current, not to speak of the glacier streams issuing from the snows of the Caucasus beyond the magic Phasis. All the more likely is the current to be swift since the waters from the shores of Azoff, the Euxine, and Marmora are discharged down a constricted funnel, which at the narrowest point, between Chanak and Kilid Bahr, is hardly more than three-quarters of a mile across. At Chanak, as a ship makes its way against the stream, the strait turns north from north-east for about four miles, and at the point of Nagara (the old Abydos) the channel becomes again almost as narrow as at Chanak. That part of the strait between Chanak and Nagara (both on the Asiatic side) is called especially “The Narrows,” and it forms, as it were, “The Gut” of the whole salt river. Here Xerxes stretched his bridge of boats, having chained and flogged the turbulent waters. Here Alexander crossed upon his way to India. Seven hundred years later the Goths crossed here, and the Turks here entered Europe, a century before they stormed the city of Constantine, which still retained the traditions of the classic world. Beyond the Narrows the strait runs north-east again with a channel about two miles broad for some twenty miles, until between Gallipoli and Chardak it begins to widen gradually into the Sea of Marmora. The total length of the strait from Cape Helles to Gallipoli is between thirty-five and forty miles. The Asiatic side is the coast of the ancient Troad, rising to high hills when the plain of Troy is passed. On the European side the long promontory or peninsula of Gallipoli precludes the channel from issuing into the Gulf of Xeros at the neck of Bulair, or lower down into the Ægean Sea. It is the south-western third of that peninsula which is the scene of the present tragic episode in history. There is no railway on either side of the strait. A coast road is marked from Kum Kali (at the entrance on the Asiatic side) up to Chanak; but it is probably of the usual Turkish quality, as were all roads upon the peninsula. Along both coasts the inhabitants in peace-time communicate chiefly by water, in spite of the current.

THE ISLAND OF LEMNOS

The small island of Tenedos lies about fifteen miles south-west from Kum Kali, and the domed hill at the farther end of the island stands up like a large haycock, visible not only from the Trojan plain, but from all the surrounding seas and islands. The town is a pleasant and well-built place, serviceable to the French for the purchase of extra luxuries in the months following; and as Turkey had refused to yield the island to Greece at the end of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, it had been seized by the Allies as a station for watching the mouth of the strait. From epic times, however, it was known as an untrustworthy anchorage, and for a naval base the Allies occupied the great harbour of Mudros upon the island of Lemnos, sixty miles from the scene of action. The greater part of this island is bare of trees, and barren but for patches of cultivation around the scattered villages. In summer the low hills are scorched to a pale brown, and, for an Ægean island, the country possesses little beauty or interest apart from the hot springs for which it was consecrated to the god of fire.[59] But into the centre of the southern coast runs a deep and broad inlet, protected at its entrance by two small islands, and affording space and anchorage enough for a vast navy. Its size is indeed excessive; for when the wind sweeps down from the north-east across the dismal and dusty town of Mudros, it can raise such a storm in the harbour that pinnaces and smaller boats have trouble in lying alongside the ships, and in loading up or unloading. There are, of course, no docks or wharves, though our sailors subsequently constructed a few small piers and landing-stages. All supplies, including most of the water, had to be brought from the remote base at Alexandria; but the harbour became, none the less, invaluable as a secure port for our navy and transports, a forwarding station for supply and ammunition, the headquarters of the Communication and Transport departments, and an advanced hospital base. The use of it was granted by the Greek Government under Venizelos; for the island had fallen into Greek possession in consequence of the Balkan Wars; and King Constantine appears to have acquiesced graciously in a concession which could not be refused.

SHIPS OF THE FLEET

In this vast harbour, and upon the open roadstead of Tenedos, Admiral Carden had gathered a large fleet by the middle of February. Ships were collected from various parts of the world (the Triumph had lately come from China);[60] but Gibraltar, Malta, and Egypt supplied most of them. At Lord Fisher’s own suggestion the super-Dreadnought Queen Elizabeth had been added to the pre-Dreadnought ships upon which Mr. Churchill had originally depended. The Inflexible was also a “Dreadnought” battle-cruiser (she had shared in the Falkland Islands battle of December 8, 1914), and the sister ships Agamemnon and Lord Nelson, which Lord Fisher also added a little later than the rest of the fleet, were generally regarded as fit to fight in line with “Dreadnoughts.” The French Admiralty, at our request, also supplied a few ships, though of old types, which have an overhampered and top-heavy appearance. The most important units in the fleet as concentrated at that time may be tabulated thus:

British.

To these main fighting ships were added four light cruisers (the Amethyst, Sapphire, Dublin, and Doris), two destroyer depôts, sixteen destroyers, six submarines, twenty-one mine-sweeping trawlers, and a seaplane ship (the Ark Royal) accommodating six seaplanes; besides from the French navy six torpedo-boats and fourteen mine-sweepers.

Out of this fleet, Admiral Carden selected the British ships Inflexible, Agamemnon, Cornwallis, Triumph, and Vengeance, together with the French ships (under Admiral Guépratte) Suffren, Bouvet, and Gaulois, covered by a large number of destroyers, for the first attack upon the outer forts. Orders for washing and clean clothes (to avoid septic wounds) were issued on February 18, and next morning, in clear and calm weather, “General Quarters” was sounded. The firing began at eight, and the first scene in the drama of the Dardanelles Expedition was enacted.[62]

The main forts to be destroyed were four in number; two on either side the entrance. One stood on the cliff of Cape Helles, just to the left or south-west of the shelving amphitheatre afterwards celebrated as V Beach. Another lay low down, on the right of the same beach, close in front of the medieval castle of Seddel Bahr, where still one sees lying in heaps or scattered over the ground huge cannon-balls of stone, such as were hurled at Duckworth’s fleet more than a century before. Upon the Asiatic side stood the fort of Kum Kali, at the very mouth of the strait, not far from the cliff village of Yenishehr, and separated from the plain of Troy by the river Mendere, near neighbour to the Simois and Scamander conjoined. About a mile down the coast, close beside Yenishehr village, is the remaining fort of Orkhanieh. None of these forts was heavily armed. The largest guns appear to have been 10·2 inch (six on Seddel Bahr, and four on Kum Kali), and when our squadron drew their fire, as before narrated, on November 3, 1914, their extreme range was found to be 12,500 yards.

FIRST NAVAL ACTION

Throughout the morning Admiral Carden concentrated his bombardment upon these forts at long range, and they made no reply. Hoping that he had silenced or utterly destroyed them, he advanced six ships to closer range in the afternoon, and then the reply came in earnest, though the shooting was poor. At sunset he withdrew the ships, though Kum Kali was still firing. In evidence, he admitted that “the result of the day’s action showed apparently that the effect of long range bombardment by direct fire on modern earthwork forts is slight.”[63] It was a lesson repeated time after time throughout the campaign. The big naval shells threw up stones and earth as from volcanoes, and caused great alarm. But the alarm was temporary, and the effect, whether on earthworks or trenches, usually disappointing. For naval guns, constructed to strike visible objects at long range with marvellous accuracy, have too flat a trajectory for the plunging fire (as of howitzers) which devastates earthworks and trenches. It was with heavy howitzers that the Germans destroyed the forts of Liége, Namur, and Antwerp, and, owing to this obvious difference in the weapons employed, Mr. Churchill’s expectation of crushing the Dardanelles defences by the big guns of the Queen Elizabeth and the Inflexible was frustrated.[64]

Nevertheless, after a few days of driving rain and heavy sea (a common event at this season, which might have been anticipated), Admiral Carden renewed the bombardment on February 25, employing the Queen Elizabeth, Irresistible, Agamemnon, and Gaulois. The Queen Elizabeth, firing beyond the enemy’s range, assisted in silencing the powerful batteries on Cape Helles, and though the Agamemnon was severely struck at about 11,000 yards range, the subsidiary ships Cornwallis, Vengeance, Triumph, Albion, Suffren, and Charlemagne stood in closer, and by the evening compelled all the outer forts to cease fire. Next day landing-parties of marines were put ashore to complete their destruction; which they did, though at Kum Kali they were driven back to their boats with some loss. The story that marines had tea at Krithia and climbed Achi Baba for the view—places soon to acquire such ill-omened fame—is mythical. But certainly they met with no opposition on the Peninsula, and if a large military force had then been available, the gallant but appalling events of the landing two months later would never have occurred. Had not the War Council persisted in the design of a solely naval attack, even after their resolve had begun to waver, a large military force might have been available, either then, or to co-operate with a similar naval movement only a week or two later.

SUBSEQUENT NAVAL ACTIONS

Stormy weather delayed further attack till March 4, when a squadron, including the Triumph, Albion, Lord Nelson, and Ocean, passed up the strait to a position beyond the village of Erenkeui, conspicuous upon a mountain-side of the Asiatic coast, and bombarded Fort Dardanus. The fort stands upon Kephez Point, which projects as though to defend the very entrance of the Narrows. Over the top of the promontory the houses and mosques of Chanak and Kilid Bahr could be plainly seen, where those towns face each other across the narrowest part of the passage. Of the eight lines of mine-field drawn across the strait, five lay between Kephez Point and Chanak. Day and night our mine-sweeping trawlers were engaged upon them, and considerable praise must be given to the courage and endurance of their crews, who for the most part had been North Sea fishermen before the expedition. Their service throughout, whether for mine-sweeping or transport, was of very high value. It almost justified the remark made to me by a skipper whom I had met before on the Dogger Bank: “If the Kayser had knowed as we’d got trawlers, he would never have declared war!”

A similar advance to engage the forts at Dardanus, and, after those were thought to be silenced, the forts at Chanak and Kilid Bahr, was made next day, and again, in stronger force, on March 6.[65] The Prince George, Albion, Vengeance, Majestic, and Suffren were employed, and suffered damage, though without loss of life. At the same time, on the 6th, the Queen Elizabeth, stationed off Gaba Tepe on the outer coast, flung her vast shells clear over the Peninsula into the Chanak forts, her fire being directed by aeroplanes. She was supported by the Agamemnon and Ocean, and there were high hopes of thus crushing out the big guns defending the Narrows, some of which were believed to be 14-inch. Nevertheless, when the four French battleships advanced up the strait on the following day (March 7), supported at long range by the Agamemnon and her sister ship Lord Nelson, the Chanak forts replied with an effective and damaging fire. It was impossible to say when a fort was really out of action. After long silence, the Turkish and German gunners frequently returned and reopened fire, as though nothing had happened. In his evidence, Admiral Carden stated that when the demolition parties landed after the bombardment of the outer forts, they found 70 per cent. of the guns apparently intact upon their mountings, although their magazines were blown up and their electrical or other communications destroyed.[66] Still worse than these disappointing results was the opportunity left to the enemy of moving, not only bodies of men, but field-guns and heavy howitzers from one point of the Peninsula and Asiatic coast to another, and opening fire upon the ships from concealed and unexpected positions. Our landing-parties of marines also suffered considerably from the advantage thus given to the enemy, as happened to a body which landed at Kum Kali for the second time on March 4. All such dangers and hindrances would have been removed if the navy had been supported by sufficient military force to occupy the ground behind the ships as they advanced.

EFFECT ON BALKAN STATES

A bombardment of the Smyrna forts farther down the coast of Asia was carried out on March 5 and 7 by a detachment under Vice-Admiral Peirse. It was hoped that the Vali of Smyrna might come over to us, and that in any case the attack would detain a Turkish force there by means of a rather obvious feint.[67] Nothing of vital importance was as yet accomplished there or in the Straits, but up to about March 10 the Admiralty at home remained sanguine, in spite of General Birdwood’s rather discouraging telegram of March 5, mentioned above. They had a right to consider that the attack upon the Dardanelles had produced a stirring effect in the Near East. The Turks withdrew large forces from the Caucasus, greatly easing the situation for the Russian Grand Duke. They concentrated more troops round Adrianople, fearing that Bulgaria might clutch this opportunity for retrieving her loss of that city in 1913. Bitter as was the Bulgarian hatred of Serbia and Greece for their reversal of the Balkan League policy in that year, and for their breach of treaties and territorial arrangements, it now seemed certain that if Bulgaria departed from neutrality at all, she would stand among our Allies. Only a few days later (March 17) General Paget, then engaged on a special mission to the Balkans, telegraphed to Lord Kitchener:

“The operations in the Dardanelles have made a deep impression; all possibility of Bulgaria attacking any Balkan State that might side with the Entente is now over, and there is some reason to think that shortly the Bulgarian army will move against Turkey to co-operate in the Dardanelles operations.”[68]

That was a high hope, for the attitude of Bulgaria was then, as it became still more definitely later on, the key of the Near Eastern situation. But for the moment, the effect upon Greece appeared even more propitious. M. Venizelos had in the previous month refused to allow Greece to be drawn into a war for the defence of Serbia, though England and France promised a Division each at Salonika, and it was believed that this strategy was specially favoured by Mr. Lloyd George. Now, however (March 1), he voluntarily offered our Minister in Athens three Greek Divisions for Gallipoli on condition that Greece received the vilayet of Smyrna; and next day our Minister telegraphed that the King had been sounded and “wanted war.”[69] The proposal was abruptly checked by the jealousy of the Tsar’s Government, which refused to allow a Greek soldier to approach the long-desired prize of Constantinople. But to make Constantine “want war” must have required a miraculous interposition, and the effect of three Divisions—even Greek Divisions—landing upon the Peninsula at that moment might have been more miraculous still.[70] Of even greater ultimate importance was the influence upon Italy; for it was now that, under the guidance of Baron Sonnino, and the strong encouragement of Mr. Asquith, she entered upon the devious negotiations which led to her declaration of war against Austria on May 23.

But valuable as were these political results, the naval attack itself was going slow, and Mr. Churchill read the daily telegrams with increasing impatience. The fact was that the enemy, having the free run of the Peninsula as well as of the Asiatic coast, could plant and conceal his movable howitzers and other armaments where he pleased, and it was becoming increasingly evident that, unless the Peninsula was occupied by our military forces, the passage of the Narrows would mean extreme risk for our ships, and, even if they got through, the channel would not be cleared for transports following them. Now was the moment when a permanent landing would be of the highest service, and on March 10 Mr. Churchill evidently realised the need of troops acutely. But it was only on that very day that Lord Kitchener finally decided to allow the 29th Division to start from England, and they did not leave port till the 16th. Regarding the other detailed troops as less trained and experienced than they really were, Lord Kitchener refused to allow a landing till the Regular Division arrived. And, indeed, he still clung to the idea that no landing would be necessary.

MR. CHURCHILL URGES GREATER VIGOUR

Accordingly, Mr. Churchill, though striving to restrain his impatience, strongly urged Admiral Carden to press forward the naval attack with the utmost vigour. In a telegram of March 11 he wrote:

“If success cannot be obtained without loss of ships and men, results to be gained are important enough to justify such a loss. The whole operation may be decided, and consequences of a decisive character upon the war may be produced by the turning of the corner Chanak.... We have no wish to hurry you or urge you beyond your judgment, but we recognise clearly that at a certain period in your operations you will have to press hard for a decision; and we desire to know whether, in your opinion, that period has now arrived. Every well-conceived action for forcing a decision, even should regrettable losses be entailed, will receive our support.”

To this Admiral Carden replied that he considered the stage for vigorous action had now been reached, but that, when the fleet entered the Sea of Marmora, military operations on a large scale should be opened at once, so as to secure communications. On March 15 Mr. Churchill, still anxious not to allow his impatience to drive him into rashness, telegraphed again that, though no time was to be lost, there should be no undue haste. An attempt to rush the passage without having cleared a channel through the mines and destroyed the primary armament of the forts was not contemplated. The close co-operation of army and navy must be carefully studied, and it might be found that a naval rush would be costly without military occupation of the Kilid Bahr plateau. On these points the Admiral was to consult with the General who was being sent out to take command of the troops. To all of this Admiral Carden agreed. He proposed to begin vigorous operations on March 17, but did not intend to rush the passage before a channel was cleared. This answer was telegraphed on March 16. But on the same day the Admiral resigned his command owing to serious ill-health.[71]

DE ROBECK SUCCEEDS CARDEN

Rear-Admiral Sir John de Robeck, second in command, was next day appointed his successor. He was five years younger, was, of course, fully cognizant of the plans, and expressed his entire approval of them. Yet it appears from his evidence that though strongly urged by Mr. Churchill to act on “his independent and separate judgment,” and not to hesitate to state objections, his real motive in carrying on the pre-arranged scheme was not so much his confidence in success as his fear lest a withdrawal might injure our prestige in the Near East; and, secondly, his desire to make the best he could of an idea which he regarded as an order. “The order was to carry out a certain operation,” he said, “or try to do it, and we had to do the best we could.” If the ships got through, he, like many others, expected a revolution or other political change in Turkey. Otherwise, he saw that transports could not come up, and that the ships could not remain in the Sea of Marmora for more than a fortnight or three weeks, but would have to run the gauntlet coming down again, just as Admiral Duckworth did in 1807.[72] In his telegram accepting the command, however, he made no mention of these considerations, but only said that success depended upon clearing the mine-fields after silencing the forts.

Indeed, he had small time for any considerations. For on the very first day after receiving his command (March 18) he undertook the main attempt to force the Narrows. The weather was favourable—no mist and little wind. The scheme was to attack in three squadrons successively. The first blow was given by the four most powerful ships—Queen Elizabeth, Inflexible, Lord Nelson, and Agamemnon—which poured heavy shell at long range into the forts at Chanak and Kilid Bahr, while the Triumph and Prince George bombarded Fort Dardanus on the Asiatic coast, and Fort Soghandere, opposite to it upon the Peninsula. This bombardment lasted from about 11 a.m. till 12.30 p.m., and all six ships found themselves exposed to heavy fire from the forts, and from hidden howitzers and field-guns in varied positions upon both shores. At about 12.30 the second squadron, consisting of the four French ships, came up into action, advancing beyond the former line in the direction of Kephez Point. Though suffering considerably (chiefly owing to their inability to manœuvre in such narrow waters, thus presenting very visible and almost fixed targets to the enemy’s guns), the ten ships maintained the bombardment for about an hour (till nearly 1.30). The enemy’s forts then fell silent, and it was hoped that many of them, at all events, had been destroyed.

THE MAIN NAVAL ACTION

Accordingly, the third squadron, consisting of six British ships (Irresistible, Vengeance, Ocean, Swiftsure, Majestic, and Albion), were brought up, with the design of advancing first through the Narrows, so as to ensure a clear passage for the greater ships which made the first attack. At the same time the four French ships, together with the Triumph and Prince George, were ordered to withdraw, so as to leave more room for the rest. During this manœuvre, all or nearly all the guns in the forts opened fire again, their silence having been due, not to destruction, but to the absence of the gunners, driven away by the gases or terror of our shells. Most of the ships suffered, and as the Bouvet moved down channel with her companion ships, she was struck by three big shells in quick succession. The blows were immediately followed by a vast explosion. It is disputed whether this was due to a shell bursting in her magazine, or to a torpedo fired from the Asiatic coast, or, as the Admiralty report said, to a mine drifting down the current. In two or three minutes she sank in deep water just north of Erenkeui, carrying nearly the whole of her crew to the bottom. The cries of the men dragged down with her, or struggling in the water as they were swept downstream, sounded over the strait.

At 2.30 the bombardment of all the forts was renewed, but they were not silenced. At 4 o’clock the Irresistible drew away with a heavy list. Apparently she also was struck by a mine adrift; but she remained afloat for nearly two hours, and nearly all her crew were saved by destroyers, which swarmed round her at great risk to themselves, since they offered a crowded target. A quarter of an hour after she sank, the Ocean was struck in a similar manner (6.5 p.m.) and sank with great rapidity. Most of her crew, however, were also saved by destroyers near at hand. Many of the other ships were struck by shell. The Inflexible and Gaulois suffered especially, and only just crawled back to be beached, the one at Tenedos, the other at Rabbit Island. At sunset the fleet was withdrawn. It had been proved once more that, in an attack upon land forts, ships lie at a great disadvantage. In this case the disadvantage was much increased by the narrowness of the waters, which brought the ships within range of howitzer and other batteries hidden upon both shores, and also gave special opportunity for the use of mines drifting on the rapid current, or anchored right across the channel in successive rows. The mines of the second row were opposite the intervals in the first, and so on, until the passage was covered as with a net, each row containing twenty-six mines. Whether shore-torpedoes were also used is still uncertain. But, without them, the fleet suffered under sufficient disadvantages to explain the failure. The first serious attempt to force the Straits was the last.[73]

Mr. Churchill wished to renew the attempt at once. Perhaps he thought that English people are given to exaggerate the loss of a battleship. After all, the loss of even three battleships is far surpassed by the loss of lives and calculable wealth in one day’s ordinary fighting in France, and the objective in the Dardanelles was at least as vital.[74] Lord Fisher and Sir Arthur Wilson agreed that the action should be continued, and the London and Prince of Wales, in addition to the Queen and Implacable, were actually sent to reinforce. The French also sent an old battleship (the Henri IV.) to replace the Bouvet. At first Admiral de Robeck shared this view. It was suspected at the Admiralty that the ammunition in the forts was running short, and, at a much later date, Enver Pasha is reported to have said:

“If the English had only had the courage to rush more ships through the Dardanelles, they could have got to Constantinople; but their delay enabled us thoroughly to fortify the Peninsula, and in six weeks’ time we had taken down there over 200 Austrian Skoda guns.”[75]

PURELY NAVAL ACTION ABANDONED

That delay of six weeks was fatal, but the navy was not to blame. On March 22 Admiral de Robeck and Admiral Wemyss consulted with Sir Ian Hamilton (who on the very day before the engagement had arrived at Tenedos to take command of the land forces) and with General Birdwood; and as their decision to await the concentration of the army was accepted by Lord Fisher and the other Admiralty advisers, Mr. Churchill reluctantly yielded. General Birdwood, it is true, wished to land at once, even with such troops as were at hand. Sir Ian “thought there was a good deal to be said for it,” and as to the fleet, he urged the Admiral to keep on hammering the forts. But his orders from Lord Kitchener were “not to land if he could avoid it,” and in any case to await the arrival of the 29th Division.[76]

And where was the 29th Division? On March 23 its first transport was just reaching Malta, where nearly all the officers attended a special performance of Faust.[77]

CHAPTER IV
THE PREPARATION

SIR IAN’S APPOINTMENT

As was mentioned, Sir Ian Hamilton reached Tenedos on March 17, the day before the naval engagement. The appointment to command the military forces had come to him unexpectedly but five days earlier, and on March 13 he started from London. He had received only slight and vague instructions from Lord Kitchener, but on certain limitations the Secretary for War insisted, and all of them strongly influenced Sir Ian’s subsequent action. If possible a landing was to be avoided; none was to be attempted until the fleet had made every effort to penetrate the Straits and had failed; if a landing became unavoidable, none should be made until the full force available had assembled; and no adventurous operations were to be undertaken on the Asiatic side. All these instructions were followed.[78]

But they revealed the hesitating reluctance with which the Dardanelles campaign was regarded, not only by Lord Kitchener himself, but by his subordinate generals at home and in France. The “Westerners” were, naturally, in the ascendant. The danger to the Allied cause lay close at hand. It had only recently been averted from the Channel and from Paris. The British Staff, equally with the French, represented that not a man could be spared from France, and that the only assured road to victory lay straight through the German lines. The opposition to any “side-show,” especially if it diverted a Regular Division such as the 29th, was expressed with the emphasis of jealous alarm.

SIR IAN’S QUALIFICATIONS

Even the appointment of Sir Ian Hamilton to the distant enterprise was likely to be received with mingled sentiments. He counted forty-two years of service in the army. Since the days of the Afghan War and Majuba Hill (where his left hand was shattered), he had risen step by step to all but the highest commands. The Nile, Burma, Chitral, and Tirah had known him. He commanded the infantry in the rapid but vital engagement at Elandslaagte, and during the siege of Ladysmith had charge of the extensive and dangerous sector known as Cæsar’s Camp and Wagon Hill. In the final months of the Boer War he was Lord Kitchener’s Chief of Staff, and commanded mobile columns in the Western Transvaal, greatly contributing to the conclusion of the war. Since then he had served at home as Quartermaster-General, as G.O.C.-in-Chief of the Southern Command, and as Adjutant-General. Abroad he had served as Military Representative of India with the Japanese army in Manchuria (1904–1905, when, in A Staff Officer’s Scrap-Book, he foretold the disappearance of cavalry and the prevalence of the trench in future warfare), as General Officer-Commanding-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, and Inspector-General of the Overseas Forces (1910–1915). Except that he had never yet held supreme command in any considerable campaign, his experience in military affairs and in almost every phase of our army’s activity was hardly to be surpassed.

On the other hand, he was sixty-two; and, though he was a year younger than Lord French, and retained a slim and active figure such as enabled Lord Roberts to take command in South Africa at seventy, sixty-two was regarded as a full age for any officer in so difficult a campaign upon a desert promontory. From a mingled Highland and Irish descent he had inherited the so-called Celtic qualities which are regarded by thorough Englishmen with varying admiration and dislike. His blood gave him so conspicuous a physical courage that, after the battles of Cæsar’s Camp and Diamond Hill, the present writer, who knew him there, regarded him as an example of the rare type which not merely conceals fear with success, but does not feel it. Undoubtedly he was deeply tinged with the “Celtic charm”—that glamour of mind and courtesy of behaviour which create suspicion among people endowed with neither. Through his nature ran a strain of the idealistic spirit which some despise as quixotic, and others salute as chivalrous, while, with cautious solicitude, they avoid it in themselves. It was known also that Sir Ian was susceptible to the influence of beauty in other forms than those usually conceded to military men. He was an acknowledged master of English prose, and though our people read more in quantity than any other nation, the literary gift is regarded among us as a sign of incapacity, and is not, as in France and ancient Greece, accepted as assurance of far-reaching powers. What was worse, he was known to have written poetry.

Before the war, his opposition to the introduction of conscription in the United Kingdom had roused the animosity of all who aimed at establishing militarism as a permanent system in this country. Thus political animosity was added to the official prejudice against a buoyant and liberal temperament, conjoined with a politeness and an open-hearted manner startlingly at variance with official usage. One must acknowledge that, in choosing the man for command, Lord Kitchener hardly took sufficient account of qualities likely to arouse antipathy among certain influential classes and the newspapers which represent their opinions. But careless of such prudent considerations, as his manner was, he allowed his decision to be guided by the General’s long experience of warfare, and designedly selected an eager temperament, liable to incautious impetuosity, but suited, as might be supposed, to an undertaking which demanded impetuous action. It was, however, probably in fear lest natural impulse should be given too loose a rein that the instructions mentioned above impressed only caution upon the appointed commander. In view of the strong opposition to the whole enterprise, it was also assumed that no reinforcements could be promised, and none should be asked for. Even the allotted Divisions were not allowed the ten per cent. extra men usually granted to fill up the gaps of immediate loss.

After that conference in the Queen Elizabeth on March 22 (when Sir Ian left the final decision to the naval authorities), it was evident that a military landing could not be avoided, unless the whole expedition were abandoned. It is easy now for belated prudence to maintain that Sir Ian should then have abandoned it, secured (if he could) the acquiescence of the navy in defeat, counter-ordered the assembling troops, and returned to London. Prudence could have said much for such a retirement. Small preparation had been made; the strongest part of the striking force was still distant; the number of the enemy (though roughly estimated at 40,000 on the Peninsula, and 30,000 in reserve beyond Bulair) was quite unknown; ever since the appearance of our fleet, Turks had been digging like beavers every night at most of the possible points of our offence; and it had been proved that the cross-fire of naval guns could not dislodge them even from the toe of the Peninsula, where, for about five miles up to the rising ground in front of Achi Baba, the surface appeared comparatively level. All these objections could have been urged, and, indeed, were urged at the time by Generals to whom, as to the German commanders of the Turkish defence, a landing appeared impossible. But if any one believes that a high-spirited and optimistic officer was likely to consider a retirement to be his duty just when he had received a command which he regarded as the surest means of terminating the war, he errs like a German psychologist in his judgment of mankind.

DELAY OF RELOADING TRANSPORTS

So, in the face of all objections, the preparations for an assault upon the Peninsula began. The immediate difficulty was a question of transport. Besides 5000 Australians from Egypt, the Royal Naval Division (less three battalions) had already arrived at Mudros, and their twelve transports were anchored in the great harbour. But it was found that the ships were indeed well enough packed for peace conditions, but the freight had not been arranged with a view to launching separate units complete upon the field of action. Men were divided from their ammunition, guns from their carriages, carts from their horses. Perhaps, for a long voyage, it is impossible to load transports so as to make each unit self-supporting. At all events, it was not done, and on the desert shores of the Mudros inlet it was impossible to unload and sort out and repack. Unless incalculable time was to be lost, such a confused piece of work could not be undertaken apart from wharves and cranes and docks. Wharves and cranes and docks were to be found at Alexandria, but no nearer; and to Alexandria the transports were ordered to return. That historic city thus became the main base—Mudros harbour, which had previously been selected, now serving as intermediate or advanced base.[79] Lord Kitchener approved the return and repacking of the transports, and certain advantages in the matter of drill and organisation were gained by the delay, to say nothing of the inestimable advantage of more settled weather. But the enemy also gained advantages, and in the extra month allowed them they increased their defensive works with laborious anxiety.

THE FORCES IN EGYPT

On March 25 (a calendar month before the great landing) Sir Ian Hamilton followed the transports to Egypt and remained there till April 7. While he was there his Administrative Staff arrived (April 1). It had been appointed after he left England, and until its arrival the administrative work had been, with much extra exertion, carried on by his Chief of Staff, General Braithwaite, and the rest of the General Staff. Sir Ian took the opportunity of his presence in Egypt to inspect the 29th Division (under Major-General Hunter-Weston), which began to arrive in Alexandria on March 28 and was encamped at Mex outside the city while its transports were being reloaded for the landing. He also inspected the Royal Naval Division (under Major-General Paris) at Port Said, and the French Division (under Général d’Amade) near Alexandria, where their transports also were being reloaded. At least equally significant, when viewed from what was then the future, was his inspection of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or “Anzacs,” as they came to be called. The corps was commanded by Lieut.-General Sir W. R. Birdwood: the Australian Division under Major-General W. T. Bridges, the mixed New Zealand and Australian Division under Major-General Sir Alexander Godley. The Australian Division was encamped at Mena, near the Pyramids; the mixed Division at Heliopolis on the other side of Cairo. Sir Ian also inspected the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division (under Major-General W. Douglas, the first Territorials to volunteer for foreign service), although they were not as yet part of his own force, but stood under command of Major-General Sir John Maxwell for the defence of Egypt. Beside these fighting Divisions, since so renowned, there remained the Assyrian Jewish Refugee Mule Corps (better known as “the Zionists”), organised only a few days before out of Jewish refugees from Syria and Palestine, chiefly Russian subjects, who had sought safety in Egypt. Colonel J. H. Patterson had been commissioned to select a body of about 500, with 750 transport mules. Orders were given in Hebrew and partly in English; the men were armed with rifles taken from the Turks in the battle of the Canal; and the regimental badge was the Shield of David. Probably this was the first purely Jewish fighting corps that went into action since Jerusalem fell to the Roman armies under Titus.[80]

THE ANZACS IN EGYPT

The fortunate presence of the “Anzacs” in Egypt was due to Lord Kitchener’s constant apprehension of a Turkish attack upon the Suez Canal and the main country, in which it was natural to suppose that a nationalist and religious feeling would rally a large part of the inhabitants to the enemy’s side. At the outbreak of war with Germany thousands of the youth in Australia and New Zealand (including large numbers of Maoris) had eagerly volunteered, moved by love of adventure and a racial affection for the mother-country. After nearly three months’ preparation—a difficult task, persistently effected in Australia by Major-General Bridges, who for three years had been commandant of Duntroon Military College—the whole force assembled at King George Sound on October 31, 1914, and set sail next day (the day of Turkey’s entrance into the war as the Central Powers’ Ally). Thirty-eight transports carried the army corps, and they were convoyed by cruisers, one of which (the Sydney, under Captain Glossop) gained the distinction upon the route of destroying the active raider Emden at Cocos Island, and taking her gallant and resourceful captain, Karl von Müller, prisoner (November 9). Having reached Egypt on December 3, the “Anzacs” went into camps at points near Cairo for further training, and some selected battalions took part in the repulse of Djemal Pasha’s attack upon the Canal near Ismailia in the first week of February 1915.

A finer set of men than the “Anzacs” after their three months’ training upon the desert sands could hardly be found in any country. With the aid of open-air life, sufficient food, and freedom from grinding poverty, Australia and New Zealand had bred them as though to display the physical excellence of which the British type is capable when released from manufacturing squalor or agricultural subjection. Equally distinguished in feature and in figure—the eyes rather deep-set and looking level to the front, the nose straight and rather prominent, shoulders loose and broad, moving easily above the slim waist and lengthy thighs, the chest, it is true, rather broad than deep, owing to Australia’s clear and sunny air—they walked the earth with careless and dare-devil self-confidence. Gifted with the intelligence that comes of freedom and healthy physique, they were educated rather to resourceful energy in the face of nature than to scientific knowledge and the arts. Since they sprang from every Colonial class, and had grown up accustomed to natural equality, military discipline at first appeared to them an irritating and absurd superfluity, and they could be counted upon to face death but hardly to salute an officer. Indeed, their general conception of discipline was rather reasonable than regular, and their language, habitually violent, continued unrestrained in the presence of superiors; so to the natural irony of our race was added a Colonial independence.

Except in action, the control of such men was inevitably difficult. Released from a long voyage, exposed to the unnatural conditions of warfare, and beguiled by the curious amenities of an Oriental city, now for the first time experienced, many availed themselves of Cairo’s opportunity for enjoyment beyond the strict limit of regulations. The most demure of English tourists upon the Continent, having escaped from the trammels of identity, have been known in former times to behave as they would not behave in their own provincial towns; much more might unrestrained behaviour be expected in men whose sense of personal responsibility in a foreign city had been further reduced by uniform, and who were encouraged to excess by the easy standard of military tradition, and by the foreknowledge that, to get beforehand with death, the interval for pleasure might be short. It was no wonder, therefore, that, while twenty per cent. of the Colonial forces (later ten per cent.) poured into Cairo daily upon any animal or conveyance which could move, the beautiful city became a scene of frequent turmoil.[81]

Upon his journey back to the advanced base, there were many thoughts to divide and even oppress the mind of the most sanguine Commander-in-Chief. The fateful decision had now to be made—a decision upon which the future destiny of the war, and, indeed, of his country, so largely depended. The burden of responsibility lay upon his head alone. To his single judgment were entrusted, not only the lives of many thousand devoted men, but the highest interests of an Alliance in the justice of whose cause he whole-heartedly believed. As the inevitable hour approached, the difficulties of the appointed task were recognised as greater even than foreseen. The strongest nerve might well hesitate to confront them. Even at this crisis of decision, the chief among his commanding Generals were inclined to turn aside from the Peninsula as from impossibility. One advocated an attack upon Asia Minor, with a view to diverting the enemy’s main force, and so clearing a passage for the fleet. Another favoured further delay and continuous training, in hope of some more propitious opportunity. A third, while offering no alternative, considered the attempt too desperate to be tried. Upon a sensitive and imaginative nature the risk, the sacrifice of lives, the difficulties of a small force too rapidly organised, insufficiently equipped with modern ammunition, and unsupported by reinforcements, weighed heavily. To these were added the discouraging representations of friendly, trusted, and experienced officers, upon whose diligent co-operation the success of the whole design entirely depended. In such hours as those, deep searchings of mind and heart are the unenviable lot of the man whose word decides.

ATTACK THROUGH BULAIR CONSIDERED

But Sir Ian’s decision was already taken, and subsequent conference with the Admirals de Robeck and Wemyss only confirmed it. On their arrival at Mudros, his Generals also agreed, and the General whose objections to landing on any condition had been the most serious, became enthusiastic for the scheme, if landing was attempted. Various lines of attack were possible, and each was carefully considered. To the lay mind, an assault upon the neck of the Peninsula at Bulair appeared so obvious that, from the very outset of operations, Sir Ian was blamed for not attempting it. The neck is narrow—not more than three miles across. If it were cut, the enemy on the main Peninsula might be expected to surrender for want of supplies; the Straits would then be free from obstacle on the European side, and the Asiatic side could be commanded by big guns on Achi Baba and the Kilid Bahr plateau opposite Chanak. The main objection to this obvious strategy was the disconcerting truth that the enemy’s chief line of communication did not run through Bulair, but across the strait itself, chiefly from the Asiatic coast to the town of Gallipoli, and even if Bulair were occupied, the supply of the Turkish army on the Peninsula could be maintained; while an Allied force advancing from Bulair towards the Narrows (which was the objective of the whole expedition) would be perpetually threatened from the rear. Bulair itself was also a formidable obstacle. The famous lines, originally fortified by the Allies in the Crimean War, and renewed to resist Russian, Bulgarian, and Greek attacks from the north, had been incalculably strengthened in the preceding weeks under German direction. On his first survey (March 18) Sir Ian had observed the labyrinth of white lines marking the newly-constructed trenches upon which thousands of Turks had already been long at work. The gleam of wire was apparent around the only two possible points of landing, both difficult, and unsuited for naval co-operation. An assault upon Bulair would have involved immense losses, and, even if successful, could not have advanced the solution of the problem—the problem of the Narrows—without further dubious and speculative fighting, front and rear.

OTHER POSSIBLE LINES OF ATTACK

Another proposal, which found favour with some, was a landing at Enos, on the mouth of the Thracian river Maritza (the ancient Hebrus). Except that the actual landing upon the level coast might have been easier, the same objections held, but in exaggerated form. The distance from the Narrows was more than twice as long. An army on the march round the head of the Gulf of Xeros would have had its left flank exposed the whole way to the large Turkish reserves known to be stationed at Rodosto and Adrianople. The two main roads from those important towns meet at Keshan, about fifteen miles from the Xeros coast, and from that base fairly good roads extend to Enos on the one side, and to Kavak, at the head of the Bulair neck, on the other. The Turkish armies could thus concentrate as at the handle of a fan, ready to strike at any point along the edge where the British were moving within reach of the coast. Nor could the navy have afforded much protection to our troops upon the march, the head-waters of the gulf being shallow far out from shore. Had Sir Ian attempted, as others have suggested, to turn inland and fight his way towards Constantinople, disregarding his appointed task at the Straits, he would, of course, have lost the assistance of the navy altogether, except as defence to his precarious base and lines of communication along the bit of coast; and, apart from the navy, he had no transport available for a long march.

Between Bulair and the sharp northern point of Suvla Bay, steep cliffs and the absence of beach, except in tiny inlets, prevent the possibility of landing. But inland from Suvla Bay itself there is open ground, and a practicable beach extends south as far as the cliff promontory of Gaba Tepe, although the main mass of the Sari Bair mountain rises close behind the southern part of the beach in a series of broken precipices and ravines. From Suvla Point to Gaba Tepe it would certainly have been possible to put the whole united force ashore, and, to judge from subsequent events, this might have been the wisest course. On the other hand, Suvla is far removed from the Narrows; a straight line thence to Maidos measures nearly fifteen miles; it passes over the top of Sari Bair, a formidable barrier; while, upon the long and devious route alone possible for a movement of troops, the army would have had both flanks exposed, on the right to the strong Turkish position of Kilid Bahr plateau, and on the left to large forces available to the enemy from Rodosto and Gallipoli. It is probable that Sir Ian’s troops were not then numerous enough to hold so long a line of communications and at the same time resist flank attacks, especially the strong attack to be anticipated from the left.

A landing at Gaba Tepe itself, where north and south the ground is open, and a fairly level gap between the Sari Bair range and the Kilid Bahr plateau allows the long and wandering road from Krithia to cross the Peninsula to Maidos, would have exposed the army to similar flank attacks; but the distance is short (not much over five miles), and in all probability a landing in full force might have been attempted here had not the fortification and armament on the promontory itself, and on the gradually sloping land upon both sides of it, appeared too powerful for assault. The barbed-wire entanglements extended into the sea, and the country formed the most dangerous of all approaches—a glacis with no dead ground and little cover. South of this position the cliffs rise abruptly again, and along all the coast round Cape Helles to Morto Bay (which was commanded by guns from the Asiatic side) a survey showed no beach or opening, except at a few small gaps and gullies, so soon to be celebrated.

HELLES AND THE STRAITS

THE SELECTED LANDING-PLACES

As he rejected the coast between Suvla and Gaba Tepe, Sir Ian was compelled to disregard Napoleon’s maxim of war and divide his forces. His object was to shake the enemy’s moral, and puzzle the command by several simultaneous attacks, threatening front and rear, and keeping the Turkish Staff in flustered uncertainty where the main defence should be concentrated. Accordingly, a few of those small but practicable landing-places round the extremity of the Peninsula were selected. Here the assault upon the Turkish defences was to be made chiefly by units of the 29th Division. The chosen points were S Beach, or De Tott’s Battery, on the farther side of Morto Bay, where only a small force was to attempt holding on so as to protect our right flank; V Beach, just below the large village and ancient castle of Seddel Bahr, where a main attack was to be made and the ground permanently occupied; W Beach, where a similar force was to land, and link up with V Beach, having the same object in view; X Beach (round the point of Cape Tekke, looking out towards the Gulf of Xeros), where a force was to work up the face of a cliff and attempt to join hands with W Beach; and Y Beach, about three and a half miles north along the cliffs, where a small body was to scramble up a precipitous ravine and make a feint upon Krithia. Both flanks of the main attack were further protected by the sea and the naval guns.

Such was the task of the 29th Division, their general objective being the low but formidable position of Achi Baba, a hill sitting asquat almost across the Peninsula about five miles from Cape Helles, and rising by gradual and bare slopes to a truncated pyramid, some 600 to 700 feet high. About nine miles along the coast beyond Y Beach, between a point north of Gaba Tepe and a slight projection then called Fisherman’s Hut, three miles farther up the coast from Gaba Tepe, the Anzacs were to land on Z Beach, and work their way into the defiles and up the heights of Sari Bair. Their main purpose was to distract the enemy forces south of Achi Baba by threatening their rear and communications. With a similar object the greater part of the Royal Naval Division, which had no guns, and for which no small boats could be supplied, was to make a feint near the Bulair lines at the head of the Gulf. Further to distract the enemy’s attention, one infantry regiment and one battery from the French mixed Division were instructed to land on the Asiatic shore near Kum Kali; but not to remain there, nor advance beyond the river Mendere. Such, in brief, was the general design for attacking the Peninsula position, confidently described by German authorities as impregnable.

By the middle of April the force appointed to accomplish this overwhelming task had assembled in the Mudros harbour or loch. Large as that inlet is, the surface was so crowded with ships that the naval authorities, among whom Commodore Roger Keyes was Chief of Staff to Admiral de Robeck, had difficulty in finding anchorage for all. Beside the ships of war, places had to be fixed for 108 transports and other vessels. The 29th Division had arrived in twenty transports;[82] the Anzacs in forty; the Royal Naval Division in twelve; the French Division in twenty-three; the Supply and Store Ships numbered twelve, and the Arcadian was detailed for General Headquarters.

PRINCIPAL STAFF OFFICERS

The names of the officers appointed to the most important positions upon Sir Ian’s Staff may here be mentioned, his personal Aides being Captain S. H. Pollen and Lieutenant G. St. John Brodrick:

Chief of the General Staff, Major-General W. F. Braithwaite; other members of the General Staff, Lieut.-Colonel M. C. P. Ward, R.A.; Lieut.-Colonel Doughty-Wylie (Royal Welsh Fusiliers); Captain C. F. Aspinall (Royal Munster Fusiliers); Captain G. P. Dawnay (Reserve of Officers); Captain W. H. Deedes (King’s Royal Rifles).

Deputy Adjutant-General, Brigadier-General E. M. Woodward.

Deputy Quartermaster-General, Brigadier-General S. H. Winter.

Liaison Officers, with the British, Commandant de Cavalerie Breveté Berthier de Sauvigny, Lieut. Pelliot, and Lieut. de Laborde.

With the French, Lieut.-Colonel H. D. Farquharson, and Captain C. de Putron.

Camp Commandant, Major J. S. S. Churchill (Oxfordshire Fusiliers).

Censor, Captain William Maxwell (the well-known war correspondent in former campaigns).

Principal Chaplain, The Rev. A. C. Hordern.

Headquarters of Base.

Base Commandant, Brigadier-General C. R. M‘Grigor, C.B.

General Staff Officer, Major E. A. Plunkett (Lincolnshire Regiment).

Assistant Quartermaster-General, Lieut.-Colonel P. C. J. Scott (A.S.C.).

Assistant Director of Medical Services, Major M. J. Sexton (R.A.M.C.).

Headquarters of Administrative Services.

Director of Army Signals, Lieut.-Colonel M. G. E. Bowman-Manifold (R.E.).

Director of Supplies and Transport, Colonel F. W. B. Koe, C.B.

Assistant Director of Transport, Major O. Striedinger (A.S.C.).

Director of Ordnance Services, Colonel R. W. M. Jackson, C.B., C.M.G.

Director of Works, Brigadier-General G. S. M‘D. Elliot.

Director of Medical Services, Surgeon-General W. E. Birrell.

Paymaster-in-Chief, Lieut.-Colonel J. C. Armstrong (A.P.D.).

The total number of the Staff at the beginning of the great enterprise was eighty-four. Brigadier-General Woodward and Surgeon-General Birrell did not arrive till April 19, having remained in Egypt under orders to organise the hospitals. In their absence the general scheme for the evacuation of the wounded was drawn up by Lieut.-Colonel A. E. C. Keble, R.A.M.C.

AVAILABLE FORCES

The military force under Sir Ian’s command at the beginning of the campaign was composed as follows:

The 29th Division.

Commander, Major-General A. G. Hunter-Weston, C.B., D.S.O.

Divisional Artillery Commander, Brigadier-General R. W. Breeks.

Division Engineers Commander, Lieut.-Colonel C. B. Kingston (R.E.).

86th Infantry Brigade.

Commander, Brigadier-General S. W. Hare.

(1) 2nd Royal Fusiliers.

(2) 1st Lancashire Fusiliers.

(3) 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers.

(4) 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

87th Infantry Brigade.

Commander, Brigadier-General W. R. Marshall.

(1) 2nd South Wales Borderers.

(2) 1st King’s Own Scottish Borderers.